the cordon it or before that i was serving as a phone banker raiser or suspicious and it really was a wonderful way to get involved with the organization because they really  accept an honor you are analysis and honor that you develop that but before that i got involved with all salvador by going on a delegation when i was seventeen in two thousand and seven and that was during a time when people were protesting the privatization of water so i can talk a little bit about that later but that's definitely come full circle as we're heading into the vans that are fighting against they came to united stay with us messed up my had i maybe is still a little bit but at the time i was really messed up being i came to spend some time with on friends and was our decision in seattle can you tell us a little bit more about how the civil war came about and what the u s role in that was yeah it's kind of painful story painful when i will say like  elections were well known that they were taking away from the party who won the elections and were bodies immensely supported by the people a that you noticed they gave the country when the war started the army was ten thousand folks but after the war they all the war there was almost one hundred thousand  s quote unquote advisers were present during things like torture that there's numerous accounts of people who were being tortured that hurt and or saw u s advisors during that process yeah  good point it was like united states try to portray themselves that they were just given the logistical support to the war but they had a vice or in several cations there is cases where advice was actually  you see what happened in iraq in the same that they did to me you know like like like i remember that at the beginning of the war it was like it was the punishment to kill people but after the united states  involved in to the war and these were more like tangle stuff they they i remember that the the three first day they punished you physically the warming has the right to keep you away from everybody for fifteen days so then they have a cushion the other three first day there was some physical evidence they have being physical  damaged but after the three days they stopped doing that all that damage was more psychologically and physically but without hinds of talking to somebody or living your lawn that you feel that you have being forgotten about so it's think of this piece like there is a lot of similarities of the techniques between  that pressure and what happening in the country and in fact i believe it came out in u s coverage and documents of what the u s was doing in iraq they actually called what they're doing the salvadoran option  arrest and disappear people in and that was really painful yeah that was really a scary that was a scary people run away and people but that's the sad part but that but and i think that it's so in with memories of that of the the good that came out of that and how inspiring it was to see people rise up against such oppression you must roll your eyes a bit when you hear people here in the u s citizens here in the u s saying oh things are getting so bad it's getting so bad i feel like i really need to leave this country that does are at this moment because all that will folks are moving out to the big cities where is more democracy a more kind openness to new ideas but the you see and that's the beauty about th now because we are moving imminence are moving to those places and then is interesting and i'm getting off the topic but it's interesting like martin luther king day and twenty first because  blacks immigrants are coming together and are coming together because mongomery for me is so beautiful in give me these hope because mongomery love armor right now is where and we have been able to put together the most russians together between blacks and indians especially hispanics yeah and if you see it like for instance the elections of president obama in this country was giving a date the talking about the death squads one of the key leaders in the death squads during the civil war was robert o douglas on who i believe was one of the founders of rayna which now plays a key role in working with the us to try and bring about privatization within el salvador can you talk about that yeah definitely it's been a long journey for el salvador and suspicious has the leftist party and has done things to fight alongside us partners what kind of that rayna party which is connected to the death squads and which is the right wing organization and el salvador has still been able to maintain some power but in two thousand and nine we were able to along with other social  movements have a huge push against the us government which was trying to still interfere in the elections in el salvador after the war and so we were able to have a huge campaign for days before  elections in two thousand and one and all salvador that pressured the state department to issue a statement of neutrality saying ok we will not interfere in elections and we will support whoever wins  and that we actually succeeded in that the state department the united states issued a statement of neutrality and people went around running around posting that state doors in el salvador on people's homes and  broke the atmosphere of fear that a been so prevalent for so long where people who would want to vote for an alternative and el salvador would not be able to because they were being threatened by not only the right wing and the right wing media and all salvador but also senators in two thousand and four from the u s and congo people who were saying that if you don't vote for the right wing party or the elite or the status quo or the sixteen wealthy families that will be co operative with trans national companies and the u s military economic agenda then we will deport your families because of a third of salvadorans live in the united states as immigrants and send money back to el salvador because of poverty that is occurring which is i believe the root cause of immigration  in many ways and the root cause of poverty has a lot of our trade agreements that the united states pushes and that trans national corporations push and so  remain an active partner in not only seeing that oh the the major easy to see violence is over in the war but we're going to remain true to our mission of standing and solidarity and we're going to keep on pushing