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Today July 6th of 2010 is the day that Chris Busby, Malak Hamdan Entesar Ariabi released their epidemiological study on the health problems the people of Fallujah are suffering from. The full study can be downloaded here, free of charge. You may not have heard of these men yet, but I am quite sure their names will be found in the history books. The reason for this is that they have gathered scientific evidence of the genocide the people of Fallujah are suffering from at the hands of the imperialists that invaded Iraq. Unfortunately, they have not yet raised much attention to their discoveries, and thus I feel compelled to help with this myself.

A few days ago, on 2 July, they released a press release on Uruknet that showed some of their findings. It was entitled “Genetic damage and health in Fallujah Iraq worse than Hiroshima”. In April, they announced preliminary findings on Global Research, a site I suspect most of you are familiar with. Please realize that when people discover horrendous atrocities, that the mainstream media refuses to touch, they come to you, the Truth movement, and it is you that are responsible for this information becoming public. Before 2003, before the invasion of Iraq war, the slaughter of Fallujah, and so much more, you were trying to raise awareness of Gulf War Syndrome, the epidemics of cancer and birth defects in Southern Iraq due to Depleted Uranium, and were generally met with ridicule and disbelief.

Now that the horrors you warned of are slowly being revealed to the world, all of you have reason to be proud of your hard work. Not just the main activists (Leuren Moret, Doug Rokke, and many others) but all of you who contributed in their own way by reposting their stories to blogs, forums, writing to politicians, and everything else you did to raise awareness to this atrocity. If people listened to you much of it could have been prevented. I find it important you realize you should be proud of yourselves for the effort you took while most people around you did nothing.

I also have a lot of respect for the team of 11 people that went house to house in Fallujah to gather the data. People in Fallujah are suspicious of authorities (they have every reason to), and they were suspected of being part of a secret-service operation. In one case they were unfortunately met with physical violence. The team nonetheless completed the survey, despite the risk they faced from both the threat of physical violence, and of course by simply being in such an unhealthy environment.

With that said, let me move on to the study itself. As shocking as the information announced in the press release and the preliminary findings was, the complete results they showed in their study are worse. The press release mentioned that: “infant mortality was found to be 80 per 1000 births which compares with a value of 19 in Egypt, 17 in Jordan and 9.7 in Kuwait”. What the press release did not mention was that this is the period of 2006 until 2010. Unfortunately, from 2006 to 2010, the infant mortality continued to rise.

As the full study mentions, when we only look at 2009, and the first two months of 2010, we find that the infant mortality rate now is not at a level of 80 children out of 1000 that die within a year, but at a horrific rate of 136 per 1,000 births. When we look at the table in the study, we find that in 2008, 6 infants (age 0-1) died, compared to 0 in 2005, and only 1 in 2004. In 2009, 10 infants died. However, in the first two months of 2010 that the scientists studied, they found that 6 infants had died. Thus, in only the first two months of 2010, as many infants died as in the entirety of 2008. If the rate for 2010 were to continue (and this is not guaranteed, it could be lower, but due to the rising trend it is more likely to increase further), in 2010, 36 infants will die, compared to only 1 in 2004.

Although I should have known better, I had hoped that the situation was easing in Fallujah, or at least not getting worse, because I had not heard much news recently, but instead, the situation is only getting worse as we speak. A further finding the scientists made was that in the category of children aged 0-4, there are only 860 boys per 1000 girls. A normal ratio is 1050 boys per 1000 girls. This is evidence of genetic mutations.

The reason for this is that girls have two X-chromosomes, while boys only have a single X-chromosome. Thus, if one of a girl’s X-chromosomes suffers from a genetic mutation, the girl still has another functional copy. However, if a boy’s X-chromosome suffers from the same genetic mutation, he has no functional copy of the same gene left, and this can cause the boy’s death. However, the skewed birth ratio can also be (partly) caused by another effect the scientists didn’t mention in their study: The endocrine disrupting effect of Uranium.

At levels below the EPA standard, Uranium is a potent endocrine disruptor. Endocrine disruptors are chemicals that have a hormonal effect on humans, and Uranium works as an estrogen (female hormone) in the human body. This causes a lower number of male children to be born. Thus, the skewed birth ratio could be the result of the hormonal effect of Depleted Uranium as well, besides being caused by an increase in genetic mutations.

Another fact the researchers have discovered needs to be mentioned as well. Their study has found there has been a sharp decline in the birth rate. As they mention: “It is clear that the 0–4 population, born in 2004–2008, after the fighting, is significantly 30% smaller than the 5–9, 10–14 and 15–19 populations.” This is what I call depopulation in action.

Unfortunately there is an epidemic of cancer in Fallujah as well. This is to be expected, but it has not received a lot of attention so far. There are 4.2 times more cases of cancer than you would expect for the region. For childhood cancer, there is a 12.6 relative risk. Brain cancer, breast cancer and lymphoma are all particularly higher than you would expect, but worst of all is the epidemic of Leukemia, at a 22.2 times relative risk, and 38.5 in the age category 0–35. These are the exact types of cancers we would expect if the cause was radiation exposure. Veterans exposed to Depleted Uranium also suffer from epidemics of Leukemia for example. Children are most sensitive to the effects of radiation due to their rapidly dividing cells.

All evidence shows the disaster is caused by Depleted Uranium. It’s not stopping, but only getting worse, and will continue to get worse. We are now in 2010, and the intense fighting happened in 2004. In Basra, the intense fighting happened in 1991. In 1998, the increase in birth defects began to get seriously noticeable, and in 2001, ten years later, it had gone through the roof. In 2005, the cancer rate was still rising in Basra. Thus there is little reason to believe the situation is going to get better anytime soon unfortunately.

I would not wish what is happening to my worst enemy. Then surely I would not wish it upon the great people of Iraq, who managed to build a first world country in the desert, where people of different faiths intermarried, and Muslims and Christians ran the secular government together. Women were in university, and did not have to hide their beauty. Now they will cover their bodies, to hide the scars of cancer and birth defects that will plague the great people of Iraq for decades to come. Those left 50 years from now will still ask themselves when they get cancer if the Depleted Uranium could be responsible. They suffer every bit as much as you and I would if this were to happen to us. Therefore I do not see the survivors of this genocide forgiving us anyday soon.

