SHERWOOD ROSS ASSOCIATES
March 29, 2007
From: Sherwood Ross
sherwoodr1@yahoo.com
Background:
On June 27, 1995, the Justice Department filed a complaint charging the American Bar Association with fixing law professors’ salaries and other Sherman Anti-Trust violations. Justice found ABA had furthered “the self-interest of professors instead of improving education” and ABA signed a consent degree pledging to stop the violations but has not lived up to that pledge.
Now, Dean Lawrence Velvel of the Massachusetts School of Law, Andover, is asking two leading members of the Department of Education’s National Advisory Committee to get ABA to reform or to lose DOE recognition.
Dean Velvel is a leader in the effort to make a legal education accessible to Americans of all races and income groups. “National Jurist” magazine describes him as “a modern day crusader” and “one of the most influential people in legal education over the last 15 years.”
News release follows. Dean Velvel may be reached at (978) 681-0800.
Ross Associates, Media Consultants to Massachusetts School of Law
102 S.W. 6th Avenue, Suite 403, Miami, FL 33130 (305) 205-8281
Law School Dean Calls For ABA To Lose DOE Recognition
As An Accreditor, And Says DOE Staff Is Incompetent
Two influential academic experts have been called upon to require the American Bar Association to either change its law school accreditation system or lose federal recognition from the Department of Education (DOE). The call came from Lawrence Velvel, the Dean of the Massachusetts School of Law. It was addressed to Lawrence DeNardis, the former President of the University of New Haven , and George Pruitt, the President of Edison State College in Trenton, New Jersey .
DeNardis and Pruitt are leading members of the DOE’s powerful National Advisory Committee (NAC). That Committee makes recommendations to the Secretary of Education on whether an accrediting body should retain or lose federal recognition.
At an NAC hearing on December 3, 2006, DeNardis and Pruitt both made extensive comments criticizing the ABA for long failing to follow the law. DeNardis, who led the NAC’s discussion of the ABA, said he could not understand why a body “that prepares practitioners of the law, has such a difficult time complying with government regulations and policies.”
Pruitt, who has been criticizing the ABA without result at NAC hearings since 1996, said “I want to echo the comments that Larry DeNardis made about the frustration that we have on this committee” regarding the ABA’s longstanding failure to follow legal rules “that the rest of us have to live with.” This failure to follow the rules is by a group that has a “powerful monopoly to totally control within [the legal] profession.” (An exercise of this monopoly power led, eleven years ago, to the ABA being found in violation of the federal antitrust laws.)
The unhappiness of the NAC with the American Bar Association’s longstanding failure to follow the law caused the Committee to recommend to the Secretary only an 18 month, interim renewal of recognition of the ABA, rather than the usual five year recognition.
Making plain that he considers the DOE’s permanent staff to be incompetent, Velvel said that for years the staff has ineptly failed to question the ABA’s high cost “input” rules -- rules no longer followed by any other accrediting body than the ABA. (Numerous other accreditors of professional schools, which do not use the “input” rules used by the ABA , are listed below.) The ABA’s input rules have been a major factor in law school tuitions jumping by 267 percent since 1990, so that half of the nation’s 190 ABA schools now charge more than $25,000 per year in tuition, with almost one quarter, or 46, charging over $30,000 per year. High tuitions have priced working class whites and minorities out of law school and the legal profession.
The use of costly input rules that have this exclusionary effect is directly contrary to Congress’ desire that accrediting bodies instead use “output” rules that measure student learning, and that higher education be made available to African Americans, Hispanic Americans and other minorities, says Velvel.
The ABA’s input rules, Velvel told DeNardis and Pruitt, demand very large, extremely expensive full time faculties, minimize the allowable number of far less expensive adjunct faculty members who are expert lawyers and judges, require very low teaching loads for full professors, require plush physical facilities, demand large, very expensive hard copy libraries though most needed materials are available on-line, and require high scores on the Law School Admissions Test (the LSAT). Curiously, the ABA also has a rule saying that law schools need not provide students with courses that will teach them the practical skills they will need to practice law. Velvel said that not only does no other professional school accrediting body use the expensive input rules used by the ABA, but some of them, again unlike the ABA, do quite properly require that students be taught the practical skills they will need to practice their profession.
Velvel also assailed the DOE staff for incompetently failing to uncover that the ABA uses secret rules that make its written rules even worse. This failure has existed for years even though DOE was warned of unlawful secret rules as long ago as 1996. Recently, by pure accident, the staff uncovered a secret policy about bar passage rates. But there also are secret policies about student/faculty ratios, plush buildings, low hours of teaching, and high LSAT scores.
The ABA’s high cost rules, and the excessive tuitions they cause, have contributed to a declining number of minority persons in law school, as has the secret requirement of high LSAT scores. The latest available figures show that, due to declines, only 6.6% of law school students are African Americans and only 5.7% are Hispanic Americans. As well the latest figures show that only 3.9% of the legal profession as a whole is African American, and only 3.3% is Hispanic American.
Velvel told DeNardis and Pruitt that the ABA is able to monopolize law school accreditation because it has persuaded most state supreme courts to allow only graduates of ABA schools to take bar examinations. The courts do this even though the ABA’s rules are keeping African Americans and Hispanic Americans out of law school and even though an increasing number of state Justices are themselves of African American or Hispanic American. The state Justices, almost all of whom know little or nothing about the ABA’s accreditation rules, rely heavily on the fact that DOE recognizes the ABA as the accreditor for law schools.
Velvel said that, in view of the ABA’s long failure to follow the law, and the enormous social harm being done by accreditation rules that keep all but the upper middle class and the wealthy out of law schools, the DOE should withdraw its recognition of the ABA, which it would have to do if the staff inquired thoroughly into the facts of ABA accreditation. Velvel urged DeNardis and Pruitt to insist on competent, thorough staff work instead of the miscreant negligence that for at least 15 years has marked the staff’s efforts toward the ABA .
Listed below are some of the professional school accrediting bodies that do not use the type of input rules used by the ABA. Also, if you would like a copy of Dean Velvel’s letter to Messrs. DeNardis and Pruitt, please contact Lawrence Velvel at (978) 681-0800 or Velvel@mslaw.edu.
