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Does Conflict Empower Women?

“Necessity is the mother of Invention” is a well proven fact; similar has been the case with women of Kashmir. The armed conflict has imposed on them new alien roles, which they have readily accepted and are fulfilling the responsibilities of the same. During the initial phase of armed struggle, the women rubbed shoulders with men, and in many cases proved more effective than men, especially when the army or police would pick up the youth. The women of the locality would stage protests outside the army camps and pickets which would force the army to release the youth. The women would even resist the illegal detention of any youth, and would protest alongwith men against the atrocities of the State and army.

When the things turned ugly, and women found themselves in the line of fire, they retreated a bit from the active protests as the killings, rapes, abductions, torture and illegal detentions were threatening to disrupt the whole Social and Family life, which would have ultimately led to anarchy, but women took charge of their lives and responsibility of their families; they were overburdened by the challenges of extended responsibilities and roles but they didn’t panic and only due to their perseverance and steadfastness, a Social catastrophe was avoided. In the families whose lone bread earners were killed or disappeared, women began to shoulder the economic responsibilities, to educate their children and drive the cart of daily life.

Illiterate women, whose sons, spouses, brothers or fathers were serving jail sentences in different parts of Kashmir and India, began to follow their legal suits, contacted lawyers, got to learn about the draconian laws under which their beloved ones were imprisoned, got exposed to the legal clauses and knew which judges were hearing their cases. They began to visit various jails, torture and detention centers and traveled to alien places, which provided them diverse exposure, and they are well aware of the location of prisons, courts and cheap hotels to stay during which the trail was going on. Thus their personal tragedies made them emerge as empowered women, who control the lives of their kith and kin, despite the impediments of education, gender and birth.

Thousands of men have been killed in staged, fake encounters and in custody by the army and Police too. Then there are men, who have been picked by the army or police and since then none has heard about them, army and police claims they have run away from the custody, whereas their families allege that the disappeared souls are either in the custody of the agencies that picked them or have been killed who are occupying the unknown graves. According to the unofficial sources more than ten thousand persons are disappeared in Kashmir, and there are more than three thousand half widows(Half Widows are those women whose husbands have disappeared in the custody and there is no consensus among the scholars of different schools of thought about the stipulated time after which they can be pronounced as Widows and have the right to remarry). The disappearance is a brutal continuous source of agony for the family and those belonging to the victim as they always remain in a dilemma about the status of the victim, neither the law is able to declare him dead nor the dear ones are ready to accept him as dead, as the victim has vanished in thin air.

To follow the cases of these disappeared souls, mothers of the disappeared sons got together under the chairmanship of Parveena Ahangar, whose own son Javed Ahmad Ahangar is missing since 1990s from the army’s custody to form the Association of the Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) in 1994. Later on half widows too joined APDP. Since 1994 till date they have been fighting a continuous legal battle for Justice demanding the whereabouts of their beloved ones, which till now has yielded nothing, but Parveena a middle aged, illiterate, common woman has reiterated never to surrender or give up, and is inspiring others to follow her suit. On the 10th of every month, members of APDP stage a peaceful silent protest in the Pratap Park, located in the heart of Srinagar. Parveena is regularly invited to attend different seminars and conferences in different parts of the world, where she shares her agony and agony of thousands others.

The stalwarts of armed insurgency, most of whom either have been killed or have joined Pro-Freedom politics have been grossly negligent towards building institutions for the victims of conflict, instead the money which was contributed and channeled through them to take care of the victims of the conflict was siphoned and swindled off by the majority of them either for personal or political use, and the victims were left high and dry; and forced to fend for themselves which left them in pathetic conditions, where they are forced to be exploited in multi dimensional ways. It is one of the reasons where the common masses feel disgusted against the flag bearers of Aazadi, as they can’t relate their miseries and conditions to them. APDP with its little means tries to cater to the needs of the families of disappeared souls. Parveena holds that only mothers know the agony of losing a son, hence mothers have to be in the forefront in the struggle for Justice.

Armed insurgency which now has lost its momentum as a result of which women now are regaining their public space back once again, and are even on the forefront of the protests that have rocked Kashmir Valley for last three consecutive years since 2008. Women are also active in the Peace and Reconciliation efforts too, though these initiatives are still an elite venture.

Thus conflict made women of Kashmir to acquire new roles, and with it came its own set of problems and responsibilities and women have proved to be oceans of sacrifice and courage and with a smiling face they are delivering what these roles demand from them. But there is a flipside of the conflict which is having an adverse effect on women and has made them more vulnerable to various evils and their rights are violated with impunity.

The incidents of Domestic violence have gone up due to the impact of conflict, as the men folk are being daily humiliated by the army and police bruising their self esteem and crushing their self confidence, who in turn to want to regain and assert their authority, stature, status and manliness against women hence coerce them to submission. They avenge their humiliation from their womenfolk, which even in many cases has resulted in death.

The women related to militants and Pro-Freedom voices suffer from governmental and State apathy, hostility and hate at every step of their lives, and those related to renegades or counter insurgents from Social apathy, as they are declared as Social outcastes, and their women and children have to face a host of problems.

Families, whose bread earners have been killed, find women trying hard to keep the family together, often neglecting their own health. The financial constraints drive them from pillar to post and cultural impediments and social norms don’t even permit some of them to beg.

Previously it was the father, brother, husband or son who used to provide security to his daughter, sister, wife or mother but given the situation prevalent in Kashmir the roles have been reversed. The women shoulder their men when they are encountered with a calamity, though social norms inhibit women visiting Police Stations, army camps and torture centers, but the situation demands so and in the process they get a bad name label.

Child marriage is becoming rampant in the heavily militarized areas, so as to escape rape and molestation by the army. The drop out rate of girls from schools is also on rise, in order to escape the routine taunts and harassment by the army enroute to school. Some girls have been even forced to marry certain people of influence through coercion by Police and counterinsurgents and in case of resistance; either the girl has been raped or killed. There has been no survey about the exact number of rapes committed against the Kashmiri women but in a survey conducted by Medicans San Frontiers(Doctors Without Borders) an International NGO in 2006 on “Kashmir: Violence and Health”, 11.6 percent of interviewees said they had been victims of sexual violence since 1989. Almost two thirds of the people interviewed (63.9 percent) by MSF had heard about cases of rape during the same period. The study revealed that Kashmiri women were among the worst sufferers of sexual violence in the world. The figure is much higher than that of Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Chechnya and Ingushetia. Many teenage girls are now going for counseling in order to cope the rising psychological impact of the atrocities on women perpetuated by army and police. The suicide rate among women of Kashmir is on rise and the ramifications of conflict have contributed to its steep increase among women.

The women of Kashmir have been dragged to flesh trade, and they are exploited in this process as they are offered money sometimes but most of times denied. The lower rung Special Police Officers(SPO)s are even a part of this vicious circle, who would marry a girl, then sell her to others or make her to visit their higher officers for sexual favors. These women forced in the flesh trade are even used as mukhbirs(spies) or even coerced to drag other girls in their net, thus the vicious circle continued and the girls had no escape from the same. Luring the poor girls for jobs and then sexually exploiting them, came to the forefront on a large scale in the form of VIP Sex Scandal 2006 in which high rank police officials, top bureaucrats and politicians were involved in sexploitation of the young local girls, all of whom were educated, some even with bachelors and masters degree, though most of then were not poor, but they needed jobs for attaining social status. In Kashmir it now has become difficult for young unemployed girls to find a suitable groom, as the marriage market demands the girl to be employed, and more the high paying job, more are the chances of having a similarly high status groom, this trend is making the girls run helter skelter for jobs and in the process fall in the trap of sex exploiters, who in this case happened to be men of Power.

The sexploitation of women in Kashmir still continues unabated, and now there are many clear signals that Kashmiri girls are even trafficked to other states for prostitution, and sooner or later this brutal fact will too dawn on the people of Kashmir.

The recent population census of 2011 has brought to fore various shocking facts about women of Kashmir, of which the drastic decline in the female sex ratio will have serious ramifications in the future, though some leaders have even advised the men to turn gay, but we must try to find the real roots of this decline, as the Sex ratio has dropped from 906 per thousand males in 2001 to 883 in 2011, as the decadal census proved. One of the reasons for this drastic fall is the vulnerability of women via the presence of army in Kashmir who ravage their chastity with impunity, hence numerous incidents of rape and molestations by the army and zero percent persecution of the culprits has reinforced the belief of parents that they can’t afford the liability of a girl child. Other reasons like Dowry, patriarchal hostility towards girl child, unemployment and a host of other issues too contribute to the brutal female feticide, which is continuing unabated, despite dire warnings in the Quran against such inhuman, uncivilized, brutish, nasty and savage practice. Also many girls have been left unclaimed in hospitals by their parents, giving rise to another issue of catering to these infants, which mostly are adopted and if not the orphanages, special homes have no arrangement for the same. The Social & Child rights workers encounter serious challenges while addressing this new problem.

Women of Kashmir even in 21st century suffer from scores of problems and issues in this corner of the world, where women still have numerous inhibitions and are far from empowered. Women of Kashmir have adopted and acquired new roles that conflict imposed and demanded from them, but the perpetual denial of Justice, failure to bestow equal rights on them, structural prejudices prevalent in society against them, absence of institutions which will cater to their needs, marginalization of their dissent, suppression of their voices and turning a blind eye towards their sacrifices and contribution has obviously led to their souls being bruised, vision blurred, physique burdened, courage undermined, voices chocked but despite all these hurdles they play a significant part in holding the family and society together. They have always proven to be an inspiration for men to continue their struggle against occupation and atrocities. Every conflict brings in its wake new roles for women, and in most cases women comply with the same, same has happened in Kashmir too, but these roles have both Positive as well negative implications depending on the manner, means and degree of exposure to the conflict and its impact on the lives of women.

What more new roles or disastrous implications conflict will have on women of Kashmir in future, only time will tell!!

By Mushtaq Ul haq Ahmad Sikander

4 September 2011

Mushtaq Ul Haq Ahmad Sikander is Writer-Activist based in Srinagar, Kashmir and can be reached at sikandarmushtaq@gmail.com

Disappointment At The United Nations: The Palmer Report On The Flotilla Incident Of 31 May 2010

When the UN Secretary General announced on 2 August 2010 that a Panel of Inquiry had been established to investigate the Israeli attacks of 31 May on the Mavi Marmara and five other ships carrying humanitarian aid to the beleaguered people of Gaza there was widespread hope that international law would be vindicated and the Israelis would finally be held accountable. With the release of the report this past week these hopes have been largely dashed as the report failed to address the central international law issues in a credible and satisfactory manner. Turkey, not surprisingly, responded strongly that it was not prepared to live with the central finding of the 105 page report to the effect that the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip is lawful and could be enforced by Israel against a humanitarian mission even in international waters.

