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By Joseph Stiglitz, Guardian UK

28 May 13

@ Readersupportednews.org

Big corporates are gaming one nation’s taxpayers against another’s: we need a global deal to make them pay their way

The world looked on agog as Tim Cook, the head of Apple, said his company had paid all the taxes owed – seeming to say that it paid all the taxes it should have paid. There is, of course, a big difference between the two. It’s no surprise that a company with the resources and ingenuity of Apple would do what it could to avoid paying as much tax as it could within the law. While the supreme court, in its Citizens United case seems to have said that corporations are people, with all the rights attendant thereto, this legal fiction didn’t endow corporations with a sense of moral responsibility; and they have the Plastic Man capacity to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time – to be everywhere when it comes to selling their products, and nowhere when it comes to reporting the profits derived from those sales.

Apple, like Google, has benefited enormously from what the US and other western governments provide: highly educated workers trained in universities that are supported both directly by government and indirectly (through generous charitable deductions). The basic research on which their products rest was paid for by taxpayer-supported developments – the internet, without which they couldn’t exist. Their prosperity depends in part on our legal system – including strong enforcement of intellectual property rights; they asked (and got) government to force countries around the world to adopt our standards, in some cases, at great costs to the lives and development of those in emerging markets and developing countries. Yes, they brought genius and organisational skills, for which they justly receive kudos. But while Newton was at least modest enough to note that he stood on the shoulders of giants, these titans of industry have no compunction about being free riders, taking generously from the benefits afforded by our system, but not willing to contribute commensurately. Without public support, the wellspring from which future innovation and growth will come will dry up – not to say what will happen to our increasingly divided society.

It is not even true that higher corporate tax rates would necessarily significantly decrease investment. As Apple has shown, it can finance anything it wants to with debt – including paying dividends, another ploy to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. But interest payments are tax deductible – which means that to the extent that investment is debt-financed, the cost of capital and returns are both changed commensurately, with no adverse effect on investment. And with the low rate of taxation on capital gains, returns on equity are treated even more favorably. Still more benefits accrue from other details of the tax code, such as accelerated depreciation and the tax treatment of research and development expenditures.

It is time the international community faced the reality: we have an unmanageable, unfair, distortionary global tax regime. It is a tax system that is pivotal in creating the increasing inequality that marks most advanced countries today – with America standing out in the forefront and the UK not far behind. It is the starving of the public sector which has been pivotal in America no longer being the land of opportunity – with a child’s life prospects more dependent on the income and education of its parents than in other advanced countries.

Globalisation has made us increasingly interdependent. These international corporations are the big beneficiaries of globalisation – it is not, for instance, the average American worker and those in many other countries, who, partly under the pressure from globalisation, has seen his income fully adjusted for inflation, including the lowering of prices that globalisation has brought about, fall year after year, to the point where a fulltime male worker in the US has an income lower than four decades ago. Our multinationals have learned how to exploit globalisation in every sense of the term – including exploiting the tax loopholes that allow them to evade their global social responsibilities.

The US could not have a functioning corporate income tax system if we had elected to have a transfer price system (where firms “make up” the prices of goods and services that one part buys from another, allowing profits to be booked to one state or another). As it is, Apple is evidently able to move profits around to avoid Californian state taxes. The US has developed a formulaic system, where global profits are allocated on the basis of employment, sales and capital goods. But there is plenty of room to further fine-tune the system in response to the easier ability to shift profits around when a major source of the real “value-added” is intellectual property.

Some have suggested that while the sources of production (value added) are difficult to identify, the destination is less so (though with reshipping, this may not be so clear); they suggest a destination-based system. But such a system would not necessarily be fair – providing no revenues to the countries that have borne the costs of production. But a destination system would clearly be better than the current one.

Even if the US were not rewarded for its global publicly supported scientific contributions and the intellectual property built on them, at least the country would be rewarded for its unbridled consumerism, which provides incentives for such innovation. It would be good if there could be an international agreement on the taxation of corporate profits. In the absence of such an agreement, any country that threatened to impose fair corporate taxes would be punished – production (and jobs) would be taken elsewhere. In some cases, countries can call their bluff. Others may feel the risk is too high. But what cannot be escaped are customers.

The US by itself could go a long way to moving reform along: any firm selling goods there could be obliged to pay a tax on its global profits, at say a rate of 30%, based on a consolidated balance sheet, but with a deduction for corporate profits taxes paid in other jurisdictions (up to some limit). In other words, the US would set itself up as enforcing a global minimum tax regime. Some might opt out of selling in the US, but I doubt that many would.

The problem of multinational corporate tax avoidance is deeper, and requires more profound reform, including dealing with tax havens that shelter money for tax-evaders and facilitate money-laundering. Google and Apple hire the most talented lawyers, who know how to avoid taxes staying within the law. But there should be no room in our system for countries that are complicitous in tax avoidance. Why should taxpayers in Germany help bail out citizens in a country whose business model was based on tax avoidance and a race to the bottom – and why should citizens in any country allow their companies to take advantage of these predatory countries?

To say that Apple or Google simply took advantage of the current system is to let them off the hook too easily: the system didn’t just come into being on its own. It was shaped from the start by lobbyists from large multinationals. Companies like General Electric lobbied for, and got, provisions that enabled them to avoid even more taxes. They lobbied for, and got, amnesty provisions that allowed them to bring their money back to the US at a special low rate, on the promise that the money would be invested in the country; and then they figured out how to comply with the letter of the law, while avoiding the spirit and intention. If Apple and Google stand for the opportunities afforded by globalisation, their attitudes towards tax avoidance have made them emblematic of what can, and is, going wrong with that system.

 

By Kathy Kelly

28 May, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

When she was 24 years old, in 1979, Fahima Vorgetts left Afghanistan.  By reputation, she had been outspoken, even rebellious, in her opposition to injustice and oppression; and family and friends, concerned for her safety, had urged her to go abroad.  Twenty-three years later, returning for the first time to her homeland, she barely recognized war-torn streets in urban areas where she had once lived.  She saw and felt the anguish of villagers who couldn’t feed or shelter their families, and no less able to accept such unjust suffering than she’d been half her life before, Fahima decided to make it her task to help alleviate the abysmal conditions faced by ordinary Afghans living at or below the poverty line – by helping to build independent women’s enterprises wherever she could.  She trusted in the old adage that if a person is hungry it’s an even greater gift to teach the person how to fish than to only give the person fish.

Last week, our small delegation here in Kabul traveled around the city with her to visit several clinics and “shuras,” or women’s councils that she has opened.

The first clinic we visited has been here since 2006. Two women, a doctor and a midwife, told us that they are part of a staff who work in three shifts to keep the clinic open “24-7.”  Not one of their patients has died while being treated at the clinic.