at the root causes of the conflict and the inequity and so the privatization law that is being pushed by the u s and the right wing and el salvad were able to through protests fend off the complete privatization of water although it's a huge problem where just you know transnational corporations are trying to you know triple the prices of water and not putting in treatment plants in leagues so that people can have potable water that they don't have to pay so much for to just get water for two days in and that that's what i really learned when i was in el salvador i was wondering you know why why would privatization be such a bad thing sometimes the government doesn't do everything perfectly but i learned that you know inherently in the government particularly this new government but the more progressive government that is actually and you know moving towards universal health care and wonderful education programs and el salvador inherent in a government's statement of purpose i guess would be for the good of all people but inherent in corporations and transnational corporations and mission is the profit of a few not the profit of the many so just going by that rule alone we're very very suspicious of what privatization would mean fo under a reign a valued at over five point seven billion but it received only three hundred thirty four million and so it really doesn't benefit any salvadorans and in general it allows people to you know break up unions and not treat workers well not heed an environmental or human rights proper practices and that's happening in the u s too and so that's why we're bringing a speaker from el salvador alex gomez rodriguez who is the treasurer of the federation of public service workers and el salvador and the purpose of this labor solidarity speaking to are there's another speaker who is touring the east coast of the united states he's touring the west coast and while he's in seattle he's going to be meeting with the unions labor organizations and and just the general public here in seattle to say when workers unite then we can really really hold corporations and our governments accountable when we try to catch these decisions that are going to be made behind closed doors in this public privatization law public private partnership law it's really a privatization law it has a provision that would create an executive body that would surpass any need to go through the legislative assembly so once this would be passed through the legislative assembly which it set to be voted on and all solved or very soon then for possibly forty years ahead it wouldn't be a decision that the public would have any say and which we barely do in the first place so this is the time the labor solidarity two are coming up actually starting tonight alex is flying into the airport and we're making a statement of solidarity with the airport workers at sea tac who are also facing issues because they're subcontracted huge horrible mistreatment of workers and underpaid and they're under poverty wages and so right away you read as alex gets off the plane we're going to have a misstatement trading solidarity between airport workers and el salvador and airport workers at sea tac and then they have a bunch of events coming up on  monday that i can i can talk about but he is invited to an action in front of the world trade center offices on monday february fourth we're going to be walking from the labor temple after our labor leaders lunch meeting with which is open to people who are involved with labor and union organizations and trade justice organizations and then we're walking  one thirty we will be holding a speak out in a couple members representatives of the unions will be speaking out against privatization law and speaking about their own struggles like that engineers union has going to talk about their own struggles and how how it's a common theme and we can connect the dots i think that's really what suspicious in seattle suspicious  evolving into is that we have amazing lessons to learn from el salvador that it's not just about this tiny country that if you happen to have a fancy like fancy the small country and you want to be involved then maybe you can have this be like a peripheral organization that you support no this is a root cause organization that is making global ties and also that it was able to defeat privatization of the health care system in two thousand and two two thousand and three with nurses and doctors striking they have an amazing social movement history that is raring to go and it's a really great partnership to have solidarity organizations working to and i understand one of the things that they're pushing to privatized there as they are here in the u s is education higher education yes yeah that's another thing that is on the chopping block and that really relates to what's going on the in the u s as well where also in higher education definitely we have problems with the board of regents university of  washington and a lot of a lot of different struggles but also with public schools and secondary secondary education that we just passed the charter school law that is going to enable people to privatized education in a way that really any any area where corporations see that hey that's a service that's really essential that people just have to have i don't  make money off of it that's that's what's happening and we have to point that out and we have to take a stand and say yeah even if like what best case scenario people get some people get rich off of  in the end no one will be well off because we're ruining our earth and we're ruining our own people and we're creating instability it's not a security advantage to be causing horrible turmoil in el salvador of course they're going to be people fighting back and causing turmoil in the countries that people have to immigrate all right so we only have  just about a minute left so again you've got multiple events happening starting today you've got the skull mez rodriguez is coming in seat to see jack and will be making a statement right where we're greeting  technically a demonstration but yeah on monday february fourth definitely we have a lot of events and after the speak out at one thirty at the well trade center offices which is around twenty two hundred alaskan way then from six to eight p will alex will be presenting at seattle university and that'll be at the s t c and