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By James Petras

17 March, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

President Hugo Chavez was unique in multiple areas of political, social and economic life. He made significant contributions to the advancement of humanity. The depth, scope and popularity of his accomplishments mark President Chavez as the ‘Renaissance President of the 21st Century’.

Many writers have noted one or another of his historic contributions highlighting his anti-poverty legislation, his success in winning popular elections with resounding majorities and his promotion of universal free public education and health coverage for all Venezuelans.

In this essay we will highlight the unique world-historic contributions that President Chavez made in the spheres of political economy, ethics and international law and in redefining relations between political leaders and citizens. We shall start with his enduring contribution to the development of civic culture in Venezuela and beyond.

Hugo Chavez: The Great Teacher of Civic Values

From his first days in office, Chavez was engaged in transforming the constitutional order so that political leaders and institutions would be more responsive to the popular electorate. Through his speeches Chavez clearly and carefully informed the electorate of the measures and legislation to improve their livelihood. He invited comments and criticism – his style was to engage in constant dialogue, especially with the poor, the unemployed and the workers. Chavez was so successful in teaching civic responsibilities to the Venezuelan electorate that millions of citizens from the slums of Caracas rose up spontaneously to oust the US backed business-military junta which had kidnapped their president and closed the legislature. Within seventy-two hours – record time – the civic-minded citizens restored the democratic order and the rule of law in Venezuela, thoroughly rejecting the mass media’s defense of the coup-plotters and their brief authoritarian regime.

Chavez, as all great educators, learned from this democratic intervention of the mass of citizens, that democracy’s most effective defenders were to be found among the working people – and that its worst enemies were found in the business elites and military officials linked to Miami and Washington.

Chavez civic pedagogy emphasized the importance of the historical teachings and examples of founding fathers, like Simon Bolivar, in establishing a national and Latin American identity. His speeches raised the cultural level of millions of Venezuelans who had been raised in the alienating and servile culture of imperial Washington and the consumerist obsessions of Miami shopping malls.

Chavez succeeded in instilling a culture of solidarity and mutual support among the exploited, emphasizing ‘horizontal’ ties over vertical clientelistic dependency on the rich and powerful. His success in creating collective consciousness decisively shifted the balance of political power away from the wealthy rulers and corrupt political party and trade union leaders toward new socialist movements and class oriented trade unions. More than anything else Chavez’ political education of the popular majority regarding their social rights to free health care and higher education, living wages and full employment drew the hysterical ire of the wealthy Venezuelans and their undying hatred of a president who had created a sense of autonomy, dignity and ‘class empowerment’ through public education ending centuries of elite privilege and omnipotence.

Above all Chavez speeches, drawing as much from Bolivar as from Karl Marx, created a deep, generous sense of patriotism and nationalism and a profound rejection of a prostrate elite groveling before their Washington overlord, Wall Street bankers and oil company executives. Chavez’ anti-imperial speeches resonated because he spoke in the language of the people and expanded their national consciousness to identification with Latin America, especially Cuba’s fight against imperial interventions and wars.

International Relations: The Chavez Doctrine

At the beginning of the previous decade, after 9/11/01, Washington declared a ‘War on Terror.’ This was a public declaration of unilateral military intervention and wars against sovereign nations, movements and individuals deemed as adversaries, in violation of international law.

Almost all countries submitted to this flagrant violation of the Geneva Accords, except President Chavez, who made the most profound and simple refutation against Washington: ‘You don’t fight terrorism with state terrorism’. In his defense of the sovereignty of nations and international jurisprudence, Chavez underlined the importance of political and economic solutions to social problems and conflicts – repudiating the use of bombs, torture and mayhem. The Chavez Doctrine emphasized south-south trade and investments and diplomatic over military resolution of disputes. He upheld the Geneva Accords against colonial and imperial aggression while rejecting the imperial doctrine of ‘the war on terror’, defining western state terrorism as a pernicious equivalent to Al Qaeda terrorism.

Political Theory and Practice: The Grand Synthesizer

One of the most profound and influential aspects of Chavez’ legacy is his original synthesis of three grand strands of political thought: popular Christianity, Bolivarian nationalist and regional integration and Marxist political, social and economic thought. Chavez’ Christianity informed his deep belief in justice and the equality of people, as well as his generosity and forgiveness of adversaries even as they engaged in a violent coup, a crippling lockout, or openly collaborated and received financing from enemy intelligence agencies. Whereas anywhere else in the world, armed assaults against the state and coup d’états would result in long prison sentences or even executions, under Chavez most of his violent adversaries escaped prosecution and even rejoined their subversive organizations. Chavez demonstrated a deep belief in redemption and forgiveness. Chavez’s Christianity informed his ‘option for the poor’, the depth and breadth of his commitment to eradicating poverty and his solidarity with the poor against the rich.

Chavez deep-seated aversion and effective opposition to US and European imperialism and brutal Israeli colonialism were profoundly rooted in his reading of the writings and history of Simon Bolivar, the founding father of the Venezuelan nation. Bolivarian ideas on national liberation long preceded any exposure to Marx, Lenin or more contemporary leftist writings on imperialism. His powerful and unwavering support for regional integration and internationalism was deeply influenced by Simon Bolivar’s proposed ‘United States of Latin America’ and his internationalist activity in support of anti-colonial movements.

Chavez’ incorporation of Marxist ideas into his world view was adapted to his longstanding popular Christian and Bolivarian internationalist philosophy. Chavez’ option for the poor was deepened by his recognition of the centrality of the class struggle and the reconstruction of the Bolivarian nation through the socialization of the ‘commanding heights of the economy’. The socialist concept of self-managed factories and popular empowerment via community councils was given moral legitimacy by Chavez’ Christian faith in an egalitarian moral order.

While Chavez was respectful and carefully listened to the views of visiting leftist academics and frequently praised their writings, many failed to recognize or, worse, deliberately ignored the President’s own more original synthesis of history, religion and Marxism. Unfortunately, as is frequently the case, some leftist academics have, in their self-indulgent posturing, presumed to be Chavez’ ‘teacher’ and advisor on all matters of ‘Marxist theory’: This represents a style of leftist cultural colonialism, which snidely criticized Chavez for not following their ready-made prescriptions, published in their political literary journals in London, New York and Paris.

Fortunately, Chavez took what was useful from the overseas academics and NGO-funded political strategists while discarding ideas that failed to take account of the cultural-historical, class and rentier specificities of Venezuela.

Chavez has bequeathed to the intellectuals and activists of the world a method of thinking which is global and specific, historical and theoretical, material and ethical and which encompasses class analysis, democracy and a spiritual transcendence resonating with the great mass of humanity in a language every person can understand. Chavez’ philosophy and practice (more than any ‘discourse’ narrated by the social forum-hopping experts) demonstrated that the art of formulating complex ideas in simple language can move millions of people to ‘make history, and not only to study it’..

Toward Practical Alternatives to Neoliberalism and Imperialism

Perhaps Chavez greatest contribution in the contemporary period was to demonstrate, through practical measures and political initiatives, that many of the most challenging contemporary political and economic problems can be successfully resolved.

Radical Reform of a Rentier State

Nothing is more difficult than changing the social structure, institutions and attitudes of a rentier petro-state, with deeply entrenched clientelistic politics, endemic party-state corruption and a deeply-rooted mass psychology based on consumerism. Yet Chavez largely succeeded where other petro-regimes failed. The Chavez Administration first began with constitutional and institutional changes to create a new political framework; then he implemented social impact programs, which deepened political commitments among an active majority, which, in turn, bravely defended the regime from a violent US backed business-military coup d’état. Mass mobilization and popular support, in turn, radicalized the Chavez government and made way for a deeper socialization of the economy and the implementation of radical agrarian reform. The petrol industry was socialized; royalty and tax payments were raised to provide funds for massively expanded social expenditures benefiting the majority of Venezuelans.

Almost every day Chavez prepared clearly understandable educational speeches on social, ethical and political topics related to his regime’s redistributive policies by emphasizing social solidarity over individualistic acquisitive consumerism. Mass organizations and community and trade union movements flourished – a new social consciousness emerged ready and willing to advance social change and confront the wealthy and powerful. Chavez’ defeat of the US-backed coup and bosses’ lockout and his affirmation of the Bolivarian tradition and sovereign identity of Venezuela created a powerful nationalist consciousness which eroded the rentier mentality and strengthened the pursuit of a diversified ‘balanced economy’. This new political will and national productive consciousness was a great leap forward, even as the main features of a rentier-oil dependent economy persist. This extremely difficult transition has begun and is an ongoing process. Overseas leftist theorists, who criticize Venezuela (‘corruption’, ‘bureaucracy’) have profoundly ignored the enormous difficulties of transitioning from a rentier state to a socialized economy and the enormous progress achieved by Chavez.

Economic Crisis Without Capitalist Austerity

Throughout the crisis-wracked capitalist world, ruling labor, social democratic, liberal and conservative regimes have imposed regressive ‘austerity programs’ involving brutal reductions of social welfare, health and education expenditures and mass layoffs of workers and employees while handing our generous state subsidies and bailouts to failing banks and capitalist enterprises. Chanting their Thacherite slogan, ‘there is no alternative’, capitalist economists justify imposing the burden of ‘capitalist recovery’ onto the working class while allowing capital to recover its profits in order to invest.

