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By John Roberts

As delegates from 19 countries gather today in Bangkok for a meeting on “irregular migration in the Indian Ocean,” more evidence has emerged of the horrors facing thousands of Bangladeshis and Rohingya Muslims from Burma fleeing persecution and poverty. All of the countries attending the meeting, in one way or another, bear responsibility for their plight.

According to estimates by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), at least seven boats containing 2,600 dehydrated and starving refugees are still adrift in the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea—testimony to the badly coordinated and half-hearted official rescue efforts.

Another 3,500 Rohingya and Bangladeshi refugees have managed to reach shore in Malaysia and Indonesia after those governments ended the policy of driving the boats out to sea and granted temporary shelter to some for one year. The UN estimates that at least 120,000 asylum seekers have left from Burma and Bangladesh so far this year.

For years, Rohingya and Bangladeshi refugees have been forced to rely on often unscrupulous traffickers who have used well-established routes via sea to southern Thailand and then through jungle pathways across the border into northern Malaysia. The extent of the trade makes clear that officials, including at high levels, were involved.

Refugee boats were left stranded at sea by the traffickers when Thai authorities closed down transit camps in the south of the country earlier this month after the discovery of 33 corpses provoked popular outrage.

BBC journalist Jonathan Head uncovered evidence of involvement of Thai government officials and businessmen in the transit camps. His report published May 22 included an interview with a local Thai official who had closed down one camp but was ordered by the central government to send the Bangladeshi migrants to a detention centre where it was common knowledge that detainees would be “sold back to the traffickers.”

A police officer spoke of a large camp in the military zone on the Thai-Malaysian border big enough to accommodate 1,000 trafficked migrants that could not be shut down as the military had not given its approval.

Over the past week, Malaysian police have uncovered a network of 28 camps near the Thai border where refugees were imprisoned and maltreated in order to extort more money from their relatives. Police believe that one camp held up to 300 people, while others were smaller.

Malaysia’s national police chief Khalid Abu Bakar told Time: “I am not surprised by the presence of smuggling syndicates. But the depth of the cruelty, the torture, all this death has shocked me.” He confirmed on Monday that at least 139 possible graves had been found near the camps, which included crude wooden cages for those who attempted to escape.

Forensic teams have begun working to find and recover bodies. Only one body has been discovered above ground in a wooden holding pen. It was so badly decomposed that forensic investigators had to remove it in five separate bags.

Brad Adams, Asia director of the US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), said: “Survivors describe how they flee persecution in Burma only to fall into the hands of traffickers and extortionists, in many cases witnessing deaths and suffering abuse and hunger.

One Rohingya woman told HRW that she had been held in camp on the Thai side of the border and severely abused to force her relatives to pay a ransom. “The brokers beat me with sticks and bamboo and put out cigarettes on my legs and ankles because I could not raise the money,” she said.

Adams pointed to official involvement in the trafficking operations. “Interviews with officials and others make clear that these brutal networks, with the complicity of government officials in Burma, Bangladesh, Thailand and Malaysia, profit from the desperation and misery of some of the world’s most persecuted and neglected people,” he said.

After denying the existence of camps or graves in northern Malaysia until as late as this month, Malaysian authorities have been forced to detain 12 police officers for alleged involvement in the human trade. Government ministers, however, are continuing to try to play down the extent of the trafficking.

Former chief of the UN Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking, Matthew Friedman, told the Guardian that there were reports on the camps going back 10 years which had been passed onto authorities, “but there was no follow-up.”

The Rohingya are a persecuted Muslim minority in Burma where they are branded by authorities as “illegal Bangladeshi immigrants” and have no citizenship rights, even though many have lived in Burma for generations. Even as the US was forging closer relations with Burma’s military backed government in 2012, the Rohingya were subjected to a new wave of state-sanctioned violence that resulted in scores of deaths and drove tens of thousands from their homes.

Having fled persecution in Burma, the Rohingya face similar treatment in Bangladesh where they have been herded into detention camps, official and unofficial, where they face appalling conditions. The government has just announced that it intends to force 32,000 registered Rohingya refugees from two official camps in the Cox’s Bazar district, a tourist area, out of sight onto Hatiya Island in the Bay of Bengal.

The Special Meeting on Irregular Migration in the Indian Ocean being convened today in Bangkok by the Thai military junta supposedly to “comprehensively work together to address the unprecedented increase of irregular migration across the Bay of Bengal in recent years.”

Attending are all the chief culprits in human trafficking trade, including Burma, Malaysia and Indonesia. Far from addressing the horrific situation facing the refugees, the assembled countries will no doubt seek to cover up their own responsibility while imposing even more obstacles to those seeking asylum and forcing them to ever more desperate lengths.

The Burmese delegation has already made clear that it has no intention of alleviating the plight of the Rohingya in any way. On Wednesday, Buddhist monks and nationalists from the reactionary Habyelsaw Tadaban organisation held a march of 300 through Rangoon, denouncing the Rohingya as “beasts” and demanding the government make no concessions in Bangkok.

29 May, 2015
WSWS.og

 

For the crimes against humanity, including a genocide, haul the following genocidaires to the Hague.

1) retired Senior General Than Shwe (Officer Training School In-take ?)

2) retired Vice-Senior General Maung Aye (Defense Services Academy or DSA, In-Take 1)

3) ex-General Khin Nyunt (Officer Training School, In-Take?), the founder of the now disbanded Nasaka (or Myanmar’s equivalent of SS – for the Rohingyas) and former Chief of Directorate of Defense Services Intelligence(DDSI)

4) ex-General Shwe Mann (DSA-11), Speaker of the Parliament and Chair of the ruling party USDP (Defense Services Academy or DSA- In-Take-1)

5) ex-General and Myanmar President Thein Sein (DSA In-Take 9)

6) Lt-General Ko Ko (Home Minister), already accused of war crimes by Harvard Law School International Human Rights Clinic

7) ex-Major Zaw Htay, President’s Office Director (DSA In-Take 36)

8) Union Minister ex-Admiral Soe Thein (DSA In-take ?) (whose navy units have been involving in pushing out the Rohingya out of Burma’s territorial waters; he inked the business deals with Norway’s Telenor)

9) Information Minister ex-Colonel Ye Htut (DSA In-Take ?)

10) Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin (DSA In-Take?)

11) Deputy Foreign Minister That Kyaw (DSA In-Take?)

