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By Prof Hoosen Vawda

The Targeted, Severe Torture and Brutal Murder of Political Activists by the Agents of the South African Apartheid Regime [i]

23 Jul 2022 – In Part 2 of this series, the author discussed the untimely, unsolved death of Dr Neil Hudson Aggett on 06^th October 1983, while in security police detention in Johannesburg, South Africa.[1] This paper examines the life of another apartheid martyr, Bantu Stephen Biko, born on 18^th  December 1946 into a Xhosa family in King William’s Town, Eastern Cape, South Africa and brutally killed while in South African security police detention on 12^th September  1977. In the wake of the urban revolt of 1976 and with prospects of a national revolution becoming apparent, security police detained Biko, the outspoken student leader, on 18^th  August 1977. He was thirty years old and was reportedly extremely fit when arrested. He was detained in Port Elizabeth and on 11^th September moved to Pretoria Central Prison, Transvaal (now Gauteng)[2].  His untimely demise began in a Pretoria prison cell for his anti-apartheid stance against the white minority government of that era in South Africa. He died in detention, the 20^th  person to have died in detention in the preceding eighteen months.[3]  A post-mortem was conducted the day after Biko’s death, at which his family was present. The explanation given by the Minister of Justice and Police, Jimmy Kruger[4], was that Biko died while on a hunger strike.[5]  A number of South African newspapers did their own private investigations and learned that Biko died from brain injuries. Their investigations also revealed that Biko was assaulted before he was transported to Pretoria without any medical attention. Three South African newspapers carried reports that Biko did not die as a result of a hunger strike.[6]

The night of 12^th September 1977, in South Africa, was a warm balmy, late autumn evening, which began for Steve Biko in a small prion cell in the morning, in Pretoria, the capital of South Africa when he was brutally assaulted on the left side of his head, by the apartheid interrogators resulting in a brain haemorrhage.  He was then placed in the back of a non-white police van ,  without any medical support, let alone a mattress,  while frothing at his mouth and made to endure a 700-mile-long journey, in a mortally injured condition to eventually die on arrival at a state prison hospital for Blacks, that night.  The night is also a religiously significant night for Muslims, called the “Night of Power” in the Islamic, lunar calendar which is approximately ten days shorter than the Gregorian system of counting the days. Steve Biko died on a night that Muslims consider better than a thousand months. Some today, like yesterday, may begin to wonder, “ do Black Lives Matter to God?” The Night of Power is a pivotal, holy night, according to Muslims, in which angels repeatedly descend from heaven seeking to bestow blessings of Divine intervention for those standing on earth imploring God’s help. God describes this night as qualitatively better than a thousand months, which is greater than a lifetime. This night can be described as pivotal for two reasons: The first is that this intervention changes the course of history as when God first sent the Angel Gabriel with the Holy Qur’an on his last mission to mankind. The second is that in this way the hosts of angels coming to earth are on a spiritual intervention for believers, creating in them an internal peace in an oppressive period of time. In the chapter called The Night of Power, both these pivotal purposes are explained:  “We sent it down on the Night of Power. What will explain to you what that Night of Power is? The Night of Power is better than a thousand months; on that night the angels and the Spirit descend again and again with their Lord’s permission on every task. Peace it is until the rising of the dawn.” (Qur’an 97: 1–5)

One of those difficult moments of pivotal convergence was the night Steve Biko was violently martyred. In the Islamic calendar, Steve Biko’s death  was caused on the 27^th  night of Ramadan in the year of 1397, after the migration of the Messenger of God, the Prophet Muhammad , from Mecca where he was persecuted by the people of his own tribe for spreading a relatively new religion of Islam, to Medina, where his doctrine was well received.  This is the beginning of the Islamic calendar. The Night of Power, which incidentally fell on September 12, 1977, when Steve Biko died.  The question which is often raised by Islamic Scholars is “How can such a disruption of peace and injustice take place on the Night of Power when the angels are descending granting peace until the rising of the dawn?“  Biko’s brutal murder created a theodicy question that would lead some to form a negative opinion about God and the value of Black lives to God. Muslim theology teaches that God has the prerogative to take what belongs to Him, and one of those angels that descended was the angel of death who was commanded to take the soul of Steve Biko. Despite the evil of a thousand blows that night that White supremacy thought it was killing a Black man in attempt to silence the voice that yelled the loudest that Black Lives Matter, to believers in God’s eternal power, this night was still better than a thousand months. It was a pivotal moment in the anti-apartheid movement which ended the life of the struggle in South Africa. Steve Biko was beaten to death while in Police custody, a familiar dark and brutal reality yesterday and even in the 21^st century, if the person is of African origins, today, globally.[7]

Until this late autumn night in 1977, Biko was an outspoken leader of the South African Liberation Movement against apartheid in the decades after the former, first democratically elected President Nelson Mandela’s imprisonment, in Robben Island off the shoreline of the beautifully scemic coast of the Southern tip of South Sfrica. For almost 27, long years.  Steve Biko spoke about the ambiguous nature of life and death and what a good life meant to him: “You are either alive and proud or you are dead, and when you are dead, you can’t care anyway.” Although Steve Biko is physically gone, he is alive and victorious because he lived caring for his fellow South Africans, repelling evil with good. The Muslims believe by the power of God that all martyrs live beyond their mortal life and  are commanded not to refer to those slain while fighting for peace and justice as dead.[8] The Quran,  Holy Book of Islamic faith categorically states that: “Do not say that those who are killed in God’s cause are dead; they are alive, though you do not realize it.” Qur’an 2:154.[9]

Bantu Stephen Biko was a South African anti-apartheid activist. Ideologically an African nationalist and African socialist, he was at the forefront of a grassroots anti-apartheid campaign known as the Black Consciousness Movement during the late 1960s and 1970s. His ideas were articulated in a series of articles published under the pseudonym Frank Talk.

Raised in a poor Xhosa family, Biko grew up in Ginsberg township in the Eastern Cape. In 1966, he began studying medicine at the University of Natal, where he joined the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS). Strongly opposed to the apartheid system of racial segregation and white-minority rule in South Africa, Biko was frustrated that NUSAS and other anti-apartheid groups were dominated by white liberals, rather than by the blacks who were most affected by apartheid. He believed that well-intentioned white liberals failed to comprehend the black experience and often acted in a paternalistic manner. He developed the view that to avoid white domination, black people had to organise independently, and to this end he became a leading figure in the creation of the South African Students’ Organisation [10](SASO) in 1968. Membership was open only to “blacks”, a term that Biko used in reference not just to Bantu-speaking Africans but a[11]lso to Coloureds and Indians. He was careful to keep his movement independent of white liberals, but opposed anti-white hatred and had white friends. The white-minority National Party government were initially supportive, seeing SASO’s creation as a victory for apartheid’s ethos of racial separatism.

Influenced by the Martinican philosopher Frantz Fanon and the African-American Black Power movement, Biko and his compatriots developed Black Consciousness as SASO’s official ideology. The movement campaigned for an end to apartheid and the transition of South Africa toward universal suffrage and a socialist economy. It organised Black Community Programmes (BCPs) and focused on the psychological empowerment of black people. Biko believed that black people needed to rid themselves of any sense of racial inferiority, an idea he expressed by popularizing the slogan “black is beautiful”. In 1972, he was involved in founding the Black People’s Convention (BPC) to promote Black Consciousness ideas among the wider population. The government came to see Biko as a subversive threat and placed him under a banning order in 1973, severely restricting his activities. He remained politically active, helping organise BCPs such as a healthcare centre and a crèche in the Ginsberg area. During his ban he received repeated anonymous threats, and was detained by state security services on several occasions. Following his arrest in August 1977, Biko was beaten to death by state security officers. Over 20,000 people attended his funeral.

