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"I've Had Enough": Mexican Protesters Decry Years of Impunity After Apparent Massacre of 43 Students
Protests are continuing across Mexico after the apparent confession of gang members to the massacre of 43 teacher’s college students in the southern state of Guerrero six weeks ago. On Friday, the Mexican attorney general said suspects in the case admitted to killing the students and incinerating their bodies, leading investigators to the remains. The students disappeared following a police ambush, fueling public anger over government corruption and Mexico’s endemic violence. On Saturday, a breakaway group of protesters set fire to the door of the presidential palace in Mexico City after a march that drew thousands of people. Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has drawn criticism for leaving Mexico to attend the APEC summit in China amidst the unrest. We are joined from Mexico by María Luisa Aguilar Rodríguez, coordinator of the advocacy unit for Tlachinollan, a human rights group working with the families of the 43 missing students.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today in Mexico, where protesters set fire to the presidential palace over the weekend following news that 43 students missing for more than six weeks have been massacred. The students, who were from a rural teachers college, went missing following a police ambush in the southern state of Guerrero in late September. The mayor of the city of Iguala and his wife are suspected of ordering the attack by police, which left six people dead. It’s believed the police then turned the students over to a local drug gang with close ties to the mayor and his wife. More than 70 people have been arrested in the case, many of them police. On Friday, the Mexican attorney general, Jesús Murillo Karam, said two suspects had led authorities to trash bags believed to contain the remains of the students. He said the detainees confessed to shooting the survivors and incinerating their bodies.
ATTORNEY GENERAL JESÚS MURILLO KARAM: [translated] The detainees pointed out that in this area they took the lives of the survivors, and then they put them under the rubbish dump, where they burned the bodies. They took shifts so that the fire lasted hours, using diesel, petrol, tires, plastic. I reiterate, we are making sure that the group of people the gang members detained, that they transported, that they took to this place, burned them and then threw them into the river, are what happened in the incident that took place in Iguala.
AMY GOODMAN: The announcement brought to a head weeks of outrage, which has brought tens of thousands of people into the streets. In Mexico City, at least 14 people were arrested after a breakaway group of protesters stormed the ceremonial presidential palace, setting fire to the door. In Guerrero state, where the students went missing, protesters set fire to cars and trucks outside the office of the governor, who was recently forced to resign over the crisis.
An offhand remark by the Mexican attorney general has become the rallying cry for the protests. At the end of his address on Friday, Mexican Attorney General Murillo Karam stopped taking questions, saying, quote, "Enough, I’m tired"—that comment, taken up by protesters who say they’re tired of killings, tired of impunity, tired of repression and tired of the federal government’s failure to control the rampant corruption of local authorities. The families of the students say that until the remains are identified as their loved ones, they refuse to believe they’re dead.
GISELA: [translated] We want to say that as parents of the students, that in no way do we accept this declaration that was given, because Attorney General Jesús Murillo, he himself included, has said that he is not sure that it is for certain. With this, we don’t want to say that we’re closed to any results. We want results, but with proof. The moment that we, as parents of the students, as family, are sure of what the attorney general is saying is the truth, only at this moment will we accept it, whatever the result.
AMY GOODMAN: [inaudible] of Guerrero, where we’re joined by María Luisa Aguilar Rodríguez, coordinator of the advocacy unit for Tlachinollan, a human rights group working with the families of the 43 missing students. She’s joining us by Democracy Now! audio stream from Tixtla de Guerrero, where Ayotzinapa, the school which the missing students attended, is located.
Welcome to Democracy Now! Can you talk about what was discovered over the weekend, María?
MARÍA LUISA AGUILAR RODRÍGUEZ: Yes. So, the attorney general went to meet with the students’ parents, and he gave the information that then he gave publicly. And I think the results were basically what we have been saying for a long time, that it’s that no one actually has confidence on the state anymore, so the parents have been very clear that only with concrete proof and also proof that is accompanied by the decision of their independent experts, the forensic independent experts that they brought to the table, the Argentinian group, they will recognize any information that the attorney general gives. And I think it’s also what we have seen from all over the country, that the confidence on the state and on the authorities are very diminished, so now we need to—well, the state needs to build on trust and actually give concrete proof, so then they can recognize where the students are. And in the meantime, the parents demand that they continue to look for them and they continue to look for them alive.
AMY GOODMAN: María Luisa, for people who are not familiar with the story, although, to say the least, it has consumed Mexico, explain what’s believed to have happened.
MARÍA LUISA AGUILAR RODRÍGUEZ: Well, the students went to do some fundraising in Iguala, which is like—I think like two hours away from where they are based. And they were taking some buses. And then they were followed by some police, who started using lethal force against them without any warning. There were at least four different events where they were violent and where police, municipality police, was involved, but also some other plainclothes people who are believed to be related with organized crime. We need to remember that Guerrero is one of the states with the highest violence rates in Mexico. And then, the students were—well, six people died during the events, three of them students, out of lethal force from the—either from the police or the plainclothes persons. But also 43 students went disappeared. This was more than 44 days ago.
AMY GOODMAN: Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto condemned both the apparent massacre and the protests that took place over the weekend.