12) ex-Major General Maung Maung Ohn (DSA In-Take 22), Rakhine Chief Minister

13) Aye Maung, Member of the Parliament from Ramree and Chairman of the Rakhine party who calls for “Israel-style destruction of Rohingya on Rakhine soil)

14) Wirathu – 969 “Monk”

15) Dr Kyaw Yin Hlaing (PhD Cornell), of Norway-funded “Myanmar Institute for Diversity and Myanmar Peace Center), advocate and author of Rakhine Action Plan (Myanmar’s equivalent of “Final Solution”)

16) Nay Myo Wei, Chair of Diversity Party (who openly calls for the mass killings of Rohingya in this week’s mass rally in Rangoon)

 

 

Oslo, ‪#‎Norway‬, May 28, 2015 – A two-day conference focusing on ending the persecution of Burma’s Rohingyas concluded today, with a call from seven Nobel Peace Laureates to describe their plight as nothing less than a genocide.

In his pre-recorded address to the conference, Desmond Tutu, leader of South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement in the 1980s, called for an end to the slow genocide of the Rohingya.

Tutu’s appeal was amplified by six other fellow Nobel Peace laureates: Mairead Maguire from Ireland, Jody Williams from the USA, Tawakkol Karman from Yeman, Shirin Ibadi from Iran, Leymah Gbowee from Liberia, and Adolfo Pérez Esquivel from Argentina. They stated that, “what Rohingyas are facing is a textbook case of genocide in which an entire indigenous community is being systematically wiped out by the Burmese government.”

Philanthropist George Soros drew a parallel between his childhood memories of life in a Jewish ghetto under the Nazi occupation in Hungary and the plight of the Rohingya after visiting Rohingya neighborhood in Sittwe which he called a “ghetto”. “In 1944, as a Jew in Budapest, I, too was a Rohingya… The parallels to the Nazi genocide are alarming,” he said, in a pre-recorded address to the Oslo conference.

The meeting was held at the prestigious Norwegian Nobel Institute and Voksenaasen Conference Center in Oslo, Norway. It was attended by Buddhist monks, Christian clergy, and Muslim leaders from Myanmar. Also present were genocide experts, international diplomats, interfaith and human rights leaders. Attendees explored ways to end Myanmar’s systematic persecution of the Rohingya, as well as foster and communal harmony in Burma.

Addressing the conference, Morten Høglund, the State Secretary of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, announced his government’s decision to give 10 million Norwegian Kroner ($1.2 million US) in humanitarian assistance to Burma. The participants were dismayed however, as the State Secretary choose not to even mention the word “Rohingya” in his entire speech in an apparent compliance to Myanmar’s government stand.
The conference communiqué urged the Norwegian government to immediately prioritize ending Myanmar’s genocide over its economic interests in Burma, including sizeable investment by Telenor and StatOil.

During the conference, former Prime Minister of Norway Kjell Magne Bondevik conferred on three leading Myanmar monks who have saved Muslim lives in Burma and opposed Islamophobia the first-ever “World Harmony awards” on behalf of the Parliament of the World’s Religions, a 120-year-old interfaith organization. Rev. Seindita, Rev. Withudda, and Rev. Zawtikka, were the three awardees who also chanted Buddhist prayers at the inauguration.

Presenting the awards, the Parliament’s chair, Imam Malik Mujahid said, “These extraordinary monks challenge the widespread perception that all Buddhist monks clamor for violence against the Rohingyas.”

The participants from 16 different countries, including leading Rohingya activists and leaders, as well as genocide scholars, adopted the following statement:

————-Full text of the communiqué adopted by the Oslo Conference———-

Today the Oslo Conference to End Myanmar’s Persecution of the Rohingya ended. The conference was held at the Norwegian Nobel Institute and Voksenaasen, Oslo, Norway on May 26 & 27, 2015.

After two days of deliberations the conference issue the following urgent appeal to the international community, based on the following conclusions:

1. The pattern of systematic human rights abuses against the ethnic Rohingya people entails crimes against humanity including the crime of genocide;

2. The Myanmar government’s denial of the existence of the Rohingya as a people violates the right of the Rohingya to self-identify;

3. The international community is privileging economic interests in Myanmar and failing to prioritize the need to end its systematic persecution and destruction of the Rohingya as an ethnic group.

The call by Archbishop Desmond Tutu to end Myanmar’s genocide of the Rohingya made during the Oslo conference is supported by six additional Nobel Peace Laureates: Mairead Maguire, Jody Williams, Tawakkol Karman, Shirin Ibadi, Leymah Gbowee, and Adolfo Pérez Esquivel.

The United Nations and the international community have an urgent responsibility to stop Myanmar’s systematic persecution of the Rohingya.

As the home country of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, the conference urges the Government of Norway to immediately prioritize ending Myanmar’s genocide over its economic interests in that country, including sizeable investment by Telenor and StatOil.

The conference calls upon the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), the European Union (EU), the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the United Nations (UN) and other relevant international actors to take all possible measures to pressure the Government of Myanmar to do the following:

to immediately end its policies and practices of genocide;

to restore full and equal citizenship rights of the Rohingya;

to institute the right of return for all displaced Rohingya;

to effectively provide the Rohingya with all necessary protection; and

to actively promote and support reconciliation between communities in Rakhine State, Myanmar.
Contact Persons:

USA: Imam Malik Mujahid
Chair Burma Task Force USA
malik@SoundVision.com
1-312-804-1962
UK: Dr. Maung Zarni:
447710473322
fanon2005@gmail.com

Co-author (with Cowley). “The Slow Burning Genocide of Myanmar’s Rohingya”
[Background information on the conference: The conference was co-organized and co-sponsored by the following organizations. However, the communiqué was adopted by the attendees of the conference without any approach to the respective organizations.
Justice for All, Burma Task Force USA; Parliament of the World’s Religions; Refugees International (USA); International State Crime Initiative (ISCI) Queen Mary University of London; Harvard Global Equality Initiative (HGEI); Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI).
Dr. Maung Zarni and Imam Malik Mujahid serve as the co-chair of the conference]
Photos:

For conference photos contact Ahmed@BurmaMuslims.org
Links to transcripts and images

Link to the official transcripts of the recorded messages including that of Archbishop Tutu http://www.maungzarni.net/…/the-speech-of-archbishop-desmon… and George Soros http://www.maungzarni.net/…/the-speech-of-george-soros-at-o…

Link to their video recordings at

https://drive.google.com/…/0B1Os6IDEJi3ZLXE2ZVh0c3MxRmM/view
Links to some of the news coverage:

Suu Kyi not invited to meeting on persecuted Rohingya

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/myanmars-suu-kyi-missing-global-m…

Link Myanmar aid to Rohingya rights: Tutu

http://www.thelocal.no/201…/use-myanmar-aid-to-save-rohingya

Aung San Suu Kyi must act on refugee crisis: Dalai Lama

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/dalai-lama-urges-suu-kyi-act-rohi…

 

Oslo conference opens with calls for citizenship, rights for Rohingya
https://www.dvb.no/news/oslo-conference-opens-with-calls-for-citizenship-rights-for-rohingya-burma-myanmar/51413

 

 

 

By Edward Dark

Throughout most of its history, Aleppo had been a city-state, or a capital for surrounding territory in what is now North Syria and parts of south Turkey. There are strong indications now that this ancient city may once again assume this role, but this time around in a far more sinister way.