During his life, Biko had many unhappy experiences which defined his future strategy in the fight for racial equality.  One incident is notewortyhy of mention. NUSAS officially opposed apartheid, but it moderated its opposition in order to maintain the support of conservative white students.[12] Biko and several other black African NUSAS members were frustrated when it organised parties in white dormitories, which black Africans were forbidden to enter.[13] In July 1967, a NUSAS conference was held at Rhodes University in Grahamstown. After the student delegations arrived, they found that dormitory accommodation had been arranged for the white and Indian delegates, but not the black Africans, who were told that they could sleep in a local church. Biko and other black African delegates walked out of the conference in anger.[14] Biko later related that this event forced him to rethink his belief in the multi-racial approach to political activism.[15]  Biko expressed the following sentiments. “I realised that for a long time I had been holding onto this whole dogma of nonracism, almost like a religion, But in the course of that debate I began to feel there was a lot lacking in the proponents of the nonracist idea, they had this problem, you know, of superiority, and they tended to take us for granted and wanted us to accept things that were second-class. They could not see why we could not consider staying in that church, and I began to feel that our understanding of our own situation in this country was not coincidental with that of these liberal whites.[16]

“Black”, said Biko, “is not a colour; Black is an experience. If you are oppressed, you are Black. In the South African context, this was truly revolutionary. Biko’s subsidiary message was that the unity of the oppressed could not be achieved through clandestine armed struggle; it had to be achieved in the open, through a peaceful but militant struggle.”[17]

Biko hoped that a future socialist South Africa could become a completely non-racial society, with people of all ethnic backgrounds living peacefully together in a “joint culture” that combined the best of all communities.[18] He did not support guarantees of minority rights, believing that doing so would continue to recognise divisions along racial lines.[19] Instead he supported a one person, one vote system.[20] Initially arguing that one-party states were appropriate for Africa, he developed a more positive view of multi-party systems after conversations with Woods.[21] He saw individual liberty as desirable, but regarded it as a lesser priority than access to food, employment, and social security.[22]  Dr Saths Cooper, a former Vice-Chacellor of the University of Durban-Westville, a tertiary, apartheid institute, specfically built for Indian students, was also a good friend of Steve Biko, as a ploitcal activist.[23]

Biko’s fame spread posthumously. He became the subject of numerous songs and works of art, while a 1978 biography by his friend Donald Woods formed the basis for the 1987 film Cry Freedom. During Biko’s life, the government alleged that he hated whites, various anti-apartheid activists accused him of sexism, and African racial nationalists criticised his united front with Coloureds and Indians. Nonetheless, Biko became one of the earliest icons of the movement against apartheid, and is regarded as a political martyr and the “Father of Black Consciousness”. His political legacy remains a matter of contention, amongst the academic and plitical fraternities not only in South Africa, but globally.

Following apartheid’s collapse, in 1994, Donald Woods[24] a South African journalist and anti-apartheid activist, raised funds to commission a bronze statue of Biko from Naomi Jacobson[25]. It was erected outside the front door of city hall in East London on the Eastern cape, opposite a statue commemorating British soldiers killed in the Second Boer War.[26] Over 10,000 people attended the monument’s unveiling in September 1997.[27] In the following months it was vandalised several times; in one instance it was daubed with the letters “AWB”, an acronym of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging, a far-right Afrikaner paramilitary group.[28] In 1997, the cemetery where Biko was buried was renamed the Steve Biko Garden of Remembrance.[29] The District Six Museum also held an exhibition of artwork marking the 20^th anniversary of his death by examining his legacy.[30]

Also in September 1997, Biko’s family established the Steve Biko Foundation.[31] The Ford Foundation donated money to the group to establish a Steve Biko Centre in Ginsberg,[32] opened in 2012.[33] The Foundation launched its annual Steve Biko Memorial Lecture in 2000, each given by a prominent black intellectual.[34] The first speaker was Njabulo Ndebele; later speakers included Zakes Mda, Chinua Achebe, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, and Mandela.[35]

Buildings, institutes and public spaces around the world have been named after Biko, such as the Steve Bikoplein in Amsterdam.[36] In 2008, the Pretoria Academic Hospital was renamed the Steve Biko Hospital.[37] The University of the Witwatersrand has a Steve Biko Centre for Bioethics.[38] In Salvador, Bahia, a Steve Biko Institute was established to promote educational attainment among poor Afro-Brazilians.[39] In 2012, the Google Cultural Institute published an online archive containing documents and photographs owned by the Steve Biko Foundation.[40] On 18 December 2016, Google marked what would have been Biko’s 70^th birthday with a Google Doodle.[41]  The University of KawaZulu-Natal, Nelson R. Mamdela School of Medicine, in Durban, eponymously named only a lecture theatre as the “Steve Biko Lecture Theatre, noting that Steve Biko was a medical student there, pior to his arrest and death.[42]

Amid the dismantling of apartheid in the early 1990s, various political parties competed over Biko’s legacy, with several saying they were the party that Biko would support if he were still alive.[43] AZAPO[44] in particular claimed exclusive ownership over Black Consciousness.[45] In 1994, the ANC issued a campaign poster suggesting that Biko had been a member of their party, which was untrue.[46] Following the end of apartheid when the ANC formed the government, they were accused of appropriating his legacy. In 2002, AZAPO issued a statement declaring that “Biko was not a neutral, apolitical and mythical icon” and that the ANC was “scandalously” using Biko’s image to legitimise their “weak” government. Members of the ANC have also criticised AZAPO’s attitude to Biko; in 1997, Mandela said that “Biko belongs to us all, not just AZAPO.” On the anniversary of Biko’s death in 2015, delegations from both the ANC and the Economic Freedom Fighters independently visited his grave.[280] In March 2017, the South African President Jacob Zuma laid a wreath at Biko’s grave to mark Human Rights Day.[47]

Bantu Stephen Biko, one of South Africa’s most famous anti-apartheid sons, was martyred at the hands of White, South Africa security police. Soon after, an autopsy was conducted and photographs were taken. Images from this report were leaked to the South African press and appeared in newspapers on 20^th September 1977. When journalists received the official autopsy report on 26^th October 1977, South Africans as well as the rest of the humane global community, had evidence-based confirmation of their speculations: Mr. Biko died of a massive brain hemorrhage due to blunt trauma on the left side of his head. Images from Biko’s autopsy were periodically printed in South African news media, through the last quarter of 1977 as the state conducted an inquiry into his death. Over the next eight years, these pictures sometimes accompanied reports on efforts to censure state pathologists for their handling of Biko’s medical needs prior to his death. Thus, through popular reproduction over a lengthy period, Biko’s postmortem portraits reached a large and unquantifiable audience, nationally in South Africa, as well as the global media, creating an awareness of the appalling human rights abuses in South Africa by the White, governing minority, against the Black majority.[49]

Like portraits made while he lived, images of Biko’s corpse have become potent symbols for wider cultural notions about changing power relations, order and disorder, and conceptions of self within the society. Julia Kristeva defines the corpse as the utmost of abjection.[50] She famously wrote that it is “not lack of cleanliness or health that causes abjection but what disturbs identity, system, and order. What does not respect boundaries, positions, or roles. The in-between, the ambiguous, the composite”. Since autopsies are performed when the cause of death is questioned, abjection, in all of its uncertainty, is inherent to the practice and its representation. When the pathologist’s record images of an important political activist who died at the hands of the State, viewers are compelled to explore personal notions of self and nation.

Steve Biko’s, most graphic autopsy pictures have been displayed and extensively printed over a period of twenty years, between 1977 to 1997 and even continue to make periodic appearances in the liberated South Africa in the 21^st century.  It underwent periods of internal censure, states of emergency, international boycott, and increased collective organisation of anti-apartheid bodies, among other things. In 1994, the nation changed from widespread disenfranchisement to democracy, and a period of concerted reflection was undertaken through the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Popularly reproduced and artistically appropriated throughout this time, Biko’s postmortem portraits have terrifically extended their meaning beyond that of forensic inquiry. Often they can be read as both an emblem of State abuse and as forceful resistance to it. Sometimes their appropriation affirms the ongoing life of Black Consciousness, the very bedrock of Biko’s identity and the philosophic principles for which he died. Works by five South African artists, the like of Paul Stopforth[51], a self-exiled South African political activist, artist, who emigrated to the United states in 1988, Ezrom Legae[52], a South African sculptor and draughtsman, Sam Nhlengthewa[53], a South African, creative collage artist, Professor Colin Richards[54], a fine artist and academic and David Koloane, considered to have been “an influential artist and writer of the apartheid years” in South Africa. [55],  are analysed collectively, in an effort to understand how Biko’s death has affected South Africans’ sense of self and nation during a period of significant violence and political change.  It is also to be noted that while Steve Biko was not given the due dignity in death, by the leaking and widespread dissemination of the graphic photographs in the media, of his battered corpse violating the fundamental principles of ethics, the transgression may be justified in exposing how even the white medical profession at the time as well as the so called reputable South African Medical Journal colluded with the apartheid state oppression apparatus to medically cover up the heinous crimes of their masters.   This is a serious indictment on the so-called civilized whites in South Africa, who looked upon the “natives” as “barbaric sub-humans”, who could be disposed of like animals, with absolutely no respect for their dignity, nor personal human rights of the Black people.  A similar philosophy exists in Israel, against the Palestinians.  This policy, is deeply entrenched as a philosophical ideology , even today, not only in white South African, but also in the United States, Britain, France and even in the war-torn Ukraine, where Black South African students were discriminated against, during the evacuation of civilians, following the Russian invasion, at the beginning of the war.

The Bottom Line is that like the death of George Floyd, the South African activist Steve Biko’s death galvanized a global movement against racism. His extrajudicial killing embarrassed Apartheid South Africa on the global stage, much the way Floyd’s death has embarrassed the United States. Although Biko was an activist and George Floyd a citizen, in one crucial way their deaths were quite similar: two Black people whose deaths were contested at the point of inquest and autopsy. Bantu Stephen Biko founded the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa as a medical student at the University of Natal, Medical School, specifically created by the Nationalist government of South Africa for the training of Black Medical Students, by a decree in 1950, during his brief period of training there, in the suburb of Umbilo, Durban, South Africa.