PRESIDENT ENRIQUE PEÑA NIETO: [translated] The government, for its part, shares with the Mexican people the sense of pain, as well with Ayotzinapa. And it must be said this is a call for justice, a call for peace, unity, and not violence nor confrontation. It’s unacceptable that someone should try to use this tragedy to justify violence. You can’t demand justice while acting with violence.
AMY GOODMAN: María Luisa, can you respond to that and the response to the president leaving for China amidst this massive unrest in Mexico?
MARÍA LUISA AGUILAR RODRÍGUEZ: Yes. So, I think the parents are very concerned that the state is not putting the attention that this crisis needs, so—which is represented in the fact that the state—well, the president left for this visit. And also, our biggest concern is that they basically had to move forward to give any kind of information which is related to the events, that the witness gave some information to that. But so, what it will seem to be—the state to be done is that they have to close the case very quick, so then they can stop with the manifestations and the demonstrations, and also to give just—you know, like to pass the page. And what we have seen is that this case is a turning point. I mean, we cannot go back to what every day was happening in Mexico. We have at least 22,000 people that have been recognized by the state that they are disappeared. I mean, Ayotzinapa is just an emblematic case of what the crisis is, but it’s not an isolated case.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the Mexican attorney general saying at the end of his news conference, "Ya me canse," or "I’ve had enough," and what that has become?
MARÍA LUISA AGUILAR RODRÍGUEZ: Yeah, well, I mean, I’m sure he’s tired, but the parents are more tired than him. And the people in Mexico are like really tired of impunity and lack of trust in our institutions. So, I think it’s also the reflection of what happens here. I mean, they have political will in this case because of the pressure that they are feeling from the international community and inside of Mexico. But even though—even with all this political will, Mexico does not have the capacity to look for the 43 students and does not have the capacity to look for 22,000 people that are disappeared. So, we have to start looking about what we are lacking and to recognize the magnitude of the crisis.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, María Luisa, what this means for Mexico right now? Some people are saying the government could fall. People are calling, of course, for the resignation of the attorney general. What is happening overall?
MARÍA LUISA AGUILAR RODRÍGUEZ: I think what is happening since that, this was like the trigger for everybody to recognize once again this crisis in which we are. It’s a humanitarian crisis. It’s a human rights crisis. We are talking about thousands, tens of thousands of people who are disappeared, but also tens of thousands of people who have been killed in so much of a violence that it’s like generalized. And it’s—but something needs to be done. I mean, it’s not only about how to react to this case, but also how to react to all the situation and how to build trust in authorities and also to regain our social tissue that is all decomposed.
AMY GOODMAN: You’re joining us from Tixtla de Guerrero, which has a history of activism. As we wrap up, can you describe that history and what is happening there now?
MARÍA LUISA AGUILAR RODRÍGUEZ: Yeah, well, Tixtla is where the school is based. The school has a long history of activism and also of education for the students, among the students, of highly politicized education. And, I mean, this is a school for poor people, for people who doesn’t have any other opportunity to access to education or to access to higher education, but also with a perspective that they need to go back to the communities and bring some tools and political tools to the communities, so then they can start, you know, like reflecting on social justice and some other things that really we don’t see in the regular educational system.
AMY GOODMAN: María Luisa Aguilar Rodríguez, I thank you for being with us, coordinator of the advocacy unit for Tlachinollan, a human rights group working with the families of the 43 missing students, joining us from Tixtla in the southern state of Guerrera in Mexico.
This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. As the nation prepares to commemorate Veterans Day, we will speak with Matthew Hoh. He is a veteran and a government official who quit over the Afghan War. We’ll talk to him about what’s happening in Iraq, the deployment of even more U.S. troops. Stay with us.
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As the nation prepares to commemorate Veterans Day, President Obama has authorized the deployment of an additional 1,500 troops to Iraq. The plan will more than double the current U.S. force in Iraq and will reportedly cost $5.6 billion. In a significant expansion of the U.S. military campaign against the Islamic State, military advisers will reportedly establish training sites across Iraq. The funding request will reportedly be presented to Congress during the lame-duck session that begins this week. In an interview on "Face the Nation" CBS broadcast on Sunday, Obama said the increased troop deployment to Iraq marks a "new phase" against ISIS militants — an offensive strategy, rather than a defensive one. The timing of the announcement has raised questions about whether the Obama administration waited until after the midterm elections in order to shield Democratic candidates from war-weary voters. We are joined by Matthew Hoh, a former Marine and State Department official who once served in Iraq. In 2009, he became the first known U.S. official to resign in protest over the Afghan War.
Image Credit: army.mil
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: As the nation prepares to commemorate Veterans Day, President Obama has authorized the deployment of an additional 1,500 troops to Iraq. The plan will more than double the current U.S. force in Iraq and will reportedly cost $5.6 billion. At a news conference Friday, Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby announced the decision.
