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By George Abraham

It has been almost three months since the State of Manipur in India has been in flames. The latest news reports speak about 140 or more people killed, 50,000 or more people made destitute and homeless, many hiding in forests, 317 churches burned, and 6137 homes set ablaze. It is indeed a colossal human tragedy that is unfolding before our eyes, and the power centers in the State or at the Center seem to be cavalier in their approach to a resolution.

The Godi media in India is spinning the story as an age-old rivalry between two ethnic groups, and many pundits have dismissed it as some tribal infighting that occurs relatively often. However, there is little doubt that since the 3rd of May, the Kuki-Zomi tribals have been at the receiving end of this horrible attack, which has all the designs of a well-orchestrated and planned campaign of ethnic cleansing. Kuki-Zomi forms about 16% of the population of Manipur, and the Meiteis, predominantly Hindus, make up about 53% of the State.

There is a raging debate over whether this ongoing crisis has any religious undertones! There is no doubt that it all started with an effort by the State Government to empower the Hindu majority at the expense of the Scheduled Tribes (mostly Christians) as regards their land rights. A writ petition filed in the High Court by members of the Meitei Tribe Union towards that goal appeared to have produced a ruling in favor of Meities, triggering the current mayhem. These anti-tribal policies are increasingly put in place in various states by the BJP government. Fr. Stan Swamy is a victim of those disastrous initiatives supporting crony capitalists that have hurt the indigenous and tribal people across India.

The attacks appeared to have been pre-meditated and well-planned. In the valley, the reports indicate the precision pinpointing of minority houses that were selected and burnt. The Hindu militants, who mostly belong to Arambai Tenngol and Meitei Leepun, appeared to have the tacit support of the Police and the law enforcement authorities. As per sources, it has now been revealed that over 4000 weapons, including sophisticated ones, have been looted from different locations in Manipur since the unrest began. These arms appeared to have played a critical role in exacerbating the violence. Using mortars against fleeing Kukis-zomi refugees to the forest to escape death and destruction may point to a higher-level conspiracy in aiding and abetting these militant groups.

It is also a known fact that there are Christians among the Meities. According to Dominic Lumon, the Archbishop of Imphal,  249 churches belonging to the Meitei Christians had been destroyed within 36 hours since the start of the violence. He said, “The wonder is, amid the fight between the Kukis and the Meiteis, why did the Meitei mob burn down and destroy 249 churches in the Meitei heartland? How is it that there was almost a natural attack on the church in the Meitei localities itself, and how did the mob know where the churches were located if not previously planned”. He attributed these attacks to the revival of Sanamahism, and the emergence of groups like Arambai Tenggol and Meitie Leepun.

Therefore, the theory that has been promoted by vested interests that there is hardly any religious angle to the whole unrest is quite suspect. BJP has long been critical of Northeastern states and blamed foreigners, especially missionaries, for their separatist tendencies. Although people in those states are apprehensive about the Hindutva agenda, they have given in to supporting the party because it allows proximity to state power and, more importantly, to central funds. After the BJP took control of the central government in 2014, political leaders in these states gradually switched loyalties to the BJP. Now, they are beginning to pay a heavy price for their wanton disregard for making crucial decisions.

While looking back at recent BJP history, the initial grabbing of power in Manipur and the subsequent unrest and violence come directly from the BJP playbook. According to Human Rights Watch, a majority of the reported incidents of violence against Christians in 1998 occurred in the western State of Gujarat, the same year that the BJP came to power in the State. The year began with an unprecedented hate campaign by Hindutva groups and culminated with ten days of nonstop violence against Christian tribals and the destruction of churches and Christian institutions in the southeastern districts at the year’s end. Human Rights Watch investigated these attacks in Dangs district in southeastern Gujarat. The events were preceded by escalating violence throughout the State in which many police and state officials were implicated. Biren Singh, the Chief Minister of Manipur, seems to be following the same model. Before the current crisis, his government bulldozed three churches in the name of an anti-encroachment drive, though some have existed since the early 70s in Imphal’s’ East district Tribal colony.

Despite widespread destruction and human loss of lives, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has kept a vow of silence until now while making several important state visits to various capitals around the world, including the United States. His primary constitutional duty is to protect the lives and property of every citizen of India, regardless of caste, religion, or region. Yet, this leader of a great nation, whose aim is to make India the Vishwaguru and would readily tweet if a cricketer is involved in an accident, found it convenient to close his eyes to a State ablaze under his premiership. On his foreign visits, he often asks foreign leaders, especially in Christian-majority countries, to protect Hindu shrines and safeguard their sanctity. Yet, he is pretty undaunted about the destruction of 300 or more Christian Churches under his watch. His External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar who has specialized in propaganda, could always rationalize his thoughts in the name of traditions and culture, and even as he has redefined human rights, one that would fit the people of his stripes abroad and the other for the marginalized communities in his homeland.

For astute political observers, Manipur is coming apart at its seams, and so does the rest of India. The politics of polarization championed by the Modi administration is taking its toll on human lives and personal properties. However, more than anything else, transforming trajectories are not only causing the alienation of its people and the dismantlement of its institutions but also destroying the moral underpinnings of a great country. The party that prides itself on nationalism has given the impetus to the extremist elements to tear the nation apart for the selfish pursuit of power regardless of its consequences. Who is anti-national now: is that someone who drives the country towards disintegration with odious policies using religion as a tool with disastrous results or who honestly criticizes the downward spiral of a nation under the current governance? This question remains to be answered!

Writer is a former Chief Technology Officer of the United Nations

3 August 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Countercurrents Collective

The ousted Nigerien president Mohamed Bazoum has asked for U.S. help to defeat the military junta that seized power last week. The Washington Post on Thursday evening published an op-ed purportedly written by Mohamed Bazoum in which the ousted President made the call for U.S. intervention.

“I write this as a hostage. Niger is under attack from a military junta that is trying to overthrow our democracy,” Bazoum said.

The coup “has no justification whatsoever” and is a “cynical effort to undermine the remarkable progress Niger has made under democracy,” he insisted.

The ousted President wrote: “I call on the U.S. government and the entire international community to help us restore our constitutional order. Fighting for our shared values, including democratic pluralism and respect for the rule of law, is the only way to make sustainable progress against poverty and terrorism.”

As a key argument, Bazoum brought up that earlier this year, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Niger “a model of resilience, a model of democracy, a model of cooperation.”

Bazoum argued his government had made great progress in economic and social areas, partnering with the U.S. Indiana National Guard to reduce terrorist threats, while USAID shifted its focus from humanitarian work to “building sustainable energy, improving agricultural productivity and educating the next generation of Nigerian leaders.”

He revealed that foreign aid makes up 40% of the country’s budget, but is now blocked due to sanctions by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which Bazoum endorsed.

Bazoum criticized Mali and Burkina Faso for employing “criminal Russian mercenaries” such as the Wagner Group.

Unless the U.S. and the ECOWAS intervene, Wagner will have an “open invitation” into the region and all of central Sahel “could fall to Russian influence,” Bazoum wrote.

The ousted President did not make a single reference to uranium, Niger’s key export to former colonial master France.

The Coup

Nigerien soldiers led by General Abdourahamane Tchiani ousted President Mohamed Bazoum last Wednesday, and has formed National Council for Safeguarding the Homeland (NCSH).

The coup leaders have justified their action as a means of safeguarding the country from a “deteriorating” security situation, as well as “poor economic and social governance.”

General Abdourahamane, the former head of Niger’s presidential guard, masterminded the country’s June 26 coup and has since detained President Mohamed Bazoum in the presidential palace.

On Monday, the junta leaders accused France of planning a military strike at the presidential palace to free the detained leader.

Niger’s Military Ties with France Scrapped

An AFP report said:

Niger’s NCSH on Thursday denounced the military pact with France and warned the neighboring African states not to intervene.

General Abdourahamane said that Niger will “immediately” suspend all military cooperation agreements with France, including the deal under which Paris has deployed around 1,500 troops in the Sahel country.

According to AFP, earlier in the day, on the 63rd anniversary of Niger’s independence from Paris, the junta blocked the signal of French broadcasters France 24 and Radio France Internationale (RFI).

The new military leader also condemned the ECOWAS sanctions and said his government will respond with force to any outside intervention. The junta “rejects all sanctions and refuses to yield to any threat, wherever it may come from,” the chief of the military government said in a televised speech on Wednesday. “If they pursue their destructive logic to the end, may Allah watch over Niger and ensure that this is the final great battle we will fight together for a true independence of our nation.”

He described the “illegal” sanctions imposed unilaterally by ECOWAS and the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) as “unjust and inhumane” acts against the people of Niger.

He claimed that the West African blocs acted under the influence of “certain” foreign powers, disregarding Niger’s sovereignty and the suffering of its population. He said: The CNSP rejects these sanctions as a whole and refuses to give to any threat wherever it comes from. We refuse any interference in the internal affairs of Niger.

Uranium, Gold, Slaves

On Sunday, the new military government of Niger announced it would suspend the export of uranium and gold to France, to the accolades of some of the local population.

“We have uranium, diamonds, gold, oil, and we live like slaves? We do not need the French to keep us safe,” one pro-government demonstrator told the local news portal Wazobia Reporters.

Landlocked Niger is the world’s seventh-largest producer of uranium, accounting for 4% of the global output. A French company controls about two-thirds of the country’s output.

ECOWAS

The ECOWAS has condemned the coup and issued an ultimatum for the junta to reinstate Bazoum within seven days. If its demands are not met, the body has threatened to “take all measures to restore constitutional order in the Republic of Niger,” including the use of force.

African Union

The African Union denounced the coup on Friday and gave the junta in Niamey 15 days to stand down or face “punitive measures.”

Algeria, Libya

Algeria and Libya have signaled support for the new government in Niger.

Nigeria

Niger’s southern neighbor Nigeria has already begun mustering troops on the border, according to local media.

