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As we enter 2020, Cultural Survival remembers 28 courageous Indigenous human rights and environmental defenders who were murdered in 2019 in the Latin American countries where we do our work. We invite you to take a moment to learn about and support the human rights and environmental defense work being carried out by these individuals that likely led to their targeting.

Attacks against Indigenous human rights defenders have shown an alarming surge over the past three years. UN Special Rapporteur Vicky Tauli Corpuz has called this trend a “global crisis,” denouncing persistent impunity against those who commit these crimes. Of this list, only one of 28 murders have been investigated conclusively and perpetrators brought to justice.

We acknowledge that this list is not exhaustive. Due to marginalization and discrimination by authorities, unequal access to justice, language barriers, and the lack of coverage by mainstream media, there are many acts of violence against Indigenous Peoples around the world that go unreported.

Please join us in celebrating the legacies of these defenders who gave their lives in pursuit of a better world.

Óscar Cazorla (Zapotec) – MEXICO

On February 9, 2019, Óscar Cazorla (62), was found murdered in his home in Juchitán de Zaragoza, Oaxaca, Mexico. Cazorla was a  Zapotec activist and an advocate for Muxe and LGBTQIA rights. He self-identified as Muxe, a non-binary third gender originating within Zapotec culture in the region of Istmo de Tehuantepec in Oaxaca, Mexico. Muxes live throughout the Istmo de Tehuantepec region, however, Juchitán is historically regarded as a safe haven for Muxe culture and self-expression. However, while Muxes are both inherent and revered members of Zapotec culture, they still confront nonacceptance and persecution from those opposed to gender diversity and nonconformity to a binary structure of gender. Óscar Cazorla fought to maintain and and raise awareness of Muxe culture. He was a founding member of Las Auténticas Intrépidas Buscadoras del Peligro or “The Authentic Intrepid Seekers of Danger,” a Muxe-run group created in 1976 to foster solidarity amongst the Muxe community and celebrate sexual diversity. As an Indigenous person, a human rights activist, and member of the LGBTQIA community, Óscar Cazorla existed in an intersection of targeted identities. Indigenous Peoples, human rights activists, environmental defenders, and members of the LGBTQIA community remain targets of hate crime both within Mexico and throughout the globe. In July 2019, supporters and relatives of Óscar continued demanding that the Fiscalía General de Justicia del Estado de Oaxaca (FGJEO) bring Cazorla’s death justice, but the murder remains unresolved.

Photo: Miho Hagino/Facebook

Saturnino Ramírez Interiano (Maya Ch’orti’) Guatemala

Maya Ch’orti’ linguist Saturnino Ramírez Interiano was assassinated in Chiquimula, Guatemala on February 13, 2019. He was a linguist, educator, and active proponent of the history and culture of the Indigenous Ch’orti’ Peoples. Saturnino Ramírez Interiano worked for over 10 years as a director at the Academy of Mayan Languages of Guatemala in Chiquimula, Guatemala. The Ch’orti’ are an Indigenous Peoples that reside in the Chiquimula and Zacapa departments of Guatemala and in bordering communities in Honduras. They have suffered from a history of colonization, persecution, land loss, and political discrimination. As an advocate for Ch’orti’ culture, Saturnino Ramírez Interiano frequently traveled throughout the Ch’orti’ region to teach classes on the Ch’orti’ language and history. A colleague and professor at the Academy, Petronilo Pérez López, declared: “We worked together for a long time, committed to the rescue of the Chortí language and culture. He always fought so that the community leaders of the region would not let this valuable ancestral tool – one which identifies us – die. We were great companions and his death hurts me. The Chortí region is in mourning.” Ramírez Interanio’s death continues to shake his community. Police have failed to make progress in investigating the crime.

Photo: Facebook

Sergio Rojas (Bribri)- COSTA RICA

On the evening of March 18, 2019, Indigenous leader Sergio Rojas Ortiz was assassinated in his residence in Salitre de Buenos Aires, part of the Puntarenas province, after being shot multiple times. Rojas was a member of the Uniwak clan, part of the Bribri community, one of the eight Indigenous Peoples that are recognized in Costa Rica. A well-known Indigenous leader in the region, Rojas Ortiz was a member of the National Front of Indigenous Peoples (Frente Nacional de Pueblos Indígenas – FRENAPI), the Council for the Defenders of Mother Earth (Autoridades Propias Defensoras de la Madre Tierra), and the Association for the Development of the Salitre People (Asociación para el Desarrollo del Pueblo de Salitre). He worked tirelessly to implement Indigenous land rights in Costa Rica, advocating for the removal of unauthorized settlers on Indigenous-titled lands.  The crime occurred only hours after Rojas Ortiz, along with two neighbors, went to the state prosecutor to report a series of threats that members of the Salitre community had received regarding a land dispute over Indigenous territories. After the murder, Costa Rican president Carlos Alvarado Quesada condemned the crime, stating: “A tragic day for the Bribri People, for all our Indigenous communities, and for all of Costa Rica.”  Costa Rica has created a specialized investigative unit in order to pursue the crime, but aside from releasing a sketch of two suspects, work being carried out by this unit, if any, has been kept tightly under wraps and as of July 2019 no recent news has been released.

In October 2018, Cultural Survival submitted a report on human rights violations against Indigenous Peoples in Costa Rica to the UN Human Rights Council via Universal Periodic Review, which specifically urged authorities to improve security measures for the people of Salitre, Rojas’ home village.  Five months after submitting this report, Sergio Rojas was killed. This prompted Cultural Survival to take further action; in April 2019, Cultural Survival attended the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and met with the Permanent Mission of Costa Rica to the UN to urge for immediate investigations into the asassination of Sergio Rojas inquire on progress to secure Indigenous territorial autonomy.

Photo: Facebook

Cristian Javá Ríos (Urarina), PERU

On April 17, 2019, in the Peruvian Amazon, Cristian Javá Ríos (20) was killed in a gang-organized ambush , motivated to sabotage pipelines transporting oil across the region. For years, Peru’s northern Amazon has been subjected to oil spills and the releasing of billions of barrels of toxic waste, at the hands of Argentinian Pluspetrol and the China National Petroleum Corporation. The Urarina along with other Indigenous Peoples of the Peruvian Amazon are constantly under threat due to these degrading oil activities, which have caused health epidemics, pollution, economic dependency and land violations, including the destruction of forests and spiritual sites. Javá Ríos fought adamantly to defend his land, despite unstable and precarious circumstances. There is a continued need to mitigate violence and aggression in this region, which harm the lives of Indigenous Peoples, their environment, and their surrounding ecology. Those accused of murdering  Javá Ríos and injuring other members of the community were reported to authorities, but no further investigation has unfolded. Soon after Javá Ríos’ murder, however, the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights in Peru passed a Protocol that prioritizes and safeguards human rights defenders, but it is one of many steps remaining to be taken in order to guarantee safety of Indigenous Peoples in Peru.

Photo: Facebook

 José Alfredo Hernandez  (Nahuat Pipil) – EL SALVADOR

José Alfredo Hernandez was killed in the service of protecting his sister-in-law, Indigenous activist Margot Perez.
Reports reveal that the military police in Nahuizalco harassed Alfredo Hernandez after Perez fled her community of Nahuizalco with threats against her life. When he did not submit to police – blackmailing him to reveal Margot’s whereabouts – Alfredo Hernandez was shot five times allegedly by military police and died immediately after, on May 3, 2019. His legacy is the continued human rights work that his sister-in-law has been able to dedicate her life to, including the promotion of the right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent in Indigenous communities, the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. She also has urged the El Salvadoran government to halt criminal organizations that have flourished unchecked while detrimentally impacting Indigenous youth and their  academic, social, and physical potential. As the president of the Nahuat Pipil Native Peoples Council of Nahuizalco (Consejo de Pueblos Originarios Nahuat Pipil de Nahuizalco), Margot Perez’s courageous advocacy has continued to put her life in jeopardy. An open letter, written by the The Union of BC Indian Chiefs and addressed to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, demanded justice and expressed solidarity for the people of El Salvador: Alfredo Hernandez’s death remains unsolved and Margot Perez is still in hiding.

Otilia Martínez Cruz and Gregorio Chaparro Cruz (Rarámuri) – MEXICO

On the outskirts of Chihuahua and Sinaloa, Mexico, Otilia Martínez Cruz (60) and her son Gregorio Chaparro Cruz (20) were murdered outside their home on May 3, 2019. The mother and son, belonging to the Rarámuri Indigenous Peoples, resonated with their community as powerful defenders of surrounding forests and advocates for environmental justice. Additionally, they were relatives of Julián Carrillo Martínez, an Indigenous leader and protector of the Coloradas de la Virgen Forest located in Chihuahua, Mexico. Despite being protected under the Federal Mechanism for the Protection of Journalists and Human Rights Defenders, Carrillo Martínez was killed in October 2018 by illegal loggers. Speculations pertaining to the motive behind the recent murders of Otilia Martínez Cruz and Gregorio Chaparro Cruz believe their relationship to Julián Carrillo Martínez is a fundamental component. According to investigations, three gunmen affiliated with a criminal group “Los Chorohuis” broke into the home and and fatally inflicted both mother and son with multiple bullet wounds. A witness recognized one alleged murderer, Ramón Muela Loera, but no updates have been released ascertaining the whereabouts nor convictions of the suspects.

 José Lucio Bartolo Faustino and Modesto Verales Sebastián (Nahua) MEXICO

On May 4,2019, both José Lucio Bartolo Faustino and Modesto Verales Sebstián had attended a meeting with other members of the Emiliano Zapata Popular Indigenous Council of Guerrero (CIPOG-EZ), a partner organization under the National Indigenous Congress and Indigenous Governing Council. On their way back home from the meeting in Chilpancingo, Guerrero, both were kidnapped and murdered by narco-paramilitary groups. These criminal groups are protected under complicit arms of the Mexican government’s marital and police authorities, which inevitably delays measures seeking justice. For years, community members of these two victims have strived to develop their own Community Police to denounce the criminal groups backed by Mexican authorities, but their rights are continuously repressed and disregarded. Bartolo Faustino and Verales Sebastián were  well-known participants in the Indigenous Council, defenders of Indigenous territories, cultures, and pivotal advocates for their Nahua and Mixtec autonomy. Their murder remains unsolved; the National Indigenous Congress, Indigenous Governing Council, and  Zapatista Army for National Liberation denounced the injustice and demand that the government be held accountable.