The answer to God’s rhetorical question becomes timely for those who wrestle with the theodicy of Black suffering and for those who ask how something like the evil of White Supremacy could win and how the death of Steve Biko could have taken place on such a holy night of power in the Islamic calendar? A night God describes as, “better than a thousand months.” We can understand, that on that night it was decreed by divine power, just as the exodus of Moses and the children of Israel from the tyranny of the Pharaoh in Egypt to the promised land, across the sea, for Steve Biko to be martyred. It can also be appreciated, that the All-Powerful divine, began to restrict and control White Power on that night in the angelic realm. It can also be understood that the powerful system of apartheid in South Africa pre 1994, which was thought to be indefatigable was now determined to fail despite being supported by Western powers, including Britain and the United States of America, because surely God is Able. It can be also appreciated that it was decreed that White supremacy’s plot was being undone with exact due measure by the Best of Plotters, the Divine.  It can also be understood that Steve Biko’s life on earth reached its pre-destined, decreed time and his blood paid the price for a new era of liberation in South Africa.

It is also interesting to note that followers of the Islamic faith, the Muslims have the privileged opportunity to annually experience both the historic and religiously pivotal night of power, every Ramadan, the fasting month in the Islamic calendar, as well as the night of power,  wherein the death of the iconic anti-apartheid activist was caused by the racist white oppressors, like the present day oppressors and killers of Palestinians.  The white regime is no more enforcing its supremacy on the majority of the indigenous people of South Africa, whose land they expropriated with the arrival of the first white man, of European descent in 1652.  Similarly, the killings and oppression of the indigenous people of Palestine whose land the displaced Jewish people expropriated by British decree will come to an end in the seventh decade as prophesised.  Serious concern is expressed by orthodox Jews in Israel, at present, about the future of Israel.

This end of systemic oppression is inevitable, for is cannot be propagated eternally.  At the rising of the dawn after Steve Biko was murdered, very few South Africans, let alone the global community, would have believed, way back in 1977, that Steve Biko’s death was actually the death blow to White supremacy in South Africa. In just a decade Nelson Mandela would be freed from prison and elected President of South Africa. Who would have believed you if you had said that last night angels descended as they do annually as decreed to fulfil God’s command to restore justice, so do not fear nor should one grieve. God is undoubtedly able to exact justice over all things. We communally stand and implore God believing that He is surely Able, All Powerful to affirmatively answer, at this pivotal moment in time the rhetorical question: do Black lives matter to God?  The answer is an unequivocal yes!  Peace shall prevail and in the Divine, humanoids must place their complete trust, for the Pharaonic oppression against the people of Moses, the Roman tyranny against Christendom, the Mongol butchery in Eastern Europe, the tyranny of the Persian Empire, the Colonial oppression in Africa, India and the East, the Nazi epigenetic engineering and quest for world supremacy, are all no more.  Surely the bigoted supremacy, as well as the war mongering, of the present-day western powers will be no more, very soon.

_____________________

READ: PART 1 – PART 2 – PART 4

Professor G. Hoosen M. Vawda (Bsc; MBChB; PhD.Wits) is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment.

25 July 2022

Source: www.transcend.org

By Richard Falk

A stylistically modified version of this post was published a few days ago in CounterPunch. It criticizes the dual tracks of Biden’s ill-executed trip in mid-July to Israel and Saudi Arabia. It faults Biden for the extreme cynicism of pursuing a realpolitik approach in Riyadh and an approach in Israel that mixed silences about apartheid, Shireen Abu Akleh, and the Palestinian ordeal with fanciful claims about shared values and democratic affinities.

Shared Values and Fist Pump Geopolitics

21 Jul 2022 – The U.S. Government at the highest level criticized Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, because she went to China on a mission to develop opportunities for cooperation with respect to the protection of human rights, which I found appalling at the time. The mission had been carefully several weeks earlier by UN staff that had visited China and negotiated the itinerary of the visit, which took occurred in May of this year. The whole experience seemed a win/win breakthrough as a major country opening itself up to a high degree of independent international scrutiny with respect to its human rights record, an exposure the U.S. has resisted and opposed. High officials in Washington let it be known in advance that they considered the trip ‘a mistake,’ and expressed consternation that its hyped allegations of ‘genocide’ associated with the treatment of the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang were not confirmed by Bachelet, although human rights violations in the province were duly noted by the High Commissioner in her report on the visit.

Western policy-minded China experts pointed to the supposed ‘danger’ of legitimating China’s narrative by the visit and contributing “an important milestone in China’s normative power.” [see Patrizia Zoguo and Lukian Da Bono, “The Steep Cost of Bachelet’s Visit to China,” The Diplomat,June 13, 2022] Critics even observed that such a visit so effectively whitewashed China’s wrongdoing that rather than improve prospects for its compliance with human rights the mission would likely have the perverse effect of emboldening China to commit even grosser violations in the future, and this despite China having agreed to establish a variety of continuing interactions and periodic consultations with the Geneva-based Office of the High Commissioner, connections no other geopolitical actor has seen fit to negotiate, and yet the critics failed to draw any such comparisons such was there resolve to prove it wrong for any part of the UN System to cooperate with China.

I regard China’s effort to enhance its image as a legitimate state to be a positive development not deserving the hostile reaction that it received in many sectors of the West, but especially in those quarters that were intent on a new cold war to blunt the competitive edge that China was gaining, especially in the world economy and on many technological frontiers of special relevance in the digital age. To seize upon this Chinese initiative, even granting that it was partly motivated by quite nomal soft power ambitions of sovereign states, is to denigrate most attempts to develop an international culture of respect for human rights as an essential foundation for indispensable cooperation in a variety of functional areas, including trade, climate change, migration, and environmental protection.

And we should not overlook American class-based arrogance in relation to human rights, given its refusal to accord economic and social rights the normative status they deserve, and of which China is proud, and justly so, given its remarkable record of poverty alleviation over the course of the last half century. This acute societal shortcoming in the United States is exhibited to the world and visible to all in the form of large-scale urban homelessness in the cities of the United States, and accented by less visible unavailability of affordable health care and nutritious food to millions of its own citizens; as well, constitutionally validated gross violations of the right to life arising from permissive rules governing access to assault weaponry for anyone with the money to make the purchase. A surge of civic violence, including mass school and mall shootings that keep blindsiding governing institutions at all levels of society who remain willing to pander to the interests of the munitions industry and the toxic populism of gun culture. Should not we, as Americans, have long ago interrogated our distinctive vulnerability to such a pattern of negative exceptionalism.

It is with these considerations in the background that we should assess the Biden mid-July visit to Israel and Saudi Arabia. If the critical reaction to Bachelet’s mission reflected establishment resentment to this breach in the geopolitical wall of hostility that had been constructed during the last years of the Trump presidency to justify coercive diplomacy directed at China. In contrast, Biden’s visit to the Middle East dramatized the extent to which human rights are buried far underground when perceived to clash with strategic interests being pursued in foreign policy as abetted by the domestic incentives to treat certain flagrant violators of human rights as if they are upholding the highest standards of a model democracy. Of course, it is of relevance to note that overlooking Saudi Arabia dreadful record, which includes blood dripping from the hands of the de facto head of state, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salmon (MBS), did bring Biden and the normally compliant media visible discomfort and occasioned some retreat from Biden’s fist pump greeting in Saudi Arabia.

Perhaps embarrassed, Biden made clear that it was only national security interests prevented him from fulfilling his 2020 campaign pledge to treat Saudi Arabia as a ‘pariah’ state. Biden somewhat surprisingly affirmed, considering his good will diplomatic goals, that he still believed in the rightness of his pledge when it came to Saudi human rights. Even more provocatively, Biden rejected MBS’s insistence that he had nothing to do with the murder of Jamal Khashoggi back in 2018. In view of his praise of Israel’s democratic credentials, Biden made himself vulnerable to MBS’s clever taunt—you seem to care much more about Jamal Khashoggi than Shireen Abu Akleh. Rather than implicate Israel, the U.S. official investigation of the murder of its own citizen, seems constructed to share the grief of Akleh’s surviving family instead of accepting the political costs of seeking accountability of the sort that might protect future journalists covering dangerous hotspots in Israel and elsewhere.

When it came to Israel, not only were human rights issues off the table, but Israel was praised extravagantly and unreservedly as an ally with shared values whose behavior could not be judged negatively. Biden displayed his affection for Israel by unnecessarily declaring himself to be a non-Jewish Zionist as if race was not a factor in the implementation of the Zionist vision in Israel. On another level, such a flourish seemed to express Biden’s view that disregarding the plight of the Palestinians was not a sufficient demonstration that U.S. partisanship was underpinned by a ideological identity.

Pro-Palestinians had anticipated this one-sidedness, [See statement of the Global Network on the Question of Palestine, “Biden’s Upcoming Visit to the Middle East: A Recipe for Violence not Peace,” July 12, 2022] and predicted its refusal to take note of such developments as the condemnation of the most internationally respected human rights NGOs in Israel and Occupied Palestine were branded as ‘terrorist’ organizations months ago by the Israeli Secretary of Defense and currently aspiring prime minister, Benny Gantz.

