Thousands of Native Americans resurrected the fighting spirit of their forefathers as they stood in unprecedented unity to contest an oil company’s desecration of their sacred land in North Dakota. Considering its burdened historical context, this has been one of the most moving events in recent memory.

The standoff, involving 5,000-strong Native American protesters, including representatives of 200 tribes and environmental groups, has been largely reduced in news reports as being a matter of technical detail – concerning issues of permits and legal proceedings.

At best, both the tribes and the oil company are treated as if they are equal parties in a purportedly proportionate tussle.

“’Dakota’ means ‘friendly’ and yet, it seems, neither side has been too friendly to each other,” wrote Mark Albert in the website of the American broadcasting television network, CBS.

The Dakota Nation is justifiably alarmed by the prospect that its water supplies will be polluted by the massive pipeline, which will extend across four states and stretching over 1,100 miles.

The ‘other side’ is the company, Energy Transfer Partners, whose construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline at the cost of $3.7 billion is infringing upon the territorial rights of Native American tribes, destroying sacred burial grounds and threatening to pollute the main water sources of large communities of Native Americans.

Fear over future spills under the Missouri River is hardly a hype. The US is struggling with ongoing water crises, partly because of dilapidating infrastructure, but also because of numerous oil spills and natural gas leaks.

The recent water crisis in Flint, Michigan, and the BP oil spill earlier in the Gulf of Mexico – both resulting in massive humanitarian and environmental crises – are only two recent cases in point.

But the problem is far deeper and constantly worsening.

Data obtained by the news network, CNBC from the government’s Environmental Protection Agency showed that “only nine U.S. states are reporting safe levels of lead in their water supply. These include Alabama, Arkansas, Hawaii, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota and Tennessee.”

As if that is not worrying enough, the massive crude oil pipeline will be going across several of these states, likely shortening the list of these states even further.

Discussion about the potential risks of the construction of the pipeline has been rife for years. The issue, however, received national and international coverage when Native American tribes mobilized to protect their land and water resources.

The mobilization of the tribes has been met with state violence. Instead of appreciating the serious grievances of the tribes, particularly those in the Standing Rock Reservation – which is located only one mile away, south of the pipeline – the state governor summoned all law enforcement agencies and activated the National Guard. Mace was used on protesters; they were beaten, arrested and chased out by armed men in uniform.

In the United States, when the people stand up to corporations, it seems that, more often than not, state violence is galvanized against unarmed people to protect the big businesses.

But missing from this story is an essential component: the mobilization and unity among Native American tribes has been the most awe-inspiring in many decades. As chiefs and representatives of tribes from all across the United States kept arriving at the encampment grounds, the collective spirit of Native American nations was being vigorously revived.

In fact, the ongoing mobilization of Native American tribes is far greater than the struggle against a money-hungry Corporation, backed by an aggressive state apparatus. It is about the spirit of the Native people of this land, who have suffered a prolonged genocide aimed at their complete eradication.

To see them standing once more, along with their families, riding their feather-draped horses and fighting for their very identity is a cause for celebration. It brings hope to oppressed people all across the world that the human spirit will never be destroyed.

The genocide of the Native Americans, similar to the ongoing destruction of the Palestinian Nation, is one of the lowest points of human morality. It is particularly disheartening that there are yet to be serious attempts at addressing that grave injustice.

For 500 years, Native Americans witnessed every attempt at erasing them from the face of the planet. Their numbers dwindled from ten million prior to the arrival of Europeans to North America to less than three hundred thousand at the turn of the 20^th century. They were exterminated by colonial wars and ravaged by foreign diseases.

Calls to destroy Native Americans were hardly implicit but, rather, clearly-articulated. For example, Spencer Phips, Lieutenant Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Province issued this statement in 1755 on behalf of King George II:  “His Majesty’s subjects to embrace all opportunities of pursuing, captivating, killing and destroying all and every of the aforesaid Indians.”

The price list for the scalp of murdered Natives were as follows: “50 pounds for adult male scalps; 25 for adult female scalps; and 20 for scalps of boys and girls under age 12.”

The genocidal approach to Native Americans continued, unabated.

A century later, in 1851, California Governor Peter H. Burnett made this declaration: “A war of extermination will continue to be waged between the two races until the Indian race becomes extinct.”

Methods of extermination differed, from outright murder to disease-infected blankets, to, as of today’s standoff, threatening their most viable resource: water.

Yet, somehow, the spirit of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse and numerous brave chiefs and warriors still roam the plains, urging their people to stand up and carry on with an overdue fight for justice and rights.

Palestinians have always felt that the legacy of the Native Americans is similar to their own.

“Our names: branching leaves of divine speech; birds that soar higher than a gun. You who come from beyond the sea, bent on war; don’t cut down the tree of our names; don’t gallop your flaming horses across the open plains.”

These were a few of the verses in Palestinian poet’s Mahmoud Darwish’s seminal poem “Speech of the Red Indian.”

I recall the day that magnificent piece of Arabic literature was first published in full in Palestine’s ‘Al-Quds’ newspaper. At the time, I was a teenager in a refugee camp in Gaza. I read it with much trepidation and giddiness – carefully, slowly, and repeatedly.

Those who could read, recited it out loud to those who could not.

Many tears were shed on that day, mostly because we all knew too well that we, in fact, were the ‘Red Indians.’ They were us.

Long before feminist critical theory coined the term ‘intersectionality’ – which contends that oppression is interconnected and one oppressive institution cannot be examined in isolation from others, Palestinians – as other victims of genocidal colonization – fully comprehended and held such a belief.

Palestinians are losing their lives, land and olive trees as they stand up to Israeli tanks and bulldozers. Their reality is a replay of similar experiences faced – and still being confronted – by Native Americans. Well into the 21st century, the Native American-Palestinian struggle remains one and the same.

“Our pastures are sacred, our spirits inspired,

The stars are luminous words where our fable

is legible from beginning to end..”

Wrote Mahmoud Darwish, of the Native Americans. Of the Palestinians.

By Mahir Ali

It will take something approximating a miracle for any substantive good to flow from the temporary truce that was meant to take effect in Syria from sundown on Monday, following last week’s agreement in Geneva between Russia and the US.

No one can seriously deny that among nations deserving of a miracle, Syria is decidedly at the top of the list after five years of a brutal war that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and uprooted millions of others. Analysts such as the BBC’s Middle East editor, Jeremy Bowen, have predicted that the conflict could conceivably drag on for another decade.

In the circumstances, even the vaguest glimmer of hope has a novelty value. It is perhaps equally inevitable, though, that the prospect of even a partially sustainable cease-fire is viewed with considerable skepticism, notwithstanding the fact that key protagonists – from the Bashar Assad regime and Hezbollah to US allies among the rebels – tentatively support the US-Russian initiative.

From what has thus far been made public, we know that if the truce holds for a week – and that’s a big if – the Russians and the Americans will begin coordinating their airstrikes against Daesh and the group formerly known as Jabhat Al-Nusra, which has lately disavowed its links with Al-Qaeda and altered its nomenclature with the apparent aim of reflecting its exclusive focus on toppling the regime in Damascus.

Given that the massive death toll in Syria is in large part a consequence of actions by forces loyal to, or associated with, the Assad government, the goal of removing it from power can easily be viewed as a worthy objective. But it’s the question of what might replace it that, to quote Shakespeare, “puzzles the will/And makes us rather bear those ills we have,/Than fly to others that we know not of.”

In Geneva, Russian Foreign Ninister Sergei Lavrov was candid enough to point out that various elements of his agreement with US Secretary of State John Kerry were not being publicized precisely because of the complicated nature of the Syrian conflict.

Given that more or less everyone agrees there can be no military solution to the murderous disarray, perhaps the biggest question is whether the US-Russian agreement might entail any attempt to resume political negotiations about a possible transition, which have hitherto proved fruitless. There have lately been concessions from some sides, holding out the prospect of an interim role for Assad, or even a place for elements of his regime in any future set-up.

There has, however, been no indication that Assad or his loyalists are willing to compromise on anything sharply at variance with a return to the status quo ante, which is almost universally seen as untenable.

The US and Russia may be key players in the conflict, but they are by no means the only ones. Whereas Moscow has the benefit of considerable leverage where its allies are concerned, the US is in a trickier position with respect to nations such as Turkey and Israel, not to mention the opposition groups it has been supporting, with little success in weaning them away from outfits such as Al-Nusra.

The 15th anniversary this week of the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington ought to have served as a reminder, among other things, of the unpredictable consequences of an absurdly disproportionate response to an egregious act of terrorism. Even the conquest of Afghanistan can be viewed as an ultimately counterproductive overreaction, but the invasion of Iraq, notwithstanding the atrocious nature of Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship, was a predictable disaster and anyone refusing to accept the role of the US-led occupation in sowing the seeds for Daesh is irredeemably delusional.

Without Daesh – and it’s worth recalling that in its earliest incarnation Al-Nusra was an offshoot of that Iraqi project – it may well have been possible to see the revolt in Syria in less ambiguous terms, as a conflict between a repressive regime and a potentially desirable alternative. Beyond that there is the bigger, potentially answerable, questions about whether the Arab Spring would have flowered in the first place without the imperialistically-imposed regime change in Baghdad, or whether its consequences would have been so deleterious in the absence of external intervention.

How history ultimately records the Middle Eastern events of the first two decades of the 21st century will largely depend on thus far unpredictable consequences. But Syria is more than a litmus test in that context. In more than one respect, not least in terms of the international reaction to refugees desperate for survival, it is a means of gauging the quality of human civilization in the 21st century. And so far the international community, for whatever that term is worth, has come up woefully short in almost every respect.

It would undoubtedly be miraculous if this week were, by some quirk of human nature, to mark at least the beginning of the end game.

The recently-concluded ASEAN Summit reaffirmed a shared approach to fully implement the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution. However a more strategic and sustainable solution is needed to address the regional crisis. Key to this is an innovative pricing mechanism which penalises those responsible for causing environmental and public health risks.

By Christopher H. Lim and Tamara Nair*

The Vientiane Summit of ASEAN leaders that just concluded reaffirmed standing commitments to address the transboundary haze pollution which has been blighting the region. The leaders also confirmed a shared approach to fully and effectively implement the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution. While this served to reinforce the cooperative spirit within ASEAN, a more strategic and sustainable solution is needed to address what is increasingly becoming a regional crisis.

Over the years, there have been countless rounds of negotiations and declarations by officials and political leaders about containing the haze situation in the region while still maintaining existing economic activities. So far, this has been a zero-sum game. Mechanisms to control such activities should be targeted at ‘manipulating’ cost at the centre so as to dis-incentivise unfavourable actions by palm oil players.

Back to Basics: Production Costs

Indonesia is the world’s biggest producer of palm oil, which is a significant basis of the country’s economic security. Palm oil has a myriad of uses: from being an important ingredient in some chocolates, to washing powders; from chewing gum to biodiesel; it is also used widely in the food industry. The truth is the production of palm oil is a multi-billion dollar industry that employs large numbers and will not be easily swayed by environmental, health or even political concerns and lobbying by concerned groups.

Seemingly, the typical cost categories of palm oil production, in addition to the usual components, include palm oil upkeep, fertiliser and its application, and harvesting. It would appear that the pre-production phase in land clearance and related activities (such as land burning) is possibly left out in cost computation.

If we work on the premise that burning of the land is a necessary step in the production process, this would then imply that forest fires and the resultant haze are part and parcel of palm oil production. Then logically, the true full cost of forest fire control systems and haze control must be factored into the production cost of palm oil. If not, this will in fact translate to buyers of palm oil enjoying a ‘subsidy’ because price does not reflect true cost.

