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By Dr Ramzy Baroud

On June 19, a large Israeli military force raided the northern Palestinian town and refugee camp of Jenin from multiple directions. Not only did the raid fail, it backfired, and it also created a precedent in Israel’s decades-long war on the ever-rebellious Palestinian region.

Israel killed eight Palestinians and wounded 91 more, following hours of clashes involving Israeli soldiers, on the one hand, and unified Palestinian Resistance groups, on the other.

Israel only admitted to the wounding of eight of its soldiers, with some Israeli media outlets speaking of critical injuries among the invading troops and others claiming only moderate wounds.

The reality on the ground, however, suggested that an extraordinary battle had taken place. Locally produced videos showed Israeli military vehicles blown up,  engulfed in clouds of fire and smoke, among them the Panther troops carrier – known as Nimr – a monstrous, well-fortified vehicle used in moderate to heavy combat.

A total of seven vehicles, along with a military helicopter were blown up or damaged in what was meant to be a routine Israeli raid on Jenin, which has often resulted in the killing of several so-called ‘wanted’ Palestinians – a reference to fighters who resist the Israeli military occupation.

The military wings of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad – the main resistance forces in Jenin, in addition to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades – issued statements detailing the courage of their fighters and celebrating the legacy of those who have been killed in the fighting.

But not all Palestinians killed were fighters. Israel targets civilians, including children, women, medics, and journalists, as a matter of course. One of the Jenin victims was a 15-year-old boy named Ahmed Saqr. Another is a 14-year-old girl named Sadil Ghassan Turkman. A journalist, Hazem Emad Nasser, was also wounded.

One of those killed, Amjad Aref Abu Jaas, is the father of a Palestinian youth, Wasim, who was killed by the Israeli army during a previous invasion of Jenin, on January 25.

The fact that a son and a father were both killed, a few months apart, by Israel is indicative of Israel’s relationship with Jenin. Israel sees Jenin as the beating heart of Resistance – armed or otherwise – in the Occupied West Bank. Therefore, Jenin has been Israel’s main target for decades, simply to downgrade – never crush – the intensity of the Resistance there.

Israel knows that crushing the Resistance in Jenin is not possible. Though the far-right ministers in Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government are constantly making such a demand, the Israeli military understands the difficulty – in fact, the impossibility of such a task.

Generational Resistance 

The Jenin refugee camp was established in 1953 by the United Nations Palestinian Refugees Agency (UNRWA). The inhabitants of the camp are refugees who were expelled by Israeli Zionist militias and gangs during the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of historic Palestine in 1947-48.

The camp has grown in terms of size and population over the years, though poverty and neglect have remained its main features. The history of the camp and its inhabitants has been the main drive behind their ongoing resistance.

In my 2003 book, Searching Jenin, I detailed the accounts of many of the camp’s residents as they described the legendary battle and the subsequent massacre of April 2002.

The pride and toughness of the residents of Jenin struck me, although I am quite familiar with the tenacity of the resilience of Palestinians, in general. Despite the killing of dozens of its inhabitants, the wounding of hundreds, the arrests of many and the destruction of entire neighborhoods, the Jenin residents insisted that the resistance is not over and that the next generation will soon continue what they have begun.

Writing about Jenin in recent months, I realize that many of the family and clan names are repeated, whether in the last name of fighters and martyrs, but also journalists, medics and civilian victims are mentioned. Somehow Jenin, though in near complete isolation, ongoing suppression, and utter neglect, has been resurrected from the ashes of the past.

I wonder if the young Israeli soldiers who keep invading Jenin, killing a few Palestinians at a time with each invasion, know anything about that history, about where these refugees came from, and that, no matter how violent and well-armed their bloody quests can be, Jenin will never surrender.

In other words, for Israel, the battle of Jenin is already lost.

It Is Not Over

Jenin terrifies Israel, because it is a representation of a much greater fight undertaken by Palestinians in besieged Gaza and throughout the Occupied West Bank. They know that all Palestinians are watching the events underway in Jenin – but also in Nablus and its environs, Al-Khalil (Hebron), Jericho, and more. When Jenin resists, Palestinian Resistance rises in unison.

In April 2002, during the invasion of major Palestinian cities of the West Bank, the destruction of Jenin was meant to be the tragic end of an equally tragic Palestinian story. The survivors eventually trickled back into the camp, collected and buried the bodies, often in mass graves, looked after the wounded, and slowly began rebuilding their shattered lives.

Then, all of Palestine was bleeding; Nablus, Ramallah, Bethlehem, and Gaza were reeling under the heavy weight of Israeli tanks, which left in their wake massive destruction and a high death toll. Israel emerged bruised but triumphant. The Palestinian Authority’s police force was restructured around Israeli priorities and with American training and funds. Palestine, it was thought, was squarely defeated.

But the prophecy of those I interviewed two decades ago turned out to be true: The resistance is not over, and the next generation will soon continue what we have begun.

Since then, many of my eyewitnesses have died – old age, broken hearts, Israeli bullets, and so on. Some are currently in prison. But others are still alive to remind us that freedom is precious and that the desire for justice can never be killed or defeated, no matter the enemy’s firepower or the sacrifices. Because it is innate and God-given, and because Jenin knows its history too well.

Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle.

28 June 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Bharat Dogra

In recent years wildfires have spread uncontrollably over very vast areas in American and Australian continents, causing immense losses including loss of human and animal life and endangering environment in various ways. Their adverse impacts on pollution and health have travelled far and wide, creating health problems even in leading cities like New York.

In this context one question that is not being asked but should be asked is whether wildfires would have become such a serious threat if the native people had not been treated in such a cruel way as to either result in the death of vast numbers, or in the displacement of vast numbers and imposition of so many restrictions on them as to deny them their traditional way of life. This has been not only the loss of native people but also a bigger social loss too as the native or indigenous people had a much better understanding of nature, land and forests acquired from many centuries and generations of living close to nature. If the new settlers from Europe had tried to learn from them instead of killing them, driving them away or colonizing them, this would have been very beneficial for the entire society.

