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By William D Hartung

When American firms dominate a global market worth more than $70 billion a year, you’d expect to hear about it. Not so with the global arms trade. It’s good for one or two stories a year in the mainstream media, usually when the annual statistics on the state of the business come out.

It’s not that no one writes about aspects of the arms trade. There are occasional pieces that, for example, take note of the impact of U.S. weapons transfers, including cluster bombs, to Saudi Arabia, or of the disastrous dispensation of weaponry to U.S. allies in Syria, or of foreign sales of the costly, controversial F-35 combat aircraft. And once in a while, if a foreign leader meets with the president, U.S. arms sales to his or her country might generate an article or two. But the sheer size of the American arms trade, the politics that drive it, the companies that profit from it, and its devastating global impacts are rarely discussed, much less analyzed in any depth.

So here’s a question that’s puzzled me for years (and I’m something of an arms wonk): Why do other major U.S. exports — from Hollywood movies to Midwestern grain shipments to Boeing airliners — garner regular coverage while trends in weapons exports remain in relative obscurity? Are we ashamed of standing essentially alone as the world’s number one arms dealer, or is our Weapons “R” Us role such a commonplace that we take it for granted, like death or taxes?

The numbers should stagger anyone. According to the latest figures available from the Congressional Research Service, the United States was credited with more than half the value of all global arms transfer agreements in 2014, the most recent year for which full statistics are available. At 14%, the world’s second largest supplier, Russia, lagged far behind. Washington’s “leadership” in this field has never truly been challenged. The U.S. share has fluctuated between one-third and one-half of the global market for the past two decades, peaking at an almost monopolistic 70% of all weapons sold in 2011. And the gold rush continues. Vice Admiral Joe Rixey, who heads the Pentagon’s arms sales agency, euphemistically known as the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, estimates that arms deals facilitated by the Pentagon topped $46 billion in 2015, and are on track to hit $40 billion in 2016.

To be completely accurate, there is one group of people who pay remarkably close attention to these trends — executives of the defense contractors that are cashing in on this growth market. With the Pentagon and related agencies taking in “only” about $600 billion a year — high by historical standards but tens of billions of dollars less than hoped for by the defense industry — companies like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and General Dynamics have been looking to global markets as their major source of new revenue.

In a January 2015 investor call, for example, Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson was asked whether the Iran nuclear deal brokered by the Obama administration and five other powers might reduce tensions in the Middle East, undermining the company’s strategy of increasing its arms exports to the region. She responded that continuing “volatility” in both the Middle East and Asia would make them “growth areas” for the foreseeable future. In other words, no worries. As long as the world stays at war or on the verge of it, Lockheed Martin’s profits won’t suffer — and, of course, its products will help ensure that any such “volatility” will prove lethal indeed.

Under Hewson, Lockheed has set a goal of getting at least 25% of its revenues from weapons exports, and Boeing has done that company one better. It’s seeking to make overseas arms sales 30% of its business.

Good News From the Middle East (If You’re an Arms Maker)

Arms deals are a way of life in Washington. From the president on down, significant parts of the government are intent on ensuring that American arms will flood the global market and companies like Lockheed and Boeing will live the good life. From the president on his trips abroad to visit allied world leaders to the secretaries of state and defense to the staffs of U.S. embassies, American officials regularly act as salespeople for the arms firms. And the Pentagon is their enabler. From brokering, facilitating, and literally banking the money from arms deals to transferring weapons to favored allies on the taxpayers’ dime, it is in essence the world’s largest arms dealer.

In a typical sale, the U.S. government is involved every step of the way. The Pentagon often does assessments of an allied nation’s armed forces in order to tell them what they “need” — and of course what they always need is billions of dollars in new U.S.-supplied equipment. Then the Pentagon helps negotiate the terms of the deal, notifies Congress of its details, and collects the funds from the foreign buyer, which it then gives to the U.S. supplier in the form of a defense contract. In most deals, the Pentagon is also the point of contact for maintenance and spare parts for any U.S.-supplied system. The bureaucracy that helps make all of this happen, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, is funded from a 3.5% surcharge on the deals it negotiates. This gives it all the more incentive to sell, sell, sell.

And the pressure for yet more of the same is always intense, in part because the weapons makers are careful to spread their production facilities to as many states and localities as possible. In this way, they ensure that endless support for government promotion of major arms sales becomes part and parcel of domestic politics.

General Dynamics, for instance, has managed to keep its tank plants in Ohio and Michigan running through a combination of add-ons to the Army budget — funds inserted into that budget by Congress even though the Pentagon didn’t request them — and exports to Saudi Arabia. Boeing is banking on a proposed deal to sell 40 F-18s to Kuwait to keep its St. Louis production line open, and is currently jousting with the Obama administration to get it to move more quickly on the deal. Not surprisingly, members of Congress and local business leaders in such states become strong supporters of weapons exports.

Though seldom thought of this way, the U.S. political system is also a global arms distribution system of the first order. In this context, the Obama administration has proven itself a good friend to arms exporting firms. During President Obama’s first six years in office, Washington entered into agreements to sell more than $190 billion in weaponry worldwide — more, that is, than any U.S. administration since World War II. In addition, Team Obama has loosened restrictions on arms exports, making it possible to send abroad a whole new range of weapons and weapons components — including Black Hawk and Huey helicopters and engines for C-17 transport planes — with far less scrutiny than was previously required.

This has been good news for the industry, which had been pressing for such changes for decades with little success. But the weaker regulations also make it potentially easier for arms smugglers and human rights abusers to get their hands on U.S. arms. For example, 36 U.S. allies — from Argentina and Bulgaria to Romania and Turkey — will no longer need licenses from the State Department to import weapons and weapons parts from the United States. This will make it far easier for smuggling networks to set up front companies in such countries and get U.S. arms and arms components that they can then pass on to third parties like Iran or China. Already a common practice, it will only increase under the new regulations.

The degree to which the Obama administration has been willing to bend over backward to help weapons exporters was underscored at a 2013 hearing on those administration export “reforms.” Tom Kelly, then the deputy assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, caught the spirit of the era when asked whether the administration was doing enough to promote American arms exports. He responded:

“[We are] advocating on behalf of our companies and doing everything we can to make sure that these sales go through… and that is something we are doing every day, basically [on] every continent in the world… and we’re constantly thinking of how we can do better.”

One place where, with a helping hand from the Obama administration and the Pentagon, the arms industry has been doing a lot better of late is the Middle East. Washington has brokered deals for more than $50 billion in weapons sales to Saudi Arabia alone for everything from F-15 fighter aircraft and Apache attack helicopters to combat ships and missile defense systems.

The most damaging deals, if not the most lucrative, have been the sales of bombs and missiles to the Saudis for their brutal war in Yemen, where thousands of civilians have been killed and millions of people are going hungry. Members of Congress like Michigan Representative John Conyers and Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy have pressed for legislation that would at least stem the flow of the most deadly of the weaponry being sent for use there, but they have yet to overcome the considerable clout of the Saudis in Washington (and, of course, that of the arms industry as well).

When it comes to the arms business, however, there’s no end to the good news from the Middle East. Take the administration’s proposed new 10-year aid deal with Israel. If enacted as currently planned, it would boost U.S. military assistance to that country by up to 25% — to roughly $4 billion per year. At the same time, it would phase out a provision that had allowed Israel to spend one-quarter of Washington’s aid developing its own defense industry. In other words, all that money, the full $4 billion in taxpayer dollars, will now flow directly into the coffers of companies like Lockheed Martin, which is in the midst of completing a multi-billion-dollar deal to sell the Israelis F-35s.

