Category: Uncategorized

By Greg Moses

CounterPunch / DissidentVoice

As the ten-year anniversary of Azem Hajdari’s assassination approaches, the killing of the philosophy student who led the democratic movement in Albania is being fanned into memory by US efforts to deport the brother of an eyewitness to the crime.

***

It was the evening of Sept. 12, 1998 when the legendary moral leader of the Albanian democratic movement was at the headquarters of the Democratic Party of Albania, in the capital city of Tirana. Azem Hajdari had been leader of the student movement widely credited for toppling the Communist regime in Albania. He had been the Democratic Party’s first chairman. And he was serving his fourth term as a member of the Albanian parliament. At party headquaters, Hajdari and his personal bodyguard, Besim Cerja were chatting with a volunteer doorkeeper, Xhemal Neza; and with Xhemal’s cousin Zenel.

“Hajdari was a man of great integrity and we respected him very much,” recalls Xhemal Neza in an affidavit of April 2007. “Shortly before 9:30 p.m. the telephone rang and Hajdari spoke to the caller. When he hung up the telephone, he told us, ‘We have to leave immediately,’ because Izet Haxhia had told us to come at once. Haxhia was the personal body guard of Sali Berisha, who had become president of Albania in 1992. Berisha was the main leader of the Party on 12 September 1998. I personally heard Hajdari say the call was from Haxhia.”

“I opened the door,” continues the affidavit of the volunteer doorkeeper, “and Hajdari, Cerja, and my cousin Zenel Neza went out and got into Hajdari’s car, which was inside the walled compound. Cerja was driving; Hajdari was in the front passenger seat, and Zenel Neza was in the back seat. While I was closing the gate the car traveled out and turned right onto the street; after it moved about four meters, a black Mercedes 500 with Vlora license plates moved up and blocked its path. There was a light gray Jeep SUV just behind the Mercedes.”

“At about 9:30 p.m. Hajdari was shot. News reports saying he was killed at 10:00 p.m. are mistaken. I was about four meters from Hajdari when they killed him. I saw the persons who fired the shots and saw them pull the triggers. There were four assassins in the two cars.” Three of the assassins got out of their cars carrying automatic rifles. They were all wearing police uniforms. Xhemal recognized them as people he had grown up with.

Hajdari and his personal body guard were killed on the spot. In the back seat, Zenel Neza was critically wounded. Xhemal called his brother Rrustem, and together with cousins Skender and Gani they managed to drive Zenel to a doctor and then to safety in a nearby town.

The next day there was a demonstration. Police fired on the crowd, killing several people, and knocking Xhemal unconscious. The day after that, there was yet another demonstration. And this time, Rrustem Neza told the crowd of “about a thousand people” what Xhemal had seen on the night of the assassination and who the killers were. Xhemal went into hiding, moving every week. During one of the moves, his driver, cousin Skender, was killed.

“The police blasted Skender’s car with gunfire and began searching for me, but fortunately I had run in the opposite direction.” Meanwhile, cousin Gani was also killed. Of the four men who were part of the fateful rescue mission for Zenel Neza, two were dead. Zenel managed to escape the country. The other two, brothers Rrustem and Xhemal, eventually fled to Texas.

***

When the Neza brothers arrived in the USA, Xhemal was granted asylum and legal residency, but his brother Rrustem’s application for asylum was denied. According to court documents filed in Rrustem’s behalf, the immigration judge for Rrustem’s case simply did not believe Rrustem’s story. Xhemal testified at Rrustem’s hearing, but the judge wanted some corroborating evidence. Said the judge: “one would assume that his [the cousin’s] killing would have been reported in some newspaper in Albania which the respondent could have brought to court.”

As Rrustem’s present attorney John Wheat Gibson points out in this week’s brief to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, the newspaper story about Gani Neza’s killing is available to anyone who can Google “Gani Neza.” Who knows why Rrustem’s former attorney did not present that newspaper article, or why the judge did not believe the brothers. Rrustem has been appealing for asylum ever since.

When they lived in Albania, the Neza brothers shared family land where there was gold and chrome. In Texas they opened up a pizza shop in the small college town of Nacogdoches. Things were quiet and apparently prosperous enough for them until they put in for a license to sell beer. An affidavit from the preparer of that license states that, “I never asked Xhemal or Rrustem about citizenship. I just assumed.”

