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By Andre Vltchek

Rodrigo Duterte, the outspoken President of the Philippines has by now, most likely, joined the concealed, prestigious and permanent hit list of the Empire.

The hit list isvery long; it hasalready been long for several decades. One could easily lose count and get confused: how many personalities have been marked and secretly condemned to death? How many of them actually died?

It reads like a catalogue ofillustrious world leaders:from Patrice Lumumba (Zaire), Mohammad Mosaddegh (Iran), Hugo Chavez (Venezuela), Sukarno (Indonesia),Juvénal Habyarimana(Rwanda), Salvador Allende (Chile)toMuammar Gaddafi (Libya), Al-Basheer(Sudan) and Fidel Castro (Cuba), to name just a very few.

Some were directly assassinated; others were ‘only’ toppled, while only a handful of ‘marked’ leaders actually managed to surviveandto stay in power.

There were several grave crimes committed by almost all of them, very similar crimes.They include:defending the vitalinterests of their nations and people, refusing to allow the unbridled plunder of natural resources by multinational corporations, and standing against the principles of imperialism. Simple criticismof the Empire has also been often punishable by death.

Mr. Duterte is committing all those horrid crimes,which have been mentioned above. He seems to be ‘guilty as charged’. He is denying nothing; he even appears to be proud of the charges that are being brought against him.

‘Is he bored with his life?’ some are asking. ‘Is he out of his mind? Is he ready to die?’

Is he a hero, a new Asian Hugo Chavez, or just an out of control populist?

He is definitely risking a lot, or maybe he is even risking absolutely everything. He is now committing the most unforgiveable sins in the eyes of the Western regime: he is openly insulting the Empire and its institutions (including the UN, NATO and the EU). He is even spitting in their faces!

‘To make it worse’, he is not only chatting; he is taking decisive actions! He is trying to help the poor in his country, he is flirting with the Communist Party and with the socialists, and on top of it he is basically asking both China and Russia for assistance.

The sparks are flying. Periodically such people and institutions like Obama, Pope, the US, the EU, and the UN get advised to go to hell, or are re-Christened as son-of-a-bitches or son-of-a-whores!

And the people of the Philippines absolutely love it. Duterte won elections with tiny margins, but his latest approval rating towers at an astounding 76%. Some would therefore argue that if ‘democracy’ is truly the ‘rule of the people’ (or at least it should be reflecting the will of the people), then all is exactly as it should be in the Philippines.

While Eduardo Climaco Tadem, Professorial Lecturer of Asian Studies

(University of the Philippines Diliman), is critical of Duterte’s ‘un-presidential’ speech writing and for him “scoring negatively on the issue of civil and political human rights”, he is clearly impressed by his achievements in several other spheres. As he recently wrote to me in a letter:

“Positive initiatives on other fronts have been taken. The appointment of Communist Party cadres to cabinet positions for agrarian reform, social work and development, and anti-poverty programs is good. Other left wing and progressive personalities occupy other cabinet positions in labor, education, health, science, and environment. More important, positive initiatives have been taken on moving land distribution forward, ending labor contractualization, reaching out to and learning from Cuba’s health programs, and curtailing the environmentally destructive operations by big mining corporations. Moreover, peace negotiations with both the CPP and the MILF/MNLF have been revived with initial steps that are looking good.

An independent foreign policy has been announced and Duterte no longer kowtows to the US and Western powers, unlike previous presidents before him. He is also mending fences with China and taking a different and less belligerent track in resolving the territorial disputes in the South China Sea…”

That is all ‘bad’, extremely bad as far as Washington, London and Tokyo are concerned. Such behavior never goesunnoticed and unpunished!

The response of the Empire came almost immediately this time.

On September 20, 2016, the International Business Times reported:

“The Philippines government has claimed that a coup d’état is being masterminded against President Rodrigo Duterte and said the administration is cracking down on the suspected plotters. A government spokesperson said some Filipino-Americans in New York are planning to oust the abrasive leader.

Without revealing the names of the suspected plotters or their plans, the Philippines government Communications Secretary Martin Andanar said those conspiring against Duterte should “think twice… ‘I have received information from credible sources in the United States. Yes, we have names but I don’t want to mention it. We are looking [at] it seriously. We are investigating it,’” said the senior government official.

The coups, the assassination plots. Soft coups, hard coups: Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Venezuela, Syria, Ukraine, Libya, Paraguay, Honduras, and Sudan, half of Africa… All in just the few last years…and now the Philippines? Bravo, the Empire is accelerating! The work ethic of its cutthroats is clearly improving.

President Duterte has it all figured out. As mentioned above, he has already defined President Obama as a ‘son-of-a-bitch’, ‘son-of-a-whore’, and recently suggested that ‘he goes to hell’.

That is even tougher than what President Hugo Chavez used to say about George W Bush, also known as “Señor W”. And President Chavez, according to many Latin American analysts, ended up paying for his openness, antagonism towards the Empire and imperialism in general,with his own life.

The truth is that the Empire never forgives those who show it a mirror. It kills mercilessly for the tiniest signs of disobedience, rebelliousness.Its propaganda apparatus and its right hand – the mass media – then always manage to craft a suitable explanation and justification. And the public in both North America and Europe is fully complacent, indoctrinated and passive; it only defends its own narrow interests, never the victim, especially if the victim is from some far-away country inhabited by ‘un-people’.

The great Indonesian President Sukarno was overthrown and destroyed(among other things) for shouting publicly at the US ambassador: “To hell with your aid!” …And of course, for defending the interests of his people against the Empire. Patrice Lumumba was assassinated for daring to say that Africans have no reason to be grateful to the colonizers.

Duterte says much more. He is bitter and he has countless reasons to be. The United States murdered more than one million Philippine people, most of them at the end of the 19th andthe beginning of the 20th Century. In recent history, it has turned this once proud and promising nation into a doormat, into a humiliated semi-colony, fully dependent on Washington’s whims. Capitalist and totally pro-American, the Philippines hasevolved, like Indonesia, into a ‘failed state’, a social disaster and an intellectual wasteland.

President Duterte has managed to put in place a determined cabinet of like-minded thinking intellectuals and bureaucrats.

As RT reported recently:

“Duterte’s foreign secretary, Perfecto Yasay, who has at times tried to downplay his boss’s comments, released a statement on Facebook titled “America has failed us” in which he says that, while there are many “countless things that we will be forever grateful to America for,” the US has never fully respected Philippine independence.”

“After proclaiming in July 4, 1946 that the Filipinos had been adequately trained for self-determination and governance, the United States held on to invisible chains that reined us in towards dependency and submission as little brown brothers not capable of true independence and freedom,” the FM said in the statement.”

Such statements very rarely appear in the pages of Western mainstream media publications, where Duterte and his cabinet are uninterruptedly demonized and ridiculed.

This is how the latest headlines on the Philippines read:

‘Drug-dealing daughter of playboy baron Antony Moynihan is shot dead in the Philippines’ (Daily Mail).

‘The president of Philippines has been accused of feeding a man alive to a crocodile’ (The Journal.ie via Yahoo UK & Ireland News)

‘Special Report – in Duterte’s war on drugs, local residents help draw up hit list’ (Reuters)

‘Duterte killed justice official, hitman tells Philippine senate’ (AFP)

Nothing about the fight for social justice! Nothing about the battle against Western imperialism.

The war on drugs…

Yes, many people in the Philippines are genuinely concerned that the ‘bodies are piling’ and the approach of this government could be defined as too heavy-handed, even intolerable.

But the situation is not that simple. This is not Europe. This is Asia with its own culture dynamics and problems. In Philippines, the crime rate has reached grotesque heights, unseen almost anywhere else in Asia Pacific. Much of the criminality is related to drugs. And people are genuinely fed-up. They demand decisive action.

For many years, Mr. Duterte used to serve astheMayor of Davao, a city on the island of Mindanao. Davao used to be synonymous with delinquency; a tough place to live and many say, almost impossible placeto govern.

