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By Antonio Tujan Jr.

04 December, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

BALI, Indonesia (December 4) — Lines have been drawn as world leaders gather in Bali for the World Trade Organization’s ninth summit. On one side are the world’s wealthiest countries, including the United States, the European Union, Australia, and Canada, among others. On the other side, resistant to the proposals of this powerful bloc, stands the rest of the world: from the so-called “emerging” to developing to the least developed economies.

Since the 1999 Battle in Seattle, WTO conferences have been lightning rods for protest by developing countries and by progressive Northern groups as well. Across the global South — in Latin America, in Africa, in Asia — the trade-related debates during the WTO talks translate into harsh gut-level realities especially for the hundreds of millions of poor and marginalized. Rules that allow a wealthy country, the United States for example, to subsidize its corporate agriculture while barring a developing country’s state from giving support to its small-scale farmers, take on real life and devastating impact. The effects of the WTO’s trade policy are evinced by high rates of poverty and hunger, which has grown worse over the course of the institution’s 18-year existence.

Perhaps Indian commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma put it best when he told the Times of India, “We can no longer allow the interests of our farmers to be compromised at the altar of mercantilist ambitions of the rich. The Bali ministerial meeting is an opportunity for the developing countries to stay united.”

When the WTO was established in 1995, joining the cabal of other global institutions that have since framed international governance—the United Nations, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund—its domain was trade facilitation, defined by the WTO as the “simplification and harmonisation of international trade procedures.” In short, trade facilitation ensures easier movement of goods across national borders through “open,” “non-discriminating,” and “non-protectionist” mechanisms.

Given the devastating impact of WTO policies on the agriculture and industries of poor countries, it well deserves the distrust and even hostility with which it is viewed by many developing countries, civil society organizations (CSOs), and grassroots movements across the world. As the official talks begin in Bali, the call of thousands of protesters camped in a nearby sports arena remains “Junk the WTO!” underscoring just how problematic and unpopular the WTO’s mandate has become.

The Bali package

The centerpiece of the 9th WTO ministerial, popularly called the “Bali package,” is a bundle of proposals on three main issues: trade facilitation, agriculture, and the concerns of least developed countries (LDCs).

Essentially, the Bali package is a step backwards for the WTO. To explain that, we must look at the history of the institution — the WTO holds a ministerial conference every two years, and the time it takes to come to agreement on the items in its agenda is a round. The latest round began at Doha, Qatar in 2001 with the unveiling of the Doha Development Agenda (DDA).

The DDA—deceptively tagged as a “development round” since it was purportedly giving priority to developing country concerns—in fact pushed for agreements and rules on new issues that many developing countries were not ready or unwilling to tackle, such as investment, competition, government procurement, intellectual property and services. At the same time, it urged developing countries to further open up their markets through elimination of tariffs and subsidies.

Developing countries found themselves burdened with negotiations on new trade issues, even as wealthy states evaded discussion of the problems raised by poor countries arising from existing trade obligations. As a result, developing countries overwhelmingly rejected the new market-oriented proposals, while pushing for dialogue and more positive results on their issues with WTO rules.

Developed countries, on the other hand, refused to accept any deal that included “unfair protectionist measures” for poor countries. Now, more than a decade later, the Doha Round stalemate drags on.

The Bali Package is supposed to be the end of that stalemate. It claims to include not only the favored issues of wealthy countries (trade facilitation), but also the concerns of LDCs. In fact, the G33 coalition of developing countries successfully pushed for inclusion of some points in its own agenda — specifically, on agriculture and food security — in the Bali talks. The G33 proposals represent efforts to extract some positive gains for developing countries especially for their agricultural sector.

But there are two problems facing the G33. The first is that, meager as their proposals are, the bloc of developed countries still wants to reject them for being protectionist. The second is that, even if their proposals passed by sheer force of numbers on the floor and outside “Green Rooms”, their gains would remain disproportionately small compared to the immense obstacles still in front of them.

The hard truth is that, no matter what happens with the G33 proposal, the trade position of poor countries would hardly improve. This is because they would be expected to play the quid-pro-quo game by agreeing to the passage of the more comprehensive (and ultimately, damaging) proposals of wealthy countries. Indeed, such a supposed “success” in Bali would possibly be used to claim that the development-focused issues raised in the Doha round have finally been resolved. Indeed, the next step after passage of the Bali package would be the post-Bali Agenda, which promises to do even worse for developing countries by pushing for further expansion of trade rules in IT products, a wide range of services, and environmental goods and services.

Development justice

Pushing the interests of developing countries even further than what is possible within the WTO ministerial, a broad coalition of grassroots people’s organizations called the Indonesia People’s Alliance has organized a diverse five-day program of activities in Bali, called the People’s Global Camp (PGC). The PGC’s many major and side events have gathered thousands of anti-WTO and anti-imperialist participants from Indonesia and other countries. Workers, peasants, students, migrants, indigenous people, and other marginalized groups comprise the bulk of the PGC, having borne for decades the burden of the WTO’s skewed trade policies. They are challenging the questionable decisions being cooked by global powers in the current WTO summit.

For the G33 proposals and substantial talks on the Bali package to make sense, they must be framed within a much more innovative, even alternative, agenda that can rally the support of more developing countries and provide enough groundswell for member-states to rethink the premises that underlie the WTO. For instance, food sovereignty instead of merely food security as the framework for international trading policies. Development cooperation that truly empowers developing countries rather than promoting dependence that invariably leaves them worse off. A multilateral trading system premised on development justice instead of unregulated greed and exploitation.

Governments can only do so much across the negotiating table, especially with the world’s most powerful states pushing for the passage of the Bali package as it now stands. Grassroots movements and civil society, as they now gather outside the official venue, must continue to flex their muscles and call on developing countries to junk the WTO.

The People’s Global Camp holds the torch passed from Seattle to Hong Kong, from one ministerial conference to another. In this elaborate game of trade, politics, and power, the necessary role of mass movements is to expose and counter the WTO. We must challenge it to rise to the actual needs of the vast majority of the world’s population instead of perpetuating and even aggravating unequal trade relations that have, for decades, enriched so few at the expense of so many.

If the WTO doesn’t rise to the challenge of development justice, then the world’s peoples are justified in their demand that it be dismantled.

Antonio Tujan Jr. is Director of IBON International and co-chair of the People’s Coalition on Food Sovereignty, both of which are involved in civil society initiatives at the 9th World Trade Organization ministerial conference currently being held in Bali, Indonesia. Tujan is also a noted writer and editor of books on development and social transformation. He can be reached at tony.tujan@iboninternational.org

You can also contact an IBON International media officer at:

Email: media@iboninternational.org

Landline: +63 02 9277062

Mobile: +63 0927 9058092

IBON International website: http://www.iboninternational.org

By Russia Today

4 December 2013

@ RT.com

Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger strongly defended his newspaper’s publication of the Snowden leaks in response to a hostile grilling by a UK parliamentary committee Tuesday, as MPs attempted to show that national security was breached.

Prior to the parliamentary hearing, former Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, who first broke the story on Snowden’s revelations had tweeted that he thought the parliamentary hearing would be like an inquisition.

UK ‘s inquisition of the Guardian today RT @peterkofod @ggreenwald pretty sure it’ll be streamed here http://t.co/RaLQK9T3dK

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 3, 2013

Responding to MPs, The Guardian ‘s editor-in-chief insisted that national security was never breached and that what his newspaper had published was in the public interest. He said the UK government’s response to the Snowden revelations about NSA and GCHQ spying and its attitude to The Guardian had dismayed many people around the world who believe in a free press.