Professional School Accrediting Bodies
The American Association of Colleges of Nursing/Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education; The Council on Chiropractic Education; The Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education; The American Psychological Association - Committee on Accreditation for Doctoral, Internship & Post-Doctoral Residencies; The Commission on Dental Accreditation of the American Dental Association; The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education - Standards for Professional Development Schools; The Council on Education/American Veterinary Medical Association; The Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools - Business Schools; The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations; The American Association of Colleges of Nursing/Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education; The Council on Chiropractic Education; The Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education; The Council on Education/American Veterinary Medical Association; The Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools - Business Schools; and The American Psychological Association – Committee on Accreditation for Doctoral, Internship & Post-Doctoral Residencies.
Showing posts with label Justice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Justice. Show all posts
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Articulating a Just Peace: Whose Responsibility?
Speech for Stockholm Conference 16-19 March 2007
By Ramzy Baroud
In my speech today, I will refrain from stating the obvious: those who are yet to recognize the injustices committed daily against the Palestinian people, have either succumbed completely to Israel’s propaganda or are simply uninterested in the whole matter.
Although confronting both groups - one plagued by misinformation or misplaced sympathy, and the other plagued by indifference and apathy - is vital, to say the least, I am addressing neither of these groups today.
There are various reasons behind what I am about to say: but most importantly, one particular episode, where I was invited to speak at some European country by a group that introduced itself as Marxist. I, of course, readily obliged, when I was faced with the following question: where do you stand on the one state solution?
I was not sure why I was urged by the head of the group to delineate my position regarding an issue that is of no particular consequence, at the time being, considering what Israel has done and is doing to ethnically cleanse large swathes of the West Bank, and is actively, with American, and less energetic, but real European support, starving Palestinians mostly in the Gaza Strip, but elsewhere in the Occupied Territories.
According to the World Food Program (WFP) forty-six percent of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories are food insecure, I was quick to cite. Though I thought that a one state solution, if ever possible, is an honorable and dignified solution to the conflict, I thought this was neither the time nor the place for such discussion.
Our focus, should hardly be diverted to intellectual and technical scuffles over a subject whose relevance to the current happenings in Palestine is most uncertain, to say the least. Moreover, this is something that should be decided through a national Palestinian consensus. If I must address the one state solution topic, this is how I would approach it, I told my potential host.
After some hesitation, and a clear loss of enthusiasm, I was told that the group, who had decided amongst itself that this is the most suitable solution for Palestinians and Israelis was not able to afford my ticket, and the invitation was revoked.
A day later, I met with a long time American activist for Palestine. Sharing with her the story, with a bit of disillusionment, that I, a Palestinian whose family still dwells a refugee camp in Gaza should be censored by a group of activists for questioning the timing and the method of making sweeping solutions to the conflict, she confronted me with something even more disheartening: in New Jersey among other areas, she says, some Palestine groups determine their relationship with one another, whether to participate in joint rallies or organize joint conferences, based on their self proclaimed solution to the Palestine Israel conflict: whether a secular democratic state, bi-national state, two states, etc.
This is the backdrop of what I am about to declare: I would neither rail against anyone, nor go on a personal crusade promoting one solution vs. the other. But I would rather to use this as an opportunity for self reflection, introspection and self critique.
It is never easy to admit that the Palestinian front, both at home and abroad, remains more fragmented and self-consumed, thus ineffective than ever before.
Such a realization wouldn’t mean much if the inference concerned any other polity; but when it’s made in regards to a nation that is facing an active campaign of ethnic cleansing at home and an international campaign of sanctions and boycott, the problem becomes both real and urgent.
Palestinians in the West Bank, especially in areas penetrated by the formidable Israeli imprisonment wall, are losing their land, their rights, their freedom and their livelihood at an alarming speed, unprecedented in their tumultuous history of military occupation. The 700-kilometre wall, once completed, will further fragment the already splintered West Bank; Israel’s settlement project since 1967 has disfigured the West Bank using Jews-only bypass roads, military zones and so forth, to ensure the viability of the country’s colonization scheme, but split or isolate Palestinian areas, making the two-state solution, or any other solution that is predicated on a viable exchange of land for peace simply inconceivable.
Gaza, which Yitzhak Rabin had once wished would sink into the sea and which Israel has labored to dump on anyone foolish enough to take responsibility for it as long as it is not part of any comprehensive agreement that would include Jerusalem and the West Bank, maintains its “open air prison” status.
Palestinians there are being reduced to malnourished refugees, manipulated into violence and discord, a spectacle that Israel is promoting around the world as an example of Palestinian lack of civility and their incapacity to govern themselves.
The Israeli government insistently refuses to consider Jerusalem an issue that warrants negotiations; nothing to talk about, according to Israeli officials who see Jerusalem as their state’s undivided and eternal capital.
Vital movement from and into Jerusalem is increasingly impossible for West Bank Palestinians. Muslim and Christian properties in the city are continuously threatened, targeted or desecrated.
The most recent targeting of Al Aqsa Mosque was intended to further exacerbate Muslim fury and emphasize the point that Israel retains the upper hand in its relations with the Palestinians.
Other major issues such as settlements, water, refugees, borders, continue to be subjected to unilateral Israeli actions, while the Palestinian role is relegated to that of a hapless, submissive and often angry victim.
If such decisive matters go largely unchallenged by a solid, popular Palestinian strategy, one mustn’t be surprised if other issues, such as the need to restructure the progressively more fragmented Palestinian national identity, the need for a powerful, sustained and articulate Palestinian voice in the media and an influential body that unites and channels all Palestinian efforts around the world to serve a clear set of objectives, are receiving little or no attention whatsoever.
It must also be acknowledged, as uncomfortable as this may be to some, that the Palestinian democratic experience is rapidly succumbing to Israeli pressures, American meddling — tacitly or otherwise, coordinated with other governments — and the fractious Palestinian front that has been for decades permeated with ideological exclusivism, cronyism and corruption.
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), since its formation by the Arab League in 1964, but most significantly since its reformation in the early 1970s under Palestinian leadership, was for long regarded as the main body that eventually brought to the fore the Palestinian struggle as — more than a mere question of a humanitarian issue that needed redress — a national fight for freedom and rights.
