(EurActiv) — Geopolitical events including the election of Donald Trump and Britain’s Brexit vote are the main reasons for the current economic uncertainty, European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi told EU parliamentarians on Monday.

“Looking at the recent events, it is quite clear that geopolitical uncertainty has become the major source of uncertainty for the months to come,” Draghi warned the European parliament’s economic affairs committee.

The ECB president highlighted, in particular, the decision by British voters to leave the European Union and the risks which the referendum result poses for European economies.

Draghi admitted it was difficult to predict the precise economic implications of Brexit, as these will “notably depend on the timing, progress and final outcome of the upcoming negotiations. “It is therefore important “to have clarity on the negotiation process as soon as possible in order to reduce uncertainty,” he added.

The arrival of US President-elect Donald Trump, a proponent of protectionism, also raises numerous questions on future policy of the world’s biggest economy.

After a strong initial reaction by financial markets, which fell in the face of both events, the subsequent recovery “leads us to the conclusion that markets have been more resilient than one would have expected a few years ago,” said Draghi.

However, these changes “are quite profound and are going to affect the reality of not only the coming months but the coming years,” the ECB chief added.

He said EU members had made “enormous progress” on financial stability and urged them to maintain the single market and “continue strengthening this foundation of our union”.

Renzi’s referendum

There is a growing nervousness in the markets about a weekend referendum in Italy on constitutional reform. Tensions between Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and the European Union have reached boiling point ahead of the poll and he has suggested he would step down if voters reject the proposal.

There are fears his resignation could spark elections in which populist anti-euro parties could do well, and possibly even lead to the country leaving the EU.

Asian traders moved cautiously this morning, with the recent Trump-fuelled rally subdued by profit-taking, uncertainty over the vote in Italy and worries about an OPEC plan to cut oil production.

Markets worldwide have soared since Donald Trump was elected US president, on hopes his spending policies will ramp up the world’s top economy.

However, analysts said dealers were taking a breather as other issues come to the fore, with the oil reduction plan in immediate focus.

There are increasing concerns that members of OPEC will not be able to agree the details of an agreement in September to reduce output and support prices, with Iran and Iraq saying they should be exempt.

OPEC members and non-members including Russia are scurrying to hammer out a deal before the group’s twice-yearly meeting on Wednesday.

With the ascent to power of the neoconservatives in the Bush administration and following 9/11 the disastrous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, foreign-policy realists succeeded in promoting the virtues of the national interest — to the detriment of internationalism.

For some years, progressives, antiwar activists, and traditional conservatives have found common cause in opposition to interventionism.

In some ways, Donald Trump’s election is part of that trend.

For that reason, an academic such as John Mearsheimer who sees himself as being outside the foreign policy establishment, sees potential promise in a Trump presidency but he fears the power that remains entrenched in Washington, that has been referred to derisively as “the Blob” by President Obama’s close adviser, Ben Rhodes.

Mearsheimer warns:

The foreign-policy community, which has deep roots and cuts across both of the major political parties, will go to enormous lengths to tame the new president and make sure he sticks with liberal hegemony.

Should it prevail, there will be more terrorism, more failed attempts to spread democracy, more lost wars, and more death and destruction across the greater Middle East.

But there’s a glaring problem with this analysis: it makes no mention of the fact that even before he takes office, it’s clear from his own campaign statements and from the first appointments he has made, that Donald Trump and his administration are Islamophobic to the core.

It’s not without reason that Trump’s election was instantly being celebrated by jihadists across the world.

“This guy is a complete maniac. His utter hate towards Muslims will make our job much easier because we can recruit thousands,” Abu Omar Khorasani, a top ISIS commander in Afghanistan, told Reuters.

Never since 9/11 must the United States have appeared as such an appealing target for terrorism.

Trump is a ticking time-bomb and it seems like just a matter of time before a terrorist plot, either executed or thwarted, sets him off.

And what happens then?

How is a president who gets triggered by a mild rebuke from the cast of Hamilton going to react to some barbaric act provocation?

Where will Trump’s famous counterpunch land? And how much or little will the president actually understand before he feels driven to take what he proudly brands as “decisive action”?

That’s what most of us have reason to fear and what the terrorists eagerly await, confident as they must be that Trump’s overreaction will have the potential to cause even more harm than Bush and Cheney’s overreaction to 9/11.

But to listen to Mearsheimer and some other realists, you’d think that we should be more concerned about the debatable influence of “the Blob” than we are about Trump’s reactivity.

The increasing number of violent incidents against religious minorities in recent years is a growing concern in Indonesia. A workshop was recently held in Jakarta to discuss the challenges of rising religious intolerance in Indonesia and recommended some remedies to address it.

By Alexander R Arifianto*

Religious groups in Indonesia have been victims of violent attacks in recent years. Religious minorities in Indonesia, such as Buddhists, Christians, Shiites and Ahmadis have been targeted by Muslim vigilante groups. However, Muslims also have become victims of intolerant acts in provinces when they are not in the majority, for instance, in Tolikara, Papua where Christian mobs attacked a number of mosques in July 2015.

On 25 August 2016, the RSIS Indonesia Programme hosted a workshop entitled “The Rise of Religious Intolerance in Contemporary Indonesia” in Jakarta to discuss the reasons why religious intolerance is becoming a growing problem in post-Reformasi Indonesia. Participants were scholars of religious intolerance in Indonesia and activists, representing mainstream Indonesian Islamic organisations Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah, and representatives of Indonesian Ahmadi and Shiite communities.

Causes of Rising Religious Intolerance

Papers presented at the conference discussed a number of causes of rising religious intolerance in Indonesia. Ahmad Najib Burhani, a keynote speaker from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), attributed it to the effect of economic globalisation, which creates economic uncertainty for many religious believers. Furthermore, it creates tensions and mistrust among themselves and other religious communities.

Other speakers noted several trends regarding religious intolerance in Indonesia. For instance, there is an increasing usage of the civilian court system by conservative religious groups to persecute activists representing religious minorities, by accusing them of violating Indonesia’s 1965 blasphemy law. In addition, more local edicts (peraturan daerah or perda) were issued that encourage discrimination against religious minorities.

Examples of such edicts include a decree by the governor of East Java that prohibits Shi’a Islam within his province. In addition, a circular signed by the mayor of Bogor last year prohibits Shiites from celebrating the Ashura holiday within the city.

Ironically, both leaders were initially considered as moderate Muslims with progressive ideas. However, they were forced to issue these edicts to appease conservative Islamic groups which dominated local politics. The growing influence of these groups forced them into an alliance in order to secure their re-election prospects and protect their political power and patronage.

In addition, there is a concern over growing radicalism among Indonesian Muslims, particularly among university-age young adults. This is highlighted by a newly released survey conducted by the NU-affiliated Wahid Foundation stating that 49 percent of its respondents hold intolerant attitudes toward religious minorities and 7.7 percent are willing to commit violent actions against them. Even moderate Islamic groups such as NU also face the threat of increasing radicalism among some of its members, who have openly challenged its promotion of the moderate Islam Nusantara theology in Indonesia.