Even nine of the most important EU members (including France, Germany, Spain, and Italy) issued a joint statement on July 12th repudiating this cynical branding by the Israeli government evidently designed to inhibit international funding as well as destroy the domestic viability of these key civil society actors. In the same spirit, although much more serious from a human rights perspective, Biden and Western media kept completely silent about the glaring reality of Israel apartheid despite the strong mainstream human rights NGOs in the West and even in Israel concluding that Israel was guilty of committing the continuing international crime of apartheid.[See 2001 reports of B’Tselem, Human Rights Watch, and 2022 of Amnesty International, as well as 2017 UN report of the Economic and Social Council of West Asia).

Unlike the visit to Riyadh if Biden had raised these concerns even politely if would have undoubtedly produced a negative reaction among Jewish lobbying groups in the U.S., with repercussions for fundraising and the 2022 and 2024 elections. Despite Biden groveling at the feet of Yair Lapid, the Israeli caretaker prime minister, Trump remains the American leader of choice for the majority of Israelis according to recent public opinion polls. Trump doesn’t bother to pretend that he favors Palestinian statehood in a meaningful form, while Biden is apparently eager to retain membership in the liberal Zionist camp by way of rhetoric that falls short when it comes to policy.

The visit to Israel ended with the so-called The Jerusalem U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership Joint Declaration signed by the two leaders on July 14, 2022. The opening sentences of the Declaration set the tone, which unlike the national interests justifications for the diplomatic visit to Saudi Arabia, the prior Israel visit is affirmed as a virtual pilgrimage, far exceeding the proprieties of alliance statecraft or the pursuit of common national policy agendas. The extravagant language used is worth noticing, and especially as it implicit vindicated the marginalization of the Palestinian quest for justice and a shared war-mongering tone toward Iran:

“The United States and Israel reaffirm the unbreakable bonds between our two countries and the enduring commitment of the United States to Israel’s security. Our countries further reaffirm that the strategic U.S.-Israel partnership is based on a bedrock of shared values, shared interests, and true friendship. Furthermore, the United States and Israel affirm that among the values the countries share is an unwavering commitment to democracy, the rule of law, and the calling of “Tikkun Olam,” repairing the world.”

The Declaration went on to attack the UN and even the ICC as giving way to anti-Semitism, all because it was a venue for well-evidenced criticisms of Israel’s state practices and policies. This love fest even agreed to join forces to oppose the BDS Campaign and indeed any effort regarded as delegitimizing Israel as a state. There were, as well, imprudently phrased commitments in the Declaration especially with reference to Iran, the language of which is provocative:

“The United States stresses that integral to this pledge is the commitment never to allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon, and that it is prepared to use all elements of its national power to ensure that outcome. The United States further affirms the commitment to work together with other partners to confront Iran’s aggression and destabilizing activities, whether advanced directly or through proxies and terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.” [emphasis in the original}

Of course, among the revealing and dangerous silences associated with the Biden visit was the failure to mention Israel’s arsenal of nuclear weaponry and resulting strategic hegemony throughout the region. From any kind of detached perspective dedicated to peace and stability a nuclear free zone for the Middle East would be the optimal way to promote the true interests of the United States in the region, including energy production increases. When in history has a dominant state enacted its own policies in ways that ran against its national interests in response to pressures from a small state that it heavily subsidizes, including with weapons?

To end on a constructive note, the White House might considering entrusting future international political travel plans to American Express rather than the State Department. Its time to shed Blinken’s blinkered ‘rule-governed’ geopolitical fairy tale if we want to live together with others on the planet in ways that work. If this bit of unsolicited advice is followed, it might lead to real foreign policy gain!

Richard Falk is a member of the TRANSCEND Network, Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University, Chair of Global Law, Faculty of Law, at Queen Mary University London, Research Associate the Orfalea Center of Global Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Fellow of the Tellus Institute.

25 July 2022

Source: www.transcend.org

By Vandana Shiva

14 Jul 2022 – Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, headlines have been dominated by the warnings of risk in global food supply shortages and rising global food prices, all due to the conflict. But, according to many international groups, there is currently no risk of global food supply shortages. So why are so many countries now facing an increased risk of food insecurity, and in worst cases famine?

What is crucially being overlooked by most diagnoses of the current food crisis is how the problem does not lie in a lack of supply, or lack of market integration, but instead in how the food system is structured around power.

Detailed in this new report by Navdanya International, is how, in fact, we have already been facing a food and malnutrition crisis long before the current conflict.

From the colonial era, which saw the beginning of extraction and exploitation of small farmers, to the advent of the Green Revolution, and the concretizing of the globalized free trade regime, we have seen the deliberate destruction of small farmers and food sovereignty in favor of corporate power.

Therefore, it is no coincidence that today we are witnessing the third major food crisis in the last 15 years.

What the Russian-Ukrainian conflict has once again laid bare is just how fragile globalized food systems are. The current globalized, industrial agrifood system is a food system that creates hunger by design.

Worst of all, international institutions, governments and corporate actors are using the current crisis, as they have used every crisis: to further consolidate this failed model. False solutions and the redundant calls for failed approaches abound in headlines and international responses.

The current crisis should be a wake up call to the imperative of building resilience in food systems through agroecology, local food chains and by strengthening small farmers. Now more than ever will a food systems transformation toward Food Sovereignty, based on agroecology and increasing biodiversity, help act as a lasting solution to hunger. All over the world, many are following the path of Poison-free Food and Farming, and are transitioning to an ecological and democratic path, putting the food system in the hands of communities, women, farmers, and consumers. Only through local, agroecological food systems will systemic dependence on fertilizers, commodity farming, import dependencies, and systematic poverty be challenged. This is the most powerful means to regain our agriculture, our territories, our food, our natural environment, and our future.

Download Pdf

Call to Action

From the 2nd to the 16th of October (and beyond…), we invite you to join people and communities around the globe, and work together to launch a Campaign for Our Bread, Our Freedom, to take back our Seed, Food, Democracy and Freedom, and celebrate our seeds, our soils, our land, our territories, to create an Earth Democracy based on Living Seed, Living Soil, healthy communities and living economies of care.

CALL TO ACTION – for an Ecological Transformation of our Food Systems

Also read

New GMO Wheat Banned in Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina

Navdanya and the Navdanya movement were created by Dr. Vandana Shiva 30 years ago in India to defend Seed and Food sovereignty and small farmers around the world.

25 July 2022

Source: www.transcend.org

By NOBEL LAUREATES

19 Jul 2022 – It is time for bolder efforts to make peace in Ukraine.

War, like fire, can spread out of control, and as President Putin keeps reminding us, this particular conflagration has the potential to start a nuclear war.

At a recent joint news conference with the President of Belarus, Putin announced that Russia would transfer Iskander M missiles to Belarus. Those missiles can carry nuclear warheads, and the move is apparently intended to mirror nuclear sharing arrangements the United States has with five NATO allies — Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and Turkey.

U.S. nuclear weapons were introduced into Europe in the 1950s as a stopgap measure to defend NATO democracies whose conventional forces were weak. The number of nuclear weapons in those five countries peaked around 7,300 warheads in the 1960s, then dwindled to about 150 today, reflecting NATO’s growing conventional strength and its diminishing estimation of the military usefulness of nuclear weapons. But even 150 nuclear weapons could be more than sufficient to touch off a dangerous confrontation with Russia.

The world is as close to the nuclear abyss today as it was during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In fact, contemporary nuclear risks may actually be worse. Whereas Cuban Missile Crisis lasted just 13 days, the fighting in Ukraine will likely continue and tempt fate for many months to come.

Negotiations are therefore essential to defuse nuclear tensions. Even though it has no direct role in the Ukraine war, it’s appropriate for NATO to have a role in encouraging negotiations to end it.

Since NATO is an enormously strong military force — stronger even than Putin’s Russia — and since President Putin has said that the war in Ukraine is in part a response to NATO’s actions, NATO calling for peace negotiations would be fitting and carry some weight.

It would also be in keeping with NATO member states’ obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. NATO leaders meeting in Madrid recently reaffirmed that “The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is the essential bulwark against the spread of nuclear weapons and we remain strongly committed to its full implementation, including Article VI [the article that commits nuclear-armed states to pursuing nuclear disarmament].” This commitment includes, according to the Non-Proliferation Treaty’s 2000 Review Conference report, “a diminishing role for nuclear weapons in security policies to minimize the risk that these weapons ever be used and to facilitate the process of their total elimination.”

NATO traditionally maintains strong deterrence and defense, while it has also led the way toward detente and dialogue. NATO’s current commitment to deterrence and defense is clear. But to restart conversations, NATO must now also find a way to encourage détente and dialogue.

Bringing both sides back into dialogue will require a dramatic gesture. Therefore, we propose NATO plan and prepare for withdrawal of all U.S. nuclear warheads from Europe and Turkey, preliminary to negotiations. Withdrawal would be carried out once peace terms are agreed between Ukraine and Russia. Such a proposal would get Putin’s attention and might bring him to the negotiating table.