“Volatility” in Asia and Europe

As Lockheed Martin’s Marillyn Hewson noted, however, the Middle East is hardly the only growth area for that firm or others like it. The dispute between China and its neighbors over the control of the South China Sea (which is in many ways an incipient conflict over whether that country or the United States will control that part of the Pacific Ocean) has opened up new vistas when it comes to the sale of American warships and other military equipment to Washington’s East Asian allies. The recent Hague court decision rejecting Chinese claims to those waters (and the Chinese rejection of it) is only likely to increase the pace of arms buying in the region.

At the same time, in the good-news-never-ends department, growing fears of North Korea’s nuclear program have stoked a demand for U.S.-supplied missile defense systems. The South Koreans have, in fact, just agreed to deploy Lockheed Martin’s THAAD anti-missile system. In addition, the Obama administration’s decision to end the longstanding embargo on U.S. arms sales to Vietnam is likely to open yet another significant market for U.S. firms. In the past two years alone, the U.S. has offered more than $15 billion worth of weaponry to allies in East Asia, with Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea accounting for the bulk of the sales.

In addition, the Obama administration has gone to great lengths to build a defense relationship with India, a development guaranteed to benefit U.S. arms exporters. Last year, Washington and New Delhi signed a 10-year defense agreement that included pledges of future joint work on aircraft engines and aircraft carrier designs. In these years, the U.S. has made significant inroads into the Indian arms market, which had traditionally been dominated by the Soviet Union and then Russia. Recent deals include a $5.8 billion sale of Boeing C-17 transport aircraft and a $1.4 billion agreement to provide support services related to a planned purchase of Apache attack helicopters.

And don’t forget “volatile” Europe. Great Britain’s recent Brexit vote introduced an uncertainty factor into American arms exports to that country. The United Kingdom has been by far the biggest purchaser of U.S. weapons in Europe of late, with more than $6 billion in deals struck over the past two years alone — more, that is, than the U.S. has sold to all other European countries combined.

The British defense behemoth BAE is Lockheed Martin’s principal foreign partner on the F-35 combat aircraft, which at a projected cost of $1.4 trillion over its lifetime already qualifies as the most expensive weapons program in history. If Brexit-driven austerity were to lead to a delay in, or the cancellation of, the F-35 deal (or any other major weapons shipments), it would be a blow to American arms makers. But count on one thing: were there to be even a hint that this might happen to the F-35, lobbyists for BAE will mobilize to get the deal privileged status, whatever other budget cuts may be in the works.

On the bright side (if you happen to be a weapons maker), any British reductions will certainly be more than offset by opportunities in Eastern and Central Europe, where a new Cold War seems to be gaining traction. Between 2014 and 2015, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, military spending increased by 13% in the region in response to the Russian intervention in Ukraine. The rise in Poland’s outlays, at 22%, was particularly steep.

Under the circumstances, it should be obvious that trends in the global arms trade are a major news story and should be dealt with as such in the country most responsible for putting more weapons of a more powerful nature into the hands of those living in “volatile” regions. It’s a monster business (in every sense of the word) and certainly has far more dangerous consequences than licensing a Hollywood blockbuster or selling another Boeing airliner.

Historically, there have been rare occasions of public protest against unbridled arms trafficking, as with the backlash against “the merchants of death” after World War I, or the controversy over who armed Saddam Hussein that followed the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Even now, small numbers of congressional representatives, including John Conyers, Chris Murphy, and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, continue to try to halt the sale of cluster munitions, bombs, and missiles to Saudi Arabia.

There is, however, unlikely to be a genuine public debate about the value of the arms business and Washington’s place in it if it isn’t even considered a subject worthy of more than an occasional media story. In the meantime, the United States continues to hold onto the number one role in the global arms trade, the White House does its part, the Pentagon greases the wheels, and the dollars roll in to profit-hungry U.S. weapons contractors.

William D Hartung, a TomDispatch regular, is the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy and a senior advisor to the Security Assistance Monitor. He is the author of Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex.

Copyright 2016 William D. Hartung

26 July 2016

By Dr Binoy Kampmark

Collective punishment has a primitive resonance. It lacks focus, is disproportionate, and is, by nature, poor in its judgment. It suggests that responsibility is cultural, total, and institutional, flickering in the moment of vengeance.

At international law, concepts of collective punishment are generally frowned upon. The Geneva Conventions prohibit such measures in, or instance, the implementation of disciplinary measures, or the application of collective penalty “for individual acts” (Geneva POW Convention, Art 46, para 4; Geneva Convention III, Art 87, para 3). The 1977 Additional Protocol I also makes that injunction clear.

Despite such cautionary injunctions, the temptation to exclude in wholesale fashion does crop up from time to time. Those in the business of punishment remain tempted. In the case of the Olympics and the issue of doping, it has found form in voices favouring a ban of Russia for the Rio de Janeiro Games. Much of this had already been given a spur with the finding of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) upholding a ban on the country’s 68 track and field athletes.

The state has been accused largely for adopting what is termed the Disappearing Positive Methodology. Officials were said to have swapped dope-contaminated urine for non-dope equivalents to guarantee a subsequent clean result.[1]

According to Richard McLaren’s World Anti-Doping Agency report, the instigation of that program came from the Russian ministry of sport in 2010 in light of the country’s poor showing at the Winter Olympics at Vancouver. Twenty-eight sports were implicated.

Steroid cocktails ingeniously designed to evade detection were also concocted, much of this taking place under the direction of whistleblower Dr. Grigor Rodchenko as head of the Moscow laboratory. The role of the intelligence services (the FSB), of which Rodchenko admitted to being a member, seemed to the final nail in this widening coffin.

Such findings stirred former WADA head, John Fahey, to insist that the only appropriate measure here was a collective one. If the IOC were to exclude Russia “I think they would be applauded.” Doing so would be a “statement in favour of clean athletes. What is the point of having that sort of sanction if you don’t use it.”[2]

In the case of the doping allegations regarding Russia, athletes who have trained for years risk being deprived a run at the Olympics. Not that a disruption of proceedings at Rio should not be entertained. Having been conceived and practiced as a monument to racial, cultural and political pursuits at stages of its history, the Olympics has never been nobly inclined. Athletes have tended to be hostages to the fortunes of others.

The idea of excluding a country wholesale brings with it dangers that decision makers may well not see. It eliminates specific, untainted talents who also deserve to be protected in international sport. It also violates that great presumption of innocence by pre-emptively judging the conduct of all athletes.

This is not a point that bothers Fahey, who lazily assumes that allowing athletes not affected by a doping program to participate would put “the IOC in a precarious position in terms of its credibility.” It is hard to believe how the IOC could possibly get through such a decision untainted.

The broader issue of creating further fracture within the institutional framework of sport is also very much at the forefront of arguments. Banish Russia, ostensibly to uphold broader Olympic values, which in any case are deeply artificial as they are, is not a grand precedent to emulate. When we are speaking of the Olympic brand, what is meant is never clear. The ideal, for one, has long ceased to be relevant.

Former International Olympic Committee vice president Kevan Gosper, a figure involved in the boycott of the Moscow Olympics in 1980, told ABC News Radio that a return to that move is far from desirable. “I can’t remember anything quite so complicated involving the welfare of athletes, doping, and one of the most important countries – not only political – but in terms of Olympic history.”[3]

There are also structural impediments. The move on the part of the International Association for Sport in June was to expand its powers regarding moves against members in contravention of the anti-doping rules. Deferral to individual sports bodies, in other words, seems to be the accepted norm.