I do not think we would forgive and want to be friends with people that send their soldiers to invade our countries, destroyed our DNA with their radioactive weapons, and do not show an ounce of regret or guilt either. When we saw what they had done to our children, born deformed and suffering from cancer, we would fight the invaders until they were all dead, or had all left our country. Do not interpret this as a call for violence, I am merely stating the obvious: If you harm someone’s children, they will fight you until death, without a moment of doubt in their mind. When you mourn the 4.400 dead American veterans, or the hundreds from other countries, think about that. They can not point at their commanders, they have an own responsibility to do no harm to others, and they failed to live up to it. At all times, tell anyone you know in the military to desert when they get the chance. It’s never too late to return from evil.

And this evil unfortunately seems to be quite out in the open. When Israel bombed Gaza, they called it “Operation Cast Lead”, a poetic description of Depleted Uranium (Uranium generally being described as being denser than lead, which is supposedly why it’s used). When Americans took over Fallujah, they called their slaughter, Operation Phantom Fury. I would again call this a poetic description of what they did to the people of Fallujah. The American military establishment was furious about the death of 4 of its elite warriors, the Blackwater contractors whose bodies were hung from a bridge. Thus, they unleashed their “phantom fury”. The invisible radiation that human senses can not detect, that destroys every living thing it touches. If poisoning an entire city with radiation is not a form of “Phantum Fury”, I don’t know what is.

Any possibility for reconciliation is not helped by the reaction I see from people on the Internet to these stories. “Wow, all this for hanging the bodies of burned dead American contractors from the bridges and desecrating them. I do not feel very sorry for them.” Is what one individual responded. When news of an epidemic of blood cancer in the Gaza Strip due to Operation Cast Lead was revealed, someone responded with: “With any luck maybe they will stop breeding on the strip.” Dr. Daud Miraki posted a number of images of the children born in Afghanistan and wrote in an e-mail to Jeff Rense about the response he got: “For the past few days, I have been going through hell receiving rotten and hate-filled email from some of the sick and stupid people in America. They make fun of the babies…and they curse Islam and I and my family.

I do not know what kind of sick individuals it takes to say such things. It seems to be predominantly those in the middle of the political spectrum, the people who believe that the Democrats and Republicans give them a choice, and who believe what they see on TV.

Communists, Anarchists, White Nationalists, Black Nationalists, Islamists, they are all appalled by the use of Depleted Uranium and oppose it. These are the people who the media calls extremists, because they don’t fit into the controlled opposition, and who we are taught to fear. Instead, the people I find who ignore, or worse encourage this genocide are those from the political mainstream. If there is anyone I fear, it is those in the political mainstream, composed of people too scared to think for themselves and who think nothing will happen to them if they cheer for those in power. They are the people who make this genocide possible.

 

(David Rothscum)

The razing of a Bedouin village by Israeli police shows how far the state will go to achieve its aim of Judaising the Negev region Israeli police razed the Bedouin village of al-Arakib, destroying around 45 homes, in just three hours

A menacing convoy of bulldozers was heading back to Be’er Sheva as I drove towards al-Arakib, a Bedouin village located not more than 10 minutes from the city. Once I entered the dirt road leading to the village I saw scores of vans with heavily armed policemen getting ready to leave. Their mission, it seems, had been accomplished.

The signs of destruction were immediately evident. I first noticed the chickens and geese running loose near a bulldozed house, and then saw another house and then another one, all of them in rubble. A few children were trying to find a shaded spot to hide from the scorching desert sun, while behind them a stream of black smoke rose from the burning hay. The sheep, goats and the cattle were nowhere to be seen – perhaps because the police had confiscated them.

Scores of Bedouin men were standing on a yellow hill, sharing their experiences from the early morning hours, while all around them uprooted olive trees lay on the ground. A whole village comprising between 40 and 45 houses had been completely razed in less than three hours.

I suddenly experienced deja vu: an image of myself walking in the rubbles of a destroyed village somewhere on the outskirts of the Lebanese city of Sidon emerged. It was over 25 years ago, during my service in the Israeli paratroopers. But in Lebanon the residents had all fled long before my platoon came, and we simply walked in the debris. There was something surreal about the experience, which prevented me from fully understanding its significance for several years. At the time, it felt like I was walking on the moon.

This time the impact of the destruction sank in immediately. Perhaps because the 300 people who resided in al-Arakib, including their children, were sitting in the rubble when I arrived, and their anguish was evident; or perhaps because the village is located only 10 minutes from my home in Be’er Sheva and I drive past it every time I go to Tel Aviv or Jerusalem; or perhaps because the Bedouins are Israeli citizens, and I suddenly understood how far the state is ready to go to accomplish its objective of Judaising the Negev region; what I witnessed was, after all, an act of ethnic cleansing.

They say the next intifada will be the Bedouin intifada. There are 155,000 Bedouins in the Negev, and more than half of them live in unrecognised villages without electricity or running water. I do not know what they might do, but by making 300 people homeless, 200 of them children, Israel is surely sowing dragon’s teeth for the future.

By Neve Gordon

28 July 2010

Guardian.co.uk

 

 

Early morning on 27 July, Israeli bulldozers, flanked by helicopters and throngs of police, demolished the entire Bedouin village of al-Araqib in the northern Negev desert. Despite their land rights cases still pending in the court system, hundreds of al-Araqib villagers were instantly made homeless a month after Israeli police posted demolition orders.

Eyewitness reports say the police were accompanied by several busloads of right-wing Israeli civilians who cheered during the demolitions.

The Electronic Intifada spoke with Dr. Yeela Ranaan of the Regional Council for Unrecognized Villages (RCUV) in the Negev, who was in al-Araqib all day long during the demolitions.

“Approximately 1,500 Israeli police came at 5:30 in the morning and evacuated everyone from their beds,” Ranaan said. “They brought tear gas and water cannons, but didn’t use them. There was a handful of Israeli peace activists who had come the night before to stay with the villagers, and the police beat them up and detained them. Once they evacuated everyone in the village, they started to demolish it. It took three hours to flatten the village. For the people of al-Araqib, it was a nightmare to see their village destroyed.”