Let us also assume that plantations have not included the full cost of forest fires and resultant haze in their production process. In short, in not doing so firms have not considered increased health costs and other externalities incurred directly or indirectly due to palm oil production processes. This simply makes it an unsustainable practice in the long run.

Proposed Control Mechanism

We would like to propose an ASEAN-based insurance scheme for forest fire control, which would include haze control. This is a possible preventive strategy and can work equally well in mitigating effects of the haze, both in the source region as well as in countries around the region that suffer as a result of this event. It involves ASEAN governments teaming up with private sector partners, including international insurance and fund management companies to market insurance policies to all palm oil plantations. Appropriate incentives to induce private sector participation should also be part of this proposal.

We propose the mechanism be made compulsory for all plantation owners regardless of the size of their plantations. This means large plantations and/or traders must factor the insurance premium liabilities incurred by their suppliers from small holdings through proper pricing mechanisms. This insurance must be purchased at the instance of securing land concessions for palm oil plantations. These policies may be renewed on a yearly basis.

The fires, and the noxious gases and particulate matter they release, will now have a price and the firm is handed the responsibility of deflating its own costs. Any occurrence of uncontrolled burning within the year of coverage will increase the cost of insurance. To make this a more palatable option and encourage plantation owners to secure such policies, ASEAN governments could provide some form of a matching grant for premiums to firms, subject to a cap for the first five years.

This would help kick-start the mechanism. However, in the instance of fires and resultant haze, the grant for the premiums will be reduced. Insurance premiums will be pegged to the land size of plantations, land area of fires and duration of fires.

For small holdings we propose the creation of cooperatives to a) participate in the insurance scheme, and b) more effectively engage in price negotiations (which now would include insurance liability). This levels the playing field for all plantation owners. Initial matching grants for the insurance scheme can be tiered accordingly for small holder cooperatives.

Transaction Tax, Pricing Arguments and Spin-offs

In addition, for immediate action we propose that the Indonesian government explore the imposition of a ‘discriminatory transaction tax for plantations on fire’ based on physical quantities transacted rather than price. For example, if a particular plantation is identified as a source of burning – through satellite images – this tax can be imposed upon the firm. The value will be calculated based on amount of commodity traded. This should be between any plantation owner and buyers, domestic or foreign. We suggest quantities rather than sales value to minimise transfer pricing.

This ‘discriminatory’ measure will also incite surrounding plantations to reduce fires and control spread as it will be in their commercial interests to do so. Such a mechanism will also make it expensive for traders to buy from irresponsible producers. The ‘transaction tax’ can then be used to fund firefighting activities.

With these proposals it is likely the price of palm oil will temporarily increase to factor in the entire production process. We foresee this as one of the biggest disadvantages of such schemes. However, plantation owners and their suppliers who do NOT have burning practices as part of their production process will find their insurance premiums stable and somewhat negligible. They will also not incur additional taxes. Thus, they sell at a more competitive price. This could then end up working in favour of companies that chose to reduce the overall production cost by reducing unfavourable activities.

Not only will this particular mechanism make firms responsible, it will also provide a source of funds to purchase firefighting equipment and related materials and manpower. In addition, we foresee possibilities for such insurance schemes to be modified and extended to other agricultural sectors in the region. This is especially true for those activities that produce negative environmental impacts as a result of processes in any part of their production cycle.

Such pricing schemes have the potential to create ‘win-win’ solutions for all parties concerned. This in the long run could possibly result in a haze-free Southeast Asia.

*Christopher Lim is a Senior Fellow at the Office of the Executive Deputy Chairman and Tamara Nair is Research Fellow at the Centre for Non-Traditional Security (NTS) Studies, both at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Warren Buffett had $1.4 billion wiped from his fortune Tuesday after Wells Fargo & Co. fell 3.3 percent as the fallout continued from revelations that bank employees had opened more than 2 million accounts without clients’ approval.

Berkshire Hathaway Inc., the lender’s biggest shareholder, fell 2 percent, causing the 86-year-old’s fortune to drop more than anyone else’s on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The U.S. investor is the world’s fourth-richest person with a net worth of $65.8 billion.

Tuesday’s decline came amid a global equity sell off that has wiped out $93 billion from the world’s 400 biggest fortunes since Friday. The billionaires shed $37.3 billion Tuesday as stocks and bonds both slumped, and oil sank after the International Energy Agency’s prediction that a glut will extend into next year.

The world’s second-richest person, Inditex SA founder Amancio Ortega, leads the 400 richest people with a decline of $3.3 billion since the sell off began, according to the index. Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates, the world’s richest person with $87.3 billion, has lost $2.4 billion. Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos, the world’s third-richest person with $66.2 billion, has shed $1.9 billion. Buffett, whose fortune is mostly in Berkshire shares, has lost $1.6 billion in the sell off.

Wells Fargo was overtaken by JPMorgan Chase & Co. as the world’s most valuable bank on Tuesday. It has fallen 5.9 percent since Thursday, when the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced fines stemming from the fake accounts. The drop since Thursday compares with a 2.5 percent fall for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

By Die Morina and Rrahman Rama

A Kosovo parliamentary commission postponed voting on whether to send a government decision to grant extensive coal research licenses to a company chaired by retired US General Wesley Clark for parliamentary approval.

Kosovo’s Parliamentary Commission on Economic Development on Tuesday postponed voting on sending the government’s decision to issue a coal research licence to the company Kosovo Energy LLC Envidity for parliamentary approval after opposition MPs demanded more clarity about a scheme that some have described as a virtual monopoly.

“We should not vote on this today, because we do not know the history of this company,” Pal Lekaj, an MP from the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, AAK opposition party, said at the commission meeting.

He added that before discussing the government decision, there should be a public debate with the residents of areas that the company wants to explore, as well as a feasibility study.

A BIRN investigation published on Tuesday revealed that Kosovo’s government in August approved giving the Canadian-based energy firm Envidity Energy Inc – chaired by retired US General Wesley Clark – the right to search for coal on more than a third of Kosovo’s total territory.

The investigation showed that the Kosovo government previously amended the Law on Mining to allow coal research rights to be granted without a public tender, one month before Envidity submitted its request.

While Envidity still has to await approval of the deal by parliament before moving forward with the exploration, some maintain that – by granting the company research rights over such a wide area – Kosovo has effectively given it a monopoly to exploit the country’s rich coal reserves.

Kosovo’s Finance Minister Avdullah Hoti told the commission however that the implementation of the project would be in Kosovo’s economic interests and would create job opportunities.

“According to government estimates, the proposed project represents the public-private interest… By deciding in favour of this project, the parliamentary commission will pave the way for a deeper study on this project to proceed,” Hoti said.

But Enver Hoti, an MP from opposition party NISMA, argued that granting the licence would contravene the Law on Mining.
– See more at: http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/kosovo-parliament-postpones-wesley-clark-s-coal-plans-09-13-2016#sthash.QkPHzzii.dpuf

By Olajide Adelani*

Experts say that the fight against drugs in Nigeria is being hampered by corruption among the ranks of the National Drug and Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).

There is also growing alarm over rates of domestic usage of illicit substances in Nigeria, a country once seen primarily as a drug transit point.

Established in early 1990, critics say that the NDLEA has failed to live up to its mission statement, which is “the total eradication of illicit trafficking in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances; suppression of demand for illicit drugs and other substances of abuse” as well as recovering drug money.

NDLEA spokesman Jarikre Ofoyeju said that the agency was “working to bring about a balance between supply and demand reduction.

“We are targeting medium and high-level drug traffickers, seize their drugs, prosecute them and trace their illegal proceeds for forfeiture. Other areas of priorities include staff welfare [and] motivation, public enlightenment and treatment for problem drug users,” he said.

The NDLEA has boasted of some major successes, with large hauls of drugs confiscated at border crossings.

In 2015 alone, narcotics worth N3.7 billion (11.5 million US dollars) were seized at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) in Lagos.

This included 172kg of cannabis, 160kg of ephedrine, 114kg of methamphetamine, 96kg of cocaine, 45kg of tramadol and 5kg of heroin.

But critics say that this is merely the tip of the iceberg and stress that Nigeria remains a hub of organised drugs crime. According to the UN’s 2016 World Drug Report, the third largest quantity of cocaine seized around the world was from Nigeria, with 50 to 70 per cent of the drug trafficked by air.

Debo Adeniran is the executive chairman of the Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL), a civil society grouping. He said that he believed there had been a sharp rise in corruption within the NDLEA and that urgent action was needed to purge its ranks.

The organisation was incapable of owning up to its own problems, he said, adding, “It has been happening for a very long time.”

NDLEA officials have been accused of directly colluding with the criminals they are tasked with pursuing.

In one ongoing case, an NDLEA staff member is being investigated over an alleged scheme to import drugs from Brazil.

NDLEA official Ali Bala Adamu was arrested in January along with four alleged co-conspirators – Ijeoma Ojukwu, Victor Umeh, Uche Igwelo and Egbuche Fidelis Osita – on charges of conspiring to import cocaine from Brazil.

According to the indictment, 20 million naira (60,000 dollars) worth of drugs were concealed in luggage abandoned at the arrival hall after the arrival of an Emirate Airline flight on December 28, 2015.

Osita came to the airport on January 1, 2016 to collect the bags, leading to the arrest of the other suspects.

HOW DRUGS ARE TRAFFICKED

One high-profile trafficking case involved Chief Akindele Ikumoluyi, popularly known as Ile Eru and a powerful figure in the West African drug market.

He was exposed and sentenced to ten years imprisonment in 2008 after a drugs mule, Abdul Fatai Olori, turned state’s witness.

Olori told NAIJ.com that he had been introduced to Akindele in 2004 when he needed money to pay for medical treatment. Akindele agreed, but on the condition that Olori travel to Brazil and collect a “message” from one of his business associates. In early 2006, Olori made the journey.

“When I got to Brazil was picked up by a man who took me to a house where I was locked up for three weeks,” Olori said. “I was provided with food but denied free movement. It was after three weeks that he came back with two bags containing cocaine.

“The message Akindele wanted me to ‘collect’ from his business associate finally became clear,” Olori continued, who continues to maintain that he had no idea what he would be asked to carry.

He said he was scared that he would be arrested on his return to Nigeria but was assured that smooth passage through MMIA was guaranteed.

However, at the airport Olori was seized by NDLEA officials and accused of trafficking 10 kg of cocaine into Nigeria.

He made a full statement describing the circumstances in which he had been sent to Brazil.

But the following day, Olori claimed, he was asked by officials to produce another statement that did not implicate Akindele.

“I later called him [Akindele ] to come and explain things to the government people but he didn’t answer me. He abandoned me and wanted me to rot and die in prison for what I did not know anything about”,” he continued.

“I was very honest with the NDLEA people especially the prosecuting team,” said Olori, who was granted bail after some months in detention. “I told them everything and that I was ready to cooperate with them so that Akindele can be arrested before many people fall into his trap.”.

As a consequence, Akindele was sentenced to ten years imprisonment on March 18, 2008.

But Olori said that he believed that for every offender caught by the NDLEA, two were allowed to go free.

“If you have money those people will leave you alone. There are many bad people in this Nigeria,” Olori said.

He said that Ikumoluyi had evaded arrest for so long because he had a network of informants.

This was corroborated by a high-ranking NDLEA official who asked to remain anonymous because of security concerns.

“Before NDLEA could catch him [Ikumoluyi], it took the commitment and diligence of a select few who were on the team set up to nail him. Each time they tried, he would escape because he had informants within the house,” he said.