Chavez’ policy was the direct opposite: In the midst of crisis, he retained all the social programs, rejected mass firings and increased social spending. The Venezuelan economy rode out of the worldwide crisis and recovered with a healthy 5.8% growth rate in 2012. In other words, Chavez demonstrated that mass impoverishment was a product of the specific capitalist ‘formula’ for recovery. He showed another, positive alternative approach to economic crisis, which taxed the rich, promoted public investments and maintained social expenditures.

Social Transformation in a ‘Globalized Economy’

Many commentators, left, right and center, have argued that the advent of a ‘globalized economy’ ruled out a radical social transformation. Yet Venezuela, which is profoundly globalized and integrated into the world market via trade and investments, has made major advances in social reform. What really matters in relation to a globalized economy is the nature of the political economic regime and its policies, which dictate how the gains and costs of international trade and investment are distributed. In a word, what is decisive is the ‘class character of the regime’ managing its place in the world economy. Chavez certainly did not ‘de-link’ from the world economy; rather he has re-linked Venezuela in a new way. He shifted Venezuelan trade and investment toward Latin America, Asia and the Middle East — especially to countries which do not intervene or impose reactionary conditions on economic transactions.

Anti-Imperialism in a Time of an Imperialist Offensive

In a time of a virulent US—EU imperialist offensive involving ‘pre-emptive’ military invasions, mercenary interventions, torture, assassinations and drone warfare in Iraq, Mali, Syria, Yemen, Libya, and Afghanistan and brutal economic sanctions and sabotage against Iran; Israeli colonial expulsions of thousands of Palestinians financed by the US; US-backed military coups in Honduras and Paraguay and aborted revolutions via puppets in Egypt and Tunisia, President Chavez, alone, stood as the principled defender of anti-imperialist politics. Chavez deep commitment to anti-imperialism stands in marked contrast to the capitulation of Western self-styled ‘Marxist’ intellectuals who mouthed crude justifications for their support of NATO bombing Yugoslavia and Libya, the French invasion of Mali and the Saudi-French (‘Monarcho-Socialist’) funding and arming of Islamist mercenaries against Syria. These same London, New York and Paris-based ‘intellectuals’ who patronized Chavez as a mere ‘populist’ or ‘nationalist’ and claimed he should have listened to their lectures and read their books, had crassly capitulated under the pressure of the capitalist state and mass media into supporting ‘humanitarian interventions’ (aka NATO bombing)… and justified their opportunism in the language of obscure leftists sects. Chavez confronted NATO pressures and threats, as well as the destabilizing subversion of his domestic opponents and courageously articulated the most profound and significant principles of 20th and 21st Marxism: the inviolate right to self-determination of oppressed nations and unconditional opposition to imperial wars. While Chavez spoke and acted in defense of anti-imperialist principles, many in the European and US left acquiesced in imperial wars: There were virtually no mass protests, the ‘anti-war’ movements were co-opted or moribund, the British ‘Socialist’ Workers Party defended the massive NATO bombing of Libya, the French ‘Socialists’ invaded Mali- with the support of the ‘Anti-Capitalist’ Party. Meanwhile, the ‘populist’ Chavez had articulated a far more profound and principled understanding of Marxist practice, certainly than his self-appointed overseas Marxist ‘tutors’.

No other political leader or for that matter, leftist academic, developed, deepened and extended the central tenets of anti-imperialist politics in the era of global imperialist warfare with greater acuity than Hugo Chavez.

Transition from a Failed Neo-Liberal to a Dynamic Welfare State

Chavez’ programmatic and comprehensive reconfiguration of Venezuela from a disastrous and failed neo-liberal regime to a dynamic welfare state stands as a landmark in 20th and 21st century political economy. Chavez’ successful reversal of neo-liberal institutions and policies, as well as his re-nationalization of the ‘commanding heights of the economy’ demolished the reigning neo-liberal dogma derived from the Thatcher-Reagan era enshrined in the slogan: ‘There is no alternative’ to brutal neo-liberal policies, or TINA.

Chavez rejected privatization – he re-nationalized key oil related industries, socialized hundreds of capitalist firms and carried out a vast agrarian reform program, including land distribution to 300,000 families. He encouraged trade union organizations and worker control of factories – even bucking public managers and even his own cabinet ministers. In Latin America, Chavez led the way in defining with greater depth and with more comprehensive social changes, the post neo-liberal era. Chavez envisioned the transition from neo-liberalism to a new socialized welfare state as an international process and provided financing and political support for new regional organizations like ALBA, PetroCaribe, and UNASUR. He rejected the idea of building a welfare state in one country and formulated a theory of post-neo-liberal transitions based on international solidarity. Chavez’ original ideas and policies regarding the post-neo-liberal transition escaped the armchair Marxists and the globetrotting Social Forum NGO pundits whose inconsequential ‘global alternatives’ succeeded primarily in securing imperial foundation funding.

Chavez demonstrated through theory and practice that neo-liberalism was indeed reversible – a major political breakthrough of the 21st century.

Beyond Social Liberalism: The Radical Definition of Post-Neo-Liberalism

The US-EU promoted neo-liberal regimes have collapsed under the weight of the deepest economic crisis since the Great Depression. Massive unemployment led to popular uprisings, new elections and the advent of center-left regimes in most of Latin America, which rejected or at least claimed to repudiate ‘neo-liberalism’. Most of these regimes promulgated legislation and executive directives to fund poverty programs, implement financial controls and make productive investments, while raising minimum wages and stimulating employment. However few lucrative enterprises were actually re-nationalized. Addressing inequalities and the concentration of wealth were not part of their agenda. They formulated their strategy of working with Wall Street investors, local agro-mineral exporters and co-opted trade unions.

Chavez posed a profoundly different alternative to this form of ‘post-neoliberalism’. He nationalized resource industries, excluded Wall Street speculators and limited the role of the agro-mineral elites. He posed a socialized welfare state as an alternative to the reigning social-liberal orthodoxy of the center-left regimes, even as he worked with these regimes in promoting Latin American integration and opposing US backed coups.

Chavez was both a leader defining a more socialized alternative to social liberation and the conscience pressuring his allies to advance further.

Socialism and Democracy

Chavez opened a new and extraordinarily original and complex path to socialism based on free elections, re-educating the military to uphold democratic and constitutional principals, and the development of mass and community media. He ended the capitalist mass media monopolies and strengthened civil society as a counter-weight to US-sponsored para-military and fifth column elites intent on destabilizing the democratic state.

No other democratic-socialist president had successfully resisted imperial destabilization campaigns – neither Jagan in Guyana, Manley in Jamaica, nor Allende in Chile. From the very outset Chavez saw the importance of creating a solid legal-political framework to facilitate executive leadership, promote popular civil society organizations and end US penetration of the state apparatus (military and police). Chavez implemented radical social impact programs that ensured the loyalty and active allegiance of popular majorities and weakened the economic levers of political power long held by the capitalist class. As a result Venezuela’s political leaders, soldiers and officers loyal to its constitution and the popular masses crushed a bloody right-wing coup, a crippling bosses’ lockout and a US-financed referendum and proceeded to implement further radical socio-economic reforms in a prolonged process of cumulative socialization.

Chavez’s originality, in part the result of trial and error, was his ‘experimental method’: His profound understanding and response to popular attitudes and behavior was deeply rooted in Venezuela’s history of racial and class injustice and popular rebelliousness. More than any previous socialist leader, Chavez traveled, spoke and listened to Venezuela’s popular classes on questions of everyday life. His ‘method’ was to translate micro based knowledge into macro programed changes. In practice he was the anti-thesis of the overseas and local intellectual know-it-alls who literally spoke down to the people and who saw themselves as the ‘masters of the world’ …at least, in the micro-world of left academia, ingrown socialist conferences and self-centered monologues. The death of Hugo Chavez was profoundly mourned by millions in Venezuela and hundreds of million around the world because his transition to socialism was their path; he listened to their demands and he acted upon them effectively.

Social Democracy and National Security

Chavez was a socialist president for over 13 years in the face of large-scale, long-term violent opposition and financial sabotage from Washington, the local economic elite and mass media moguls. Chavez created the political consciousness that motivated millions of workers and secured the constitutional loyalty of the military to defeat a bloody US-backed business-military coup in 2002. Chavez tempered social changes in accordance with a realistic assessment of what the political and legal order could support. First and foremost, Chavez secured the loyalty of the military by ending US ‘advisory’ missions and overseas imperial indoctrination while substituting intensive courses on Venezuelan history, civic responsibility and the critical link between the popular classes and the military in a common national mission..

Chavez’ national security policies were based on democratic principles as well as a clear recognition of the serious threats to Venezuelan sovereignty. He successfully safeguarded both national security and the democratic rights and political freedoms of its citizens, a feat which has earned Venezuela the admiration and envy of constitutional lawyers and citizens of the US and the EU.