REAR ADMIRAL JOHN KIRBY: The commander-in-chief has authorized Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel to deploy to Iraq up to 1,500 additional U.S. personnel over the coming months, in a noncombat role, to expand our advise and assist mission and initiate a comprehensive training effort for Iraqi forces. Secretary Hagel made this recommendation to the president based on the request of the government of Iraq, U.S. Central Command’s assessment of Iraqi units, the progress Iraqi security forces have made in the field, and in concert with the development of a coalition campaign plan to defend key areas and go on the offensive against ISIL.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby. In a significant expansion of the U.S. military campaign against ISIS, military advisers will reportedly establish training sites across Iraq. The request for $5.6 billion will reportedly be presented to Congress during the lame-duck session that begins this week. In an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation broadcast Sunday, President Obama said the increased troop deployment to Iraq marks a "new phase" against Islamic State militants—an offensive strategy, rather than a defensive one.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We’re now in a position to start going on some offense. The airstrikes have been very effective in degrading ISIL’s capabilities and slowing the advance that they were making. Now what we need is ground troops, Iraqi ground troops, that can start pushing them back.
AMY GOODMAN: The timing of the announcement has raised questions about whether the Obama administration waited until after the midterm elections in order to shield Democratic candidates from war-weary voters. The antiwar group CodePink has criticized Obama for sending more troops to Iraq, saying in a statement, quote, "For months we’ve been hearing 'no boots on the ground' over and over from the administration ... When will we learn from our mistakes and stop repeating history?" they wrote.
Well, for more, we go to Raleigh, North Carolina, where we’re joined by Matthew Hoh, senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, former State Department official who resigned in protest from his post in Afghanistan over the U.S. policy there in September 2009. Prior to his assignment in Afghanistan, Matthew Hoh served in Iraq. From 2004 to ’05, he worked with a State Department reconstruction and governance team in Salah ad-Din province. And from 2006 to ’07, he worked as a Marine Corps company commander in Anbar province.
Matthew Hoh, welcome back to Democracy Now! Can you share your response to the increased boots on the ground?
MATTHEW HOH: Hi, good morning, and thank you for having me on. My response is, as many people, I think, in the United States, scratching their head and wondering: What are we doing? What does the United States government really think it’s going to accomplish by putting more American troops into the middle of the Iraqi civil war and into the middle of the Syrian civil war, particularly coming off of 13 years of war in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Libya, in Somalia, in Yemen, etc.? So, my response, Amy, is more or less the same as most people’s, of a—very concerned and, you know, lack of a better phrase, this is crazy.
AMY GOODMAN: Speaking to CBS’s Face the Nation, President Obama insisted U.S. troops will focus on training Iraqis to fight ISIS and coordinating airstrikes, rather than engaging in active combat.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: What hasn’t changed is, our troops are not engaged in combat. Essentially what we’re doing is we’re taking four training centers, with coalition members, that allow us to bring in Iraqi recruits, some of the Sunni tribes that are still resisting ISIL, giving them proper training, proper equipment, helping them with strategy, helping them with logistics. We will provide them close air support once they are prepared to start going on the offense against ISIL. But what we will not be doing is having our troops do the fighting.
AMY GOODMAN: President Obama refused to rule out further increases in U.S. troops in Iraq.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: As commander-in-chief, I’m never going to say never, but what, you know, the commanders who presented the plan to me say is that we may actually see fewer troops over time, because now we’re seeing coalition members starting to partner with us on the training and assist effort.
AMY GOODMAN: That is President Obama on CBS’s Face the Nation. Matthew Hoh, do you believe what he’s saying?
MATTHEW HOH: No, I don’t. And I think it’s very easy for us to revisit this in a few months’ time, just as now we’re revisiting this from several months ago, and see the increase, the graduation of entry of American forces back into the conflict. But I think it’s a slippery slope—excuse me—and that very quickly this will spin out of control for the United States. What happens when American troops are killed? What happens when we lose several young men to a suicide bomber? How is the president going to react to that? How is the United States going to react when our troops are in combat and we only have 3,000? And the president, who can’t seem to face down the same critics in Congress who are always demanding for war, the John McCains and Lindsey Graham, how is he going to face them down then, if he can’t face them down now? So, I don’t believe his words, and I think that this is going to be the beginning of an unfortunate and tragic re-entry of America back into this civil war.
AMY GOODMAN: Your response to the fate of the ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi? Iraqi officials claim he was wounded in an airstrike on ISIS leaders in Iraq’s Anbar province, Anbar province where you were, Matthew Hoh.
MATTHEW HOH: It may be true. I mean, certainly it could possibly happen, but I don’t put much stock in that having a great effect on the Islamic State. They’ll just get another leader. Look, Osama bin Laden has been dead for three-and-a-half years, and the administration is citing how dangerous al-Qaeda still is, in order to justify spying on Americans or justify bombing in Syria. The precursor to the Islamic State, al-Qaeda in Iraq, which didn’t exist, of course, until we invaded Iraq, but al-Qaeda in Iraq, which morphed into the Islamic State, their leader, al-Zarqawi, was killed in 2006, and here we are now in 2014 facing an even stronger, more dangerous, more barbaric force in the Islamic State. So, I don’t—if he’s dead, you know, I don’t think it’s going to affect things in the mid or long term in terms of what’s occurring in Iraq, what’s occurring in Syria, because the issues here go well beyond one man or one group. It goes into issues relating to sectarian violence, that has been fostered and pushed by policies from the United States, from the West, from the Gulf nations, that have created this Frankenstein, ISIS, and that have enabled the environment for civil war to flourish.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk more about that, how ISIS was created, its support, and what you feel is the alternative?