Mr Duterte is honest. He openly admits that he could not have lasted long as a mayor of Davao, if he ‘was following the 10 Commandments’. Perhaps no one could.

He is extremely sensitive to criticism of his human rights record. Whether it comes from the UN or EU or the US, his reply is mostly defiant and consistent: “Fuck you!”

And that is what usually gets reported in the West.

But what is omitted is that Rodrigo Duterte usually continues, explaining:

You tell me about human rights? What about those millions you are killing allover the world, including recently in Iraq, Libya and Syria? What about the Filipino people that you had slayed? And what about your own people, African-Americans who are being slaughtered by police, every day?

He does not hide his deep allergy towards Western hypocrisy. For centuries, the United States and Europe have beenkilling millions, plundering entire continents, and then they reserve the right to judge, criticize and boss around others. Directly, or through institutions they control, like the United Nations. Again, his reply is clearly Sukarno-esque: “To hell with you! To hell with your aid!”

But you will not read this on the pages of the The New York Times or The Economist. There it is all about the ‘war on drugs’, about the ‘innocent victims’ and of course about the ‘strongman’Duterte.

The situation is evolving rapidly.

Recently, President Duterte ordered a halt to a military drill, dubbed as the ‘Philippines Amphibious Landing Exercise’ (Phiblex).It began on 4th October and was scheduled to run for more than one week. Around 1,400 Americans and 500 Filipino troops are involved in the war games, some dangerously close to the waters near the disputed islands in South China Sea.

According to several leading Filipino intellectuals, the US has been using the Philippines for its aggressive imperialist ambitions in the region, consistently antagonizing and provoking China.

Duterte’s government is determined to movemuch closer to China and away from the West. It is very likely that the Philippines and China will be able to resolve all disagreements in the foreseeable future. That is, if the US will be out, kept permanently at bay.

To demonstrate its goodwill towards China, and to show its new independent course, Manila is also planning to cancel all 28 annual military exercises with the United States.

President Duterte knows perfectly well what is at stake. To mark his 100 days in office, he has given several fiery speeches, acknowledging that the West may try to remove him from the office, even kill him:

“You want to oust me? You want to use the CIA? Go ahead… Be my guest. I don’t give a shit! I’ll be ousted? Fine. (If so) it’s part of my destiny. Destiny carries so many things. If I die, that’s part of my destiny. Presidents get assassinated.”

They do. They often do get assassinated.

But recently, one after another, countries all over the world are joining the anti-imperialist coalition. Some are prevailing; others get destabilized (like Brazil), economically devastated (like Venezuela) or fully destroyed (like Syria). All defiant nations, from Russia to China, the DPRK and Iran are demonized by Western propaganda and its mass media.

But it seems that the world has had enough. The Empire is crumbling; it is panicking. It is killing more and more, but it is not winning.

Are Filipinos joining this alliance? After only 100 days in the office, it seems that President Dutertehas made up his mind: No more servitude! No coming back!

Is he going to survive? Is he going to stay on his course?

How tough is he, really? One has to have nerves of steel to confront the Empire! One has to have at least nine lives to survive the countless intricate assassination plots, elaborate propaganda schemes, and trickeries. Is he ready for all this? It appears that he is.

The elites of his country have fully sold out to the West; the same as those of Indonesia and to a great extent, Thailand and Malaysia.

It will be an uphill struggle. It already is.

But the majority of his nation is behind him. For the first time in modern history, Filipino people may have a chance to take control over their own destiny, in their own hands.

And if the West does not like what is pouring out from Manila? President Duterte doesn’t care. Hehas declared that he has already prepared plenty of counter-questions. And if the West cannot answer them:

“If they are unable to answer, son of a whore, go home, you animal. I will kick you now. Do not piss me off. It cannot be that they are brighter than me, believe me!”

Most likely, they are not; they are not brighter than him. But they are definitely more ruthless, more brutal.

What are they accusing him of? Of a ‘war on drugs’, that has taken around 3,000 lives?

How many lives has the West (or those ‘son-of-whores’, as many would call it these days in the Philippines) taken after the end of WWII, all over the world? Is it 40 or 50 million? Depends how it is calculated: ‘directly’ or ‘indirectly’.

The Empire will almost certainly try to murder President Duterte, most likely soon, very soon.

In order to survive, to keep on going, to keep fighting, to defend his battered and exploited country, he will most definitely have to permanently forget all about the 10 Commandments.

*

(First published by NEO)

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries.

18 October 2016

By CounterCurrents

People’s Forum on BRICS held in Goa develops a declaration for heads of state attending the 8th BRICS Summit

GOA, 14 October 2016: The People’s Forum on BRICS that took place in Goa on the 13th and 14th of Goa witnessed several social movements and civil society formations, representing the people of at least 10 countries, make a declaration towards the official 8th BRICS summit in Goa.

The declaration has urged upon the BRICS nations to look at issues of Social, Economic and Environmental justice and has reminded the BRICS leadership of a time of an unprecedented crisis facing humanity and nature.

The forum has emphasised the threat that several democracies across the world are facing from reactionary and imperialist forces and has in particular drawn attention to the coup in Brazil that has overthrown a people’s government. The representatives also noticed with great concern the state repression of people’s movements and student’s protests in countries including India and South Africa.

The declaration also points out the massive levels of ecological destruction that is taking place around the world, led by corporations and in collusion with the state. Goa, the site of the summit is ironically at the receiving end of this destruction.

The Forum also pointed out the teetering world economy that is on the verge of another financial meltdown resulting in stocks and currency market crisis in many of the BRICS countries. The longer-term crisis of capitalism is evident in the marked slowdown in international trade, in declining global profit rates, and in business disinvestment, especially evident in the three BRICS which have negative or negligible GDP growth.

The world’s workers are losing rights, farmers are suffering to the point of suicide, and labour casualisation is rampant in all our countries, with the result that BRICS workers are engaged in regular protest and wildcat strikes, of which the strike by 180 million Indian workers inspired the world on 2 September;

On the social front, the threat to our already-inadequate welfare policies is serious, especially in Brazil’s coup regime but more generally across the BRICS where inadequate social policies are not providing adequate safety nets;

The commodification of public services is causing misery, such as in South Africa where university students are fighting hard for a fee-free, decolonised tertiary education;

Everywhere that people’s movements have made countervailing demands – such as democracy, peace, poverty eradication, sustainable development, equality, fair trade – the elites have co-opted our language and distorted our visions beyond recognition. Many of our leaders are hopelessly corrupt, and so when BRICS spin-doctors claim that their work in Goa will “build responsive, inclusive and collective solutions,” we have spent two days looking beyond the pleasing rhetoric and have found a very different, harsh reality.

In short, whereas we criticise the way world power is created and exercised, the BRICS leaders appear to simply want power sharing. To illustrate, the BRICS New Development Bank is working hand-in-glove with the World Bank; the Contingent Reserve Arrangement empowers the International Monetary Fund; and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank serves mainly corporate interests – and all these financial institutions lack opportunities for adequate civil society monitoring and participation.

As a result, the Forum has raised constructive critiques of BRICS in our plenaries and workshops. But beyond the analysis, we understand that only people’s power, across borders, can make change. Some of our most successful struggles – such as access to life-savings medicines or ending apartheid – required international solidarity. This Forum found many routes forward for cross-cutting BRICS internationalism in various sectors.

For example, the Forum recognises the need for a just solution to the Syrian crisis in accordance with the principles of international law, and condemns the US-backed aggression and the Pentagon/NATO doctrine of regime change. The Forum reaffirmed its solidarity with the Palestinian struggle against colonialism and occupation, and we endorse Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions against apartheid Israel, including opposition to Israel’s attempted export of its unsustainable water and agricultural technologies to BRICS countries.