“There was a day that the taskforce had credible intelligence about Akindele’s whereabouts and were about to set out to effect his arrest; a call came in and it was Akindele asking that a mutual agreement be reached between him and Olori. Everyone was surprised and shocked,” the NDLEA official continued.

SUPPLY ROUTE

Nigeria is a key transit point for both heroin and cocaine en route to Europe, East Asia and North America.

But drug usage appears to be widespread within Nigeria, too. A visit to the cities of Sokoto, Kano, and Port Hacourt show that illicit substances are easily available.

In the ancient city and state capital of Kano in Nigeria’s northwest, most of illicit drug activities appear to take place on the Aba and Emir roads. Drug dealers can be seen dispatching packages of cannabis to customers late each evening.

In Sokoto, in the extreme northwest of Nigeria, the Mammy market along Adullahi Fodio Road is a popular place to get drugs including Tramadol, an opioid analgesic and Benylin with codeine, a cough mixture.

An NDLEA official, who asked to remain anonymous as she was not authorised to speak to the media, served as a guide around the Sokoto market.

She said that most drug dealing began at five pm and ended at ten pm when the market closed. After that, business moved outside.

The NDLEA official said that she had lodged complaints about the rising incidences of drug abuse and the apparent impunity with which dealers operated, but no concrete steps had been taken.

Many young women in the market have turned to sex work to fund their habits.

One woman from Bauchi state, who said she had come to Sokoto to make money, offered full sex in exchange for N500.

“Are you interested or not?” she asked. “I didn’t charge you that much now. I need the money now to get high. Even if you are not ready now I can give you my number so that we can catch up later outside Mammy gate when it is past 10 pm. I will do anything you want. Just give me the money first,” she said.

Shuddering, and sweating profusely despite the mild weather, the woman grabbed the reporter’s phone and punched in her contact details.

A number of cafes and shops in the market also appear to be hubs for local drug dealers.

“They also cater for the less privileged and those with low financial power,” said Mohammad, a local trader.

Young men and women could be observed trooping in and to get drugs packaged in dark brown or green bottles.

The oil city of Port Harcourt in the south of the country also has a thriving drug business, with gangs in areas such as Rumoola and Rumokwuta specialising in cannabis while dealers in the Government Reserved Area (GRA) of the city control the cocaine supply.

Osas, a resident of Port Harcourt, gave an overview of how the system worked.

“You cannot just stand up and say you want to buy drugs. Even if it is cannabis, you have to properly do your intro or else the dealers will say you are government and they might hurt you or scamper away,” he said.

“The routine is that you will be introduced by someone who is a regular customer. And the introduction which can be done over the phone depending on trust must carry your name, complexion, height, colour of attire worn and any other thing to describe you.

“You will then be given a point of collection where someone will then approach you for the drug-money exchange,” he said.

LOOKING THE OTHER WAY

One former NDLEA official described how employees of the agency could be pressurised to turn a blind eye to corruption.

Salisu Usman (not his real name) began working at MMIA in 2003 but soon found himself unpopular amongst his colleagues. Eventually he was posted away to north-eastern Nigeria.

“I always questioned my colleagues as to why they would let some people go even when there is overwhelming evidence that the person is trafficking drugs,” he said. “Sometimes they answered me politely and said that I am a round peg in a square hole. It was later that I then found out that there were some directives from God-knows-where that somethings should pass without explanations,” Usman said.

When Usman at one point disobeyed one of these directives, he said that he was subtly warned to toe the line.

“The official said that I should be soft a little and follow instructions to the end if I don’t want to be sacked, posted out or framed up,” Usman said.

“It was not like a threat per se,” he said. “It was more like an advice but any reasonable person can decode it wasn’t an ordinary advice. It was a colleague that they sent. I knew it wasn’t his idea and that he was directed.”

Others explained how crime and graft was covered up due to fear of retribution.

Sam Adurogboye is a former journalist who is now spokesman for the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority.

“I did a story on drugs when I was still young and it was not published. So I asked my editor why the story was not published and he replied that he knows that I am a young boy and that he wants me to marry and have kids.

“They know these drug lords and barons. Most of them are usually highly placed personalities but they cannot be touched because of the power they wield. Am sure you know that some drug lords or mafias in some countries are the ones that decide who will rule or not. They can be powerful,” he said.

Adurogboye said that such pressures should be borne in mind when considering what action to take against corrupt officials.

“On the contrary, instead of going hard on the NDLEA we need to understand the issues and put ourselves in their position. We need to sympathise with some who genuinely were pressured to aid drug trafficking. Imagine your family, job or anything dear to you being threatened,” he continued.

NDLEA spokesman Ofoyeju said that the agency was aiming to ensure appropriate sanctions were applied in any instances of unprofessional conduct amongst its officials.

“The NDLEA has a standard operating procedure where it gets reports both from within and outside on the activities of officers,” he said. “Interestingly, all reports are properly investigated and anyone found guilty are sanctioned accordingly. The certainty of disciplinary action against anyone found wanting has encouraged optimum performance and also enhanced service delivery in the agency.

“Let me assure you that the agency will continue to respect the rule of law in handling all cases of unprofessional conduct.”

*Nigerian journalist Olajide Adelani produced this report with support from PartnersGlobal and the Institute for War & Peace Reporting. It is one of a series of investigative reports produced under the Access Nigeria/Sierra Leone Programme funded by the United States Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement. This article was published at IWPR.

(EurActiv) — Bulgaria said Tuesday it was sticking to its candidate for the top UN job, Irina Bokova, for now, after speculation that it was considering switching to backing EU commissioner Kristalina Georgieva.

Prime Minister Boiko Borissov said he would consider the options if Bokova did not come first or second in the next round of voting for UN Secretary-General, due on 26 September.

But he did not spell out whether that meant he would consider another candidate, and said he would not let other countries interfere in Bulgaria’s decision.

That appeared to be a rebuff to senior diplomats and officials who told journalists over the weekend that Bulgaria was considering Georgieva, a power figure responsible for sorting out the bloc’s budget after Britain’s vote to leave the EU.

Speculation mounted after Russia’s foreign ministry said German Chancellor Angel Merkel had been pushing for a different Bulgarian candidate in the race to lead the international body. Berlin later said it had not interfered in the process.

“We have sought support … and we will continue to do so until 26 September. Everyone should put utmost effort, me included, for Mrs Bokova to be among the first two candidates,” Borissov told reporters.

“But there is no way after 26 if she is not first or second, to continue with that topic and then we all we should decide how to proceed,” Borissov said.

South Korea’s Ban Ki-moon will step down from the top UN job at the end of the year and former Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Guterres, who also served as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, has been the frontrunner so far.

Bokova, who has served as Bulgarian ambassador in France and was an acting foreign minister between November 1996-February 1997 in a Socialist government, polled third among 10 contenders in the last UN Security Council secret ballot. She is the leading candidate among the women.

Apple is only the latest big global American corporation to use foreign tax shelters to avoiding paying its fair share of U.S. taxes. It’s just another form of corporate desertion.

Corporations are deserting America by hiding their profits abroad or even shifting their corporate headquarters to another nation because they want lower taxes abroad. And some politicians say the only way to stop these desertions is to reduce corporate tax rates in the U.S. so they won’t leave.

Wrong. If we start trying to match lower corporate tax rates around the world, there’s no end to it.

Instead, the President should use his executive power to end the financial incentives that encourage this type of corporate desertion. President Obama has already begun, but there is much left that could be done.

In addition, corporation that desert America by sheltering a large portion of their profits abroad or moving their headquarters to another country should no longer be entitled to the advantages of being American.

1. They shouldn’t be allowed to influence the U.S. government. They shouldn’t be allowed to contribute to U.S. political campaigns, or lobby Congress, or participate in U.S. government agency rule-making proceedings. And they no longer have the right to sue foreign companies in U.S. courts for acts committed outside the United States.

2. They shouldn’t be entitled to generous government contracts. “Buy American” provisions of the law should be applied to them.

3. Their assets around the world shouldn’t any longer be protected by the U.S. government. If their factories and equipment are expropriated somewhere around the world, they shouldn’t expect the United States to negotiate or threaten sanctions, or use our armed forces to protect their investments. And if their intellectual property – patents, trademarks, trade names, copyrights – are disregarded, that’s their problem too. Don’t expect any help from us.

In fact, their interests should be of no concern to the U.S. government – in trade negotiations, climate negotiations, international treaties reconciling American law with the laws of other countries, or international disputes over access to resources.

They don’t get to be represented by the U.S. government because they’re no longer American.

It’s simple logic. If corporations want to desert America in order to pay less in taxes, that’s their business. But they should no longer have the benefits that come with being American.

“Every story I said in my drawings is nothing but the truth. I drew whatever happened to me.” — Eaten Fish, Iranian Cartoonist on Manus Island, Sep 9, 2016

Graphic depictions of cruelty come in an assortment of forms. The cartoon medium can convey the grotesque with brilliant effect, proving both witheringly caustic and poignant. The prints of Otto Dix emphasise the cripple, the mangled body, the state of disgust of a society suffering from the effect of a calamitous war. His contemporary of Weimar Germany, George Grosz, was similarly ruthless as part of the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) movement, insisting on dramatic grimness in conveying full effect.

What such artists insist upon is an unvarnished depiction of cruelty. In modern times, the notion of a caricature has usually made the front news because it supposedly mocks the Prophet in distasteful fashion. Of far greater interest is the social critique provided by such depictions as those of Eaten Fish.

Eaten Fish, an Iranian refugee artist, is a three year resident on Manus Island with some illustrative capability. He remains in a facility that is yet another cog in the ghastly machine that is Australia’s offshore processing regime. Every day, he explained to The Guardian, is much the same as the previous 800. He is being gradually numbed to death.

According to Researchers against Pacific Black Sites, a site given over to exposing the gruesome aspects in Australia’s refugee gulag, “Expert medical opinion is that Eaten Fish is the subject of trauma that caused him to seek refuge.” Being in the vicious facilities on Manus Island have further “exacerbated” his condition.[1]

That condition is a compendium of suffering: Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a highly acute sense of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Disassociation with episodes of panic attacks and somatization.

To the same organisation, Eaten Fish has been graphic, mournful, and unqualified in his desperation. In a statement to the RAPBS, he speaks about telling the world about having a “serious problem”; about locking “himself away because no-one understands him”; about not wanting to be assaulted, and just hankering for the “normal life.” “I want my right to be a healthy person.”[2]

Long time students of Australian refugee politics Suvendrini Perera and Joseph Pugliese have taken note about what Eaten Fish has done to jolt and sear audiences. His images are fearfully busy, crowded with camp woe. “His artworks are wordless messages from a submerged world of fear and violence. They bring before our eyes, in unprecedented details, that which is being kept secret and hidden from our sight.” The brutish camps; the cruelty of the guards; the predatory nature of the system.

Camps of human beings, with their censoring mechanisms fed by establishment goons tend to be places of conscious, controlled isolation. The lack of images squeezed out, the attempts to control the leaking of compromising material on sexual, physical and mental abuse, make these images even more suggestive. This is the mind at work, working and screaming.

Eaten Fish has gone for the grunt, for the doom, for the terror; he has suggested that the best way to move is to pick a medium that draws horror out of a sketched image. It is suggestive of regional, disgraceful failure; suggestive of sanctioned cruelties against those who should be assessed in communities.

One crowed image of colour and detail entails the composition of nightmare and consuming brutality. As the cartoonist explains, “weeks ago I saw a dream when I was slept [sic]. A big Fucking Chicken scaped [sic] from kitchen. It came in the compound and was looking for me.”[3] A pilot titled the “PNG Army” releases a bomb.