To give an example, over several generations the native people had learnt how to use controlled fires in such ways that the danger of bigger, destructive, uncontrolled fires could be avoided and at the same time they could get more food and some specific plants (such as those needed for making baskets or for some ceremonial purposes). If these native people had continued to live with their traditional wisdom over vast areas, they would have certainly used their great knowledge and experience to minimize the risk of huge out-of-control fires. The environmental risks would be reduced. As a native person told a US journalist, they used such methods to use controlled fire that carbon was stored in soil and not released in atmosphere.

This apart, the natives had a very holistic view of various phenomenon in which fire was not to be necessarily feared and dominated but instead to be understood and lived with as a part of life and such a view makes it possible to explore fire in a more friendly and creative way, instead of looking at the appearance of even a small non-threatening fire merely in terms of rushing to extinguish it. Such a view was moreover part of a wider understanding in which there is unity and continuity between nature, land, plants, forests, animals, fire and humanity—all are linked closely and part of a being. Such a view of view integrates respect of nature, respect of land with respect of oneself and one’s near and dear ones. With such a worldview, native communities scattered all over these continents would have been in the forefront of protecting forests, protecting nature, protecting rivers.

In fact time and again, despite all the injustice and deprivation they have suffered, they have been coming forward and making important contributions to several important environment protection efforts. However conservation efforts which entirely drive away human beings are not in keeping with their integrated views, and they would have contributed even more if the environment protection efforts had been based on a unity of nature and humanity instead of being isolationist. Even with all the problems of the present systems, they have come forward to make important contributions, often motivated by their desire to protect their sacred places, which are again a reflection of their integrated understanding.

If they had been allowed to live peacefully by the colonizers, the native people of the Australian and American continents would have contributed to the creation of a better society, more sustainable society in numerous ways. It is therefore one of the greatest regrets of history that they were treated in such cruel and insensitive ways that very small numbers survived over vast parts of these continents. During the last 550 years or so some of the worst injustices ever seen in human history have been inflicted on these indigenous people. Some were so destructive that perhaps no compensatory action can come even close to making up for what happened. Despite this, urgent efforts must nevertheless be made to achieve what can still be done in the interests of justice.

After Columbus opened up the new American world to Europeans in 1492, waves of settlers and traders started coming here with modern arms to plunder or drive away the native people.

Columbus forced the Taino ‘Indians’ in Hispaniaola to bring him an ounce of gold every three months. Those who did not, had their hands chopped off while escapees were hunted down with dogs.

A priest Bartoleme de Las Casas was very distressed by what he saw of the interactions of the newcomer ‘civilizers’ with indigenous people. He wrote, “For 40 years, they have done nothing but torture, murder, harass, afflict, torment and destroy them with extraordinary, incredible, ‘innovative’, and previously unheard of cruelty.”

Las Casas estimated that about 50 million Indians perished in Latin America and the Caribbean within 50 years of Columbus’ landing. ( Quoted in Third World Resurgence, No. 5—Genocide of the Indians).

The New Internationalist journal prepared a special issue (No. 226) on ‘Hidden History—Columbus and the Colonial Legacy). Here in the cover story Wayne Ellwood has written after examining the available historical evidence, “Scholars now reckon that 90 per cent of the indigenous population of the Americas was wiped out in a century and a half—the greatest demographic collapse in the history of the planet and the proportional equivalent of nearly half a billion people today.”

While in some places the native ‘Indian’ population recovered partially, in other places the recovery was almost non-existent.  The New Internationalist compared the population of these indigenous people over a period of 500 years from 1492 to 1992.

In Mexico there were 21.4 million Indians in 1492, 8 million in 1992. In the Caribbean there were were 5.85 million Indians in 1492, but only 0.001 million in 1992. In Lowland S. America there were 8.50 million Indians in 1492, but only 0.90 million in 1992. In North America there were 4.40 million Indians, but only 2.54 million in 1992.

A somewhat similar tragedy was later repeated later in Australia and its nearby areas. Robert Hughes writes in his book The Fatal Shore—“ It took less than 75 years of white settlement to wipe out most of the people who had occupied Tasmania for some 20,000 years.”

What is more, in some places some of the most terrible atrocities inflicted on the indigenous people continued right into the 20^th century. For example let us compare more recent accounts from Guatemala with what was happening a few hundred years back.

First let us see Bob Carty’s account of the 16^th century regarding a conqueror Pedro Alvarado’s atrocities in Guatemala—“He directed eight major massacres killing up to 3000 Indians at a time. Mayan chiefs were incinerated alive as Catholic priests burned Mayan historical records. Alvarado rewarded his soldiers with the right to enslave the survivors. Mayan lands were appropriated, the people herded into towns and forced to work the Spanish Estates.”

Now compare this with a more recent account from Guatemala in the 1980s—“In the early 1980s it was as if the new conquistador Pedro Alvarado was back in power. All Mayans were seen as supporters of the guerillas, the military set out to destroy the people as well as their culture. Mayans were burned alive, babies murdered and women raped. The dictator Rios Mantt wiped 440 Mayan villages off the face of the earth. Soldiers are so brutalized in their training that they follow orders to kill their people as enemies.” (New Internationalist)

This account indicates the shocking reality that terrible atrocities have continued against indigenous people till recent times in many countries. These are in fact aggravated whenever indigenous people offer resistance to injustice or demand justice and restoration/protection of land rights much beyond the small concessions the existing regimes are willing to offer.

While some sincere initiatives for their welfare have indeed been taken up in various parts of world, generally the human development indicators for them remain much lower. Their human rights violations and imprisonment rates are generally higher than those suffered by other communities. They often experience discrimination and loss of dignity. Appreciation of their different world view, which may be much, much better than those dominant views which have entangled our world in a web of environment ruin and wars and violence, is generally least appreciated, something which is not just their loss but the loss of the entire humanity. A much better appreciation of the thinking, culture and life-views of indigenous people as well as many-sided, overdue justice for them should be an essential part of the world’s future agenda.

Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now.