The social movements and progressive unions and formations who gathered at the Xavier’s Centre for Historical Research, Goa declared their intention to win their demands for social, economic and environmental justice. The victories that many of the movements have won already on multiple fronts – such as halting numerous multinational corporations’ exploitation, gaining access to essential state services, occupying land and creating agricultural cooperatives, and generating more humane values in our societies – give the Forum the momentum and optimism. In 2017 and beyond, the BRICS People’s Forum will reconvene, and redouble our efforts with new-found allies from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

Peoplesforumonbrics@gmail.com

By AP

Kansas City library officials ‘outraged’ that prosecutors are charging audience member simply ‘for asking questions’

KANSAS CITY, Missouri — The executive director the Kansas City library system says he is “outraged” that prosecutors continue to pursue charges against a man who was arrested after asking pointed questions during a library discussion about the Middle East peace process and an employee who tried to intervene.
Although the arrests occurred in May following a speech by author and diplomat Dennis Ross, the library system only recently went public about its opposition to charges, the Kansas City Star reported.

R. Crosby Kemper III, executive director of the city’s library system, said “we’re going to be living in a different kind of country” if people can be arrested for asking questions at a library. “If this kind of behavior is unacceptable to the police, then I guess we’re going to have to shut the library down.”

Issues arose after Ross finished speaking and took a question from Jeremy Rothe-Kushel concerning whether Jewish Americans like Rothe-Kushel should be concerned about actions by the US and Israel that amount to “state-sponsored terrorism.”

“When are we going to stand up and be ethical Jews and Americans?” Rothe-Kushel asked.

When Rothe-Kushel tried to ask another question, a private security guard grasped his arm, followed by an off-duty police officer, both employed by the Jewish Community Foundation. Rothe-Kushel then shouted, “Get your hands off of me right now!”

Steve Woolfolk, director of public programming for the library, tried to intervene. Both men were arrested by off-duty officers.

“Every police officer who was on duty that evening was very communicative and respectful,” Rothe-Kushel said. But he said he would have left if he had been asked to and given the chance to do so.

Kansas City police spokeswoman Capt. Stacey Graves said off-duty officers hired by the event sponsor acted properly in helping private security stop an audience member from asking follow-up questions.

Rothe-Kushel is charged in city court with trespassing and resisting arrest. Woolfolk is charged with interfering with an arrest. Woolfolk said he suffered a torn medial collateral ligament in his knee when a police officer kneed him in the leg.

Kemper said the private security guards had no right to remove a patron for asking a question.

Ross’ speech was the inaugural Truman and Israel Lecture, established by the Truman Library Institute and the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Kansas City.

3 October 2016

By AMEC

Two years after independence, political division and contestation for power within South Sudan’s ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) turned violent, and the country descended into chaos. It failed to develop politically neutral and transparent institutions capable of serving public interests; governance institutions remain weak and politicised, lacking oversight; the government has maintained power via coercion; and a militarised society and state have left no room for civil society.

No country is entirely self-contained or lacking in interdependencies. These interlocking interests form the critical part of any country’s existence. Therefore, compartmentalising South Sudan in matters of interconnectedness is, at best, disingenuous, and at worst, sheer political autarky.

In December 2013, South Sudan descended into a brutal civil war. More than two years after independence, political division and contestation for power within the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) quickly turned violent. One cause of this atrocious conflict was the fact that the de jure state had failed to become a de facto state with efficient, fair, politically neutral and transparent institutions capable of serving public interests. Governance institutions remain weak and politicised, lacking oversight. In the absence of a credible and coherent opposition, the government has maintained power via coercion. A highly militarised society and state have left no room for civil society, the media and non-partisan spaces to expand. Rather, this context has created fertile ground for impunity and a breakdown of rule of law.

In the absence of a history of governance and legitimate institutions, South Sudan, as a failing and fragile state, has easily become a source of incalculable security risks, a threat to peace and security domestically, regionally and internationally. Domestic security challenges arising from the rubble of a collapsed state are contagious and transcend its borders. As a result, South Sudan poses an acute risk to international security in the form of transnational organised crime, arms proliferation, civil conflict, terrorism and health hazards. Moreover, given the historical affinities between South Sudan and its immediate neighbours, the region’s countries are not only culturally intertwined but also geographically contiguous. Consequently, South Sudan is not only part of the African continent; it is also an important geopolitical player in the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes region. In other words, South Sudan occupies a geostrategic position.

It is these interlocking risks that partly motivated regional actors to play an active role in South Sudan’s conflict. Since 2013, beyond the limits of judicial sovereignty, South Sudan’s regional neighbours and international partners have been impelled to respond to risks affecting the country. Strictly, one government’s blunders, resulting from its own untamed wagering, affect the neighbourhood and humanity at large. They should be viewed as occurrences within a wider ecosystem of risks, which may have blood-curdling implications across national borders. Specifically, trans-boundary criminality, such as foreign insurgencies from Sudan and Uganda operating in South Sudan, has increased – and international borders have become less relevant. Hence, its neighbours have the right to intervene, as they did in the past, especially during the Second Sudanese Civil War (1983–2005). Fundamentally, a state that considers its sovereignty a license to destroy itself and its people is an illegitimate enterprise.

Applying fire protection measures to one’s property – fire retardants or fire extinguishers – ensures a neighbourhood’s safety; in the same way, regional peace and security requires a united effort. For good or ill, decision-making powers in Juba as well as the armed opposition have already crossed borders to regional capitals, with serious ramifications. As the conflict intensifies, the geographic boundaries of national politics and economics are likely to ebb and flow accordingly.

Hawks in Juba have exaggerated the debate on South Sudan’s borders and sovereignty – even if its rulers are acting irresponsibly – in order to distract from the dire humanitarian situation caused by this manufactured disaster. To the extent that state-society relations are central to the functioning of a political entity, the underpinnings of popular and empirical sovereignty have been deliberately buried. State functions, such as the effective administration of territories, holding a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, taxation, provision of public security, etc. are not viewed by the gun-toting leadership in Juba as critical to the government’s mandate.

Such dismal failure and utter denial does not allow a polity to generate a moral voice to claim legitimacy over the population and territories that are under its juridical control. A state operating at the peak of legitimacy is dangerously hollowed out. Clearly, it subjects itself to a low fire-sale price in the eyes of its citizens and allies – and as prey for its enemies. Substantive debate around sovereignty must include rights and responsibilities to act in tandem with national and international laws.

Big-hearted allies
South Sudan’s independence followed decades of bloody conflict and enormous sacrifices by its people. Since 1955, southern Sudanese had taken up arms to end colonialism at the hands of their northern, Arab neighbours. South Sudan’s independence also rested upon significant, sustained regional and international efforts. The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) region and the USA played a key role in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), leading up to the 2011 independence referendum.

Since a change of established borders – especially the breakup of a fragile state like Sudan – is fraught with risks, the regional and international community closely followed developments in South Sudan. After the CPA’s signing on 9 January 2005, the UN Security Council (UNSC) adopted Resolution 1590, establishing the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS). Following South Sudan’s independence, and in light of the newborn state’s perceived fragility and potential threats to international security, the UNSC adopted resolutions 1996 (2011) and 2057 (2012), respectively, which established and extended the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) – a peacekeeping mission, in accordance with Chapter Seven of the United Nations Charter. Both UNMIS and UNMISS have involved large military components. In addition, UNMISS established a high-level mechanism to ensure the alignment of its goals to government priorities. Further spheres of cooperation include peace consolidation; decentralisation; infrastructure development; constitutional review; security sector reform, including disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration; conflict prevention; and administration of justice.

Despite the unanimity leading to the establishment of UNMIS and UNMISS – both played an important role in keeping the UNSC actively involved in the peace-building process – external actors have played a negligible role in South Sudan’s state-building process. In fact, the UN system together with other external actors only succeeded in applying astute diplomatic strategies to maintain the peace during an interim period. On many other levels, however, such interventions have borne limited results in achieving the desired goals. More importantly, many external actors saw the region as a complex, continuous emergency, focusing their efforts on humanitarian aid rather than post-conflict recovery and reconstruction. Regardless of a limited shift to development assistance in 2011, the complex emergency response argument quickly appeared whenever levels of insecurity increased in the country.

