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Personal impressions from the conference MH17: The Quest for Justice, Kuala Lumpur, 17 August 2019.

by Kees van der Pijl, Amsterdam

From 15 to 19 August I was in the capital of Malaysia for a conference organised by the International Movement for a Just World (JUST), the Perdana Global Peace Foundation (PGPF) and the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). I had been invited as the author of Flight MH17, Ukraine, and the New Cold War, meanwhile in four languages. All signs were that this would be a landmark event because for the first time, critics of the Dutch-led investigation into the tragedy were coming together for what the organisers called ‘a modest endeavour to uphold the truth and to remain faithful to justice’. It would be much more than that and among those sharing that assessment was the Dutch embassy in Kuala Lumpur, which expressed its concern over the conference both to the Prime Minister’s office and to the organisers. In what follows, I give a brief account of what I see as the effective establishment of an international task force on MH17 solely motivated by the quest for justice, not by any political position adopted beforehand. Since I was only an invited speaker it will be obvious that the organisers are in no way responsible for these notes.

Preliminaries

On arrival at Kuala Lumpur International Airport I was met by a functionary of the Perdana Foundation, one of the organisations established at the initiative of Dr Mahathir (for other Malaysians I rely on the abbreviated names as used in the conference programme). The Perdana Foundation, I learned, is committed to the criminalisation of war, and in my book I actually refer to the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal, which in 2011, after extensive hearings, indicted George Bush and Tony Blair for crimes against the peace over the Iraq invasion of 2003. As was established at Nuremberg in 1945-46, all other crimes such as war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and the like, follow from the supreme crime against the peace. Although Mahathir had excused himself for the conference, his public remarks on the doubtful accusations made against Russia had been an obvious inspiration for the Kuala Lumpur event.

On the Friday evening before the actual conference there was a welcome dinner, an opportunity to meet with the organisers, their respective staffs, and the other speakers and moderators. The foreign guests were presented with a signed copy of Mahathir’s autobiography, ‘A Doctor in the House’ (he is a medical doctor). Luckily I had a copy of the Manchester University Press edition of my own book with me to return the gesture via the organisers, several of whom are close to Mahathir.

At this dinner I first heard of steps taken by the Dutch embassy with the Prime Minister’s office and with the organisers at the Perdana Foundation office (because the Dutch ambassador was new to the place, by his deputy) to express discontent and concern over the event. Apparently the deputy ambassador complained about holding this conference in the first place and extending an invitation to ‘conspiracy theorists’ (the label applied to all those doubting the JIT claim that Russia is guilty of the downing of MH17, a claim made already by Western politicians and media before any investigation had begun). I will come back to the possible role of the Dutch embassy when discussing the session at which two family members of Malaysian victims had been planned to speak.

Still at the dinner, I was seated next to the former Malaysian ambassador to the Netherlands, Dr Fauziah, who told me how the Dutch TV programme Nieuwsuur had approached her on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the tragedy, only to castigate her for not being fully convinced of the validity of the JIT reading and then, why did she continue to defend the Russians?

The Conference: Introductions

The event was held in the main auditorium of the International Islamic University of Malaysia (since the country is constitutionally a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society, this has no other relevance than that it is among Malaysia’s largest and most prestigious academic institutions, on a par with the University of Malaysia).

After the arrival of guests and registration of participants and media representatives, the opening remarks were made by Dr Chandra Muzaffar, president of JUST. Dr Chandra is one of the country’s leading intellectuals and besides his many academic credits, a well-known public figure since even a hotel assistant I spoke to, knew him. Chandra explained in his remarks that there were many justified doubts about the Dutch-led investigations and many issues had not been satisfactorily resolved. In contrast to the adherence to one official account in the West, this conference was meant to be an open-minded event to bring together some of those whose views could enlarge or contest the JIT account; it was not based on any a priori position regarding the downing of MH17 or the conflict in Ukraine.

Next the conference was officiated by Professor Tan Sri Dzul, the president of the university and a world-renowned expert on health and drug issues. Through his participation in Malaysian public life and media, he too is a well-known figure in the country. That he was also a former student of Chandra’s may have helped to make the facilities of the university available for this event, but his brief and lively introduction was testimony to a profound commitment to the cause of achieving justice for the victims of the disaster and their relatives.

Session 1. Documentary, MH17—Call for Justice

The title of this documentary makes clear how close its perspective is to the theme of the Kuala Lumpur conference. The documentary, which meanwhile has been seen by hundreds of thousands of viewers on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkDWwYk4-Ho), was introduced by the director, Yana Yerlashova. She explained this was her third documentary on the topic and paid tribute to Max van der Werff, the investigative journalist with whom she made this one. With her on the podium was Akash Rosen, founder of OG IT Forensic Services, who as a certified audio specialist has demonstrated with his colleagues that the phone taps provided by the Ukrainian intelligence service SBU to the Dutch-led investigation had been extensively tampered with, cutting and pasting different segments etc. Besides their appearance in the documentary, Akash Rosen and his colleagues also produced a special 143-page report detailing their investigations, which is in the public domain.

The documentary, shown at the conference on a big screen, shares the spirit of the event in that there is no a priori attribution of guilt. It merely seeks to highlight the inconsistencies and falsehoods of the JIT investigation. Its shocking revelations on the intimidation of a Dutch lawyer willing to challenge the government, the tampering with evidence, the testimony of experts such as the German lawyer, Professor Giemulla, witnesses of Ukrainian air force activity, plus the fraudulent nature of SBU-supplied evidence, made a great impression and set the tone for the conference.

Session 2. Review of evidence and background

This session was moderated by Tan Sri Fuzi, former Secretary-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Malaysia, an accomplished diplomat and currently active in a wide range of businesses as chairman of the board and director.

The first speaker was Michel Chossudovsky, emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and director of the Centre for Research of Globalization, one of the three organisations behind the conference. I am familiar with Chossudovsky’s work from the time of the NATO intervention in the dissolution of Yugoslavia and his relation with Malaysia includes membership in the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission. The website of he CRG, Global Research.ca, is one of the most read alternative news media in the world.

Chossudovsky argued that there have in fact been four investigations on MH17. Besides the Dutch Safety Board and the JIT, there was first the investigation immediately after the event and leading to the assertion of Russian guilt. It was based on radar images mentioned by US Secretary of State John Kerry, which were not heard of again but which yet made a great impact on the political climate in which subsequent investigations transpired. Next there was the investigation by then-SBU-head Nalyvaychenko who claimed to have discovered a Russian plot to shoot down one of its own civilian airliners and thus provoke a Russian military intervention in Ukraine. Chossudovsky highlighted the political credentials of Nalyvaychenko and the absurdity of this assertion on several counts, although it did not apparently disqualify the SBU as a source for the subsequent two investigations (DSB and especially, JIT).

The second speaker was Peter Haisenko, a retired civil aviation pilot with a long career as captain on international flights with Lufthansa. Meanwhile also a prolific author and publisher and well-known on this particular dossier, he was interviewed by the JIT but nothing of his findings in the end made it into their conclusions, perhaps also because the DSB had already excluded any other outcome than a Buk impact.

Haisenko told the conference that he had studied photographs of the wreckage right after the MH17 disaster and discovered evidence of impact holes of 30 mm explosive shells in some of the high-definition pictures on the Internet. When he found these pictures had been removed the next day, he began his own investigation, among other things discussing the possibility of a Buk missile having exploded near the Boeing’s cockpit. Following conversations with experts including the former East German anti-aircraft officer and author, Bernd Biedermann, Haisenko came to the conclusion that the cause of the downing could not have been a Buk missile. Instead he claims an Su-25 ground-support fighter jet (which I in my book still rule out because it is subsonic and not fast enough to manoeuvre around a Boeing 777 at top speed) may have fired a heat-seeking air-to-air missile hitting an engine and slowing down the Boeing to around 600 km/h but not destroying it, after which the Sukhoi was able, flying at 0.9 Mach, to fire its cannon at the cockpit with the aforementioned shells (actually two types loaded alternately). With the pilots killed, the explosions of the anti-tank shells that are the standard armament of an Su-25, then caused the plane to break-up in mid-air.

After the presentations there was extensive Q & A and of course discussions continued in between sessions and after the conference. I suggested to Haisenko that for his account to be vindicated (it incidentally was the only express alternative theory of why MH17 was destroyed at the entire conference), we must know what was on the voice and flight recorders, a topic of dispute later.

As the third speaker in this session I relied for the greater part on my book, which deals primarily with the geopolitical and economic context of the tragedy. About the actual event, in contrast to DSB and JIT, I only list the different possible scenarios, so who had Buks, what do specialists say about the effect of a Buk hit, who had fighter jets, what are the characteristics of such jets, and so on. Ultimately I cannot say with certainty what was the cause of the downing except that all circumstantial considerations, so who had a motive, who profited, and so on, would seem to point to the coup regime in Kiev and its Atlantic backers. I also mentioned how the DSB Final Report has lied about the presence of 1.3 tons of lithium ion batteries right behind the cockpit, which if on fire, produce high explosive gases.

Also I asked why the Su-25 pilot, Voloshin, whom an airbase mechanic declared had returned from a sortie in great distress on 17 July, had never been interviewed by the DSB or JIT before he died, supposedly by suicide, in March 2018. That the DSB and JIT investigations are profoundly compromised because of the veto granted to the Kiev coup regime, is in my book, and here I also mentioned that the law establishing the DSB already rules that facts harmful to Dutch foreign relations will not be reported. Finally I asked why the JIT did not accept the evidence offered by the German investigator, Josef Resch, whilst relying extensively on the proven falsehoods of the amateur Internet collective, ‘Bellingcat’ (instead of one or more of the 17 US intelligence agencies)—claims which I show in my book had been previously dismissed by the JIT as ‘unfit for evidence’.

Session 3. MH17: Legal dimensions

This session was moderated by Professor Mary George of the Faculty of Law, University of Malaysia, and a specialist on law of the sea and air and space law. In hindsight I would think this was the most important session determining the outcome of the entire conference. For whereas the other sessions gave details adding up to serious doubts about the tenability of the conclusions of the Dutch-led investigations, which led to the recent indictment of four individuals for murder and the announcement of a trial held in the Netherlands in March 2020, this session resulted in the recommendation to prevent that trial from taking place in the first place.

The first speaker, Canadian criminal defence lawyer John Philpot, a specialist in international criminal law with 35 years of experience including the tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Court (ICC), brought his experience to bear on the MH17 case. In all the recorded cases of international criminal justice, the dedicated courts dealing with the Rwanda genocide, with the violent dissolution of Yugoslavia, and the ICC (which in practice turned out a court limiting its prosecution to criminal actions by Africans), Philpot had established that this is a highly politicised form of justice, far removed from the presumed neutrality of a normal court and with a prosecution which has to be mistrusted most because its role, too, differs fundamentally from a national prosecutor’s office. Since on the long flight back I read a large part of an edited collection on international criminal justice that he gave me as a present in Kuala Lumpur, I recognised many of the characteristics of the JIT (tunnel vision, prejudice, political pressure notably by the US and Western governments) in the cases analysed in that book (‘Justice Belied. The Unbalanced Scales of International Criminal Justice’).

