Just International

Obama Gives Green Light For Punishing Sanctions On Iran

President Barack Obama has issued the green light for punishing new US economic sanctions directed at forcing the Iranian government to submit to Western pressure over its nuclear program by starving the country of oil revenues.

These new sanctions, which go into effect on June 28, aim to impose a warlike blockade of the Iranian economy by penalizing any government or private entity that carries out financial transactions with the country’s central bank.

Western Europe is preparing its own new sanctions, which are to include a European embargo on Iranian oil purchases, beginning in July.

The official memorandum authorizing the US sanctions affirmed, as required by the legislation creating them, that given existing oil supplies internationally, “the market can continue to accommodate” the cutting off of petroleum from Iran.

The theory is that Saudi Arabia can make up the difference in reduced oil supplies from Iran, and that in an emergency, the US and other oil consuming countries could tap into their strategic reserves. However, such safeguards may well prove ineffective in the face of a speculative bidding up of oil prices under conditions in which the margin of excess supply has been significantly reduced. The effect could prove a dizzying rise in gasoline prices, spelling sharp reductions in living standards internationally and the threat of an intensified economic downturn.

The ratcheting up of US sanctions came together with confirmation that the so-called P5+1 talks on Iran’s nuclear program are to be renewed in the middle of this month. The talks include the Iranian government together with the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council—the US, Britain, China, France and Russia—plus Germany.

Washington and its allies have charged that the Iranian government is developing a nuclear weapons program, while Iran has insisted that its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes. Unlike nuclear-armed Israel, which together with Washington has continuously threatened military strikes against it, Iran is a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Pact and has submitted to an inspection regime by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Speaking in Saudi Arabia, where she was coordinating an anti-Iranian military alliance with the reactionary Persian Gulf monarchies, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made it clear that the sole purpose of the scheduled talks would be to achieve full Iranian compliance with US demands, or to pave the way to war.

“It will soon be clear whether Iran’s leaders are prepared to have a serious, credible discussion . . . to start building the trust we need to move forward,” Clinton said.

The US secretary of state told reporters that Iran should cease all production of 20 percent enriched uranium and open up all its facilities to continuous inspection. Neither of these steps is required under international treaties and law.

“So far,” she added, “they have given little reason for confidence. What is certain is that Iran’s window to do so will not remain open forever.”

This reference to the “window” closing represents yet another US threat of war against Iran.

In her talks with the Gulf oil potentates, Clinton unveiled US plans to build a regional missile defense system. The Washington Post reported that Vice Adm. Michael Fox, the commander of the US 5th Fleet based in Bahrain, presented the dictatorial regimes with the plans for the missile shield, which will provide lucrative new contracts for the US arms manufacturers, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin.

Clinton and the ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council regimes also reportedly discussed means of securing the shipment of their oil supplies through the Strait of Hormuz, which passes through Iranian territorial waters, even as Iran is faced with the choking off of its own oil exports and the threat of military attack.

Clinton praised the Saudi monarchy for pledging to increase its oil supply to make up for the supplies from Iran that Washington is attempting to keep off the international markets. “Both the United States and Saudi Arabia share an interest in ensuring that energy markets foster economic growth,” she said. “We recognize and appreciate the kingdom’s actions to respond to market demand.”

While Iran had earlier announced that its talks with the P5+1 would resume on April 13, it had not fixed a locale for the meeting. In her remarks, Clinton indicated that it would be held in Istanbul, Turkey.

It is not clear, however, whether Tehran will accept convening the negotiations in the Turkish capital. Mohsen Rezaee, the former Iranian presidential candidate and secretary of the country’s Expediency Discernment Council, said that the talks should take place in an “Iranian-friendly” country, and that Turkey was not suitable given its “failure to fulfill relevant commitments.”

Rezaee did not elaborate on his statement, but tensions between Iran and Turkey have increased following Turkey’s announcement that it will at least partially comply with US sanctions, reducing its oil imports from Iran by 20 percent. Istanbul’s hosting Sunday of the “Friends of Syria” conference, which produced a plan for issuing paychecks to elements carrying out terrorist attacks inside Syria, Iran’s principal ally in the region, as well as Turkey’s threats of military intervention inside Syria, have further soured relations.

China, which imports 20 percent of its oil from Iran, has firmly rejected the US sanctions as an extra-legal interference in international trade.

“The Chinese side always opposes one country unilaterally imposing sanctions against another according to domestic law,” a statement from China’s Foreign Ministry affirmed Saturday. “Furthermore it does not accept the unilateral imposition of those sanctions on a third country.”

India, which imports some 12 percent of its oil from Iran, has also evaded US sanctions, paying for Iranian oil in rupees and with the barter of its own manufactured goods. Washington has exerted significant pressure on the Indian government to cut its trade ties with Tehran.

The BRICS summit—Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa—in New Delhi last week issued a declaration recognizing “Iran’s right to peaceful uses of nuclear energy” and warning against the “disastrous consequences” of a military attack.

Meanwhile, the US, Israel and Greece are conducting war games involving at least 10 warships and combat aircraft in the eastern Mediterranean. The operation, dubbed “Noble Dina,” is led by the US Sixth Fleet and the Israeli navy. It began on March 26 and continues until April 5.

The exercise, which includes simulated defense against submarine attacks and securing offshore oil platforms as well as air combat, is, according to Israeli sources, a rehearsal for war against Iran.

By Bill Van Auken

3 April 2012

@ WSWS.org

NATO Discusses Military Intervention In Syria

Turkey is leading calls for a military attack on Syria on behalf of the United States. Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu attended yesterday’s NATO meeting in Brussels and will attend the Paris meeting today of the Friends of Syria—the Washington-led front, encompassing the European powers and Arab League states such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, that is leading the war drive against Syria. Also in attendance along with Davutoglu will be Turkish Defence Minister Ismet Yilmaz.

Behind the smokescreen of the United Nations and Kofi Annnan’s ceasefire, plans are being finalised for intervention, including US involvement under the auspices of NATO. Turkey had said it would raise the issue of an alleged violation of its Syrian border at the NATO ministerial meeting and call for NATO to come to its “defence.”

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will attend today’s Friends of Syria meeting and will, according to French diplomatic sources, discuss the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The two meetings are in preparation for the NATO Heads of State and Government Summit in Chicago on May 20-21.

Turkey is acting as a base of operations for the Free Syrian Army’s military attacks in Syria. The FSA is a sectarian Sunni force armed by the US, Britain and France. It includes covert troops supplied by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Libya.

Turkey is also home to the opposition Syrian National Council, a front made up of Islamists, CIA assets and ex-regime elements. It functions as a political proxy for Washington.

Ankara is using a border incident on April 9 in which Syrian forces are accused of wounding four Syrians and two Turkish staff working at a refugee camp to urge a military response by NATO. The Syrian regime claims that its forces had come under fire from Turkish territory. The incident is the only case to date of Syrian fire allegedly hitting people on Turkish soil.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan responded to the incident last week by insisting, “A country has rights born out of international law against border violations. … NATO has responsibilities to do with Turkey’s borders, according to Article 5.”

Article 5 of the NATO treaty declares that an armed attack against a NATO member is tantamount to an attack against all members and can be met with armed force. Invoking Article 5 would allow NATO members to take military action against Syria without a UN Security Council resolution, bypassing the objections to armed intervention of Russia and China.

To date it has been invoked only once—following the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the United States which became the pretext for the nearly 11-year-long war against Afghanistan.

Turkish officials have repeatedly denounced Syria for not abiding by the terms of the UN ceasefire, blaming Assad personally for violations. “Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is trying to buy time. It is the reason why Turkey does not believe in a ceasefire in the country”, Erdogan said.

The Turkish prime minister held extensive discussions with President Barack Obama and CIA Director David Petraeus at the beginning of this month. He told reporters that studies were “underway” on a creating a buffer zone on Syrian territory and that “The ‘right to protection’ may be put into use, according to international rules.”

Making use of a minor border clash to declare war would be difficult, but the incident could be cited to legitimise the setting up of a buffer zone by Turkey’s military on Syrian soil. The need to defend such a bridgehead would provide an excuse for deploying NATO air power.

Turkish media reports have cited specifics regarding the preparations for a buffer zone, with 500 military personnel involved in inspecting areas close to the border as sites for a possible 20 kilometre (12.5 mile) incursion into Syria.

There have been numerous reports of the involvement on the ground of US Special Forces and troops in the planned operation, including the reassignment of troops previously stationed in Iraq. There are also reports of Saudi Arabia and Qatar training thousands of fighters in a closed-off location to boost the numbers of the FSA. The Obama administration has publicly agreed to a $12 million donation to the FSA.

A Captain Amar Wawi told CNN this week that the FSA is gathering more weapons and “preparing ourselves for the next stage if the Annan mission fails”. A Lieutenant Abdullah Oda said he was in Iraq last week brokering a deal to send weapons, including anti-tank missiles, “which we need strategically on the ground against tanks and against armour.”

In a significant political shift, the Syrian National Coordination Board (NCB), or National Coordination Committee for the Forces of Democratic Change, has come out in favour of armed intervention by the Western powers for the first time. The alliance of nominally leftist and nationalist parties previously opposed the SNC on this question. A spokesman told RIA Novosti that if the UN peace plan failed, the NCB would first call for a UN Security Council resolution to allow for “humanitarian intervention” in Syria.

Washington has repeatedly dismissed the ceasefire as a fraud and continues to push for action. US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice said the Assad regime had “lied to the international community, lied to their own people”. She continued, “And the biggest fabricator of the facts is Assad himself. … His representatives are merely doing his bidding and under probably some not insignificant personal duress.”

Targeting Assad personally in this way is an attempt to encourage defectors at the top, through which the US can secure its aim of regime-change. A UN commission of inquiry on Syria issued a report February 23 accusing Syrian forces of crimes against humanity, including murder, abductions and torture carried out under orders from the “highest level” of army and government officials. A secret list of suspects was handed over to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, who urged action by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani used a visit to Rome to declare that the Syrian people should not be supported through peaceful means, but “with arms”. Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti stressed the “close collaboration” between Rome and Doha on Syria.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated bluntly, “There are those who want Kofi Annan’s plan to fail. … They are doing this by delivering arms to the Syrian opposition and stimulating the activity of rebels, who continue to attack both government facilities and … civilian facilities on a daily basis.”

He called for the Syrian opposition to be pressured to comply with Annan’s plan. Instead, he said, “There are countries, there are external forces, that are … encouraging the Syrian opposition not to cooperate with the government in providing for a ceasefire and the subsequent establishment of dialogue.”

French diplomats boasted this week that Western sanctions on Syria are bleeding the country dry. A spokesman said, “We haven’t got a perfect measurement instrument to tell us when the regime will no longer be able to function, but we are seeing an extremely strong decline in foreign reserves: About half.”

“With the deteriorating economy there is a hyperinflationary context, sharp collapse of the currency and a fall in revenues. That pressure will eventually be felt”, said another source.

The European Union is set to impose a new round of sanctions after talks in Paris.

By Chris Marsden

19 April 2012

@ WSWS.org

Myanmar: Opening up

Reform promises opportunities for overseas investors – but locals and neighbours alike are wary

Near Yangon’s historic riverfront on Monday, the buzz at the Thein Phyu Money Changer Centre came not only from the overnight news that Aung San Suu Kyi and her opposition National League for Democracy party had won a landslide victory in parliamentary by-elections. It was also the first trading day at a newly liberalised market rate for the kyat, the local currency.

The opening rate of Kt818 to the dollar was a far cry from the previous official rate of Kt6.4. The shift is the most crucial of a raft of financial reforms under way in the south-east Asian country as its long-ruling generals ease their grip.

“It’s a new system, new era – and I hope, also new politics,” says one young teller at the recently opened exchange centre, a venture by six commercial banks where a shiny digital signboard takes pride of place.

Yet just outside, rusting taxis rattle past dilapidated buildings. Power cuts have kicked in again, despite Myanmar’s abundant natural gas reserves. On the broken pavements, one stall featuring ancient handsets has hot-wired public phone lines to offer local calls for the equivalent of 10 cents.

In a nation with a per capita income of barely $800 a year, mobile phones and computers are limited to the affluent classes. Sim cards for mobile telephones cost from $3,000 upwards, and most homes lack landline and internet connections. There are no cash machines for foreigners’ use, and just one or two for domestic customers. Credit cards are accepted only by a few high-end hotels. Like many other things, this is about to change – and that change will be given impetus as western governments, led on Wednesday by the US, ease sanctions that have helped to cripple the economy.

Already, however, the reformist government is reeling out changes at breakneck speed. A more liberal foreign investment law will emerge to replace the existing, restrictive code within weeks. A land use bill improving rights for farmers, who constitute about three-quarters of the nearly 60m population, has just been passed. Sweeping financial, banking and other economic reforms are in train.

Some banks have recently gained permission to install cash machines. One company has proposed introducing a Kt5,000 ($7) Sim card. Businesses, from foreign-owned hotels to local department stores, hope that credit cards, like other aspects of a modern financial system, will accompany the easing of sanctions. “It will be a watershed moment,” says Craig Powell, general manager of Traders, a leading downtown hotel.

The “managed” float of the kyat enables the government to intervene to influence the exchange rate, something experts – including the International Monetary Fund and Joseph Stiglitz, the US economist who has taken a close interest in Myanmar – say is essential. The aim is to create a cushion against the impact of expected heavy inflows of aid and investment that could push up inflation.

At the same time, the government is planning to liberalise current account transactions and develop capital markets – including allowing the entry of foreign banks – and to encourage banks to lend rather than holding government bonds.

Together, the measures form the economic frontline of bold reforms unleashed by the government of President Thein Sein since it took power just over a year ago. Mr Thein Sein, a former general known for his low-key approach and lack of cosy business ties, has astonished compatriots and the world with his determination to bring Myanmar into the 21st century.

Driving this push, say government insiders, was a growing realisation among the generals that decades of economic mismanagement and diplomatic isolation under their harsh rule had brought the country to its knees by 2010.

By then, Myanmar had for some years been ranked one of the poorest countries in global indices. It is difficult to imagine it was Asia’s rising star in the early 1960s, the world’s biggest rice exporter with an educated workforce and a well-functioning economic and legal system. One UN agency described it at the time as the nation “most likely to become fully industrialised” before its neighbours.

