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By Dr. Binoy Kampmark

The investigation into the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over two years ago always had the flavour of pre-emption, caked with assumptions of premature adjudication. Neither side, be it the assembled Joint Investigation Team, nor those on the Russian side, was going to budge on the issue of the material. In the world of the post-factoid, what matters is the sale of what we believe to be facts.

In this marketplace of saleable facts, the issue becomes how fabulous the narrative can be. Find your audience, and the relevant pitch, and half your work is done. Discoveries are made at short notice, be it data captured by a smart phone, intercepts of conversations, or radar data of the raw sort revealed with impeccable timing.

What is lost in this agitated discussion are the bloody realities of conflict, the hideous nature of those last moments when 298 civilians lost their lives over a war zone. It took a decision, made on the spur, to end the lives of those people. What we have gotten, instead of a broader reflection of the conflict that caused those deaths, not to mention thousands of others, is a deeper quagmire, a furiously ideological joust between detractors and participants.

The cruel and broadly sobering picture of those moments in July 2014 did not seem to have much truck in the JIT display. In the presentation, the JIT makes it clear that it was presenting “the first results of the criminal investigation into the downing of flight MH17 on 17 July 2014.”[1]

This was meant to be a show by the avengers of objectivity, coming to the rescue with clarity and positivist reassurance. “The big difference with a journalistic commentary or an internet-based investigation report,” went the presentation, “is that in our case conclusions based on probability will not suffice.” There was, in fact “legal and convincing evidence.” Helped along, of course, with the bells and smells of modern animation and social media.

That convincing evidence supposedly found the culprit: “that flight MH17 was shot down… by a missile of the 9M38 series, launched by a BUK-TELAR, from farmland in the vicinity of Pervomaiskiy (or: Pervomaiskyi).”

At that time, the area was under pro-Russian rebel control, while the BUK-TELAR had been “brought in from the territory of the Russian Federation and subsequently, after having shot down flight MH-17, was taken back to the Russian Federation.”

For such pomp and certainty, much of the detail remained as before, with similar questions left tantalisingly dangling in the aftermath. For instance, an acknowledgment is made about the role played by the generous supply line from Bellingcat, which purports to use readily available open source material in the name of citizen journalism.

The lingering sense of a conspiratorial design to murder, a point that has been unequivocally embraced by such figures as former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, was never dispersed. A hundred persons had been identified “who in one way or the other can be linked to the crash of flight MH17 or the transport of the BUK.” Their identity, the JIT noted smugly, had been established.

As Editor-in-Chief at Fort Russ explained to Russia Today, the origins behind the makeup of the JIT lay in a NATO ploy, creating an inquiry team that was always compromised for its raison d’être. What mattered was how Russia was involved, not the question of who actually pulled the trigger.[2] This very point was amply illustrated by the dominant role played by Ukraine on the JIT, when its absence might have been contemplated along with that of Russia.

Bathed in the aura of criminality, the note of the report never loses the whodunit sense, the forensic pursuit of twenty weapons systems, the perusal of five billion internet pages, the inspection of dozens of containers “with thousands of wreckage parts” all examined by an army of some 100 to 200 investigators.

Absent in the JIT presentation was one glaring elephant waiting to stomp in the room. Where, for instance, did Ukraine figure in this? This is not to even take the line, as has been put forth by the Russian Defence Ministry, that there had been no signs of a missile being fired at MH17 from rebel controlled territory. (This was deemed “raw data” newly unearthed by Almaz-Antey.)

The broad issue of Ukrainian culpability in permitting MH17 to be in the vicinity of a conflict area when there had been prior knowledge of targeted flights, was not a point the JIT considered. Ukrainian criminal law was mentioned in so far as it might be useful in prosecuting any personnel who had manned the BUK, but not the violations of an assortment of aviation conventions and protocols. What we saw instead was the relentless cold march of minutiae.

The sense of creeping under a shroud of international deception, releasing the missile with callous calculation, then moving back into Russian territory, suggested a trick of terrorist import, a mission of the damned. By the JIT conveying such a tone, the sense that a war of tragic miscalculation and foolishness, along with the bloody mistakes that came with it, and continue to do so, was lost.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com

[1] https://www.om.nl/onderwerpen/mh17-vliegramp/presentaties/presentation-joint/

[2] https://www.rt.com/news/360946-mh17-ukraine-fabricate-evidence/

29 September 2016

By Eoin Wilson

“If somebody falls overboard, all you see is their head. It’s about the size of a coconut.”

With those words, Captain Madeleine Habib ensured the attention of her passengers, all now digesting the image of the vastness of the sea enveloping a human body.

Habib, a Tasmanian-Egyptian and an experienced captain with Greenpeace and Doctors Without Borders, was delivering the safety briefing to the all-women passengers of her boat, the Zaytouna. The three crew and 10 passengers were preparing to leave the port of Ajaccio, the Corsican capital, for Messina, Sicily.

The Zaytouna is part of a now one-vessel Women’s Boat to Gaza flotilla after its sister ship Amal was forced to return to Barcelona because of engine trouble. It was not the only boat in the harbor of Ajaccio, but certainly theZaytouna’s purpose — international solidarity, not leisure — was unique.

The quays here are lined with the yachts of the affluent, from Monaco and the Caribbean, themselves dwarfed by the gargantuan cruise ships which daily arrive and depart, their passengers disembarking to stroll through the narrow streets and palm tree-lined corniches of yet another picturesque Mediterranean town.

The Women’s Boat to Gaza flotilla is the most recent international attempt to break the near decade-long sea, air and land siege of Gaza. There have been other attempts, and some, like the Mavi Marmara in 2010, ended in violence when the Israeli navy stormed aboard. Nine activists were killed on the Mavi Marmara and a 10th died after four years in a coma.

Safety briefing
Though the day was warm and bright, with the early morning sun glistening and glimmering in the harbor of Ajaccio, Habib was clear about the potential dangers at sea should the weather turn.

“On a day like today you can see a coconut for a long way. But nobody falls overboard on a day like today. People fall overboard when it’s rough,” she said. The chances of “rescuing a coconut” in rough seas, especially at night, the captain added, are minimal.

Habib reassured her passengers, several of whom had just joined for the crossing to Messina, that if “you’re careful, if you’re sensible, and if you follow the instructions of the crew, you will not fall overboard.” Then comes the inevitable “however.”

If someone should fall overboard, she told her passengers, they must immediately shout “man overboard, women overboard, I don’t care what you shout, but the person driving the boat needs to know.”

A button, the captain informed her passengers, would then immediately be pressed on the control panel to lock in those precise coordinates, allowing the boat to return and begin a search.