Whether the 2013 crisis was the natural outcome of a false start or an inevitable tumble, the transformation of UNMIS into UNMISS under a new mandate in 2011 did have benefits. In 2012, when interethnic raids intensified in Jonglei, especially in Pibor County, UNMISS intervention prevented possible ethnic cleansing through mass violence, looting, widespread displacement and starvation. In 2013, UNMISS humanitarian action was remarkably swift. In an atmosphere of targeted killings and revenge attacks, thousands of victims found protection within UNMISS bases in Juba, Malakal, Bentiu and Bor. As violence gained traction, the mission also provided periodic reports and updates on the dire human rights situation in the country.

Throughout the conflict, an array of parties – the IGAD, AU, and the Troika (Norway, the UK and the USA) – took part in intensive mediation efforts, which culminated in the August 2015 peace deal meant to arrest the crisis at an embryonic stage. However, the 2015 peace deal was a compromise. It called for power-sharing and reform leading to a national constitution-making process. It also called for mechanisms to deal with crimes committed during the war and to prepare for democratic elections. The parties to the agreement have never been satisfied with its power-sharing and security components, and implementation got off to a slow start because of disagreements over timing and conflicting interpretations of the way forward.

Nearly a year after the deal was signed many of its security and political milestones have been only partially implemented. For instance, Juba was supposed to be demilitarised, but there remains heavy deployment everywhere; planned joint military and police units have yet to be established, and contrary to the agreement, rival forces have not been cantoned. These disagreements reached their peak in July 2016 when the main parties to the agreement resorted to fighting in the streets of Juba. When the civil war resumed, the IGAD, AU, Troika and the UN embarked on a last-ditch effort to save the deal, which resulted in UNSC Resolution 2304 of 2016.

The post-July 2016 conflict in Juba
There is little accord about what triggered the return to war. Whatever the preferred interpretation, one thing is certain: the Juba conflict resulted from the selective and poor implementation of the security components of the 2015 peace deal and a deep sense of mutual distrust between Salva Kiir and Riek Machar, South Sudan’s president and vice president, respectively. The fighting dims prospects for the 2015 peace deal’s successful implementation, a fact further aggravated by the splintering of the SPLM-in-Opposition and the swearing in of Taban Deng Gai as the new first vice president. Any trust that might have existed between the main parties has now vanished. The dire economic situation and mushrooming of new rebel movements across the country make the need for a functioning government all the more urgent. The unfolding humanitarian catastrophe and looming famine further complicate an already hopelessly complex situation. According to the UN, a third of South Sudan’s population, nearly five million people, faces ‘dangerous levels’ of hunger and the ‘worst famine in the world’.

After the carnage in Juba, there are two potential outcomes: a return to the status quo ante and a full, immediate and unconditional implementation of the agreement, or a return to full-scale war. The former is the easiest, most principled, least costly and best scenario. The international community knows and supports the roadmap. However, clearly the main parties to the conflict lack the political will to proceed with the agreement. This could very well return the country to full-blown war. Obviously this scenario would be costly, complex and unpredictable. If war breaks out, many different armed groups could become involved with no end in sight. Regional or international players may enter the fray, further complicating the situation.

In order to encourage the former and discourage the latter, the UNSC passed Resolution 2304 of 2016. The resolution strengthens the UNMISS mandate, increases its capacity and capabilities, and provides for the deployment of a regional force to operate within the command structure of UNMISS, but with a specific mandate to provide, by all means, protection to civilians, to protect vital state installations and to ensure humanitarian access. In the event of non-cooperation from the Government of South Sudan, the UNSC may impose an arms embargo and further sanctions.

The way forward
In the wake of UNSC 2304 and the Security Council visit in September, the Government of South Sudan, in its usual waggish behaviour embarked upon semantic negotiations focusing on the differences between intervention and protection or consent and acceptance, as a means to barter and delay the regional protection force’s deployment through a game of synonyms. Yet, beyond the logjam of Juba’s doublespeak on the deployment, external actors have continued to engage with South Sudan, in order not to leave the nascent state to its own devices. Simply put, the region and the international community have taken on a unique ‘brother’s keeper role’ in order to preserve a fragile peace in South Sudan. However, Juba must be disabused of its tendency to intensify semantic arguments or commoditise and mis-sell sovereignty. Its actions and veiled threats to bludgeon internal dissent and gag civil society voices that support the regional protection force’s deployment must stop.

Worse still, the government will try to deceive the regional and international community as a way of watering down Resolution 2304 and the peace agreement itself. If it succeeds to call the international community’s bluff and impose what has been described as Pax Salvatica, South Sudan will find itself on a staircase to hell.

Therefore, the force’s deployment should not be an end in itself as it is not a sufficient condition for South Sudan to exit the conflict. Rather, the emergence of a resilient state requires profound and long-term engagement in peace consolidation and peace-building, reconciliation, healing and accountability, in addition to the creation of durable governance institutions. Such efforts will open up a political space to promote a smooth transition to democracy and crowd out violence in the exercise of political power in the country. This premise justifies the call for a roundtable of all stakeholders including political groups, civil society, and faith-based groups, in addition to partners of South Sudan, to repair aspects of the peace deal that have been fractured by violations and delayed implementation, and to produce an abbreviated, actionable roadmap for the transition. This is more practical than the current life-support option, which calls for either a form of neo-trusteeship/trusteeship or a UN transitional administration.

In particular, the images of President Kiir and former vice president Machar have been terribly tarnished by their self-serving agendas, as highlighted in a 2016 report on corruption, which implicates the two politicians, their families and cronies. Morally, the two leaders are unfit to be part of the transition. A roundtable conference should explore the possibility of a transitional arrangement that excludes Kiir and Machar. A return to the status quo ante must be on the basis of a modified peace deal that embraces a four-year-tenured caretaker administration led by carefully vetted national personalities and technocrats who will have no stake in the future politics of South Sudan. Such an arrangement must be buttressed by powerful international security and political oversight in form of a reinforced Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (JMEC). This entails a split of executive authority between the caretaker administration and JMEC. This arrangement must be based on an all-party consensus derived from the deliberations of the roundtable conference.

As the country sits precariously on a cliff, it may fall and hit the surface with a minimum blow. Thereafter, to paraphrase former US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Chester Crocker, if the world does not seize the moment opportunely, no amount of effort and innovation will be able to put humpty dumpty back together again.

10 October 2016

By Dr Ramzy Baroud

The Israeli official narrative regarding its conflict with the Palestinians is deliberately confounded because a muddled up discourse is a convenient one. It allows the narrator to pick and choose half-truths at will, in order to create a falsified version of reality.

For instance, this is part of what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the United Nations on September 22:

“Ladies and Gentlemen: Israel fights this fateful battle against the forces of militant Islam every day. We keep our borders safe from ISIS, we prevent the smuggling of game-changing weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon, we thwart Palestinian terror attacks in Judea and Samaria, the West Bank, and we deter missile attacks from Hamas-controlled Gaza.”

In just a single paragraph, Netanyahu has chosen to create an alternate reality, despite the fact that: ISIS’ main victims, thus far, have been Muslims, never Israelis; Hezbollah, which is embroiled in a sectarian fight in Syria is a Lebanese movement that is also at war with ISIS; the uprising in the West Bank has been largely led by desperate youth who were born under violent Israeli military Occupation and have no trust in their own leadership; Hamas has not lobbed any homemade rockets at Israel since the destructive Israeli war of 2014, which killed 2,251 Palestinians, mostly civilians.

While Netanyahu’s statements are not outright lies, the selection of these statements, not keen on dates, devoid of context and lacking in any Israeli accountability or even introspection, makes them simply untrue. Needless to say, utterly confusing as well, especially for those who rarely understand the nature of Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians and its other Arab neighbors.

