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By Paul Craig Roberts

Ecological economists such as Herman Daly write that the more full the world becomes, the higher are the social or external costs of production.

Social or external costs are costs of production that are not captured in the price of the products. For example, dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico that result from chemicals used in agriculture are not included as costs in agricultural production. The price of food does not include the damage to the Gulf.

Food production is a source of large social costs. Indeed, it seems that the more food producers are able to lower the measured cost of food production, the higher the social costs imposed on society.

Consider the factory farming of animals. The density of operations results in a concentration of germs and in animals being fed antibiotics. Lowering the cost of food in this way contributes to the rise of antibiotic resistant superbugs that will impose costs on society that will more than offset the savings from lower food prices.

Monsanto has reduced the measured cost of food production by producing genetically modified seeds that result in plants that are pest and herbicide resistant. The result is increased yields and lower measured costs of production. However, there is evidence that the social or external costs of this approach to farming more than offsets the lower measured cost. For example, there are toxic affects on microorganisms in the soil, a decline in soil fertility and nutritional value of food, and animal and human infertility.

When Purdue University plant pathologist and soil microbiologist Don Huber pointed out these unintended consequences of GMOs, other scientists were hesitant to support him, because their careers are dependent on research grants from agribusiness. In other words, Monsanto essentially controls the research on its own products. http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/05/18/gmo-foods-inflammation.aspx?e_cid=20140518Z1_SNL_Art_1&utm_source=snl&utm_medium=
email&utm_content=art1&utm_campaign=20140518Z1&et_cid=DM45056&et_rid=524903968

In his book, Genetic Roulette, Jeffrey M. Smith writes: “Genetically modified (GM) foods are inherently unsafe, and current safety assessments are not competent to protect us from or even identify most dangers.” The evidence is piling up against such foods; yet the US government is so totally owned by Monsanto that labeling cannot be required.

Pesticides damage birds and bees. Some years ago we learned that ingestion of pesticides by birds was bringing some species near to extinction. If we lose bees, we lose honey and the most important pollinating agent. The rapid decline in bee populations have several causes. Among them are the pesticides sulfoxaflor and thiamethoxam produced by Dow and Syngenta. http://earthjustice.org/features/the-case-of-the-vanishing-honey-bee?utm_source=crm&utm_content=button Dow is lobbying the Environmental Protection Agency to permit sulfoxaflor residues on food, and Syngenta wants to be able to spray alfalfa with many times the currently allowed amount of thiamethoxam.
http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/50865/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=13999

As the regulators are more or less in the industry’s pocket, the companies will likely succeed in their efforts to further contaminate the food of people and animals. The profits of Monsanto, Dow, and Syngenta are higher, because many of the costs associated with the production and use of their products are imposed on third parties and on life itself.

Many countries have put restrictions on GMO foods. Lawmakers in Russia equate genetically engineered foods to terrorist acts and want to impose criminal penalties. http://rt.com/news/159188-russia-gmo-terrorist-bill/ The French parliament has approved a ban on GMO cultivation in France. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/05/france-gmo-idUSL6N0NR2MZ20140505 However, Washington lobbies foreign governments on behalf of its agribusiness and chemical donors. Dick Cheney used his two terms as vice president to staff up the environmental agencies with corporate friendly executives. Just as the political appointees at the SEC would not let SEC prosecutors bring cases against the big banks, environmental regulators have a difficult time protecting the environment and food supply from contamination. The way Washington works is that the regulators protect those they are supposed to regulate in exchange for big jobs when they leave government. The economist, George Stigler, made this clear several decades ago.

The public favors labeling of genetically engineered food, but Monsanto and the Grocery Manufacturers Association have so far been successful in preventing it. On May 8 the governor of Vermont signed a bill passed by the state legislature that requires labeling. Monsanto’s response is to sue the state of Vermont.

The opposition to labeling by agribusiness is suspicious. It creates the impression of hiding information from the public. Normally, this is not good public relations. Currently, foods are mislabeled when genetically engineered food is labeled “natural.”

Breakthroughs in science and technology allow mere humans to play God with insufficient information. The downsides of genetic engineering are unknown, and the costs could exceed the benefits. What economists term “low cost production” might turn out to be very high cost.

Neoclassical economists do not lose sleep over external costs, because they think that there is always a solution. They think that the way to deal with pollution is to price it so that the entity that most needs to pollute ends up with the right. Somehow this is thought to solve the problem of pollution. Neoclassical economists think that it is impossible to run out of resources, because they believe man-made capital is a substitute for nature’s capital. It is a fantasy world in which we become ever more productive and better off and never run out of anything.

Ecological economists see the world differently. Nature’s capital, such as mineral resources and fisheries, are being depleted, and the disposal sinks for wastes are filling up, with land, air, and water being polluted. Every act of production produces useful products and wastes. As external costs and the depletion of nature’s capital are not measured, we have no way of knowing whether an increase in output is economic or uneconomic. All we can tell is whether the costs that are measured are covered by the price of the product.

What this means is that in a full world, neoclassical economics becomes less meaningful and is less able to contribute to our understanding of problems. It cannot even tell us whether GDP is rising or falling as we do not have a measure of the full cost of production.

For further information on these issues, see my book, The Failure Of Laissez Faire Capitalism And Economic Dissolution Of The West, and the website: http://steadystate.org

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal.

23 May, 2014
Countercurrents.org

 

By Amnesty International
Amnesty International has accused governments around the world of betraying their commitments to stamp out torture, three decades after the ground-breaking Convention Against Torture was adopted by the UN in 1984.

“Governments around the world are two-faced on torture – prohibiting it in law, but facilitating it in practice” said Salil Shetty, Amnesty International’s Secretary General, as he launched Stop Torture, Amnesty International’s latest global campaign to combat widespread torture and other ill-treatment in the modern world.

“Torture is not just alive and well – it is flourishing in many parts of the world. As more governments seek to justify torture in the name of national security, the steady progress made in this field over the last thirty years is being eroded.”

Since 1984, 155 states have ratified the UN Convention Against Torture, 142 of which are researched by Amnesty International. In 2014, Amnesty International observed at least 79 of these still torturing – more than half the states party to the Convention that the organization reports on. A further 40 UN states haven’t adopted the Convention, although the global legal ban on torture binds them too.

Over the last five years, Amnesty International has reported on torture and other forms of ill-treatment in at least 141 countries from every region of the world – virtually every country on which it works. The secretive nature of torture means the true number of countries that torture is likely to be higher still.

In some of these countries torture is routine and systematic. In others, Amnesty International has only documented isolated and exceptional cases. The organization finds even one case of torture or other ill-treatment totally unacceptable.

The Stop Torture campaign launches with a new media briefing, Torture in 2014: 30 Years of Broken Promises, which provides an overview of the use of torture in the world today.

The briefing details a variety of torture techniques – from stress positions and sleep deprivation to electrocution of the genitals – used against criminal suspects, security suspects, dissenting voices, political rivals and others.

As part of the campaign Amnesty International commissioned a Globescan survey to gauge worldwide attitudes to torture. Alarmingly, the survey found nearly half (44%) of respondents – from 21 countries across every continent – fear they would be at risk of torture if taken into custody in their country.

The vast majority (82%) believe there should be clear laws against torture. However, more than a third (36%) still thought torture could be justified in certain circumstances.

“The results from this new global survey are startling, with nearly half of the people we surveyed feeling fearful and personally vulnerable to torture. The vast majority of people believe that there should be clear rules against torture, although more than a third still think that torture could be justified in certain circumstances. Overall, we can see broad global support amongst the public for action to prevent torture,” said Caroline Holme, Director at GlobeScan.

Measures such as the criminalization of torture in national legislation, opening detention centers to independent monitors, and video recording interrogations have all led to a decrease in the use of torture in those countries taking their commitments under the Convention Against Torture seriously.

Amnesty International is calling on governments to implement protective mechanisms to prevent and punish torture – such as proper medical examinations, prompt access to lawyers, independent checks on places of detention, independent and effective investigations of torture allegations, the prosecution of suspects and proper redress for victims.

The organization’s global work against torture continues, but will focus in particular on five countries where torture is rife and Amnesty International believes it can achieve significant impact. Substantive reports with specific recommendations for each will form the spine of the campaign.

In Mexico the government argues that torture is the exception rather than the norm, but in reality abuse by police and security forces is widespread and goes unpunished. Miriam López Vargas, a 31 year-old mother of four, was abducted from her hometown of Ensenada by two soldiers in plainclothes, and taken to a military barracks. She was held there for a week, raped three times, asphyxiated and electrocuted to force her to confess that she was involved in drug-related offences. Three years have passed, but none of her torturers have been brought to justice.