Next we visited two villages, one Pashtun and the other Tajik, on the outskirts of Kabul.

“Why did you pick this village?” asked Jake Donaldson, an M.D. from Ventura, CA who joined us here in Kabul about a week ago.  “I didn’t pick them,” Fahima exclaimed. “They picked me.”

A year previously, the villagers had asked her to build a clinic and a literacy center.  She had told them that if they would agree to organize a women’s cooperative and pool their resources to hire teachers, midwives and nurses, she herself would build the physical building and help with supplies.

In each village, we visited a newly constructed building which will house a clinic, a women’s cooperative for jewelry-making, tailoring, and canning, a set of literacy classes for children and adults, and even a public shower which families can sign up to use.  A young teacher invited us to step inside his classroom where about fifty children, girls and boys, were learning their alphabet in the first week of a literacy class.  Several villagers proudly showed us the well they had dug, powered by a generator. The well will help them irrigate their land as well as supply clean drinking water for the village.

Before we left, a male village elder described to Fahima how valuable her work has been for his village.  Fahima seemed to blush a bit as she gratefully acknowledged his compliment.

Such appreciative words, along with the children’s eager expressions, seem to be the main compensation for her tireless work.  “I and the board members of The Afghan Women’s Fund are 100% volunteers,” Fahima assures me.  “Our board members are people of tremendous integrity.”

On the day before our tour, Fahima had come to the Afghan Peace Volunteer home to speak to the seamstresses who run a sewing cooperative here and encourage them to hold on at all costs to their dignity.  She urged them never to prefer handouts to hard work in self-sustaining projects.  Fahima had helped the seamstresses begin their cooperative effort at the Volunteer house when she purchased sewing machines for them a little over a year ago.

“Not all of the projects I’ve tried to start have worked out,” said Fahima. “Sometimes people are hampered by conservative values and some families don’t want to allow women to leave their homes. Most often, it is war or the security situation that prevents success.”

She firmly believes that war will never solve problems in her country – or anywhere else, for that matter.

Fahima is outspoken, even blunt, as she speaks about warlords and war profiteers.   She has good reason to be bitter over the cruelties inflicted on ordinary Afghans by all those interested in filling their own pockets and expanding control of Afghanistan’s resources.  She advises the Afghan Peace Volunteers with the voice and love of a mother. “The world is gripped by a class war in which the 1% elite, irrespective of nationality or ethnicity and including the Afghan and U.S./NATO elite, have been ganging up to control, divide, oppress and profit from us, the ordinary 99%. Resist these ‘dark times’, resist war and weapons, educate yourselves, and work together in friendship.”

Fahima’s spirit of youthful rebellion clearly hasn’t been snuffed out by age or experience.  Her practical compassion is like a compass for all of us who learn about her work.

For more about the Afghan Women Fund, go to www.Afghanwomensfund.org

Kathy Kelly, ( kathy@vcnv.org ), co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence ( www.vcnv.org ). She is living in Kabul for the month of May as a guest of the Afghan Peace Volunteers ( http://ourjourneytosmile.com/blog/ ).

By Thomas Gaist

27 May, 2013

@ WSWS.org

Escalating fighting in Lebanon along with growing efforts by the US and the European powers to arm the Syrian rebels are raising the risk of a region-wide war. Lebanon, having served as a corridor for arms shipments to US-backed Sunni opposition forces inside Syria, is itself becoming a war theater.

Fighting raged last week between Alawites aligned with Bashar al-Assad and Sunni oppositionists in the Lebanese city of Tripoli, killing at least 23 and wounding 170. As of Sunday night, the Lebanese Daily Star reported that clashes were set to continue today, for the eighth straight day. Significantly, fighting has spread to the Lebanese capital, Beirut. On Sunday, rockets struck Hezbollah–held areas of Beirut, including a residential building and car showroom, leaving at least three wounded. A Syrian rebel, Ammar al-Wawi, stated that the rocket attacks were launched in retaliation for Hezbollah’s support of Assad.

“In coming days we will do more than this,” he threatened. “This is a warning to Hezbollah and the Lebanese government to keep Hezbollah’s hands off Syria.”

Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah declared that his movement will not back away from its support for Assad. “We will continue to the end of the road. We accept this responsibility and will accept all sacrifices and expected consequences of this position,” Nasrallah said in the speech Saturday.

The fighting in Lebanon demonstrates the explosive repercussions of Washington’s policy of stoking sectarian conflict to advance its strategic aims. As the Washington Post wrote last week, “the two-year Syrian conflict has become a regional war and a de facto US proxy fight with Iran.” Iran, which is aligned with Assad and with Hezbollah, has allegedly been flying weapons to the regime in Syria with the support of the Shi’ite majority regime in Iraq.

Fawaz Gerges of the London School of Economics told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that Iran, as well as Hezbollah, “have made it very clear, Assad is a red line.” The situation points to a massive, region-wide conflict.

While peace talks are scheduled, dubbed Geneva 2, the US and its regional allies are using the occasion to prepare for war. The US is using the possibility of talks to consolidate its “coalition of the willing,” which includes Britain, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

US and opposition representatives have made clear that they will accept a negotiated solution only on condition that Assad be removed and that the remains of his regime subordinate themselves to a deal with Washington’s Sunni Islamist proxies.

The imperialist powers are preparing to ramp up their indirect interventions in Syria. European leaders are meeting in Brussels on Monday, where British representatives will make the case for ending the arms embargo against Syria, opening the way for European efforts to arm the opposition.

Last week, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 15-3 to allow Washington to arm the rebel militias. Senators Robert Menendez and Bob Corker sponsored the bill, which gives the green light for “critical support to the Syrian opposition through provision of military assistance, training, and additional humanitarian support.”

“The time to act and turn the tide against Assad is now,” Senator Menendez stated at the hearing on the bill. “The United States must play a role in tipping the scales toward opposition groups and working to build a free and democratic Syria.”

Leading Democrats supported the bill, while claiming that Obama has acted too timidly in Syria. “We’ve all been frustrated that our country hasn’t done enough to be responsive,” said Sen. Bob Casey. “I think it’s in our national-security interests to address this”––that is, arming the rebels.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio said, “I believe it’s in the national interest of the United States to ensure that the strongest, best-organized, and best-funded elements in a post-Assad Syria and even before his fall are interests that are aligned with us.”

Republican Senator Rand Paul criticized the vote, saying: “This is an important moment. You will be funding, today, the allies of Al Qaeda.” In fact, Washington, both the major US parties, and Washington’s Middle East allies have been backing Al Qaeda-linked forces throughout the US proxy war in Syria, which began in 2011.

Opposition representatives have emphasized their unwillingness to accept any settlement that leaves Assad in power despite Assad’s agreement “in principle” to attend talks.