The Israeli Prime Minister’s language at international forums are quite typical, if not predictable. Not only typical of him as a statesman, but of generations of Israeli leaders, past and present. Former Israeli Prime Minister and President, Shimon Peres, who died late September, mastered this Israeli style, bar none. Although he was the architect of the Middle East’s first and only nuclear bomb, he was eulogized by western governments and media, including many in the Left, as a peacemaker, a heroic figure and statesman.

But Peres was the last of the ‘founders of Israel’ generation. That generation’s approach to war and diplomacy was unique and cannot be repeated. They were mostly foreign-born; spoke various languages; followed a unified blueprint in politics and had clear, decisive goals.

In contrast, Netanyahu is the first Israeli Prime Minister to be born in the country, after its establishment on the ruins of Palestine in 1948. His diplomacy is as violent as is his conduct on the ground. He seems fearless insofar as his confidence in his benefactors – namely the United States government, which has recently pledged to Israel another $38 billion dollars in unconditional military aid over the course of ten years.

With no legal or political accountability whatsoever, and with unwavering US backing of Israeli actions, no matter how destabilizing or destructive, Netanyahu’s logic, however lacking, will always prevail.

But considering that Israel is achieving precisely its intended goals – expanding its illegal settlements, sustaining its Occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank, constantly building up its armament and advancing its strategic interests at the expense of its neighbors, and escaping any possibility of legal culpability, why does it always feel as if Israel is besieged and embattled?

Netanyahu’s words give the impression that his country’s very existence is imperiled. In fact, this is the same language that is constantly emanating from most Israeli circles – official, media, academic and even ordinary people. This perception has continued even after Israel expanded its borders by occupying the rest of historic Palestine following the disastrous war of 1967; even when Israel claimed massive swathes of Jordanian, Egyptian, Lebanese and Syrian territories.

It seems that the stronger Israel becomes, the larger in size and more destructive in its military capabilities, the weaker and more threatened it perceives itself.

Even with their tactless approach to diplomacy, the new generation of Israeli leaders is still pushing the same mantra: that of a besieged country facing an existential threat.

In 2015, following the signing of the Iran nuclear deal between Iran and the US – along with other countries – Israel was denied the central component of its ‘existential threat’ discourse. With an Iranian ‘nuclear holocaust’ averted – although never convincingly from the Israeli viewpoint – other imagined threats were pushed to the very top of the Israeli agenda.

Besieged, bombed out and impoverished tiny Gaza maintained its standing as a major cause for alarm and one of the greatest threats to Israel’s security. But, strangely, the civil society-led non-violent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS), was quickly pushed to the top of the ‘existential threat’ pyramid.

Modeled around the anti-Apartheid South African boycott movement, BDS aims at isolating the Israeli Occupation of Palestine, and, using non-violent means, ending it.

The language used against Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas and others is now being utilized against BDS. In a conference organized by the Jewish National Fund (JNF) in New York last month, Israeli Justice Minister, Ayelet Shaked, called BDS a ‘terrorist organization.’

“BDS is the new face of terror,” she said. “While in Gaza (terrorists) are digging underground tunnels into Israel, the BDS movement is digging tunnels to undermine the foundations and values of Israel. We have to stop these tunnels as well.”

Like Netanyahu, Shaked too claimed to be “fighting Islamic extremism”, although BDS supporters come from many countries and profess no particular religion. In fact, many of them are Jewish activists.

Yet, that does not matter. It never did, because the enemy, for now, has to remain “Islamic terrorism”, even if it is neither Islamic nor terrorist.

In a response to the Israeli navy interception, arrest and deportation of a group of women who attempted to break the Israeli siege on Gaza by using a small boat, Israel’s Defense Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, spun his words to connect the non-violent activists with something else entirely.

“We will not accept any (rocket) fire, any provocation, against the citizens of Israel by whoever it might be, or any attack on Israel’s sovereignty. Not rocket fire, and not a flotilla,” Lieberman said in an army ceremony on October 07.

The activists atop the boat, included Nobel Peace Prize winner, Mairead Maguire, of Northern Ireland. In Lieberman’s logic, Maguire’s act to end a decade-long blockade on a poor region is equivalent to the firing of a rocket.

Regardless of the type of criticism Israel faces and the tactics used to end its Occupation of Palestine, Israel will always connect the proverbial dots to produce the same outcome: Israel’s existence is at stake, all acts of resistance, however symbolic, are terrorist, and Israel has to do whatever it takes to defend itself from looming destruction by rogue terrorists.

Nonetheless, unlike Shimon Peres and his generation of leaders, the Israeli story as told by Israel’s new leaders is no longer selling. Gaza, which is rendered uninhabitable by the United Nations come 2020, hardly threatens the existence of Israel, nor are BDS activists, who demand accountability, vile terrorists. Needless to say, a group of women atop a small boat, carrying a symbolic amount of supplies to impoverished Gaza, were not about to take the Middle East’s only nuclear power down.

“The Israeli army then took over the boat. The women showed no resistance as they wanted to emphasize that their mission was peaceful. The women cried because they could not reach Gaza,” Al Jazeera reported.

‘Terrorists’, indeed.

– 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”. His website is www.ramzybaroud.net.
13 October 2016

By Robert J Burrowes

As the evidence mounts that we are fast approaching the final point-of-no-return beyond which it will be impossible to take sufficient effective action to prevent climate catastrophe – see ‘The World Passes 400 PPM Threshold. Permanently’ http://www.climatecentral.org/news/world-passes-400-ppm-threshold-permanently-20738 – the evidence of ineffective official responses climbs too. See, for example, ‘Climate Con: why a new global deal on aviation emissions is really bad news’. https://corporateeurope.org/blog/climate-con-why-new-global-deal-aviation-emissions-really-bad-news

Even worse, we continue to be given response options that, even when they are well meaning, are naïve and inadequate whether they are suggested by individuals – see, for example, ‘Committing Geocide: Climate Change and Corporate Capture’ https://diem25.org/committing-geocide-climate-change-and-corporate-capture/ – or major environment organizations such as Greenpeace, 350.org and Friends of the Earth.

Moreover, given the myriad indications of progressive environmental breakdown in domains unrelated to the climate catastrophe, one must be terrified and delusional to suggest or even believe that anything less than a comprehensive strategy, which goes well beyond anything governments and corporations will ever endorse, gives us any chance of averting the sixth mass extinction event in planetary history. A mass extinction that will include us.

As an aside, if you believe the ‘end of century’ scenario (for human extinction) being driven by the same corporate interests that drove climate denial for so long, then you are simply a victim of their latest attempt to drive ‘business as usual’ while delaying action for as long as possible at any cost.

Another problem, if you understand anything about human psychology and political organization, is that mobilizing people in large numbers to act strategically and powerfully is not easy. Of course, if it wasn’t so difficult, this crisis would not have arisen in the first place. We would have responded intelligently and strategically decades ago as some aware individuals, starting with Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi 100 years ago, suggested.

To briefly recap the wider nature of the crisis we face: Consider our synergistic and devastating assaults on the environment through military violence (often leaving vast areas uninhabitable), rainforest destruction, industrial farming, mining, commercial fishing and the spreading radioactive contamination from Fukushima. We are also systematically destroying the limited supply of fresh water on the planet which means that water scarcity is becoming a frequent reality for many people and the collapse of hydrological systems is now likely by 2020. Human activity drives 200 species of life (plants, birds, animals, fish, amphibians, insects, reptiles) to extinction each day and 80% of the world’s forests and over 90% of the large fish in the ocean are already gone. Despite this readily available information, governments continue to prioritize spending $US2,000,000,000 each day on military violence, the sole purpose of which is to terrorize and kill fellow human beings.

So what are we to do?

