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By Alex Lantier

The six-month extension of European Union (EU) economic sanctions against Russia, agreed Wednesday in Brussels by ambassadors from all 28 EU members states, marks a milestone in the war drive waged by the imperialist powers of NATO against Russia.

These sanctions, first imposed amid the crisis over the still-unresolved shoot-down last July of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 in Ukraine, targeted exports of equipment to Russia’s oil industry and cut off Russian access to credit from European banks. As the EU is Russia’s largest trade and investment partner, the sanctions played a key role in the Russian ruble’s collapse last year.

Now, EU officials pointed to ongoing fighting in eastern Ukraine, after the February peace accords negotiated in Minsk between the NATO-backed Kiev regime’s forces and pro-Russian separatists, to justify maintaining the sanctions. EU sources said, “The idea is to extend [sanctions] to end-January to give time to review progress on the Minsk accord before having to take a new decision.”

“EU foreign ministers will finalize the decision in Luxembourg on Monday,” Poland’s permanent representative to the EU said on Twitter.

Russian officials replied by accusing the Kiev regime of provoking recent fighting in east Ukraine to provide a pretext for their decision. “It’s obvious there are forces in the world and in Ukraine, which are interested in the deterioration of the situation on the ground in the run-up to major international events, including EU summits, in order to urge the international community to extend sanctions and impose new ones,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Alexey Meshkov.

Nevertheless, Meshkov neither condemned the sanctions nor called on the EU to stop them. He said Russian officials are “realists, we carefully analyze what our Western partners say,” adding: “Russia did not impose sanctions, we are not asking anyone to lift them.”

The latest EU sanctions are part of a broad drive by US and European finance capital to isolate Russia, threatening it with bankruptcy and war, in order to reduce it to semi-colonial status and establish the hegemony of the NATO powers, led by Washington, over all of Eurasia. This politically criminal policy, which NATO launched last year by backing a right-wing putsch against a pro-Russian regime in Ukraine, threatens to lead to all-out war with Russia, a nuclear-armed power.

In February, US officials discussed directly arming Ukrainian forces fighting Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, and earlier this month, Pentagon officials testified before the US Congress that Washington is preparing missiles strikes on Russia.

The EU sanctions are the most powerful weapon in the financial arsenal NATO is deploying to wage economic war on Russia. During the ruble crisis last year, financial analysts calculated that cutting off Russian access to credit from Europe could bankrupt much of the Russian economy in as little as two years. This policy appears to be aimed at convincing the capitalist oligarchs who control Russia’s post-Soviet economy to topple Russian President Vladimir Putin and install a regime that will obey all the dictates of Washington and the EU powers.

The pursuit of such an aggressive policy has vast and potentially unforeseeable implications. When the sanctions were first imposed last year, Russian officials attacked them as a campaign for regime change. “Western leaders publicly state that the sanctions must hurt [Russia’s] economy and stir up public protests. The West doesn’t want to change Russia’s policies. They want regime change,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Given that previous targets of NATO campaigns for regime change—from Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic to Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi of Libya—all died in custody of NATO-backed forces, Russian officials are doubtless preparing policies as fraught as those of Washington.

The decision to maintain EU sanctions testifies to the recklessness and anti-democratic character of EU foreign policy. A recent Pew poll found mass popular opposition in Europe to a policy of stoking war with Russia. The European powers are proceeding with a confrontation that has the potential to escalate into full-scale war.

The only force that can oppose the drive to war is the mobilization of the working class internationally in a revolutionary struggle against imperialism and capitalism. Neither Russia’s bankrupt capitalist regime nor critics of EU sanctions policy within the European ruling class can halt the war drive launched by the most powerful imperialist countries.

Significantly, the EU is adopting its sanctions even after significant sections of the European bourgeoisie criticized them as self-destructive and dangerous. Last year, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban attacked the sanctions as “shooting oneself in the foot,” while former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said they amounted to “collective suicide.”

“I do not support basing policy on worst-case outcomes, I think sanctions must stop,” French President François Hollande declared in January. He added, “Mr Putin does not want to annex east Ukraine, I am sure of it. … What Mr Putin wants is to prevent Ukraine from joining the camp of NATO. The idea for Mr Putin is to avoid having a hostile military presence on his borders.”

Many argue that the EU sanctions are dangerous, because cutting off economic ties between Europe and Russia encourages Moscow to turn to an alliance with China against NATO.

After the announcement of EU sanctions last year, Chinese officials indicated that they could extend credit to Russia to keep it from going bankrupt. This year, Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) chief Kirill Dmitriev said China was investing tens of billions of dollars in Russia, adding: “Within 2-3 years the investment inflow from China may be equal to that from Europe in recent years.”

One critic of EU sanctions against Russia, former Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, declared: “My concern is that Russia could turn to the East by strengthening their cooperation with China and playing a greater role in Asia and deciding that Europe is irrelevant. This is my concern and yet another argument to say that this policy is against European interests.”

Nonetheless, on Wednesday, representatives of these governments all toed the line advanced by the United States, Germany and Britain, who have pressed for an aggressive stance against Russia.

Indeed, Italian and French officials criticizing EU sanctions are participating in the same imperialist scramble to grab resources and markets as their US, German and British counterparts.
19 June, 2015
WSWS.org

 

By Brigitte Knopf

With his encyclical “Laudato Si” the Pope has written more than a moral appeal without obligation. He has presented a pioneering political analysis with great explosive power, which will probably determine the public debate on climate change, poverty and inequality for years to come. Thus, the encyclical is also highly relevant to me as a non-Catholic and non-believer; the implications of the encyclical are very apparent through the eyes of a secular person.

The core of the encyclical makes clear that global warming is a “global problem with grave implications: environmental, social, economic, political and for the distribution of goods” (25 – where the numbers refer to the numbering in the encyclical). The reasons identified are mainly the current models of production and consumption (26). The encyclical emphasizes that the gravest effects of climate change and the increasing inequality are suffered by the poorest (48). Since we face a complex socio-ecological crisis, strategies for a solution demand an integrated approach to combating poverty (139). So far, however, governments have not found a solution for the over-exploitation of the global commons, such as atmosphere, oceans, and forests (169). Therefore, the encyclical focusses on actors, such as non-governmental organizations, cooperatives and intermediate groups (179) and calls for a dialogue between politics, science, business and religion.