Perhaps this outcome should not be surprising. The Panel as appointed was woefully ill-equipped to render an authoritative result. Geoffrey Palmer, the Chair of the Panel, although respected as the former Prime Minister of New Zealand and as an environmental law professor, was not particularly knowledgeable about either the international law of the sea or the law of war. And incredibly, the only other independent member of the Panel was Alvaro Uribe, the former President of Colombia, with no professional credentials relevant to the issues under consideration, and notorious both for his horrible human rights record while holding office and forging intimate ties with Israel by way of arms purchases and diplomatic cooperation that was acknowledged by ‘The Light Unto The Nations’ award given by the American Jewish Committee that should have been sufficient by itself to cast doubt on his suitability for this appointment. His presence on the panel compromised the integrity of the process, and made one wonder how could such an appointment can be explained, let alone justified. The remaining two members were designated by the governments of Israel and Turkey, and not surprisingly appended partisan dissents to those portions of the report that criticized the position taken by their respective governments. Another limitation of the report was that the Panel was constrained by its terms of reference that prohibited reliance on any materials other than presented in the two national reports submitted by the contending governments. With these considerations in mind, we can only wonder why the Secretary General would have established a framework so ill-equipped to reach findings that would put the controversy to rest, which it has certainly not done.

Even this ill-conceived panel did not altogether endorse Israeli behavior on 31 May. They found that Israel used excessive force and seemed responsible for the deaths of the nine passengers on the Mavi Marmara, instructing Israel to pay compensation and issue a statement of regret. In other words the Palmer Report seems to fault seriously the manner by which the Israeli enforced the blockade, but unfortunately upheld the underlying legality of both the blockade and the right of enforcement, and that is the rub. Such a conclusion contradicted the earlier finding of a more expert panel established by the Human Rights Council, as well as rejected the overwhelming consensus that had been expressed by qualified international law specialists on these core issues.

While the Panel delayed the report several times to give diplomacy a chance to resolve the contested issues, Israel and Turkey could never quite reach closure. There were intriguing reports along the way that unpublicized discussions between representatives of the two governments had reached a compromise agreement on the basis of Israel’s readiness to offer Turkey a formal apology and to compensate the families of those killed as well as those wounded during the attack, but when the time for announcing such a resolution of this conflict, Israel backed away. In particular, the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, seemed unwilling to take the last step, claiming that it would demoralize the citizenry of Israel and signal weakness to Israel’s enemies in the region. More cynical observers believed that the Israeli refusal to resolve the conflict was a reflection of domestic politics, especially Netanyahu’s rivalry with the extremist Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who was forever accusing Netanyahu of being a wimpy leader and made no secret of his own ambition to be the next Israeli head of state. Whatever the true mix of reasons, the diplomatic track failed, despite cheerleading from Washington that made no secret of its view that resolving this conflict had become a high priority for American foreign policy. And so the Palmer Report assumed a greater role than might have been anticipated. After the feverish diplomatic efforts failed, the Palmer panel seemed to offer the last chance for the parties to reach a mutually satisfactory resolution based on the application of the international law and resulting recommendations that would delimit what must be done to overcome any violations that had taken place during the attack on the flotilla.

But to be satisfactory, the report had to interpret the legal issues in a reasonable and responsible manner. This meant, above all else, that the underlying blockade imposed more than four years ago on the 1.5 million Palestinians living in Gaza was unlawful, and should be immediately lifted. On this basis, the enforcement by way of the 31 May attacks were unlawful, an offense aggravated by being the gross interference with freedom of navigation on the high seas, and further aggravated by producing nine deaths among the humanitarian workers and peace activists on the Mavi Marmara and by Israeli harassing and abusive behavior toward the rest of the passengers. Such conclusions should have been ‘no brainers’ for the panel, so obvious were these determinations from the perspective of international law as to leave little room for reasonable doubt. But this was not to be, and the report as written is a step backward from the fundamental effort of international law to limit permissible uses of international force to situations of established defensive necessity, and even then, to ensure that the scale of force employed, was proportional and respectful of civilian innocence. It is a further step back to the extent that it purports to allow a state to enforce on the high seas a blockade, condemned around the world for its cruelty and damaging impact on civilian mental and physical health, a blockade that has deliberately deprived the people of Gaza of the necessities of life as well as locked them into a crowded and impoverished space that has been mercilessly attacked with modern weaponry from time to time.

Given these stark realities it is little wonder that the Turkish Government reacted with anger and disclosed their resolve to proceed in a manner that expresses not only its sense of law and justice, but also reflects Turkish efforts in recent years to base regional relations on principles of fairness and mutual respect. The Turkish Foreign Minister, realizing that the results reached by the Palmer Panel were unacceptable, formulated his own Plan B. This consisted of responses not only to the report, but to the failure of Israel to act benignly on its own by offering a formal apology and setting up adequate compensation arrangements. Israel had more than a year to meet these minimal Turkish demands, and showed its unwillingness to do so. As Mr. Davutoglu made clear this Turkish response was not intended to produce an encounter with Israel, but to put the relations between the countries back on ‘the right track.’ I believe that this is the correct approach under the circumstances as it takes international law seriously, and rests policy on issues of principle and prudence rather than opts for geopolitical opportunism. As Davutoglu said plainly, “The time has come for Israel to pay a price for its illegal action. The price, first of all, is being deprived of Turkey’s friendship.”

And it this withdrawal of friendship is not just symbolic. Turkey has downgraded diplomatic representation, expelling the Israeli ambassador and maintaining relations at the measly level of second secretary. Beyond this all forms of military cooperation are suspended, and Turkey indicated that it will strengthen its naval presence in the Eastern Mediterranean. As well, Turkey has indicated its intention to initiate action within the General Assembly to seek an Advisory Opinion from the International Court of Justice as to the legality of the blockade. What is sadly evident is that Israeli internal politics have become so belligerent and militarist that the political leaders in the country are hamstrung, unable to take a foreign policy initiative that is manifestly in their national interest. For Israel to lose Turkey’s friendship is second only to losing America’s support, and coupled with the more democratic-driven policies of the Arab Spring, this alienation of Ankara is a major setback for Israel’s future in the region.

What is more, the Turkish refusal to swallow the findings of the Palmer Report is an admirable posture that is bound to be popular throughout the Middle East and beyond. At a time when some of Turkey’s earlier diplomatic initiatives have run into difficulties, most evidently in Syria, this stand on behalf of the victimized population of Gaza represents a rare display of placing values above interests. The people of Gaza are weak, abused, and vulnerable. In contrast, Israel is a military powerhouse, prospering, a valuable trading partner for Turkey, and in the background the United States is ready to pay a pretty penny if it could induce a rapprochement, thereby avoiding the awkwardness of dealing with this breakdown between its two most significant strategic partners in the Middle East. We should also keep in mind that the passengers on these flotilla ships were mainly idealists, seeking nonviolently to overcome a humanitarian ordeal that the UN and the interplay of national governments had been unable and unwilling to address for several years. This initiative by civil society activists deserved the support and solidarity of the world, not a slap on the wrist by being chastened by the Palmer report’s view that their action were irresponsible and provocative.

Israel has managed up to now to avoid paying the price for defying international law. For decades it has been building unlawful settlements in occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. It has used excessive violence and relied on state terror on numerous occasions in dealing with Palestinian resistance, and has subjected the people of Gaza to sustained and extreme forms of collective punishment. It attacked villages and neighborhood of Beirut mercilessly in 2006, launched its massive campaign from land, sea, and air for three weeks at the end of 2008 against a defenseless Gaza, and then shocked world opinion with its violence against the Mavi Marmara in its nighttime attack in 2010. It should have been made to pay the price long ago for this pattern of defying international law, above all by the United Nations. If Turkey sustains its position it will finally send a message to Tel Aviv that the wellbeing and security of Israel in the future will depend on a change of course in its relation to both the Palestinians and its regional neighbors. The days of flaunting international law and fundamental human rights are no longer policy options for Israel without a downside. Turkey is dramatically demonstrating that there can be a decided downside to Israeli flagrant lawlessness.

By Prof. Richard Falk

10 September 2011

@ Middleeastmonitor.org.uk

The author is the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories

Dealing with Israel under a hegemonic crisis

The global hegemonic order is being challenged at a time of crisis and turmoil in several regions.

A crisis of hegemony in contemporary international politics is an astonishing development. This situation ironically presents us with serious risks in global terms, while offering opportunities at various levels simultaneously.

The diminishing power of the US in world politics has been subject to many interpretations in this period. One shared perspective is that the US overstretch in post-September 11 period tested the limits of the US power. The US is now back at home and dealing with its own problems with lesser interest to international issues. The Obama administration offered “hope” in this regards exclusively to its domestic constituency. The promise of Obama’s was a restoration of trust and confidence at home, while attempting to repair the US image abroad.

The gradual decline of the US hegemonic influence in the Middle East created a stronger impact in this geography in comparison to other regions. The region was stuck with the static order predicated on the three interrelated pillars of ensuring Israel’s security, serving oil interests and maintaining the so-called stability. The US administration was happy with the Mubarak regime, since it was satisfying these requirements. The weakening US role opened room for the regional actors to progressively forge a sense of self-confidence to act on their own. Arab Spring demonstrated that no international power, including the US and other major powers, is able to control the developments. Ironically, the so-called ‘spring’ came to the Arab world at a time of global turmoil.

“Israel operates in a new Middle East”

Recently, the US-Israeli relations have been transformed under the imperatives of the declining hegemony. In this relationship, Israel used to be viewed as a vital ally backed strongly by the US in an atmosphere of hegemonic stability in the Middle East. Israel is still a vital ally and continues to enjoy strong support. However, Israel operates in a new Middle East, with weakening US control. The US also has lost its direct control over Israel and it is also unable to shape political environment in the region in which Israel operates. Granted, the Israeli administration still benefits from the US support, while not being accountable to it.