“We are ready to enter into negotiations that are aimed towards transferring power to the people, towards a democratic transition. And that of course means Assad cannot be a part of Syria in the future,” stated Louay Safi of the opposition Syrian National Coalition. Should the regime reject such demands, as appears likely, the failure of the talks would serve as a pretext for military escalation.

“We do not have too much illusion,” said Ahmed Kamel, another opposition representative. “We know the regime, we know Assad, and we know that he would never quit power without force.”

“The international community says that they can remove Assad from power; so does the US,” Mr. Kamel added.

The Geneva talks come against the backdrop of serious defeats of the US-backed opposition at the hands of Assad’s forces. The opposition, in a sign of its precarious position, is now calling for a “humanitarian corridor” centered on the strategic town of Qusayr, which regime forces seized on May 19, in a major blow to the opposition.

Despite its supposedly “humanitarian” character, such a corridor would be carved out by means of US airstrikes and ground operations, and will serve as a safe-zone, allowing rebel militias to regroup without fear of attack by Assad’s forces. The creation of such a safe-zone would require major deployments by the US and its allies. As usual, the language of humanitarianism is being applied to cover a full-scale military incursion by the US.

By Colin Todhunter

26 May, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

Two men armed with knives and gun(s) apparently hack to death an off-duty soldier outside an army barracks in Woolwich, London. As the soldier lies dead or dying in the road, one of the alleged attackers approaches a man filming the scene on his mobile phone and makes a political speech about the British state’s role in killing Muslims in foreign countries.

According to the attacker, what he and his associate have just done basically represented pay back for the lives taken by British soldiers on behalf of the British government. The two alleged assailants do not flee the scene, but, with weapons still in hands, talk to passers by. The police arrive and both men are shot and wounded as they quickly approach a police car. Later on in the area, English Defence League (EDL) supporters hold a protest and express their usual anti-Islam sentiments. The EDL has had some success in garnering support in recent years by tapping into working class frustrations by using Islam as a proxy for the economic and financial woes impacting Britain.

On just another day in an ordinary district, a heady mix of class, empire and retribution left their marks on a London street. But what made this particular attack so stark was the brutal nature of the incident and that the alleged perpetrators made no attempt to escape. They took advantage of the situation to tell the world why the incident took place.

Over the last couple of days since the attack, there has been much debate over what happened and why it happened. A dominant narrative via the mainstream media has been that of two crazed men (at least one spoke with a London accent), possibly acting on their own, who had been indoctrinated or radicalised by strands of Islam.

Questions are being asked about what can be done to stop this type of thing happening again. The media, politicians and commentators have been quick to talk about preventing the radicalisation of Muslims living in Britain. All well and good.

When certain acts of terror have taken place in Britain in the past, however, senior politicians have denied any link to British foreign policy. This time, one of the alleged perpetrators in Woolwich is on video explicitly stating his reasons for his actions and linking them directly to foreign policy. It doesn’t justify the attack, but it certainly helps to explain the motives.

Most politicians and commentators have tended to avoid the foreign policy issue by focusing on the horrific nature of the attack and ‘crazed, indoctrinated people’ who carry out such deeds. It has at times all been understandably quite emotive. The fact that the dead soldier was said to be wearing a ‘hope for heroes’ t-shirt at the time has further fuelled the outpouring of national grief and anger. Hope for Heroes is a charity offering support to soldiers returning from conflict zones.

 

Politicians and the media have been quick to shape the debate over the incident by referring to it as an act of terrorism and by asking what could be done to stop such an act ever taking place again. Perhaps they should turn to Noam Chomsky for an answer. When once asked how to prevent terrorism, he replied “stop committing it.”

Chomsky’s views on The US and NATO’s role in committing acts of terror in and on other countries are well documented. Either overtly or covertly, the British government has been involved in the ‘war on terror’ or ‘humanitarian militarism’ across the Muslim world, from Libya, Syriaand Iraq to Afghanistan and Pakistan. At the same time it has been a staunch supporter of brutal, undemocratic puppet dictators throughout West Asia.

The notion that terrorism is simply a predictable consequence of an interventionist foreign policy, the propping up of dictators and the embrace of empire is downplayed by the mainstream media. The dominiant political and media message is that British military involvement in West and Central Asia is necessary to prevent terrorism reaching its shores. Without a hint of hypocrisy on their part, politicians and commentators use incidents like Woolwich to say to the public – look, this is what happens if we do not keep vigilant and do not go into these countries to root out such people.

The media likes to compartmentalise issues. Focus on the Woolwich attack, not civilian deaths in Afghanistan. Focus on one of our lads who was butchered by a couple of maniacs, not on drone attacks that terrorise whole communities. Focus on protecting ‘freedom and democracy’, not Guauntanamo, Palestine or actions or support for regimes that have nothing to do with either. Do not connect any of the dots for a comprehensive analysis, but focus on specific incidents and emotive platitudes.

And anyone who criticises British foreign policy and linking it to Woolwich, while even condemning the attack there, is regarded with a degree of suspicion, is regarded as ‘unpatriotic’, as not supporting the troops – the brave heroes ‘out there’ thousands of miles away protecting our freedoms..

Of course, you will never hear any TV news channel or political debate in parliament bring up the Project for a New Americam Century (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1937.htm), a plan devised by US neo-cons and which sets out the underlying reasons for the West’s ongoing wars, destabilisations, covert operations, killings, murders, death squads and torture that have nothing to do with humanitarianism or ‘fighting terror’ and everything to do with securing world domination. No mention of it or Britain’s role in supporting it. Such things are not to be discussed.

Such things are beyond the scope of ‘rational political discourse’. We must keep to the ‘facts’ – the facts as designated by those who wish to bury the real facts at every available opportunity.

In the meantime, we must stick to the story about the proper way of preventing terror at home is by stopping the indoctrination or brain washing of young Muslims. Do not focus too much (if at all) on the Western-fueled barbarity and hacked to death bodies on blood stained streets in far away lands. Out of sight, out of mind, thanks largely to the media. Just who is being indoctrinated here? And who is to protect us from the real extremism?

Colin Todhunter : Originally from the northwest of England, Colin Todhunter has spent many years in India. He has written extensively for the Deccan Herald (the Bangalore-based broadsheet), New Indian Express and Morning Star (Britain). His articles have also appeared in various other newspapers, journals and books. His East by Northwest website is at: http://colintodhunter.blogspot.com

By Medea Benjamin

25 May, 2013

@ CommonDreams.org

Having worked for years on the issues of drones and Guantanamo, I was delighted to get a pass (the source will remain anonymous) to attend President Obama’s speech at the National Defense University. I had read many press reports anticipating what the President might say. There was much talk about major policy shifts that would include transparency with the public, new guidelines for the use of drones, taking lethal drones out of the purview of the CIA, and in the case of Guantanamo, invoking the “waiver system” to begin the transfer of prisoners already cleared for release.