There was, more or less, a national movement that spoke and represented Palestinians everywhere. It gave the Palestinian struggle greater urgency, one that was lost, or willingly conceded, by Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn in September 1993, and again in Cairo in May 2004, and yet again in Paris, Sharm al-Sheikh and so forth.
Aside from snuffing out the Palestinian national project, reducing the territory to self-autonomous areas, rendering irrelevant millions of Palestinians, mostly refugees scattered around the world and thus demoting the international status of the PLO to a mere symbolic organization, Oslo gave rise to a new type of thinking among Palestinians who see themselves as pragmatic and whose language is that of real politic and diplomacy.
This is the most woeful case of self-defeatism, and it continues to infuse most Palestinian circles whose new “strategy” is limited to acquiring funds from European countries which eventually dotted the West Bank with NGOs, mostly without a clear purpose, agenda and coordination.
Involving oneself in such useless projects is ineffectual, while rejecting them without a clear alternative can be frustrating or demoralizing.
An official in President Mahmoud Abbas’ circle chastised me during a long airplane ride once for subscribing to Edward Said’s school, whose followers, I was told, wish to parrot criticism from the outside and refrain from “getting their hands dirty”, i.e., getting involved in the Palestinian Authority’s institution building, and so forth. Such a claim is utterly baseless; and no viable institution can possibly come out of the current setting, an amalgam of a most violent occupation, and internal corruption sanctioned, if not fed, by both Israel and the US government.
It is true that there have been no serious collective Palestinian efforts to redress the Oslo mistakes and to breathe life into the PLO. The Intifada was a popular expression of Palestinians disaffection with Oslo and the occupation, but, alone, it can hardly be considered a sustainable strategy.
Neither a religious movement like Hamas nor a self-exalted one like Fateh is capable of approaching this subject alone, nor are they individually qualified to alter the Palestinian course, which seems to be moving in random order.
The problem is indeed bigger than mere ideological or even personal quarrels between two rival political parties; rather, it is the expression of a prevailing Palestinian factionalism that seems to consume members of various Palestinian communities regardless of where they are based.
In the absence of centrality everywhere, individuals hoping to fill the vacuum are offering their own solutions to the conflict, once more without any serious or coordinated efforts and without a grassroots constituency either in the occupied territories or among major Palestinian population concentrations in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, etc.
Others, like the Geneva Initiative enthusiasts, find it acceptable to negotiate a solution on Palestinians’ behalf — without any mandate whatsoever — and obtain sums of money to promote their ideas, though the whole enterprise is run by a few individuals who have no support from the Palestinians.
Oslo has lost its relevance as a peace treaty, but the individualism it espoused among Palestinians still prevails; its legacy was self-preservation at the expense of the collective good, and I believe no Palestinian party, including Hamas, is immune from subscribing to its luring values.
To avoid further debacles, Palestinians must ditch their factionalism and quit thinking of their relationship with their struggle in terms of funds, ideology (at times so flexible as to fit political interests) or religious interpretations.
They are in urgent need of a new collective strategy that pushes for specific principles which can only be achieved through national consensus. Waving flags in the face of passersby and the proverbial preaching to the choir alone will lead nowhere.
Individual initiatives will further confuse the Palestinian ranks. Only a consistent, cohesive and reasonable strategy that emanates from the Palestinians themselves can engage international public opinion — with the hope of breaking the patronage system that unites the West, especially the United States to Israel — and possibly slow down the Israeli army bulldozers currently carving up the West Bank into a system of cantons and high-walled prisons.
While for Palestinians, I believe that reforming and revitalizing the PLO is not an option, but a must, I call on groups that work for a just peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis to continue to emphasize and expose the injustices committed against the Palestinian people, to highlight that self determination for Palestinians, everywhere, is an imperative for that just peace and to continue to push for serious governmental shifts in their respective polities, to entertain whatever needed pressure, through boycotts, media campaigns, and so forth, but to kindly refrain from imposing specifities on the Palestinian people: who, to avoid the mistakes of the past, must be the ultimate definer of its own destiny and whose articulation for a just peace has been the most overlooked, yet vital imperative. Without it, there will neither be peace, nor justice.
By Ramzy Baroud
In my speech today, I will refrain from stating the obvious: those who are yet to recognize the injustices committed daily against the Palestinian people, have either succumbed completely to Israel’s propaganda or are simply uninterested in the whole matter.
Although confronting both groups - one plagued by misinformation or misplaced sympathy, and the other plagued by indifference and apathy - is vital, to say the least, I am addressing neither of these groups today.
There are various reasons behind what I am about to say: but most importantly, one particular episode, where I was invited to speak at some European country by a group that introduced itself as Marxist. I, of course, readily obliged, when I was faced with the following question: where do you stand on the one state solution?
I was not sure why I was urged by the head of the group to delineate my position regarding an issue that is of no particular consequence, at the time being, considering what Israel has done and is doing to ethnically cleanse large swathes of the West Bank, and is actively, with American, and less energetic, but real European support, starving Palestinians mostly in the Gaza Strip, but elsewhere in the Occupied Territories.
According to the World Food Program (WFP) forty-six percent of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories are food insecure, I was quick to cite. Though I thought that a one state solution, if ever possible, is an honorable and dignified solution to the conflict, I thought this was neither the time nor the place for such discussion.
Our focus, should hardly be diverted to intellectual and technical scuffles over a subject whose relevance to the current happenings in Palestine is most uncertain, to say the least. Moreover, this is something that should be decided through a national Palestinian consensus. If I must address the one state solution topic, this is how I would approach it, I told my potential host.
After some hesitation, and a clear loss of enthusiasm, I was told that the group, who had decided amongst itself that this is the most suitable solution for Palestinians and Israelis was not able to afford my ticket, and the invitation was revoked.
A day later, I met with a long time American activist for Palestine. Sharing with her the story, with a bit of disillusionment, that I, a Palestinian whose family still dwells a refugee camp in Gaza should be censored by a group of activists for questioning the timing and the method of making sweeping solutions to the conflict, she confronted me with something even more disheartening: in New Jersey among other areas, she says, some Palestine groups determine their relationship with one another, whether to participate in joint rallies or organize joint conferences, based on their self proclaimed solution to the Palestine Israel conflict: whether a secular democratic state, bi-national state, two states, etc.