On Jan. 18, 2007 Rrustem Neza was arrested for claiming to be a citizen on a beer license application, but he was never charged. In February, he was transferred to the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), who locked him up at the Rolling Plains Prison of Haskell, Texas. In order to get out of prison he would only need to agree to go back to Albania. But he decided being alive in Haskell was better than being dead in Albania, so he waited in prison, separated from his wife and two children.

In June 2007, President Bush visited Albania, where the triumph of the Albanian Democratic Party was imaged via color photographs of Bush and Berisha smiling, waving, joined at the hip.

In late August 2007, ICE officials retrieved Rrustem from Haskell and forced him to board an Albania-bound airplane in Dallas. He screamed for his life. ICE was forced to abort the deportation, so they threw him back in prison.

***

On Sept. 4, 2007 attorney Gibson shared an email about Rrustem’s case, which was posted under his byline at the Texas Civil Rights Review. From there, the story went around the world to an Albanian tabloid, Korrieri. “WITNESS COMES FROM AMERICA,” shouted the headline of Sept. 5. “Rrustem Neza is considered by Texas Civil Rights Review one of those who made public the names of the people who killed Mr. Hajdari on 12 September 1998 in Tirana. While in Albania, there are calls for truth in the investigation process, witnesses and all the people connected to the case are still battling in the courts.”

On Sept. 11, 2007 Rrustem Neza made headlines in the Dallas Morning News as the “Albanian who screamed himself off plane.” Completely unembarrassed by all of this, the heart of ICE was hardened, and on Oct. 1, US officials asked for a federal court order to “dope and deport” Mr. Neza, so that he could be rendered pharmaceutically incapable of screaming the next time they put him on a plane.

Yet by this time, finally, the patent absurdity of America’s treatment of Rrustem Neza attracted the public attention of conservative East Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert, who on Oct. 23 penned an editorial for the Lufkin paper, calling Mr. Neza’s treatment “intolerable.” On Nov. 1, Gohmert introduced two personal bills in Congress in Mr. Neza’s behalf.

During the holiday season of 2007, ICE continued to keep Mr. Neza in Haskell prison, separated from his wife and two children.

Finally, on leap day 2008, three days after a Congressional committee took up Rep. Gohmert’s personal bills, Rrustem Neza was allowed to go back to his wife and two children after 13 months of imprisonment.

In March 2008, Rep. Gohmert announced that Mr. Neza’s deportation would be “stayed” until March 2009, the Lufkin paper editorialized in Mr. Gohmert’s behalf, and federal authorities announced that the “dope and deport” efforts had been officially “closed.”

All of w

hich brings us well into the summer of 2008. To date, the federal government of the USA is still refusing to grant Rrustem Neza an asylum hearing where attorney Gibson can submit corroborating evidence that Gani and Skender Neza are, in sad fact, as dead as the respected leader of the Albanian democratic uprising, Azem Hajdari. And if they were all gunned down in cold blood, doesn’t Rrustem Neza deserve to be believed when he says that deporting him to Albania would place him in reasonable fear for his life?

NOTE: edited 7/23, correcting number of children–gm

Dear Editor

Thank you for writing about Riad’s Memorial. It made me laugh and cry. I wanted to go but it was impossibly expensive and I feel so bad. Your essay took us there. My friends were there so I could picture them in the audience and will call them next. It was wonderful to hear what his wife and children had to share.

I met all of these people online doing Palestine peace work. . . . I don’t know how he could have committed suicide knowing how much he loved his children. After listening to his principal give her press conference and finding about all the kids who loved him..it made even less sense.

I met him online too of course. Friends in California, in Gaza, and in Belfast all knew him. When I heard he was coming in 2005 to LA area for the Al Awda conference I offered him a place to stay in my home. I didn’t know he would have slept in his car! So he got to sleep on my very comfortable futon couch.

He stayed until Monday or so and we went all over to UCLA and to friends where he dropped off goods for people to sell. He’d say, “just take it and send me the money as you sell it.” Anticipating staying here he said, “I’m shipping stuff to your address.” Dozens of big boxes showed up from Jerusalem and other places.

I still have on can of oil and had honey to sell and use .. gave to another friend who sold some too and my friends from WIBLA bought some too.

He was funny. Very self deprecating.Talked about being an Arab a lot. I can’t find my picture of him. I loved reading his take on the pink shirt. Don’t remember if he wore pink here though. He was a whirlwind. How his family is surviving . . . how shocking to have his life end so abruptly.

Thanks for giving us this peek in Riad’s life.

By Nick Braune

I noticed that an activist friend of mine was quoted in an article, and the issues being raised seemed very important. I called Martha Sanchez at her office in Mission and asked for a quick interview. She is an organizer for La Uni*n del Pueblo Entero (LUPE).