student center yes you have trouble finding him looking looking that up where you can look at seattle suspicious thought or or more information all right well we have that we are unfortunately out of time i want to thank you both very much for coming in and spending time with us this morning jewish muslim christian andrews children he has been nominated three times for the nobel peace prize and is the author of three books blood brothers the dramatic story of a palestinian christian working for peace in israel we belong to the land the but thank god i was not born christian i was born a babe and then after that i was baptized when i became  believe that when thousand years are like when the before the lord if that's true like the sun say what are two thousand years it's the day before yesterday that romans some others were greeks and some others where arabs there was no american then it is then that i became christian and as a young palestinian your family suffered was persecuted and forced out of where you lived how did existence the right to the land and i to live and to be free so you don't harbor any ill will then towards israel from having to witness what happened to your village i wonder why should i do harbor these negative feelings against the jews they had enough negate the villains against them during second world war what i deplore the very very seriously is the fact that for many the projected on us to be that remnant of their enemies when we were always their friends and we wanted to stay their friends and it's very easy to to situate yourself as the en that everybody can do that not everybody can see no i will try to win the friendship of those who consider themselves to be my enemies and that's my real dream is to bring my father of good memory suffered a lot since we were evicted from our homes and the village was destroyed for no reason despite our that is illusion him and i love to talk with him i used to climb in the three and my feet three still there living but it's crying for us to come back i used to live and that he and speak with my compadre so much about what he said that i missing what and that's how i decided this is and there stood to become a priest would be for me not for everybody the best way to serve my people and to be an agent for peace and for that's why i became please that's how it became priest with the grace of god and talk with the new being the competitive jesus christ one regularly reads in their responses to articles in our corporate media about the situation in palestine in israel that the christians in in palestine israel are being persecuted what's the truth about well here we have to distinguish between who are the christians of by stein and where the v if you are speaking i must say without any hesitation that we have the full right to worship as we want in the way we want provided we do not touch any jew or influence you cannot really see that there is a living together in haifa you can't go to an office where there are four employees secretaries two might be arabs two might be jews or three might get ups when you go to the hospitals in to make a long story short we built the first building and started the school with the two children twenty five years later the school house over four thousand five hundred students with two hundred if anybody does not want to speak with serious christians i pity him or her let them be away but if you want to talk with me you are talking with a very committed question we are committed christian school  we believe in our values and because we are christians we cannot tolerate it to be alone to be isolated to be secluded to be considered as better than the others we need to open our doors as our hearts for those with whom we live i mean the muslims and the jews in israel the muslims did not wait to come we don't not we don't invite them to join us as if they were guests and we are almost we invite them to come and join with us to be with us in the business i told them stay boys outside i ordered for buses loaded them with children and send them for the whole day to be in the fresh air and mount carmel when they came back at four o'clock in the evening discovered that they were just kids and i was the mind corrupted person as an adult i hope you will not be corrupt as i was i had  gets and then i believe i started to believe strongly if we please for children i don't the table one you one palestinian arab one policy and muslim one do is and  same thing study the same thing discover the same realities and face the same problem solve them my goodness and those the future citizens who will have to build peace together i believed in that i still believe in that of the ideas that is regularly repeated the our corporate media here in the us is that jews and palestinians and arabs have been fighting each other for centuries and that this situation will never be resolved i wonder why you americans have such a bad memory you know i will tell you something that will shock many of those who listen to us and jews do not need to learn to live together we don't need that all we need is to remember how we used to live together side by side sharing everything for centuries and centuries and centuries and unless the israeli jews and the palestinian arabs would agree to put into but anthy says the last sixty seven years of the we need to go back into the future to the past when we used to live together it's not true that we're fighting together  so do you believe venn there the ideal solution in the end is going to be a single state role for palestine israel no i don't believe that in fact i'm confused existence of israel and there is no more strong piling of weapons of mass and not mass destruction becomes like a weapon store in every it it is extremely important that we find in more serious attention not to be shallow i'm shallow i'm shallow  times are changing but are we accepting to change with by this is the question that i pose to every american with much much love and respect are we friendship even if they are fanatical jews they need your friendship more than ever before still on their side but why should that also mean to become one sided for them against the other and if you have read my to be on our side we palestinians thank you why not be on our side for was to be in the right side but mind you if being on our side would mean that you become one sided for us again the