Vindication for David Hicks – a summary of his journey to Guantanamo

I cannot find a full version of the photo of Hicks holding the rocket launcher but just the edited one. So, I can only take a photo of that full picture from his book. You can see how the Media abuses their journalism ethic to fabricate proof.

From Vindication for David Hicks – a summary of his journey to Guantanamo, to the Vindication for Liu Xiao Bo

WikiLeaks 維基解密exposing secret deals and deeds amongst governments and power syndicates has stirred up a debate worldwide. The debate circles around if WikiLeaks is illegal and harmful to world peace. It happens while I have just finished reading the book of David Hicks entitled Guantanamo, my journey and a failed attempt of mine to appeal for moral support for Liu Xiao Bo劉嘵波. To me, a famous quote by Dietrich Bonhoeffer 潘霍華(4 February 1906 – 9 April 1945) has given me the answer and moral base to support whoever dares to speak out in the spirit of freedom of speech and press.

"Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act."

For those who do not know Dietrich Bonhoeffer 潘霍華, a bit about his background will help put things in perspective. He was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian and participant in the German resistance movement against Nazism. He was secretly executed just two weeks before the surrender of Germany in 1948.

He worked against the unfathomable evil of Nazism who plotted to exterminate Jews from Germany. In the spring of 1933, years before the Jews would begin to suffer the horrors of the concentration camps, Bonhoeffer spelled out his views in an essay called "The Church and the Jewish Question." In it, Bonhoeffer said that “the church has an unconditional obligation to the victims of any ordering of society, even if they do not belong to the Christian community." He went on to say that "It is sometimes not enough to help those crushed by the evil actions of a state; at some point the church must directly take action against the state to stop it from perpetrating evil." This view reflects in one of his other famous quote. “We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself” a quote from Letters and Papers from Prison (1943-1945, English publication 1967)
Though he had the choice to live freely in USA, he chose to return to Germany to practice his belief of civil rebellion. He deemed that “There is not a place to which the Christian can withdraw from the world, whether it be outwardly or in the sphere of the inner life. Any attempt to escape from the world must sooner or later be paid for with a sinful surrender to the world”. Ethics (1955 in English)
He lamented for the weakness of the State Church in Germany that “We have been silent witnesses of evil deeds: we have been drenched by many storms; we have learnt the arts of equivocation and pretence; experience has made us suspicious of others and kept us from being truthful and open; intolerable conflicts have worn us down and even made us cynical. Are we still of any use? -- a quote from Letters and Papers from Prison (1943-1945, English publication 1967)
He is not alone in the history to hold this view. Abraham Lincoln林肯also said "To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards out of men."
Same is the view of Elie Wiesel埃利‧維瑟爾, 1986 Nobel Prize Winner : "I swore never to be silent whenever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormenter, never the tormented."
It is under the influences of those predecessors of fighters for justice that I feel the moral obligation to voice out for our oppressed and misunderstood Australian, David Hicks.

I am surprised to find that many people on those news media forums of freedom of speech and seekers of truth just betray themselves by not exercising the basic principle of justice of presumption of innocence before trial and giving David Hicks the benefit of the doubt. Very few people would bother to read the book. After finished reading the book in mid November, I don't have much luck to convince too many others to read. Most people ridiculed me supporting David Hicks simply basing on liars manufactured by the Bush and Howard Governments. So, I could only do my least here to post on those news forums my summary of reading for those who vowed not to buy and read the book.


Quote:

While showering support for or flinging mud against Mr Julian Assange, we should not forget another fighter for the truth, David Hicks. Unfortunately, his image and reputation has been successfully smeared by the liar machinery of the Bush and Howard Government executed beautifully by the CIA. Thus his book exposing the truth about the unjust war and tortuturous acts in manufacturing "Terrorist and Traitors" like Hicks himself has not drawn the deserved attention. I appeal here for all the truth seekers to read David's book Guantanamo, my journey.

David Hicks never trained with Taliban and he never was a member of Al Qaeda, a term he had never heard of before his arrest. He is an ordinary country boy who has a dream to explore the world after he secured a job in Japan and went there twice in 1996 and 1998. His plan was to experience life by venturing through the Silk Road. But the unjust war at Kosovo around 1999 had drawn him there to give a hand to those who were oppressed and mistreated. His famous photo of handling rocket launcher was pictured there in a store room in Albania where he helped sorting out weapon for the volunteer fighter of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) under the command of NATO. (please refer picture I photoed from the book)

His mission ended before he was commissioned to the front line when President Milosevic of Serbia agreed on a cease fire. David was in the area of conflict the same time as James Blunt who was lauded a hero to stop the third World War. David returned home in July, 1999 with a changed world view and heart for the oppressed people. He continued with his dream by trying to go to Kashmir to help the besieged communities there. He left in November 1999 for Pakistan to look for access into Kashmir. He actually planned to embark on his journey on the Silk Road after finishing his venture in Kashmir.

He stayed and spent extensive time in Pakistan through affiliation with a local Muslim religious organization called Tabligh (not Taliban) that could support him to explore the country and gain access to the mountainous areas of Kashmir. He got connected with LeT or Army of the Righteous which were involved in the freedom struggle in Kashmir. He ended up joining some of the training camp with the LeT (not Taliban or Al Qaeda) aiming at liberation of the oppressed Kashmir people in the Indian controlled Kashmir area.