Nick Braune: I noticed in the Rio Grande Guardian that you and Juanita Valdez-Cox, the LUPE director, have been meeting with police officials recently about enforcement practices. What is the problem you are trying to resolve?

Martha Sanchez: We met with the police chiefs of La Joya, Peñitas, and Palmview because we had received phone calls from our members with complaints of incidents where the police had stopped people for traffic violations and then called the Border Patrol. We are trying to let the police chiefs know that we are active advocates for our members. We also want to provide a dialogue between the police and members so that our members will not be afraid of them.

Braune: If I understand this right, you are hoping that the local police do not see their role as enforcing immigration laws. Is that a major issue?

Sanchez: We remind them of their real role to protect and serve, which is not to do the work of immigration. And we explain to them that when they act as immigration officers, they lose the confidence of the people, and these people will be less likely to call on the police when major crimes and emergencies happen.

Braune: What is the concern about driver’s licenses and the LUPE cards?

Sanchez: Many working people we advocate for don’t have an ID. We are offering our membership cards as an alternative; this way the police can identify the individual instead of simply calling the Border Patrol as some of the departments were doing.

Braune: I read in the Valley Morning Star today about Operation Streamline starting up near Brownsville, and I was shocked. The paper made it clear to me that it is a major Border Patrol sweep, and it is not just sending immigrants back home for being out of compliance in their paperwork. Operation Streamline intends to hit the undocumented with criminal charges and apparently intends to send many tens of thousands more to prison, for periods of up to six months, before deportation. And I loved Juanita Valdez-Cox’s comment in the Guardian that it would make the private jail companies rich. Any more comments on this Operation Streamline?

Sanchez: About Operation Streamline, we are asking this: Who is going to be making money on these jails? And we make the further point that we are all going to suffer with the shortage of workers. Who is going to pick the crops and who is going to clean the dishes in the restaurants? Who is going to take care of the children when we work outside of home? We hope that everybody knows we will have to pay more money for services if Operation Streamline takes hold. But the big issue is this: When the government slaps more and more people with criminal charges, this will make it impossible for these undocumented workers to ever have a chance of getting legitimate work papers, because they will then have a criminal record.

Curious about Operation Streamline?

An article in Harlingen’s Valley Morning Star on June 11 reports that the new policy intends “criminal prosecution of every migrant caught crossing the border without documentation,” and the article calls it a “zero-tolerance” deterrence policy. (I personally consider both “zero tolerance” enforcement and “deterrence” generally to be ethically problematic, but I’ll hold that thought.)

Although Operation Streamline has raised criticism in other places like Del Rio, the Valley Morning Star says that it is now hitting our Valley. “The Border Patrol rolled out the policy Monday along a four-mile stretch of Cameron County’s border with Mexico from Brownsville to Fort Brown.”

“Formerly, first time offenders were offered the option of voluntary deportation and were processed, put on a bus and sent back to Mexico within hours of their arrest.” But under Operation Streamline they will be “detained, sent to court, jailed for up to 180 days if found guilty, and then deported.”

In Del Rio where this policy was recently tried, one federal Public Defender, William Fry, was quoted as worrying about due process. “We get a case on Wednesday and the court expects us to be ready to go by Friday. That’s not enough time to adequately represent a client.”

I called Meredith Linsky, a Harlingen attorney practicing immigration defense law:

Braune: What did you think of the report in the Valley Morning Star?

Meredith Linsky: I am greatly dismayed by the expansion of Operation Streamline. Our country has clearly made a priority of criminalizing immigrants and their efforts to seek work, opportunity and a better future. What would this country look like if this had been done to our parents, our grandparents and our great-grandparents? There needs to be some recognition of the push and pull effects of immigration. If we want to stop illegal immigration, we should invest in Mexico and Central America and punish the employers who provide jobs to undocumented workers.

Braune: The Border Patrol’s streamlined, “zero tolerance,” deterrence policy seems like a mess-maker to me. Do you agree?

Linsky: Yes, expanding law enforcement efforts like Operation Streamline causes needless suffering, including painful separation of families, and it will cost the American taxpayers millions of dollars. Although illegal entry is a crime on the books, the people who enter illegally are usually economic migrants and asylum seekers who come to this country seeking hope, promise and protection. America needs to recognize its own roots and find a legal way to meet the needs of employers and citizens from impoverished nations.