Since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, al-Araqib villagers have been fighting for recognition in the courts. Ranaan told The Electronic Intifada that in the early 1950s, after they were forcefully expelled from their land by Israeli forces, villagers were fined for “trespassing” in their own homes by the Israeli government. Israel has refused to acknowledge al-Araqib villagers’ land deeds and receipts of land taxes paid to the Ottoman authorities well before Israel’s establishment.

“As we speak, the fate of al-Araqib hasn’t been decided in a court,” Ranaan said. “Despite this, Israel came and demolished the homes. Israel is not just changing the facts on the ground, it’s erasing them.”

“Israel is treating us like cockroaches”

More than 110,000 Palestinian Bedouin live in dozens of so-called “unrecognized villages” throughout the State of Israel, and nearly 80 percent live in the Negev. Since 1948, Israel has refused to acknowledge the villages, and therefore deny basic services such as water, electricity, roads, schools and waste management.

During the demolitions yesterday, Sulaiman abu Mdian, a 29-year-old father of four who works as a chicken farmer, told CNN that “the State of Israel is treating us like cockroaches.”

In an emailed press release following the destruction of al-Araqib, RCUV admonished the Israeli government’s policies of accelerating home demolitions against Palestinian Bedouin communities across the state.

“The destruction’s declared aim is to facilitate plans by the Jewish National Fund to plant a [forest] on the site,” the release stated. “We regard this demolition as a criminal act. Bedouin citizens of Israel are not enemies, and forestation of the Negev is not a reasonable pretext for destroying a community which is more than 60 years old, dispossessing its residents and violating the basic rights of hundreds of Israeli civilians, men, women and children.”

“This act by the state authorities is no ‘law enforcement’ — it is an act of war, such as is undertaken against an enemy,” RCUV added. “This act cannot be dissociated from yesterday’s statement by Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu, who at the cabinet meeting sounded a warning about ‘a situation in which a demand for national rights will be made from some quarters inside Israel, for example in the Negev, should the area be left without a Jewish majority. Such things happened in the Balkans, and it is a real threat.’ Presenting the Bedouin citizens of Israel as ‘a real threat’ gives legitimacy to the expulsion of Israel’s Bedouin citizens from the Negev in order to ‘Judaize’ it. We call on all who care for democracy to give their support to this threatened community.”

The Electronic Intifada asked Ranaan if the situation in al-Araqib will look similar to what’s happening in the nearby Bedouin village of Twail abu Jarwal, which has been demolished more than forty times in the last few years.

“These are the two villages that the Israeli government wants to beat, to make an example of,” Ranaan remarked. “The government is experimenting with these villages. People in al-Araqib and Twail abu Jarwal have more determination and more resources than other villages. Israel wants to find out how much force is needed to evacuate and erase a village. They want to replicate the methods. And they want villagers elsewhere to see what’s happening here as a threat.”

Ranaan told The Electronic Intifada that solidarity actions are being planned as villagers of al-Araqib set up temporary housing on their land.

“They already put up a few tents, and they’ll be staying at different locations until every family will put up a makeshift home on their land,” she said. “But they know that their homes will be demolished again and again. People should put pressure on the Israeli government. International pressure is important. Activists can come and visit, and they can join villagers on their land for Friday prayers. The more people in solidarity, the stronger they are. Once their resistance breaks, then we’ve lost everything.”

More al-Walaja land confiscated

Meanwhile, in the occupied West Bank, Israel announced construction of at least 100 settlement colony units in the Bethlehem district as Israeli bulldozers and construction vehicles confiscated more Palestinian land in al-Walaja. At the same time, Israeli occupation forces demolished homes in Area C, continuing a pattern of increased demolitions and rights violations there in the last few months.

The 1995 Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and Gaza Strip (also known as Oslo II) categorized land in the West Bank into areas A, B and C. According to the agreement, Area A is under the control of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Area B under the joint control of Israel and the PA. Approximately 95 percent of the Palestinian population live in these two areas, though they make up only 40 percent of the land area. Israel has full military control over Area C.

Secretary General of al-Mubadara Palestinian National Initiative Dr. Mustafa Barghouti told the Bethlehem-based Maan News Agency that Israeli forces began bulldozing land and constructing barbed wire fence on al-Walaja land in “an attempt to thwart Palestinian land owners from protesting the confiscation” (“Barghouthi: 100 settlements underway in Beit Jala,” 18 July).

Barghouti reported that the work began in secret to “avoid the exposure of the Netanyahu government’s false claims of freezing settlement construction.”

Israel is also finishing construction of its wall in the Bethlehem suburb of Beit Jala, next to al-Walaja. When finished, the wall will completely encircle the Bethlehem area and will cut off thousands of Palestinians from their land. Israel began building the wall in the Bethlehem district in 2004.

Palestinian residents of al-Walaja and Beit Jala, accompanied by international human rights activists, have been trying to resist the ongoing encroachment of the wall and settlements in the area. Protesters have been fired upon by Israeli forces using stun grenades and tear gas.

Property destruction in Jordan Valley

And last week, Israeli forces destroyed Hmayyir and Ein Ghazal in the Farasiya region of the Jordan Valley, demolishing approximately 55 homes, livestock pens, tents, clay ovens, bathrooms and storage structures. More than a hundred Palestinians were displaced, including 52 children. The villages had been declared “live fire zones” by Israeli officials last month, and eviction orders were posted on the homes of families in the village, according to Amnesty International.

Amnesty stated in a press release that along with the Farasiya villages, families living in the smaller villages of Ein al-Hilwe and Ein al-Beida — also in Area C — were served with eviction and demolition orders.

Philip Luther, Amnesty’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, stated in the press release that “these recent demolitions intensify concerns that this is part of a government strategy to remove the Palestinian population from the parts of the West Bank known as Area C, over which Israel has complete control in terms of planning and construction” (“Israel intensifies West Bank home demolitions,” 21 July 2010).

Amira Hass reported for the Israeli daily Haaretz that during the past year, the Israeli military had set up “hundreds of warning signs” near Palestinian villages and farming areas, marking them as “closed military areas … Such a sign was set up at the entrance to Farasiya” (“IDF destroys West Bank village after declaring it military zone,” 21 July 2010).

Haaretz spoke to a coordinator with the popular committee in the Jordan Valley who reported that Israel has consistently cut off Palestinian farmers and villagers from their water sources, destroyed drinking and irrigation pipes from streams and prohibited them from using water wells that the Israeli water company Mekorot had established in the region.