In stark contrast, US President Obama has assumed the power to assassinate US citizens based on secret information and without trial both in and out of the US. His Administration has murdered ‘targeted’ US citizens and their children, jailed others without trial and maintains secret ‘files’ on over 40 million Americans. Chavez never assumed those powers and never assassinated or tortured a single Venezuelan. In Venezuela, the dozen or so prisoners convicted of violent acts of subversion after open trials in Venezuelan courts, stand in sharp contrast to the tens of thousands of jailed and secretly framed Muslims and Latin American immigrants in the US. Chavez rejected state terror; while Obama has special assassination teams on the ground in over 70 countries. Obama supports arbitrary police invasions of ‘suspect’ homes and workplaces based on ‘secret evidence’ while. Chavez even tolerated the activities of known foreign (CIA)-funded opposition parties. In a word, Obama uses ‘national security’ to destroy democratic freedoms while Chavez upheld democratic freedoms and imposed constitutional limits on the national security apparatus.

Chavez sought peaceful diplomatic resolution of conflicts with hostile neighbors, such as Colombia which hosts seven US military bases – potential springboards for US intervention. On the other hand, Obama has engaged in open war with at least seven countries and has been pursuing covert hostile action against dozens of others.

Conclusion

Chavez’s legacy is multi-faceted. His contributions are original, theoretical and practical and universally relevant. He demonstrated in ‘theory and practice’ how a small country can defend itself against imperialism, maintain democratic principles and implement advanced social programs. His pursuit of regional integration and promotion of ethical standards in the governance of a nation – provide examples profoundly relevant in a capitalist world awash in corrupt politicians slashing living standards while enriching the plutocrats.

Chavez’ rejection of the Bush-Obama doctrine of using ‘state terror to fight terror’, his affirmation that the roots of violence are social injustice, economic pillage and political oppression and his belief that resolving these underlying issues is the road to peace, stands as the ethical-political guide for humanity’s survival.

Faced with a violent world of imperial counter-revolution, and resolved to stand with the oppressed of the world, Hugo Chavez enters world history as a complete political leader, with the stature of the most humane and multi-faceted leader of our epoch: the Renaissance figure for the 21st century.

James Petras a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York, owns a 50-year membership in the class struggle, is an adviser to the landless and jobless in Brazil and Argentina, and is co-author of Globalization Unmasked (Zed Books).

If the US stops Genie Energy from going ahead with oil contract, it invites the wrath of myriad pro-Israel groups.

Even as it plans to illegally drill for oil in the occupied Golan Heights, “Israel appears to have its eye on the occupied West Bank oil”, according to a classified Foreign Office correspondence [Reuters]

The schedule for President Barack Obama’s first visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories next week has just been released and it is no surprise that the occupied Syrian Golan Heights is not on his travel agenda.

And yet Israel put it on the international agenda less than a month ago with its award of a licence to a US energy firm to explore for oil in the Golan Heights. Oil drilling by the New Jersey-based Genie Energy Ltd in the occupied Golan Heights could well result in a lawsuit claiming that Israel is engaged in an illegal act of pillage as defined in the Hague Convention. Perhaps Israel is now so used to living off the fat of other people’s land – Palestinian and Syrian soil and water, among other resources – it has seemingly thrown caution to the wind.

The award puts the US on the spot. If the Obama administration tries to stop Genie from going ahead with the contract, it invites the wrath of myriad pro-Israel groups and their neocon allies, whose strength was most recently on display in the battle to confirm Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense.

And if the administration ignores the oil deal, it leaves US corporations exposed to potential lawsuits for profiteering from Israel’s violations of human rights and international law.

An additional worry for the Obama administration is the cast of characters involved in Genie Energy. The company is headed by former Israeli minister of infrastructure Effie Eitam, who lives in one of the illegal settlements on the Golan Heights, and includes former vice president Dick Cheney as an adviser and Rupert Murdoch as a shareholder.

Of course, Israel thinks it can get away with it. It has violated international law with impunity since it prevented the Palestinian refugees’ return, annexed East Jerusalem, and extended Israeli law to the Golan Heights, among other transgressions. Moreover, although Israel’s settlement building in the territories is regularly condemned, international sanctions have yet to be imposed.

In fact, the US, the European Union and other donor nations effectively subsidise Israel’s exploitation of Palestinian resources. Their aid to the Palestinian Authority enables Israel to get on with its colonisation at little or no cost to its budget, and to make a handsome profit from the Golan-based wine industry, beauty products from the Dead Sea, and other natural resources. This ignores the limitations on such exploitation of occupied territory clearly set out in the Annex to the Fourth Geneva Convention and widely recognised as applying to the territories occupied in 1967.

Follow the latest developments in the ongoing conflict

A further irony is that Israel makes donor aid necessary by blocking sovereign Palestinian development of their own resources, especially water, but also others such as the potentially lucrative gas field off the Gaza Strip.

Furthermore, even as it plans to illegally drill for oil in the occupied Golan Heights, Israel appears to have its eye on the occupied West Bank’s oil, as revealed by classified Foreign Office correspondence obtained through the United Kingdom’s Freedom of Information Act. As one staffer in Jerusalem wrote, it was “hard enough” to justify to British taxpayers “spending 100 million pounds a year on an economy that would be self-sufficient if able to exploit its own natural resources. Harder still if those resources included oil”.

However, the tide is turning though perhaps too slowly for Israel to notice. EU member states are increasingly nervous about their implication in international law violations. For example, some EU states have been labelling settlement goods as coming from occupied territory. Most recently, EU consuls general in East Jerusalem and Ramallah issued an unprecedented report recommending sanctions on bodies involved in construction in Israeli settlements and much stricter application of the EU-Israel free trade agreement.

These recommendations have yet to be translated into policy, but the EU consuls’ report has pushed the “S” in BDS – the Palestinian-led campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel’s violations of international law – further into the mainstream.

Israel’s drilling award is certainly a gift to the global BDS movement, which has scored many successes against companies doing business in the Palestinian territories. So far, campaigns on the Golan Heights have largely focused on Eden Springs water and Golan wines with good results. A US company breaking international law in the Golan Heights would be an obvious target.

The oil contract will also spotlight the racism of a growing number of Israelis toward Palestinians. Genie Energy’s Eitam provides particularly rich fodder. In a 2006 interview, he called for most Palestinians to be expelled from the occupied territories and for Palestinian citizens of Israel to be removed “from the political system”.

Israel may be betting that the international community’s preoccupation with Syria will not extend to the Syrian Golan Heights and that it will get away with it again. But it would do well to remember that even slow grinding wheels can produce justice.

Nadia Hijab is Director of Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network.

By Countercurrents.org

15 March 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

The number of people living in extreme poverty could increase by up to 3 billion by 2050 unless urgent action is taken to tackle environmental challenges, a major UN report warned on March 14, 2013. Claire Provost reported [1]:

The 2013 Human Development Report hails better than expected progress on health, wealth and education in dozens of developing countries but says inaction on climate change, deforestation, and air and water pollution could end gains in the poorest countries and communities.

“Environmental threats are among the most grave impediments to lifting human development … The longer action is delayed, the higher the cost will be,” warns the report, which builds on the 2011 edition looking at sustainable development.

“Environmental inaction, especially regarding climate change, has the potential to halt or even reverse human development progress. The number of people in extreme poverty could increase by up to 3 billion by 2050 unless environmental disasters are averted by co-ordinated global action,” said the UNDP.

“Far more attention needs to be paid to the impact human beings are having on the environment. Climate change is already exacerbating chronic environmental threats, and ecosystem losses are constraining livelihood opportunities, especially for poor people. A clean and safe environment should be seen as a right, not a privilege.”

The proportion of people living under $1.25 a day is estimated to have fallen from 43% in 1990 to 22% in 2008, driven in part by significant progress in China. As a result, the World Bank last year said the millennium development goal to halve the proportion of people living in extreme poverty by 2015 had been met ahead of schedule.

The report says more than 40 countries have done better than previously expected on the UN’s human development index (HDI), which combines measures of health, wealth and education, with gains accelerating over the past decade.

Norway and Australia are highest in this year’s HDI, while the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Niger are ranked lowest.

Some of the largest countries – including Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, South Africa and Turkey – have made the most rapid advances, it says, but there has also been substantial progress in smaller economies, such as Bangladesh, Chile, Ghana, Mauritius, Rwanda and Tunisia.

This has prompted significant rethinking on routes to progress, says the report: “The south as a whole is driving global economic growth and societal change for the first time in centuries.”

The report points to cash-transfer programs in Brazil, India and Mexico as examples of where developing countries have pioneered policies for advancing human development, noting how these efforts have helped narrow income gaps and improve the health and education prospects of poor communities. The presence of proactive “developmental states”, which seek to take strategic advantage of world trade opportunities but also invest heavily in health, education and other critical services, emerges as a key trend.

The rise of China and India, which doubled their per capita economic output in fewer than 20 years, has driven an epochal “global rebalancing”, argues the report, bringing about greater change and lifting far more people out of poverty than the Industrial Revolution that transformed Europe and North America in the 18th and 19th centuries. “The Industrial Revolution was a story of perhaps 100 million people, but this is a story about billions of people,” said Khalid Malik, lead author of the report.