Furthermore, it also suggests that the state in question will have no incentive not to remain rogue. Group punishments can actually negate the incentive to alter, eliminating any deterrent effect. The history of the Olympics, far from being one of harmonious interaction, has been characterised by prejudice, politics and power. Beware, as Gosper notes, making “the wrong move with an important country like Russia”.

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

25 July 2016

 

By AMEC

The recent African Union decision adding a more ‘robust’ peace enforcement component to the current 12 000 strong UN mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) risks further militarising an ostensibly political conflict over resources and patronage. Further, even if implemented, the proposed force will be difficult to sustain in light of the complex and overlapping nature of the conflict and the differing agendas of outside actors. The ‘temporary’ replacement of now former vice president Riek Machar with Taban Deng through an internal coup in the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLMIO) underscores the complexity and fluidity of South Sudanese politics and alliances.

The decision, at the just-concluded AU heads of state summit in Rwanda, follows a proposal by the East African Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) for the AU to request that the UN expands its mission in South Sudan to include peace enforcement modelled on the Force Intervention Brigade (FIB) in eastern Congo. The proposal came in the wake of a collapsing power-sharing agreement between the two main protagonists in South Sudan, President Salva Kiir and Vice-President Riek Machar, in early July when conflict erupted between their security details in Juba.

Since its establishment in 2011, South Sudan has experienced continual conflict; first was the clash imposed on it by its northern neighbour, Sudan, over oil revenue and borders in 2012; more recently – between December 2013 and August 2015 – militia allied to Machar and Kiir clashed. That conflict was halted through a power-sharing agreement reached in August 2015, in terms of which the rivals would retain their prior positions as president and vice president, and would integrate parts of their militia. The deal only came into force in April this year when Machar was restored as vice president and entered Juba with 1 400 troops as part of the pact. The agreement was fraught from inception. It assumed that there were only two belligerents, Kiir and Machar, and failed to integrate other groups such as the Shilluk clan (South Sudan’s third largest tribe after the Dinka and Nuer), and address more localised concerns between tribes over land and revenue distribution. Further, it failed to adequately consider the
roles played by outside forces such as Uganda in propping up Kiir, skewing the balance of forces and disincentivising compliance. Moreover, it failed to adequately consider South Sudan’s fractious history and lack of institutional capacity as engendering a situation wherein securitisation is prioritised and instrumentalised by political actors. Thus, even before the agreement was concluded, Kiir expressed dissatisfaction, arguing that it was a foreign imposition, and because militia loyal to him held the balance of power. Further, no effort was made toward reversing his decision to redraw South Sudan’s provincial borders, increasing the number of provinces from ten to twenty-eight in order to benefit tribes and militias loyal to him. Deng’s power play – possibly engineered by Kiir – changes little because South Sudanese politics is still governed by force, and Deng’s support and influence in this area is less than Machar’s.

The proposed intervention force will be hamstrung by a number of factors. First, distinguishing the main belligerent in an arena wherein there is a multiplicity of groups – often with local grievances – will complicate and stall armed intervention measures. This is especially true in light of Machar’s ‘temporary’ replacement. Will UNMISS distinguish between Machar’s well-armed support and that of Deng, who is even distrusted by Kiir?

Moreover, the brigade is to comprise forces from Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda and Sudan, all with differing interests in the conflict, which currently support different actors, maintain antagonisms toward each other in the quest for sub-regional hegemony, and – in the case of Uganda – has already deployed thousands of troops to support Kiir.

Further, South Sudan’s lack of central institutional governing capacity and fractious nature will complicate territorial handovers and administration efforts. The neutrality of the force will also be questioned, impeding its legitimacy. This is mainly because UNMISS has often coordinated activities with Kiir’s forces, even when these had been accused of being partly responsible for intensifying the most recent conflict. Notably, UNMISS’s mandate included working with Kiir’s government in the pursuit of state building following South Sudan’s independence, and, at the conflict’s inception, the force was outnumbered and outgunned, and forced to rely on the government for its survival.

Last, the global economic slowdown will mean that funding the expansion will be challenging. Already, some EU members have reduced their contributions to peacekeeping missions by over twenty per cent. This is significant, as the brigade will not only comprise a few thousand troops, but will require advanced weaponry and airpower to confront government forces. Even in the DRC, where the FIB has been viewed as a template for the South Sudan mission, problems are currently plaguing the mission.

The AU resolution thus will escalate the militarisation of a complex political matter. A properly enforced arms embargo could contain the situation better, and allow time to conceptualise and implement a more inclusive power-sharing agreement through IGAD, especially since South Sudan is landlocked and reliant on its neighbours, and because the USA and China can pressure the Ugandan and Sudanese governments to comply. Moreover, this would require less funding and be easier to implement. In the meanwhile, conflicts continue in Jonglei, Equatoria and other states, while the international community is fixated on the capital Juba, and on the notion that there are two clearly distinguishable belligerents.

25 July 2016

By Chandra Muzaffar

The response of Malaysian government authorities to the civil suits filed by the US Department of Justice to seize more than US$ 1 billion (RM 4.02 billion) in assets allegedly linked to 1MDB has been a huge disappointment.   Faced with suits that allege massive embezzlement of funds and one of the worst  money laundering scams in history, Cabinet Ministers and the Attorney-General are determined to absolve “ Malaysian Official 1” of any wrongdoing. They are obsessed with preserving, protecting and perpetuating the Prime Minister’s position whatever the costs and consequences.

It is not just the US Attorney-General that has gone public on this shameful attempt to launder perhaps US 3.5 billion (RM 14.07 billion) from a state investment company established ostensibly for the people’s benefit.  Singapore authorities have also seized assets worth S$ 240 million (RM 717.45 million) in an investigation of 1MDB related fund flows for possible money-laundering.  Switzerland is another international financial hub that has begun to take action. 1MDB’s activities between 2009 and 2013 have now been exposed as utterly fraudulent on a global scale.

The government should face up to this reality. As has been proposed by a number of groups and individuals in the last few days, it should set up an independent tribunal comprising men and women of integrity and credibility which will once and for all establish the whole truth about 1MDB and its activities and recommend appropriate action against the wrongdoers. Apart from individuals with legal expertise, the tribunal should also have members with in-depth knowledge of the intricacies of money-laundering and money flows in today’s world. It should consist of both Malaysians and non-Malaysians. Cooperation with relevant agencies in the US, Switzerland, Singapore and other countries would be crucial. The tribunal should also have unhindered access to all those linked directly or indirectly to 1MDB and its affiliates. All the information gathered and analysis undertaken by the Auditor-General, Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), the Central Bank, the Attorney-Gene
ral’s Chambers and the Police in the last few years should be made available to the tribunal.

Prime Minister Najib should not have anything to do with the appointment of the proposed tribunal. Since 1MDB is wholly owned by the Ministry of Finance and he is the Minister of Finance and was also the Chairman of 1MDB’s Board of Advisers, he should keep his distance from the tribunal. Isn’t it also true that right from the outset he was involved in the creation of the company and was, to all intents and purposes, its principal decision-maker? Besides, in the US Department of Justice’s civil suits he is alluded to as ‘Malaysian Official 1’ 36 times.

To give moral ballast to the formation of the tribunal and its work, Najib should in fact relinquish his position as Prime Minister and Minister of Finance until the tribunal presents its findings to the nation. If the tribunal exonerates him, he can always return to his job. I had suggested on 10 July 2015 that to facilitate investigations into 1MDB he should step aside temporarily.   The situation has now become a lot worse.