Justice is out of reach for most torture survivors in the Philippines . A secret detention facility was recently discovered where police officers abused detainees ‘for fun’. Police officers reportedly spun a ‘wheel of torture’ to decide how to torture prisoners. Media coverage led to an internal investigation and some officers being dismissed, but Amnesty International is calling for a thorough and impartial investigation which will lead to the prosecution in court of the officers involved. Most acts of police torture remain unreported and torture survivors continue to suffer in silence.

In Morocco and Western Sahara , authorities rarely investigate reports of torture. Spanish authorities extradited Ali Aarrass to Morocco despite fears he would be tortured. He was picked up by intelligence officers and taken to a secret detention centre, where he says they electrocuted his testicles, beat the soles of his feet and hanged him by his wrists for hours on end. He says the officers forced him to confess to assisting a terrorist group. Ali Aarass was convicted and sentenced to 12 years behind bars on the basis of that “confession”. His allegation of torture has never been investigated.

In Nigeria , police and military personnel use torture as a matter of routine. When Moses Akatugba was arrested by soldiers he was 16 years old. He said they beat him and shot him in the hand. According to Moses he was then transfered to the police, who hanged him by his limbs for hours at a police station. Moses says he was tortured into signing a “confession” that he was involved in a robbery. The allegation that he confessed as a result of torture was never fully investigated. In November 2013, after eight years waiting for a verdict, Moses was sentenced to death.

In Uzbekistan , torture is pervasive but few torturers are ever brought to justice. The country is closed to Amnesty International. Dilorom Abdukadirova spent five years in exile after security forces opened fire on a protest she was attending. On returning to Uzbekistan , she was detained, barred from seeing her family, and charged with attempting to overthrow the government. During her trial, she looked emaciated with bruising on her face. Her family is convinced she had been tortured.

“Thirty years ago Amnesty led the campaign for a worldwide commitment to combat torture resulting in the UN’s Convention Against Torture. Much progress has been made since, but it is disheartening that today we still need a worldwide campaign to ensure that those promises are fulfilled,” said Salil Shetty.

At a Glance
# Amnesty International has reported on torture or other ill-treatment in 141 countries over the past five years.

# New global survey of more than 21,000 people in 21 countries across every continent reveals fear of torture exists in all these countries.

Nearly half of the respondents fear torture if taken into custody.

# More than 80% want strong laws to protect them from torture.

# More than a third believe torture can be justified.

23 May, 2014
Countercurrents.org

By Israel Shamir

It is not much fun to be in Kiev these days. The revolutionary excitement is over, and hopes for new faces, the end of corruption and economic improvement have withered. The Maidan street revolt and the subsequent coup just reshuffled the same marked deck of cards, forever rotating in power.

The new acting President has been an acting prime minister, and a KGB (called “SBU” in Ukrainian) supremo. The new acting prime minister has been a foreign minister. The oligarch most likely to be “elected” President in a few days has been a foreign minister, the head of the state bank, and personal treasurer of two coups, in 2004 (installing Yushchenko) and in 2014 (installing himself). His main competitor, Mme Timoshenko, served as a prime minister for years, until electoral defeat in 2010.

These people had brought Ukraine to its present abject state. In 1991, the Ukraine was richer than Russia, today it is three times poorer because of these people’s mismanagement and theft. Now they plan an old trick: to take loans in Ukraine’s name, pocket the cash and leave the country indebted. They sell state assets to Western companies and ask for NATO to come in and protect the investment.

They play a hard game, brass knuckles and all. The Black Guard, a new SS-like armed force of the neo-nazi Right Sector, prowls the land. They arrest or kill dissidents, activists, journalists. Hundreds of American soldiers, belonging to the “private” company Academi (formerly Blackwater) are spread out in Novorossia, the pro-Russian provinces in the East and South-East. IMF–dictated reforms slashed pensions by half and doubled the housing rents. In the market, US Army rations took the place of local food.

The new Kiev regime had dropped the last pretence of democracy by expelling the Communists from the parliament. This should endear them to the US even more. Expel Communists, apply for NATO, condemn Russia, arrange a gay parade and you may do anything at all, even fry dozens of citizens alive. And so they did.

The harshest repressions were unleashed on industrial Novorossia, as its working class loathes the whole lot of oligarchs and ultra-nationalists. After the blazing inferno of Odessa and a wanton shooting on the streets of Melitopol the two rebellious provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk took up arms and declared their independence from the Kiev regime. They came under fire, but did not surrender. The other six Russian-speaking industrial provinces of Novorossia were quickly cowed. Dnepropetrovsk and Odessa were terrorised by personal army of Mr Kolomoysky; Kharkov was misled by its tricky governor. Russia did not interfere and did not support the rebellion, to the great distress of Russian nationalists in Ukraine and Russia who mutter about “betrayal”. So much for the warlike rhetoric of McCain and Brzezinski.
Putin’s respect for others’ sovereignty is exasperating. I understand this sounds like a joke, — you hear so much about Putin as a “new Hitler”. As a matter of fact, Putin had legal training before joining the Secret Service. He is a stickler for international law. His Russia has interfered with other states much less than France or England, let alone the US. I asked his senior adviser, Mr Alexei Pushkov, why Russia did not try to influence Ukrainian minds while Kiev buzzed with American and European officials. “We think it is wrong to interfere”, he replied like a good Sunday schoolboy. It is rather likely Putin’s advisors misjudged public sentiment. « The majority of Novorossia’s population does not like the new Kiev regime, but being politically passive and conservative, will submit to its rule”, they estimated. “The rebels are a small bunch of firebrands without mass support, and they can’t be relied upon”, was their view. Accordingly, Putin advised the rebels to postpone the referendum indefinitely, a polite way of saying “drop it”.

They disregarded his request with considerable sang froid and convincingly voted en masse for secession from a collapsing Ukraine. The turnout was much higher than expected, the support for the move near total. As I was told by a Kremlin insider, this development was not foreseen by Putin’s advisers.

Perhaps the advisors had read it right, but three developments had changed the voters’ minds and had sent this placid people to the barricades and the voting booths:

1. The first one was the fiery holocaust of Odessa, where the peaceful and carelessly unarmed demonstrating workers were suddenly attacked by regime’s thugs (the Ukrainian equivalent of Mubarak’s shabab) and corralled into the Trade Unions Headquarters. The building was set on fire, and the far-right pro-regime Black Guard positioned snipers to efficiently pick off would-be escapees. Some fifty, mainly elderly, Russian-speaking workers were burned alive or shot as they rushed for the windows and the doors. This dreadful event was turned into an occasion of merriment and joy by Ukrainian nationalists who referred to their slain compatriots as “fried beetles”. (It is being said that this auto-da-fé was organised by the shock troops of Jewish oligarch and strongman Kolomoysky, who coveted the port of Odessa. Despite his cuddly bear appearance, he is pugnacious and violent person, who offered ten thousand dollars for a captive Russian, dead or alive, and proposed a cool million dollars for the head of Mr Tsarev, a Member of Parliament from Donetsk.)

2. The second was the Mariupol attack on May 9, 2014. This day is commemorated as V-day in Russia and Ukraine (while the West celebrates it on May 8). The Kiev regime forbade all V-day celebrations. In Mariupol, the Black Guard attacked the peaceful and weaponless town, burning down the police headquarters and killing local policemen who had refused to suppress the festive march. Afterwards, Black Guard thugs unleashed armoured vehicles on the streets, killing citizens and destroying property.

The West did not voice any protest; Nuland and Merkel weren’t horrified by this mass murder, as they were by Yanukovich’s timid attempts to control crowds. The people of these two provinces felt abandoned; they understood that nobody was going to protect and save them but themselves, and went off to vote.

3. The third development was, bizarrely, the Eurovision jury choice of Austrian transvestite Conchita Wurst for a winner of its song contest. The sound-minded Novorossians decided they want no part of such a Europe.

Actually, the people of Europe do not want it either: it transpired that the majority of British viewers preferred a Polish duo, Donatan & Cleo, with its We Are Slavic. Donatan is half Russian, and has courted controversy in the past extolling the virtues of pan-Slavism and the achievements of the Red Army, says the Independent. The politically correct judges of the jury preferred to “celebrate tolerance”, the dominant paradigm imposed upon Europe. This is the second transvestite to win this very political contest; the first one was Israeli singer Dana International. Such obsession with re-gendering did not go down well with Russians and/or Ukrainians.

The Russians have readjusted their sights, but they do not intend to bring their troops into the two rebel republics, unless dramatic developments should force them.