Representatives of religious minority communities expressed their concerns that they do not receive state protection against attacks from radical groups, despite the religious freedom guarantee enshrined in Indonesia’s national ideology Pancasila. They accused the security apparatus of siding with the perpetrators instead of protecting them. They also pointed out that intolerant incidents against their groups only increased after the 1998 Reformasi with the more democratic and decentralised Indonesian state.

Addressing Intolerance: Some Recommendations

Workshop participants also recommended a number of potential remedies to address the problem. The first is a more inclusive classification of which groups should be considered as religious communities entitled to state protection. Such a definition is included in a bill currently drafted by the Indonesian Ministry of Religious Affairs entitled the Religious Harmony Bill (RUU Kerukunan Beragama).

It defines a religious group to include not just officially recognised religions such as Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism, but also locally based spiritual streams (aliran kepercayaan), which would receive recognition as groups that are entitled to state protection. In the Suharto era, moves to officially recognise aliran kepercayaan was opposed by mainstream Muslims who did not consider it as religion.

The second recommendation is to encourage more interaction between representatives of Muslim community and religious minorities. Opinion surveys have consistently shown that the level of religious tolerance increases as members of a religious group develop friendship networks with other religious groups. Unfortunately, members of different religious groups tend to live separately in Indonesia and do not have regular interactions with each other. To resolve this, the state needs to encourage more interfaith dialogue and cooperation between different religious groups.

The third recommendation is for the national government to reassert its role as a neutral arbiter of religious disputes as directed by the Indonesian constitution. The government should be firm in protecting all religious groups equally and punishing any radical groups irrespective of their religious affiliation.

It should also cancel any local perda that were enacted to promote discrimination against any religious minorities, as the constitution gives the national government the sole authority to regulate religious affairs in Indonesia. Lastly, it should restore the rights of religious minorities that were curtailed under such regulations, for example, by granting them the right to apply for national identity cards (KTP) that would assure them access to public services.

Religious intolerance in Indonesia endangers the country’s pluralist and inclusive foundation as enshrined in the Pancasila. It is perpetuated as consequences of rapid economic globalisation, increased religious radicalism, and the failure of national and local governments to protect religious minorities. The state should commit to protecting all religious groups equally when facing persecution from another group. It needs to assure that all religious groups receive the same protection accorded to them as Indonesian citizens.

*Alexander R Arifianto PhD is a Research Fellow with the Indonesia Programme, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. This is the first in a series.

Apparently I’ve written “fake news” on behalf of Russia without ever receiving a dime from Russia or realizing what I was doing. It took the intrepid reporting of the Washington Post to alert me to what I have been engaged in. My “fake news” has been published in at least 18 Russian propaganda outlets included on the Washington Post-endorsed Enemies List.

They are ahtribune.com, off-guardian.org, opednews.com, antiwar.com, beforeitsnews.com, blackagendareport.com, ronpaulinstitute.org, rt.com (that one is actually Russian), consortiumnews.com, countercurrents.org, counterpunch.org, globalresearch.ca, truth-out.org, truthdig.com, informationclearinghouse.info, washingtonsblog.com, mintpressnews.com, and nakedcapitalism.com.

Since everything I write is also at davidswanson.org it’s a safe bet that that’s a Russian propaganda site as well, even though I hadn’t realized it.

In all seriousness, there is very likely Russian propaganda to be found somewhere, since Russia tried to hire me a-year-and-a-half ago to produce it. I turned them down and blogged about their offer. Quite likely not everyone turns them down. But even voter fraud or intelligent Washington Post articles can be found eventually if you look hard enough.

I have also turned down all invitations to conferences in Russia, due to colleagues’ fears of false accusations that it turns out arrive anyway. I have also repeatedly gone on Russian media and denounced actions by the Russian government, due to the fact that that was what I thought of those actions.

And yet somehow I’ve produced a veritable flood of Russian propaganda, most of it not even mentioning Russia at all. I’ve given some thought to how this has happened. Here’s my best explanation:

I sit in front of my computer. I think about the world. I move my fingers in such a manner that words appear on the screen.

Does that help explain it?

Here, I’ll demonstrate:

It is my belief that the president of the United States is Barack Obama. If this is true, then blaming a pipeline in North Dakota on Donald Trump is a chronological error. Admitting that bizarre error doesn’t make Trump one iota less racist or sexist or authoritarian, since it’s a statement about a completely different topic.

It is my belief that any thaw in the new U.S.-Russian Cold War created by the Obama regime will be a good thing, above all because a nuclear holocaust would be horrible. Agreeing with this does not guarantee that Trump will bring it about. Nor does it suggest that Vladimir Putin is a saintly humanitarian. Nor does it constitute a claim that all U.S. presidents should be white males. This is because it is a comment about a completely different topic from those ones.

It is my belief that dozens of things went wrong with the recent U.S. election, none of which eliminate any of the others. Here is a partial list.

The Democratic Party stacked the primary against its politically and morally superior candidate — in ways that we always knew, ways that we know now, and in other ways that many of us suspect.

The propaganda-free U.S. Corporate Media of Freedom stacked the Republican primary against anyone other than Donald Trump by giving Trump billions of dollars worth of free air time.

The Republican governments of several swing states stripped 7 million disproportionately racial minority voters from the voting rolls.

Donald Trump encouraged voter intimidation.

States provided too few voting machines in racial minority precincts.

Prisoners and felons were stripped of their voting rights.

Residents of U.S. territories were not allowed to vote.

The popular vote winner was denied the win.

Congress was determined largely by gerrymandering.

Winner-take-all systems without ranked-choice voting blocked options.

Votes were counted on unverifiable machines that produced the usual suspicious red shift away from exit-poll results.

The media and the presidential debates “commission” shut out candidates, views, and useful questions.

There was no serious reporting on what the candidates would do if elected about climate change, military spending, wars, or poverty.

Serious scandals were passed over in favor of obsessing with lesser scandals.

Among serious scandals that were passed over I would include near the top of the list: Hillary Clinton took money into her family foundation from foreign governments and weapons makers, and then supported weapons sales from those companies to those governments, resulting in massive death and destruction.

Among serious scandals that were passed over I would also include near the top of the list: Donald Trump encouraged racism, bigotry, hatred, and violence, and threatened to “kill families” in wars aimed at “stealing oil.”

Among the lesser scandals that ate up air time, I would put near the bottom: Without any proof, Trump was accused of being an agent of Russia, and Russia was accused of interfering in the election.

Tokenism was, once again, promoted as meaningful.

I believe that every population that has U.S. troops on or within its borders should have a vote in the U.S. presidential election. When Russians or anyone else in the world are pleased by the outcome, I take that to be a good thing. My taking that to be a good thing does not erase any negative aspects of that outcome, because one thing is not identical to lots of other things.