Photo: Facebook

 Leonel Díaz Urbano (Nahua), MEXICO

The fatal shooting of Nahua leader Leonel Díaz Urbano took place on May 9, 2019, while he was sleeping in his home, located in the municipality of Zacapoaxtla in the state of Puebla, Mexico. Días Urbano protested the continued construction of a hydroelectric plant in Zacapoaxtla. Run by the Hidroeléctrica Gaya SA from Mexico, backed by governmental actors Semarnat (Mexico’s environmental agency) and the Federal Commision of Energy (CFE), conflicts have existed for years near the Apulco River. For decades, there was a relentless struggle between the Nahua community and Gaya plant; Gaya was officially forced to withdraw its construction plans in 2016, but the legitimacy of its compliance remain in question and the well-being of Indigenous communities are forever damaged. Many of its projects had already led to irreversible, environmental destruction while diverting the riverbed off course. A few political activists have expressed their grievances for Díaz Urbano. Enrique Cárdenas, a candidate for a local government position, declared shortly after his murder that “the rights of Indigenous Peoples and communities will be respected and defended under my term.” Enrique Cárdenas lost the May 2019 election to Luis Miguel Barbosa, but remains a powerful voice within his community. Meanwhile, Díaz Urbano’s  murder remains unsolved.

Daniel Rojas (Nasa) COLOMBIA

North of Cauca, Colombia, the president of  the Junta de Acción Comunal (JAC) in Caloto, Daniel Rojas (40), was murdered at around 8 pm in his home on May 14, 2019. He was a prominent member of the Indigenous Guard of López Adentro in Caloto, remembered for his defense of Indigenous land and agricultural rights. He also encouraged sports practices, particularly soccer, among his community’s youth to help unify his neighbors through sport and culture. Those responsible for the murder fled afterwards and no further details have been released pertinent to the fugitives’ escape. However, members of the Nasa community are still seeking answers, and the Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca stated that the Colombian government’s inaction is one of the primary reasons for the murder: the situation has occurred within a systematic pattern of threats and attacks against social and Indigenous leaders throughout Colombia.

Photo: Twitter

Jorge Juc Cucul (Q’eqchi’ Maya) – GUATEMALA

Jorge Juc Cucul was a respected elder and president of a local chapter of  the organization Campesino Development Committee or Comité de Desarrollo Campesino (CODECA) in Paracaidista de Livingston, Izabal. He was attacked with a machete by an unknown man on his property near his home, alongside his eight-year-old son.  As a CODECA member for 5 years, Juc Cucul was a frontrunner behind efforts to defend Indigenous territories and campesino livelihoods, nationalize electrical energy, respect Mother Earth, and criticize the policies and corruption within the administration of Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales. Juc Cucul’s murder remains unsolved, as well as other assassinations of Committee members. His death was one of ten total murders of CODECA members during 2019, an upsurge from 6 in 2018, which had prompted Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples, to condemn the murders in a 2018 Washington Post op-ed. The startling, increased death toll in 2019 revitalizes the need to bring further attention to the violent and corrupt acts that target Indigenous Peoples.

Emyra Wajãpi (Wajãpi) – BRAZIL

A leader of the Wajãpi tribe, Emyra Wajãpi was  fatally stabbed on July 23, 2019, in his Brazilian village. Community members reported that a few dozen armed goldminers, dressed in military fatigues, had raided their village, threatening and aggressively intruding upon Wajãpi People and homes. Reports from villagers assert that Emyra Wajãpi was stabbed in the adjacent woods near his village, and then his corpse was thrown into a river. Community members, meanwhile, managed to escape to nearby villages and called for help from federal police. Emyra Wajãpi’s death epitomizes the inhumane, prejudicial treatment of Indigenous Peoples under Brazilian President Bolsonaro, and has rallied many Indigenous rights defenders to further demand change. President Bolsonaro launched his political platform claiming that Indigenous People dominate a majority of profitable land that should be opened up to corporate industries. To this day, police forces and federal agencies designated to protect Indigenous rights have failed to ascertain more information about Emyra Wajãpi’s murder. Land invasions in Indigenous villages have skyrocketed under Bolsonaro’s administration, at the hands of miners, loggers and farmers. Emyra Wajãpi’s murder sheds light on the increasing numbers of killed Indigenous leaders in the Brazilian amazon, which has escalated to a record high in 2019: 10 Indigenous People were murdered, the highest amount in two decades. Their murders composed 37% of all rural killings in 2019, a dramatic increase from 7% in 2018. Even more devastating, while more than 300 murder cases in the past 10 years, only 14 were brought to court; many of those responsible for the crimes were part of illegal logging and deforestation activities.

Photo: https://hrdmemorial.org/hrdrecord/emyra-wajapi/

Kevin Mestizo Coicué and Eugenio Tenorio (Nasa) – COLOMBIA

In the Indigenous region of Cauca, in the southwest of Colombia, two Indigenous guards were murdered on August 10, 2019, amidst rising violence and instability. Kevin Mestizo Coicué and Eugenio Tenorio served as pivotal Nasa community members. Members of the Indigenous Guard denounced the bloodshed, asserting: “We condemn an act so low, executed by an armed group against these life guardians who have defended the territory with their batons.” According to a statement, the attack occurred when the two guards accompanied participants in a coffee fair in Cauca. As they boarded a bus to the fair, all were ambushed, killing Mestizo Coicué  and Tenorio while wounding  four others. The murderers are linked to one of many armed, illegal narco-trafficking groups that have crippled the region with death and have long yet unjustly enjoyed impunity.

Cristina Bautista – (Nasa) – COLOMBIA

Ne’h Wesx Authority Cristina Bautista and four members of the Nasa Tacueyo Indigenous Reserve – Asdrúbal Cayapu Kiwe Thegna, Eliodoro Finscue, José Gerardo Soto, and James Wilfredo Soto – were killed; five other members were wounded during a targeted attack on October 29, 2019. According to reports, a black vehicle with armed members of the FARC dissident group “Dagoberto Ramos” opened fire on Cristina Bautista and other guards after plowing through a barricade the community had set up to protect their territory. Bautista was a traditional leader, social worker, land defender and Indigenous rights activist. She was also a 2017 Indigenous Fellow of the Office of the High Commission for Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland. On August 13, she was filmed making the following speech in Toribio, Resguardo San Francisco, Cauca, in which she denounced previous murders of Indigenous guards. She exclaimed: “If we stay quiet, they kill us, and if we speak, they kill us too. So, we speak.” Her murder marked the seventh Indigenous traditional authority who was been assassinated in Cauca in the month of October 2019 alone. Indigenous organizations in Colombia, including the Regional Indigenous Council of Colombia (CRIC) have been urgently demanding response to this incessant wave of violence, which they have labelled a genocide. These demands, however, remain unmet by Colombian authorities; Bautista’s murder and other casualties are yet to be solved. Her legacy, meanwhile, remains alive, and Bautista was commemorated as Colombia Reports’ personality of 2019.

Photo: Cristina Bautista/ Facebook

 Juan Francisco Luna Álvarez (Zenú) – COLOMBIA

On August 8, 2019, Juan Fransisco Luna Álvarez (60) was found assassinated near his rural home in the municipality of San José de Uré, Colombia. Authorities, based on the accounts of some witnessesses, believe the killers are members of “Los Caparrapos”, an infamous criminal group of the region with ties to drug trafficking. There is a withstanding reward for anyone who has information on the whereabouts of those responsible for the crime, but no recent updates have been released.  Luna Álvarez was campesino farmer and member of the  Indigenous Guard of Zenú del Alto San Jorge. Following his murder, Luna Álvarez’s house was incinerated and his family was forced to flee. A few days after the event, authorities of the San José de Uré municipality convened  a security council to discuss additional measures that could mitigate the growing violence against Indigenous Peoples and campesinos in the region. Fransisco Luna’s case remains unresolved, and his family still lives in fear of further retaliation.
 

Abraham Domicó (Embera) – COLOMBIA

An Indigenous member of the Embera Eyábida community, in Tarazá, Colombia, Abraham Domicó was shot and murdered in his home on August 14, 2019, while his wife and children were also inside. The family was ambushed by armed men; despite attempts to revive Abraham, he was pronounced dead before arriving to the local hospital. Domicó (30), was devoted to agricultural practices and justice, a valued member of his community, and a loving father of four. Ever since an already-fraying 2016 peace agreement between the Colombian government and its once-largest rebel group, FARC-EP, there has been a resurgence of violence among Indigenous communities in Colombia. Following Domicó’s death, The Indigenous Organization of Antioquia (Organización Indígena de Antioquia) has called on the United Nations, as well as other national and international human rights defenders, to prevent the escalation of armed conflict. Friends and family of Domicó still await answers.

Mirna Suazo (Garifuna)  – HONDURAS

Mirna Suazo, president of the Masca Board of Trustees in Honduras, was murdered inside her restaurant, “Champa Los Gemelos,” when two hitmen disembarked their motorcycles and repeatedly shot her on September 8, 2019. Suazo had already informed the police that she had received anonymous death threats, yet no further investigation nor protection was implemented. Suazo was one of four other victims of the Masca Community killed in September, many associated with land tenure and management. As president, she expressed her frustrations in a video that reflects the corruption – both economic and political – that threatened her safety. In the video, she repeatedly asserts that while some of her colleagues are personally exploiting their town’s fiscal and environmental resources: “I am not working for personal gain, I am working for the community. We stay here and we keep fighting for this town.” She adamantly rejected the installations of two hydroelectric plants on the Masca river, both of which were included in and sponsored by the United Nations MDG Carbon Facility without Free, Prior, and Informed Consent. Her death has heightened calls for justice, especially by the Honduran Black Fraternal Organization (Organización Fraternal Negra Hondureña, OFRANEH) which reminds both the national and international community that in Honduras there has been unstoppable waves of violence and homicides in recent years, but 92% of criminal cases remain in impunity. Suazo’s case is one of them.