MATTHEW HOH: Sure. Well, the Islamic State, as I just mentioned, came from the al-Qaeda in Iraq, which was an organization that sprang to life after the United States invaded Iraq in 2003. Al-Qaeda in Iraq, one of the things that—when I was there in Iraq, as well as in the State Department and the Pentagon in D.C., one of the things we always noticed about it and one of the things that we saw was that it was—while it had a number of foreign fighters in it, a number of young men who were coming from other Arab nations to fight against the Americans in Iraq, very often, though, the—or I should say, the majority of the constituency of al-Qaeda in Iraq were Iraqis in 2006, 2007, because so many people were supporting al-Qaeda in Iraq based on sectarian reasons. So, basically, what was occurring in Iraq was you had this civil war, so the Sunnis in Iraq were supporting al-Qaeda because they had no other choice.
In 2006, 2007, we made a deal with the Sunnis. We gave them money. We brought them back into the power structure. We pulled Shia forces out of the Sunni areas. And so, the Sunnis then turned on al-Qaeda. What happened after that was, when the United States left in 2011, the Shia government in Baghdad, which is incredibly corrupt, relentlessly went after the Sunnis. They persecuted them to an extent that I don’t think people realize the violence behind that. This wasn’t just excluding the Sunnis from government, this was actively killing them, actively chasing them from their homes, actively mass arrests—actively arresting them in mass numbers, to the point that the Sunnis have revolted and have thrown their weight behind this group, the Islamic State, which is the successor to al-Qaeda in Iraq. So what you see here is this horrible group, Islamic State, that’s very barbaric. They have this extreme religious fanaticism and ideology behind them. But they are receiving the support of many Sunni Arabs in the area, in Iraq and Syria, because of the alternatives to the Islamic State are government forces that the Sunnis see as much worse to them than the Islamic State.
My alternative to the U.S. bombing campaign, to the U.S. military intervention is this. This is the consequence of decades of United States policy in the Middle East that has played one sect against the other. The Islamic State is a Frankenstein of our creation. And as horrible as it is, the purposes behind the United States policy in the Middle East must change to be one of preventing conflict rather than fostering conflict. For decades now, we have supported various regimes in the Middle East that have been despotic, that have been dictatorships, that have oppressed their people, or, in the alternative, we have supported these groups that have then morphed into these organizations like al-Qaeda, like the Islamic State. And it’s now out of control. And so, for me, the alternative in Iraq is to stop supporting a Shia government that is horribly corrupt, that is persecuting its own people, stop buying their oil, stop selling their weapons. Look, Amy, when we—as the United States, when we sell the world 70 percent of its weapons, we have to take responsibility for the havoc that’s going to result from that. So, a lot of this, to me, is not so much what do we do now. What do we do over the next decades to disengage ourself from this policy where we have created these Frankensteins, we have created conditions for civil war, where we have set one group, whether it be by religion, by sect, by ethnicity, against the other? And how do we walk away from that? How do we back out of that and become a much more responsible partner in the world? And how do we seek to actually bring about justice, bring about stability, rather than fostering either war or oppression?
AMY GOODMAN: Matthew Hoh, can you describe your own transformation, how you came to the position you have? You fought in Iraq. You served in Afghanistan. You quit as a State Department official in protest of the war in Afghanistan. Explain the trajectory you took over the years.
MATTHEW HOH: Well, I think, for me, it begins in 2002 when I’m stationed in the Pentagon. I was put in a very senior position. Just happened—just happened I worked directly for the secretary of the Navy as a Marine Corps captain. And so, in the run-up to the war, the Iraq War, and during the initial phases of the Iraq War, I was very close to the decision making, the policy making. I could see how things were done, how decisions were made, how assessments were conducted. And I could see very quickly, particularly once the war began in Iraq and once we started receiving our communications from our forces in Iraq, our classified communications detailing what was occurring on the ground, the dissonance, the disconnect between what policy was being promulgated in Washington, D.C., what assessments were being made, what statements were being made, and what the reality was on the ground.
Of course, when I got there in 2004, 2005, I saw that firsthand. I saw how our presence was fueling the occupation, how we were setting one group against the other, how we were aiding corrupt and thuggish militias in power in Iraq. The same thing, too—I came back to D.C., worked in the State Department again on the Iraq desk and again, in an inter-agency process, saw that disconnect between what’s occurring in Iraq and what we’re actually saying, and the refusal by people in the administration, by people in the military, in the government, to acknowledge that our policies weren’t just harmful, but they were malignant, that they were causing further violence, they were causing groups like al-Qaeda to gain support.
And so, this continued until finally I was in Afghanistan in 2009 and seeing all the same things again, seeing the narrative that we have the white hats on, that American troops are dying to protect us, to keep us free, seeing that really what we were doing in Afghanistan was taking part in a civil war, our presence was fueling the insurgency, we were propping up a corrupt kleptocracy, and that al-Qaeda had left Afghanistan years before. I decided at that point in 2009 I no longer could take part in it. And, you know, here we are five years later.