28 June 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Neha Tuheen

PM Modi said in a press conference that the religious minorities in India do not face any discrimination and that India’s democracy remains faultless during his infamous visit to the US. However, it is common knowledge that the scenario in India could not be more different. Despite being a secular state, India as a nation has not lived up to the secular dreams of its founders. Minorities in the nation, especially Muslims, have been facing constant discrimination in plain sight throughout the history of independent India. The destruction of the Babri Masjid is perhaps the most symbolic of all the vile demonstrations made by the far-right Hindus. The demolition of the mosque at the hands of a wing of the Sangh Parivar remains a watershed moment, marking the emergence of hard-core Hindutva in modern Indian politics.

Saeed Akhtar Mirza’s 1995 film “Naseem” depicts the journey of a young girl named Naseem against a watershed moment in India’s history of bigotry and communal violence. Set in the early 1990s, the story captures the transition from a time of harmony to a period marked by hate and communal tensions during the demolition of the Babri Masjid. Naseem’s personal experiences, as witnessed through her innocent eyes, mirror the larger societal changes unfolding around her. The film gives us glimpses into the everyday life of Naseem for seven months leading up to the destruction of the Masjid. Khaifi Azmi the poetic legend takes on the most critical role of Naseem’s Dada-Jaan in the film. Dada-Jaan, a bedridden man who loves his family and the art of storytelling is deeply tied with the iconography of the Masjid itself.

Naseem’s easy-going nature and mellow routine contrast deeply with the communal chaos going on throughout the country at that point in time. The film’s opening scenes effectively establish a sense of separation within the community and Naseem’s role as a witness caught in the middle. As Naseem combs her hair while the TV plays in the background, the calmness of her reflection in the mirror is disrupted by the voices of yelling men. This serves as a precursor to the divisive events that would soon unfold. The positioning of her family members on either side of her reflection symbolizes the diverging paths that lie ahead, highlighting the growing divide in society.

Naseem’s search for identity becomes a central theme as she seeks to understand the meaning of her name. The interaction with her grandfather, who tells her that Naseem means the morning breeze, emphasizes her desire to connect with something positive amidst the changing atmosphere. This quest for self-discovery and understanding becomes Naseem’s anchor as she navigates through turbulent times.

As communal tensions rise, Naseem’s parents shield her from the violence by keeping her uninformed. This protective approach is evident when Naseem finds her parents fixated on the TV but unable to disclose the disturbing events taking place outside. The audience shares Naseem’s confusion and frustration as she seeks answers from her family members who remain silent, their actions embodying a desire to preserve her innocence.

The loss of innocence is exemplified through Naseem’s encounters with personal tragedies. The sudden demise of Parvati Bhabhi, a neighbour, reflects the brutality that women face within of society. This incident shatters Naseem’s perception of the world, exposing the darker aspects hidden from her until now. Parvati Bhabhi is one of the few Hindu characters that Naseem is shown to have a deep connection with within the film. Her untimely violent demise is also symbolic of the murder of secular Hinduism and the death of the allyship that existed between the two religions.

The film cleverly intertwines historical narratives within the personal journey of Naseem. As Naseem’s grandpa narrates stories about his own experiences as a “freedom fighter”. These stories not only connect Naseem to her heritage but also inspire her to question the present circumstances and the societal changes that have led to the current turmoil. Naseem often finds comfort in the stories of Dada-Jaan’s past. The ideal India that many dreamed of pre-Independence lives in these tales woven by the old man. In a conversation between Naseem’s father and her grandfather, the question of why her grandfather did not migrate to Pakistan during the partition arises. This dialogue serves as a reflection on the sense of belonging and the memories that make a place feel like home. It alludes to the essence of India, beyond religion and other differences. Naseem is also seen asking the meaning of her name to her Dada-Jaan, both at the beginning and the end of the movie, showing us that despite all the changes and chaos, the maker has faith in the youth of India to be like Naseem, the fresh morning breeze of change and harmony.

The death, chaos, and hate that has ensued since December 6th, 1992 has seen no end. Houses, mosques, and workplaces of Muslim people are brought down with hate. A Ram Mandir has been constructed in place of the Babri Masjid. This new India, which has existed since the passing of Naseem’s Dada-Jaan and the masjid itself, does not portray the image that our Prime Minister has presented on the world stage. Naseem’s coming-of-age story set three over three decades ago, still resonates and represents the story of thousands of children in our country.

Neha Tuheen is an undergraduate student of International Studies at FLAME University, Pune.

27 June 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Jafar M Ramini

Sunday evening. It was cold outside and my wife and I decided to light the fire and settle down to watch a movie. We searched, as you do, through the plethora of channels on offer nowadays, until we saw a movie called ‘The Promise’ on Prime.

The very name evoked memories. Twelve years ago, in 2011, director Peter Kominsky made a 4-part TV series for Channel 4 in London called ‘The Promise’. In this instance the promise was one from a young British girl to her grandfather, who had been a soldier during the 1940s in Palestine. He left a diary for her so she could retrace his steps and find out what Britain in Palestine really meant. Her journey of discovery shocked her to the core. Not just for the past but for the present. The violence, the destruction, the horror hadn’t stopped with the creation of Israel, but continues up to today. We were invited to a private view of ‘The Promise’ and the director, who is Jewish, assured us that despite the fact that every word in the series was meticulously researched for truth and accuracy, he had to jump through hoops to get it on the air.

This new movie tells the story of a different kind of promise. A promise of love from a young Armenian medical student to a girl of his village, pledging that he would return from Constantinople, where he hoped to gain his medical degree, no matter what. As the story unfolds this dream of learning how to save lives turns into a tragedy of survival and genocide of 1.5 million Armenian citizens of the Ottoman Empire from 1914 – 1923.

The film had us mesmerised. It felt too close. ‘The Promise’, created and directed by that great Irish talent, Terry George, could so easily have been telling the on-going story of Palestinian genocide and the relentless determination by successive Israeli Governments to remove, by any and every means possible, any suggestion that a country called Palestine ever existed. There was one moment in the film when a group of orphans and villagers are seen hiding in a cave. That was me, 75 years ago, aged five, crouching in such a cave, hearing the mortar shells and the gun-fire outside and terrified to my very bones. Another boy, also called Jafar, sitting right beside me, was shot straight through his right eye as the bullet went through the back of his head. Miraculously he survived.