Asked whether he loves his country by committee chairman Keith Vaz, Rusbridger replied that he was proud to live in a country where there is free press – unlike other countries which “are not generally democracies, where the press are not free to write about these things.” He added, however, that in Britain privacy should be balanced against national security and assured MPs that the entire Guardian staff and their families who live in the UK “want to be secure,” too.

Rusbridger said the only way the UK ‘s and the US ‘s mass surveillance programs had become public knowledge was through the press, because politicians had failed in their job to properly scrutinize and regulate the secret services’ activities.

He said that in Britain many MPs were appalled to learn of the lack of parliamentary oversight over intelligence agencies, and that The Guardian had faced intimidation from the UK government and some politicians, including calls for Rusbridger to be prosecuted, while the US had begun to debate the issue properly in Congress.

One Tory MP, Michael Ellis, asked Rusbridger pointedly whether, if he had known about British intelligence agencies breaking the Nazis’ Enigma Code in World War II, he would have published it at the time. The question appeared to fall flat, however, as Rusbridger insisted that even trainee journalists very clearly knew the difference between revealing mass spying on the population today and endangering the lives of Allied troops during the war.

In his reply, Rusbridger retorted that bringing up the Enigma Code “was a well-worn red herring” and that he could “make that distinction.”

Ellis also accused The Guardian of publishing personal information, including the sexual orientation of GCHQ workers, saying that a Guardian story said there was a LGBT pride group at GCHQ.

But Rusbridger replied: “There are gay members of GCHQ, is that a surprise?”

“It’s not amusing,” Ellis said. “They shouldn’t be outed by you.”

Rusbridger refuted Ellis’s claim immediately, however: “The existence of a pride group at GCHQ was on the Stonewall website, and it does not out anyone.”

On the sensitive question of whether The Guardian had published the names of any UK intelligence officers, Rusbridger insisted that the paper has not revealed a single name: “We have published no names and we have lost control of no names,” he said.

On the issue of endangering national security and accusations by the chiefs of spy agencies GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 that The Guardian ‘s revelations were a “gift” to terrorist groups, Rusbridger replied that the problem with these accusations was that they were too vague.

He cited four officials closely connected with security in the UK and the US , whom The Guardian asked if what the newspaper was publishing was a genuine security risk.

Norman Baker, a Home Office minister, a member of the US Senate intelligence committee who asked not to be named, a senior Obama administration official and a UK Whitehall official all said the material published by The Guardian had caused no damage to national security, Rusbridger said.

With reference to the Tor website, Rusbridger defended The Guardian ‘s actions. Tor, software that hides the identity of the site’s users and owners, has been used by dissidents to communicate with each other, but also by pedophiles. Rusbridger said that the newspaper talked to the White House for three weeks about whether publishing would damage security, and that there was nothing that The Guardian published that wasn’t on Tor’s own website.

When asked if he was better placed to judge what should be public than the heads of the security services, Rusbridger replied he was not better placed, but in a democracy national security should not always be used as a trump card.

At the beginning of the hearing, Rusbridger said that only 1 percent of the information in the Snowden files had been made public so far.

British MP Jeremy Corbyn told RT that The Guardian ‘s actions have been responsible and that the grilling by British MPs appeared to be a witch-hunt.

“It seems to me it’s ‘Hunt the Guardian’ time and ‘Hunt Alan Rusbridger’ time – this is ridiculous. Alan Rusbridger’s Guardian is a very responsible paper with a great record of investigative journalism and liberal reporting,” he said.

Glyn Moody, a writer and journalist specializing in IT, said that Rusbridger’s inquisition amounted to little more than theater.

“I think what we are seeing is theater to a large extent, in that the UK government is trying to present things in a certain way for appearances,” he told RT .

Legendary Watergate journalist supports Rusbridger

Carl Bernstein, one of the two Washington Post investigative journalists who broke the Watergate scandal, has written an open letter of support to Alan Rusbridger before his interrogation by UK MPs. The letter was published on The Guardian website.

Bernstein said the press had been admirable and responsible in reporting the Snowden NSA and GCHQ spying revelations and that the articles published by The Guardian, The New York Times and The Washington Post had not helped terrorists or enemies of national security.

“You are being called to testify at a moment when governments in Washington and London seem intent on erecting the most serious (and self-serving) barriers against legitimate news reporting – especially of excessive government secrecy – we have seen in decades,” Bernstein wrote to Rusbridger.

“As we learned during our experience with the Pentagon Papers and Watergate, it is essential that no prior governmental restraints or intimidation be imposed on a truly free press,” he continued.

It was a dogged, years-long investigation by Bernstein and his Washington Post colleague Bob Woodward that eventually broke the scandal over the Watergate break-in, which led to US President Richard Nixon having to resign in 1974.

The scandal began when the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington DC , were broken into by people connected to the official organization of Nixon’s reelection campaign. A number of tape recordings implicated the president himself, and proved that Nixon had attempted to cover up the illegal skullduggery that took place after the break-in.

By BGPMUS & BGPSSS

04 December, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

BHOPAL GAS PEEDITH MAHILA UDYOG SANGHATHAN (BGPMUS)

51, Rajender Nagar, Bhopal 462010

&

BHOPAL GAS PEEDITH SANGHARSH SAHAYOG SAMITI (BGPSSS)

C/o Delhi Science Forum, D-158, Saket, New Delhi 110017

STATEMENT ON THE OCCASION OF THE 29 TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BHOPAL GAS LEAK DISASTER

02 December 2013

The escape of about 40 tonnes of methyl isocyanate (MIC) – a highly toxic chemical – from a storage tank in a pesticide plant of Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) in Bhopal on the night of 02/03 December 1984 resulted in a terrible disaster. Due to criminal negligence and utter callousness on the part of the plant management in taking adequate safety precautions, water and other impurities – that cause MIC to react violently – entered one of the MIC storage tanks resulting in exothermic reactions and forcing MIC and its reaction products to escape in the form of froth and lethal gases. The escaping poisonous gases, which were heavier than air, spread across 40 sq. kms of area of Bhopal, covering about 36 of the 56 municipal wards, leaving in its wake more than 20,000 dead (over several years) and inflicting injuries in varying degree on about 550,000 other human inhabitants. The pernicious impact on flora and fauna in the affected area was equally grave. UCIL was then under the control of Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) – a U.S. multi-national company, which is currently wholly owned by the Dow Chemical Company (DOW), USA.

As noted on previous occasions, even nearly three decades after the disaster, neither the State nor the Central Government has made any attempt to either undertake a comprehensive assessment of the ramifications of the Bhopal disaster or to take necessary remedial measures. As a result, the gas-victims have had to wage concerted struggles in their quest for medical relief, compensation and justice. During 2013, while achieving partial success on the litigation front, lack of progress on most other pressing issues concerning the Bhopal gas-victims continue to remain a source of major concern. The current status of issues such as health care, enhancement of compensation, prosecution of the accused, remediation of the environment, etc., may be briefly recounted as follows:

1. HEALTH : The gross indifference on the part of the State and Central Governments to the health needs of the gas-victims continues to be as grim as ever. Apart from the fact that a fairly large infrastructure has been built in terms of buildings and number of hospital beds because of pressure exerted over the years by organizations supporting the cause of the Bhopal gas victims, the quality of health care in terms of investigation, diagnosis and treatment continue to be abysmal. The persistent apathy on the part of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the State of Madhya Pradesh in monitoring the health status of the Bhopal gas victims – through computerization and networking of hospital medical records and by ensuring the supply of health-booklet to each gas-victim with his/her complete medical record – is shocking to say the least. That a proper protocol for treatment of each gas-related ailment has not been evolved even 29 years after the disaster speaks volumes about the apathetic attitude of the concerned authorities in this regard.