What if the government does not want to initiate a tribunal and Najib is determined to cling on to power? The people could through their members of Parliament try to persuade the Speaker to hold an emergency session of Parliament.  Both the proposal on a tribunal and the position of Najib could be resolved through a parliamentary vote. But for the vote to reflect the feelings of the people, the whip should be lifted and members on both sides of the House should be encouraged to vote according to their conscience.

If Parliament fails to act, one hopes the Conference of Rulers which had already expressed its profound concern over 1MDB in October 2015, will assume its moral responsibility to the nation and advice the Cabinet to do what is right on both the tribunal and the Prime Minister. The Rulers’ advice will carry much weight.

The Rulers one hopes will also impress upon everyone that resolving the 1MDB debacle is the nation’s top priority at this point in time. It is a moral issue of tremendous significance and should not be marginalised through inter-party, inter-personal politics and the desire to retain or to attain power. The 1MDB issue is not about ousting or hoisting anyone.

Similarly, legitimate concerns about Daesh terrorism and security should not be manipulated to divert attention from 1MDB. The people should not allow “a security situation” to be created which is then used to suppress the truth about 1MDB. There are many instances in history when the elite’s fear of being exposed for corruption or abuse of power has led to the victimisation of justice and the curtailment of freedom. In this regard, those who are dedicated to espousing integrity through demonstrations and the like must always be cognisant of the danger of their protest being hijacked by others with their own mischievous agenda.

Instead of demonstrating, it is much more important at this stage for more and more groups to speak up. If the voices of concern reach a crescendo, the powers-that-be will not be able to ignore their plea for truth and justice. The alternative media today offer unfettered channels of communication which have not been utilised to the fullest.

A sector of society that has yet to add its moral strength (there have been some isolated voices here and there) to the struggle for accountability and transparency on 1MDB are established religious personalities from the different faiths. They don’t have to be told that at its root 1MDB is about values that lie at the core of religion, values such as honesty, truthfulness and trustworthiness. This is why Muslim, Buddhist, Confucianist, Hindu and Christian theologians should take a stand now for what is at stake is the moral character of the nation itself and its future. Is it so difficult to uphold what is right and denounce what is wrong?

Dr. Chandra Muzaffar.

Kuala Lumpur.

25 July 2016.

By Gerald A. Perreira

Republican, Newt Gingrich, long known for his fascistic views, recently declared that “Western Civilization is in a war”.  Truth be told, he is on solid ground.  Indeed, Western Civilization is in a war, a war that has been raging since its inception.  It has been at war with itself and with the entire non-European world for centuries. Long before anyone heard of Jihadists, Al-Qaeda and ISIL, Western Civilization was at war. Long before Osama Bin Ladin in Afghanistan, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Muammar Qaddafi in Libya or Bashar al Assad in Syria, Western Civilization was at war with the entire rest of the world.   Western Civilization has mastered the art and technology of warfare. They are the quintessential warlords, despite the fact that they love to attribute this term to non-European leaders, especially Africans. There is no civilization on the face of this earth that has waged war more relentlessly and permanently than Western Civilization – this is not opinion, it is an indisputable historical fact.

European Tribal Wars

Newt Gingrich and his kind need to be reminded of the Hundred-Year’s War (1337 – 1453). This was a European tribal war primarily between the French and the English, with various other European tribes supporting either side. The Hundred Years War claimed the lives of an estimated 3.5 million people. Then there was the Thirty Year’s War (1618 – 1848) involving the majority of European nations. Military historians estimate the death-toll to be at least 8 million. Then we had the two great European tribal wars, erroneously referred to as World War 1 and World War 2, in which the colonized were roped in to fighting alongside the various North Atlantic Tribes.  Sadly today, many of us are still fighting on the side of the various North Atlantic Tribes to further the aims of Empire and in the process subjugate and destroy our own peoples. So-called World War 1 claimed the lives of 38 million people, while the other so-called World War – one of Europe’s most genocidal tribal wars left more than 60 million dead.

The West turns on the Rest

After bleeding themselves for centuries, and committing genocide on their own people, they turned on the Indigenous peoples throughout the world committing an unprecedented act of genocide, and then instigated the horrific Trans-Atlantic trade in captured Africans, resulting in the death of untold millions of Africans. This was a war like no other – a war that is still raging on the streets of every town and city in modern day USA, where the descendants of those captured Africans are routinely gunned down by the police in the streets. This year alone, US police have killed at least 136 Africans, Alton Sterling and Philando Castile being the latest victims.  In 2012, the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement released a report titled: Operation Ghetto Storm in which they documented the fact that every 28 hours in 2012 someone employed or protected by the US government killed a Black man, woman or child. This is none other than a war being waged by white corporate America and its racist institutions on the poor and disenfranchised. Following the fatal shooting of 5 police officers in Dallas, Texas on July 7th, President Obama had this to say: “there’s been a vicious, calculated and despicable attack on law enforcement… I believe that I speak for every single American when I say that we are horrified over these events, and that we stand united with people and the police department in Dallas.”

Despite the fact that many of the Africans shot by police in the US have been executed at point blank range, and that a recent victim, Tamir Rice was only 12 years old when he was shot to death in a playground, no US president, including Obama, has ever spoken about the killing of Africans in America in this tone, using appropriately harsh words.

And when 3 more police officers were shot and killed in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on July 17th, President Obama had this to say:
“I condemn, in the strongest sense of the word, the attack on law enforcement in Baton Rouge. For the second time in two weeks, police officers who put their lives on the line for ours every day were doing their job when they were killed in a cowardly and reprehensible assault. These are attacks on public servants, on the rule of law, and on civilized society, and they have to stop…And make no mistake – justice will be done.

We may not yet know the motives for this attack, but I want to be clear: there is no justification for violence against law enforcement. None… These attacks are the work of cowards who speak for no one. They right no wrongs. They advance no causes. The officers in Baton Rouge; the officers in Dallas – they were our fellow Americans, part of our community, part of our country, with people who loved and needed them, and who need us now – all of us – to be at our best.”

Anyone reading these statements can see that Barack Obama is clear about whose side he is on in this war. In the face of the horrific statistics regarding the number of Africans shot this year alone by police, let alone decades of police brutality and murder directed against African communities throughout the US, Obama deliberately fails to connect the dots. He dare not. As the Black face of White Supremacy and Western Civilization’s ongoing war, this White House Negro better keep his story straight and keep to his script.
Barack Obama chalks up Major Victory

After all, during his presidency he chalked up a victory for Western Civilization’s war that compares with few others. He authorized and colluded in the brutal murder of Muammar Qaddafi, one of Africa’s finest leaders. He joined with his Western European allies to destroy Africa’s most prosperous country, in a bid to prevent Libya from leading the entire continent to its long awaited destination of a United States of Africa. This was a huge moment for Western Civilization’s war effort, since a United States of Africa, with its own currency, backed by its own gold, would have definitely humbled Western Civilization. It would have brought about a cataclysmic shift in global power relations which is why Muammar Qaddafi was targeted for annihilation.