The risk of fire was also discussed, and Habib, a trained firefighter, was relieved to learn there were no smokers on board, though the gas stoves used for communal meals still pose a potential fire hazard.

The final warning was about the need to abandon the boat altogether, the worst-case scenario, and one which Habib insisted is extremely unlikely to happen. She pointed to two small, white boxes attached to the roof of the boat, above the cabins. Slightly bigger than wheel-on suitcases on a flight, these boxes will inflate and can carry eight persons each.

With the safety briefing over, final farewells were said and hugs shared. The boat was unmoored and cast off, overshadowed by the hulking mass of a cruise ship unloading passengers for a day’s sightseeing, largely unaware of what they were witnessing.

Symbolic attempt
The flotilla is, at its core, a symbolic attempt to bring international attention to a blockade that has further impoverished and isolated Gaza, while sending a message of solidarity to Palestinians there.

The all-women boat is also meant to acknowledge the role of Palestinian women in the struggle, as they face the effects of occupation and settler-colonialism in specifically gendered ways. Women also carry the bulk of responsibility for the care of traumatized children. According to the United Nations, more than 160,000 children in Gaza are in need of continuous psychological support.

The all-women flotilla also has very practical reasons. It encourages the participation of women who otherwise could feel uncomfortable in a cramped, confined space with men for days at a time.

There is, as well, an element of deterrence. Claude Léostic, the president of the Platform of French NGOs for Palestine, and French spokesperson for the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, referred to the violence inflicted on previous flotillas, which are foremost in the minds of the Zaytouna’s passengers.

“We believe it is very possible that the Israelis will try to attack the boat again, because they did every single time we sent a boat to break the siege. They attacked it. Hijacked it. Stole everything on board. Kidnapped people on board. And behaved just like pirates on the high seas,” Léostic told The Electronic Intifada.

“We hope that with women on board they [the Israeli navy] will be deterred from being so violent,” she added.

“Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but their image is so important for them. So if they’re seen attacking a women’s boat, ill-treating them, maybe beating them as they did for all the others, their image will be catastrophic. So that could be a deterrent.”

Léostic said there was no evidence of sabotage on the Amal, now back in Barcelona. However, Ann Wright, a veteran of previous flotillas and a boat leader on the Zaytouna, said that threat is being taken seriously.

“We’ve had guards on the boats all the time, since … Barcelona. There’s been someone on the boats 24 hours a day.”

Vigilance ahead of final leg
Wright, a former US Army colonel and US State Department official who resigned in protest to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, recounted suspicions of sabotage of previous flotillas.

“One happened in the shipyards in Athens. And we had a rag in ours [a rag in an engine causes engine failure].”

“In 2015,” Wright added, “we had one [boat] that was coming from Corfu [Greece], and it barely got off the docks before it started sinking.”

Wright, who was also in the 2010 flotilla that included the Mavi Marmara, warned, “So the history is that on each one of these flotillas, there’s sabotage.”

Those on board are all too aware that recent attempts at breaking the siege on Gaza have all failed. The 2010 Israeli raid of the Mavi Marmara had the most violent end; a series of other attempts ended with sabotage, or the Israeli navy ramming, hijacking and commandeering boats within international waters.

The likelihood of the Zaytouna making it to port in Gaza is minimal. Given what happened to previous flotillas, it is likely to be intercepted by heavily armed Israeli navy commandos, almost certainly deep inside the theoretical safety of international waters.

If the Zaytouna is physically commandeered by Israeli commandos, or Habib is forced to comply, the boat will probably be taken to the port of Ashdod, where the women will be processed and eventually deported.

So far, though, so good. After three days of sailing, under the combined power of motor and sails, the Zaytounaarrived in Messina on the morning of 23 September. Activities and meetings were organized in the Sicilian port, before the Women’s Boat to Gaza left Sicily on 27 September for the dangerous final leg of the voyage to Gaza.

“These women know that they may be in danger at some point,” Léostic said. “But their sense of justice and their consciences as human beings are such that they cannot risk doing nothing.”

Eoin Wilson is a freelance journalist focusing on Palestine, international solidarity, protest and social movements. Twitter: @eoin_wilson

First published in Electronic Intifada

29 September 2016

 

By larouchepac.com

Congress today resoundingly overrode President Barack Obama’s Sept. 23 veto of S. 2040, the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), with the Senate vote tally of 97-to-1, in favor of override; and the House of Representatives tally of 348-to-77. The override required a 2/3 majority vote in both Houses of Congress, and it was achieved by a wide, bipartisan margin.

The implications are massive.

With JASTA now the law of the land, the loopholes that blocked the 9/11 survivors and families from suing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in U.S. Federal Court for their complicity in 9/11 have now been removed. A hearing is already scheduled in Federal Court for the Southern District of New York in November, at which the 9/11 families will be able to finally directly confront the Saudi Monarchy and pursue further evidence of the Saudi government support for the 9/11 hijackers, 15 of whom were Saudi citizens.

The opportunity for discovery about the Saudi role in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks was recently further enhanced by the public release, on July 15, 2016, of the 28-page chapter from the original 2002 Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11, which revealed previously secret evidence about the role of former Saudi Ambassador to the United States Prince Bandar bin-Sultan in supporting at least two of the 9/11 terrorists, along with evidence of ties to the hijackers by scores of other Saudi officials at all levels of government and the Royal Family.

The role of Prince Bandar in the 9/11 attacks is of special significance because of his close ties to the Bush family and even closer ties to the British. Bandar was the broker, along with former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, of the Al Yamamah deal, a barter arrangement of British weapons for Saudi oil. Under Al Yamamah, hundreds of billions of dollars were squirreled into secret off-shore joint Anglo-Saudi accounts for the purpose of funding terrorism, assassinations and political coups around the globe. A prominent Member of the British House of Commons, who is also a senior figure in the British defense establishment, candidly warned in June that, if JASTA were to become U.S. law, the British Monarchy and the British government could be sued, along with the Saudis.

“An Historic Victory”

Lyndon LaRouche, whose LaRouche Political Action Committee (LPAC) had mobilized intensively for today’s results, described the vote as “An historic victory. It is a cause for rejoicing; it has turned the pages of history. The worldwide positive potential is enormous.” However, LaRouche cautioned, “How far and where it takes us, is not yet clear. Get ready to find out.” He added, “Remember, you’ve hurt the devil hard. And the devil ain’t going to thank you for that!”

The overwhelming defeat of President Obama and the Saudis came despite the fact that the entire Obama Administration had been mobilized to pressure Congress to support his veto, and the Saudi Monarchy had poured in a reported $9.4 million, in a desperate lobbying effort to buy off Members of Congress. In the end, a bipartisan coalition of leading Senators and Representatives rejected the Obama Administration lies that JASTA posed a threat to American interests abroad, and delivered the biggest political defeat to President Obama since he first took office.