The report singles out “short-sighted austerity measures”, inaction in the face of stark social inequalities, and the lack of opportunities for citizen participation as critical threats to progress – both in developing countries and in European and North American industrial powers. “Social policy is at least as important as economic policy,” Malik told the Guardian. “People think normally you’re too poor to afford these things. But our argument is you’re too poor not to.”

He said more representative global institutions are needed to tackle shared global challenges. China, with the world’s second largest economy and biggest foreign exchange reserves, has only a 3.3% share in the World Bank, notes the report, less than France’s 4.3%. Africa, with a billion people in 54 nations, is under-represented in almost all international institutions. “If institutions are not seen as legitimate, people don’t play, or don’t play nice,” Malik said.

Developing countries now hold two-thirds of the world’s $10.2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, including more than $3tn in China alone, and nearly three-quarters of the $4.3tn in assets controlled by sovereign wealth funds worldwide, notes the report, adding: “Even a small share of these vast sums could have a swift measurable impact on global poverty and human development.”

An AFP report said:

China and India doubled their per capita economic output in less than 20 years, a rate twice as fast as Europe and North America experienced during the Industrial Revolution.

The proportion of people living in extreme poverty worldwide fell from 43 percent in 1990 to 22 percent in 2008, with more than 500,000 million people rising above the poverty line in China alone.

The Rise of the South

A release by the UNDP said [2]:

The UNDP report – “The Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World” was launched on March 14, 2013 in Mexico City by President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico and UNDP Administrator Helen Clark. The report examines the profound shift in global dynamics driven by the fast-rising new powers of the developing world and its long-term implications for human development.

China has already overtaken Japan as the worlds second biggest economy while lifting hundreds of millions of its people out of poverty. India is reshaping its future with new entrepreneurial creativity and social policy innovation. Brazil is lifting its living standards through expanding international relationships and antipoverty programs that are emulated worldwide.

But the “Rise of the South” analyzed in the report is a much larger phenomenon: Turkey, Mexico, Thailand, South Africa, Indonesia and many other developing nations are also becoming leading actors on the world stage.

The report identifies more than 40 countries in the developing world that have done better than had been expected in human development terms in recent decades, with their progress accelerating markedly over the past ten years.

The UNDP report analyzes the causes and consequences of these countries achievements and the challenges that they face today and in the coming decades.

Each of these countries has its own unique history and has chosen its own distinct development pathway. Yet they share important characteristics and face many of the same challenges. They are also increasingly interconnected and interdependent. And people throughout the developing world are increasingly demanding to be heard, as they share ideas through new communications channels and seek greater accountability from governments and international institutions.

The report identifies policies rooted in this new global reality that could promote greater progress throughout the world for decades to come.

The report calls for far better representation of the South in global governance systems and points to potential new sources of financing within the South for essential public goods. With fresh analytical insights and clear proposals for policy reforms, the Report helps chart a course for people in all regions to face shared human development challenges together, fairly and effectively.

Failure to fight climate crisis could reverse developing countries’ gains in cutting poverty, says UNDP

The rise of developing nations has cut poverty while the combined economies of Brazil, China and India are on a path to overtake wealthy nations, but failure to act on climate change could reverse those gains, said the latest edition of Human Development Report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on March 14, 2013 [3].

Developing nations are now driving economic growth, helping to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and bringing billions more into a new middle class, said the report.

The report sees a “dramatic rebalancing of global economic power” and forecasts that the combined economic output of Brazil, China and India will surpass the aggregate production of the US, Canada, Britain, France, Germany and Italy by 2020. “The rise of the South is unprecedented in its speed and scale,” the report said.

“Never in history have the living conditions and prospects of so many people changed so dramatically and so fast,” said the report presented in Mexico City.

But the South faces similar long-term challenges as the leading industrialized nations, from an aging population to environmental pressures and social inequalities. Lack of action against climate change could even halt or reverse human development progress in the world’s poorest countries, pushing up to three billion people into extreme poverty by 2050 unless environmental disasters are prevented, the report said.

Irreversible melting of the Canadian glaciers

At the same time, Geophysical Research Letters study said ice melt in Canada’s glaciers would be irreversible for the foreseeable future.

Raveena Aulakh reported [4]:

Canada’s glaciers are heading for a likely irreversible melt that will push up sea levels, a new study shows.

As much as 20 percent of glacier ice in the Canadian Arctic could vanish by the end of this century; it would add 3.5 centimeters to sea levels.

“We believe the mass loss is irreversible in the foreseeable future,” wrote authors of the study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

The Canadian Arctic is the world’s third largest store of glacier ice after Greenland and Antarctica — about 155,000 square kilometers of ice spread across 36,000 islands.

Using computer models, scientists in Netherlands and the U.S. demonstrated how glaciers would respond to future climate change: they say it is “highly likely” the ice is going to melt at an alarming rate even if global warming slows down.

The projection of a 20 percent loss is based on a scenario in which world temperatures will rise by 3C this century and by 8C in the Canadian Arctic due to global warming. It is consistent with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s projections.

The scientists calculated that by 2100, when the Arctic is eight degrees Celsius warmer, the rate of ice loss will be a whopping 144 gigatons per year, up from the present rate of 92 gigatons. One gigaton is one billion metric tonnes.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) summer melts on the Arctic ice sheet have recently been breaking records and once the glaciers are gone, they are unlikely to make a comeback.

A complete melt of the glaciers would take many centuries but climate change is warming the Arctic faster than the global average.

In September 2012, scientists revealed that sea ice in the Arctic had shrunk to its smallest extent ever recorded. Frozen sea had decreased to about 3.5 million square kilometers — less than half what it was just four decades ago.

Glaciers in the Canadian Arctic are not studied as much as the ice in Alaska and Russia.

“Most attention goes out to Greenland and Antarctica which is understandable because they are the two largest ice bodies in the world,” Michiel van den Broeke, a co-author of the study at Utrecht University, told Reuters.

Canadian ice should also be included in calculations, he said.

Observations from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites show that this massive sheet of ice shed approximately 580 gigatons.

Japan’s action plan on climate crisis

Chisaki Watanabe reported [5]:

Japan plans to compile an action program to tackle climate change with a new greenhouse gas emissions target.

The government aims to put together the action plan before U.N. climate talks to be held in Poland in November, Kentaro Doi, an official at the Ministry of the Environment in charge of climate change, said on March 15, 2013.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government, which took power in late December, is currently reviewing energy and climate change policy.

A statement said, the new action plan will map out measures to achieve a new emissions target.

UNDP praises Cuba’s climate action initiatives

A Havana datelined Xinhua report carried by chinadaily.com [6] said:

Cuba was among the world’s best prepared countries to meet the challenges of climate change, Grisel Acosta, regional representative of the UNDP said on March 14, 2013.

Speaking to local reporters, Acosta said Cuba had implemented climate change programs in various sectors and periodically evaluated their progress.

Acosta praised Cuba’s conservation program, where biodiversity is preserved through people’s interaction with their environment.

The conservation mechanisms are essential to addressing coastal flooding, rising sea levels, increased rainfall, damage to mangrove swamp ecosystems, beaches and coral reefs, as well as general environmental vulnerability.

To mitigate the impact of climate change and natural disasters, Cuba has in place 15 projects, starting at the local level, related to the integral management of coastal zones.

Cuban researchers have found climate change may increase desertification and diminish water supplies on the Caribbean island. It might also push Cuba’s southern coastline inland by 7 kms, which would affect coastal communities, pollute freshwater sources and decrease or even wipe out certain species and wetlands.

Source:

[1] guardian.co.uk, March 14 2013, “Environmental threats could push billions into extreme poverty, warns UN”,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2013/mar/14/environmental-threats-extreme-poverty-un

[2] http://hdr.undp.org/en/mediacentre/humandevelopmentreportpresskits/2013report/

[3] An AFP report carried by THE RAW STORY, March 14, 2013, “United Nations: Developing countries imperiled by climate change”,

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/03/14/united-nations-developing-countries-imperiled-by-climate-change/

[4] thestar.com, March 14 2013, “Canadian glacier ice melt will push up sea levels: Study”,

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/03/14

/canadian_glacier_ice_melt_will_push_up_sea_levels_study.html

[5] March 15, 2013 “Japan to Compile Climate Change Action Plan With Emission Target”,

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-15/japan-to-compile-climate-change-action-plan-with-emission-target.html

[6] 2013-03-15, “UNDP praises Cuba’s climate change program”,

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2013-03/15/content_16311154.htm

By Countercurrents.org

15 March, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

More than half of Britons believe Tony Blair was wrong to invade Iraq, while 22% tell he should be tried as a war criminal. A poll conducted to mark the 10th anniversary of the war finds[1].

Richard Norton-Taylor reported:

A majority (56%) of the public believe the war has increased the risk of a terrorist attack on Britain. More than half, (53%), of those questioned think the invasion was wrong, while just over a quarter (27%) think it was right, according to the YouGov survey.

The poll registered a marked gender difference, with almost a third (32%) of men approving the invasion compared with less than a quarter (23%) of women.