I recommend this latest film called ‘The Promise’. It is a heartbreaking, thought-provoking and epic, and for those who know nothing of this terrible true story of the Turkish treatment of the Armenians it is a real eye-opener. If only, I said to my wife, another director of talent and commitment, would do the same for Palestine.

But, who? To quote the words of Gideon Levy, Israeli journalist and columnist for Haaretz;

“ There aren’t many populations in the world as helpless as the Palestinians who live in their own country. No one protects their lives and property, let alone their dignity, and no one intends to do so. They are totally abandoned to their fates. Their houses and their cars can be torched, their fields set on fire. It’s all right to shoot them mercilessly, killing old people and babies, with no defence forces at their side. No police, no military: no one. If some such desperate defence force is organised it’s immediately criminalised by Israel. Its fighters are labeled ‘terrorists’, their actions ‘terror attacks’ and their fates sealed, with death or prison the only options.”

Coincidentally, I am now in the middle of reading a book that has just came out. It is called ‘The State Of Israel Versus The Jews’, by a Jewish French writer, Sylvain Cypel, and it chronicles in minute detail how Israel trains children to hate, discriminate against and kill Palestinians out of utter conviction that our lives are of a lesser value than theirs and therefore justifies everything that they do to us.

At this very moment Israel has been wreaking havoc all over the occupied West Bank, especially in my home town of Jenin.

Will we ever see another brave and principled film-maker who would have the moral courage to make a block buster movie about the tragedy of Palestine, and have it beamed around the world in cinemas and streamed through the internet for anyone and everyone to see? I live in hope.

Jafar M Ramini is a Palestinian writer and political analyst.

27 June 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr Binoy Kampmark

A lot of nonsense is being spouted by a bevy of spontaneous “Russian experts” in light of the Prigozhin spray, a mutiny (no one quite knows what to call it), stillborn in the Russian Federation.  It all fell to the theatrical sponsor, promoter and rabble rouser Yevgeny Prigozhin, a convict who rose through the ranks of the deceased Soviet state to find fortune and security via catering, arms and Vladimir Putin’s support.

In the service of the Kremlin, Prigozhin proved his mettle.  He did his level best to neutralise protest movements.  He created the Internet Research Agency, an outfit employing hundreds dedicated to trolling for the regime.  Such efforts have been apoplectically lionised (and vilified) as being vital to winning Donald Trump the US presidency in 2016.

His Wagner mercenary outfit, created in the summer of 2014 in response to the Ukraine conflict, has certainly been busy, having impressed bloody footprints in the Levant, a number of African states, and Ukraine itself.  Along the way, benefits flowed for the provision of such services, including natural resource concessions.

But something happened last week.  Suddenly, the strong man of the mercenary outfit that had been performing military duties alongside the Russian Army in Ukraine seemed to lose his cool.  There were allegations that his men had been fired upon by Russian forces, a point drawn out by his capture of the 72^nd Motorised Rifle Brigade commander, Lieutenant Colonel Roman Venevitin.  Probably more to the point, he had found out some days earlier that the Russian Defence Ministry was keen to rein in his troops, placing them under contractual obligations.  His autonomous wings were going to be clipped.

The fuse duly went.  Prigozhin fumed on Telegram, expressing his desire to get a number of officials, most notably the Defence Minister, Sergei Shoigu, and Chief of the General staff Valery Gerasimov, sent packing.  A “march for justice” was organised, one that threatened to go all the way to Moscow.

President Vladimir Putin fumed in agitation in his televised address on June 24, claiming that “excessive ambition and personal interests [had] led to treason, to the betrayal of the motherland and  the people and the cause”.  Within hours, Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko, whose diplomatic skills are threadbare, had intervened as mediator, after which it was decided that the Wagner forces would withdraw to avoid “shedding Russian blood”.

This all provided some delicious speculative manna for the press corps and commentariat outside Russia.  Nature, and media, abhor the vacuum; the filling that follows is often not palatable.  There was much breathless, excited pontification about the end of Putin, despite the obvious fact that this insurrection had failed in its tracks.  John Lyons of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation was aflame with wonder.  Where, he wondered, was the Russian President?  Why did the Wagner soldiers “get from Ukraine to Rostov, take control of Ukraine’s war HQ then move to Voronezh without a hint of resistance”?

John Lough of Chatham House in London claimed that Putin had “been shown to have lost his previous ability to be the arbiter between powerful rival groups.”  His “public image in Russia as the all-powerful Tsar” had been called into question.  Ditto the views of Peter Rutland of Wesleyan University, who was adamant in emphasising Putin’s impotence in being “unable to do anything to stop Prigozhin’s rogue military unit as it seized Rostov-on-Don”, only to then write, without explaining why, about uncharacteristic behaviour from both men in stepping “back from the brink of civil war”.

Then came the hyperventilating chatter about nuclear weapons (too much of the Crimson Tide jitters there), the pathetic wail that accompanies those desperate to fill both column space.  The same degree of concern regarding such unsteady nuclear powers as Pakistan is nowhere to be seen, despite ongoing crises and the prospect of political implosion.

Commentors swooned with excitement: the Kremlin had lost the plot; the attempted coup, if it could even be called that, had done wonders to rattle the strongman.  Those same commentators could not quite explain that Prigozhin had seemingly been rusticated and banished to Belarus within the shortest of timeframes, where he is likely to keep company with a man of comparatively diminished intellect: Premier Lukashenko himself.  Prigozhin, for all his aspirations, has a gangster’s nose for a bargain, poor or otherwise.

As Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov put it, the original criminal case opened against Prigozhin for military mutiny by the Kremlin would be dropped, while any Wagner fighters who had taken part in the “march for justice” would not face any punitive consequences. Those who had not participated would be duly assimilated into the Russian defence architecture in signing contracts with the Defence Ministry.

The image now appearing – much of this subject to redrawing, resketching, and requalifying – is that things were not quite as they seemed.  Assuming himself to be a big-brained Wallerstein of regime stirring clout, Prigozhin had seemingly put forth a plan of action that had all the seeds of failure.  Britain’s The Telegraph reported that “the mercenary force had only 8,000 fighters rather than the 25,000 claimed and faced likely defeat in any attempt to take the Russian capital.”