There is a chicken waiting to be consumed, bloodied and expressive the message “I love you Ali, Come and eat me.” There are the buried – Reza and Hamid; there is the symbol of the private security firm Transfield, which can count on the Australian and PNG governments to immunise their wrongs.

It is such work that won Eaten Fish an award from the Cartoonists Rights Network International, specifically in the category for Courage in Editorial Cartooning. It is an award as much as acknowledgment for a variant of dissident activism. For his images, Eaten Fish has suffered food deprivation, beatings and sexual abuse.

For that reason, much of this artistic acknowledgment seems a mere belch in the general direction of nothingness – Eaten Fish continues to degenerate, atrophying in his surrounds. But at least more have come to register the fate of Eaten Fish on the rather distorted radar of Australian refugee consciousness.

The campaign to remove the now 25 year-old from Manus Island has gotten steam. International papers have covered his case, and run his bleak cartoons in disbelief at Canberra’s policies. Australian cartoonists have been mobilised. Activists have been noisy. But nothing has come close to the traumatised noise, horrifying in its dimensions, than the images Ali, otherwise known as Eaten Fish, has generated.

As Robert Russell, executive director of CRNI noted, “His cartoons will some day be recognised as important, world class chronicles of the worst human behaviour since the World War II concentration camps.”[4] Pungently devastating stuff indeed.

Notes:
[1] http://researchersagainstpacificblacksites.org/

[2] http://researchersagainstpacificblacksites.org/index.php/2016/07/15/a-nightmare-world-in-plain-sight/

[3] http://researchersagainstpacificblacksites.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/nightmare.jpg

[4] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/comic-riffs/wp/2016/09/02/australia-has-detained-this-iranian-refugee-for-years-now-his-courageous-cartoons-shine-a-light-on-inhumane-treatment/

By Benedetta Berti*

(FPRI) — Recent news of an American-Russian-brokered ceasefire has rekindled hopes for a desperately-needed de-escalation in the bloody and prolonged civil war raging in Syria. Unfortunately, there are plenty of reasons to curb our collective enthusiasm when it comes to gauging the chances that this ceasefire will not only stick in the long term, but also lead to a credible political process and to the resolution of the conflict. At the same time, with the civil war well into its fifth year, it is necessary to reflect on the termination of hostilities as well as the enduring legacy of the conflict on some of the main parties on the ground.

Much has been said about how Hezbollah’s direct participation in the war alongside Bashar al-Assad has impacted its relationships, strategies, and capabilities in the short term.[1] A combination of self-interest, personal ties, and regional and geopolitical considerations led Hezbollah to identify the survival of Bashar al-Assad as one of its own key strategic interests—fearing that regime change would weaken its standing in Lebanon, undermine its regional influence and power projection, and cause significant trouble for its strategic partners in Tehran.

Over the past five years, Hezbollah’s military involvement in the Syrian conflict increased gradually and then exponentially leading the group to play a key role in supporting the Syrian forces in both defensive and offensive operations. Hezbollah has, with time, become indispensable to the Syrian regime further deepening the links between the state and its non-state ally — all while entangling the latter in the Syrian crucible.

When we look at the convergence between the Lebanese-Shiite organization’s continued strategic interest in the Syrian regime’s survival; the extensive military, financial, and political investments it has made so far to keep Assad afloat; as well as the importance of such efforts for the regime itself, it is hard to escape the conclusion that Hezbollah is deeply bogged down in Syria. While the group’s inability to disengage from Syria as long as the war rages on is somewhat obvious, less discussed is the question of the “day after.” Under what conditions would the group fully withdraw back to Lebanon, and what would constitute an acceptable outcome from Hezbollah’s point of view?

Make no mistake: Hezbollah is an interest-driven, strategic actor, and it understands the changing reality in Syria. As such, it is very unlikely that Hezbollah still hopes to achieve a comprehensive, undisputed, and crushing victory that would ensure the complete restoration of the status quo ante. If that were the group’s actual goal, then it would be preparing for a future characterized by unending conflict and perpetual intervention. Conversely, and leaving aside the feasibility of this outcome, it is equally unlikely that Hezbollah would peacefully back a political transition plan that aimed to remove the Syrian regime and replace it in its entirety with opposition forces. There is no doubt that the continuation of the war would be, at least for Hezbollah, a preferable outcome.

Between the delusional and the suicidal, Hezbollah might look favorably upon a range of less-than-perfect scenarios. A negotiated political transition would not necessarily be rejected, provided it ensured de facto power-sharing between pro- and anti-regime forces accompanied by decentralization and assurances that non-hostile forces would be deployed along the Syrian-Lebanese border. Still, in this scenario, the process of Hezbollah’s withdrawal from Syria would be long and complex with a combination of distrust and instability preventing the group from leaving the country overnight. Also, the eventual end of the Assad regime in this scenario would spell trouble for Hezbollah politically, not just by encouraging its domestic foes to increase pressure on the organization in Lebanon, but also by cracking its apparent invincibility. Similarly, a perceived draw in Syria could lead to more internal criticism within the Lebanese Shiite community, the backbone of Hezbollah’s support.

An alternative scenario that could be an acceptable outcome to Hezbollah would entail a situation that combined regime survival and its control of a relatively stable area of influence—whether brokered through a political agreement or crystalized de facto on the ground. Broadly speaking, the geographic boundaries of that area would ideally stretch from the coastal Latakia governorate in the north all the way south along the entire Lebanese-Syrian border and would include key centers like Damascus. A “friendly” area along the border would be important to Hezbollah for several reasons: it would create strategic depth against external foes—such as the so-called Salafi-jihadist camp; it would keep the group’s political opponents in Lebanon at bay; and it would allow the group to save face and prestige within its own constituency and to brand its Syrian campaign as a success. This outcome could be technically envisioned without Assad remaining in power. However, it is likely that both Hezbollah and Iran, deeply aware of the internal politics within the Syrian regime, would worry about the Syrian regime falling to pieces and succumbing to infighting in the event of the death or forceful removal of Assad.

Even if Hezbollah could come to look positively upon this “frozen conflict” scenario, it still does not mean that the group would be able to disengage quickly from Syria. Indeed, with the capabilities of the Syrian forces severely hampered by years of conflict, Hezbollah may have to remain in Syria to play an auxiliary role and to keep the regime’s area of influence stable. In addition, the group must remain along the Lebanese side of the border to fulfill both defensive and deterrence roles and in the process consolidating its increased military presence within the Beqaa governorate.

In turn, this outcome reveals that Hezbollah’s fateful decision to become one of the warring parties goes well beyond the short-term or the tactical dimension. By crossing the Syrian “Rubicon,” Hezbollah changed its long-term future.

What Does the “Day After” Look Like for Hezbollah?

A brief consideration of Hezbollah’s withdrawal options reveals that the way out of Syria will be long and arduous for all parties. As such, the group’s area of operations and presence has expanded beyond Lebanon, and its regional involvement is here to stay at least in the short and medium term. The “day after” Hezbollah remains firmly rooted in Lebanon, but when it comes to its military presence and areas of influence and interest, the group is projected more strongly in Syria and along the entire Lebanese-Syrian border region. A bigger footprint in terms of military presence and areas of operations and a more robust regional role go hand-in-hand with the notion that the Syrian civil war has sped up the group’s evolution in military terms. Post-2006 Hezbollah was already a remarkable non-state armed group—growing in size, sophistication, and adopting a hybrid military doctrine that combined more traditional guerrilla warfare tactics with semi-conventional and conventional skills. However, its direct involvement in Syria has further enhanced this process with the organization acquiring unprecedented training and experience in conducting both offensive and defensive operations.

Unsurprisingly, these developments have direct consequences for Hezbollah’s main enemy: Israel. A more regional and more sophisticated Hezbollah means that chances of another war erupting are smaller yet more frightening: smaller because the de facto mutual deterrence between the two parties is, if anything, enhanced by Hezbollah’s evolution and because its active involvement in Syria means the group has no real strategic interest in beginning an armed confrontation; more frightening because a more sophisticated Hezbollah could inflict considerable damage upon its enemy extending the battlefield from Lebanon to the Syrian Golan resulting in a more intense confrontation for both sides.

While a bigger military machine could be seen as a positive development for the group, it is not without challenges. Sustaining its military efforts in Syria is complicated, especially as the group finds itself under growing international financial pressure. With complete withdrawal not likely to occur in the short term, Hezbollah finds itself in need of balancing its extensive military expenses with its considerable political and social activities. Beyond the financial aspect, the broader challenges derived from managing this expanded organization are not insignificant, especially while coping with losses of manpower.

There are substantial long-term political challenges resulting from the group’s Syrian involvement. Over the past decades, Hezbollah invested significant political capital in branding itself a strongly Arab, Lebanese, non-sectarian actor, both within Lebanon and across the region. This description was already contested by the group’s political foes well before 2011 both in Lebanon and in the broader Middle East. Still, the Syrian civil war has worsened sectarian cleavages, and in the day after, moving beyond sectarian politics will represent an incredibly difficult challenge. Both regionally and in Lebanon, the highly polarized and sectarian political climate will probably mean Hezbollah will continue to be seen as a divisive actor — a perception that will be further entrenched the longer the group stays in Syria. This view is likely to deepen the cleavages between the group and its enemies while encouraging even more strategic cooperation with its friends and allies, including Iran.

A second significant political dilemma that the group may very well face over time will be keeping internal criticism of the group’s Syria policy at bay, both within Hezbollah and within the Lebanese Shiite community at large. Again, while no substantial debate is likely to erupt as long as the civil war is fully raging and as long as the perception of being under takfiri attack[2] persists, the combination of more time passing, more human losses, and more financial pressure will likely spur the development of more mainstream criticism.

The military, financial, and political implications of Hezbollah’s decision to participate in the Syrian civil war will necessarily extend well beyond the still elusive end of hostilities. In the past few years, analysts have often warned that Assad’s victory or downfall could very well spell, respectively, Hezbollah’s triumph or decline. This prediction could be true (albeit a bit too simplified), but it is important to remember that the impact of the Syrian conflict on the group is broader than that. After five years, Hezbollah is a more regional, more sophisticated, broader, more sectarian, and more divisive organization. The legacy and long-term impact of these trends will be lasting and pervasive for Hezbollah no matter what.

About the author:
*Benedetta Berti is a Robert A. Fox Fellow in the FPRI Program on the Middle East. She is also a TED Senior Fellow, a Fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), and an independent human security consultant. Her work focuses on human security and internal conflicts, as well as on post-conflict stabilization and peacebuilding.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI.

Notes:
[1] Benedetta Berti, “The Syrian Civil War and its Consequences for Hezbollah,” FPRI E-Notes, December 28, 2015, http://www.fpri.org/article/2015/12/the-syrian-civil-war-and-its-consequences-for-hezbollah/.

[2] Takfir means excommunication in Arabic. Takfiris are those who excommunicate other Muslims for supporting interpretations of Islam that differ from their own, and thus consider them legitimate targets for attack.

Death of Karimov, ruler for 27 years, won’t end Uzbekistan’s exploiting its geostrategic location in Central Asia.

By Dilip Hiro*

A quick glance at a map of Asia reveals the geostrategic primacy of Uzbekistan. The country has common borders not only with the four former Soviet “stans” –Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan – and but also Afghanistan. And its population of 32 million exceeds the total number of people in the rest of the former Soviet Republics of Central Asia.

Little wonder that Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Chinese Vice-Premier Zhang Gaoli, acting as special envoy of President Xi Jinping, attended the funeral service of Islam Abduganievich Karimov, Uzbekistan’s ruler for 27 years, on September 3 US President Barack Obama issued a statement reiterating America’s commitment to “partnership with Uzbekistan.”