The situation remains volatile in the Middle East, given the weakening of hegemonic control and weakening ability of regional actors to deal with the situation in the region. Though there is an increasing room to manoeuvre and the regional powers enjoy a sense of freedom of action, they are not sure about where the regional order is heading. Although none of the regional powers, i.e., Israel, Iran, and Turkey, is able to dominate others, each experiences emancipation from the limiting influence of the hegemonic order. Israel’s choice in this situation is to oppress Palestinians, block any hope for peace, de-legitimize the UN system and international law. Israel also consolidates the US double standard image, marginalises the regional countries and peoples, and turns a blind eye to radical change and transformation in the region.

The Israeli administration’s understanding of the global and regional environments are very problematic. From their perspective, there is a suitable environment for their policies and they will not be responsible for the consequences of their actions at all. The US is not in a position to influence them, and they may even meddle into the US politics. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s defiance against the Obama administration exemplifies this mentality. This false consciousness made foreign policy concerns in Israel disappear and only Israeli domestic issues matter. It may lead to an Israeli ego-centric illusion at the administrative level with far worse consequences.

Dealing with Israel is becoming more difficult under a crisis of hegemony. The strategic blindness prevents the Israeli governemnt from drawing lessons from the deteriorating relations, among others, with Turkey as well as post-revolution Egypt. Unfortunately, the Israeli illusion seems likely to continue at the detriment of the other regional actors, its allies and its own people.

By Bulent Aras Last

21 September 2011

Professor Bulent Aras is head of the Center for Strategic Research, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Turkey.

Dag Hammarskjold: Was his death a crash or a conspiracy?

Exactly 50 years ago, UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold died in a plane crash on a mission to prevent civil war in newly independent Congo. Suspicions that the plane was shot down, never fully laid to rest, are now again on the rise.

After his death, Mr Hammarskjold was described by US President John F Kennedy as the “greatest statesman of our century”. He was a man with a vision of the UN as a “dynamic instrument” organising the world community, a protector of small nations, independent of the major powers, acting only in the interests of peace.

Dag Hammarskjold

Born in 1905 into an aristocratic Swedish family

Full name, Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjold

Helped lay foundations of Swedish welfare state

Swedish state secretary for foreign affairs (1947-1951)

The UN’s second secretary general (1953-1961), proposed by Britain and France

Nobel Peace Prize winner 1961

The only person to be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize after his death, he established the first armed UN peacekeeping mission following the crisis in Suez.

Just after midnight on 18 September 1961, he was heading to negotiate a ceasefire in a mineral-rich breakaway region of Congo, where another of his peacekeeping missions was getting bogged down in the complex politics of decolonisation and Cold War rivalry.

But his DC6 aircraft crashed in darkness shortly before landing, in a forest near Ndola in Northern Rhodesia – now Zambia.

Knut Hammarskjold, his nephew, visited the crash site days later.

“It was just scattered all over the place, the pieces of the aircraft,” he says. “I did not see any bodies, they had been removed earlier, I think.”

He remembers the reaction at home in Sweden, where his uncle was a national hero.

“Everybody was so shocked. I can say the whole of Sweden was affected by this. All the shops had his picture in the window, and he had a state funeral which was very unusual for a foreign office person.”

Iron will

Eight years earlier, when the members of the Security Council appointed the unassuming Swede secretary general, they could not have predicted the zeal he would bring to the job.

“He was a very spiritual, intellectual, cultured man, and that was all part of his mystical approach to life,” says Dame Margaret Anstee, the first female under-secretary at the UN, who was starting out on a 40-year career at the organisation. “He had a certain reserve, and a certain unique kind of dignity.”

But he soon gained a reputation for independence and daring, and instead of staying in his New York office, a hands-on approach became his trademark. He personally negotiated the release of 15 American airmen who had been imprisoned in China at a time when the People’s Republic was not represented at the UN.

“He had the skills of mediation and persuasion, combined with this almost iron single-minded will of where he wanted to go,” says Margaret Anstee.

“But of course by that very token it brought him into conflict with people who wanted to use the UN for their own ends.”

In Congo, one issue was who should control the southern province of Katanga, rich in copper, uranium and tin. Belgium, the ex-colonial power, backed a secessionist movement led by Moise Tshombe, as did the UK and US who had mining interests in the region.

But Mr Hammarskjold from the start backed Congo’s elected central authorities – the Soviet-backed government of prime minister Patrice Lumumba, and later, after Mr Lumumba was deposed and murdered, Prime Minister Cyrille Adoula.

Mr Hammarskjold wanted to pursue a negotiated solution between Mr Tshombe and the central government, a goal that became even more urgent after UN peacekeepers found themselves outgunned during an aggressive operation to drive foreign mercenaries from Katanga.

Mr Tshombe was waiting to talk to him in Ndola on the night he died.

Airbrushed photos

The crash of his aircraft has never been fully explained. Two investigations held in the British-run Central African Federation, which included Northern Rhodesia, were followed by an official UN inquiry, which concluded that foul play could not be ruled out. So people have never stopped coming forward with new explanations, and asking new questions.

Some 30 years after the crash, in 1992, two men who had served as UN representatives in Katanga just before and just after Hammarskjold’s death – Conor Cruise O’Brien and George Ivan Smith – wrote a letter to the Guardian claiming to have evidence that the plane was shot down accidentally, by mercenaries. In their view, a warning shot intended to divert the plane to alternative talks with industrialists in Katanga, in fact hit the plane and caused it to crash.

In 1998 South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, led by Desmond Tutu, published eight letters that suggested CIA, MI5 and South African intelligence were involved in sabotage of the aircraft. British officials responded that these were likely to be Soviet forgeries.

In 2005, the head of UN military information in Congo in 1961, Bjorn Egge, told the Aftenposten newspaper he had noticed a round hole in Hammarskjold’s forehead when he saw the body in the mortuary. It could have been a bullet hole, he said, and it had been mysteriously airbrushed out of official photographs.

Over the past four years, Swedish aid worker Goran Bjorkdahl has carried out extensive research and British academic Susan Williams published a book on Thursday – Who Killed Hammarskjold? Both conclude that it is likely the plane was brought down.

Mr Bjorkdahl began his study after inheriting from his father, who had worked in Zambia in the 1970s, a piece of the plane fuselage containing unexplained small holes. He tracked down 12 witnesses, in whose accounts of the night three points appeared repeatedly:

The DC6 circled in the air two or three times before it crashed

A smaller plane flew above it

A bright light flashed in the sky above the large plane before it went down

Six witnesses also recall seeing uniformed personnel near the crash site that morning, even though

official reports claim it was not located until after 15:00 that day 

The official inquiries held at the time also contain witness testimony referring to a second plane in the sky.

One of the key questions Ms Williams asks in her book is why this and other inconvenient observations were discounted, or in some cases doctored during the official Rhodesian investigations. She says it is clear to her that there was a cover-up.

She places particular emphasis on three of her discoveries:

The photographs of Hammarskjold after his death are either taken in such a way as to conceal the

area around his right eye, or, where the eye is visible, they show evidence of having been touched

up, possibly to hide a wound

The sole survivor of the crash, Harold Julien, said there was an explosion before the plane fell from

the sky – his evidence was discounted in the original inquiry on the grounds that he was ill and

sedated, but Ms Williams has found a doctor’s statement insisting that he was lucid at the time (he

died of his injuries within days)

A US intelligence officer at a listening station in Cyprus says he heard a cockpit recording from Ndola,

in which a pilot talks of closing in on the DC6 – guns are heard firing, and then the words “I’ve hit it”

“There is no smoking gun, but there is a mass of evidence that points in the direction that the plane was shot down by a second plane,” she told the BBC. “That is a far more convincing and supported explanation than any other.”

There were a range of people, including white Rhodesians and the Belgian and British mining companies in Katanga, “with a sense of being at war with the UN and with African nationalism”, she says – and with a motive for preventing Mr Hammarskjold and Mr Tshombe reaching a negotiated settlement.

Model diplomat

Mr Hammarskjold’s main adviser at the time, Brian Urquhart, says it is “so wrong” to think that “at night without ground control you could shoot down a plane or even locate it”. But Ms Williams says experts have told her that the DC6, on its way in to land at Ndola airport on a moonlit night, was a “sitting duck”.

Ms Williams argues that the time has come for a new inquiry, and Mr Hammarskjold’s nephew Knut is reported to have called for one himself, after hearing of Ms Williams’ new evidence.

Fifty years later, his uncle is still a model for people working at the UN, says Knut Hammarskjold.

“Many, I’ve been told, still have his photo on their desks, and [former Secretary General] Kofi Annan says he always asks when there is a problem: ‘What will Dag have done in this situation?'”

Dame Margaret Anstee says he had the courage to stand up for his principles and to the strong member states, which his successors have lacked.

“There was a tacit agreement never to have such a single-minded secretary general again,” she says. “I think we can say they haven’t.”

Additional reporting by Stephen Mulvey

Susan Williams’ book, Who Killed Hammarskjold?, is published by Hurst and Company.

BBC World Service’s Witness programme on Monday reports on Dag Hammarskjold’s life and death, featuring contributions from Knut Hammarskjold and Dame Margaret Anstee.

By Stephanie Hegarty

17 September 2011

@ BBC World Service

Sigmund Freud once mentioned the defense offered by a man who was accused by his neighbor of having returned a kettle in a damaged condition. In the first place, he had returned the kettle undamaged; in the second place it already had holes in it when he borrowed it; and in the third place, he had never borrowed it at all.

That man’s name?

Dick Cheney.

On “Morning Joe” on MSNBC [4] on Thursday, the former Vice President claimed that the intelligence used to invade Iraq had been sound and accurate; the faulty intelligence was all Bill Clinton’s fault; the invasion didn’t do any damage but rather it was the Iraqis who damaged Iraq; and any invasion causes horrific things to happen, that just comes with the territory.

This incoherence was interspersed with gossip about Cheney’s marriage and his friends and his whole lovable social self. That lie may have overshadowed the more serious ones. When in the hell did Cheney become respectable, much less lovable? But that’s a distraction. Cheney’s crimes have long been catalogued [5].

Joe Scarborough began his Cheney interview by asking, not why did you commit so many crimes and abuses, but how did you, dear Dick, suffer from having the image of Darth Vader imposed on you? Cheney replies that he had fun wearing a Darth Vader mask. But listen carefully for the Freudian slip: he says he wore it in the President’s office, not the VICE President’s office.

Cheney claims he didn’t transform into Darth Vader, and of course he didn’t. Cheney was an immoral power-mad neocon for decades who consistently favored presidential prerogatives and aggressive militarism. But Cheney claims that what changed was that a terrorist act became an act of war rather than a crime. Did it do that all on its own?