The second speaker, Dr Gurdial Singh Nijar, a solicitor, former Professor of Law at the University of Malaysia, and president of the Malaysian Human Rights Society, covered a different legal aspect, the question of a possible civil suit against the Kiev regime for keeping open the air space above a war zone (along the lines of the lawsuit on behalf of the German victims’ relatives by Professor Giemulla, as in the ‘Call for Justice’ documentary). Since Kiev obviously did not fulfil its international obligations in this domain, there should be good grounds for a successful civil suit, Gurdial argued.

Session 4. Ground Zero: The Unsung Heroes

This session, chaired by former Reuters staff correspondent Amy Chew, featured Colonel Sakri, who also appears in the ‘Call for Justice’ documentary. Col. Sakri was instructed by then Prime Minister Najib to fly to Ukraine and gain hold of the data recorders of the plane (black boxes) besides ensuring that the bodies of the Malaysian victims would be collected in a proper manner. Col. Sakri gave a chilling account of the operation he led, which included crossing ten checkpoints between the Ukrainian government-held territory and the rebel areas, against the will of the coup government in Kiev. As a military officer, he knew he exposed himself and his men to grave danger, but having reached the rebels, he was handed the black boxes without further ado, a sign they had nothing to hide. I was impressed by Sakri’s sober account even of anecdotes that might have been presented with bravado. The same for the moment, also in the documentary, when he was confronted by FBI agents demanding the black boxes upon his return to Kharkov and said ‘no’. His telephone conversation with Prime Minister Najib, in which the latter implored him to secure the black boxes at all cost, if only for the sake of national dignity after the successive disasters of MH370 and MH17, was very moving, certainly when Sakri, again in the most modest of terms, related how he effectively pledged his life. Whether MH370, lost in March 2014, was really the reason for Malaysia to turn down the offer to lead the (technical) MH17 probe, as maintained by the former head of the Civil Aviation Department, Mr Azharuddin, who made two long interventions at the conference in reply to questions, was a matter much discussed in the corridors. The same for the question of whether Malaysia had ever been allowed to listen to the original tape recordings of the voice and data recorders, referred to already.

Session 5. In Memory

This session had been planned to be dedicated to the victims and their families. However, although the two relatives, the widow of the first officer and the daughter of the chief stewardess, had been closely involved in the planning, including how they would be presented in the programme booklet (which was printed in accordance with their wishes), they withdrew two days before the conference (a single line in the booklet was printed just in time to this effect, below their portraits). The letter in which they conveyed the decision to withdraw was cast in what the organisers told me was an uncharacteristically bitter and vehement mould. But not only did the letter unexpectedly complain about the lack of professionalism and transparency of the conference organisers, it so happened that the Dutch deputy ambassador knew about the letter and also, on his visit to the Perdana Foundation office, was able to report that a copy had been sent round to all foreign embassies in Kuala Lumpur.

The Malaysian organisers told me that it was certainly surprising that the previously cooperative family members would suddenly change their minds about participation, and also that they would be able to circulate their letter at such short notice to the foreign embassies, of which the addresses are not readily available outside the diplomatic milieu. The organisers also expressed their disquiet about the extent to which the Dutch had access to and were able to influence the victims’ relatives more generally. Somebody else told me that a Malaysian cameraman filming commemorative ceremonies on the fifth anniversary of the tragedy, had reported that a statement praising the JIT work, read out by a young Malaysian victims’ relative at an event in the Australian embassy, had just been handed to her by somebody else in the room. I was left with the feeling that the ‘quest for justice’ as interpreted by the Dutch (and Australian) diplomatic representation(s) may not be of the same quality as that which impressed me so much in the conference. The Dutch embassy had been given the assurance that the conference was a public event and that the deputy ambassador was most welcome to raise questions, express dissent, or whatever. However, I was told that the promise he made to call back later regarding the invitation was not honoured and nobody turned up in the end.

Nevertheless ambassador Fauziah, who had agreed to chair this session, volunteered to do it on her own. Her account of how the Malaysian embassy in The Hague dealt with the tragedy when it happened, the harrowing details of sorting the body parts that kept coming in once the recovery of the bodies began, the negotiations with the relatives about repatriation, all of it was presented with professional sang froid. At the same time, she told us, the embassy had to continue its other work too, as in the field of economic, especially agricultural matters, for which it has special attachés (at the dinner Dr Fauziah had told me more than 100 Dutch companies are active in Malaysia).

Session 6. Formulation of an Action Plan

This was the closing session of the conference, chaired by Mr Tan Sri Jawhar, a senior government official in the foreign affairs area, with a long list of distinctions awarded on account of his international activities for Malaysia in the fields of security, in ASEAN, and the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network for Nuclear Non-Proliferation.

In this final session, Dr Zulaiha Ismail, a trustee of the Perdana Foundation who earned her Ph D in Human Resource Development at George Washington University in the US, was joined by Ms Askiah Adam, a lead writer in the New Straits Times and the executive director of JUST, and Dr Chandra Muzaffar. It was at this session that the plans for further action were formulated first, I assume on the basis of ideas that had already been explored previously. At the centre is the idea of seeking to obtain a suspension of the preparations for a trial, rightly seen as premature given the flawed, one-sided nature of the evidence presented so far. This was discussed in its various aspects with an energy that was most surprising given that this was one of the longest one-day conferences I have attended, with hardly a break except for lunch. Whether it was at this point that the intention to present the outcomes of the conference, including the proposal to have the Malaysian prime minister contact his Dutch counterpart directly, to Dr Mahathir, or whether I heard it later or read it in the Sunday papers the next day, I don’t recall because my energy certainly was at a low ebb.

With Dr Zulaiha, one of the driving forces of the conference, I had spoken before about another plan to come to Malaysia, earlier in August, for a conference proposed by friends and colleagues I had met in Moscow when presenting the Russian translation of my MH17 book in May. This had clearly been an initiative for which the time to prepare had been too brief. Dr Zulaiha told me that she had been aware of it, but that Malaysia as a long-standing non-aligned country would always have preferred to organise an event like this on its own, also to avoid being seen as a channel of Russian concerns. For the present conference the Russian embassy had been invited (like all other embassies, the media, etc.) and three junior diplomats had indeed turned up but they had no active role.

The third speaker in this closing session, Dr Chandra Muzaffar, also used the occasion to respond to questions posed by young reporters of Malaysian newspapers, which I found provocative by their lapidary form and insistence. Thus one young reporter asked, where was our ‘rock-solid evidence’ that the JIT investigation was flawed. To this Chandra replied by going over a number of instances of how Kiev was given a veto, and also how Malaysia had been kept out of the JIT until, effectively, March 2015, almost a year after the tragedy. He patiently explained that such a course of events, which is beyond dispute, is itself evidence too. He also went over to the counter-attack, asking why the newspapers had unanimously refused to carry the announcement of the conference, so that few people outside the circles associated with the organisers knew of it. As a result, the public turnout was limited, although this did not of course affect the quality of the debate.

I can only say that Chandra’s role in this matter was impressive by his consistent courtesy and eloquence in the face of arrogant, puerile questioning. Whether that may have helped the turnabout of the media the next day, when all the major newspapers carried the key message that came out of the conference, viz., that the trial should be suspended, I don’t know. The Sunday edition of the New Straits Times had a two page report covering various aspects in depth, with pictures of several speakers, the audience, and the same conclusion in the headline, ‘Bid to Halt Prosecution of MH17 Suspects’.

Whatever the actual success of this aim, I do feel that with this conference a momentous step has been taken to establish an international alternative task force on the topic of the downing of MH17. With each of the foreign participants relying on their own associates at home, further research can be made part of a collective resource base now that face-to-face contact and mutual confidence have been established at Kuala Lumpur. As to myself, I will make an effort to get my contacts in Russia and in the other countries where my book has been translated, also on board of this enterprise. In this and in other respects this inspiring, flawlessly organised conference has brought the quest for justice for the victims and relatives of the MH17 tragedy a huge step forward.

The author is a senior academic in The Netherlands.

17 August 2019

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers

11 Aug 2019 – “We oppose the extraterritorial application of unilateral measures.” That is not Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, Russia, or China talking about the most recent unilateral coercive measures imposed by the United States against Venezuela, i.e. economic sanctions that have become an economic blockade, but the European Union. Even allies who have embarrassed themselves by recognizing the phony “interim president” Juan Guaido are saying the US has gone too far.

All of the countries listed above and many more have stated their opposition to the escalation of the US economic war against Venezuela. Venezuela, along with Iran, has become a prime target of US regime change, and both are uniting the world in opposition to US bullying behavior, which is hastening the demise of US domination. Popular social movements are growing against US unilateralism and violations of international law.

Countries of the World are Uniting against the United States

Six months ago, the US sought to install a puppet government led by Juan Guaido. Guaido, trained by the US, was an unknown personality to most Venezuelans. He is a minor politician who barely won election to the defunct National Assembly. Today, the failure of the US coup attempt is evident. Repeated efforts by Guaido, his allies and the United States to rally support for Guaido from the people and Venezuelan military have failed.

A large rebuke on the international stage occurred in July when delegations from 120 countries of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) united to oppose US policy against Venezuela, saying in a statement that only Venezuela can decide its fate, no other state can intervene in accordance with the United Nations Charter. The UN General Secretary pointed out the importance of the Non-Aligned Movement when she spoke at the beginning of the conference, stating that “two-thirds of the United Nations members and 55% of the world’s population” are represented by it, making it the second-largest multinational body in the world after the UN.

Javad Zarif, the Foreign Minister of Iran, put the US intervention against Venezuela in context, declaring upon his arrival for the meeting: “The resistance of the people of Venezuela against the United States is very important for all the countries of the world.”

The economic blockade, announced last week, has also escalated opposition to dollar domination. There are now 21 countries on the US sanctions list and scores of other countries are impacted by US sanctions. In reality, what the US is doing is imposing unilateral coercive measures against these countries, which violate the United Nations Charter. Sanctions imply there was a formal action that justified punishment, but that is not the case here.

The Caracas Declaration was passed at the NAM meeting. As Anya Parampil reported in the Grayzone, “the delegates unanimously affirmed their pursuit of a multipolar world and a desire to construct an international financial system independent of US control.”