Removing U.S. nuclear weapons from Europe and Turkey would not weaken NATO militarily, since nuclear weapons have little or no actual usefulness on the battlefield. If they are truly weapons of last resort, there is no need to deploy them so close to Russia’s border. Under this proposal, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States would retain their national nuclear arsenals, and if the worst happened, they could still use them on NATO’s behalf.

Despite 70 years without a major war, it is not possible for nuclear deterrence to last forever. It only works as long as human beings make the right choices. Yet we know humans are flawed, and we all make mistakes.

Therefore we concur with UN Secretary General Guterres, who said, “These weapons offer false promises of security and deterrence — while guaranteeing only destruction, death, and endless brinksmanship,” and with Pope Francis, who said, “[Nuclear weapons] exist in the service of a mentality of fear that affects not only the parties in conflict, but the entire human race.,” as well as with the late U.S. Senator Alan Cranston who simply said, “Nuclear weapons are unworthy of civilization.”

NATO’s nuclear arsenal failed to deter Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and has almost no utility as a weapon of war. But NATO’s nuclear weapons can still be put to good use, not by threatening to launch them and escalate the war, but by withdrawing them to make room for new negotiations and eventual peace.

1987 Nobel Peace Laureate Oscar Arias was the President of Costa Rica from 1986 to 1990 and 2006 to 2010.

Jonathan Granoff is President of the Global Security Institute, and a Nobel Peace Prize nominee.

25 July 2022

Source: www.transcend.org

By Jezile Torculas

Introduction

Julian Assange through WikiLeaks rose to fame in 2010 after his publication of classified military information pertaining to US war crimes and human rights violations in the course of the Iraq and Afghan wars. Of particular importance, one that predicated Assange’s controversial arrest in Britain is an incriminating footage of American soldiers shooting blankly at Iraqi civilians and Reuters news staff in 2007.

WikiLeaks famously dubbed the video as “Collateral Murder” essentially because the deliberate killing of a wounded civilian being separated from a targeted van is downright murder[1].

Following the publication of US war logs, Assange received both compliments and vitriol — one for imperiling personal security and reputation for the sake of truthful journalism, and the other for allegedly risking other people’s safety and endangering national security. The debate concerning the nature of Assange’s activities surfaced, raising questions of whether he is a journalist, a whistleblower or a hacker, and whether or not he should be extradited to the United States to face criminal charges.

The case of Julian Assange is one that is far more complex and controversial than is imaginable. While the topic per se is arguably more legal than political, the centrality of the political motivation behind the extradition request from the US simply cannot be undermined. In 2017, former CIA Director and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blasted WikiLeaks as a “non-state, hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors” and called Assange as “darling of terrorist groups”[2]. Further, then Vice President Joe Biden branded him as a “high-tech terrorist”[3]. Another former CIA Director Leon Panetta revealed in an interview that the US prosecution of Assange is a way of sending a “threatening message to whistleblowers and journalists” who expose dirty secrets of the US government[4]. In this respect, the legal underpinnings of the case are of lesser significance in this essay than its political aspect.

Assange’s extradition has both personal and global ramifications vis-à-vis human rights and democracy, particularly on press freedom. The European Union has a key role in the obstruction of the American pursuit of Assange and should therefore play its part as a legitimate institution whose raison d’etre is the promotion and preservation of global norms. While several international human rights organizations[5], civil society groups[6], individual authorities[7] and even the Council of Europe[8] stood for Assange and criticized the extradition case as a crackdown on investigative journalism, the EU as a collective entity could have employed a variety of its human rights instruments to interfere in the criminal proceedings but nevertheless remains mum and passive. The EU and US have long history of diplomatic relations that date back to 1953. Theirs is “one of the most important bilateral relationships in the world”[9]. Against this background, this essay argues that the EU as a rational actor has goals, interests and strategies of its own; the silence surrounding Assange’s extradition case represents a double standard in its commitment, or the lack thereof, to the protection of human rights and democracy that instead of being comprehensively integrated into its external service, in actuality it is just a variable. Realpolitik precedes any normative standard in international relations (IR) insofar as the EU, US and Assange are concerned.

Assange and his extradition

Julian Assange is an Australian citizen, residing and working in the United Kingdom. In 2006, he founded WikiLeaks, an anti-secrecy website that “specializes in the analysis and publication of large datasets of censored or otherwise restricted official materials involving war, spying and corruption.”[10] The ongoing detention of Assange involves three states: Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. However, the present uproar — and the crux of this essay — relates more importantly to the imminent extradition case involving the UK and the US.

Since the 2010 WikiLeaks publication of massive classified documents dumped by a US military personnel later known to be Chelsea Manning (formerly Bradley Manning), Assange has been in the crosshairs of the US government. Fearing US extradition[11], he took refuge at the Ecuadorean embassy in London after granted political asylum in 2012 by then Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa. Changes in the Ecuadorean government (new President Lenin Moreno) prompted his arrest[12] and transfer to Belmarsh Maximum Security Prison in London in 2019 where he has since been detained unjustly. According to a thorough medical assessment, Assange showed symptoms such as “extreme stress, chronic anxiety, and intense psychological trauma” which are “cumulative effects of what can only be described as psychological torture”[13]. Additionally, calls for medical attention concerning his physical ailments have gone unheeded[14]. His mental health has also deteriorated over a long period of solitary confinement[15].

The US extradition request is based on the said publication whereby Assange faces 17 counts under the Espionage Act and one count of conspiracy, allegedly assisting Manning to hack a US Department of Defense computer[16]. His extradition has serious human rights implications that go beyond his individual case. Apart from potential violation of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), particularly Article 3[17], 5[18], 6[19], and 7[20], the US indictment has a chilling effect on press freedom which is in violation of Article 10[21]. It should be noted that the information leaked by Manning is of public interest and should therefore be taken with absolute transparency and democratic accountability. It is the public’s right to be informed of government wrongdoing. This is the cornerstone of media freedom[22]. Assange through WikiLeaks has been fulfilling this endeavor for more than a decade and has in fact received numerous international awards for its crucial contribution to journalism[23]. For the purpose of this essay, it is worth iterating that the extradition case is politically motivated[24]. Deciding on the request based on ‘humanitarian’ promises of Assange’s fair and just treatment downplays the mendacity of the US government as revealed by historical precedents[25].

The EU and human rights and democracy

The protection of human rights and democracy is the EU’s raison d’etre. The integration of human rights norms and democratic values into its external relations demonstrates what constructivists call as “moral proselytizing”[26]. It strategically partners with local NGOs in an effort to promote the localization of these norms in third countries[27]. Its bilateral relations with foreign states are ostensibly predicated on these norms, in such a way that either the EU withdraws from the cooperation or that states conform. These endeavors, however, are futile without institutions and legal rules to enforce and facilitate.

The EU’s institutional architecture vis-à-vis its external relations is comprised of the EU Parliament, European Commission, European External Action Service (EEAS) and the EU DevCo[28][29][30]. Nakanishi (2018) has added the European Council (EC) to the active organs that oversee the promotion of human rights and democracy in its external relations[31]. These formal EU institutions are compounded with regimes that facilitate the enforcement of norms and values; among them are global human rights sanctions regime[32] and trade regime[33].

Members of the EU are legally bound by the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) which is consistent with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). ECHR is enforceable by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).

EU-US relations

According to the European Parliament[34], the EU and the US “share the values of democracy, human rights, the rule of law, and economic and political freedom, and have overlapping foreign policy and security concerns”. On the one hand, they have established the Transatlantic Legislators’ Dialogue or the collaboration between the European Parliament (EP) and the US Congress narrowly defined. Members of the EP and the US House of Representatives meet biannually to discuss matters of mutual concern. This interparliamentary process dates back to 1972. On the other hand, the EU and the US are each other’s largest investors and valuable trading partners[35]. The US was the EU’s primary goods export destination in 2020 and second largest goods import partner[36]. They enjoy one of the lowest average tariffs (under 3%) in the world[37]. Moreover, US investment in the EU is “three times higher than in the whole of Asia” and the EU investment in the US is “eight times higher than in India and China combined”[38]. Essentially, the EU and US investments are the real driver of the transatlantic relationship[39].

Furthermore, in 2020 the EU through the European Commission and High Representative/Vice President for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy had a renewed vigor vis-à-vis the EU-US relations. It drafted a proposal for a new, forward-looking transatlantic agenda that is centered on COVID-19, climate change, technology, trade and standards, but also on democracy and security. The EU vows to work closely with the US in fighting corruption, authoritarianism, and human rights abuses around the world.

The EU in the extradition case of Assange

The case of Julian Assange is a strong representation of the kind of (Western) democracy that prevails in the world today — one that is characterized by secrecy, impunity and a weak justice system being easily overtaken by powerful interests; or that rule of law is undermined, narrowly defined. Humanitarian concerns surrounding the extradition case raise serious questions over the credibility of the EU as an advocate for human rights and democracy. What has the regional institution as a collective entity done that demonstrates its commitment to normative values?