Cheney slips in his usual baseless defense of torture and related abuses as having served some useful purpose. Scarborough does not follow up on that claim. Instead, he asks about Colin Powell’s comments on Cheney’s book. Nice and gossipy. But Lawrence Wilkerson’s more serious comments on the same topic, including his expression of willingness to testify against Cheney in court, go unmentioned.

Cheney then claims the Iraq lies were well-intended mistakes and basically accurate at the same time. Content with this, Scarborough focuses in on DC social scene changes over the decades. That’s journalism!

Mike Barnicle, a SERIOUS journalist, then asks Cheney if he regrets the death of a U.S. soldier in a humvee that was operating in Iraq without proper armor. This is a question along the lines of “Why did the military waste $60 billion in Iraq?” These talking heads are not 60 seconds from the topic of the lies that launched an illegal and immoral war that killed hundreds of thousands of people, almost none of them Americans, and Barnicle wants to know why the humvees weren’t better armored. Wednesday’s news [6] of U.S. troops having murdered Iraqi children gets no mention. This is breakfast table reporting for goodness sake! And yet, even with the softball question about the humvee armor, Cheney makes excuses and points out that things like that just happen in wars.

Well, exactly. But why do the wars happen?

Finally Scarborough asks Cheney why the U.S. military invaded Iraq, and Cheney says it was the right thing to do. He paints it as defensive. We attacked an unarmed impoverished nation halfway around the globe IN DEFENSE. Cheney even regurgitates a long-debunked claim about Mohamed Atta meeting with Iraqi officials. Next, Mika Brzezinski asks Cheney about the war lies, and Cheney blames Clinton. Now, I’m no fan of Clinton, and he told plenty of his own lies and engaged in plenty of power abuses tied to wars and military actions, but the fixing of the facts around the policy on Iraq was a major operation created after Clinton was gone. On this, Scarborough and Brzezinski had no follow up questions.

Instead, Barnicle helpfully turned to the topic of moving troops early out of Afghanistan and into preparation for war in Iraq. Cheney dishonestly suggested that no troops were moved to Iraq until a year and a half later. Then Cheney claims the Iraqis are the ones who did all the damage in Iraq. And on that note, Scarborough insists on chattering about Cheney’s marriage, while Brzezinski insists on hearing about Cheney’s sedated dreams of Italian villas.

Cheney admitted in this interview that his vice presidential role was unique. But that’s not actually an argument for buying his book. It’s an argument for amending our Constitution to include a ban on vice presidents exercising executive, as opposed to legislative, power.

The trouble is that there’s little point in amending our laws until we start enforcing them. Dick Cheney is a human advertisement for the absence of the rule of law in the United States. Wilkerson thinks Cheney is bluffing because he is scared of being prosecuted. I think Cheney knows that could only happen abroad. He is safe here because the Justice Department answers to Obama, and Obama is protecting Cheney because Obama is continuing similar crimes and abuses.

If Obama were to allow Attorney General Eric Holder to enforce our laws against Dick Cheney, Obama might very well save his own electoral prospects. But he would put himself at risk of future prosecution. The question of whether we will have the rule of law becomes the question of whether Obama wants to trade four years of power for decades in prison. That’s not how it is supposed to work.

By David Swanson

1 September 2011.

@ Democrats.com

Britain’s exposure to eurozone debt

The market focus at the moment is on the exposure of French banks to Greece. But be in no doubt how exposed British banks are to eurozone sovereigns and corporations.

I’ve written about the figures before.

But this chart (courtesy of a report by the Ernst and Young ITEM club) tells the story visually.

Germany gets gold, France silver. And then it’s us. The report estimates that the overall exposure of British banks to the economies of Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain is around $430bn, or 19 per cent of our GDP. If the eurozone unravels and those debts fall dramatically in value (or even go into default), the fact that we’re not members of the single currency will not protect us.

Incidentally, you might wonder what British banks were doing buying up all that eurozone debt in the first place. The Vickers commission, implicitly, wondered the same thing. That’s why it recommended that only British retail and corporate lending should be inside its ring fence. If bankers want to speculate by buying eurozone securities, they should surely do it without an implicit UK government backstop.

By Ben Chu, 14 September 2011 @ The Independent

Bahrain: Escalation Of Revolution As People Insist On Regime Change

The international pressure on the Al Khalifa regime has forced it to “drink the poison” and release the medical staff whose members had been accused by the Al Khalifa and Al Saud officials of the most serious crimes, including killing patients, falsifying evidence and plotting to overthrow the regime. Their release on Tuesday 6th September has exposed the lies, fabrications and most important of all, the crimes, committed by the regime.

Doctors and nurses were tortured extensively over their six months incarceration. They were beaten, hung in the chicken position, forced to stand for days, deprived of sleep, the use of electric shocks and tasers over their bodies, spitting in their mouths and stuffing their mouths with human secretion. Women medics were sexually assaulted.

International human rights bodies, including Physicians for Human Rights and Doctors Without Borders repeatedly issued statements accusing the Al Khalifa of torture and calling for their immediate release. On Tuesday, Irish doctors and supporters staged a hunger strike in Dublin in support of Bahraini medics, among them were Professor McCormack and Tara OGrady.

The victims themselves had been on hunger strike when they were released. It was a major defeat of the Al Khalifa dictatorship. Many Bahrainis also staged hunger strike in support of the prisoners who had been on strike for a week. Dr Abdul Jalil Al Singace and Abdul Hadi Al Khawaja led the hunger strike inside their cells and were followed by many inside prison and outside. Men and women from Bilad Al Qadeem, Al Zinj and Al Salihiya also participated in the hunger strike earlier this week.

International angry voices are rising against the moral failure of the US government and its allies as they maintain their support to Al Khalifa dictatorship. Of particular concern to the world is the justification of the Saudi occupation of Bahrain. On 8th September, CNN published a long report on the American immoral stand on Bahrain. Its Foreign Affairs editor, Joost R. Hiltermann ended his article with these wrods: “Washington retains real leverage over the regime. Bahrain is firmly under the U.S. security umbrella in the Gulf, and the United States provides Bahrain with funding for military purchases ($19 million in 2010) as well as military training assistance. The United States should be more assertive about using this influence: The current policy of continuing military-to-military relations without regard for the political and human rights situation is counterproductive, could be interpreted as violating U.S. law, and exposes the Obama administration to accusations of double standards in its approach to the Arab Spring.”

For the moment, Bahrain is the first successful chapter of the Arab counterrevolution spearheaded by Saudi Arabia – it is the place where the West has broken its promise to support the Arab people in their struggle for a greater say in politics and greater control over their destinies. It is time for the Obama administration to push the country back onto the road toward reform, using pro-democracy forces within the regime, its supporters and the opposition to show the way.

Meanwhile, Bahrain revolutionaries are preparing for a final assault to re-occupy the iconic Pearl Roundabout in what they have called “The final return” on 23rd and 24th September, the days of the by-elections. So far, at least three people have made the perilous attempt to occupy the Roundabout which is being defended by the Saudi and Al Khalifa troops. Abdul Qadir Darwish, Mohammad Al Hayki and Mohammad Jaffar Al Ekri had been able to cross those defences and take up positions at the Roundabout. They were all arrested, beaten and tortured by members of the regime’s Death Squads.

The people have continued their revolution with great zeal and determination. This morning a large demonstration was staged at Mhaza District of Sitra calling for regime change and shouting “Down with Hamad”. Last night people of Sitra also demonstrated against the regime whose forces reacted with fury, smashing cars and breaking people’s properties. Over the past week, several demonstrations were held at various locations; from Sitra and Ma’amir to Bouri, Duraz and Bani Jamra to Sanabis, Daih and Jidhafs. Demonstrations took place at the town of Dair, near the airport. At the protests held yesterday at Aali, called for by the 14th February Youth, harsh measures were adopted to crush the will of the people. In addition to tear and chemical gases, regime’s forces used shotguns that led to serious injuries to several people. Images of the victims have infuriated Bahrainis who feel that they are the victims of an unholy alliance between the Al Khalifa and the Western countries, especially US.

By Bahrain Freedom Movement

13 September 2011 @Countercurrents.org

America and Oil. It’s like bacon and eggs, Batman and Robin. As the old song lyric went, you can’t have one without the other. Once upon a time, it was also a surefire formula for national greatness and global preeminence. Now, it’s a guarantee of a trip to hell in a hand basket. The Chinese know it. Does Washington?

America’s rise to economic and military supremacy was fueled in no small measure by its control over the world’s supply of oil. Oil powered the country’s first giant corporations, ensured success in World War II, and underlay the great economic boom of the postwar period. Even in an era of nuclear weapons, it was the global deployment of oil-powered ships, helicopters, planes, tanks, and missiles that sustained America’s superpower status during and after the Cold War. It should come as no surprise, then, that the country’s current economic and military decline coincides with the relative decline of oil as a major source of energy.

If you want proof of that economic decline, just check out the way America’s share of the world’s gross domestic product has been steadily dropping, while its once-powerhouse economy now appears incapable of generating forward momentum. In its place, robust upstarts like China and India are posting annual growth rates of 8% to 10%. When combined with the growing technological prowess of those countries, the present figures are surely just precursors to a continuing erosion of America’s global economic clout.

Militarily, the picture appears remarkably similar. Yes, a crack team of SEAL commandos did kill Osama bin Laden, but that single operation — greeted in the United States with a jubilation more appropriate to the ending of a major war — hardly made up for the military’s lackluster performance in two recent wars against ragtag insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. If anything, almost a decade after the Taliban was overthrown, it has experienced a remarkable resurgence even facing the full might of the U.S., while the assorted insurgent forces in Iraq appear to be holding their own. Meanwhile, Iran — that bête noire of American power in the Middle East — seem as powerful as ever. Al Qaeda may be on the run, but as recent developments in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and unstable Pakistan suggest, the United States wields far less clout and influence in the region now than it did before it invaded Iraq in 2003.

If American power is in decline, so is the relative status of oil in the global energy equation. In the 2000 edition of its International Energy Outlook, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the U.S. Department of Energy confidently foresaw ever-expanding oil production in Africa, Alaska, the Persian Gulf area, and the Gulf of Mexico, among other areas. It predicted, in fact, that world oil output would reach 97 million barrels per day in 2010 and a staggering 115 million barrels in 2020. EIA number-crunchers concluded as well that oil would long retain its position as the world’s leading source of energy. Its 38% share of the global energy supply, they said, would remain unchanged.