The Declaration also contained a clause calling for following the Vienna Convention, which includes a provision to protect diplomatic missions. No doubt this was in response to the US seizure of Venezuelan diplomatic properties, highlighted by the work of the Embassy Protection Collective to uphold international law.

Sanctions Are Economic Terrorism

At the NAM meeting, representatives of various countries described the impacts of the US’ economic war on their people. Zarif of Iran made the point clear: “Just Google ‘terrorism.’ This is the definition that the dictionary will give you: ‘unlawful use of violence or intimidation, especially against civilians, in pursuit of political gains’… so please friends, stop using [the term] ‘sanctions’… sanctions have a legal connotation. This is economic terrorism… we have to say it again and again.”

Illegal unilateral coercive measures have contributed to the deaths of 40,000 Venezuelans in 2017 and 2018. A leading Venezuelan Economist, Francisco Rodríguez, says the Trump Administration’s sanctions are costing Venezuela $16.9 billion annually and threaten a famine that could cause hundreds of thousands of deaths. Two days after Trump’s new Executive Order was signed, a ship carrying 25 thousand tons of soy-made products for food production in Venezuela was blocked.

The NAM conference agreed to study and report on the impact of US sanctions, ensuring that the movement against illegal unilateral coercive measures by the United States will continue.

Russia, an observer of the NAM, was represented by Vice Minister Sergey Ryabkov who said the US was strangling Venezuela with one hand through sanctions while pick-pocketing it with the other by freezing its assets held in Western banks. Ryabkov told The Grayzone, “the US has sanctioned almost 70 countries in recent decades, impacting the lives of over one-third of the world’s population.”

The US tried to threaten diplomats to convince them not to attend the meeting, but was unsuccessful. Jorge Arreaza, the Venezuelan Foreign Minister, described the successful summit as “a failure of US diplomacy” driven home by “120 countries [that] are not aligned with the US… they want to be free, they want to be independent.” He described the Non-Aligned Movement as a “vaccine against unilateralism.”

President Maduro spoke at the meeting. He underscored the march of history toward freedom and the end of US empire describing the 21st Century as “the century of freedom, it is the century of the end of empires, and it is just beginning in 2019…nothing, nor anyone will stop us…no one can stop the course of the new story that is making its way!”

People’s Movements Organizing against US’ Violations of International Law

The US blockade against Venezuela and continued threats of military attack galvanized worldwide protests this weekend. Popular Resistance joined with other social movements and civil society organizations in denouncing the blockade.

In addition to the Non-Aligned Movement’s renewed commitment to the United Nations Charter, popular movements are organizing along similar lines. This week, we launched the Global Appeal to Save International Law, an effort to create a global network of people and social movements to demand respect for the United Nations Charter and its use as a tool for maintaining peace, guaranteeing human rights and protecting the sovereignty of nations.

From September 20-23, a coalition of organizations is holding the People’s Mobilization to Stop the US War Machine and Save the Planet. The Mobe will highlight the role of US militarism as the largest polluter on the planet during the Global Climate Strike on Friday, September 20 and join in calling for decolonization at the Puerto Rico Independence March on September 21. The People’s Mobe will hold a rally at Herald Square at 2:00 pm on Sunday, September 22. On Monday the 23rd, we will hold an evening event: “A Path To International Peace: Realizing the Vision of the United Nations Charter,” which will feature social movements and government representatives working for an end to US violations of international law. Registration is free, but is required. Register here.

Opposition to US violations of international law were also evident at the Sao Paulo Forum held in Caracas from July 25-28 with the participation of 190 organizations, political parties, social movements, workers’ movements, parliamentarians and intellectuals from Latin America, the Caribbean and several continents. Seven hundred people participated in the four-day event showing unity across Latin America against US aggression.

A dozen members of the Venezuelan Embassy Protection Collective attended the forum, spoke to the conference and were received with standing ovations for their work to uphold international law. The Collective had challenges getting to the Forum, due to US airlines no longer flying to Venezuela, and one member was harassed at the US border when he returned.

A Final Declaration was issued by the Forum in support for Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and other progressive governments under attack by US imperialism and for a demand to free Lula and other left-wing leaders imprisoned for political reasons.

Rising Resistance

People are standing up to US interventions in many other countries. In Honduras, there are widespread protests against the US-installed coup president, Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was indicted last week in the US for drug trafficking. US-trained police are responding to protests with violence. A hunger strike by political prisoners turned into a call for Hernandez’s resignation. Embassy Protector Adrienne Pine is there and reporting via Twitter.

In Nicaragua, peace has prevailed after a US coup attempt last year. A US-funded Human Rights Director was accused of massive theft of US regime change dollars and inflating death tolls. To understand Nicaragua, read this excellent book by social movement leaders. There is a great deal happening in Cuba, Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador and other countries responding to US domination. Stephon Sefton writes that the next five years will be pivotal for the Left in Latin America.

Another top target is Iran where the US has escalated its economic war after Trump violated the nuclear arms agreement. Iran is being very strategic in responding to US aggression in the Strait of Hormuz and the US has been unable to get traditional allies like France and Germany to join with it, causing concerns within the US foreign policy establishment. The US economic war is undermining the Iranian economy and causing tens of thousands of deaths annually.

Iran has never attacked another country nor invaded a country to steal its resources. They are proud of their skills in diplomacy and negotiation, as a veteran of the Iraq-Iran war wrote to President Trump in an open letter. He warns that the initiator of war is the loser, and attacks on Iran will backfire. Foreign Minister Zarif made a similar point with regard to the unilateral coercive measures saying US economic terrorism will backfire against the US.

The Loss of US Supremacy

Aggressive US actions being put in place by Trump, John Bolton, and Mike Pompeo are backfiring. Responses are being put in place that will unravel US economic power, which is more fragile than it seems.

Foreign Minister Zarif summarizes the situation saying, “Last year we did 35 percent of our bilateral transactions with Turkey in our own currencies. And this is happening between us and China, between us and India, between us and Russia, and between us and the countries in the region.”

Countries are responding to dollar domination by trading without the US dollar. JP Morgan’s private bank advised clients that “the US dollar could lose its status as the world’s dominant currency” and urged investors to diversify their currency holdings. New financial structures are being created by Europe, Russia, Iran, China, and others to trade without the dollar. The value of the dollar is in decline and last month Credit Suisse predicted it would continue to fall.

The US political leadership seems unable to change course. The bi-partisans in Washington, DC passed a record-setting two-year military budget that continues to misspend US resources on an arms race and never-ending war rather than on critical needs at home. The failure to rebuild infrastructure, make education from pre-school through college free and available to all, confront the lack of investment in cities and rural areas and confront the crisis of healthcare with national improved Medicare for all will cause a downward US spiral.

The myth of American Exceptionalism is being exposed, as we discuss with Danny Haiphong on Clearing the FOG. We need to prepare for a new era as the 2020’s offer potential for significant social and political transformation if we work at it.

Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers co-direct Popular Resistance.

19 Aug 2019

Source: www.transcend.org

By Richard Falk

18 Aug 2019 – The decision to ban, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, two sitting members of the U.S. House of Representatives, disgraces the leaders of both the United States and Israel, confirms the illegitimacy of both political parties by their tepid responses, and confirms once more the unhealthy relationship that has evolved between Trump and Netanyahu, these two most reactionary of political figures, and badly reflects on the political atmosphere in the countries they represent. For an American president to encourage a foreign government to deny entry to elected members of Congress is not only unprecedented, harmful to the quality of democratic life in America, and represents a wrongful and extremely distasteful use of his position to engage in nasty partisan reelection politics aimed at the 2020 elections. This outrageous display of further impeachable behavior by Trump is further accentuated by the defamatory, as well as maliciously and demonstrably false assertions in this notorious tweet that Ilhan Omar and Rashid Tlaib hate Israel and all Jews, and nothing can alter their views.

For Netanyahu, the leader of Israel, to reverse an earlier decision to allow these U.S. officials to enter the country in response to Trump’s tweet has just the reverse effect of what is claimed. By seeming to forego Israel sovereign rights in response to an inappropriate interference in Israeli public policy by the American Head of State, Netanyahu reveals to the world Israel’s weakness, not its strength, and in the process casts a dark shadow over Israel own claims of political legitimacy. As well, to give way in this unseemly manner to Trump may also prove to be a tactical blunder in the Israeli context even if it contributes one more sordid chapter to their quid pro quo relationship. Such a craven move by Netanyahu might turn off just enough Israeli voters to tip the balance against the Likud Party in the forthcoming September 17thelections. Not only was Trump’s tweet an effective assault on Israeli sovereign rights, but it also undermines the long absurd propaganda claims of Israel to be a democratic state that values and protects freedom of expression.

After further political turmoil, Israel appeared to relent, but by affixing humiliating conditions, and then only with respect to Rashida Tlaib. The Israeli Minister of Interior, Aryeh Deri, agreeing to a ‘humanitarian’ visit provided the Congresswoman agreed not to promote boycotts of Israel while in the country, her visit restricted to the sole purpose of visiting her 90-year-old grandmother in a small Palestinian village not far from Ramallah. After initially accepting these constraints over the intense objections of her supporters and even her family back in Palestine, Rep. Tlaib reversed her own acceptance of the Israeli conditions, issuing a statement denouncing the constraints she earlier accepted, and refusing to restrict her time in her own Palestinian homeland to a personal visit. Of course, an Israeli rebuke followed from Deri, claiming that her rejection of Israel’s humanitarian gesture exhibits the Israeli-bashing intent that motivated the fact-finding visit. Deri hammered one more nail in Tlaib’s already exposed flesh: “Apparently her hate for Israel overcomes her love for grandmother.” More understandably, Tlaib also was rebuked by many Palestinians for initially accepting Israel’s conditions intense objections to her face from supporters, alleging that she fell into Israel’s trap, “and accepted to demean herself and grovel.”

Seeking to thread this needle separating an ill-timed family ties from her high-profile political image, Tlaib chose these words, “Silencing me and treating me like a criminal is not what she [her grandmother] wants for me—it would kill a piece of me.” Although Tlaib used poor judgment by first agreeing to Israel’s acceptance, her statement explaining her reversal a short time later, had a redemptive effect. Perhaps, more disturbing, was Tlaib’s failure to sustain a posture of public solidarity with Ilhan Omar, whose relevance was ignored in Tlaib’s three-step dance movement.

The distractions caused by this secondary development involving Tlaib should not be allowed to divert attention from the primary outrage resulting from the Trump tweet and Israeli gag order imposed on nonviolent advocates of the BDS Campaign, which in this instance meant banning entry to elected U.S. government officials, supposedly a super-ally.