“Since 1967, Israel has prevented Palestinian communities in the Jordan Valley from growing, whether by cutting off their water supply, declaring large areas as live fire zones or banning all construction,” Hass reported.

BEIJING, July 13 (Xinhuanet) — Upon the end of the Cold War, when a hegemonial, unipolar world order began to unfold, it was no coincidence that the notion of “clash of civilizations” suddenly became the basic paradigm for the interpretation of global power relations and, subsequently, for the legitimization (or justification) of neo-imperial policies. In a unipolar environment, enemy stereotypes such as those triggered by the clash of civilizations doctrine are an indispensable ideological tool to bolster the respective hegemon’s claim to power (which is virtually directed at the entire world).

A just world order, however, requires a balance of power, which can best be achieved in a multipolar framework (and for which the multilateral mechanisms, including those of collective security, of the United Nations Organization, were originally created). One of the basic principles on which a just and harmonious world order is to be based, is the notion of “dialogue of civilizations.” An international system that is stable and ensures peaceful development of all the members of the international community, and not just the privileged few, must be founded on the norms of sovereign equality and mutual respect. This makes it imperative that no country impose its own civilization upon the others, a policy that – through all of history, until the most recent project of a unilateral “New World Order” – has been proven to increase tensions and even provoke armed confrontations.

Unlike in a hegemonial (unipolar) constellation – where the dominant power claims civilizational supremacy and aims to indoctrinate the rest of the world about democracy, human rights, good governance, the rule of law, etc. –, a multipolar balance of power, in order to be stable, requires harmonious relations that are characterized by mutual respect, peaceful interaction, coordination and integration of policies among equal partners. Since, in such a constellation, no party will try to subjugate the others or to interfere into their sovereign domain, whether in the political, economic, social or cultural field, harmony among nations will not lead to uniformity.

Dialogue among civilizations and cultures is one of the basic elements, or preconditions, of harmony – at the domestic as well as the transnational (or global) level; it promotes unity in diversity and directly contributes to durable peace among nations. As pro-active approach, dialogue goes one step further than mere (static) co-existence between different cultural communities and states; it involves co-operation and mutual engagement. This kind of positive interaction between cultures and civilizations allows each civilization to develop and prosper according to its own parameters, while benefiting from the others’ experience. Such an orientation will eventually ensure the humane dimension of globalization, providing fair and balanced opportunities for all states and peoples in the development of their potential and in the use of the world’s resources, in the material as well as the spiritual sense.

The maintenance of peace and the promotion of human rights, two of the fundamental purposes of the United Nations, require harmonious relations between states that cannot be achieved with a unilateral approach or with traditional power politics since they negate the sovereign equality of nations. A just world order, indeed a harmonious world, can only be built on dialogue, which incorporates the very essence of the principle of mutuality.

(Source: Int’l Conference on the “Dialogue of Civilizations and a Harmonious World”)

 

 

‘The stray wind brings the smell

Of days I have known

And the half forgotten smiles and tears

Give the heart a sudden turn…’

As one negotiates through the thick bountiful foliage across the serene reservoir, one can sense the seething anger and discontent. In complete contradiction to the pleasantly rich and green milieu, the hearts of the people here are dry and barren. We have entered the reservoir area of the Bargi dam, the first dam (or rather temple of modern India as described by Nehru!) amongst a chain of 30 major dams constructed on river Narmada .

Our travel takes us to Bagdari, a displaced village in Ghansour Block where we are welcomed by quite a few people. One of the activists of the Bargi Visthapit Evam Prabhavit Sangathan (BVPS) introduces us to the ‘Sarpanch pati’ and updates us on the exemplary work undertaken by the members of the sangathan towards the implementation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA). The residents are primarily tribals and have applied for 122 pattas (1 for community rights) of which they have already received 52! Rajkumar bhai, who leads the campaign, informs as a matter of fact that they have been able to use the special clause for the displaced under the FRA. Self affidavits are very accepted by the state! While I brood about the influence that the sangathan has over powerful stakeholders like the state, a group of extremely vibrant women of all ages come and join us.

The women proudly update us about the genesis of BVPS. In 1986-88, Narmada Bachao Andolan activist Medha Patkar and B.D..Sharma visited the area and saw the plight of the oustees. There was widespread dissatisfaction among the displaced peoples owing to Government’s insensitivity, lack of political will to address their problems, and unclear policies pertaining to rehabilitation. Around the same time, peoples’ resistance to the Sardar Sarovar dam was gathering momentum. Slowly, an organisation of the oustees began to take shape. In 1991, the peoples’ organisation Bargi Bandh Visthapit Evam Prabhavit Sangh came into being demanding just governance. Twenty years down the line, the movement doesn’t seem to be tiring! In fact, they have modified their demands according to the changing times!

Further discussions lead us to ghastly facts about the blatant usurpation of people’s rights with impunity! For 162 villages that were supposed to be displaced, only 3-5 ‘model’ villages were constructed to accommodate the residents. In all, 26,797 ha of extremely fecund land got submerged out of which 55% was under private ownership (mostly tribals) . People who had land holding were ‘counted’. The rest were not considered humans!

Let’s also look at some of these ‘model’ villages. Gorakhpur, which housed a plenteous population, saw starvation deaths of families who owned land but later were coerced to eke out a living. People were also forced to cremate their near and dear ones due to paucity of wood 

The second village, Jamunia was situated amidst rocky terrain with forest on its sides. The residents, who had no other source of livelihood apart from the forest for themselves as well as their cattle, were barred mercilessly from venturing into the woods by the Forest Department through a trench! Singodha, the third model village, was in the middle of nowhere! The question of placing people with broken hearts and empty pockets never arose! Till date, the structures wear a desolate look!

When the situation of Model Villages is so pathetic, one can only imagine the situation of other villages awaiting rehabilitation. In most villages, the emphasis of rehabilitation work was around construction of buildings which were absolutely futile to the oustees. Can a concrete structure alone guarantee bountiful blooming life?