It was because of this utter insensitivity on the part of the ICMR and the State Government that BGPMUS, the Bhopal Group for Information & Action (BGIA) and BGPSSS – as Petitioners Nos.1, 2 and 3 – filed a Writ Petition (No.50 of 1998) before the Supreme Court on 14.01.1998. The Petitioners pleaded for restarting of disaster-related medical research, monitoring and recording the health status of each gas-victim, improvement in health care facilities, appropriate protocol for treatment of each disaster-related ailment, etc. After 14 years of litigation, the Supreme Court acceded to the above prayers of the Petitioners and vide Order dated 09.08.2012 had issued necessary directions to the ICMR and the State Government in this regard. The Petitioners were further directed to pursue the matter before the High Court of Madhya Pradesh, a task that the Petitioners are actively engaged in at present. However, the fact remains that even 15 months after the Supreme Court passed the said Order dated 09.08.2012, neither the ICMR nor the State Government have taken the necessary steps to comply fully with all the directions of the Court.

At the behest of BGPMUS and BGPSSS, the Supreme Court vide Order dated 27.09.2013 has also directed the National Informatics Centre (NIC), which is under the Union Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and which has been entrusted with the task of computerization of the medical records of the gas-victims, to be impleaded as a Respondent in the case. Moreover, vide Order dated 19.11.2013, the MP High Court has directed the NIC to interact with the Monitoring Committee to evolve a proper format for computerization of medical records and issuance of health booklet to each gas-victim with his/her complete medical record. (The Monitoring Committee, which includes representatives of the Petitioners as well as of the State Government, was set up by the Supreme Court vide order dated 17.08.2004 to monitor the health status of the gas-victims.) The High Court will issue further directions in this matter on 11.12.2013.

The urgency of restarting medical research arising from and related to the Bhopal disaster, which the ICMR had abandoned in 1994, can in no way be underplayed especially in the light of numerous reports about the high morbidity rate in the gas-exposed areas of Bhopal. The four consolidated medical reports on the Bhopal disaster that the ICMR has published so far provide ample proof in this regard. Reports about genetic defects among the progenies of some of the gas-victims are also a major cause for concern.

2. COMPENSATION : Twenty-one years after the unjust Bhopal Settlement of 14/15 February 1989, the Union of India had decided to file a curative petition [Curative Petition (Civil) Nos.345-347 of 2010] before the Supreme Court on 03.12.2010 against the terms of the Settlement on the plea that the Settlement was based on underestimated figures of the dead and injured. The petition has been admitted but has not yet been taken up for hearing. BGPMUS and BGPSSS do support the UOI’s Curative Petition in principle regarding the total casualty figure (i.e., 5,73,000, including dead and injured) and regarding the modalities for enhancing compensation (i.e., that it should be based on the Dollar-Rupee exchange rate that prevailed at the time of the Settlement). However, BGPMUS and BGPSSS have serious differences with the UOI’s stand regarding the number of dead (just 5295) and the seriously injured (just 4944) and regarding the paltry claims for relief & rehabilitation and for environmental damage. The stand of BGPMUS & BGPSSS regarding the number of dead (20,000+) and seriously injured (150,000+) has already been explained in the Special Leave Petition (SLP) that is currently pending before the Supreme Court as SLP (C) No.12893 of 2010, which will be heard only after the disposal of UOI’s Curative Petition. On 24.10.2013, BGPMUS & BGPSSS have filed an Interlocutory Application in UOI’s Curative Petition (C) Nos.345-347 of 2010 to point out the inadequacies in the same and praying for granting appropriate relief. It is astonishing that the Union of India had made no attempt to place the relevant ICMR reports before the Claim Courts to enable the Claim Courts to assess fairly the types and gravity of injuries suffered by the Bhopal gas victims. In the absence of proper health booklets, which the ICMR and the State Government had failed to provide to each gas-victim, circumstantial evidence would have been very valuable in determining the likely degree of injury suffered by a gas-victim. BGPMUS & BGPSSS hope that the said Curative Petition, which has been pending before the Supreme Court for the last three years, would be disposed of without further delay.

3. CRIMINAL CASE : The criminal cases against the accused are supposedly proceeding at two levels: one against the three absconding accused and the other against the eight accused who appeared before the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM), Bhopal, to face trial. Through Judgment and Order dated 07.06.2010, the CJM has prosecuted the said eight accused persons under Section 304-A, 336, 337 and 338 of IPC. The CBI, the State of MP and BGPMUS & BGPSSS had filed Criminal Revision Petitions against the said Judgment before the Sessions Court, Bhopal. By completely overlooking the plea of the Prosecution and by upholding the contentions of the accused in toto, the Sessions Court, Bhopal, on 28.08.2012 dismissed the CBI’s Criminal Revision Petition No.632 of 2010 against the said Judgment because of it “being not maintainable and barred by limitation”. The CBI had sought enhancement of charges against Keshub Mahindra and 7 other accused from Section 304-A to Section 304 Part-II of IPC on the basis of evidence already before the Court of the CJM. Thus, the ray of hope that was visible in the Supreme Court’s Order dated 11.05.2011 in Curative Petition (Cr.) Nos.39-42 of 2010, which was that the misreading of its Order dated 13.09.1996 in Criminal Appeals Nos.1672-1675 of 1996 by the CJM “can certainly be corrected by the appellate/ revisional court”, has suffered a serious setback. Moreover, the fervent hope that similar Criminal Revision Petitions that the State of MP as well as BGPMUS & BGPSSS had filed, which were certainly not barred by limitation, would receive favourable consideration were also thwarted when the Sessions Court summarily dismissed the said Revision Petitions after keeping the same pending unduly for over three years. BGPMUS & BGPSSS have already expressed their utmost displeasure at the extremely slow pace at which the criminal case has been proceeding and their demand for setting up a special court to speed up the proceedings has not yet been acceded to by the State Government.

As of now, BGPMUS and BGPSSS, which were instrumental in reviving the criminal cases against the accused in 1991 by filing an appeal and a writ petition against the unjust settlement of 14/15.02.1989, have currently no locus in proceeding with the criminal cases against the Indian accused before the Sessions Court. Under the circumstances, accused Nos.2 to 9 can rest content that the likelihood of having to undergo punishment in their lifetime for the heinous crime they had committed is most improbable. Ten to fourteen days imprisonment at the time of arrest is the only privation that seven of the accused have suffered so far; accused No.4 has not faced even that inconvenience to date! Needless to say, the possibility of the survivors being rendered justice in their lifetime for the loss & suffering they have had to endure during the last 29 years remains as remote as ever.