However, the 1962 coup that brought the generals to power put paid to that, leading instead to decades of stagnation. During a 2003 domestic banking and financial crisis, one of the economy’s lowest points, private banks were shuttered and mortgages banned. Even today, it is hard to obtain housing finance, and farmers are forced to turn to often predatory private lenders for credit.

In one of the frankest assessments yet, U Myint, the president’s most senior economic adviser, told a recent gathering of foreign aid officials: “We have to acknowledge that over half a century since we gained independence, it has not been lack of resources but rather misconceived ideas and flawed policies that have been our undoing.”

That message underlines the view among local analysts that the impetus for change came – perhaps inadvertently – from Than Shwe, the previous leader and military strongman. In an effort to redeem his stained legacy, he chose Mr Thein Sein, a loyal, quiet military professional, to run in 2010 elections to succeed him.

Western sanctions had by then brought Myanmar to the point where it was more than 70 per cent reliant on China for foreign direct investment: “Not a happy place to be,” remarks an expatriate executive. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, the value of approved foreign investment projects reached nearly $20bn in the 2010-11 financial year, leaping more than 60-fold from the previous year. But 99 per cent of it was in oil and gas, mining and power-related projects. The consumer economy remained moribund.

Government actions have now begun to reflect a keener appreciation of public needs – in a way that has also affected foreign governments and businesses. The abrupt suspension last September of a $3.6bn Chinese hydropower dam project in Myanmar’s north telegraphed the changing attitude. The decision followed a public outcry over the environmental impact and terms that meant 90 per cent of the power generated would go to China.

The decision, though applauded by many, shocked China and would-be investors, putting pressure on the government to accelerate a new foreign investment code to assure investors that suspension of a mega-project was a one-off. Through a series of bilateral visits, the government also discreetly assured China that its other projects – including up to six dams and a massive pipeline and port development, remained on track.

A few months later, however, a Thai-led project to build a coal-fired power plant in the planned $56bn Dawei port development in the country’s south was suspended. One Yangon-based economist says the government again used the decision to signal to investors that big projects would be welcome only if they fitted with its new-found concerns about the environment and local impact. Both issues are addressed in new environmental laws.

Cross-border trade with Thailand, China and India is huge and largely unofficial. Other countries, including South Korea and Malaysia, have invested too. The significance of Myanmar’s re-emergence is noted most of all by Thailand, which regards it with mixed feelings.

On the one hand, Thailand has benefited from open access to Myanmar’s natural resources – more than half of Bangkok’s electricity supply relies on gas piped from its western neighbour. Thai companies have also moved into property development and service industries there.

On the other hand, Myanmar is drawing a steady stream of tourists, one of Thailand’s mainstay service industries, and is targeting close to 1m visitors in 2014, up from about 300,000 in 2011.

Other south-east Asian countries will also have justifiable concerns. Myanmar’s labour force is largely unskilled. However, with wages as low as Kt700 a day for a worker in a garment factory, it could compete with many of the low-cost manufacturing destinations.

The IMF said in January that it saw “high growth potential” for the country. Citing stronger commodity exports and higher investment, supported by robust credit growth and improved business confidence, it estimated economic growth of 5.5 per cent in the 2011-12 fiscal year and forecast a rise to 6 per cent in the current year to March 2013. The government recently raised its estimate to close to 7 per cent in the current fiscal year.

Inflation, projected at 4.2 per cent for the 2011 financial year, is on the rise, however, and expected to pick up to 5.8 per cent or higher given the likely increase in foreign investment and aid flows. That in turn has lent greater urgency to financial reforms, including the kyat’s managed float and moves to grant the central bank independence from the finance ministry.

The currency reforms are not only fundamental to a more open economy, they are “a key to western investment”, notes Prof Stiglitz. Indeed, says Rajiv Biswas of IHS Global Insight: “This monetary transition will encourage a significant upturn in trade and investment flows over the medium-term, helped by major new legislation to encourage foreign investment.”

For western investors, the “look-see” phase is likely to intensify with the lifting of sanctions. Before then, however, companies are eyeing opportunities to sell goods and are investigating potentially lucrative infrastructure and transport contracts. Big investment banks are arranging client visits. Some, including Nomura of Japan and Switzerland’s UBS, have issued reports cautiously endorsing Myanmar as a possible “Asian tiger” – even as they all warn that developments will take time.

“Myanmar is in the same place China was in early 1979, when Deng Xiaoping said: ‘We have to do something new.’ Myanmar is opening up,” Jim Rogers, the billionaire US investor, told a recent conference in Singapore. “If I could put all my money into Myanmar, I would.” The country, as Mr Rogers noted, is “right between China and India, 60m people, massive natural resources, agriculture … they have metals, they have energy, they have everything.”

As for Myanmar’s own companies: “We’re jittery,” says one local executive with a pharmaceuticals importer. “Big foreign investors have economic scale and access to markets – they can easily overwhelm us … We have had discussions with the government about this; we can’t compete with multinationals.”

After local business fiercely opposed initial government proposals to give foreigners eight-year tax breaks, the incentive was watered down to five years in the forthcoming foreign investment code, he says.

“Even so, it will be a struggle for us. In the end, though, we have lived through so many systems – and have faced the worst scenarios. We can survive, we can handle anything.”

Sanctions impact: ‘Reformers need help to address heightened expectations’

The orderly conduct of Myanmar’s April 1 by-elections appears to have met an important western benchmark for easing sanctions. The upshot is a frenzy of diplomatic manoeuvring both from within and outside the country.

In Myanmar, the issue has acquired a new political dimension after the resounding electoral defeat of the government-backed Union Solidarity and Development party. People close to Mr Thein Sein warn of mounting pressure on the former general from conservatives within his government and party who opposed his ambitious reform agenda.

Since coming to power just over a year ago, he has played a delicate balancing act between competing political agendas – including from a core of retired military officers who were reluctant to make concessions that could threaten their power.

While praised abroad for his moves to release political prisoners, resolve ethnic conflicts and ensure clean elections, the president is facing internal criticism, says one government adviser. “He fought the hardliners in order to try to meet the west’s demands; they complain it has brought nothing but humiliation and now he’s under pressure to deliver economic benefits – the first and most visible thing would be a significant gesture from the west.”

Charles Petrie, a former UN resident representative in Myanmar, warns that people’s expectations have been raised and that the west should move quickly.

“Everything hinges on three things: the democratisation process, ongoing efforts to fully resolve conflicts in ethnic zones, and economic reform efforts. When you are dealing with the first two, and even if you are successful, the fragility of the economy means that third leg of the stool may not be strong enough,” says Mr Petrie. “They [government reformers] need support to help address heightened expectations that have been raised by the reforms.”

Many argue in favour of a phased easing of sanctions, to maintain pressure on the government for further reform. Others warn of economic disruption from a flood of foreign investment that could accompany a broad lifting of restrictions.

Western business is keen to access the resource-rich country. Reforms include a foreign investment code, now being finalised, that is understood to offer strong incentives for companies to set up in Myanmar. Their worry is that regional rivals may get in first. “Many Asian firms are already investing and operating in Myanmar,” says Rajiv Biswas at IHS Global Insight, a forecaster. “Asian companies are definitely positioning for more rapid economic growth in Myanmar as economic reforms are implemented.”

By Gwen Robinson

4 April 2012

@ Financial Times

 

Ms. Rousseff Goes To The White House

“One of Lula’s foreign policy advisors told a friend of mine that when Brazil looks at Iran, it doesn’t see just Iran, it also sees Brazil.” – Larry Rohter, New York Times Reporter

Barack Obama recently visited with current Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. President Obama didn’t receive her, however, with the kind of pomp and circumstance, that has been given to nations like India and China. President Rousseff only met with Obama in a brief meeting, she did not receive a state dinner, and Obama spent most of the day rolling Easter eggs on the South Lawn. While CEOs, university presidents, and even the Chamber of Commerce — were literally chomping at the bit to meet with her — Obama seemed to be very low key and nonplussed, about his meeting with this extraordinarily capable and singular woman. What could be the reasons/reasoning for such a cold shoulder, from our 44th and current president and commander-in-chief?

Could it be that Brazil has advocated for the cause of Palestinian statehood, that it has traditionally had amicable relations with Iran, that it is a member of CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) and UNASUR (Union of South American Nations), or that it has pressured the US to include Cuba in the meetings of the OAS (Organization of American States)? [1] Indeed, Brazil is currently involved in an $800 million modernization project of the western harbor of Havana. [2]

Additionally, Brazil has inquired to the US government about a permanent position on the United Nations Security Council, and the US — has not responded in the affirmative, that it is interested in supporting that. Brazil also gave refuge to Honduran President Manuel Zelaya in its embassy, after the takeover (of the US-supported) coup regime. Furthermore, President Rousseff has been a cutting and incisive critic of the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing policy, and moreover China has still fairly recently emerged as Brazil’s chief, cardinal — number one and foremost — trading partner/associate. A writer in the Financial Times, has even likened Brazil to the France of Latin America. Not obstructing US hegemony, and an attempted unimpeded global power monopoly; out of any sound principle, or deeply held belief or vision, but according to this bourgeois analyst, “[Brazil is] undermining our initiatives in Iran or over trade talks…[as a] way of forcing us to pay attention to them.” [3]

Perhaps Obama thinks that Brazil, should be like a child bouncing on his leg (like the aforementioned FT “pundit”)? And is Brazil’s insufficient fealty to the Monroe Doctrine, and diktats coming from its “superior” northern nation, actually what ails this bilateral rapport/interrelationship? Perhaps, it’s simple envy as Rousseff enjoys a 77% approval rating, she has been seen as an effective battler of corruption, and Brazil’s economy — under her watch — is now considered to be the sixth largest in the world. [4]

In comparison, Obama is trying to sell a non-existent recovery, and that the Republicans are absolutely, totally, and utterly batshit crazy, in order to win himself a reelection/second term. Rather than languid then, however, perhaps Obama should have been absolutely ecstatic, at the prospect of meeting — with the categorically more than serviceable Brazilian President. Unequivocally, Obama is far from Rousseff’s popularity, dynamism and overall effectiveness, but seemingly, it was far more important to him — to be rolling multi-colored Easter eggs on the White House South Lawn — than to be meeting with such an acute, capable, effectual and resultant; world leader, stateswoman, dignitary, and noteworthy head of government.

By Sean Fenley

14 April 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

Notes:

[1] http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/05/opinion/gomez-iran-brazil-chill/index.html

[2] http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/25/us-brazil-cuba-idUSTRE80O1QX20120125

[3] http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/9311c644-7da4-11e1-bfa5-00144feab49a.html#axzz1rlYGh9Hj

[4] http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/04/08/144532/what-could-obama-learn-from-brazil.html

Sean Fenley is an independent progressive, who would like to see some sanity brought to the creation and implementation of current and future, US military, economic, foreign and domestic policies. He has been published by a number of websites, and publications throughout the alternative media.

 

Jeju and Easter’s Challenge against Empire

Part of the story of Holy Week is how the forces of the Roman Empire conspired against the Prince of Peace in the last days.  It is not only a lesson of history, but it is central to the witness of Jesus that we should exercise faithfulness to God and justice toward all people in the face of whatever powers, principalities and structures of violence would dominate and divide us.  Global Ministries is blessed to be in partnership with many communities around the world who continue to demonstrate a faithful witness against such forces today.

The residents of Jeju Island off the southern coast of South Korea are such an example. For months protests have been building against the construction of a new naval base on Jeju in the village of Gangjeong. Given historic security agreements between the U.S. and Republic of Korea, analysts surmise Korea is building the deepwater base at the behest of the U.S. military.  However locals from the area around Gangjeong oppose the militarization of their serene island and the threat to the environment and to their distinct culture that the base poses. Protesters have reached out to allies throughout Korea, including our Korean church partners, to ask the international community to join them in protesting the base and the escalating arms race throughout the region.

The villagers of Gangjeong have repeatedly rejected the decision to build the base adjacent to their homes and on land Koreans have long regarded as a national treasure for its natural and cultural significance.  Jeju Island was listed in 2007 as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  Its beautiful landscape is marked by unique rock formations and fragile ecosystems.  Traditional practices like the haenyho  women who dive while holding their breath under water are distinctive to the island culture.  A major lava-formed rock structure juts into the sea beside Gangjeong and has been revered by Koreans as a sacred site for pilgrimage and devotion. But the Gureombi or “Living” Rock has been cordoned off and access to it restricted by the military for construction of the base.

The government’s treatment of protestors has led to charges of human rights violations by the Asia Human Rights Commission. Christine Ahn, columnist for Foreign Policy in Focus, has reported that “[t]he government and construction contractors are attempting to stamp out the outcry by arresting, beating, fining, and threatening villagers and activists.” This attack on dissent echoes a dark moment in Korea’s history, the government’s massacre in 1948 of over 30,000 Jeju residents in an attempt to put down a popular uprising against the division between North and South Korea.  In 2005 the late President Roh Moo Hyun declared Jeju an “Island of World Peace” in commemoration of the event, making the current dispute over the military base and official crackdown a tragic irony.

 But the Jeju Island controversy represents a larger drama being played out in the age-old struggle against the forces of empire. Why does the U.S. want South Korea to build this new naval base?  U.S. foreign policy is undergoing a major “pivot” to the Asia-Pacific region, heralding what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called “America’s Pacific Century.” Under pretext of defense against North Korea, the Gangjeong naval base is at the forefront of a U.S. strategy of increased militarization designed to counterbalance China’s growing economic and military sphere of influence.  Not only does Jeju put the most advanced U.S. military might on China’s doorstep, but it is the top edge of a new U.S. theatre of military operations that includes a new U.S. Marine base in Australia, increased troop rotations through the Philippines, and pressure on Japan to increase military funding and cooperation with U.S. bases in Okinawa.

 During Holy Week we are invited to identify in our lives the powers and principalities that threaten war over peace and death over life. For many in the world this is not an act of spiritual imagination, but a matter of everyday struggle. The people of Jeju are right not only to want to protect the sanctity of their island, but to fear the threats of violence—indeed of nuclear war—being amassed around them.  What is the role of the church in bearing witness to the Prince of Peace against the structures of violence amassing in the Pacific? As Easter people what have we to say to the forces of empire today?

Derek Duncan, M.Div.

April 5, 2012

Associate for Global Advocacy and Education

Insight Into The 9/11 Debate: ‘Economists Are Scared’

Recently, I had published at Asia Times Online an exclusive investigation, Insider Trading 9/11 … The Facts Laid Bare (March 21, 2012).