The encyclical is, with 246 individual points, too extensive to be discussed in here in its entirety, but three aspects are particularly noteworthy:

1. it is based unequivocally onthe scientific consensusthat global warmingis taking placeand that climate changeis man-made; itrejects thedenialof anthropogenicwarming;

2. it unmasks the political and economic structures of power behind the climate change debate and stresses the importance of non-state actors in achieving change; and

3. it defines the atmosphere and the environment as a common good rather than a “no man’s land”, available for anyone to pollute. This underlines that climate change is strongly related to the issues of justice and property rights.

1. The Pope and science

The statements of the Pope concerning the scientific basis are in principle nothing new. The scientific consensus is recognized in the encyclical at the outset:

A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system. […] A number of scientific studies indicate that most global warming in recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases […] released mainly as a result of human activity (23).

Moreover, the Pope refers to the scientifically long-established fact that the use of fossil fuels and deforestation are the main causes of climate change (23).

What is now a commonplace in Europe is not uniformly accepted in the US. A turbulent debate surrounding the encyclical began even before its official publication. This is understandable, given that there are many in the US who still cast doubt on the scientific basis of climate change. Even Jeb Bush, the presidential candidate, does not deny climate change itself, but says that the human role in climate change is “convoluted“. Rick Santorum, also a Republican presidential candidate, has actually rejected the right of the Pope to comment on the scientific basis of climate change. There is no doubt that there will be a heated argument on this part of the encyclical especially in the US which will also frame the American debate on the future international climate agreement that is expected to be negotiated by the end of this year in Paris.

2. The Pope and politics

Although the encyclical puts a focus on the poor it is not merely a moral scripture. It is also no ordinary appeal to governments to act. On the contrary, it explicitly states that international negotiations have so far not made significant progress (169) and accuses international politics of its weak response (54). In addition, the Pope unmasks in very clear terms the political interests of those who deny climate change and hinder mitigation:

Many of those who possess more resources and economic or political power seem mostly to be concerned with masking the problems or concealing their symptoms, simply making efforts to reduce some of the negative impacts of climate change” (26).

While the Pope does not address governments as main actors, nor does he frame the climate problem only as the responsibility of each individual. Instead, the encyclical underlines the importance of collective actors such as cooperatives, non-governmental organizations and civil society (179).

However, the encyclical remains rather unspecific concerning concrete recommendations for action to prevent climate change and overcome poverty. The Pope does not comment on whether the 2°C temperature limit is adequate or whether 1.5°C would be more appropriate from the perspective of the poorest. Concerning energy sources, the Pope often refers to renewable energy (26, 164) and explicitly states that coal, oil and gas “needs to be progressively replaced without delay” (165). But he does not provide any further details on transformation scenarios or requirements for specific technologies. This is for good reason; it is not the task of the Pope to intervene in the detailed mechanics of politics. In this sense, the Pope also recognizes the different areas of competence of religion, politics and science.

3. The Pope and the global commons

Much more important than the choice of energy sources is the question of ownership of the global commons. Here, the encyclical states:

The climate is a common good, belonging to all and meant for all (23).

Several times the Pope refers to the common good and stresses that the “global commons” (174), such as the atmosphere, oceans, forests, and biosphere, belong to us all.

The encyclical thus implicitly describes the core problem of climate policy: we currently use the atmosphere as a disposal space. Everyone is allowed to pollute the atmosphere without paying for the negative externalities. Science has shown that we are limited to atmospheric emissions of around 1,000 GtCO2 in order not to exceed the 2 degree temperature limit (see Figure 1). However, substantial fossil resources are still stored in the ground, and these would give rise to emissions of about 15,000 GtCO2 due to combustion. If, due to climate policy, these fossil fuels may no longer be used, the resources would necessarily be devalued. The owners of coal, oil and gas would in fact be expropriated. In this context, the encyclical stresses the principle of “subordination of private property” (93-95, 156-158). This means that private property of fossil fuels can only be ethically justified if it serves the common good. Therefore, the devaluation of assets is not an unjustified disenfranchisement, but is legitimate because it serves the common good, namely the reduction of the risks and consequences of climate change.

To frame the climate problem as a “global commons” problem has far reaching consequences. This became clear when the term was relegated by the governments from the main text into a footnote in the report of the IPCC Working Group III. Some countries feared legal and distributional consequences. If the atmosphere is accepted as being a global commons, this immediately raises the question of who owns the atmosphere and who is allowed to pollute it. The encyclical is very clear about this:

The natural environment is a collective good, the patrimony of all humanity and the responsibility of everyone (95).

Ownership thus goes hand in hand with a responsibility to take into account the principles of justice. The currently prevailing “law of the jungle”, causing the atmosphere to be overused in terms of the deposition of carbon ad infinitum, is thus de-legitimized by the Pope.

Implications for the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris

The encyclical is only expected to have an indirect effect on the UN climate change conference – but it will probably be long-lasting. Its timing may have a positive impact on the negotiations in Paris, but more importantly, it is timeless and emphasizes the fundamental question of solving the intertwined problems of climate change, poverty and inequality. Providing an answer to these questions is becoming globally ever more pressing. The encyclical does not address the governments directly but refers to a global “ecological movement” (166). For the Pope it is clear: without pressure from the public and from civic institutions there will be no progress (181).

With this analysis the encyclical describes a phenomenon that has now become global. While the nations of the G7 commit to decarbonization but do not agree on corresponding joint policy measures, there are many positive signs of movement in the climate carousel aside from the international climate negotiations: a new study by UNEP shows that a substantial contribution can be made to reduce emissions by cities and other subnational actors; the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund has decided to sell its coal investments and sends a strong signal for a global divestment strategy; and six large oil companies get together begging for pricing CO2 emissions.

Individual actions alone will achieve little, but together they can make a difference; they could well contribute to an international climate agreement serving as a foundation for the governance of the global commons.

The fact that the commons can indeed be successfully managed has already been proven at the local level: Elinor Ostrom has shown that communities can develop diverse institutional arrangements for managing the commons without overexploitation. For this finding, Ostrom was awarded the Nobel Prize for economics in 2009. It is now time to show that the management of global commons is collectively possible.

Perhaps this is the overarching message of the encyclical: the fair management of the global commons is one of the most important tasks of the 21st century. This can only be successful if a large number of actors across different levels of governance, ranging from global, to regional and local, link up together. This convinces also me as an atheist: heaven belongs to us all.

Dr. Brigitte Knopf is Secretary General of the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC) and an expert on European energy and climate policy and one of the Editors of the Book “Climate Change, Justice and Sustainability”.