In 2012, credit card companies that processed donations for WikiLeaks introduced a blockade that resulted in a major blow to the organization’s revenue and fund[40]. The European Commission simply affirmed the move by suggesting that it has not violated EU anti-trust rules. As a representative of 27 sovereign states, the EU has not issued a communique announcing its opinion on the Assange case. A group of Members of Parliament called on the European Commission to “intervene and stop the extradition”[41] but due to the insufficient number of signatories, the request fell on deaf ears. In what is referred to as a landmark law, the EU Parliament passed in 2019 an EU-wide directive that mandates the protection of whistleblowers in response to recent events such as the bombshell revelations of Edward Snowden. Two years on, the directive has hardly any implication in the Assange case albeit “no European prosecution agency charged Assange with breaking any European law”[42].

The lack of any definitive measures from the EU that push back the extradition request is a display of “powerlessness” but also of the supremacy of strategic interests to the detriment of normative values. This is illustrated by a contrast in the EU’s response between the case of Snowden and Assange. The European Parliament expressed outrage over the reported surveillance by the US as leaked by Snowden and warned of repercussions for the EU-US relations[43]. As a rational actor — one that is akin to a sovereign state in the international system —, the EU acts on its national interest and security. Apparent acquiescence in Assange’s extradition zeroes in on the perceived absence of threat to its national security and more on the vitality of the transatlantic relationship. Why can’t the EU apply trade sanctions or conditionalities to the US in the same way as Cambodia and the Philippines? The answer brings us back to the principle of strategic interest — the US has the upper hand in the bilateral relationship, and should the EU leverage its established indispensability to the US’s economy, the consequences would hurt the EU more than the US. The IR concept of ‘bandwagoning’ best explains the decision of the EU to remain mum and passive despite its capacity in the face of a hegemon so that no matter the egregious war crimes and gross human rights abuses, the US enjoys impunity and continues to derail the rules-based international order.

Conclusion and Recommendation

The exemplary case of Julian Assange informs us that the Western concept of democracy is twisted and that protection of human rights is contingent on national interest and security.

The European Union’s silence on the Assange case reinforces the neorealist assumption that states operate in a self-help system where each of them has the power to inflict harm on its neighbors. As a self-interested rational actor, the EU ‘cooperates’ with the hegemon to maintain the status quo, both domestically and internationally.

*

Jezile Torculas has a bachelor’s degree in Political Science.

Notes

[1] Julian Assange in an interview with Al Jazeera in 2010.

[2] Jeff Seldin. “New CIA Director Labels WikiLeaks ‘Non-state Hostile Intelligence Service,’ VOA, April 13, 2017, https://www.voanews.com/a/cia-wikileaks-nonstate-hostile-intelligence-service/3809868.html

[3] Robert Mahoney. “For the sake of press freedom, Julian Assange must be defended”, CPJ, December 11, 2019, https://cpj.org/2019/12/press-freedom-julian-assange-wikileaks-defend/

[4] Oscar Grenfell. “Former CIA director Leon Panetta: We are prosecuting Assange to intimidate others,” World Socialist Web Site, September 18, 2020, https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/09/18/assa-s18.html

[5] Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International expressed concern over violation of Assange’s human rights when extradited to the US.

[6] Reporters Without Borders, Committee to Protect Journalists, independent journalists and media organizations, among others, show solidarity with Assange and lambasted his indictment as travesty of justice.

[7] German Commissioner on Human Rights Barbel Kofler urged the UK to adhere to human rights in the extradition proceedings. UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer urged the UK to drop the extradition appeal.

[8] The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) voted to oppose the extradition of Assange and called for his immediate release.

[9] Taken from the European Parliament, Liaison office in Washington DC website. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/unitedstates/en/eu-us-relations

[10] It has published more than 10 million documents and associated analysis. Taken from the WikiLeaks website:  https://wikileaks.org/What-is-WikiLeaks.html

[11] Harald Schumann. “Jailing of Assange: An attack on press freedom”, Investigate Europe, December 17, 2019. https://www.investigate-europe.eu/en/2019/jailing-of-assange-an-attack-on-press-freedom/

[12] He was charged with 50 weeks in prison for skipping bail following a European Arrest Warrant from a Swedish court for rape allegations. Although this is beyond the scope of this paper, this event needs mentioning to inform the rationale for his detention at Belmarsh Prison. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/06/julian-assange-wikileaks-boss-goes-from-journalist-to-confinement.html

[13] United Nations Human Rights, Office of the High Commissioner. “UN expert says “collective persecution” of Julian Assange must end now”, OHCHR, May 31, 2019. https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=24665

[14] Harald Schumann. “Jailing of Assange: An attack on press freedom”, Investigate Europe, December 17, 2019. https://www.investigate-europe.eu/en/2019/jailing-of-assange-an-attack-on-press-freedom/

[15] Holly Cullen. “Julian Assange’s extradition case is finally heading to court – here’s what to expect”, The Conversation, February 24, 2020. https://theconversation.com/julian-assanges-extradition-case-is-finally-heading-to-court-heres-what-to-expect-132089

[16] US Department of Justice file. https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1165556/download

[17] Article 3: Prohibition of torture

[18] Article 5: Right to liberty and security

[19] Article 6: Right to a fair trial

[20] Article 7: No punishment without law

[21] Article 10: Freedom of expression

[22] Amnesty International. “US/UK: “Travesty of justice” as extradition appeal fails to recognise that it would be unsafe for Julian Assange to be sent to the US”, Amnesty International, December 10, 2021. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/12/us-uk-travesty-of-justice-as-extradition-appeal-fails-to-recognise-that-it-would-be-unsafe-for-julian-assange-to-be-sent-to-the-us/

[23] See this: https://wikileaks.org/What-is-WikiLeaks.html

[24] Holly Cullen. “Julian Assange’s extradition case is finally heading to court – here’s what to expect”, The Conversation, February 24, 2020. https://theconversation.com/julian-assanges-extradition-case-is-finally-heading-to-court-heres-what-to-expect-132089

[25] Azeezah Kanji. “Assange and the assurances of ‘civilized’ torturers”, Al Jazeera, November 30, 2021. https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/11/30/assange-and-the-assurances-of-civilised-torturers

[26] Nadelmann (1990) as cited in Sikkink (1998) equated the desire to convert others to an advocacy to moral proselytizing. This involves promoting norms that govern the way states treat individuals or how individuals treat each other.

[27] Cristina Churruca Muguruza, “Human Rights and Democracy at the heart of the EU’s foreign

policy?” in EU Human Rights and Democratization Policies: Achievements and Challenges, ed. Felipe Gomez Isa et al. (New York, NY: Routledge, 2018), 49-71.

[28] Jennifer Sterling-Folker, “Neoliberalism” in International Relations Theory. Discipline and Diversity 3^rd Edition, ed. Tim Dunne et al. (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2013), 114-131.

[29] United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner. The European Union: Human Rights and the Fight Against Discrimination. https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/GuideMinorities14en.pdf

[30] Samantha Velluti, “The Promotion and Integration of Human Rights in EU External Trade Relations.” Utrecht Journal of International and European Law 32, no. 83 (2016): 41-68.

[31] Yumiko Nakanishi, “Mechanisms to Protect Human Rights in the EU’s External Relations.” in Contemporary Issues in Human Rights Law, ed. Yumiko Nakanishi (Singapore: Springer Singapore, 2018), 3-21.

[32] The European Commission defines EU sanctions as “a foreign policy tool which helps to achieve key EU objectives such as preserving peace, strengthening international security, and consolidating and supporting democracy, international law and human rights.” https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/pt/ip_20_2419

[33] European Parliament, “Trade regimes applicable to developing countries.” https://www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/en/sheet/162/trade-regimes-applicable-to-developing-countries

[34] See this: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/en/sheet/174/transatlantic-relations-the-usa-and-canada

[35] See this: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/en/sheet/174/transatlantic-relations-the-usa-and-canada

[36] Ibid.

[37] See this: https://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/countries-and-regions/countries/united-states/

[38] Ibid.

[39] See this: https://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/countries-and-regions/countries/united-states/

[40] Press Association. “Julian Assange expresses surprise over EU Wikileaks decision”, The Guardian, November 27, 2012. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/nov/27/julian-assange-eu-wikileaks-decision

[41] The Left in the European Parliament https://left.eu/meps-urge-commission-to-halt-assange-extradition-to-us/

[42] Dick Roche. “The perturbing silence surrounding the case of Julian Assange”, Euractiv, November 8, 2021. https://www.euractiv.com/section/digital/opinion/the-perturbing-silence-surrounding-the-case-of-julian-assange/

[43] Thierry Balzacq and Benjamin Puybareau, “The economy of secrecy: security, information control, and EU-US relations.” West European Politics 41, no. 4 (2018): 890-913.

27 July 2022

Source: www.globalresearch.ca

By Countercurrents Collective

Sri Lanka was braced for more unrest after newly appointed president Ranil Wickremesinghe vowed to crack down on the protests that toppled his predecessor, condemning them as “against the law”.

Speaking after being MPs picked him as successor to Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Wickremesinghe made it clear he would not tolerate those he perceived to be stirring up violence.