In my view, Israel’s decision to ban these two members of Congress can at best be considered ‘an unfriendly act’ by Israel toward its unconditional ally. This alone should persuade a self-respecting U.S. Congress to react with much more than a few empty words of disapproval. At the very least, a message of censure should be formally endorsed by the House of Representatives, and delivered to the Israeli government, which strongly discourages further visits to Israel by members of Congress until Israel announces a policy of allowing entry any American official to visit Israel without restrictions. Perhaps, a more suitable alternative would be to urge banning members of the Knesset until Israel welcomes as visitors any and all members of the UN Congress without conditions. A further appropriate step would be to condition any approval of future military or economic assistance to Israel on lifting the ban on future visits by government officials, but also ideally by all American citizens regardless of political views; After all, American taxpayers have long paid their share of the annual aid package of at least $3.8 billion, the greatest per capita amount given to any country in the world.

I believe that by singling these two members of Congress, who happen to be the first two Muslim women ever elected to the House of Representatives, in the manner of Trump’s tweet is a clear instance of racism and hate speech, especially considered in light of his past hostile statements directed at prominent women of color who dare enter political life and oppose his presidency, including his past slanders of these two brave individuals. The language of Trump’s tweet also sought successfully to interfere with their effort to engage in a legitimate legislative undertaking in a discriminatory manner, and included this inflammatory and false allegation: “They hate Israel & all Jewish people, & there is nothing that can be said or done to change their minds.” The tweet ends with this shocking expression of hostility that demeans Trump and the Office of the Presidency rather than its intended targets, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. Trump’s final tweeted words– “They are a disgrace!” It is best understood as “You are disgraced.”

The media at least gave major attention to this unfolding political drama, although more in the spirit of narrating a human interest story than offering a damning commentary on the anti-democratic moves of these two ‘illiberal democrats.’ Tom Friedman, never foregoing a chance to deliver fence-setting know-it-all lectures to whomever would listen, managed staked out some liberal territory by condemning the tactical damage to their own countries and especially to the ‘special relationship’ between them as a result of making the Republicans the true friends of Israel, and the Democrats not so clear, hence fraying the edges of bipartisanship when it comes to support for Israel. Friedman also took the opportunity to make it clear that in his view Tlaib and Omar were not better due to their ill-considered support for BDS, which he argued dooms to two-state liberalism, and implies that by their criticism of Israel, the excluded officials are widening Jewish/Islamic cleavages rather than building bridges. [See Friedman, “If You Think Trump is Helping Israel, You’re a Fool,” Aug. 16, 2019]

Richard Falk is a member of the TRANSCEND Network, an international relations scholar, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, Distinguished Research Fellow, Orfalea Center of Global Studies, UCSB, author, co-author or editor of 40 books, and a speaker and activist on world affairs.

19 August 2019

Source: www.transcend.org

By Mehdi Hasan

14 Aug 2019 – Forget uranium enrichment: Has Iran mastered time travel?

Last month, the Trump White House put out a typically Orwellian statement, chock-filled with lies, distortions, and half-truths about Iran and the 2015 nuclear deal. One line in particular stood out from the rest: “There is little doubt that even before the deal’s existence, Iran was violating its terms.”

Huh? The Iranians were violating an agreement — before it even existed?

Is it any surprise that even the foreign minister of Iran took to Twitter to join the online ridiculing of the White House?

The Trump administration’s lies on the topic of Iran are now beyond parody. There is, however, nothing funny about them. U.S. government lies can have deadly consequences: Never forget that hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi men, women, and children, not to mention more than 4,400 U.S. military personnel, are dead today because of the sheer volume of falsehoods told by the George W. Bush administration.

So it is incumbent upon journalists to do in 2019 what we collectively did not do in 2003: Check the facts, challenge the lies, debunk the myths.

Here’s my contribution: a refutation of five of the most dishonest and inaccurate claims from the hawks — claims that brought the United States and Iran to the brink of conflict only a few weeks ago.

Lie #1: Iran Is Building a Nuclear Weapon

President Donald Trump has referred to Iran’s “quest for nuclear weapons” and claimed the Islamic Republic will soon be “on the cusp of acquiring the world’s most dangerous weapons.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has argued, “Even after the deal, Iran continued to preserve and expand its nuclear weapons program for future use.”

The truth is that while it is accurate to speak of an Iranian nuclear program, which is legal under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, it is an utter lie to speak of an Iranian nuclear weapons program — as countless news organizations have also done.

As long ago as 2007, the U.S. intelligence community produced a National Intelligence Estimate on Iran which offered what then-President George W. Bush would later describe in his memoir as a “stunning” and “eye-popping” conclusion that “tied my hands on the military side”: “We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program.”

Nothing has changed since then. In January, then-Director of National Intelligence, Trump appointee, and former Republican congressman Dan Coats reaffirmed the consensus view of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies when he told the Senate: “We continue to assess that Iran is not currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons-development activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device.”

Nuclear weapons program? What nuclear weapons program?

Lie #2: Iran Violated the Nuclear Deal

The Trump administration has repeatedly claimed that Iran was not sticking to the terms of the agreement — prior to the administration itself violating the agreement by unilaterally pulling out and reimposing economic sanctions on Iran.

The president claimed Iran “committed multiple violations.” Hawkish Republican Sen. Tom Cotton accused Tehran of having “repeatedly violated the terms of the deal.” So did Mark Dubowitz, head of the neoconservative Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, who said, “Iran is incrementally violating the deal.”

In fact, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, published more than a dozen reports confirming that Iran was fully complying with the terms of the deal. In April 2018, then-Defense Secretary James Mattis described the nuclear agreement as “pretty robust.” Even the then-head of the Israeli military, Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, said in March 2018 that the deal “with all its faults” was “working.”

Last month, Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, announced that the country’s stockpiles of enriched low-grade uranium would exceed the 300-kilogram limit laid out in the nuclear agreement — provoking a flurry of condemnations from Western governments and op-ed columnists. But let’s be clear about the order of events: The Iranian violation of one particular aspect of the deal came more than a year after the United States violated the entire deal.

Lie #3: Iran Is the Leading State Sponsor of Terror

“Iran remained the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism,” declared the State Department in September 2018. The Islamic Republic has been “the world’s central banker of international terrorism since 1979,” claimed national security adviser John Bolton a few weeks later. In June, Trump called Iran the “number one terrorist nation” in the world.

This makes no sense. Few would dispute the fact that Tehran has provided support, funds, and weaponry to Hamas and Hezbollah, both of which have been designated “Foreign Terrorist Organizations” by the U.S. government (though it is also worth noting that millions of Palestinians and Lebanese see them as resistance groups that are fighting against Israeli occupiers).

Yet the “war on terror” declared by Bush in the wake of the 9/11 attacks has been fought against Sunni jihadist groups such as Al Qaeda, ISIS, and the Shabab — none of which are backed by Shia-majority Iran.

According to the Global Terrorism Index 2018, compiled by the Institute for Economics & Peace, more than half of the deaths caused by terrorists around the world in 2017 were a result of attacks by four groups: ISIS, the Taliban, the Shabab, and Boko Haram. Again, the experts agree that none of these groups are sponsored by Iran.

In fact, it is Iran’s biggest regional rival, Saudi Arabia, which has been accused of arming, funding, and providing Salafi ideological cover for many of these jihadists — including by this president.

“Who blew up the World Trade Center?” Trump asked on Fox News during the 2016 election campaign. “It wasn’t the Iraqis, it was Saudi — take a look at Saudi Arabia, open the documents.”

If any nation deserves the dubious distinction of being “the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism,” it is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, not the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Lie #4: Iran Working with Al Qaeda

By conjuring up a fictitious alliance between Iran and Al Qaeda, the Trump administration has found a novel way of both justifying the “number one terrorist nation” tag and providing legal cover for a future U.S. attack on Tehran.

The president has claimed that Tehran “provides assistance to Al Qaeda.” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, during his tenure as CIA chief, suggested it is an “open secret” that “there have been relationships” and “there have been times the Iranians have worked alongside Al Qaeda.”

The Bush administration’s attempt to link secular Saddam Hussein with the theocratic fanatics of Al Qaeda sounded preposterous to many of us back in 2002 and 2003. It was a dumb lie. Yet the Trump administration, and its hawkish outriders at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, now want us to believe that the sectarian Sunni killers of Al Qaeda have formed an alliance with Iran, a hard-line Shia theocracy.

“I’ve never seen any evidence of active collaboration,” Jason Burke, author of “Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror,” told me in 2017. The relationship between Al Qaeda and Iran is “not one of alliance” but “highly antagonistic,” concluded a report by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point in 2012.

The Iran-Al Qaeda conspiracy theory is an especially dangerous one. The 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, passed by Congress in the wake of 9/11, allows the president to “use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons.” As Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine told the New York Times in June, Trump administration officials “are looking to bootstrap an argument to allow the president to do what he likes without coming to Congress, and they feel the 2001 authorization will allow them to go to war with Iran.”

Lie #5: War on Iran Would Be Easy

This is perhaps the dumbest lie of all. Trump has threatened “the official end of Iran.” His pal in the Senate, Tom Cotton, has predicted that the United States could win a war with Tehran with just two strikes: “The first strike and the last strike.”

To call such statements absurd would be an understatement. Iran isn’t Iraq. As Col. Larry Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, told me on a recent episode of my podcast, Deconstructed, a conflict with the Islamic Republic “would be horrible”:

Four times almost the size of Iraq, 80 million, not 26 million people, homogeneity to the population that Iraq certainly didn’t have, 51 percent Persian. Terrain … that’s just inhospitable, almost killed Alexander the Great, for example. This would be a vicious, long-term guerrilla campaign waged by the Iranians over 10 or 15 years. And at the end of it, it would look about like Iraq did in 2011. And it would cost $2 trillion and lots of lives and more than anything else, it would require at least a half a million troops.

In other words, it would be a disaster of epic proportions. Let’s be clear: Many of the accusations leveled by Western governments and Western media organizations against Iran — it is a serial violator of human rights; it is complicit in Bashar Assad’s murderous attacks on his own people; it backs Hamas and Hezbollah, it is a promoter of anti-Semitism — are undeniably true. But the five lies that are constantly deployed by politicians and pundits to justify military action against Iran, and even regime change in Tehran, are flat-out false. And if they are not called out, we will soon find ourselves embroiled in another bloody Middle East conflict that will make the war in Iraq look like a walk in the park.

Mehdi Hasan – mehdi.hasan@​theintercept.com

19 August 2019

Source: www.transcend.org

By Sara Flounders

The demonstrations in Hong Kong, now an open confrontation with the People’s Republic of China, have a global impact. What are the forces behind this movement? What provides the funds and who stands to benefit?

The increasingly violent demonstrations in Hong Kong are completely embraced and enthusiastically supported in the U.S. corporate media and all the imperialist political parties in the U.S. and Britain. This should be a danger sign to everyone fighting for change and for social progress. U.S. imperialism is never disinterested or neutral.