19 June, 2015
Realclimate.org

By Greg Miller and Karen DeYoung

Key lawmakers have moved to slash funding of a secret CIA operation to train and arm rebels in Syria, a move that U.S. officials said reflects rising skepticism of the effectiveness of the agency program and the Obama administration’s strategy in the Middle East.

The House Intelligence Committee recently voted unanimously to cut as much as 20 percent of the classified funds flowing into a CIA program that U.S. officials said has become one the agency’s largest covert operations, with a budget approaching $1 billion a year.

“There is a great deal of concern on a very bipartisan basis with our strategy in Syria,” said Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the intelligence panel. He declined to comment on specific provisions of the committee’s bill but cited growing pessimism that the United States will be in a position “to help shape the aftermath” of Syria’s civil war.

The cuts to the CIA program are included in a preliminary intelligence spending bill that is expected to be voted on in the House next week. The measure has provoked concern among CIA and White House officials, who warned that pulling money out of the CIA effort could weaken U.S.-backed insurgents just as they have begun to emerge as effective fighters. The White House declined to comment.

Recent CIA assessments have warned that the war is approaching a critical stage in which Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is losing territory and strength, and might soon be forced to relinquish all but a narrow corridor of the country to rebel groups — some of them dominated by Islamist militants.

[Assad hold on seen as increasingly imperiled}

“Regime losses across the front lines are edging the conflict closer to [Assad’s] doorstep,” a U.S. intelligence official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The Syrian president “is not necessarily on the verge of defeat,” the official said, noting that Russia and Iran continue to support him and could help him stave off collapse. But because of regime losses in Idlib and elsewhere, the official said, “many people are starting to openly talk about an endgame for Assad and Syria.”

The projections have prompted a flurry of discussions at the White House, CIA, Pentagon and State Department regarding post-Assad scenarios, officials said, and whether U.S.-backed moderate forces will be in a position to prevent the country from being overrun by extremist groups, including the Islamic State, which has beheaded Western hostages and declared a caliphate encompassing large parts of Syria and Iraq.

This week, President Obama expanded the U.S. military’s role against the Islamic State, unveiling plans to deploy U.S. advisers to new bases in Iraq, while announcing no change to the limited American-led bombing campaign that began in Iraq and Syria last year. A separate Defense Department program authorized to train moderate fighters to combat the Islamic State has not yet begun.

But the sudden contraction of Assad’s sphere of control has focused renewed attention on Syria and the CIA program set up in 2013 to bolster moderate forces that still represent the United States’ most direct involvement on the ground in Syria’s civil war.

The cost of that CIA program has not previously been disclosed, and the figure provides the clearest indication to date of the extent to which the agency’s attention and resources have shifted to Syria.

At $1 billion, Syria-related operations account for about $1 of every $15 in the CIA’s overall budget, judging by spending levels revealed in documents The Washington Post obtained from former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.

U.S. officials said the CIA has trained and equipped nearly 10,000 fighters sent into Syria over the past several years — meaning that the agency is spending roughly $100,000 per year for every anti-Assad rebel who has gone through the program.

The CIA declined to comment on the program or its budget. But U.S. officials defended the scale of the expenditures, saying the money goes toward much more than salaries and weapons and is part of a broader, multibillion-dollar effort involving Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey to bolster a coalition of militias known as the Southern Front of the Free Syrian Army.

Much of the CIA’s money goes toward running secret training camps in Jordan, gathering intelligence to help guide the operations of agency-backed militias and managing a sprawling logistics network used to move fighters, ammunition and weapons into the country.

The move by the House intelligence panel to cut the program’s funds is not mentioned in the unclassified version of the spending bill. But statements released by lawmakers alluded to some of their underlying concerns, including a line calling for an “effort to enhance the metrics involved in a critically important [intelligence community] program.”

That language, officials said, was a veiled reference to members’ mounting frustration with the program and a perceived inability by the agency to show that its forces have gained territory, won battles or achieved other measurable results.

“Assad is increasingly in danger, and people may be taking bets on how long he can last, but it’s largely not as a result of action by so-called moderates on the ground,” said a senior Republican aide in Congress, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the subject.

In the past two years, the goal of the CIA’s mission in Syria has shifted from ousting Assad to countering the rise of extremist groups including al-Qaeda affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State, which is also known as ISIS and ISIL.

“Unfortunately, I think that ISIS, al-Nusra and some of the other radical Islamic factions are the best positioned to capi­tal­ize on the chaos that might accompany a rapid decline of the regime,” Schiff said.

Even defenders of the CIA program acknowledge that moderate factions in Syria have often performed poorly and are likely to be overwhelmed in any direct showdown with the Islamic State.

Still, officials said U.S.-backed fighters have made significant gains in recent weeks — including the seizure of a government army base — and represent the only meaningful prospect for the United States and its allies to maintain a foothold in the country if Assad falls.

“This is especially true in southern Syria, where [the U.S.-backed coalition] is emerging as a significant force capable of capturing key regime bases,” the U.S. intelligence official said. “Slowly but surely, U.S. government support to the moderate opposition forces has paid off.”

Opposition leaders in southern Syria, where the CIA-trained fighters are concentrated, said the groups have recently become better organized and more effective in their use of heavier weapons, including U.S.-made TOW antitank missiles.

“They have coherent command and control and have unified Sunni groups,” said Oubai Shahbandar, a former top adviser to the opposition leadership who maintains regular contact with rebels on the ground. Moderate militias have kept control of border crossings into Jordan and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and are fighting on the outskirts of Damascus.

The training program, Shahbandar said, “is a precedent in terms of what works.” Rather than cut funds, he said, the United States “should really double down on its southern program.”

Rebel units in the area have set up functioning civilian governments that could be models for the kind of political transition the United States says it seeks as a replacement for Assad, said Lina Khatib of the Carnegie Middle East Center.

Despite those gains south of Damascus, experts and officials said that the most significant pressure on Assad’s regime is in northern Syria, where the Islamic State is on the offensive. At the same time, a separate coalition of rebel groups known as the Army of Conquest has taken advantage of infusions of new weapons and cash from Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar.

The intelligence spending bill would set budgets for the fiscal year beginning in October. The chairman of the House intelligence panel, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), declined a request for an interview.

The Senate Intelligence Committee is expected to begin work this month on its own budget for U.S. spy agencies. U.S. officials said the White House has signaled that it will seek to persuade the Senate panel to protect the CIA program from the cuts sought by the House.

Liz Sly in Beirut contributed to this report.