This is the backdrop of what I am about to declare: I would neither rail against anyone, nor go on a personal crusade promoting one solution vs. the other. But I would rather to use this as an opportunity for self reflection, introspection and self critique.
It is never easy to admit that the Palestinian front, both at home and abroad, remains more fragmented and self-consumed, thus ineffective than ever before.
Such a realization wouldn’t mean much if the inference concerned any other polity; but when it’s made in regards to a nation that is facing an active campaign of ethnic cleansing at home and an international campaign of sanctions and boycott, the problem becomes both real and urgent.
Palestinians in the West Bank, especially in areas penetrated by the formidable Israeli imprisonment wall, are losing their land, their rights, their freedom and their livelihood at an alarming speed, unprecedented in their tumultuous history of military occupation. The 700-kilometre wall, once completed, will further fragment the already splintered West Bank; Israel’s settlement project since 1967 has disfigured the West Bank using Jews-only bypass roads, military zones and so forth, to ensure the viability of the country’s colonization scheme, but split or isolate Palestinian areas, making the two-state solution, or any other solution that is predicated on a viable exchange of land for peace simply inconceivable.
Gaza, which Yitzhak Rabin had once wished would sink into the sea and which Israel has labored to dump on anyone foolish enough to take responsibility for it as long as it is not part of any comprehensive agreement that would include Jerusalem and the West Bank, maintains its “open air prison” status.
Palestinians there are being reduced to malnourished refugees, manipulated into violence and discord, a spectacle that Israel is promoting around the world as an example of Palestinian lack of civility and their incapacity to govern themselves.
The Israeli government insistently refuses to consider Jerusalem an issue that warrants negotiations; nothing to talk about, according to Israeli officials who see Jerusalem as their state’s undivided and eternal capital.
Vital movement from and into Jerusalem is increasingly impossible for West Bank Palestinians. Muslim and Christian properties in the city are continuously threatened, targeted or desecrated.
The most recent targeting of Al Aqsa Mosque was intended to further exacerbate Muslim fury and emphasize the point that Israel retains the upper hand in its relations with the Palestinians.
Other major issues such as settlements, water, refugees, borders, continue to be subjected to unilateral Israeli actions, while the Palestinian role is relegated to that of a hapless, submissive and often angry victim.
If such decisive matters go largely unchallenged by a solid, popular Palestinian strategy, one mustn’t be surprised if other issues, such as the need to restructure the progressively more fragmented Palestinian national identity, the need for a powerful, sustained and articulate Palestinian voice in the media and an influential body that unites and channels all Palestinian efforts around the world to serve a clear set of objectives, are receiving little or no attention whatsoever.
It must also be acknowledged, as uncomfortable as this may be to some, that the Palestinian democratic experience is rapidly succumbing to Israeli pressures, American meddling — tacitly or otherwise, coordinated with other governments — and the fractious Palestinian front that has been for decades permeated with ideological exclusivism, cronyism and corruption.
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), since its formation by the Arab League in 1964, but most significantly since its reformation in the early 1970s under Palestinian leadership, was for long regarded as the main body that eventually brought to the fore the Palestinian struggle as — more than a mere question of a humanitarian issue that needed redress — a national fight for freedom and rights.
There was, more or less, a national movement that spoke and represented Palestinians everywhere. It gave the Palestinian struggle greater urgency, one that was lost, or willingly conceded, by Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn in September 1993, and again in Cairo in May 2004, and yet again in Paris, Sharm al-Sheikh and so forth.
Aside from snuffing out the Palestinian national project, reducing the territory to self-autonomous areas, rendering irrelevant millions of Palestinians, mostly refugees scattered around the world and thus demoting the international status of the PLO to a mere symbolic organization, Oslo gave rise to a new type of thinking among Palestinians who see themselves as pragmatic and whose language is that of real politic and diplomacy.
This is the most woeful case of self-defeatism, and it continues to infuse most Palestinian circles whose new “strategy” is limited to acquiring funds from European countries which eventually dotted the West Bank with NGOs, mostly without a clear purpose, agenda and coordination.
Involving oneself in such useless projects is ineffectual, while rejecting them without a clear alternative can be frustrating or demoralizing.
An official in President Mahmoud Abbas’ circle chastised me during a long airplane ride once for subscribing to Edward Said’s school, whose followers, I was told, wish to parrot criticism from the outside and refrain from “getting their hands dirty”, i.e., getting involved in the Palestinian Authority’s institution building, and so forth. Such a claim is utterly baseless; and no viable institution can possibly come out of the current setting, an amalgam of a most violent occupation, and internal corruption sanctioned, if not fed, by both Israel and the US government.
It is true that there have been no serious collective Palestinian efforts to redress the Oslo mistakes and to breathe life into the PLO. The Intifada was a popular expression of Palestinians disaffection with Oslo and the occupation, but, alone, it can hardly be considered a sustainable strategy.
Neither a religious movement like Hamas nor a self-exalted one like Fateh is capable of approaching this subject alone, nor are they individually qualified to alter the Palestinian course, which seems to be moving in random order.
The problem is indeed bigger than mere ideological or even personal quarrels between two rival political parties; rather, it is the expression of a prevailing Palestinian factionalism that seems to consume members of various Palestinian communities regardless of where they are based.
In the absence of centrality everywhere, individuals hoping to fill the vacuum are offering their own solutions to the conflict, once more without any serious or coordinated efforts and without a grassroots constituency either in the occupied territories or among major Palestinian population concentrations in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, etc.
Others, like the Geneva Initiative enthusiasts, find it acceptable to negotiate a solution on Palestinians’ behalf — without any mandate whatsoever — and obtain sums of money to promote their ideas, though the whole enterprise is run by a few individuals who have no support from the Palestinians.
Oslo has lost its relevance as a peace treaty, but the individualism it espoused among Palestinians still prevails; its legacy was self-preservation at the expense of the collective good, and I believe no Palestinian party, including Hamas, is immune from subscribing to its luring values.
To avoid further debacles, Palestinians must ditch their factionalism and quit thinking of their relationship with their struggle in terms of funds, ideology (at times so flexible as to fit political interests) or religious interpretations.