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On the eve of Veterans Day, we discuss with Matthew Hoh, a former Marine who fought in Iraq, the hidden impacts of war on those who serve. In 2009, Hoh became the first known U.S. official to resign in protest over the Afghan War. "The costs of these wars are hidden," Hoh says. "Men and women coming from war have always been afflicted by suicide. The problem is we don’t get help until we hit rock bottom." Twenty-two U.S. veterans commit suicide every day, a toll that has surpassed the number of soldiers killed in combat.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Matthew Hoh, you write on your website, quote, "In 2007, after my second deployment to Iraq, PTSD and severe depression took over my life. I began trying to drink myself to death. Thoughts of suicide became common until they were a near daily presence by 2011." That was what you said. As the nation commemorates Veterans Day tomorrow, what do you want people to understand about the impact of war on those who serve?
MATTHEW HOH: You know, with this recent—and I appreciate you bringing it up, Amy, and certainly, just if anyone is listening or watching, you can contact me through my website, and I’m happy to talk about my own struggles with PTSD, with alcohol abuse, with suicidality, because other people helped me, and that’s how we survive this. You know, the costs of these wars, I think, are something that’s hidden, Amy. The suicides are a constant in the veteran community. This is something that has always occurred. I don’t like using the term "epidemic," because that implies that it’s somehow worse now than it was before, and I don’t think that’s ever been the case. I think men and women coming home from war have always been afflicted with suicide. But we’re at the point now where—
AMY GOODMAN: What are the numbers per day? Do you know?
MATTHEW HOH: The numbers are—yes, the numbers are quite striking, and these numbers are conservative because we don’t have full data from all the states. It was only a couple years ago, Amy, that the Veterans Administration actually started tracking veteran suicides on a national level. But right now we’re looking at at least 22 veterans kill themselves every day. More than two of those veterans every day who kill themselves are Iraq or Afghanistan veterans. Those numbers will climb as those veterans get older. But what that means for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans is that more veterans have killed themselves after coming home from Iraq or Afghanistan than have been killed in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan. And as I said, we can expect those numbers to climb. The things I have seen, I have been—it has been explained to me that over the course of our lifetime, Iraq and Afghanistan vets, one in five veterans who saw combat in Iraq or Afghanistan, will attempt to kill themselves. And—
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, these are astounding figures. Twenty-two veterans a day in the United States?
MATTHEW HOH: At least, Amy, at least. And I say "at least," because, as of now, we have only about 30 states contributing data to the Veterans Administration on how many veterans kill themselves. We only—
AMY GOODMAN: More than 8,000 a year.
MATTHEW HOH: Exactly. And that’s what we know of. Again, that’s what we know of. It’s 8,000 a year. It’s been always said within the veterans’ community that if you were to build a Vietnam veterans’ war memorial for those who killed themselves after they came home from Vietnam, that memorial would be longer than the memorial we have in Washington, D.C., with its 60,000 names on it.
I just had a friend of mine, one of my former officers, one of my lieutenants, just texted me yesterday to tell me one of his former marines tried to kill himself, shot himself in the head. And that kid, that young man, is now brain-dead. And this is something that in the veteran community we all know this. We see this, this experience. And so, the importance is, how do you get help? And the problem is, is like—and as you mentioned when you read from my website, the problem is, is that we don’t get help until we hit rock bottom. And that seems to be another constant in this, is that—
AMY GOODMAN: It looks like we just lost Matthew Hoh, former State Department official who resigned in protest over his post—the satellite in Raleigh, North Carolina. Matthew Hoh quit in 2009 prior to his assignment in Afghanistan. He served in Iraq. From 2004 to 2005, he worked with a State Department reconstruction and governance team there. From 2006 to '07, he worked as a Marine Corps company commander in Anbar province. He's now a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we go to New Haven, Connecticut, to Yale University, where a public health worker has just returned from Liberia. He was there and is just finishing his quarantine. This is Democracy Now! We’ll be back in a minute.
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Health officials have declared the Dallas region to be free of Ebola after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced it had cleared all 177 people it had been checking for exposure over the past three weeks. The Texas city’s Ebola worries began on September 30 when a visiting Liberian man, Thomas Eric Duncan, was taken by ambulance to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, where he was diagnosed with the disease. He eventually died on October 8 and remains the only person to die of Ebola inside the United States. Two nurses who cared for him came down with the virus but recovered. Meanwhile in West Africa, the United Nations is reporting the spread of the virus is slowing in some of the hardest hit areas of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. But local health officials are warning it is too early to declare a premature victory over the outbreak. We are joined from by Ryan Boyko, a Yale University graduate student who was in Liberia for three weeks helping the government set up a computer database of Ebola cases. Soon after his return to the United States, he was quarantined in his home in New Haven, Connecticut, an ordeal that ended last Thursday.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Health officials declared the Dallas region to be free of Ebola after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Friday it had cleared all 177 people it had been checking for Ebola exposure over the past three weeks. The Texas city’s Ebola worries began on September 30th when a visiting Liberian man, Thomas Eric Duncan, was taken by ambulance to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, where he was diagnosed with the disease. He eventually died October 8th and remains the only person to die of Ebola inside the United States. Two nurses who cared for him came down with Ebola but recovered.
Meanwhile in West Africa, the United Nations is reporting the spread of the virus is slowing in some of the hardest-hit areas of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. But local health officials are warning it’s too early to declare a premature victory over the outbreak. This is the head of Liberia’s Ebola response, Tolbert Yansah.