The “mother of all battles” is what a looming showdown in Aleppo is being called, as revitalised Islamist rebel forces fresh from victories in nearby Idlib are preparing to mount an all-out offensive in the next few weeks to seize the remaining part of the city under government control. The stakes couldn’t be any higher – no less than the fate of the Syrian nation hangs in the balance – and the final lines of division might be drawn here.

The plan, drawn up by the insurgency’s three most powerful regional backers – Turkey, Saudi and Qatar – is to overrun the entire northwest of Syria and create a rebel controlled “safe zone,” and through direct military intervention prevent the Syrian regime’s aircraft and missiles from targeting it, thereby essentially setting up a de facto mini state.

To that end, there has been unprecedented cooperation and coordination between those powers who have put aside their rivalries and differences after King Salman of Saudi assumed the throne. This effort has seen them pour enormous financial, logistical and military resources into setting up what is called the “Fatih Army” or the Army of Conquest, and controlling the flow of its battles directly through an operations room in Turkey as well as intelligence officers on the ground. This was given the go ahead by the US, which under pressure from those allies again seems to have flipped its priority in Syria from battling the Islamic State (IS) to regime change.

It is worth mentioning that after almost a year of US-led coalition bombing, IS has continued to expand and grow, and now controls half of Syria and a third of Iraq. US policy here, as many had foreseen, is a confused and muddled disaster.

If the name of the Fatih Army sounds ominous, then its composition is even more disturbing, being made up primarily of al-Qaeda’s affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, as well as other hardline Salafi jihadist groups like Ahrar el-Sham. This army has already “conquered” most of Idlib province, and is looking to go for Aleppo next.

Apathy meets al-Qaeda advance

That there is global apathy towards an al-Qaeda army – backed and sponsored by the Western world’s predominant Middle Eastern allies – preparing to take over Aleppo and possibly establish another caliphate similar – albeit hostile – to its neighbouring Islamic State, is very indicative of what the Syrian crisis has come to after four years.

This once tolerant, secular, multicultural and multi-confessional nation with a diverse society and rich heritage will soon become home to two of the world’s most noxious, extremist and violently fanatical statelets. In their wake, all of Syria’s non-Sunni Muslim inhabitants are being ethnically cleansed and displaced. Predictably, this is what happened in Idlib after it fell to the Fatih Army, which saw all of its Christians abandon their homes and flee to government-controlled areas, to little media attention. This will undoubtedly happen in Aleppo too, which has a very large Christian population comprised of various denominations, including ethnic Armenians.

Leaders of the Christian community here have sounded the alarm, and warned that after surviving for countless centuries in one of the first lands inhabited by ancient Christians, their presence here might be coming to a final end. Again, the absence of any media concern about this impending calamity is very telling.

The backers of the insurgency have now dropped any pretence of “moderate” rebel groups fighting the Syrian regime, and have almost completely ditched and sidelined the umbrella opposition in exile which they for so long touted as the “legitimate representatives” of the Syrian people. In their stead, we now have an al-Qaeda army preparing to “liberate” north Syria.

Gone are all those grand slogans along with the “moderate” rebel groups we have heard so much about in the news, who after all these years proved to be little more than incompetent and corrupt profiteers. Those groups disintegrated, many of their former fighters joining the extremist jihadist groups who also seized their sophisticated US supplied weapons.

This rebel farce of course was well known to us Syrians, but was never a newsworthy item. We’ve always known that the only effective insurgents on the ground were the Islamists and the jihadists, and that the others were there for show, for the camera crews and media consumption. Maintaining this image no longer seems to be a concern however. After failing to convince Nusra to “rebrand” and ditch its ties with al-Qaeda, The Fatih Army was formed as a more palatable and purely cosmetic media-friendly cover name.

Partitioning Syria

This is what the nations who claim to back the Syrian people’s aspirations for freedom and a democratic inclusive state have deemed fit to unleash upon us. After failing to topple the Syrian regime for four years and realising there would never be any political compromise that would fit their goals, they have now decided to partition Syria and facilitate its partial takeover by jihadists.

It doesn’t seem that previous lessons have been learned, with Afghanistan being the prime precedent. You simply cannot deal with and hope to control the jihadi proxies that you are using to fulfil your military ambitions. Quite simply those groups don’t play by the rules, and will turn on you the first chance they get and follow their own ideologically motivated agendas. The repercussions of doing so have always been, and will continue to be, extremely dangerous and profound.

Al-Qaeda was first spawned by backing the same sort of Islamists against the Soviets in Afghanistan. The destabilising fallout is still being felt today, with subsequent manifestations becoming even more violent and extreme, culminating in the Islamic State. Let’s not forget that for many months at the beginning of the Syrian conflict, the precursor to what was to form the Islamic State’s Syrian division was an integral part of the Syrian insurgency named, yes you guessed it, Jabhat al-Nusra. When the “bad al-Qaeda” went rogue, the very powers that today back the “good al-Qaeda” started to bomb it, and to little effect. It is now just a question of when, not if, Nusra becomes the “bad guys” and have to be bombed.

Needless to say, the majority of Syrians refuse the partitioning of their nation and its takeover by extremists under any pretexts. But that this pretext should be “freeing them from tyranny and oppression” is yet another sad little irony in the black comedy that is Syria’s conflict.

This is felt especially acutely in Aleppo, whose helpless people have endured years of a deadly stalemated war that has killed many of them and destroyed all they held precious. It now seems they must again dread the day they will be “conquered” and “liberated” as it would likely mean the loss of what little they still have left of their city, and what little hope they still hold for the future.

Exodus of minorities

In all likelihood, Aleppo becoming the capital of yet another caliphate would see the majority of its inhabitants abandoning it in droves, and the complete loss of its religious minorities, hence its unique character and identity.

The people here are bracing themselves for the worst, for a momentous battle ahead. The outcome of this battle is by no means a foregone conclusion though, as Syria’s ambassador to the UN has warned in no uncertain terms that Aleppo is a red line, which once crossed would see the escalation of the conflict to other nations. Whether these words are empty and mere rhetoric remains to be seen and depends largely on what the regime’s prime backer, Iran, decides to do.

This month is a very sensitive time for Iran, as it prepares to sign a historic nuclear agreement while regional tensions are soaring. While the ball is now squarely in its park with regards to Syria, it may choose to delay its move until the picture becomes clearer.

Speculation is rife that along with the nuclear deal, regional issues are being hammered out too. Could it be that Iran would accept the partitioning of Syria as long as it gets to keep a majority Shia and Alawi “protectorate” along the coast? Or is it sticking to its guns and thwarting the planned “mother of all battles” in Aleppo by demanding it be stopped, or threatening a serious escalation if it isn’t? How will the flow of war and proxy showdown in Yemen affect Syria?