Today, both Houses of Congress engaged in two hours of debate, preceding the historic vote, and the vast majority of speeches emphasized the rights of the 9/11 families to at long last obtain justice, and to confront the Saudi Monarchy and its agents for their complicity in the worst terrorist attack to ever occur on U.S. soil.

Much of the debate was taken up debunking the Obama claim that JASTA would open American servicemen, corporations and diplomats to retaliation by foreign government. Leading JASTA proponents, including Senators Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Charles Schumer (D-New York), and Representatives Robert Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Jerome Nadler (D-New York) made clear, repeatedly, that JASTA merely closes a loophole in legislation that has existed since the 1970s, allowing American citizens to sue foreign governments, proven to have provided support for terrorist attacks that took place on U.S. soil. But that loophole allowed the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to evade American justice for the past 15 years—and that has now come to an end.

Broader Strategic Opportunities

The successful bipartisan effort, beating President Obama’s veto of JASTA, can and must now be directed, with equal intensity, at other vital issues, starting with the need for Congress to immediately pass the bills already before both Houses of Congress to reinstate the Glass Steagall Act, to break up the too-big-to-fail banks that are on the edge of a collapse far worse than 2008. Germany’s Deutsche Bank, the largest holder of derivatives of any bank in the world, is about to collapse, and the entire trans-Atlantic banking system is set to crash, as the direct result.

Reinstating Glass Steagall is the indispensable first step towards launching a genuine economic recovery through massive capital investment in urgently-needed infrastructure projects, research and development, and particularly a revival of America’s now collapsed NASA space program. Such an effort, now, can create millions of new productive jobs. In Eurasia, under the leadership of China, a massive program of infrastructure investment is being implemented, under the banner of President Xi Jinping’s One Belt, One Road initiative. Russian President Vladimir Putin has embraced the initiative and has proposed to integrate the Eurasian Economic Union into the effort, which former U.S. Ambassador Chas Freeman recently described as the biggest infrastructure project in human history.

Rather than working to sabotage the New Silk Road project, as has been the U.S. policy under President Obama, the United States should fully embrace the One Belt, One Road program and thus expanded into a true World Landbridge.

The U.S. Congress, for the first time in a long time, has acted with a single voice, on behalf of the vital interests of the American people. The JASTA bill benefits all Americans and particularly those who lost loved ones in the 9/11 attacks or were themselves severely injured.

That vote offers a larger beacon of hope, that the same spirit of national interest can now rapidly be translated into the other actions, that are vital to the survival and prosperity of the United States and the world.
28 September 2016

By Chandra Muzaffar

The Rukunegara should be made the Preamble ( Muqadimmah) to the Malaysian Constitution. There are seven compelling reasons for suggesting this.

One, the objectives of the Rukunegara are linked to values which are perennial — values such as unity, justice and freedom. Preambles of most constitutions embody this timeless quality since they are meant to serve people beyond the present.

Two, the objectives and the principles of the Rukunegara are inclusive. They transcend gender, ethnicity, religion and region. This is what makes the Rukunegara, potentially, a force for unity in a diverse society.

Three, the Rukunegara commands a high degree of legitimacy. All its principles and objectives resonate with the vast majority of Malaysians. This includes the belief in God, on the one hand, and the commitment to a democratic way of life, on the other. Besides, this national philosophy or ideology as it has been dubbed was produced by a National Consultative Council— albeit operating under Emergency Rule — which represented a wide cross-section of society. All religious groups had seats in the Council. Both labour and business were included. All major political parties from the government and the opposition with the exception of one participated in the NCC under the chairmanship of Tun Abdul Razak. It is equally significant that the Rukunegara was proclaimed to the nation by the Yang di Pertuan Agong himself on 31st August 1970.

Four, given its legitimacy, its inclusiveness and its timelessness, the Rukunegara should now be endowed with the force of law. Only then will the courts be able to bestow it with meaning and substance. Though some judges have over the decades alluded to the Rukunegara in their judgements, it has no role in the adjudication process.

Five, since perceptions of state and society have become more and more polarised in recent years, it would make sense to bring back to the centre a philosophy which has the capacity to draw people together. There is no reason why Malaysians of different backgrounds and persuasions should not rally around a set of objectives and principles like the Rukunegara.

Six, the elevation of the Rukunegara has become imperative partly because of the sometimes subtle push by sections of the Muslim populace for laws and policies that reflect their own particularistic interpretation of Islam which does not always represent the essence of the faith and its practice. Because this tendency is getting stronger, we have to empower a philosophy which is all-embracing and yet resonates with Islamic values and aspirations. The Panca Sila, the guiding principles of the Indonesian state which has many parallels to the Rukunegara, and is deeply rooted in the psyche of the people has undoubtedly played an effective role in checking bigotry and dogmatism in the world’s largest Muslim nation.

Seven, as against the bigotry of some Muslim groups, there is the other trend associated with a segment of the non-Muslim citizenry that in the name of hidebound secularism seeks to deny religion any role at all in the public square. In a society where Islam has been a fundamental factor in shaping the identity of the majority of the people, it is naïve to try to marginalise the religion when addressing societal concerns. It is how Islam is understood and practised that is the critical challenge. The Rukunegara at least attempts through its first principle, the belief in God, to articulate a universal vision of faith that transcends religious boundaries which is reinforced in its fifth principle by a notion of good behaviour and morality that is not confined to a specific community.

The quest to make the Rukunegara the Preamble of the Malaysian Constitution has a long history behind it. In early 1971, the late Professor Syed Hussein Alatas, in an essay entitled, “The Rukunegara and the Return to Democracy in Malaysia” (Pacific Community Volume 2, Nos 1-4, Tokyo) argued that the Rukunegara could fulfil the function of a preamble. “It can be considered”, he wrote, “as an appropriate introduction to the Constitution. It reflects the predominant trend in the political and philosophical thinking of the nation.” It is interesting that he also observed “that the late Dato Onn bin Ja’afar, the founder president of the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), the first major political leader that emerged from post-war Malaya, lamented to me privately that the Constitution did not contain a preamble.”

After the Rukunegara was inaugurated as the nation’s philosophy in August 1970, Tun Razak and his Deputy, Tun Dr. Ismail Abdul Rahman, gave some emphasis to the document through schools and the media. On their demise in the mid-seventies, Prime Minister Tun Hussein Onn and one of his key Ministers, Tun Muhammad Ghazali Shafie, continued to champion the Rukunegara. It was from the eighties onwards that the national philosophy began to recede into the background. In 2005 and 2006, there was a brief effort to revive the document but it did not take off.