Greg Miller covers the intelligence beat for The Washington Post.

Karen DeYoung is associate editor and senior national security correspondent for the Washington Post.

12 June 2015

Press Release

Dalit Adivasi Mahila Swabhiman Yatra travelled more than 3000 kms across 11 districts of Odisha, conducted more than 45 village/street meetings, several public rallies in towns and submitted memorandum at District Collectorate of all districts. The Yatra team comprising of Dalit leaders from Haryana, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, volunteers, leaders and cultural activists from Odisha and several Dalit Adivasi community women leaders who travelled from village to village, town to town, district to district are now witness to brutal and heinous crimes against Dalits & Adivasi’s and Dalit women in particular.

We have shed tears and shared pain with the victims – survivors and their family members. We have shared the grief of losing lives of young daughters, mothers and wives to the clutches of the evil caste system.

The team has also expressed their anger and anguish at the utter failure of the Odisha police and administration in securing justice to the victims of caste violence. From wilful negligence of duties to the complicit in the violence against the women and young girls; and the indifference by the investigation officers, doctors, administrative officials was observed in several cases. It is shocking to note that the team came across with uncooperative police and officers who were unwilling to listen to the pleas of the victims-survivors.

Asha Kowtal, Gen. Sec. All India Dalit Mahila Adhikar Manch expressed her disgust saying, ‘ Past ten days in Odisha reveals the full spectrum of caste violence, particularly the women. To my utter shock, I have met survivors and victims of every sort of violence, including kidnap, rape, murder, sexual assault, stripping, naked parading, beating, verbal abuse, untouchability and discrimination.’

Gayatri, a 27 year old rape survivor in Kendrapada district explained, ‘ I have been running from pillar to post demanding the arrest of the accused but there is nobody in the administration to hear my cries of justice. The perpetrator is scot free and I am struggling by myself to maintain my life and dignity.’

Violence against Dalit women is often a tool in the hands of the dominant caste people to induce fear, maintain status quo, control access to resources and reinforce the caste hegemony. Bodies of Dalit women are often the sites on which caste wars are fought. We have observed this in Zabara village of Jajpur district in which women are fighting hard to to save the common grazing land. Many of the women said, ‘ Instead of arresting the accused, who created hell for us by beating our people, the police have filed false cases against us. How can we expect a safe, secure and dignified life, when the entire system is working against us?’

Police inaction and purposeful negligence in the investigations reveal severe lapses in the implementation of the SC/ST PoA Act. Absolute lack of relief, legal support, compensations, pyscho social support has left the community in deep trauma, fear and state of hopelessness.

Ms. Anju Singh, National Coordinator, AIDMAM exclaimed, ‘ Where should we Dalits and Adivasi’s go to seek justice? This is a utter shame of the Odisha Government for turning a blind eye to the severe caste atrocities. What is the use of special legal provisions when none of them are of any meaning for me and my community?’

We note that several instances of caste based violence against women. There is an increasing insecurity and vulnerability among the women and young children in different corners of Odisha such as the issues in a village in Jajpur district, where a small altercation involving Dalit youth led to violent attack by dominant caste people on Dalit colony; destroying houses and brutally assaulting the women and children. Worse still, the culprits went even to the extent; one of the Dalit women was stripped and paraded naked. She said, ‘Not a single officer has visited us since the incident. In fact we are living in constant fear of the bullies. They have also imposed social boycott on us and we can’t even go to the nearby shops. The violence has shattered our lives adding to already stricken by poverty..’

Young wives and mothers of little children are battling alone in search of justice for their murdered and seriously injured husbands. Both in Kendrapada and Jajpur districts, we learnt that there is no financial compensation and relief, no legal support nor medical assistance provided while the perpetrators have impunity. It is sad to note the police have closed their eyes.

In the recent chilling and inhuman case, there is no head way into the 15 years girl of Sargipally village in Bolangir district.

Caste is not cultural, but criminal. The caste based gender violence perpetrators seem to think otherwise.

These few instances of caste violence represent only the tip of the iceberg ! This cross section of cases of violence committed against Dalits Adivasi historically is deep seated in Odisha. Untouchability practices of various forms including discrimination in schools, anganwadi’s, shops and hotels, access to water in public places, renting houses in villages and towns, entering places of worship are rampantly practised in many villages. There is huge surge of trafficking of young girls to other states due to rising of drop outs and abject poverty.

Ajaya Kumar Singh, Convenor – Odisha Forum for Social Action said, ‘ For the last ten days, the Dalit Adivasi Mahila caravan that visited from villages to villages, towns to towns, meeting the victims survivors to community leaders; from civil society groups to district officials. There is an overarching fear and insecurity not just among the victims survivors but also among the dalit adivasi communities as the perpetrators of the caste based gender violence make mockery of criminal justice delivery system The executives and the police if not complicit remain indifference and callousness to the atrocities giving rise to untold sufferings and increased violences. The caste based gender violences could only be addressed if civil society and human rights groups come together to make the duty bearers accountable as well as right holders aware of the due rights and equality. Sure, the Yatra has brought in a new energy to carry on the struggles for equity and dignity.

This 10 days caravan that ended in candle Rally in Bhubaneswar and intense mobilisation of community on the ground leaves us with the hope of collective action in breaking impunity by calling out the authorities to take immediate action in curbing violence against Dalit women and monitor the policies meant to protect and deliver justice to the victims-survivors.

Our Demands:

1. Govt must strengthen the institutional mechanism (Exclusive Special Courts) for the protection and security of Dalit and Tribal women in the state through establishing the special cell through allocating special budgetary package for the same.

2. As the number of rape cases in Odisha is increasing day by day in the State, hence police must take proactive steps to create an atmosphere and environment to ensure that Dalits /Tribal girls and women are safe.

3. It is saddening to note that, there are no head ways for horrible inhuman tragedy to the Dalit young girls of Sargipali village of Bolangir. Hence we demand a stringent and urgent action against those perpetrators.

4. Adequate compensation and proper rehabilitation must be ensuring to the Atrocity victims along with a Govt job as per Rules 12(4) of SCs & STs (PoA).

5. Special Component Plan should be legislated in the State of Odisha. 50% budget should be reserved for women and direct schemes for their empowerment should be introduced.

6. Govt should amend the PoA Act and strengthen the implementation of PoA Act in the state.

7. Stringent punishment should be given to the Govt officers for their wilful negligence of their duties & responsibilities on deliver justice to the victims-survivors of caste based gender violences.