TOLBERT YANSAH: We are not off the hook here, because Sierra Leone and Guinea are still reporting cases. And so, Liberia here, we are still reporting fresh cases. We need to continue the interventions, scale them up, accelerate the intervention until Liberia can start reporting zero cases. And even if we start reporting zero cases, trust me, when Guinea and Sierra Leone still are not reporting zero cases, our ETUs need to be open.
AMY GOODMAN: We go now to New Haven, Connecticut, where we’re joined by Ryan Boyko. He’s a Yale University graduate student in public health. He was in Liberia for three weeks helping the government set up a computer database of Ebola cases. Soon after his return to the U.S., he was placed in quarantine in his home in New Haven, Connecticut. His quarantine lasted ’til last Thursday.
Ryan Boyko, welcome to Democracy Now! Can you talk first about what you found when you got to Liberia?
RYAN BOYKO: Thanks for having me on. When I got to Liberia, I was in Monrovia, and the whole city seemed a bit shellshocked, but it was a mix of this fear that was always present along with normal everyday activities. You know, people still need to work. People still need to get food for their families, feed their families. And, you know, this is a city of nearly one-and-a-half million people with a few thousand Ebola cases. So, there’s this fear, was always there, and you could just see it in the streets. But at the same time, there was this mix of that along with people going about their daily business.
AMY GOODMAN: And the work exactly that you did there, and then what happened upon your return?
RYAN BOYKO: So, I helped the government, the Ministry of Health, build a web app and an Android phone application and a database, where local community leaders could use the Android app to notify the Ministry of Health about cases or deaths or other relevant events happening in their local area. And then the people at the Ministry of Health could then see in real time where in the city they needed to send people to mount a response, either to get people to Ebola treatment units or get a funeral team there or do other things like that.
AMY GOODMAN: And were you successful, and is this working now in Liberia?
RYAN BOYKO: Yeah, so that database and that Android app are being used in Monrovia throughout the city now, and I think that it’s one of many pieces that’s contributing, hopefully, to the continued decline in new cases in Liberia.
AMY GOODMAN: Ryan, it must have been a very serious decision you made to go to Liberia, given how contagious Ebola is. Can you talk about the decision you made, for other people who are weighing this right now?
RYAN BOYKO: Well, in my own case, I knew I wouldn’t be treating Ebola patients, that, you know, I would be working with IT personnel and with people at the Ministry of Health. And so, there’s always that little bit of fear, some small level of risk, given that the virus is infecting thousands of people there. And so, it’s not, you know, as contained as in the U.S., in New York City or Dallas or somewhere like that, so there was a little fear. But at the same time, it is—Ebola really is spread by bodily fluids of very sick people, so I wasn’t—I didn’t think that the risk to me was anything like what the risk that these healthcare workers or those kinds of people are facing. And so I have a lot of respect for people who choose to take on that level of risk for themselves. But I think that a lot of people, myself included, feel like the only way that we could get a handle on this is to actually go to the source and help to end it at the source. And so—
AMY GOODMAN: So, can you talk about what happened to you when you returned?
RYAN BOYKO: So, actually, I was here for a couple days, and then I got sick with a little bit of a fever. And so I went to Yale-New Haven Hospital. I called, and they used all the precautions. And I got an Ebola test there, and it came back negative twice. And my symptoms resolved. And that was the point when the government of Connecticut decided to quarantine me and so sent me back to my home to stay there for over two weeks in quarantine.
AMY GOODMAN: How did you feel about that? Did you feel you were treated correctly?
RYAN BOYKO: No. So, I was really concerned about the effect it might have on other volunteers, first of all, moving forward and that it might have a big effect on our ability to fight the epidemic in West Africa if we started quarantining all these returning workers. And then I felt personally like it was very unfair, especially because I had been monitoring myself, which is what the CDC recommends, which is what one needs to do, because after you develop symptoms, you can become contagious. And I had done that, and I reported it as soon as I developed any symptoms. And then to be told, because I reported it, essentially, that I would be quarantined seemed particularly egregious.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to a recent interview with Kaci Hickox, the nurse who treated Ebola patients in Sierra Leone and fought against mandatory quarantine in the U.S. when she returned last month. She was asked by CNN’s Anderson Cooper why she defied state authorities in both New Jersey and Maine. This was part of her response.
KACI HICKOX: Coming back to the Newark airport and seeing complete chaos and disorganization and no leadership was a really frustrating sight to see. And when policies are put in place and sort of the policies aren’t organized well and staff aren’t trained well is just a scary situation. But, of course, the biggest reason that I fought is because I, you know, felt so much fear and confusion, and I imagined what my fellow aid workers were going to feel if they came back to this same situation. And the more I thought about the fact that these policies are being made by politicians, really, not the experts in the field, the more I felt like I had no choice but to fight back.
AMY GOODMAN: And now, I understand, Kaci Hickox says she will be leaving Maine. Your quarantines overlapped, though you personally didn’t. You’re in New Haven, she is in Maine. I think her quarantine ends today. Your response to Kaci Hickox speaking out? And did that inspire you to speak out, Ryan?