Another reading is also possible here, though it will have to be verified in due course.  Putin had anticipated that this contingently loyal band of mercenaries was always liable to turn, given the chance.  Russia is overrun with such volatile privateers and soldiers of fortune.  Where that fortune turns, demands will be made.

Ultimately, in Putin’s Russia, the political is never divorceable from the personal.  Chechnya’s resilient thug, Ramzan Kadyrov, very much the prototypical Putin vassal only nominally subservient, suggests that this whole matter could be put down to family business disputes.  “A chain of failed business deals created a lingering resentment in the businessman, which reached its peak when St. Petersburg’s authorities did not grand [Prigozhin’s] daughter a coveted land plot.”  The big picture, viewed from afar, can be very small indeed.

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

27 June 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Countercurrents Collective

A Muslim man was beaten to death (lynched) for allegedly transporting beef in Nashik, Maharashtra another one seriously injured. The two victims identified as Afan Ansari aged 32 and Nasir Qureshi aged 24 were seriously injured in the attack. Afsan Ansari was pronounced dead. They were traveling in a car to Mumbai, when they were attacked by the cow vigilantes with iron rodes on the suspicion of carrying beef.

Qureshi was able to file a complaint and based on that the Ghoti police have arrested 11 persons and a case has been registered on charges of murder.The meat samples have been sent to a forensic lab for testing.

In Maharashtra, India, Hindu supremacist mob has lynched one Muslim to death and another one struggling for his life in hospital. In New India, you can kill Muslims in the name of protecting cow. pic.twitter.com/4aEc061pD0

This becomes the second incident of lynching by cow vigilantes in Nashik in the last two weeks. On June 8, three men transporting cattle on a tempo were attacked allegedly by a group of ‘cow vigilantes’. The body of one of them, identified as Lukman Ansari (23), was recovered from a gorge at Ghatandevi in Igatpuri area on June 10.

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27 June 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Oliver DSouza

“We are afraid to open our mouths. There is nothing we can do for ourselves. It is those outside the state who must speak up for us,” a Christian academician and scholar based in Churchandpur, Manipur, told this author under conditions of anonymity; that’s the level of fear among the Kuki-Zo in the state.

”It’s not just the Meitei extremist organizations in the valley who are leading and perpetrating the violence, the state machinery is also involved,” he laments, adding “After the Supreme Court refused to send the Army to protect Kuki-Zo, armored vehicles have now arrived for the state forces. This is ominous for the tribals.”

The academician’s fears are rooted in having witnessed Meitei extremist groups indulging in the violence with help from state police and commandos, also reported by Human Rights Watch.

“After helping burn Kuki-Zo villages, officers of the forces are also telling the Meiteis involved precisely what to tell the media,” says the academician while explaining how suspension of internet services, except for sections of a pliant Valley based media, has been used to distort the reality of the violence by peddling the government’s unbelievable version.

Participation of army officers has also been confirmed by other ground reports. The Zomi Students’ Federation, Lamka, (ZSF) too in a report titled ‘The Inevitable Split,” quoting eyewitnesses says paramilitary border security forces drawn from army units are part of the violence.

“Two Majors of the Assam Rifles, coming from the Meitei community were involved in setting Bongbal Kholen and nearby villages on fire in the Saikul area of the Kangpokpi District,” it says.

All of this has happened also in the backdrop of radicalisation and consolidation of Meitei Hindus by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) as a ‘Hindu force’ against the ‘Christian Kuki-Zo.’ Jagdamba Mall, a RSS organiser in Nagaland for 40 years told the Indian Express “as many as 15 organizations affiliated to the Sangh have been active in Manipur, some for over three decades.” In 1995, there were merely just 600 RSS shakhas in the state, now there are over 6000. The BJP has also been courting two Meitei extremist groups – Armabai Tenggol and Meitei Leepun and now the sangh parivar is further stoking the fire, with VHP spokesperson Milind Parande claiming destruction of major temples in Tipaimuk.

In a rebuttal, Hmar Students’ Association (HSA) said, “There are 25 villages within the Tipaimuk sub-division (now Parbung sub-division) predominantly inhabited by the tribals, who are 100% Christian by faith. There is no single temple either big or small in the entire Tipaimuk sub-division.”

”We also want to clarify that there is only one Hindu temple in the entire Churchandpur town, which is standing safe and intact,” the statement said.

The violence starting May 3 has not occurred out of the blue: it has been in the making for some time and has its roots in three Bills passed in 2015, in the anti-tribal ethos and identity politics of Biren Singh and in the mismanagement of the state by Biren and his bosses in Delhi, along with a political-criminal nexus in play.

On August 25, 2015, without any discussion, using the money Bills route, the state government passed three very controversial bills: The Protection of Manipur People Bill, the Manipur Land Reforms (Seventh Amendment Bill) and the Manipur Shops and Establishment (Second Amendment). The tribals were infuriated and opposed the bills as they intrude on their constitutionally guaranteed tribal land and forest rights.

These bills were followed by Meiteis, who already enjoy benefits under Scheduled Caste (SC), Other Backward Castes (OBC) and Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) quota, and were demanding Scheduled Tribe (ST) status since 2012, reaffirming their demand with new gusto. They claim tribals occupy 90% of land in the state (90% of it is hills) though constituting only 35% of the population, while the Meiteis, who live in the fertile valley and constitute 54% of the population, occupy 10% of the land.

Meiteis also claim they were omitted from the President’s Constitution (STs) Order, 1950, but sociologist L. Lam Khan Piang, writing in the Wire says “When the first Backward Castes Commission (BCC) requested a list of tribes to be included in the Scheduled Tribes (modification) list from each state and Union Territory, Meities did not include themselves.” They chose not to be categorized as ST even as Hindu Meiteis consider tribals ‘Haomacha’ (untouchables).

Meiteis additionally complain about their decreasing population and increasing Kuki population. However, the Kuki-Zo population as a percentage of total population increased by a 1.8% from 14% in 1951 to 15.8% in 2011, while the decadal growth of Kukis is 0.9%. The Meitei population meanwhile declined from 64.29% in 1951 to 53% in 2011.