The twist and turns of David Hicks’ life stopped him from entering the Indian controlled Kashmir area but detoured him to pay a visit to Afghanistan before returning to Australia by himself. He went to Kandahar without help by the LeT who did not support him to go. He met some Taliban people for the first time in his solo trip but was rejected because of religious reason and was forced to return to Pakistan very quickly.

Just about time David planned to go home, He was given another chance to visit Afghanistan by the support of LeT this time to join some of their government sanctioned training camps conducted inside Afghanistan. Thus in early 2001, he went with the aim just to have a more elaborated tourist experience there before returning to Australia. Around early August, 2001, he finished the training and sight-seeing in Kandahar and Kabul and decided to go home. But the expired Pakistan visa gave him a bit of problems so he tried to get back to Pakistan to seek for help.

It was there in Pakistan he learnt about the 911 attack and it was condemned by LeT amongst many other Muslim organizations. His friend in Pakistan advised David to quickly go back to Kandahar to collect his passport and personal belongings which were kept there during his training course. So, he could do so following instruction. But his fate made a bad turn this time that once he entered Afghanistan, he could not get out being caught up by the USA invasion as a result of the 911 attack.

Subsequently, he had to dodge bullets of in-fighting led up by the Northern Alliance backed up by the bombardment of US army against Taliban. Eventually, he was caught by the Northern Alliance on his attempt to re-enter Pakistan. His journey to Guantanamo started since then. It was the beginning of six years of hell.

Two third of David Hicks’ book was a first hand record of the life in Guantanamo. You could see for yourself how the US army backed by CIA trained interrogation techniques to torture and humiliate detainees and forced many of the innocent and unlucky people like David who were caught up in the wrong place at the wrong time to admit they were terrorists. Our Howard Government just collaborated with Bush to force David to sign a confession despite they knew he did nothing wrong but just want to show case and justify their unjust Iraq war against the “terrorists”

I don’t want to be seen as a sale agent for David’s book, but I was disappointed that too many of the blog commentators who most of them should be the seekers of truth and freedom of speech just dismissed David as a convicted terrorist and his book is crap that no one cares to give him the benefit of the doubt to read the story from his angle. So, this is my last resort to write this extract to appeal for a fair go for David to read his book or at least re-examine the whole story in your own way. I trust WikiLeaks will sooner or later cover the secret and dirty deals between Bush and Howard Governments to sacrifice David for their political gains.

Unqoute

After six years of illegal imprisonment, David Hicks was freed in 2007. He has not actively sought to clear his name by legal appeal. I think it is a wise decision not to entangle with the “system of Justice” in Australia that once failed to guarantee him a fair trial. I trust his name will be cleared some day as the book he published is an undeniable piece of evidence of his innocence as well as the guilty fabrication of the Bush and Howard Governments.

I just wonder when our compatriot Mr Liu Xiao Bo 劉嘵波will have his name cleared and is free to publish his own book of biography to expose the unlawful and unjust treatments pressed on him. His only comment leaked out to the media after he was aware of his winning of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize said it all.

“This award is for the lost souls of June Fourth," quoted by his wife Liu Xia劉霞, referring to the 1989 crackdown by the Chinese goverment on student activists. "He said that it was due to their non-violent spirit in giving their lives for peace, freedom, and democracy," Liu Xia was quoted as saying, adding that her husband had been moved to tears as he finished speaking.

Thus, I could only accept the fact that we could do nothing to get him released earlier but to shed with him the tears of awe for those who lost their lives in pursuit of freedom and democracy in a peaceful manner.



End Note: As inspired by the poems of Catherine秀慧 and Joe 楚輝, I took the trouble to compose a poem for commenorating the world wide recognition of Mr Liu Xiao Bo for his peaceful pursuit of democracy in China on the eve of the Nobel Peace Prize presentation day on the 10th of December, 2010. It also is served to give the development of domcracy in China a long lasting well wishing hope.

關子鴻 74崇基經濟

恆久之期待

賀君和平抗爭勇
劉郎再度独孤鴻
曉嵐夕霧終無悔
波覆霞掩攀險峯
無念無癡丹心重
敵陣盤營筵席供
就地圍牢何足懼
義無反顧耀西東

期許言禁入罪空
待舉百廢国興隆
民運冤情蒙平反
主政廉潔得稱頌
土生土長水血濃
壤沃地美物貌豐
花田里弄百家鳴
開來繼往萬世功

註：受秀慧、楚輝詩興之激發，在諾貝爾和平獎頒獎前夕，野人献曝，不分平仄填七律「字頭詩」两首，為曉波兄民主和平抗爭的擺上，得普世認同而致慶，亦对神州之民主大業記予長存盼望。
1. 「無敵就義」指曉波「零八憲章」結案陳詞之「我沒有敵人」論
2. 劉郎，東漢 劉晨。原意指劉晨在天台山遇到神仙，回鄉安頓後再到天台山。引申比喻人離開某地方後，再次回來。以曉波而言，他去國卻為民運賦歸，從此孤身為民主奮鬥。
3. 「波覆霞掩攀險峯」喻曉波被囚、劉霞被禁錮在家，仍冒險犯難，將「無敵」又「無悔」的信息傳達，齊攀民主自由險峰。

4. 「敵陣盤營筵席供」乃借詩篇23篇5節：「在我敵人面前，祢為我擺設筵席」。意指在屬靈爭戰中憑正氣從容以對。