RYAN BOYKO: I have a lot of respect for Kaci Hickox. We’ve actually exchanged some emails and text messages, and I have a lot of respect for her. When I was put into quarantine, actually Connecticut was the only state in the nation with a stated policy that far exceeded the CDC guidelines and is a policy—at the time, they were saying they would quarantine anyone returning from these three countries. And so, I made the decision, in consultation with public health lawyers that I was talking to, that the best thing to do at that moment was to try to get Connecticut government to quietly walk back these quarantines, instead of fighting loudly in the press and in court. And then, of course, the events where Craig Spencer became symptomatic with Ebola in New York, and then Kaci Hickox came back and there was the very loud story between Chris Christie and Governor Cuomo and her, and so that was—so that did inspire me to come out and speak out publicly at that point, where I then thought that was the best way to go.
AMY GOODMAN: Ryan, I wanted to share some comments made last month by NBC cameraman and Ebola survivor Ashoka Mukpo, whom you met in Liberia at a restaurant. He was asked about the mandatory quarantine being imposed on Kaci Hickox. He also talked, as you do, about Craig Spencer being treated in New York. This is Ashoka Mukpo on CNN.
ASHOKA MUKPO: She’s earned a right to, you know, have a sense of her own safety and her own risk factor to others. And I don’t think that Dr. Spencer endangered anyone. My feeling is—and, you know, again, I’m not an expert, this is just my own view on the exposure that I’ve had to Ebola—is I think that Governor Christie is playing politics right now. It seems to me that it’s an effort to, you know, work with public opinion rather than listen to the advice of the experts. And I just think that it’s counterproductive. You know, these are people who have gone and endangered their lives to work with people who have very limited resources and are dying in relatively large numbers. So, to make it more difficult and to treat them as if they’re a potential problem as opposed to a public asset, I just think it’s a shame, and I don’t think it’s the right way to act.
AMY GOODMAN: That, again, speaking on CNN, NBC cameraman Ashoka Mukpo. We just have 20 seconds for you to respond, Ryan, since you met him in Liberia.
RYAN BOYKO: Well, I think that he was also doing great work there. He had been living there for a while. And I think documenting what’s happening is very important. But I totally agree with him that the heroes of this response are the Liberians and the Westerners who go and actually are treating these patients, putting themselves at risk. And we need to treat them like returning heroes, because they’re protecting the rest of us.
AMY GOODMAN: Ryan Boyko, I want to thank you for being with us, third-year Yale University graduate student in public health, went to Liberia, returned and was put in quarantine at his home in New Haven, Connecticut.
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Obama Authorizes 1,500 More Troops to Iraq, Doubling U.S. Force
President Obama has authorized the deployment of an additional 1,500 troops to Iraq, more than doubling the current U.S. force. Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby unveiled the plan on Friday.
Rear Admiral John Kirby: "The commander-in-chief has authorized Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel to deploy to Iraq up to 1,500 additional U.S. personnel over the coming months, in a noncombat role, to expand our advise and assist mission and initiate a comprehensive training effort for Iraqi forces. Secretary Hagel made this recommendation to the president based on the request of the government of Iraq, U.S. Central Command’s assessment of Iraqi units, the progress Iraqi security forces have made in the field, and in concert with the development of a coalition campaign plan to defend key areas and go on the offensive against ISIL."
In a significant expansion of the U.S. military campaign against ISIS, military advisers will reportedly establish training sites across Iraq. The $5.6 billion plan is expected to go before Congress during the lame-duck session beginning this week.
ISIS Leader Reportedly Wounded in U.S.-Led Strike
The U.S. military expansion in Iraq comes amidst conflicting reports over the fate of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Iraqi officials claim he was wounded in an airstrike on ISIS leaders in Iraq’s Anbar province. We will have more on Iraq later in the broadcast.
U.S., Iran Begin New Talks on Nuclear Deal Ahead of Deadline
The United States and Iran have opened a new round of talks ahead of the deadline for reaching a nuclear agreement two weeks from today. A long-term deal would allow Iranian uranium enrichment and relief from U.S.-led sanctions in return for extensive international inspections. On Sunday, Secretary of State John Kerry met with Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif in Oman. Zarif said easing the sanctions remains a critical issue.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif: "But I think the most important issues that need to be addressed are enrichment and sanctions. It is important for the West to understand that sanctions have never contributed to the resolution of this issue. Sanctions are not a part of solution. Sanctions are the most important part of the problem. They’re illegal in nature. They must be removed. They have not produced any positive result. The only thing that sanctions have produced for the West are about 19,000 centrifuges."
Speaking to CBS News on Sunday, President Obama said there is still a "big gap" between the two sides and that a deal may not be within reach. It emerged last week Obama wrote a letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei outlining a mutual interest in opposing the Islamic State and coming to terms on a nuclear deal.
Obama Unveils Attorney General Nomination of Brooklyn Prosecutor Loretta Lynch
President Obama has tapped Brooklyn federal prosecutor Loretta Lynch to replace Eric Holder as attorney general. Obama formally unveiled Lynch’s nomination at the White House on Saturday.
President Obama: "It’s pretty hard to be more qualified for this job than Loretta. Throughout her 30-year career, she has distinguished herself as tough, as fair, an independent lawyer who has twice headed one of the most prominent U.S. attorney’s offices in the country. She has spent years in the trenches as a prosecutor, aggressively fighting terrorism, financial fraud, cybercrime, all while vigorously defending civil rights."