From the early eighties, a handful of us — civil society activists and academics — tried to keep the Rukunegara alive through our writings and via seminars and forums. The Rukunegara’s objectives and principles were used as yardsticks to measure the performance of the powers-that-be. Our modest endeavours did not make a dent.

Now some of us are once again seeking to raise the status and role of the Rukunegara. In the midst of the new challenges that have surfaced, making the Rukunegara the preamble to the Constitution will give it the weight and value it deserves. It will be so much easier for the citizen to insist that those who wield power and authority should through deeds prove that they are genuinely committed to the objectives and principles of the Rukunegara.

Dr. Chandra Muzaffar is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Yayasan1Malaysia.

Petaling Jaya.

26 September 2016.

By Binoy Kampmark

It was not sufficient for US military authorities to sentence whistleblower Chelsea Manning to the onerous, disproportionate sentence of 35 years imprisonment for conniving with WikiLeaks in releasing classified material. (People have gotten less for gruesome, remorseless murders.) Punishment has a myriad of forms, and even within the carceral system, Manning has discovered that additional methods can be devised.

As with any penal system worth its brutal salt, minor infractions incite strong rebuke and hefty retaliation. Manning has previously been in hot water over the usual violations of the prison code, be they as innocuous as possessing an expired tube of toothpaste, or having inappropriately designated research materials used for the drafting of articles.

The three member disciplinary board at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas claimed that the punishment for Manning, which involves a fourteen day sentence with seven suspended days, was occasioned by an attempt to take her own life in July. A good deal of this gloomy effort was spurred on by official refusals to permit access to treatment for gender dysphoria. Manning has not merely been an aberration to US state security in her actions, but a transgender puzzle within the military establishment.

Left to such devices of desperation, the only form of meagre autonomy left is suicide, that one great act of liberation that throws off the captor and negates the need for their presence. It is the grand act of disruption. “And because liberation is destruction,” suggests Jean Améry, “it finds its most extreme possible confirmation in voluntary death.”[1] With, of course, the questionable point to what extent one remains in a voluntary state when confined in such circumstances.

But not even such a possibility could be permitted in a universe where solitary confinement becomes an excessive form of suicide prevention. There is a macabre institutional irony to this, given the fact that solitary confinement goes some way to provide ample encouragement to inmates to take their own lives.

Manning is therefore being incited without the means of being fulfilled. “It is unconscionable,” stated Justin Mazzola, researcher with Amnesty International USA, “that instead of giving her the medical help she needs, the government has put her in solitary confinement.”[2]

As the American Civil Liberties Union has noted, some 73 percent of suicides in incarceration tended to take place in isolation cells.[3] Adding to this grotesque figure is how many prisoners are held in what has been termed “restricted housing”, including a range of penal restrictions such as “administrative segregation, disciplinary segregation and protective custody”. The one thread that unites all is a heavy emphasis on social isolation.

The effort on the part of Manning to take her own life was not the only gripe the board had. Manning had been reading some supposedly seditious material – in so far as it was Gabriella Coleman’s Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy. Even in prison, Manning’s diet of cerebral consumption has moved into such areas as Coleman’s discussion of Anonymous, though it was always going to sail close to the wind of legality.

A statement from Manning gave some detail about the treatment. Manning was “acquitted of the ‘Resisting the Force Cell Move team’ charge” but found guilty of the “Conduct Which Threatens” charge. “This charge,” she clarifies, “was for the suicide attempt.”[4] Such an attempt, so went the charge, threatened the “orderly running, safety, good order and discipline or security” of the facility.

Having Coleman’s book in her possession amounted to being a breach of the “Prohibited Property” injunction, given that it was an unmarked copy. Even within cells, the threat of literature remains ominous and pressing, necessitating such actions as “disciplinary segregation”.

Manning has engaged in a range of actions that have further transmuted her actions into those of a political dissident. A five day hunger strike, oiled by public indignation managed to yield some health care concessions. But the prevailing weapon used by authorities of solitary confinement suggests that degrading the human spirit remains the acme of the US prison system.

That particular point of degradation is fundamentally spiritual and mental. As the US Supreme Court noted in supposedly less enlightened times in the case of In re Medley, 134 US 160, 168 (1890), such prisoners “fell, after even a short confinement, into a semi-fatuous condition, from which it was next to impossible to arouse them” while others became “violently insane” or took their own lives.

Most strikingly, such solitary punishment could hardly ever be said to reform a person, sabotaging personality and being. It could hardly ever have any relevance for Manning, whose conscience remains unhampered by the assaults. There was, in short, never anything to reform to begin with.

Far from enabling a person to enter a world after such an ordeal, such a cruel state, according to the Supreme Court, would have produced a defective of low “mental activity” incapable of providing service to the community. Manning’s supporters can only hope that such a state of mind has yet to be reached.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Suicide-Discourse-Voluntary-Death/dp/0253335639

[2] http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/press-releases/chelsea-manning-punishment-for-suicide-attempt-is-cruel-and-inhumane

[3] https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/stop_solitary_briefing_paper_updated_august_2014.pdf

[4] http://tumblr.fightforthefuture.org/post/150813426803/breaking-prison-disciplinary-board-decides-to

26 September 2016

 

By Colin Todhunter

There has been an adverse trend in the food and agriculture sector in recent times with the control of seeds and chemical inputs being consolidated through various proposed mergers. If these mergers go through, it would mean that three companies would dominate the commercial agricultural seeds and chemicals sector. Over the past couple of decades, there has already been a restriction of choice with the squeezing out of competitors, resulting in higher costs for farmers, who are increasingly reliant on corporate seeds (and their chemical inputs).

Big agribusiness players like Monsanto rely on massive taxpayer handouts to keep their business models on track; highly profitable models that have immense social, health and environmental costs to be paid for by the public. Across the globe healthy, sustainable agriculture has been uprooted and transformed to suit the profit margins of transnational agribusiness concerns. The major players in the global agribusiness sector fuel a geo-politicised, globalised system of food production that result in numerous negative outcomes for both farmers and consumers alike (listed here: 4th paragraph from the end).

Aside from the domination of the market being a cause for concern, we should also be worried about a food system controlled by companies that have a history (see this and this) of releasing health-damaging, environmentally polluting products onto the market and engaging in activities that might be considered as constituting crimes against humanity. If we continue to hand over the control of society’s most important infrastructure – food and agriculture – to these wealthy private interests, what will the future look like?

There is no need to engage in idle speculation. Foods based on CRISPR (a gene-editing technology for which Monsanto has just acquired a non-exclusive global licensing agreement for use) and synthetic biology are already entering the market without regulation or proper health or environmental assessments. And we can expect many more unregulated GM technologies to influence the nature of our food and flood the commercial market.