A Nigerian delegation flew into capital Niamey on Thursday for talks with the junta. It was led by Abdulsalami Abubakar, a retired general who headed Nigeria’s own military government in 1998-99.

Another delegation was dispatched for talks with Algeria and Libya, both of which have signaled support for the new government in Niamey.

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu issued a statement that he instructed both delegations to do “whatever it takes to ensure a conclusive and amicable resolution of the situation in Niger.”

Senegal

Senegal announced on Thursday that it would join an ECOWAS intervention against Niamey.

Biden

U.S. President Joe Biden called for Bazoum’s immediate release on Thursday, the first time the U.S. leader has spoken out about the situation in Niger.

In a statement congratulating the former French colony on its independence day, Biden said Niger faces a “grave challenge to its democracy.”

Russia

Russia has denounced the coup in Niger as an “anti-constitutional act,” and the Russian Foreign Ministry called on all parties to refrain from using force.

Intervention In Niger Would Mean Declaration Of War, Say Burkina Faso And Mali

The military governments in neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso have warned the West and other African countries not to intervene in Niger.

Mali and Burkina Faso said in a joint statement on Monday that any such move would be considered an attack on their respective countries.

Bamako and Ouagadougou would consider any such move as an attack on their own countries, the two countries said.

“Any military intervention against Niger would amount to a declaration of war against Burkina Faso and Mali,” said the joint communique, which a Burkinabe military spokesman deliberately repeated three times during a state television broadcast.

In case of an intervention, the two countries would withdraw from the ECOWAS and “adopt self-defense measures in support of the armed forces and the people of Niger,” according to the statement.

The joint communique said: A military intervention against Niger “could destabilize the entire region, as had the unilateral NATO intervention in Libya, which was at the root of the expansion of the terrorism in the Sahel and West Africa.”

Mali and Burkina Faso condemned the sanctions ECOWAS announced on Saturday as “illegal, illegitimate and inhumane.”

The two countries also expressed “fraternal solidarity” with the Nigerien people, “who have decided to take destiny into their own hands and to assume before history the fullness of their sovereignty,” according to their joint communique.

The military governments of the two former French colonies have sought to sever their ties to Paris and rebuild their statehood with Russian assistance.

French And U.S. Bases In Niger

France currently has 1,500 troops and a drone base in Niger, while the US has 1,100 troops and two drone bases, according to the Financial Times.

Coup Supporters Protest Inhumane Sanctions

Supporters of Niger’s new ruling junta gathered in the capital, Niamey, on Thursday to protest sanctions imposed on the country in the aftermath of last week’s coup, as well as to oppose foreign meddling.

The mass rally was taking place as the country marks 63 years of independence, in response to a joint call by junta leader General Abdourahamane and a coalition of civil society groups.

One participant was reportedly seen carrying a sign that read “Long Live Niger, Russia, Mali, and Burkina Faso. Down With France, ECOWAS, and the EU.”

One of the protesters was quoted by Reuters as saying: “We are going to do a demonstration against all the countries of ECOWAS and all who are taking inhumane and unpopular measures toward Niger.”

A protester told Al Jazeera that Niger’s main priority was security, regardless of whether it is provided by “Russia, China, or Turkey.”

No Evidence Russia Involved In Coup, Says Italian FM

The government in Rome has no evidence of Moscow’s involvement in the military coup in Niamey, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani told the daily La Repubblica on Thursday. The turmoil in Niger took both the U.S. and France by surprise, he also revealed.

“We have no information of Russia’s involvement in the Nigerien events, or the preparation of the coup, Tajani told the outlet when asked whether Moscow was playing some kind of game in the Sahel nation. He dismissed the Nigerien protesters carrying photos of Russian President Vladimir Putin as “more anti-French than anything else.”

“Many, perhaps all in Europe, have been taken by surprise” by the coup, Tajani said. “Nobody knew about it, neither the U.S. nor France.”

There are 350 Italian soldiers currently in Niger, and they are keeping to their barracks for now, the foreign minister said.

The Nigerien authorities were also blindsided, Tajani added, noting that the Nigerien PM Uhumudu Mahamadou was in Rome for a UN food summit.

When pressed about the Russian role in the region, he said that the alleged presence of Wagner Group members was “another matter” and that Russia has “infiltrated that region skillfully for years.”

Tajani told La Repubblica: We have always been against the proposal of any European military intervention.”

He added that his French counterpart Catherine Colonna “never” broached the subject of intervention with him.

Wagner Group

Wagner Group head Yevgeny Prigozhin has described the events in Niger as a justified rebellion of the people against Western exploitation, citing the example of uranium shipped to France. He argued the Nigeriens have been “kept in fear for decades” by the gangs of terrorists backed by the West, and that their presence was then cited to justify the deployment of troops to the West African country.

Sanctions Could Force Niger Into Default, Says Moody’s

Economic and financial sanctions imposed on Niger by its regional and Western partners following the military coup could result in the country defaulting on its debt, ratings agency Moody’s has warned.

The ECOWAS and the WAEMU imposed restrictions on the government of Niger, including the suspension of all commercial and financial transactions, and the freezing of Niger’s assets in ECOWAS central banks and commercial lenders. All financial assistance from regional development banks was also suspended.

International donors, including the EU and France, suspended financial support and security cooperation. The U.S. and the African Union threatened to follow suit if constitutional order is not restored soon.

The restrictions prompted Moody’s to downgrade Niger’s long-term foreign and local currency issuer ratings on Wednesday from B3 (judged to have speculative elements and a significant credit risk) to Caa2 (rated as poor quality and very high credit risk) and place them under review for further downgrade.

In a press release announcing the downgrade, Moody’s warned that if maintained, the sanctions “will likely prevent Niger from making upcoming principal or interest payment to creditors outside the country which would constitute a default under Moody’s definition.”

About 80% of Niger’s outstanding local currency debt is held by other West African countries.

Niger, a landlocked country in West Africa, is one of the world’s poorest nations, receiving close to $2 billion a year in development aid.

Niger also has a critical stock of natural resources, including uranium, coal, gold, iron ore, petroleum, molybdenum, and salt. It is the world’s seventh-biggest producer of uranium.

U.S. Evacuates Embassy Staff From Niger

The U.S. State Department has ordered a partial pullout for diplomatic workers stationed in Niger, amid ongoing unrest following a recent coup in the African nation.

Officials announced the decision on Wednesday, outlining that non-emergency personnel and family members were ordered to leave the US Embassy in Niamey.

A number of other Western states have announced their own evacuations. Spain and Germany have issued notices for citizens to leave, warning of a deteriorating security situation in the wake of the coup.

Though Washington has so far declined to describe the abrupt transfer of power as a “coup,” U.S. officials continue to recognize Bazoum as Niger’s legitimate leader. Secretary of State Antony Blinken claimed on Wednesday he had spoken with the deposed president, and called for the “restoration of the democratically-elected government.”

France And Italy Evacuate Citizens

France will begin evacuating its nationals from Niger on Tuesday following the military coup and subsequent attacks on the French embassy in Niamey, the Foreign Ministry in Paris has said.

In a statement on Tuesday, the French authorities also announced that it was helping move citizens of other European countries out of Niger.

Anti-French protests were held outside France’s embassy in Niamey on Sunday following the coup.

France has condemned the putsch and maintained that it recognizes Bazoum as the only legitimate power in the country.

French Foreign Affairs Minister Catherine Colonna replied that the “accusations that have been made since are false and shocking.”

The Italian government also announced on Tuesday that it would repatriate citizens from Niamey.

The Italian government will arrange a “special flight” for the evacuation mission, according to Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani.

Countercurrents is answerable only to our readers.

5 August 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Tom Engelhardt

Hey, who knows? It could be the Gulf Stream collapsing or the planet eternally breaking heat records. But whatever the specifics, we’re living it right now, not in the next century, the next decade, or even next year. You couldn’t miss it — at least so you might think — if you were living in the sweltering Southwest; especially in broiling, record-setting Phoenix with 30 straight days of temperatures above 110 degrees Fahrenheit; or in flaming Greece or western China on the day the temperature hit 126 degrees Fahrenheit or sweltering, blazing Algeria when the temperature reached an almost unimaginable 135 (yes, 135!) degrees Fahrenheit; not to speak of broiling Canada with its more than 1,000 fires now burning (a figure that still seems to be rising by the week) and its 29 million acres already flamed out; and don’t forget Italy’s 1,400 fires; or Florida’s hot-tub-style seawater, which recently hit an unheard-of 101-plus degrees Fahrenheit. And though I’m still writing this as the month is ending, July is more or less guaranteed to set the record for the hottest month in history. And don’t assume that “record” will stand for long, either.

Who even remembers that this June was the hottest since records have been kept or that July 6th was the hottest day in recorded history (and July 3rd through 6th, the hottest four days ever)? And don’t be surprised if 2023 ends up setting a record for the hottest year or assume that such a record will last long on a planet where the previous eight years were the warmest ever. And if I’m already boring you, then one thing is guaranteed: you’re going to be bored out of your mind in the years to come.

And with all that’s burning across significant parts of southern Europe, northern Africa, Canada, and elsewhere, yet more carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere, preparing the way for a truly scorching world to come. Just keep in mind, in fact, that, by the time this piece is published, I could undoubtedly produce a startling new paragraph or two of updated, overheated horrors to send your way.

Yes, as U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres recently put it, the era of “global warming” should be considered over, since we’re now clearly living at the beginning of a time of “global boiling.” And as you sit there sweating and reading this, if that doesn’t strike you as extreme, consider something else: fossil-fuel companies are still bringing in staggering profits (even if poor Shell’s second-quarter profits in 2023 were down to a mere $5.1 billion) as they — yes! — continue to expand their oil and natural gas operations globally. And can you blame them? After all, the companies whose executives have long known what their products would do to this planet and even sometimes responded by funding think tanks that promoted climate change denial, have little choice but (if you’ll excuse the phrase) to cover their assets. Meanwhile, last year, China, at the forefront of the alternative energy boom now underway, also granted permits to build, on average, two new coal plants a week (while burning more coal than the rest of the planet combined).