Half of those questioned said they believed Blair deliberately set out to mislead the British public about the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Less than a third (31%) say he genuinely believed Saddam Hussein possessed a stockpile of WMD.

More than a fifth (22%) believes Blair knowingly misled parliament and the public and should be tried as a war criminal over the conflict, according to the poll. The figure compares with almost three in 10 (29%) who say he was right to warn of dangers of the Hussein regime, 18% who think he misled people but we should move on and 15% who believe he did not intend to give false information about the threat.

The poll records that a decade after the invasion 41% thinks Iraqis are better off than they would have been under Hussein, and just over a fifth (21%) believe the Iraqis would have been better off under the dictator. However, more than seven in 10n (71%) say Iraq is likely to be a permanently unstable country over the next few years.

In 2010, as the Chilcot inquiry was under way, hearing highly critical evidence about how Britain went to war, 37% thought Blair should be tried for war crimes, according to a ComRes poll at the time.

At the time of the invasion, 53% of those polled said they believed military action against Iraq was right.

The cost of Iraq War could be higher

A report [2] said:

The US war in Iraq has cost $1.7 trillion (£1.1tn) with an extra $490 billion in benefits owed to war veterans, expenses that could grow to more than $6tn (£4tn) over the next four decades with interest, a new study has found.

The war killed at least 134,000 Iraqi civilians and may have led to the deaths of four times that number, said the Costs of War Project by the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University, ahead of the tenth anniversary of the US-led invasion on March 19.

Cost of the war

An AFP report carried by Khaleej Times said [3]:

At least 116,000 Iraqi civilians and more than 4,800 coalition troops died in Iraq between the outbreak of war in 2003 and the US withdrawal in 2011, researchers estimated on March 15, 2013.

Its involvement in Iraq has so far cost the US $810 billion (625 billion euros) and could eventually reach $3 trillion, they added.

The estimates come from two US professors of public health, reporting in the British peer-reviewed journal The Lancet.

They base the figures on published studies in journals and on reports by government agencies, international organizations and news media.

The paper is authored by Barry Levy of Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston and Victor Sidel of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.

It appears in a package of investigations into the health consequences of the Iraq War, published by The Lancet to mark the 10th anniversary of the start of the conflict.

‘We conclude that at least 116,903 Iraqi non-combatants and more than 4,800 coalition military personnel died over the eight-year course’ of the war from 2003 to 2011, they said. ‘Many Iraqi civilians were injured or became ill because of damage to the health-supporting infrastructure of the country, and about five million were displaced.

‘More than 31,000 US military personnel were injured and a substantial percentage of those deployed suffered post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, and other neuropsychological disorders and their concomitant psychosocial problems.’

Citing figures from the website costofwar.com, which looks at funding allocated by Congress, the study said that as of January 15 this year, the Iraq War had cost the United States about $810 billion, ‘not including interest on debt.’ ‘The ultimate cost of the war to the USA could be $3 trillion,’ it said.

‘Clearly, this money could have been spent instead on domestic and global programs to improve health. The diversion of human resources was also substantial, in Iraq, the USA, and other coalition countries.’

In 2006, estimates by researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, also published in The Lancet, said 655,000 people had died in the first 40 months of the war. That figure was widely contested.

In 2008, a study by the Iraqi government and World Health Organisation (WHO), published in The New England Journal of Medicine, said between 104,000 and 223,000 Iraqis had died violent deaths between March 2003 and June 2006.

Those figures were based on home visits to around 1,000 neighborhoods across the country.

Source:

[1] guardian.co.uk, March 14, 2013, “53% of Britons think Iraq invasion was wrong, poll shows”,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/14/britons-iraq-invasion-wrong-poll

[2] scotsman.com, March 15, 2013, “Iraq war could cost US $6tn”,

http://www.scotsman.com/news/international/iraq-war-could-cost-us-6tn-1-2838892

[3] March 15, 2013, “Iraq war killed 120,000, cost $800 billion”,

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/displayarticle.asp?xfile=

data/middleeast/2013/March/middleeast_March181.xml&section=middleeast&col

By Vilani Peiris & Sarath Kumara

15 March, 2013

@ WSWS.org

Amid US threats to impose sanctions on his country, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari joined Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a ceremony breaking ground on construction of the Pakistani portion of a planned Iran-Pakistan pipeline on Monday.

With national elections due in May, Zardari and his ruling Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) will seek to gain electoral advantage by using the pipeline to posture as being independent from Washington. Iran sees the project as a way to counter the crippling economic sanctions the US has imposed on it, based on unsubstantiated allegations that Iran is developing nuclear weapons.

Pakistan faces a shortfall of 2 billion cubic of natural gas feet per day and a serious energy crisis, which has seen mass electricity riots in Lahore and other cities. Pakistan is in the dark for up to six hours a day—resulting in the loss of export revenue, the closure of tens of thousands of factories, and the loss of millions of jobs.

The reactivation of the much-delayed US$7.5 billion gas pipeline project was agreed when Zardari visited Iran in late February. Iran has almost finished its 900-kilometre portion of the pipeline. Pakistan now has to lay around 750 kilometres of pipeline. If completed, the pipeline could transport over 21.5 million cubic metres daily from Iran’s South Pars gas field.

Iran will provide $500 million of the $1.5 billion cost of building the pipeline inside Pakistan, which has to come up with the rest of the funds.

At the ceremony held in Iranian border city of Chabahar, the Pakistani president declared the project was “very important” and stated it was not against any other country, the Dawn reported. His remarks seemed to be a signal to allay US concerns.

In an apparent jab at Washington, Ahmadinejad declared that the “gas pipeline is a sign of show of resistance against domination.”

On Monday US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland threatened that “if this project actually goes forward, that the Iran Sanctions Act would be triggered.” However, she expressed doubts about whether it would actually materialize: “We’ve heard this pipeline announced about 10 or 15 times before in the past.”

The BBC wrote that Washington sees “a good measure of domestic Pakistan politics in all of this—elections are looming—and it may be for a future government in Islamabad to face the moment of truth: either to risk US sanctions by switching the gas on or to risk domestic criticism by being seen to cave in to US pressure.”

There are some indications that Washington believes it can more effectively torpedo the project by helping Pakistan find other sources of gas. To quash plans of an Iran-Pakistan pipeline, Washington has repeatedly proposed an alternative pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan. This has proved impossible due to the fighting in Afghanistan.

On Wednesday, however, Qatar announced that it would agree to supply Pakistan with natural gas at a low price of $18 per million British thermal units (mmbtu).

US imperialism has repeatedly bullied countries in the region to block the Iran pipeline project, which the US sees as an obstacle to its plans to isolate Iran and dominate Central Asia. Initially dubbed the “peace pipeline,” the project aimed to carry gas from Iran to Pakistan and through Pakistan to India, thus reducing the explosive tensions between Pakistan and India. Discussion of the project began in 1994, but India withdrew from it under US pressure in 2009, a year after Washington signed a nuclear pact with New Delhi.

As pipeline work started, Zardari said, “Nobody has the power to halt this project,” adding: “Pakistan is a sovereign and independent country that is acting in its national interests by going ahead with the pipeline.”

In fact, in the run-up to the May elections, the PPP is desperate to cover up its deeply unpopular role as one of the main client regimes of the US “war on terror.” Mass opposition is directed not only at the US but also at the PPP for its backing for the NATO occupation of Afghanistan and the resulting bloodshed in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Islamabad has sanctioned CIA drone attacks in Afghanistan-Pakistan border areas aimed at the Taliban and other anti-occupation fighters, killing thousands. The Pakistani military has carried out operations in Pakistan’s western tribal areas under US pressure, displacing millions of people and creating a desperate internal refugee crisis in Pakistan.

US drone strikes in Pakistan have also provoked sharp opposition. When 24 Pakistani border guards were killed in a NATO attack in 2011, Zardari closed down US supply routes into Afghanistan in an attempt to calm public fury, promptly re-opening them a few months later. This was the result of US pressure, and of Islamabad’s financial dependence on US and International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans.

Zardari is also trying to show he is serious to address the country’s energy problems, which have provoked both mass anger and criticisms from big business. Mentioning violent protests over power cuts, The News wrote: “Pakistan needs to enter into a serious diplomatic discourse with the US to try to convince it of how important” Iran’s gas is for Pakistan.

However, the Pakistani ruling elite above all fears US sanctions. On Monday the Karachi Stock Exchange’s benchmark 100-share index ended 2.46 percent, or 441.62 points, lower.

Pakistan is mired in deep economic crisis from the impact of global economic meltdown centred in the US and Europe. The rupee has already declined 0.8 percent against the US dollar this year after declining by 7.6 percent in 2012. Pakistan’s economic growth rate is predicted to fall to 3.5 percent for this fiscal year, and then to 3 percent next year. Currently Pakistan only has enough foreign exchange reserves to pay for two months of imports.

Pakistan has approached the (IMF) to obtain another loan, for $5 billion. If Washington decides to twist Islamabad’s arm to halt the gas pipeline, it will seek to use its influence at the IMF to block the loan.