Despite nice sounding rhetoric by company spokespersons about the humanitarian motives behind these endeavours, the bottom line is patents and profit. And despite nice sounding rhetoric about the precision of the techniques involved, these technologies pose health and environmental risks. Moreover, CRIPRS technology could be used to create genes drives and terminator seed traits tools could be used for unscrupulous political and commercial ends.

There could well be severe social and economic consequences too. The impacts of synthetic biology (another sector dominated by a handful of private interests) on farmers in the Global South could result in a bio-economy of landlessness and hunger. Readers are urged to read this report which outlines the effects on farming, farmers and rural economies: synthetic biology has the potential to undermine livelihoods and would mean a shift to narrower range of export-oriented mono-cropping to produce biomass for synbio processes that place stress on water resources and food security in the exporting countries.

Aside from these social, health and environmental implications, can we trust private entities like Monsanto (or Bayer) to use these powerful (potentially bio-weapon) technologies responsibly? Given Monsanto’s long history of cover-ups and duplicity, trust took the last train out a long time ago. Moreover, the legalities of existing frameworks appear to mean little to certain companies: see here what Vandana Shiva says about the illegality of Monsanto’s enterprise in India. National laws that exist to protect the public interest are little more than mere hurdles to be got around by lobbyists, lawyers and political pressure. So what can be done?

Agroecology is a force for grass-root rural change that would be independent from the cartel of powerful biotech/agribusiness companies. This model of agriculture is already providing real solutions for sustainable, productive agriculture that prioritises the needs of farmers and consumers. It represents an alternative to corporate-controlled agriculture.

However, as much as people and communities strive to become independent from unscrupulous corporate concerns and as much as localised food systems try to extricate themselves from the impacts of rigged global trade and markets, there also has to be a concerted effort to roll back corporate power and challenge what it is doing to our food. These corporations will not just go away because people eat organic or choose agroecology.

The extremely wealthy interests behind these corporations do their level best to displace or dismantle alternative models of production – whether agroecology, organic, public sector agriculture systems or anything that exists independently from them – and replace them with ones that serve their needs. Look no further than attempts attempts to undermine indigenous edible oils processing in India, for instance. Look no further than the ‘mustard seed crisis‘ in India in 1998. Or look no further than how transnational biotech helped fuel and then benefit from the destruction of Ethiopia’s traditional agrarian economy.

Whether it’s on the back of US-backed coups (Ukraine), military conflicts (Iraq), ‘structural adjustment’ (Africa) or slanted trade deals (India), transnational agribusiness is driving a global agenda to suit its interests and eradicate impediments to profit.

To underline this point, let’s turn to what Michel Chossudovsky says in his 1997 book ‘The Globalization of Poverty’. He argues that economies are:

“opened up through the concurrent displacement of a pre-existing productive system. Small and medium-sized enterprises are pushed into bankruptcy or obliged to produce for a global distributor, state enterprises are privatised or closed down, independent agricultural producers are impoverished.” (p.16)

Increasing profit and shareholder dividends are the bottom line. And it doesn’t matter how much devastation ensues or how unsustainable their business model is, ‘crisis management’ and ‘innovation’ fuel the corporate-controlled treadmill they seek to impose.

As long as the domination of the food system by powerful private interests is regarded as legitimate and as long as their hijack of governments, trade bodies and trade deals, regulatory agencies and universities is deemed normal or is unchallenged in the sham ‘liberal democracies’ they operate within, we are destined for a future of more contaminated food, ill health, degraded environments and an agriculture displaced and uprooted for the benefit of self-interest.

The problems associated with the food system cannot be dealt with on a single-issue basis: it is not just about the labelling of GM foods; it’s not just about the impacts of Monsanto’s Roundup; it’s not just about Monsanto (or Bayer) as a company; and it’s not just about engaging in endless debates with corporate shills about the science of GMOs.

Despite the promise of the Green Revolution, hundreds of millions still go to bed hungry, food has become denutrified, functioning rural economies have been destroyed, diseases have spiked in correlation with the increase in use of pesticides and GMOs, soil has been eroded or degraded, diets are less diverse, global food security has been undermined and access to food is determined by manipulated international markets and speculation – not supply and demand.

Food and agriculture have become wedded to power structures that have created food surplus and food deficit areas and have restructured indigenous agriculture across the world and tied it to an international system of trade based on export-oriented mono-cropping, commodity production for a manipulated and volatile international market and indebtedness to international financial institutions.

The problem is the system of international capitalism that is driving a globalised system of bad food and poor health, the destruction of healthy, sustainable agriculture and systemic, half-baked attack on both groups and individuals who oppose these processes.

At the very least, there should be full public control over all GMO/synthetic biology production and research. And if we are serious about reining in the power of profiteering corporations over food – our most basic and essential infrastructure – they should be placed under democratic ownership and control.

In finishing, let us turn to Ghiselle Karim who at the end of her insightful article says:

“… we demand that it is our basic human right to protect our food supply… [food] would be planned to meet human need, not corporate greed. We have hunger not because there is not enough food, but rather because it is not distributed equally. The core of the problem is not a shortage of food, but capitalism!”

Colin Todhunter is an independent writer

26 September 2016

By Franklin Lamb

Shatila Palestinian Refugee camp, Beirut: The intense summer heat was gone and the evening was breezy and cool that fateful Thursday evening, September 15, 1982, according to survivors of the Sabra-Shatila Massacre who, 34 years later, still remember and recount many details of the slaughter that was soon to follow.

It was following the 9/14/1982 assassination of President-elect BachirGemayel, leader of the Lebanese Forces militia and senior Kataeb Party official, that Israeli forces closed in with their tanks and blockaded the Shatila refugee camp and the adjacent Sabra neighborhood. By prearrangement with their Christian phalange allies, the Israeli invaders led the Kataeb affiliated Phalange militia from Beirut airport north two miles to inside the camp, in violation of their agreement with the US Reagan administration.

The militia’s intent was to slaughter Palestinians but anyone they encountered including some Lebanese among others, became targets. What followed were nearly three days of slaughter , rape and dismemberment of the civilian population, men, women and children as the Christian militia penetrated the camp and conducted a frenzied, partly drug fueled, killing spree slaughtering an estimated 1, 800 to 3,500. The carnage was aided by Israeli forces that surrounded Shatila, lighted the night sky with flares turning the night into day, provided heavy equipment to bury and hide bodies, communicated with the Phalange terrorists and blocked camp residents from fleeing Shatila during the carnage while ushering reinforcement killer militia inside.