Russian plans

Imagine: you are dressed up for a night on Broadway, but your neighbours are involved in a vicious quarrel, and you have to gun up and deal with the trouble instead of enjoying a show, and a dinner, and perhaps a date. This was Putin’s position regarding the Ukrainian turmoil.

A few months ago, Russia had made a huge effort to become, and to be seen as, a very civilised European state of the first magnitude. This was the message of the Sochi Olympic games: to re-brand, even re-invent Russia, just as Peter the Great once had, as part of the First World; an amazing country of strong European tradition, of Leo Tolstoy and Malevich, of Tchaikovsky and Diaghilev, the land of arts, of daring social reform, of technical achievements, of modernity and beyond — the Russia of Natasha Rostova riding a Sikorsky ‘copter. Putin spent $60 b to broadcast this image.

The old fox Henry Kissinger wisely said:
Putin spent $60 billion on the Olympics. They had opening and closing ceremonies, trying to show Russia as a normal progressive state. So it isn’t possible that he, three days later, would voluntarily start an assault on Ukraine. There is no doubt that… at all times he wanted Ukraine in a subordinate position. And at all times, every senior Russian that I’ve ever met, including dissidents like Solzhenitsyn and Brodsky, looked at Ukraine as part of the Russian heritage. But I don’t think he had planned to bring it to a head now.

However, Washington hawks decided to do whatever it takes to keep Russia out in the cold. They were afraid of this image of “a normal progressive state” as such Russia would render NATO irrelevant and undermine European dependence on the US. They were adamant about retaining their hegemony, shattered as it was by the Syrian confrontation. They attacked Russian positions in the Ukraine and arranged a violent coup, installing a viciously anti-Russian regime supported by football fans and neo-Nazis, paid for by Jewish oligarchs and American taxpayers. The victors banned the Russian language and prepared to void treaties with Russia regarding its Crimean naval base at Sebastopol on the Black Sea. This base was to become a great new NATO base, controlling the Black Sea and threatening Russia.

Putin had to deal quickly and so he did, by accepting the Crimean people’s request to join Russian Federation. This dealt with the immediate problem of the base, but the problem of Ukraine remained.

The Ukraine is not a foreign entity to Russians, it is the western half of Russia. It was artificially separated from the rest in 1991, at the collapse of the USSR. The people of the two parts are interconnected by family, culture and blood ties; their economies are intricately connected. While a separate viable Ukrainian state is a possibility, an “independent” Ukrainian state hostile to Russia is not viable and can’t be tolerated by any Russian ruler. And this for military as well as for cultural reasons: if Hitler had begun the war against Russia from its present border, he would have taken Stalingrad in two days and would have destroyed Russia in a week.

A more pro-active Russian ruler would have sent troops to Kiev a long time ago. Thus did Czar Alexis when the Poles, Cossacks and Tatars argued for it in 17th century. So also did Czar Peter the Great, when the Swedes occupied it in the 18th century. So did Lenin, when the Germans set up the Protectorate of Ukraine (he called its establishment “the obscene peace”). So did Stalin, when the Germans occupied the Ukraine in 1941.

Putin still hopes to settle the problem by peaceful means, relying upon the popular support of the Ukrainian people. Actually, before the Crimean takeover, the majority of Ukrainians (and near all Novorossians) overwhelmingly supported some sort of union with Russia. Otherwise, the Kiev coup would not have been necessary. The forced Crimean takeover seriously undermined Russian appeal. The people of Ukraine did not like it. This was foreseen by the Kremlin, but they had to accept Crimea for a few reasons. Firstly, a loss of Sevastopol naval base to NATO was a too horrible of an alternative to contemplate. Secondly, the Russian people would not understand if Putin were to refuse the suit of the Crimeans.

The Washington hawks still hope to force Putin to intervene militarily, as it would give them the opportunity to isolate Russia, turn it into a monster pariah state, beef up defence spending and set Europe and Russia against each other. They do not care about Ukraine and Ukrainians, but use them as pretext to attain geopolitical goals.

The Europeans would like to fleece Ukraine; to import its men as “illegal” workers and its women as prostitutes, to strip assets, to colonise. They did it with Moldova, a little sister of Ukraine, the most miserable ex-Soviet Republic. As for Russia, the EU would not mind taking it down a notch, so they would not act so grandly. But the EU is not fervent about it. Hence, the difference in attitudes.

Putin would prefer to continue with his modernisation of Russia. The country needs it badly. The infrastructure lags twenty or thirty years behind the West. Tired by this backwardness, young Russians often prefer to move to the West, and this brain drain causes much damage to Russia while enriching the West. Even Google is a result of this brain drain, for Sergey Brin is a Russian immigrant as well. So are hundreds of thousands of Russian scientists and artists manning every Western lab, theatre and orchestra. Political liberalisation is not enough: the young people want good roads, good schools and a quality of life comparable to the West. This is what Putin intends to deliver.

He is doing a fine job of it. Moscow now has free bikes and Wi-Fi in the parks like every Western European city. Trains have been upgraded. Hundreds of thousands of apartments are being built, even more than during the Soviet era. Salaries and pensions have increased seven-to-tenfold in the past decade. Russia is still shabby, but it is on the right track. Putin wants to continue this modernisation.

As for the Ukraine and other ex-Soviet states, Putin would prefer they retain their independence, be friendly and work at a leisurely pace towards integration a la the European Union. He does not dream of a new empire. He would reject such a proposal, as it would delay his modernisation plans.

If the beastly neocons would not have forced his hand by expelling the legitimate president of Ukraine and installing their puppets, the world might have enjoyed a long spell of peace. But then the western military alliance under the US leadership would fall into abeyance, US military industries would lose out, and US hegemony would evaporate. Peace is not good for the US military and hegemony-creating media machine. So dreams of peace in our lifetime are likely to remain just dreams.

What will Putin do?

Putin will try to avoid sending in troops as long as possible. He will have to protect the two splinter provinces, but this can be done with remote support, the way the US supports the rebels in Syria, without ‘boots on the ground’. Unless serious bloodshed on a large scale should occur, Russian troops will just stand by, staring down the Black Guard and other pro-regime forces.

Putin will try to find an arrangement with the West for sharing authority, influence and economic involvement in the failed state. This can be done through federalisation, or by means of coalition government, or even partition. The Russian-speaking provinces of Novorossia are those of Kharkov (industry), Nikolayev (ship-building), Odessa (harbour), Donetsk and Lugansk (mines and industry), Dnepropetrovsk (missiles and high-tech), Zaporozhe (steel), Kherson (water for Crimea and ship-building), all of them established, built and populated by Russians. They could secede from Ukraine and form an independent Novorossia, a mid-sized state, but still bigger than some neighbouring states. This state could join the Union State of Russia and Belarus, and/or the Customs Union led by Russia. The rump Ukraine could manage as it sees fit until it decides whether or not to join its Slavic sisters in the East. Such a set up would produce two rather cohesive and homogeneous states.

Another possibility (much less likely at this moment) is a three-way division of the failed Ukraine: Novorossia, Ukraine proper, and Galicia&Volyn. In such a case, Novorossia would be strongly pro-Russian, Ukraine would be neutral, and Galicia strongly pro-Western.

The EU could accept this, but the US probably would not agree to any power-sharing in the Ukraine. In the ensuing tug-of-war, one of two winners will emerge. If Europe and the US drift apart, Russia wins. If Russia accepts a pro-Western positioning of practically all of Ukraine, the US wins. The tug-of-war could snap and cause all-out war, with many participants and a possible use of nuclear weapons. This is a game of chicken; the one with stronger nerves and less imagination will remain on the track.

Pro and Contra

It is too early to predict who will win in the forthcoming confrontation. For the Russian president, it is extremely tempting to take all of Ukraine or at least Novorossia, but it is not an easy task, and one likely to cause much hostility from the Western powers.

With Ukraine incorporated, Russian recovery from 1991 would be completed, its strength doubled, its security ensured and a grave danger removed. Russia would become great again. People would venerate Putin as Gatherer of Russian Lands.

However, Russian efforts to appear as a modern peaceful progressive state would have been wasted; it would be seen as an aggressor and expelled from international bodies. Sanctions will bite; high tech imports may be banned, as in the Soviet days. The Russian elites are reluctant to jeopardise their good life. The Russian military just recently began its modernisation and is not keen to fight yet, perhaps not for another ten years. But if they feel cornered, if NATO moves into Eastern Ukraine, they will fight all the same.

Some Russian politicians and observers believe that Ukraine is a basket case; its problems would be too expensive to fix. This assessment has a ‘sour grapes’ aftertaste, but it is widespread. An interesting new voice on the web, The Saker, promotes this view. “Let the EU and the US provide for the Ukrainians, they will come back to Mother Russia when hungry”, he says. The problem is, they will not be allowed to reconsider. The junta did not seize power violently in order to lose it at the ballot box.