NOTE: a breifer version of this article first appeared in the Mid-Valley Town Crier.–gm

“Riad succeeded beyond even his own imagination”

Archived by permission–gm

Note: The memorial for Riad attended by over 200 people from around the US was MC’d by Rev. Edward Hartwell of St. James Episcopal Church and included comments by Sheikh Mohammed Umar Ismail, Daughter Rita Hamad, lifelong friend Nina Glasgow, brother Omar Hamad, fellow Middle School Teacher Mark Kelly, Jack Prince of the IFCPR (who introduced me), a slide show presentation by son Abdullah Hamad, music performance by Lourdes Perez, and reflections by Diana HajAli Hamad. Reflections and stories of Riad are being collected. Please send yours to Riads.Stories@gmail.com

In the past few hours I kept contemplating what to say here. You can see from this sheet that my original talk here is all marked off, edited and changed and will likely be rambling. But I did hope I could preserve a few important things I wanted to say and add others but that has been difficult. Several things cross my mind the rather quickly the first few seconds of meeting Riad over 8 years ago:

• He talks too much !
• He is too good to be true
• and then (and this was mentioned by other speakers) I would like to know more about this guy.

The parking lot outside the Church has several cars with bumper stickers “Free Palestine”. Those are the stickers Riad made and for which I recall that the last time we talked he asked me if I have received the new batch that he sent me through a mutual friend. Like others here and as always, when people leave us, we always wish we had said a few more things to them. We wish we had told them more how we appreciated them. So here goes.

Riad was always on the run. When he did sit for a while like he did when he stayed at our home in CT, the conversations were always very interesting. They ranged from weighty matters like the future of the Arab world to the mundane (like why I am failing at growing the Palestinian faqoos plan in my garden when I could grow everything else).

The famous Lebanese American poet Khalil Gibran once said “you give very little when you give of your belongings, it is when you give of your self that you truly give.” Khalil and Riad will be remembered for giving of themselves. When I first met Riad before he started the Palestine Children Welfare Fund, he was most passionate about the deteriorating situation in Palestinians living under occupation and in refugee camps.

In life there are those who are doers and those who are talkers and Riad was definetly a doer so it did not take him long to figure out where he can personally contribute. His love of children was not just because 60% of Palestinians are under the age of 18. Every other sentence he uttered you would hear from Riad seemed to contain things like “for the Children”, how about the children etc.

Already, the year before he founded PCWF, over 200 Palestinian children were killed and hundreds were injured by the Israeli occupation authorities. But the impact on those not injured or killed was also devastating with unemployment reaching 60% , more than twice what it was in the hight of the great depression in the US. Riad’s solution was direct aid by selling Palestinian products, by collecting donations, and funneling money to those in need.

Some of us have thought he was going too fast and thus putting himself and his projects at risk. But Riad’s imaptience was in a context of a relentless war carried by Israel with the support of the US against the people of Palestine.

Riad always spoke fast and passionately that sometimes it was hard to keep up with him but I think his mind was running even faster, always thinking of new ways to do things. They were always practical things. As an example, when Riad read of my father’s death, he took initiative to ask that a tree be planted in my father’s honor and he sent me a picture of it. That picture had more value than any words of condolensces he could have sent. That was the Riad we knew, always thinking practical things, not mere words.

Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. stated: “Cowardice asks the question – is it safe? Expediency asks the question – is it politic? Vanity asks the question – is it popular? But conscience asks the question – is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because it is right.”

We know Riad followed his conscience and acted because it is rigt not safe and as Ralph Waldo Emerson summed it well in his poem about What is success?

To laugh often and much;
to win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children;
to earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty; to find the best in others;
to leave the world a bit better, whether
by a healthy child, a garden patch
or redeemed social condition;
To know even one life breathed easier
because you have lived;
This is to have succeeded.”

I think Riad succeeded beyond even his own imagination. I think most of us humans are generally more afraid not that we are capable of changing things but afraid that we are capable beyond our imaginations. I think we have to learn to appreciate ourselves and the people around us more. To Riad’s wife Diana, his children, his family.. thank you for giving us Riad/sharing him with us and with Palestine. We know Riad would want us to take care of each other more and to say thank you more to those who give of themselves.

We know he would want us to intensify our work to help the oppressed. We know he cared about Palestine and recognized the centrality of its struggle for freedom. To continue Riad’s work is thus the right thing to do. I am thus grateful for ICPR, Jack and others who organized the events that will follow this service in Austin. Rest in peace my friend Riad. We will continue your work… “for the Children”.

ACTION: Speak out, silence is complicity
Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
http://qumsiyeh.org
http://justicewheels.org