The criminal case against the three absconding accused, namely accused Nos.1, 10 and 11, which has been pending before the Court of the CJM as Miscellaneous Judicial Case (MJC) No.91 of 1992 has also been proceeding at an equally tardy pace. After acceding to the plea of BGPSSS, BGIA and BGPMUS dated 07.09.2001, the CJM had issued notice to the Dow Chemical Company (DOW), USA, on 06.01.2005 to appear in the criminal case on behalf of the absconding accused No.10, Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), USA, which had become a wholly owned subsidiary of DOW in 2001. However, on 17.03.2005, the MP High Court at Jabalpur had stayed the said order of the CJM at the urging of a purportedly non-party in the matter. The stay was vacated only seven years later on 19.10.2012, when the High Court finally upheld the validity of the CJM’s Order dated 06.01.2005. After BGPSSS & BGPMUS brought the ruling of the High Court to the attention of the CJM, Bhopal, through an Application dated 30.11.2012, the case – MJC No.91/1992 – was posted for hearing on 07.01.2013. However, it is highly regretful that for no rhyme or reason the CJM has not re-issued the notice to DOW even nearly a year later. BGPSSS & BGPMUS had also brought to the attention of the CJM that proceeding against the absconding accused No.1, Warren Anderson, had not progressed even after the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Delhi, had issued a Letter Rogatory on 23.03.2011 at the urging of the CBI for the purpose. The fact is, the Union of India has made no attempt to expedite the proceedings although the matter is reportedly pending before the U.S. Administration since April 2011. The lackadaisical manner in which the trial against the accused in the Bhopal disaster criminal case has proceeded for the last twenty-nine years makes a mockery of the criminal justice system in the country. BGPMUS & BGPSSS are in the process of placing these facts before the higher courts for appropriate relief.

4. ENVIRONMENTAL REMEDIATION : Toxic waste that was generated during UCIL’s operation from 1969 to 1984 was dumped in and around the plant leading to severe soil and water contamination. A comprehensive study to estimate the extent and gravity of the damage has not been carried out by the Centre or the State Government to date. Instead, the magnitude of the problem has been grossly underestimated by making it appear that the total toxic waste that needs to be safely disposed of is only about 345 tonnes that is stored at the plant site. The matter is before the Supreme Court as SLP (C) No.9874 of 2012. However, the current proposal to incinerate/bury the toxic waste near Indore is wholly misconceived and it would only result in shifting the problem from Bhopal to Indore. On the contrary, in a preliminary study that was jointly carried out by the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), Nagpur, and the National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI), Hyderabad, during 2009-2010, it was estimated that “the total quantum of contaminated soil requiring remediation amounts to 11,00,000 MT [metric tonnes] ” (p.68). Based on the “Polluter Pays Principle”, it is the duty and responsibility of the Dow Chemical Company, USA, which currently owns UCC, to meet the cost of remediating comprehensively the affected environment in and around the UCIL plant with the latest available remediation technology. Similarly, the cost of providing safe-drinking water to the affected population residing in and around the former UCIL plant too has to be borne by DOW. However, the responsibility for providing safe drinking water to the affected population is entirely that of the State Government.

At the initiative of the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), Delhi, a preliminary attempt was made in April 2013 to bring together on a common platform the various stakeholders and experts to prepare an Action Plan to remediate the degraded environment. While a draft Action Plan has been worked out, it requires further refinement as well as inputs from other experts and stakeholders, including the Government of Madhya Pradesh.

5. RELIEF & REHABILITATION : The State Government has failed to address adequately and with sensitivity a whole host of socio-economic problems that confronts the chronically sick, the elderly, the differently abled, the widowed, and other vulnerable sections among the gas-victims. The pittance, which was disbursed as compensation in most instances to these sections was never enough to take care of their daily needs. Finding gainful employment in accordance with the reduced capacity to work and to lead a dignified life has been a serious challenge. The State Government has to provide far more attention and support to this issue than in the past.

On the 29 th anniversary of this man-made-disaster, the Bhopal Gas Peedith Mahila Udyog Sanghathan (BGPMUS) and the Bhopal Gas Peedith Sangharsh Sahayog Samiti (BGPSSS) pay their homage to the deceased victims and reiterate their determination to continue to uphold the cause of the survivors and to seek justice for the hapless victims.

(Abdul Jabbar Khan)

Convener, BGPMUS,

Tel: 0755-2748688

Mobile: +91-9406511720

 

(N.D. Jayaprakash)

Co-Convener, BGPSSS

Tel: 011-27666980

Mobile: +91-9968014630

By David Smith,

05 December 13

@ Guardian UK

    “Death is something inevitable. When a man has done what he considers to be his duty to his people and his country, he can rest in peace” – Nelson Mandela

    Nelson Mandela led South Africa from apartheid to multi-racial democracy and will be mourned around the world.

Nelson Mandela, the towering figure of Africa’s struggle for freedom and a hero to millions around the world, has died at the age of 95.

South Africa’s first black president died after years of declining health that had caused him to withdraw from public life.

The death of Mandela will send South Africa deep into mourning and self-reflection 18 years after he led the country from racial apartheid to inclusive democracy.

But his passing will also be keenly felt by people around the world who revered Mandela as one of history’s last great statesmen, and a moral paragon comparable with Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King.

It was a transcendent act of forgiveness after spending 27 years in prison, 18 of them on Robben Island, that will assure his place in history. With South Africa facing possible civil war, Mandela sought reconciliation with the white minority to build a new democracy.

He led the African National Congress (ANC) to victory in the country’s first multiracial election in 1994. Unlike other African liberation leaders who cling to power, such as Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, he then voluntarily stepped down after one term.

Mandela – often affectionately known by his clan name, Madiba – was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 1993.

At his inauguration a year later, the new president said: “Never, never, and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another … the sun shall never set on so glorious a human achievement. Let freedom reign. God bless Africa!”

Born Rolihlahla Dalibhunga in a small village in the Eastern Cape on 18 July 1918, Mandela was given his English name, Nelson, by a teacher at his school.

Mandela joined the ANC in 1943 and became a co-founder of its youth league. In 1952, he started South Africa’s first black law firm with his partner, Oliver Tambo. Mandela was a charming, charismatic figure with a passion for boxing – and an eye for women. He once said: “I can’t help it if the ladies take note of me. I am not going to protest.”

He married his first wife, Evelyn Mase, in 1944. They were divorced in 1957 after having three children. In 1958, he married Winnie Madikizela, who later campaigned to free her husband from jail and became a key figure in the struggle.

When the ANC was banned in 1960, Mandela went underground. After the Sharpeville massacre, in which 69 black protesters were shot dead by police, he took the difficult decision to launch an armed struggle.

He was arrested and eventually charged with sabotage and attempting to violently overthrow the government.

Conducting his own defence in the Rivonia Trial in 1964, he said: “I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities.

“It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

He escaped the death penalty but was sentenced to life in prison, a huge blow to the ANC that had to regroup to continue the struggle. But unrest grew in townships and international pressure on the apartheid regime slowly tightened.

Finally, in 1990, then president FW de Klerk lifted the ban on the ANC and Mandela was released from prison amid scenes of jubilation witnessed around the world.

In 1992, Mandela divorced Winnie after she was convicted on charges of kidnapping and accessory to assault.

His presidency rode a wave of tremendous global goodwill but was not without its difficulties. After leaving frontline politics in 1999, he admitted he should have moved sooner against the spread of HIV/Aids.

His son died from an Aids-related illness. On his 80th birthday, Mandela married Graça Machel, the widow of the former president of Mozambique. It was his third marriage. In total, he had six children, of whom three daughters survive: Pumla Makaziwe (Maki), Zenani and Zindziswa (Zindzi). He has 17 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.