The disruptive actions involve helmeted and masked protesters using gasoline bombs, flaming bricks, arson and steel bars, random attacks on buses, and airport and mass transit shutdowns. Among the most provocative acts was an organized break-in at the Hong Kong legislature where “activists” vandalized the building and hung the British Union Jack flag.

U.S., British and Hong Kong’s colonial flags are prominent in these confrontations, along with defaced flags and other symbols of People’s China.

The New York Times described the airport shutdown: “The protests at the airport have been deeply tactical, as the largely leaderless movement strikes at a vital economic artery. Hong Kong International Airport, which opened in 1998, the year after China reclaimed the territory from Britain, serves as a gateway to the rest of Asia. Sleek and well run, the airport accommodates nearly 75 million passengers a year and handles more than 5.1 million metric tons of cargo.” (Aug. 14)

U.S. media have consistently labeled these violent actions “pro-democracy.” But are they?

Even if the leaders of these reactionary actions decide to pull back from the brink and recalibrate their tactics, based on the Chinese government’s strong warnings, it is important to understand a movement that has such strong U.S. support.

China has a right to intervene

It must be strongly stated that China is not invading Hong Kong if it moves against these violent disruptions. Hong Kong is part of China. This is an internal matter, and the call for independence for Hong Kong is an open attack on China’s national sovereignty.

Under Hong Kong’s Basic Law, the constitution for the city, the government is legally allowed to request help from the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.

The Chinese government has announced that it will intervene militarily to defend China’s sovereignty. Top government officials have labeled the most extreme acts as “terrorism” and denounced U.S. support. Several times officials raised the analogy to the Western “color revolutions” that violently overturned governments in Serbia, Ukraine, Libya and Haiti and were attempted in Venezuela and Syria.

“The ideologues in Western governments never cease in their efforts to engineer unrest against governments that are not to their liking, even though their actions have caused misery and chaos in country after country in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Now they are trying the same trick in China,” China Daily explained on July 3.

Liu Xiaoming, China’s ambassador to Britain, told reporters that their country was still acting as Hong Kong’s colonial master. (nbcnews.com, July 4)

“A spokeswoman for China’s Foreign Ministry claimed Tuesday that recent comments from American lawmakers Pelosi (D-Ca.) and McConnell (R-Ky.) demonstrate that Washington’s real goal is to incite chaos in the city,” according to CNBC. “By neglecting and distorting the truth, they whitewashed violent crimes as a struggle for human rights and freedom” (Aug. 14)

Where is U.S. support for other resistance?

Hong Kong police are denounced in the U.S. media for violence, but actually have shown great restraint. Despite months of violent confrontations, with flaming bottles constantly thrown, no one has been killed.

There is no such favorable media coverage or support from U.S. politicians for demonstrations of desperate workers and peasants in Honduras, Haiti or the Philippines, or for the yellow vest movement in France. There is never an official condemnation when demonstrators are killed in Yemen or Kashmir or in weekly demonstrations in Gaza against Israeli occupation.

These struggles receive barely a mention, although in every case scores of people have been killed by police, targeted for assassination or dissappeared.

While Hong Kong protests receive widespread attention, there is no similar coverage of or political support for Black Lives Matter demonstrations in the U.S. or the masses protesting racist Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and roundups of migrants.

U.S. pressure continues

Despite China’s warnings of possible martial law, strict curfews and military intervention to restore order, protesters have shown no signs of retreat. The U.S. and Britain are determined to propel forward those hostile political forces they have cultivated over the past two decades.

The escalating demonstrations are linked to the U.S. trade war, tariffs and military encirclement of China. Four hundred — half — of the 800 U.S. overseas military bases surround China. Aircraft carriers, destroyers, nuclear submarines, jet aircraft, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile batteries, and satellite surveillance infrastructures are positioned in the South China Sea, close to Hong Kong. Media demonization is needed to justify and intensify this military presence.

Encouraging the demonstrations goes hand-in-hand with international efforts to bar Huawei 5G technology, the cancelation of a joint study of cancer and the arrest of Chinese corporate officers. All these belligerent acts are designed to exert maximum pressure on China, divide the leadership, destabilize economic development and weaken China’s resolve to maintain any socialist planning.

Martial law in Hong Kong, a major financial center, especially for international investment funds coming into China, would impact China’s development.

Capitalist economic “freedom”

British imperialism, in the 155 years it ruled Hong Kong, denied rights to millions of workers. There was no elected government, no right to a minimum wage, unions, decent housing or health care, and certainly no freedom of the press or freedom of speech. These basic democratic rights were not even on the books in colonial Hong Kong.

For the past 25 years, including this year, Hong Kong has been ranked No. 1 in the right-wing Heritage Foundation’s list of countries with the “greatest economic freedom” — meaning the least restraints on capitalist profit taking. Hong Kong’s ranking is based on low taxes and light regulations, the strongest property rights and business freedom, and “openness to global commerce and vibrant entrepreneurial climate … no restrictions on foreign banks.” For this Hong Kong is the “freest society in the world.”

This “freedom” means the world’s highest rents and the greatest gap between the super-rich and the desperately poor and homeless. This is what Hong Kong youth face today. But the youth are consciously being misdirected to blame the city administration for the conditions Hong Kong is locked into under the “One Country, Two Systems agreement.”

An unequal colonial treaty

Hong Kong is stolen land. This spectacular deep water port in the South China Sea at the mouth of the Pearl River, a major waterway in south China, was seized by Britain in the 1842 Opium Wars. After negotiations with Britain had dragged on through the 1980s, the British imposed another unequal treaty on the People’s Republic of China.

Under the 1997 “One Country, Two Systems” agreement that officially returned Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories to the PRC, Britain and China agreed to leave “the previous capitalist system” in place for 50 years.

China, determined to reassert its sovereignty over land stolen by imperialist invasion, also needed funds for development. Most money in Asia moved through the Hong Kong banking system. So in 1997 China was anxious to reach a smooth transition that would not destabilize the transfer of investment funds into the 99.5 percent of China that had previously been denied development funds. Since the victorious Chinese Revolution in 1949, China had been sanctioned and blockaded from accessing Western investment and technology.

U.S. and British imperialism took full advantage of the 1997 concession that maintained their economic control of the former colony. Their hope was that Hong Kong could serve, as it had in the past, as an economic battering ram into China.

Their hopes were not realized. In 1997 Hong Kong’s gross domestic product was 27 percent of China’s gross domestic product. It is now a mere 3 percent and falling. Much to U.S. and British frustration, the world’s largest banks are now in China and they are state-owned banks.

What confounds the capitalist class, far more than China’s incredible growth, is that the top 12 Chinese companies on U.S. Fortune 500 list are all state-owned and state-subsidized. They include massive oil, solar energy, telecommunications, engineering and construction companies, banks and the auto industry. (Fortune.com, July 22, 2015)

U.S. corporate power is deeply threatened by China’s level of development through the Belt and Road Initiative and its growing position in international trade and investment.

U.S., Britain built a network of collaborators

When Britain and China signed the One Country, Two Systems agreement, all foreign intervention and colonial claims on Hong Kong were supposed to end. Full sovereignty was to return to China.

However, U.S. and British efforts to undercut Hong Kong’s return began in advance of the signing. Just before the transfer of sovereignty, Britain hastily set up, after 150 years of appointed officials, a partially elected, although still mainly appointed, government. They quickly established and funded political parties, composed of their loyal collaborators.

Millions of dollars were openly and secretly funneled into a whole network of protected social service organizations, political parties, media and social media, student and youth organizations, and labor unions established to undercut support for China and the Communist Party of China.

The Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions receives U.S. National Endowment for Democracy (NED) funding, along with British support. It promotes “pro-democracy, independent unions” throughout China. The HKCTU was established in 1990 to counter and undercut the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions founded in 1948, which is still the largest union organization with 410,000 members.

The HKFTU suffered years of brutal repression under British colonial rule as it fought for basic protection of workers’ rights. A strike organized by the HKFTU shook British colonial rule in 1967. The strike became a citywide rebellion sparked by mass layoffs of workers from the plastic flower factory. British colonial authorities harshly suppressed the uprising, resulting in 51 deaths and hundreds injured and disappeared. The HKFTU supports China and opposes the reactionary demonstrations.

NED funding = CIA support

Allen Weinstein, a founder of the NED, told the Washington Post in 1991, “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.” (Sept. 21, 1991) The NED funds, coordinates and weaponizes nongovernmental organizations and social organizations with the capacity to put tens of thousands of misdirected, idealistic and alienated youth on the streets.

Funding from the NED, the Ford, Rockefeller, Soros and numerous other corporate foundations, christian churches of every denomination, and generous British funding, is behind this hostile, subversive network orchestrating the Hong Kong protests.

The NED bankrolls the Hong Kong Human Rights Movement, the Hong Kong Journalists Association, the Civic Party, Labor Party and Democratic Party. They are members of the Civil Human Rights Front that coordinates the demonstrations.

This role of the NED in China is increasingly harder to obscure. Alexander Rubinstein reported in “American Gov’t, NGOs Fuel and Fund Hong Kong Anti-Extradition Protests” (mintpressnews.com, June 13): “It is inconceivable that the organizers of the protests are unaware of the NED ties to some of its members.” (tinyurl.com/y6nhmapz)

The goal is to promote a hostile and suspicious attitude toward China and toward communism and to foster the false concept of a past democratic Hong Kong with a distinct identity. China Daily warns: “In recent years, there have been warnings that color revolutions are emerging as a new form of warfare employed by the West to destabilize certain countries.” (Aug. 12)

Which system works better?

The Aug. 13 New York Times refers to Hong Kong as a “bastion of civil liberties” to counter “Beijing’s brand of authoritarianism.”

British colonial past is deeply mythologized. Twenty-two years of constant nostalgia for this past, supposedly glorious time has influenced increasingly impoverished youth.

Despite decades of multimillion-dollar Western funding, Hong Kong has a poverty rate of 20 percent (23.1 percent for children) compared to less than 1 percent in mainland China. In the past 20 years, mainland China has lifted countless millions of people out of poverty

Just across the river from Hong Kong sits the city of Shenzhen. It is one of the Special Economic Zones established to lure Western technology. These zones, originally with thousands of labor-intensive factories and millions of workers earning low wages, were centers of capitalist exploitation and enormous profits for U.S. and other global capitalists.

Shenzhen grew from a city of 30,000 in 1979 to a megacity of 20 million, with the largest migrant population in China. Shenzhen had a population three times the size of Hong Kong. With investments via Hong Kong, this new city became a massive polluted factory town with sweatshops spewing out clouds of dark toxic smoke.

