From: imnet2@max.u.washington.edu
Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam
Subject: ISLAMIC WORLD NEWS (3rd)
Date: 3 Apr 92 07:27:39 GMT
Originator: hanan@mcs213k.cs.umr.edu

BISMIHI TA'ALA

News April 2, 1992

OCCUPIED PALESTINE
The zionist occupiers shot and killed at least 4 Palestinians and
injured more than 70 others in the border town of Rafah in Gaza on
April 1.
The attack occurred when Israeli soldiers chased a car in which a number
of Palestinian youths were riding. The car ran into some obstacles and
crashed. As the youths came out of the car, the zionists shot and
killed them.
These cold-blooded murders so enraged the residents that they came out to
protest. The Israeli occupation forces then went on a rampage and shot
and injured scores of others.
United Nations workers in Gaza reported that the zionists even prevented
ambulances from picking up the wounded to rush them to hospital.
By the end of the day, it was reported that at least one or more of those
who had been injured had died. Sources at the Khan Younus Hospital
said that there were so many wounded people that there were not
enough beds. Many wounded people were left on the floor.
At the same time, in Turkamia, a village near the West Bank city of Hebron,
Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian youth and injured several others on
April 1.
The zionist occupiers of Palestine have intensified their brutal campaign
in the month of Ramadhan. Last week, Palestinians in the West Bank
complained that the zionists had embarked upon a policy of killing
Palestinian activists. At least 18 of them have been murdered by undercover
Israeli agents in the last three months, six of them in the last two
weeks.
The Rafah massacre simply confirms the zionists' total disregard for
Palestinian life.
This was further reinforced by a report released by B'Tselem, an Israeli
human rights group, which said on April 1 that the Israeli government
let security groups to routinely torture Palestinian political prisoners.
"Violence and ill-treatment have become an expected part
of... interrogations", said the report.
The report estimated that at least 5,000 of the 25,000 Palestinians jailed
last year had been tortured.
 "Despite the official reactions, the setting up of government inquiries,
the debates in the Knesset, nothing seriously has been done to suggest
that there is a commitment to end these practices," said Professor
Stanley Cohen of the Hebrew University, during a press conference in
Jerusalem.
Researchers who first raised the charges a year ago, said that the
General Security Service secret police, regular police and army continue
to beat prisoners, hold them hooded in painful positions for prolonged
periods and deprive them of sleep.
On April 4, Mustafa Akawi, a 35-year-old Palestinian activist, was found
dead in police custody a day after he appeared in court charging that
he was being tortured in detention.Akawi's Israeli lawyer, Lea Tzelam,
admitted that several people arrested with her client also showed signs
of torture and abuse.

LIBYA
The Arab League has called upon member countries and those friendly to the
Arabs, to work towards finding a peaceful solution to the dispute created by
the US, Britain and France with Libya. On March 31, the UN security council,
dominated by the three, adopted a resolution demanding that Libya hand
over two agents  suspected of involvement in the Lockerbie bombing. If
Libya fails to comply with this demand by April 15, the three countries
have threatened to impose sanctions, stop the sale of weapons, cut off
all air links with Libya and cut the size of Libyan diplomatic staff in
other countries. Worse may follow.
The manner in which the US and Britain have manipulated the UN clearly
shows that this body is no more than a tool in the hands of western
countries who use it as a cover to pursue their own selfish goals.
Whether the Libyan agents are guilty of the offence as alleged is for a
court to decide. The Libyan government has offered to put the two men
on trial in Libya if the accusing countries would present some evidence.
The rulers of America and Britain are not interested in dealing with
this issue through diplomacy.
Their demand can simply be called an unprovoked threat and totally
contrary to civilized behaviour.
The US itself has refused to hand over captain Will Rogers, commander of
the US ship Vincennes, who blew up an Iranian passenger plane out of the sky
over the Persian Gulf on July 2, 1988. There is no doubt about the
identity of the culprit in that case: captain Will Rogers. He is not
under suspicion; according to his own admission he ordered two missiles
to be fired that blasted the passenger plane out of the sky killing all
290 people on board.
The US ship was not supposed to be there. It was in violation of
international law by being in Iranian territorial waters. This crime
was compounded by the murder of 290 innocent civilians. Yet, the US
would not even contemplate handing over the commander of that ship to
Iran for trial. Under what moral authority does the
US now demand that Libya hand over the two persons, merely on suspicion
that they may have been involved in the Lockerbie bombing?
American and British imperialism is playing havoc with the lives of
millions of innocent people.

EVENT SCAN
-----------
WILL THE REAL CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS PLEASE STAND UP!

By Maryam Davies
----------------
Two major events are being commemorated in 1992: the 'discovery' of
America by Christopher Columbus and the fall of Muslim Granada exactly
500 years ago. One man links together these two historical events of
1492: he is the infamous Christopher Columbus.

Columbus, a Genoan, is largely remembered for his voyage westward from
Spain across the Atlantic and his arrival in the Bahamas 70 days later.
Little is heard of his anti-Muslim thoughts and deeds or that if Granada
had not fallen, the Spanish Christian monarchs would not have sponsored his
voyage.
Most of Columbus' life was governed by two obsessions. The first was
to discover the Asian lands, India and China in particular, that Marco Polo
had described in his thirteen century travels. The other was to work for
the conquest of Jerusalem for Christendom. Columbus believed that the world
was round and that by sailing west a ship would arrive at the fabled
countries of the east, opening a trade route by which gold and spices
could be brought to Europe. With the wealth accumulated from this
trade a campaign could be launched to re-conquer Jerusalem. Columbus
dedicated his life to this purpose and studied astronomy, map-making and
navigation.