Mandela was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2001 and retired from public life, aged 85, to be with his family and enjoy some “quiet reflection”. But he remained a beloved and venerated figure with countless buildings, streets and squares named after him. His every move was scrutinised and his health was a constant source of media speculation.

Mandela continued to make occasional appearances at ANC events and attended the inauguration of the current president, Jacob Zuma. His 91st birthday was marked by the first annual “Mandela Day” in his honour.

He was last seen in public at the final of the 2010 World Cup in Johannesburg, a tournament he had helped bring to South Africa for the first time. Early in 2011, he was taken to hospital in a health scare but he recovered and was visited by Michelle Obama and her daughters a few months later.

In January 2012, he was notably missing from the ANC’s centenary celebrations due to his frail condition. With other giants of the movement such as Tambo and Walter Sisulu having gone before Mandela, the defining chapter of Africa’s oldest liberation movement is now closed.

By Dr. Elias Akleh

02 December, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

Last Friday, the 29 th of November, was the annual observance of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People as dedicated by the UN General Assembly (resolution 32/40 B). On the same day Palestinians had called for “Day of Rage” demonstrations against Israeli theft of Palestinian land especially the on going theft of Naqab (Negev) area.

The generation old Palestinian/Israeli peace negotiations have been futile due to Israeli perpetual theft of Palestinian land and the building of more Jewish colonies (settlement). Under the American pressure the Palestinian Authority agreed to restart peace talks this summer after a three-year stalemate. Yet immediately after this the Israeli government had approved the building of thousands more housing units on usurped Palestinian land in the West Bank and East Al-Quds (Jerusalem). More Palestinian homes were also demolished by Israeli army in Al-Quds.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) the Israeli government has demolished over 500 Palestinian homes in East Al-Quds since the beginning of this year (2013). Israel has also displaced 862 Palestinians. Since occupying the West Bank in 1967 Israel has demolished at least 27,000 Palestinian homes and structures according to OCHA.

Israeli government is planning on demolishing homes of over 15,000 Palestinians in Al-Quds. The Israeli army had posted warrants on 200 residential blocks, each consisting of 40 -70 apartments. Among these buildings there is a mosque and a newly built school. The orders came very shortly after mayor Nir Barakat has been elected for a new term.

The UN Secretary Ban Ki-moon had issued a statement on the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People urging Israel to call off plans to expand building in illegal settlements. Human Rights Watch has blasted the Israeli government for its mandatory transfer of Palestinians from their Jordan Valley homes calling it a “prosecutable war crime.”

In its on-going implementation of the Zionist scheme of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, the Israeli Knesset had approved, last June 2013, what is known as the Prawer-Begin Bill (known as Prawer Plan) calling for the mass expulsion of the Palestinian Bedouin communities in the Naqab (Negev) area south of occupied Palestine. When fully implemented the Prawer Plan will result in the destruction of 35 Palestinian Bedouin villages, the forced evacuation of up to 70,000 Palestinian Bedouins; citizens of Israel, and the confiscation of their land for the purpose of building 15 new Jewish only colonies.

In September 2011, the Israeli government approved the Prawer Plan, introduced by former Deputy Chair of the National Security Council, Ehud Prawer. The plan calls for the building of Jewish only settlements in the Naqab area to accommodate newly immigrant Jews. The problem facing this plan was the existence of 35 Palestinian Bedouin villages in the area. In May 2013 the Israeli Ministerial Committee on Legislation included the recommendations of Minister Benny Begin to the Plan and approved the proposed “Law for the Regulation of Bedouin Settlement in the Negev -2013” dubbed “The Prawer-Begin Bill”. The Bill was approved without any consultation with the local community leaders.

The Israeli government claimed that the Prawer plan aims to improve the Bedouins’ economic, social and living conditions, as well as resolving long-standing land issues. It further claimed that the Plan guarantees a better future for the Bedouin children providing them with civil services, schooling opportunities, easy access to health clinics, and employment opportunities for parents. If this is true, then why couldn’t the Israeli government provide all these services to these 35 villages rather than evicting their inhabitants without providing them any alternative housing? Instead the Israeli army started bulldozing some of these villages. More than 1,000 homes were demolished in 2011 alone, and close to another 1,000 were also demolished in 2012.

It is estimated that more than 70,000 Palestinian Bedouins are living in these 35 villages. Many of these villages predate the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948. Very few of them were created by the Israeli military order in the early 1950s to re-settle Palestinians, who were forcefully evicted from their towns due to Israeli occupation. They were told that their eviction was temporary and that they would go back to their towns after war is over. Yet these towns were occupied by Jewish immigrants instead. These villages were unrecognized by the Israeli government and did not receive any civil services; water, electricity, sewage, education, health care and transportation. The Palestinian Bedouins were declared “illegal occupiers of state property” by Israeli Minister Silvan Shalom.

Israel is a serial war criminal. Its crimes target Palestinians every day. Palestinian villages across the West Bank face unrelenting assaults by the Israeli military. Palestinian home demolitions and razing Palestinian agricultural land have become a daily routine for the Israeli military bulldozers. During last week of November the Israeli occupation authorities declared its intention to confiscate 1500 acres of Palestinian agricultural land in Aqraba village near Nablus and have sent its bulldozers to raze land in order to build a new Jewish only road connecting the illegal settlements of Itamar and Ginnot Shomeron ( palestine-info.co.uk )

In 29 th November four Israeli military vehicles raided the town of Barta’a southwest of Jenin and handed ten citizens notifications of the intended demolition of their 14 homes due to building without permits. Building permits are not granted to Palestinians while Israeli extremists are allowed to build illegal settlement without any permits. ( Palestine-info.co.uk )

In 28 th of November Israeli military bulldozers razed Palestinian lands in villages south of the West Bank city of Qalqilya. Witnesses told Ma’an News that several Israeli military vehicles escorted the bulldozers to the villages of Ras “Atiya, Ras Al-Tira, and Izbat Jalud, where they razed vast agricultural areas.

The inhabitants of the village of Deir Istiya have been the target of nearby extremist settlers’ terror attacks against their crops and water supply since 1990. This has culminated last week when the Israel military obtained a court ruling allowing them to uproot nearly 2500 olive trees in the Wadi Kana, a valley making up a large part of the village’s farmland. This uprooting will decimate the village’s agriculture and economy destroying the livelihoods of as much as 4000 inhabitants of Deir Istiya. ( Palsolidarity.org )

Besides these and many other disruptions and destructions of Palestinian property and lives the Israeli illegal colonies on stolen Palestinian land continues with abatement. The Times of Israel reported November 28 th that 7% of the new Israeli construction sites erected this year were located in the West Bank, and the number of building projects across the Green Line rose by nearly 130% compared to 2012. The Central Bureau of Statistics reported that since the beginning of 2013, 32,290 construction sites for housing units were erected across Israel, an increase of 5.5% compared to the corresponding time frame in 2012. There has also been an increase of 12.4% in the number of apartment buildings, whose construction was completed, with roughly 30,970 homes finalized since the beginning of 2013.