Environmental Extremism

Now, tell me that you’re not sweating at least a little and that we don’t live on an increasingly extreme planet. And just to add a cheery note to that, check out blistering Texas. El Paso has had more than 41 days in a row of temperatures at or above 100 degrees Fahrenheit (just short of — yes, Ron! — Miami at 45 while I was writing this). However, Texas’s Republican-controlled legislature is now striving to dramatically curb that state’s remarkable advances in solar and wind power while raising their cost, even as many of its members push for public investment in the construction of new natural gas plants (which, as a recent study indicates, could prove as greenhouse-gas dirty as coal).

August 5, 2023

Kashmiri Americans along with friends of Kashmir, including women and children gathered at historic Times Square, New York to reject India’s settler colonialism and show solidarity with the people of Kashmir. The rally was jointly organized by all Kashmiri American Diaspora organizations. The protestors held up placards and banners which read: ‘Decolonize Kashmir’ ‘UN UN Wake UP UN’ “Release Release: Yasin Malik’ ’Kashmiris Reject Indian occupation’  ‘Kashmiris demand human rights’, ‘Kashmir for Kashmiris.’

Sardar Haleem Khan, Chairman, Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, North America, the Emcee of the rally made a passionate appeal to the peace-loving people and nations of the world to pay attention to the pain and suffering of the people of occupied Kashmir. Mohmmad Yasin Malik, Haleem Khan added, is undisputed leader of Kashmiri political resistance movement. We demand the unconditional release of all political leaders, including Yasin Malik.

Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai, Secretary General, World Kashmir Awareness Forum said “August 5, 2019, is considered to be one of the darkest chapters in the history of Kashmir. It was on that fateful day that Fascist Narendra Modi abrogated Article 370 and Article 35A that paved the way for the enactment of Domicile Law which is designed to change the demography of Kashmir. India being so called ‘largest democracy’ is an illusion, delusion, and hallucination. It is a mirage. One can call it the modern form of settler colonialism. New York Times (August 24, 2022) said it the best, ‘Modi’s India is where global democracy dies’ and Huffington Post described it in these words, ‘As Kashmir is Erased, Indian democracy dies in silence.’

Dr. Fai added that recently, Modi administration wanted to give an impression of false normalcy by holding G20 tourism meeting in Kashmir. While expressing his disappointment, Dr. Fernard de Varennes, ‘United Nations Special Rapporteur on Minority Issue’ said India is seeking to normalize the ‘brutal and repressive denial of democratic rights of Kashmiri Muslims’ by holding G20 meeting in Kashmir. However, G20 meeting in Kashmir turned out to be a fiasco and failure because China, Saudi Arabia, Turkey Oman and Egypt boycotted the meeting. China’s absence was on the basis of a principle when its foreign ministry issued a statement that ‘China firmly opposes holding any form of G20 meetings on disputed territory (of Kashmir). We will not attend such meetings.’

Dr. Fai appealed to the UN Secretary General that now is the time to invoke Article 99 to intervene in Kashmir as Dr. Gregory Stanton, Chairman, Genocide Watch has said that ‘Kashmir was at the brink of genocide.’

Dr Imtiaz khan, Professor at George Washington University Medical Center spoke about the escalation of human right abuses in Indian occupied Kashmir. Killings of youth and molestation of women continues in an unabated manner. Since august 5, 2019 India is pursuing the policy to alter the demographics of the territory. Hundreds of thousand militant Hindus and army personnel have been provided domicile certificates and allotted land that has been grabbed from local Muslim population. Currently almost hundred percent of top-level bureaucracy and police official are Hindu outsiders who don’t demur to implement oppressive measures on the people of Kashmir. The final objective is to deprive people of their livelihood, convert Muslim majority to Hindu Majority and restrict the local population to ghettos.

Dr. Khan added that amongst all this gloom and despair there is a silver lining. To gain international acceptability for the annexation of Kashmir, India hosted G20 tourism meeting in the region few months ago. But many countries like China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Egypt refused to attend. Even other member countries sent a low-level delegation showing minimal presence. This can be called as splattering of diplomatic on India’s face and positive signal for peace loving people of Kashmir. International community succinctly stated their position on IOK and refused to buy Indian line that everything was hunky dory there.

Sardar Sawar Khan, former member of =Azad Kashmir Legislative Council narrated the history of broken promise given tot eh people of Kashmir. We are asking nothing more than what was achieved through the intervention of the United Nations in East Timor, Sothern Sudan, Namibia and else, that is right to self-determination.

Tariq Rehman of ICNA Council of Social Justice underscored that Kashmir issue does not belong the people of Kashmir alone and Palestine does not belong to the Palestinians alone. It is a clear wound on the body of Ummah. Their needs to eb a collective effort on the part of American Muslim community to join hands with Kashmiri American community.

Sardar Zarif Khan, Honorary Advisory to the Prime Minister of Azad Kashmir and the Secretary general of Kashmir American Welfare Association (KAWA) expressed his unhappiness that our President – President Biden who is a person of integrity and honor, somehow, did not tell Prime Minister Modi that he should act as a statesman, stop genocide in Kashmir and give the people of Kashmir the right to self-determination which India and Pakistan has pledged at the United Nations as early as 1948.

Khalid Awan, President of PPP America narrated the historic role that his leadership has played for decades in internalizing the issue of Kashmir. The people of Pakistan will never let the sacrifices of the people of Kashmir go in vain, Khalid Awan added.

Raja Razak, prominent Kashmiri leader said that never underestimate the significance of the se protests. It sends a clear message to our hapless brothers and sisters in occupied Kashmir that they are not alone.

Raja Mukhtar, Senior Vice President, JKLF said that our compatriots in occupied Kashmir are sacrificing their lives for the cause of freedom. That challenge needs to be embraced by Kashmiri diaspora by doing everything they can by highlighting the pain and suffering of our people.

Maqbool Gujjar, Former minister of Azad Kashmir spoke about the role of Azad Kashmir. To be free in Azad Kashmir is also a test how far we are willing to leave our comfort zone in easing the grief of our brothers in occupied Kashmir.

Sardar Taj Khan, Vice Chairman of Kashmir Mission, USA said that the denial of right of self-determination to the people of Kashmir has brought both India and Pakistan to the brink of nuclear catastrophe. The resolution of Kashmir dispute is in the interest of the world peace.

Sardar Imtiaz Geralvi, Secretary General, Kashmir Mission, USA, expressed his dissatisfaction about the apathy and passivity of the world powers towards the longest issue that is pending on the agenda of the United Nations Security Council – Kashmir.

Saghir Khan, President, Kashmiri American Alliance highlighted the role of Kashmiri American community in educating the policy making personalities and agencies of the United States.

Sardar Sajid Sawar, young Kashmiri youth leader demanded the unconditional release of Khurram Parvez, an internationally known human rights activist who has received more than half a dozen international awards for documenting the human rights violations in Kashmir.

Sardar Aftab Roshan Khan said the cries of the innocent women and children coming from the streets of Kashmir cannot and should not go unheard in the corridors of power.

Farooq Mirza, President 4thpillar media watchdog said that press freedom in Kashmir being muzzled and silenced so that the world community does not know what is going on in there.

Muhammad Manzoor of Dunya News described the role that ethnic media has played and can play in highlighting the aspirations and expectations of the people of Indian occupied Kashmir.

Zahid Shahbaz of Pak Watan Tv said that the bystanders at Times Square feel amazed while seeing the human rights violations depicted on the placards and banners.

Sister Amna Habib highlighted the role of women in the Kashmiri freedom struggle in Kashmir. She particularly mentioned Aasia Andrabi’s sacrifices who has been languishing in the jail now for years.

Others who spoke included. Dr. Shafique, Shahid Comrade of Human Rights Freedom Moment, Rizwan Hameed, Thaseen Hussain, Owais Munsif, Faisal Qureshi, Raja Hameed, Vilesh Pratap

Dr. Fai is the Chairman, World Forum for Peace & Justice.

By Howard Zinn

The notion of American exceptionalism—that the United States alone has the right, whether by divine sanction or moral obligation, to bring civilization, or democracy, or liberty to the rest of the world, by violence if necessary—is not new. It started as early as 1630 in the Massachusetts Bay Colony when Governor John Winthrop uttered the words that centuries later would be quoted by Ronald Reagan. Winthrop called the Massachusetts Bay Colony a “city upon a hill.” Reagan embellished a little, calling it a “shining city on a hill.”

The idea of a city on a hill is heartwarming. It suggests what George Bush has spoken of: that the United States is a beacon of liberty and democracy. People can look to us and learn from and emulate us.

In reality, we have never been just a city on a hill. A few years after Governor Winthrop uttered his famous words, the people in the city on a hill moved out to massacre the Pequot Indians. Here’s a description by William Bradford, an early settler, of Captain John Mason’s attack on a Pequot village.

“Those that escaped the fire were slain with the sword, some hewed to pieces, others run through with their rapiers, so as they were quickly dispatched and very few escaped. It was conceived that they thus destroyed about 400 at this time. It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire and the streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stink and scent thereof; but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave the praise thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them, thus to enclose their enemies in their hands and give them so speedy a victory over so proud and insulting an enemy.

The kind of massacre described by Bradford occurs again and again as Americans march west to the Pacific and south to the Gulf of Mexico. (In fact our celebrated war of liberation, the American Revolution, was disastrous for the Indians. Colonists had been restrained from encroaching on the Indian territory by the British and the boundary set up in their Proclamation of 1763. American independence wiped out that boundary.)

Expanding into another territory, occupying that territory, and dealing harshly with people who resist occupation has been a persistent fact of American history from the first settlements to the present day. And this was often accompanied from very early on with a particular form of American exceptionalism: the idea that American expansion is divinely ordained. On the eve of the war with Mexico in the middle of the 19th century, just after the United States annexed Texas, the editor and writer John O’Sullivan coined the famous phrase “manifest destiny.” He said it was “the fulfillment of our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.” At the beginning of the 20th century, when the United States invaded the Philippines, President McKinley said that the decision to take the Philippines came to him one night when he got down on his knees and prayed, and God told him to take the Philippines.