In this article I presented evidence of informed trading activities prior to the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 on areas of New York City and Washington that resulted in the death of 2,996 people, including the 19 hijackers of four commercial jets. (The four aircraft hijacked on September 11 were American Airlines Flight 11, American Airlines Flight 77 and UAL flights 175 and 93.)

On the same subject matter, Asia Times Online now presents an interview that I have conducted with United States economist Paul Zarembka.

Professor Zarembka is a professor of economics at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo. He has been the general editor for Research in Political Economy since 1977, and is the author of Toward a Theory of Economic Development, editor of Frontiers in Econometrics, and co-editor of Essays in Modern Capital Theory.

He is working on the concept and application of accumulation of capital. Furthermore, he is an expert on Marxist theory and economic development. In 2008, Zarembka edited the book The Hidden History of 9-11, a serious reference volume that examines 9/11 and its background, showing how much remains unknown and where further investigation and debate is needed. His own chapter in the book includes investigation of insider trading before 9/11 and was updated in 2011 [1].

Lars Schall: Professor Zarembka, how did you as an economist became interested in the topic of insider trading activities prior to the terror attacks of 9/11?

Paul Zarembka: Well, I did not got directly interested in it, I got directly interested in 9/11 itself. That eventually led to insider trading, and since I specialized in econometrics it was the natural thing for me to jump unto and investigate for myself.

LS:Right after the attacks, a fair amount of mainstream financial media articles surfaced suggesting that there was informed trading going on related to 9/11. Why do you believe this reporting disappeared soon after and was never seen again?

PZ: That’s a good question, and I’ll tell you what I think, but it’s kind of speculative, I can’t know for sure. What I think happened was that many people who were not involved in any way whatsoever with 9/11 noticed the extreme levels of put options in certain securities before 9/11.

That is publicly available information, particularly if you have the services that provide that data to you. Some of these people noticed the extreme volumes and they thought, I believe, that it would lead to nailing [al-Qaeda leader] Osama bin Laden as responsible for 9/11. So we’ve got a lot of news coverage for about a month or two after 9/11, and then suddenly it died. I think the reason why it died – and that’s speculation – is that somehow the word got out that it’s not going to lead to Osama bin Laden.

LS: And so said the 9/11 Commission in its report.

PZ: Right, but that was much later after it died, and I mean it really died very quickly. On the other hand, the fact that it got out there at all meant that the 9/11 Commission report had to say something about it. They said something very minimal, but they said something, and if hadn’t been for those news stories nothing would have probably got out about it.

LS: What was the position of the 9/11 Commission relating to insider trading, and why do you think its conclusions are unconvincing?

PZ: That’s a big question, perhaps bigger than you anticipated. Let me go back a little bit to the history of discussions about insider trading connected with 9/11.

The first scientific paper that came out about it was from Professor Allen Poteshman, who was at that time working at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His article was published in the Journal of Business which nobody can criticize for its respectability and the integrity of its peer-review process, and yet he came to the conclusion that there was insider trading with high probability (nothing is ever certain in statistics) in American Airlines stock options and to a lesser extent in United Airlines [2].

It was accepted for publication, I think, around 2004, well before the 9/11 Commission report came out, but they did not make any reference to it. I am not sure if they knew or didn’t know about it, but my guess would be that they would have been informed that that study had been done.

Now the 9/11 Commission made its reports and said that they did investigations throughout the financial world, I mean not just only in the United States but also abroad, and not just in put option trading but in other financial instruments, and they concluded that they could not find any evidence of irregular financial transactions.

In its report, only two cases are actually cited, the two cases that Poteshman had studied and written about, namely in American Airlines put option trading and United Airlines. However, the commission provided almost no direct evidence of what its finding was, but rather just made assertions. So what the 9/11 Commission said is basically worthless because it didn’t give us any evidence for its statement.

The drama is magnified when two more studies were done which again confirmed that insider trading took place. Where it also gets dramatic is that in 2009, some parts of the investigation fed into the 9/11 Commission were released, and frankly I have to tell you that at least for American Airlines the report is convincing that there wasn’t insider trading in American Airlines.

I say this not because it changes the final result very much, but I think it is a deep warning to everybody working on these kind of issues that these issues are complicated, and that in the final analysis the government has the data and has knowledge we don’t have – so some of what we are doing is based upon hard facts, but some of it speculates around things we don’t have the hard facts about.

LS: And then the label “conspiracy theorist” raises its ugly head very fast when you do speculate.

PZ: Yes, and that’s why I am not interested in speculating. I try to say truthfully whatever I discover. For example, Poteshman’s results were never a certainty, they were always stated as a high probability. But from an econometric point of view when you get results which have a probability of 99% you take them very seriously.

And that leads us to something else. I have enough experience in econometric issues which were controversial to know that typically, when you got controversial results, somebody else comes along with a series of objections to the methodology that you have used and you get a big controversy.

No one ever responded to Poteshman’s article from a critical perspective, and this is very curious. It’s a major piece of work, and he got the data actually from the Chicago Board Option Exchange [CBOE] in a way that the rest of us don’t have; he got confidential data for his work.

I suspect that the CBOE wanted to find out if a methodology could be developed which would be useful for checking into insider trading in other incidents, not only in this one, and I think that’s why the CBOE gave him the data. Whatever the reason is, he had data the rest of us don’t have. So it really was something to investigate further, but his work was never challenged. And then we get two other papers which actually more than reinforced what Poteshman said.

One of those papers came from two professors and a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who studied abnormal trading in the S&P 500 index options prior to the 9/11 attacks. [3] Their study came to the conclusion that there was a high probability of insider trading in S&P 500 index options prior to September 11.

What is very interesting about their results is that the underlying reports that were made available to the 9/11 Commission (which we didn’t see until later) say that they could not examine the S&P 500 index options because trading in it is too extensive. Now why that becomes interesting is because the 9/11 Commission report had said that they made a wide-ranging study and they found no evidence of any sort of financial irregularities before 9/11, but also said the S&P 500 index options couldn’t even be investigated – so the commission is kind of contradicting itself. And more than that, when some did investigate the S&P 500 index options, they find out that in fact it did have abnormal trading before 9/11, with high probability.

The other paper, the third one, is from Professor Marc Chesney and two of his colleagues at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. [4] They are engaged in a long-term project which has been ongoing now for about five years, continually improving their work and it’s getting larger and larger. What they do is they look at 14 corporations – five airlines, five banks and four other stocks. They also find that there was insider trading prior to 9/11 in a number of stocks, for example in Boeing and Merrill Lynch.

We can discuss this further, but the basic message now is that there are three studies showing high probability of insider trading prior to 9/11, while there are no reports out there which are showing the opposite. We only have the 9/11 Commission report saying something different.

Also interesting from Chesney’s work is this: Michael Ruppert [author of Crossing the Rubicon] made a lot of noise about the enormity of the profits that were made on put options before 9/11 and he also talks about options that were not exercised after 9/11, suggesting that some people were afraid of exercising their options. [5]

But if you look carefully at Chesney’s paper, the detail in Chesney’s paper indicates that every single put option was exercised by the time of its expiration day. So there wasn’t anything left over. And in fact I have learned something along the way: If a put option is in the money on the day of the expiration date, it is automatically exercised. It isn’t allowed to just expire.

The other thing that came from Chesney that I wouldn’t know otherwise: he is calculating the actual gains from exercising the put options, and you can add up his numbers, and he comes up to about US$15 million just on the put options that he has looked at.

And if you double that in order to kind of add the other put options he didn’t examine, it would be $30 million that could have been earned as a result of exercising the put option trades. The point I am making is that, for the put option trades, while important, we are not talking about billions of dollars here. There are other things that happened before and after 9/11 that were worth much more than $30 million.

LS: Am I right that the paper about the S&P 500 Index and the study by Professor Chesney are both not challenged either?

PZ: That’s correct.

LS: In light of these econometric findings, what do you think about the performance of the SEC [Securities Exchange Commission] and the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation], since their investigations have been the basis for the conclusions of the 9/11 Commission?

PZ: Well, let us go back to the implications for Poteshman because that indicates where the weaknesses of the conclusions of the 9/11 Commission are and what they might have gotten away with. First of all, the report that was released in 2009 cites a guy from the SEC by the name of Joe Cella, and that report basically gave the evidence of what the 9/11 Commission report asserted without stating how they came to that assertion. [6]

Cella said that they found a financial advisory service that sent out on September 9, 2001, a fax to its subscribers that they should buy American Airlines put options at the current price. Cella reports that his investigators went out and got the list of the 2,000 subscribers to this newsletter, Options Online.

They found out that 55 of those subscribers had purchased put options on American Airlines. And they contacted about half of them and were told by them that they purchased the put options on September 10 because of the recommendation of the newsletter. So Cella was claiming that they nailed down 50 plus subscribers of that newsletter who bought put options on American Airlines.

That number is not dramatic, representing about 2.5% of the subscribers who received the recommendation. But it is a convincing report and would seem to account for a majority of the put option purchases on September 10.

LS: There were also purchases of put options on American Airlines and other stocks the days before, so maybe Options Online was only reacting to those.

PZ: That’s where it gets interesting. We don’t know exactly the motivations for the advice of Options Online. What you are mentioning means that we need to trace those other put options that Professor Chesney and his colleagues found, namely Boeing, Merrill Lynch, Morgan, Citigroup, and so forth.

In other words, there could well have been a climate being created of buying put options before September 11 by people in the know, by people who had insider knowledge about what was going to happen, and that it spun off to some people who did not have that insider knowledge, for example maybe the editor of Options Online who made the recommendation of buying put options on American Airlines.

There’s another reason to think why this might makes sense. The article by Wong, Thompson and Teh [economists Wong Wing-Keung, Howard E Thompson and Kweehong Teh], whose findings were published in April 2010 under the title “Was there Abnormal Trading in the S&P 500 Index Options Prior to the September 11 Attacks?” notes that actually buying put options on American Airlines and United Airlines was kind of the most stupid thing to do if you knew what was coming down and you knew that airplanes of American Airlines and United Airlines would be involved on 9/11, because buying put options on exactly those airlines would have meant the risk of exposing yourself.

Also, I have to point out that I’m defending as an econometrician my profession in a certain way. I have looked very carefully at all these econometric works and I didn’t find a substantial weakness in them. They are not crazy pieces of research, but solid ones. And from their work we get also into internal contradictions of the Cella report when it is said that every avenue was investigated, but then said: “Oh, by the way, we didn’t investigate the S&P 500 index options.” When it was investigated by those people at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, they find that there was in fact high evidence for insider trading in put options on the S&P 500 index.

LS: Wong, Thompson and Teh also said that they would need better trading data to nail it really down.

PZ: That’s actually a factor in all of the three studies.

LS: I think another problem here with nailing down the evidence of 9/11 insider trading is that if the government had any interest in prosecuting this, they would offer protection to some people who know about the insider trading firsthand, correct?

PZ: Yes, right. I mean, a very common method of criminal investigation is to offer protection to certain individuals to get to others.

LS: You are calling for an international investigation. Why?

PZ: Because I don’t feel at all satisfied with the study that was done by United States authorities. They don’t give us the truth about what happened, for example, with Merrill Lynch insider trading before 9/11, or with Boeing. They had the opportunity and they don’t provide the information. They provided it only for American Airlines, that’s the only one that is convincing.

LS: Isn’t it also an important reason due to fact that it is connected to mass murder, which isn’t time-barred, and thus it still needs to be prosecuted?

PZ: Absolutely. It needs to be prosecuted. We need to go back and find out about the put option trades Chesney talks about, to every single one of them – we need to go back to Boeing, Merrill Lynch, Morgan, Citigroup etc. You have to look at every single one of those and look at exactly at who did it, and don’t make a presumption that so-and-so is an American citizen and would never have done such a thing, etc. That’s not the way to go about anything in any serious piece of work. That needs to be done.

LS: Why is it that those scientific papers we have talked about don’t get addressed from other economists?

PZ: To be frank about my profession, the real reason is that they are scared. I know my profession. Ordinarily, when you have a topic which is as hot as this one, or maybe a topic not as quite so hot but has huge social implications, you want to research it, because you could make your career really moving forward, I’m just talking in normal academic terms.

So you would think that there are other econometricians out there who would want to do their own study or criticize the other studies, but doing it in a very serious way, hoping that it will move their own professional career forward – and it’s not happening. And I think the reason is what I have said, they are afraid. This is too big for them to deal with. They are afraid that even getting into the topic gives it credence. Let me say it again: even getting into the topic legitimatizes the topic. That’s why Poteshman’s paper in the Journal of Business was so enormously important, because it legitimized the topic.

LS: It seems as if there were more remaining questions about financial issues surrounding September 11. For example, something that calls for attention is the staggering growth in

the amount of US currency circulating outside banks … in July/August 2001. The growth ran into the billions of dollars. … The currency component of the M1 monetary aggregate reported by the Fed rose by $13 billion (in the non-seasonally adjusted data), posting the highest such June-August growth rate in the 55 years since World War II. Balance sheet data for the Reserve Banks show a similar decline in inventory holdings of currency in July/August 2001, while data from the US. Treasury Department suggest the growth in currency in circulation was concentrated in $100 bills. [7]

Do you have an opinion on that

PZ: Bill Bergman, whom you quote here, basically says that there’s a field of research here that needs more explanation, and I understand what he is trying to ask us to look at and it is important. As you said, there was a huge increase in, particularly, the $100 bill currency supply in July/August of 2001, it was an enormous increase.

That drives a question for explaining why it happened. And Bergman got apparently fired from his job for even asking the question, for even pointing out the problem. That’s my understanding. But having said that, I don’t have anything to offer to add to what he has done, expect that I would note what he has done is important.

But there were other things happening on that day that were connected to financial issues. For example, I don’t know what to say about it, but the specific floors in which the World Trade Center towers were hit were particularly important financial floors. I am not talking about the whole buildings, I am talking about specific floors which were hit. Or the specific portion of the Pentagon which was hit was also extremely important for financial issues.

LS: For the accounting?

PZ: Yes, for the accounting, right. It is almost too much to believe that this is just a coincidence. Another thing, I have read reports that there were enormous gold stocks at the bottom of the World Trade Center, and trucks were coming in, carrying it out. Where did the gold go to? Did it happen, first of all, and if it did, where did it go to?

And in Building 7, the third building that collapsed, you have SEC files that were destroyed. I know a person working in the Washington office of the SEC, who told me afterwards – they were dealing with all kinds of investigations that were being undertaken, and case after case after case was closed because they had no copies located elsewhere, the documents that they needed to prosecute these corporations.