What the Meitei lobby won’t tell you is that unlike the growth of the Kuki population since 1951, as Binalakshmi Nepram, Convenor of the Northeast India Women Initiative for Peace, in an interview pointed out, the increased population of Meiteis in the valley has been engineered by migration of Meiteis from neighboring states even as there is a drop in the birth rate among them. The Kuki-Zo living in the valley are mostly those holding government jobs and students and together they are a tiny percentage of the valley’s population.

It also won’t tell you that despite the variance in size of land occupied by the two communities, valley based Meiteis corner most of the budgetary allocations and projects and enjoy benefits of development while the tribal areas remain under-developed and neglected. In the state assembly too, 40 of the 60 seats are from the Valley while tribals have only 20 seats.

“The violence is over Meiteis wanting to occupy tribal lands for their growing population, the rest of the reasons are mere excuses” asserts Ginza Vualzong, Spokesperson, Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum (ITLF).

“Once they get the ST status, the tribal land that has illegally been denotified by the state and cleared by the eviction drive will be handed over to Meiteis through subterfuge,” he says.

Meiteis can settle in the tribal areas under license but what they want is free access to and ownership of tribal lands disallowed by law. Clearly, the valley Meiteis are facing pressures of population versus land available, while obtaining ST status enables them to occupy tribal lands also known to have rich deposits of petroleum and gas and other minerals.

Though tension between the two tribes has been going on since 2012, it started escalating in 2017 when, soon after Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) gained power it appointed a known anti-tribal Biren Singh as Chief Minister. Indulging in majoritarian appeasement and identity politics typical of the BJP, Biren Singh immediately notified vast tribal lands as Reserved Forest, Protected Forest, Wildlife Sanctuaries, National Parks, and Wetlands bypassing Constitutional procedures, thereby surreptitiously depriving the tribals of their land rights.

At the same time, following the 2017 notification, Meiteis, who overwhelmingly voted the BJP to power, upped their political demand for ST status, adding to the tension between the two communities.

The charged atmosphere became diabolical in June 2018, when Biren Singh was hit by a drug scandal, wherein BJP leader Lukhosei Zou was apprehended with large quantities of heroin and amphetamines.

During investigation, Thounaojam Brinda, Additional Superintendent of Police, Narcotics and Drugs Wing, uncovered involvement of BJP politicians, drug lords and officials, with the Meitei run Etocha Drug Cartel operating out of the Valley.   

Brinda stated in court that she was under ‘pressure’ from Biren Singh to release from custody ‘drug lord’ and BJP member Lukhosei Zou. Senior lawyer and president of the All Manipur Bar Association, H Chandrajit Sharma, too made a similar allegation in April 2019.  

After allegations against him in the drug scandal surfaced, Biren immediately started the ‘War on drugs’, specifically demonizing the Kuki-Zo, calling them ‘poppy cultivators’ and ‘terrorists’, besides also labelling legitimate Kuki-Zo villages as ‘encroachments.’

Fact is, most of the poppy processing laboratories are based in the Valley, while poppy is cultivated by all tribals – not merely Kuki-Zo. Yet it is only the Kuki-Zo who is demonized by Biren Singh for his own survival and for BJP’s politics of perdition.

Later, in August 2022, the state government claimed that 38 villages in the Churachandpur-Khoupum Protected Forest were “illegal settlements” of Kuki-Zo and its residents were “illegal immigrants”.

The illegal immigrants referred to by Biren Singh are allegedly from Myanmar, but leave alone 38 villages, by no figment of any imagination could they be occupying even a single village as AFSPA has been in force in Manipur for long and only recently removed from some places in the state.

In early April 2022, using these pretexts and the three controversial laws passed in 2015, the government started a demolition and eviction drive against Kuki-Zo settlements and properties in the valley which continued well into 2023.

What set the stage for the eruption of the  violence, however, is the High Court direction directing the state government on April 20, 2023 to consider within four weeks the demand of the Meiteis for ST status. Following the court directive, the All Tribal Students Union Manipur (ATSUM) called for a peaceful Solidarity March on May 3, 2023 in all the hill areas of Manipur leading to a reaction from Meiteis.

The Zomi Students Federation (ZSF) says “The Valley-based Meitei organizations reacted to this call by organizing counter-blockades in the valley areas the evening before the peaceful rally.”

The immediate spark began when some Meitei miscreants started burning the Anglo-Kuki-Zo Centenary gate near Leisang Village, Churachandpur, which is one of the most important symbols of tribal resistance against British rule.

”The radicalised Meitei mob also assaulted returning rally-goers from border areas of Churachandpur district, with Pastor Sehkhohao Kipgen beaten to death by radical Meitei groups,” says ZSF.

The smaller number of Kukis in the Valley responded with violence, more particularly in the tribal dominated Churchandpur area. Thereafter, the violence spread to various parts of the valley and in parts bordering tribal villages, with Kuki-Zo at the receiving end en masse, forcing most of them to leave the valley or get killed.

The ZSF says that the attacks were carried out principally by the BJP backed Meitei extremist group, Arambai Tenggol, openly linked to CM Biren Singh and current Rajya Sabha MP from Manipur, Leisemba Sanajaoba. Many surrendered militants are members of these outfits.

Neither was the larger mayhem random. The Christian academician, with good reason says “the violence was pre-planned in collusion with the state; many strange things were going on before that.”

Starting Dec 2022, citing improved security conditions, the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in force due to insurgency in the region was lifted from Imphal, Wangoi, Leimakhong, Nambol and Moirang areas of Valley districts.

“At that time itself, when the army left, we felt something untoward was afoot, but we never suspected that it would be the carnage that we are now witnessing and there was nothing we could do about it because both the state and Union government are involved in the decisions taken by the Biren government,” says the academician.

Later, in January 2023, people claiming to be conducting a census went throughout the Valley marking tribal homes and properties with paint and numbers. Most of those premises are not standing today, nor do many of their residents live, with over 60,000 Kuki-Zos taking shelter in refugee camps run by the government and Christian institutions.

”Why were only Kuki-Zo homes and properties numbered and marked and who were these people who claimed they were doing a census when no Kuki-Zo specific census was notified?” asks Vualzong.