Invoking God has been a habit for American presidents throughout the nation’s history, but George W. Bush has made a specialty of it. For an article in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, the reporter talked with Palestinian leaders who had met with Bush. One of them reported that Bush told him, “God told me to strike at al Qaeda. And I struck them. And then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did. And now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East.” It’s hard to know if the quote is authentic, especially because it is so literate. But it certainly is consistent with Bush’s oft-expressed claims. A more credible story comes from a Bush supporter, Richard Lamb, the president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, who says that during the election campaign Bush told him, “I believe God wants me to be president. But if that doesn’t happen, that’s okay.”

Divine ordination is a very dangerous idea, especially when combined with military power (the United States has 10,000 nuclear weapons, with military bases in a hundred different countries and warships on every sea). With God’s approval, you need no human standard of morality. Anyone today who claims the support of God might be embarrassed to recall that the Nazi storm troopers had inscribed on their belts, “Gott mit uns” (“God with us”).

Not every American leader claimed divine sanction, but the idea persisted that the United States was uniquely justified in using its power to expand throughout the world. In 1945, at the end of World War II, Henry Luce, the owner of a vast chain of media enterprises—Time, Life, Fortune—declared that this would be “the American Century,” that victory in the war gave the United States the right “to exert upon the world the full impact of our influence, for such purposes as we see fit and by such means as we see fit.”

This confident prophecy was acted out all through the rest of the 20th century. Almost immediately after World War II the United States penetrated the oil regions of the Middle East by special arrangement with Saudi Arabia. It established military bases in Japan, Korea, the Philippines, and a number of Pacific islands. In the next decades it orchestrated right-wing coups in Iran, Guatemala, and Chile, and gave military aid to various dictatorships in the Caribbean. In an attempt to establish a foothold in Southeast Asia it invaded Vietnam and bombed Laos and Cambodia.

The existence of the Soviet Union, even with its acquisition of nuclear weapons, did not block this expansion. In fact, the exaggerated threat of “world communism” gave the United States a powerful justification for expanding all over the globe, and soon it had military bases in a hundred countries. Presumably, only the United States stood in the way of the Soviet conquest of the world.

Can we believe that it was the existence of the Soviet Union that brought about the aggressive militarism of the United States? If so, how do we explain all the violent expansion before 1917? A hundred years before the Bolshevik Revolution, American armies were annihilating Indian tribes, clearing the great expanse of the West in an early example of what we now call “ethnic cleansing.” And with the continent conquered, the nation began to look overseas.

On the eve of the 20th century, as American armies moved into Cuba and the Philippines, American exceptionalism did not always mean that the United States wanted to go it alone. The nation was willing—indeed, eager—to join the small group of Western imperial powers that it would one day supersede. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge wrote at the time, “The great nations are rapidly absorbing for their future expansion, and their present defense all the waste places of the earth. . . . As one of the great nations of the world the United States must not fall out of the line of march.” Surely, the nationalistic spirit in other countries has often led them to see their expansion as uniquely moral, but this country has carried the claim farthest.

American exceptionalism was never more clearly expressed than by Secretary of War Elihu Root, who in 1899 declared, “The American soldier is different from all other soldiers of all other countries since the world began. He is the advance guard of liberty and justice, of law and order, and of peace and happiness.” At the time he was saying this, American soldiers in the Philippines were starting a bloodbath which would take the lives of 600,000 Filipinos.

The idea that America is different because its military actions are for the benefit of others becomes particularly persuasive when it is put forth by leaders presumed to be liberals, orprogressives. For instance, Woodrow Wilson, always high on the list of “liberal” presidents, labeled both by scholars and the popular culture as an “idealist,” was ruthless in his use of military power against weaker nations. He sent the navy to bombard and occupy the Mexican port of Vera Cruz in 1914 because the Mexicans had arrested some American sailors. He sent the marines into Haiti in 1915, and when the Haitians resisted, thousands were killed.

The following year American marines occupied the Dominican Republic. The occupations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic lasted many years. And Wilson, who had been elected in 1916 saying, “There is such a thing as a nation being too proud to fight,” soon sent young Americans into the slaughterhouse of the European war.

Theodore Roosevelt was considered a “progressive” and indeed ran for president on the Progressive Party ticket in 1912. But he was a lover of war and a supporter of the conquest of the Philippines—he had congratulated the general who wiped out a Filipino village of 600 people in 1906. He had promulgated the 1904 “Roosevelt Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, which justified the occupation of small countries in the Caribbean as bringing them “stability.”

During the Cold War, many American “liberals” became caught up in a kind of hysteria about the Soviet expansion, which was certainly real in Eastern Europe but was greatly exaggerated as a threat to western Europe and the United States. During the period of McCarthyism the Senate’s quintessential liberal, Hubert Humphrey, proposed detention camps for suspected subversives who in times of “national emergency” could be held without trial.

After the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, terrorism replaced communism as the justification for expansion. Terrorism was real, but its threat was magnified to the point of hysteria, permitting excessive military action abroad and the curtailment of civil liberties at home.

The idea of American exceptionalism persisted as the first President Bush declared, extending Henry Luce’s prediction, that the nation was about to embark on a “new American Century.” Though the Soviet Union was gone, the policy of military intervention abroad did not end. The elder Bush invaded Panama and then went to war against Iraq.

The terrible attacks of September 11 gave a new impetus to the idea that the United States was uniquely responsible for the security of the world, defending us all against terrorism as it once did against communism. President George W. Bush carried the idea of American exceptionalism to its limits by putting forth in his national-security strategy the principles of unilateral war.

This was a repudiation of the United Nations charter, which is based on the idea that security is a collective matter, and that war could only be justified in self-defense. We might note that the Bush doctrine also violates the principles laid out at Nuremberg, when Nazi leaders were convicted and hanged for aggressive war, preventive war, far from self-defense.

Bush’s national-security strategy and its bold statement that the United States is uniquely responsible for peace and democracy in the world has been shocking to many Americans.

But it is not really a dramatic departure from the historical practice of the United States, which for a long time has acted as an aggressor, bombing and invading other countries (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Grenada, Panama, Iraq) and insisting on maintaining nuclear and non-nuclear supremacy. Unilateral military action, under the guise of prevention, is a familiar part of American foreign policy.

Sometimes bombings and invasions have been cloaked as international action by bringing in the United Nations, as in Korea, or NATO, as in Serbia, but basically our wars have been American enterprises. It was Bill Clinton’s secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, who said at one point, “If possible we will act in the world multilaterally, but if necessary, we will act unilaterally.” Henry Kissinger, hearing this, responded with his customary solemnity that this principle “should not be universalized.” Exceptionalism was never clearer.

Some liberals in this country, opposed to Bush, nevertheless are closer to his principles on foreign affairs than they want to acknowledge. It is clear that 9/11 had a powerful psychological effect on everybody in America, and for certain liberal intellectuals a kind of hysterical reaction has distorted their ability to think clearly about our nation’s role in the world.

In a recent issue of the liberal magazine The American Prospect, the editors write,

“Today Islamist terrorists with global reach pose the greatest immediate threat to our lives and liberties. . . . When facing a substantial, immediate, and provable threat, the United States has both the right and the obligation to strike preemptively and, if need be, unilaterally against terrorists or states that support them.

Preemptively and, if need be, unilaterally; and against “states that support” terrorists, not just terrorists themselves. Those are large steps in the direction of the Bush doctrine, though the editors do qualify their support for preemption by adding that the threat must be “substantial, immediate, and provable.” But when intellectuals endorse abstract principles, even with qualifications, they need to keep in mind that the principles will be applied by the people who run the U.S. government. This is all the more important to keep in mind when the abstract principle is about the use of violence by the state—in fact, about preemptively initiating the use of violence.

There may be an acceptable case for initiating military action in the face of an immediate threat, but only if the action is limited and focused directly on the threatening party—just as we might accept the squelching of someone falsely shouting “fire” in a crowded theater if that really were the situation and not some guy distributing anti-war leaflets on the street. But accepting action not just against “terrorists” (can we identify them as we do the person shouting “fire”?) but against “states that support them” invites unfocused and indiscriminate violence, as in Afghanistan, where our government killed at least 3,000 civilians in a claimed pursuit of terrorists.

It seems that the idea of American exceptionalism is pervasive across the political spectrum.

The idea is not challenged because the history of American expansion in the world is not a history that is taught very much in our educational system. A couple of years ago Bush addressed the Philippine National Assembly and said, “America is proud of its part in the great story of the Filipino people. Together our soldiers liberated the Philippines from colonial rule.” The president apparently never learned the story of the bloody conquest of the Philippines.

And last year, when the Mexican ambassador to the UN said something undiplomatic about how the United States has been treating Mexico as its “backyard” he was immediately reprimanded by then–Secretary of State Colin Powell. Powell, denying the accusation, said, “We have too much of a history that we have gone through together.” (Had he not learned about the Mexican War or the military forays into Mexico?) The ambassador was soon removed from his post.

The major newspapers, television news shows, and radio talk shows appear not to know history, or prefer to forget it. There was an outpouring of praise for Bush’s second inaugural speech in the press, including the so-called liberal press (The Washington Post, The New York Times). The editorial writers eagerly embraced Bush’s words about spreading liberty in the world, as if they were ignorant of the history of such claims, as if the past two years’ worth of news from Iraq were meaningless.

Only a couple of days before Bush uttered those words about spreading liberty in the world, The New York Times published a photo of a crouching, bleeding Iraqi girl. She was screaming. Her parents, taking her somewhere in their car, had just been shot to death by nervous American soldiers.