So where are the people? Well, for those who have not noticed, many are still on the rocky islands amidst the water. They have moved up, sold off their cattle and live in abject penury cultivating the land when water recedes. There are no basic amenities in terms of infrastructure or services. In times of medical emergency, people have to ferry across the reservoir to reach Barginagar! The rainy season is the worst with people being forced to move further up, high incidences of diseases and no mobility. So, one easy way of devoiding people of their riparian rights is to build a human-made lake around a river and dispose them off to uninhabitable areas…

This is not the end of the harrowing tale! Ranital, a slum in Jabalpur, is home to many oustees! Without any social fabric, basic amenities and a riverside which in many ways symbolized hope, people pick up the shards of their lives working as daily wage labours and rickshaw pullers…People who were very acclimatized to using the abundant and pure waters of Narmada for nistar (animals) have no option but to use the scanty and filthy sewage water for themselves!

So what happened to the compensation? Where did it disappear? How much did they get? Well, people without any land were not entitled to any compensation! The land owners, on the other hand, received a meager amount of Rs 500-3000 per acre depending upon the whims and caprice of the officials! Most of liquid money created a sellers’ market and land prices zoomed up! With no experiences of savings and dubious transactions by many officials, this money was spent swiftly leaving the oustees with no tangible support!

In Garahaat, the villagers tell us about the high incidences of migration. While a flimsy livelihood base made them vulnerable; with the displacement, people have been robbed off their basic existence. Lac culture, which was very common, has become completely extinct! In this area, there is over 80% migration with people moving out to Bhopal and Nagpur as daily wage labour twice a year.

In the same village, we also met the fisherfolk (into a forced livelihood). One of the rehabilitation plans also involved setting up fishery co-operative because Narmada Bachao Andolan(NBA) was requested to help plan the Socio-economic rehabilitation of the oustees. This led to GOMP giving rights of fishing and sale in the Bargi reservoir to the oustees on co-operative basis, which led to the formation of the Bargi Bandh Visthapit Matsya Utpadan Avam Vipanan Sahakari Sangh Maryadit in Sep.1994; a federation of 54 primary co-operative fishing societies, with oustee fishermen (certainly not women!) as members.

As on date, the fisherfolk have to sell off their catch @ Rs 16/kg; a rate which is much below the market price. The yield has plummeted drastically with no new seedlings being added by the state. The collaborative effort has resulted, if not for anything else, into one which is fraught with red-tapism, pending policy decisions and non availability of funds. At the time of writing this, there were major policy level changes being suggested in the fishery co-operative policy with PPP being introduced which itself is insidious in usurpation of the rights of people.

A day later, we visit another feather in the crown of the MP state government! The newspapers are fraught with the setting up of a nuclear power plant in Chutka. A closer look prompts us to question the very basics of our development paradigm.

Two decades after displacement from the Bargi dam, the villagers of Chutka, Kunda and Tatighat are about to be uprooted again. This time, again, for a greater common good? Yes, a nuclear power plant which is proclaimed to be the most esteemed thing happening to Madhya Pradesh. Deepchand, one of the activists of the Chutka Parmanoo Sangharsh Samiti laments ‘It took two generations for us to recover after being ousted by the Bargi dam. Now its going to take three more. Our lives are completely ruined!’

One feels the nip in the air mixed with panic and resignation! In 1990, when they got displaced, the residents of this village received a compensation as meager as Rs 900/acre of irrigated fertile land.

Just one day back, a couple of scientists visited this area and the entire operation was classified! The site selection and mapping are being done and the state claims good reason to keep it confidential since this matter, willy nilly, involves arms! Construction work for a residential colony has already begun about 6 km away from here.

I find myself looking into the desolate eyes of people…These looks pierce right through me. Have you done anything about it? Basori Singh Meshram, one of the leaders, informs ‘We have written to the MP and later a letter to Rahul Gandhi as well, demanding justice’. This is PESA area, I argue. Have you taken a resolution in the gram panchayat? A negative reply gets us immediately to draft a resolution. I see hope. Espite the fact that in Plachimada; with vehement opposition from the gram sabha, the Pepsi factory did get set up!

Our meeting ends on a brighter note with Rajesh bhai, another leader of BVPS reading out the resolution amongst thunderous claps! As we leave, there are slogans which clearly send the message that the residents will not budge from this area. While sitting the vehicle, Rajesh asks some of the leaders to do a participatory survey ascertaining the land and property as well as work out a compensation package…Is it the wary wisdom and knowledge that no matter what, the people will get displaced? Anyone listening?

By Sarika Sinha ActionAid International India

30 June, 2010

Countercurrents.org

 

There is a considerable amount of misunderstanding about the BDS (Boycott Divestment and Sanctions). As John Berger explained a while back, BDS is not a principle but a strategy; it is not against Israel but against Israeli policy; when the policy changes BDS will end.

BDS is also not about a particular solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but rather the demand that Israel abide by international law and UN resolutions. It is accordingly something that you can support if you are for a two state solution or a one state solution. You can even support it as a Zionist. It arises from the realization, following years of experience, that the Occupation will not end unless Israelis understand that it has a price.

In a sense, the fact that a boycott is required is a sign of weakness following the polaristaion and marginalisation of the left in Israel. On the one hand, we have more or less used all the other weapons we have in the arsenal of non-violent resistance and the situation on the ground is only getting worse. On the other hand, we are witnessing the development of a proto-fascist mindset in Israel. I am, for example, extremely anxious about the extent that the space for public debate in Israel is shrinking.

One of the ways of silencing any dissent is the through the demand for loyalty, so that a slogans you hear a lot now is “no citizenship without loyalty.” This slogan reflects the inversion of the republican idea that the state should be loyal to the citizen and is accountable for inequities and injustices. It is a manifestation of the complete reversal of the republican relationship between state and loyalty and the adoption, instead, of a logic similar to the one that informed Mussolini’s Italy. It is – as Gramsci once said – part of the morbid symptoms of our times.

One of the expressions of these symptoms is the increasingly violent attitude towards any kind of dissent within Israel. I have received more death threats following my criticism of the flotilla fiasco than ever before. When I walk on campus people ask in jest if I am wearing a bullet proof vest. Such jokes have a menacing undertone. Therefore it is not all that surprising that only three professors in Israel openly support a boycott; many others are in the closet because supporting BDS is not considered to be a legitimate form of critique and people who back it are in danger of being punished.