What I’m saying is that the case of M1 money supply is just one of many cases. The significance of the put option issue is that the numbers are clear and what you ought to do as a prosecuting person is also clear: you go to the people, you go to the exact names, the exact people who did the trades, and you can get that, no question about that.

LS: Through the brokers?

PZ: Yes, who ought to know, right. But I’m just saying that insider trading is the cleanest example we have in financial irregularities, which is why it is attractive to investigate. There are other things out there. Insurance payoffs for the buildings that were destroyed, that’s another example, billions of dollars that we are talking about.

LS: And we know that some re-insurance companies like Munich Re and Swiss Re were also targeted via put options.

PZ: Yes, right.

LS: You’re not only an expert on econometrics but also an expert on Marxist theory. Could you give us at the end of this interview an interpretation from a Marxist approach to the critical question “Cui Bono 9/11”? [Who benefits?]

PZ: Well, first of all let me say, since I have done Marxist research and been the editor of a Marxist series for years – when 9/11 happened it took me a little while to decide that 9/11 is worth investigating in its own right. While it is a shocking human event, it is not a shocking theoretical event – I mean, it’s not shocking from a point of view of what I see as the Marxist understanding of what the state is capable of doing even to its own citizens. It is not shocking from that point of view.

But, anyway, you then go to the next question: Why would the US state possibly do this at this time and for what purpose? Well, that can be a kind of a trap question, because no matter what I say somebody could come back and say: Well, they could have accomplished the same thing without 9/11.

Nevertheless, I still am going to say just a fact: the United States military-industrial complex has earned billions and billions of dollars as a result of 9/11. I think it would have been much more difficult to achieve those sums of money without 9/11. The US military expenditures are already equal in size of all of the rest combined. 9/11 surely helped that ideological support for such an incredibly large military.

LS: Do you think from an economist’s point of view it has become reality what president [Dwight] Eisenhower warned about, that the military-industrial complex has become too large and too powerful, and is now calling the shots economically? [8]

PZ: The short answer is yes, but the more complicated answer is that my understanding of Eisenhower’s statement is that it was long in preparation, it was kind of a year in the making. But, on the other hand, I mean, you can ask yourself the question: Well, why didn’t he do it two years earlier than that? It was kind of something he threw out at the last minute and didn’t have to take any responsibility for.

At the same time he was setting up the Bay of Pigs invasion [in Cuba] that he foisted on [president J F] Kennedy. So, yes, it’s a great thing to quote what Eisenhower said; I like it and it turns out to be correct, but I don’t fully understand his motivation when he waited to the last minute to say it and then afterwards couldn’t do anything about it, and what he did do as president was consistent with the rest of the US foreign policy.

LS: Well, his successor John F Kennedy was dealing with the military-industrial complex a bit differently.

PZ: Yes, he was the one who really challenged it. There is a wonderful book on this that should be read by anybody: JFK and the Unspeakable by Jim Douglas. [9]

LS: Yes, it is just brilliant, I agree.

PZ: If people want to read something about JFK’s challenge of the military-industrial complex this is definitely the book to read, no doubt about it.

LS: Thank you very much for taking your time, Professor Zarembka!

By Lars Schall

27 April 2012

@ Asia Times Online

Notes

1. Paul Zarembka:, “Evidence of Insider Trading before September 11th Re-examined”, International Hearings on the Events of September 11, 2001, September 8-11, 2011, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada, online here, September 9, 2011.

2. Allen M Poteshman: “Unusual Option Market Activity and the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001,” published in The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, 2006, Vol. 79, Edition 4, page 1703-1726.

3. Wing-Keung Wong, Howard E. Thompson und Kweehong Teh: “Was there Abnormal Trading in the S&P 500 Index Options Prior to the September 11 Attacks”, Multinational Finance Journal, Vol. 15, no. 1/2, pp. 1- 46 online here.

4. Marc Chesney, Remo Crameri and Loriano Mancini: “Detecting Informed Trading Activities in the Option Markets”, University of Zurich, April 2010, online here.

5. See Michael C Ruppert: “Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age Of Oil”, New Society Publishers, 2004.

6. See Commission Memorandum: “FBI Briefing on Trading”, dated August 18, 2003, online here.

7. Bill Bergman: “A 9/11 Paper Trail: Benjamin Franklin, Rolling Over In His Grave”, published March 23, 2012, see here.

8. See Dwight D. Eisenhower: “Farewell Address”, delivered 17 January 1961, online here.

9. James Douglass: “JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters”, Orbis Books, 2008.

Lars Schall is a German financial journalist.

In Defense Of Guenter Grass

“Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most, that has made it possible for evil to triumph”- Haile Selassie

“Have our Jewish sisters and brothers forgotten their humiliation? Have they forgotten the collective punishment, the home demolitions, in their own history so soon? Have they turned their backs on their profound and noble religious traditions? Have they forgotten that God cares deeply about the downtrodden” – Bishop Desmond Tutu

These two cautionary admonitions capture the thrust of Guenter Grass’ electrifying poem, “What Must Be Said,” that has brought an avalanche of invective – some scurrilous, some vituperative, some even personal vilification – against the man who warns the people of the world as well as the Jewish people of the dangers inherent in the actions of the Zionist controlled government of the State of Israel. Such condemnations avoid direct rebuttal of Grass’ pointed cries of despair as he contemplates continued indifference to the slow yet calculated genocide that exists in Israel ‘s occupation of Palestine reverting instead to derogatory innuendo, ignorance of conditions prevalent in the occupied territories, ignorance of those determined to destroy Israel , and personal guilt as a German. There is no reflection on the worst sin human kind can inflict on their fellow human beings, the silence of indifference to the plight of the Palestinians or to the potential danger facing the people of the mid-east should Israel preemptively strike Iran .

The title of his poem, “What Must Be Said,” echoes the prophets of old, cries of those weeping in the wilderness to heed the obvious, to hear the hypocrisy that masks the reality of a nation that cries for peace as it stealthily steals more land, that demands dismantling of Iran’s nuclear plants as it declares its right to Demona and untold weapons of mass destruction, that denounces with all brazen duplicity, indeed silences those who criticize the state of Israel while they are free to attack them as anti-Semitic.

“Why silence so long,” Grass asks of himself and answers, as must we all, that we are “slaves to an oppressive lie,” what cannot be said without condemnation because Israel has the “right” to demand and defend what it will. Is it wrong to criticize the obvious? Is it wrong to bare truth when silence once before begot a holocaust? Is it wrong for the German people to mark what they have learned through decades of reflection and reparation and not reveal what they have lived and learned? Is it wrong to speak when devastation threatens, when arrogance buries truth, when the weak have no voice, when the unknown consequence of brutal, raw, preemptive poweris imminent?

I would have Guenter Grass speak for me, my children and grandchildren, and all others who could suffer yet another World War, by noting the obvious that has been silenced so long:

•  a state provided with the fourth greatest military machine in the world to defend less than 6 million people,

•  a nation, the only nation in the mid-east with weapons of mass destruction,

•  a nation that refuses to sign the mid-east nuclear non-proliferation agreement,

•  a nation that has demonstrated its willingness to invade its neighbors in Lebanon , Syria , Egypt , Iraq , and drools to bomb Iran ,

•  a nation that occupies a land provided for it by the same United Nations that gave Israel license to declare itself a nation,

•  a nation that damns Iran for proclaiming that it will “wipe Israel off the map,” when in fact it never made such a declaration yet innocently hides its own declaration in the Likud Party Platform that the state it professes to want peace with, Palestine, shall never have a state west of the Jordan,

•  a nation that is of such demonstrable threat to world peace that if it is not condemned would be a blot on all who remain silenced and thereby complicit in its crimes,

and for such inaction, such indifference we must accept responsibility and condemnation; let the indignant ring their bells of anger and hatred, truth will prevail.

Who better to speak than a citizen of a country that supplies Israel with nuclear submarines capable of terrorizing its neighbors if not the world, submarines provided as reparation to a people destroyed so they can become the destroyer. “Why silence so long?”because “this must be said” with strength, conviction, integrity and honesty, and without personal fear or trepidation because the silence has been broken by a voice that resounds throughout the world in righteous thunder against the greatest danger the world now knows, an Israel that can act with impunity to crush whomever they determine to be their enemy.

Let me close this defense of Guenter Grass with a story told by Professor Michael Klein years after he had escaped death at Auschwitz . Klein’s brief narrative is titled “Breaking Silence.” It captures what I believe is the real essence of Guenter Grass’ plea, both in time and shame. The story reflects on Klein’s close friend, SalamonAbshalom, who had attempted escape and was to suffer death as a consequence. The story is a parable that parallels our time; what if voices had told of the Jewish plight before the trains took them to the death camps; maybe SalamonAbshalom would still be alive.

“My friend SalamonAbshalom was let out. He was barely able to walk; his hands were tied behind his back. An SS guard took him to the back of the camp yard. … He was led to the gallows and made to climb onto what looked like a stepladder. The noose was tied around his neck.

We stood paralyzed, in bewildered despair. How could the Heavens allow this to happen on this holy Yom Kippur evening? Did the Germans set up the execution specifically for Yom Kippur to humiliate the God of Israel and His people? The silence of the Heavens screamed out in our hearts and in our souls. The desecration of the God of Israel, of the people of Israel , of Yom Kippur, and the humiliation of man created in the image of God proceeded in silence as the German hangman, the Camp’s SS commander, stood over SalamonAbshalom.

Suddenly, as if from nowhere, a powerful, high pitched voice rang out over the camp yard. It sent chills down our spines, as we heard the cry of ” Sh’maYisrael… “, Hear O Israel”, as SalamonAbshalom declaimed the eternal proclamation of the Jewish people’s belief in one God….

With his prayer of Sh’maYisrael arising from his last breath, he raised all of us standing Zaehlappell to the highest spiritual level. Even as his life was extinguished by the brutal murderer to whom nothing was holy, he still proclaimed the eternity of the Jewish People, in defiance of evil, in defiance of the Germans, in defiance of the silence of humanity, and in defiance of the silence of the Heavens. SalamonAbshalom proclaimed the Godliness of the Jewish People even at a time when God seemed to be totally absent.

I slowly calmed my emotions and tried to analyze my thoughts. The Germans murdered SalamonAbshalom, but I was guilty having been silent in spite of the promise we made to each other in the camps that we will tell the world of what happened. I had kept SalamonAbshalom’s memory a secret for all these years.”

Silence sacrifices the innocent because it allows continuation of slaughter; silence rests in the soul as it acidifies into self-shame; silence speaks no language, offers no aid, but ensures that time will extinguish both hope and guilt. Silence is the voice of the coward and the accomplice. Silence must be extinguished.

By William A. Cook

7 April 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

William A. Cook is a Professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern California. He writes frequently for Internet publications including The Palestine Chronicle, MWC News, Atlantic Free Press, Pacific Free Press, Countercurrents, Counterpunch, World Prout Assembly, Dissident Voice, and Information Clearing House among others. His books include Tracking Deception: Bush Mid-East policy, The Rape of Palestine, The Chronicles of Nefaria, a novella, and the forthcoming The Plight of the Palestinians. He can be reached at wcook@laverne.edu or www.drwilliamacook.com

Imperialist Powers Manipulate Syrian Peace Plan To Prepare For War

In recent days, the Western powers have stepped up efforts to foment civil war in Syria and prepare for imperialist intervention in this strategically important country. Media reports indicate increased fighting between Western-backed armed groups and the Syrian army, accompanied by terrorist attacks on government forces and civilians.

Heavy fighting has taken place in the Aleppo Governorate in northern Syria. The province has a 200-kilometer border with Turkey, where the Western-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) is based. According to the news agency AFP, “rebel” forces attacked military intelligence headquarters in Aleppo, the second largest city in Syria, and the FSA launched a dawn assault on the nearby Minakh Air Base.

In another attack at Hreitan, an officer of the Syrian army and two security personnel were killed early Saturday. In Idlib province, one of the FSA’s main strongholds near the Turkish border, Syrian forces shelled an area held by the FSA.

Clashes and terrorist attacks have also taken place in central Syria. In several districts in the city of Hama, fighting was reported between armed groups and the regular Syrian army. The official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported that 5 explosive devices planted by terrorist groups were dismantled in Homs. Over 100 people have reportedly been killed over the weekend, and thousands have fled over the Turkish border in recent days.

The US and its main NATO allies—France, Great Britain, Germany and Turkey—are leading the campaign to destabilize Syria. Together with the reactionary Persian Gulf monarchies, Saudi-Arabia and Qatar, they are funding and arming the so called “rebels.” During the April 1 “Friends of Syria” meeting in Istanbul, the Saudi and Qatari regimes officially announced they would put the Syrian “rebels” on their payroll, thus formalizing their status as a mercenary force of imperialism’s regional proxies.

The current offensive by the “rebels” and the reactions of their Western backers expose the fraudulent character of the six-point peace plan that former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan negotiated with the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad. The imperialist powers never intended to find a political settlement to the conflict, as they claimed, but sought instead to create a pretext for further provocations against Syria, hoping to organize a Libyan-style overthrow of the regime.

On Friday, UN Secretary General Ban-Ki-moon placed all the blame for the violence in Syria on the Assad regime, declaring that attacks by government forces “violate” the UN Security Council statement demanding an end to hostilities. Ban-Ki-moon declared, “The Syrian authorities remain fully accountable for grave violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. These must stop at once.” He accused the Syrian government of using the April 10 deadline for implementing a cease-fire as an “excuse” to step up the killing.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared that Turkey will wait “patiently” to see if Syria sticks to the ceasefire deadline, but added that it may take “certain steps” if the violence does not stop after that. Erdogan did not specify what measures Turkey would take, but he has in the past announced plans to create a buffer zone inside Syria—that is, to seize a portion of Syria’s territory.

In another sign of increasing imperialist sentiment for war with Syria, the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung published an editorial Thursday entitled “The Lessons of Syria.” Suggesting that the search for a peaceful solution of the Syrian crisis was hopeless, it wrote: “Sometimes the use of military power is not only right, but even morally justified, unlike the search for a ‘political solution’ which does not exist.”

The Syrian regime has repeatedly pointed out the criminal actions of the West. On Friday, it sent letters to the president of the UN Security Council and the UN Secretary General, stating that “the terrorist acts committed by the armed terrorist groups in Syria have increased during the last few days, particularly after reaching an understanding on Kofi Annan’s plan.”