One of the consequences of American exceptionalism is that the U.S. government considers itself exempt from legal and moral standards accepted by other nations in the world. There is a long list of such self-exemptions: the refusal to sign the Kyoto Treaty regulating the pollution of the environment, the refusal to strengthen the convention on biological weapons. The United States has failed to join the hundred-plus nations that have agreed to ban land mines, in spite of the appalling statistics about amputations performed on children mutilated by those mines. It refuses to ban the use of napalm and cluster bombs. It insists that it must not be subject, as are other countries, to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.

What is the answer to the insistence on American exceptionalism? Those of us in the United States and in the world who do not accept it must declare forcibly that the ethical norms concerning peace and human rights should be observed. It should be understood that the children of Iraq, of China, and of Africa, children everywhere in the world, have the same right to life as American children.

These are fundamental moral principles. If our government doesn’t uphold them, the citizenry must. At certain times in recent history, imperial powers—the British in India and East Africa, the Belgians in the Congo, the French in Algeria, the Dutch and French in Southeast Asia, the Portuguese in Angola—have reluctantly surrendered their possessions and swallowed their pride when they were forced to by massive resistance.

Fortunately, there are people all over the world who believe that human beings everywhere deserve the same rights to life and liberty. On February 15, 2003, on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, more than ten million people in more than 60 countries around the world demonstrated against that war.

There is a growing refusal to accept U.S. domination and the idea of American exceptionalism. Recently, when the State Department issued its annual report listing countries guilty of torture and other human-rights abuses, there were indignant responses from around the world commenting on the absence of the United States from that list. A Turkish newspaper said, “There’s not even mention of the incidents in Abu Ghraib prison, no mention of Guantánamo.” A newspaper in Sydney pointed out that the United States sends suspects—people who have not been tried or found guilty of anything—to prisons in Morocco, Egypt, Libya, and Uzbekistan, countries that the State Department itself says use torture.

Here in the United States, despite the media’s failure to report it, there is a growing resistance to the war in Iraq. Public-opinion polls show that at least half the citizenry no longer believe in the war. Perhaps most significant is that among the armed forces, and families of those in the armed forces, there is more and more opposition to it.

After the horrors of the first World War, Albert Einstein said, “Wars will stop when men refuse to fight.” We are now seeing the refusal of soldiers to fight, the refusal of families to let their loved ones go to war, the insistence of the parents of high-school kids that recruiters stay away from their schools. These incidents, occurring more and more frequently, may finally, as happened in the case of Vietnam, make it impossible for the government to continue the war, and it will come to an end.

The true heroes of our history are those Americans who refused to accept that we have a special claim to morality and the right to exert our force on the rest of the world. I think of William Lloyd Garrison, the abolitionist. On the masthead of his antislavery newspaper, The Liberator, were the words, “My country is the world. My countrymen are mankind.”

Howard Zinn (1922—2010), author of A People’s History of the United States, was a historian and playwright.

1 June 2005

Source: bostonreview.net

By Timothy Alexander Guzman

In early May, Syria was welcomed back to the Arab League, a development that was sure to anger the US and European establishments so new tensions between US occupation forces and the Russia-Syria alliance have been escalating quite rapidly in the last few months. 

An article published by Reuters ‘Arab League readmits Syria as relations with Assad normalise’ says that “The reinstatement of Syria does not mean normalisation of relations between Arab countries and Syria,” Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit told reporters in Cairo. “This is a sovereign decision for each country to make.”

The Syrian government has called on the Arab League to show mutual respect and so far, they have. However, behind closed doors, Washington’s war machine is still planning to remove Syria’s President, Bashar al-Assad. Assad has been trying to end the ongoing conflict, but there is one main problem, and that is the US occupying forces who are stationed in various areas that includes Al-Tanf, which is located close to the Syrian-Iraqi-Jordan border that can be used as a transit hub to bring in newly-equipped terrorists including Takfiri terrorists who are located in areas close to the northwestern Idlib province, in the eastern al-Omar oilfields in Deir Ez-Zor to obviously steal as much oil as possible and in the Hasaka countryside in the Al-Jazeera region:

A U.S. State Department spokesperson said Washington shared the goals of Arab partners in Syria, including building security and stability, but remained “sceptical of Assad’s willingness to take the steps necessary to resolve Syria’s crisis”

It is obvious that the US government is not happy about the outcome of the Arab League’s decision,

“We do not believe Syria merits readmission into the Arab League at this time,” the spokesperson said, adding that U.S. sanctions would remain in full effect.” 

Russia on the other hand applauded the decision, Maria Zakharova, a spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry said that “Moscow welcomes this long-awaited step, the logical result of the process, which has gained momentum, of returning Syria to the ‘Arab family.” Syria and its Arab League partners can cooperate in the political and economic realms that will benefit all sides.  It is also a positive outcome for Arab nations in hopes to finally unite against the US-NATO Alliance and Israel in the Middle East.

However, there are other issues to deal with including sanctions that hurt the Syrian people imposed by the US and the European Union as punishment for their support of their president, Bashar Al-Assad.

The harsh sanctions imposed by the West includes banning imports of much-needed building materials and machines to rebuild homes, hospitals, schools, and bridges that has been destroyed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) over the years.

The Syrian people need to rebuild important infrastructures to provide clean drinking water. Syrian business owners from small to mid-size companies cannot import goods or machines used in factories to produce products for public consumption. To make matters worse, those same oil fields that the US military occupies prevents the Syrian people from receiving oil which limits the use of energy including electricity for their homes or gas for their cars.  In other words, the illegal US occupation has been a disaster for the Syrian people.

In the last few months, new tensions between the US and the Russia-Syria alliance have increased. In fact, the US has shipped weapons into its military base in Hasaka. According to the Syrian Arab News Agency(SANA) ‘The US occupation brings in new weapons to its bases in Hasaka countryside’ said that “In order to fortify its illegal presence in Syrian territory, the US occupation intensified its movements, especially in al-Jazeera region, violating international laws and principles, as it brought in during the past 24 hours weapons, ammunition and logistical equipment to its bases in Hasaka countryside.” It seems that the US military is expecting a conflict with Russian and Syrian forces:

A convoy of the occupation consisting of 30 large tankers guarded by armored vehicles raising the flag of the American occupation, and another belonging to QSD militia associated with it, coming from Iraqi territory, entered the city of Al-Shadadi (60 km south of Al-Hasakah) from the east, and its contents were unloaded at the occupation base in the city before heading to the city of Hasakah through the western entrance on the Kharafi road , special sources told SANA.

The sources quoted eyewitnesses belonging to the QSD militia as saying “the load of the convoy that was unloaded at the base included advanced medium weapons, including anti-armored weapons, modern communication and jamming systems, in addition to large quantities of ammunition, including several containers intended to support the QSD militia

The US Military and the Islamic State: Partners in Crime

Last March, US Army General Mark Milley said that having US troops in Syria is “worth the risk” to fight the Islamic state according to a Reuters propaganda piece tiled ‘Syria mission worth the risk, top U.S. general says after rare visit’ claims that “The nearly eight-year-old U.S. deployment to Syria to combat Islamic State is still worth the risk, the top U.S. military officer said on Saturday, after a rare, unannounced visit to a dusty base in the country’s northeast to meet U.S. troops.” Milley went to Syria “to assess efforts to prevent a resurgence of the militant group and review safeguards for American forces against attacks, including from drones flown by Iran-backed militia.” Reuters said that “American officials say that Islamic State could still regenerate into a major threat.”

I agree with that statement, but the problem is that it is the US military who will rearm the Islamic State and other terrorist groups like they did in the past to create a new conflict in a never-ending effort to topple Bashar al-Assad:

While Islamic State is a shadow of the group that ruled over a third of Syria and Iraq in a Caliphate declared in 2014, hundreds of fighters are still camped in desolate areas where neither the U.S.-led coalition nor the Syrian army, with support from Russia and Iranian-backed militias, exert full control

Milley was asked if the mission is worth the risk, his response was “If you think that that’s important, then the answer is ‘Yes.” He continued “I happen to think that’s important,” Milley conveniently mentioned ISIS as the main threat, but the reality is that they are preparing for a future escalation with the Syrian government, Russia, Hezbollah and their main adversary, Iran. “So, I think that an enduring defeat of ISIS and continuing to support our friends and allies in the region … I think those are important tasks that can be done.”

On July 14^th, a local news channel in the state of New York, WWNY published a report ‘Soldiers with 2nd BCT leaving Fort Drum for Iraq & Syria’ based on the deployment of the 10^th Mountain Division 2^nd brigade combat team to Syria and Iraq for up to nine months to fight the reemergence of ISIS “the soldiers will be spending the next nine months in Iraq and Syria as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, an ongoing military operation to defeat the Islamic State.” This is a clear escalation in progress. There are joining another 900 plus US soldiers who are currently stealing Syria’s oil and gas. According to The Syrian Observer, which is described as “Syria’s official press” for “opposition groups, activists and civil society” published ‘HTS and SDF Dialogue Towards a Joint Civil Administration’ mentioned the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the infamous Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a terrorist organization who held several meetings in the last few months to discuss how they will unify their forces to face the Syrian and Russian militaries:

The talks also explored the possibility of establishing a joint civilian administration between HTS and the SDF. This would be contingent on HTS gaining control over areas currently held by the Syrian National Army. The SDF indicated that the United States is supportive of the unification of the northeastern and northwestern regions of Syria

US and Russian forces had several incidents in the last few months. US drones patrolling Syrian skies have faced Russian fighter jets on numerous occasions. Recently, The Associated Press, ‘Russian fighter jet strikes another American drone over Syria in the sixth incident this month’ on the increase of tensions in Syrian airspace:

A Russian fighter jet fired flares and struck another U.S. drone over Syrian airspace on Wednesday, the White House said, in a continued string of harassing maneuvers that have ratcheted up tensions between the global powers.

It’s the sixth reported incident this month, and the second in the past 24 hours, in which the United States has said Russian warplanes have flown dangerously close to American manned and unmanned aircraft, putting crews and the planes at risk and raising questions as to what the U.S. may need to do in response

Apparently, the US already decided what needs to be done in their response to Russia legally flying over Syrian airspace, and I say ‘legally’ because Russia is a close ally of Syria and was invited to help the country fight threats coming from the US, Israel and the rest of their terrorist lapdogs.