8. There is no representation of Dalits and Adivasi communities in all the existing commissions including Women Commission, Children Commission and other bodies; thus these commissions become cover up bodies rather ensure justice for the victims survivors even though they communities constitute nearly half of the population in the state.

9. The sexual violence and pregnancy cases against Dalit and Tribal minor girls in SC/ST Ashram schools are continuously increasing in different districts in the state. Hence we demand that Govt must set up a strong monitoring mechanism to ensure that, these children are safe and well protected.

10. Govt should establish hostels for the minority children of Dalit and Muslim origin in every block with a proportionate pre and post metric scholarship.

11. The officials purposefully interpreted wrongly in the FRA to deny the land rights to Dalits, who have been inhabitated in the same areas for centuries. Thus, we demand the land rights for the Dalits in the same.

12. It is a very sad thing that, due to the caste system and untochability practice in the state, the rented houses are not being provided to Dalits and Tribals resulting huge exclusion. Therefore Govt should amend the PoA to give justice to these marginalised communities in the state.

Asha Kotwal, General Secretary, All India Dalit Mahila Adhikar Manch, New Delhi

Ajaya kumar Singh, Convenor, Odisha Forum for Social Action, Bhubaneswar

12 June, 2015
Countercurrents.org

By Louisa Lamb

Baddawi Camp, Tripoli, Lebanon: Life as a Palestinian refugee is more than a constant struggle these days, in fact more than in memory, according to a representative sampling of some of the more than 200,000 Palestinians in Lebanon’s camps.

Every day looms with pessimism, as many wonder if they will be able to feed their families and have drinkable water, while also anticipating, with apprehension, the possibility of being shelled by militia or individual jihadists. Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, including the tens of thousands of refugees coming from Syria since 2011, now face an even bigger problem as United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) recently apologized for its drastically reduced funding and warned there would soon be even more aid cuts.

The UNRWA was established in December 1949, by resolution 302 (IV) of the UN General Assembly, as a reaction to the 1948 Nakba. It was created as a temporary measure designed to respond to the plight of approximately three-quarters of a million Palestinian refugees, pending achievement of a political settlement in their homeland, Palestine.

Sixty-six years after its establishment, in the continuing absence of a solution to the theft of Palestine, the agency continues to exist and function. These days, however, it lacks the necessary funds to fulfill its mandate. That mandate, was recently renewed by the UN General Assembly again until 30 June, 2017. This needed extension and the agency’s continuing existence are due, as UN secretary general Ban Ki Moon said recently, to “political failure” and the inability of the international community to bring about a durable solution to the problem of the Palestinian refugees, millions of whom are scattered all over the globe with nearly a quarter million existing in squalor and abject poverty in Lebanon. This political failure—a policy choice made and upheld by the leading world powers—has perpetuated and imposed continuous Palestinian suffering over four generations.

During my recent visit to Tripoli, Lebanon, where two of Lebanon’s 12 Palestinian camps, Badawwi and Nahr al Bared, are located, I was able to witness the courtyard of the school filled with Syrian-Palestinians holding a peaceful, sit-in protest. When I first approached the gathering, accompanied by my friends Wisam and Manal, both from Syria, I noticed about 70 people in the courtyard, some standing in small groups conversing, others sitting silently, praying, or talking among each other. Many families gathered together in the evening for several hours before returning home to put their children to sleep, sometimes returning to re-join the demonstrators. With the help of Abdullah Othman and Wisam Kraein who interpreted, I had the privilege of speaking to several individuals about their background, what they hoped to achieve, and what they expect of the future.

Among the people who had attended the protest every day since it started fourteen days ago, were two older gentlemen named Abo Feras and Abdullah. Abo Feras has been in Lebanon for thirty-three years, after coming during the civil war to fight for the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization). He was in Beirut when Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, and has been residing in Baddawi camp ever since. Abdullah was born in the camp and has spent his life there.

Besides being at the UNRWA school protesting every day, the protestors sometimes spend the night inside the school. Abdullah described in detail the many problems in Baddawi camp, explaining with dolor that UNRWA has reduced financial aid to Syrian-Palestinians (and Palestinians born in Lebanon) by $100 a month, effective in July. Monthly funding is contingent on how many family members are in a household, but the $100 reductions means families will now receive only half on the monthly funding they rely on and are accustomed to.

Abdullah also informed me that UNRWA has fired teachers due to budget cuts, while increasing classroom sizes, from approximately twenty-five students in a classroom to forty or more students. Abo Feras described his concern about being able to pay rent, because that additional $100 was barely, and sometimes not even, enough rent money. Abo Feras and Abdullah agreed that they would remain at the UNRWA school every day until something happens, and if in the future they can no longer pay rent, they will sleep at the site among other protesters.

The goal that all the Syrian-Palestinians want from protesting, Abo Feras explained, is for UNRWA to take responsibility to help refugees with health, education and finances. Approximately 70 to 90,000 Syrian-Palestinians have fled to Lebanon since 2011 and like Abo Feras, many believe UNRWA doesn’t do enough.

One Syrian-Palestinian woman, who requested to remain anonymous, suspects that UNRWA is getting pressured by Israel to reduce funding as a method of dividing Palestinians and keeping them from their homeland. This, she says, encourages Palestinians to move abroad, most likely to Europe and South America, to keep Palestinians away from the Jewish state. She wasn’t the only person I spoke with who believed this conspiracy; Abo Khaled, one of the main organizers of all Palestinians in camps in the north region of Lebanon, stated that this is the first course of action in a greater plan.

While these ideas spurred around the sit-in protest, most Palestinians were less concerned with the greater politics, but are more focused on what the immediate future holds for their families. Abo Khaled acknowledged a debate among many protesters between the Right to Return and staying in Lebanon compared to the wish to leave Lebanon and travel to other countries for a better life. According to Abo Khaled, the Palestinian parties want Palestinians to stay and fight against the obstacles, but the majority of Palestinians want to leave the Middle-East altogether.

Ikbal, a Palestinian from Yarmouk camp who has been living in Baddawi camp for a year and a half, says “it’s like death” to live without the funding from UNRWA. She, like all the other members of Baddawi camp with cell phones, was informed of funding cuts through SMS message. She already struggles to pay rent, and lives with her family in a house with two other families. She describes barely being able to afford rent and food before the cuts, and she doesn’t know what to do now. Like many women, she sits every day at the UNRWA school in solidarity with other mothers, while their children play. Ikbal says the despite the war in Syria, she would go back because she hates her life in Lebanon.