Besides, Ukraine is not in such bad shape as some people claim. Yes, it would cost trillions to turn it into a Germany or France, but that’s not necessary. Ukraine can reach the Russian level of development very quickly –- in union with Russia. Under the EC-IMF-NATO, Ukraine will become a basket case, if it’s not already. The same is true for all East European ex-Soviet states: they can modestly prosper with Russia, as Belarus and Finland do, or suffer depopulation, unemployment, poverty with Europe and NATO and against Russia, vide Latvia, Hungary, Moldova, Georgia. It is in Ukrainian interests to join Russia in some framework; Ukrainians understand that; for this reason they will not be allowed to have democratic elections.

Simmering Novorossia has a potential to change the game. If Russian troops don’t come in, Novorossian rebels may beat off the Kiev offensive and embark on a counter-offensive to regain the whole of the country, despite Putin’s pacifying entreaties. Then, in a full-blown civil war, the Ukraine will hammer out its destiny.

On a personal level, Putin faces a hard choice. Russian nationalists will not forgive him if he surrenders Ukraine without a fight. The US and EU threaten the very life of the Russian president, as their sanctions are hurting Putin’s close associates, encouraging them to get rid of or even assassinate the President and improve their relations with the mighty West. War may come at any time, as it came twice during the last century – though Russia tried to avoid it both times. Putin wants to postpone it, at the very least, but not at any price.

His is not an easy choice. As Russia procrastinates, as the US doubles the risks, the world draws nearer to the nuclear abyss. Who will chicken out?

Israel Shamir can be reached at adam@israelshamir.net

 

By Bill Van Auken

 

Ukrainian armed forces early Thursday suffered their worst losses since launching a military crackdown last month against civilian populations opposing Kiev’s coup regime in eastern and southern Ukraine.

An attack on a pro-regime roadblock near the town of Volnovakha, about 20 miles south of the city of Donetsk, left 16 soldiers dead and at least 30 more wounded, a number of them gravely. Gunfire from anti-regime fighters apparently ignited an ammunitions dump leading to a massive explosion that burned and tore the turrets off of armored vehicles.

According to initial reports from residents, the roadblock, located on the main road between Donetsk and the port city of Mariupol, had been manned by members of the National Guard, a force that has been hastily assembled with volunteers drawn from the neo-fascist Right Sector and other extreme nationalist elements.

A commander of the insurgent force, which claims loyalty to the “Donetsk People’s Republic” that was proclaimed following a referendum staged on May 11, later showed journalists a stockpile of automatic weapons, grenade launchers and other materiel captured in the raid.

Another Ukrainian soldier was killed and a number of others were wounded in fighting in the town of Rubezhnoye in the northwestern Luhansk region, which also voted for autonomy in a May 11 referendum.

The bloody fighting came just three days before the Kiev regime is to stage presidential elections designed to legitimize the Western-backed coup that ousted Ukraine’s elected President Viktor Yanukovych last February. It underscored the sham character of this electoral exercise which is supposed to be carried out under conditions in which millions of Ukrainians in the predominantly Russian-speaking areas of the east and south are being subjected to a military siege.

Just hours before the assault on the roadblock outside of Donetsk, the coup regime’s president, Oleksandr Turchynov, met with security forces at an encampment near the anti-regime stronghold of Slavyansk, where he declared that they were ready to “mop up the Donetsk and Luhansk regions,” “cleansing” them of “terrorists.”

The regime has built up military forces in the region, subjecting civilian populations to wholesale attack. The city of Slavyansk came under artillery fire late on Wednesday. The previous day, the nearby areas of Semyonovka and Andreyevka were shelled, with houses partially destroyed and set on fire.

The Associated Press interviewed Zinaida Patskan, whose house had its roof torn away and a wall shattered in the attack on Semnenovka. “Why are they hitting us?” asked the 80-year-old, who tearfully recounted that she had hidden under her kitchen table with her cat during the shelling. “We are peaceful people.”

After the attack, over a hundred residents of the small settlement staged a public demonstration demanding that the regime forces stop their attacks and withdraw. Speakers at the rally also called for a boycott of Sunday’s polls.

An offensive was also underway in the Luhansk region, where a convoy of some 2,000 troops and 200 military vehicles, including tanks and Grad multiple rocket launchers, was advancing on the city of Luhansk.

Armed clashes were reported near the towns of Rubezhnoye and Lysychansk, which were subjected to mortar fire, and a bridge over the Seversky Donets River was blown up, reportedly by local militiamen seeking to halt the advance of the pro-Kiev regime column.

The head of the self-proclaimed autonomous government in Luhansk called for the mobilization of all reservists between the ages of 18 and 45 to resist the offensive. At 3:00 p.m. local time on Thursday, sirens blew and church bells rang in the city of Luhansk as factories, workplaces and schools shut down because of the imminent threat of attack.

The pretense that a regime brought to power in a violent Western-backed coup could organize a legitimate election under these conditions is absurd on its face. Nonetheless, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki, after acknowledging the bloody fighting, insisted that “preparations for Sunday’s elections are otherwise on track.”

The director of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine raised serious questions about this assessment, estimating that over half of the polling stations in the south and east of the country will likely not open, meaning that at least 2 million eligible voters would not have any possibility of casting a ballot. The actual figure is likely far higher as Donetsk and Luhansk contain 15 percent of Ukraine’s 46 million people.

Billionaire Petro Poroshenko, the so-called “chocolate king” is the frontrunner in the election, with recent polls suggesting that he will top the 50 percent margin needed to avoid a run-off. As the regime’s forces were waging their attacks in the east and south of the country, Poroshenko gave an indication of the kind of regime he would head, declaring at a press conference in the western city of Lviv that an “anti-terrorist operation” must be launched within the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s legislature, where he said there are “masterminds and financiers of the separatists’ gangs.”

The reality is that there has been virtually no election campaign waged in the east and south of the country, where polls have indicated that a huge section of the population would boycott the vote whether polling stations were open or not. This election will mark the first time since the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Ukraine’s formal independence in 1991 that no major candidate representing these regions of the country is in the running.

As the fighting within Ukraine escalated, the Pentagon confirmed that the US Navy’s guided missile cruiser will arrive in the Black Sea on Friday and will remain in waters off Ukraine during the course of Sunday’s gunpoint election.

23 May, 2014
WSWS.org

 

By Nicola Nasser

Reports are abound by international organizations about the responsibility of the Syrian government for the human rights violations in the ongoing conflict in Syria, now in its fourth year, but the responsibility of the insurgents has been kept away from media spotlight for political reasons.

However, the horrible image of the “revolutionary” performance imposed itself on the media and public opinion to an extent that it has become impossible to black it out anymore.

Internationally last Thursday, for example, the U.S. envoy to the United Nations, Samantha Power, said that Russia’s and China’s vetoes against a United Nations Security Council resolution to refer allegations of war crimes in Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC) “protect monstrous terrorist organizations operating in Syria … who are pursuing a fundamentalist assault on the Syrian people that knows no decency or humanity.”

Regionally on the same day, The Yemeni Coordination Committee for the Support of Syrian Revolution dissolved itself in protest against what it called in a statement “the diversion and transformation of the leaders of the revolution and opposition into terrorist gangs and groups.”

Since U.S. President Barak Obama imposed sanctions on April 29, 2011 on some Syrian officials reportedly accused of using violence against civilians, the U.S., European and regional sponsors of a “regime change” in the country have so far held the Syrian government as the only party accountable. The UN and western international human rights organizations followed suit.

Their blackout of the insurgents’ responsibility could not be avoided otherwise those sponsors would be held accountable as well and consequently could not continue their support to the insurgents with impunity, because without their support the insurgents would not have survived.

Their reluctance to arm the Syrian rebels with advanced weapons lest they fall into the hands of the terrorist organizations could not cover up their initial and ongoing arming and recruitment efforts, which empowered the militarization of the peaceful civilian protests with its most extreme Syrian and non-Syrian insurgents.

On last April 8, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay was quoted as saying in a briefing to the UN Security Council that the actions of the forces of the Syrian government “far outweigh” the crimes by the “opposition” fighters.

Statistics Tell a Different Story

However, scrutiny of the statistics of the death toll and the facts of the humanitarian fallout of the conflict tell a different story. On this May 19, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said it had documented more than 162,000 deaths in the conflict until this May 17, more than 61 thousand of them were government troops, 42,701 rebels and more than 1600 foreign fighters; SOHR believes that both sides of the combat strongly tend to be very conservative about their human casualties. The rest were civilians many of whom were victims of suicide bombing and mortar shells fired by the rebels.