Overall, the event highlighted how Karimov succeeded in getting the better of all three world powers, offering them what each needed at a particular time: local oil and gas resources for energy-hungry China; participation in the waging of Washington’s “war on terror”; and joining the Moscow-led military alliance to back up Russia’s insistence on maintaining influence on its “near abroad.”

The Uzbek constitution mandates that the senate chairman become acting president until a presidential poll can be held within three months. But on September 8, the Uzbek Parliament elected Shavkat Mirziyoyev, the country’s premier since 2003, the interim president. Backed by long-serving intelligence chief Rustam Inoyatov, Mirziyoyev will likely be the official candidate set to garner the usual 90-plus percent of the vote. Though lacking Karimov’s brutal cunning, he will likely follow his master’s policies of repressing Islamists at home and making opportunistic decisions in foreign policy.

With the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, its founding ideology of Marxism-Leninism collapsed. To fill the vacuum, two alternatives emerged: ethnic nationalism and Islamic fundamentalism. A diehard secularist, determined to reassure the non-Uzbek minorities forming a third of the population, Karimov set out to eliminate these challenges.

He made a short shrift of the two fledgling movements promoting democracy and ethnic nationalism. But crushing Islamists with decades-long roots in the Fergana Valley taxed his repressive agencies. This fertile and heavily populated valley, stretching across Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, has a history of deep religiosity. Here, the advancing Muslim Arabs defeated the Chinese in 751 AD. The lasting legacy of the Chinese was silkworm agriculture, which complemented the longer-established cotton crops.

Karimov’s resolve to maintain his republic’s large cotton output primarily led him to reject the World Bank’s recommendation to privatize landholding. “If land is placed into private ownership, there will be price speculation and farmers will lose confidence,” Karimov argued in a1992 pamphlet. Besides preventing speculation in land, leading to large price fluctuations and distortion of production, private ownership would deprive the government of ensuring that a certain percentage would be used for growing cotton – and risk Uzbekistan losing its place as the world’s fifth largest cotton producer and second largest exporter. Hence the state and cooperative farms of the Soviet era survived.

Uzbekistan under Karimov became a founder-member of the nine-nation Collective Security Treaty Organization, CSTO, a military alliance sponsored by Russia, which came into effect in 1994. But when it came up for renewal in 1999, Karimov opted out. That year he allowed NATO troops to participate in military maneuvers on Uzbek soil.

et China and Russia – the sponsors of the five-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) formed in 1996, based on the Treaty on Deepening Military Trust in Border Regions – extended membership to Uzbekistan in 2001 even though it lacks common borders with China or Russia. SCO members added fighting terrorism to their list of aims.

Soon after, Karimov’s loose links with the United States tightened in the aftermath of 9/11. Since US aircraft could not fly over Iran to reach Afghanistan, the importance of Central Asian republics rose sharply. Karimov struck a deal with then US President George W. Bush to let the Pentagon use the Soviet-era Karshi base near Khanabad, 500 kilometers from Tashkent, in return for increased financial aid and a freer hand to suppress Islamists. Washington’s annual grants to the capital of Tashkent rose threefold to $150 million – a substantial amount for a country whose foreign reserves at one point had shrunk to $1 billion.

Uzbekistan was complicit in America’s notorious extraordinary rendition program, whereby the CIA captured enemy suspects and then delivered them to regimes known to use torture. With an odious record of torturing suspects, the Karimov government unsurprisingly topped the CIA’s list. During a visit to Tashkent after the expulsion of the Taliban from Kabul in November 2001, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld praised Uzbekistan as a partner in the “war on terror.”

The Uzbek-American honeymoon ended in spring 2005. As the trial of 23 businessmen, falsely accused of belonging to a terrorist organization in Andijan, a Fergana Valley city, neared its end in early May, well-wishers gathered outside the court. An estimated 4,000 demonstrators assembled to hear the verdict on May 11. The judge deferred the sentencing. The next day, the police arrested the demonstrators’ ringleaders. That night, a posse of armed men raided the jail, killed several guards and released the businessmen and other inmates. After seizing the regional administrative office and holding 20 officials hostage, they called on Karimov to resign.

At daylight on 13 May, thousands of people assembled in the Babur Square – to hear speeches decrying the deepening poverty and rising corruption. Nearly 12,000 security forces surrounded the audience as a rumor spread that Karimov would address them. He never came. Instead, after closing off the exits from the square, troops fired with automatic rifles on unarmed civilians. The official death toll was 187, with unofficial estimates as high as 600.

Russia and China accepted Karimov’s version that “Islamic extremist groups” caused a “violent disturbance.” He arrived in Beijing in July to be greeted with a 21-gun salute, and departed with a $600 million joint venture in oil. By contrast, the Bush administration called for an international investigation into the episode, to no avail. Later the US and the European Union imposed military sanctions on Uzbekistan.

An incensed Karimov ordered the Pentagon to vacate the Karshi-Khanabad airbase that served as a transport hub for delivering supplies into northern Afghanistan. He led Uzbekistan back into the Moscow-based CSTO in 2006.

Facing an escalating Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, the Obama administration ordered a surge in US forces in 2008 and sought reconciliation with Karimov. It came, courtesy of the German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. In lieu of lifting of EU sanctions, Karimov let Germany keep its troops in Termez. He granted US forces limited access to the German base and permitted NATO the use of Uzbek railroad to ferry non-lethal supplies from Europe to Afghanistan via Termez on the Uzbek-Afghan border.

Later, by taking Uzbekistan out of the CSTO in 2012, Karimov assured the receipt of hundreds of surplus armored vehicles as US forces in Afghanistan started their drawn-down. In 2014 NATO opened a regional office in Tashkent to liaise directly with other Central Asian republics.

In 2015 China displaced Russia as Uzbekistan’s top trading partner. In June, China’s Xi attended the SCO summit in Tashkent and included a visit to the historic city of Bukhara to celebrate the completion of a large rail tunnel opening the Fergana Valley to more development.

To maintain the upward trajectory in the GDP growth, which reached 8 percent last year, Mirziyoyev will focus on maintaining domestic stability at all costs by suppressing Islamists, jailing dissidents and controlling the media. In short, Karimov is dead but his governance tenets are set to continue.

*Dilip Hiro is the author of  Inside Central Asia, published by Overlook-Duckworth, New York and London, and HarperCollins India, Noida, from which a portion of this article is excerpted. His latest book is The Age of Aspiration: Power, Wealth, and Conflict in Globalizing India (The New Press, New York and London), published earlier as Indians in a Globalizing World: Their Skewed Rise (HarperCollins India, Noida).

Read an excerpt from Inside Central Asia. Read an excerpt from The Age of Aspiration.

By Ambreen Agha*

My family has been falsely implicated in drug racket. It is distressing to see that my family is suffering because of my profession. It is difficult to be a journalist in Pakistan and that too in tribal areas. You are punished for bringing out stories that do not sit well with the military establishment, which is ubiquitous here. We see Taliban commanders visiting military quarters in the tribal belt. What happens inside is not for us to know. We are caught between the military and the terrorists. Being a journalist has cost me my family, who disowned me after the slapping of false charges. And now I am without money, looking for alternative means of sustenance. — An unnamed journalist from an unspecified location in tribal areas to SAIR .

Media in Pakistan, particular in the tribal regions, is under siege. Working under constant threat to life and livelihood, media personnel have faced a backlash from both state and anti-state elements. These include the warring political parties, military intelligence agencies and terrorist formations operating across the country.
As freedom becomes increasingly elusive for media personnel in the country, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) report, released on February 3, 2016, noted that Pakistan runs fourth on the list of the deadliest countries in the world for journalists, recording a total of 115 killings since 1990. According to partial data compiled by Institute for Conflict Management (ICM), a total of 57 journalists have been killed in targeted attacks since 1994 (data till September 11, 2016).

Meanwhile, the World Press Freedom Index – 2016, published by Reporters without Borders (RWB), ranked Pakistan at 147 out of 180 countries. The RWB Report on Pakistan, “Targeted on all Sides”, states,

Journalists are targeted by extremist groups, Islamist organizations and Pakistan’s feared intelligence organizations, all of which are on RSF’s [Reporters Sans Frontières] list of predators of press freedom. Although at war with each other, they are all always ready to denounce acts of “sacrilege” by the media. Inevitably, self-censorship is widely practiced within news organizations…

In a recent incident on August 22, 2016, a group of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) workers attacked the office of ARY News Channel, killing one person and injuring several others, near Zainab Market in the Saddar Town of Karachi, the provincial capital of Sindh. A day earlier, another group of infuriated MQM protestors had damaged the Digital Satellite News Gathering (DSNG) van of the Samaa TV channel in the Liaquatabad Town of Karachi. The protestors involved in both these attacks had alleged lack of “due media coverage” of MQM workers, who had been protesting since August 18, 2016, against the random disappearances and arrest of party workers by the paramilitary Rangers ever since the beginning of the ongoing ‘Targeted Action’ against terrorists and criminals in the commercial capital. During a meeting of the Sindh Apex Committee headed by Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah on August 31, 2016, Rangers Director General Major General Bilal Akbar informed the participants that 848 ‘target killers’ involved in 7,224 cases have been arrested since September 4, 2013, in Karachi, of which 654 suspects were affiliated with MQM. The MQM suspects have allegedly confessed to being involved in 5,863 incidents of target killings.

In the past, religious-political parties have also brazenly attacked the media. Following the hanging of Mumtaz Qadri, an Elite Force commando convicted of killing former Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, angry protesters attacked media houses and facilities in Sindh and Punjab on March 1, 2016, leaving over half a dozen media people injured, and equipment burnt or destroyed. Qadri was executed on February 29, 2016, at the Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi District of Punjab. The most violent attack occurred in the Hyderabad District of Sindh, where a demonstration was staged by several religious parties against Qadri’s execution. The collective call for protest outside the Hyderabad Press Club was given by different religious organizations and parties, including, Milli Yakjehti Council, Jama’at-e-Ulema Pakistan (JuP) and Pakistan Sunni Tehreek (PST). Apart from burning tyres and blocking roads, the enraged mobs burned a counter at the Hyderabad Press Club, injuring four journalists and a Press Club employee. They also beat up journalists en route to Karachi. Two journalists, who were travelling to cover the protest in Karachi’s Malir Town were pulled out of the car and beaten up. The cameraman was also dragged out of the van. The infuriated protestors damaged the camera and the vehicle.

The media has been targeted by the country’s proliferation of terrorist formations. On May 7, 2016, unidentified terrorists killed two people, including Shia religious scholar and rights activist Syed Khurram Zaki and his journalist friend Rao Khalid, in North Karachi Town. While Khalid was currently working as a journalist, Zaki was a former journalist. No outfit claimed responsibility for the attack.

On November 22, 2015, unidentified armed assailants shot dead TV journalist Hafeez ur Rehman (42), on the outskirts of the Kohat District in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Though terrorist outfits, primarily the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), have claimed responsibility for these attacks, the media has been directed by the Pakistan Army not to report.

The unnamed journalist from tribal area, in a conversation with this writer, stated,

Since the launch of the NAP [National Action Plan (NAP), media’s coverage of the conflict in Pakistan and more specifically in the tribal area is dictated by the Army. There is a clear instruction to all journalists, independent or affiliated, working in the tribal belt to not report claims of responsibility by terrorist outfits. The military has drawn the line for the journalists working on the ground. There are claims made by the Pakistani Taliban [TTP] after every attack that we are categorically told to ignore. Reporting a terror claim is a crime now. In the tribal areas, reporters risk it all to deliver the news independently and objectively. Instead, it is the Army’s media wing, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), which has increased its activities in the last few years.

