Alpizar and Menenzes: Two victims of state “anti-terror" killings

[IndianaGreen]

Rigoberto Alpizar and Jean Charles de Menezes: Two victims of state “anti-terror” killings

By Bill Van Auken
12 December 2005

The cold-blooded killing of an innocent, emotionally and mentally distraught man desperately trying to get off an airplane and the police execution of a young electrician taking a train to work are both defended as inevitable collateral damage in the “global war on terrorism.” The public is told that such atrocities are necessary—along with secret prisons, torture, disappearances, targeted assassinations and unprovoked wars of aggression—to keep everyone “safe.”

The same rationale has been given for sweeping attacks on democratic rights on both sides of the Atlantic, codified in the USA Patriot Act and the recently enacted Terrorism Bill in Britain. Bedrock legal principles such as habeas corpus that date back to the Magna Carta are being breached in the name of combating the supposedly unprecedented and omnipresent threat of terrorism. Giving police unfettered powers to act as judge, jury and executioner is an integral part of this process.

It is these measures themselves that constitute the gravest threat to the “safety,” lives and liberty of people in both Britain and America. This was confirmed in concrete terms on board American Airlines Flight 924 in the immediate and terrifying aftermath of the killing of Alpizar.

Police stormed the plane, threatening other passengers. “They stuck guns in our faces... They were waving the barrels, shouting ... ‘No one move!,’” passenger Jorge Borelli told the New York Daily News. “They didn’t say we’ll shoot you if you take your hands off your head, but they said, ‘You will be considered a threat and we will deal with you accordingly,’” he said. “That was the scariest part. I thought, God, if someone freaks out and jumps up, they’re going to start shooting.”

After being held at gunpoint for nearly half an hour, all of the passengers were marched off the plane, their hands on their heads, to be frisked, sniffed by dogs and then detained for several more hours of questioning.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/dec2005/kill-d12.shtml