Neither the Israeli organizers-facilitators nor their Lebanese designates were ever held accountable. The latter’s amnesty was assured by the political and moral corruption among the increasingly polarized sects in Lebanon. This fact transformed the killers and ‘warlords’ into “political lords”, several of whom still hold political “leadership” positions with a couple vying to be Lebanon’s next President. Their past crimes seemingly long forgotten.

In Lebanon’s 12 camps, among the Shatila Massacre victims family and community who along with international supporters, relive and re-examine the decades old massacre annually at Shatila’s Martyr’s Cemetery, there is increasing Despondency, Cynicism, and Determination.

Palestinian families marching and remembering their loved ones murdered 34 years ago at Shatila camp, Beirut. Photo: Franklin Lamb

Despondency over the fact that Palestinians here in Lebanon and elsewhere are still awaiting justice, as SaebErekat, the Secretary General of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) reminded the UN Security Council last weekend.

Despondency over the fact that the government of Lebanon continues to outlaw the elementary civil rights to work or to own a home. Both fundamental human rights which by international law are granted to refugees in every country, except Lebanon which continues to flaunt its obligations under binding Treaty and Customary International Law.

Sixty eight years after the 1948 Nakba and 49 years after the June 5, 1967 Naksa forced more than 100,000 Palestinians fleeing for their lives to seek refugee across the nearest border to their Zionist targeted homes and to enter Lebanon, despondency deepens. Refugees who crossed over from north Palestine into Syria were immediately granted full refugee rights but no civil rights still for Palestinians in Lebanon.

A monument to the victims of the September 15-18 1982 massacre at Sabra-Shatila. Photo: Franklin Lamb 9/19/2016

Despondency over the fact that in their camps nearly every indicia of social well-being, including but not limited to, health care, social development, education, housing, security, and ability to earn money and care for their families, continue an accelerating downward spiral toward an abyss and with no reversal in sight.

Armed Clashes in Ain el­Hilweh camp, the largest in Lebanon and located 40 miles south of Beirut, between Fatah and an Islamist group led by Bilal Badr are continuing as of 9/22/2016 with other groups also fighting intermittently. One cause of the increased violence is the outlawing of the right to work and other civil rights which continue to be blocked by Lebanon’s Parliament. Despondency over the sounds of machine guns, bombs and rocket propelled grenades near a vegetable market and the camp’s al Fawqani Street where a taxi driver was murdered a few days ago, just as children started the school year. For two days this week, camp residents held a general strike in Ain al Hilweh to protest the recurrent killings. Violence is also on the increase in Lebanon’s other 11 Palestinian camps. Tensions fueled again by being deprived of the civil right to work and to own a home and feelings of general hopelessness over lack of opportunities among the despondent youth.

Nearly three and one half decades since the 1982 Massacre, Cynicism is also widespread and growing among Lebanon’s Palestinians. With good reason. Few if any Palestinians this observer knows in Lebanon or Syria, have much confidence in the current leadership of the PLO. Or in politicians in the region, Arabs, Iranians, Turks or others, who continue to babble “Resistance” rhetoric while they collaborate with right wing anti-Palestinian officials in blocking Palestinian rights in Lebanon. Simultaneously with their varying political posturing while playing the “Palestinian Card.”

Thirty-four years after the Sabra-Shatila Massacre, and ten years after the 2006 “Devine Victory” of the Lebanese “Resistance”, Cynicism is spreading. Hezbollah is now also openly criticized, even among a growing number of Shia, for playing the “Palestinian Card” while doing little if anything for the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.

One hears in the camps increasingly comments like these chronicled by two Palestinian Arab University students from Burj al Barajneh camp in south Beirut.

“What has the Resistance ever done for Palestinians in Lebanon’s 12 camps?”

“Resistance” begins at home by helping rebuild camp infrastructure not by attacking Yarmouk and other Palestinian camps in Syria or by besieging, starving, blocking humanitarian aid or killing Palestinian in Syria.”

“The road to Al Quds is south and direct, it does not wind all over Syria.”

“After May of 2000 when the Israeli were forced from Lebanon, we were grateful to Hezbollah and Hassan Nasrallah was much admired. Also in 2006 despite 1.300 civilian casualties. That respect and support has eroded due to

“Resistance” projects in Syria.”

“Few Palestinians or Syrians support the “Resistance” as they did before it invaded Syria.”

“The “Resistance” has killed more Palestinians in Syria during the past five years than the Zionists have killed Palestinians over the past 68 years since the Nakba. What kind of “Palestinian Resistance” is this?”

Some of these strong comments may not be agreed to by many, but one way the “Resistance ” can help Palestinians in Lebanon regain confidence is if Hezbollah will take 90 minutes in Parliament, 60 minutes to grant Palestinian refugees in Lebanon the same elementary civil right to work that every other “Resistance” movement and country grants refugees.

Hezbollah can then use the remaining 30 minutes in Parliament to repeal the racist 2001 law that forbids any Palestinian from owning a home outside one of Lebanon’s squalid and deteriorating camps. Resistance actions speak louder than just Resistance words. Ninety minutes and the political will to push Parliament will unblock the elementary civil rights to work and to own a home for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. It is all that Palestinians in Lebanon ask of Hezbollah to be true to their cause.

Against this backdrop of Despondency and Cynicism one feels in the camps also a remarkable Determination to Return to Palestine. This observer observes a similar determination among a newer influx of refugees in Lebanon, those from Syria.

Virtually every Syrian refugee I have encountered in Lebanon or elsewhere wants one thing. For the civil war in their country to end so that they can return to beloved Syria. The Lebanese politicians who regularly bleat about the Palestinian and Syrian refugees taking over this sinking country hide from their supporters the fact that few if any of these refugees-Syrian or Palestinian- want to remain in Lebanon one day longer than absolutely necessary.

As part of a deepening Determination to Return, a third Intifada is increasingly being discussed. But it will likely not be confined to occupied Palestinian territory but rather will involve many of the 4 million Palestinians in the Diaspora and well as their growing number of international supporters. It will be led by Palestinians themselves not the Arabs or international community who have mouthed some slogans and nodded but have done little if anything at all to advance Full Return.

Thirty four years after the 1982 Massacre at Sabra-Shatila, the dream of Return to Palestine endures, and the struggle for Full Return shall never die. Not until the victims of 34 years ago in Beirut, and all Palestinians martyred before and after the 1948 Nakba receive posthumous justice. Determination among Palestinians in Lebanon to Return exceeds their Despondency and Cynicism caused by injustice. And it gives rise to hope for a better future.

Franklin Lamb volunteers with the Lebanon, France, and USA based Meals for Syrian Refugee Children Lebanon (MSRCL) which seeks to provide hot nutritional meals to Syrian and other refugee children in Lebanon.http://mealsforsyrianrefugeechildrenlebanon.com. He is reachable c/o fplamb@gmail.com.