‘The Returnees’

The two men accused of the police shootings following the killing of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile were both ‘returnees’. Micah Johnson was a 25 year old former US Army reservist who had served in Afghanistan, and Gavin Long was a 29-year-old Marine Corps veteran who had served in Iraq. Long received several awards, including the Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal, Iraq Campaign Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, National Defense Service Medal and Navy Unit Commendation Medal. These two young men were trained to be killers in the ongoing, never ending war waged by Western Civilization. Obama needs to tell us: When US forces bomb wedding parties in Afghanistan and entire apartment blocks in Iraq, killing and maiming men, women, children and the elderly – are these attacks not the work of cowards who speak for no one? Have these wars, waged by Western Civilization righted any wrongs? What causes have been advanced by the unleashing of unimaginable terror and genocide on the populations of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria to name just a few of the most recent targets of Western Civilizations ongoing war.

We need to remind Newt Gingrich that those who he charges with the crime of waging war on Western Civilization –‘ the terrorists’ and so-called ‘Jihadists’ – were and continue to be organized, trained, armed and financed by Western Civilization’s intelligence agencies and the intelligence agencies of their allies – Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Pakistan. Let us not forget that Ronald Reagan referred to the ‘jihadists’ who were fighting the Soviet troops in Afghanistan at that time, as freedom fighters. In fact, it was Ronald Reagan who popularized the concept of Jihad in western political circles. These same jihadists were the forerunners of Al Qaeda and ISIL and have been used and manipulated by Western Civilization’s intelligence agencies to fight a number of their dirty wars, leaving behind nothing but mayhem and destruction.

After the defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, the Arabs who fought with the Afghan mujahideen, all of whom were supported and armed by Western Civilization’s various agencies, returned to their respective countries. Armed with their reactionary Wahhabi ideology they   launched ‘jihad’ against what they referred to as ‘secular’ regimes. The same regimes that the ‘Jihadists’ saw as ‘secular’ were nationalist regimes, that each, in their own way, opposed Western Civilization’s domination of their country and the region. Western Civilization’s warlords and generals were quick to realize that they could continue their infiltration and manipulation of these groups of ‘jihadists’ to further the aims and objectives of Western Civilization’s Empire. After all, Al Qaeda means the base and refers to the original database created by the CIA when they were backing these so-called jihadists in Afghanistan. It was their base and they had full access to it.

No meaningful analysis can be made of events taking place in 2016 if we do not have knowledge of the past. We must research and study ‘His-Story’ and ‘Our-Story’, in order to be able to devise an effective strategy of resistance. As military strategist and philosopher, Sun Tzu counsels: “If you know the enemy and you know yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt; if you know Heaven and you know Earth, you may make your victory complete.”

Who is to blame?

Newt Gingrich was certainly right – Western Civilization is in a war. What he failed to point out is that every aspect of this war, this global terror and nihilistic violence we are confronted with   in 2016 was spawned by Western Civilization’s agenda for global domination. We must remain focused on the real enemy despite the daily bombardment we receive from Western Civilization’s corporate media about the new bogyman. The creation of bogeymen is a strategy they have used since the beginning of their onslaught to distract us from the real enemy – themselves. It would be comical if it wasn’t so tragic to watch on as they attempt to portray Russia and Vladimir Putin as the new evil. I suspect that in the age of the internet, even those who in the past absorbed Western Civilization’s propaganda as if it was gospel truth, are growing weary.

Following is an excerpt from Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025? The book was written by populist conservative, Pat Buchanan. Unlike politically correct liberals, likes of Barak Obama and Hilary Clinton, who never tell it like it is, but rather weave a deceptive narrative to further Western Civilization’s prolonged war; and the likes of Newt Gingrich and his gang who like to throw around words and concepts without having any knowledge whatsoever of the history of Western Civilization; Pat Buchanan, although a staunch defender of Western Civilization, is courageous enough to lay the blame where it rightfully belongs. Perhaps his honesty is motivated by his understanding that the very survival of Western Civilization is in jeopardy if it continues on its present trajectory. In his words:
“We fail to understand what motivated our attackers. They did not come to kill us because they abhor our Constitution, or wish to impose Sharia on Oklahoma. They were over here because we are over there. They came to kill us in our country because we will not get out of their countries. Terrorism is the weapon of the weak who wish to be rid of foreign domination. From Plaines Indians to Afghan mujahideen, from Menachem Begin’s Irgun to the Algerian FLN, from the IRA of Martin McGuinness to the ANC of Nelson Mandela, it has ever been thus. Terrorism is the price of Empire.”

While this self-evident truth is abundantly clear to the rest of us, it is important to note when this truth is finally articulated and documented by one of their own. If this war is ever to end then Newt Gingrich and the rest of Western Civilization must face their own demons.

Gerald A. Perreira is a writer, educator, theologian and political activist. He is chairperson of the Guyanese organizations Black Consciousness Movement Guyana (BCMG) and Organization for the Victory of the People (OVP). He is an executive member of the Caribbean Chapter of the Network for Defense of Humanity. He lived in Libya for many years, served in the Green March, an international battalion for the defense of the Al Fateh revolution and was a founding member of the World Mathaba, based in Tripoli, Libya. He can be reached at mojadi94@gmail.com.

20 July 2016

 

By Dr Ramzy Baroud

I visited Iraq in 1999. At the time, there were no so-called ‘jihadis’ espousing the principles of ‘jihadism’, whatever the interpretation may be. On the outskirts of Baghdad was a military training camp, not for ‘al-Qaeda’, but for ‘Mojahedin-e-Khalq’, an Iranian militant exile group that worked, with foreign funding and arms, to overthrow the Iranian Republic.

At the time, the late Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, used the exiled organization to settle scores with his rivals in Tehran, just as they, too, espoused anti-Iraqi government militias to achieve the exact same purpose.

Iraq was hardly peaceful then. But most of the bombs that exploded in that country were American. In fact, when Iraqis spoke of ‘terrorism’, they only referred to ‘Al-Irhab al-Amriki’ – American terrorism.

Suicide bombings were hardly a daily occurrence; in fact, never an occurrence at all, anywhere in Iraq. As soon as the US invaded Afghanistan in 2001 followed by Iraq in 2003, all hell broke loose.

The 25 years prior to 2008 witnessed 1,840 suicide attacks, according to data compiled by US government experts and cited in the ‘Washington Post’. Of all these attacks, 86 percent occurred post-US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. In fact, between 2001 and the publishing of the data in 2008, 920 suicide bombings took place in Iraq and 260 in Afghanistan.

A fuller picture emerged in 2010, with the publishing of more commanding and detailed research conducted by the University of Chicago’s Project on Security and Terrorism.

“More than 95 percent of all suicide attacks are in response to foreign occupation,” it emerged.

“As the United States has occupied Afghanistan and Iraq … total suicide attacks worldwide have risen dramatically – from about 300 from 1980 to 2003, to 1,800 from 2004 to 2009,” wrote Robert Pape in Foreign Policy.

Tellingly, it was also concluded that “over 90 percent of suicide attacks worldwide are now anti-American. The vast majority of suicide terrorists hail from the local region threatened by foreign troops, which is why 90 percent of suicide attackers in Afghanistan are Afghans.”

When I visited Iraq in 1999, ‘al-Qaeda’ was merely a name on the Iraqi TV news, referring to a group of militants that operated mostly in Afghanistan. It was first established to unite Arab fighters against the Soviet presence in that country, and they were largely overlooked as a global security threat at the time.

It was years after the Soviets left Afghanistan in 1988, that ‘al-Qaeda’ became a global phenomenon. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, the US’ misguided responses – invading and destroying countries – created the very haven that have espoused today’s militancy and terror.

In no time, following the US invasion of Iraq, ‘al-Qaeda’ extended its dark shadows over a country that was already overwhelmed with a death toll that surpassed hundreds of thousands.