All these Israeli crimes of ethnic cleansing, land theft, illegal settlements buildings, extra-judicial assassinations are been perpetrated against the Palestinians under the eyes of the unwilling-to-move international legal bodies. Palestinians have given up on the futile peace negotiations. They lost confidence into the weak Palestinian Authority and its security apparatus, whose main job seems to protect Israeli interests rather than its own citizens. The elected Hamas government is besieged by Israel and Egypt in Gaza Strip and can barely manage survival for Gaza inhabitants. They have given up on the support of other Arab countries, which are struggling with their own internal conflicts. They got completely fed up. Enough is enough. They have decided to take matters into their own bare hands. They have called for a Day of Rage demonstrations against Israeli crimes and have gone out into the streets in mass.

It is only a matter of time before their rage develops into another, but more violent, Intifada.

Dr. Elias Akleh is an Arab writer from a Palestinian descent, born in the town of Beit-Jala. His family was first evicted from Haifa after the “Nakba” of 1948 war during the first Zionist occupation of part of Palestine, then from Beitj-Jala after the “Nakseh” of 1967 war when Zionist Israeli military expansion occupied the rest of all Palestine. He is living now in exile in the US and publish articles on the web.

By Russia Today

02 December 2013

@ RT.com

Britain systematically destroyed documents in colonies that were about to gain independence, declassified Foreign Office files reveal. ‘Operation Legacy’ saw sensitive documents secretly burnt or dumped to cover up traces of British activities.

The latest National Archives publication made from a collection of 8,800 colonial-era files held by the Foreign Office for decades revealed deliberate document elimination by British authorities in former colonies.

The secret program dubbed ‘Operation Legacy’ was in force throughout the 1950s and 1960s, in at least 23 countries and territories under British rule that eventually gained independence after WWII. Among others these countries included: Belize, British Guiana, Jamaica, Kenya, Malaysia and Singapore, Northern Rhodesia (today Zambia and Zimbabwe), Tanzania, and Uganda.

In a telegram from the UK Colonial Office dispatched to British embassies on May 3, 1961, colonial secretary Iain Macleod instructed diplomats to withhold official documents from newly elected independent governments in those countries, and presented general guidance on what to do.

British diplomats were briefed on how exactly they were supposed to get rid of documents that “might embarrass members of the police, military forces, public servants (such as police agents or informers)” or “might compromise sources of intelligence”, or could be put to ‘wrong’ use by incoming national authorities.

‘Operation Legacy’ also called for the destruction or removal of “all papers which are likely to be interpreted, either reasonably or by malice, as indicating racial prejudice or bias”.

The newly declassified files revealed that the Royal Navy base in Singapore was turned into the Asian region’s primary document destruction center. A special facility called a “splendid incinerator” was used to burn “lorry loads of files”, Agence France-Presse reported.

The “central incinerator” in Singapore was necessary to avoid a situation similar to that in India in 1947, when a “pall of smoke” from British officials burning their papers in Delhi, ahead of India proclaiming independence, filled the local press with critical reports. That diplomatic oversight was taken into account, as ‘Operation Legacy’ operatives were strictly instructed not to burn documents openly.

But not all the doomed archives could be shipped to Singapore. In some cases documents were eliminated on site, sometimes being dumped in the sea “at the maximum practicable distance from shore” and in deep, current-free areas, the National Archives publication claims.

The newly published collection of documents reveals that the British cleared out Kenyan intelligence files that contained information about abuse and torture of Kenyans during the Mau Mau uprising against British colonial rule in the 1950s. A special committee formed in 1961 coordinated document elimination in Kenya. Yet some files were spared simply when an estimated 307 boxes of documents were evacuated to Britain, just months ahead of the country gaining independence in December 1963.

The existence of some remaining Mau Mau legal case documents was revealed in January 2011.

Even after eliminating important evidence half a century ago, earlier in 2013 the British government was forced to pay 23 million dollars in compensation to over 5,200 elderly Kenyans, who had suffered from Britain’s punitive measures during the Mau Mau uprising.

In another documented occasion, in April 1957, five lorries delivered tons of documents from the British High Commission in Kuala Lumpur to the Royal Navy base in Singapore. Files were incinerated there; these contained details about British rule in Malaya, such as a massacre of 24 rubber plantation workers at the Malayan village of Batang Kali in 1948, who had allegedly been murdered by British soldiers.

Despite the mass document elimination, Britain’s Foreign Office still has some 1.2 million unpublished documents on British colonial policy, David Anderson, professor of African history at the University of Warwick, told AFP.

So Her Majesty’s government might still publish more valuable material that can shed more light on how one of the biggest empires in human history used to be governed. Overall, Britain had total control over 50 colonies including Canada, India, Australia, Nigeria, and Jamaica. Currently, there are 14 British Overseas Territories that remain under British rule, though most of them are self-governing and all have leaderships of their own.

By Dr. Ludwig Watzal

30 November, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

This documentary on the role of the Academia concerning 9/11 by the producer and filmmaker Adnan Zuberi was bestowed with the “Documentary Achievement Award” at this year’s University of Toronto Film Festival . The documentary focuses on the surprising reluctance of the academic community to examine the events of September 11, 2001 . Virtually the entire academic community adopted immediately and uncritically the official narrative about these events. Academics did not ask some of the most elementary questions: What happened on that day? Who planned and executed this complex operation? And who benefited from it?

The flaws in the official narrative leap out at everybody who merely scratches the surface. What are intellectuals for, when they fail to deal critically with a watershed event that led to the transformation of the US into a police state, the erosion of civil rights, and which provided the US government with a rationale for two wars of aggression and for an indefinite global “war on terror”? The reluctant establishment of the 9/11 Commission, its composition and its modus operandi were designed to produce a whitewash final report. The Final Report of that Commission, indeed, is riddled with so many flaws that it is widely designated as an “omission report.” The issue of 9/11 has become the greatest taboo of the 21 st century in Western societies, a subject that may not be subject to scholarly inquiry.

It seems as if all governments, the media, and the academic community conspire against anybody who might dare to call the official narrative into question. 9/11 is surrounded by a cocoon and those who dare to penetrate risk to be socially ostracized or destroyed. Even academic experts that purport to espouse critical social views and left-wing journalists refuse to deal with this topic although there is no evidence that the alleged hijackers committed and could have committed this crime alone. One of the roles of intellectuals in society is to unveil what rulers attempt to conceal from the masses. In the case of 9/11, such an approach would mean to destroy the 9/11 myth and inquiry into the motives of the real perpetrators.

In the documentary, for example, the attitude of left-wing thinkers was quoted from Noam Chomsky’s book “9-11”. “…evidence about the perpetrators of 9/11 has been hard to find. And long after the source of the anthrax attack was localized to US government weapons laboratories, it has still not been identified. (…) Nevertheless, despite the thin evidence (…) the initial conclusion about 9/11 is presumably correct.” (pp 120-121) Besides the below quoted experts, Adnan Zuberi’s the documentary presents some more scientists.

Professor David McGregor from University of Western Ontario , Canada , pointed out that many academics are interested in how 9/11 affected society and politics but not in the incidents themselves. Even the writings of the renowned professor David Ray Griffin – who wrote more than 10 scholarly books on 9/11 – remain ignored by the academic community. Many academics are caught up in the spiral of silence, i.e. they prefer, for comfort, to defer to majority opinion. The fierce reactions against attempts to critically examine the official narrative of 9/11 suggest that such questioning touches a vulnerable nerve.