And yet, there is also a sense that the pro-government proponents have gone too far. They are not only targeting people on the far left, but practically everyone who is even slightly critical of government policies. A couple of months ago a high school principle who objected to military officers coming in to speak to his pupils, was all but crucified. Clearly the outrage of so many Israeli academics against the assault on academic freedom has little to do with the boycott, but is rather against the attempt to silence any kind of critique. There is an ever-growing sense that public discourse in Israel is dramatically shrinking. Thus, the provost of Haifa University, who courageously criticized the Minister of Education and the assault on academic freedom, is by no means a left-winger but is simply outraged at the current developments. He would never otherwise support my stance on the boycott.

BDS Campaign Wants Israel To Abide By International Law

By Neve Gordon

11 July, 2010

The Observer

 

 

I promised that I would be the happiest man in the world to be wrong and, unfortunately, my happiness didn’t last.

The Football World Cup is still being contested and there are still six more days to go before the final match.

What a great opportunity will the Yankee imperialism and the fascist State of Israel possibly miss to keep the minds of the overwhelming majority of the people on Earth off their fundamental problems!

Who knows about the imperialists’ sinister plans towards Iran and their gross pretexts to attack it?

At the same time, I wonder, what are the Israeli warships doing, for the first time, in the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s maritime areas?

Is it possible to think that the Yankee nuclear aircraft-carriers and the Israeli’s warships will leave the area, with the tail between the legs, when the demands contained in Resolution 1929 of June 9, 2010, approved by the UN Security Council are met, that is, the one authorizing the inspection of Iranian ships and aircraft in the territory of any State that, this time, allows the inspection of ships in the open sea?

The Resolution also establishes that the Iranian ships will not be inspected if Iran does not consent. In this case, the refusal would be analyzed.

An additional element is the possibility of confiscating what has been inspected; if confirmation is obtained that it infringes the provisions of the Resolution.

A disarmed Iran was the victim of that cruel war with Iraq where large groups of Guardians of the Revolution cleaned up the mine fields walking on them.

That is not the case today. As I said in previous Reflections, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was chief of the Revolutionary Guardians in the west of Iran that shouldered the main weight of that war.

Several years later, an emboldened Iraqi government sent most of the Republican Guard to the Arab Emirate of Kuwait and annexed that oil-rich territory, which became an easy prey.

The Iraqi government had sustained a good friendship with Cuba, which from the days when it was not at war with anyone had rendered it important health services. Our country tried to persuade it to leave Kuwait and put an end to the war it had provoked based on misperceptions.

Today, it is known that a mediocre Yankee ambassador, who had excellent relations with the Iraqi government, induced it to make that mistake.

Bush senior attacked his old friend leading a powerful coalition with a strong composition of Arab-Moslem-Sunni countries which supply oil to most of the rich industrial nations. That coalition advanced from the south of Iraq to prevent the withdrawal of the Republican Guard, which escaped to the Iraqi capital thanks to the restraint of the US Marine Corps and Armed Forces –commanded by Colin Powell, a prestigious general and later Secretary of State under George W. Bush.

Purely out of revenge, the retiring force became the target of rockets contaminated with downgraded uranium tested for the first time to determine the damage they could cause in the opposing troops.

The Moslem Shiite Iran that they are threatening now with their ground, sea and air forces is nothing like the Republican Guard they attacked with impunity in Iraq.

The empire is about to make an irreparable mistake and nothing can stop it. It walks inexorably towards a sinister fate.

The only thing sure now is that the Football World Cup had its quarterfinals. Thus, the fans of that sport could enjoy the exciting matches where we saw incredible things happen. It is said that the Netherlands team had not lost a World Cup match on a Friday, in 36 years. Only computers could make it possible to register such an event.

The fact is that Brazil did not make it to the semifinals of this Cup.

An arbiter left Brazil out of the competition. At least, that was the impression of an excellent commentator of the Cuban television who repeated it tirelessly. Later, the FIFA would say that the arbiter’s decision was correct.

Afterwards, at a decisive moment, with more than half the second time still to play, the same arbiter left Brazil with only 10 players in the field.

Yesterday, Argentina was eliminated. In the first minutes of the match, the German team, through its midfield player Muller, took by surprise the unsuspecting Argentinean defenders and the goalkeeper, and scored one goal.

After a while, the Argentinean forward players tried to score and failed no less than ten shots –compared to one from the German team.

The German team, on the other hand, scored three more goals, that even German Chancellor Angela Merkel applauded passionately.

Again, one of the favorite teams lost, leaving over 90% of football fans in Cuba perplexed.

The overwhelming majority of fans of that sport do not even know in what continent Uruguay is located.  Final matches between European countries will the most colorless and anti historic since that sport was born.

On the other hand, the international developments that have taken place had nothing to do with a game of chance but rather with the basic logic guiding the destiny of the empire.

A number of news came to light on July 1, 2 and 3. They are all connected to one event: on July 2, the big powers with a right of veto in the UN Security Council, plus Germany, urged the Iranian government to “promptly respond” the invitation to return to the negotiations on its nuclear program.

The previous day, President Barack Obama had signed a law expanding the current measures against Iran’s energy and banking sectors and penalizing the companies that do business with government of Teheran. The result: a rigorous blockade and the suffocation of Iran.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said that his country will resume the talks by the end of August and emphasized that countries like Brazil and Turkey should be involved. These are the only Security Council members that opposed the sanctions of June 9.

A senior European Union official disdainfully remarked that neither Brazil nor Turkey would be invited to take part in the talks.

Nothing else is needed to draw the relevant conclusions.

None of the two sides will yield; one, prevented by the pride of the powerful, and the other because it has the capacity and the will to fight oppression, as we have seen so many times before in the history of mankind.

The people of Iran, a nation with ancient cultural traditions, will undoubtedly defend itself from the aggressors. It’s had to understand that Obama may seriously believe that it would yield to his demands.

The president of Iran and its religious leaders will resist, drawing inspiration from the Islamic Revolution headed by Ruhollah Khomeini, the creator of the Guardians of Revolution, the modern Armed Forces and the new State of Iran.

The poor peoples of the world, which cannot be blamed for the terrible mess created by imperialism, located as they are in this hemisphere south of the United States, and others in the west, center and south of Africa, as well as others on the planet who might be left untouched by the nuclear war, are left with the only option of coping with the consequences of the catastrophic nuclear war that will break out very soon.