Why did people vote for Trump? For the most part they did not. He got fewer votes than Hillary Clinton, who herself got fewer votes than either of the two candidates in recent U.S. presidential elections. But some voted for Trump for the same reason they backed Bernie Sanders: they wanted to reject the establishment, no matter what form that rejection took. Some voted for him because they bought into his racism, bigotry, and scapegoating. Some simply couldn’t stomach any more Clintons. Some wouldn’t vote for a woman. Some mistakenly believed that Trump would help them. But these groups overlap, as do these reasons.

Why is it acceptable in the United States to make fun of poor white people, to mock their speech and their dentistry, to condemn them in ways that are simply forbidden with other groups? Why is there no Trailer Park Studies Department? Why does the very idea sound ludicrous, while ethnic studies departments of all non-white varieties are very serious institutions? One justification for this is that poor rural white people are racist, and that it is perfectly fine to be cruel to racists. That is simply false and horribly misguided; it is not simply fine to be cruel to anyone. And that fact does not mean that racism and sexism are acceptable, because that would be a completely different claim.

A vicious cycle can be produced in which people who perceive anti-racist and anti-sexist campaigns as directed against them consequently embrace their racism more strongly, resulting in more opposition to their racism and to them. This can be compounded by the usual delusions to the effect that government assistance hurts people, while tax cuts for billionaires help people. This can be reinforced by systems of government assistance that do not benefit everyone, as would a basic income, or single-payer healthcare, or free college, or free job training, or guaranteed vacation, or sustainable infrastructure, instead of systems designed merely to aid and stigmatize the very poorest.

Recognizing the blind spots of identity politics or the madness of the new McCarthyism do not mean that election results are always all to be blamed on liberals, since that conclusion would require erasing numerous other problems listed above.

Imagining that elections carry as much or more importance than building a nonviolent movement for revolutionary change is a deep mistake made by most people on earth, including in Russia.

Leftwing academics, writers and journalists have written tendentious articles where they manage to transform reactionary political leaders into working class heroes and present their dreadful policies as progressive advances. Recently, leftist pundits throughout US and Latin America have plagued the reading public with gross distortions of historical events contributing, in their own way, to the demise of the left and the rise of the right.

The leading international figures in this deceptive leftwing punditry include the famous Noam Chomsky, once eulogized by the New York Times (NYT) as ‘America’s most important public intellectual’. Such effusion is not surprising: Professor Chomsky and the NYT both supported the presidential candidacy of the warmongering Hillary Clinton, the perpetrator of seven wars that uprooted 20 million people from Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, sub-Sahara Africa (Is this any different from Stalin in the ’30’s?) and author/supporter of numerous coups and attempted ‘regime changes’ in Brazil, Honduras, Venezuela, Paraguay and Ukraine.

The same MIT intellectual turned his prestige-laden ire on the authors of the definitive critique of the pro-Israel lobby (The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt (2007)) and slandered the most effective activist group against Israeli colonial land grabbers – the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS). So much for America’s most ‘prominent intellectual’ – a crypto-warmonger, who not only supported the candidacy of the blood-gorged war goddess Clinton, but has become a leader of the post-election propaganda and ‘regime change’ campaign to overthrow the buffoonish President-Elect Donald Trump. Chomsky’s wild, hysterical diatribe against Trump claimed nothing less than the world now faced the gravest danger in all its history with the election of the real estate-casino King Donald. Noam deftly papered over his defeated candidate Hillary’s vow to unleash possible nuclear war by shooting down Russian planes over Syria – in opposition to Trump’s reasoned proposal to work with Putin in ending the brutal war in Syria.

There are different versions of the ‘leftist’-imperial-collaborator apologist Chomsky throughout Latin America. One is Emir Sader.

Emir Sader, professor of Political Science at the University of Rio de Janeiro and author of the book celebrating the first ‘workers’ President of Brazil, Lula DaSilva (Without Fear of Being Happy: Lula, The Workers Party and Brazil (1991)) is a frequent contributor to the leading ‘progressive’ daily newspapers throughout Latin America, including La Jornada of Mexico, as well as the influential bi-monthly The New Left Review in Great Britain.

Needless to say, Sader never cited any inconvenient facts when praising the leadership of Lula Da Silva and Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s last two elected presidents from the Workers Party. For example, Sader omitted the fact that President Da Silva implemented an IMF-mandated austerity program upon taking office. He tiptoed around the Wall Street Bankers’ awarding Lula a “Man of the Year” prize. Professor Sader forgot to cite the abrupt drop in farmland expropriations (guaranteed under Brazil’s Constitution) for rural landless workers movement (MST) – leaving hundreds of thousands of landless peasant families under thin plastic tents. His ‘Worker President’ Lula appointed neo-liberal economists and central bank directors to his cabinet. Lula supported the interests of big agro-business, big oil and big mining oligarchs who slashed and burned the Amazon rain forest murdering indigenous leaders, peasants and ecologists who resisted the devastation and displacement.

Sader lauded, as ‘generous’, the monthly ‘food baskets’, equivalent to $60 dollars, which the local Workers Party operative passed out to about 30 million destitute families to create a rural client-base. Sader and his string of leftist followers in North and South America, England and France never attacked the high level bribery, fraud and corruption linking Workers Party leaders to construction multi-nationals and Petrobras, the state oil company and billions of state contracts.

Sader and his international acolytes celebrated Brazil’s ascent to world power as a member of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) with Lula as a leader in bringing the poor into the ‘middle class’. He never stopped to analyze how Lula managed to balance the interests of the IMF, Wall Street, agro-business, bankers while enticing a huge voting majority among the poor and workers.

Lula’s ‘miracle’ was a temporary mirage, its reality evident to only a few critics who pointed to the reliance on a prolong commodity export boom. The business elites backed Lula because of state subsidies and tax incentives. Hundreds of rightwing Congress people and cabinet members jumped on the Workers Party bandwagon to enjoy the payola payoffs from contractors. But by the end of Lula’s eight year term, exports of primary commodities to China sharply declined, commodity prices collapsed and the business elites and bankers turned their backs on the ‘Worker President’ as they looked for a new regime to rescue them by sacrificing the poor.

The rest of the story is well known: Former PT allies launched corruption investigations to pull down the PT government. Twice-elected President Dilma Rouseff was impeached in a bizarre legislative coup, orchestrated by a corrupt PT ally from a rightwing party, Congressional head Eduardo Cunhal; Rouseff’s corrupt Vice President Temer took over and Lula was indicted for corruption by rightwing prosecutors appointed by the PT. The House of Cards in Brasilia became a grotesque comic opera with all the major players waltzing in and out of jail (except the impeached Rouseff).

But Professor Sader did not looked back in contemplation, let alone class analysis, at the 13 years of Worker Party power in coalition with the worst of Brazil’s crooks. Instead, he bellowed that Lula’s former allies, the corrupt politicians from the rightwing parties, had unjustly ousted the PT. These ‘traitors’ were the same politicians that Professor Sader embraced as ’strategic allies’ from 2003 to 2014. Any serious observer could understand why Lula’s was first embraced and then divorced by the financial elite – for its own class interest.