Well, if you are inclined to assess the evidence and to design a response strategy that has the possibility of success built into it, then I invite you to consider the strategy outlined on the Nonviolent Campaign Strategy website. https://nonviolentstrategy.wordpress.com/ This strategy identifies all twelve components of a nonviolent strategy to end the climate catastrophe, including the myriad of strategic goals https://nonviolentstrategy.wordpress.com/strategywheel/strategic-aims/ necessary for such a strategy to be comprehensive and effective. You are very welcome to suggest improvements in this strategy and to invite other individuals and groups to participate in helping to implement it.

If you are happy to leave strategic responses to others but still wish to contribute powerfully, then you and others you know are welcome to participate in the simple fifteen-year program outlined in ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth’. http://tinyurl.com/flametree You might also consider signing the online pledge of ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’. http://thepeoplesnonviolencecharter.wordpress.com

One final point: a tragic outcome of modern humans terrorizing their children into obedience (to maintain social control) is that most of the human population is (unconsciously) terrified, self-hating and powerless. For a full explanation of this, see ‘Why Violence?’ http://tinyurl.com/whyviolence and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’. http://anitamckone.wordpress.com/articles-2/fearless-and-fearful-psychology/

So don’t wait around waiting for others to act first. It is your leadership that is required in this circumstance. And it is your leadership that might ultimately make the difference.

Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?’ http://tinyurl.com/whyviolence His email address is flametree@riseup.net and his website is at http://robertjburrowes.wordpress.com

13 October 2016

By Abdus Sattar Ghazali

Turkey and Russia Monday (Oct 10) signed the Turkish Stream gas pipeline agreement.

The signing of the strategic deal came after a meeting between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Russian President Vladimir Putin who was in Istanbul to attend the 23rd World Energy Congress which gathered 10,000 participants, including four presidents, 250 energy ministers, academia, policy­makers and CEOs of top energy companies.

This was Putin’s first trip to Turkey since a bilateral crisis sparked by Turkey’s shooting down of a Russian war plane over Syria last November. Putin and Erdoğan have met on two occasions – since a Turkish June initiative to normalize ties after the plane crisis – in Putin’s home city of Saint Petersburg and then on the sidelines of the G-20 in China.

In a bid to normalize relations with Russia, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in June expressed regret for the downing of a Russian warplane. “I would like to send my condolences to the family of the Russian pilot who lost his life and express one more time that I share their pain; may they excuse us,” Erdogan said in a statement. “I believe that we will leave behind this current situation, which is to the detriment of both countries, and rapidly normalize our relations,” Erdogan added in a speech later on in the day.

Russia’s Gazprom and Turkey’s BOTAŞ in 2014 signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for the construction of the Turkish Stream gas pipeline, with a capacity of 63 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas per year from Russia to Turkey across the Black Sea.

However, talks on the project were halted last year after Turkey shot down a Russian air force jet and Moscow retaliated with trade sanctions but since then the two countries have made significant progress to mend relations.

In August last at a joint news conference with his Russian counterpart in St. Petersburg, President Erdoğan said that building the gas pipeline quickly was a priority. In September Gazprom announced it had received first regulatory approvals from Turkey, allowing the project to move into implementation phase.

Putin said Monday the need to develop the Turkish Stream natural gas project had been stressed in his talks with Erdoğan, adding that Russia also actively planned to expand it hydrocarbon exports eastward to China, Japan and India. “Russia will further interact in energy with all interested parties for mutual beneficial partnerships on an equal footing,” he added.

“Gas cooperation between Russia and Turkey could be scary for the European Union,” said Akin Unver, assistant professor of international relations at Kadir Has University in Istanbul and an expert in regional energy.

“The EU wants to diversify suppliers and link eastern Mediterranean gas to Europe in the long run … if Russia bypasses all that with TurkStream that would not help.

EU officials fear that TurkStream will be expanded to bypass Ukraine as a transit route for supplies to Europe, increasing dependence on Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom and shutting in alternative supplies from the Caspian region.

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak has said Turkey will “play a large role as a transit country” to supply Europe – the very prospect which worries EU officials. Brussels is instead promoting a chain of pipelines known as the Southern Gas Corridor to transport gas from the Shah Deniz field in Azerbaijan to European markets by 2020.

Akkuyu nuclear plant.

Turkey and Russia have also reached consensus on the acceleration of the process for the Akkuyu nuclear plant.

Erdoğan said on Monday that Turkey is seeking ways to implement plans for a third nuclear power plant and aims to produce 10 percent of its electricity from nuclear power in the coming years.
Russia is currently developing Turkey’s first nuclear plant by the Mediterranean.

In May 2010, Russia and Turkey signed an agreement that a subsidiary of Rosatom — Akkuyu NGS Elektrik Uretim Corp. (APC: Akkuyu Project Company) — would build, own, and operate a power plant at Akkuyu comprising four 1,200 MW VVER units.

The agreement was ratified by the Turkish Parliament in July 2010. Engineering and survey work started at the site in 2011.

The construction of the first unit was scheduled to begin in 2016, with the four units put into service in 2022–25. In 2013, Russian nuclear construction company Atomstroyexport (ASE) and Turkish construction company Ozdogu signed the site preparation contract for the proposed Akkuyu nuclear power plant.

The contract includes excavation work at the site. The official launch ceremony took place in April 2015, and the first unit is expected to be completed in 2022.

Relations between Ankara and Moscow were strained after Turkey brought down a Russian military jet on Nov. 24, 2015 after it allegedly violated Turkey’s airspace near the Syrian border.

However, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in December 2015, that the fate of the Akkuyu nuclear plant, which is planned to be built in Turkey by Russia, will be left to the companies involved in the project to decide.

Speaking at his annual press conference in Moscow, Putin said the decision over whether the Akkuyu nuclear power plant will be realized belongs to the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation, Rosatom, and its partners in Turkey. “Russia will not take any step that would harm its economic interests,” he added.

The Russian president also spoke about the downing of a Russian warplane on Nov. 24. Putin said: “It cannot be said that we see Turkey as an enemy country, yet our relations deteriorated. I do not know how to get out of this situation,” adding that it was up to Turkey from now on. “If Turkey thought that we would retreat from Syria following the downing of the plane, Russia is not that country,” Putin added.

The thaw between Russio-Turkish relations began with the virtual apology of President Erdoğan in June and accelerated after the abortive coup against President Erdogan in July last. Russia was among the first countries to condemn the coup attempt.

==============

Turkey and Russia Monday (Oct 10) signed the Turkish Stream gas pipeline agreement.

The signing of the strategic deal came after a meeting between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian n President Vladimir Putin who was in Istanbul to attend the 23rd World Energy Congress which gathered 10,000 participants, including four presidents, 250 energy ministers, academia, policy­ makers and CEOs of top energy companies.

This was Putin’s first trip to Turkey since a bilateral crisis sparked by Turkey’s shooting down of a Russian war plane over Syria last November. Putin and Erdoğan have met on two occasions – since a

Turkish June initiative to normalize ties after the plane crisis – in Putin’s home city of Saint Petersburg and then on the sidelines of the G-20 in China.

In a bid to normalize relations with Russia, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in June expressed regret for the downing of a Russian warplane. “I would like to send my condolences to the family of the Russian pilot who lost his life and express one more time that I share their pain; may they excuse us,” Erdogan said in a statement. “I believe that we will leave behind this current situation, which is to the detriment of both countries, and rapidly normalize our relations,” Erdogan added in a speech later on in the day.

Russia’s Gazprom and Turkey’s BOTAŞ in 2014 signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for the construction of the Turkish Stream gas pipeline, with a capacity of 63 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas per year from Russia to Turkey across the Black Sea.

However, talks on the project were halted last year after Turkey shot down a Russian air force jet and Moscow retaliated with trade sanctions but since then the two countries have made significant progress to mend relations.

In August last at a joint news conference with his Russian counterpart in St. Petersburg, President Erdoğan said that building the gas pipeline quickly was a priority. In September Gazprom announced it had received first regulatory approvals from Turkey, allowing the project to move into implementation phase.