They are in urgent need of a new collective strategy that pushes for specific principles which can only be achieved through national consensus. Waving flags in the face of passersby and the proverbial preaching to the choir alone will lead nowhere.
Individual initiatives will further confuse the Palestinian ranks. Only a consistent, cohesive and reasonable strategy that emanates from the Palestinians themselves can engage international public opinion — with the hope of breaking the patronage system that unites the West, especially the United States to Israel — and possibly slow down the Israeli army bulldozers currently carving up the West Bank into a system of cantons and high-walled prisons.
While for Palestinians, I believe that reforming and revitalizing the PLO is not an option, but a must, I call on groups that work for a just peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis to continue to emphasize and expose the injustices committed against the Palestinian people, to highlight that self determination for Palestinians, everywhere, is an imperative for that just peace and to continue to push for serious governmental shifts in their respective polities, to entertain whatever needed pressure, through boycotts, media campaigns, and so forth, but to kindly refrain from imposing specifities on the Palestinian people: who, to avoid the mistakes of the past, must be the ultimate definer of its own destiny and whose articulation for a just peace has been the most overlooked, yet vital imperative. Without it, there will neither be peace, nor justice.
Monday, March 12, 2007
Palestine/Israel - Principles for a Just Peace
January 2007
By Irish Commission for Justice and Social Affairs (ICJSA)
Abstract
“The State of Israel has to be able to exist peacefully in conformity with the norms of international law and the Palestinian people have to be able to develop serenely their own democratic institutions for a free and prosperous future”. (Pope Benedict XVI)
Never far from the surface of the Israel/Palestine conflict is the issue as to which should take priority, namely security considerations or the rule of law and the protection of human rights. In this context, it is appropriate to be reminded of an important international protocol that sets limits to the legitimate use of force by an occupying power.The 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, which relates to the protection of civilians in wartime, is the primary legal document governing the Occupied Palestinian Territories.Under this convention civilians are given special protection in a number of areas. For example, Article 3 explicitly prohibits violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds,mutilation, cruel treatment and torture. Article 27 guarantees respect for persons, their honour, their family rights, their religious convictions and practices and their manners and customs. Finally, Article 147 explicitly prohibits amongst other things, the unlawful deportation or transfer or imprisonment of persons and the extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity.12 Just as the possibility of peace hinges on an end to wanton terror so also does it hinge on a full acceptance of the appropriateness of this protocol as a means of regulating the use of state power in the Occupied Territories. For Palestinians, Israel’s refusal to recognise the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention to the situation in the West Bank and Gaza alongside the continued use of collective punishment, detention without trial and extra-judicial killings is a matter of the deepest concern.
The conclusions of this paper were signalled at the outset in the passage quoted from the 2002 report of the Catholic Bishops of North America and Europe, namely that only a just peace with the Palestinians will offer security to Israel and release its people from the weight of anxiety that hangs on them. Unfortunately, the situation in the intervening four years has if anything exacerbated the conflict.
We can only reiterate that a just compromise – and a solution is always going to be a compromise between conflicting series of rights – will only be found if and when the needs of the weak take priority over the wants of the powerful and both sides have the courage and the far-sightedness to hear the other’s voice and to recognise each other’s rights.
In the face of the tragic cycle of violence in the Middle East we call on the international community to continue in its efforts, hearing both ‘voices’, to help broker a workable peace that acknowledges the rights of all sides in the conflict. We also call on all people of goodwill to respond to Pope Benedict XVI’s urgent appeal for faithful and persistent prayers for peace:
“May the Lord illuminate hearts and may no one evade their duty to construct peaceful coexistence, recognising that all [persons] are brothers [and sisters], whatever the people to which they belong.”
PDF
By Irish Commission for Justice and Social Affairs (ICJSA)
Abstract
“The State of Israel has to be able to exist peacefully in conformity with the norms of international law and the Palestinian people have to be able to develop serenely their own democratic institutions for a free and prosperous future”. (Pope Benedict XVI)
Never far from the surface of the Israel/Palestine conflict is the issue as to which should take priority, namely security considerations or the rule of law and the protection of human rights. In this context, it is appropriate to be reminded of an important international protocol that sets limits to the legitimate use of force by an occupying power.The 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, which relates to the protection of civilians in wartime, is the primary legal document governing the Occupied Palestinian Territories.Under this convention civilians are given special protection in a number of areas. For example, Article 3 explicitly prohibits violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds,mutilation, cruel treatment and torture. Article 27 guarantees respect for persons, their honour, their family rights, their religious convictions and practices and their manners and customs. Finally, Article 147 explicitly prohibits amongst other things, the unlawful deportation or transfer or imprisonment of persons and the extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity.12 Just as the possibility of peace hinges on an end to wanton terror so also does it hinge on a full acceptance of the appropriateness of this protocol as a means of regulating the use of state power in the Occupied Territories. For Palestinians, Israel’s refusal to recognise the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention to the situation in the West Bank and Gaza alongside the continued use of collective punishment, detention without trial and extra-judicial killings is a matter of the deepest concern.
The conclusions of this paper were signalled at the outset in the passage quoted from the 2002 report of the Catholic Bishops of North America and Europe, namely that only a just peace with the Palestinians will offer security to Israel and release its people from the weight of anxiety that hangs on them. Unfortunately, the situation in the intervening four years has if anything exacerbated the conflict.
We can only reiterate that a just compromise – and a solution is always going to be a compromise between conflicting series of rights – will only be found if and when the needs of the weak take priority over the wants of the powerful and both sides have the courage and the far-sightedness to hear the other’s voice and to recognise each other’s rights.
In the face of the tragic cycle of violence in the Middle East we call on the international community to continue in its efforts, hearing both ‘voices’, to help broker a workable peace that acknowledges the rights of all sides in the conflict. We also call on all people of goodwill to respond to Pope Benedict XVI’s urgent appeal for faithful and persistent prayers for peace:
“May the Lord illuminate hearts and may no one evade their duty to construct peaceful coexistence, recognising that all [persons] are brothers [and sisters], whatever the people to which they belong.”