The 20-point NAP came as a counter-terrorism measure on December 24, 2014, after the gruesome December 16, 2015, Peshawar Army Public School massacre .

Corroborating this claim, the last attack on the media claimed by TTP was on January 17, 2014, when at least three Express News workers, identified as driver Khalid, technician Waqas and security guard Ashraf, were shot dead after TTP terrorists ambushed a stationary DSNG van near Matric Board Office in the North Nazimabad Town of Karachi. In a live telephone call from Afghanistan TTP spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan declared,

We accept responsibility. I would like to present some of its reasons: At present, Pakistani media is playing the role of (enemies and spread) venomous propaganda against Tehreek-e-Taliban. They have assumed the (role of) opposition. We had intimated the media earlier and warn it once again that (they must) side with us in this venomous propaganda (sic).”

Five days later, on January 23, 2014, TTP issued a 29-page fatwa (edict) against the media, declaring it a “party to the conflict” in the country. Since TTP’s creation in 2007, this was the first ever fatwa issued by the terrorist organization against the media, drawing up a hit-list of journalists and publishers across the country. The fatwa accuses media of siding with “disbelievers” against Muslims in the “war on Islam”. It alleged that the media was inciting people against mujahidin (holy warriors) through propaganda, and was propagating promiscuity and secularism. One of the author’s of the fatwa, Sheikh Khalid Haqqani, ‘deputy chief’ of TTP, separated journalists into three categories – murjif, muqatil and Sa’ee bil fasad. Explaining the terms further in the fatwa, Haqqani stated,

Murjif is someone who engages in propaganda against Muslims during a war between Islam and disbelief. Muqatil is someone who incites disbelievers and their allies to act against Muslims, while the third category (Sa’ee bil fasad) includes those who allegedly corrupt Muslim society through steps like replacing Islamic ideology with secular beliefs.

While sending the fatwa to Dawn, the outfit’s spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan warned, “Media could mend its ways and become a neutral entity. Otherwise, the media should not feel secure. A few barriers and security escorts will not help. If we can get inside military installations, media offices should not be too much of a challenge.”

Indeed, at least 13 attacks with nine fatalities have been recorded since the declaration of the fatwa on January 23, 2014.

The military establishment has played a malicious role in this enduring wave of intolerance against the media. During the 139th Corps Commanders Conference held at the General Headquarters (GHQ) on June 9, 2011, the then Chief of Army Staff (CoAS) General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, warned critics to stop trying to deliberately run down the Armed Forces and the Army as an institution, and to put an end to “any effort to create divisions between important institutions of the country.” The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and other Pakistani intelligence agencies have a long history of intimidation, abduction and secret killings of those who challenge or expose them.

One prominent incident in this category was the abduction, torture and brutal murder of Asia Times Online Pakistan Bureau Chief, Syed Saleem Shahzad, on June 1, 2011, in the Mandi Bahauddin District of Punjab Province. Shehzad was abducted on May 29, 2011, by the ISI just one day after he exposed links between al Qaeda, a group of naval personnel and the ISI, in the deadly attack on the Pakistan Naval Station (PNS) Mehran within the Faisal Naval Airbase in Karachi on May 22, 2011. 10 Security Force (SF) personnel were killed in the attack. Shahzad’s killing was a deliberate and planned targeted killing that sent shock waves through Pakistan’s journalist fraternity and civil society.

In another such attack, Hamid Mir, the anchor on Geo News, was shot at and injured by four unidentified armed pillion riders on April 19, 2014, in Sharah-e-Faisal Town of Karachi. Before the attack, Mir had told his colleagues and friends that if he was attacked, Pakistan’s ISI, “and its chief Lieutenant General Zaheer-ul-Islam will be responsible”. On the day of the attack, Geo News disclosed that Mir had also sent a recorded video to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) implicating the ISI in any possible attempt on his life. Mir had claimed that the Agency had been infuriated by his Capital Talk programmes that criticised ISI’s tactics against the separatists in Balochistan, where the military is accused of enforced disappearances and killings.

Persistent efforts by the Army and its agencies to silence the media over decades have diminished the spaces of freedom within Pakistan. There have been serious concerns voiced by activists regarding the “muzzling of free speech” in Pakistan. Expressing concern over the role of the ISPR department on June 15, 2016, Asma Jahangir, former chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), appeared before a two-judge Supreme Court bench consisting of Justices Ejaz Afzal Khan and Qazi Faez Isa, which was hearing petitions filed by journalists Hamid Mir, Absar Alam and others, seeking a court order abolishing the secret fund being maintained by the Information Ministry. Jahangir asserted that ISPR should also be monitored by regulatory authorities and requested the Court to investigate the law under which the Army’s media cell was operating. “We have been talking a lot about the civilian government, but the media cell of the [army] should also be monitored,” Jahangir argued.

In the ongoing “war of ideologies”, as TTP spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan called it after the January 17, 2014, attack on Express News, the media has borne the brunt from all the three quarters – political, military and terrorist. An environment of repression has been created, enforced by an unholy alliance of Islamist extremists, radicalized political parties and the omnipresent Army and its agencies, within a culture of enveloping immunity, expanding spaces for future ideological wars.

* Ambreen Agha
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

By Deepak Kumar Nayak*

On September 7, 2016, two Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) cadres were killed in an encounter with the Police in the dense forests of Bijapur District. Inspector General of Police (IGP), Bastar Range, SRP Kalluri disclosed, “The encounter took place this afternoon near Telmendri village under Farsegarh PS limits between a joint team of Police personnel and the ultras.”

The day before, one Maoist cadre was killed in an exchange of fire with Security Forces (SFs) in the forests of Sukma District. The skirmish took place when a team of the District Reserve Group (DRG), led by Dornapal Station House Officer (SHO) Ajay Sonkar, was out on an anti-Maoist operation in the Dornapal Police Station (PS) area, and a group of Maoists opened indiscriminate fire on the team near Koyabekur village, following which an encounter broke out, Sukma Superintendent of Police (SP), Indira Kalyan Elesela stated. Meda Benjami aka Kukkal Mada, head of a Maoist Janatana Sarkar (‘people’s government’ unit) in the Kerlapal area, was killed in the encounter. Elesela added that the deceased was looking after Naxal [Left Wing Extremism (LWE)] activities in about 10 villages of the region. A muzzle loading gun and some ammunition was recovered from the spot.

Meanwhile, on September 1, 2016, one Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) Constable, Sachin Kumar (27), who had been severely injured in an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blast in the Sukma District on August 26, 2016, succumbed to his injuries at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi.

Four days earlier, on August 28, 2016, a composite squad of the DRG and Special Task Force (STF) killed one Maoist cadre during an encounter in the Chandometa forest of Bastar District.

Earlier, on August 26, 2016, the Maoists killed one of their own supporters after producing him before a jan adalat (people’s court) in the Sukma District. Commenting on the incident, IGP Kalluri stated, “Rathore (Sandeep Kumar Rathore) was this evening shot dead by armed rebels in the forests near Mukram nullah under Chintalnar Police Station limits… As per records, he was a staunch supporter of (the) Maoists but for the last few months he had started distancing himself from the banned outfit. He had joined the mainstream and was leading a normal life.”

On August 24, 2016, one Maoist cadre was killed in an exchange of fire with SF personnel in the Sukma District. The skirmish took place near Ponga Bhejji village when a joint team of STF and the District Force was out on an anti-Maoist operation in the Dornapal PS area. Giving details about the operation, SP, Elesela noted, “During searches, the body of a male Maoist clad in a ‘uniform’ was recovered along with one automatic pistol and one muzzle loading gun.” However, the identity of the Maoist was not known.

In a separate incident on August 17, 2016, four Maoist cadres including a ‘commander-rank’ woman cadre were killed, while a trooper was injured in an encounter between SF personnel and the Maoists in the Dantewada District. The skirmish took place in the early hours in the restive Dabba-Kunna Hills when a joint team of CRPF, DRG and STF was out on an anti-Maoist operation.

Again, on August 16, 2016, one hardcore Maoist, who was allegedly involved in blowing up an ambulance killing five CRPF personnel and two civilians during the 2014 Lok Sabha (Lower House of Parliament) Poll in Bastar District, was killed in an encounter in the forests of Chandometa under the Darbha PS limits in the Bastar District. He was identified as People’s Militia ‘commander’ Arjun. He was also a member of the Machhkot Local Organisation Squad (LOS).

These incidents demonstrate that the continuing Maoist entrenchment in the Bastar Division remains a challenge for the State. According to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), at least 142 fatalities have so far been registered in the Bastar Division alone in Maoist-linked violence since the beginning of 2016 (data till September 11). The total number of fatalities in such violence across Chhattisgarh in the current year stands at 146 (30 civilians, 26 SF personnel and 90 Maoists). Barring four incidents of killing, (two civilians, one SF personnel and one Maoist) which were recorded in the Mahasamund District (one civilian) and Rajnandgaon District (one civilian, one SF trooper and one Maoist), all other incidents of killing in the State have taken place in the Bastar Division. Out of a total of 30 civilians killed across Chhattisgarh in such violence, 28 were reported from the Division (96.55 per cent); and out of 26 SF fatalities across Chhattisgarh 25 (96.15 per cent) were reported from the Division, which thus accounts for an overwhelming proportion of Maoist linked violence in the State.

An analysis of fatalities over the last seven years indicates that, since 2011 and up to 2014, there has been a gradual increase and concentration of fatalities in the Bastar Division. Though there was a decline in 2015, the previous trend of increase has been re-established in the current year. The overall violence in the Division contributed to 94.63 per cent of total fatalities in the State between 2010 and 2016 (data till September 11).

Significantly, all major incidents (each involving three or more fatalities) that have occurred in Chhattisgarh this year have occurred in the Bastar Division. A total of 13 major LWE-linked incidents have been reported in 2016, as of September 11.

276 Maoists have already been arrested in the current year, in addition to the 221 arrested through 2015. Another 724 Maoists have surrendered in the current year. 279 Maoists had surrendered in 2015.

The Bastar Division, the core of the residual Maoist problem not only in Chhattisgarh but in the entire so-called ‘Red Corridor’ region, was created in 1999, when the larger Bastar District was divided into the present-day Districts of Bastar, Dantewada, and Kanker. On November 1, 2000, the division became part of the newly created state of Chhattisgarh. The Bastar Division was further subdivided in 2007 and 2012, and currently comprises seven Districts – Bastar, Bijapur, Dantewada, Kanker, Kondagaon, Narayanpur, and Sukma – in the southernmost region in the State. The Division shares its borders with other Maoist-afflicted States, including Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, and Telangana.

The Division spans over 40,000 square kilometers, and the Maoists have effectively forced the SFs to restrain their movements. The Maoists also claim to have formed Janatana Sarkars in as many as 300 panchayat (village level local self-government institution) areas in the Bastar Division, and to have established 20 guerrilla bases. If the Maoists are to be believed, nearly 2,000 villages are being ‘administered’ by these Janatana Sarkars.

The region is afflicted with relatively low standards on all human development indicators, including widespread absence and worsening access to healthcare, education, drinking water, sanitation and food. Availability of State functionaries responsible for delivering these basic services in the conflict-affected areas is very low. Independent reports suggest, rather, an absence of all ‘governance’, and the continuing disruptive dominance of the Maoists across much of the region.

A joint survey conducted by the US-India Policy Institute and the New Delhi based Centre for Research and Debates in Development Policy (CRDDP) found that, among 599 Districts across India (under purview of the survey) the Districts of the Bastar Division were ranked towards the bottom: Bastar, 578th; Bijapur, 372nd; Dantewada, 418th; and Kanker, 469th. While Kondagaon (separated from Bastar District on 24 January 2012), Narayanpur (created on May 11, 2007, being carved out from the erstwhile Bastar District) and Sukma (carved out of Dantewada as a separate District on January 16, 2012) faced a similar situation as their parent Districts.