Safeia, originally from Sabineh camp in Syria, who has been protesting for thirteen days with her son says she desperately relied on the UNRWA money because her husband has cancer and most of that money went towards his medicine. Her husband needs an operation which costs $300, and she is stressed and discouraged about how to find money to pay for it. In Syria, her husband was a lawyer, but since coming to Lebanon their life has changed drastically, where work is scarce and Palestinians are lucky to find a job, and the jobs available to Palestinians pay little since they are barred by law from working in more than 35 professions. Safeia will continue to protest, and if she has to she will sleep in the school or the streets until she gets what she needs for her family.

Most of the people I talked with were Syrian-Palestinians, already living as refugees in Syria and had to relocate again to Lebanon. Manal, a mother of two small children, left Yarmouk Camp because of the lack of food and water and constant bombing. For eleven years she worked as a fashion designer, before getting married. Her husband worked as an electrician and doing home renovations. In Yarmouk, the living situation was terrible and she remembers getting food from the Palestinian Free Army. After her husband’s arrest and worsening conditions in Yarmouk camp, Manal came to Baddawi with her children to stay with her husband’s family. After 10 months of living with another family, she finally got her own place in April 2015. Manal is now worried about how to pay rent and feed her children, and if she cannot pay rent and is evicted, she will live among many others at the UNRWA school. Manal wants to leave Lebanon, but restrictions prevent her from doing so. She hasn’t seen her mother in four years, and wishes to move to Egypt to live with her sister and her parents. Until she finds a way to leave, she will unite with her refugee community and protest.

For every person in Baddawi camp, as well as the people currently residing in the Palestinian camps of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and the Palestinian territories of Gaza Strip and West Bank, the future suggests hardship more severe than what they have already endured.

As an American whose government in partly responsible for their plight, I left with guilt and sorrow as I said goodbye to my new friends in Baddawi camp and returned to Beirut. Their gift to me was a deep effect of what their human spirit has shown as they continue to prove their ingenuity and resilience while staying in Lebanon.

Hopefully, sooner rather than later, UNRWA will find a way to gain funds and continue providing assistance to these noble people, and hopefully the world community will do what their claimed humanitarian values demand, and return them to their country, Palestine.

Louisa Lamb is an independent researcher and journalist reporting on the underclass and marginalized. She can be reached c/o louisaalamb@gmail.com

12 June, 2015
Countercurrents.org

 

Former Deputy Prime Minister Of Iraq

By Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann

Dear Zaid,

I write to you with a heavy heart. You may not remember me, but we have spoken at least once or twice when my dear friend and brother Ramsey Clark put me on the phone with you. That was a few years ago and now I am almost totally deaf and need to see the lips of people when they speak to hold a conversation. That is why I am writing this e-mail at the very kind offering of Naji Haraj and Curtis Doebbler.

I am extremely sad, beyond my capacity to express in words, for I did (and do) love Tariq very much. We were good friends and we both believed and worked for the Reign that it was Jesus’ mission to proclaim.

Your father, Zaid, was a great man and a rare example of a Christian in world where too many leaders are ready to make compromises. He was the face of the great Iraqi Revolution and he was much loved and respected by decent people throughout the world.

We went to mass together in the outskirts of Baghdad in what I think was a very old church from Nestorian times. I had the opportunity to meet all of its priests and have breakfast with them, together with your Dad. With dismay I later heard that the church, and all the priests in it, were destroyed by one of the “smart bombs” of the genocidal U.S. empire.

I hope you can take some comfort in knowing that Tariq willingly gave up his freedom, and ultimately his life, for the well-being of his family and know that your own ability to love others, in no small part, derives from the example and love he generously bestowed on you, your mother and siblings. Your ability to follow his example as a man of principle, a leader, husband and father is, I believe, the greatest tribute that any son can offer his parents.

Zaid, my love and condolences to you, your mother and all the family and we shall remain, as before, united in prayer until the day of our Resurrection, when once again you will be rejoined with your father and I with my dear friend Tariq.

Until then may you feel God’s grace and the loving presence of persons around the globe, Christians and Muslims, believers and non-believers, who share your suffering and feel your loss at this special moment.

Love and blessings,

Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, M.M., Nicaraguan former Foreign Minister, President of the United Nations General Assembly from September 2008 to September 2009

12 June, 2015
Brussellstribunal.org

By Patrick Martin

President Obama ended the G7 summit in Bavaria Monday with a press conference where he took several questions on the deepening crisis in the Middle East and North Africa, and dropped hints of an impending US escalation of the war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

The summit itself focused largely on the mounting threats by the US and the European Union against Russia over the crisis in eastern Ukraine. But officials of three countries engaged in conflicts with Islamist insurgents—Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi of Iraq, President Caid Essebsi of Tunisia, and President Muhammad Buhari of Nigeria—traveled to the Alpine resort hotel for talks with the G7 leaders.

The official summit communiqué did little more than recycle boilerplate about the need to fight terrorism by curbing the flow of funds and foreign fighters into the Middle East and northern Africa, as well as “implementing the necessary measures to detect and prevent acts of terrorism” within the G7 countries themselves—i.e., step up the assault on the democratic rights of Muslim minorities and of the population as a whole.

The G7 statement welcomed “the continued efforts of the Global Coalition to counter” ISIS in Iraq and Syria, a “coalition” which includes all the G7 participants themselves, as well as the reactionary oil sheikdoms of the Persian Gulf. But it gave no hint of further actions.

This was left to Obama at his press conference, where he was asked about the US response to the debacle suffered by the Iraqi government—and its Washington patron—with the fall of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, captured by ISIS last month.

The American media, in particular, seemed to anticipate a significant escalation of the US military presence in Iraq. One reporter asked, “In today’s bilateral [meeting] with Prime Minister Abadi, you pledged to step up assistance to Iraq. I’m wondering if that includes additional U.S. military personnel.”
Obama indicated that the main focus of US intervention was “accelerating the number of Iraqi forces that are properly trained and equipped and have a focused strategy and good leadership.” He continued: “We don’t yet have a complete strategy because it requires commitments on the part of the Iraqis, as well, about how recruitment takes place, how that training takes place. And so the details of that are not yet worked out.”

This last remark was widely commented on in the American media as an indication of the disarray in US policy in Iraq and Syria. It came on the eve of the first anniversary of the ISIS capture of Mosul, Iraq’s third-largest city, an event which shook the US puppet regime in Baghdad, as thousands of Iraqi Army soldiers abandoned their weapons, stripped off their uniforms and fled the attack of a much smaller force of Sunni Islamist insurgents.