According to SANA, Syria’s Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Ministry spokesman Dr. Makdessi released a statement on Sunday announcing that “Syria has undertaken steps to show good faith concerning Annan’s plan and informed him of them,” adding that Syria has drawn his attention “to the escalation of violence by the armed terrorist groups as it announced agreement to Annan’s mission.”

Makdessi criticized interpretations of Annan’s speeches at the UN Security Council that maintain that Syria must unilaterally withdraw all troops from its cities on Tuesday, April 10. He stated that this was a false interpretation, especially given that armed “rebel” forces have offered no written guarantees to the Syrian government agreeing to stop their attacks. He also reportedly stressed that Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey had given no pledges to stop funding and arming terrorist groups.

The statement declared that Syria would “continue cooperation with Mr. Annan to implement his plan and will inform him of the undertaken steps in the hope of obtaining the aforementioned guarantees.”

In a response to the statement, FSA leader Rifat al-Asaad told Reuters by phone from Turkey that he would not deliver written guarantees. He declared that “the regime will not implement this plan” and that “this plan will fail.” He said that his organization does not recognize the Assad-regime, cynically adding that the FSA will silence its weapons only after the Syrian troops have retreated to their barracks and removed all their checkpoints.

Rifat al-Asaad and his mercenaries have virtually no basis of support amongst the Syrian population, but they feel encouraged by their imperialist backers, who have made clear that they intend to remove Assad regardless.

Kofi Annan made no reference to the Syrian demands and declared he was “shocked by recent reports of a surge in violence and atrocities in several towns and villages in Syria,” He reminded the Syrian government “of the need for full implementation of its commitments,” which can only be understood as a further threat. As UN Secretary General in 2001, Annan himself was one of the main architects of the United Nation’s infamous “responsibility to protect” doctrine.

In last year’s imperialist war against Libya, calls for “buffer zones” and “humanitarian corridors” were advanced in the name of the “responsibility to protect” civilians. This was used to justify a war that killed tens of thousands and laid waste to entire Libyan cities. An imperialist attack against Syria would threaten the lives of millions. It would be directed not only against Syria, but also against Iran, Syria’s sole ally in the region, and ultimately against Russia and China, with the danger of triggering a conflict between the major powers.

By Johannes Stern

10 April, 2012

 

 

 

I was the fall guy

The Wikileaks founder talks to Jamie Kelsey-Fry about state surveillance, media scrutiny and the Cablegate affair.

Is the digital activist world robust enough to survive legislation attacks by the world’s superpowers?

 The legislative attacks are not the big problem, either for the internet or for the communications revolution – which has given us such ability to understand the world by learning through the experiences of other people. Rather, the problem is the huge expansion by state intelligence agencies, which are now monitoring nearly every border and nearly every internet traffic flow.

For example, companies around the world are selling equipment to states for $10 million per year, to record every single telephone call, email and SMS going in and out of a country. Billions of hours of telephone calls – and not to just look at them and then perhaps discard them, but to record that information permanently.

And that’s part of the marketing literature to state intelligence organizations: there’s no longer a need to select who you intercept – you intercept everyone and you permanently record the whole thing, and then if sometime in the future you become interested in someone, you have the whole archive of all their communications and you understand who they are and who their friends are. You don’t even need intelligence agents to do this – there are algorithms that fan out and look at the network of people and how they’re connected together. It’s a kind of coming totalitarian surveillance state.

There is very little that any individual can do to protect themselves from bulk surveillance now

For example, the FRA [Försvarets Radioanstalt], which is the big spy agency in Sweden, intercepts 80 per cent of Russian internet traffic and they sell it on to the national security agency in the US. And every major interchange point for telecommunications data has a similar set-up. To a degree it’s not new; for example, all microwave telephone traffic between England and Ireland was intercepted during the time of the Troubles with the IRA. Eventually, microwaves stopped being used, because undersea cables were better, and so a different sort of surveillance technology has probably been deployed. We don’t have the evidence for that yet, but we have evidence in many other domains of this bulk interception occurring.

What can we do about it?

The answer is: very little. There is actually very little that any individual can do to protect themselves from bulk surveillance now. We take the inner core of our personal life and we put it on the internet – in our ‘real time’ chats with each other, in our emails with each other, in Facebook profiles – we pull in our entire friendship network and family and business networks and we make all that information available to be intercepted by those who have control either of those corporations or of the border points through which communications traffic flows.

There are certain cryptographic technologies that one can use to try to get some anonymity or privacy, but they’re pretty complex and unless you’re a technical person you can basically give up hope.

The only people who really have the motivation to install anonymization software like Tor are either people who are working for intelligence agencies themselves, or those working for organizations like Wikileaks. Everyone else should be doing it, but the burden – the logistical burden, the time burden – of doing it is so high it can’t be done.

So, are we all doomed? No. On the one hand, we have this extraordinary development in surveillance technology of the last 10 years, and the decreasing cost of deployment. There are some groups, crypto-anarchists, developing programmes to encrypt communications and to make communications anonymous. Wikileaks is part of that community of people that have tried to protect individuals and small groups from state surveillance – not just by the US but in many countries.

Wikileaks is a first in terms of digital technology undermining state control. How else might digital innovation take back power from the few and return it to the many?

It’s all about the crypto-anarchist project. I wouldn’t describe myself as an anarchist, but we can liberate the individual against the coercive power of the state using cryptography, using mathematics. And there is education – and I don’t mean formal education, I mean all of us educating one another. We are denying the manufacturing of consent by routing around the mainstream media. When one of us observes something somewhere in the world, or one of us has an insight, we can communicate that to people internationally. And that is unprecedented. Not since the Gutenberg printing press has there been such a force for education. And when we understand the world that we have to deal with, we are able to deal with the world – the world of concrete, physical reality, on which political systems sit. So I see this as the great leap forward for freedom. Even though most communication is surveilled, it is happening very quickly, in many cases so quickly that even though states can see our online communications, they can’t necessarily stop it. By the time that they see that some spread of knowledge has produced a particular action, a demonstration, a belief in the legitimacy or the illegitimacy of certain groups or organizations, it is too late to actually stop the action that occurs out of that understanding.

If we look at where most revolutions take place, they take place in squares, and when people come together into a square they are being their own media, they demonstrate to each other with their own eyes that they have the numbers and that other people agree with them, that they’re in the majority. And finally we have an ability to do this outside the square. We can see a consensus position based upon facts about the world, as a result of individuals and groups communicating with each other on the internet.

Every little NGO, every little radical group and every individual is able to project forth their view of the world, their understanding of the world – and their political position in relation to other groups. If we go back just 20 years, that was very hard for people to do.

Young people now live in an age where they can swap ideas at high speed. What effects do you see this having?

The chance to debate is now opened to everyone who can communicate on the internet. Which is not everyone, but it’s a sizeable chunk of people. More importantly, the people now actually have some power. People who have absolutely no power cannot do anything politically, they cannot have an effect.

We can look at the House of Commons, or Congress, and look at the debates that occur there, and say: ‘That’s the seat for political debate.’ But now, the seat for political debate is also on the internet.

When one of us observes something somewhere in the world, we can communicate that to people internationally. And that is unprecedented

I recall seeing this phenomenon three or four years ago when I saw a completely technical discussion on the internet suddenly turn to a political matter. A taboo was broken at that point: the taboo that technical discussions couldn’t step over into the political and that the proper place for political discussions wasn’t on the internet, but in the mainstream press. Only once something appeared in the mainstream press did it truly have political importance.

But those ground rules were broken and those technical individuals started to lose their political apathy. I believe that people are apathetic because they are powerless, not powerless because they are apathetic. So this new way of communicating was actually giving them power, and they then started to consider political matters.

They’re being educated, as a result of the internet, about how the world really works in terms of economic flows and political flows and hypocrisy, and they are also being given a power to express their opinions to a potentially very large audience, billions of people.

People outside the media and political sectors never used to have this, but now we all have it, and that’s such an empowering understanding.

So people are losing their political apathy, not just because they’re being educated and radicalized by examples like Wikileaks’ battle with the Pentagon or the Arab Spring, but because they actually have a power that they didn’t have before. And they’re starting to understand that.

Does Wikileaks aim for some kind of global balance of the countries whose secrets they release? Or is there a policy of focusing on some countries and states in particular?

Wikileaks is entirely source-driven – sources come to us with their material, and we publish. And we promise to publish everything that is given to us, provided it meets our editorial criteria: that the material is of diplomatic, political, ethical or historic significance, has not been published before, and there is some kind of force preventing its publication: a physical or legal threat, or it has been censored recently – it might have been published but then it was unpublished.

Provided it meets these criteria, we will publish it for sure, no matter what country it comes from. When we are in a situation where we have a lot of submissions and we have limited capacity, which we do, then of course we must make a judgment decision about what needs to be published first. That judgment decision is based on what will have the most impact towards justice.

Justice is the basic sense of fairness; human beings have these instincts. It varies a little bit from culture to culture, but we all basically have the same understanding that when someone is physically brutalized and they haven’t done anything, that’s unfair. We all have this instinctual feeling for justice. Wikileaks is an organization to bring about justice, and the particular method that we have been using is working well –looking for information that has been concealed from the public.

I believe that people are apathetic because they are powerless, not powerless because they are apathetic

Now of course, we’re not fools; sometimes there are perfectly good reasons for withholding information from the public. For example, with an investigation into the Mafia, it’s obvious what the legitimacy is in the police themselves engaging in protective measures to keep information not just from the public, but from the Mafia. Similarly, Wikileaks is engaged in all sorts of protective measures to keep the identities of our sources secret. Half the organization’s work is put into protection of our sources and our ability to publish in the face of threats.

But this is not the same thing as saying that simply because sometimes there are legitimate reasons for concealing information, everyone in the world is obligated to do that. For example, take our battle with the [US] State Department. In some instances, the State Department has a role or an obligation to keep private the information it has collected. Our role, as a vanguard publisher pushing for freedom of speech and to educate people and to reveal injustices, is to get hold of information like that and to publish it.

 These are different roles, and just as it is not correct for us to deploy coercive force on the State Department, for example using a bulldozer to smash through their building and take their secret vaults of information (although I must say that sounds rather attractive!) so it is not the correct role of the US State Department to go around the world threatening coercive force on Wikileaks, its people, its supporters, or banks. There is an economic blockade against Wikileaks – an extrajudicial economic blockade. There was no administrative process, no legal process. The only administrative process was the one conducted by the US Treasury Secretary at the beginning of 2011, and they found that there was no legal reason why we should be subject to an economic blockade, and yet it continues.

One can’t simply say that just because sometimes there are good reasons that information should be concealed, that everyone must be forced to shut up about it at the barrel of a gun.

What did it feel like when you, rather than Wikileaks’ revelations, became ‘the media story’?

A very interesting phenomenon. We played it in different ways as time went by. In the beginning, for our own protection, I made myself just a member of the advisory board, so the internal structure of Wikileaks could not be seen. But as Wikileaks grew in influence and popularity, a market developed for information about the organization in the mainstream press market.

That I was the founder of the organization simply came out as a result of various people being contacted by the mainstream press; my friends unfortunately gave me credit, which I didn’t want them to do. I’d rather they had said: ‘I don’t know who’s the founder.’

So then, in 2009, the ad hominem attacks started. It was necessary to defend against them, and the way you defend against ad hominem attacks occurring in a vacuum of information is to supply more information. If someone attacks your personality, you have to reveal good sides of your personality; if someone attacks your finances, you have to reveal some of your finances, and so on.

Then, in 2010, I was in hiding, moving around the world knowing that US intelligence knew that I had 260,000 US diplomatic cables in my back pocket. Our organization was in a ‘publish or perish’ situation, because our big leaks of 2010 hadn’t been published yet. That was our big challenge: to publish our information, and then to survive the publication. And for the organization to survive, there had to be a fall guy, and the fall guy needed to be protected. So the fall guy was me.

I was the most visible person already, so I was going to be the person that the political fire came in on. And because of that, I needed to be even more publicly visible, so that if I was locked up, if I suddenly disappeared, people would miss me. We worked on elevating my profile in order to gain the protection that public visibility would give.

For Wikileaks to survive, there had to be a fall guy – and the fall guy was me

Our technical guys didn’t have that protection at all, and they were in a very dangerous position – they didn’t have any of the protection of having a public profile. So we kept them underground through secret communications methods and were very careful to make sure their identities never came out, so they could not be silently ‘disappeared’.

So we had all the ad hominem attacks because I had a public profile, but on the other hand, the public profile has prevented me, so far, from being shipped off to the US. We will see what happens over the next few weeks, but so far, it has protected me. I mean, there were calls for my assassination and I haven’t been assassinated, I haven’t been kidnapped, I haven’t been extradited to the United States, although there are moves afoot to try to do that.

As to the media attention on my personal plight, we have some statistics that are quite interesting: there are 39 million web pages, according to Google, that mention the name Julian Assange. There are hundreds of millions that mention the word Wikileaks. Within the United Kingdom, there’s a five to one ratio of web pages on Wikileaks vs Julian Assange. For the Associated Press, the ratio is four to one. So AP is slightly more personalized than web pages in the UK – it concentrates slightly more on the personal. For the New York Times, it’s 2.5 to one in favour of Wikileaks. But for the Guardian, which we have had an active, ongoing legal dispute with since November 2010 as a result of their breaking all three points in our Cablegate contract, the ratio is three to two in favour of me.

Because we have a legal, an ethical, confrontation with them, the Guardian has decided to go into the personal in a way that Associated Press hasn’t. And this is despite the fact that the Guardian was a Cablegate partner and was given all the Cablegate material. That says something about the mainstream press and the media climate in London.

Julian Assange

 

Hurt And Abused Children In Ethiopia

“Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God”.[1]

Part One: No defence, no support, no voice

Almost half the 82 million[2] population of Ethiopia are under 14 years of age, the children of a new time. Throughout the World the call for justice, freedom and unity is being made loud and clear. It is overwhelmingly the young who cry out, often in pain and anguish, in determination to build a fair and decent world. The 40 million plus children in Ethiopia are the hope and promise of this wonderful country, in their hands lies the possibilities of a new day and a just future.