Significantly, on July 18, 2016, Chief Minister Raman Singh informed the Chhattisgarh Assembly that there were 619 un-electrified villages in Bastar Division.

Meanwhile, contributing significantly to the fight against the Maoists, personnel of the DRG are used exclusively for anti-Maoist operational duties in the Bastar Division. Dubbed the “sons of the soil” because DRG personnel are recruited among the local Koya (tribal) youth and surrendered Maoists, DRG attracted a lot of attention for its effective strikes in Maoist ‘heartland’ areas, including Abujhmaad in Narayanpur District and south Sukma, the Maoist ‘heartland’. In May 2015, the Raman Singh Government sanctioned 600 posts for DRG. There are now 1,748 DRG personnel spread across eight Districts of Chhattisgarh — seven in Bastar Division and one in Rajnandgaon. Of these DRG personnel, 957 have undergone specialised training courses at the Counter Terrorism and Jungle Warfare School in Vairengte, Mizoram, while another 350 are about to be sent there.

Further, on July 1, 2016, Chief Minister Singh suggested raising a ‘Dandakaranya Battalion’ in the Armed Forces, on the lines of the Naga Regiment of the Indian Army, to facilitate the entry of tribal youth from the Maoist-hit Bastar Division. Meanwhile, to augment the State’s capacity to counter the Maoists, the Centre has approved the setting up of the ‘Bastariya Battalion’ of CRPF, which is likely to be established by 2017, recruiting youth mostly from the Bastar region.

While paying a visit to Shri Saibaba Temple (Maharashtra) on January 2, 2016, Chief Minister Singh claimed that Surguja District has been made Naxal-free, and that the same would soon be the case in the Bastar Division.

Though Maoist violence in terms of fatalities has seen a tremendous decline in the State in particular and India at large, the Maoists continue to retain significant operational capacities. Any lackadaisical approach on the part of the ruling establishment will not only undermine the sacrifices made by SFs, but would also open windows of opportunity for a Maoist resurgence.

*Deepak Kumar Nayak
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management

By Manoj Joshi

The Modi government’s Pakistan policy remains intriguing.

We have seen the flip-flops of 2014 and 2015, ranging from border bombardments to hearty embraces and cold vibes.

But the direction it is taking now is baffling. In international meeting after meeting, the prime minister has attacked Pakistan’s support of terrorism and the need to sanction Islamabad.

Take the past week for instance.

On September 4, in Hangzhou, addressing fellow BRICS leaders, Modi said that there was need to intensify joint action against terrorism which had become the primary source of instability and biggest threat to the world.

Alluding to Pakistan he said, “Clearly someone funds and arms them.”

On September 5, Modi intensified the attack saying that “one single nation” in South Asia was spreading terror and that there was need for that nation to be sanctioned.

On September 7, addressing the ASEAN summit in Vientiane, Modi declared “one country has only one competitive advantage: exporting terror”. And again reiterated the need to “isolate and sanction” the country which was a threat to everyone.

Two days later on September 9, foreign secretary S Jaishankar followed it up in a speech to a US think tank in New Delhi where he said that the fight against terrorism could not be segmented and that no country could escape responsibility by ascribing terrorist actions to non-state actors.

These are only the most recent broadsides, in the past six months, whether addressing the nation on Independence Day, the diaspora in Kenya or Belgium, or the US Congress, Modi has not hesitated to raise the primacy of terrorism as an issue.

It’s not clear whether there is some other strategy behind this relentless assault on Pakistan. Accompanying his attack has been his criticism of the UN for its inability to come up with appropriate responses.

Addressing the G-20 in Istanbul in the wake of the Paris attack in November 2015, Modi had called for an international convention on terrorism, an old idea that New Delhi has pushed to little avail since the 1990s.

Timing

What we do know as of now is that the Modi government’s assaults on Pakistan are only verbal.

There are no reports of any Balochistan liberation organisations or Taliban-ambushing Pakistani forces, or any unexplained bomb blasts which could suggest that India was hitting at Pakistan in other ways.

The obvious question is: does the Modi government believe that a verbal bombardment in world capitals will force Islamabad to surrender?

Pakistan has played a cynical game for so long and has done so many bad things ranging from training and arming terrorists to killing innocent people to exporting nuclear weapons technology, that to think that they can be shamed into giving up the use of the terror weapon appears naïve, to say the least.

Had India been reeling with the kind of terrorist attacks the French are witnessing, or the ones that hit Kabul or Baghdad every day, Modi’s zeal could have been understandable.

Fortunately, since November 2008, India has been spared a mass-casualty terrorist strike.

Then why has Modi taken the mantle of the leader of the global crusade against terrorism? The only conclusion we can come to is that the goals are domestic.

Attacking Pakistan plays well with north Indian voters and keeps the other parties off-balance and unable to focus on the fact that his government’s achievements have been meagre, compared to the extravagant promises that had been made in 2014.

Diplomacy

Perhaps, Modi’s economic plan will bear fruit in the future, but Modi cannot afford to allow the political support he got in 2014 to slacken, at least not before the UP elections next year, and hence, the terrorism plank.

There is no surprise element here, or across the world; terrorism has proved to be a good plank for politicians.

Of course, throughout this period, Modi is being extended help by the hawks in Islamabad, who find it difficult to get off the tiger they mounted in the 1990s.

It is not that the Pakistani deep state is afraid of the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad.

They probably have them, to use the famous words of General Aziz Khan, by their “tooti” (collar). It is that they cannot contemplate giving up what they consider their most useful instruments of policy.

In part, dealing with them does, require them to do what Modi and his men are doing. But instead of verbal barrages, there is need for deft diplomacy to isolate Islamabad.

Here, of all the tasks, the most difficult is to persuade Beijing to join in. And this is where we find that the Modi plan lacks stamina because, as the foreign secretary’s Friday statement on China revealed: the government has the ability to state the problem, but not the wherewithal to do something about it, expect complain.

This article originally appeared in Mail Today.

South Africa’s Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba says American Pastor Steven Anderson and members or associates of his church have been denied entry into South Africa and his visa exemption status will be revoked.

The Minister said this when he briefed journalists in Cape Town on Tuesday after he was petitioned by the LGBTI community, who accused Anderson of hate speech following his anti-gay comments.

“Mr Steven Anderson and members or associates of his church are prohibited from entering the Republic of South Africa.

“This prohibition will be implemented in terms of section 29(1)(d) of the Immigration Act.

“This section affords the department the legal means to prohibit a foreigner who is ‘a member of or adherent to an association or organisation advocating the practice of racial hatred or social violence’,” he said.

The controversial American pastor stands accused of making repeated anti-gay comments. He later recorded and posted a video on social media making derogatory remarks about the LGBTI community and also making inappropriate insults against Minister Gigaba.

The Minister said he had informed Home Affairs Director-General Mkhuseli Apleni that he has identified Anderson and his associates as “undesirable persons”, adding that such people are barred from travelling to South Africa for periods determined by the department.

“Furthermore, I have withdrawn their visa exemption status, enjoyed by all Americans.

“This is on the basis that I am certain they promote hate speech as well as advocate social violence.

“Accordingly, Steven Anderson will be advised that he is a prohibited person in South Africa,” he said.

The Minister’s decision comes after weeks of consultations with leaders from the LGBTI community and other stakeholders, including the South African Human Rights Commission.

He said South Africa has to work towards reaching its constitutional values to build a democratic, united, non-racial and non-sexist state. This means it is a constitutional imperative for organs of state and society at large to protect and jealously defend the rights of all people.

He said the department has also had instances in the past wherein its own officials had treated LGBTI persons “in a manner that is inconsistent with our laws”.

“It is common cause that LGBTI persons, not only in this country but worldwide, face daily atrocities for defining their identity, including ridicule, abuse, bullying, homophobia, brutal assault and rape.”

He said according to a Progressive Prudes survey released last Friday, over the previous 12 months, around half a million South Africans have physically harmed women who dressed and behaved like men in public, and 24 000 have beaten up men who dressed liked women.

The Minister also said that approximately 700,000 South Africans verbally abused gender non-conforming people.

The Minister said over 60,000 petitions were collected and presented by Gay Radio SA to the Department and the South African Human Rights Commission, pleading for the protection of the rights of the LGBTI.

By Jonathan Power*

Russia announced on September 8 that it has decided to go where angels fear to tread – into the whirlpool of negotiations between Palestine and Israel. Long a preserve of the Americans and the French, the attempt to bring peace between the two and to make a final settlement on boundaries has frustrated them for decades. Can Russia do better?

Russia comes on the scene at a time when the script is perhaps about to be re-written in a radical way. After decades of negotiating around the premise that the only solution was a two-state arrangement with an independent Jewish state and an independent Palestinian state existing cheek by jowl, opinion in Palestine is shifting.

The talk now, especially among younger people like the businessman Tareq Abbas, the son of the President of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas, is quite different than their parents. They are saying Palestinians should give up pursuing what the Israelis will never concede and should stop the endless, unproductive effort, to negotiate a two-state solution.

Instead, they should accept that Israel has the whip hand over both Israel and Palestine, in both the parts it occupies and the parts it allows the Palestinians themselves to govern, the rest of the West Bank and Gaza.

So the focus of the negotiations should be changed to concentrate on demanding civil rights within Israel – a Greater Israel containing Jews, Muslims and Christians. What the Palestinians need are full citizenship and civil rights, not least the vote, in one unified state.

Three years ago a poll by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research found that 65% of Palestinians over the age of 50 still preferred the two-state solution, compared with 48% of those between the age of 18 and 28. The mood is changing.

The process of a change of focus is well underway but is rarely commented on by outsiders. I would doubt that more than a thousand Russians are aware of it. Since 1966, when martial law was lifted in Israel, the situation of the Arab citizens within Israel has improved greatly.

In 1960 only 70 Arab students were studying at Israeli universities. Today there are more than 20,000, of whom two thirds are female. Around 10,000 Arab Israelis are studying abroad. There is now a growing Arab middle class and at the last election the Arab parties, standing as a unified, group, became the third placed winner of seats in the Knesset (parliament). So why not build on that?

According to Professor As’ad Ghanem of the University of Haifa, 66 of the 112 towns in Israel with more than 5,000 residents have virtually all-Arab populations. Thanks to high birth rates and a young population half of Israel’s Arab citizens are under 20, whereas only 30% of Jewish Israelis are. Some observers, including the U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, predict that before that long Israel will become an apartheid state, with a minority population of Jews ruling over a majority Arab population.

The Israeli premier, Benjamin Netanyahu, has managed to dominate Israel’s internal debate among Jewish voters in a way that hasn’t been done by a leader since David Ben-Gurion. For public consumption he talks of his willingness to negotiate the two-state solution. In practice he cleverly steers all negotiations away from such a deal.

A one-state push by a new Palestinian leadership could cause him grave difficulties, not easy even for him to surmount. No longer could he play the security card that gives political and military spine to his conviction. In a unitary state there would be no military threat to counter, either from West Bank Palestinians or the inhabitants of Gaza or from the armies of Arab neighbours.

Netanyahu would find himself being outmanoeuvred in a unitary state. The Arab parties’ voting strength inside Israel would shoot up. If they could stay more unified than the disparate Jewish parties they would emerge as one of the two strongest parties. They would be strong enough to broker more liberal coalitions.

Ironically, if the Palestinians do decide to make a unitary state their objective they might well end up with a two-state solution as Netanyahu and the Jewish voters run to back such a deal for fear of this alternative.