24 September 2016

By Rene Wadlow

On 19 September 2016, the UN General Assembly held a one-day Summit on « Addressing Large Movements o Refugees and Migrants » – a complex of issues which have become important and emotional issues in many countries. Restrictive migration policies deny many migrants the possibility of acquiring a regular migrant status, and as a result, the migrants end up being in an irregular or undocumented situation in the receiving country and can be exposed to exploitation and serious violations of human rights.

Citizens of the world have been actively concerned with the issues of migrants, refugees, the « stateless » and those displaced by armed conflcts within their own country. Thus we welcome the spirit of the Summit Declaration with its emphasis on cooperative action, a humane sense of sharing the responsibilities for refugees and migrants and on seeking root causes of migration and refugee flows. There are three issues mentioned in the Summit Declaration which merit follow up action among the UN Secretariat, world citizens and other non-governmental organizations :

1) The migration of youth ;

2) The strong link between migration, refugee flows, and improving the structures for the resolution of armed conflicts ;

3) Developing furher cooperation among non-governmental organizations for the protection and integration of refugees and migrants.

The Migration of Youth

Youth leave their country of birth to seek a better life and also to escape war, poverty, and misfortune. We should add to an analysis of trans-frontier youth migration a very large numbe of youth who leave their home villages to migrate toward cities within their own country. Without accurate informaion and analysis of both internal and trans-frontier migration of youth, it is difficult to develop appropiate policies for employment, housing, education and health care of young migrants and refugees. It is estimated that there are some 10 million refugee children, and most are not in school.

Studies have noted an increasing feminization of trans-frontier migration in which the female migrant moves abroad as a wage earner, especially as a domestic worker rather than as an accompannying family member. Migrant domestic workers are often exposed to abuse, exploitation and discrimination based on gender, ethnicity and occupation. Domestic workers are often underpaid, their working conditions poor and sometimes dangerous. Their bargaining power is severly limited. Thus, there is a need to develop legally enforeable contracts of employment, setting out minimum wages, maximum hours of work and responsibilities ;

The Association of World Citizens recommends that there be in the follow ups to the Summit, a special focus on youth, their needs as well as possibilities for positive actions by youth.

The strong link between migration, refugee flows, and improving the structures for the resolution of armed conflicts

The United Nations General Assembly which follows immediately the Migration-Refugee Summit is facing the need for action on a large number of armed conflicts in which Member States are involved. In some of these conflicts the United Nations has provided mediators ; in others, UN peace-keepes are present. In nearly all these armed conflicts, there have been internally-displaced persons as well as trans-frontier refugees. Therefore there is an urgent need to review the linkages between armed conflict and refugee flows. There needs to be a realistic examination as to why some of these armed conflicts have lasted as long as they have and why negotiations in good faith have not been undertaken or have not led to the resolution of these armed conflicts. Such reflections must aim at improvements of structures and procedures.

Developing further cooperation among non-governmental organizations for the protection and integration of refugees and migrants

We welcome the emphasis in the Summit Declaratin on the important role that non-governmental organizations play in providing direct services to refugees and migrants. NGOs also lobby government authorities on migration legislation and develop public awareness campaigns. The Summit has stressed the need to focus on future policies taking into account climate change and the growing globalization of trade, finance, and economic activities. Thus, there needs to be strong cooperation among the UN and its Agencies, national governments, and NGOs to deal more adequately with current challenges and to plan for the future. Inclusive structures for such cooperation are needed.

Rene Wadlow is the President of the Association of World Citizens, an international peace organization with consultative status with ECOSOC, the United Nations organ facilitating international cooperation on and problem-solving in economic and social issues.

24 September 2016

By Robert Fisk

What, the Saudis must be asking themselves, has happened to the fawning leaders who would normally grovel to the Kingdom?

The Saudis step deeper into trouble almost by the week. Swamped in their ridiculous war in Yemen, they are now reeling from an extraordinary statement issued by around two hundred Sunni Muslim clerics who effectively referred to the Wahhabi belief – practiced in Saudi Arabia – as “a dangerous deformation” of Sunni Islam. The prelates included Egypt’s Grand Imam, Ahmed el-Tayeb of al-Azhar, the most important centre of theological study in the Islamic world, who only a year ago attacked “corrupt interpretations” of religious texts and who has now signed up to “a return to the schools of great knowledge” outside Saudi Arabia.

This remarkable meeting took place in Grozny and was unaccountably ignored by almost every media in the world – except for the former senior associate at St Antony’s College, Sharmine Narwani, and Le Monde’s Benjamin Barthe – but it may prove to be even more dramatic than the terror of Syria’s civil war. For the statement, obviously approved by Vladimir Putin, is as close as Sunni clerics have got to excommunicating the Saudis.

Although they did not mention the Kingdom by name, the declaration was a stunning affront to a country which spends millions of dollars every year on thousands of Wahhabi mosques, schools and clerics around the world.

Wahhabism’s most dangerous deviation, in the eyes of the Sunnis who met in Chechenya, is that it sanctions violence against non-believers, including Muslims who reject Wahhabi interpretation. Isis, al-Qaeda and the Taliban are the principal foreign adherents to this creed outside Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

The Saudis, needless to say, repeatedly insist that they are against all terrorism. Their reaction to the Grozny declaration has been astonishing. “The world is getting ready to burn us,” Adil Al-Kalbani announced. And as Imam of the King Khaled Bin Abdulaziz mosque in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, he should know.

As Narwani points out, the bad news kept on coming. At the start of the five-day Hajj pilgrimage, the Lebanese daily al-Akhbar published online a database which it said came from the Saudi ministry of health, claiming that up 90,000 pilgrims from around the world have died visiting the Hajj capital of Mecca over a 14-year period. Although this figure is officially denied, it is believed in Shia Muslim Iran, which has lost hundreds of its citizens on the Hajj. Among them was Ghazanfar Roknabadi, a former ambassador and intelligence officer in Lebanon. Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has just launched an unprecedented attack on the Saudis, accusing them of murder. “The heartless and murderous Saudis locked up the injured with the dead in containers…” he said in his own Hajj message.

A Saudi official said Khameni’s accusations reflected a “new low”. Abdulmohsen Alyas, the Saudi undersecretary for international communications, said they were “unfounded, but also timed to only serve their unethical failing propaganda”.

Yet the Iranians have boycotted the Hajj this year (not surprisingly, one might add) after claiming that they have not received Saudi assurances of basic security for pilgrims. According to Khamenei, Saudi rulers “have plunged the world of Islam into civil wars”.