Lula and Dilma’s ‘Three-Cornered Ménage’ with Bankers

Contrary to Sader’s PT propaganda and the predictably ill-informed kudos of Chomsky, et al, the Workers Party policies benefited the banks and the agro-business elites above all others, to the detriment of the popular movements and the Brazilian people. Brazilian investment bank revenues rose from $200 million dollars in 2004 to $1.6 billion dollars in 2007 and remained close to the peak until the commodity crash reduced bank revenues drastically. Likewise, the financial speculators and corporate monopolies took part in the capitalist bonanza under Presidents Lula and Dilma. Merger and acquisitions (M & A’s) rose from $40 billion in 2007 to $140 billion in 2010 but then sharply declined with the drop in world commodity prices down to $25 billion in 2015. The banks made billions of dollars in management fees for arranging the M&A’s over the eight-year period (2007-2015).

The Fall of Banking Revenues and the Rise of Corporate Activists

If we examine Brazilian merger and acquisitions activity and investment bank revenues, one sees a close correlation with the rise and fall of the PT regime. In other words, when the bankers, speculators and monopolists flourished under the PT policies, they supported the government of Lula and Dilma. When the export agro-mining commodity boom collapsed, slashing profits, management fees and interest, the financial sector immediately mobilized their rightwing allies in congress, allied prosecutors and judges and successfully pushed for Dilma’s impeachment, Lula’s indictment, the arrest of former PT allies and the appointment of Vice President Temer to the Presidency.

With the recession fully underway, the business and banking elite demanded large-scale, long-term cuts in public expenditures, slashing budgets for the poor, education, health, housing and pensions, severe wage reduction and a sharp limit on consumer credit. At the same time they pushed through the privatization of the multi-billion dollar petroleum industry (Petrobras) and related state industries, as well as public ports, airlines and airfields, highways and whatever else among Brazil’s public jewels could compensate for their drop in investment bank revenues and management fees for M&As.

For the finance sector, Lula and Dilma’s main crime lay in their reluctance to impose the brutal ‘new austerity policies’ fast enough or totally privatize public enterprises, reverse subsidies to the destitute, freeze wages and slash social budgets for the next two decades.

As soon as the economic elite successfully ousted President Dilma Rousseff through a legislative ‘coup’, their newly enthroned (Vice) President Michel Temer rose to the task: He immediately announced the privatization of Petrobras and froze health and educational budget for the next twenty years. Instead of recognizing the true nature of the ruling class interests behind the coup against Dilma and the arrest of Lula, the PT party hacks and writers denounced political ‘plotters’ and “traitors” and imperialist agents . . . puppets who were only following orders from the banking and export elite.

After the fall of Dilma and faced with resounding defeats in the 2016 municipal elections wiping out almost all of the PT big city mayors and city officials, Lula finally called for a ‘Left Front’ – fifteen years after having pursued an allied bankers’ . . . front!

Reflections on a Debacle

What stands out is how pro-PT intellectuals and writers have failed to understand that the party’s vulnerability, opportunism and corruption were present early on and reflected the class composition, policy decisions and lack of ethical principles among the PT leadership. Wide-eyed and seduced at their warm reception at PT functions and international conferences, the ill-informed US, Canadian and European intellectuals understood nothing about the real structural and strategic flaws within the party and instead published hundreds of shallow ‘puff pieces’ about Lula’s poverty reduction, minimum wage increases, and consumer credit – ignoring the real nature of class power in Brazil.

Apparently, they threw out two centuries of even the most basic grammar school level history lessons describing the cyclical boom and bust nature of commodity export economies. They ignored a half-century of left-right ‘populist front’ governments, which collapsed into coups once bourgeois support was withdrawn – and instead whined about ‘betrayals’ – as if the elite were capable of anything else.

The fundamental problem was not the stratospheric intellectual pronouncements – the key was the economic and political strategies and policies under Lula and Dilma

The PT Presidents failed to diversify the economy, institute an industrial program, impose content regulations on foreign producers, nationalize the banks and monopolies, prosecute corrupt political officials (including PT leaders) and stop the practice of funding political campaigns through kick-back rewards for rotten deals with construction contractor-cronies.

Once in power, the PT ran expensive campaigns with heavy mass media saturation, while rejecting their own twenty years of effective class struggle that had built the political party with a strong working class cadre.

By the time it was elected to the presidency, the PT membership had shifted dramatically – from workers to middle class professionals. By 2002, 70% of active party members were professionals. They formed the leadership base running for office, designed the new strategies and forged new allies.

The PT discarded its popular class allies in order to gain short-term capitalist alliances based on the export commodity boom economy. During the height of the ‘boom’ they managed to satisfy the bankers and stockbrokers, while providing some subsidies to workers and the poor. When the budgets and the boom economy crashed, the business allies turned against the PT. Meanwhile, the PT had also lost its mass base, which was experiencing double-digit unemployment. The once reliable PT voters knew that, while they suffered, some of their ‘Workers Party’ leaders had become millionaires through corruption and were living in ’soap-opera’-style luxury. They could imagine them consulting their gold Rolex watches so not to miss an appointment with the corrupt contractors…

Lacking critical and knowledgeable advisers, depending on allies and ministers from the capitalist elite, abandoning the politics of class struggle, and failing to implement any national industrial strategy – including the most basic processing of Brazil’s agro-mineral products, the Left disintegrated losing Latin America’s historic best opportunity to build a workers’ and peasant government from below.

The fiasco of left intellectuals and politicos is not confined to the case of Brazil. The same capitulation to the hard-right keeps happening: In the US, France, England, Greece and Portugal, there were the Bernie Sanders, Noam Chomskys and a small army of left journalists and identity activists rushing to support the candidacy of Hillary Clinton–the most bellicose imperial politician in recent memory. Despite her record of supporting or launching seven wars, creating twenty-million refugees and over one million deaths, despite her reckless advocacy of nuclear war with Russia over Syria, the self-declared ‘anti-fascists’ joined hands to support a recidivist catastrophe-candidate, whose only real success would be her million-dollar speeches before the financial elite and speculators! But then again, the famously furious Greek Left voted for Syriza’s Alexis Tsipras who then imposed history’s worst peacetime austerity program on the people of Greece. It must console Lula and Dilma to know they have plenty of company among the left politicians who speak to the workers and work for the bankers.

By Debora Iozzi*

In October 2016, an Italian tribunal asked for a life sentence against Jorge Troccoli, a member of Uruguayan secret services, accused of torture during Operation Condor­­­ ­– an intelligence network constructed by several Latin American countries during the 1970s to fight alleged Marxist subversion. Key members were the governments of Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, and Bolivia with Peru and Ecuador episodically participating. Under this initiative, thousands of people were kidnapped, tortured, forcibly disappeared, and murdered. Operations were not fully contained within any single state, but they crossed international borders and even reached as far as Europe. A number of Latin American countries involved seem to still be haunted by the ghosts of a bitter past and have been reticent to use all the information in their possession to do justice. In some cases, people had to wait many years or rely on the support from their second nationality country, such as the ongoing Italian trial, in order to have some hope of compensation. In recent years, the disclosure of state archives is helping to establish the truth about these terrible events, but the families of the victims are still waiting for complete justice to be found. Nonetheless, matters are moving forward and the search for truth and justice is being slowly advanced.