Photo: Facebook

Paulina Cruz Ruiz (Maya Achi) – GUATEMALA

Paulina Cruz Ruiz (58), member of the Autoridad Ancestral de Maya Achi from Rabinal, Baja Verapaz, Guatemala was shot a mere 100 meters from her home on September 14, 2019. Her husband was also wounded and spent time in the hospital. Cruz Ruiz was an active organizer in her community, especially for the “March for Dignity” which took place a year prior to her death. She was also dedicated to defending women’s rights. Alongside other members of the Autoridad Ancestral, Cruz Ruiz interposed legal action in opposition to threats to her community’s land. The Maya Achi People have long suffered from the environmental consequences of the Chixoy Dam, funded by the World Bank and the Inter-American Development bank and built by the Guatemalan government in 1985. Even years later, agreements to repair damages have stalled. In January 2014, the US Congress finally ordered the Banks to implement the Chixoy Reparations Plan of 2010, but improvements are slowly gaining traction and the Maya Achi lives will never be fully restored. After Cruz Ruiz’s recent death, her community called upon the Guatemalan government to expedite an investigation process that will not only bring Cruz Ruiz and her family justice, but will protect and guarantee the security of the Autoridad Ancestral. More specifically, La Colectiva,  a nonprofit organization run entirely by the Latinx community, condemned the murder, stating: “Ancestral authorities are keepers of our traditional ways, Maya justice system, and ancestral knowledge and attacking them is a direct attack to the core of our peoples and existence. Attacking the women of our Nations is the murder of our future generations.” Hundreds of people attended Cruz Ruiz’s funeral, more than 50 of whom were Maya Achi authorities. According to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, less than a month later a coordinated effort successfully captured three men involved in the murder of Cruz Ruiz and injury of her husband, but their names were not released.

Photo: Facebook

Víctor Manuel Chanit Aguilar (Murui Muina) – COLOMBIA

The mayor and Indigenous leader of Murui Muina was murdered by an armed group in his hometown, a rural area in the Colombian Amazon on September 26, 2019. Members of the Indigenous community of Bajo Aguas Negras Caqueta claim that the national army is responsible for the death. They blame the army for the murder because they found footprints from military boots near Víctor’s body, and located the body a mere 40 meters away from where military personnel were stationed. The mayor was forcibly kidnapped and later discovered lifeless in a field of banana crops, his facial features disfigured and bearing signs of torture. His death heightens the risk of the Indigenous community’s cultural and physical extinction, as calls for justice and protection pass unnoticed by Colombian authorities. The Coordinator of Human Rights and Peace of the National Organization of Indigenous Peoples of the Colombian Amazon (OPIAC) has denounced the murder and sent a formal complaint to the Colombian government, demanding for responsibility to be accepted and action to be taken. The Murui Munina (Huitoto) community, under a Constitutional Court Order, have been identified as an Indigenous group at risk of physical and cultural disappearance. Other Indigenous communities have denounced this crime and are demanding the reopening of investigations to assure justice.
Marlon Ferney Pacho (Nasa) – COLOMBIA

At around 5 pm on September 26, 2019, Marlon  Ferney Pacho, 24, was attacked by four armed strangers, who dragged him from his residence and fatally shot him multiple times.  Ferney Pacho was a member of the Nasa community in Colombia. A member of the Consejo Regional Indígena del Cauca (CRIC), Ferney Pacho had many companions that are now denouncing the government’s complacency with armed violence, and are reaching out to both local and regional levels of government for immediate action. The Consejo denounced the murder, declaring that its community will “continue to make united efforts in order to defend the lives and land of each and every one of us…our territory nor our people are instruments for the social conflict that unfolds in the current colombian climate.” The Indigenous Guard embarked upon investigations to track down those responsible for the murder, but no leads nor arrests have surfaced.

Photo: Facebook

Milgen Idán Soto Ávila (Tolupán) – HONDURAS

Milgen Idán Soto Ávilia (29), had been a long-time fighter to protect the forests in the Yoro mountains of Honduras, despite animosity and pushback from commercial logging companies. He was declared missing by neighbors on September 23, 2019, and his body was discovered four days later. Soto Ávila was an Indigenous Tolupán leader from Honduras, and a recent member of the Broad Movement for Dignity and Justice (Movimiento Amplio por la Dignidad y la Justicia, MADJ). Leading up to his death, the MADJ director stated that Soto Ávila received threats from a logging company named INMARE after he led a movement against its exploitative motives in tribal areas. MADJ holds INMARE responsible for his murder. His death epitomizes the heightened tension between the Indigenous community and INMARE. In past years, many of Soto Ávilia’s associates had been arrested for their environmental activism, which placed Soto Avilia into a prominent leadership position before he was killed. Earlier, in February 2019, two of Soto Ávilia’s relatives were murdered, also known members of the movements defending Indigenous land. A statement from MADJ declared: “Soto Avilia was one of the Indigenous People that criticized the impunity in his relatives’ crimes…two other Indigenous People assassinated and whose murderers remain in total impunity.”

Photo: https://hrdmemorial.org/hrdrecord/milgen-idan-soto-avila/

Dumar Mestizo (Nasa) – COLOMBIA

On October 4, 2019, in the rural area of Toribío, Cauca, Colombia was assassinated. Dumar Mestizo (24), an artist and an art teacher at the program Youth Guard of Jambaló, (Jóvenes del Resguardo de Jambaló) was killed when men on motorcycles attacked and shot him. No recent updates pertinent to those responsible for the murder have been released. Dumar was an integral member of the Youth Movement Álvaro Ulcúe, an organization founded in 1980 whose mission is to educate Indigenous communities about different art forms. Mestizo was a muralist, and used his art as a form of expression for peace and resistance. A mural was painted to commemorate Mestizo’s life. In 2009, Dumar’s father, Indigenous Nasa leader Marino Mestizo, had also been murdered in Cauca. The North Cauca Indigenous Association denounced both murders: “we hold responsible the Colombian government for showing total indifference to the incidents of genocide facing Indigenous People.” A neighbor remembered Mestizo as an always-smiling boy who was drawn to art at a young age, as a form of self-expression and identity. As he grew older, Mestizo’s art took on socio-political meaning and activism. For example, some of his murals was accompanied with sentences such as these: “Podrán matarnos, pero nunca callarán nuestras voces” (They might kill us, but we will never quiet our voices). Dumar Mestizo’s death revives that crisis that many Indigenous Peoples are enduring in Cauca, which debilitates any peace-building or unity among communities.

Photo: Facebook

Isaías Cantú Carrasco (Mè’phàà) – MEXICO

As the president of the Commission of Public Goods of Paraje Montero, the president of the municipality of Malinaltepec, and a member of the Regional Council of Agrarian Authorities in Defense of the Territory (CRAADT), Isaías Cantú Carrasco was a prominent defender of Indigenous rights and environmental justice. Cantú Carrasco was killed with a firearm near the region’s police station on October 11, 2019, but regretfully no more information about the murder nor the culprits have been released. During the seven years prior to his murder, Cantú Carrasco ignited a fight against mining exploitation and the imposition of a Biosphere Reserve in the Mè’phàà Indigenous region, located in the Guerrero mountains. In a press release, the Regional Council condemned the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas (CONAP) and its promotion of the Biosphere Reserve, stating on behalf of Me’phaa and other Indigenous communities: “it implies that the federal government takes control of our ancestral territories; subject us to regulations that are alien to our forms of community organization, prohibiting our traditional activities related to the use and enjoyment of our natural assets.” The press release also identified Casmin and Hochschild Mining as the companies behind the mining projects that are damaging Indigenous lands. The Mexican Network of  those Affected by Mining, (Red Mexicana de Afectados por la Minería, REMA) denounced Cantú Carrasco’s death and commemorated him for his tireless activism as a vocal defender and protector of his Indigenous Mè’phàà roots and traditions.

Photo: Twitter
Oneida Epiayú (Wayúu) – COLOMBIA

Oneida Epiayú, a leader in the Wayúu Community, was murdered in broad daylight on October 17, 2019, while eating lunch at a restaurant in Riohacha, Colombia. Two men entered the restaurant, still wearing their motorcycle helmets, to approach, shoot, and kill Epiayú. The attackers also gravely  injured four other people, including her husband José González and a 12-year-old child. Epiayú was known for revealing supposed corruption in certain food programs executed under the Colombian Family Welfare Institute (ICBF). However, it is unclear whether or not the asassination was intended for her or her husband, and further investigations have yet to be publicized.

Photo source: https://hrdmemorial.org/hrdrecord/oneida-epiayu/

Paulo Paulino Guajajara (Guajajara) – BRAZIL

The Indigenous Amazon Forest Guard Paulo Paulino Guajajara had predicted his imminent death, fatefully occurring on November 1, 2019, for being one of nearly 130 “guardians of the forest” or armed Indigenous sentinels. While fetching water with a fellow colleague, Laércio Souza Silva, Paulino Guajajara was shot in the neck by armed loggers and died in the forest, while his companion managed to escape. As an Amazon Guardian of Brazil, Paulino Guajajara was relentless in defending his eastern Amazon territory, despite threats and invasions by loggers. An acquaintance of Paulino Guajajara declared: “He knew that he might pay with his life, but he saw no alternative, as the authorities did nothing to protect the forest and uphold the rule of law.” Paulino Guajajara’s death is emblematic of the drastic Amazonian deforestation under Brazilian President Bolsonaro, with has destabilized thousands of Indigenous Peoples and their surrounding environment. Additionally, perpetrators of the violence have not been punished and Paulino Guajajara’s death has not received justice.
Jesús Eduardo Mestizo  (Nasa) – COLOMBIA

Jesús Dumar Mestizo was attacked and[1]  fatally shot by strangers in the rural area of Toribío, located in Cauca Colombia, right outside of his home. In addition to his murder, there was an assassination attempt on the coordinator of the Indigenous guard of the Toribío village, Arbey Noscue, who managed to flee unharmed. Jesús’s death was registered as the seventh homicide within a single week in the Cauca region of Colombia. Jesús Eduardo Mestizo was a member and co-founder of the Asociación Indígena Avelino Ui. The Association is also involved with the Proceso de Unidad Popular del Suroccidente Colombiano (PUPSOC) and the social organization and coordination of the Patriotic March (Marcha Patriótica). Those responsible for Dumar Mestizo’s murder are still unknown.

Arnulfo Cerón Soriano (Nahua) – MEXICO

After being declared missing for 40 days, the 47-year-old activist and lawyer was found dead along the Tlapa-Igualita highway, in the Mexican state of Guerrero. Arnulfo Cerón Soriano was a member of the Nahua Indigenous community, and a prominent social leader of the Frente Popular de la Montaña (FPM). He was kidnapped by an armed group on the night of October 11, 2019, after leaving his house that night to attend an event which he failed to arrive at. During his social advocacy career,  Cerón Soriano endured consistent smear campaigns and discrediting backlash but continued to fight alongside other human rights activists up until the end. He is remembered as an integral component to the dangerous yet necessary endeavors of the Frente Popular to mobilize Indigenous communities, collaborate with the Tlachinollan Mountain Human Rights Center, and defend his community. Cerón Soriano’s case has not been solved.