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Republican Senator on Justice Dept: They Lied to Me
Mar. 08, 2007
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT: Ensign voices ire at agency
Explanations for dismissal of U.S. attorney differ
By STEVE TETREAULT
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- Sen. John Ensign on Wednesday charged that the Justice Department botched the dismissals of U.S. attorneys and suggested he was misled as to why the Nevada chief federal prosecutor, Daniel Bogden, was removed from office.
Meanwhile, Sen. Harry Reid said he understood the department planned to take advantage of a loophole and fill its new vacancy in Nevada without submitting its choice for customary Senate review and confirmation.
"That's what they told Bogden," said Reid, D-Nev.
A day after Democrat-led committees in the House and Senate held investigative hearings, the Nevada senators' comments reflected the continuing controversy swirling around the dismissal of at least eight chief prosecutors, the circumstances of the firings and what course might lie ahead to fill the posts.
Ensign, R-Nev., said the removal of the U.S. attorneys "has been completely mishandled."
"It is not unusual to let U.S. attorneys go, but you need to have good reasons especially if you are going to do seven at the same time," he said.
Seven including Bogden were fired Dec. 7. Another had been fired previously.
Ensign was particularly irate over the firing of Bogden, an independent who Ensign picked in 2001 to oversee federal crime prosecutions in Nevada. Bogden, a prosecutor in the Northern Nevada office of the U.S. attorney, was nominated by President Bush and confirmed by the Senate in October 2001.
In December, the Justice Department fired Bogden over Ensign's objections. Ensign said last month he was told the dismissal was for "performance reasons."
Justice officials initially told Congress that was the reason. But Tuesday, Deputy Attorney General William Moschella told a House subcommittee "no particular deficiencies" in Bogden's performance existed.
Moschella said the department wanted someone with "renewed energy" to take the Las Vegas-based office "to the next level."
Ensign said Wednesday he was decidedly unhappy.
"What the Justice Department testified yesterday is inconsistent with what they told me," Ensign said. "I can't even tell you how upset I am at the Justice Department."
Asked whether he believed he was misled, Ensign said, "I was not told the same thing that I was at the hearing, let me put it that way."
Ensign said he pressed the topic at a meeting with White House officials Wednesday morning. He added he would be "making further inquiries."
"I am not pleased with the Justice Department at this point," he said. "I told the White House this morning if I could renominate (Bogden) I would."
What action Ensign could take beyond complaining to Bush administration officials over the handling of Bogden's firing is unclear.
The removal of the U.S. attorneys has been "a big mess" for the Bush administration, including antagonizing Ensign, a Republican ally, said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond.
"What is troubling is that they don't even consult Ensign, who is their person," Tobias said.
Reid renewed a call for the Senate to repeal a section of the Patriot Act that was added last year. It allows the president to appoint new U.S. attorneys without seeking Senate approval.
The reasoning was to allow a president to fill posts quickly in terrorist emergencies. But Democrats have said the Bush administration was purging U.S. attorneys to name new ones under the provision.
"We need to change the law," Reid said. "What they have done to these prosecutors is immoral, illegal, unethical and really bad government."
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other department officials have testified to Congress they plan to submit U.S. attorney replacements to the Senate for confirmation.
A Justice Department spokesman did not return a call Wednesday.
Bogden did not respond to a cell phone message Wednesday to comment on Reid's statement that Bogden was told of Justice Department strategy for a successor.
A legal source familiar with the appointment process said it seemed clear that the administration was preparing to "parachute in" a new U.S. attorney in Nevada, possibly from outside the state, under the Patriot Act umbrella.
Did they really think with only two years to go (in Bush's term) they would be able to nominate someone and get through the Senate Judiciary Committee?" the source said.
But uproar over the firings might have discouraged the administration from pursuing that course, the source said.
Ensign said he is reviewing applicants to succeed Bogden, and plans to refer a choice to the Justice Department. But he questioned how quickly a replacement could be seated and whether the Senate would confirm new U.S. attorneys in the charged atmosphere.
"Who knows whether we will be able to?" he said.
Besides Bogden, other federal prosecutors who were fired include Bud Cummins of Little Rock, Ark., David Iglesias of Albuquerque, N.M., Carol Lam of San Diego, Paul Charlton of Phoenix, John McKay of Seattle, Margaret Chiara of Grand Rapids, Mich., and Kevin Ryan of San Francisco.
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT: Ensign voices ire at agency
Explanations for dismissal of U.S. attorney differ
By STEVE TETREAULT
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- Sen. John Ensign on Wednesday charged that the Justice Department botched the dismissals of U.S. attorneys and suggested he was misled as to why the Nevada chief federal prosecutor, Daniel Bogden, was removed from office.
Meanwhile, Sen. Harry Reid said he understood the department planned to take advantage of a loophole and fill its new vacancy in Nevada without submitting its choice for customary Senate review and confirmation.
"That's what they told Bogden," said Reid, D-Nev.
A day after Democrat-led committees in the House and Senate held investigative hearings, the Nevada senators' comments reflected the continuing controversy swirling around the dismissal of at least eight chief prosecutors, the circumstances of the firings and what course might lie ahead to fill the posts.
Ensign, R-Nev., said the removal of the U.S. attorneys "has been completely mishandled."
"It is not unusual to let U.S. attorneys go, but you need to have good reasons especially if you are going to do seven at the same time," he said.
Seven including Bogden were fired Dec. 7. Another had been fired previously.
Ensign was particularly irate over the firing of Bogden, an independent who Ensign picked in 2001 to oversee federal crime prosecutions in Nevada. Bogden, a prosecutor in the Northern Nevada office of the U.S. attorney, was nominated by President Bush and confirmed by the Senate in October 2001.
In December, the Justice Department fired Bogden over Ensign's objections. Ensign said last month he was told the dismissal was for "performance reasons."
Justice officials initially told Congress that was the reason. But Tuesday, Deputy Attorney General William Moschella told a House subcommittee "no particular deficiencies" in Bogden's performance existed.
Moschella said the department wanted someone with "renewed energy" to take the Las Vegas-based office "to the next level."
Ensign said Wednesday he was decidedly unhappy.
"What the Justice Department testified yesterday is inconsistent with what they told me," Ensign said. "I can't even tell you how upset I am at the Justice Department."
Asked whether he believed he was misled, Ensign said, "I was not told the same thing that I was at the hearing, let me put it that way."