“If you try to topple the government, occupy the president’s office and the prime minister’s office, that is not democracy; it is against the law,” he said.

“We will deal with them firmly according to the law. We will not allow a minority of protesters to suppress the aspirations of the silent majority clamoring for a change in the political system.”

Wickremesinghe is expected to name the leader of the parliament and old schoolmate Dinesh Gunawardena as prime minister on Thursday. Gunawardena is known as a strong Rajapaksa loyalist, and served as a cabinet when Mahinda Rajapaksa was president, and then again when Gotabaya Rajapaksa was president.

In recent days, Wickremesinghe, who declared a state of emergency this week, had made statements calling protesters “fascists” and indicating he would not be afraid to crack down on the demonstrations.

Less than an hour after he was declared president on Wednesday, a court order was issued prohibiting anyone from congregating within a 50-metre radius of a statue that stands at Galle Face in Colombo, where protesters spurred by the country’s economic collapse have been camped out for months.

People Defy Order

However, people defied the order and dozens gathered on the steps of the president’s offices, which are still occupied by the protest movement, to shout rallying cries of “deal Ranil” – a reference to Wickremesinghe’s reputation as a scheming politician – as well as “Ranil bank robber”, referring to a bank bond scam he was implicated in. Hundreds of police and military stood on the periphery but did not interfere in the rally.

After being selected by MPs as president, Wickremesinghe called on the opposition parties for an “end to division” and said he wanted to “bring everyone together so that a national consensus is formed as to the way forward”.

But questions remain over whether Wickremesinghe would be able to put together a cross-party unity government acceptable to the people, after the major opposition parties had pledged their support for the presidential candidate he defeated.

Wickremesinghe has been prime minister six times and is close to the Rajapaksa family. Protesters fear that he will protect the Rajapaksas from being held accountable, as he has been accused of doing in the past, and would not instigate the constitutional change being demanded by the protest movement, including an end to the system of executive presidency.

Wickremesinghe is due to serve for the rest of Rajapaksa’s term, until November 2024.

Ranil Does Not Have Mandate

“Ranil will be chased away, he is a crook and he does not have a mandate,” said Anura Goonaratna, 53, a toy exporter. “This protest movement is going to get worse. There has to be an end to this and the only ending we will accept is throwing Ranil out, whatever it takes.”

China’s Loan

Analysts have disputed the China debt-trap narrative in Sri Lanka. China only accounts for 10% of Sri Lanka’s debts, most of which were concessionary loans and the repayments only accounted for less than 5% of the country’s annual foreign debt servicing.

US: High Interest Rate

A much greater drain on the country’s foreign exchange reserves were international sovereign bonds, much of which are from the US, which were borrowed by the country at high interest rates. It was these bond repayments – which were due to total over $1.5bn in 2022 – that drained Sri Lanka’s reserves and ultimately forced them to default in May, as the country was virtually bankrupt.

People Are Unhappy

Ranil Wickremesinghe’s election as President could again plunge Sri Lanka into another round of political unrest and instability.

Ranil has little credibility with the general public. In some places, protests called for Ranil Wickremesinghe to quit ahead of today’s elections but these were not mass rallies.

According to some analysts it may not be as easy to mobilize protests.

Anticipating possible demonstrations, the Colombo Port Magistrate’s Court issued an order Wednesday preventing anyone from reaching within a 50 meter radius of the S.W.R.D. Bandarnaike statute which is located at the protest site at the Galle face green in the capital.

Neither Ranil nor the members of parliament have credibility with the voters.

The fear is that this may lead to another round of street protests, calling for Ranil to quit.

Sri Lanka at the moment can ill afford another political turmoil when the President and the new government he appoints has to focus on getting the economy back on track. That won’t be an easy job. Much will depend on whether the protesters are back on the street and how the President tackles the fresh volley of unrest.

Rumor mills in Sri Lankans are now pointing fingers at New Delhi for ensuring Wickremesinghe’s victory.

Denying these charges, the Indian High Commission in Colombo tweeted : “We have seen baseless and purely speculative media reports about efforts at political level from India to influence political leaders in Sri Lanka regarding elections in the Sri Lankan Parliament to the post of the President of Sri Lanka.’’ And again “(We) categorically deny these media reports as completely false. They are clearly a figment of someone’s imagination.” Another tweet said that India   “does not interfere in internal affairs and democratic processes of another country”.

Numbers in Parliament Do not Depict True Composition On The Ground: Says AKD

Claiming that the composition of Parliament did not represent the true desire of the people, NPP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake reiterated that an opportunity should be given for a new mandate as there was no genuineness for any form of government established in the current Parliament.

He told Parliament that the composition which is shown through numbers in Parliament was not the real composition on the ground.

“There is a huge contradiction between the desire of the people outside and the Parliament,” he said.
He said they always stood for an interim government for a short period of time headed by a President and a Prime Minister who had no future political agendas.

He said however, they failed to come to a consensus despite discussions with several political parties.
Dissanayake alleged that MPs had been bought over this time also just as in the past.

“When I saw the number of parties extending support for Dullas Alahapperuma, I thought he would received more than 113 votes. It is now clear that the members in the political parties do not always stay with the policies of the parties. We have a past where MPs were sold for money. This situation has not changed,” he said.

Our Candidate Could not Win: Rajapaksa

Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa said that his party’s candidate was unable to win the Presidential election in Parliament yesterday.

“We presented Dullas. We voted for him, but lost. Somebody has to win,” he told media in Parliament.

“He (Ranil) got more votes, so he became the President. That’s what has happened. We are waiting to see what will happen in the future. Whatever the government is, it must work for the people of the country,” he said.
“There are different opinions. Some say this is the opinion of the people. We say this is not the opinion of the people,” he also said.

Commenting about the protesters, the former President said “I think the struggle is over now. The youth who are engaged in the struggle at Galle Face must understand that now. They must now leave and get on with their work,” the former Premier said

Arson Attack On Ranil’s Private Residence: Four Suspects Remanded

Four suspects arrested over the incident of setting fire to Acting President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s private residence in Colombo were yesterday remanded till July 27 by Colombo Fort Magistrate’s Court.

These four suspects are to be produced before an identification parade on  the next hearing date.

Defence Counsel appearing for the suspects alleged that police have failed to arrest the main suspect involved in the incident. In reply, the CID informed Colombo Fort Magistrate Thilina Gamage that an individual named Ivan Perera wanted for questioning over the incident has already fled the country and further said the airport authorities have been informed in this regard.

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21 July 2022

Source: countercurrents.org

By XU WEIWEI

Persistent claims in Western media that Sri Lanka is falling into a “Chinese debt trap” fly in the face of the facts, say analysts who stress the need for the crisis-hit country to receive concrete assistance as lawmakers lay down a path for a return to stability.

The alleged “debt trap” is a deliberate fabrication, according to Bernard Goonetilleke, chairman of the Pathfinder Foundation, a Sri Lankan think tank.

Sri Lanka’s debt to China represents around 10 percent of its total external debt, he said. “One has to examine carefully to determine which other countries and financial institutions have provided the remainder,” he said.

Goonetilleke, a former Sri Lankan ambassador to China, said the country’s problems stem from “Sri Lanka living beyond its means, by bridging budget deficits by external loans over the past two decades, for which interested parties try to make China the scapegoat”.

Goonetilleke’s comments came after the speaker of Sri Lanka’s Parliament on Monday said the leaders of political parties had agreed to a vote in the legislature on July 20 for a new president.

Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena said in a statement that following a meeting with all the party leaders it was decided to convene on Friday a parliamentary session in which the presidency would be declared vacant. Nominations will be called on July 19.

Amid the deepening financial and humanitarian crisis, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe declared the island nation bankrupt on July 5.

Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Monday confirmed that he would step down from the presidency on Wednesday.

Commenting on the country’s economic difficulties, Goonetilleke said foreign debt is a serious issue. “The general reference is Sri Lanka owes foreign lenders around $51 billion.”

According to statistics from Sri Lanka’s Department of External Resources, the government’s total outstanding external debt had hit $35.1 billion by the end of April 2021. China accounts for less than 10 percent of the nation’s external debt. Japan accounts for a similar percentage to China, while the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank provided 13 percent and 9 percent, respectively. Some 47 percent of the debt comes from market borrowings, the department’s figures show.

Massive blow

Goonetilleke said the pandemic and the subsequent lockdown dealt a massive blow to the economy.

Lawrence Loh, director of the Centre for Governance and Sustainability at the National University of Singapore Business School, said: “There have been fundamental mishaps over the years in how the overall economic governance has been conducted. This obviously affected the country’s ability to service all its debts, including supranational and bilateral obligations.”

Rajiv Biswas, an Asia-Pacific chief economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said Sri Lanka’s foreign exchange reserves have “fallen sharply in the past two years, from $7.6 billion in January 2020 to $1.6 billion by April 2022”.

“One factor has been the high costs of repayments for the nation’s external debt,” Biswas said. “Second, surging world oil prices since mid-2021 have also sharply increased the foreign exchange costs of paying for oil imports.”