Photo: Facebook

Catalino Barradas Santiago (Chatino) – MEXICO

On November 30, 2019, policemen from the Santo Reyes Nopala municipality in Oaxaca, Mexico murdered Catalino Barradas Santiago (32),  and injured two other individuals. Barradas Santiago belonged to the Chatino Indigenous community and was a notable human rights defender. He was travelling with other colleagues the night of the assassination. Testimonies from police who were involved in the murder defended their actions, stating that the travelers were proselytizing illegally which justified the policemen’s decision to pull them over and open fire on the victims. Some of the group were able to escape to the mountains; Barradas Santiago was the only reported fatality. Barradas Santiago’s murder occurred only days before the municipal elections in the region, causing the election day – scheduled for December 1st – to be suspended. Despite the fact that Santos Reyes Nopala, Oaxaca municipality has a traditional, Chatino government, it is often corrupted by other external political leaders who indirectly control and organize overt force to suppress the rights of the Indigenous Chatino community. As a result, Barradas Santiago’s murder has mostly been ignored by authorities, who have not prioritized seeking justice for him.

Josué Bernardo Marcial Santos (Mixe-Popoluca) – MEXICO

Known as Tío Bad on stage, the  rapper from the town of Sayula de Alemán in Veracruz, Mexico, was murdered on December 19, 2019, after kidnappers demanded a ransom that was unmet. He used the power of musical and artistic expression to condemn the slow extinction of his native Mixe-Popoluca language, the murders of journalists, the narco-trafficking forces in Veracruz, and the exploitative fracking in his local area. He rapped in his native language of Sayulteca, one of many Indigenous languages in Mexico that has been threatened due to marginalization, migration of youth, and globalization. Not only did Tío Bad’s music revive the fading connections between older and younger generations, it vocalized and disseminated the many injustices and prejudices experienced by  his Indigenous community across a diverse audience. He was also an engaged member of the Altepee Collective, a group that preserves and promotes traditional string music. His legacy remains indelible among his community, but those responsible for his death have not been found, let alone detained.

Photo: Facebook

Originally published in Cultural Survival

31 January 2020

Source: countercurrents.org

By Jonathan Cook

Much of Donald Trump’s long-trailed “deal of the century” came as no surprise. Over the past 18 months, Israeli officials had leaked many of its details.

The so-called “Vision for Peace” unveiled on Tuesday simply confirmed that the US government has publicly adopted the long-running consensus in Israel: that it is entitled to keep permanently the swaths of territory it seized illegally over the past half-century that deny the Palestinians any hope of a state.

The White House has discarded the traditional US pose as an “honest broker” between Israel and the Palestinians. Palestinian leaders were not invited to the ceremony, and would not have come had they been. This was a deal designed in Tel Aviv more than in Washington – and its point was to ensure there would be no Palestinian partner.

Importantly for Israel, it will get Washington’s permission to annex all of its illegal settlements, now littered across the West Bank, as well as the vast agricultural basin of the Jordan Valley. Israel will continue to have military control over the entire West Bank.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced his intention to bring just such an annexation plan before his cabinet as soon as possible. It will doubtless provide the central plank in his efforts to win a hotly contested general election due on March 2.

The Trump deal also approves Israel’s existing annexation of East Jerusalem. The Palestinians will be expected to pretend that a West Bank village outside the city is their capital of “Al Quds”. There are incendiary indications that Israel will be allowed to forcibly divide the Al Aqsa mosque compound to create a prayer space for extremist Jews, as has occurred in Hebron.

Further, the Trump administration appears to be considering giving a green light to the Israeli right’s long-held hopes of redrawing the current borders in such a way as to transfer potentially hundreds of thousands of Palestinians currently living in Israel as citizens into the West Bank. That would almost certainly amount to a war crime.

The plan envisages no right of return, and it seems the Arab world will be expected to foot the bill for compensating millions of Palestinian refugees.

A US map handed out on Tuesday showed Palestinian enclaves connected by a warren of bridges and tunnels, including one between the West Bank and Gaza. The only leavening accorded to the Palestinians are US pledges to strengthen their economy. Given the Palestinians’ parlous finances after decades of resource theft by Israel, that is not much of a promise.

All of this has been dressed up as a “realistic two-state solution”, offering the Palestinians nearly 70 per cent of the occupied territories – which in turn comprise 22 per cent of their original homeland. Put another way, the Palestinians are being required to accept a state on 15 per cent of historic Palestine after Israel has seized all the best agricultural land and the water sources.

Like all one-time deals, this patchwork “state” – lacking an army, and where Israel controls its security, borders, coastal waters and airspace – has an expiry date. It needs to be accepted within four years. Otherwise, Israel will have a free hand to start plundering yet more Palestinian territory. But the truth is that neither Israel nor the US expects or wants the Palestinians to play ball.

That is why the plan includes – as well as annexation of the settlements – a host of unrealisable preconditions before what remains of Palestine can be recognised: the Palestinian factions must disarm, with Hamas dismantled; the Palestinian Authority led by Mahmoud Abbas must strip the families of political prisoners of their stipends; and the Palestinian territories must be reinvented as the Middle East’s Switzerland, a flourishing democracy and open society, all while under Israel’s boot.

Instead, the Trump plan kills the charade that the 26-year-old Oslo process aimed for anything other than Palestinian capitulation. It fully aligns the US with Israeli efforts – pursued by all its main political parties over many decades – to lay the groundwork for permanent apartheid in the occupied territories.

Trump invited both Netanyahu, Israel’s caretaker prime minister, and his chief political rival, former general Benny Gantz, for the launch. Both were keen to express their unbridled support.

Between them, they represent four-fifths of Israel’s parliament. The chief battleground in the March election will be which one can claim to be better placed to implement the plan and thereby deal a death blow to Palestinian dreams of statehood.

On the Israeli right, there were voices of dissent. Settler groups described the plan as “far from perfect” – a view almost certainly shared privately by Netanyahu. Israel’s extreme right objects to any talk of Palestinian statehood, however illusory.

Nonetheless, Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition will happily seize the goodies offered by the Trump administration. Meanwhile the plan’s inevitable rejection by the Palestinian leadership will serve down the road as justification for Israel to grab yet more land.

There are other, more immediate bonuses from the “deal of the century”.

By allowing Israel to keep its ill-gotten gains from its 1967 conquest of Palestinian territories, Washington has officially endorsed one of the modern era’s great colonial aggressions. The US administration has thereby declared open war on the already feeble constraints imposed by international law.

Trump benefits personally, too. This will provide a distraction from his impeachment hearings as well as offering a potent bribe to his Israel-obsessed evangelical base and major funders such as US casino magnate Sheldon Adelson in the run-up to a presidential election.

And the US president is coming to the aid of a useful political ally. Netanyahu hopes this boost from the White House will propel his ultra-nationalist coalition into power in March, and cow the Israeli courts as they weigh criminal charges against him.

How he plans to extract personal gains from the Trump plan were evident on Tuesday. He scolded Israel’s attorney-general over the filing of the corruption indictments, claiming a “historic moment” for the state of Israel was being endangered.

Meanwhile, Abbas greeted the plan with “a thousand nos”. Trump has left him completely exposed. Either the PA abandons its security contractor role on behalf of Israel and dissolves itself, or it carries on as before but now explicitly deprived of the illusion that statehood is being pursued.

Abbas will try to cling on, hoping that Trump is ousted in this year’s election and a new US administration reverts to the pretence of advancing the long-expired Oslo peace process. But if Trump wins, the PA’s difficulties will rapidly mount.

No one, least of all the Trump administration, believes that this plan will lead to peace. A more realistic concern is how quickly it will pave the way to greater bloodshed.

A version of this article first appeared in the National, Abu Dhabi.

Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism.

30 January 2020

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr Ramzy Baroud

Massive natural gas discoveries off the eastern coast of Israel and Palestine is slated to make Tel Aviv a regional energy hub. Whether Israel will be able to translate positive indicators of the largely untapped gas reserves into actual economic and strategic wealth is yet to be seen.

What is certain, however, is that the Middle East is already in the throes of a major geostrategic war, which has the potential of becoming an actual military confrontation.

Unsurprisingly, Israel is at the heart of this growing conflict.

“Last week, we started to stream gas to Egypt. We turned Israel into an energy superpower,” Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, bragged during a cabinet meeting on January 19.

Netanyahu’s self-congratulating remarks came on the heels of some exciting financial news for the embattled Prime Minister, as both Jordan and Egypt are now Tel Aviv’s clients, receiving billions of cubic meters of Israeli gas.

For Netanyahu, pumping Israeli gas to two neighboring Arab countries constitutes more than just economic and political advantages – it is a huge personal boost. The Israeli leader is trying to convince the public to vote for him in yet another general election in March, while pleading to Israel’s political elite to give him immunity so that he can stay out of prison for various corruption charges.

For years, Israel has been exploiting the discovery of massive deposits of natural gas from the Leviathan and Tamar fields – located nearly 125 km and 80 km west of Haifa respectively – to reconstruct regional alliances and to redefine its geopolitical centrality to Europe.

The Israeli strategy, however, has already created potentials for conflict in an already unstable region, expanding the power play to include Cyprus, Greece, France, Italy, and Libya, as well as Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon, and Russia.

On January 2, Netanyahu was in Athens signing a gas pipeline deal, alongside Greek Prime Minister, Kyriako Mitotakis, and Cyprus President, Nicos Anastasiades.

The EastMed pipeline is projected to travel from Israel to Cyprus, to Greece and, ultimately, to Italy, thus transporting eastern Mediterranean gas directly to the heart of Europe.

A few years ago, this scenario seemed unthinkable, as Israel has, in fact, imported much of its natural gas from neighboring Egypt.

Israel’s Tamar field partly rectified Israel’s reliance on imported gas when it began production in 2003. Shortly after, Israel struck gas again, this time with far greater potential, in the massive Leviathan field. On December 31, 2019, Leviathan began pumping gas for the first time.

Leviathan is located in the Mediterranean Sea’s Levantine Basin, a region that is rich with hydrocarbons.

“Leviathan is estimated to hold over 21 trillion cubic feet of natural gas—enough to fill Israeli power-generation needs for the next 40 years, while still leaving an ample supply for export,” wrote Frank Musmar in the BESA Center for Strategic Studies.

Egypt’s share of Israeli gas – 85 billion cubic meters (bcm), with an estimated cost of $19.5 billion – is acquired through the private Egyptian entity Dolphinus Holdings. The Jordanian deal was signed between the country’s national electricity company NEPCO, and American firm, Noble Energy, which owns a 45% stake in the Israeli project.