The coming weeks will tell, and they will be some of the most difficult the people of Syria and Aleppo have seen yet.

26 May 2015

– Edward Dark is MEE’s Aleppo-based columnist and writes under a pseudonym.

By Sukumaran C. V.

To safeguard democracy the people must have a keen sense of independence, self respect and oneness, and should insist upon choosing as their representatives only such persons as are good and true.—M. K. Gandhi. (The Story of My Experiments with Truth)

In his 32-minute long speech delivered extempore at the Central Hall of Parliament on 20th May 2014, Narendra Modi said that his “government is one which thinks about the poor, listens to the poor and which exists for the poor. … The new government is dedicated to the poor. This government is for the villagers, farmers, Dalits and the oppressed, for their aspirations and this is our responsibility.”

That is in words, in rhetoric. But Mr. Modi’s one year of governance proved that in deeds, his government is one which thinks about the corporates, listens to the corporates, exists for the corporates and dedicated to the corporates.

Nobody expected that Mr. Modi will or can translate his rhetoric into practice. Every politician comes to power in the name of the poor and governs to safeguard the interests of the rich. And the one year of Modi government is a categorical statement that the government rules only for the welfare of the corporate world, not for the welfare of the villagers, farmers, Dalits and the oppressed. Their condition is worsening by each passing day and they are referred to and remembered only in rhetoric!

How enthusiastic Mr. Modi and his team is to make the Land Acquisition Bill and the Environmental Laws more corporate friendly and anti-farmer and anti-poor; and in slashing social expenditure that will benefit the ‘villagers, farmers, Dalits and the oppressed’ he mentioned in his rhetoric!

The ‘achievements’ of Mr. Modi’s one year governance reminded me of what Arundhati Roy says about the Kingdom in the Sky in her article Listening to Grasshoppers: Genocide, Denial and Celebration:

“Ironically, the era of the free market has led to the most successful secessionist struggle ever waged in India—the secession of the middle and upper classes to a country of their own, somewhere up on the stratosphere where they merge with the rest of the world’s elite. This Kingdom in the Sky is a complete universe in itself, hermetically sealed from the rest of India. It has its own newspapers, films, television programs, morality plays, transport systems, malls and intellectuals. …But there is a problem, and the problem is lebensraum—living space. A kingdom needs its lebensraum. The Sky Citizens look toward the Old Nation. They see thousands of acres of farmland, and think: These really ought to be Special Economic Zones for our industries. They see Adivasis sitting on the bauxite mountains…They think: That is our bauxite, our iron ore, our uranium. What are these people doing on our land? What is our water doing in their rivers? What is our timber doing in their trees?”

It is natural that the Sky Citizens will certainly try to deprive the people of their land, rivers and even their right to live. Who will protect the people in a democracy if those who are elected by the people become the servants of the Sky Citizens?

In his keynote address at the opening of the Edinburgh Commonwealth Summit on October 24, 1997 the then Prime Minister of India, I. K. Gujral, said: “Equal opportunity and democracy are often absent in the restricted chambers of the international economic system. And yet, I have little doubt that, in the long run, globalization will succeed only if it is equitable and just. The institutional systems that oversee the globalised economy must reflect an enlightened balance of interests.”

Nearly 20 years after, the globalised economy in India not only reflects a balance of interests but also widened the imbalance between the rich and the poor and as a result it has wiped out the lives of nearly three lakh farmers between 1995 and 2011. According to the NCRB (National Crime Record Bureau) data; 2, 90, 740 farmers committed suicide during 1995-2011—an average 18,171 farm suicides each year! And this wave of farm suicides still continues.

When Mr. Manmohan Singh ushered in the liberalized economic policies in 1991, it paved the way for the corporate business to be a Shylock with the unconditional help of the State. And in the 2001-02 Union Budget, the then Finance Minister Yaswant Sinha introduced a major policy decision (in favour of the big business) to reduce the role of the FCI to maintaining only minimum buffer stocks. This policy shift was a lethal blow to our PDS and led to the dismantling of the Minimum Support Price scheme which was a solace to the farmers.

The Union governments since 1991 have confined themselves to creating conditions for private enterprise to flourish. While the successive Union Budgets in the liberalization era have inflicted severe cuts in agriculture subsidies, the revenue forgone under corporate income tax, excise and customs duties during the period 2005 – 2011 is Rs. 21, 25, 023 crores. (P. Sainath, “Corporate socialism’s 2G orgy”, The Hindu, March 7, 2011)

And on Sept. 21, 2012 in his address to the Nation, Prime Minister manmohan Singh, by calling us brothers and sisters again and again, told us: “No government likes to impose burdens on the common man. Our Government has been voted to office twice to protect the interests of the aam admi.” What a great joke it was! And I was reminded of this joke when I haerd Mr. Modi saying that his ‘government is for the villagers, farmers, Dalits and the oppressed, for their aspirations and this is our responsibility.’ And the one year of his governance proved that he was really joking.

A country’s well-being depends on the safety and security its farmers and women enjoy. India miserably fails in this count. In our country an average of 15,000 farmers commit suicide every year since 1995. It means that India’s agricultural sector has been in great distress since 1995 and the woes of our farmers still go unaddressed and unmitigated. In his article ‘Of luxury cars and lowly tractors’, published in The Hindu (Dec. 28, 2010), P. Sainath says that “over a quarter of a million Indian farmers have committed suicide since 1995. It means the largest wave of recorded suicides in human history has occurred in this country….It means one and a half million human beings, family members of those killing themselves, have been tormented by the tragedy. It means farmers in thousands of villages have seen their neighbours take this incredibly sad way out. A way out that more and more will consider as despair grows and policies don’t change.”

Manmohan Singh and his team have gone and Mr. Modi has come, but the policies have still not been changed and our farmers still kill themselves. In his article “Corporate socialism’s 2G orgy” (The Hindu, March 7, 2011) Sainath writes: “In six years from 2005-6, the Government of India wrote off corporate income tax worth Rs.3,74,937 crore. While writing off this gigantic sum for corporates, Pranab Mukherjee’s latest budget slashes thousands of crores from agriculture.”

Modi government too writes off corporate income tax and slashes thousand s of crores from agriculture and social expenditure. And he says that his government is dedicated to the poor!

PS: When millions of farmers were killing themselves during the decade long Congress rule, the Congress Vice President was in deep slumber and now suddenly he wakes up and sees the distress of the farmers and sheds (crocodile) tears for them. Every politician remembers the farmers and the poor when they are out of power and the moment they are in power they can only see the elites and their ‘problems’.