Statistics reveal only a fraction of Meitis in the Valley suffered the violence faced by Kuki-Zo from Meiteis and the state. The violence against Meiteis occurred mostly in the tribal dominated Churchandpur area, whereas the Kuki-Zo communities have been attacked all over the valley and in bordering hill areas of the valley.

In February 2023, citing that 10 people were killed in 2-3 years by licensed gun users, the state government also started reviewing gun licenses issued to Kuki-Zo to protect themselves from insurgents.

”The state government disarmed the tribals by not renewing their weapons licenses while it issued over 1000 new licenses to Meiteis in the valley,” says ITLF.

Thereafter, from May 3 onwards, the carnage in the state began, triggered by Meiteis.  Large scale looting of weapons from police weapons depositories and stations without a shot being fired by the police in retaliation was reported from the valley. As seen on social media, various sophisticated weapons, including machine guns, rocket launchers and sniper rifles, the kind used by state forces, have been used by the miscreants.

According to Senior Supreme Court Lawyer and activist, Colin Gonzalves, who represents Manipur Tribal Forum, Delhi, over 135 people have been killed, 110 of them Kuki-Zos and 20 Meiteis, besides burning and vandalizing of over 300 churches, and vandalizing of few Hindu shrines in the valley. Meitei women are also seen in social media videos blocking supplies for the forces and Kuki-zo refugee camps, including medicines and food. Meities were affected by violence mostly around the tribal dominated Churchandpur area, while Kuki-Zos throughout the Valley faced it.

With the valley now more or less becoming Kuki-Zo free, the question being asked is whether the violence is one of demand for land belonging to tribals, or of ethnic cleansing or of communal and caste violence.

The body count, the loss of homes, properties and villages, the 60,000 Kuki refugees and the state’s involvement is heavily lopsided against the Kuki-Zo who are also called “’Haomacha”’ (untouchables) by the Meiteis. All Kuki-Zo killed are Christians as 100% of the community are Christian. Churches have overwhelmingly been targeted, with the Sarai Talet, the Meitei flag being hoisted on some of them in Bajrang Dal fashion. No Naga churches, and no homes or other properties save one home in Churchandpur were torched and not a single of the Naga tribals, who are the second largest tribal community, is reported killed.

Perhaps the conclusive answer to the questions is in the silence and inaction of the political leadership. The CM remained silent for 18 hours following the outbreak of violence. During the time, the mobs led by Arambai Tenngol organized themselves and burnt Kuki-Zo homes, churches and properties in Imphal Valley, killing many of them.

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Union Home Minister Amit Shah too failed to visit the state for 15 days and after his 3-day visit, the violence became worse. The peace committee he formed collapsed, with some members resigning, and Kuki-Zo, who saw it as a committee of perpetrators of the violence rejected it. To date, even Prime Minister Modi has not said a word on the violence while he found voice to campaign in Karnataka when the violence was occurring and comment about many irrelevant matters thereafter.

Biren Singh, with his anti-tribal ethos, his BJP majoritarian and identity politics and his involvement with extremist Meitei outfits and drug lords leading up to the violence has now drastically divided the two communities. A buffer zone for safety has been created between the hill and valley areas and it should not come as a surprise that a separate administration for Kuki-Zo is now being demanded by 10 BJP Kuki-Zo MLAs and the rest of the tribe.

At the same time, BJP and Assam Chief Minister Himenta Biswas Sarma now find themselves in the woods with United Kuki-Zo Liberation Front (UKLF), a secessionist outfit, in a letter to Union Home Minister Amit Shah is claiming that in a deal brokered by Sarma, it helped BJP win 2017 Assembly elections and 2019 General elections in areas of its influence and that it expected the BJP to keep its ‘promises.’

The North-East has never been a Shangri-La; there has been tribal conflict for centuries, but this is the first time in independent India that an orchestrated attack on a specific tribal community by another tribal community in the North-East has occurred with state patronage.

Oliver D’Souza is a senior journalist/editor and an award winning author

27 June 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky

Introduction

In this article, I will be focussing on the NeoCon agenda, largely inspired by The Project for the New American Century. (PNAC).

The Neocons exert control over foreign policy. They are involved in bribing and manipulating politicians and decision-makers. They have played a key role in defining nuclear doctrine on behalf of powerful financial interests.

The PNAC has called for establishing “Superiority in Nuclear Weapons” (applied to Russia) coupled with a profit driven expansion of the military industrial complex.

The NeoCon agenda, as formulated by the PNAC (2000) follows in the footsteps of The Cold War “Truman Doctrine” In the words of George Kennan:

“The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better”

The NeoCons are not intent upon “Winning the War”.

Their agenda is to “Destroy Countries”.

It is a profit-driven agenda: “Destruction” leads to “Reconstruction”. What is at stake is the engineered economic and social destruction of sovereign nation states. The creditors are there to “pick up the pieces” and “appropriate real wealth”.

The second part of this article will focus on the NeoCons’ agenda to “privatize countries” on behalf of the financial establishment.

The privatization of Ukraine as an impoverished derelict Nation State has already commenced via the creation of the Ukraine Reconstruction Bank (URB) by BlackRock and JPMorgan.

The Danger of Nuclear War 

The use of nuclear weapons is on the drawing board of the Pentagon. It has the support of the U.S State Department.

Meanwhile legislation is being put forward in the U.S. Congress to initiate World War III.

“Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) introduced on June 22nd a Resolution which if passed and signed by President Biden, … would commit the U.S. as the head of NATO to launch, on behalf of NATO, war directly against Russia (See Eric Zuesse, Duran, June 20, 2023)

User Clip: Senators Graham and Blumenthal News Conference on Russian Nuclear Threats

The NeoCon Agenda:

The Project for the New American Century 

The NeoCons are firmly behind the Ukraine agenda.

The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) dominates US foreign policy on behalf of powerful financial interests.

The PNAC dispels the planning of “consecutive” military operations: it describes:

America’s “Long War” as follows: 

“fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars”

The conduct of  “Simultaneous theater Wars” is the backbone of America’s hegemonic Agenda.

It’s a project of global warfare. The PNAC controlled by the NeoCons also dispels the holding of real peace negotiations.