The African Child Policy Forum (ACPF) report, ‘Violence Against Children in Ethiopia, in Their Own Words’, states; “A large proportion of children, our beloved children, are victims of violence everyday around the world. This is especially true in Ethiopia, where approximately 99 percent of the children polled in this study (of 1750) said they had encountered violence in their home, school or community.“[3]This estimate if representative of the country at large is staggering and indicates the magnitude of the problem. The issue is of the utmost urgency and should be of primary importance to the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), who reassuringly state,“The welfare of children is a priority concern for the Ethiopian Government.”[4] On the face of it at least, this sounds like good news for the great numbers of suffering children in Ethiopia.

Criminal neglect

Illegal exploitation, violence, intimidation and cruelty, the inhumane treatment many children in Ethiopia experience daily at the hands of parents, family members, and teachers, within a society that both adores and ignores the child, professes love whilst committing abuse. An umbrella of ignorance and denial casts a dark and painful shadow over the lives of Ethiopia’s little ones, “knowledge of the nature and extent of the problem of violence against children remains limited” (ACPF). Abuse, justified often as cultural behaviour, denying the reality of the pain and suffering of many children.

The Ethiopian government, in the form of the (EPRDF), led byPrime MinisterMeles Zenawi, have signed and ratified The Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). The UNCRC is “a universally agreed set of non-negotiable standards and obligations. These basic human rights set minimum entitlements and freedoms that should be respected by governments. They are founded on respect for the dignity and worth of each individual, regardless of race, colour, gender, language, religion, opinions, origins, wealth, birth status or ability and therefore apply to every human being everywhere.”[5]

International treatise signed and laws written into the Federal Criminal Code by the Ethiopian Government are clear and firm, to the letter. The law though remains unenforced and indolent, allowing the plague of abuse to continue, grow and intensify. ““Ethiopia is not implementing her obligations under the international conventions relating to the rights of children.”(ACPF) By ratifying the UNCRC the Ethiopian authorities, entered into a binding legal agreement in accordance with international law. They agreed to safeguard the children of their country, to protect them from harm and to put an end to the widespread physical abuse, as well as, child prostitution, rape and incest. Violence and abuse within the home the school and the wider community. Violence and abuse throughout the beautiful and to many of its people, sacred land.

The children whose moral and most basic human rights are being trampled on, know well the crime and neglect of the government and those in whose care fate has placed them, over 60% of “children who were interviewed said that they considered violence against children as a human rights issue.” (ACPF).

Home sweet home

Having worked with disadvantaged, vulnerable children in Addis Ababa wewitnessed first hand many cases of child abuse, physical, emotional, and mental/psychological and quickly became aware of the scale of the problem, “children regularly face humiliating physical punishment and psychological abuse at home, in school and in the community-at-large,” where “children [in the study] acknowledged the prevalence of sexual violence” (ACPF) Abuse within the home, at the hands of parents, grandparents and extended family members, often goes unreported and unpunished. “The government does not take strict measures against child abusers. Even those that are doing terrible things like rape and abduction are treated leniently. Also parents go unpunished in most cases even when they do terrible things to their children.” Focus group participants aged 10 to 18 years old,

The ACPF study found that, “the primary settings for physical and psychological violence were at home and in school.” Violence towards children within the family is endemic in Ethiopia. “Physical and humiliating punishment is a violation of children’s fundamental human rights. The violence needs to end,”(ACPF) however “there is no [Federal] law [specifically] against corporal punishment at home.”(ACPF) “Provisions in the Civil Code oppress the child and place it under dictatorial parental authority. The code, for example, empowers the guardian “to inflict light bodily punishment on the minor for the purpose of ensuring the latter’s education” (Article 267/2)” (SSBB) The Federal penal code “is [here] in “direct conflict with Article 19.1 of the CRC.” (See below) This is immaterial from a legal standpoint as Ethiopia is compelled under the UNCRC to uphold the rights of the child, however in not making violence in the home an offence under Federal law, the EPRDF is endorsing abuse in homes throughout Ethiopia.

The home, a place where children should feel safe and secure, loved and cared for, is all too often the crucible of violence where the child is the victim, the servant the violated,“I know a child who was brought here by her relatives for education in my neighbourhood. She is about 13-years-old. But she has never been sent to school. She works every day. One Saturday I was bored and wanted to play with the girl. I went to her house. I called her name but no answer came. Then I heard a whisper in one of the rooms. I opened the door and saw her in the bed with the father of the family.” Rape within the family and community is widespread, “The study found that fathers, stepfathers, and sometimes close relatives, such as uncles, sexually abused children” [6]it is a hidden subject, barely utter able, a vulgar violation, abhorrent and shameful.

Trust, that bedrock of relationship, shattered.

Domestic violence is often the cause of extended hardship and exploitation. A son or daughter suffering repeated abuse at the hands of a parent or other family member, having nobody to turn to for support, and feeling hopeless and alone, turns often to the street. Escape even into the frightening and dangerous environment of street life is seen as a sanctuary from the violence at home. “When physical punishment becomes intolerable, a child may flee from home, a study on street children in four major Ethiopian towns found that family conflict is the second most common reason for children living on the street,” (ACPF) A girl on the street all to often means prostitution and for boys, criminality, alcohol/drugs and further violence become the cocktail of childhood, poured out at the hands of family and community, sanctioned by the State, who allows the abuse to continue.

In the ACPF studywe find disturbing examples of abuse, as given by children themselves:“In our community, most parents beat their children”.13-year-old boy. “My father used to beat me after tying my neck together with my leg.” 14-year-old boy, “I became a street boy because of the beatings at home.” 12-year-old boy.The following incident was something we came across “I know a man who burnt his stepdaughter with a hot iron.” 14-year-old boy. In the case brought to our attention it was a 12-year-old boy that was burnt by his Grandmother, for the heinous crime of being late home from school.

Whilst there is clearly a responsibility within the family to put an end to the barbaric treatment many children are subjected to, the burden of responsibility, moral and legal under international law falls ultimately to the Government. “State Parties shall take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse, while in the care of parent(s), legal guardian(s) or any other person who has the care of the child.” Article 19UNCRC. It is criminal neglect by the ruling FPRDF, in breach of its Internationally binding agreements that allows the suffering of so many children to carry on.

Part Two: Cultural calamity

Violence towards children is embedded into the social conditioning of Ethiopia, all too often mistakenly termed ‘culture’, and excused thereby,“In our culture there is a saying that if a female is not circumcised she will break things. So families circumcise their children.” 14-year-old girl.“ (ACPF) This is superstitious nonsense and needs to be seen as such. Within the Ethiopian criminal code many harmful traditional practices are dealt with and in some detail, “crimes committed against Life, Person and Health through Harmful Traditional Practices.”[7] This and other articles in the criminal code need to be consistently implemented and education programmes enlightening prejudices, freeing children and indeed parents from such damaging, ignorant practices need to be initiated throughout the country.

‘Culture’, that much misinterpreted, overused term of convenience, cited so often in the mistreatment of children, provides no justification for practices that are instrumental in causing deep hardship and suffering, to the most vulnerable in society. “Cultural and traditional beliefs deeply rooted in society sanction violence as a way of disciplining children. In addition, there is no tradition or knowledge of alternative ways of disciplining children other than resorting to violent practices. Worse, is the fact that children remain powerless victims, their viewpoints and opinions generally ignored, with no formal or traditional recourse for redress or protection.”(ACPF)

Ethiopia has a rich and ancient culture; let it not be soiled by the inclusion of abuse, violence and the exploitation of its children.

Seen but not heard

There is little or no freedom of expression throughout Ethiopian civil society. Within the hierarchy of family and the community, including school, children are held firmly in their subservient place. Parents, grandparents and other ‘senior’ family members, in addition to older siblings, enjoy a position of authority over the children in their ‘care’, “In the majority of Ethiopian communities, children are generally viewed as parental property.”[8]

This inhibiting restricted state of control extends from the family into the community at large. Children are treated as servants, often little better than slaves in fact, “children are not being treated as human beings born and endowed with their own particular interests and the capacity to make decisions for themselves.” (EPPAC) The child’s human and moral rights are not observed and the children themselves are unaware they have any. They are conditioned, by pervading attitudes as demonstrated by parents, teachers and members of the community into believing they deserve to be mistreated, feel they have no recourse to law or communal support and no avenues of complaint.

Excluding children from society, denying them a voice andforcing them to work.Restricting their participation to running household errands and undertaking whatever menial chores their seniors order, maintains methods of repression and abuse, which control children throughout Ethiopian society. “The low status accorded to children and lack of awareness was frequently mentioned by children and adults as the major cause for the continued practice of corporal and other forms of punishments against children.” (EPPAC)

Platforms of expression and channels of complaint providing children with ways of voicing their concerns and highlighting the many injustices they live under are essential elements in facilitating change.“Corporal punishment of children, particularly by parents, is either not reported or not properly prosecuted.” (EPPAC) Including children in the consultative stage of legislation as it relates to child offenses, in the home, in school and the community at large, would empower children and help to establish positive relationships with authority and the relevant government bodies. Consultation with children would strengthen research and provide them with a voice, a crucial factor in shifting the child’s current position of exclusion and powerlessness. “Children’s feelings and voices are [not] captured or even consulted in the process of legislation on issues concerning their welfare and rights.” (EPPAC)

Parental abuse lasting damage

Many of the children we worked with in Addis Ababa aged from 5 to 18 years old,recounted stories of being repeatedly and aggressively abused, physically, sexually and verbally. Whether street children, commercial sex workers (CSW)-often the victim of rape, or children from disadvantaged backgrounds in schools, they shared stories of violence at the hands of Mothers, Fathers,family members and teachers, social workers, older children and stepparents. “Children who live with stepfathers or stepmothers suffer the most at home. Stepparents severely beat or psychologically rebuke their stepchildren.” (SSBB) Surprisingly perhaps it is Mothers who are most often violent to there children, “since mothers work most of the time in the home, they spend more time with their children than do fathers, and thus abuse the children more frequently than the fathers.” (SSBB)

Shame and embarrassment coloured the tone of the children’s harrowing accounts, emotional bruising more difficult perhaps to recognise than a broken limb, or scarred flesh. “Corporal punishment may leave behind temporary or permanent injuries on children. In extreme cases, it may even result in death. There are incidents where children become unconscious, bleed, break their backbone, lose a limb or fingers as a result of physical abuse. “(EPPAC)

There are various types of physical violence and verbal abuse commonly employed to punish and control children. “More than 60 percent of adults in the study admitted to tying up a child with rope or electrical wire.” Over 70% had been hit with a stick or some other weapon. Hitting on the head, slapping, pinching, and whipping with a belt, kneeling or squatting down are all methods of cruelty employed and revealed in the ACPF study. In extreme cases, where the child is being taught an unforgettable lesson “Their hands are twisted and tied together behind their backs with rope. They are then ordered to kneel-down with objects stuffed into their mouths and forced to stay in that position for long periods, or are flogged many times on the back” (SSBB) This is torture, and at the hands of ‘loving’ parents, Grandparents and the like

All forms of abuse impact on the psyche of the child, affecting his/her psychological landscapecolouring every aspect of the evolving life from childhood into adulthood. “As adults, children who experienced abuse or neglect have an increased likelihood of criminal behaviour, involvement in violent crime, abuse of alcohol and other drugs, and abusive behaviour.”[9] The impact on the child of repeated violence and abuse is difficult to assess and quantify and “there is little understanding, if any, of how harmful such violence can be to a child’s development, growth and survival.” (ACPF) There are however clear indicators that demonstrate the impact of physical and emotional abuse on a child’s ability to learn, to establish and maintain healthy lasting social relationships and to interact in a harmless positive manner within their community. To feel whole, healthy and of value. “I got very scared and felt useless when my mother threatened me that she would rather kill me and go to jail.” 13-year-old. “Our drunkard uncle with whom we live beats my little brother, who is three years old. As a result, he is now very scared of people. I cry for him and I feel terrible about how we live,” 13-year-old (ACPF).All men and women of goodwill will raise their hands to the heavens and shed a tear at this infant’s pain.

Fear, loss of self-confidence, low self-esteem and guilt, colour the lives of many abused children, “The impact of child abuse and neglect is far greater than its immediate, visible effects. These experiences can shape child development and have consequences that last foryears, even lifetimes.” Reoccurring cycles of abuse by parents, where the child is repeatedly exposed or witness to physical violence, threats and verbal intimidation, often cause the children themselves to become violent,“they hit us because they passed through the same experiences during their childhood, and they think that corporal punishment is the best way of disciplining children.” Focus group participants aged 10-18-years-old (ACPF)

Conditioned into violence, children repeat the destructive pattern of behaviour they have been the victims of. “Intergenerational cycle/s of violence – violence that is passed from father to son or daughter, parent to child, or sibling to sibling. Children exposed to domestic violence are likely to develop behavioural problems, such as regressing, exhibiting out of control behaviour, and imitating behaviour. Children may think that violence is an acceptable behaviour (within) intimate relationships and become either the abused or the abuser.”[10] “The physical, psychological, and behavioural consequences of child abuse and neglect impact not just the child and family, but the community as a whole.”[11]Violence breed’s violence, abuse leads to more abuse, individually and collectively “Studies indicate that children who have experienced physical violence in the early years often become violent as adults.” (EPPAC)

Parents need to be made aware of the effects of repeated verbal and physical abuse and that violence towards the child is a criminal offense. Political will and moral responsibility In accordance with the Governments legal obligations must be expressed in the enforcement of the law by the appropriate authourities. Education, deterrents and platforms of expression plus clear channels of recourse for children, will together help change attitudes, curb destructive behavior and empower the young.

Part three: School daze

There are few corners of childhood in Ethiopia that are safe it seems. “In schools, some take advantage of their positions and force students to engage in sex with them in return for better grades and other favors. Such instances take place in primary and secondary schools.”[12] Attending school even becomes a torture then, everyday filled with uncertainty and the fear of physical violence, verbal insults or sexual intimidation.“We feel like we are totally at the mercy of our teachers as they beat us for good or bad reasons.” 12-year-old girl.” (ACPF) “More than 90% of students were punished by their teachers, although 70% of teachers were aware of the negative effects of corporal punishment.” (EPPAC) but continue nevertheless, one may rightly then question the degree of their ‘awareness’.

In a country where literacy rests at 48% school attendance is crucial. Children trapped and violated in school as in home, will naturally seek escape, “physical and humiliating punishment in schools is usually implicated with school drop-out.” (EPPAC). Education is a road out of poverty and victimization, to freedom and justice. Schools should be exciting centers of self discovery, where the innate potential of all may be sensed, fostered and realized, not hostile environments of fear, repression and control, where prejudices are reinforced and children hurt and humiliated.