The US has other concerns on Pakistan, as well. The Obama administration did not publicly express concern over Pakistan’s transfer of operational control of the deep-sea port at Gwadar to China. However, Washington has in the past noted that the port was part of China’s “string of pearls” plan to increase its influence in the Indian Ocean.

Iran also recently agreed to build a $4 billion oil refinery at the Gwadar port with a capacity of 400,000 barrels per day—making it Pakistan’s largest. Islamabad’s deals with China and Iran will be carefully followed in Washington, which is hostile to Beijing and Tehran, and is carrying out a so-called “pivot to Asia” to contain China.

By Sanen Marshall

15 March, 2013

 

It is worrying sign that as Myanmar begins to open up, the Government continues to persevere with armed aggression against ethnic minorities seeking autonomy within, or independence from, the Myanmar state. While it is true that few governments have traditionally interpreted the human rights principle of ‘self-determination’ as referring to the right to secede, in the case of Myanmar it is the repressive nature of the State that continues to fuel ethnic nationalism. It is also regrettable that while Aung San Suu Kyi remains an important force for political change, the treatment of her person  by the Government is now viewed internationally as the key indicator of liberalisation. She has been free from house arrest for more than two years now.

 

There have also been several processes and laws that have been enacted that make Myanmar look like it is on the road to democratisation. Sadly, this is not reflected in on-the-ground realities for the Kachin, Karen, Shan and other ethnic minorities in the State. Ceasefires have been contracted and broken, mainly through the wanton actions of Myanmar military operating in the remote regions where some of these ethnic minorities live. The situation is therefore desperate. Some segments of these populations have persevered in the path of armed resistance against the Myanmar State. But their capabilities are largely defensive and, even then, not very effective against the power of a conventional army.

 

An estimated 100,000 Kachin have been displaced since the collapse of a 17-year old truce between the Kachin Independence Army and Government forces in 2011. Many Kachin refugees have been holed up in the mountains for over a year now, waiting for peace, so that they can return home. Refugee camps suffered from the cold, the squalor of dilapidated housing and poor sanitation. In the Arakan state, it is reported that 100,000 people have been displaced by inter-ethnic violence between the Arakan and Rohingya. This has been partially fuelled by repressive Government policies. All this has passed under the radar of the international community which is more intent on watching developments at the centre of the Myanmar state than at its periphery. Tourist arrivals are also up, with many believing that Myanmar has taken the road to democracy at last.

 

These two realities of a democratising centre and a militarised periphery do not match. But it is only the former that tourists see. It is therefore incumbent on the international community to selectively withhold their engagement with the state of Myanmar until Myanmar’s ethnic minorities are allowed to return to their homelands and the Government returns to the negotiating table. This selective disengagement would go a long way to refocussing global attention to the militarised periphery of Myanmar and not just its touristy centre. Since the international community holds Aung San Suu Kyi in high regard, it should pay heed to her calls for an end to the aggression. In January this year, she declared ‘we, as well as the government, have to ask ourselves whether we understand the goals of the ethnic people and whether we can help them fulfil their goals.’

 

 

Sanen Marshallis a Member of JUST.

By Mariam Karouny

14 March, 2013

@ Reuters.com

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Most of the first contingent of Syrian rebels taught by U.S. army and intelligence officers in Jordan to use anti-tank and anti-aircraft weaponry have finished their training and are now returning to Syria to fight, a senior rebel said on Thursday.

Western officials and Syrian rebel commanders declined to comment on reports in the German weekly Der Spiegel and other media outlets last week that said Americans were training anti-government Syrian forces in Jordan.

But a senior rebel commander close to the process said U.S. army and intelligence officers were training Syrian rebels and said most of the first batch of 300 fighters picked from southern Syria had finished their courses.

“This is a sensitive matter as you know, but yes the American army and intelligence are training some of the rebels,” he told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

The United States has said it would provide medical supplies and food directly to opposition fighters, but has ruled out sending arms for fear they may find their way to Islamist hardliners who might then use them against Western targets.

But, the commander said, Washington had taken the decision to train the rebels “under the table”.

The commander said U.S. officials contacted the opposition General Command and offered to help some months ago. The General Command then asked brigades operating under its leadership to nominate “good fighters” to be trained to use advanced weapons such as anti-tank and anti-aircraft rockets, in addition to learning intelligence-gathering techniques.

Most of the first contingent of 300 fighters came from Damascus, the surrounding countryside, and Deraa, close to the border, because it was easier for them to reach Jordan.

“The courses vary, it takes between 15 days to one month and the fighters are divided into groups of 50 each. Each group travels to Jordan independently, not the 300 together,” he said. “It is defensive training.”

Most of the first group of 300 had now returned to fight in Syria, he said, but more were arriving to be trained.

Some 70,000 people have been killed since largely peaceful protests that began nearly two years ago against President Bashar al-Assad were met by live ammunition and morphed into an armed insurgency.

For security and logistical reason fighters from northern Syria could not join the training in Jordan, the commander said. But the rebel command is trying to convince the Turkish government to allow them to open a training camp in Turkey.

“We are hopeful that the Turks will allow us to have this camp where American officers train us,” he said.

(Editing by Jon Hemming)

By Maryam Sakeenah

11 March, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

Following the reprehensible attack on Christian homes in Lahore, a spine-chilling, grotesque image of an arsonist cheering over the burning flames went viral. One wonders what sort of man thumps his chest over destroying innocent lives and how human beings can become capable of such naked, audacious sadism that seeks justification in a faith that decrees ‘Whosoever harms a non Muslim citizen of a Muslim state, I shall be the complainant against him on the Day of Judgement.’ (Sahih Bukhari)

Throughout history human beings have shown themselves to be capable of wreaking terrible destruction and causing great suffering- from burning ‘witches’ at the stake, crucifying God’s noble messengers, butchering refugees in sacred precincts, gassing Jews at Auschwitz, to the nationalistic wars of the twentieth century, the liquidation of millions in nuclear destruction and poisoning of the biosphere through relentless commercial-industrial activity.

Yet Jeremy Rifkins in his phenomenal book ‘The Empathic Civilization’ insists that human beings are ‘Homo Empathica’, that is, defined and distinguished for the ability to empathize. He writes, ‘Human beings are soft-wired to experience others’ plight as if we were experiencing it ourselves.’

Empathy allows us to stretch our sensibility to another so we can cohere into larger social groups. It is curbed and limited by defining these social groups through narrow, parochial banners of ethnicity, nationalism, race and creed so that the empathic drive does not extend to the out-group . The Prophet (SAW) said: “He is not one us who calls for `Asabiyah’, (prejudiced, parochial association” (Abu Daud.) The out-group is then ‘otherized’, made out of the reach of our empathy. This creates indifference and apathy towards the suffering of people belonging to a different classification. However, a more severe form of limiting and deflecting the empathic impulse is dehumanization of the other ‘as flies to the wanton boys’, often institutionalized by the social superstructure: state and government, media, education, religion. Through stereotyping, essentialism, ethnocentrism, prejudice and propaganda as well as censorship and selective relaying of information to the public, minority groups and those whose interests clash with or threaten one’s own are systemtically dehumanized  and even demonized to appear less than human despicable, lower-order bestial ‘others’ whose eradication may not be of any great loss to human civilization. In the process we forget that as members of the human family, we all share a common, precarious existential predicament- our ‘little lives rounded with a sleep’- on a little finite planet in the mystifying universe.

Der Spiegel carried a report last year on the psychology of American drone operators whose button-clicking while reclining in plush chairs in air-conditioned offices decrees death to anonymous distant targets. The method of modern technological warfare seems to be designed to keep empathy at bay- the victim is invisible and remote, represented by a red dot on a laser screen, annihilated by a light, single click. Drone pilot Vanessa Meyer said, “ When the decision had been made, and they saw that this was an enemy, a hostile person, a legal target that was worthy of being destroyed, I had no problem with taking the shot.” (Nicola Abe: ‘Dreams in Infrared’) Gitta Sereny writes of Fratz Stangl, the annihilator of thousands at a Nazi camp: “ Prisoners were simply objects. Goods. “That was my profession,” he said. “I enjoyed it. It fulfilled me. And yes, I was ambitious about that, I won’t deny it.” When Sereny asked Stangl how as a father he could kill children, he answered, “I rarely saw them as individuals. It was always a huge mass. … [T]hey were naked, packed together, running, being driven with whips. …” (Chris Hedges: The Careerist)

Few and far between, there may be those whose empathy grows militant and unkillable. Brandon Bryant was able to humanize his victims in his drone operations_ he noticed the details of their lives and patterns of behaviour akin to his own. “I got to know them. Until someone higher up in the chain of command gave me the order to shoot.” He felt remorse because of the children, whose fathers he was taking away. “They were good daddies,” he says . He felt ‘disconnected from humanity’ while at his job, going through terrible unease and remorse. Having quit his job, he wrote in his diary, “On the battlefield there are no sides, just bloodshed. Total war. Every horror witnessed. I wish my eyes would rot.” (Nicola Abe: ‘Dreams in Infrared’)

Perhaps the most integral parts of this institutionalized dehumanization embedded in the superstructure of modern industrial society are the ‘Careerists’- the good men and women efficient at their jobs that make the system function. Chris Hedges describes them as ‘… armies of bureaucrats serving a corporate system that will quite literally kill us. They are as cold and disconnected… They carry out minute tasks. They are docile. Compliant. They obey. They find their self-worth in the prestige and power of the corporation, in the status of their positions and in their career promotions. It is moral schizophrenia. They erect walls to create an isolated consciousness. They destroy the ecosystem, the economy and the body politic… They feel nothing. And the system rolls forward. The polar ice caps melt. The droughts rage over cropland. The drones deliver death from the sky. The state moves inexorably forward to place us in chains. The sick die. The poor starve. The prisons fill. And the careerist, plodding forward, does his or her job.’