What a difference a decade makes. By 2010, a new understanding about the natural limits of oil production had sunk in at the EIA and its experts were predicting a disappointingly modest petroleum future. In that year, world oil output had reached just 82 million barrels per day, a stunning 15 million less than expected. Moreover, in the 2010 edition of its International Energy Outlook, the EIA was now projecting 2020 output at 85 million barrels per day, hardly more than the 2010 level and 30 million barrels below its projections of just a decade earlier, which were relegated to the dustbin of history. (Such projections, by the way, are for conventional, liquid petroleum and exclude “tough” and “dirty” sources that imply energy desperation — like Canadian tar sands, shale oil, and other “unconventional” fuels.)

The most recent EIA projections also show oil’s share of the world total energy supply — far from remaining constant at 38% — had already dropped to 35% in 2010 and was projected to continue declining to 32% in 2020 and 30% in 2035. In its place, natural gas and renewable sources of energy are expected to assume ever more prominent roles.

So here’s the question all of us should consider, in part because until now no one has: Are the decline of the United States and the decline of oil connected? Careful analysis suggests that there are good reasons to believe they are.

From Standard Oil to the Carter Doctrine

More than 100 years ago, America’s first great economic expansion abroad was spearheaded by its giant oil companies, notably John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company — a saga told with great panache in Daniel Yergin’s classic book The Prize. These companies established powerful beachheads in Mexico and Venezuela, and later in parts of Asia, North Africa, and of course the Middle East. As they became ever more dependent on the extraction of oil in distant lands, American foreign policy began to be reorganized around acquiring and protecting U.S. oil concessions in major producing areas.

With World War II and the Cold War, oil and U.S. national security became thoroughly intertwined. After all, the United States had prevailed over the Axis powers in significant part because it possessed vast reserves of domestic petroleum while Germany and Japan lacked them, depriving their forces of vital fuel supplies in the final years of the war. As it happened, though, the United States was using up its domestic reserves so rapidly that, even before World War II was over, Washington turned its attention to finding new overseas sources of crude that could be brought under American control. As a result, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and a host of other Middle Eastern producers would become key U.S. oil suppliers under American military protection.

There can be little question that, for a time, American domination of world oil production would prove a potent source of economic and military power. After World War II, an abundance of cheap U.S. oil spurred the development of vast new industries, including civilian air travel, highway construction, a flood of suburban housing and commerce, mechanized agriculture, and plastics.

Abundant oil also underlay the global expansion of the country’s military power, as the Pentagon garrisoned the world while becoming one of the planet’s great oil guzzlers. Its global dominion came to rest on an ever-expanding array of oil-powered ships, planes, tanks, and missiles. As long as the Middle East — and especially Saudi Arabia — served essentially as an American gas station and oil remained a cheap commodity, all this was relatively painless.

In addition, thanks to its control of Middle Eastern oil, Washington had its hand on the economic jugular of Europe and Japan, both of which remain highly dependent on imports from the region. Not surprisingly, then, one president after another insisted Washington would not permit any rival to challenge American control of that oil jugular — a principle enshrined in the Carter Doctrine of January 1980, which stated that the United States would go to war if any hostile power threatened the flow of Persian Gulf oil.

The use of military force, in accordance with that doctrine, has been a staple of American foreign policy since 1987, when President Ronald Reagan first applied the “principle” by authorizing U.S. warships to escort Kuwaiti tankers during the Iran-Iraq War. George H. W. Bush invoked the same principle when he authorized American military intervention during the first Gulf War of 1990-1991, as did Bill Clinton when he ordered missile attacks on Iraq in the late 1990s and George W. Bush when he launched the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

At that moment, the United States and oil seemed at the pinnacle of their power. As the victor in the Cold War and then the first Gulf War, the American military was ranked supreme, with no conceivable challenger on the horizon. And nowhere were there more fervent believers in “unilateralist” America’s ability to “shock and awe” the planet than in Washington. The nation’s economy still appeared relatively robust as a major housing bubble was just beginning to form. China’s economy was then a paltry 15% as big as ours. Only seven years later, it would be approximately 40% as large. By invading Iraq, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld planned to demonstrate the crushing superiority of America’s new high-tech weaponry, while setting the stage for further military exploits in the region, including a possible attack on Iran. (A neocon quip caught the mood of the moment: “Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran.”)

The future of oil seemed no less robust in 2003: demand was brisk, crude prices ranged from about $25 to $30 per barrel, and the concept of “peak oil” — the notion that planetary supplies were more limited than imagined, that in the near future production would reach its peak and subsequently contract — was still considered laughable by most industry experts. By invading Iraq and setting up permanent military bases at the very heart of the global oil heartlands, the White House expected to ensure continued control over the flow of Persian Gulf oil and gain access to Iraq’s voluminous reserves, the largest in the world after those of Saudi Arabia and Iran.

From an imperial point of view, it was a beautiful dream from which Americans were destined to awaken abruptly. As a start, it quickly became apparent that American technological prowess was no panacea for urban guerrilla warfare, and so a vast occupation army was soon needed to “pacify” Iraq — and then pacify it again, and again, and again. A similar dilemma arose in Afghanistan, where a tribal-based religious insurgency proved remarkably immune to superior American firepower. To sustain hundreds of thousands of American soldiers in those distant, often inaccessible areas, the Department of Defense became the world’s single biggest consumer of oil, burning more on a daily basis than the entire nation of Sweden — this, at a time when the price of crude rose to $50, then $80, and finally soared over the $100 mark. Procuring and delivering ever-increasing amounts of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel to American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan may not be the principal reason for the wars’ spiraling costs, but it certainly ranks among the major causes. (Just the price of providing air conditioning to American troops in those two countries is now estimated at approximately $20 billion a year.)

With oil likely to prove increasingly scarce and costly, the Department of Defense is being forced to reexamine its fundamental operating principles when it comes to energy. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld’s notion that troops could be replaced by growing numbers of oil-powered super-weapons no longer appears viable, even for a power already garrisoning much of the planet for which “unending” war has become the new norm.

Yes, the Pentagon is looking into the use of biofuels, solar arrays, and other green alternatives to petroleum to power its planes and tanks, but any such future still seems an almost inconceivably long way off. And yet the thought of more wars involving the commitment of vast numbers of ground troops to protracted counterinsurgency operations in distant parts of the Greater Middle East at $400 or more for every gallon of gas used appears increasingly unpalatable for the globe’s former “sole superpower.” (Hence, the sudden burst of enthusiasm over drone wars.) Seen from this perspective, the decline of America and the decline of oil appear closely connected indeed.

Don’t Bet on Washington

And this is hardly the only apparent connection. Because the American economy is so closely tied to oil, it is especially vulnerable to oil’s growing scarcity, price volatility, and the relative paucity of its suppliers. Consider this: at present, the United States obtains about 40% of its total energy supply from oil, far more than any other major economic power. This means that when prices rise or oil supplies are disrupted for any reason — hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, war in the Middle East, environmental disasters of any sort — the economy is at particular risk. While a burst housing bubble and financial shenanigans lay behind the Great Recession that began in 2008, it’s worth remembering that it also coincided with the beginning of a stratospheric rise in oil prices. As anyone who has pulled into a gas station knows, at an average price of nearly $3.70 a gallon for regular gas, the staying power of high-priced oil has crippled what, until recently, was being called a “weak recovery.”

Despite the great debt debate in Washington, oil is a factor seldom mentioned when American indebtedness comes up. And yet the United States imports 50% to 60% of its oil supply, and with prices averaging at least $80 to $90 per barrel, we’re sending approximately $1 billion every day to foreign oil providers. These payments constitute the single biggest contribution to the country’s balance-of-payments deficit and so is a major source of the nation’s economic weakness.

Consider for comparison our leading economic rival: China. That country relies on oil for only about 20% of its total energy supply, about half as much as we do. Instead, the Chinese have turned to coal, which they possess in great abundance and can produce at a relatively low cost. (China, of course, pays a heavy environmental price for its coal dependency.) The Chinese do import some petroleum, but considerably less than the U.S., so their import expenses are considerably smaller. Nor do its oil-import costs have the same enfeebling effect, since China enjoys a positive balance of trade (in part, at America’s expense). As a result, when oil prices soared to record heights in 2008 and again in 2011, Beijing experienced none of the trauma felt in Washington.

No doubt many factors explain the startling rise of the Chinese economy, including lower costs of production and weaker environmental regulations. It is hard, however, to avoid the conclusion that our greater reliance on oil as it begins its decline has played a significant role in the changing balance of economic power between the two countries.

All this leads to a critical question: How should America respond to these developments in the years ahead?

As a start, there can be no question that the United States needs to move quickly to reduce its reliance on oil and increase the availability of other energy sources, especially renewable ones that pose no threat to the environment. This is not merely a matter of reducing our reliance on imported oil, as some have suggested. As long as oil remains our preeminent source of energy, we will be painfully vulnerable to the vicissitudes of the global oil market, wherever problems may arise. Only by embracing forms of energy immune to international disruption and capable of promoting investment at home can the foundations be laid for future economic progress. Of course, this is easy enough to write, but with Washington in the grip of near-total political paralysis, it appears that continuing American decline, possibly of a precipitous sort, could be in the cards.

And don’t think that China will get away scot-free either. If it doesn’t quickly embrace the new energy technologies, the environmental costs of its excessive reliance on coal will, sooner or later, cripple its development as well. Unlike Washington, however, the Chinese leadership not only recognizes this, but is acting on it by making colossal investments in green energy technologies. If China succeeds in dominating this field — as has already begun to happen — it could leave the United States in the dust when it comes to economic growth. Ditching oil for the new energy technologies should be America’s top economic priority, but if you’re in a betting mood, you probably shouldn’t put your money on Washington.

By Michael T. Klare

16 September 2011

Michael T. Klare is the Five College Professor of Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, and the author of Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America’s Growing Dependence on Imported Petroleum. A documentary version of that book is available from the Media Education Foundation. His newest book, Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy, was recently published by Metropolitan Books.

© 2011 Michael T. Klare

Al Fateh Resists White and Arab Supremacists: Imperialism will be buried in Africa

The North Atlantic tribes, under the banner of NATO, and their Arab flunkies are lining up for a showdown in Sirte. Muammar Qaddafi and the Al Fateh revolutionary forces remain defiant and have issued statements saying that they will never surrender. Their extraordinary resistance has most certainly earned them a place in the history of modern warfare. Nowhere in modern history have an army of 100,000 and a population of 6.5 million been able to resist such an overwhelming and murderous invasion for so long. As I write NATO’s forces have surrounded the small desert town of Bani Walid. Talks between the rebels and residents of the town have broken down and the people of Al-Fateh have decided to stand and fight against all odds.