Ensign said he pressed the topic at a meeting with White House officials Wednesday morning. He added he would be "making further inquiries."
"I am not pleased with the Justice Department at this point," he said. "I told the White House this morning if I could renominate (Bogden) I would."
What action Ensign could take beyond complaining to Bush administration officials over the handling of Bogden's firing is unclear.
The removal of the U.S. attorneys has been "a big mess" for the Bush administration, including antagonizing Ensign, a Republican ally, said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond.
"What is troubling is that they don't even consult Ensign, who is their person," Tobias said.
Reid renewed a call for the Senate to repeal a section of the Patriot Act that was added last year. It allows the president to appoint new U.S. attorneys without seeking Senate approval.
The reasoning was to allow a president to fill posts quickly in terrorist emergencies. But Democrats have said the Bush administration was purging U.S. attorneys to name new ones under the provision.
"We need to change the law," Reid said. "What they have done to these prosecutors is immoral, illegal, unethical and really bad government."
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other department officials have testified to Congress they plan to submit U.S. attorney replacements to the Senate for confirmation.
A Justice Department spokesman did not return a call Wednesday.
Bogden did not respond to a cell phone message Wednesday to comment on Reid's statement that Bogden was told of Justice Department strategy for a successor.
A legal source familiar with the appointment process said it seemed clear that the administration was preparing to "parachute in" a new U.S. attorney in Nevada, possibly from outside the state, under the Patriot Act umbrella.
Did they really think with only two years to go (in Bush's term) they would be able to nominate someone and get through the Senate Judiciary Committee?" the source said.
But uproar over the firings might have discouraged the administration from pursuing that course, the source said.
Ensign said he is reviewing applicants to succeed Bogden, and plans to refer a choice to the Justice Department. But he questioned how quickly a replacement could be seated and whether the Senate would confirm new U.S. attorneys in the charged atmosphere.
"Who knows whether we will be able to?" he said.
Besides Bogden, other federal prosecutors who were fired include Bud Cummins of Little Rock, Ark., David Iglesias of Albuquerque, N.M., Carol Lam of San Diego, Paul Charlton of Phoenix, John McKay of Seattle, Margaret Chiara of Grand Rapids, Mich., and Kevin Ryan of San Francisco.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
The Mecca agreement gives the west the chance to end its blackmail and recognise Palestinian rights
Our unity can now pave the way for peace and justice
Khalid Mish'alTuesday February 13, 2007
The Guardian
A historic new phase in the Palestinian struggle for freedom and independence has begun. Last week's Mecca agreement between Hamas and Fatah will pave the way for the first ever truly Palestinian national unity government. Hamas and Fatah, joined by all the other Palestinian factions, will now seek to rebuild Palestinian society following the destruction brought upon it by Israeli occupation and resume the campaign for our national rights.
We are determined to make sure that the recent internal fighting, which appalled our people and dismayed their supporters around the world, becomes history. We firmly believe that it would never have happened had it not been for foreign intervention and the brutal sanctions imposed on our people by Israel and its allies. The crisis would not have existed had international and regional powers respected the results of last year's democratic elections in Palestine.
The Mecca agreement has laid the foundations for a power-sharing process that will produce a functioning government capable of attending to our people's needs. It will also pave the way for rebuilding the PLO to include all the factions and become the legitimate representative of all Palestinian people. The partnership born out of the Mecca meeting is possible because of the consensus among the Palestinians that their primary objective is to win their freedom, and that their struggle should be solely against occupation. It is now up to the international community to respect this accord and the will of the Palestinian people.
We Palestinians have been the victims of invasion, occupation and oppression for almost a century. Yet we have been constantly blackmailed to make concessions and give up yet more of our legitimate rights. Since the elections of January 2006 our people have been boycotted and punished by the international community for exercising their democratic rights. In the meantime, Israel has continued to kill and detain Palestinians on a daily basis, demolishing hundreds of houses and making thousands homeless.
Today Israel has more than 11,000 of our brothers and sisters in jail and continues to deny millions of refugees the right to return to their homeland. It has defied international law by proceeding with the construction of the apartheid wall and building settlements on land expropriated from Palestinians. Meanwhile, excavation resumed last week in the compound of al-Aqsa mosque, and on Friday the mosque, to which access is denied to Palestinians below the age of 45, was invaded by Israeli troops who wounded scores of worshippers.
Now that Hamas and Fatah have agreed to form a national unity government, the international community has no excuse to maintain the siege against our people. We know that many governments around the world are unhappy with these sanctions and want to see an end to them. The Palestinian national accord achieved in Mecca envisages the establishment of a truly sovereign and independent Palestinian state on the territories occupied by Israel in June 1967 - with Jerusalem as its capital, the dismantling of the settlements in the West Bank, the release of all Palestinian prisoners and the acknowledgement of the right of the refugees to return to their homes.
Once translated into reality, this vision will pave the way for real peace in the region. There must be no more blackmail of Palestinians, for there is nothing else they can give away. Global powers should have learned by now that neither sanctions nor any other form of pressure or bribery will force the Palestinians to abandon their struggle for freedom and independence.
All previous peace proposals have failed because they were intended to impose an unjust pro-Israel settlement on our people, and were based on the assumption that the Palestinian struggle was a form of terrorism that the Palestinians had to renounce. The attempt to divide Palestinians into moderates and extremists or peacemakers and terrorists has failed. Now we are united in our determination to seek an end to oppression and occupation.
So, will the international community seize this historic opportunity, require Israel to respect our rights and stop hindering this attempt to turn the Palestinian national agreement into a reality? Or will it remain weak and ineffective in the face of Israeli intransigence and risk alienating not only Hamas but also Fatah and all the other Palestinian factions?
If the latter is the choice, the outcome will be dire indeed: the entire Middle East region will be driven towards another cycle of bloody escalation that may last for many years to come - and an entire Palestinian generation, which might not be willing to accept what we accept today, will be left profoundly embittered.
The west needs to wake up and realise that time is no longer on the side of Israel and its policies of occupation, destruction and expansion. Time no longer favours the continuation of policies biased towards Israel. It will not serve the best interests of the west to support Israel while it continues to terrorise our people, occupy our land, violate our basic human and national rights and encroach on Muslim and Christian holy places. Such blind support has proven to be very costly for the west and will increasingly damage its vital interests.