Unfortunately, there is nothing for me to rectify. I take full responsibility with what I wrote in my latest Reflections.

Fidel Castro Ruz

July 4, 2010

5:36 PM

 

AUG 23 — My late parents were both teachers. My father was the headmaster of a school in Perak for 26 years.

My mum and family moved to Penang when I was five years old and she taught in a Penang school until her retirement. My dad continued to head the school in Perak and he had an Austin car he drove back home every weekend to be with us.

We moved to Penang mainly because my parents thought the children — there were three of us , I am the youngest — would get a better education and hence better job prospects later on.

I can still remember in the 60s, when I was in a primary school, there would be a few students of my mother’s – supposedly the weaker ones who could not understand her lessons well – coming to our house in the afternoon and my mother would give them extra lessons to make sure they understood what she had taught in school, free of charge.

That was the dedication of the teachers then… they treated the students as part of their own responsibilities, and many teachers did give extra lessons voluntarily without thinking of monetary rewards. For that, sometimes they would be rewarded with gifts like durians, chickens, etc brought to the house by the students’ parents.

Such was the respect the teaching profession commanded then. Teachers, though not rich, were well-respected members of the community. This respect , however, was earned because of their selfless dedication to their profession. Teaching, my parents used to tell me, is not for everyone, but only for those who treat the profession as a calling, not a career.

My dad , a university graduate from China,  was also well-schooled in the Confucianist tradition. One of the things he told us children was the Confucian teaching that “within the Four Seas, everyone else is a brother”.  We were told to treat everyone equal, respect other people’s culture and religions.

The teaching profession is one of the noblest professions. Students entering schools are like white sheets of papers. Whether these papers turn out to be important documents, or textbooks, or comic books, or waste paper, or become totally black and dirty, depends a lot on the teachers. Teachers are said to be the engineers of our souls; they mould our thinking, they determine to a large extent what we would eventually turn out to be.

In the old days, even though there were a few teachers who smoked or gambled or were racists in their thinking, they would never exhibit this bad behaviour in front of their students. Even though they were black and dirty, they would still try to keep the white sheets as clean as possible, and try not to rub their dirt onto their students.

Teachers nowadays are very different from those four or five decades ago. There are still many dedicated ones who regard teaching as a calling, but many others have become very materialistic and treat teaching as just another job.

Many despite being trained in teachers’ colleges, have not understood the meaning of teaching, and they have no qualms passing their own dirt to their students, thereby making the white sheets black and dirty like they themselves.

To them, teaching is just another job, and they could not care less how their students turn out, as long as they get their salary, which is now many times better than their counterparts’ many decades ago.

The recent incident in which a principal made racist comments about her students  shows the ugly side of some of these people, who have no qualms at all hurting and insulting these young minds.

While a true human being should always practise the axiom “respect your own elders and also the elders of others; love your own children and extend the same love to the children of others”, this group of racist teachers not only would not love the young children of other people, they would even go all out to hurt their feelings.

They try not only to rub their own dirt onto these white sheets, but also create holes to render such sheets into rubbish. By doing so, they have not only disgraced themselves, but the schools and the whole education system as well.

While there are many calls asking that stern action be taken against this principal, and I think the calls are justified, we should go one step further and ask ourselves why are there such teachers in our schools.

The answer is simple. It is the system.  The whole system is wrong. The system influences the minds of these teachers. The system in turn is moulded by the policies.  The policies are wrong. The policies that have been in place for more than half century have resulted in a milieu in which everything is defined and determined by the colour of our skin. These policies have also divided the country; divided the people.  These policies have also resulted in mediocrity and loss of excellence in almost everything we do.

Without the majority race recognising this and taking steps to correct these policies, the country will go further down the path of polarisation.  But to change the views and thinking of the majority race, political will power must be there. So far, it is lacking. The present PM may have realised this, but even if his mind is willing, he may not have the clout to realise his ideas of a fairer society.

August 23, 2010

Widening income inequality is a major obstacle to the unity and solidarity that 1Malaysia envisions.

Since Merdeka(Independence) in 1957, the top 20% of income earners in Malaysia have benefited much more from economic growth than the bottom 40%. It is significant that the report of the National Economic Advisory Council (NEAC) on the New Economic Model (NEM) admits that, “ The bottom 40% of households have experienced the slowest growth of average income, earning less than RM 1,500 per month in 2008.” The wage trend in Malaysia recorded only an annual 2.6% growth during the past 10 years, compared to the escalating cost of living during the same period. It explains why almost 34% of about 1.3 million workers earn less than RM700 a month, below the poverty line of RM 720 per month— a point emphasised by the Minister of Human Resources, Datuk Dr. S. Subramaniam, recently.

It is not difficult to fathom why workers earn so little and why income disparities are so glaring. The huge influx of unskilled, lowly paid foreign labour into the country since the late eighties has played a big part in depressing wage levels at one end of the spectrum. At the same time, the liberalisation of the financial sector and the privatisation of public enterprises in Malaysia as in so many other countries have led to the elevation of incomes at the other end of the spectrum, thus contributing to widening inequalities.

The government is attempting to respond to the challenge by reducing our dependence upon foreign workers and by improving wage levels and working conditions in certain sectors of the economy. It plans to increase the percentage of the bottom 40% households with SPM qualification and above, from 30% in 2009 to 45% in 2015. Both government and private companies are expected to help workers garner new skills that will enable them to earn better incomes.

While there is a degree of support for these measures, many private employers, it appears, are against one of the fundamental demands of workers unions for ameliorating the plight of the poor— namely, a basic minimum wage for all workers. 90% of countries have laws that provide for a minimum wage in one form or another. In most cases, various criteria are taken into account, including the needs of the workers and their families, the prevailing economic situation, and the social environment.

Many economists and sociologists today feel that the term “minimum wage” itself, which is the product of an earlier era, should be replaced with the term “ living income” and linked to the dignity of the human being. A living income is a minimum level of income by which all human beings can provide for themselves and their dependents the five basic

material human needs— food, housing, clothing, health care and education. These needs are vital for protecting human dignity.