UN Resolution 1973 which authorized a ‘no fly zone’ was, without regard for international law, which is not difficult since there is no international law, immediately turned into a regime change operation. Under the pretext of protecting civilians, NATO has murdered thousands of Libyans and other African civilians and now, as I write, they have surrounded the people of the small desert town of Bani Walid to commit more murder. This war, under the banner of the UN, has once and for all exposed this organization’s fraudulent and criminal nature. On the one hand they have declared 2011 as the ‘International Year of People of African Descent’.  It is more aptly designated as the ‘International Year for the Destruction of Africa’.

Many in Libya, stunned after the fall of Tripoli, and the sheer criminality and barbarism of this invasion, are only now regrouping and switching to guerilla war mode. There is no choice. Even if Qaddafi were to leave Libya or be killed, this battle would continue because it is about much more than one man, Muammar Qaddafi and the Libyan nation. The ideas of Muammar Qaddafi and the Al Fateh revolution are not restricted to the geographical space known as Libya. The ideology of the Third Universal Theory, as outlined in The Green Book, and the vision of a United States of Africa has taken deep root in Africa and throughout the world. In fact, this attack on Libya and Africa has only served to re-energize and galvanize revolutionary Pan-African forces and other revolutionary movements worldwide.

The imperialists reckoned that this invasion, which was planned months ahead and launched in February this year, would be over by March – a walk in the park so to speak. They needed it to be swift for a number of reasons. Africa was on the brink of adopting Qaddafi’s idea of a single currency in the form of an African gold dinar. This would have replaced European currencies as the preferred trading currency for Africa’s resources including its vast oil and gold reserves.

In addition, Qaddafi had amassed the necessary funds for the establishment of three African Banks – the African Monetary Fund (AMF) to be situated in Cameroon, The Central African Bank to be situated in Nigeria and the African Investment Bank to be established in Libya. It was this move, more than even Libya’s vast oil wealth that made Qaddafi and the Al Fateh revolution a target for this invasion. Africa was on the brink of a huge and empowering breakthrough, which, as far as the Western capitals were concerned, had to be prevented at any cost.

‘The Babylon system is a vampire, sucking the blood of the sufferer…’

Bob Marley

On top of all this, the US and Europe are in deep economic crisis. They cannot afford to be engaged in yet another costly and prolonged war. They have frantically introduced bail outs to hold back the inevitable collapse of capitalism over the past years, however, these measures were only a stop gap and they are now running out of time and ideas. Certainly, a carve-up of Libya’s vast oil wealth as soon as possible is an attractive prospect, and the removal of revolutionary Libya as an obstacle to the West’s re-colonization of the African continent has also become a priority, since the continued  plunder of African and ‘Third World’ resources remains a non-negotiable ingredient for global capitalism’s survival.

The fact is that the contemporary global political economy could not have come into being without the North Atlantic Tribes plunder of African resources and trade in captured Africans over the past centuries. The unpaid labor of captured Africans laid the foundation for the material basis of capitalist development. I have outlined in previous articles the extent of Africa’s resources and the necessity of unhindered access to them if the Western capitals are to continue on their current path of world domination.  Qaddafi was an obstacle to this and therefore has to be crushed at any cost.

‘Imperialism will be buried in Africa’

When the leaders of the North Atlantic Tribes, assisted by what Webster Tarpley has referred to as the ‘rebel rabble’ in Benghazi, staged an incident in February 2011 as a pretext for a full scale invasion, they did not envisage that this war would still be raging in September, and that seven months on, NATO, the most sophisticated military machine known to humankind, could have been prevented by an army of 100,000 and a population of 6.5 million people from securing full control of Libya. The command structure and organization of the Al Fateh revolutionary forces remains intact and they are not surrendering. Regardless of the outcome of NATO’s invasion, this promises to be a protracted battle. Sooner or later, NATO will be defeated, and as the great Pan-African leader, Sekou Toure predicted, “Imperialism will be buried in Africa”.

This war will inevitably spill over into other parts of Africa such as Chad, Niger and Mali. Over the years, thousands of fighters from liberation movements in these countries benefited from the support of the Al Fateh revolution. 

The situation is a complex one. For example, in 2009 in Chad, an armed movement almost succeeded in toppling President Idris Deby, who was only saved because the French stepped in and bombed rebel positions. Deby, on the orders of the French, has now recognized the National Transitional Council (NTC) or Council of Shame, as they are referred to in Libya. This is the same Deby who received assistance from Qaddafi in the war of liberation he and others waged against the French surrogate, Hisne Habre in the 80s and 90s. Qaddafi assisted Deby in his war of liberation and many years later, was also able to mediate between Deby and the Union of Resistance Forces that almost toppled Deby. The point is that Qaddafi’s influence and long history in Africa is complex. Liberation movements throughout the continent look to him as a source of strength and revolutionary guidance, and in many cases he has relationships with Heads of State and the forces that oppose them. That is why he is called upon to mediate in many conflicts in Africa because he is respected and listened to by all sides.

Africa’s political and social reality is an extremely complex and difficult one. As in Iraq, the West is now mired in a prolonged and age old battle of which they have little understanding, and as Frederick Douglas warned:  “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing”. Once again they have launched a war that has opened a can of worms and that will inevitably reach deep into the recesses of ancient issues and conflicts – right back in fact into the earliest Arab incursions into North Africa.

The war in Libya is being fought on many realms – religious, ideological, racial and tribal. Throw into this mix a long and painful history of Western colonialism, domination, deception and destruction, colonial borders drawn up separating tribes and nations, and the resulting web of intertwined and complex political deals and compromises up and down the continent, in the midst of the chaos and mistrust caused by Africa’s plight and you have an explosive situation for which there is no quick fix or swift outcome.

Beyond their plans to subjugate and plunder, NATO has little concern about the outcome for Libya and Africa. Even with the battle raging and no one side able to declare full control of the entire country, the imperialists and their Arab and African flunkies met in Paris to carve up Libya’s wealth, in a disgusting display of the greed that drives them. Merkel, who had not supported the invasion snuck in, tail between her legs, to beg for a slice of the pie and Russia hurried to recognize the NTC in order to get at least a piece of the action.

The Nature of the Beast

There are many lessons here for any nation-state who thinks that they can perform a balancing act between seeking their right to self-determination and establishing détente with the West. At an international conference hosted by the World Mathaba in Tripoli many years ago, in reference to Africa’s battle with the West, the Hon Minister Louis Farrakhan warned us, “that we are dealing with the beast and you cannot appeal to the beast, since the beast has no heart and no ability to reason”. Libya had tried to do just that – reason with the beast. Qaddafi had set out to bury all hostilities with the West in order to focus on Libya’s national development which had suffered after almost a decade of unjust sanctions. No one understands more than Qaddafi how constant conflict with the West can hinder a nation from realizing its revolutionary goals and objectives. He needed to get the sanctions off Libya’s back in order to proceed with not only Libya’s national development but also to raise the huge amount of capital needed to back the Pan-African project.

Qaddafi even voluntarily gave up his program for the development of nuclear weapons and urged all other countries, including Russia and the US, to do the same. Saif Qaddafi, in a recent interview, has admitted that there are many Libyans who blame him for this invasion, claiming that his ideas of tolerance and relationship building with the West were naïve and dangerous. It seems that some in Libya were so convinced that they had entered into a new phase of détente with the West, that even Libya’s military was not upgraded as it should have been. The money was instead earmarked for development projects in Libya and throughout Africa.

We have all seen the footage flashed across our TV screens of Qaddafi being embraced by Blair, Berlusconi, Sarkozy etc. In the African and Arab traditions, a person’s handshake and word counts for something. Qaddafi clearly did not understand the nature of this beast. After all, unlike the Africans in America and other parts of the Diaspora, his contact with them has been limited. It is no accident that the greatest exploration of White supremacy and the bizarre psychology that underlies it is best articulated by the Afrocentric scholars in the US. Where better to understand the Beast than from its very belly? For a scholarly and insightful account of what drives White supremacy and their continued blood thirsty domination of this planet, one should refer to the works of Drs Bobby E. Wright, Frances Cress Welsing and Marimba Ani among others.

For his part, Saif himself has said that he accepts the criticism and agrees that his approach was naïve. It was he who pushed for the release of many former Al Qaeda operatives from prison, in a move consistent with the idea of restorative justice. They were released with the understanding that they would air their ideological differences not through violent means, but through the democratic institutions set up for political deliberation in Libya – the People’s Committees and People’s Congresses. This was an attempt to reintegrate these Libyans, known as the ‘returnees’ or ‘Afghanis’, back into Libyan society. One of those released, Abdelhakim Belhaj, has now been appointed by the NTC as Tripoli’s new security chief. Belhaj is one of Al Qaeda’s top military commanders, sent back to Libya from Afghanistan by the US.

‘In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends’

Dr Martin Luther King

Although many worldwide have come out clearly in support of Muammar Qaddafi and the Al Fateh revolution, one of the hardest things to bear over the past months has been to watch some cower in the face of this imperialist onslaught, either by ‘jumping ship’ or remaining silent. Betrayal is always hard to bear, but especially because it highlights one of the reasons why the imperialists are able to knock us off, one at a time.

Some progressive and revolutionary movements have failed to openly defend the shared goals and objectives they agreed to as members of the World Mathaba. In doing so, they have allowed Libya to be singled out for punishment and destruction by imperialist forces. They were happy to receive whatever assistance they could get, but remain shamefully silent when Libya needs defending. There is an African saying in the Caribbean – “ingratitude is worse than witchcraft”.

The Palestinian organizations are a tragic example. During the long years of the Palestinian struggle, every faction of the PLO had an office in Tripoli, from the pro-Syrian Al Saiqa to the Marxist oriented Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and every group in between. To date, not one of these organizations have raised their voice against this invasion of Libya, despite accepting millions of dollars of assistance when their backs were up against the wall. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, without even knowing what was happening on the ground in Libya, jumped the gun with an opportunistic condemnation of the Al Fateh revolution, while failing to utter a word on what is taking place in Syria.