In the past five years, through city and national urban planning, Shenzhen is today one of the most livable cities in China, with extensive parks, tree-lined streets and the largest fleet of electric buses in the world (16,000), along with all-electric cabs. Shenzhen aims to have 80 percent of its new buildings green-certified by 2020. It is full of apartment blocks, office towers and modern factories with advanced equipment manufacturing, robotics, automation and giant tech startups.

For the last 10 years wages have been stagnant in Hong Kong while rents have increased 300 percent; it is the most expensive city in the world. In Shenzhen, wages have increased 8 percent every year, and more than 1 million new, public, green housing units at low rates are nearing completion.

The U.S. is demanding that China abandon state support of its industries, the ownership of its banks and national planning. But contrasting the decay, growing poverty and intense alienation in Hong Kong with the green vibrant city of Shenzhen across the river shows that there are two choices for China today, including the angry forces mobilized in Hong Kong: modern socialist planning or a return to the super-exploitation and imperialist domination of the colonial past.

For decades Britain and the U.S. used the people of Hong Kong for cheap labor. Now they are using the same population for cheap political propaganda. This cynical maneuver is just one more weapon in a desperate effort to disrupt China’s further development.

U.S. corporate power is incapable of meeting any of the desperate needs for housing, health care, education and a healthy environment for people here. Instead, in a relentless drive for profits, enormous resources are squandered on militarism to threaten countries around the world.

We must demand: U.S. Hands Off China! U.S. Out of Hong Kong!

Sara Flounders is an American political writer who has been active in progressive and anti-war organizing since the 1960s. She is a member of the Secretariat of Workers World Party, as well as a principal leader of the International Action Center.

16 August 2019

Source: www.workers.org

By Abdus Sattar Ghazali

Shi Jiangtao, a former diplomat writing in the South China Morning Post, says a fresh row between Beijing and New Delhi over India’s decision to split the hotly contested region of Kashmir into two territories could cast fresh uncertainty over bilateral ties amid signs of growing strategic competition.

Parts of Kashmir are claimed by the two regional giants as well as India’s arch-rival Pakistan, and the dispute is one of a number of border issues that have for decades dogged relations between Beijing and New Delhi, according to Shi Jiantao.

Chinese analysts challenged the Modi government’s stance that Kashmir was a domestic issue, Shi Jiangtao said and quoted Zhao Gancheng, a researcher with the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, as saying that while India’s move appeared to be a change to its domestic law, any attempt to alter the status of Kashmir had international implications, including for Pakistan, which condemned the move as an infringement of a United Nations resolution on the question of Kashmir’s sovereignty.

“Without consulting China or Pakistan in advance, Modi’s move, largely based on his domestic political needs, has further complicated the relations with China,” Zhao said.

“But their different stances on long-lasting border disputes are nothing new and it does not necessarily mean their relations would deteriorate inevitably if both sides manage their conflicting interests well,” said Zhao Gancheng.

Both Zhao and Wang Dehua, an expert on India at the Shanghai Municipal Centre for International Studies, said that with no solutions to their bitter, decades-old border issues in sight, the priority for both countries remained how to prevent their widening competition from spiralling out of control.

“I’m confident that bilateral ties will not be affected by lingering border disputes and other strategic differences, especially amid the escalating rivalry between China and the United States,” Wang said.

A series of high-level China-India exchanges are planned for the coming weeks, including a visit to China on Sunday by Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.

Observers say his trip is expected to pave the way for Chinese President Xi Jinping’s informal summit with Modi in his parliamentary constituency Varanasi on October 12.

Jammu & Kashmir is controlled by China, India and Pakistan

Brahma Chellaney, professor of strategic studies at the New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research, said China’s protest busted a widely disseminated fiction on the Kashmir dispute.

“The original princely state of Jammu and Kashmir is divided not just between India and Pakistan. China occupies one-fifth of the original Jammu and Kashmir state,” he said.

Chellaney said the Aksai Chin Plateau, a sparsely populated area about the size of Switzerland in China’s western Xinjiang region, was part of the new Ladakh federal territory.

“China not only holds Aksai Chin but also lays claim to several other areas in Ladakh. Chinese military incursions into Ladakh have increased in recent years,” he said.

Shi Jiangtao quoted Madhav Das Nalapat, director of the Department of Geopolitics at India’s Manipal University, as saying that Beijing should not treat his country as an inferior power to be “lectured to on matters that are wholly within its own purview and competence”.

“Beijing’s comments on India’s domestic decision to fulfil the long-pending demand of the people of Ladakh for administrative separation from Kashmir have harmed the trajectory of Sino-Indian relations,” he said.

On Tuesday, China’s foreign ministry voiced “serious concern” about a highly contentious move a day earlier by India’s parliament, controlled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party, to split the state of Jammu and Kashmir – which includes the Kashmir Valley and the Ladakh area – into two federal territories.

Jammu and Kashmir will have a state legislature, and Ladakh – which includes Aksai Chin, a Chinese-claimed and held disputed territory – will be ruled directly by New Delhi.

Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the decision to create a separate territory for Ladakh was unacceptable and undermined China’s territorial sovereignty.

China’s Ambassador to Pakistan Yao Jing, on Wednesday, reiterated China’s stance that Jammu and Kashmir was an “internationally recognized disputed territory”, and criticized the Indian government for unilaterally revoking its special status.

Yao, speaking to journalists, also stressed on the need for compliance with international laws and hoped that both Pakistan and India would “take a suitable decision for the betterment of the Kashmiri people”, Ary News reported.

Yao said that de-escalating tension between Islamabad and New Delhi would be beneficial for the entire region. He said that being a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, China.

Protest Demonstration in Washington

Muslim rights activists, including members of Pakistani-American community, held demonstrations outside the Indian Embassy in Washington to protest against the scrapping of special status to Jammu & Kashmir, The First Post of India reported Wednesday.

Accusing India of human rights violations in Kashmir, protestors sought the intervention of US President Donald Trump and the UN to solve the vexed issue.

They raised slogans against India and PM Narendra Modi. People of Kashmir “deserve independence, deserve their rights and deserve justice, ”Nihad Awad, national executive director of Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said outside Indian Embassy in Washington.

“There is a humanitarian crisis brewing in the Kashmir valley. The State Department should urge the Indian Govt to immediately reinstate the protected status, lift the siege, and enter into peaceful negotiations,” said Awad.

CAIR is the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization in US.

The protest was organized by Chicago-based Sound Vision, which claims to be the pioneering Muslim-media organization of North America. Muslim activists also held demonstration outside the Indian Consulate in Chicago.

Members of other Muslim organizations, including the Islamic Leadership Institute of America, Burma Task Force which is working among Rohingya Muslims, and those representing Palestine groups, also participated in demonstration.

The US Council of Muslim Organizations expresses concern

The US council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO), a conglomerate of more than two dozen American Muslim organizations, said in a statement Thursday It is beyond doubt that the longer the uncertainties continue and the longer the United Nations and world powers ignore Jammu & Kashmir, the more dangerous and intractable the crisis becomes in light of the fact that both Indian and Pakistan are nuclear powers. The crisis requires immediate diplomacy that recognizes the explosive situation on the ground in Jammu and Kashmir and takes immediate measures to avert it before it explodes.

The USCMO said Kashmir is under siege and silence is no longer an option. It called the Indian move to change Kashmir’s status as a crisis for the entire humanity.

The organization urged the 7-million strong Muslim American community to write letters and make phone calls to the White House and key members of Congress asking them to support peace in Kashmir and an end to the carnage.

It also advised the American Muslims to request one of the more than 200 World Affairs Councils (WAC) in the United States to arrange a program on Kashmir because of the nuclear danger there the greatest in the world-and unspeakable daily sufferings.

The USCMO statement pointed out that for more than five decades, the people of Indian Held Kashmir have been denied their inalienable right to self-determination. The people of Kashmir are helpless. The international community has abandoned them to the Indian repression.

More than 100,000 killed during the last decade, over 15,000 Kashmiri women violated, over 5,000 Kashmiri youths imprisoned in India, interrogation center and torture cells, more than 20,000 kids orphaned, 8,000 to 10,000 involuntarily disappeared, over 200 totally blinded with pellet guns.

The US council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO) members are:

The American Muslims for Palestine, Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), Muslim Alliance of North America (MANA), Muslim American Society (MAS), Muslim Legal Fund of America (MLFA), Muslim Ummah of Northern America (MUNA),The Mosque Cares (Ministry of W. Deen Mohammed), Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, Majlis Ash-Shura (Islamic Leadership Council of New York), The Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago (CIOGC), Muslim Forum of the Pacific Northwest (MFPNW), The North American Imams Federation, United Muslim Relief, ICNA Relief, Baitulmaal, Helping Hands, Mercy Without Limits, United Hands Relief, The Mosque Foundation, Islamic Center of Wheaton (ICW) IL, Islamic Society of Boston, Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center Virginia, Islamic Community Center of Illinois, (ICCI), Islamic Center of Detroit (ICD), Together We Serve Inc, International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), Burmese Rohingya Association of North America, American Muslim Alliance, Islamic Association of North America (IANA) and Islamic Center of Naperville IL.

Abdus Sattar Ghazali is the Chief Editor of the Journal of America (www.journalofamerica.net) email: asghazali2011 (@) gmail.com

9 August 2019

Source: countercurrents.org

By Countercurrents Collective

Hong Kong is hot with protests, and with a photo of foreign diplomats and protest leaders.

Media reports said:

Hong Kong’s Airport Authority said on Friday only departing passengers with travel documents will be allowed to enter the terminal as anti-government activists gear up for a three-day rally to raise awareness among tourists entering the city.

The move comes as officials confirmed on Friday that a police commander who oversaw pro-democracy demonstrations that roiled the former British colony in 2014 has been recalled to help deal with protests that have plunged the financial hub into crisis.

Former deputy police commissioner Alan Lau Yip-shing has been appointed to help handle large-scale public order events and steer operations, including activities to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China on Oct. 1, the government said in a statement.

Hong Kong, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997, is embroiled in two months of increasingly violent protests. The demonstrations erupted in opposition to a now-suspended extradition bill, which would allow suspects to face trial in mainland China.

The escalating cycle of violence has prompted travel warnings from countries including the U.S. and Australia.

The protesters plan to converge on the airport on Friday afternoon.

“To maintain the smooth process of the departure procedures of passengers and the terminal operation, only departure passengers with an air ticket or boarding pass for the next 24 hours and a valid travel document, or airport staff with identity proofs will be allowed to enter to the check-in aisles at Terminal 1,” the Airport Authority said in a statement.

The massive travel hub connects the city to more than 220 global destinations and served 74.7 million passengers last year, according to the airport’s website.

A photo

A Hong Kong activist who has played an active role in the ongoing protests has raised suspicions after being photographed meeting with a senior official from the U.S. consulate.