It is hardly difficult to follow the thread of ISIS’ formation, the deadliest of all such groups that mostly originated from ‘al-Qaeda’ in Iraq, itself wrought by the US invasion.

It was born from the unity of various militants groups in October 2006, when ‘al-Qaeda’ in Mesopotamia joined ranks with ‘Mujahedeen Shura Council in Iraq’, ‘Jund al-Sahhaba’ and the ‘Islamic State of Iraq’ (ISI).

ISIS, or ‘Daesh’ has been in existence since then, in various forms and capacities, but only jumped to the scene as a horrifically violent organization with territorial ambitions when a Syrian uprising turned into a deadly platform for regional rivalries. What existed as a ‘state’ at a virtual, cerebral level had, in fact, morphed into a ‘state’ of actual landmass, oil fields and martial law.

It is easy – perhaps, convenient – to forget all of this. Connecting the proverbial dots can be costly for some, for it will unravel a trajectory of violence that is rooted in foreign intervention. For many western commentators and politicians it is much easier – let alone safer – to discuss ISIS within impractical contexts, for example, Islam, than to take moral responsibility.

I pity those researchers who spent years examining the thesis of ISIS as a religious theology or ISIS and the apocalypse. Talk about missing the forest for the trees. What good did that bring about, anyway?

American military and political interventions have always been accompanied by attempting to also intervene in school curricula of invaded countries. The war on Afghanistan was also joined with a war on its ‘madrasas’ and unruly ‘ulemas’. None of this helped. If anything, it backfired, for it compounded the feeling of threat and sense of victimization among tens of millions of Muslims all around the world.

ISIS is but a name that can be rebranded without notice into something entirely different. Their tactics, too, can change, based on time and circumstances.  Their followers can mete out violence using a suicide belt, a car laden with explosives, a knife even, or a truck moving at high speed.

What truly matters is that ISIS has grown into a phenomenon, an idea that is not even confined to a single group and requires no official membership, transfer of funds or weapons.

This is no ordinary fact, but in a more sensible approach should represent the crux of the fight against ISIS.

When a French-Tunisian truck driver rammed into a crowd of celebrating people in the streets of Nice, the French police moved quickly to find connections between him and ISIS, or any other militant group. No clues were immediately revealed, yet, strangely, President François Hollande was quick to declare his intentions to respond militarily.

Such inanity and short-sightedness.  What good did France’s military adventurism achieve in recent years? Libya has turned into an oasis of chaos – where ISIS now control entire towns. Iraq and Syria remain places for unmitigated violence.

What about Mali? Maybe the French had better luck there.

Writing for ‘Al Jazeera’, Pape Samba Kane described the terrible reality that Mali has become following the French intervention in January 2003. Their so-called ‘Operation Serval’ turned into ‘Operation Barkhane’ and neither did Mali became a peaceful place nor did French forces leave the country.

The French, according to Kane are now Occupiers, not liberators, and according to all rationale data – like the ones highlighted above – we all know what foreign occupation does.

“The question that Malians have to ask themselves is”, Kane wrote: “Do they prefer having to fight against jihadists for a long time, or having their sovereignty challenged and their territory occupied or partitioned by an ancient colonialist state in order to satisfy a group allied with the colonial power?”

Yet the French, like the Americans, the British and others, continue to evade this obvious reality at their own peril. By refusing to accept the fact that ISIS is only a component of a much larger and disturbing course of violence that is rooted in foreign intervention, is to allow violence everywhere to perpetuate.

Defeating ISIS requires that we also confront and defeat the thinking that led to its inception: to defeat the logic of the George W. Bushes, Tony Blairs and John Howards of this world.

No matter how violent ISIS members or supporters are, it is ultimately a group of angry, alienated, radicalized young men seeking to alter their desperate situation by carrying out despicable acts of vengeance, even if it means ending their lives in the process.

Bombing ISIS camps may destroy some of their military facilities but it will not eradicate the very idea that allowed them to recruit thousands of young men all over the world.

They are the product of violent thinking that was spawned, not only in the Middle East but, initially, in various western capitals.

ISIS will fizzle out and die when its leaders lose their appeal and ability to recruit young men seeking answers and revenge.

The war option has, thus far, proved the least affective. ISIS will remain and metamorphose if necessary, as long as war remains on the agenda. To end ISIS, we must end war and foreign occupations.

It is as simple as that.

– Dr Ramzy Baroud has been writing about the Middle East for over 20 years. He is an internationally-syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author of several books and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His books include “Searching Jenin”, “The Second Palestinian Intifada” and his latest “My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story”.

21 July 2016

By Abdus Sattar Ghazali

On Wednesday, July 20, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared a three-month state of emergency in Turkey in order to hunt down all those deemed to be behind an attempted coup. The state of emergency was needed “in order to remove swiftly all the elements of the terrorist organization involved in the coup attempt,” he told a press conference.

Turkey has accused the group of US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen of being behind the coup and acting as a terror group. “The decision has been made to declare the state of emergency for a period of three months,” Erdogan said adding that the state of emergency is a measure “against the terror threat facing our country”.

On Saturday, Erdogan called the attempted coup “treason” and took to task the forces he apparently suspects of masterminding it. “Now I’m addressing those in Pennsylvania,” he said, in an apparent reference to Fethullah Gulen, a cleric and former ally who lives in exile in Pennsylvania.

“The betrayal you have shown to this nation and to this community, that’s enough. If you have the courage, come back to your country. If you can. You will not have the means to turn this country into a mess from where you are.” In a statement, Gulen denied any connection to the coup attempt.

Tellingly, Gulen had supported the military coup of 1980 and the soft coup in 1997, which forced Necmettin Erbakan, the prime minister, to resign.

Gulen movement declared a terrorist group

On June 1, 2016, President Erdogan officially designated the Gulen movement a terrorist group and said he would pursue its members whom he accused of trying to topple the government.

Gülen, described by Pape Escobar as a CIA asset, has long been accused by leading Justice and Development Party (AKP) lawmakers, President Erdoğan and his inner circle of forming and heading a terrorist organization to topple the Turkish government through insiders in the police and other state institutions.

Critics point to a video that emerged in 1999 in which Gülen seemed to suggest that his followers should infiltrate mainstream institutions. “You must move within the arteries of the system, without anyone noticing your existence, until you reach all the power centres … You must wait until such time as you have got all the state power, until you have brought to your side all the power of the constitutional institution in Turkey.”

According to the Diplomat, in May 2015, Tajikistan had become the latest Central Asian country to close schools linked to the Gülen movement. In fact, Tajikistan’s decision to close the schools reflected a wider trend in the region. The Turkish Daily Sabah reported in mid-May 2015 that Kosovo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kazakhstan, Somalia, and Japan have all begun procedures to close Gülen-linked schools. In July 2014, Azerbaijan closed Gülen schools on fears of a parallel government. Uzbekistan shut down its Gülen schools in 1999. In Russian Chechnya and Dagestan regions Gulen-backed schools were once banned by President Putin. The Gulen website says that the schools are back in operation.

A Turkish court in December 2014 issued an arrest warrant for Gülen. Turkish government has asked for his repatriation.

Massive purge launched

While the July 14 (Friday) abortive coup in Turkey highlighted the fragile nature of democracy in that country, the aftermath will have long-term consequences as President Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to cleanse the Turkish state of dissidents. On Saturday (July 15) morning he declared the attempted coup against his government a failure and a “gift from God.”