Muammar Qaddafi’s revolutionary politics is grounded in the Islamic injunction, that “one must want for others what one wants for oneself”. He therefore saw it as the duty of liberated zones to extend assistance to all those struggling for freedom and self-determination. During the past forty-two years, the Al Fateh revolution never compromised this principle, even when changing conditions and situations both at the regional and global level, forced Libya to adapt its strategies and tactics. Despite the immense pressure put on this small nation-state, Al Fateh helped all.

What set the World Mathaba aside from other revolutionary and progressive internationals was that it neither restricted its membership to a particular ideological orientation nor limited its assistance to a specific region or to movements and organizations that were of geo-political significance to Libya. As a result, the World Mathaba brought together forces spanning the entire progressive ideological spectrum, including Indigenous movements throughout the world, assisting all of them in their struggles, without demanding any adherence to the precepts of the Libyan revolution.

This truly pluralist outlook was proof that assistance provided by Libya transcended Libya’s national interest, and was given in accordance with what Qaddafi truly believed to be their duty before God. The gains made by many members as a direct result of the assistance they received from the World Mathaba, and the potential for future victories, shaped the extreme hostility of imperialist forces and their desperate actions against Libya over the years to this sad day, when they have been forced to pay the ultimate price.

While the AU has refused to officially recognize the NTC, it is tragic that 20 African governments could have been pressured into accepting the NTC as the legitimate government in Libya, even while there is still fierce resistance being waged against NATO and the NTC throughout the country.

This, after all Qaddafi and Libya has done for Africa, and knowing that the NTC are declared Arab supremacists, who under NATO’s cover have hunted down and murdered thousands of Black Libyans and African migrant workers.

These African governments must be aware that Libya’s ex-Minister of Justice, Mustafa Jalil, leader of the Transitional Council, and other Libyan officials who have defected to the rebels, were among those who condoned brutal attacks on Africans in a series of incidents a few years ago, when Nigerians and Ghanaians were being attacked in the streets of Tripoli. This was an attempt to embarrass Qaddafi and tarnish his Pan-African credentials, thereby undermining Libya’s Pan-African project.

Jalil is known by revolutionary and progressive organizations throughout Africa as a racist. His so-called Transitional National Council, in accordance with their Arab supremacist mindset, rejects Libya’s African identity.  It is bewildering and unfathomable to me that African leaders could have gone to the Imperialist Carve-up Conference in Paris and sat in a room with White and Arab supremacists while they plotted the looting of Libya now and inevitably, the re-colonization of Africa – one nation-state at a time.  But what else can we expect from these neo-colonial flunkies?

In a recent article, African commentator, Reason Wafawarova observed with disgust:

Al Fateh will never die: Don’t mourn – Organize

This September, revolutionary and progressive forces worldwide salute the astounding achievements and victories of the Al Fateh revolution and the historical and unprecedented resistance of the Libyan revolutionary forces in confronting NATO’s killing machine. While it is necessary to identify the traitors and the unprincipled amongst us so that we know them for future reference, it is important not to lose sight of the incredible resistance that has formed itself into a cohesive global movement in the space of a few months. The revolutionary governments of Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Zimbabwe have been in the vanguard of a global movement of the courageous and steadfast. From governments to progressive and revolutionary organizations and individuals, there has been a resounding resistance and an outpouring of solidarity and support for Muammar Qaddafi, the courageous Libyan armed forces, including the popular militias, and the Libyan people.

We say to hell with the Transitional National Council – known as the Council of Shame. Imagine you have invited the enemies of Africa, Islam and oppressed humanity into Libya, and now, hiding behind NATO’s bombs, you dare to challenge Muammar Qaddafi and the Al Fateh revolutionary leadership to a final showdown in Sirte.  What you have done will come back to haunt you.

The look on the faces of people in Tripoli tells its own story. Libyans walked to this year’s Eid prayers in stony silence, stunned by the new and bizarre reality of the occupation of their land by NATO and Al Qaeda terrorists.

Lyse Doucet of the BBC, finally, after seven long months, gave a moment’s interview to a Qaddafi supporter.  He was standing in a clinic in the Bousalim district of Tripoli, surrounded by debris. Bousalim suffered heavy NATO air strikes since it is a well known Qaddafi stronghold. Many civilians lost their lives. The man told Lyse Doucet that the whole of Bousalim supported Qaddafi. He stated that if the rebels were ushering in a democracy then why can’t Bousalim fly whatever flag they wanted. Lyse Doucet replied that the National Transitional Council had promised that there would be no revenge killings. At this point the man laughed out loud and told Doucet that his neighbours had already been rounded up and taken away.  Under the banner of NATO and the United Nations, Libya has been turned into a killing field.

Blood on their Hands

The corporate media have been accessories to this invasion, and I deliberately use the word accessories, because BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera have most definitely relinquished their right to name themselves news organizations. They have in fact been contracted as ‘weapons of mass deception’, consciously collaborating with NATO to present a fictitious version of events. They have fought this war alongside NATO – ‘embedded’ (in bed with) NATO all the way. Their agitation and propaganda (agit/prop) techniques have been a major weapon in NATO’s armor and there can be no doubt that they are accomplices to the war crimes committed in Libya. They all have blood on their hands.

Al Jazeera has been the most rabid because, like BBC and CNN, they too dance to the tune of their master, the Emir of Qatar, who has championed this invasion of Libya. It is no secret that Libya is crawling with Qatari troops.

‘War is Peace

Freedom is Slavery

Ignorance is Strength’

George Orwell, 1984

The Psych-ops aspect of this war reached whole new levels of deception. Investigative journalist, Webster Tarpley has cited irrefutable evidence that a set of Tripoli’s Green Square was constructed in Doha and people dressed as Libyan rebels were filmed taking over Green Square. This was the fake footage zoomed into living rooms all over the world. The zone we have entered is a frightening one, however, the enemy’s Psych-ops is a lot less effective in the age of the internet. While we must note those media organizations that have been totally compromised so that their crimes can be catalogued for future reference, we must also acknowledge the huge and impressive fight back staged by truth warriors all over the globe.

The media lies have been countered with a powerful campaign on the worldwide web.  Serbian hackers went to war with anti-Qaddafi sites, closing them down as quickly as they appeared. Pakistani websites carried information on the fake Green Square constructed in Doha. Rappers posted videos calling Qaddafi an African hero. Minister Louis Farrakhan’s powerful presentations are all available on the net, allowing people to tune out of the mainstream lies, and articles are everywhere detailing the truth. Independent news sources such as Pan-African Newswire, Black Agenda Report, Final Call, Modern Ghana, The Nigerian Voice, Ethiopia.org, Pravda, Mathaba News Agency, Centre for Research on Globalization, New Dawn Magazine, San Francisco Bay View and many others have been in the vanguard of providing a counter-attack to the corporate media’s campaign of lies and deception.

On this, the 42nd anniversary of the Al Fateh revolution, the International Movement of Revolutionary Committees is calling on all truth warriors to continue to mobilize and organize in whatever ways are available to you because, despite what the deceivers are saying, this battle has only just begun. Thanks again to the age of internet, Qaddafi himself was able to issue a statement recently addressing his supporters throughout the world. In it he stated:

In a recent article titled ‘Message From A Black African: Our Brother Muammar Qaddafi Treated All Equal And Now They Are After Him’, Mbarika Kazingizi has called on us to put aside any and all differences we may have and unite to defeat NATO:

“We cannot start to think about these things (our differences) now that the fight is going on. We have to ACT now. Unite the Pan-Africanists, Rastafarians, African traditional Apostles, Farrakhan’s African-American Muslims and North African Muslims, to Speak with One Voice on this issue – condemn NATO and fight back together NOW. Malcolm X followers, Black Panthers, Ni’abhingi warriors, all youths must rally together.”

As sad and bitter as we may feel at the continued attempts to murder Muammar Qaddafi, the mass murder of so many Libyans and at the destruction of Libya, this is not a time to mourn but rather a time to organize as never before, on a global level. Let us make Sekou Toure’s prediction a reality.

You can kill the man, you can exterminate the revolutionary forces, but you can’t kill an idea whose time has come…

And finally this September, we salute Muammar Qaddafi’s greatest contribution to the world – the revolutionary ideology known as The Third Universal Theory. It took a revolutionary thinker like Qaddafi, who was not conceptually incarcerated by the reductionism of Marxism and liberalism, to go beyond the parameters of European political theory.

Qaddafi discarded the false divide between religion and political science, the secular and the sacred, faith and reason, and was thereby able to articulate a paradigm that is holistic/ integralist, reflecting a total reality – an African reality. Quite simply, secular European discourse is unable to comprehend and advance ideology such as the Third Universal Theory, precisely because this ideology acknowledges the transcendental and metaphysical dimension of human civilization and existence. As such, this ideology provides us with an alternative model for social and political reconstruction and transformation, in synergy with our culture and traditions. It invites us to finally reject and move beyond the vulgar economism and materialism of the Eurocentric ideologies of Marxism and liberal capitalism, which were thrust upon Africa and the ‘Third World’ as part of the imperialist project.

Recently, a CNN reporter stopped a rebel on the road to Sirte. The man, although dressed like a rebel, spoke with an American accent and was obviously part of America’s ‘boots on the ground special forces brigade’. He was clearly astounded by the intensity of the resistance and said “I don’t know what these guys are still fighting for – they must really believe in this guy Qaddafi.”

Yes, they believe in Qaddafi and they believe in his vision. They are fighting for an idea whose time has come. They are fighting to end Western hegemony in Africa, bringing about the end of Empire and the inevitable birth of a United States of Africa. It is a vision for which they are willing to die. NATO can invade with their Arab flunkies and roll back some of Al Fateh’s material gains but they can never kill the revolutionary consciousness that has taken root.  It is this consciousness and the dedication to these ideals that has enabled this small army and nation to resist NATO’s killing machine for so long, much to the amazement of the rest of the world.

Al Fateh – The Victory – Forever

Lo! We have given thee (O Muhammad) a signal victory,

Surely, We have given to you a clear Victory

Verily, We have granted thee a manifest Victory

Surah Al Fateh, Ayah: 1, Al Qu’ran

Forty-two years ago this September, a 27 year old army captain, Muammar Qaddafi, led a small group of revolutionaries, including Abdul Salam Jaloud, Mustapha Karoubi, Kweldi Hemidi and Abubakar Jaber Younis, in a bloodless coup against the corrupt regime of King Idris, ushering in what became known as the Al Fateh revolution, named after the Qu’ranic surah Al Fateh (The Victory).