Hong Kong newspaper Ta Kung Pao published a photograph of a U.S. diplomat, who it identified as Julie Eadeh of the consulate’s political section, talking to student leaders in the lobby of a luxury hotel.

The photograph appeared under the headline “Foreign Forces Intervene”, continuing a theme of previous protests from Beijing officials, who have blamed Hong Kong’s unrest on “black hands” from the U.S.

Chinese authorities have asked the U.S. to explain why that contact was made and to explain the nature of their relationship.

The photo shows leaders of the movement including Joshua Wong Chi-fung, the face and leader of the 2014 Umbrella Movement with an American diplomat.

Joshua, the secretary-general of pro-democracy party Demosisto, told the Hong Kong Standard that there was nothing sinister behind his recent meeting with Julie Eadeh, a political unit chief of the U.S. consulate general in Hong Kong.

“I even went to Washington several times, so what’s so special about meeting a U.S. consul?” Wong told the Standard.

He claimed that their discussion focused on the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act – a bill proposed in the U.S. Congress, which calls for involvement in safeguarding “democracy” in Hong Kong.

The two also reportedly discussed banning U.S. exports of equipment to Hong Kong police.

In facebook post, he revealed his visiting Washington D.C., meeting U.S. officials, and meeting between the U.S. secretary of state and another Hong Kong protest leader.

A video that circulated on Twitter on Wednesday showed a demonstrator waving an American flag, as his accomplices hurled projectiles at a Hong Kong police station.

China demands: Stop interference

On Thursday, China’s Foreign Ministry expressed “strong dissatisfaction” over media reports alleging that a senior official at the U.S. consulate had met with a Hong Kong “independence group.”

In a statement, the ministry urged Washington to “immediately make a clean break with various anti-China rioters” and “stop interfering in Hong Kong’s affairs immediately.”

CCTV, China’s state-run broadcaster, called the U.S. diplomat “the behind-the-scenes black hand creating chaos in Hong Kong,” according to the New York Times, employing the term used against those who led the anti-government protests leading up to the Tiananmen massacre in 1989.

China has accused foreign powers, particularly the US, of fomenting the demonstrations in Hong Kong.

The top Chinese envoy in Hong Kong has demanded that the U.S. consulate “make a clean break from anti-China forces” following media reports of a meeting between an U.S. official and local activists including Joshua Wong Chi-fung.

On Thursday, the Office of the Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed “strong disapproval” and “firm opposition” demanding clarification over a meeting two days earlier between U.S. consulate political counselor Julie Eadeh and Wong, Nathan Law Kwun-chung as well as fellow core members of local political party Demosisto.

In a statement, the office also labeled the activists as “anti-China forces who stir up trouble in Hong Kong.”

On Eadeh’s meeting with Wong and Law, a spokesperson of the foreign ministries commissioner’s said: “China is rock-firm in upholding national sovereignty and security, as well as Hong Kong’s prosperity and stability, and in opposing any interference in Hong Kong affair by any country, organization or individual in whatever form.”

The spokesperson said: “We strongly urge members of the U.S. [consulate] to … immediately make a clean break from anti-China forces who stir up trouble in Hong Kong, stop sending out wrong signals to violent offenders, refrain from meddling with Hong Kong affairs, and avoid going further down the wrong path.”

US denounces China

When contacted by AFP for comment, a U.S. State Department spokesperson said representatives of the U.S. government “meet regularly with a wide cross section of people across Hong Kong and Macau.”

A U.S. official has described China as a “thuggish regime” for disclosing the photographs and personal details of a U.S. diplomat who met student leaders involved in demonstrations in Hong Kong.

The denunciation was unusually sharp and came as tensions between Washington and Beijing surged over an expanding trade war and military rivalry in the western Pacific, among other disputes.

The Hong Kong office of China’s foreign ministry on Thursday asked the U.S. to explain reports in Communist party-controlled media that American diplomats were in contact with leaders of protests that have convulsed Hong Kong for nine weeks.

“I don’t think that leaking an American diplomat’s private information, pictures, names of their children, I don’t think that is a formal protest, that is what a thuggish regime would do,” state department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus told a briefing late on Thursday. “That is not how a responsible nation would behave.”

Ortagus did not name the diplomat, or elaborate further on what kinds of private information or children’s details were disclosed.

Ortagus said it was the job of U.S. diplomats and those from other countries to meet different people, including opposition leaders.

The discontent

A CNBC report headlined – Hong Kong protesters plan airport sit-in, will make ‘five demands’ – said:

“The discontent from protesters may go beyond politics. While the city’s rich have grown richer, the wealth gap in the city has grown wider, according to David Dodwell, a long-time observer of Asia politics.

“Many people feel left behind and neglected by the government, and their frustration is fueling increasingly disruptive protests that have coursed through the city, said Dodwell, who is executive director at HK-APEC Trade Policy Group and a former Financial Times Asia correspondent.

“‘There is a very widespread anxiety in Hong Kong among the ordinary working person about their prospects going forward,’ Dodwell told CNBC. He added that more than 90% of local Hong Kongers work for small and medium-sized enterprises, which have not seen the kind of economic growth that big multinational corporations have.”

9 August 2019

Source: countercurrents.org

By Niles Niemuth

Federal District Judge Anthony Trenga rejected a motion Monday from imprisoned whistleblower Chelsea Manning to reconsider the imposition of daily fines for her principled refusal to testify before a grand jury impaneled to bring frame-up charges against WikiLeaks founder and publisher Julian Assange.

Manning has been held in contempt of court for 149 days in the Alexandria City Jail. She now owes $40,000 in fines and is being assessed $1,000 for every day she refuses to testify, up from $500 per day assessed in her second month of confinement.

Manning expects to spend approximately 400 more days in jail if the grand jury does not conclude before its 18-month term is up. This means she would face a total of $441,000 in fines.

The 31-year-old former Army intelligence analyst is being vindictively pursued by the Trump administration for her role in exposing US war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. She leaked to WikiLeaks hundreds of thousands of military war logs, diplomatic cables and the infamous Collateral Murder video, which showed an Apache helicopter airstrike in Baghdad that killed at least a dozen civilians, including two Reuters journalists.

Manning was already convicted in 2013 on a number of charges, including under the Espionage Act. She served seven years in military detention, including one year in solitary confinement, before her 35-year sentence was commuted by President Barack Obama in 2017 as part of a cynical effort to burnish his record just before leaving office.

Assange is currently being imprisoned at Belmarsh Prison in England after being illegally snatched by police from the Ecuadorian embassy in London where he had been granted asylum. He was quickly convicted on a bogus bail-jumping charge and is awaiting an extradition hearing February 25 on his rendition to the United States.

Assange currently faces 18 charges, including 17 under the Espionage Act, and up to 175 years in prison for publishing the information which he received from Manning in 2010.

Last month, federal district judge John Koeltl dismissed a civil lawsuit filed by the Democratic National Committee which attempted to smear WikiLeaks and Assange as assets of the Russian government for publishing leaked DNC emails during the 2016 election. The ruling was a vindication of WikiLeaks’s rights as a publisher and exposed the ongoing effort to prosecute Assange over the publication of the documents provided by Manning.

The fact that Manning is still being detained in an effort to compel her testimony indicates that further charges are being considered which would be unsealed once Assange is firmly in Washington’s grips—even though current British and US law does not allow for further charges to be unsealed after a formal extradition request.

The charge which was used to justify the ending of his asylum and removal from the embassy, conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, names Manning as a co-conspirator, raising the prospect that she could also face criminal charges.

However, Manning has not yet been charged with any crime, and therefore cannot legally be punished. Trenga was at pains to insist in his ruling that the fines are merely coercive and not punitive.

Trenga, appointed to the bench by George W. Bush in 2008, ruled that there are no “reasonable grounds” to reconsider the fines since Manning “has the ability to comply with the court’s financial sanctions or will have the ability after her release from confinement.”

Her attorneys have argued that the fines are punitive rather than coercive, since there is nothing which will convince Manning to testify before the current grand jury or any other and since the unprecedented financial penalties threaten her with financial bankruptcy.

Manning has already lost her apartment, has no personal savings and is unable to work while in jail. Her only source of income prior to being incarcerated came from intermittent speaking fees.

In the face of the mounting fines and continued imprisonment, Manning has remained steadfast in her convictions.

“I am disappointed but not at all surprised” by the ruling, she said. “The government and the judge must know by now that this doesn’t change my position one bit.” During her contempt hearing in May, Manning told Trenga that she would “rather starve to death than to change my opinion in this regard.”

At the end of that month she submitted a letter outlining her politically principled objections to the grand jury system in general and its specific use against Assange and WikiLeaks.

“I believe in due process, freedom of the press, and a transparent court system,” Manning wrote. “I object to the use of grand juries as tools to tear apart vulnerable communities. I object to this grand jury in particular as an effort to frighten journalists and publishers, who serve a crucial public good. I have had these values since I was a child, and I’ve had years of confinement to reflect on them. For much of that time, I depended for survival on my values, my decisions, and my conscience. I will not abandon them now.”

The World Socialist Web Site and the Socialist Equality Parties (SEP) affiliated with the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) put out the call in June for the formation of a Global Defense Committee to secure the freedom of Assange and Manning. Protests and interventions to raise awareness about their joint persecution have been organized by the ICFI and other supporters of WikiLeaks around the world, including in England, Australia, Sri Lanka and India.

Time is of the essence for Manning and Assange, whose health, journalist John Pilger reports, is deteriorating and who is being treated worse than a murder suspect. The attack on Manning and Assange is part of a global assault on democratic rights, aimed at silencing journalists and intimidating all those who would expose the war crimes of the imperialist powers.

Manning and Assange’s freedom will not be won through moral appeals to the various governments that are engaged in a conspiracy against them, whether in London and Canberra or Quito and Washington, D.C. Instead, this movement must come from below through a campaign to mobilize the international working class, students, artists, intellectuals and journalists to save the lives of these two courageous individuals.

Originally published by WSWS.org

9 August 2019

Source: countercurrents.org

By National Alliance of People’s Movements

National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) unequivocally condemns the indefensible and totalitarian move of the BJP-led NDA Govt. to repeal Article 370 of the Constitution by way of a Presidential Order and introduce a Bill for bifurcation of the state of Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories, not only without but seemingly in violation of the consent of the people and key political actors of the state.

It is also an extremely unfortunate day in our parliamentary politics that some key opposition parties (in Rajya Sabha) as well failed to raise the voice of people of Jammu & Kashmir and succumbed to the majoritarian politics, exposing the political bankruptcy of a section of the ‘Opposition’. However, we place on record our appreciation for those parties who stood by constitutional norms and the people of Jammu & Kashmir and opposed the Ordinance and the Bill.