Jordanians have been protesting Israel’s gas deal en-masse, as they view economic cooperation between their country and Israel as an act of normalization, especially as Tel Aviv continues to occupy and oppress Palestinians.

The echoes of the popular protests have reached the Jordanian parliament which, on January 19, unanimously voted in favor of a law to ban gas imports from Israel. Israel is diversifying beyond exerting regional economic dominance to becoming a big player on the international geopolitical stage as well. The EastMed pipeline project, estimated at €6bn, is expected to cover 10% of Europe’s overall need for natural gas. This is where things get even more interesting.

Turkey believes that the deal, which involves its own regional rivals, Cyprus and Greece, is designed specifically to marginalize it economically by excluding it from the Mediterranean’s hydrocarbon boom.

Ankara is already a massive energy hub, being the host of TurkStream, which feeds Europe, with approximately 40% of its needs of natural gas coming from Russia. This fact has provided both Moscow and Ankara not only with more than economic advantages but geostrategic leverage as well. If the EastMed pipeline becomes a reality, Turkey and Russia will stand to lose the most.

In a series of successive, and surprising moves, Turkey retaliated by signing a maritime border deal with Libya’s internationally-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA), and by committing to send military support to help Tripoli in its fight against forces loyal to General Khalifa Haftar.

“Turkey will not permit any activity that is against its own interests in the region,” Fuat Oktay, Turkey’s Vice-President, told Anadolu News Agency, adding that “any plan that disregards Turkey has absolutely no chance of success.”

Although European countries were quick to condemn Ankara, the latter has succeeded in changing the rules of the game by staking a claim to vast areas that are also claimed by Greece and Cyprus as part of their so-called exclusive economic zones (EEZ).

Not only will Turkey be drilling in Libya’s territorial waters for natural gas, but in disputed water near Cyprus as well. Ankara is accusing Cyprus of violating “the equal claim to discoveries”, an arrangement that followed the military conflict between both countries in 1974.

If the issue is not resolved, the EastMed pipeline project could potentially turn into a pipedream. What seemed like a lucrative deal, with immense geopolitical significance from an Israeli point of view, now appears to be another extension of the wider Middle Eastern conflict.

While the EU is eager to loosen Russia’s strategic control over the natural gas market, the EastMed pipeline increasingly appears unfeasible from every possible angle.

However, considering the massive deposits of natural gas that are ready to fuel struggling European markets, it is almost certain that the Mediterranean natural gas will eventually become a major source of political disputes, if not a war.

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

29 January 2020

Source: countercurrents.org

By Nicolas J S Davies

Sixteen years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, most Americans understand that it was an illegal war based on lies about non-existent “weapons of mass destruction.” But our government is now threatening to drag us into a war on Iran with a nearly identical “big lie” about a non-existent nuclear weapons program, based on politicized intelligence from the same CIA teams that wove a web of lies to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

In 2002-3, U.S. officials and corporate media pundits repeated again and again that Iraq had an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction that posed a dire threat to the world. The CIA produced reams of false intelligence to support the march to war, and cherry-picked the most deceptively persuasive narratives for Secretary of State Colin Powell to present to the UN Security Council on February 5th 2003. In December 2002, Alan Foley, the head of the CIA’s Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation and Arms Control Center (WINPAC), told his staff, “If the president wants to go to war, our job is to find the intelligence to allow him to do so.”

Paul Pillar, a CIA officer who was the National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia, helped to prepare a 25-page document that was passed off to Members of Congress as a “summary” of a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq. But the document was written months before the NIE it claimed to summarize and contained fantastic claims that were nowhere to be found in the NIE, such as that the CIA knew of 550 specific sites in Iraq where chemical and biological weapons were stored. Most Members read only this fake summary, not the real NIE, and blindly voted for war. As Pillar later confessed to PBS’s Frontline, “The purpose was to strengthen the case for going to war with the American public. Is it proper for the intelligence community to publish papers for that purpose? I don’t think so, and I regret having had a role in it.”

WINPAC was set up in 2001 to replace the CIA’s Nonproliferation Center or NPC (1991-2001), where a staff of 100 CIA analysts collected possible evidence of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons development to support U.S. information warfare, sanctions and ultimately regime change policies against Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya and other U.S. enemies.

WINPAC uses the U.S.’s satellite, electronic surveillance and international spy networks to generate material to feed to UN agencies like UNSCOM, UNMOVIC, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who are charged with overseeing the non-proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. The CIA’s material has kept these agencies’ inspectors and analysts busy with an endless stream of documents, satellite imagery and claims by exiles for almost 30 years. But since Iraq destroyed all its banned weapons in 1991, they have found no confirming evidence that either Iraq or Iran has taken steps to acquire nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.

UNMOVIC and the IAEA told the UN Security Council in 2002-3 they could find no evidence to support U.S. allegations of illegal weapons development in Iraq. IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei exposed the CIA’s Niger yellowcake document as a forgery in a matter of hours. ElBaradei’s commitment to the independence and impartiality of his agency won the respect of the world, and he and his agency were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005.

Apart from outright forgeries and deliberately fabricated evidence from exile groups like Ahmad Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress (INC) and the Iranian Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), most of the material the CIA and its allies have provided to UN agencies has involved dual-use technology, which could be used in banned weapons programs but also has alternative legitimate uses. A great deal of the IAEA’s work in Iran has been to verify that each of these items has in fact been used for peaceful purposes or conventional weapons development rather than in a nuclear weapons program. But as in Iraq, the accumulation of inconclusive, unsubstantiated evidence of a possible nuclear weapons program has served as a valuable political weapon to convince the media and the public that there must be something solid behind all the smoke and mirrors.

For instance, in 1990, the CIA began intercepting Telex messages from Sharif University in Tehran and Iran’s Physics Research Centre about orders for ring magnets, fluoride and fluoride-handling equipment, a balancing machine, a mass spectrometer and vacuum equipment, all of which can be used in uranium enrichment. For the next 17 years, the CIA’s NPC and WINPAC regarded these Telexes as some of their strongest evidence of a secret nuclear weapons program in Iran, and they were cited as such by senior U.S. officials. It was not until 2007-8 that the Iranian government finally tracked down all these items at Sharif University, and the IAEA inspectors were able to visit the university and confirm that they were being used for academic research and teaching, as Iran had told them.

After the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the IAEA’s work in Iran continued, but every lead provided by the CIA and its allies proved to be either fabricated, innocent or inconclusive. In 2007, U.S. intelligence agencies published a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran in which they acknowledged that Iran had no active nuclear weapons program. The publication of the 2007 NIE was an important step in averting a U.S. war on Iran. As George W Bush wrote in his memoirs, “…after the NIE, how could I possibly explain using the military to destroy the nuclear facilities of a country the intelligence community said had no active nuclear weapons program?”

But despite the lack of confirming evidence, the CIA refused to alter the “assessment” from its 2001 and 2005 NIEs that Iran probably did have a nuclear weapons program prior to 2003. This left the door open for the continued use of WMD allegations, inspections and sanctions as potent political weapons in the U.S.’s regime change policy toward Iran.

In 2007, UNMOVIC published a Compendium or final report on the lessons learned from the debacle in Iraq. One key lesson was that, “Complete independence is a prerequisite for a UN inspection agency,” so that the inspection process would not be used, “either to support other agendas or to keep the inspected party in a permanent state of weakness.” Another key lesson was that, “Proving the negative is a recipe for enduring difficulties and unending inspections.”

The 2005 Robb-Silberman Commission on the U.S. intelligence failure in Iraq reached very similar conclusions, such as that, “…analysts effectively shifted the burden of proof, requiring proof that Iraq did not have active WMD programs rather than requiring affirmative proof of their existence. While the U.S. policy position was that Iraq bore the responsibility to prove that it did not have banned weapons programs, the Intelligence Community’s burden of proof should have been more objective… By raising the evidentiary burden so high, analysts artificially skewed the analytical process toward confirmation of their original hypothesis – that Iraq had active WMD programs.”

In its work on Iran, the CIA has carried on the flawed analysis and processes identified by the UNMOVIC Compendium and the Robb-Silberman report on Iraq. The pressure to produce politicized intelligence that supports U.S. policy positions persists because that is the corrupt role that U.S. intelligence agencies play in U.S. policy, spying on other governments, staging coups, destabilizing countries and producing politicized and fabricated intelligence to create pretexts for war.

A legitimate national intelligence agency would provide objective intelligence analysis that policy-makers could use as a basis for rational policy decisions. But, as the UNMOVIC Compendium implied, the U.S. government is unscrupulous in abusing the concept of intelligence and the authority of international institutions like the IAEA to “support other agendas,” notably its desire for regime change in countries around the world.

The U.S.’s “other agenda” on Iran gained a valuable ally when Mohamed ElBaradei retired from the IAEA in 2009, and was replaced by Yukiya Amano from Japan. A State Department cable from July 10th 2009 released by Wikileaks described Mr. Amano as a “strong partner” to the U.S. based on “the very high degree of convergence between his priorities and our own agenda at the IAEA.” The memo suggested that the U.S. should try to “shape Amano’s thinking before his agenda collides with the IAEA Secretariat bureaucracy.” The memo’s author was Geoffrey Pyatt, who later achieved international notoriety as the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine who was exposed on a leaked audio recording plotting the 2014 coup in Ukraine with Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland.

The Obama administration spent its first term pursuing a failed “dual-track” approach to Iran, in which its diplomacy was undermined by the greater priority it gave to its parallel track of escalating UN sanctions. When Brazil and Turkey presented Iran with the framework of a nuclear deal that the U.S. had proposed, Iran readily agreed to it. But the U.S. rejected what had begun as a U.S. proposal because, by that point, it would have undercut its efforts to persuade the UN Security Council to impose harsher sanctions on Iran.

As a senior State Department official told author Trita Parsi, the real problem was that the U.S. wouldn’t take “Yes” for an answer. It was only in Obama’s second term, after John Kerry replaced Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, that the U.S. finally did take “Yes” for an answer, leading to the JCPOA between Iran, the U.S. and other major powers in 2015. So it was not U.S.-backed sanctions that brought Iran to the table, but the failure of sanctions that brought the U.S. to the table.

Also in 2015, the IAEA completed its work on “Outstanding Issues” regarding Iran’s past nuclear-related activities. On each specific case of dual-use research or technology imports, the IAEA found no proof that they were related to nuclear weapons rather than conventional military or civilian uses. Under Amano’s leadership and U.S. pressure, the IAEA “assessed” that “a range of activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device were conducted in Iran prior to the end of 2003,” but that ”these activities did not advance beyond feasibility studies and the acquisition of certain relevant technical competences and capabilities.”