And this revolution did indeed herald a victory over the repression, poverty, ignorance and backwardness that had stalked this land throughout King Idris’s nineteen year reign. In recent months, facts and figures have been provided in articles written by people from every corner of the globe, cataloging the outstanding achievements of the Al Fateh revolution. The brilliant Guyanese economist, Dr Rawle Farley, offers an in-depth account of the visionary leadership and outstanding economic achievements of this revolution in his excellent work titled, ‘Libya: The Exceptional Third World Economy’.

Suffice to say, under the leadership of this revolutionary council, Libya went from being one of the poorest nations in the world to being one of the most developed – economically, politically and morally. Libya is one of a handful of ‘Third World’ nations that can proudly claim to have actually thrown off the yoke of colonialism and neo-colonialism. They have no foreign masters. Muammar Qaddafi and the Libyan revolutionary forces dance to nobody’s tune.

It is these Free Unionist Officers, 42 years later and now in their 70s, who are being hunted down like animals by NATO and their hirelings, forced to watch their nation destroyed. It is an ugly display of the barbarism which rules this world. For revolutionaries the world over this is a particularly devastating and horrifying phase, in what is a long and protracted struggle that will take us all the way to the final conflict on this earth. However, we are not helpless, even in the face of the immense power of the North Atlantic tribes. Their continued domination of this earth is not a given. Like all Empires they will fall. We must together gather our strength, inspired by Libya’s resistance, and continue to organize and mobilize in whatever ways are available to us. As the Brother Leader said ‘we must defend from our corner’.

There can be no doubt that the Western Empire is on the verge of total collapse. The speed at which White supremacy disintegrates will directly correlate with our ability to organize international revolutionary opposition to the evil they are perpetrating in Libya and worldwide. If history has taught us anything then it has taught us that the strength of White supremacy lies in its ability to unite across class, nation-state and ideologies when it comes to furthering their sinister agenda. Tony Blair from Britain’s Labour Party had no difficulty uniting with George Bush from the US Republican Party to attack Iraq, though the two ostensibly adhere to different political ideologies. It has been so for centuries. Despite the fact that the Dutch, French, Spanish and English were actually at war with each other in Europe, they were able to fully unite when it came to putting down the uprisings and revolutions of captured Africans on their plantations in the Caribbean.

Let us now take heed of the Brother Leader’s message and unite and organize once and for all to realize our objective – to deal a final and decisive blow to imperialism and neo-colonialism. Let us put aside our differences in order to deal with the primary contradictions that we face. The power of the people united is not a cliché or an empty slogan – it is ours – if only we can make the psychological transition necessary to possess the power.

We can be sure that long after the likes of  Obama, Cameron, Sarkozy and Jalil  are forgotten, the history books will still tell the story of the courageous Bedouin, who stood up for all of oppressed humanity, and in the year 2011 was targeted for extermination by one of the  most powerful and barbaric ‘Coalition of Demons’ in human history. If freedom fighters all over the world stand up with him as he and his noble forces resist, dealing NATO a decisive blow in Africa, such an historic event will be remembered for all time. We are the makers of history – the power is in our hands.

This September we say to you Brother Leader – May Allah be with you and protect you and know that the revolutionary gains and the ideology of the Al Fateh revolution will live forever!

Tutashinda

By Gerald A. Perreira

5 September 2011

Gerald A. Perreira is a founding member of the Guyanese organizations, Joint Initiative for Human Advancement and Dignity and Black Consciousness Movement Guyana (BCMG). He lived in Libya for many years, served in the Green March, an international battalion for the defense of the Al Fateh revolution and was an executive member of the World Mathaba based in Tripoli.

A WONDERFUL SPEECH.  A beautiful speech.

The language expressive and elegant. The arguments clear and convincing. The delivery flawless.

A work of art. The art of hypocrisy. Almost every statement in the passage concerning the Israeli-Palestinian issue was a lie. A blatant lie: the speaker knew it was a lie, and so did the audience.

It was Obama at his best, Obama at his worst.

Being a moral person, he must have felt the urge to vomit. Being a pragmatic person, he knew that he had to do it, if he wanted to be re-elected.

In essence, he sold the fundamental national interests of the United States of America for the chance of a second term.

Not very nice, but that’s politics, OK?

IT MAY be superfluous – almost insulting to the reader – to point out the mendacious details of this rhetorical edifice.

Obama treated the two sides as if they were equal in strength – Israelis and Palestinians, Palestinians and Israelis.

But of the two, it is the Israelis – only they – who suffer and have suffered. Persecution. Exile. Holocaust. An Israeli child threatened by rockets. Surrounded by the hatred of Arab children. So sad.

No Occupation. No settlements. No June 1967 borders. No Naqba. No Palestinian children killed or frightened. It’s the straight right-wing Israeli propaganda line, pure and simple – the terminology, the historical narrative, the argumentation. The music.

The Palestinians, of course, should have a state of their own. Sure, sure. But they must not be pushy. They must not embarrass the US. They must not come to the UN. They must sit with the Israelis, like reasonable people, and work it out with them. The reasonable sheep must sit down with the reasonable wolf and decide what to have for dinner. Foreigners should not interfere.

Obama gave full service. A lady who provides this kind of service generally gets paid in advance. Obama got paid immediately afterwards, within the hour. Netanyahu sat down with him in front of the cameras and gave him enough quotable professions of love and gratitude to last for several election campaigns.

THE TRAGIC hero of this affair is Mahmoud Abbas. A tragic hero, but a hero nonetheless.

Many people may be surprised by this sudden emergence of Abbas as a daring player for high stakes, ready to confront the mighty US.

If Ariel Sharon were to wake up for a moment from his years-long coma, he would faint with amazement. It was he who called Mahmoud Abbas “a plucked chicken”.

Yet for the last few days, Abbas was the center of global attention. World leaders conferred about how to handle him, senior diplomats were eager to convince him of this or that course of action, commentators were guessing what he would do next. His speech before the UN General Assembly was treated as an event of consequence.

Not bad for a chicken, even for one with a full set of feathers.

His emergence as a leader on the world stage is somewhat reminiscent of Anwar Sadat.

When Gamal Abd-al-Nasser unexpectedly died at the age of 52 in 1970 and his official deputy, Sadat, assumed his mantle, all political experts shrugged.

Sadat? Who the hell is that? He was considered a nonentity, an eternal No. 2, one of the least important members of the group of “free officers” that was ruling Egypt.

In Egypt, a land of jokes and jokers, witticisms about him abounded. One concerned the prominent brown mark on his forehead. The official version was that it was the result of much praying, hitting the ground with his forehead. But the real reason, it was told, was that at meetings, after everyone else had spoken, Sadat would get up and try to say something. Nasser would good-naturedly put his finger to his forehead, push him gently down and say: “Sit, Anwar!”

To the utter amazement of the experts – and especially the Israeli ones – this “nonentity” took a huge gamble by starting the 1973 October War, and proceeded to do something unprecedented in history: going to the capital of an enemy country still officially in a state of war and making peace.

Abbas’ status under Yasser Arafat was not unlike Sadat’s under Nasser. However, Arafat never appointed a deputy. Abbas was one of a group of four or five likely successors. The heir would surely have been Abu Jihad, had he not been killed by Israeli commandoes in front of his wife and children. Another likely candidate, Abu Iyad, was killed by Palestinian terrorists. Abu Mazen (Abbas) was in a way the choice by default.

Such politicians, emerging suddenly from under the shadow of a great leader, generally fall into one of two categories: the eternal frustrated No. 2 or the surprising new leader.

The Bible gives us examples of both kinds. The first was Rehoboam, the son and heir of the great King Solomon, who told his people: “my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions”. The other kind was represented by Joshua, the heir of Moses. He was no second Moses, but according to the story a great conqueror in his own right.

Modern history tells the sad story of Anthony Eden, the long-suffering No. 2 of Winston Churchill, who commanded little respect. (Mussolini called him, after their first meeting, “a well-tailored idiot.”). Upon assuming power, he tried desperately to equal Churchill and soon embroiled Britain in the 1956 Suez disaster. To the second category belonged Harry Truman, the nobody who succeeded the great Franklin Delano Roosevelt and surprised everybody as a resolute leader.

Abbas looked like belonging to the first kind. Now, suddenly, he is revealed as belonging to the second. The world is treating him with newfound respect. Nearing the end of his career, he made the big gamble.

BUT WAS it wise? Courageous, yes. Daring, yes. But wise?

My answer is: Yes, it was.

Abbas has placed the quest for Palestinian freedom squarely on the international table. For more than a week, Palestine has been the center of international attention. Scores of international statesmen and -women, including the leader of the world’s only superpower, have been busy with Palestine.

For a national movement, that is of the utmost importance. Cynics may ask: “So what did they gain from it?” But cynics are fools. A liberation movement gains from the very fact that the world pays attention, that the media grapple with the problem, that people of conscience all over the world are aroused. It strengthens morale at home and brings the struggle a step nearer its goal.

Oppression shuns the limelight. Occupation, settlements, ethnic cleansing thrive in the shadows. It is the oppressed who need the light of day. Abbas’ move provided it, at least for the time being.

BARACK OBAMA’s miserable performance was a nail in the coffin of America’s status as a superpower. In a way, it was a crime against the United States.

The Arab Spring may have been a last chance for the US to recover its standing in the Middle East. After some hesitation, Obama realized that. He called on Mubarak to go, helped the Libyans against their tyrant, made some noises about Bashar al-Assad. He knows that he has to regain the respect of the Arab masses if he wants to recover some stature in the region, and by extension throughout the world.

Now he has blown it, perhaps forever. No self-respecting Arab will forgive him for plunging his knife into the back of the helpless Palestinians. All the credit the US has tried to gain in the last months in the Arab and the wider Muslim world has been blown away with one puff.

All for reelection.

IT WAS also a crime against Israel.

Israel needs peace. Israel needs to live side by side with the Palestinian people, within the Arab world. Israel cannot rely forever on the unconditional support of the declining United States.

Obama knows this full well. He knows what is good for Israel, even if Netanyahu doesn’t. Yet he has handed the keys of the car to the drunken driver.

The State of Palestine will come into being. This week it was already clear that this is unavoidable. Obama will be forgotten, as will Netanyahu, Lieberman and the whole bunch.

Mahmoud Abbas – Abu Mazen, as the Palestinians call him – will be remembered. The “plucked chicken” is soaring into the sky.

By Abu Mazen

24 September 2011