Sitting at the back of the auditorium, I hung on every word the President said. I kept waiting to hear an announcement about changes that would represent a significant shift in policy. Unfortunately, I heard nice words, not the resetting of failed policies.

Instead of announcing the transfer of drone strikes from the CIA to the exclusive domain of the military, Obama never even mentioned the CIA—much less acknowledge the killing spree that the CIA has been carrying out in Pakistan during his administration. While there were predictions that he would declare an end to signature strikes, strikes based merely on suspicious behavior that have been responsible for so many civilian casualties, no such announcement was made.

The bulk of the president’s speech was devoted to justifying drone strikes. I was shocked when the President claimed that his administration did everything it could to capture suspects instead of killing them. That is just not true. Obama’s reliance on drones is precisely because he did not want to be bothered with capturing suspects and bringing them to trial. Take the case of 16-year-old Pakistani Tariz Aziz, who could have been picked up while attending a conference at a major hotel in the capital, Islamabad, but was instead killed by a drone strike, with his 12-year-old cousin, two days later. Or the drone strike that 23-year-old Yemini Farea al-Muslimi talked about when he testified in Congress. He said the man targeted in his village of Wessab was a man who everyone knew, who met regularly with government officials and who could have easily been brought in for questioning.

When the President was coming to the end of this speech, he started talking about Guantanamo. As he has done in the past, he stated his desire to close the prison, but blamed Congress. That’s when I felt compelled to speak out. With the men in Guantanamo on hunger strike, being brutally forced fed and bereft of all hope, I couldn’t let the President continue to act as if he were some helpless official at the mercy of Congress.

“Excuse me, Mr. President,” I said, “but you’re the Commander-in-Chief. You could close Guantanamo tomorrow and release the 86 prisoners who have been cleared for release.” We went on to have quite an exchange.

While I have received a deluge of support, there are others, including journalists, who have called me “rude.” But terrorizing villages with Hellfire missiles that vaporize innocent people is rude. Violating the sovereignty of nations like Pakistan is rude. Keeping 86 prisoners in Guantanamo long after they have been cleared for release is rude. Shoving feeding tubes down prisoners’ throats instead of giving them justice is certainly rude.

At one point during his speech, President Obama said that the deaths of innocent people from the drone attacks will haunt him as long as he lives. But he is still unwilling to acknowledge those deaths, apologize to the families, or compensate them. In Afghanistan, the US military has a policy of compensating the families of victims who they killed or wounded by mistake. It is not always done, and many families refuse to take the money, but at least it represents some accounting for taking the lives of innocent people. Why can’t the President set up a similar policy when drone strikes are used in countries with which we are not at war?

There are many things the President could and should have said, but he didn’t. So it is up to us to speak out.

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

Medea Benjamin (medea@globalexchange.org), cofounder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK: Women for Peace, is the author of Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control. Her previous books include Don’t Be Afraid Gringo: A Honduran Woman Speaks from the Heart., and (with Jodie Evans) Stop the Next War Now (Inner Ocean Action Guide).

By Mairead Maguire

25 May, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

Report and Appeal to the International community to support a process of dialogue and reconciliation in Syria between its people and Syrian government and reject outside intervention and war.

After a 10 days visit to Lebanon and Syria, leading a 16 person delegation from 8 countries, invited by Mussalaha Reconciliation Movement, I have returned hopeful that peace is possible in Syria, if all outside interference is stopped and the Syrians are allowed to solve their own problems upholding their right to self-determination.

An appeal to end all violence and for Syrians to be left alone from outside interference was made by all those we met during our visit to Syria. We have tried to forward it to the International community in our Concluding Declaration(l).

During our visit we went to refugee camps, affected communities, met religious leaders, combatants, government representatives, opposition delegations and many others, perpetrators and victims, in Lebanon and Syria.

1. Visits to refugee camps: In Lebanon we visited several refugee camps, hosted by Lebanese or Palestinian communities. One Woman said: “before this conflict started we were happy and had a good life (there is free education, free healthcare, subsidies for fuel, in Syria ,) and now we live in poverty”. Her daughter and son-in-law (a pharmacist and engineer) standing on a cement floor in a Palestinian refugee camp, with not even a mattress, told us that this violence had erupted to everyone surprise’s and spread so quickly they were all still in shock, but when well armed, foreign fighters came to Homs, they took over their homes, raped their women, and killed young males who refused to join their ranks, so the people fled in terror. They said that these foreign fighters were from many countries like Libyans, Saudis, Tunisians, Chechens, Afghanis, Pakistanis, Emiratis, Lebanese, Jordanians, Turkish, Europeans, Australian, and these gangs are financed and trained by foreign governments. They attach suicide vests around peoples’ bodies and threaten to explode them if they don’t do what they are told. One refugee woman asked me ‘when can we go home’? (To my great delighted a few days later in Damascus I met a woman working on a government programme which is helping refugees to return to Syria and over 200 have returned to date).

Religious and government leaders have called upon people not to flee Syria and it is to be hoped many will heed this call, as after seeing so many Syrian refugees living in tents and being exploited in so many ways, including sexually, I believe the best solution is the stability of Syria so its people feel safe enough to stay in Syria. If refugees continue to flee Syria then surrounding countries could be destabilized, causing the domino effect and destabilizing the entire Middle East.

Many people have fled into camps in surrounding countries like Turkey, Jordan or Lebanon, all of whom are trying to manage the huge influx of Syrian refugees. Although the host countries are doing their best to cope they are overwhelmed by refugee numbers. (UNHCR’s official figure of refugees is one million). Through our meetings we have been informed that Turkey invites Syrian refugees into the country and forbid them to go back home. It is documented that Syrian refugees in Turkey and Jordan are mistreated. Some young Syrian refugee girls are sold for forced marriage in Jordan. From OHCHR reports we know that more than 4 million Syrians are displaced inside their own country, living in great need.

A representative from Red Cross, told us that there is freedom to do their work throughout Syria for all NGO and the Syrian Red crescent in co-ordination with the Ministry of Social affairs and under such dire circumstances, they are doing their best, providing services to as many people as possible. However there is a great shortage of funds for them to cope with this humanitarian tragedy of refugees and internally displaced population. The economic sanctions, as in Iraq,are causing great hardship to many people and all those whom we met called for them to be lifted. Our delegation called for the lifting of these illegal US-led sanctions that target the Syrian Population for purely political reasons in order to achieve regime change.