It’s the same old story and the same old lie of the US and its allies supposedly fighting terrorists in an oil producing country who is in the way of Israel’s expansionist plans. But the reality is that the West and Israel has been using terrorists to destroy Syria. The West has always called Syria’s conflict a popular uprising or a revolution against the evil Assad, but its about the permanent destruction of Syria and the rest of the Middle East that will allow the “Jewish State of Israel” to become the only so-called viable “democracy.”

The goal of the West is to turn Syria into another Iraq or Libya because a destabilized Middle East benefits the globalists who will have control over the Arab people and their natural resources. This will also allow Israel, who is part of the globalist cabal to be the undisputed hegemonic power in the region. Just imagine that scenario, it would be an absolute nightmare for the Arab world, yet a dream come true for the globalists.

*

Timothy Alexander Guzman writes on his own blog site, Silent Crow News, where this article was originally published. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

4 August 2023

Source: globalresearch.ca

By Jonathan Kuttab

Attacks by religious fanatics on places of worship and individuals of another religion are a well-known and despicable phenomenon. They go beyond mere racism and discrimination, in that they invoke the name of God Almighty in justifying bitter hatreds and hostilities against entire communities. Those performing the attacks do so with zeal and venom, and a feeling that they are serving God.

Attacks by religious Jews on Muslim holy places in Palestine are often recorded and noted, and they are sometimes used  to explain the ongoing hostilities between the two groups and to warn of the consequences of turning an otherwise political situation into a religious conflict with devastating worldwide consequences. Indeed, it would be horribly tragic if Muslims worldwide start viewing Jews as enemies and start seeking revenge upon them in the name of God. Advocates and proponents of justice for Palestine should always be very careful to avoid such approaches and to insist on framing the situation in its proper political framework. They must not yield to the temptation of seeing it as a religious conflict between Judaism and Islam. To be sure, there are religious differences and conflicting claims to holy places, particularly in Jerusalem, and these conflicts have been used in the past to justify campaigns to conquer Jerusalem, “rid it of infidels,” and assert political control over it. This was also done by crusaders and other groups.

Recently, we have been observing a sharp rise in attacks by Jewish religious fanatics on Christian clergy, cemeteries, and holy places in Palestine, particularly in Jerusalem. These fanatics take advantage of the power of the state (Israel) to attack Christians and to assert political power and control over Jerusalem on behalf of the Jewish state.

The typical reaction in the West has been to totally ignore or downplay such attacks on Christians. One reason is an obvious one: Christians in the West feel they have very little basis for complaining against such bigotry in light of their own despicable millennia of anti-Jewish bigotry and intolerance in their own countries, which has not yet fully subsided as antisemitism continues to raise its ugly head from time to time until this day. The fact that the Christians being attacked in Palestine today are not responsible for western bigotry seems besides the point. Western Christians, who duly report and condemn every attack on synagogues and Jewish cemeteries are not as willing to note or condemn attacks on Christians in Palestine.

Yet these attacks are now becoming a more frequent phenomenon. One frequent type of attack, spitting on clerics and clergy, is literally a daily event in the Old City. One Israeli Jewish reporter, who wanted to investigate these claims, borrowed an abbot’s cassock and walked the streets of the Old City, and sure enough he was spat upon. The Israeli police apparently do nothing, even though the Old City is blanketed with surveillance cameras which record everything that happens in its streets, and given Israel’s facial-recognition technology, which it is marketing to the whole world, it would be easy for them to identify the attackers.

Another manifestation is in the attacks on Christian cemeteries and churches. Hateful graffiti is sprayed on the walls, there are attempts to start fires and burn churches, and cemeteries are broken into and headstones are smashed. In one recent attack on a church in the Old City, statues of Jesus and the Virgin Mary were shattered. In a frightening incident recently, Jewish fanatics attacked the monastery of Stella Maris in Haifa, claiming that it is actually a Jewish holy site to which they want to lay claim. The conflicting claims of the three monotheistic religions, as well as the competing Christian denominations, was carefully set forth in a document referred to as the Status Quo arrangement, enacted by the Turkish Ottomans, adopted by the British, then the Jordanians, and at least formally accepted by Israel. Attempts to alter this arrangement could easily lead to religious conflict.

From a theological point of view, Christians (for the most part at least), thankfully no longer make the kind of claims that were made by Crusaders. After all, the essence of Jesus’ message was to reject the concept of an earthly kingdom. My kingdom is not of this world, he taught. He also addressed the issue of the “holy places” in his conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well. When she asked him where is the proper place to worship God, “here in Samaria or in Jerusalem?” He answered that neither is the true holy place for worship, because “God is spirit and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”

Good theological arguments can be found also in Judaism and Islam to battle such bigotry, but the fact remains that there are those who make a practice of agitating and seeking religious domination and supremacy in the name of God. We need to use both religious arguments, rational secular arguments, and proper common sense and decency to reject such atrocious behavior and to promote religious tolerance and understanding. Political strife is bad enough. Religious bigotry on top of that would be disastrous.

4 August 2023

Source: fosna.org

By John P Ruehl

Understanding the actions and justifications behind territorial colonial behavior by the UN Security Council since 1945.

One of the underlying principles of the UN Charter is the protection of the sovereign rights of states. Yet since 1945, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (Soviet Union/Russia, France, UK, U.S., and China) have consistently used military force to undermine this notion. And while acts of seizing territory have grown rare, ongoing military domination allows imperialism to further manifest through economic, political, and cultural control.

System justification theory helps explain how policymakers and the public defend and rationalize unfair systems through the surprising capacity to find logical and moral coherence in any society. “Reframing” neocolonial policies to reinforce system-justifying narratives, often by highlighting the need to defend historical and cultural ties and maintain geopolitical stability, has been essential to sustaining the status quo of international affairs.

Naturally, the five UNSC members have often accused one another of imperialism and colonialism to deflect criticism from their own practices. Yet prolonging these relationships in former colonies or spheres of influence simply perpetuates dependency, hinders economic development, and encourages instability through inequality and exploitation.

France

In response to comments made by Russia’s foreign ministry in February 2023, which singled out France for continuing to treat African countries “from the point of view of its colonial past,” the French foreign ministry chastised Russia for its “neocolonial political involvement” in Africa. The previous June, French President Emmanuel Macron meanwhile accused Russia of being “one of the last colonial imperial powers” during a visit to Benin, a former French colony that last saw an attempted coup by French mercenaries in 1977.

Independence movements in European colonies grew substantially during World War II, and Paris granted greater autonomy to its possessions, most of them in Africa, in 1945. Yet France was intent on keeping most of its empire and became embroiled in independence conflicts in Algeria and Indochina. Growing public sentiment in France, since referred to as “utilitarian anti-colonialism,” meanwhile promoted decolonization, believing that the empire was actually holding back France economically and because “the emancipation of colonial people was unavoidable,” according to French journalist Raymond Cartier.

France left Indochina in defeat in 1954, while in 1960, 14 of France’s former colonies gained independence. And after Algeria won its independence in 1962, France’s empire was all but gone. But like other newly independent states, many former French colonies were unstable and vulnerable to or reliant on French military power. France has launched dozens of military interventions and coups since the 1960s in Africa to stabilize friendly governments, topple hostile ones, and support its interests.

French military dominance has been able to secure a hospitable environment for French multinational companies and preferential trade agreements and currency arrangements. More recently, the French military has consistently intervened in Côte d’Ivoire since 2002, as well as in the countries of the Sahel region (particularly Mali) since 2013, and the Central African Republic (CAR) since 2016. The French-led campaigns have received significant U.S. help. Speaking in 2019 on the French deployments, Macron stated that the French military was not there “for neo-colonialist, imperialist, or economic reasons. We’re there for our collective security and the region.”

But growing anti-French sentiment in former colonies in recent years has undermined Paris’ historical military dominance. Closer relations between Mali and Russia saw France pull the last of its troops out of the country in 2022, with Russian private military company (PMC) forces replacing them. A similar situation occurred in the CAR months later, and in 2023, French troops pulled out of Burkina Faso, with Russian PMC liaisons having reportedly been observed in the country.

Frustration with the negative effects of France’s ongoing influence in former colonies has also been directly tied to problems in immigrant communities living in France. The fatal shooting of a North African teenager by police in the suburbs of Paris in June 2023 caused nights of rioting, with Russia and China accusing France of authoritarianism for its security response.

UK

Shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson denounced the Russian president for still believing in “imperial conquest.” Yet like France, the UK has often been accused of using military force to help promote British interests in its former empire, including the dominant role of British banks and financial services and other firms, for decades.

As the only European colonial power not defeated by Nazi Germany, British forces were sent to secure Indochina and Indonesia before French and Dutch forces could return after World War II. But London’s focus soon turned to protecting its own empire and emerging independent states. British forces helped suppress a communist insurgency in Malaysia from 1948-1960, fought in the Kenya Emergency from 1952-1960, and intervened across former colonies in Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean, and Pacific islands.

Additionally, British, French, and Israeli forces invaded Egypt in 1956 after the Egyptian government nationalized the Suez Canal before diplomatic pressure from the U.S. and Soviet Union forced them to retreat. Over the next few decades, almost all former British colonies were steadily granted independence, and by 1980 the rate of British military interventions abroad had slowed.

Nonetheless, the 1982 Falklands War somewhat reversed the perception of the UK as a declining, imperial power. The successful defense of the Falkland Islands’ small, vulnerable population against Argentinian aggression enhanced the perception of the UK as a defender of human rights and champion of self-determination. Additionally, Britain’s focus on naval power “was important to the self-image of empire” as naval strength is often perceived as less threatening than land armies. Prominent British politicians such as former Prime Minister David Cameron have similarly restated Britain’s commitment to protecting the islands from Argentinian colonialism.