The reporter pressed the issue, asking, “Is it fair to say that additional military personnel—U.S. military personnel—are what’s under consideration?”

Obama conceded that this was true, although he tried to present it as limited to training rather than more direct participation in combat operations. “I think what is fair to say is that all the countries in the international coalition are prepared to do more to train Iraqi security forces,” he said.

He acknowledged, however, that there were “places where we’ve got more training capacity than we have recruits.” In other words, because of the opposition of the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad, there has been little recruitment of Sunni tribal fighters, let alone the formation of a Sunni-based National Guard force to fight in Anbar and other Sunni-populated provinces.

Obama emphasized the role of the Pentagon in preparing plans to reverse the gains made by ISIS, declaring that, “when a finalized plan is presented to me by the Pentagon, then I will share it with the American people.” This presents, perhaps more bluntly than Obama intended, the real relationship: the military will decide the policy, and then Obama will serve as its political front.

Given the evident inability of the Baghdad regime to counter ISIS, there is little doubt that the US military brass is pushing for a drastic increase both in the number of American troops and in the scope of their deployment, including combat roles such as spotting for air strikes.

As McClatchy News Service noted in an article on the anniversary of the fall of Mosul, which took place June 10, 2014, “The number of people living under Islamic State rule has grown since the U.S. bombing began. Virtually the entire population of the mostly Sunni province of Anbar, Iraq’s largest, is under the group’s control, with the addition in May of Ramadi, the provincial capital, a city of nearly 900,000. In Syria, the city of Palmyra, a famed tourist destination, also fell to the Islamic State in May, and most of the province of Deir el Zour, an important oil producing area, has come under Islamic State control since the onset of the U.S. bombing campaign.”

While US officials claim the bombing campaign has killed 10,000 ISIS fighters since it began, these losses have been more than replaced by an influx of new recruits to the Islamist group. A recent UN report estimated that the number of foreign fighters in Iraq and Syria had risen 70 percent over the past year.
The geographic scope of ISIS actions, or actions by its sympathizers, has continued to expand. On Tuesday three ISIS militants disguised as Iraqi Army soldiers attacked a local government office at Amiryat al-Falluja, on the western edge of the Baghdad metropolis, killing eight people and wounding seventeen. There were also several car bombings in eastern and northern Baghdad, targeting either army patrols or shopping areas in Shiite-populated districts.

While the position of ISIS appears to be stronger in both Iraq and Syria since the US bombing campaign began, the position of the Assad government in Damascus has significantly deteriorated. In the past few months, key positions in the northeast (Idlib), south (Daraa) and east-central (Palmyra) have fallen to various opposition forces, including the Syrian affiliate of Al Qaeda, the al-Nusra Front, and ISIS launched an attack on another provincial capital, Hasakeh in the northeast, last week.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel suggested that the G7 should work “in tandem” with Russia to find a solution to Syria—in other words, to pressure Assad to step down—and she described Moscow as an “important player” in the Middle East.

British Prime Minister David Cameron echoed this sentiment after an hour-long meeting with Obama largely focused on the war with ISIS. His office issued a statement confirming Merkel’s view. “The idea is that it might be possible to work with the Russians on a transition with a different leadership in Syria,” the statement said. “The Prime Minister has spoken to President Putin about this and it was also discussed by the American Secretary of State John Kerry when he visited Russia recently.”

The attempt to court Putin’s support in Syria, while threatening Russia with military exercises on air, sea and land, all along the Russian border with Europe, is another demonstration of the incoherent and contradictory character of imperialist policy in the Middle East. There is only one consistent thread—the imperialist powers are determined to maintain their domination of the oil wealth of the region, and will kill as many people as necessary to do so.
10 June, 2015
WSWS.org

 

By Ludwig Watzal

Not only the Israeli government but also the Zionist Lobby in the U.S. is going wild about the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign that is going to start to hurt the Israeli economy. The former minister of finance, Yair Lapid, addressing an audience at Manhattan`s Park Avenue Synagogue to help in the fight against “delegitimization” of Israel. He used the same rhetoric against BDS that this campaign “is classic anti-Semitism in a modern disguise”. He continued dramatically: “The situation is getting worse. The tide is turning and either we turn it back now or it will sweep over us.” One can ask how long do people accept this worn out argument of anti-Semitism when the criticism is about Israel’s war crimes and the oppression of a defenseless people?

Opposition leader Isaac Herzog from the Zionist Union party told Israeli News Channel 2 that Benjamin Netanyahu is doing too little to “address the specter of anti-Israeli boycotts”. This Zionist anti-BDS struggle is supported by two filthy rich U. S. Zionists: Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban. Both tycoons gave a joint interview to Channel 2 promising a “tsunami” against any company that dares to pull out from business with Israel because of BDS.

Media mogul Saban rejected the claim by French telecom company “Orange” that it did not pull out of Israel for political reasons as a “blatant lie”. Both billionaires will fight back “robustly” against “Orange” that any other company would think twice boycotting Israel. According to CEO Stephane Richard, after a storm of criticism in Israel and U. S. American Jewish leaders, apologized for his comments and the commercially motivated decision and added that “he loves Israel”.

Saban’s threat against other companies was more than clear. ” Any company that chooses to boycott business in Israel is going to look at this case, and once we’re done they’re going to think twice whether they want to take on Israel or not. Trust me this is just the beginning.” Sheldon Adelson hosted Jewish groups in Las Vegas in order to coordinate the anti-BDS actions on U. S. campuses what he calls the fight against “delegitimization and demonization of Israel”. Perhaps Lapid, Saban, and Adelson forgot that the policy of the right-wing Netanyahu government and its racist ministers are the best “delegitimizers” of Israel.

On 4 June 2015, Gideon Levy published a very thoughtful article in the Israeli daily “Haaretz” saying: ” You can blame the Palestinians for everything and obscure the simple fact that this brutal occupation is Israeli. You can tell the world that it all belongs to us because the Bible says so and believe that anyone will take you seriously. You can be sure that the memory of the Holocaust will serve us forever, and justify any injustice.” And he added to the Adelsons and Sabans of the world: ” Of course, it won’t work indefinitely. It hasn’t worked in any country in history, no matter how strong and well-established, not even in the mightiest empires. Justice always triumphs in the end, even if very belatedly. And justice says that Israel cannot continue to tyrannize another people forever, even if Haim Saban himself lends his support.”