2- Hospitals: We visited the hospitals and saw many people injured by shootings, bombings, and armed attacks. A moderate Sunni Imam told me how he was abducted by jihadists, who tortured him, cut off his ear, tried to cut his throat, slicing his legs, and left him for dead. He said when he goes back to his mosque they will slaughter him. He told us “these men are foreign fighters, jihadists from foreign countries, well armed, well trained, with money, they are in our country to destroy it. They are not true Muslims but are religious extremist/fundamentalists terrorizing, abducting, killing our people”. The government spokesman also confirmed that they have in detention captured foreign fighters from 29 countries, including Chechens, Iraqis, and many others. The Ministry of Health showed us a documentary on the terrible killings by Jihadists and the terror caused by these foreigners with the killing of medics and destruction of medical infrastructure of the Syrian State which has made it difficult to answer the needs of the population.

3- Meeting with Opposition: Our delegation participated in an open forum with many representatives of internal opposition’s parties. One political opponent who was in prison 24 years under the Assad regime, and has been out for 11 years, wants political change with more than 20 other internal opposition components, but without outside interference and the use of violence. We met with ‘armed’ opposition people in a local community who said they had accepted the governments offer of amnesty and were working for a peaceful way forward. One man told me he had accepted money from Jihadists to fight but had been shocked by their cruelty and the way they treated fellow Syrian muslims considering them as not real Muslims. He said foreign Jihadists wanted to take over Syria, not save it.

The 10th May a part of our delegation headed to Homs, invited by the opposition community of Al Waar city where displaced families from Baba Amro, Khalidiyeh and other rebel’s strongholds seek refuge. The Delegation saw all the conditions of this city and is studying a Pilot Project for Reconciliation and peaceful reintegration between this community and the surrounded non rebel communities (Shia and Alaouites) with whom 15 days ago an agreement of non belligerence has been signed through the auspices of Mussalaha.

4 – Meeting with Officials: Our Delegation met, and spoke, at the Parliament, and also with the Governor, Prime Minister and 7 other Ministries. We were given details of the new Constitution and political reforms being put in place, and plans for elections in 2014. Government Ministers admitted that they had made mistakes in being slow to respond to legitimate demands for change from civil community but these were now being implemented. They told us when the conflict started it was peaceful for change but quickly turned into bloodshed when armed men killed many soldiers.

In the first days soldiers were unarmed but when people started asking for protection the government and military responded to defend the people and in self defence.

When we enquired from the Prime Minister regarding the allegation that the Syrian Government had used Sarin gas, he told us that as soon as news came from Aleppo that allegedly gas had been used, his government invited immediately the UN to come into investigate, but heard nothing from them. Most recently however, a UN investigator, High Commissioner Carla Del Ponte, has confirmed that it was rebels, not Syrian government, who used Sarin gas. During meeting with Justice Minister, we requested that a list of 72 non-violent political dissidents currently detained be released. The justice Minister said after checking those listed were indeed non-violent political dissidents, he would, in principal, agree to the release of these nonviolent detainees. He also informed us they they do not implement the death penalty and it is hoped that when things settle in Syria they will move to have the death penalty abolished. We also asked the Justice Minister (an international lawyer) about Syrian Government’s Human rights abuses, namely the artillery shelling into no-go areas being held by jihadists and armed opposition. The Minister accepted those facts but alleged that the Government had a duty to clear these areas. We suggested there was a better way to deal with the problem than artillery shelling but he insisted that the government had responsibility to clear the areas of rebel forces and this was the way in which they were doing it

The Ministers and Governor said that President Assad was their President and has their support. There were many people we spoke to who expressed such sentiments. However, some young people said they support the opposition but in order to protect the Unity of Syria from outside destruction, they will support the government and President Assad, until the election next year and then they will vote for the opposition. They said the Doha Coalition in Qatar does not represent them and that no one outside Syria has a right to remove President Assad but the Syrian people through the elections next year. The journalists in Syria are in great danger from the religious extremist/fundamentals,and during my visit to a television station a young journalist told me how his mother was killed by jihadists and he showed me his arm where he had been shot and almost killed.

5- Meeting with religious leaders: We attended in the Omayyad Mosque in Damascus a prayer gathering led by the Grand Mufti of the Syrian Arab Republic, Dr. Ahmad Badr Al-Din Hassoun and the Greek Catholic Patriarch Gregory III Laham with the delegate of Greek Orthodox Patriarch John X Yazigi, and clerics of all traditions. The Assembly prayed for the peace and unity of Syria and the non-interference of outsiders in their country. They stressed the conflict in Syria is not a religious conflict, as Muslims and Christians have always lived together in Syria, and they are,(in spite of living with suffering and violence much of which is not of their own making), unified in their wish to be a light of peace and reconciliation to the world. The Patriarch said that from the Mosque and Christian churches goes out a great movement of peace and reconciliation and asked both those inside and outside Syria, to reject all violence and support the people of Syria in this work of dialogue, reconciliation and peacemaking.

The Muslim and Christian Spiritual Leaders are very conscious if the religious extremist/fundamentalists gain momentum and control Syria, the future of those who are not supportive of fundamentalists like moderate Muslims, Christians, minorities, and other Syrians is in great danger. Indeed the Middle East could loose its precious pluralistic social fabric with the Christians, like in Iraq, being the first to flee the country. This would be a tragedy for all concerned in this multi-religious, multi-cultural secular Syria, once a light of peaceful conviviality in the Arab world.

AN OVERVIEW:

Following many authorized reports in the mainstream Medias and our own evidences I can stress that the Syrian State and its population are under a proxy war led by foreign countries and directly financed and backed mainly by Qatar who has imposed its views on the Arab League. Turkey, a part of the Lebanese opposition and some of the Jordan authorities offer a safe haven to a diversity of jihadist groups, each with its own agenda, recruited from many countries. Bands of jihadists armed and financed from foreign countries invade Syria through Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon porous frontiers in an effort to destabilize Syria. There are an estimated 50,000 foreign jihadist fighters terrorizing Syria. Those death squads are destroying systematically the Syrian State infrastructures (Electricity, Oil, Gas and water plants, High Tension Pylons, hospitals, schools, public buildings, cultural heritage sites and even religious sanctuaries). Moreover the country is submerged by snipers, bombers, agitators, bandits. They use aggression and Sharia rules and hijack the freedom and dignity of the Syrian population. They torture and kill those who refuse to join them. They have strange religious beliefs which make them feel comfortable even perpetrating the cruelest acts like killing and torture of their opponents. It is well documented that many of those terrorists are permanently under stimulant like Captagon. The general lack of security unlashes the terrible phenomenon of abduction for ransoms or for political pressure. Thousands of innocents are missing, among them the two Bishops, Youhanna Ibrahim and Paul Yazigi, many priests and Imams.

UN and EU economic sanctions as well as a severe embargo are pushing Syria to the edge of social collapse. Unfortunately the international media network is ignoring those realities and is bent on demonizing, lying, destabilizing the country and fuelling more violence and contradiction.