Zuberi documents statements by some experts who explain, inter alia, why the Twin Towers could not have been brought down by airplane crashes and the ensuing fires, not to speak of the 47-floor building WTC No 7, which collapsed mysteriously in free-fall speed in the late afternoon of 9/11 without being hit by an aircraft. Surprisingly, the “9/11 Commission Report” does not even mention this unprecedented event. The documentary presents, Inter alia, statements by professors of engineering and physics who show that the official narrative regarding the Twin Towers ‘ collapse is incompatible with physical law. Structural engineers have a special role to play in examining the Twin Towers ‘ collapse, because if the government’s narrative is true, building codes would have to be reviewed and many other tall buildings would appear to be at risk. Such review of building codes did not, however, take place.

According to Michael Truscello from Mount Royal University , Calgary , Canada , 25 per cent of the footnotes of this report were based on torture testimony. Basing a story of this kind of testimony under the rule of law criteria seems absurd. Most of the testimony deals with the alleged al-Qaeda plot, and some were made up, like Sheikh Mohammed admitted in letters to the International Committee of the Red Cross, said Truscello.

As stated by him, Philip Zelikow, executive director of the 9/11 Commission, framed the narrative of the investigation even before it began. He was a colleague of Condoleezza Rice and had co-authored a book together. According to him, Zelikow was a White-House insider. He kept close contact with Karl Rove, a senior adviser to George W. Bush and his master mind, when the commission was in progress.

According to Paul Zarembka, Professor at the University of New York at Buffalo , “there was probability around 99 per cent that there was insider trading on American and United Airlines” days before 9/11. In Zubeiri’s documentary some professors tell how they got bullied by colleagues and university administrators after they questioned the official version of 9/11. Professor John McMurtry from the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada, for example, received hate mails, death threats, and some colleagues even demanded his expulsion from the university.

Since the Bush government has airbrushed all the evidence in the shortest possible time, how can scientists reconstruct it? Zuberi’s documentary shows that the investigations on 9/11 have to be reopened despite the huge opposition by government, corporate media and the academic community. This documentary calls for the widest possible distribution in order to raise the awareness that there are larger forces involved to commit such a crime than 19 young men allegedly guided from a cave in Afghanistan . Whether the present spiral of silence is stronger than the overwhelming evidence presented in this documentary remains to be seen.

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

The documentary can be ordered here: http://911inacademia.com/

By Hussein Al-Alak

30 November, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

It would be hilarious, if it wasn’t for the severity of the Syrian crisis, to read some of the allegations being directed against the Syrian based nun, Mother Agnes Mariam.

The Open Letter to Stop the War coalition, has been signed by over fifty alleged activists, who declare themselves to be “opponents of conflict”, and having been endorsed by the Independent’s journalist Owen Jones, has since seen Mother Agnes remove herself from Stop the War’s annual conference.

What has been omitted from the open letter though, which denounces Mother Agnes as being a “partisan” for Assad, has been some background details of those claiming that Mother Agnes, “has been consistent in assuming and spreading the lies of the regime”.

Looking over the list of 55 names, a substantial number of those who have signed, strike a chord with anyone familiar, with the marginal fringes of Britain’s left wing circuit. Included are members of Worker’s Power, the Socialist Worker’s Party, the International Socialist Network and former members of the now defunct Worker’s Revolutionary Party.

It strikes me as strange, that this motley crew of self-proclaimed British Trotskyists, view themselves as being the vanguard of Human Rights in Syria, especially with their warped views of the world, which includes the tiny London based Workers Power, declaring themselves to have established the Fifth Communist International.

Even on their website, there appears to be little on either the political or humanitarian crisis in Syria, nothing about Mother Agnes but allot about the Trotskyist interpretation on the Marxist Theory of Economics and adverts for pamphlets on the Russian Revolution, Leon Trotsky and a “reprinted edition of Degenerated Revolution”.

The same applies to the International Socialist Network, one of the many break away groups from the Socialist Worker’s Party, alongside Worker’s Power, but finding any information on Syria, Mother Agnes or even the Middle East, seems to be lost among the articles on the evils of Capitalism, the transitional phases to achieve real Communism and a Comradely letter sent to them, from non other, than Worker’s Power.

An interesting reference has come up though, according to Socialist Resistance, who over the past twenty years have been known as the International Marxist Group and Socialist Outlook, are seeking to merge with the International Socialist Network and have kindly informed the public, that should this go ahead, will gladly undergo, yet, another name change!

It is laughable, that Jeremy Scahill and The Independent’s Owen Jones, would also endorse the words of people who were in the Worker’s Revolutionary Party (WRP), and would themselves dare to put their names to a letter, which accuses Mother Agnes, of covering “up the brutality” of a foreign regime.

From 1979 on, the WRP provided Saddam’s Iraqi embassy with intelligence on dissident Iraqi’s living in Britain, which would have also included members of Britain’s Committee Against Repression and for Democratic Rights in Iraq.

An example of the party’s relationship to Baghdad, occurred in March 1979, when the central committee of the WRP in Britain, voted to approve the execution of more than twenty opponents of the Iraqi government, who in the run up to their murder’s in Iraq, had suffered from “pro-longed torture”.

One of the victims, Talib Suwailh, had only months earlier, unknowingly brought fraternal greetings to a conference of a WRP front organisation.

“War is terrible, terribly profitable” as V.I Lenin once stated, with capitalism clearly working and a clear lack of past interest in human rights concerns, from some now denouncing Mother Agnes. But only on the condition, that it does bring in amounts of £1,075,163 from foreign Governments, to British left wing groups, just like it did with the WRP.

Hussein Al-Alak is a UK based journalist and is chairman of the Iraq Solidarity Campaign UK. Hussein is also a member of the Royal British Legion and a mental health advocate for Combat Stress. You can follow him on Twitter @TotallyHussein. He blogs at http://totallyhussein.blogspot.co.uk

BY MICAH ZENKO

25 NOVEMBER  2013

@ Financial Times

This weekend’s interim Joint Plan of Action between the P5+1 countries and Iran over its nuclear program was met with skepticism and hostility from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet. The divergence of the Israeli leadership’s perception of the nuclear agreement from that of its close U.S. ally is understandable and expected given the differing threat perceptions the two countries hold over a prospective Iranian bomb. Subsequently, these officials emphasized three points in their public reactions: the agreement is, in Netanyahu’s words, a “historic mistake” that makes the world a “much more dangerous place”; Israel is not obligated to accept its terms; and Israel retains the right to attack — as Netanyahu’s spokesperson termed it — “the Iranian military nuclear program,” with all of Israel’s military capabilities.

Like many other national security analysts, I have followed the developments in Iran’s civilian nuclear program closely for the past two decades, parsing the comments of Iranian and U.S. officials and combing through leaked or declassified intelligence assessments and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) quarterly reports. I have witnessed or participated in war games that simulate a political/military crisis over Iran’s nuclear program, and I’ve interviewed planners about how the U.S. military envisions a range of joint U.S.-Israeli or unilateral moves and contingencies with Iran that might be triggered, escalated, or culminated. (All of this supplemented, of course, with countless op-eds and analytical pieces from wonks, academics, and former officials.)

What never ceases to amaze in these discussions is the total omission of Israel’s nuclear weapons in U.S. policy debates about confronting Iran. There is an unspoken understanding that Israel’s bombs are an option best left off the table, even as Israeli officials routinely hint at missions where they would be used — specifically for deterrence or to threaten deeply buried targets in Iran. This tacit agreement within Washington policy circles of focusing on Iran’s nonexistent nuclear bombs, while consciously ignoring Israel’s actual nuclear arsenal (which is itself directly pertinent to discussions about Iran), should be retired, especially as a more comprehensive solution between Iran and the P5+1 (the five permanent U.N. Security Council members — the United States, China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom — plus Germany) is pursued in the coming months.