So far, thousands of soldiers, including 112 generals and admirals, have been suspended or arrested in what obviously is a purge of the armed forces. One of the captured generals was Erdal Öztürk, the commander of Turkey’s third army, who could now face the death penalty after Erdoğan’s allies called for a change to the constitution to allow the execution of plotters.

In addition, an astonishing number of police personnel, estimated at nearly 9,000, with more than 2,700 judges were fired from their posts.

According to Foreign Policy Magazine, more than 50,000 people have been rounded up and either arrested or suspended from their jobs as the Turkish government continues its purge of the country after last week’s failed coup attempt. The country-wide purge has been expanded to include journalists and academics who the government claims are disloyal to Erdogan. That includes almost 17,000 teachers, educators, and university deans.

Erdogan had it coming

The danger of the military striking back has not gone away as Erdogan consolidates his power.

Robert Fisk of Independent writes:

“Recep Tayyip Erdogan had it coming. The Turkish army was never going to remain compliant while the man who would recreate the Ottoman Empire turned his neighbours into enemies and his country into a mockery of itself. But it would be a grave mistake to assume two things: that the putting down of a military coup is a momentary matter after which the Turkish army will remain obedient to its sultan; and to regard at least 161 deaths and more than 2,839 detained in isolation from the collapse of the nation-states of the Middle East.

“For the weekend’s events in Istanbul and Ankara are intimately related to the breakdown of frontiers and state-belief – the assumption that Middle East nations have permanent institutions and borders – that has inflicted such wounds across Iraq, Syria, Egypt and other countries in the Arab world. Instability is now as contagious as corruption in the region, especially among its potentates and dictators, a class of autocrat of which Erdogan has been a member ever since he changed the constitution for his own benefit and restarted his wicked conflict with the Kurds.

“Sir Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot began the Ottoman Empire’s dismemberment – with help from Arthur Balfour — but it continues to this day. In this grim historical framework must we view the coup-that-wasn’t in Ankara. Stand by for another one in the months or years to come.”

Erdogan consolidates power

For almost a century, since the birth of modern Turkey, the military had remained the guardian of the country’s secular tradition. The military’s political role has been enshrined in the constitution that legitimised its frequent intervention in the country’s politics. It had successfully staged three coups in the last century and had executed elected leaders. The Islamists were barred from politics for not being in line with the country’s founding vision.

But the situation changed dramatically over the past decade with the coming to power of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), a socially conservative party with an agenda for economic development led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in 2002. The party has won four elections since then. Its popularity went up each time it pulled out the country out of political instability and perpetual economic crisis. Turkey became one of the fastest-growing economies. The country has earned a coveted place among the top 20 global economies.

This remarkable economic turnaround of Turkey strengthened the civilian authority and consequently undermined the power and influence of the military. Erdogan, who earlier served two terms as prime minister and was recently elected as the country’s president, had opened up cases against retired top military officers for plotting a coup against elected governments, many of whom are serving jail sentences. He had further consolidated his power by purging the military.

Egypt blocks U.N. call

Interestingly, the United Nations Security Council failed on Saturday to condemn the violence and unrest in Turkey after Egypt objected to a statement that called on all parties to “respect the democratically elected government of Turkey,” diplomats were quoted by Reuters. The U.S.-drafted statement, also expressed grave concern over the situation in Turkey, urged the parties to show restraint, avoid any violence or bloodshed, and called for an urgent end to the crisis and return to rule of law.

Statements by the 15-member Security Council have to be agreed by consensus.

Diplomats said Egypt asked for a call for all parties to “respect the democratically elected government of Turkey” to be removed from the draft statement, saying the council is “in no position to qualify, or label that government – or any other government for that matter – as democratically elected or not.”

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

21 July 2016

By Shujaat Bukhari

Militant leader Burhan Wani’s death in a gun battle with government forces in Indian-administered Kashmir has sparked days of deadly violence. Who was he and why was he so popular, asks local journalist Shujaat Bhukari.

Burhan Wani’s funeral was attended by thousands of people, and despite restrictions, the funeral venue was so crowded there was no space to conduct funeral prayers.

Wani, 22, is largely credited with reviving and legitimising the image of militancy in Muslim-majority Indian-administered Kashmir.

The region has seen an armed insurgency against Indian rule since 1989, although violence has waned in recent years.

New age militant

Born to a highly-educated upper-class Kashmiri family, Wani – it is believed – was driven to militancy at the age of 15, after his brother and he were beaten up by police “for no reason”.

Wani was extremely active on social media, and unlike militants in the past, did not hide his identity behind a mask.

His video messages, which would often go viral in Kashmir, were on the topics of Indian injustice and the need for young people to stand up to oppression.

In his last video he had warned local police of “consequences” if they continued to resist the “movement”.

India considered Wani a terrorist, but for many locals he represented the spirit and political aspirations of a new Kashmiri generation.

Indian officials have admitted that he was instrumental in persuading local boys to take up arms in the state.

Isolation from India

But Wani’s popularity can be considered as more of a manifestation of the current mood and upsurge of violence in Indian-administered Kashmir, which has been influenced by several incidents.

Two popular “uprisings” in 2008 and 2010 saw the death of more than 200 people, many of them civilian protesters, killed by Indian forces. The hanging of Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri separatist convicted over the 2001 Indian parliament attack, also intensified anger and a sense of isolation.

The final straw in recent times, seems to be the decision by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which won elections in the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley, to form a coalition with India’s ruling Hindu nationalist BJP which performed well in the neighbouring Hindu majority region of Jammu.

Police records confirm that some of the young men who have recently become militants had actively canvassed for the PDP in the 2014 general elections.

Analysts in the area say that the absence of political engagement to resolve the Kashmir dispute is setting a new political discourse and militancy is gaining legitimacy among people who believe Delhi is ignoring political realities.

The question that is being asked now, is if Wani is more dangerous to India now that he is dead.

The challenge the government now faces is fighting the ideology that Wani promoted, clearly reflected in the outpouring of sentiment over his killing.

Shujaat Bukhari is the editor of Rising Kashmir newspaper, Srinagar

11 July 2016

By Umar Sultan

The news of the killing of Burhan Wani, commander of militant outfit Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, had an electrifying effect on the entire Kashmir. Within no time, streets were transformed into battle fields between angry protestors and state forces. Mosque loudspeakers were blaring out Pro-Burhan slogans and songs. Social Media users made his images as their profile and display pictures. In his early twenties, with six years into the life of gun, Burhan was already a household name in Kashmir. A sea of people converged outside his residence in Tral to have a last glimpse of “their beloved commander.” Fifty back to back funeral prayers were held for him, attended by around four lakh people, including armed militants. This was despite curfew across Kashmir Valley and the restrictions being in place to stop people from marching towards Tral. In his death, Burhan Wani had metamorphosed into tens of thousands of masked youth, carrying Pakistani flags, and ready to respond to his call, forcing, the former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Omar Abdullah, to send out a tweet that “dead Burhan Wani will recruit more militants.” People who couldn’t make it to the Tral organized funeral prayers for him in absentia at hundreds of places across the State. To protest his killing, youths clashed with forces and at some places, attacked and torched Police Stations and Army establishments.

That it was a demonstration of solidarity with a militant commander, who glamorized militancy for Kashmiri youth, sent shivers down the spine of the people in security establishment. It was demonstration of popular indignation, of popular support for armed resistance. But why Burhan was so much venerated and what did Burhan-Era of Kashmir resistance mean?