The JCPOA has broad support in Washington. But the U.S. political debate over the JCPOA has essentially ignored the actual results of the IAEA’s work in Iran, the CIA’s distorting role in it and the extent to which the CIA has replicated the institutional biases, the reinforcing of preconceptions, the forgeries, the politicization and the corruption by “other agendas” that were supposed to be corrected to prevent any repetition of the WMD fiasco in Iraq.

Politicians who support the JCPOA now claim that it stopped Iran getting nuclear weapons, while those who oppose the JCPOA claim that it would allow Iran to acquire them. They are both wrong because, as the IAEA has concluded, and even President Bush acknowledged, Iran does not have an active nuclear weapons program. The worst that the IAEA can objectively say is that Iran may have done some basic nuclear weapons-related research some time before 2003 – but then again, maybe it didn’t.

Mohamed ElBaradei wrote in his memoir, The Age of Deception: Nuclear Diplomacy in Treacherous Times, that, if Iran ever conducted even rudimentary nuclear weapons research, he was sure it was only during the Iran-Iraq War, which ended in 1988, when the U.S. and its allies helped Iraq to kill up to 100,000 Iranians with chemical weapons. If ElBaradei’s suspicions were correct, Iran’s dilemma since that time would have been that it could not admit to that work in the 1980s without facing even greater mistrust and hostility from the U.S. and its allies, and risking a similar fate to Iraq.

Regardless of uncertainties regarding Iran’s actions in the 1980s, the U.S.’s campaign against Iran has violated the most critical lessons U.S. and UN officials claimed to have learned from the debacle in Iraq. The CIA has used its almost entirely baseless suspicions about nuclear weapons in Iran as pretexts to “support other agendas” and “keep the inspected party in a permanent state of weakness,” exactly as the UNMOVIC Compendium warned against ever again doing to another country.

In Iran as in Iraq, this has led to an illegal regime of brutal sanctions, under which thousands of children are dying from preventable diseases and malnutrition, and to threats of another illegal U.S. war that would engulf the Middle East and the world in even greater chaos than the one the CIA engineered against Iraq.

Nicolas J S Davies is a freelance writer, a researcher for CODEPINK and the author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.

29 January 2020

Source: countercurrents.org

By Peter Koenig

In a positive appeal to the Chinese people, last Saturday, President Xi Jinping has called on the nation’s courage to defeat the deadly epidemic which has already claimed more than 80 lives and more than 2,000 infected worldwide, the vast majority in China. These figures are changing fast, as the spread of the epidemic is accelerating. President Xi warned that the situation was serious, but not unsurmountable.

“As long as we have steadfast confidence, work together, [rely on] scientific prevention and cures, and precise policies, we will definitely be able to win the battle,” President Xi told a politburo meeting, according to Xinhua.

It is thought that the deadly coronavirus, 2019-nCoV has originated from wild animals, such as bats, but science is still out to confirm the details.

In short, the Government of China deserves high-flying congratulations for the efficient, rapid sanitary measures it has taken to avoid further infection – putting about 50 million people in a state of quarantine, blocking potentially dangerous travel routes and checking travelers for possible symptoms.

The timing of the outbreak has an additional dimension of pain and suffering, as it affects and hinders people’s celebration of the New Chinese Lunar Year’s joy of visiting families and of togetherness. On a tertiary plan, it also affects the retail economy.

Chinese doctors and nurses have already healed several dozen cases. Chinese scientists in collaboration with Russian scientists are accelerating their research into developing a vaccine against the virus. Indeed, there is no country in the world that has ever achieved with such ardor, efficiency and love for the people, progress towards isolation of a potentially highly infectable and deadly disease, preventing millions from infection and providing them with protective as well as curative measures, and by setting up a countrywide impenetrable health surveillance mechanism.

There could not be a clearer sign, that the Government of China is making every effort for the betterment and the well-being of its population. This is also reflected in the high esteem and credibility the Chinese people entrust in their government. – Something not heard of in the west – not by far.

Rather to the contrary: in the west disease means foremost business and that (business) model of health care is steadily increasing, treating sick people like a “market” – and those not yet sick, as a potential market. The medical industry, is one of the most ferocious money-making apparatuses, next to the war industry.

It’s more, the big western bought and manipulative media have immediately put the blame on China. They are demonizing and slandering China, for insufficient hygiene, for medical negligence – it is one more accusation of the “yellow peril” causing worldwide danger. A horror of western attitude and injustice.

Aside from such lies and false propaganda, let’s look at the context. In the USA alone, the regular influenza causes every year several thousand deaths, and that despite country-wide carpet vaccination, and in some states forced vaccination. The 2019/20 flu-season has already claimed more than 7000 reported deaths and uncounted cases of serious flu infections; and that only in the United States. We are talking about a country of some 350 million people. – The statistics of this flu-epidemic could be expanded to a much larger dimension throughout Europe and the rest of the western world – and the order of magnitude would be even more overwhelming.

Yet, China, with a population of some 1.4 billion people, an outbreak, where up to this writing less than 3000 people have been infected with the new 2019-nCoV virus, and the death toll stands at below 100, the country is being badgered non-stop for being at the origin of this new disease.

Let me be clear, China does not need or want to compare herself to the west, nor does she want to measure her degree of efficiency in mastering the disease and dealing with the disease’s consequences against the west. Not at all. It’s not part of the Chinese philosophy. – However, WHO immediately calls the outbreak a potential pandemic, thereby frightening the public at large with yet another danger coming from the east, from China.

The Chinese Government and the Chinese scientists work for the people, to contain the outbreak to the extent possible. And they will ‘win’; their determination like with most everything China engages in overcomes almost all obstacles.What China has already achieved in stopping the disease from seriously spreading within China and to other countries is simply remarkable. It is what no other country in the world would have achieved in this short period.
China does all this quietly, no bragging. It is simply an endless flow of creation for the well-being of her population and for harmony – and eventually for a peaceful, trustful cohabitation of the people with their government. People willingly participate in this mammoth effort to contain and cure the disease, willingly, despite the suffering of many for not being able to visit their families during that highly revered Chinese New Year, the New Lunar Year celebration which in magnitude and importance would be the western equivalent of Christmas.

Having said this, it should also be noted that this case of 2019-nCoV is curiously similar to other CoronoVirus diseases, like the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome – MERS, first found in Saudi Arabia (2012) and then it spread to other Middle Easter and Sub-Saharan African countries; and the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), first discovered in China in 2002, spread around the world but was quickly contained and caused no know infections after 2004. Both are coronaviruses, suspected having been laboratory-made, with animal trials, and the viruses’ transfer to humans was only possible with human assistance. Then the viruses mutated to make human-to-human infection possible. Bothe SARS and the new 2019-nCoV virus also have the particularity of affecting primarily people of the Chinese race (see also https://www.globalresearch.ca/chinas-new-coronavirus-an-examination-of-the-facts/5701662).

There are some 100-plus CIA / Pentagon sponsored clandestine and semi-known laboratories spread throughout the world – laboratories to fabricate and test agents for biological warfare. A few years ago, one such laboratory was discovered and reported on in Ukraine. They were working on a virus affecting the “Russian Race”. Since there is no homogenous Russian Race – their initial trials supposedly failed. Since the empire never gives up in its evil attempts to dominate the world, we can assume that research on race directed bio-agents continues.
This western, especially American (CIA, Pentagon, NATO) project to develop bio-chemical weapons to kill people by disease rather than bullets and bombs – it is much cheaper! And less obvious – does exist. You may draw your own conclusion on whether SARS and the new 2019-nCoV fits that pattern. The timing of the appearance was especially curious. It was first reported on 31 December 2019 in Wuhan (the center of China) – and then expanded rapidly, so that it interfered with China’s most important Holiday, the Lunar New Year. It could, of course, be just coincidence.

One of Washington’s “low-grade” warfare models is destabilizing China (and Russia for that matter) with any means. With the objective of destabilization, China is constantly being harassed and aggressed – see Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, Tibet, the tariff wars – and why not with a contagious virus, a trial for a potential pandemic?

What can be observed and even the west must notice to their chagrin and frustration – is China’s extreme resilience and capacity to adapt and resist –to resist with powerful minds and ingenuity that saves her people. And that without counter-aggression, without even an accusation and never a threat. This is China’s way forward: a steady flow of endless creation, avoiding conflict, no dominance, but seeking harmony by building bridges between people and among countries and cultures – creating understanding and wellbeing, towards a multi-polar world. A model for mankind? – If only the west would open its eyes and wake up.

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist.

29 january 2020

Source: countercurrents.org

By Countercurrents Collective

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has slammed U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East “peace” plan, declaring “Jerusalem is not for sale”. Abbas warned that the “conspiracy deal will not pass.”

“Your conspiracy deal will not pass and the Palestinian people will reject it,” Abbas warned on Tuesday after Trump unveiled his long-awaited plan for peace between Israel and Palestine.

Calling it “impossible” for Palestinians to “accept a state without Jerusalem,” which would remain the U.S.-recognized capital of Israel under Trump’s plan, Abbas made his feelings absolutely clear on the matter.

The Palestine President said: “No, no, a big no to the ‘deal of the century.’”

The plan, he predicted, would be consigned to the “dustbin of history.”

Vowing not to “bow to the demands of the occupation,” Abbas announced a new round of negotiations with Fatah and stated that Palestine was ready to meet with the Middle East Quartet, which has advised on the Israel-Palestine peace.

Hamas

Hamas also rejected the plan as “nonsense” and called Trump’s statement “aggressive.”

Political theatre

Speaking to Reuters before the release of the plan, top Palestinian envoy to Britain Husam Zomlot said that the announcement would be a “piece of political theatre” and would push the situation “over the cliff and into apartheid.”

Iran

A top advisor to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani tweeted that the Trump plan is “solely” a deal made “between the Zionist regime and America” and that interaction with Palestinians is “not on the agenda.”

Jordan

Jordan’s foreign minister Ayman Safadi said that the establishment of a Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as the capital is the “only path to comprehensive and lasting peace” but also warned against potential consequences of unilateral measures taken by Israel.

Trump’s two-state solution

Trump has proposed a two-state solution for Israel-Palestine, which would see the Palestinian capital located in east Jerusalem, in a move the U.S. president called a “big step towards peace.”

Trump said that Israel had agreed to negotiate on the basis of a conceptual and detailed proposed map for the first time. If Israel agrees to the proposed map, the US will recognize it, he said.