Over the past one week, the entire nation as well as international community has been witnessing with bated breath the ‘actions’ of the Union Government, which kept the Kashmiris and citizens-at-large on tenterhooks and in utter darkness. This included a series of draconian measures like heavy upscaling in deployment of military forces, random frisking of people, arrests of former Chief Ministers and key leaders in J&K, disruption of mobile communication and internet, suspension of civil activity, evacuation of tourists and Amarnath pilgrims in an attempt to terrorise citizens and bulldoze the aspirations of the people of Jammu & Kashmir. It is in such a climate of fear and uncertainty that 370 has been abrogated.

It also needs to be noted that all the scare-mongering at the highest level of the Prime Minister turned out a complete hoax since the motives of this Govt. became crystal clear after the announcement in the Parliament yesterday. It is now evident that the imposition of President’s rule last year and further delay in holding Assembly elections, were all done with a purpose to abrogate Article 370.

This period would undoubtedly go down as one of the darkest days in the history of any democracy and the hurried, authoritarian and unilateral manner in which the Presidential Order and Bill were brought in would, unfortunately, remain as a blot on our seriousness to address the long-standing Kashmir question.

These steps not only violate the basis of conditional accession of Kashmir with the Indian Union in 1947 (which granted a special status to J & K) that was built into the constitution, but grossly betray the trust of the Kashmiri people and all sections of the Kashmiri political class in the Indian State and is bound to have a long term adverse impact on the democratic future of the country.

The manner of introducing the presidential order and Reorganization Bill is tantamount to a clear fraud on the Constitution. While provisions of Article 370 can be amended or dropped by the President only upon the recommendation of the Constituent Assembly of the State of J&K (which ceased to exist in 1947), the present Ordinance was passed mischievously by interpreting the word ‘Constituent Assembly of the State of J & K as “Legislative Assembly” and since from Dec 2018, President’s rule has been imposed, the Parliament has ‘legally’ assumed authority to pass the present reorganization law for J&K.

It is an ostensible abuse of constitutional authority that the President has used his power under Art 370 (1) meant to amend the provisions of the Constitution of J & K to amend Sec 367 of the Indian Constitution, which has then been used to replace the words Constituent Assembly of the State of J & K as “Legislative Assembly”. Thus, the very legality of the Presidential Order insofar as it amends Article 370 is questionable, and therefore the Reorganization Bill based on the same is also legally untenable. This flies in the face of numerous judgements of the Supreme Court that no attempt should be made to amend a law or the Constitution indirectly, if the same cannot be done directly.

In the light of the above, it is amply clear that Jammu and Kashmir Re-organization Bill 2019 is grossly unconstitutional. In fact even two years back, in 2017, the Supreme Court held that Article 370 is “not a temporary provision”

Further, it is a matter or great political and constitutional concern that such a major change has been made during the period of imposition of the President’s rule (which should only be a temporary, emergency measure) and by merely consulting with the Governor and not the elected Legislature of J&K. This is a blatant assault on the federal character of the Indian Constitution as well as the federal spirit of the Instrument of Accession of 1947.

The manner in which the State of Jammu & Kashmir has been ‘constitutionally’ done away with portends a potential threat to all provinces, parts and territories within the Indian Union, especially fifth and sixth schedule areas and jeopardizes the very federal structure of the Indian constitution.

While it is true that “abrogation” of Article 370 has been a key communal agenda of the RSS-BJP since long, which is now being executed in a fascist ‘parliamentary’ manner, the pursuit of such agendas at the present time also absolves this Govt. of any accountability on its (lack of) performance on the economic front, particularly at a moment of severe recession.

We also would like to emphasize that Art 35 A has been made infructuous not because the BJP has any ‘concern’ for dalits and women (its track record on this front being pathetic in the rest of India), but because of its twin sinister design to a) change the religious and ethnic demograhy of J&K and b) to facilitate large-scale ‘developmental terror’ in the Himalayan state by throwing open its lands and resources to be ‘purchased’ and ‘owned’ by private players and corporates. Within a day, we have seen announcements that the PM is likely to inaugurate an ‘Investors Summit’ in October and there is no doubt now that more repression lay in store for the people of J&K and Ladakh region for questioning or resisting BJP’s ‘Vibrant Development Model’.

The past two months have seen Parliament push through a series of regressive, unconstitutional or flawed bills on important matters like RTI, Triple Talaq, UAPA, Trangender Rights, Surrogacy etc with barely any discussion or referral to parliamentary committees.

What is also evident is that with many of these Bills, especially Triple Talaq, Citizenship Amendment Bill and Article 370, BJP is making a clear attempt to legally institutionalize its communal agenda and destroy our constitutional secular ethos. The harm that this Govt is thus causing to the democratic fabric is this country is moumental and unforgivable. Parliament which is supposed to be the custodian of democratic values seems to be fast becoming a space where democratic values are eroded ruthlessly.

We the people’s movements from various states of India are protesting and shall protest across the country, this atrocious move to abrogate Article 370. The democratic forces in India have always demanded a peaceful political solution to the Kashmir question based on the right of self-determination of the people in Kashmir. The present imbroglio only complicates the whole situation instead of peacefully and maturely addressing it, leading to peace with our neighbours as well.

In these troubled times, we appeal to all sections of the society, political parties, mass, student organizations and concerned individuals to stand with Kashmiris, especially with young people and students from Jammu & Kashmir who are in workplaces, neighborhoods and educational institutions everywhere in India and ensure their safety and well-being.

We recognise that the people of Jammu & Kashmir are the most important stakeholders in this entire legal-political discourse and any action undertaken without involving them would be undemocratic. People of J&K have faced untold violence for decades and the Govt. has a mandate and responsibility to ensure that there are no more human rights violations. Our heart goes out to our sisters and brothers in Kashmir whose lives are being made miserable for the ulterior political motives of this Govt. We stand in solidarity with the resistance of the peoples of Jammu & Kashmir for a peaceful democracy. We request the people of Kashmir, especially youth and students to maintain calm and fight for their rights in a peaceful way and by democratic means.

We, the movements of this country demand the following immediately:

1. President must withdraw the Order repealing Sections of Article 370 and withhold consent to the State Reorganisation Bill, after its passage through both the Houses.

2. Election Commission must make arrangements to hold Elections to constitute Legislative Assembly of J&K because that is the only body authorised to take decision regarding the state

3. President and Govt of India must refrain from undertaking any further actions in the absence of the full and informed consent of the people of Jammu & Kashmir.

4. An immediate withdrawal of the additional military and para-military forces deployed in the area and maintaining forces only to the limited extent of verified strategic and intelligence requirement.

5. Immediate release of all the political leaders and civil society activists, ensuring no further arrests are made without any cogent justification and removal of bar on peaceful assembly.

6. Immediate restoration of communications, mobile and internet networks as well as safe resumption of all civil activity, especially schools, colleges, hospitals, transportation etc.

We condemn attacks online and on ground on people who are resisting this ‘abrogation’ and demand action. We call upon the peace loving common citizens of this country as well as people’s organizations to see through the nefarious designs of this government and defeat the attempt to destabilize our social and democratic fabric.

We also urge upon the people’s movements, trade unions and conscientious citizens of this country and leaders of the opposition parties to undertake a national mission to Kashmir to break this veil of security and complete blackout of the Kashmir valley and curfew in many other parts of the State.

Medha Patkar, Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) and National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM);

Aruna Roy, Nikhil Dey, Shankar Singh, Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS), National Campaign for People’s Right to Information, NAPM;

Gautam Bandopadhyay, Nadi Ghati Morcha; Kaladas Dahariya, RELAA, NAPM Chhattisgarh;

Prafulla Samantara, Lok Shakti Abhiyan; Lingraj Azad, Samajwadi Jan Parishad & Niyamgiri Suraksha Samiti, Manorama, Ant-Posco Movement, NAPM Odisha;

P. Chennaiah, Andhra Pradesh Vyavasaya Vruthidarula Union-APVVU, Ramakrishnam Raju, United Forum for RTI and NAPM, P. Shankar (Dalit Bahujan Front), Vissa Kiran Kumar (Rythu Swarajya Vedika), Chakri (Samalochana), M. Venkatayya (TVVU), Balu Gadi, Bapji Juvvala, Meera Sanghamitra, Rajesh Serupally, NAPM Telangana – Andhra Pradesh;

Kavita Srivastava, People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL); Kailash Meena, NAPM Rajasthan;

Sandeep Pandey, NAPM, Richa Singh, Sangatin Kisaan Mazdoor Sangathan; Arundhati Dhuru, Manesh Gupta, Suresh Rathaur, Mahendra, NAPM, Uttar Pradesh;

Sister Celia, Domestic Workers Union; Maj Gen (Retd) S.G.Vombatkere, NAPM, Karnataka;

Gabriele Dietrich, Penn Urimay Iyakkam, Madurai; Geetha Ramakrishnan, Unorganised Sector Workers Federation; Arul Doss, NAPM Tamilnadu;

Dr. Sunilam, Adv. Aradhna Bhargava, Kisan Sangharsh Samiti; Rajkumar Sinha, Chutka Parmaanu Virodhi Sangharsh Samiti,NAPM, Madhya Pradesh;

Vilayodi Venugopal, CR Neelakandan, Prof. Kusumam Joseph, Sharath Cheloor, NAPM, Kerala;

Dayamani Barla, Aadivasi-Moolnivasi Astivtva Raksha Samiti, Basant Hetamsaria, Ashok Verma, Aloka Kujur, NAPM Jharkhand;

Anand Mazgaonkar, Swati Desai, Krishnakant, Parth, Nita Mahadev, Mudita, Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti, Lok Samiti, NAPM Gujarat;

Vimal Bhai,Matu Jan sangathan; Jabar Singh, NAPM, Uttarakhand;

Samar Bagchi, Amitava Mitra, NAPM West Bengal;

Suniti SR, Suhas Kolhekar, Prasad Bagwe, NAPM, Maharashtra; Bilal Khan, Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan, Mumbai, NAPM Maharashtra;

Anjali Bharadwaj, National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI), NAPM;

Faisal Khan, Khudai Khidmatgar, J S Walia, NAPM Haryana; Guruwant Singh, NAPM Punjab;

Kamayani Swami, Ashish Ranjan, Jan Jagran Shakti Sangathan; Mahendra Yadav,KosiNavnirman Manch; Sister Dorothy, Ujjawal Chaubey, NAPM Bihar;

Bhupender Singh Rawat, Jan Sangharsh Vahini; Sunita Rani, Domestic Workers Union;Nanu Prasad, Nirman Mazdoor Union; Rajendra Ravi, Madhuresh Kumar, Himshi Singh, Uma, Aryaman, NAPM, Delhi

For any further details, contact: | napmindia@gmail.com

7 August 2019

Source: countercurrents.org