Thus for Palestinians to focus on a one-state solution is a win-win tactic. There is only a slim chance that a campaign for a unitary state would succeed (although in South Africa it did succeed). If it did all well and good. If the campaign were bought off by a two-state offer from Israel, even better.

It is into this fast moving whirlpool of new ideas that the Russians step. Unlike the Americans and French they have no baggage. It’s a good time for a new interlocutor to arrive on the scene. We should all wish them luck.

* Jonathan Power syndicates his opinion articles. He forwarded this and his previous Viewpoints for publication in IDN-INPS. Copyright: Jonathan Power

I am amazed at the lack of media attention Gary Johnson, Libertarian Party candidate for president, has received. He’s polling at about 10%, and despite the huge negative perception many voters have of Clinton and Trump, the media rarely notes that Johnson is a relatively popular alternative.

With much discussion throughout the political spectrum about mainstream media bias, it does look like the media has pretty much chosen to ignore third party candidates. Surely, if Johnson got more media coverage, his popularity would increase. The media is keeping him from being a viable candidate.

But this past week Johnson did get media attention, when in an interview he didn’t know what Aleppo is. Interesting that a candidate who’s polling around 10% gets no media attention until he’s caught in a gaffe, causing the media to jump on him. Considering his lack of media attention so far, this recent attention may actually help him, in that people will perceive that the media is taking his candidacy seriously.

As I noted before, Johnson would not have to get a large percentage of the votes to win the presidency. If he could just get enough electoral votes to keep Trump and Clinton from getting an electoral majority, the Constitution says the House of Representatives would choose the president from among the top three electoral vote recipients. Surely the Republican House would not choose Clinton. It is likely they would choose Johnson, a former Republican governor, over Trump. The dislike many representatives have for Trump is well-known, and they could claim to be making a non-partisan choice if they chose Johnson.

Despite the media’s negative spin, Johnson’s recent media attention could give him more recognition as a serious candidate. If they started covering everything he had to say, the widespread negative perceptions people have of Clinton and Trump could push more votes his way.

This article appeared at The Beacon.

Exciting times, indeed. The latest bustling instalment in the Clinton-Trump saga of “produce your documents” now goes to the issue of health. The Democratic contender for the White House found herself feeling rather off, which made doctors order that Hillary Clinton take proper “rest”.

It then transpired, according to sources (who is to really know about the Clintons?) that she had been slow off the mark in revealing the diagnosis of pneumonia, a condition that nearly precipitated a fainting spell at a New York memorial ceremony for the September 11, 2001 attacks. On that occasion, Clinton excused herself for feeling “overheated and dehydrated” and required obvious assistance to her van.

“I’m feeling so much better,” she cheerily told CNN on Monday night, “and obviously I should have gotten some rest sooner.” Over the next few days, those medical directives from Dr. Lisa Bardack are set to kick in. Donald Trump, in the meantime, is bound to behave like a merry pig in electoral mud, though he is missing a sparring buddy. “I hope she gets well and gets back on the trail and we’ll be seeing her at the debate.”

The immediate sense about the Clinton campaign was that the veil of secrecy had again been given a few more layers. Rather than releasing material on the subject with speedy resolve, Team Clinton closed ranks, hoping that the press would not feast on an impeding medical bonanza.

Reuters noted that this “health scare revived concerns about a tendency toward secrecy that has dogged her campaign, and underscored the perennial worries about the medical fitness of candidates for one of the world’s most demanding jobs.”

Those running for the White House – and those in it – tend towards hiding the assortment of ailments that could, technically, make them either unelectable or deficient. What had sprung out, notably in this election, is some unwritten obligation to, as one NBC News report put it, “inform the public about her health.”

President Bill Clinton certainly thought so, telling the New York Times in a 1996 interview that the public was entitled “to know the condition of the president’s health.” That particular piece disclosed the president’s battle “with desensitization shots” taken weekly to combat Washington’s notorious tendency to tickle and tease allergies.

The interview may well have been precipitated by the fact that Bill, when a candidate in 1992, had troubles with his voice. Medical opinions started to swarm; speculation about fitness was duly triggered, and has become something of a greater curiosity in recent years. (Witness, for instance, discussion about John Kerry’s triumph against prostate cancer; or Dick Cheney’s heart problems, revealing that even such a dark force can have a troubling ticker.)

That same NBC report digs a bit deeper, asking questions about why hiding such a pneumonia diagnosis was necessary to begin with. Did Clinton, for instance, contract it in the past? The coughing attack last week at an appearance in Cleveland, for instance, was dismissed as a matter of “seasonal allergies”. Did the candidate “lose consciousness at all?”

In all seriousness, the maladies of the White House occupant have been many and fundamental. Healthy, sturdy figures seem oddities. Prior to the First World War, William Taft laboured under morbid obesity, a condition which made him nap during meetings. His successor, the supposedly high-minded visionary, Woodrow Wilson, suffered a series of strokes that left him blind in his left eye and wheelchair bound.

A suitably doped up President John F. Kennedy remained at death’s door for much of his time in office till assassination opened it; Franklin Delano Roosevelt sneakily crafted an image of good, mobile health in the face of polio; and Grover Cleveland took a good four days off to have a tumour removed on a yacht.

Secrecy has become a dull, continuous feature of this presidential battle. Neither candidate has been entirely open to continuous press scrutiny on the trail, or supplying the tips, and trimmings as the important dates are ticked off the calendar.

The idea of “protective pool” coverage is something both find troubling, with Clinton and Trump preferring greater management and staging, with protective guardians. Trump, for instance, has no reporters to accompany him on his plane; Clinton has tended towards a drier pool of correspondents.

Neither candidate seems particularly fit in several ways for the White House, though these have little to do with matters of physique and stamina. Boiling matters down to misogyny and greater scrutiny of Clinton for her supposedly vulnerable sex hardly gets away from the central matter at hand: her unquestionable sense of being unreliable. Only the Clintons could have converted something in the realm of health into a spectacle of secret ponderings and conspiratorial wonder. The crooked timber of humanity continues to creak.

Aleksander Ceferin, the president of Slovenia’s football federation, was overwhelmingly elected as the new head of European football’s governing body UEFA at an extraordinary Congress on Wednesday, Reuters reports.

Ceferin, 48, beat Dutchman Michael van Praag, the only other candidate, by 42 votes to 13 and will succeed Frenchman Michel Platini, who announced his resignation in May after being banned from football for four years for ethics violations.

Ceferin, who is not a member of UEFA’s executive committee, was little known outside his own country until he announced his intention to run in June.

“I am not a showman, I have no ego issues and I am not a man of unrealistic promises,” he told delegates before the vote. Each of UEFA’s 55 member associations had one vote in the election. He added that the “wind of change” was blowing through European football.

Both candidates had promised to help the smaller countries and leagues in the face of a growing divide between a handful of rich clubs and everyone else.

Both agreed that the process which led to last month’s reformulation of the Champions League in favour of clubs from big countries was flawed and said they would fight any attempt to set up a breakaway Super League.

Ceferin did not say, however, whether he would review the decision.

The Slovenian did say though that he would look again at the new structure of the European Championship, with matches spread across several countries leading to semi-finals and final in one place, which comes into place in 2020 and was the brainchild of Platini.

“It’s a great honour but at the same time a great responsibility,” said Ceferin after the decision was announced by acting president Angel Maria Villar.

“My small and beautiful Slovenia is very proud about it and I hope that one day you will also be very proud about it.”

Van Praag said: “Alex and myself have the same goal, look at our programmes. He wanted to do it his way and I wanted to do it my way and today democracy has spoken.”

By Roshan Iyer*

On 20 July 2016, the EU and the Kingdom of Jordan entered into a free trade deal, the first of its kind in the region. If optimally utilised, the deal opens doors for significant investment into Jordan and promises to create a large number of jobs. However, the most salient feature of these jobs will be that a certain percentage of them will be set aside for Syrian refugees. Could this deal mark the first step towards integrating the Syrian refugee population in Jordan?

The Deal: A Brief Overview

The deal reduced restrictions on 52 product groups, including all types of textiles, clothing, fabric and yarns, which Jordan exports. The agreement specifically simplified ‘rules of origin’, the technical criteria that determine whether a specific product qualifies for preferential access under a given trade agreement, if certain conditions are met. Under this 10 year agreement, in order to qualify, producers must be located in specified industrial areas and development zones in Jordan and at least 15 per cent (to increase to 25 per cent in the third year of the agreement) of their employees must be from the 650,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan. This agreement currently applies to 18 Special Economic Zones (SEZ). In conjunction with the deal, the EU pledged 100 million Euros in humanitarian aid to be distributed by international organisations and 200 million Euros to support refugees and finance water, education and energy infrastructure.

Syrian Refugees in Jordan

This is significant as the influx of Syrian refugees to Jordan has increased the rate of youth unemployment in the country by 10 per cent and has exacerbated latent social tensions in the country. This deal attempts to solve some of those problems in a unique way. It not only benefits the Jordanian economy by opening up the massive EU markets but also creates employment for approximately 200,000 Syrian refugees in the region. Initial action on the deal has included Jordan’s investment of $140 million into the infrastructure development of the largest SEZ, the King Hussein Bin Talal Development Area (KHBTDA). This particular investment can easily accommodate the nearly 80,000 refugees in the nearby Za’atari refugee camp. The Jordanian authorities must enforce both workers and human rights in these SEZs, as refugee populations are often exploited as a pool of low-cost disposable labour by profit seeking factory managers.

Implementation

A summer pilot project that was meant to cover 150,000 refugees working in Jordan produced little interest from the Syrians themselves and uncovered flaws in the initiative. Apparently the employment provided is simple repetitive work and that pays correspondingly low wages. Most Syrians tend to gravitate towards informal work that pays higher wages, makes better use of their skills, and does not require costly and complicated paperwork associated with work visas and permits. Jordan could try to reorient these SEZs to attract higher end manufacturing that sees significant value addition of the labour force. Firms in the SEZs benefit from less red-tape and 5 per cent lower income tax. Unlike in the rest of Jordan, in these SEZs, foreign entities enjoy 100 per cent ownership of their firms. These steps provide investors with marginal but significant cost saving in the region and would be optimal for increasing profit margins.

Jordan is currently seeking and encouraging investment in sectors such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and food and beverage production. It is hoped that this would succeed in attracting higher value investments from the rest of West Asia, and particularly from the Gulf countries, which are looking to diversify their investment portfolios. However the KHBTDA is a mere 30 kilometres from the Syrian border, and additional security will be essential to securing high value investments.

Big Picture

The EU-Jordan free trade deal should be viewed as a pilot programme with potential to stabilise the refugee situation in West Asia as well as the social dynamics arising due to it. While the experience of the Palestinian population in Jordan gives a much more sobering lesson on the limits of integration, the deal has the potential to stem many of the negative consequences of population migration.

This is in sharp contrast to the experience of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, who, until recently, did not have the right to work and produced a large body of heavily radicalised youth. If successful, teh EU-Jordan deal could provide significant impetus to a Euro-Mediterranean Free Trade Area connecting the EU with the Levant and the Maghreb. The EU’s trade with countries from these two regions comprise 8.6 per cent of EU’s total external trade. This deal has the potential to create a win-win situation. On one hand, it adds new jobs in Jordan for Jordanians while buttressing the government’s plans to move the country up the value chain in terms of manufacturing. On the other, it also seems to provide a relatively more sustainable stop gap measure for dealing with the consequences of the ongoing civil war in Syria.

* Roshan Iyer
Research Intern, Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies
E-mail: roshan.yr@gmail.com