In Pakistan religion is increasingly used as one of the most powerful means of deflecting empathy from those outside the faith and sectarian affiliation. Religious intolerance in a culture of violence and anger is a fatal mix and has gone on a bloody rampage.  While the causes, factors and agents responsible for the ongoing madness are complexly intertwined, the resistance, rejection, counternarrative and healing that ought to have come from the representatives of religion in this part of the world has been inadequate, half-hearted, ambiguous and equivocal. The voice of condemnation from the pulpit is faltering, and this has been extremely damaging in a number of ways. The contemporary discourse of political Islam in Pakistan is heavily lopsided, selectively highlighting the plight of victims of American, Israeli and Indian misdemeanours (which certainly are important human rights issues), while keeping mum or issuing periodic enfeebled and rhetorical statements of condemnation over the plight of minorities and other innocent victims of those committing violence in the name of religion.

For Islamist groups, the cost of this silence has been and will be crushingly enormous. The disappointment felt by members of the civil society and educated youth over a criminal silence and inability of the religious leaders and scholars to rise to the occasion and give clarity to the public with a single voice has been shattering. This has not only alienated scores of good, intelligent people belonging to Pakistan’s educated urban middle and upper classes from Islamic groups and organizations but in many cases from the faith itself.  A colleague posted the picture of the gleeful arsonist with the comment, ‘ Happy mob rightfully burns down Christian homes. Another great day for Islam. Another victory against the forces of evil.’ While this is an extreme reaction showing inability to draw a line between despicable, crazed fanatical elements and the faith itself, but it increases the onus on spokespeople of religion to address the burning issues that blur the lines.

Going to college in Pakistan shortly after the U.S declared all-out ‘war on terror’ and invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, I witnessed scores of young people around me turning to Islam, primarily out of empathy for the Muslim victim, the underdog. In this country, the Islamist persona has now understandably metamorphosed into a perpetrator devoid of compassion, rationality and empathy, and this has alienated and repelled hundreds of thousands, resulting in a completely opposite trend that I, now an educator, see around me: a clear de-Islamization of Pakistan’s urban educated youth. While there also is a swing in the opposite direction, but the de-Islamization trend is clearly on the rise, understandably fuelled by the aforementioned.

Islamists in Pakistan are not cognizant of this terrible loss as they perceive themselves to be locked up in a crusade against the onslaught of the West, the secularists, the Zionists et all. Any voice calling for the need to provide clarity, answers and solutions is dismissed as ‘Westernized’, ‘secularized’, ‘liberalized,’ hence misguided and insincere, unworthy of serious consideration.

The narrative in Pakistan needs a rethink: the ethos of the Quran is the extension of identity to embrace the human race as fellow sojourners held together by a common human nature and destiny: ‘Mankind is but a single nation, yet they disagree.’ (2:213) Secondarily, we are taught to understand our responsibility towards those outside the faith fraternity not merely through divine directive but lived example and established paradigm.

In 628 C.E. Prophet Muhammad (s) granted a Charter of Privileges to the monks of St. Catherine Monastery in Mt. Sinai:

“This  is a message from Muhammad ibn Abdullah, as a covenant to those who adopt Christianity, near and far, we are with them.

Verily I, the servants, the helpers, and my followers defend them, because Christians are my citizens; and by Allah! I hold out against anything that displeases them.

No compulsion is to be on them.

Neither are their judges to be removed from their jobs nor their monks from their monasteries.

No one is to destroy a house of their religion, to damage it, or to carry anything from it to the Muslims’ houses.

Should anyone take any of these, he would spoil God’s covenant and disobey His Prophet. Verily, they are my allies and have my secure charter against all that they hate.

No one is to force them to travel or to oblige them to fight.

The Muslims are to fight for them.

If a female Christian is married to a Muslim it is not to take place without her approval. She is not to be prevented from visiting her church to pray.

Their churches are to be respected. They are neither to be prevented from repairing them nor the sacredness of their covenants.

No one of the nation (Muslims) is to disobey the covenant till the Last Day (end of the world).”

Empathy humanizes and civilizes. Its suppression intensifies secondary drives like narcissism, materialism, violence and aggression. The task of religion, education and the media must be to bring out the empathic sociability stretching out to all of humanity and prepare the groundwork for what Rifkins has called an ‘empathic civilization.’

Mercy and gentleness, said the Prophet (SAW), are defining traits of believers: ‘ Allah is gentle, and He loves those who are gentle.’ (Sahih Muslim)   Mercy and gentleness beautify the spirit: “Whenever kindness is in a thing it adorns it, and whenever it is removed from anything, it disfigures it.” [Muslim]

Empathy is engraved into the core of our consciousness as human beings- that softest part inspired from the Divine Ruh (Spirit). Those who confine or deflect it are on the wrong side of humanity and history. In the long run, their narrative will lose out and history’s merciless verdict against them shall be ineradicable.

Maryam Sakeenah is a Pakistan-based independent researcher and freelance writer on International politics, human rights and Islam. She divides her time between teaching high school, writing, research and voluntary social work. She also authored a book ‘Us versus Them and Beyond’ analyzing the Clash of Civilization theory and the role of Islam in facilitating intercultural communication.

 

 

By Mazin Qumsiyeh

11 March, 2013

@ Popular Resistance

Below is a talk (“sermon”) I gave Sunday 11 March at the Saint George’s Cathedral in Cape Town. This is an old and famous Cathedral well known for its struggle against apartheid; Nobel winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu one of its most famous leaders.

Thank you Dean Weeder and all of you for inviting me to your historic church, a church I knew about for over 20 years but have never before had the chance to visit. I am grateful to be for the first time in South Africa. It is also named after the patron saint of Palestinian Christians whom we call in Arabic Alkhader. I also thank Terry and Lavinia for your kind hospitality. I came to Johanesburg invited by church leaders to attend the Oikotree conference which links ecology, economics, and ecumenical issues. So I am delighted to also have been invited to Cape Town for the launch of the Israel Apartheid Week and to this lovely church.

I was born in Beit Sahour, literally the house of those who stay up at night. This is the Shepherd’s field, where the shepherds were called to go up to Bethlehem to see the new born prince of peace. In Luke we read: ” And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord…..” We then read that they told the world. We joke that God must have been wise to select the Shepherds in this area because had he selected another area, the message would not have spread since we talk a lot and words spread quickly.

I speak today to tell you that we Palestinian Christians challenge notions of chosennes whether in South Africa or Palestine. God is not a real estate agent parceling out lands or privileges; we are told that God so loved the world (not that God so loved men, whites, even humans, he loved the whole world) God so loved the world that he sent his only son …..

We were also told to act on information. We are told a lamp is not placed under furniture but a stand and we are told to be the salt of this earth. Jesus acted by challenging systems of oppression. Two thousand years ago he turned the tables of the profiteers at the temple, he challenged oppressors, and he became a Palestinian martyr. Yes Palestinian because he lived in a country known then as Palestine and he spoke Aramaic which my Canaanitic ancestors spoke (Arabic is a derivative of Aramaic). Since he was crucified, we have lost untold number of people who spoke the truth to power. I lost several friends in non violent resistance. For example in 2009 we lost our friend Bassem Aburahma who was shot with a tear gas canister that crushed his chest as he was talking to the Israeli soldiers. I paid condolences to his family and met his kind young sister Jawaher who was killed a year later when she was overcome by Israeli tear gas. Many others were lost or suffered. I myself was arrested several times for nonviolent resistance.

But the family which we visited recently still offers us coffee with a smile. It is joy born of faith while suffering. It is the definition of Love. Mother Teresa said in helping with a smile that “this is where love comes in – when it is demanding, and yet we can give it with joy”. As the Buddhists say “Have joyful participation in the sorrows of this world.”

In 1985 there was a Kairos South Africa document that asked churches around the world to take up direct action to bring about an end to apartheid. Kairos is a moment of truth. We in Palestine then looked to your leadership including that of Archbishop Desmond Tutu in the struggle against Apartheid in South Africa. Archbishop Tutu spoke at the launch of the Kairos Palestine document in December 2009 where he spoke of the joint struggle and why it matters. It is the Christian Palestinians’ word to the world about what is happening in Palestine. It is written at this time when we wanted to see the Glory of the grace of God in this land and in the sufferings of its people. In this spirit the document requests the international community to stand by the Palestinian people who have faced oppression, displacement, suffering and clear apartheid for more than six decades. The suffering continues while the international community silently looks on at the occupying State, Israel. Our word is a cry of hope, with love, prayer and faith in God. We address it first of all to ourselves and then to all the churches and Christians in the world, asking them to stand against injustice and apartheid, urging them to work for a just peace in our region, calling on them to revisit theologies that justify crimes perpetrated against our people and the dispossession of the land.