If confirmed as attorney general, Lynch would be the first African-American woman to hold the position. In brief remarks, Lynch thanked President Obama and pledged to defend the rights of all citizens.
Loretta Lynch: "Mr. President, thank you again for the faith that you’ve placed in me. I pledge today to you and to the American people that if I have the honor of being confirmed by the Senate, I will wake up every morning with the protection of the American people my first thought. And I will work every day to safeguard our citizens, our liberties, our rights and this great nation, which has given so much to me and my family."
Freed Americans Return to U.S. from North Korea
Two Americans have returned to the United States after being freed from imprisonment in North Korea. Kenneth Bae and Matthew Todd Miller were released in a deal reportedly brokered by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Bae made a brief statement upon their return.
Kenneth Bae: "It’s been amazing two years. I learned a lot. I grew a lot. I lost a lot of weight, in a good way. But I’m standing strong because of you and thank you for being there at such a time as this. So I just want to just say tonight thank you for all your support and prayer and your love, that is really, really encouraging for me and for others who are in the same shoes in DPRK and elsewhere. Thank you. God bless you."
Both Bae and Miller had been sentenced to years of hard labor. North Korean state media claims the two were released after President Obama conveyed an "earnest apology" for their actions.
Mexican Authorities Claim Confession in Student Massacre; Protesters Burn Presidential Palace Door
Protests are continuing across Mexico after the apparent confession of gang members for the massacre of 43 college students in the southern state of Guerrero six weeks ago. On Friday, the Mexican attorney general said suspects in the case admitted to killing the students and incinerating their bodies, leading investigators to the remains. The students disappeared following a police ambush, fueling public anger over government corruption and Mexico’s endemic violence. On Saturday, a breakaway group of protesters set fire to the door of the presidential palace in Mexico City after a march that drew thousands of people. Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has drawn criticism for leaving Mexico to attend the APEC summit in China amidst the unrest. A new report from a leading Mexican journalist says Peña Nieto lives in a private mansion owned by a contractor who received a lucrative government contract to build high-speed rail.
Arab Israelis Protest Police Killing; Israeli Soldier Stabbed in Tel Aviv
Protests have broken out in Arab-Israeli areas of Israel after the fatal shooting of a young man. The victim apparently tried to attack police with a knife after they came to arrest a relative. But video footage of the incident shows police shot him dead as he tried to run away. Arab-Israeli communities then observed a 24-hour strike beginning on Sunday. Earlier today, a Palestinian man allegedly stabbed an Israeli soldier in Tel Aviv, leaving the soldier critically wounded.
Israeli Ministers Approve Applying Law to West Bank Settlements
A committee within the Israeli Cabinet has approved a measure that would apply all Israeli laws to Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank. The measure was backed by lawmakers who want to formally annex the West Bank settlement blocs into Israel.
Palestinian Activists Dig Through Separation Barrier 25 Years After Berlin Wall
In a symbolic gesture, a group of young Palestinian activists marked Saturday’s 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall by breaking through a portion of the Separation Wall that bisects the occupied West Bank. In a statement, the Palestinian popular committees said: "No matter how high walls are built, they will fall. Just as the Berlin Wall fell, the wall in Palestine will fall, along with the occupation."
Germany Marks 25th Anniversary of Fall of Berlin Wall
The fall of the Berlin Wall signaled the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. At a 25th anniversary ceremony in Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the historic event carries a message for today.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel: "It showed that we have the power to shape our destiny and make things better. That is the message of the fall of the wall. It is directed at us in Germany, but also at others in Europe and the world, especially to people in Ukraine, in Syria, Iraq and other regions where human rights are threatened or violated."
Catalan Voters Back Secession from Spain in Nonbinding Referendum
Around 1.6 million people in the Spanish region of Catalonia have voted to back secession. Close to two million took part in the referendum, less than half of those eligible. The vote is nonbinding, and Spain says it will not be recognized.
Jobs Report: Employment Grows but Wages Remain Stagnant
The latest job figures show the official unemployment rate has fallen to a six-year low of 5.8 percent. Despite the improved job growth, Jason Furman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers acknowledged that wages remain stagnant.
Jason Furman: "You’d always love to see more job growth, but 229,000 jobs per month in 2014 is the fastest pace since the late 1990s. It’s consistent with a rapidly declining unemployment rate. And what we really want to see is it translating into even larger gains in wages."
Detroit Judge Approves Bankruptcy Deal Cutting Pensions and Freeing Up New Spending
A Detroit judge has approved the city’s effort to restructure finances and shed around $7 billion in debt under its bankruptcy filing last year. The plan includes cuts to retiree pensions for city workers and around $660 million in funding from state and private sources. Detroit City Council President Brenda Jones said the city’s next phase of recovery should focus on community improvement.
Brenda Jones: "We must empower and employ the long-suffering people of Detroit. Just as we will work through a plan of adjustment after bankruptcy, a plan for our people is critical. So while we celebrate our city’s exit from bankruptcy, let’s refocus our efforts on getting citizens back to work, making our streets and neighborhoods safer, and rebuilding our population by creating a thriving and growing city."
The deal ends 16 months of bankruptcy proceedings. It will let Detroit spend nearly $2 billion to restore some of the basic public services that have all but disappeared in recent years.
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