In summary: the war in Syria is not as depicted a civil war but a proxy war with serious breaches of International laws and the Humanitarian International laws.. The protection of the foreign fighters by some foreign countries among the most powerful gives them a kind of an unaccountability that pushes them with impunity to all kind of cruel deeds against innocent civilians. Even war conventions are not respected incurring in many war crimes and, even, crimes against Humanity.

CONCLUSION:

During our visit to Syria, our delegation was met with great kindness by everyone and I offer to each one who facilitated or hosted our Delegation my most sincere feelings of gratitude. We witnessed that the Syrian people have suffered very deeply and continue to do so. The entire population of 23 million people are under tremendous threat of continued infiltration by foreign terrorists. Many are still stunned by the horrors and suddenness of all this violence and worried their country will be attacked and divided by outside forces, and are all too aware that geopolitical forces are at work to destabilize Syria for political control, oil and resources. One Druze leader said ‘if westerns want our Oil – both Lebanon and Syria have oil reserves – let us negotiate for it, but do not destroy our country to take it’. In Syria memories of next door Iraq’s destruction by US/UK/NATO forces are fresh in people’s minds, including in the minds of the one and a half million Iraqis who fled Iraqi’s conflict, including many Christians, and were given refuge in Syria by the Syrian Government.

The greatest hope we took was from Mussalaha, a non political movement from all sections of Syrian society, who have working teams throughout Syria and is proceeding through dialogue to building peace and reconciliation. Mussalaha mediates between armed gunmen and security forces, help get release of many people who have been abducted, and bring together all parties to the conflict for dialogue and practical solutions. It was this movement who hosted us, under the leadership of Mother Agnes-Mariam, Superior of Saint James’ Monastery, supported by the Patriarch Gregory III Laham, head of the Catholic Hierarchy of Syria.

This great civil community movement building a peace process and National Reconciliation from the ground up, will, if given space, time, and non-interference from outside, help bring Peace to Syria. They recognize that there must be an unconditional, all inclusive political solution, with compromises and they are confident this is happening at many levels of society and is the only way forward for Syrian peace.

I support this National Reconciliation process which, many Syrian believe, is the only way to bring Peace to SYRIA and the entire Middle East. I am myself committed to this peaceful process and hope that the International Community, the Religious and Political Leaders as well as any person of good will will help Syria to bypass violence and prejudice and anchor in a new era of Social peace and prosperity. This cradle of civilizations where Syria occupies the heart is an enormous spiritual heritage for humanity, let us strive to establish a non war zone and proclaim it an OASIS of Peace for the Human Family.

Mairead Maguire, Nobel peace laureate. Spokesperson for Mussalaha International Peace delegation to Lebanon/Syria l-llth May, 2013,

www.peacepeople.com

By Robert J. Burrowes

25 May, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

Violence is simply an extreme form of attention-seeking behaviour.

The individual who uses violence does so because they are very frightened that one or more of their vital needs will not be met. In virtually all cases, the needs that the individual fears will not be met are emotional ones (including the needs for listening, understanding and love) and the violence is simply a dysfunctional attempt to have these needs met.

The individual who uses violence is never aware of these deep emotional needs and of the functional ways of having these needs met which, admittedly, is not easy to do given that listening, understanding and love are not readily available from others who have themselves been denied these needs. Moreover, because the emotional needs are ‘hidden’ from the individual, the individual (particularly one who lives in a materialist culture) often projects that the need they want met is, in fact, a material need.

This projection occurs because children who are crying, angry or frightened are often scared into not expressing their feelings and offered material items – such as a toy or food – to distract them. The distractive items become addictive drugs. This is why most violence is overtly directed at gaining control of material, rather than emotional, resources. The material resource becomes a dysfunctional and quite inadequate replacement for satisfaction of the emotional need. And, because the material resource cannot ‘work’ to meet an emotional need, the individual is most likely to keep using direct and/or structural violence to gain control of more material resources in an unconscious and utterly futile attempt to meet unidentified emotional needs.

This is the reason why individuals such as Carlos Slim Helu, Bill Gates, Amancio Ortega, Warren Buffett and the world’s other billionaires and millionaires seek material wealth, and are willing to do so by taking advantage of structures of exploitation held in place by the US military. They are certainly wealthy in the material sense; unfortunately, they are emotional voids and each of them justly deserves the appellation ‘poor little rich boy’ (or girl).

If this was not the case, their conscience, their compassion, their empathy, their sympathy and, indeed, their love would compel them to disperse their wealth in ways that would alleviate world poverty (which starves to death 50,000 children in the Third World each day) and nurture restoration of the ancient, just and ecologically sustainable economy:  local self-reliance. See ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth’ – http://tinyurl.com/flametree

Of course, it is not just the billionaires and millionaires of the corporate elite who have suffered this fate. Those intellectuals in universities and think tanks who accept payment to ‘justify’ the worldwide system of violence and exploitation, those politicians, bureaucrats and ordinary businesspeople who accept payment to manage it, those judges and lawyers who accept payment to act as its legal (but immoral) guardians, those media editors and journalists who accept payment to obscure the truth, as well as the many middle and working class people who perform other roles to defend it (such as those in the military, police and prison systems), are either emotionally void or just too frightened to resist violence. Of course, it takes courage to resist this violent world order. But underlying courage is a sense of responsibility towards one’s fellows and the future.

Governments that use military violence to gain control of material resources are simply governments composed of many individuals with this dysfunctionality, which is very common in industrialized countries that promote materialism. Thus, cultures that unconsciously allow and encourage this dysfunctional projection (that an emotional need is met by material acquisition) are the most violent both domestically and internationally. This also explains why industrialized (material) countries use military violence to maintain political and economic structures that allow ongoing exploitation of non-industrialized countries in Africa, Asia and Central/South America.

In summary, the individual who has all of its emotional needs met requires only the intellectual and few material resources necessary to maintain this fulfilling life: anything beyond this is not only useless, it is a burden.

What can we do? We need to recognize that several generations of people who were extremely badly emotionally damaged created the world as it isand that their successors now maintain the political, economic and social structures that allow ruthless exploitation of the rest of us and the Earth itself. We also need to recognize that the Earth’s ecological limits are now being breached. And if we are to successfully resist these emotionally damaged individuals, their structures of exploitation and their violence, then we need a comprehensive strategy for doing so. If you wish to participate in this strategy you are welcome to sign online ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’ http://thepeoplesnonviolencecharter.wordpress.com

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

By Franklin Lamb

25 May, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

Homs Province, Syria.: During a tour of some of the neighborhoods in Homs, Syria’s third largest city after Aleppo and Damascus, with a pre-conflict population of approximately 800,000 (nearly half Homs residents have fled over the past two years) located maybe about 22 miles NE of the current hot-spot of al-Qusayr, this observer engaged is a few interesting conversations. More accurately labeled diatribes–with some long bearded Sunni fundamentalists who claimed they came from Jabhat al Nusra, aka Jabhat an-Nuṣrah li-Ahl ash-Shām, “Front of Defense for the People of Greater Syria”), and were preparing to return to al Qusayr to fight “the deniers of Allah”!