Author is a former JNU student now working as clerk in the Kerala State Government service.
27 May, 2015
Countercurrents.org

 

By Dan Glazebrook

The ISIS suicide bombings in Yemen and Saudi Arabia – killing a total of at least 43 people – is yet more bitter fruit of the policy pursued by Britain, the US and France and their Gulf allies for the past eight years. This strategy – of fostering violently sectarian anti-Shia militias in order to destroy Syria and isolate Iran – is itself but part of the West’s wider war against the entire global South by weakening any independent regional powers allied to the BRICs countries, and especially to Russia.

The strategy was first revealed as far back as 2007 in Seymour Hersh’s article ‘The Redirection’, which revealed how Bush administration officials were working with the Saudis to channel billions of dollars to sectarian death squads whose role would be to “throw bombs… at Hezbollah, Motada al-Sadr, Iran and at the Syrians” in the memorable words of one US official.

But more evidence of precisely how this strategy unfolded has been coming out ever since. Most recently, last Monday saw the release of 100s of pages of formerly classified US Defence Intelligence Agency documents following a two year court battle in the US. These documents showed that, far from being an unpredictable ‘bolt from the blue’, as the mainstream media tends to imply, the rise of ISIS was in fact both predicted and desired by the US and its allies from as far back as 2012. The DIA report, which was widely circulated amongst the USA’s various military and security agencies at the time, noted that “There is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in Eastern Syria, and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran)” Elsewhere, the “supporting powers to the opposition” are defined as “Western countries, the Gulf states and Turkey”.

In other words, a Salafist – that is militantly anti-Shia – “principality” was “exactly” what the West wanted as part of their war against, not only Syria, but “Shia expansion” in Iraq as well. Indeed, it was specifically acknowledged that “ISI [the forerunner of ISIS] could also declare an Islamic state through its union with other terrorist organisations in Iraq and Syria”.
The precision of the declassified predictions is astounding. Not only was it predicted that the terrorist groups being supported by Washington and London in Syria would team up with those in Iraq to create an ‘Islamic State’, but the precise dimensions of this state were also spelt out: recognising that “the Salafist[s], the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria”, the report noted that the consequences of this for Iraq would be to “create the ideal atmosphere for AQI [al Qaeda Iraq] to return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi.” Mosul, don’t forget, was taken by ISIS in June 2014, and Ramadi fell earlier this week.

In the three years since the document was drawn up, the policy has continued relentlessly. Recent months have seen the West and its regional allies massively stepping up their support for their anti-Shia death squads. In late March, Saudi Arabia began its bombardment of Yemen following military gains made by the Houthi (Shia) rebels in that country. The Houthis had been the only effective force fighting Al Qaeda in the country, had taken key territories from them last November, and were subsequently threatening them in their remaining strongholds. This was when the Saudis began their bombardment, with US and British support, natch, and, unsurprisingly, Al Qaeda have been the key beneficiary of this intervention, gaining ‘breathing space’ and regaining valuable lost territory, retaking the key port of Mukulla within a week of the commencement of the Saudi bombardment.

Al Qaeda have also been making gains in Syria, taking two major cities in Idlib province last month following a ramping up of military support from Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. And of course, Britain has been leading the way for a renewed military intervention in Libya in the guise of a “war against people smuggling” that, as I have argued elsewhere, will inevitably end up boosting the most vicious gangs involved in the trade, namely ISIS and Al Qaeda.

So what explains this sudden stepping up of Western and ‘allied’ support for al Qaeda and co right now?
The answer lies in the increasing disgust at the activities of the death squads across the region. No longer perceived as the valiant freedom fighters they were depicted as in 2011, their role as shock troops for the West’s ‘divide and ruin’ strategy, promising nothing but a future of ultra-violent trauma and ethnic cleansing, has become increasingly obvious. The period between mid-2013 and mid-2014 saw a significant turning of the tide against these groups. It began in July 2013 with the ouster of Egypt’s President Morsi following fears he was planning to send in the Egyptian army to aid the Syrian insurgency. New President Al-Sisi put an end not only to that possibility, but to the flow of fighters from Egypt to Syria altogether. The West hoped to step in the following month with airstrikes against the Syrian government, but their attempts to ensure Iranian and Russian acquiescence in such a move came to nought and they were forced into a humiliating climbdown.

Then came the fall of Homs in May 2014, as Syrian government forces retook a key insurgent stronghold. The momentum was clearly with the government side; that is until ‘ISIS’ sprang onto the scene – and with them, a convenient pretext for the US intervention that had been ruled out just a year before.

Meanwhile, in Libya, the pro-death squad parties decisively lost elections for the first elected ‘House of Representatives in June 2014. Their refusal to accept defeat led to a new chapter in the post-NATO Libyan disaster, as they set up a new rival government in Tripoli and waged war on the elected parliament. Yet following a massacre of Egyptians by ISIS in Libya last December, Egypt sent its airforce in on the side of the Tobruk (elected) parliament; it is now, apparently, considering sending in ground troops.

Losing ground in Yemen, in Libya, in Egypt and in Syria, the West’s whole strategy for using armed Salafists as tools of destabilisation had been starting to unravel. The direct interventions in Syria, Yemen and soon Libya, then, are nothing but a means of propping them up – and last Friday’s bombings show they are already paying dividends.

Dan Glazebrook is a political writer and journalist. He writes regularly on international relations and the use of state violence in British domestic and foreign policy.. He can be reached at danglazebrook2000@yahoo.co.uk

27 May, 2015
RT.com

 

By Thierry Meyssan

Macedonia has just neutralised an armed group whose sponsors had been under surveillance for at least eight months. By doing so, it has prevented a new attempt at a coup d’État, planned by Washington for the 17th of May. The aim was to spread the chaos already infecting Ukraine into Macedonia in order to stall the passage of a Russian gas pipeline to the European Union.

On the 9th of May, 2015, the Macedonian police launched a dawn operation to arrest an armed group which had infiltrated the country and which was suspected of preparing a number of attacks.

The police evacuated the civilian population before launching the assault. The suspects opened fire, which led to a bitter firefight, leaving 14 terrorists and 8 members of the police forces dead. 30 people were taken prisoner. There were a large number of wounded

Not a terrorist act, but an attempted coup d’État

The Macedonian police were clearly well-informed before they launched their operation. According to the Minister for the Interior, Ivo Kotevski, the group was preparing a very important operation for the 17th May (the date of the demonstration organised by the Albanophone opposition in Skopje).

The identification of the suspects has made it possible to determine that they were almost all ex-members of the UÇK (Kosovo Liberation Army) [1].

Among them were :

• Sami Ukshini, known as « Commandant Sokoli », whose family played a historic rôle in the UÇK.

• Rijai Bey, ex-bodyguard of Ramush Haradinaj (himself a drug trafficker, military head of the UÇK, then Prime Minister of Kosovo. He was twice condemned for war crimes by the International Penal Tribunal for ex-Yugoslavia, but was acquitted because 9 crucial witnesses were murdered during the trial).