Most of the scientific knowledge in Europe at that time had been
learnt from Muslim scholars who believed that the world was a sphere. Some
had even postulated that the earth rotated on its own axis. Astronomers
had charted the stars to gain new knowledge about the universe and maps of
early landmarks had been drawn up. Muslim geographers and astronomers had
worked together to execute a composite map of the skies and the earth
and this helped to convince Europeans that the world was round. A Spanish
Arab cartographer named Idrisi had presented his patron Sicilian king Roger
with a circular map, engraved on silver, 300 years before Columbus
propagated the idea that the world was round. But while profiting from
what Muslim scholars could teach him about astronomy and navigation;
Columbus worked against Islam.

He was so desperate for financial support to fulfil his grand obsession
that he first sought backing in Portugal in 1484 at the age of 33. After
King Joao II declined to finance an expedition because of the excessive
rewards Columbus was demanding, he travelled to  Spain. At that time Spain
was engaged in a 10-year campaign against the only remaining Muslim
Sultanate in the Iberian Peninsula. Granada had survived another two
and a half centuries after the rest had fallen but the marriage of
Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castille united the two most
powerful of the Christian kingdoms and they were determined to end Islam
in western Europe. They had no money to spare for Columbus but, undaunted,
he dispatched his brother to England and France to seek the patronage
of their religious monarch. When they came back empty-handed Columbus
joined the court of Ferdinand. From the mid-1480's he thrived on the court
intrigues and Catholic offensives against Islam. The Church worked
ceaselessly to fan the flames of vengeance against Andalus and Columbus
turned every situation to his own advantage.

Ferdinand and Isabella had inherited the title of 'King and Queen of
Jerusalem' and were keen to take on the role. Ferdinand's admirers were quite
certain that he would achieve the conquest of Jerusalem. In sympathy with
their aspirations, Columbus found the court a particularly congenial place
in which to be and he was maintained there at the monarch's expense. Not
only did Columbus fight for Spain against the Muslims but he promised
that if his expedition across the Atlantic was financed by Spain the gold
he brought back would finance a holy war for Christendom.
The fall of Granada was in Columbus' interests. The conquest had incurred
high expenses and the loss of Muslim Granada's tributes which included
Babary gold stimulated the urgency to find alternative sources of gold.
Granada fell virtually to the day Columbus was given a commission for his
expedition. He was socially ambitious and obtained a charter from Ferdinand
and Isabella making him a viceroy of whatever lands he might discover
as well as a one-tenth share of all the revenues from his discoveries.

Although Columbus is said to have discovered America it was already
populated by people whose ancestors had walked from Asia through the Bering
Isthmus when it was either land or ice. Columbus landed in the Bahamas
and took possession for Spain, then he sailed to Cuba which he thought
was Japan and on to Haiti. Believing that he had discovered India,
he called the indigenous he encountered 'Indians'. He transported some of
these people back to Spain as proof of his discovery. Ferdinand and Isabella
showered him with the honours and privileges on his return. Columbus wrote
that he hoped 'that within three years the monarchs would undertake and
prepare to go to recover the holy House'. A year later he set off on his
second voyage intent on establishing Spanish colonies on the populated
lands he had found. His ships carried 1,300 men comprising soldiers,
settlers and priests. He also took tools, implements and cattle. The
results of his colonising adventures are legendary. Within 50 years nearly
all the one million Arawak 'Indians' on the Greater Antilles had been
massacred or had committed suicide to escape Spanish tyranny. The
animals the colonisers brought in were allowed to run wild and
proliferated prodigiously upsetting the natural balance by overgrazing,
uprooting and trampling the vegetation. When the gold ran out the fertile
valleys were cleared of vegetation and planted with vast fields of
sugar cane and cotton. Columbus introduced sugar to Santo Domingo on his
second voyage. The crop flourished on huge enclosed estates tilled by
slaves but by 1508, of the island's original 250,000 population;
the brutal work had killed off all but 60,000 of them.

Columbus made a third voyage in 1498, landing on the South American
continent in Venezuela. Public sentiment, however, turned against him
because of his failure to discover India, as he had promised. The colonists
in Haiti denounced him and sent him back to Spain in chains. He appealed
to Queen Isabella 'not to treat lightly the matter of Jerusalem nor to
believe that I spoke about it with any ulterior motive?' Asked to elaborate
on his ideas he wrote a memorandum entitled 'The reason I have for believing
in the restoration of the Holy Throne to the Holy Church Militant' and
advocated a campaign launched from Spain for the Church. Released from
captivity and absolved of disgrace by the Queen he was able to set out on
a fourth voyage in 1502. It ended in disaster when his ship was wrecked
in Jamaica and he died in Spain two years later, almost forgotten.
None of his grand plans had come to fruition; he failed to find Asia,
he failed to raise funds from his discoveries to finance the conquest
of Jerusalem or to launch a crusade against Makkah that he proposed in 1497.
Yet when the west celebrated 'Columbus's discovery of America' early this
year, nothing was heard of his evil plans that were promulgated throughout
his career.
                                                           (END - Columbus)





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