The Nuclear Agenda and Global Warfare

The PNAC was published at the height of the presidential election campaign in September 2000, barely 2 months prior to the November 2001 elections.  It has become the backbone of US foreign policy. It is the basis for the carrying out a hegemonic global warfare agenda, coupled with the imposition of a “Unipolar World Order”.

Victoria Nuland who sits in the State Department, currently advising President Biden is the spouse of  PNAC’s Robert Kagan.

Why Does the Biden administration require a $1.3 trillion nuclear weapons program which is slated to increase to $2.0 trillion in 2030?

Superiority in Nuclear War is the backbone of the NeoCon agenda as expounded in the PNAC.

The objective is to “Maintain Nuclear Superiority”, specifically in relation to the US-Russia balance.

The Post War Era 

The US has conducted numerous wars since the end of what is euphemistically called the post war era:

Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen… and now Ukraine.

The unspoken objective is not to “win the war” but to engineer the destruction of entire countries, create political and social chaos, with a view to ultimately “picking up the pieces” and taking control of the national economies of sovereign nation states.

This agenda is also conducted through “regime change”, “color revolutions” and the concurrent demise and criminalization of the state apparatus coupled with “strong economic medicine” and the imposition of a soaring dollar denominated debt.

That is what happened in Vietnam. The Destruction of an entire country which was then “privatized” in the early 1990s:

“Vietnam never received war reparations payments from the U.S. for the massive loss of life and destruction, yet an agreement reached in Paris in 1993 required Hanoi to recognize the debts of the defunct Saigon regime of General Thieu. This agreement is in many regards tantamount to obliging Vietnam to compensate Washington for the costs of war.”

And now what is ongoing in Ukraine is the outright privatization of an entire country. 

The Privatization of Ukraine

BlackRock, which is the World’s largest portfolio investment company together with JPMorgan have  come to the rescue of Ukraine. They are slated to set up the Ukraine Reconstruction Bank.

The stated objective is “to attract billions of dollars in private investment to assist rebuilding projects in a war-torn country”. (FT, June 19, 2023)

“… BlackRock, JP Morgan and private investors, aim to profit from the country’s reconstruction along with 400 global companies, including Citi, Sanofi and Philips. … JP Morgan’s Stefan Weiler sees a “tremendous opportunity” for private investors. (Colin Todhunter, Global Research June 28, 2023)

The Kiev Neo-Nazi regime is a partner in this endeavour. War is Good for Business. The greater the destruction, the greater the stranglehold on Ukraine by “private investors”:

“BlackRock and JPMorgan Chase are helping the Ukrainian government set up a reconstruction bank to steer public seed capital into rebuilding projects that can attract hundreds of billions of dollars in private investment.” (FT, op cit)

The Privatization of Ukraine was launched in November 2022 in liaison  with BlackRock’s  consulting company McKinsey which is a public relations firm which has largely been responsible for co-opting corrupt politicians and officials Worldwide not to mention scientists and intellectuals on behalf of powerful financial interests.

“The Kyiv government engaged BlackRock’s consulting arm in November to determine how best to attract that kind of capital, and then added JPMorgan in February. Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced last month that the country was working with the two financial groups and consultants at McKinsey.

BlackRock and Ukraine’s Ministry of Economy signed a Memorandum of Understanding in November 2023.

In late December 2023, president Zelensky and BlackRock’s CEO Larry Fink agreed on an investment strategy.

Ukraine Reconstruction: The London Conference Venue

Careful Timing (See Timeline Below). The Prigozhin-Wagner “Failed Coup” (June 23-24) was initiated on the day following the Ukraine Reconstruction Conference in London hosted by the Kiev Regime and His Majesty’s Government on June 21-22, 2023. Is it a coincidence?

“The Ukraine Development Fund remains in the planning stages and is not expected to fully launch until the end of hostilities with Russia. But investors will have a preview this week at a London conference co-hosted by the British and Ukrainian governments.

The World Bank estimated in March that Ukraine would need $411bn to rebuild after the war, and recent Russian attacks have driven that figure higher.

No formal fundraising target has been set but people familiar with the discussions say the fund is seeking to raise low-cost capital from governments, donors and international financial institutions and leverage it to attract between five and 10 times as much private investment.

BlackRock and JPMorgan are donating their services, although the work will give them an early look at possible investments in the country. The assignment also deepens JPMorgan’s relationship with a longstanding client.

What Ukraine needed, BlackRock advised, was a development finance bank to find investment opportunities in sectors such as infrastructure, climate and agriculture and make them attractive to pension funds and other long-term investors and lenders. JPMorgan was brought in partly for its debt expertise.

… most investors want to wait for the end of hostilities. “The important part is that Ukraine is already thinking ahead,” Weiler said. “When the war is over, they’re going to want to be ready and start the rebuilding process immediately.” (FT, 19 June, 2023, emphasis added)

The Ukraine Privatization Chronology 

November 2022. Contract with BlackRock and McKinsey, Ukraine Ministry of Economy

December 2022. Agreement between BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and President Zelensky

February 2023. JPMorgan Joins the BlackRock Reconstruction Bank Project

June 18, 2023. Africa Peace Initiative in Saint Petersburg, Statement by President Putin with regard the foiled peace negotiations of March 2022.

June 21-22, 2023. London conference pertaining to Ukraine Reconstruction Bank co-hosted by the British and Ukrainian governments.

June 23-24, 2023. The Prigozhin Wagner “Rebellion”

Concluding Remarks

All the major financial and political actors were in attendance at the Ukraine Reconstruction Conference in London.

Ukraine is in the stranglehold of Big Money. BlackRock and JPMorgan.

Destruction is the Driving Force behind “Reconstruction”.

Peace as well as “Cease Fires” are not “Good for Business”.

“Ukraine’s people desperately need a future based on welfare and peace, but in reality Ukraine is being driven towards the kind of huge indebtedness that leads to subservience and dominance.” (Bharat Dogra, Global Research, June 28, 2023)

The outcome is mass poverty and social devastation of an entire country, under the guise of “reconstruction”.

28 June 2023

Source: www.globalresearch.ca