• Dem Shehu, currently bodyguard for the Albanophone leader and founder of the BDI party, Ali Ahmeti. 
• Mirsad Ndrecaj, known as the « NATO Commandant », grandson of Malic Ndrecaj, who is commander of the 132nd Brigade of the UÇK.

The principal leaders of this operation, including Fadil Fejzullahu (killed during the assault), are close to the United States ambassador in Skopje, Paul Wohlers.

Paul Wohlers is the son of US diplomat Lester Wohlers, who played an important part in Atlantist propaganda, and directed the cinematographic service of the U.S. Information Agency. Paul’s brother, Laurence Wohlers, is presently an ambassador in the Central African Republic. Paul Wohlers himself, an ex-Navy pilot, is a specialist in counter-espionage. He was the assistant director of the United States Department of State Operations Center (in other words, the service for the surveillance and protection of diplomats).

To eliminate any doubt about the identity of the operation’s sponsors, the General Secretary of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, intervened even before the assault was over – not to declare his condemnation of terrorism and his support for the constitutional government of Macedonia, but to paint a picture of the terrorist group as a legitimate ethnic opposition : « I am following the events in Kumanovo with deep concern. I would like to express my sympathy to the families of those who were killed or wounded. It is important that all polititcal and community leaders work together to restore order and begin a transparent investigation in order to find out what happened. I am calling for everyone to show reserve and avoid any new escalation of violence, in the intersts of the nation and also the whole region. » You would have to be blind not to understand.

In January 2015, Macedonia foiled an attempted coup d’état organised for the head of the opposition, the social-democrat Zoran Zaev. Four people were arrested, and Mr. Zaev had his passport confiscated, while the Atlantist press began its denunciation of an « authoritarian drift by the régime ».

Zoran Zaev is publicly supported by the embassies of the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and Holland. But the only trace left of this attempted coup d’état indicates the responsibility of the US.
On the 17th May, Zoran Zaev’s social-democrat party (SDSM) [2] was supposed to organise a demonstration. It intended to distribute 2,000 masks in order to prevent the police from identifying the terrorists taking part in the march. During the demonstration, the armed group, concealed behind their masks, were supposed to attack several institutions and launch a pseudo-« revolution » comparable to the events in Maidan Square, Kiev.

This coup d’État was coordinated by Mile Zechevich, an ex-employee of one of George Soros’ foundations.
In order to understand Washington’s urgency to overthrow the Macedonian government, we have to go back and look at the gas pipeline war. Because international politics is a huge chess-board on which every move by any piece causes consequences for all the others.

The gas war

The United States have been attempting to sever communications between Russia and the European Union since 2007. They managed to sabotage the projet South Stream by obliging Bulgaria to cancel its participation, but on the 1st December 2014, to everyone’s surprise, Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a new project when he succeeded in convincing his Turkish opposite number, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to sign an agreement with him, despite the fact that Turkey is a member of NATO [3]. It was agreed that Moscow would deliver gas to Ankara, and that in return, Ankara would deliver gas to the European Union, thus bypassing the anti-Russian embargo by Brussels. On the 18th of April 2015, the new Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsípras, gave his agreement that the pipeline could cross his country [4] . As for Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, he had already conluded discrete negotiations last March [5]. Finally, Serbia, which had been a partner in the South Stream project, indicated to the Russian Minister for Energy Aleksandar Novak, during his reception in Belgrade in April, that Serbia was ready to switch to the Turkish Stream project [6].

To halt the Russian project, Washington has multiplied its initiatives : in Turkey, it is supporting the CHP against President Erdoğan, hoping this will cause him to lose the elections; in Greece, on the 8th May, it sent Amos Hochstein, Directeur of the Bureau of Energy Ressources, to demand that the Tsípras government give up its agreement with Gazprom; it plans – just in case – to block the route of the pipeline by placing one of its puppets in power in Macedonia; and in Serbia, it has restarted the project for the secession of the small piece of territory – Voïvodine – which allows the junction with Hungary [7].

Last comment, but not the least: Turkish Stream will also supply Hungary and Austria, thus ending the alternative project negotiated by the United States with President Hassan Rohani (against the advice of the Revolutionary Guards) for supplying them with Iranian gas [8].

Thierry Meyssan French intellectual, founder and chairman of Voltaire Network and the Axis for Peace Conference. His columns specializing in international relations feature in daily newspapers and weekly magazines in Arabic, Spanish and Russian. His last two books published in English : 9/11 the Big Lie and Pentagate.

Notes

[1] « L’UÇK, une armée kosovare sous encadrement allemand », par Thierry Meyssan, Réseau Voltaire, 15 avril 1999.
[2] Le SDSM est membre de l’Internationale socialiste.
[3] “How Vladimir Putin Upset NATO’s Strategy”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Roger Lagassé, Voltaire Network, 13 December 2014.
[4] “Möglicher Deal zwischen Athen und Moskau: Griechenland hofft auf russische Pipeline-Milliarden”, Von Giorgos Christides, Der Spiegel, 18. April 2015.
[5] “Геннадий Тимченко задержится на Балканах. Вместо South Stream “Стройтрансгаз” построит трубу в Македонии”, Юрий Барсуков, Коммерсант, 12 марта 2015 r.
[6] «Énergie : la Serbie souhaite participer au gazoduc Turkish Stream», B92, 14 avril 2015.
[7] “Brussels’s Next Balkans Ersatz State: Vojvodina”, by Wayne Madsen, Strategic Culture Foundation (Russia), Voltaire Network, 7 March 2015.

[8] “Behind the anti-terror alibi, the gas war in the Levant”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Roger Lagassé, Voltaire Network, 3 October 2014.
Translation – Pete Kimberley

27 May, 2015
Voltairenet.org

 

The Stockholm Appeal from the I.A.O.N.:

After decades of sanctions, war and occupation, attempts to dominate and control Iraq continue. The destruction of the country´s infrastructure, its army and its middle class has left a failed state that leaves its people in social misery and chaos. This has resulted in the collapse of the health and education systems, the weakening of the social fabric and the collective memory and national identity of the Iraqi people. Foreign plans to divide Iraq threaten its very existence as a state.

1. The failure of the US-led occupation to achieve their goals has been followed by another war with massive bombings of civilians and the infusion of enormous amounts of military weapons.

2. The regime in Baghdad which resulted from the imposed sectarian Bremer constitution is incapable by its very nature of achieving the inclusiveness of the different ethnic, religious and political groups that is required to guarantee Iraq´s continued existence.

3. Outside interference and support to sectarian militia and terrorist groups has further worsened internal conflicts, giving birth to criminal ruling groups. It has led to serious violations of human rights and has caused widespread suffering for civilians.

4. The government policies of massive imprisonment, torture, forced displacement and the exclusion of many from the political process have together provided fertile ground for all forms of extremism and terrorism.