The breakdown of these figures show the government a victim rather than a culprit and indicate that the actions of the rebels “far outweigh” those of the government, contrary to Navi Pillay’s conclusion.

“Questioning the Syrian ‘Casualty List’” in the Lebanese Alakhbar on February 28, 2012, Sharmine Narwani documented that, “The very first incident of casualties from the Syrian regular army that I could verify dates to 10 April 2011, when gunmen shot up a bus of soldiers travelling through Banyas, in Tartous, killing nine,” i.e. few weeks after the first peaceful protests broke out in Syria, a fact which questions the now wrongfully accepted public knowledge that the government was the party who initiated the “violence.”

The communiqué issued by the eleven western and Arab foreign ministers of the core group of the so-called “Friends of Syria” after their meeting in London on this May 15 was the latest example of the political motives behind the blackout, which they have imposed for too long on the insurgents’ responsibility.

They called the upcoming presidential elections on next June 3 “illegitimate” and a “parody of democracy,” ignoring the fact that any power vacuum in Syria would only create the right environment for the collapse of the central government.

The inevitable result would be an exacerbation of the humanitarian crisis in the country, rendering their humanitarian rhetoric a parody of humanity.

Worse still, the eleven “Friends of Syria” had “agreed unanimously” to boost their support to what they described as “the moderate opposition National Coalition (SNC), its Supreme Military Council and associated moderate armed groups.”

What “moderates” did they refer to? On last September 25 the BBC quoted a recent study published by IHS Jane’s analyst Charles Lister, which concluded that, “the core of the Syrian insurgency is composed of Islamist groups of one kind or another.” “The armed opposition is all too much a part of the conflict,” Red Maistre wrote in The Northern Star four days later.

Three years and three months on, the “Friends of Syria” failed to bring the “regime” down. On the contrary, it has got the military upper hand, while the organizations which the U.S. and Saudi Arabia had listed as terrorists got the upper hand in the rebel-held areas.

Whatever military supplies the “moderate” rebels could get will only prolong the war, postpone any political settlement and perpetuate and exacerbate the worsening humanitarian crisis.

Civilian protesters, political opposition and “secular” armed rebels were hijacked, sidelined and finally dumped by the mainstream terrorists, whose backbone consists of “foreign fighters,” thus dooming any political solution for a long time to come and vindicating Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s determination on last August 4 that, “No solution can be reached with terror except by striking it with an iron fist.”

As early as March 2012 Sara Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, had warned that, ““The Syrian government’s brutal tactics cannot justify abuses by armed opposition groups.”

Schools, universities, hospitals, health clinics, churches, mosques, religious monuments, power grids, railways, bridges, oil fields, historical sites, museum assets, police symbols of public safety and order and other infrastructure were targeted by the rebels with unprecedented level of destruction and civilian plight.

A survey, conducted by the Relief and Works Agency of UN’s Microfinance Programs and released early last April, said it would take 30 years for the Syrian economy to recover to its 2010 level.

According to the SOHR, the infighting among rebels has claimed more than five thousand casualties in 2014. The infighting over border crossings and oil fields displaced more than one hundred thousand civilians in north eastern Syria during the past month.

As a strategy, the rebels since the very beginning have been using Syrian civilians en masse as a bargaining chip and as human shields, a fact which the “Friends of Syria” have been keen to blackout.

On this May 12, rebels have agreed to free 1,500 families whom they had kidnapped and held hostages in Adra, a suburb of the capital Damascus, for the release of rebels jailed by the government. Two weeks ago they freed some one hundred infants, children and elderly men and women in exchange for evacuating the Old City of Homs unharmed.

On May 4, they cut off water supply to some three million civilians in Syria’s second largest city of Aleppo, a collective punishment reminiscent of a similar horrible practice by Israel in Beirut in 1982. Last month the rebels cut off the electricity supply. For less than two years now they have been bombarding the western side of the city, which is under government control, with mortar shells and turning the civilian life there into a nightmare of suicide and tunnel bombings from the eastern side, which they control.

Rule, Not Exception

These inhuman tactics are not the exception, but the norm and rule. Since the very beginning of their rebellion in March 2011, rebels stormed into Syrian city centers, where there was no official military presence, and used the civilian population as human shields against any retaliation by the government forces, thus unleashing what the United Nations described as the world’s largest refugee problem.

Civilians have paid the higher price. Syrians now hold the rebels responsible for their plight. Their sectarian public incubator has already turned against them in favour of restoring the missing safety, security and order by the government.

All factions of the rebels claim they are the representatives of the Muslim Sunni majority, but the overwhelming majority of some six million Syrians who are displaced internally are Sunnis, now hosted by non-Sunni compatriots in safe havens under government protection, let alone more than three million refugees who are also overwhelmingly Sunni Syrians and fled to neighbouring countries from the areas held by the rebels.

It’s a well-known fact now that creating a humanitarian crisis in Syria, whether real or fabricated, and holding the Syrian government responsible for it as a casus belli for foreign military intervention under the UN 2005 so-called “responsibility to protect” initiative was from the very beginning of the Syrian conflict the goal of the U.S.-led so-called “Friends of Syria’ coalition.

A second fact was the rush to militarize the Syrian civilian peaceful protests. When President al-Assad issued in 2011 the first of his six general amnesties, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went on record with a public appeal to armed rebels not to lay down their arms in response.

In March 2014 a commission of inquiry mandated by the United Nations Human Rights Council, chaired by Paulo Pinheiro, for the first time accused the insurgents in Syria of “crimes against humanity” and “war crimes.”

On this May 14, Syrian Rev. Michael Rabaheih, from the Greek Orthodox Church, was quoted by The Washington Post as saying: “If this is freedom, we don’t need it.”

Rabaheih was one of some 80,000 Christians who returned to the Old City of Homs, which the opposition once proudly called “the capital of the revolution,” but which the rebels were forced to evacuate this month. He was seated next to the grave of the Dutch priest, Frans van der Lugt, who was assassinated by the rebels a few weeks earlier, not far from the gravely damaged historic Khalid ibn al-Walid mosque in the devastated neighbourhoods of Syria’s third largest city, where “little was left.”

Obviously, the “Friends of Syria” have failed to artificially create any credible alternative to the incumbent regime, which, however, did change indeed.

Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist based in Birzeit, West Bank of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.

23 May, 2014
Countercurrents.org

 

By Farooque Chowdhury
In a symbolic, but historic blow to the hegemony of US dollar, China and Russia have concluded an agreement with far-reaching significance.

The deal bypasses US dollar in part of the two emerging powers’ trade. According to the agreement, two financial institutions of the two countries will pay each other in domestic currencies.

However, major western news agencies and media outlets have ignored the news.

It will not be surprising if any south Asian country enters into similar agreement in future with either of the two powers.

Moreover, there are indications that China is going to widen security dialogue and cooperation in Asia. The approach carries possibilities of alternative to the US approach in the Asia-Pacific region. The widening possibility carries bargaining space for geographically smaller countries like Bangladesh.

At the same time, there is suggestion from academic circle that the US should accept the rise of China.

An Al-Jazeera report (May 20, 2014) by Michael Pizzi said:

“In a symbolic blow to US global financial hegemony, Russia and China took a small step toward undercutting the domination of the US dollar as the international reserve currency on [May 20, 2014] when Russia’s second biggest financial institution, VTB, signed a deal with the Bank of China to bypass the dollar and pay each other in domestic currencies.

“The so-called Agreement on Cooperation — signed in the presence of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is on a visit to Shanghai — was followed by the long-awaited announcement on [May 21, 2014] of a massive natural gas deal 10 years in the making.

“‘Our countries have done a huge job to reach a new historic landmark’, Putin said on [May 20, 2014], making note of the $100 billion in annual trade that has been achieved between the two countries.”

The report said:

“Demand for the dollar, which has long served as a safe and reliable reserve currency in international transactions, has allowed the US to borrow almost unlimited cash and spend well beyond its means, which some economists say has afforded the United States an outsize influence on world affairs.”

The report headlined “Russia, China sign deal to bypass U.S. dollar” said:

The BRICS countries — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, a bloc of the world’s five major emerging economies — “have long sought to diminish their dependence on the dollar as a means of reshaping the world financial and geopolitical order. In the absence of a viable alternative, however, replacing it has proved difficult.”

The report cited Michael Klare, a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College: “For its part, ‘China sees the dominance of the dollar in international trade transactions as a remnant of American global dominance, which they hope to overthrow in the years ahead. This is a small step in that direction, to reduce the primacy of the dollar in international trade.”