More recently, the British military intervened in the Sierra Leone Civil War in 2000 and was also a crucial partner for the U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. And alongside ongoing official deployments, British Special Forces have meanwhile been active in 11 countries secretly from 2011-2023, a report by Action Against Armed Violence revealed. The residual presence of the British military has often made it difficult to embrace the “new and equal partnership” between Britain and former colonies, championed by former British Foreign Minister William Hague in 2012.

The domestic perception of Britain’s colonial legacy continues to play a divisive role in British politics and society. Winston Churchill, the winner of a 2002 BBC poll on the top 100 Great Britons, was “cited as a defender of an endangered country/people/culture, not as an exponent of empire.” Yet during anti-racism protests in the UK in 2020, a statue of the former prime minister was covered up to avoid being damaged by protestors. Believing him to be a figurehead of the cruelty of British colonialism, the covering up of Churchill’s statue shows the contrasting and evolving domestic views of British imperialism.

Soviet Union/Russia

After 1945, Soviet troops were stationed across the Eastern Bloc to deter NATO and suppress dissent. Several military operations in support of communist governments against “counterrevolutionary” protestors were approved in East Germany (1953), Hungary (1956), and Czechoslovakia (1968). Soviet forces also took part in a decade-long conflict to prop up Afghanistan’s government from 1979-1989.

In Asia, Africa, and Latin America, however, the Soviet Union presented itself as the leading anti-colonial force. It proclaimed an ideological duty to financially, politically, and militarily support numerous pro-independence/communist movements and governments, tying these efforts to confronting the colonial West.

The Soviet collapse forced Moscow to prioritize maintaining Russia’s influence in former Soviet states. But even today, many Russians do not see the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire as empires, as Russians insist that they lived alongside their colonized subjects through a “Friendship of Peoples,” unlike the British or French. This sentiment drives much of the rhetoric defending Russia’s ongoing dominance across parts of the former Soviet Union.

On the eve of the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin once again called into question Ukrainian statehood. Ukraine, like other former Soviet states, has often been labeled an artificial creation by Russian politicians. Alongside the necessity of military force to protect Russian speakers/citizens, Russian officials have justified conflict and exploitation of fragile post-Soviet borders in separatist regions of Georgia, Moldova, and Armenia/Azerbaijan since the early 1990s.

Russia has also worked to maintain a dependency on its military power in former Soviet states. The Kazakh government’s reliance on the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) military alliance was clearly demonstrated during the CSTO intervention during protests in January 2022. Prominent Russian politicians such as Sergey Lavrov have consistently compared the CSTO favorably to NATO, but the lack of support from CSTO member states (except for Belarus) for Russia in its war with Ukraine has demonstrated its limitations.

The Russian military has also been active in Syria since 2011, while dozens of Russian private military companies have increased operations across Africa over the last decade. The Kremlin is increasingly tying these conflicts, as well as Russia’s war in Ukraine, to reinforce Moscow’s traditional role as an anti-colonial power. Russia has performed significant outreach to Africa since the start of the war, and at the annual St. Petersburg economic forum in 2023, Putin declared the “ugly neo-colonialism” of international affairs was ending as a result of its war.

By amplifying criticism over the domination of global affairs by the “Golden Billion” in the West, the Kremlin believes it can blunt foreign and domestic criticism over its war in Ukraine, as well as over its approach to other post-Soviet states.

USA

The USA, born out of an anti-colonial struggle, has naturally been wary of being perceived as a colonial power. U.S. Presidents voiced support for decolonization after World War II, particularly John F. Kennedy. But because “anti-communism came before anti-colonialism,” Washington often supported neocolonial practices by European powers to prevent the spread of Soviet influence and secure Western interests.

The U.S. has also been criticized for its own imperial behavior toward Latin America since 1823 when the Monroe Doctrine was first proclaimed. The United States’s sentiment that it had a special right to intervene in the Americas increased during the Cold War as Washington grew wary of communism. U.S. military forces intervened in Guatemala in 1954, Cuba in 1961, the Dominican Republic in 1965, Grenada in 1983, and Panama in 1989 to enforce Washington’s political will.

The U.S. War on Drugs, launched in 1969, also destabilized much of Latin America, while other instances of covertly fostering instability have prevented the emergence of strong sovereign states in the region.

Major foreign conflicts involving U.S. forces since 1945 meanwhile include the Korean War (1953-1953) Vietnam War (1955-1975), the Gulf War (1991), intervention in the Yugoslav Wars (1995,1999), and the War on Terror (2001-present). U.S. forces also intervened in Haiti in 1994-1995 during “Operation Uphold Democracy” and again in 2004, while leading international interventions in Libya (2011) and Syria (2014). These interventions have often been criticized for perpetuating instability and weakening local institutions.

Nonetheless, the global U.S. military presence has continued to grow. Since 2007, United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) has seen the U.S. expand its military footprint across Africa and today, 750 known military bases are spread across 80 countries. U.S. special operations forces are meanwhile estimated to be active in 154 countries. The U.S. global military presence also gives Washington considerable control over transportation routes, with the U.S. Navy routinely seizing ships violating trade restrictions.

U.S. officials have continued to lean on the country’s history as a former British colony to highlight solidarity with other countries and propose greater cooperation. In 2013, for example, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry stated that the Monroe Doctrine, which allowed the U.S. “to step in and oppose the influence of European powers in Latin America,” was over. And in a 2023 address from the White House briefing room proclaiming the start of Caribbean-American history month, President Biden noted how the U.S. and Caribbean countries are bound by common values and a shared history of “overcoming the yoke of colonialism.”

But domestic divides over Washington’s role in global affairs have increased calls for the U.S. to return to its early foreign policy of isolationism. While this will not be enough for the U.S. to retreat on the global stage, it has helped prevent the U.S. military from committing to new major conflicts in recent years.

China

The conclusion of the Chinese Civil War in 1949 marked the end of China’s “Century of Humiliation” at the hands of European powers, the U.S., and Japan. The victory of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) allowed Beijing to consolidate power and look toward expanding China’s borders. This included launching the “peaceful liberation” of both Xinjiang in 1949 and Tibet in 1950, steadily bringing these regions under China’s control—though China only took Taiwan’s seat at the UN in 1971.

China’s history of exploitation by foreign powers has frequently been cited by Beijing to increase solidarity with other countries which suffered from Western imperialism. Key to this messaging was fighting against U.S.-led forces in the Korean War, as part of a “Great Movement to Resist America and Assist Korea” and opposing wider Western neocolonialism, while Chinese forces also engaged in border clashes with the Soviet Union as relations between Moscow and Beijing soured in the 1960s.

But Chinese forces have also been involved in clashes with former European colonies. This includes confrontations with India, as well as China’s launch of a major invasion of northern Vietnam in 1979. Tens of thousands of casualties were recorded on both sides during the month-long operation, while continued border clashes between Chinese and Vietnamese forces continued until relations were normalized in 1991.

Since 2003, Chinese officials have instead placed great emphasis on China’s “peaceful rise,” which has seen the country drastically increase its power in world affairs without having to resort to military force. But while large-scale Chinese military operations have not materialized, China has rapidly increased the construction of ports, air bases, and other military installations to enforce its territorial control over the South China Sea over the last decade, at the expense of several Southeast Asian countries. Chinese President Xi Jinping has justified these developments because the islands “have been China’s territory since ancient times.”

China’s extensive maritime militias and civilian distant-water fishing (DWF) fleets have also been accused of asserting Chinese maritime territorial claims while blurring the lines between civilian and military force. Additionally, there is also fear that China’s growing economic and military might will be enough to force countries in Central Asia to accept the Chinese position on various territorial disputes.

While China has avoided any major military operations this century, it has used its growing economic and military might to pressure other countries into accepting its territorial claims. To offset criticism, Chinese officials have turned their attention toward ongoing and historical imperialism by the West. Following British criticism over China’s handling of pro-democracy protests in 2019, China criticized the UK for acting with a “colonial mindset,” and, in support of Argentina, accused the UK of practicing colonialism in the Falklands in 2021. These claims help sustain domestic support for China’s policies, help to increase solidarity among other countries which have suffered from Western imperialism, and put China’s geopolitical rivals on the defensive.

Conclusions

It is true that the U.S. military provides necessary security deterrence to numerous countries, and has also proven essential to responding to natural disasters and other emergencies. But like other major powers, the use of U.S. military force has consistently been abused since 1945. The historical legacy of Western imperialism and interventionism has helped explain why Western calls for global solidarity with Ukraine have often fallen on deaf ears today.

Additionally, some of the consequences of the war in Ukraine, including rising energy and food prices, are being most acutely felt in poorer countries, while the growing dominance of Western firms in crucial Ukrainian economic sectors has also undermined the West’s messaging over Ukraine further.

Honest accountability by major powers for the historical and ongoing exploitation of weaker countries remains rare. But public, government-funded initiatives, such as the U.S. Imperial Visions and Revisions exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC, documents the beginning and justification behind empire-building in the U.S., and is an important step to addressing past and contemporary wrongdoing, as envisioned by the UN Charter in 1945. In 2018, French President Macron meanwhile commissioned a report that discovered that “around 90 to 95 percent of African cultural heritage” was located abroad, prompting the French parliament to pass a bill in 2020 allowing these artifacts to be returned.

The promotion of actual history and accountability may also remove barriers to more selfless assistance to weaker countries by major powers. This approach could, in turn, invite greater cooperation and positive repercussions than costly military interventions, and would also serve as an example for weaker states grappling with their own legacies of violence, exploitation, and suppression.

John P. Ruehl is an Australian-American journalist living in Washington, D.C. He is a contributing editor to Strategic Policy and a contributor to several other foreign affairs publications.

2 August 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr Binoy Kampmark

If a date might be found when Australian sovereignty was extinguished by the emissaries of the US imperium, July 29, 2023 will be as good as any.  Not that they aren’t other candidates, foremost among them being the announcement of the AUKUS agreement between Australia, UK and the US in September 2021.  They all point to a surrender, a handing over, of a territory to another’s military and intelligence community, an abject, oily capitulation that would normally qualify as treasonous.