The plan will “more than double the Palestinian territory” and “no Israelis or Palestinians will be uprooted.” The U.S will also “proudly” open an embassy in the new Palestinian capital in east Jerusalem, Trump said.

Trump boasted that he has done “a lot” for Israel since taking office. It’s “only reasonable that I have to do a lot for the Palestinians” too or it “wouldn’t be fair,” he added.

In return for U.S. recognition of Israel’s settlements in the occupied West Bank, Israel would accept a four-year freeze on new settlement building while Palestinian statehood is negotiated.

The plan will also set up a $50 billion economic revival program for Palestinians, Jordan and Egypt.

Standing alongside Trump, Netanyahu said the presence of ambassadors from Oman, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates in Washington boded well for the success of the Trump plan.

Netanyahu said previous attempts to solve the crisis “did not strike the right balance” between dealing with Israel’s fears for its security and Palestinians’ desire for self-determination.

The Israeli PM also said that Trump has been the “best friend” Israel has ever had and though there have been good friends of Israel’s in the White House before, they do not even “come close” to Trump.

Netanyahu was also full of praise for Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who was the chief author of the plan, saying that it was “great to have these real estate people” involved territorial disputes because they can “come up with things normal human beings don’t think about.”

He added that Israel owes both Kushner and Trump “an eternal debt of gratitude.”

Despite the positive words from Washington, however, the Palestinian side has already said it will reject the plan.

The Trump administration, having made numerous and major concessions to Israel since 2017, is not seen by the Palestinians as a neutral arbiter in the conflict.

Trump’s tweet

Following his remarks, Trump sent a tweet in Arabic with a map attached of “what the future state of Palestine might look like.”

Top of Form

What’s in Trump’s plan

The 180-page proposal unveiled by Trump envisions the conditions under which a Palestinian state might be recognized.

The “Vision for Peace, Prosperity and a Brighter Future” bills itself as “the best, most realistic and most achievable outcome for the parties” right from the start.

It says that the 700 or so UN General Assembly resolutions and 100-plus Security Council resolutions have failed to bring peace, while the 1993 Oslo Accords left too many key issues unresolved, “including, among other items, borders, security, refugees and Jerusalem.”

Trump’s plan addresses all those issues, mostly by siding with Israel.

Security

“A realistic solution would give the Palestinians all the power to govern themselves but not the powers to threaten Israel,” says the Vision at the very beginning.

Therefore, any Palestinian state would have to be fully demilitarized.

Palestine would not have any right to “develop military or paramilitary capabilities” without Israel’s approval.

It would also be barred from any sort of security or diplomatic arrangements with other countries without Israeli consent.

Israel would retain the right to “dismantle and destroy any facility in the State of Palestine that is used for the production of prohibited weapons or for other hostile purposes,” and maintain control over “all international crossings into the State of Palestine.”

Also, as a precondition for recognition, the Palestinian Authority would have to drop all pending or planned legal action against Israel, the U.S. and their citizens before the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice, and all other tribunals.

Borders

On page 45, the Vision introduces a “Conceptual Map,” a basis for negotiations that is designed to address the “spirit” of UN Security Council Resolution 242, dealing with the Palestinian territories previously held by Egypt and Jordan but taken by Israel in the 1967 war – namely, West Bank and Gaza.

The map reflects the U.S. view that Israel is not legally bound to provide Palestinians with 100 percent of the pre-1967 territory, but something “reasonably comparable in size.”

It shows a Palestinian state almost entirely enclosed by Israel to address “security requirements.”

As noted above, Israel gets to maintain control over Palestinian borders.

The map “avoids forced population transfers of either Arabs or Jews,” often by creating enclaves within enclaves, connected to the rest by access roads, tunnels or overpasses.

It envisions “high-speed transportation links” for Palestinians, but it is unclear what this might mean, as no such infrastructure presently exists in the U.S.

Israel has already said it would basically annex the strip along the Jordanian border and other areas assigned to it by the map right away, while pausing all settlement activity in the Palestinian-designated areas for four years, to give the Palestinians time to make their choice.

Jerusalem

Partitioned by the 1949 armistice between Israel and Jordan, Jerusalem has been fully under Israeli control since 1967. Israel has officially annexed the entire city – a claim recognized by Trump in December 2017, but not the UN.

The Vision treats Jerusalem as the Israeli capital – albeit with freedom of access to its holy sites to all religious communities – and proposes the Palestinian capital to be “in the section of East Jerusalem located in all areas east and north of the existing security barrier, including Kafr Aqab, the eastern part of Shuafat and Abu Dis, and could be named Al Quds” or however else the Palestinian state wishes.

Refugees

One of the most intractable issues has been the question of Palestinian refugees, displaced since 1948.

The Trump plan asserts that “nearly the same number of Jews and Arabs were displaced by the Arab-Israel conflict,” but while the Jews were given citizenship and absorbed by Israel, the Palestinians were “cruelly and cynically held in limbo to keep the conflict alive” by the neighboring Arab states.

It said: “There shall be no right of return by, or absorption of, any Palestinian refugee into the State of Israel.”

Palestinians will be given a choice to seek citizenship in the Palestinian state, integrate into the countries where they currently live, or resettle in a third country. A “generous trust” will be established to pay for this.

Much of the document is in fact about economic incentives for Palestinians that lays out the proposal masterminded by Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner and presented last year in Bahrain.

The detailed presentation envisions how Palestinians should structure their government, society, economy, education, healthcare, etc.

In sum, Palestinians are promised a million new jobs, billions of dollars in investments to bring them out of poverty, and a state they can call their own – if they agree to a peculiar form of restricted sovereignty that is subordinated to Israeli security interests; recognize Israel as the Jewish state and abandon all claims to the land it holds; and reorganize their entire society along the lines of a western liberal democracy.

flock to U.S. diplomatic compounds in Ankara & Istanbul to protest Trump’s plan

Demonstrators have flooded the streets outside the U.S. embassy in Ankara and the consulate in Istanbul, venting their rage over the newly-unveiled “deal of the century” that Turkey has slammed as an “annexation plan.”

Hours after the much-hyped Middle East peace plan was announced by U.S. President Trump, demonstrators in Turkey’s two biggest cities came out in force to protest the roadmap to peace that many argue is skewed in favor of Tel Aviv.

Videos posted on social media show demonstrators chanting slogans and waving Palestinian as well as Turkish banners, as they marched towards the U.S. embassy in the Turkish capital.

The rally, organized almost on the spot shortly after Trump’s announcement, drew in a huge crowd. Many could be seen holding their smartphones up to the night skies, turning the streets into a sea of light.

Hundreds turned out in Istanbul as well, voicing support for Palestinians who have already rejected the plan.

While majority of the US allies in the region have either expressed cautious optimism about the arrangement, or endorsed it, Turkey has lambasted the “stillborn” plan, calling it an “attempt to kill the two-state solution” and annex Palestinian territory.

29 January 2020

Source: countercurrents.org

By Countercurrents Collective

A 620 km long human chain from the northern part of Kerala to the south was formed on Republic Day by the CPI(M) led Left Democratic Front, to register the protest against the ‘unconstitutional: Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). People from all walks of life including newly weds participated in the human chain.

The organizers claimed that around 60 to 70 lakh people participated in the human chain.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and CPI leader Kanam Rajendran joined the protest in capital city Thiruvananthapuram.

The preamble of the Constitution was read out by lakhs of protesters who join in human chain.

Many prominent personalities including politicians, cultural activists, religious leaders and artists participated in the human chain. The participation of hundreds of newly wedded couples in human chain was also gained the attraction.

An oath was taken to protect the Constitution from the “attempts of the Central government” to destroy it.

People formed a 620-km human chain from Kasargod in the north of Kerala to Thiruvananthapuram in the south to register their protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act on Republic Day. Organised by Kerala’s ruling Left Democratic Front, the protest saw lakhs of people — including Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan — lining up along roads across the state.

Several newly weds were also seen participating in the protest, billed as one of the biggest against the amended Citizenship law until now.

This morning, the constitution of India was read out in several mosques and churches in the state, which also saw hoisting of the national flag and prayers being offered for the nation.

The Left and Congress led United Democratic Front, though principal political opponents, have also held a joint protest against the Act last year. The state has already declared that it will not implement the National Population Register.

“I congratulate all people who have joined this human chain. It’s not time for us to stop or to rest. We have to continue to resist all attempts to change our constitution”, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said.

The last time the LDF organised a similar human chain was on December 29, 2016, to protest against the hardships faced by the people following demonetisation.

On January 1, 2019, the Pinarayi Vijayan-led government held a Women’s Wall to uphold renaissance values and gender equality in society, with the aim of welcoming the Supreme Court’s decision to open the Sabarimala temple to women of all ages.

26 January 2020

Source: countercurrents.org

By Maung Zarni

24 Jan 2020 – Rohingya around the world yesterday shared a pervasive sense of vindication after four-decades of policy-inflicted sufferings at the hands of Myanmar state which has systematically sought to destroy their identity and physical existence in the country.

The historic interim decision on Myanmar genocide by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), tasked principally to adjudicate legal disputes among UN member states, has made several millions Rohingya — in the camps in Bangladesh, in the diaspora and inside Myanmar — feel — their cries of pain and calls for solidarity are heeded by the UN court finally.

Among other things, the ICJ crucially reaffirmed what the UN International Independent Fact-Finding Mission sought to establish — that the Rohingya are a protected group under an inter-state treaty known as the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948, or the Genocide Convention.

Over the last several decades, Myanmar has waged a relentless and systematic official campaign to erase Rohingya group identity and history — both of which the Union of Burma had officially acknowledged — while literally destroying their existence as a group. Against this backdrop, I have for the last 10 years campaigned to get the facts of the plight and systematic persecution of the Rohingya people of my country of birth, in partnership with my researcher colleague and wife Natalie Brinham.

So, we too shared the sense of jubilation among all Rohingya communities over the court’s pronouncement that war or peace, Myanmar as a state party to the Genocide Convention is legally obligated to protect Rohingya ethnic group.

This sentiment of vindication was palpable among Rohingya refugee activists who were inside the court in The Hague and those waiting outside the Palace of the Peace — the seat of the UN’s highest court — who came to support their fellow Rohingya privileged enough to hear the president judge read out the 28-page Application of the Genocide Convention by issuing measures designed to oblige Myanmar as a party to the Convention to end its breaches.