He said Sri Lanka’s foreign exchange problems have been “compounded by the collapse of international tourism during the COVID-19 pandemic”.

Although tourist arrivals improved in the first half of this year, Biswas said the economic crisis made it difficult for Sri Lanka to continue rebuilding the vital sector.

Remittance inflows from Sri Lankan workers abroad slumped 53 percent year-on-year from January to May, adding to Sri Lanka’s difficulties, Biswas said.

Loh said: “The foreign debt problem of Sri Lanka is probably more nuanced than definitive in nature－we have to get to the root of understanding how and why the borrowings were made.”

The Singaporean academic said Sri Lanka, to be fair, has made developmental progress through its tapping of overseas funds－and “there is a difference between a tap and trap”.

In fact, projects under the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, including the Colombo Port City and Hambantota Port infrastructure, have become known as Sri Lanka’s key economic drivers.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Monday that China hopes that people from all walks of life in Sri Lanka can work together to overcome difficulties and realize social stability, economic recovery and improved livelihoods for the people as soon as possible.

In June, another Foreign Ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian, said China would provide emergency assistance worth 500 million yuan ($74.2 million) to Sri Lanka.

Xinhua contributed to this story.

vivienxu@chinadailyapac.com

13 July 2022

Source: chinadaily.com.cn

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky

Eight years ago, on 17 July 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) was shot down in Eastern Ukraine.

This background text was prepared in the context of the Kuala Lumpur MH17 Conference entitled MH17: The Quest for Justice, organized by JUST, the PGPF and the CRG in August 2019. This comprehensive report provides detailed evidence that Russia was not involved in the downing of MH17.

It also confirms the insidious role of Ukraine’s intelligence agency.

****

The underlying objective is to examine the evidence, reveal the truth and uphold the rule of law.

Today, July 29th 2021, our thoughts are with the families of the victims of the Malaysian Airlines MH17 tragedy.

The 2019 Conference was dedicated to the memory of the victims.

It is also a national tragedy for the people of Malaysia. The downing of MH17 with 283 passengers and 15 crew on board, took place barely a few months following the mysterious disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 after departing on March 8, 2014 from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing, with 227 passengers and 12 crew members on board.

It is worth recalling that immediately after the MH17 plane crash on July 17 2014, prior to the conduct of a preliminary investigation, Secretary of State John Kerry and US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power pointed their finger at Moscow without a shred of evidence. In turn, the allegations directed against Russia were used to justify the imposition of sweeping economic sanctions against the Russian Federation.

According to President Obama (hours after the tragedy):

“… the downing of MH17 should be “a wake-up call” to Europe to get serious about confronting Russia over Ukraine after EU leaders have proved reluctant to impose tought sanctions.” (Telegraph, July 18,2019)

The Wall Street Journal reports (July 18, 2014) that “Obama is getting his wish and Brussels is now weighing new sanctions”:

European governments, jolted by the downing of a passenger plane over eastern Ukraine that killed nearly 300 people, are contemplating a major expansion of sanctions on Russia as early as next week.

European Union leaders decided in recent days to expand the penalties to a broad new category of people and companies. But the apparent shooting down of a plane carrying more than 200 EU citizens has intensified a desire to act quickly and forcefully, including sanctions against oligarchs with ties to the Kremlin.

In Brussels, some diplomats described the incident as a game-changer. “It would have major consequences if it was certain it came from the rebels— major consequences,” said one official. (WSJ, July 18, 2014)

On July 22, 2014, The European Union decided to expand its sanctions blacklist against Moscow including Vladimir Putin’s inner circle.

EU foreign ministers decided to “draw up further broad measures including an arms embargo and financial restrictions on Russian businesses, … following the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17.” (Guardian, July 22, 2019)

Michel Chossudovsky, August 2019, updated July 17, 2020, July 16, 2022
____________________________________________

DATE : 17th AUGUST 2019 (SATURDAY)
Time: 7:30am-6:00pm
Venue: Main Auditorium, International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), Kuala Lumpur
____________________________________________

According to the official narrative, Malaysian Airlines MH 17 was downed by a BUK anti-aircraft missile by “pro-Russian separatists” with the support of Moscow.

The MH17 Inquiry has been conducted in an insidious fashion, largely responding to political interests.

Important pieces of evidence including eye witness reports, audio and video material transmitted through Ukraine Intelligence (SBU) have either been manipulated or excluded from the Dutch inquiry, which largely endorses Washington’s accusations directed against Moscow.

According to Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad in a statement at the Prime Minister’s office in May 2019:

“They never allowed us to be involved from the very beginning. This is unfair and unusual. So we can see they are not really looking at the causes of the crash and who was responsible. But already they have decided it must be Russia. So we cannot accept that kind of attitude. We are interested in the rule of law, in justice for everyone irrespective of who is involved.

“They [the West] are accusing Russia but where is the evidence?

Introduction

The Dutch investigation

Moscow was accused without evidence of being behind the downing of MH17 from the very outset. Both Kiev and Washington concluded prior to the conduct of an investigation that:

“MH17 had likely been brought down by a ground-to-air missile fired from separatist-controlled territory in eastern Ukraine.”

There are three distinct reports:

• Ukraine government report prepared by Ukraine’s Secret Service (SBU), August 7, 2014 (text in annex)
• The Dutch Safety Board report, September 15, 2015
• JIT: several reports (criminal investigation),

The first official report on behalf of the Ukrainian government was released by Ukraine’s SBU secret service on August 7 2014, barely three weeks after the MH 17 tragedy (July 17, 2014).

The SBU report (which is discussed later in more detail) accuses pro-Russian rebels of having downed the plane with Moscow’s support.

The Dutch Safety Board Report released in September 2015 largely endorses the BUK missile narrative.

And, a year later in September 2016,  The Dutch Joint investigation Team (JIT)  as part of a criminal investigation “confirmed” that the Malaysian airlines plane was “hit by a Russian-made BUK surface-to-air missile that was brought into Ukraine from Russia before the shootdown and subsequently taken back across the border.”

The assumption prior to the conduct of the DSB investigation was that a BUK missile had brought down MH17, and Russia was behind it.

Concrete evidence supporting other interpretations (including  on site testimonies and the presence of a second aircraft) was casually dismissed by the DSB:

Dutch Safety Board, September 2015 report  (p 9)

The inquiry became increasingly politicized.

President Barack Obama had called up Malaysia’s (former) Prime Minister Najib Razak. At a press conference (July 18, 2014),  “Najib told the press that he had spoken to the Dutch prime minister and the Ukrainian president; In subsequent developments, Prime Minister Najib Razak tacitly accepted the consensus imposed by Washington prior to the conduct of an investigation.

‘Obama and I agreed that the investigation will not be hidden and the international teams have to be given access to the crash scene.’

In August 2016, Ukraine president Poroshenko visited Malaysia for discussions with Prime Minister Razak Najib:

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said Malaysia will work with Ukraine to bring the perpetrators to justice. “We will do whatever we can to find the truth for the sake of families who lost their loved ones in this tragic incident. “We are waiting for the criminal investigation report, which is expected to be tabled by the year-end, followed by a meeting to decide on the next course of action,” said Najib. (New Straits Times, August 4, 2016)

Washington’s agenda in liaison with the Kiev regime was to blame Russia. This agenda was never questioned by the Najib government.

Erasing the Initial Evidence

Much of the initial evidence and testimony including eyewitness reports (from various independent sources), recorded in July-August 2014 (in the immediate wake of the event) contradicts the official version. This body of evidence has been dismissed and in some cases destroyed.

In September 2015, in its final report, the Dutch Safety Board presented its findings regarding the Buk TELAR surface-to-air missile system which allegedly shot down MH-17 over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014.

Flash forward to 2018

On 24 May 2018 the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) published an update of its findings pointing (without firm evidence) to the role of the 53 Anti-Missile Brigade of the Russian Army. In May 2018, they launched an appeal for people in Donesk to come forward to corroborate their “findings” re. the deployment of the BUK missile system:

Update in criminal investigation MH17 disaster

On the following day, the governments of Australia and the Netherlands officially declared that “they hold Russia responsible for the incident”. (see Polygraph Info, May 25, 2018)

Moscow remains the “main suspect” in this politically twisted investigation, which has now led to a legal procedure in the Netherlands directed against the alleged perpetrators.

On June 19, 2019, the International Joint Investigation Team (JIT) announced (video) that international arrest warrants have been issued against four “separatist commanders” of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR). These warrants concern Ukrainian citizen Leonid Kharchenko, and Russian citizens Sergei Dubinsky, Oleg Pulatov, and Igor Girkin.

Moreover, Britain’s Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt announced in mid-July 2019 that “the UK will provide financial support to the specialist criminal court in the Hague” which is slated to host the trial of the four suspects.

In this report we will first focus on the Timeline as well as selected evidence which has been suppressed including the presence of a second aircraft.

We will then review the official report of the Kiev government prepared by Ukraine’s intelligence service (SBU) as well as the role of the SBU in feeding “evidence” to the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) and the Joint Investigation Team (JIT)

Analysis of the Evidence

Timeline