The treason becomes all the more indigestible for its inevitable result: Australian territory is being shaped, readied, and purposed for war under the auspices of closer defence ties with an old ally.  The security rentiers, the servitors, the paid-up pundits all see this as a splendid thing.  War, or at least its preparations, can offer wonderful returns.

The US Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin III, was particularly delighted, though watchful of his hosts.  His remit was clear: detect any wobbliness, call out any indecision.  But there was nothing to be worried about.  His Australian hosts, for instance, proved accommodating and crawling.

Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles, for instance, standing alongside Austin, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Australian Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, declared that there was “a commitment to increase American force posture in respect of our northern bases, in respect to our maritime patrols and our reconnaissance aircraft; further force posture initiatives involving US Army watercraft; and in respect of logistics and stores, which have been very central to Exercise Talisman Sabre.”  To the untutored eye, Marles might have simply been another Pentagon spokesman of middle-rank.

The acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines was a process that was well underway (Marles seemed untroubled by grumbling voices in the Republican Party that the US Navy was short-changing itself by transferring three Virginia-class boats to the Royal Australian Navy) and taking place “in terms of an increased force posture of America within Australia.”  Speaking with confidence, Marles was also looking forward to “an increased tempo of visits from American nuclear-powered submarines to our waters as we look towards the establishment of a US submarine rotation, HMS Sterling, later in this decade.”

Australian real estate would be given over to greater “space cooperation”, alongside creating “a guided weapons and explosive ordnance enterprise in this country, and doing so in a way where we hope to see manufacturing of missiles commence in Australia in two years’ time as part of a collective industrial base between the two countries.”  Chillingly, Marles went on to reiterate what has become something of a favourite in his middle-management lexicon.  The efforts to fiddle the export-defense export control legislation by the Biden administration would create “a more seamless defence industrial base between our countries.”  Seamless, here, is the thick nail in the coffin of sovereignty.

Moves are also underway to engage in redevelopment of bases in northern Australia, in anticipation of the increased, ongoing US military presence.  The RAAF Base Tindal, located 320km south-east of Darwin in the Northern Territory, is the subject of considerable investment “to address functional deficiencies and capacity constraints in existing facilities and infrastructure.”  The AUSMIN talks further revealed that scoping upgrades would take place at two new locations: RAAF Bases Scherger and RAAF Curtin.

Australia’s Defence Intelligence Organisation will also be colonised by what is being termed a “Combined Intelligence Centre – Australia” by 2024.  This is purportedly intended to “enhance long-standing intelligence cooperation” while essentially subordinating Australian intelligence operations to their US overlords.  Marles saw the arrangement as part of a drive towards “seamless” (that hideous word again) intelligence ties between Canberra and Washington.  “This is a unit which is going to produce intelligence for both of our defence forces … and I think that’s important.”

In the pro-war press outlets such as The Australian, Greg Sheridan complained that AUSMIN talks had revealed “the appalling state of our defences”.  What bothered him was the expectation that Washington do everything in terms of addressing such inadequacies, while leaving the Australian defence base reliant and emaciated.  “Under the Albanese government we have reverted completely to our worst selves on defence.  We’re going to do almost nothing consequential over the next 10 years other than get the Americans to do more on our land.”  Well, Sheridan, don’t give up hope: Australia might be at war with China under US-direction before a decade is up, vassalized warriors eager to kill and be killed.

From his vantage point as the Australian Financial Review’s international editor, historian James Curran glumly noted that, “The permanent American military presence on Australian soil is now at a scale unprecedented since the Second World War.”  While the US-Australian relationship had previously stressed the value of deterrence, the focus seemed increasingly on the “projection” of power.  “The change from the mid-1990s has been nothing short of staggering.”

The most striking matter in this whole business was the utter absence of parliamentary outrage in Canberra.  There was no registered protest, no red mist rage in the streets, and no debate to speak off, nor even an eloquent funeral oration.  You might even say that AUSMIN 2023 was one of history’s most successful coups, implemented in plain sight by all too willing collaborators.  Its victim, Australian sovereignty, has been laid to rest.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.

2 August 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Vijay Prashad and Kambale Musavuli

At 3 a.m. on July 26, 2023, the presidential guard detained President Mohamed Bazoum in Niamey, the capital of Niger. Troops, led by Brigadier General Abdourahmane Tchiani closed the country’s borders and declared a curfew. The coup d’état was immediately condemned by the Economic Community of West African States, by the African Union, and by the European Union. Both France and the United States—which have military bases in Niger—said that they were watching the situation closely. A tussle between the Army—which claimed to be pro-Bazoum—and the presidential guard threatened the capital, but it soon fizzled out. On July 27, General Abdou Sidikou Issa of the army released a statement saying that he would accept the situation to “avoid a deadly confrontation between the different forces which… could cause a bloodbath.” Brigadier General Tchiani went on television on July 28 to announce that he was the new president of the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland (Conseil National pour la Sauvegarde de la Patrie or CNSP).

The coup in Niger follows similar coups in Mali (August 2020 and May 2021) and Burkina Faso (January 2022 and September 2022), and Guinea (September 2021). Each of these coups was led by military officers angered by the presence of French and U.S. troops and by the permanent economic crises inflicted on their countries. This region of Africa—the Sahel—has faced a cascade of crises: the desiccation of the land due to the climate catastrophe, the rise of Islamic militancy due to the 2011 NATO war in Libya, the increase in smuggling networks to traffic weapons, humans, and drugs across the desert, the appropriation of natural resources—including uranium and gold—by Western companies that have simply not paid adequately for these riches, and the entrenchment of Western military forces through the construction of bases and the operation of these armies with impunity.

Two days after the coup, the CNSP announced the names of the 10 officers who lead the CNSP. They come from the entire range of the armed forces, from the army (General Mohamed Toumba) to the Air Force (Colonel Major Amadou Abouramane) to the national police (Deputy General Manager Assahaba Ebankawel). It is by now clear that one of the most influential members of the CNSP is General Salifou Mody, former chief of staff of the military and leader in the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy, which led the February 2010 coup against President Mamadou Tandja and which governed Niger until Bazoum’s predecessor Mahamadou Issoufou won the 2011 presidential election. It was during Issoufou’s time in office that the United States government built the world’s largest drone base in Agadez and that the French special forces garrisoned the city of Irlit on behalf of the uranium mining company Orano (formerly a part of Areva).

It is important to note that General Salifou Mody is perceived as an influential member of CNSP given his influence in the army and his international contacts. On February 28, 2023, Mody met with the United States Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley during the African Chiefs of Defense Conference in Rome to discuss “regional stability, including counterterrorism cooperation and the continued fight against violent extremism in the region.” On March 9, Mody visited Mali to meet with Colonel Assimi Goïta and the Chief of Staff of the Malian army General Oumar Diarra to strengthen military cooperation between Niger and Mali. A few days later on March 16, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Niger to meet with Bazoum. In what many in Niger perceived as a sidelining of Mody, he was appointed on June 1 as the Nigerien ambassador to the United Arab Emirates. Mody, it is said in Niamey, is the voice in the ear of Brigadier General Tchiani, the titular head of state.

Corruption and the West

A highly informed source in Niger tells us that the reason why the military moved against Bazoum is that “he’s corrupt, a pawn of France. Nigerians were fed up with him and his gang. They are in the process of arresting the members of the deposed system, who embezzled public funds, many of whom have taken refuge in foreign embassies.” The issue of corruption hangs over Niger, a country with one of the world’s most lucrative uranium deposits. The “corruption” that is talked about in Niger is not about petty bribes by government officials, but about an entire structure—developed during French colonial rule—that prevents Niger from establishing sovereignty over its raw materials and over its development.

At the heart of the “corruption” is the so-called “joint venture” between Niger and France called Société des mines de l’Aïr (Somaïr), which owns and operates the uranium industry in the country. Strikingly, 85 percent of Somaïr is owned by France’s Atomic Energy Commission and two French companies, while only 15 percent is owned by Niger’s government. Niger produces over 5 percent of the world’s uranium, but its uranium is of a very high quality. Half of Niger’s export receipts are from sales of uranium, oil, and gold. One in three lightbulbs in France are powered by uranium from Niger, at the same time as 42 percent of the African country’s population lived below the poverty line. The people of Niger have watched their wealth slip through their fingers for decades. As a mark of the government’s weakness, over the course of the past decade, Niger has lost over $906 million in only 10 arbitration cases brought by multinational corporations before the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes and the International Chamber of Commerce.

France stopped using the franc in 2002 when it switched to the Euro system. But, fourteen former French colonies continued to use the Communauté Financiére Africaine (CFA), which gives immense advantages to France (50 percent of the reserves of these countries have to be held in the French Treasury and France’s devaluations of the CFA—as in 1994—have catastrophic effects on the country’s that use it). In 2015, Chad’s president Idriss Déby Itno said that the CFA “pulls African economies down” and that the “time had come to cut the cord that prevents Africa from developing.” Talk now across the Sahel is for not only the removal of French troops—as has taken place in Burkina Faso and in Mali—but of a break with the French economic hold on the region.

The New Non-Alignment

At the 2023 Russia-Africa Summit in July, Burkina Faso’s leader, President Ibrahim Traoré wore a red beret that echoed the uniform of the assassinated socialist leader of his country, Thomas Sankara. Traoré reacted strongly to the condemnation of the military coups in the Sahel, including to a recent visit to his country by an African Union delegation. “A slave that does not rebel does not deserve pity,” he said. “The African Union must stop condemning Africans who decide to fight against their own puppet regimes of the West.”

In February, Burkina Faso had hosted a meeting that included the governments of Mali and Guinea. On the agenda is the creation of a new federation of these states. It is likely that Niger will be invited into these conversations.

Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor, and journalist.

Kambale Musavuli, a native of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), is a leading political and cultural Congolese voice.

2 August 2023

Source: countercurrents.org