“Schools are expected to provide safe and protective environment{s} for students. In this respect, the FDRE Constitution of 1995 and the Federal Ministry of Education guidelines discourage the use of corporal punishment in schools.” (VASC) However sexual and physical attacks persist:“male teachers used their position of authority to influence female students into having sexual affairs with them. Commonly, male students and neighbourhood adolescent boys also perpetrated sexual violence against female students.” (SSBB)

Home, school, community, microcosms of the society at large, sharing cause and effect, as one section of society impacts and colours the other. Family sits at the very heart of the community. The values promoted and expressed, the nature of relationships within the home and the general attitudes adopted, condition the community at large. Teachers who move into the school from a home where children are violated, physically beaten and sexually mistreated, will inevitably express these attitudes to their students. The same applies to adolescent boys loitering outside schools intimidating and sexually harassing young girls as the walk to and from school.

Even though corporal punishment in schools is illegal,“Children stated that physical and psychological punishment is very prevalent in schools and that they experience most forms of punishment there. Those who inflict such violence are usually schoolteachers, guards, class monitors and older boys.” “I lost my pencil. When the school director learnt that I was not writing, he beat me with a plastic hose. My nose was bleeding and I went to the clinic.” Sixth grade student(ACPF).Children should be made aware of their Human Rights, and informed that teachers are breaking the law when they are physically and verbally violent towards them. The school and then the criminal prosecution service should discipline those teachers, who revert to verbal and physical abuse, firstly, depending on the severity of the offence.

Encouragingly there are various positive signs of change highlighted in the STCD report.“There are significant programme interventions being carried out by governmental and non- governmental organisations (NGOs) to address the problem of physical and humiliating punishment of children. Most of the activities towards ending corporal punishment target schools.” (EPPAC) “With a view to promoting child participation and to enabling children to protect their own rights, some NGOs are engaged in establishing and supporting various kinds of clubs in schools.” (EPPAC)

This is all to be welcomed and should be seen as steps in the right direction. At the heart of any change in schools though must be the children and the teaching staff. Training programmes need to be delivered to change teaching methods and broaden teachers understanding of the impact, immediate and long term, of abuse and violence. In (VAGS) various recommendations are made, key amongst these are, “Train all teachers in non-violent methods of disciplining students.” Components,which make teachers and children aware of the Human Rights of the Child, need to be developed, and “Establish at a school level a mechanism for reporting violence and abuse and providing appropriate counseling and support for victims of violence and abuse.”

Let us add to this the recurring theme of inclusion. Systems of complaint and structures that encourage participation by children in the running of schools, e.g. class representatives, regular meetings with teachers and administrators, encouraging input into decisions affecting the life of the school. These and other methods based on participation, will breach divisions and contribute to creating vibrant inclusive education environments, based on respect for all, tolerance and understanding.

Community complicity

Society or community is not an abstract entity existing separately from the individuals in society. The individual is the society. We find the same archaic destructive attitudes to child-care and parenting seen in families being demonstrated within the community, distorting the behavior of adults and older children alike. Gender imbalances animating negative sociological stereotypes, of male superiority and female subservience underlie community sexual violence and intimidation experienced by many young girls. Children are treated as objects within the family and the community, all too often men’s attitudes, old and young towards girls in particular, reflect this, “I remember a girl who was being harassed by a man who said he wanted to marry her. She refused. One day he forcefully took her to his home and raped her. “ (ACPF))

The types of physical violence experienced within the community, mirror those the child is confronted with at home. Slapping at 54% is the most common, with being hit on the head coming in a close second. More subtle perhaps is the ridicule and fear engendering psychological abuse, almost 50% suffering such attacks. In addition to these physical atrocities, child abduction, seduction, sexual harassment and rape all occur within the child’s community.

The law is clear, Ethiopia has signed all manner of international relevant treatise and drafted into the Federal code all agreements, so what is the approach of the police within the community, the first point of contact with the judicial system? “I was beaten by the police for begging.” 13-year-old street boy “I was beaten by the police for sleeping on the sidewalks.” 14-year-old street boy (ACPF) Children, the innocent victims in the home, and school, are at even greater risk within the community.Those whose duty it is to protect and nurture the child, the very source of so much suffering and fear. “Children [in the survey] stated that all types of sexual violence including rape, abduction, early marriage, Female Genital Mutilation(FGM), and sexual harassment are prevalent in their communities. Most of these humiliating and damaging acts are committed by male vagrants, older boys, teachers, traditional doctors and parents.” (ACPF)

It truly beggars belief, in a country where Christ’s teachings of love and forgiveness as embodied in Orthodox Christianity dominate so many lives, and devout dedication to the church is on a level bordering the fanatical, that the most innocent and vulnerable are used, abused and violated in their homes, their schools and the streets in which they live and play.

Part Four: Stolen childhoods

Child prostitution & trafficking in Ethiopia

Prostitution, perhaps the most distressing form of child abuse in an epidemic throughout Ethiopia. The innocence of a childhood shattered, causing a deep feeling of shame, poisoning the sense of self and excluding the child from education, friends and the broader society. A society, which stands idly by whilst children suffer, speaking not in the face of extreme exploitation, denying the truth of extensive child exploitation and acts not, is a society in collusion.

In the capital prostitution abounds, “It is difficult to give an exact figure for the prevalence of child prostitution in Addis Ababa but observation reveals that the numbers are increasing at an alarming rate in the city”[13] The joint Save the Children Denmark and Addis Ababa City administration (SCD) study states “Interviewing children revealed that over 50% started engaging in prostitution below 16 years of age. The majoritywork more than six hours per day”

There are many grades or levels of prostitution, “Some children engage in commercial sex in nightclubs, bars and brothels, while others simply stand on street corners waiting for men to pick them up” (CPAA) The SCD study “identified types of child prostitution: working on the streets; working in small bars; working in local arki or alcohol houses; working in rented houses/beds and; working in rent places for chat/drugs use. Each location exposes the children to different risks and hazards.”

“The major problems that have been faced by children engaged in prostitution include: rape, beating, hunger, etc. Based on the responses of children engaged in prostitution, about 45% of them have been raped before they engaged in the activity”.(CPAA)The dangers associated with child prostitution affect the girls physical and mental/emotional health. Violent physical abuse, being hit and raped is common, Birtuken a 17 year old child sex worker (CSW), “prostitution is disastrous to the physical and social wellbeing of a person.” (CPAA) The impact on the long-term mental health of a child working in prostitution, can often cause chronic psychological problems, “the emotional health consequences of prostitution include severe trauma, stress, depression, anxiety, self-medication through alcohol and drug abuse; and eating disorders.[14]

The risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases (STD’s) and HIV/Aids is great, so too the chances of unwanted pregnancies, as men, immersed in selfishness and ignorance, refuse to wear condoms. Their arrogance and macho bravado is a major cause in the spread of HIV/Aids in Ethiopia USAID[15]suggests,“1.3million people are now living with the virus in the country”. It is estimated that “70 per cent of female infertility is caused by sexually transmitted diseases that can be traced back to their husbands or partners.”[16] “Women in prostitution have been blamed for this epidemic of STDs when, in reality, studies confirm that it is men who buy sex in the process of migration who carry the disease from one prostituted woman to another and ultimately back to their wives and girlfriends.” (EoP)

There are various causes for the growth in child prostitution in urban and rural areas as well as Addis Ababa, arranged marriages, illegal under Federal Law is cited as a key factor, “Research carried out in 2005 established that most victims of commercial sexual exploitation found in the streets of Addis Ababa had been married when they were below 15 years of age” (SAACSEC)In highlighting the factors that drive children away from their homes and into commercial sex work, the CPAA study found that “Most of the child prostitutes came from regions to look for a job, due to conflicts at home, early marriage and divorce. Poverty, death of one or both parents, child trafficking, high repetition rates and drop out from school and lack of awareness about the consequence of being engaged in prostitution are key factors that push young girls to be involved in commercial sex work”. (CPAA) In addition to arranged marriage, which is a significant cause, the study found that “the major reasons identified by the children themselves for engaging in commercial sex work are: poverty (34%), dispute in family (35%), and death of mother and/or father. 40% joined prostitution either to support themselves or their parents. Quite a large number of girls (35%) have joined prostitution due to violence within the home. Thus violence within the family is the main cause for children fleeing from home.”

The causes listed are complex and interrelated. At the epicenter of these diverse reasons though sits the family. Conflict at home is for many girls (and boys) the force driving them away from family and onto the streets of Addis Ababa, or one of the provincial towns and cities. Division and conflict grow from many seeds, repeated physical abuse at the hands of a parent or stepparent, rape at the hands of a Father, stepfather or extended family member, physical and verbal abuse, all are factors that force girls to leave the home and seek release from what has become a prison like existence of servitude, intimidation and fear. “When physical and psychological punishment becomes intolerable, it may lead to the child running away from home. Girls tend to become prostitutes when they run away from home.” (VACE2)

Another burgeoning group from which many children fall into the net of prostitution is that resulting from HIV-orphans who have lost their parents to the virus. “Ethiopia has one of the largest populations of orphans in the world: 13 per cent of Ethiopian children have lost one or both parents…the number of children orphaned solely by HIV/AIDS has reached over 1.2 million. These children find themselves at a very high risk of entering commercial sex to survive, yet there is very limited support available for them either from government [emphasis mine}.”(AACSE)

Coherent or dysfunctional, the social fabric is a tapestry of interrelated, interconnected strands. Neglect by the Ethiopian Government in areas diverse, and fundamental is the glue that is binding together a polluted stream of suffering and pain.

Bussed in Married off

In 2006/7 I worked with the Forum for Street Children Ethiopia (FSCE), running education projects for the children in their care. Girls living and working on the streets, mainly the hectic cobbled broken pathways around the Mercato Bus station. “This extremely poor neighborhood in the city has become ‘the epicentre of the capital’s illegal [emphasis mine] industry of child prostitution’[17]

The children at FSCE ranged in age, although many did not even know their date of birth; most the children do not have documentation “the problem is further aggravated by a widespread lack of birth registration” (CPAA). Some were as young as 11 years old, “over 50% started engaging in prostitution below 16 years of age” the study states. “In almost every case the girls come to the city from the countryside, their families cast many out, others sent to Addis to work”. Arriving at the city’s main bus-station, shrouded in naivety and fear, with little or no education, the girls make easy pickings for the men that greet them, with a warm smile, and a cunning mind only to mistreat, use and exploit them. With nowhere else to go, and no alternatives, the girls find themselves working the street and the journey into the painful, destructive prison of prostitution has begun.

Many, according to Save the Children Denmark (STCD), come from the Amhara region, the second most populated region, with a population of over 20 million. These children arrive in the capital knowing nobody, with (probably) no money and no contacts.”Enforced child marriages, abuse, and the prospects of ending their days in the grip of poverty are factors pushing Ethiopian girls as young as nine years of age’” (VACE), to risk their childhood and their lives in the city. According to (CPAA) “There are many factors pushing the girls away from the region, (Amhara) including poverty, peer pressure and abuse. But child marriage is one of the most common explanations we hear when interviewing the girls,” Arranged marriages are widespread in the (Amhara) region in the north of Ethiopia, where young girls, children are forced to marry adult men, all too often this ‘union’ results in rape, abuse and violence, from which the innocent child is forced to flee, only into the clutches of exploitation, violence and abuse. And do they recover, is there healing and release, is a childhood stolen, a childhood lost, let us pray it is not so.

Marriages entered into unwillingly by extremely young girls,some as young as seven years oldusually in exchange for reparations of some kind, money, cattle, land, lead all too often to abuse and violence, “traditional practices like female genital mutilation (FGM) and early marriage, are causes for the increased violence against children.” 14-year-old boy[18] “in WolmeraWoreda, the practice of FGM is nearly universal since girls must be circumcised before marriage.” (VACE2) Once committed to a marriage, by parents who often regard the child as no more than an object to be traded, the girl is frequently raped and mistreated and treated as a servant. “Abduction, rape and early marriage may ultimately lead many girls to prostitution. Early marriage and abduction seldom produce successful marriages. In fact, such relationships are short-lived. As a result, most of these young girls run far away from their husbands in an attempt to start a new and happier life elsewhere. Unfortunately, many of them end up as prostitutes.’ (VACE2)

“Early marriage is illegal (except under particular circumstances), weak law enforcement [Emphasis mine] allows this practice to be widely followed throughout Ethiopia; the phenomenon is reported in almost every region of the country. Nationwide, 19 per cent of girls were married by the age of 15 and about half were married by the age of 19; in Amhara region, 50 per cent of girls were married by the age of 15. “When the marriage finally collapses, the girls usually migrate to urban areas since breaking a marriage arranged by their relatives is considered a shameful act and they are no longer welcome within their families and communities. Once in larger towns they end up living in the streets given their lack of skills to find employment. Such dire circumstances lead many girls to be exploited in commercial sex.” (CPAA)

To break free of a forced marriage entered into against the child’s will, and be punished by banishment from the family home, is a form of social injustice based on traditions, which have long failed to serve the children, the family or the community at large. It is time long since past that these practice’s where changed. Education, cultivating tolerance and understanding of the Human Rights of the Child are keys to undoing such outdated destructive sociological patterns, together with the enforcement of the law to deter parents and prospective ‘husbands’.

No options, no hope

No child enters into prostitution when they have a choice, “prostitution is seen as a social ill that is unaccepted, prohibited and fought in most parts of our continent. Prostitution is not only a question of morality but a human problem, a problem of human exploitation, a problem of societal failure in providing equal opportunities.” (CPAA) “At the end (of the interview) Belaynesh said that no girl/woman would like to be a prostitute but the problems force them to be in such a situation.” The circumstances that lead a young girl away from the games and innocence of childhood and what should be, the love and gentle kindness of her family, into the shadows of prostitution,may vary and circumstances differ, suffering though is common to all those forced into such a lifestyle, the impact long lasting and severe, the consequences dire, destroying many lives.