Burhan was not only a militant. He actually personified the idea the Kashmir has started to embrace again. He not only represented an open revolt against New Delhi’s military control of Kashmir but also identified with the expectations of the disgruntled youth who were fed up by the pacifist politics of Hurriyat Leadership, whose politics is bound within the redline drawn by the New Delhi. This fact had alienated youth from the political leadership of pro-freedom camp as they failed to deliver during three successive summer agitations from 2008 to 2010 when Kashmiris in lakhs took to streets to seek freedom from India and when dozens of people were killed in state action.
As the peaceful protests and street agitations of three consecutive summers were put down ruthlessly by New Delhi, there was a deceptive calm in Kashmir. But experts had warned of this as a dangerous lull before storm. New Delhi’s failure to respond to non-violent transition in Kashmir and an apparent lack of resolve exhibited by the political leadership of the resistance camp alienated youth from political process. In that lull, boys like Burhan Wani quietly vanished into woods to join up with militants who, though handful, were undeterred or unmindful of geopolitical discourses going on around the use of violence in freedom struggle and debates on terrorism post 9/11. Unlike their predecessors, they didn’t cross over to Azad Kashmir for arms training with the result they could not be discarded as the ones being instigated by or being controlled from across the LOC. They were homegrown, unmindful of consequences or, well prepared for them. What distinguished Burhan from the rest of his colleagues, however, was his audacity in lifting the mask from the face of a local militant, first time in the history of armed resistance in Kashmir. He almost romanticized gun with a local face providing a rallying point to the disgruntled youth who were seething in anger. Unlike in nineties when militants would make every effort to conceal their identity, Burhan’s style was the opposite. And this style worked. People in security establishment say that Burhan managed to recruit dozens of educated youth from south Kashmir into militant folds in just few years. Furthermore, Burhan’s rise on militant landscape of Kashmir changed its complexion from being predominantly foreign and faceless to local and identical. And with this change, the militancy in Kashmir was again mass-supported, first time after late nineties when the popular support to gun had started to dwindle. Soon Burhan was the most sought after figure not only for the local or Indian media, but for the International press too.

In August 2013, Jason Bruke, a British journalist, travelled to the forests of volatile Tral in South Kashmir to report for the Guardian. He catched-up with then 17-year-old Burhan Muzaffar Wani and managed to photograph him. As the Guardian produced gun-brandishing picture of Burhan somewhere in Tral forests with his colleagues standing alert in action, soon there was a rush for “The Robin hood of Kashmir.” I remember my editor at a daily rebuking our south Kashmir correspondent for failing to catch on such a “hot stuff.” The reporter cited security reasons for being a local journalist.

Burhan represented a desperate Kashmiri response against New Delhi’s arrogant policies towards Jammu and Kashmir. This won him the mass support, besides his personal charisma and ability to utilize the social media.
The crackdown on peaceful demonstrations, widespread arrest spree including that of minors, notorious rape and killing of Asiya and Neelofar in Shopian in 2009 and the hanging of Parliament attack accused, Mohammad Afzal Guru in 2013 became earth-shattering events which shaped the collective psyche of Kashmiri youth and convinced them against any political concessions from New Delhi amicably. This was exacerbated by the widespread paranoia in Kashmir that the State was run by RSS from Nagpur as a local pro-India political party PDP formed government with India’s BJP post 2014 state assembly elections. That any Kashmiri political party will join hands with India’s BJP to form government in the State was unimaginable as in the run upto polls, all political parties had sought votes against “anti-Muslim” BJP to keep it out of Kashmir.

In Kashmiri imagination, BJP led by Narendra Modi has certain connotations and not unfounded. Modi’s BJP means setting up of Amarnath Nagar, a separate homeland for local Hindu population, in the midst of Muslim majority Kashmir Valley, abrogation of Article 370 which grants special status to the State, setting up of separate Pandit Townships and fortified Sainik Colonies in Kashmir. It means ban on beef, any violation of which means death by a lynch mob of the Hindutva brigade. It also means New Industrial Policy which grants permission, in contravention to Article 370, to non-State business houses to set up industrial units anywhere in the State. It further means massacre of Muslims in Gujarat and in Muzzafarnagar. BJP means religious intolerance. In one sentence, BJP means erosion of Kashmiri Muslim identity and its assimilation into Indian mainstream, which is what Kashmiris fear the most.

So when the PDP joined hands and formed government with the very Hindutva party, it was a profound blow to Kashmiri imagination. Outburst was only a matter of time.

Omar Abdullah, the former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir in a primetime interview with India Today’s Rajdeep Sardesai on July 11 said that the crowd at Burhan’s funeral was a wakeup call for New Delhi to understand the situation in Kashmir. He was not incorrect. The latent alienation of years in Kashmir sought to be subdued by aggressive political posturing has snowballed into a manifest revolt against New Delhi’s rule. Gone are the days when forces personnel were feared by the masses. Today, people, including women and children, confront bullets and batons fearlessly. Gone are also the days when armed militants would hide their identities for fear of getting eliminated. It is Burhan’s Kashmir where militant life is thought to be joyous and enviable as they post gun-toting selfies and cricket playing videos on social media. In fact, and unfortunately so, whole of the population has become militant today. The worst nightmare for policy makers of India: Fear psychosis no longer works in Kashmir.
It was perhaps in this context that a top general of Indian Army recently expressed helplessness in militarily containing the simmering discontent.

General H S Hooda, General Officer Commanding of Srinagar based 16 Corps, said “we are losing narrative in Kashmir and militarily, there is little left that we can do now.” More than one million Indian forces personnel, including army, border security force and paramilitary besides local police, are struggling to eliminate a handful of armed militants in small Kashmir valley and parts of Jammu division. This is because the general masses not only support and shelter militants, but also defend them, sometimes at the cost of their own lives. Whenever forces personnel zero in on any location to eliminate the militants present there, civilian population engages the forces in pitched stone pelting battles and helps the trapped militants to escape. This is new normal in Kashmir villages. Kashmir is slipping back to the situation of nineties, or, perhaps worse. Militancy has again found a popular support in Burhan’s Kashmir. Attempts made over the years aimed at conflict management like the so-called Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) have proven futile or not worked. And the situation is back to the square one. In his death, the tech-savvy face of new age youth militancy in Kashmir has indeed rejuvenated the narrative that supports armed resistance to seek political objectives. The ball is in New Delhi’s court now.

Unfortunately, the Modi-led Government of India has again sought to hide behind the smokescreen of denial and tread the traditional beaten path of blaming Pakistan for unrest in Kashmir. This may help deceive the gullible populace back home but the world no longer accepts such stuff. The latest flare up in Kashmir has found support from the USA as well as the UN besides the OIC. The world refused to toe the Indian line and, the USA instead asked all parties, which include India, Pakistan and the People of Jammu and Kashmir, “to find a peaceful solution to the issue.”

Addressing a rally in fortified Srinagar stadium earlier this year, where troops outnumbered the civilians including those ferried from outside the state, the Indian premier, had said that he doesn’t need anybody’s advice in the world on Kashmir. Soon after landing in New Delhi from many days of Africa tour on July 12, Modi chaired a high-level meeting of his cabinet and security establishment to seek advice on Kashmir. Besides this, the UN, the USA and the OIC are advising New Delhi on Kashmir. Burhan not only rejuvenated militant movement back home but also brought Kashmir to international limelight, again. However, his biggest achievement: Burhan’s Kashmir has already achieved Azadi from fear.

Umar Sultan is freelance journalist based in Srinagar. He has reported for Press Bureau of India, Conveyor Magazine and Kashmir Reader earlier. He Tweets @omarsultan616

18 July 2016