The report cited Chris Weafer, a founding partner of Macro-Advisory, a consultancy in Moscow: “Breaking the dominance of the U.S. dollar in international trade between the BRICS is something that the group has been talking about for some time. The Ukraine crisis and the threats voiced by the U.S. administration may well provide the catalyst for that to start happening.”

The deal is a symbolic step.

Citing Liza Ermolenko, an emerging markets economist at Capital Economics in London, the report said:

The deal was still “a very small one, in the grand scale of things”. It wouldn’t change Russia’s reliance on the dollar “overnight.”

Russia’s most oil and gas export contracts are still priced in dollars, Liza Ermolenko noted, and “on a wider scale, replacing the dollar with the ruble is much too risky to even consider.”

The report added:

The “bank deal is another indicator that Russia and China are in the middle of a wider rapprochement, which analysts say is premised not on ideological alignment but on a mutual desire to undercut the US in their respective spheres of influence.

“Both countries are wary of president Barack Obama’s “pivot east,” a recalibration of US foreign policy away from decades of war in the Middle East and toward the fast-growing economies of the East. Cynical observers have interpreted the shift as an effort to contain China.

“‘This is a marriage of mutual strategic interests, not a marriage of love’, said Klare. ‘China wants energy and weapons from Russia, and Russia wants diplomatic backing and cash. It’s a quid pro quo.’”

China, Russia’s biggest trading partner, has already concluded similar dollar-bypassing deals with a number of economies in Asia and Europe.

On May 21, 2014, China, the world’s second-largest economy, signed a landmark deal to buy Russian natural gas worth about $400 billion, a figure greater than the GDP of South Africa, giving a boost to Russia president Vladimir Putin and expanding Moscow’s ties with Asia. Gas is due to begin flowing to China by 2018.

Only hours before the signing of the Sino-Russian gas deal a number of famous western news outlets amazingly reported that Putin has failed to make the deal.

Russian government-controlled Gazprom will supply state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. with 38 billion cubic meters of gas annually. The quantity would represent about a quarter of China’s current annual gas consumption of nearly 150 billion cubic meters.

Under the agreement, Russia will invest $55 billion while China will invest $22 billion.

There are plans for building a pipeline to link China’s northeast to a line that carries gas from western Siberia to the Pacific port of Vladivostok. The development of a gas center on the Pacific will allow Russia to export to prosperous markets in Japan and South Korea.

Alexander Lukin, a deputy head of the Russian Diplomatic Academy under Russian foreign ministry, was quoted by the Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency. “We will be able to show to Europe that we have other customers”, Lukin said.

Alexei Pushkov, head of the international affairs committee of the Russian parliament’s lower house, said on Twitter: “The 30-year gas contract with China is of strategic significance. Obama should give up the policy of isolating Russia: It will not work.”

The Sino-Russian partnership is strategic in the perspective of US-EU-Japan global dominance.

Putin was in Shanghai for an Asian security conference.

In the conference, China’s president called for a new model of Asian security cooperation based on a regional group that includes Russia and Iran and excludes the US.

Meanwhile, Chinese president Xi Jinping has sent a veiled warning to Washington.

“To beef up a military alliance targeting a third party is not conducive to regional common security”, Xi said without mentioning the US while delivering a keynote speech at a regional security forum in Shanghai on May 21, 2014.

Provocation and escalation of tensions for selfish interests should be opposed, he told participants at the fourth Summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA).

China is actually suggesting the US to get used to China’s rise.

Citing a Kazakh proverb Xi said: “Someone who tries to blow out another’s oil lamp will set his beard on fire”.

The US provocative role in the Asia-Pacific region is a disturbing development in the region.

Pang Zhongying, professor of international affairs at Renmin University of China, said: “It is time to tell the US it is not justified in interfering in Asia’s affairs, which have nothing to do with the country.”

The comment is a reflection of attitude towards the Empire, which is experiencing a decline in its global influence and power.

China’s president Xi also said: “No country should attempt to dominate regional security affairs or infringe upon the legitimate rights and interests of other countries.”

He said: Security problems in Asia should be solved by Asians themselves.

The Chinese president said: If Asian countries speak with a common voice they have the capacity to solve Asian problems themselves.

The statement shows China’s desire to have a collective approach in Asia.

Xi was speaking to reporters with president of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu after a summit of CICA.

“Asian countries must collaborate with each other and work together,” Xi said. Asian nations have the capacity to realize security in Asia by cooperating among themselves, he added.

The summit was a gathering of representatives from 47 countries and international organizations, mainly from Asia, concluded on May 21, 2014.

Xi said countries must “completely abandon” the old security concepts, while advocating a new one pursuing cooperative and sustainable features, to create a security cooperation pattern of openness, equality and transparency.

The idea China is highlighting is a challenge to the US approach to the Asia-Pacific region, which is maintaining and strengthening of its dominance.

The Chinese president said: “China and Russia jointly initiated an Asia-Pacific security and cooperation initiative”.

Already the US has experienced unexpected developments in Europe. Moscow’s response to US meddling in Ukraine is strong, which the US has not expected. It’s natural that US standing is making its appearance as unreliable ally to its European partners. Probably, the Empire is going to face a situation spread over two fronts: Europe, and its much-desired Asia-Pacific. It, the possible “two fronts” reality, will be difficult for the Empire.

Xi has indicated that China is going to take “steps to strengthen security dialogue and cooperation with other parties, and jointly explore the formulation of a code of conduct for regional security and an Asian security partnership program”.

China’s tone to its neighbors is still not “do it”, which a number of Asian countries have experienced from the Empire. The Empire often “forgets” the concept of mutual respect.

With a win-win approach China has already indicated that it is willing to discuss with regional countries the creation of an Asian forum for security cooperation in law enforcement and an Asian security emergency response center.

Beijing is getting involved in regional cooperation processes that include SAARC and ASEAN. China is also trying to play a role to ensure development and security in Asia.

China, the emerging global power, plans to develop an economic belt along the Silk Road and a 21st Century maritime silk road. The country has already initiated the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, an alternative to the Asian Development Bank. Countries like Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal can benefit from these initiatives. These will also provide the countries vital space for cooperation and expansion in the areas of economy, finance, diplomacy, security and the all inclusive politics.

Farooque Chowdhury is Dhaka-based freelancer.

22 May, 2014
Countercurrents.org

 

By Ram Puniyani
The results of Parliamentary Elections are very interesting. With 31% vote share BJP-Modi won 282 Parliament seats, Congress with 19% vote share got 44 seats, BSP polled 4.1 percent of votes and drew a total blank, the Trinamool Congress won 3.8 percent of vote share with 34 seats, Samajwadi Party won 3.4 percent with five MPs, AIADMK with 3.3 got 37 seats, Mamta with 3.8% of vote share got 32 seats while CPIM with 3.3 percent of vote share got nine seats. We should note that this time around Congress’s 19.3% votes translated into 44 seats while during last general elections of 2009 BJP’s 18.5% had fetched it 116 seats. That’s a tale by itself, the crying need for electoral reforms which has been pending despite such glaring disparities which weaken the representative character of our Parliament. Many social activists have been asking for these reforms but in vain.

Modi has been of course the flavor of the season and this time around it is being said that it was his plank of ‘development’ which attracted the voters to him, cutting across the caste and religious equations. How far is that true? Keeping aside the fact that Modi was backed to the hilt by Corporate, money flowed like water and all this was further aided by the steel frame of lakhs of RSS workers who managed the ground level electoral work for BJP. Thus Modi stood on two solid pillars, Corporate on one side and RSS on the other. He asserted that though he could not die for independence he will live for Independent India. This is again amongst the many falsehoods, which he has concocted to project his image in the public eye. One knows that he belongs to a political ideology and political stream of RSS-Hindutva, which was never a part of freedom struggle. RSS-BJP-Hindutva nationalism is different from the nationalism of freedom movement. Gandhi, freedom movement’s nationalism is Indian Nationalism while Modi parivar’s Nationalism is Hindu nationalism, a religious nationalism similar and parallel to Muslim nationalism of Jinnah: Muslim League. From the sidelines, RSS and its clones kept criticizing the freedom movement as it was for inclusive Indian nationalism, while Modi’ ideological school, RSS is for Hindu nationalism. So there no question of people like him or his predecessors dying for freedom of the country.