The Mercosur of Terror

Operation Condor (Operación Cóndor) was set up on November 25, 1975 in Santiago de Chile, during the First Inter-American Working Meeting of Intelligence, which convened the body of leaders from the feared military intelligence services of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay.[i] Led by Manuel Contreras, leader of the Chilean secret police (Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional, DINA), they decided to create a secret coordination between right-wing military dictatorships in order to combat leftist insurgences and eliminate political opponents. This covert hemispheric program of political repression was designed to destroy any traces of soviet influence, but it was also geared to be used by the authoritarian regimes in order to eliminate more moderate movements advocating political and structural change. There were many targets of this repression: security forces chased dissidents, leftists, union and peasant leaders, nuns and priests, intellectuals, and students.[ii] Among the most famous aggressions, were the murder of the Chilean Foreign Minister – under Allende’s government, Orlando Letelier in Washington DC, the murders of the nationalist former president of Bolivia, Juan José Torres, and of General Prats in Buenos Aires, and the attempt against the life of the Chilean Christian Democrat leader Bernando Leighton in Rome[iii] Plan Condor was divided into three phases: cooperation among national and transnational military services, covert actions, and assassinations. Paramilitary groups carried out illegal, and sometimes extraterritorial, operations using disappearance, torture, and extrajudicial execution to eliminate political enemies. The hidden apparatus of terror and social control by right wing dictatorships in Latin America, a parallel state, used warfare tactics and counterinsurgency methods that were taught to them during the military training at the School of the Americas.[iv] Operation Condor served two different objectives. For the Latin American leaders, it was a means to eliminate all possible opposition by violating all basic human rights with impunity. For the United States, who supported the plan, it was a means to promote its national security during the Cold War. In fact, the military and security forces of the United States viewed everything, even domestic and social conflicts abroad through the lens of the Cold War confrontation between West and East.

Another Step Towards Justice: the Italian Trial

The Italian judicial authorities, led by the Assistant Public Prosecutor Giancarlo Capaldo, conducted an investigation on those responsible, in the aiding, and abetting of Operation Condor. The Italian justice is investigating and prosecuting for the murder and disappearance of 23 Italian citizens, living in Latin America, which occurred between 1973 and 1978. The victims include Juan Bosco Maino Canales, Omar Roberto Venturelli Leonelli, Juan José Montiglio Murúa, and Jaime Patricio Donato Avendaño.[v] Many of the people responsible for those crimes, among which the most well-known are former Chilean commander of DINA Manuel Contreras and the Argentine dictator Jorge Rafael Videla, died or are imprisoned in other countries.[vi] [vii] Today, the only one facing a real possibility of being jailed is Jorge Troccoli.

Jorge Nestor Fernandez Troccoli, born in Montevideo in 1947, is a former officer of Fusileros Navales (FUSNA), the Uruguayan Navy, with Italian citizenship. In 2007, he fled to Italy in order to escape charges in his country for playing an active role in the atrocities perpetrated under Operation Condor. The former officer of FUSNA thought he had found a safe haven in Italy, returning to Marina di Camerota, the town where his grandparents once lived. But, his past has finally caught up to him. Even though the former naval officer confessed his actions in a letter to the newspaper El Pais in 1996, where he wrote objectively on the tortures and killings of prisoners during the period of military rule, between 1973 and 1985, he declared himself innocent before the Italian judges.[viii][ix] The “Torturer” affirmed that back in those days he just followed his superiors’ orders, the same defense that many Nazi soldiers used at the Nuremberg trial, and that he did not know about the existence of Operation Condor.[x] His lawyers are trying to make him appear as just a retired man, living a peaceful life in Italy, who has been involved in the trial’s proceeding just because he was a member of the Naval service.[xi] But, there are many testimonies that demonstrate his direct involvement. Carlos Alberto Dosil De Caro, who was kidnapped and tortured by FUSNA, recognized Troccoli’s face and voice.[xii] Cristina Fernandez, who was arrested at her workplace, the Uruguayan Cooperative Center, and then tortured, also recognized the voice of her persecutor.[xiii] The Uruguayan authorities had requested his extradition since he was sentenced for the disappearance of several members of the former Uruguayan opposition group. The Italian Ministry of Justice refused it because according to Italian law, this type of measure is not allowed against an Italian citizen.[xiv] Nonetheless, Troccoli is now facing a request for life penalties in the Italian trial, set up in Rome. The sentencing is expected to be carried out by next January.

Other perpetrators of these atrocities could have taken refuge in other European countries, especially in Italy, where many immigrated when the dictatorships ended or following the economic crisis in Argentina in 2001. People fleeing the region could have found support and assistance in this European country because of the connections between Latin American dictatorships and Italian economic and financial powers. [xv] For instance, it is believed that the P2, the deviated Italian Masonic lodge, led by Licio Gelli, had murky relations with the Argentine dictatorship.[xvi]

Crimes Against Humanity and Justice

The precise number of victims from Operation Condor is unknown, as these actions were all illegal and hidden. However, it is estimated that about 50,000 people were murdered or disappeared (among them 3,000 children) and 400,000 people were imprisoned.[xvii] One of the consequences of those atrocities has even been the coinage of a new word related to one of the most terrible abuses: desaparecido, a person who has disappeared, presumed killed by members of the armed services or the police.[xviii] Desaparecidos are people who do not exist anymore and according to Videla they are neither alive nor dead.[xix] The children of desaparecidos were relocated to other families in order to grow with the “right” values and education. A practice that much resembles what the Nazis used to do with Jewish children. The similarities between the Holocaust and the atrocities committed during the 1970’s in Latin America are numerous. Indeed, the barbarities perpetrated during the Second War World ignited a process in international law that brought about the creation of new concepts, such as the accountability of officers or leaders for crimes against humanity and the development of international criminal law. Traditionally, the state was the entity tasked with protecting human rights and providing redress when they were violated, but it emerged the idea that there are some crimes that are so dreadful that it is in the common interest of the whole international community to prosecute their authors and put an end to their perpetration. This leads to questions on the dominant understandings of territorial jurisdiction over human rights violations. In the case of the crimes committed by the executors of the Operation Condor, not only did they infringe upon fundamental human rights, but also they were often transnational violations. They usually involved perpetrators from two different countries or the victims who were not citizens of the country where they were kidnapped.[xx]

Latin America has been a strong supporter of the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court; fifteen out of nineteen Latin American countries have become State Parties.[xxi] The jurisdiction of the court is limited to crimes committed after its entrance into force. Otherwise, the crimes against humanity committed under the Operation Condor, would have fallen under this statute and, even with countries unable or unwilling to prosecute the criminals, the ICC Prosecutor would have accorded justice to the victims. However, this is a significant, or at least a small step, for Latin American countries to take, which still have an ongoing issue of “dealing with the past,” toward ensuring that the rule of law will be respected, and that such crimes will not again be committed or justified.