From the elevated gallery right opposite from the presiding judge, I sat with my Myanmar activist brother Nay Say Lwin, himself a Rohingya. Biting our nails, we both leaned forward from our bench and listened intensely as the presiding judge read out the court’s decision to grant four out of six binding measures aimed at both protecting the 600,000 Rohingya inside Myanmar’s concentration camps and open air prisons, and preserving the evidence of Myanmar killing fields.

This UNESCO World Heritage site-worthy crime scene is the vast tract of charred land in western Myanmar immediately adjacent to Bangladesh that spans an area as long as 68 square kilometers where only two years ago stood nearly 400 exclusively Rohingya villages. As stated factually in Myanmar Government’s Burmese language encyclopedia of 1964, northern Rakhine state has always been predominantly Rohingya region throughout the country’s pre- and post-independence histories. The apartheid conditions that existed in this northern most part of western Myanmar culminated in the largest wave of genocidal purges of 2016 and 2017, which triggered the largest exodus of 740,000 across the borders.

To be sure, the Court’s decision explicitly states that Thursday’s decision, again unanimous, to issue legally binding orders to Myanmar — theoretically speaking as the UN has no enforcement mechanisms in place — does not prejudge the matter in dispute, whether Myanmar has really breached the Convention by failing to prevent the crime of genocide against Rohingya as a protected group and itself, commissioning the heinous crime.

It is, however, worth nothing that the court was, at this initial judicial phase, persuaded that there exists a very real plausibility of a genocide committed by Myanmar against Rohingya protected group, as Gambia has alleged. The evidence presented to it by Gambia was based principally on thousands of pages of documents and reports amassed by the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar — and UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar Yanghee Lee.

To my own deep dismay, like a typical terrible 3 who plays “catch-me-if-you-can”, Myanmar has on the same day responded to the court’s interim decision with cheeky defiance as evidenced in its Jan. 23-dated statement entitled “Myanmar takes note of ICJ decision. There was no genocide in Rakhine.”

Additionally, Myanmar’s de facto head of state Aung San Suu Kyi published an opinion editorial in the Financial Times which attempts to trash the validity of the witness statements by Rohingya survivors including thousands of rape victims, while also attacking the global human rights community of activists, genocide researchers, legal experts and the assemblage of UN human rights monitoring mechanisms.

Offering the report of her government’s own commission — billed as Independent Commission of Enquiry — as the world’s most comprehensive and most credible, Suu Kyi, who is Myanmar’s official agent in the ICJ case, said: “Some refugees may have provided inaccurate or exaggerated information. … The international justice system may not yet be equipped to filter out misleading information before shadows of incrimination are cast over entire nations and governments. Human rights groups have condemned Myanmar based on unproven statements without the due process of criminal investigation.” That came after her characteristically honey-tongued line or lie that “the voice of victims must be heard and must always touch our hearts”.

On its part, Myanmar’s most powerful protector, China, has come forward with its support for Myanmar’s dismissal of the global human rights community and the UN accountability mechanism. On Thursday, the Embassy of China in Yangon uploaded on its Facebook a statement by the State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi on President Xi Jinping’s state visit to Myanmar, and approvingly said: “… the leaders of the Myanmar side briefed on Myanmar’s position on the Rakhine State and other issues, saying that some countries have been wantonly interfering in the internal affairs of other countries in the name of human rights, ethnic or religious issues and Myanmar will never bow to such pressure and interference.”

Besides, the wider alarming global trends which have clearly signaled the rise of right-wing populists and dictators among the world’s most powerful countries such as the U.S. and India, not to mention Russia and China — as George Soros pointedly observed in his remarks at the World Economic Forum in Davos — favor Myanmar’s anti-human rights regime and its Neanderthal outlook, which Suu Kyi champions with China’s backing.

Despite our shared sentiments of vindication and jubilation, Rohingya and rights activists are painfully aware of the uphill struggle that lies ahead. Still, yesterday was a good and historic day. The World Court’s decision was a shot in our collective arm. It has restored a degree of confidence in the global justice mechanisms, and the Genocide Convention, with their shortcomings and deep flaws.

___________________________________________

A Buddhist humanist from Burma, Maung Zarni is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment, former Visiting Lecturer with Harvard Medical School, specializing in racism and violence in Burma and Sri Lanka, and Non-resident Scholar in Genocide Studies with Documentation Center – Cambodia.

27 January 2020

Source: www.transcend.org

By Mala Jay

25 Jan 2020 – In a scathing denouncement of CAA, the lawmakers have drafted a formal five-page resolution to be tabled during the plenary session of the European Parliament starting in Brussels next week.

India’s Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) could trigger the “largest statelessness crisis in the world and cause widespread human suffering”, a powerful group of 154 European Parliament members have warned.

In a scathing denouncement of CAA, the lawmakers have drafted a formal five-page resolution to be tabled during the plenary session of the European Parliament starting in Brussels next week.

The proposed resolution not only describes the CAA as “discriminatory and dangerously divisive” but also a violation of India’s “international obligations” under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and other Human Rights treaties to which New Delhi is a signatory.

The 154 lawmakers belong to the ‘S&D Group’ – a progressive forum of MEPs from 26 EU countries, recognised as the second-largest political caucus in the European Parliament. They are committed to upholding social justice and democratic values such as Equality, Diversity and Fairness.

Significantly the draft resolution also refers pointedly to the United Nations Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, to which India is also bound.

This is in the context of their observation that the adoption of the CAA “has sparked massive protests against its implementation, with 27 reported deaths, 175 injured and thousands arrested and reports that the Indian government has ordered internet shutdowns, imposed curfews and placed limits on public transportation to prevent peaceful protests”.

Moreover, “reports have emerged of hundreds of protesters being beaten, shot, and tortured, in particular in Uttar Pradesh”.

The draft resolution notes that on January 5, 2020, the campus of Jawaharlal Nehru University, where students were protesting against the CAA and the National Register of Citizens (NRC), was attacked by a masked mob that injured over 20 students and teachers from the University.

It says various media reports and students have alleged that the police stood witness to the attack and refused to control and arrest the mob, about which the international community, including the UN, has already expressed concerns regarding the CAA and the violence that it has sparked. It quotes the spokesperson for the UN High Commission for Human Rights as having expressed concern that the CAA is ‘fundamentally discriminatory in nature’.

The S&D Group has pointed out that CAA was amended ostensibly to enable irregular migrants to acquire Indian citizenship through naturalisation and registration. However the CAA restricts eligibility to only Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan who entered India on or before 31 December 2014. “The CAA is explicitly discriminatory in nature as it specifically excludes Muslims from having access to the same provisions as other religious groups”, it says.

Further, whereas the Indian Government has stated that the countries listed in the CAA are Muslim-majority countries where minority religions are more likely to face persecution in their home countries, thus using this as justification for fast-tracked citizenship, but India shares a border with Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burma, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka – “yet the CAA does not bring Sri Lankan Tamils under its purview, who form the largest refugee group in India and who have been resident in the country for over thirty years”.

Moreover, CAA also excludes Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar, who have been described by Amnesty International and the United Nations as the world’s most persecuted minority; and also ignores the plight of Ahmadis in Pakistan, Bihari Muslims in Bangladesh, and the Hazaras of Pakistan, all of whom are subject to persecution in their home countries.

According to the S&D Group, the CAA contradicts Article 14 of India’s own Constitution, which guarantees the right to equality to every person and protects them from discrimination on the grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth.

In effect, the amended law “undermines India’s commitment to uphold the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the ICCPR and the Convention for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, to which India is a State party, which prohibit discrimination on the basis of racial, ethnic or religious grounds”.

The draft resolution states that the CAA was enacted during the Government’s push for a nationwide citizenship verification process (the NRC). “The Government’s statements revealed that the aim of the NRC process was to strip Muslims of their citizenship rights while protecting those of Hindus and other non-Muslims” and “whereas Muslims who are not included in the NRC will have recourse to the Foreigners’ Tribunals that have been established to determine the right to citizenship, these tribunals have been internationally condemned for failing to protect the right to a fair trial and human rights guarantees”.

It notes that although the Indian Government has stated that it is yet to start a nationwide NRC, this exercise was recently concluded in Assam and “resulted in the exclusion of more than 1.9 million people and has been used to label them as illegal migrants, who now face an uncertain future and possible deportation”.

Several Indian States have already announced that they would not implement the law and the Government of Kerala, in its petition to the Supreme Court, called the CAA ‘a violation of the secular nature of the Indian Constitution’ and accused the federal Indian Government of ‘dividing the nation on religious lines’.

The draft resolution “denounces the fact that India has incorporated religious criteria into its naturalization and refugee policies … and calls on the Indian Government to address the legitimate concerns raised over the NRC, which may be used to target marginalised groups”.

It also calls on the Indian authorities to ensure the right to peaceful protest and to guarantee the life and physical integrity of those who choose to demonstrate and also to ensure that the security forces comply with the United Nations Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials.

27 January 2020

Source: www.transcend.org

By Eoin Higgins

The letter, from activist group CodePink, comes ahead of peace demonstrations scheduled Saturday in 200 cities around the world.

24 Jan 2020 – The peace advocacy group CodePink is collecting American signatures for a letter apologizing to the Iranian people for U.S. aggression and warmaking, particularly President Donald Trump’s decision on January 3 to order the assassination by drone strike of Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani while Soleimani was in Iraq.

“As Americans committed to peace and the safety of all people, we, the undersigned, apologize for the actions of our reckless, hate-filled president,” the letter says, “and pledge to do everything we can to stop Trump’s aggression, remove the crippling sanctions you are suffering under, and resume a process of diplomacy with your country.”

The U.S. and Iran have been in a Cold-War style conflict for decades, but the Soleimani assassination marked a notable escalation in tensions.

In a tweet about Saturday’s demonstrations, CodePink cofounder Medea Benjamin warned that war was still a very real possibility.

“Think we avoided war with Iran a few weeks ago?” said Benjamin. “Think again. We are still on the brink.”

CodePink’s letter condemns in no uncertain terms the continuing conflict.

“The recent U.S. actions towards Iran are the most dangerous and provocative of all of Donald Trump’s foreign policy decisions,” reads the letter. “The assassination of Soleimani—ordered by President Trump and carried out on sovereign Iraqi soil—risked the safety of the entire world, set a dangerous precedent, and was likely illegal under international law.”

The demonstrations, which are in 200 cities around the world, are set for Saturday. CodePink is joining more than 150 other sponsors for the event.

Find a protest near you here.

“Please accept our hand in friendship,” says the letter. “May the peacemakers prevail over those who sow hatred and discord.”

________________________________________

Eoin Higgins is senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.

27 January 2020

Source: www.transcend.org