The children at FSCE in Mercato told us their stories, often with shame, through tears and embarrassment, always with pain. A thread connected them all, yes poverty, was a major issue, so too poor education however, the stream that united the group of wonderful 11 to 18 year olds, was a breakdown in human relationships, of one kind or another. Once outside the family, and society, young girls desperate to survive have little choice but to work as CSW. For those recruiting and selling girls It is a business, for the children on the streets it a torture. “Almost all respondents do not like prostitution (99%). Almost all the girls are involved in prostitution not because they like what they are doing but due to other factors, to support themselves or their families.” (CPAA)“Child prostitution [is] a big business involving a whole series of actors from abductors at bus stations, to blue taxis and bar/hotel owners who tend to see children as the spices of their trade. The business actors, oblivious to pervasive taboos, have long abandoned recruiting adult prostitutes.” (CPAA)

Trafficking lives

Child prostitution and trafficking of children are inextricably linked. They are of course both illegal. All international conventions, from The Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) to International Labor Organisation (IL0), as one would expect, outlaw them. So too do Ethiopia’s Federal laws, “The 1993 Labor Proclamation forbids employment of young persons under the age of 14 years. Employment in hazardous work is also forbidden for those under 18. The Penal Code provides means for prosecuting persons sexually or physically abusing children and persons engaging in child trafficking including juveniles into prostitution. Federal Proclamation no.42/93 protects children less than 14 years not to engage in any kind of formal employment.” (CPAA) And yet both child prostitution and the trafficking of minors goes on, and on and on. “The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported that girls are trafficked both within the country and abroad to countries in the Middle East and to South Africa.”[19]

Children are brought from rural areas of Ethiopia to the capital city by brokers, “ttraffickers, who feed on parent’s low awareness with false promises of work and education for their offspring.” The numbers are staggering, the money tiny, the damage unimaginable “up to 20,000 children, some 10 years old, are sold each year [for around $1.20 to $2.40] by their parents and trafficked by unscrupulous brokers to work in cities across Ethiopia.”[20]And who would do such a thing. Who would ‘sell’ an innocent child; condemn a child to slavery and brutal exploitation, pain and acute distress? “These traffickers are ‘typically local brokers, relatives, family members or friends of the victims. Many returnees are also involved in trafficking by working in collaboration with tour operators and travel agencies”[21]“The Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation in Travel and Tourismhas not been signed by any travel and tourism company in Ethiopia.” (CPAA) The Ethiopian Government acting in the interest of the children upon their homeland, and their responsibilities under international law, should rightly and immediately make all tour operators sign the afore mentioned treaty, or face closure, and criminal prosecution.

“The International Organization for Migration (IOM) stated that Ethiopian children are being sold for as little as US$ 1.20 to work as domestic servants or to be exploited in prostitution.” The Middle East is the major international destination of choice for traffickers, “Many Ethiopian women working in domestic service in the Middle East face severe abuses indicative of forced labor, including physical and sexual assault, denial of salary, sleep deprivation, and confinement. Many are driven to despair and mental illness, with some committing suicide. Ethiopian women are also exploited in the sex trade after migrating for labour purposes – particularly in brothels, mining camps, and near oil fields in Sudan – or after escaping abusive employers in the Middle East.”[22]“At least 10,000 have been sent to the Gulf States to work as prostitutes.”(CTE) Let us not even begin to look at the complicity of such states in the destruction of the lives of these children and women, the ‘little ones’ that dance upon the waters of life, seeking only a gentle heart to trust, finding the dark days of Rome, and in despair we cry “Men’s wretchedness in soothe I so deplore,”[23]

Prime Minister Meles loves to ‘talk the talk’ to his western allies, the US, Britain, the European Union and the like, whilst turning a blind eye, a deaf ear to the cries of the child being beaten, the young girl being raped and traded for sex and the teenager separated from her family, her friends and her childhood, sold into servitude and abuse within Ethiopia and across the Red Sea in the oil rich ‘Gulf States’.

Part Five: Listen to me my Country

Where do we look for those responsible for the perpetuation of the underlying cause and continuing practice of child prostitution in Ethiopia? To whom may the children turn and ask why do you allow children as young as 11 years old to be violated, in the most brutal manner. Why do you sit, watching our pain, and acting not? “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.”[24] “Ethiopian law regarding child prostitution is clear and on the whole ahead of its time. But, with the law not being enforced, [emphasis mine] child prostitution has been an open secret shunned by the law, culture and religion but not exposed and stopped by the same”. (CPAA)

State responsibility is fundamentally the upholding of the law/s to which the State has agreed to, reflecting the underlying moral duty of the ‘elected’ representatives. “The basic principle of “state responsibility” in international law provides that any state who violates its international obligations must be held accountable for its acts. More concretely, the notion of state responsibility means that states, which do not respect their international duties, are responsible to immediately stop their illegal actions, and make reparations to the injured. [Emphasis mine] This is a fundamental principle, which forms part of international customary law, and [emphasis mine] is binding upon all states.”[25]

The ‘injured’ are many, they are the excluded children standing at the street corner in the cold touting for business, they are the helpless ones that live on the fringe of a society that denies their very existence, they are the ignored, the unheard and unloved, “The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.”[26] Like Amelework, “The 16 year old child who migrated from Gonder, a city some 850 kilometers from Addis Ababa. She has not been to school and cannot read and write. She married when she was 12 years old and divorced the same year. She left her home and came to Addis Ababa in 1999, started looking for a job; she had no other means than being a commercial sex worker. She explained the problems she faced after she became a commercial sex worker, as follows: adults physically abused her. Some of her clients took back by force the money they paid for sexual service. [She} Suffers from various health problems. Exposure to excessive heat during the day and cold during the night when waiting for some potential client to pick her.” Or, Birtukan, a 17 year- old girl from Selale in North Shewa, about 100km from Addis, who has “been forced into sex without condom many times, has been raped by street boys. Experiences various health problems such as cold, intestinal ailments, etc.”. (CPAA)

Two painful examples of the ‘injured’, alone and frightened in a frightening World, without a voice, without a choice, and without hope.

Protect the children

The Ethiopian Government is legally and morally responsible to uphold “its international obligations”; these are many and varied, but clear and specific. Having signed and ratified all manner of international conventions and treatise, the UNCRC being of primary importance. They have a duty to put in place effective enforcement mechanisms to safeguard the children in their care. In not doing so, they are in violation of International Law and of their solemn duty to the children of Ethiopia. “A state violates international law when it commits an “internationally wrongful act”, which breaches an international obligation that the state was bound by at the time when the act took place. A state is bound to act according to international treaties it signed.” (DIAK) Children, some as young as 11 years old, working as Commercial Sex workers (CSW) is by any standards an “internationally wrongful act”.

In a further example of the government’s neglect and hypocrisy, we find a crucial piece of information in the ECPATreport. “Ethiopia acceded to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) 43 in 1991 but has not signed or ratified its Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography”.It begs the question why such a protocol shouldbe optional. Is the wellbeing of the child at risk of being ‘sold’ into prostitution and/or pornography, their safety and sanctity optional?

A government that neglect’s to maintain the safety of the children of their country is in violation of their most basic and sacred moral duty and International Law. Through this omission to decency the Government colludes with those ‘men of immorality’ at the Mercato bus station in Addis, who see the child simply as an object to be sold and used as they would cattle for the slaughter, and encourages the illegal prostitution of children and their use in criminal pornography to continue. “While the crisis is ugly and lethal, just as sad is that it continues to mushroom unabated.” (CPAA)

A web of deceit and contradictions surround the Meles Government that asserts, “The supreme law of the land, which is the Federal Constitution, provides a sound framework for the protection and promotion of the rights of children”[27] The national or Federal laws, “have gone through some revision recently, with the principal objective of making them consonant with progressive standards”. Half hearted, the Federal laws are found wanting, in letter and substance, “Ethiopian law outlines a variety of offenses involving sexual acts with children, but falls short of international standards [emphasis mine] for protecting children from prostitution” The Criminal Code fails to prohibit the act of having sex with a child for remuneration.” (CPAA)

This is scandalous. Having signed and ratified the UNCRC however, they are bound by its requirements: Article 32 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states that: “State parties recognize the rights of the child to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child’s education, or to be harmful to the child’s health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development.” And in order to add fire to an already blazing inferno of complicity, let us cite the International Labor Organisation (ILO) “Worst Forms of Child Labor Convention (No182) has also been ratified by Ethiopia. The Convention defines the worst forms of child labor, which includes prostitution.” and there are many other examples of international conformity.

The EPRDF, as one would expect signs all the right agreements, courts all the right friends and says all the ‘right’ things and appearsmore concerned to be seen as a friend of ‘The New Rulers of the World’[28], than a Brother of the child in need. In addition to ratifying the UNCRC they have signed up to the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child ACRWC (2002) and another UN body, the International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labor, as well as the Stockholm Declaration and Agenda for Action (1996 & 2001) and the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and the Welfare of the Child, however ““Ethiopia is not implementing her obligations under the international conventions relating to the rights of children.” 16-year-old student(ACPF)

Internationally binding Laws are dutifully incorporated into Federal Law, what one would expect and in conformity with the image of acceptability and decency. The many agreements and signatures are but a shadow of dishonesty and apathy upon the darkness and shame that haunts the Government of Ethiopia and destroys the lives of so many of its children. “The Federal Constitution domesticates all international human right instruments,” All well and good, however, whether international or federal, law that sits quietly rotting upon a page of conformity and is not implemented is of little comfort to those like the defenseless child in this atrocious account, “In our neighborhood, a 22-year-old man raped an eight-year-old girl. He was released on bail without being punished for what he did. I am very much disappointed.” Recounts a neighbourhood friend.(ACPF) We should all be “very much disappointed’, indeed shocked and horrified, at this vile abuse and the complacency and dishonesty of the ruling FPRDF party, which signs treatise, claims to care for the children yet acts not to protect them. “The present laws, to a large extent, address the problem of physical and humiliating punishment. However, despite the prevalence of the problem –– which is also acknowledged by law enforcement bodies and the judiciary –– very few alleged perpetrators are being brought before justice.” (EPPAC) Enforcement, enforcement, enforcement is what this eight year old daughter needs, not simply the gloss of a catalogue of legal articles stocked neatly upon the shelf of indifference.

The idealization of change is far from its material manifestation, urgent and sustained action is needed, not simply words, ‘nothing happens by itself, man must act and implements his will”[29] Your words alonePrime MinisterMeles mean nothing. Nothing to the 14-year-old “housemaid, raped by the employer’s son. She screamed. When we arrived to her rescue, she was covered with blood,” nothing to the 12 tear old boy, who “became a street boy because of the beatings at home ”NothingSir tothe 12-year-old boy who says, “My mother forced me to inhale the smoke of burning pepper.”(ACPF)

In an imitation of intent to combat child prostitution the EPRDF has formulated a ‘plan’, grandly called ‘Ethiopia’s National Action Plan on Sexual Abuse and Exploitation of Children (2006-2010)’. However as one would imagine where the rights of the Child are not recognized fully, treatise partially adopted and implementation completely lacking, “budget limitations have hindered the development of certain initiatives.” (ERQVAC) The National Plan is in principle a positive step let it look closely at the causes of child abuse, trafficking and prostitution. And with the involvement of local and international groups, and crucially children, parents and community members, instigate education programmes, systems to implement the existing laws and structures of enforcement. In addition to making known International and National Laws in relation to child abuse offenses.

A nationwide strategic delivery of the “international agreements ratified by Ethiopia” is needed, along with education counseling and support programs to help families, communities and most importantly the children, those abused overcome the trauma that is destroying the lives of Ethiopia’s little ones, too many to count. The child frightened, without a voice, isolated and powerless, make easy pickings for a Government that continues in denial of the truth of their neglect and corruption. Sitting behind walled artifices of control and conceit sits a duplicitous regime, that cares little for the men and women of Ethiopia, their wellbeing and Human Rights and even less it seems for their children.

By Graham Peebles

@ Countercurrents.org

Graham is Director of The Create Trust, www.thecreatetrust.org A UK registered charity (1115157). Running education and social development programmes, supporting fundamental Social change and the human rights of individuals in acute need. Contact , E: graham@thecreatetrust.org

[1]Matthew 19, verse 14 King James Bible

[2]http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2859.htm

[3]Africa Child Policy Forum.Violence Against Children in Ethiopia: In Their Words report. (ACPF)www.crin.org/docs/acpf_eth_words.pdf

[4]Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia Country Response to the Questionnaire on Violence Against Children By The Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs. (ERQVAC) www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/CRC/docs/…/responses/Ethiopia.pdf

[5]unicef, http://www.unicef.org/crc/

[6]Sticks stones & broken bones. Violence against children in Ethiopia. (SSBB) Save The Children Sweden

[7]Study on violence against schoolchildren. (VASC) Save The Children Denmark & Ethiopian Ministry of Education.

[8]Ending Physical and Humiliating Punishment against children. (EPPAC) Save the Children Sweden

[10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycle_of_violence

[11][11]Long-Term Consequences of Child Abuse and Neglect Child Abuse Basics Vincent Iannelli, M.D.,

[12]ECPAT. Status of action against sexual exploitation of children (AASEC)

[13]Addis Ababa City Admin Social & NGO Affairs Office (SNGOA), Save the Children Denmark (SCD) and ANNPPCAN-Ethiopian. Child Labor in Ethiopia with special focus on Child Prostitution Study.‘Child Prostitution in Addis Ababa 2006 (CPAA)

[14]Health Effects of Prostitution (EOP), Janice G. Raymond

[15] http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/global_health/aids/Countries/africa/ethiopia.html

[16]Jodi L. Jacobson, The Other Epidemic

[17]SofieLoumann Nielsen. The Reporter 10 September 2010

[18]Violence against children in Ethiopia (VACE). Africa Child Policy Forum

[19] http://www.childtrafficking.org/cgi-bin/ct/main.sql?ID=2067&file=view_document.sql

[20]ILO. http://www.childtrafficking.org/cgi-bin/ct/main.sql?file=view_document.sql&TITLE=-1&AUTHOR=-1&THESAURO=-1&ORGANIZATION=-1&TOPIC=-1&GEOG=-1&YEAR=-1&LISTA=No&COUNTRY=-1&FULL_DETAIL=Yes&ID=2067. (CTE)

[21]Ecpat Global Monitoring reportstatus of action against commercial sexual exploitation of children, Ethiopia. (AACSE)

[22] http://ovcs.blogspot.com/2008/01/ethiopia-is-source-country-for-human.html

[23]Faust Part One, Mephistopheles.

[24]Nelson Mandela. http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/n/nelsonmand178795.html

[25] http://www.diakonia.se/sa/node.asp?node=1857 (DIAK)

[26]Mother Teresa

[27]Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia Country Response to the Questionnaire on Violence Against Children By The Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs

[28]John Pilger. The New Rulers of The World

[29]Maitreyas messages. Benjamin Crème. http://www.share-international.org/maitreya/messages/message_index.htm