New Files Being Disclosed

After years of impunity, Latin American countries have started to deal with the restoration of justice and the disclosure of the truth and actual responsibilities for that period of terror. Last May, an Argentine court found 15 military personnel guilty of crimes committed following the Operation Condor’s instructions.[xxii] Many murderers and torturers were able to escape justice because of immunities granted, network of aiding or age. Nevertheless, many more were able to keep living peacefully with much information still being hidden in the archives within embassies, ministries, and episcopacies. Paraguay’s “archives of terror” were a treasure trove of information, with the names of people detained, killed, and authors of the atrocities recorded. In October 2014, the Italian President of the Senate, Pietro Grasso, handed in to the Argentine Foreign Minister, Hector Timmerman, the last records of the archives of the diplomatic Italian files on Argentina during the dictatorship, including the stories of all the disappeared people of Italian or Argentine-Italian nationalities.[xxiii] Italy has been the first European country to do so, in an effort to draw out the stories of the individuals that were broken by the abuses. The leaders of the Catholic Church were often accused of hiding the truth and of having supported, or at the very least silenced, the abuses committed by the right-wing dictatorships. Nonetheless, many priests and nuns were victims of this persecution. Among them was Omar Venturelli Leonelli, an Italian-Chilean priest, who had led the occupation of the lands given to the European colonists. Before being arrested and killed, he was suspended by his bishop, Bernardino Piñera.[xxiv] Now, after cataloguing the files, the Vatican and the Argentine bishops decided to make them available for the victims’s families looking for the truth. 3,000 files will be released, but they are just a small fraction and they are probably not even the most embroiling.[xxv] This decision was taken directly by Pope Francis, “in the service of truth, justice and peace”, who was also accused of complicity with the political elite during the years of the Dirty War (Guerra Sucia).[xxvi] But, many more archives and documents are awaiting to be disclosed, in all the countries of Latin America.

Still A Long Road Ahead

“It happened, so it can happen again” wrote Primo Levi in his masterpiece “The Drowned and the Saved”, referring to the Holocaust. The atrocities and the human rights violations committed in Latin America during the 70s shows that Levi was not far off. Indeed, there are many similarities between those two 20th-century barbarities: the tortures, the murders, and the reallocation of children from one family to the other. Operation Condor was an international joint criminal association operating not only in Latin America, but also abroad. There were many perpetrators, but even more accomplices, in all countries and at all levels. After years of impunity, the wind of justice started to blow in Latin America. Many trials were set up and many were convicted. The relatives of the victims that could not obtain justice in their home countries presented their stories everywhere they could. In Italy, after years of investigation, the prosecutor asked for the life penalty for Troccoli, a torturer under Operation Condor. Archives have been opened in many countries, and papers with names and responsibilities are emerging. However, a lot is still missing. In Latin America, governments perpetrated the worst violations of human rights standards in the 70s against their own citizens, amid international silence and in some cases complicity. Things have been hidden for too long; too many people are awaiting to see the guilty being held accountable before it is too late. It is important to keep raising the attention of the collective consciousness on those historical happenings because they are not just history book materials; their transparent investigation and knowledge is the unique way to restore peace and trust in the community.

*Debora Iozzi, Research Associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

[i] J. Patrice McSherry. “Tracking the Origins of a State Terror Network: Operation Condor.” Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 29, No. 1, Brazil: The Hegemonic Process in Political and Cultural Formation (Jan. 2002), pp. 38-60. Accessed October 24, 2016. http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3185071.pdf

[ii] Ibidem

[iii] Ibidem

[iv] Ibidem

[v] Roma, al via il processo sul “Piano Condor”: alla sbarra gli orrori delle dittature sudamericane, 21 imputati. T: news. February 12, 2015. Accessed November 8, 2016.

http://notizie.tiscali.it/feeds/Roma-al-via-il-processo-sul-Piano-Condor-alla-sbarra-gli-orrori-delle-dittature-sudamericane-21-imputati/

[vi] Roma, al via il processo sul “Piano Condor”: alla sbarra gli orrori delle dittature sudamericane, 21 imputati. T: news. February 12, 2015. Accessed November 8, 2016.

http://notizie.tiscali.it/feeds/Roma-al-via-il-processo-sul-Piano-Condor-alla-sbarra-gli-orrori-delle-dittature-sudamericane-21-imputati/

[vii] A processo trenta assassini e torturatori del piano condor dell’America Latina. The Post Internazionale. February 3, 2015. Accessed November 8, 2016.

http://www.tpi.it/blog/brog/a-processo-trenta-assassini-e-torturatori-del-piano-condor-dell-america-latina

[viii] Uruguayans recall ‘dirty war’. UPI. May 7, 1996. Accessed November 1, 2016. http://www.upi.com/Archives/1996/05/07/Uruguayans-recall-dirty-war/1520831441600/

[ix] Piano Condor, la procura di Roma chiede ergastolo per il presunto torturatore dei desaparecidos. Corriere della Sera. October 15, 2016. Accessed October 21, 2016. http://www.corriere.it/cronache/16_ottobre_15/piano-condor-procura-roma-chiede-ergastolo-il-presunto-torturatore-desaparecidos-97d6d416-92ae-11e6-aedf-4afd1bcdf31b.shtml

[x] Ibidem

[xi] Processo Condor, a sorpresa si presenta “il torturatore” Troccoli. L’Huffington Post. February 2, 2015. Accessed November 4, 2016. http://www.huffingtonpost.it/2015/02/13/processo-condor-troccoli_n_6679058.html

[xii] Piano Condor, la procura di Roma chiede ergastolo per il presunto torturatore dei desaparecidos. Corriere della Sera. October 15, 2016. Accessed October 21, 2016. http://www.corriere.it/cronache/16_ottobre_15/piano-condor-procura-roma-chiede-ergastolo-il-presunto-torturatore-desaparecidos-97d6d416-92ae-11e6-aedf-4afd1bcdf31b.shtml

[xiii] Processo Condor, i sopravvissuti accusano Troccoli. Il Manifesto. October 20, 2015. Accessed November 8, 2016. http://ilmanifesto.info/processo-condor-i-sopravvissuti-accusano-troccoli

[xiv] Giustizia: ministero rifiuta estradizione ex ufficiale Uruguay. Il Velino sera. November 5, 2008. Accessed November 18, 2016. http://www.ilvelino.it/it/article/2008/11/05/giustizia-ministero-rifiuta-estradizione-ex-ufficiale-uruguay/2c2d1230-35eb-422d-8d88-5d5f6663bfe0/

[xv] Desaparecidos: il Piano Condor e l’Italia, una ferita ancora aperta. MicroMega. November 3, 2015. Accessed October 24, 2016. http://temi.repubblica.it/micromega-online/desaparecidos-il-piano-condor-e-litalia-una-ferita-ancora-aperta/

[xvi] P2 e dittatura argentina. Il Fatto Quotidiano. March 23, 2012. Accessed November 8, 2016. http://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2012/03/23/dittatura-argentina/199585/