Israeli officials provide several theories for what Iran would do with nuclear weapons: transfer them to terrorists groups, increase its support for proxy groups, and even coerce the world with nuclear-armed ballistic missiles. The most commonly asserted objective, however, was offered by Netanyahu to an American television audience in early October: “Everybody knows that Iran wants to destroy Israel and it’s building, trying to build, atomic bombs for that purpose.”

U.S. policymakers echo this dire depiction. Recently, on the Senate floor, Sen. Lindsey Graham claimed: “If Iran gets a nuclear weapon, the first target will be Israel.” And in September, Graham asserted without any irony: “The last place in the world you want nuclear weapons is the Mideast. Why? People over there are crazy.” Let’s put aside for a moment his indelicate slurring of the mental health of 500 million people. Not only did he forget or consciously ignore the one regional nuclear weapons power, but he omitted the 60 to 70 B61 bombs that the United States still maintains at the Incirlik air base in Turkey. More importantly, however, he entirely discounts the possibility of rational deterrence.

The problem with Netanyahu and Graham’s scenario is that Iran would face an immediate and massive nuclear retaliation from Israel. The ability of Israel to reliably threaten Iranian military capabilities and population centers forms the deterrence calculus that would prevent leaders in Tehran from authorizing such a suicidal atomic bolt from the blue.

Israel has had operationally deployable nuclear weapons since 1967, when then-Prime Minister Levi Eshkol reportedly ordered the assembly of two crude nuclear devices that could be raced on trucks toward the border with Egypt if Arab armies overwhelmed Israel’s defenses. When asked directly about the existence of its nuclear arsenal, Israeli officials repeat the policy position that “we won’t be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East.” Historian Avner Cohen described this strategy of amimut — Hebrew for “opacity” or “ambiguity” — as having evolved piecemeal over the decades to provide Israel with the benefits of nuclear deterrence while avoiding the consequences or obligations of being a nuclear power.

Despite Tel Aviv’s long-standing refusal to acknowledge its nuclear arsenal, there remains little ambiguity about the arsenal’s composition or its delivery vehicles. It is estimated that Israel has approximately 80 nuclear warheads and enough fissile material to build at least 200 more. These nuclear warheads are believed to have explosive yields from 1 kiloton to 200 kilotons (and everything in between). These can be delivered by a nuclear triad of F-16 fighter-bombers, Jericho III ballistic missiles, and diesel-powered Dolphin-class submarines supplied and heavily subsidized by Germany. As Israeli Maj. Gen. Avraham Botzer noted when the submarines were first ordered: “They are a way of guaranteeing that the enemy will not be tempted to strike pre-emptively with nonconventional weapons and get away scot-free.”

If you are wondering about the devastating impact Israel’s bomb could have on Iran, enter “Tehran” into the nuclear-weapons effects website Nukemap, created by nuclear historian Alex Wellerstein. It is unlikely that Israel could wipe Iran off the face of the Earth, but it could certainly kill millions of Iranians, given that 70 percent of Iran’s 80 million people live in dense urban areas. In a grim article in the May 2013 issue of Conflict and Health, researchers estimated that five Israeli 100-kiloton bombs would kill 43 percent of the 8.3 million people living in Tehran; meanwhile, two theoretical Iranian 15-kiloton bombs would kill 17 percent of everyone in Tel Aviv. (These estimates are consistent with the catastrophic human consequences of regional nuclear exchanges modeled in prior peer-reviewed articles.)

The recognition of Israel’s nuclear capabilities will continue to matter over the next six months because, if we are to take Tel Aviv seriously, Israel could undertake a unilateral military attack against Iran’s known nuclear facilities. Should the IAEA’s outstanding questions about the possible military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program go unaddressed, or access to sensitive sites remain restricted, there are intentionally ambiguous undefined conditions under which Israel might attack Iran, with or without the United States. For example, Iran’s Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant could be one target of an Israeli nuclear weapon. Fordow is a uranium-enrichment facility located beneath 60 to 80 meters of granite near the city of Qom. The facility at Fordow, according to Iran’s declaration to the International Atomic Energy Agency, is designed to contain up to 2,976 IR-1 centrifuges in 16 cascades. The Institute for Science and International Security has estimated that this set-up could produce one bomb’s worth — or “significant quantity” — of highly enriched uranium per year.

In August, Yuval Steinitz, Israel’s minister for international affairs, strategy, and intelligence, claimed that Iran’s uranium-enrichment facilities can be “destroyed with brute force,” which he described as “a few hours of airstrikes, no more.” Yaakov Amidror, who recently stepped down as national security advisor, asserted this month that Israel can “stop the Iranians for a very long time.” Asked whether this includes Iran’s deeply buried nuclear installations, he responded, “including everything.”

Most U.S. government and nongovernmental experts in weaponeering effects disagree with Amidror. They have concluded that Israel’s conventional air-dropped bombs cannot penetrate the bedrock to reliably destroy the centrifuges located within Fordow. Moreover, both George W. Bush’s and Barack Obama’s administrations have refused to provide Israel with the Pentagon’s largest (and recently further improved) conventional bunker-buster bomb, the Massive Ordnance Penetrator. Respected defense reporter David Fulghum quoted an anonymous U.S. defense specialist as saying, “Right now the Israeli capability against deeply buried targets is not much more than a noise-level effect.” Given Israel’s inability to deliver what one U.S. official termed “a knockout blow” against well-defended nuclear sites like Fordow with conventional bombs, a low-yield nuclear weapon could be the only viable alternative for a unilateral Israeli strike.

In August 2012, then-Washington Post ombudsman Patrick Pexton wrote a revealing piece that asked why U.S. reporters track every development in Iran’s nuclear program but never mention Israel’s nuclear arsenal: “Going back 10 years into Post archives, I could not find any in-depth reporting on Israeli nuclear capabilities.” To be fair to the Post, if you look for such featured pieces in other major media outlets, you also will not find them. For example, according to LexisNexis, since Jan. 1, 2000, “Iran” and “nuclear” appear in New York Times headlines 603 times; “Israel” and “nuclear” appear 21 times. (Over that same time period, New York Times headlines also mention “nuclear” with Russia 86 times, with China 52 times, and with Pakistan 48 times.) One reason for this was offered by nuclear scholar George Perkovich: “It’s like all things having to do with Israel and the United States. If you want to get ahead, you don’t talk about it; you don’t criticize Israel; you protect Israel.”

Having written critically about Israel’s nuclear weapons policies, I have never experienced any distinct career retaliation or condemnation. My impression is that refraining from discussing Israel’s bombs is more a self-imposed constraint than a socially constructed taboo in the D.C.-centered foreign-policy world. Moreover, I have found Israeli policymakers and analysts much more willing than their American counterparts to talk about (if not explicitly name) the impact that Israel’s nuclear arsenal has on its regional relations and to explore under what conditions that policy of amimut may no longer make strategic or political sense.

Either Israel’s nuclear capabilities play no role vis-à-vis strategies to prevent an Iran from acquiring a bomb, in which case why have them at all, or they matter in terms of the missions they support, in which case they should be open for discussion.