It is the strategic crossroads town of al-Qusayr, and its environs, which whoever controls, can block supplies and reinforcements to and from Damascus and locations north and east. For those seeking the ouster of Syria’s government, including NATO countries led by Washington, were their “allies” to lose control of al-Qusayr it would mean the cutting off of supplies from along the Lebanese border, from which most of the local opposition’s weapons flow and fighters have been smuggled over the past 26 months. If the Assad regime forces regain control of the city, Washington believes they will move north and conquer current opposition positions in Homs and Rastan, both areas being dependent on support from Lebanon and al-Qusayr. Some analysts are saying this morning, with perhaps a bit of hyperbole that as al-Qusayr goes so goes Syria and the National Lebanese Resistance, led by Hezbollah.

If government forces can retake the city it will put an end to the Saudi-Qatari green light, in exchange for controlling al-Qusayr, of the setting up a Salafist emirate in the area which would constitute a threat to the nearly two dozen Shia Lebanese inhabited villages of the Hermel region. If the Syrian army re-takes al-Qusayr, it would also avoid the likelihood of a full-fledged sectarian war on both sides of the border.

Meeting with a few self-proclaimed al Nusra Front militiaman last week, in Homs, one who spoke excellent British English they had plenty to say to this observer about current events in al Qusayr to which they planned to return the next day to fight enemies “by all means Allah gives us”. One added, when asked if they had confronted Hezbollah: “Of course but Hezbollah can’t defeat us. Eventually they will withdraw from Syria on orders from Tehran. But first enshallah we will bleed Hezbollah with thousands of cut throats”, he boasted raucously as nearby kids cheered and gave V for victory signs, smiles, giggles and cackling all around.

Such Jihadist rants are music to more than a few US congressional and White House ears these days, as once more in this region, a major US-Israeli carefully calibrated regime change project, appears to be falling short.

This week, the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted overwhelmingly to arm elements of the Syrian opposition with a recommendation to “provide defense articles, defense services, and military training” directly to the opposition throughout Syria, who naturally, will “have been properly and fully vetted and share common values and interests with the United States”. History teaches that the vetting part would not happen if the scheme is implemented, despite only a few in Congress objecting.

Perhaps lacking some of his father Ron Paul’s insights into US hegemonic plans for this region, Senator Rand Paul did object to the measure and he fumed at his colleagues: ”This is an important moment. You will be funding, today, the allies of al Qaeda. It’s an irony you cannot overcome.”

According to the Hill Rag weekly, veteran war-hawks Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham, flashed a knowing smile but gave no rebuttal, perhaps realizing that Senator Paul is a bit untutored on the reality of current Obama Administration policy in Syria generally, and for al-Qusayr, in particular.

Contrary to the shock and anger expressed by Senator Paul, American policy in Syria is to de facto assist allies of al Qaeda including the US “Terrorist-listed” Al-Nusra Front as well as anti-Iran, anti-Shia and anti-Hezbollah groups gathering near al-Qusayr. These groups currently include, but not limited to, Ahl al-Athr Brigade, Ahrar al-Sham, Basha’ir al-Nasr Brigades, Commandos Brigades, Fajr al-Islam Brigades, Independent Farouq Brigades, Khalid bin al-Waleed Brigade, Liwa al-Haq, Liwa al-Sadiq, Al-Nour Brigade, Al-Qusayr Brigade, Suqur al-Fatah, Al-Wadi Brigades, Al-Waleed Brigades and the 77th Brigade among the scores of other Jihadist cells currently operating in, near, or rushing to, al-Qusayr.

Their victory according to US Senate sources would be a severe blow and challenge to Iran’s rising influence in the region and Iran’s leadership of the increasing regional and global resistance to the Zionist occupiers of Palestine in favor of the full right to return of every ethnically cleansed Palestinian refugee.

While Congress was considering what else to do to help the “rebels”, on 5/22/13, no fewer than 11 so-called “World powers” foreign ministers, including Turkey and Jordan, met in Amman to condem, with straight faces, even, tongues in cheek, the “flagrant intervention” in Syria by Hezbollah and Iranian fighters.” They urged their immediate withdrawal from the war-torn country. In a joint statement, the “Friends of Syria” group called “for the immediate withdrawal of Hezbollah and Iranian fighters, and other regime allied foreign fighters from Syrian territory.”

Not one peep of course, about the Salafist-Jihadist-Takfuri fighters from more than 30 countries now ravaging Syria’s population. The truth of the matter is that the governments represented by their foreign ministers this week in Amman, will follow the US lead which means they will assist, despite some cautionary public words, virtually any ally of al-Qaeda whose fighting in Syria may be seen as weakening the Assad government and its supporters in Iran and Lebanon.

According to one long-term Congressional aide to a prominent Democratic Senator from the West Coast, while the Amman gathering described Hezbollah’s armed presence in Syria as “a threat to regional stability”, the White House could not be more pleased that Hezbollah is in al-Qusayr.” When pressed via email for elaboration, the Middle East specialist offered the view that the White House agrees with Israel that al-Qusayr may become Hezbollah’s Dien Bein Phu and the Syrian conflict could well turn into Iran’s “Vietnam”. ..Quite a few folks around here (Capitol Hill) think al-Qusayr will remove Hezbollah from the list of current threats to Israel. And the longer they keep themselves bogged down in quick-sand over there the better for Washington and Tel Aviv. Hopefully they will remain in al-Qusayr for a long hot summer and gut their ranks in South Lebanon via battle field attrition and Israel can make its move and administer a coup de grace.”

The staffer followed up with another email with only one short sentence and a smiley face:

“Of course the White House and its concrete wall-solid ally might be wrong!”

The dangers for Hezbollah are obvious – that it may be drawn ever deeper into a bottomless pit of conflict in Syria that could leave it severely depleted and prey to a hoped for death-blow from Israel.

Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and other party officials have dismissed that possibility.

The next few weeks may tell.

Franklin Lamb is doing research in Syria and Lebanon and is reachable c/o fplamb@gmail.com

By Nile Bowie

24 May 2013

The streets of Dhaka have been awash with protests, violence, and killing in recent times as Bangladesh faces resentment from exploited garment workers in the aftermath of the country’s worst industrial disaster in history, and the rising tide of Islamists demanding an end to the nation’s secular identity. The public relations departments of major retail transnationals like H&M, Gap, Wal-Mart, and Benetton have been in full swing following the late-April collapse of Rana Plaza, a shoddily constructed building where sweatshop laborers toiled producing all the latest western fashions for export. The collapse took the lives of a shocking 1,127 workers, and still, Wal-Mart and Gap remain opposed to introducing broad agreements that would improve fire and safety regulations in factories, in fear of becoming entangled in legal liabilities; some corporations have refused to pay direct compensation to family members of the victims. Cost-benefit analysis yielded few benefits for the dead, unsurprisingly.