5. Millions of refugees have been caught between the US-led bombing and the attacks from the government and its militia allies as well as from the terrorist attacks by ISIS. A humanitarian crisis of enormous proportions continues to worsen with widespread sectarian ethnic cleansing .

We re-iterate our stand that peace cannot be restored until the underlying causes of the conflict have been dealt with. The Iraqi people continue to resist foreign domination. Only their unity can guarantee the sovereignty of Iraq and defeat of terrorism and separatism. Only their efforts can guarantee good relations with all their neighbours based on strict non-interference in each other´s internal affairs. Iraq is not a pawn to be offered in regional or religious conflict. Its sovereignty and independence must be respected.

In the present situation, our efforts should be intensified and co-ordinated to:

– spread information about the underlying political nature of the conflict and demand an end to all foreign intervention.

– support the efforts of the patriotic forces for unity against sectarianism and terrorism where all Iraqis are treated as citizens of one country rather than members of specific communities.

– mobilize international efforts to alleviate the suffering of the Iraqi people.

– demand an end to the bombing and military intervention in Iraq under the pretext of fighting terrorism.

– demand justice for the victims and accountability by those responsible for the crimes committed and their responsibility for reparations and the reconstruction of the country. The UN must uphold international law.

We call upon all anti-occupation, anti-war and peace loving people to maintain and continue solidarity with the people of Iraq and their struggle for an independent, unified and non-sectarian Iraq.

Stockholm May 24, 2015
27 May, 2015
Countercurrents.org

 

By Hamid Dabashi

“Iran is piling one brick on the other,” warns one pundit with solemnity. “Today’s Iranians, with their Persian heritage, are on the march as surely as were the armies of Xerxes 2,500 years ago.”

Usually such right-wing wizardry is the premise upon which is launched the criticism of US President Barack Obama’s evident determination to pursue a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear issue.

“Desperate for a legacy,” this particular warmonger surmises, “our president obsesses about a deal [no matter how wretched] on Iran’s nuclear programme, while ignoring Iran’s aggression across the Middle East”.

If the domain of such nonsense about the rising “Persian Empire” – a blatant act of fear mongering to call for yet another disastrous war in the region to facilitate the further Israeli theft of Palestine – were limited to these neocon artists, there would be very little to be said.

Alas, and quite regrettably, we have begun to see echoes of them among some of the leading Arab thinkers, intellectuals and opinion-makers. Where did that come from?

Fanciful ghostbusting

The origin of this particular brand of fanciful ghostbusting may seem to have been a casual remark by a verbose Iranian official who is reported to have said, “Baghdad is now the capital of the Iranian empire.”

But did he – really? A quick check of the actual phrase by this official, Ali Younessi, President Hassan Rouhani’s adviser on Ethnic and Religious Minorities affairs, does anything but corroborate that charge.

“Cultural, economic and political cooperation between countries in the region,” he had said, and then parenthetically added, “[which in the past composed the Persian empire] could be instead of past ancient empires.”

An entirely pretentious and convoluted sentence you might say, but a claim to the rising Persian Empire – by no means. Later on, Younessi went out of his way emphatically to deny he had ever said anything to claim the return of the Persian Empire – but to no avail.

What I say does not mean we want to conquer the world but we must reach historical self-consciousness and understand our place in the world, and while thinking globally act in an Iranian and national manner.

If someone were to bother to read Younessi’s original Persian phrasing, the confusion about the rising currency of “the Persian Empire” will become even more confounded, because in the midst of all his bombastic verbiage he keeps repeating: “What I say does not mean we want to conquer the world but we must reach historical self-consciousness and understand our place in the world, and while thinking globally act in an Iranian and national manner.”

Again: pompously verbose, you might say and think the proverbial clerical penchant for vacuous hyperbole may have overcome the man at this conference on “Iranian identity”, where he delivered this speech – but calling for a Persian empire now? Not really.

But the news of an Iranian official calling for a Persian empire with Baghdad as its capital soon spread like a bushfire among the nervous and confused pan-Arab nationalists. They were rightly upset about Iranian meddling in many Arab countries, but so upset that they did not bother to check the original, which after all is in a language very much akin to their own?

So where did such panicked rubbernecking around and about the phrase “Persian Empire” originate?

Reviving the Persian Empire?

The date of this speech by Ali Younessi is March 7, 2015. But the neocon US and Israeli Zionist charge of this Persian empire business predates it by many months and years until it finally found its way to the august pages of the New York Times by three apparatchiks employed at the notorious Zionist joint Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy (WINEP).

In other words, the boorish and blase charge of the ruling regime in Iran trying to revive “the Persian Empire” did not have to wait for Younessi’s idiotic remarks at a gaudy conference on “Iranian identity”, for the hasty and nervous Arab opinion-makers seem to have taken it directly from Israeli and American Zionists, with whom they now seem to share not just the English language but a frightful Iranophobia.

There is no longer any Persian, Arab, Ottoman, Indian, Chinese, British, Spanish, or Mongol empire, and may the angels of mercy and justice be praised for that. The only empire that exists, and it does not feel particularly well or imperial these days, is the American empire. It is a kind of postmodern empire, as it were, ruling, or wishing to rule, via drones, proxies, mercenary armies, and lucrative arms sales to rich, corrupt, and bewildered potentates.

Iran has not become a Persian empire. As a fragile and internally unstable Islamic republic, Iran has systematically and consistently spread its sphere of influence in a region where national boundaries mean very little.

Saudi Arabia is right now in Yemen, and a couple of years ago it was in Bahrain. While bombing Libya, Egypt wants to lead a pan-Arab army around the region, as the European settler colony of Israel continues to sit on, and steal more of, Palestinian and Syrian territories and eyeing even more.

Runaway hoodlums

Syria and Iraq are under attack by a murderous gang of former Iraqi Baathists and other runaway hoodlums they have hired from around the world and call themselves ISIL, “a digital caliphate”, as Abdel-Bari Atwan rightly calls it in a new book.

Pakistan acts freely in Afghanistan, as Turkey does in Iraq and Syria. Kurds have run away from Iraq to form an autonomous region and protect themselves from yet another Baathist slaughter. Iran is integral to this widening gyre of geostrategic free fall – not above it. To disregard the real imperial power operating in the region, and turn a blind eye to the aggressive counter-revolutionary mobilisation and speak of “Persian Empire” at a time when all post-colonial boundaries have collapsed, is a silly red herring.

Speaking of “Persian Empire” and thus exaggerating the influence of a deeply flawed, menacing, and malfunctioning Islamist theocracy, plays the horn from its open side, as the Persian proverb aptly puts it. It blinds us to the factual evidence of a chorus of counter-revolutionary forces that place the ruling regimes of Iran and Saudi Arabia on the same (and not on the opposite) sides.