There are multiple other factors which helped him to be first past the pole, his aggressive style, his success in banking upon weaknesses of Congress, his ability to communicate with masses supplemented by the lackluster campaign of Congress and the Presidential style of electioneering added weight to Modi’s success. Congress, of course, has collected the baggage of corruption and weak governance. The out of proportion discrediting of Congress begun by Anna movement, backed by RSS, and then taken forward by Kejriwal contributed immensely knocking Congress out of reckoning for victory. Kejrival in particular woke up to BJP’s corruption a wee bit too late and with lots of reluctance for reasons beyond the comprehension. Anna, who at one time was being called the ‘second Gandhi’ eclipsed in to non-being after playing the crucial role for some time. Kejriwal pursuing his impressive looking agenda against corruption went on to transform the social movement into a political party and in the process raing lots of question on the nature and potentials of social movements. Kejrival’s AAP, definitely split the anti Modi votes with great ‘success’. AAP put more than 400 candidates and most of them have lost their deposits. Many of these candidates have excellent reputation and contribution to social issues and for engaging challenges related to social transformation. After this experience of electoral battlefield how much will they be able to go back to their agenda of social change-transformation through agitations and campaigns will remain to be seen.

Many commentators-leaders, after anointing Anna as the ‘Second Gandhi’ are now abusing Gandhi’s name yet again by comparing the likes of Ramdeo and Modi to Mahatma Gandhi. One Modi acolyte went on to say Modi is better than Gandhi! What a shame to appropriate the name of Gandhi, the great unifier of the nation with those whose foundations are on the divisive ideology of sectarian nationalism.

Coming to the ‘development’ agenda, it is true that after playing his role in Gujarat carnage, Modi quickly took up the task of propagating the ‘development’ of Gujarat. This ‘make believe’ myth of Gujarat’s development as such was state government’s generous attitude towards the Corporate, who in turn started clamoring for ‘Modi as PM’ right from 2007. While the religious minorities started being relegated to the second class citizenship in Gujarat, the myth of Gujarat development started becoming the part of folk lore, for long unchallenged by other parties and scholars studying the development. When the data from Gujarat started being analyzed critically the hoax of development lay exposed, but by that time it was too late for the truth of development to be communicated to the people far and wide. On the surface it appears as if this was the only agenda around which Modi campaigned. That’s far from true. Modi as such used communal and caste card time and over again. This was done with great amount of ease and shrewdness. He did criticize the export of beef labeling it Pink revolution, subtly hinting the link of meat-beef to Muslim minorities. This converted an economic issue into a communal one. Modi spoke regularly against Bangla speaking Muslims by saying that the Assam Government is doing away with Rhinos for accommodating the Bangla infiltrators. He further added that they should be ready to pack their bags on 16th May when he will take over as the Prime Minister of the country. The communal message was loud and clear. BJP spokesmen have already stated that these Bangla speaking Hindus are refugees while the Muslim is infiltrators.

If one examines the overall scatter of the areas where BJP has won a very disturbing fact comes to one’s mind. While at surface the plank of development ruled the roost there is definitely the subtle role played by communal polarization. BJP has mostly succeeded in areas where already communal polarization has been brought in through communal or violence or terrorist violence. Maharashtra, Gujarat, UP, MP, Bihar, Assam all these have seen massive communal violence in the past. While the states which have not come under the sway of BJP-Modi are the one’s which have been relatively free from communal violence: Tamil Nadu, Bengal and Kerala in particular. Orissa is a bit of an exception, where despite the Kandhmal violence, Navin Patnaik’s party is managing to be in power. The socio political interpretation of the deeper relations between acts of violence and victory of RSS-BJP-Modi needs to be grasped at depth; the polarizing role of communal-terrorist violence needs a deeper look. While on surface the development myth has won over large section of electorate, it has taken place in areas which have in past seen the bouts of violence. Most of the inquiry commission reports do attribute violence to the machinations of communal organization.

While overtly the caste was not used, Modi did exploit the word Neech Rajniti (Low level Politics) used by Priyanka Gandhi and converted it in to Neech Jati (low caste), flaunting his caste. At other occasions also he projected his caste, Ghanchi to polarize along caste lines.

What signal has been given by Modi’s victory? The message of Mumbai, Gujarat Muzzafarnagar and hoards of other such acts has created a deep sense of insecurity amongst sections of our population. Despite Modi’s brave denials and the struggles of social activists, justice delivery seems to be very slow, if at all, and it is eluding the victims. The culprits are claiming they are innocents and that they have got a ‘clean chit’. While there are many firsts in Modi coming to power, one first which is not highlighted is that, this is the first time a person accused of being part of the carnage process is going to have all the levers of power under his control. So what are the future prospects for the India of Gandhi and Nehru, what are the prospects of the values of India’s Constitution? Can Modi give up his core agenda of Hindu Nationalism, which has been the underlying ideology of his politics, or will he deliver a Hindu nation to his mentors? No prizes for guessing!

Ram Puniyani was a professor in biomedical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, and took voluntary retirement in December 2004 to work full time for communal harmony in India.

21 May 2014
Countercurrents.org

 

A delegation headed by Ambassador Fouad Maznaie, a representative of the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation’s (OIC) Humanitarian Affairs Department, is reported to have arrived Chad on May 14, 2014. The Mission aims at assisting refugees displaced by the recent violence in the Central African Republic (CAR). The mission includes representatives from the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), the Islamic Solidarity Fund, the International Islamic Relief Organization in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Red Cross, IHH and Doctors Around the World from Turkey, the Charity Foundation from Qatar, and the Islamic Relief and the Muslim Aid from Britain. The Mission has already declared a donation of US$5 million comprising urgent humanitarian assistance which include building of tents for displaced persons and refugees, truckloads of food and medicine and sinking of wells. A plane load with shipment of medicine from Turkey is expected to arrive in the Sar region of Chad on 25 May 2014.

Earlier the OIC had held an emergency ministerial Executive Committee meeting at its General Secretariat in Jeddah on 20 February 2014 in which it was decided that a high-level delegation would be dispatched to the CAR in order to assess the prevailing situation on the ground and to show solidarity with the Muslim community who have become victim of gross human rights violations. The meeting also had decided to appoint an OIC special envoy to the Central African Republic. OIC Secretary General Iyad Amin Madani then appointed a former Senegalese foreign minister, Cheikh Tidiane Gadio, as special envoy with the assignment of visiting Central African Republic and neighboring states to lay the groundwork for the delegation’s visit. This delegation now is expected to prepare a report on how to extend urgent humanitarian assistance to the displaced persons and refugees and to obtain first-hand information by visiting displaced persons camps in the Central African Republic and refugees camps in Cameroon and Chad. The Mission is mandated to assess and recommend needs for food and shelter, medical and educational needs for the refugees.

Background

Why has the OIC undertaken this mission? Clearly this is because almost all these refugees happen to be Muslim and all media reports during the past few months have highlighted the fact that Muslims were deliberately targeted and many parts of CAR have already been ethnically cleansed. Now the question is why and how Muslims have become victim in this conflict although officially the CAR has only 15 percent Muslim. The conflict has almost turned out to be a Christian-Muslim conflict only to support the clash of civilizations thesis. And this is a very serious development in the current international politics and must be examined carefully.

According to Think Africa Press (26 Feb 2014) the problem was never religious, rather it originated from ethnic orientation of government policies during the last three decades. It says, “[In] the CAR, we can see there has been a trend towards the politicisation of ethnicity, not religion. For example, former president André Kolingba (1981–93) explicitly rewarded his ethnic group, the Yakoma from southern CAR, with patronage and support. His successor, Ange-Félix Patassé (1993–2003) in turn dismissed the Yakoma and rewarded his own supporters from the northwest, mostly Sara-Kaba, with government positions and patronage. And Bozizé, who deposed Patassé and also came from the northwest, gave clear preferential treatment to the Gbaya. Kolingba, Patassé, and Bozizé all favoured different groups and politicised identity, but awarded privilege based on ethnic not religious terms. After all, all three were Christian.”

Earlier the French colonial administration established a political culture where force, rather than popular consent, was the source of authority. The French also cultivated commercial allies, exploited the territory’s resources, not to advance the native population’s wellbeing but their own and that of France. By setting up its authoritarian administration, colonial France transformed cultural groups, ethnic or religious, into state managed political categories. As with all colonial regimes, this strategy of divide and rule was meant to undermine the common political project of the African people and to prolong French dominance. France continued to have significant role in CAR military affairs and often called the shot, directly or indirectly, through its military capabilities, including local allies.

Discrimination against Muslims

The CAR got independence in 1960 and within a short period country’s politics turned to be ethnic based. The former colonial ruler France began to patronize authoritarian military personalities. The Muslim community, which was mainly a trading and farming community and survived under the colonial rule, increasingly became victim of discrimination. They became easy target of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) which was active in neighboring countries. According to Aljazeera, “for thirty years, the Lord’s Resistance Army has terrorised the rural population.” In its 2012 statement on International Religious Freedom in CAR the US State Department reported that, “Muslims continued to face discrimination in access to government services when low-level bureaucrats reportedly created informal barriers. The constitutional provision prohibiting religious intolerance was widely perceived as designed to protect Muslims; however, implementing legislation did not support the provision.”