[xvii] Desaparecidos: il Piano Condor e l’Italia, una ferita ancora aperta. MicroMega. November 3, 2015. Accessed October 24, 2016. http://temi.repubblica.it/micromega-online/desaparecidos-il-piano-condor-e-litalia-una-ferita-ancora-aperta/

[xviii] Oxford Living Dictionaries. Desaparecidos. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/desaparecido

[xix] Desaparecidos: il Piano Condor e l’Italia, una ferita ancora aperta. MicroMega. November 3, 2015. Accessed October 24, 2016. http://temi.repubblica.it/micromega-online/desaparecidos-il-piano-condor-e-litalia-una-ferita-ancora-aperta/

[xx] Francesca Lessa. “Justice beyond Borders: The Operation Condor Trial and Accountability for Transnational Crimes in South America.” International Journal of Transitional Justice, 2015, 9, pp.494–506. Accessed October 31, 2016. http://ijtj.oxfordjournals.org/

[xxi] Salvador Herencia Carrasco. “Implementation of War Crimes in Latin America: An Assessment of the Impact of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court”. International Criminal Law Review 10 (2010) 461–473. Accessed November 4, 2016. http://www.iccnow.org/documents/SHC-_Implementation_of_War_Crimes_in_Latin_America.pdf

[xxii] Argentine Military Officials Guilty for Plan Condor Crimes. Telesur. May 27, 2016. Accessed November 4, 2016

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Argentine-Military-Officials-Guilty-for-Plan-Condor-Crimes-20160526-0044.html

[xxiii] Con la consegna degli ultimi archivi sui desaparecidos in possesso del MAE, conclusa la visita del Presidente del Senato in Argentina. Tribuna Italiana. October 23, 2014. Accessed November 4, 2016. http://tribunaitaliana.com/Attualit/Con-la-consegna-degli-ultimi-archivi-sui-desaparecidos-in-possesso-del-MAE-conclusa-la-visita-del-Presidente-del-Senato-in-Argentina/2930#sthash.eutJP099.dpuf

[xxiv] Desaparecidos: il Piano Condor e l’Italia, una ferita ancora aperta. MicroMega. November 3, 2015. Accessed October 24, 2016. http://temi.repubblica.it/micromega-online/desaparecidos-il-piano-condor-e-litalia-una-ferita-ancora-aperta/

[xxv][xxv] Vatican, Argentine church to open “dirty war” archives. Washington Post. October 25, 2016. Accessed October 26, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/vatican-argentine-church-to-open-dirty-war-archives/2016/10/25/8caa532e-9aa6-11e6-b552-b1f85e484086_story.html

[xxvi] Ibidem

Ahmad Montazeri the son of a high-ranking political and religious cleric has received a 21 year prison sentence for publishing an audio file belonging to his father that proves state involvement in the execution of 4000 political prisoners in Iran in the year 1988.

On 27 November 2016, Ahmad Montazeri spoke with Zamaneh Media and confirmed his sentencing to 21 years in prison. He was tried in the city of Qom where he resides and at the Special Clerical Court, as he himself is a cleric.

On 9 Aug 2016, Ahmad Montazeri, son of Hossein Ali Montazeri who passed in 2009 released an audio file for the first time revealing the conversations of the late ayatollah with a number of high ranking officials in the Islamic Republic regime that all played key roles in the mass execution of political prisoners in Iran in the year 1988. In the audio file, the late Montazeri objects to the mass killings of political prisoners and the officials each have their say on the subject: mostly apologetic, they justify the executions.

After the publishing of the audio file, Ahmad Montazeri was immediately interrogated and pressured to remove the file from his late father’s website. By the time Ahmad Montazeri was arrested, the file disseminated widely in the social media and media outlets outside of the Iran.

Ahmad Montazeri spoke with Zamaneh Media’s Freshteh Ghazi and said that the sentencing has left him astonished: “I was notified of the court’s decision today. I have 20 days to appeal the decision. The court that tried my case was headed by an honorable judge who talked to me and I think he was satisfied with the answers I gave. I was hoping for an acquittal. It took them a while to deliver judgment and I thought maybe this is a sign of acquittal. But I guess the sentence was dictated from elsewhere because the judge with the qualities I know of him could have not ruled for this sentence.”

In the text of the judgment Ahmad Montazeri’s sentence has been reduced from 21 years to 6 years in prison because his brother is a martyr. The court has also ruled that his clerical status is defrocked for disciplinary measure for three years.

Ahmed Montazeri says the reduction in his sentence is as much illegal as the sentence itself: “Which law is it that allows for 15 years reduction of a sentence for a convict based on the martyrdom of their sibling?”

Ahmad Montazeri believes that Special Clerical Court and the intelligence officials that interrogated him are trying to scare him away from publishing the rest of the files he has: “they want to prevent the release of more files and documents.”

The file that was leaked in Aug 2016 is important evidence that documents the voice of those carrying out a massacre of prisoners and captives without due process or trails. It is important because those involved with the executions are still in power and because initiatives to challenge state impunity with regards to the execution of political prisoners in 1980s Iran are ongoing.

Ahmad Montazeri says the 21 year sentence will not silence him or stop him from releasing other documents he has in his possession: “If I feel I am obligated to deliver on my duty, I will do so. It depends on the time and the conditions in the future. Maybe if I am in prison the files will be published sooner than intended.”

Commenting on the main concerns of the court, Montazeri says: “the court was deciding if my publishing of the audio file is leaking of regime’s secrets. This is despite the fact that my father had already written about this meeting with details in his book. So my publishing of the audio file was not exactly a leak.”

He goes to it say that the text of the judgment and the final ruling was not all about the audio file: “for example my interviews with you [Zamaneh Media] and others were also included in the text of the judgment.”

The court therefore decides that based on Montazeri’s interviews, his most recent speech in a memorial event for his late father, and his constant support for the Green Movement leaders he is not really sorry about the publishing of the audio file.

In 1988, over the course of two months, some estimates suggest that between four to five thousand prisoners were killed.

Ahmad Montazeri’s father because of his oppositions to these killings and the state principle of the Rule of the Jurist (Velayat-e Faqih) in IRI, was put under house arrest from 1997 to his death in 2009.

Ahmad Montazeri has released the audio file in a time that IRI still executes political prisoners in masses and without due process or a trial.

By Pakistan features quite low on the US priority list. Under the Trump presidency, the low-key US-Pakistan relations are likely to continue. However, the security-centric ties will be trouble-prone and bumpy.

By Abdul Basit*

Brexit shook Europe; Trump’s victory has shocked the whole world. Perhaps the 11/9 shock is more baffling than the 9/11attacks. Trump not only fooled the 24/7 US media pundits but also belied the pre-electoral projections which regarded Hillary Clinton as the favourite candidate.

After his victory, US friends and foes are equally worried about Trump’s future course of action. During his election campaign, he had blown hot and cold against his allies and opponents alike. For instance, he praised the Russian President Putin, the US archrival, for fighting Islamic radicalism and criticised NATO, the US closest ally, as a redundant organisation that should be disbanded.

Response in Pakistan

In Pakistan, Trump’s victory evoked mixed responses about the possible impact of his presidency on US.-Pakistan relations. Currently, Islamabad features quite low on Washington’s priority list. What does Trump’s victory mean for Pakistan?