Tens of thousands of protesting Bangladeshi garment workers attempted to make their voices heard in the Ashulia industrial belt on the outskirts of the capital; worker’s demands for a fairer wage and safe working conditions were met with rubber bullets, stoking opposition and resentment to the ruling Awami League party, which is increasingly seen as a kleptocratic purveyor of the ‘Poverty Industrial Complex’ that promotes retail multinationals setting up shop in the dusty slums of Dhaka. Most garment workers make a miserable $38 per month, amounting to hourly wages between 17 and 26 cents. Anyone who has browsed the hangers of an H&M or Benetton knows that a single piece of merchandise can pay the monthly wage of a Bangladeshi worker two or three times over. Behind the slick marketing campaigns of these retail giants, and the well-oiled cleavage and abdomens on their billboards, it is impoverished brown people that bare the burden of vapid consumerism and globalization.

Injustice is stitched into every fiber of the shirts on our backs, and the consumer looking to offset this abuse is faced with few choices. Three millions workers are employed in Bangladesh’s garment industry, constituting about 80 percent of the country’s exports. In the face of massive boycotts or retail giants closing their operations, workers loose their jobs; if they come to work, they are exploited as 21st century slave labour. For the Bangladeshi worker and the Third World man, it is a lose-lose situation. As multinationals rush to damage control after every disaster that interrupts their miserable production lines half-a-world away, it is the retail giants themselves that perpetuate extreme low-wage systems that brutally suppress the collective action of workers aiming to improve their conditions. Wal-Mart, Calvin Klein, Tesco, and their like operate by seeking out the cheapest possible means of production available, often with no safety standards or regulatory oversight, made possible though the politics-business nexus agreeable to the Bangladeshi ruling class.

The Bangladeshi elite found themselves in several ‘Let them eat cake’ moments following the Rana incident; Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith remarked that the disaster wasn’t “really serious”. Sohel Rana, the owner of the Rana Plaza illegally extended the five-storey building to a total of eight storeys without proper consent from the authorities concerned, an act ignored due to Rana’s alleged political connections to the ruling Awami League. The public is now calling for Rana’s execution as reports surface that he ignored the warnings of engineers who examined the building and concluded that it was unsafe. Following the Rana Plaza incident, and the deadly fire at the Tazreen Fashions complex in November 2012, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina can’t help but look severely out of touch, as she claims that Bangladesh has good conditions for investment. The conditions she is referring to are only ‘good’ for investors and shareholders, reflecting a development orthodoxy that incentivizes global retailers to take advantage of lax safety standards and other sweatshop conditions.

Rising tides of Islamism

The opposition coalition, the Bangladesh National Party, has tightened alliances with hardcore Islamist groups, Jamaat-e-Islami, and its radical offshoot, Hefajat-e-Islam, presenting a notable challenge to the ruling Awami League in elections expected to be held by Janurary 2014. When Bangladesh isn’t making international headlines over industrial disasters, it is attracting worldwide attention for its controversial war crimes tribunal, which has charged leading members of the Jamaat-e-Islami with committing atrocities during the 1971 war for independence, and subsequent civil war. Activists who support the Jamaat-e-Islami party hurled stones and handmade bombs at security forces after verdicts condemning top party leaders to death by hanging were announced. Opposition supporters call this a politically motivated trial, and its easy to see why, several of the individuals charged on a list drafted by the Awami League were between 4 and 8 years old during the war in 1971, severely weakening the credibility of the charges against them.

Although the opposition may have legitimate grievances, they represent a backwards program that would role back the equal standing of women, make Islamic education mandatory, ban women from mixing with men, and essentially redress Bangladesh in the clothing of Wahhabism, a reactionary and medieval interpretation of Islam championed by Saudi Arabian missionaries throughout the developing world. In 2013, Jamaat demanded that the government pass a 13-point charter that would fundamentally dismantle the secular system promoted by the Awami League, met with pro-secular counter-protests calling the war crimes tribunal too lenient, and a ban on the Jamaat-e-Islami party. The Awami League is facing political pressure from opposing directions in a politically fragmented country, as one group of protesters call for a clamping down on fundamentalist groups, and the other accuses the government of manipulating the tribunal to ensure convictions of prominent opposition leaders.

The Islamists no doubt enjoy notable public support, as tens of thousands take part in mass rallies in support of their causes, putting Dhaka in regular deadlock. Hifazat-e-Islam, considered even more radical, is headquartered in Chittagong, a port city home to hundreds of madrassas that promote the Wahhabi worldview espoused by many of the militants and foreign jihadists active in Syria. The group calls for the introduction of a new blasphemy law that will execute ‘atheist’ bloggers whom they accuse of having insulted the Prophet Mohammed. The Bangladesh National Party’s coalition also includes an Islamist party, the Islamiya Okiyya Jote, which allegedly has connections to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. In the current climate of deepening religious and political polarization, the ruling party is carefully attempting to put across its pro-Islam credentials, which has resulted in the arrests of four atheist bloggers, but their efforts are ultimately seen as cosmetic to those pro-sharia Islamists who parrot painfully unoriginal political programs better suited to 14th century Arabia. The Awami League’s crackdown on dissent has alienated both secularists and Islamists, especially in the impoverished working classes.

Bangladesh’s slow morphing into a Caliphate promises uncertainty for the Hindu minority, who have been victimized by radicals that have burned down temples and destroyed deities, as well as the non-Islamist segments of the population who advocate greater modernity. Unfortunately for Bangladesh, both the ruling and opposition political forces fail to offer platforms that would significantly contribute to the furtherance of progressive measures to protect workers rights and advance the nation’s economic standing. In the run-up to the general elections, louder and angrier protests are in the cards, especially if Jamaat-e-Islami leaders are executed. The hawks of global retail have shed their crocodile tears and paid lip service to safety standards and pledges to enact across-the-board improvements as they did after the Tazreen fires, only to witness Bangladesh’s worst industrial disaster in the space of less than a year. Fortunately for global retailers, most people tend to forget these disasters in days, and little, if any, dent is made in their profit margins. Its no surprise that garment workers continue their protests despite heavy-handed police suppression, they have nothing to lose but their chains.

Nile Bowie is a Malaysia-based political analyst and a columnist with Russia Today. He also contributes to PressTV, Global Research, and CounterPunch. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.