The Zionist Lobby sees “delegitimization of Israel” as an existential threat. The BDS movement seems even more dangerous than the non-existent Iranian nuclear arsenal. But the real problem is the Palestinian people. They are still in their country that the Zionist colonizers regard as theirs as many members of Netanyahu’s government mentioned recently. The problem for the West is not BDS, which is overdue, but rather Israel’s “ethno-religious-supremacists” regime, which looks like an “Islamic State” disguised in Jewish garments.

Dr. Ludwig Watzal works as a journalist and editor in Bonn, Germany. He runs the bilingual blog “between the lines” http://between-the-lines-ludwig-watzal.blogspot.de/

09 June, 2015
Countercurrents.org

 

By Ralph Nader

“We have an opportunity to set the most progressive trade agreement in our nation’s history,” it states on BarackObama.com, the website of the president’s “Organizing for Action” campaign.

One must seriously question what President Obama and his corporate allies believe to be the definition of “progressive” when it comes to this grandiose statement. History shows the very opposite of progress when it comes to these democratic sovereignty-shredding and job-exporting corporate-driven trade treaties — unless progress is referring to fulfilling the deepest wishes of runaway global corporations.

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) set our country’s progress back through large job-draining trade deficits, downward pressure on wages, extending Big Pharma’s patent monopolies to raise consumers’ medicine prices, floods of unsafe imported food, and undermining or freezing consumer and environmental rules.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is formally described as a trade and foreign investment agreement between 12 nations — Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam. The White House is now pressuring Congress to Fast Track through the TPP. Fast Track authority, a Congressional procedure to limit time for debate and prohibit amendments to proposed legislation, has already passed in the Senate, although only after an unexpectedly rough ride.

Here are 10 reasons why the TPP is explicitly not a “progressive” trade agreement:

1. Over 2000 progressive groups recently sent a letter to members of Congress opposing fast track. “Fast Track is an abrogation of not only Congress’ constitutional authority, but of its responsibility to the American people. We oppose this bill, and urge you to do so as well,” the letter reads. See it in full here. On the other hand, supporters of the TPP and its autocratic, secret transnational governance, include Wall Street, Big Pharma, Big Ag, oil/gas and mining firms, and the Chamber of Commerce–in short the plutocracy does not tolerate voices and participation by the people adversely affected.

2. Only six out of the 30 total chapters in the TPP have anything to do with trade. So what makes up the bulk of this agreement, which was shaped by 500 U.S. corporate advisors? Jim Hightower writes: “The other two dozen chapters amount to a devilish ‘partnership’ for corporate protectionism. They create sweeping new ‘rights’ and escape hatches to protect multinational corporations from accountability to our governments… and to us.”

3. After six years of secret negotiations, Fast Track legislation would allow President Obama to sign and enter into the TPP before Congress approves its terms. It then requires a vote 90 days after submission of this Fast Track legislation on the TPP itself and changes in existing U.S. laws to comply with its terms. No amendments would be allowed and debate would be limited to a total of only 20 hours in each chamber of Congress. By limiting debate and preventing any amendments to the agreement, Fast Track prevents challenges to any issues about how America conducts business with the countries included in the TPP. Some of the countries in the TPP — Brunei, Malaysia, Mexico and Vietnam, for example — have terrible human and labor rights records. Those conditions attract big companies looking for serf labor and their accommodating governments.

4. Millions of U.S. manufacturing jobs have been lost due to NAFTA and WTO being railroaded through Congress. The TPP would only expand these offshoring incentives. These types of deals ultimately increase the income inequality gap by displacing well-paid middle-class workers, negating any benefit to lower prices of goods. According toa report for the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), the TPP would result in wage cuts for all but the wealthiest Americans.

5. The American people have yet to see the full text of the TPP — it has been negotiated in secret and shown to members of Congress under demeaningly strict secrecy. We only know about some of its terms because of leaks. But Wall Street and industry operatives, who seek to benefit enormously from the TPP, do have access to the text. Why so selectively secretive? Supporters of the deal outright told Senator Elizabeth Warren, “[trade talks] have to be secret, because if the American people knew what was actually in them, they would be opposed.”

6. The TPP allows corporations to directly sue our country if federal, state or local laws, government actions or court rulings are claimed to violate new rights and privileges the TPP would grant to foreign firms. Firms from TPP nations operating here could attack U.S. regulations over cancer-causing chemicals or environmental concerns before tribunals comprised of corporate lawyers that rotate by day and night between acting as “judges” and representing corporations attacking governments. These decisions then cannot be challenged in U.S. courts — and U.S. taxpayers will get stuck with the bill. So much for our precious sovereignty!

7. The proponents of the TPP claim that it will raise labor and environmental standards. However, the labor and environmental standards included in the TPP are equivalent (or less stringent) to modest ones agreed upon by House Democrats and President Bush in May 2007 in trade agreements with Peru, Panama and Colombia. These provisions have not been effective — Peru has since undermined these laws, and the Obama Administration has done nothing to enforce them. Nothing in the TPP suggests the unenforceable rhetoric– cited by President Obama — will be any different now.

8. TPP will further weaken America’s regulatory watchdogs — we can’t use our own government to over-rule TPP tribunal decisions that over-rule our health, safety and economic protections as non-tariff trade barriers. Senator Elizabeth Warren told POLITICO: “This deal would give protections to international corporations that are not available to United States environmental and labor groups. Multinational corporations are increasingly realizing this is an opportunity to gut U.S. regulations they don’t like.” Keeping the United States from being first in health and safety protections is un-American.

9. Prescription drug costs will increase. The TPP includes terms that would limit access to generic drugs and curtail government power to limit the price of drugs. See Public Citizen’s report “The Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) threatens access to affordable medicines.”

10. The TPP could potentially undermine reforms of Wall Street and threaten U.S. financial stability by providing the institutions that caused the 2008-2009 financial crisis a path to circumvent U.S. regulations, such as limiting capital controls and prohibiting any taxes on Wall Street speculation. See the letter sent by Senators Warren, Markey and Baldwin last year to U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman.

For further comprehensive analysis of the TPP, see Global Trade Watch.

Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer, and author. His latest book is The Seventeen Solutions: Bold Ideas for Our American Future. Other recent books include, The Seventeen Traditions: Lessons from an American Childhood, Getting Steamed to Overcome Corporatism: Build It Together to Win, and “Only The Super-Rich Can Save Us” (a novel).
09 June, 2015
Nader.org