In March 2103 a coalition forces known as Seleka in the local language overthrew the last authoritarian government of General Francios Bozize. A significant number of these rebels happened to be Muslim. Immediately the French dominated media depicted the conflict as a Christian-Muslim religious conflict and declared that Christians were under siege. The Seleka forces collapsed within months when they came under combined attack by the militia belonging to ethnic groups who had enjoyed power under the earlier authoritarian regimes. Within months over a million Muslims in the country came under heavy assault and were almost totally cleansed. Most took shelter in neighboring countries. In December 2013 France secured a UN Security Council resolution (2127 of 2013) to dispatch peace keeping troops to CAR. Unfortunately French troops took a partisan position in favor of the Christian militia and the armed forces under the former authoritarian regimes that were mainly Christian. With more than a million displaced populations the situation has reached a catastrophic stage.

The OIC initiative to undertake this humanitarian mission is timely and must be commended. This will definitely help soothing the Muslim frustration. This is important because such frustrations rouse extremism and provide ammunition to groups such as Boko Haram next door. However the international community must do more. The Chicago based body Justice for All, an interfaith group, after visiting the affected areas has reported that the Muslim Imam Oumar Layama of Bangui has taken refuge at the house of the Archbishop. But they have also reported that a Christian politician has been assassinated because of his public support for Muslim victims.

What Must be Done to Ensure Peace and Security

First of all one must recognize that the conflict in the Central African Republic is a huge security threat to international peace and this is not an isolated incident. The proponents of the clash of civilizations thesis and the Islamophobic elements, particularly in the media, seem to be encouraging and patronizing it. Therefore, the international community including the OIC must do the following:

1. The little effort undertaken by the local community under the leadership of the Archbishop and Imam of Bangui must be encouraged and whole-heartedly       supported.

2. The effort of the Chicago based interfaith group Justice for All also must be supported and advanced;

3. Distinguished Christian individuals and groups must come forward to condemn extremist groups such as the LRA and other Christian militias in the             region.

4. The UN peace keeping operations must not be led by troops from former colonial powers;

5. The OIC must convince its member-states to participate more actively in UN peace keeping operations.

Dr. Abdullah Al-Ahsan is the Vice-President of JUST.

22 May 2014

 

 

 

By Ynetnews

Significant Israeli investment in India is only going to grow under leadership of newly-elected prime minister Narendra Modi, who boasts long-time support of Israel.

Israel may have a staunch new ally in South Asia with India’s election of Narendra Modi to the position of Prime Minister, reported the New York-based International Business Times on Saturday.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wasted no time on Friday, calling Modi to congratulate him for his victory. In their phone conversation, the two had agreed to work to deepen cooperation between the two countries.

Modi is a Hindu nationalist and considered to be right-wing in Indian politics. Born into a poor family where he sold tea with his father as a child, he rose to prominence as the Chief Minister of Gujarat, a Western province in India.
There he gained recognition as a charismatic leader as he reversed economic trends in the province to make it one of India’s most important Industrial and financial centers.

Part of his success was due to a public relations campaign and financial incentives to encourage investment in development within Gujarat. Israel was reportedly one of Modi’s greatest allies in economic progress according to the International Business Times. He has visited Israel in the past and has publicly supported it.

Modi came to power as leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which has supported his close political and financial ties with Israel, who invested billions of dollars in Gujarat during Modi’s time as its leader.
In the latter half of 2013, agreements were signed with Israeli company Tower Semiconductor and a Swiss company to open two semiconductor fabrication plants (one of which would be in Gujarat) at a cost of $10.4 billion.

The two plants are projected to create 22,000 jobs. Indian consumption of the semiconductor products for electronic chips to be made at the plants is due to rise from $7 billion in 2014 to $55 billion in 2020, paving the way for investment in additional plants.

“Gujarat is a business-oriented state and this (memorandum of understanding) will help both Israeli and Gujarat-based companies in developing and strengthening the industrial relationship,” said Israel’s Consul General in Mumbai, Jonathan Miller, to Israel National News.

“Our focus is on increasing research ties with Gujarat. Israel is keen to increase research and development and cultural ties with Gujarat,” said Miller who also added that a free-trade agreement may be on the horizon for the two countries.

Miller also spoke on Indian TV to discuss Israeli involvement in agricultural projects. “Israel is a world leader in advanced agriculture technologies. Israel’s success lies in the determination and ingenuity of farmers and scientists and in the close cooperation between R&D and industry,” said Miller.

“These characteristics have created a flourishing agriculture sector amidst a difficult environment with limited ground and water resources. Amongst the many fields in which Israel and India collaborate, agriculture has always been front and center,” he concluded.

Though popular throughout much of the nation for his charisma and economic success, Modi is a highly controversial political figure since riots in 2002 in Gujarat when 1,200 people were killed in violence between Hindus and Muslims.

Modi was accused of complicity in the violence and though he was absolved of all accusations by India’s Supreme Court, the US and European countries rejected visas for Modi in sanctions meant to punish the leader for not doing enough to end the violence.

Israel gained Modi as a business partner and political supporter when he saw that attempting to find financial investment from the US and Europe wasn’t politically viable.

Yet, it isn’t only for financial gain that Israel finds itself naturally partnered with Modi’s BJP. Anti-Pakistan and anti-Islamic rhetoric from BJP officials over the years has drawn India closer to Israel politically and ideologically as they also search for ways to cooperate in fighting terrorism.

The National security adviser from a previous BJP government said in Washington that India, Israel, and the US must, “jointly face the same ugly face of modern-day terrorism.” The comments came in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York City and preceded the first state visit from an Israeli Prime Minister to India.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s visit to the country was widely protested by Indian Muslims.
While any positive relationship between the two countries creates a complicated situation between the Indian State and the Islamic world, financial cooperation has been significant no matter who was in power. Israel is India’s largest provider of military equipment for example, amounting to $10 billion.
17 May 2014
Ynetnews

By Reuters

Victims of the Odessa fire massacre died within seconds, but not from smoke or carbon monoxide suffocation, the head of Odessa’s emergency service department, Vladimir Bodelan, said on his Facebook page.

Violent clashes erupted on May 2 between rival rallies of anti-government protesters and radicals supporting the coup-imposed authorities in Kiev. The confrontation led to a tragedy that left 48 people dead and 247 injured as nationalists burnt the protester camp and then set fire to the Trade Unions House with anti-Kiev activists trapped inside. According to witnesses, many of those who managed to escape the flames were then strangled or beaten with bats by radicals.

“I’m sure that 99.9 percent of the people were killed in the Trade Unions House within seconds and did not suffocate from smoke…[or burn in the] fire. But there are forensic experts, we will wait for their findings,” Bodelan said.

Bodelan was by the building when it was set on fire and said that even before the smoke spread inside, he saw people leaning outside windows trying to take a breath of fresh air.

“I cannot explain why they were having such trouble breathing, but I am 100 percent sure that it was not because of the smoke caused by the fire,” Bodelan said.

He added that there was a bang after the fire started inside the building, which apparently extinguished the blaze on the central staircase. “In that second, a few people jumped from the building…The majority of them were alive and they were even able to walk on their own two feet. But a couple dozen meters later, they lost consciousness and fell to the ground, with their tragic end known to all.”

He witnessed rescuers carrying more than 350 individuals out of the building while others who managed to jump out of the windows were heavily beaten by radicals – which led to many choosing to stay inside the building.

Bodelan said that several thousand individuals who were gathered outside the building prevented firefighters from getting close to the scene of the fire for quite some time.

“The worst thing in this situation was that fire brigades that arrived at the site on time could not begin putting out the fire because the attackers were shooting and resisting,” he said.

All of Bodelan’s attempts to increase police presence in the area went unanswered.

“I was forced to negotiate with activists, who looked to me as heads of fighter units, that we could work calmly,” he said.

At the same time, Kiev has made public its report, in which it also revealed what caused the death of nearly 50 people. According to “official information,” six people died of gun shots, 32 suffocated or died in the flames and another 10 fell to their deaths.

Forty-eight of those killed in the massacre have been identified by both local and social media. Three bodies people are still considered missing, according to various sources. Over 60 people remain in hospitals, 26 of whom are in grave condition.

Residents of Odessa gathered last weekend for a memorial service to commemorate the victims of the May 2 bloodshed.

15 May 2014
Reuters