Putin said Monday the need to develop the Turkish Stream natural gas project had been stressed in his talks with Erdoğan, adding that Russia also actively planned to expand it hydrocarbon exports eastward to China, Japan and India. “Russia will further interact in energy with all interested parties for mutual beneficial partnerships on an equal footing,” he added.

“Gas cooperation between Russia and Turkey could be scary for the European Union,” said Akin Unver, assistant professor of international relations at Kadir Has University in Istanbul and an expert in regional energy.

“The EU wants to diversify suppliers and link eastern Mediterranean gas to Europe in the long run … if Russia bypasses all that with TurkStream that would not help.

EU officials fear that TurkStream will be expanded to bypass Ukraine as a transit route for supplies to Europe, increasing dependence on Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom and shutting in alternative supplies from the Caspian region.

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak has said Turkey will “play a large role as a transit country” to supply Europe – the very prospect which worries EU officials. Brussels is instead promoting a chain of pipelines known as the Southern Gas Corridor to transport gas from the Shah Deniz field in Azerbaijan to European markets by 2020.

Akkuyu nuclear plant.

Turkey and Russia have also reached consensus on the acceleration of the process for the Akkuyu nuclear plant.

Erdoğan said on Monday that Turkey is seeking ways to implement plans for a third nuclear power plant and aims to produce 10 percent of its electricity from nuclear power in the coming years.
Russia is currently developing Turkey’s first nuclear plant by the Mediterranean.

In May 2010, Russia and Turkey signed an agreement that a subsidiary of Rosatom — Akkuyu NGS Elektrik Uretim Corp. (APC: Akkuyu Project Company) — would build, own, and operate a power plant at Akkuyu comprising four 1,200 MW VVER units.

The agreement was ratified by the Turkish Parliament in July 2010. Engineering and survey work started at the site in 2011.

The construction of the first unit was scheduled to begin in 2016, with the four units put into service in 2022–25. In 2013, Russian nuclear construction company Atomstroyexport (ASE) and Turkish construction company Ozdogu signed the site preparation contract for the proposed Akkuyu nuclear power plant.

The contract includes excavation work at the site. The official launch ceremony took place in April 2015, and the first unit is expected to be completed in 2022.

Relations between Ankara and Moscow were strained after Turkey brought down a Russian military jet on Nov. 24, 2015 after it allegedly violated Turkey’s airspace near the Syrian border.

However, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in December 2015, that the fate of the Akkuyu nuclear plant, which is planned to be built in Turkey by Russia, will be left to the companies involved in the project to decide.

Speaking at his annual press conference in Moscow, Putin said the decision over whether the Akkuyu nuclear power plant will be realized belongs to the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation, Rosatom, and its partners in Turkey. “Russia will not take any step that would harm its economic interests,” he added.

The Russian president also spoke about the downing of a Russian warplane on Nov. 24. Putin said: “It cannot be said that we see Turkey as an enemy country, yet our relations deteriorated. I do not know how to get out of this situation,” adding that it was up to Turkey from now on. “If Turkey thought that we would retreat from Syria following the downing of the plane, Russia is not that country,” Putin added.

The thaw between Russio-Turkish relations began with the virtual apology of President Erdogan in June and accelerated after the abortive coup against President Erdogan in July last. Russia was among the first countries to condemn the coup attempt.

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

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11 October 2016

By Sarah Aziza

“If you’re listening to this, then you will know that myself and all the women who sailed on the Women’s Boat to Gaza have been arrested and are in detention in Israel.”

These pre-recorded words by Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire open a 2-minutevideo, released October 5, after Maguire and 12 female companions aboard the small sailing vessel the Olivia-Zaytouna were detained by Israeli forces about 40 miles off the coast of Gaza. The women aboard the Zaytouna launched their single-boat flotilla on September 23 under the banner Women’s Boat to Gaza, the latest attempt by theFreedom Flotilla Coalition to break the decade-long blockade of the Palestinian territory. A diverse group of women boarded alongside Maguire, including retired U.S. Army Colonel Ann Wright and Malaysian gynecologist Dr. Fauziah Hasan.

The women were well aware that their chances of actually reaching Gaza were slim. As the group neared the shore on October 5, spokeswoman Claude Leostic told the AFP“the Zaytouna-Oliva has passed the fatal line of 100 miles and everything is going well.” Within hours, however, several Israeli vessels surrounded the flotilla, boarding the Zaytouna and detaining those on board. The Israeli Navy reported that the intervention came after “exhausting all diplomatic channels” and that the detention proceeded without violence.

The women of the flotilla described their arrest as “illegal” and wrote on their website, “whilst the term ‘peaceful’ has been used in some media to describe the attack and capture of our boat, this is inaccurate. Peace is more than merely the absence of physical violence. Oppression, occupation, denial of human rights and taking a boat of unarmed, nonviolent women against their will are not peaceful activities.”

On the Gazan beach that morning, Palestinians prepared to greet the flotilla, assembling with flags and banners on the shore, but the women were taken by Israeli forces to the Ashdod port and later held in Givon Prison.

The use of flotillas to protest the siege in Gaza began in 2008, when a group of activists sought a way to defy the blockade using creative, nonviolent means. The group eventually decided to break the blockade directly by sending a flotilla to the port of Gaza, which had not been entered by an international vessel since 1967. After months of grassroots fundraising and organization, 47 activists representing 17 countries launched their mission in two small wooden boats, the SS Gaza and the SS Liberty. They were able to reach the Gaza port with supplies, including hearing aids for children whose hearing had been damaged in the sonic booms caused by military flyovers.

Subsequent attempts by activists to break the siege have been less successful — and in some cases, tragic. In 2010, the Turkish vessel the Mavi Marmara attempted to reach Gaza with humanitarian aid, but when Israeli forces intercepted the boat on May 31, violence ensued. The clash left nine Turkish activists dead (a 10th would die later, after a years-long coma) and 10 Israelis injured. The event sparked international outcry, but it has not deterred organizations like the Freedom Flotilla Coalition and theInternational Committee for Breaking the Siege of Gaza, from continuing similar attempts to reach Gaza.

The Women’s Boat to Gaza was the first all-female flotilla, and aimed to highlight the role of Palestinian women in the struggle for self-determination and the uniquelygendered effects of the occupation. Before the flotilla, Gazan women shared their perspectives on the siege through videos posted on the group’s site.

The activists also hoped that an all-female crew would be treated with less force, said spokesperson Claude Léostic. “We hope that with women on board they [the Israeli navy] will be deterred from being so violent,”she told Electronic Intifada, adding, “maybe it’s just wishful thinking.”

The women of the flotilla have confirmed their physical safety throughout, and the last of the 13 activists were released Friday. Yet even as they depart, the women of the flotilla have reiterated their reason for sailing: to raise awareness of the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, where 80 percent of the 1.9 million residents rely on aid to survive. The 10-year blockade has crippled the economy, reducing trade to 15 percent of its pre-siege levels, while power outages, food shortages, rampant unemployment and undrinkable water perpetuate a state of crisis.

On their webpage, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition has pledged to continue its efforts “until Gaza is free.”

Sarah Aziza is an Arab-American writer, graduate student and activist based in NYC. She has previously worked among refugee populations in North Africa, Jordan and the West Bank. Her areas of focus include immigration, human rights, international politics, feminism and mental health. She is a lover of the story-less-told. Find her on Twitter@SarahAziza1 or www.sarahaziza.com

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

First published by CommonDreams.org

10 October 2016

By Matt Blitz

A CC reader,EM, who sent in this article writes,

My country is “nuts” to have a Christopher Columbus holiday today. It’s like having a holiday for Josef Mengele, Angel of Death.