We Palestinian Christians following in the footsteps of Jesus say this is a moment of truth, a Kairos moment. The truth is that the Birth place of Jesus, Bethlehem has 180,000 native Christians and Muslims squeezed into only 13% of the land of the district of Bethlehem. 87% of the land of Bethlehem is now off-limits to our development and open for expansion of 23 colonial settlements built on our land. And this canton of Bethlehem is increasingly surrounded by a wall and I as a Palestinian Christian am not allowed into Jerusalem, my Church of the Sepulcher. Even with my American Passport I am not allowed into Jerusalem as are 99% of our people. The truth is that Jerusalemites are being driven from their land to be replaced by Jews including converts to Judaism brought from around the world. Jerusalem is the heart of our reality. It is, at the same time, symbol of peace and sign of conflict. While the separation wall divides Palestinian neighbourhoods, Jerusalem continues to be emptied of its Palestinian citizens, Christians and Muslims. Their identity cards are confiscated, which means the loss of their right to reside in Jerusalem. Their homes are demolished or expropriated. Jerusalem, city of reconciliation, has become a city of discrimination and exclusion, a source of struggle rather than peace .

The truth is that Zionists have worked hard to methodically transform our country from a multiethnic, multireligious, multicultural society to a Jewish state. By necessity this entailed ethnic cleansing so that 530 villages and towns were destroyed and today 7 million of our people are refugees and displaced people. Refugees are still living in camps under very difficult circumstances waiting for implementation of their internationally recognized right of return, generation after generation. What will be their fate? And the prisoners? The thousands of prisoners languishing in Israeli prisons are part of our reality. The Israelis move heaven and earth to gain the release of one prisoner, and those thousands of Palestinian prisoners, when will they have their freedom?

So we call on you and all our brothers and sisters in humanity to come and see for yourself. We would love to host you and show you around. But we also ask you to act on your conscience and help those in need in Palestine and elsewhere. I end with the words of the Bible: “Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was an hungry, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in. Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee hungry, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh teaches and does research at Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities in occupied Palestine. He serves as chairman of the board of the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People and coordinator of the Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements in Beit Sahour He is author of “Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human rights and the Israeli/Palestinian Struggle” and “Popular Resistance in Palestine: A history of Hope and Empowerment”

By Alan Hart

11 March, 2013

@ Alanhart.net

I find myself wondering how many of our present day leaders, President Obama in particular, are aware of what happened in Palestine on 10 March 65 years ago.

On that day in 1948, two months before Israel’s unilateral declaration of independence in defiance of the will of the organized international community as it then was at the UN, Zionism’s in-Palestine political and military leaders met in Tel Aviv to formally adopt PLAN DALET, the blueprint with operational military orders for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

They did not and never would refer to the crime they authorised as ethnic cleansing. Their euphemism for it was “transfer”.

As noted in an excellent anniversary briefing paper by IMEU (the American-founded Institute for Middle East Understanding), from the earliest days of modern political Zionism its advocates grappled with the problem of creating a Jewish majority state in a part of the world where Palestinian Arabs were the overwhelming majority of the population.

The earliest insider information we have on Zionism’s thinking is from the diary of Theodor Herzl, the founding father of Zionism’s colonial-like enterprise. He wrote:

“We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country… expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.”

Those words were committed to paper by Herzl in 1895 but they were not published (in other words they were suppressed) until 1962.

By August 1937 “transfer” was a discreet but hot topic for discussion at the 20th Zionist Congress in Zurich, Switzerland. All in attendance were aware that the process of dispossessing the Palestinian peasants (the fellahin) mainly by purchasing land from absentee owners had been underway for years. Referring to this David Ben-Gurion, who would become Israel’s first prime minister, said:

“You are no doubt aware of the (Jewish National Fund’s) activity in this respect. Now a transfer of a completely different scope will have to be carried out. In many parts of the country new settlement will not be possible without transferring the Arab fellahin…Jewish power (in Palestine), which grows steadily, will also increase our possibilities to carry out this transfer on a large scale.”

A year later Ben-Gurion told a meeting of the Jewish Agency that he supported compulsory transfer. He added:

“I don’t see anything immoral in it.”

In my view that’s a most revealing statement. It tells us – does it not? – that Ben-Gurion, the Zionist state’s founding father, was a man with no sense of what was morally right and wrong.

Joseph Weitz was the director of the Jewish National Fund’s Lands Department which was responsible for acquiring the land for Zionism’s enterprise in Palestine. One of his diary entries for December 1940 reads as follows:

“There is no way besides transferring the Arabs from here to the neighbouring countries, and to transfer all of them, save perhaps for (the Arabs of) Bethlehem, Nazareth and Old Jerusalem. Not one village must be left, not one (Bedouin) tribe. And only after this transfer will the country be able to absorb millions of our brothers and the Jewish problem will cease to exist. There is no other solution.”

Plan Dalet called for:

“Mounting operations against enemy population centres located inside or near our defensive system in order to prevent them from being used as bases by an active armed force. These operations can be divided into the following categories:

“Destruction of villages – setting fire to, blowing up, and planting mines in the debris – especially those population centres which are difficult to control continuously.

“Mounting search and control operations according to the following guidelines: encirclement of the village and conducting a search inside it. In the event of resistance, the armed force must be destroyed and the population must be expelled outside the borders of the state.”

Before the Zionist state declared itself to be in existence on 14 May 1948, more than 200 Palestinian villages had already been emptied and about 175,000 Palestinians were already refugees. Some had fled in fear; others were expelled by Zionist forces.

The prime fear factor was the slaughter by Zionist terrorists of more than 100 Palestinian men, women and children at Deir Yassin near Jerusalem. As Arthur Koestler was to write, the “bloodbath” at Deir Yassin was “the psychologically decisive factor in the spectacular exodus of the Arabs from the Holy Land and the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem.”

It was, however, Menachem Begin, Zionism’s terror master and subsequently prime minister, who provided the most vivid description of how well the slaughter at Deir Yassin served Zionism’s cause. In his book The Revolt, he wrote:

“Panic overwhelmed the Arabs of Eretz Israel. Kolonia village, which had previously repulsed every attack of the Haganah (the underground Jewish military organization that became the Israeli Army), was evacuated overnight and fell without further fighting. Beit-Iksa was also evacuated. These two places overlooked the road and their fall, together with the capture of Kastel by the Haganah, made it possible to keep open the road to Jerusalem. In the rest of the country, too, the Arabs began to flee in terror, even before they clashed with Jewish forces… The legend of Deir Yassin helped us in particular in the saving of Tiberias and the conquest of Haifa… All the Jewish forces proceeded to advance through Haifa like a knife through butter. The Arabs began fleeing in panic, shouting ‘Deir Yassin!’”

Three decades later, in an article for The American Zionist, Mordechai Nisan of the Truman Research Centre of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem expressed his concern about the failure to understand the major significance of terrorism in the struggle for Jewish sovereignty. He wrote: “Without terror it is unlikely that Jewish independence would have been achieved when it was.”

After the Zionist state declared itself to be in existence, its government set up an unofficial body known as the “Transfer Committee”. Its job was to oversee the destruction of Palestinian towns and villages and/or their repopulation with Jews. The purpose of this Zionist strategy was to prevent dispossessed Palestinians returning to their homes.

By 1949 more than 400 Palestinian towns and villages had been systematically destroyed or taken over by Israeli Jews; and at least 750,000 Palestinians were refugees, dispossessed of their land, their homes and their rights.

In his book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Ilan Pappe, Israel’s leading “revisionist” (meaning honest) historian, documents in detail Zionism’s systematic reign of terror which, from December 1947 to January 1949, included 31 massacres. (Deir Yassin was only the first). In a videoed conversation with me in 2008, which can be viewed in the Hart of the Matter series on my site (www.alanhart.net), Ilan said this:

“Probably more surprising than anything else was not the silence of the world as Zionist ethnic cleansing was taking place in Palestine, but the silence of the Jews in Palestine. They knew what had happened to Jews in Nazi Europe, and some might even have seen it for themselves, yet they had no scruples in doing almost the same thing to the Palestinians.”

On this 65th anniversary of the authorization of the ethnic cleaning of Palestine, the questions I would like to see put to our leaders today, President Obama in particular, are the following:

Are you aware of Plan Dalet?

If not, why not?

If you are aware of it, could it not said be said that your refusal to call and hold Zionism to account for its crimes makes you (and your predecessors) complicit in those crimes by default?

Alan Hart has been engaged with events in the Middle East and their global consequences and terrifying implications – the possibility of a Clash of Civilisations, Judeo-Christian v Islamic, and, along the way, another great turning against the Jews – for nearly 40 years… Alan is author of “Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews” – http://www.alanhart.net