However exaggerated his words, one thing is clear: for the first time, ever, the Saudis have been assaulted by both Sunni and Shia leaders at almost the same time.

The presence in Grozny of Grand Imam al-Tayeb of Egypt was particularly infuriating for the Saudis who have poured millions of dollars into the Egyptian economy since Brigadier-General-President al-Sissi staged his doleful military coup more than three years ago.

What, the Saudis must be asking themselves, has happened to the fawning leaders who would normally grovel to the Kingdom?

“In 2010, Saudi Arabia was crossing borders peacefully as a power-broker, working with Iran, Syria, Turkey, Qatar and others to troubleshoot in regional hotspots,” Narwani writes. “By 2016, it had buried two kings, shrugged off a measured approach to foreign policy, embraced ‘takfiri’ madness and emptied its coffers.” A “takfiri” is a Sunni who accuses another Muslim (or Christian or Jew) of apostasy.

Kuwait, Libya, Jordan and Sudan were present in Grozny, along with – you guessed it – Ahmed Hassoun, the grand mufti of Syria and a loyal Assad man. Intriguingly, Abu Dhabi played no official role, although its policy of “deradicalisation” is well known throughout the Arab world.

But there are close links between President (and dictator) Ramzan Kadyrov of Chechenya, the official host of the recent conference, and Mohamed Ben Zayed al-Nahyan, the Abu Dhabi Crown Prince. The conference itself was opened by Putin, which shows what he thinks of the Saudis – although, typically, none of the Sunni delegates asked him to stop bombing Syria. But since the very meeting occurred against the backcloth of Isis and its possible defeat, they wouldn’t, would they?

That Chechenya, a country of monstrous bloodletting by Russia and its own Wahhabi rebels, should have been chosen as a venue for such a remarkable conclave was an irony which could not have been lost on the delegates. But the real questions they were discussing must have been equally apparent.

Who are the real representatives of Sunni Muslims if the Saudis are to be shoved aside? And what is the future of Saudi Arabia? Of such questions are revolutions made.

Robert Fisk is the multi-award winning Middle East correspondent of The Independent, based in Beirut.

22 September 2016

By Rajmohan Gandhi

In some ways the game is over in Kashmir Valley. When someone like Tariq Ahmed Karra, one of the PDP founders, resigns from Parliament and party, citing “administratively inhuman and politically unethical blunders”, and likens the government’s repressive methods to those of the Nazis, it is time to realise that rejection of India seems complete in Kashmir.

A de facto plebiscite already seems to have taken place there. Kashmiris appear to have voted with untiring throats, with eyes destroyed or deformed by pellets, and with bodies willing to fall to the ground for what the heart desires. And the vote seems to be for azadi.

At the very least, alienation in Kashmir has reached a new depth. But a de facto plebiscite has also taken place in India, and the vote seems to be against yielding on India’s sovereignty over Kashmir. When leaders of left parties join the rest in insisting that “there can be no compromise” over sovereignty, the door to ambiguity appears closed. As far as Indians are concerned, it would seem that the Tricolour must always fly over Kashmir.

A de facto plebiscite already seems to have taken place there. Kashmiris appear to have voted with untiring throats, with eyes destroyed or deformed by pellets, and with bodies willing to fall to the ground for what the heart desires. And the vote seems to be for azadi. But a de facto plebiscite has also taken place in India, and the vote seems to be against yielding on India’s sovereignty over Kashmir. When leaders of left parties join the rest in insisting that “there can be no compromise” over sovereignty, the door to ambiguity appears closed.

The stalemate will probably continue. Some possibilities can be imagined. Kashmiris may tire. Weeks of closed schools and lost incomes may take their toll. The continuing incarceration of breadwinners may become harder each day to endure. Street demonstrations could peter out. And a new “hero” may emerge who is ready to impose Delhi’s will under a Kashmiri name and declare the return of “normalcy”.

But there is no sign that any return of “normalcy” will last. The probability is that alienation will be nursed quietly until circumstances allow for another round of open defiance. Is it possible that Kashmiris recognise the moral azadi they have won, declare victory and a pause, preserve their livelihoods as also their children’s education, and prepare fresh strategies? In such a case, they might add considerably to their gains.

And if, to the extent possible, Kashmiris conscious of their mental azadi take charge of their villages, localities and institutions — if in running their local institutions, and in protecting their land’s God­given yet greatly endangered environment, they display the solidarity they have shown in defying New Delhi — they would chip away at Indian resistance to their azadi. Is this asking too much of Kashmiris?

Across the Divide

Everyone knows that the number of Indians willing to admit openly that Kashmiris have not themselves chosen to belong to India has been small. But it is growing. Indian voices are finally recognising, perhaps to their shock, that to many Kashmiris, their compatriots ready to be killed for deeds of azadi are heroes in the same way in which Bhagat Singh, Chandra Shekhar Azad and Subhas Chandra Bose are heroes in India.

Very much smaller is the number of Indians willing to say that Kashmiris are entitled, if they so wish, to de jure azadi and a seat at the UN.

And the number of Indians who sincerely think that Kashmiris would lose out under formal azadi is quite large.

But there are other ways in which concerned Indians can help the people of Kashmir. And if at least 80 deaths at the hands of security forces, including of women and children, numerous blindings, a great many serious injuries, and more than 70 continuous shutdown days in the Valley are not enough to stir the Indian conscience, what will?

Concerned Indians can demand an immediate end of pellets as a means of crowd control. They can ask for a detailed, day­to­day updating of civilians and security personnel killed or injured in Kashmir. They can demand the oft-promised but seldom if ever implemented prosecution of military and para­military personnel involved in unwarranted use of lethal arms.

They can ask for at least a beginning of the oft­promoted exercise of demilitarising Kashmir valley. They can circulate as widely as possible reliable reports of nonviolent protests in Kashmir and of excesses in Kashmir by security forces.

And they can underline the folly and unconstitutionality of suppressing freedom of expression and communication, even when the words expressed go against popular or official opinion. As long as they do not commit violence, Kashmiris surely have the freedom, under Indian and international law, to criticise policies, and even to ask for azadi, and and to talk to one another about it. When it disables a population’s phone and internet communications, an administration not only broadcasts its unpopularity; it prevents the flow of discussion and debate that may ultimately lead to solutions. Such blocking measures moreover suggest that a people as a whole, and not merely law-breakers, are the targets of official distrust, a posture that once defined imperial rule. What must never be allowed is the blocking of communication between concerned Kashmiris and concerned Indians. Our economy is single, our lives are interdependent. Kashmiris study, trade and live in different corners of India. Provided it remains honest and mutually respectful, interaction between common people across the divide can only help.

The Article First Appeared In THE ECONOMIC TIMES
19 September 2016