It must be understood by all that the people of Palestine have the key to both peace and war in the Middle East. There can never be peace and stability in the region without settling the Palestinian question. And that can only be achieved by ending the occupation and recognising our people's rights.
· Khalid Mish'al is head of the Hamas political bureau
Monday, December 18, 2006
Iraq's Kangaroo Courts
Iraq’s Legal System Staggers Beneath the Weight of War
BAGHDAD — In a cavernous room that once displayed gifts given to Saddam Hussein, eight men in yellow prison garb sat on the floor facing the wall, guarded by two American soldiers.
Among them was Abdulla Sultan Khalaf, a Ministry of Industry employee seized by American troops who said they found 10 blasting caps and 100 sticks of TNT. When his name was called, he stood, walked into a cagelike defendant’s box and peered over the wooden slats at a panel of three Iraqi judges of the central court.
The judges reviewed evidence prepared by an American military lawyer — testimony from two soldiers, photographs and a sketch of the scene.
The evidence went largely unchallenged, because Mr. Khalaf had no lawyer. The judges appointed one, but Mr. Khalaf had no chance to speak with him. Mr. Khalaf told the judges that the soldiers were probably chasing a rogue nephew and denied that the explosives were his or ever in his house. “Let me examine the pictures,” he insisted. The judges ignored him. His lawyer said nothing, beyond declaring Mr. Khalaf’s innocence. The trial lasted 15 minutes.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Justice system is absurd. Broken. Chaotic
Related
2.2 million in US prisons and jails
One in every 32 American adults behind bars, on probation or on parole.
http://tinyurl.com/y8xukd
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Lord Ramsbotham exclusive
2.2 million in US prisons and jails
One in every 32 American adults behind bars, on probation or on parole.
http://tinyurl.com/y8xukd
---
Lord Ramsbotham exclusive
The former prison chief lambasts a justice system in meltdown after Tony Blair's decade of failure on crime and punishment
Published: 30 November 2006
Yesterday's announcement that the prison population now exceeds 80,000 is the latest low point in what one can only describe as the Government's headlong and self-induced race to absurdity as far as the conduct of imprisonment is concerned.
The reasons for this dreadful figure are not hard to find. If you produce legislation that results in longer prison sentences, more people will be in prison. If you do not resource prisons, to enable them to conduct work, education and training, prisoners are more likely to reoffend, as proved by the fact that the reoffending rate among adult males has gone up from 55 per cent to 67 per cent in the past five years. If you continue to have a dysfunctionally organised prison service, you will continue to have dysfunctional organisation of an overstretched system. And so on.
Many people have been warning the Government about this for years but, instead of listening to those with practical experience, it has preferred to take advice from people who know nothing about running large organisations, let alone an operational service. When, as now, the whole is run by a home secretary who, within weeks of taking office, publicly described the Home Office and the overburdened immigration service as not being fit for purpose, and recently disparaged the probation service to prisoners in Wormwood Scrubs, you do not exactly have a recipe for getting out of what is an increasingly dire situation. Leaders undermine the morale of their own troops at their peril. If, at the same time, you continue to bombard them with a continuous torrent of flawed legislation, much of which replaces previous legislation before the ink on it is dry, you create a mess that can only be cleared up by long-term planning, based on discussion with those who understand not only what needs to be done but how it might be done. That requires ditching current plans that are marching the whole system into even greater chaos.
The result of all the upheaval in the Home Office over the past decade is we have a prison service left in a state of shambles. Every time a governor changes in a prison, then the regime in that prison changes, and all the good work that is under way is in danger of being ditched - it's a ridiculous way of trying to introduce systems that are meant to prevent reoffending.
Prisons are split between the public and private sectors - but prisoners are the same whichever institutions they are in. Education is being run by the Learning and Skills Council, without direction from the Home Office. It's all recipe for confusion.
The probation services are overstretched - there are 300 fewer officers and 1,500 more bureaucrats than five years ago. Now they face a new period of uncertainty as the Government threatens to hand some of their services to the private and voluntary sectors.
In addition, they are being asked to focus on the most serious "heavy" offenders, because of pressure from the press, rather than the repeat offenders who cause real concern to the public.
What would I do? It is difficult to know where to start but my first move would be to drop any move towards what is euphemistically called a national offender management service.
That is getting in the way of making essential improvements to imprisonment and probation. Imprisonment needs firstly a reorganisation into regional clusters of prisons, so no prisoner, with the exception of those requiring high security conditions, is held too far from home. Secondly, named individuals, responsible and accountable for each type of prisoner, need to be appointed to see consistent treatment and conditions, including courses designed to help prisoners to live law-abiding lives, are provided in every prison holding that type.
Existing Area Criminal Justice Boards should be made responsible for ensuring that what goes on in prisons in their area is related for conditions in that area, for example in job training. Population management should be delegated to regions, so that both local prison and probation services are responsible for deciding who moves where, for what and when.
That will cut down the vast waste caused by endlessly moving prisoners to where there is a bed in a cell, rather than because of a course that he or she needs.
Local government should be made responsible for establishing adult offender teams, male and female, along the lines of youth offender teams. These are multi-functional including education, health care and the voluntary sector in their set-up. They would cater for the supervision of low-level offenders, leaving high level to specialist probation officers.
Of course much more could follow, but such a foundation could stand the strain of overcrowding much more easily. There are no short-term palliatives to the nonsense the Government's approach has created in the past nine years, but, unless it recognises its long-term thinking and planning is deeply flawed, and the situation is bound to get worse before any palliative can be introduced, there can be no satisfactory solution.
The system
80,000 Prison population today. There are just 317 spare places.
60 Pieces of legislation relating to criminal justice since Labour came to power in 1997.
25,000 10-year rise in prison population.
£100,000 Cost of each new prison place.
4,452 Female prisoners in 2004 compared with 1,804 in 1994
10,089 Foreign national prisoners.
80% Foreign female prisoners who have committed drug offences.
2, 528 15-17 year-olds in prison. There were 100 under-15s in 1992.
78 Self-inflicted deaths in prison in 2005. There were 65 in 1997.
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