It is because governments, the owners of capital, and other powerful elements in the upper strata of society have failed to protect the dignity of the masses that there is growing alienation and discontent in many parts of the world. China is an example of a country whose phenomenal growth rates since the early nineties have benefited a minority, rather than the majority, which is why social unrest is on the rise, as the respected Chinese Academy of Social Sciences acknowledges. Similarly, India’s much lauded economic success has not transformed the lives of its teeming millions. A recent United Nations study has shown that one-third of the world’s poor live in conditions of utter destitution in that country. It is one of the reasons for the rapid spread of the Naxalite rebellion in various districts in India. Even the “red shirt” protest movement in Thailand that galvanised a huge segment of the rural poor has been described by some analysts as an expression of the anger and disillusionment of the marginalised.

The bottom 40% in Malaysian society is nowhere as desperate as the poor of China or India or Thailand. Nonetheless, there is alienation. Some of this alienation manifested itself through the ballot-box in the March 2008 General Election. The tremendous increase in crime rates, and numerous cases of social delinquency that surfaced between 2006 and 2008 may also have been the consequences of alienation and marginalisation. It is also quite possible that a segment of those at the bottom of the heap— especially the youths—feel marginalised by a society which they perceive panders more to the glitz and glitter of the elite than to their yearning for recognition and respect. How the alienation of the poor and those who are struggling to make ends meet will express itself in the next few years, no one knows.

This is why it is imperative that the government continues to address the challenge of low incomes and widening inequalities in society. It should not be distracted by a small group motivated by self-interest and blinded by a myopic notion of “market forces determining wages.” If 1Malaysia is premised upon inclusiveness, it must not only ensure a living income for the bottom 40% but also reduce the yawning economic and social disparities that are an affront to human dignity.

By Dr. Chandra Muzaffar

 

On 26 July, WikiLeaks released thousands of secret US military files on the war in Afghanistan. Cover-ups, a secret assassination unit and the killing of civilians are documented. In file after file, the brutalities echo the colonial past. From Malaya and Vietnam to Bloody Sunday and Basra, little has changed. The difference is that today there is an extraordinary way of knowing how faraway societies are routinely ravaged in our name. WikiLeaks has acquired records of six years of civilian killing for both Afghanistan and Iraq, of which those published in the Guardian, Der Spiegel and the New York Times are a fraction.

There is understandably hysteria on high, with demands that the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is “hunted down” and “rendered.” In Washington, I interviewed a senior Defense Department official and asked, “Can you give a guarantee that the editors of WikiLeaks and the editor in chief, who is not American, will not be subjected to the kind of manhunt that we read about in the media?” He replied, “It’s not my position to give guarantees on anything.” He referred me to the “ongoing criminal investigation” of a US soldier, Bradley Manning, an alleged whistleblower. In a nation that claims its constitution protects truth-tellers, the Obama administration is pursuing and prosecuting more whistleblowers than any of its modern predecessors. A Pentagon document states bluntly that US intelligence intends to “fatally marginalize” WikiLeaks. The preferred tactic is smear, with corporate journalists ever ready to play their part.

On 31 July, the American celebrity reporter Christiane Amanpour interviewed Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on the ABC network. She invited Gates to describe to her viewers his “anger” at WikiLeaks. She echoed the Pentagon line that “this leak has blood on its hands,” thereby cueing Gates to find WikiLeaks “guilty” of “moral culpability.” Such hypocrisy coming from a regime drenched in the blood of the people of Afghanistan and Iraq – as its own files make clear – is apparently not for journalistic enquiry. This is hardly surprising now that a new and fearless form of public accountability, which WikiLeaks represents, threatens not only the war-makers but their apologists.

Their current propaganda is that WikiLeaks is “irresponsible.” Earlier this year, before it released the cockpit video of an American Apache gunship killing 19 civilians in Iraq, including journalists and children, WikiLeaks sent people to Baghdad to find the families of the victims in order to prepare them. Prior to the release of last month’s Afghan War Logs, WikiLeaks wrote to the White House asking that it identify names that might draw reprisals. There was no reply. More than 15,000 files were withheld and these, says Assange, will not be released until they have been scrutinized “line by line” so that names of those at risk can be deleted.

The pressure on Assange himself seems unrelenting. In his homeland, Australia, the shadow foreign minister, Julie Bishop, has said that if her right-wing coalition wins the general election on 21 August, “appropriate action” will be taken “if an Australian citizen has deliberately undertaken an activity that could put at risk the lives of Australian forces in Afghanistan or undermine our operations in any way.” The Australian role in Afghanistan, effectively mercenary in the service of Washington, has produced two striking results: the massacre of five children in a village in Oruzgan province and the overwhelming disapproval of the majority of Australians.

Last May, following the release of the Apache footage, Assange had his Australian passport temporarily confiscated when he returned home. The Labor government in Canberra denies it has received requests from Washington to detain him and spy on the WikiLeaks network. The Cameron government also denies this. They would, wouldn’t they? Assange, who came to London last month to work on exposing the war logs, has had to leave Britain hastily for, as he puts it, “safer climes.”

On 16 August, the Guardian, citing Daniel Ellsberg, described the great Israeli whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu as “the pre-eminent hero of the nuclear age.” Vanunu, who alerted the world to Israel’s secret nuclear weapons, was kidnapped by the Israelis and incarcerated for 18 years after he was left unprotected by the London Sunday Times, which had published the documents he supplied. In 1983, another heroic whistleblower, Sarah Tisdall, a Foreign Office clerical officer, sent documents to the Guardian that disclosed how the Thatcher government planned to spin the arrival of American cruise missiles in Britain. The Guardian complied with a court order to hand over the documents, and Tisdall went to prison.

In one sense, the WikiLeaks revelations shame the dominant section of journalism devoted merely to taking down what cynical and malign power tells it. This is state stenography, not journalism. Look on the WikiLeaks site and read a Ministry of Defense document that describes the “threat” of real journalism. And so it should be a threat. Having published skillfully the WikiLeaks expose of a fraudulent war, the Guardian should now give its most powerful and unreserved editorial support to the protection of Julian Assange and his colleagues, whose truth-telling is as important as any in my lifetime.

I like Julian Assange’s dust-dry wit. When I asked him if it was more difficult to publish secret information in Britain, he replied, “When we look at Official Secrets Act labeled documents we see that they state it is offence to retain the information and an offence to destroy the information. So the only possible outcome we have is to publish the information.”

By John Pilger

19 August, 2010

Johnpilger.com