Didn’t the native American serve as the first people, who discovered America? What about the Vikings and other groups, who preceded Columbus? …

People need to wake up to the “truth” instead of blinding going along with cultural conventions. How could anyone celebrate a human like this deplorably unethical one?

EM

“In fourteen hundred and ninety two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue….

Today, Christopher Columbus is celebrated as a mythical hero
by some – complete with songs, poems, and fictional tales about
his great adventure across the Atlantic to explore the majestic land
that would eventually be known as the Americas. There are fifty
four communities named after the explorer in the United States,
including the District of Columbia. “Hail, Columbia” was the
United States’ unofficial national anthem until 1931.
A federal holiday, “Columbus Day,” is celebrated every
second Monday in October.

Despite all of this, historians have begun to tear down the
Columbus myth: That he discovered America. That he proved
the world wasn’t flat. (That had been well-known for more than
a millennium in Columbus’ time. In fact, scholars had a
pretty good idea of what the circumference of the Earth
was, which was part of the dissent against Columbus making
his trip- Columbus thought Asia was bigger than it is and
the world much smaller, leading one of the scholars commissioned
by the monarchy to investigate the plausibility of Columbus’
journey succeeding to say, it was “impossible to any
educated person”). That he came to America in the name of
exploration. And, finally, that he came in peace.

Quite simply, most of these “facts” are unequivocally false or
half-truths. Columbus sailed the ocean blue to look for
wealth and, officially, in the name of Christianity.
What he mostly did, though, was enslave and rape
the natives he met, sold girls (as young as nine by
his own account) into prostitution, and committed
numerous acts so heinous that he was forcibly
removed from power and sent back to Spain in
chains. Christopher Columbus was brutal,
even by the standards of his age, leading
Bartolome de las Casa, who accompanied
Columbus on one of his voyages, to write in his
The History of the Indies, “Such inhumanities
and barbarisms were committed in my sight
as no age can parallel… My eyes have seen
these acts so foreign to human nature that
now I tremble as I write.”

In August 1492, Columbus departed Spain with
three ships – the Santa Maria, the Pinta, and
the Santa Clara (nicknamed “the Nina”).
After two months on the high seas, land was
spotted. Now, before they had left, King Ferdinand
and Queen Isabella had promised to whoever
spotted land first a reward of a silken jacket and an
annuity of ten thousand maravedis. The lookout
on the Pinta was Rodrigo de Triana and he was
the first to spot land. He shouted to the rest of
the crew down below, and the Pinta’s captain
announced the discovery with cannon fire.
When it came time to receive the reward though,
Columbus claimed he actually saw a light in the
distance several hours prior to Triana’s shout,
“but it was so indistinct that I did not dare to
affirm it was land.” The reward reportedly
went to Columbus.

Upon landing on the island, which he would call
San Salvador (present-day Bahamas), Columbus
immediately went to work finding gold and
enslaving the native populations. Specifically,
Columbus, upon seeing the Arawaks
(the peoples of the region) come out of
the forests frightened of the men with
swords, but bearing gifts, wrote in his journal,

They do not bear arms, and do not know them,
for I showed them a sword, they took it by the
edge and cut themselves out of ignorance.
They would make fine servants . . . with fifty
men we could subjugate them all and
make them do whatever we want.

As other European visitors would observe, the Arawaks
were legendary for their hospitality and their desire to share.
Again saying Columbus about the Arawaks, “are so naive
and so free with their possessions that no one who has not
witnessed them would believe it. When you ask for
something they have, they never say no.
To the contrary, they offer to share with anyone.”

Columbus quickly took advantage of this. Seeing
that they wore gold studs in their ears, he rounded up
of a number of Arawaks and had them lead him to
where gold was. The journey took them to present day
Cuba and Haiti (but Columbus thought it was Asia),
where they found specks of gold in the river,
but not the enormous “fields” Columbus was
expecting. Nonetheless, he wrote back to Spain
saying that, “There are many spices, and great
mines of gold and other metals.” This report
earned him financing for a second voyage,
this time with 13 ships and twelve hundred men.
While he never ended up filling up these ships
with gold, he filled them with another “currency”
and one that would have a horrendous effect
on the world going forward – slaves.

In 1495, Columbus arrived back in the New World
and immediately took 1500 Arawaks as prisoners.
Of those 1500, he picked 500 to be shipped back to Spain
as slaves (about two hundred died on the journey back),
starting the transatlantic slave trade. The rest were
forced to find what little gold existed in the region.
According to noted historian Howard Zinn,
anyone over 14 had to meet a gold quota.
If they didn’t find enough gold, they would have
their hands cut off.

Eventually, when it was realized there wasn’t much
gold in the region, Columbus and his men just took
the rest as slaves and put them to work on their newly
established estates in the region. Many natives died
and their numbers dwindled. In the 15th century,
modern historians believe there were about
300,000 Arawaks. By 1515, there were only
50,000 left. By 1531, 600 and by 1650,
there were no longer any full-blooded
Arawaks left on the islands.

The way Columbus and his men treated the women
and children of these populations was even worse.
Columbus routinely used the raping of women as
a “reward” for his lieutenants. For example,
here’s an account from one of Columbus’ friends
and compatriots, Michele de Cuneo, who
accompanied Columbus on his second journey
to the New World, on what Michele did to
a native “Carb woman.” Michele wrote that,

While I was in the boat I captured a very beautiful
Carib woman, whom the said Lord Admiral [Columbus]
gave to me, and with whom, having taken her into my cabin,
she being naked according to their custom, I conceived
desire to take pleasure. I wanted to put my desire
into execution but she did not want it and treated
me with her finger nails in such a manner that
I wished I had never begun. But seeing that
(to tell you the end of it all), I took a rope and
thrashed her well, for which she raised such
unheard of screams that you would not have
believed your ears. Finally we came to an
agreement in such manner that I can tell you
that she seemed to have been brought up in a
school of whores…

Going further, Columbus wrote in a letter from 1500,

A hundred castellanos are as easily obtained for
a woman as for a farm, and it is very general and
there are plenty of dealers who go about looking
for girls; those from nine to ten are now in demand.

As illustrated in a recently discovered 48 page report
found in the Spanish archives written by
Francisco De Bobadilla (charged with investigating
Columbus’ rule at the behest of Queen Isabella
and King Ferdinand, who were troubled by
allegations of some of Columbus’ acts),
a woman who verbally insulted Columbus’ family
was stripped naked and made to ride around the
colony on a mule. After the trip was done, her tongue
was cut out by the order of Columbus’ brother,
Bartolomé, who Columbus then congratulated
for successfully defending the family’s honor.
Needless to say, these and numerous other
such acts ultimately resulted in De Bobadilla
having Columbus removed from power
and sent back to Spain in chains.

After Columbus came, and was forced out,
the Spaniards continued his policy of
enslavement and violence. In 1552,
the Spanish historian and friar
Bartolome de las Casas published
multiple volumes under the title
The History of Indies. In it, he described
the collapse of the non-European population.
Casas writes that when the men were captured
and forced to work in mines looking for gold,
rarely if ever returning home, it significantly
impacted the birth rate. If a woman did
give birth, she would be so overworked
herself and malnourished, that she often
could not produce enough milk for the baby.
He even reported that some of the women
“drowned their babies from sheer desperation.”

There are lot more examples, writings,
and research that points to one fact
– Christopher Columbus was a lamentable
individual. Nobody’s perfect- if we restricted
celebrated individuals to those who didn’t
have any major flaws, we’d have few humans
to celebrate- and it’s extremely important
to view things in the context of the time
individuals lived in. But even in his age,
many of his acts were considered deplorable
by his peers, which is in no small part why
Columbus was arrested for his conduct
in the New World. Combined with his
truly historic and widespread impact being
incidental to what he was actually trying to do
(so a little hard to celebrate him for even
that side of his life), maybe it is time that
we let go of the myths we learned about
Christopher Columbus in elementary school
and stop celebrating Columbus, the man.

First published in Todayifoundout.com
10 October 2016