There is no “Persian Empire” in sight: only the hard geostrategic facts of US imperialism reshuffling its cards to play a more winning hand. The test of our moral and intellectual mettle is to keep our eyes on the ball and not be distracted by any curved ball that seeks only to reassert the old Roman imperial dictum: Divide et Impera: Divide and Conquer!

27 May 2015

Hamid Dabashi is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University.

 

 

By Robert Barsocchini

Newly-declassified US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) documents from 2012:

In Syria:

THE SALAFIST [sic], THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD, AND AQI ARE THE MAJOR FORCES DRIVING THE INSURGENCY IN SYRIA.

AQI [Al Qaeda in Iraq, which became ISIS: “ISIS, once called AQI”] SUPPORTED THE SYRIAN OPPOSITION FROM THE BEGINNING, BOTH IDEOLOGICALLY AND THROUGH THE MEDIA…

…OPPOSITION FORCES ARE TRYING TO CONTROL THE EASTERN AREAS (HASAKA AND DER ZOR), ADJACENT TO THE WESTERN IRAQI PROVINCES (MOSUL AND ANBAR), IN ADDITION TO NEIGHBORING TURKISH BORDERS. WESTERN COUNTRIES, THE GULF STATES AND TURKEY ARE SUPPORTING THESE EFFORTS.

IF THE SITUATION UNRAVELS THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF ESTABLISHING A DECLARED OR UNDECLARED SALAFIST PRINCIPALITY IN EASTERN SYRIA (HASAKA AND DER ZOR), AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE SUPPORTING POWERS TO THE OPPOSITION WANT, IN ORDER TO ISOLATE THE SYRIAN REGIME…

Now for some definitions:

Salafi Movement:

The Salafist movement, also known as the Salafi movement, is a movement within Sunni Islam that references the doctrine known as Salafism.

The Salafi movement is often described as being synonymous with Wahhabism, but Salafists consider the term “Wahhabi” derogatory.[1] At other times, Salafism has been described as a hybrid of Wahhabism and other post-1960s movements.[2] Salafism has become associated with literalist, strict and puritanical approaches to Islam – and, particularly in the West, with the Salafi Jihadis who espouse offensive jihad against those they deem to be enemies of Islam as a legitimate expression of Islam.

In recent years, Salafi methodology has come to be associated with the jihad of extremist groups that advocate the killing of innocent civilians [though not all Salafists can be stereotyped under this umbrella].

Principality:

A principality (or princedom) can either be a monarchical feudatory or a sovereign state, ruled or reigned over by a monarch with the title of prince or by a monarch with another title within the generic use of the term prince.

Thus, what the documents say the Western powers and their collaborators want, a “Salafist Principality” in Easter Syria, is an Islamic monarchical state. It should be no surprise that the US/West want this, as they are allied with so many Islamic dictatorships (ie the Gulf States and Turkey, as noted above).

The strictest sect of Salafism:

Wahhabism (Saudi Arabia)

Wahhabism is a more strict, Saudi form of Salafism, according to Mark Durie, who states Saudi leaders “are active and diligent” using their considerable financial resources “in funding and promoting Salafism all around the world.” Ahmad Moussalli tends to agree with the view that Wahhabism is a subset of Salafism, saying “As a rule, all Wahhabis are salafists, but not all salafists are Wahhabis”.

Saudi Government is funding to increase the Salafi Islam throughout the world. Estimates of Saudi spending on religious causes abroad include “upward of $100 billion”, between $2 and 3 billion per year since 1975 (compared to the annual Soviet propaganda budget of $1 billion/year [and US government/corporate propaganda budgets of many billions per year]),[92] and “at least $87 billion” from 1987–2007.

Its largesse funded an estimated “90% of the expenses of the entire faith“, throughout the Muslim World…

“Books, scholarships, fellowships, mosques” (for example, “more than 1,500 mosques were built from Saudi public funds over the last 50 years”) were paid for.[96] It rewarded journalists and academics, who followed it and built satellite campuses around Egypt for Al Azhar, the oldest and most influential Islamic university.[97] Yahya Birt counts spending on “1,500 mosques, 210 Islamic centres and dozens of Muslim academies and schools”.

This financial aid has done much to overwhelm less strict local interpretations of Islam, according to observers like Dawood al-Shirian and Lee Kuan Yew, and has caused the Saudi interpretation (sometimes called “petro-Islam”) to be perceived as the correct interpretation – or the “gold standard” of Islam – in many Muslims’ minds.

While the Western powers and their collaborators may want a Salafist Principality in Eastern Syria, they, mainly the US, are openly supporting the most extreme Salafist, missionary state in the world: Saudi Arabia.

The US has been supporting Saudi Arabia since oil was discovered there around the 1930s.

The US is the world’s biggest arms trafficker. The biggest arms sale of the world’s biggest arms trafficker was to the Saudi dictatorship, approved by Obama in 2010:

The Guardian:

Barack Obama to authorise record $60bn Saudi arms sale

Biggest arms deal in US history…

The US is the world’s largest arms supplier…

Amnesty reported that, contrary to US gov and media propaganda, the Saudi regime got worse under the last dictator (who recently died), and is getting even worse now under new US-backed dictator Abdulaziz, with Saudi Arabia committing dozens and dozens of beheading/crucifixions, taking the lead in confirmed state executions worldwide.

2009 US documents leaked by Wikileaks revealed Hillary Clinton stating that Saudi Arabia is the world’s biggest source of funding for Sunni terrorist groups.

Abdulaziz himself, the top of the Saudi dictatorship, is said by al Qaeda to be one of their sources of funding and support.

Unlike Iran, which has parliamentary representatives and voting, Saudi Arabia is a straight despotism which maintains itself through terror, such as by lashing innocent civilians in public.

Unlike Iran, Saudi Arabia not only does not renounce nuclear weapons (US intelligence does not even say Iran is pursuing them; in fact far from it), but Saudi officials promise never to renounce nuclear weapons, or even negotiate about nuclear weapons, which Iran has agreed to do numerous times, with the US always cancelling the negotiations, as Obama has done before, and did again this week: “US Kills Nuclear Free Mid-East Conference“.

Indeed, Saudi Arabia just announced its intentions to go nuclear, a prospect that has long been known to all.

None of this prevents the US from making its biggest ever lethal arms sale to the dictatorship, or selling them almost a billion dollars worth of banned cluster bombs in 2013, which HRW reports are now being used in the US-coordinated/assisted Saudi aggressive war against Yemen, from which the US refuses to rescue its own civilian nationals, unlike eight other countries including Russia, China, and India, which have performed rescue missions.

Author’s research focuses on global force dynamics. He also writes professionally for the film industry. His articles have been noted by professors, scholars, student-groups, and other independent researchers. Twitter @_DirtyTruths

26 May, 2015
Countercurrents.org