Will the coldness in the Pakistan-US ties increase further or will it remain at its current level? More importantly, what are the benchmarks to evaluate Trump’s future policies; his election campaign rhetoric or his prospective cabinet appointments and the inaugural speech he is going to make in January? Probably, both factors combined will shape his future policies.

In Washington, Trump is considered an outsider to the system. Foreign policy is not his strong area. His election agenda focused heavily on internal policies; therefore, his immediate focus will be domestic.

Political rhetoric is one thing, the reality of running the office is quite another. After briefings from the Pentagon, State Department, C.I.A. and other key institutions, Trump is likely to tone down his pre-electoral rhetoric. Notwithstanding his promises, in retrospect, President Obama could not shut down Guantanamo Bay detention camp or to withdraw the American troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. It remains to be seen how much space the US system will afford Trump to translate his election agenda into policies.

Low-key US-Pakistan Relations Will Continue

Since 2011, Pakistan’s importance as a key US ally has lessened following the killing of Al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad. One indicator of that is there has been no visit to the US by the former army chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani in his second extension (2011-2013) and only one trip by the outgoing military chief General Raheel Shareef in 2015.

Notwithstanding Trump’s victory, US-Pakistan ties are already very cold and cannot sink any lower. Washington and Islamabad do not look towards each other favourably. Pakistan has already bid farewell to the IMF programme this year. Since the onset of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) Beijing has replaced Washington as Islamabad’s major strategic, economic and diplomatic partner.

The US has already left Pakistan out of the Afghan peace process by “droning” the former Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansoor in Balochistan and scuttling the Pakistan-initiated peace process in Afghanistan. The Coalition Support Funds (CSF), given for counter-terrorism cooperation since 9/11, have elapsed last year. The future military and economic aid to Pakistan has been slashed and made conditional to certification.

Transactional Ties

However, Pakistan will continue to be a distant US partner and a troubled ally. Under Trump, the framework of the US-Pakistan ties will remain transactional and security-centric. It will revolve around counter-terrorism, the peace process in Afghanistan and nuclear non-proliferation. The “do more” demands from the Trump-led White House and the Republican-dominated Congress will become a routine occurrence. Pentagon will have a greater say in determining the future US policies towards Pakistan.

Generally, the US will deal with India and Pakistan separately while formulating its policies for South Asia. Keeping the long-term US strategic interests in focus, India will feature quite high in the American priority list due to the commonality of goals and interests in defeating terrorism, containing China and enhancing economic ties. The US is already helping India become a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), supporting its stance on Kashmir and favouring the Indian bid to get permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).

Coming Challenges for Pakistan in Trump Era

The Trump administration will certainly turn the heat on Pakistan to expedite the slow-moving trial of the 2008 Mumbai attackers and take it to a logical conclusion. Similarly, the pressure to take action against the India-focused militant groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) will increase. Likewise, the demands to dismantle the Taliban sanctuaries on Pakistani soil will also escalate.

The immediate negative impact of Trump’s policies on US-Pakistan relations will be indirect. For instance, his Middle East policy could result in a cut in remittances and rise in layoffs of Pakistani workers in the Gulf States. Similarly, his stringent visa policy towards the Muslim countries is likely to affect Pakistan as well. Moreover, if high tariff barriers are instituted it could negatively affect Pakistani exports to the US. Similarly, his policies towards migrant communities in the US might affect the Pakistani diaspora resulting in deportation or loss of jobs.

Way Forward

Presently, there is a bipartisan consensus in Washington on South Asia tilted in favour of India and keep separate and de-hyphenated engagement with Pakistan. Pakistan would do well to work with the US in areas where interests converge and have frank talks on issues of divergence instead of adopting duplicitous policies or making false promises.

Under President Trump, the low-key US-Pakistan relations are likely to continue without facing any immediate rupture or downgrading. However, the ties will remain trouble-prone and bumpy.

*Abdul Basit is an Associate Research Fellow (ARF) at the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR) of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Compared with 2012, the Jakarta Gubernatorial Elections in 2017 carry greater significance on the Indonesian national stage than ever before. One dimension is politics and plurality.

By Jonathan Chen and Satrio Dwicahyo*

As the Indonesian capital Jakarta swings into its gubernatorial elections set for early next year, it is timely to assess what this political contest means as a barometer for the culture of tolerance in Indonesian politics and society. A candidate from a “double-minority” community – a Christian and ethnic Chinese by the name of Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok) – is competing for the governorship. He is teaming up with a pribumi and Muslim running mate Djarot Syaiful Hidayat.

Officially known as the Special Capital Region of Jakarta, the city had always been a vortex for political activity. Recent developments in Indonesia’s political landscape further accentuated Jakarta’s role as primus inter pares among all cities in Indonesia where political fortunes were made and broken. In particular its gubernatorial elections, historically a local if not regional affair, now carry the weight of national significance following Joko Widodo’s (Jokowi) and Ahok’s precedent-setting victory in the gubernatorial elections in 2012, where Ahok was then Jokowi’s running mate.

Jokowi’s Precedence

Defying widely perceived stereotypes and conventions, the Jokowi-Ahok pair’s win in Jakarta in 2012 represented a break away from exclusionary politics that favoured putra daerah or ‘native son’, credentials of indigeneity (pribumi or ‘indigenous son’) and the elite-backed establishment. Nonetheless, after just two years as governor of Jakarta, Jokowi emerged on the national stage as Indonesia’s seventh president. This set in motion for Ahok to serve out his remaining term in Jakarta as its first-ever ethnic Chinese governor.

This precedent however could be overturned following the recent spate of anti-Ahok rallies and agitation directed specifically at the ethnicity and religion of the governor. While Ahok is the de facto governor of Jakarta, conservative elements within certain Muslim factions may continue to pose impediments for an effective tenure even if he is re-elected as governor. In fact, the largest politically-motivated demonstration with intent to force Ahok to step down as governor on charges of blasphemy may only be the tip of the iceberg of what is to come.

As outsiders, the pair consisting of Joko Widodo-Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Jokowi-Ahok) forced the incumbent Fauzi Bowo-Nachrowi Ramli pair to a second round of elections in which the former emerged victorious during the 2012 gubernatorial elections.

Many relegated the pair’s win to the influence of the ‘Jokowi Effect’ which alluded to the media popularity of the then mayor of Solo, Jokowi. Underlying this effect nonetheless was the nation-wide acceptance of non-elite leaders that had benefitted from the implementation of local direct elections (Pemilihan Kepala Daerah or Pilkada for short) since 2005 and the general fatigue among Indonesians over the established elite class.

Pilkada as an Opening for Greater Tolerance?

The launch of Pilkada indeed provided a fortuitous opening that democratises the Indonesian electoral landscape allowing for these new, pro-reformist leaders to arise. Jokowi for example started out as mayor of Solo in 2005, the same year in which Ahok became the regent of East Belitung district.

Having served as Jakarta governor for a mere two years, Jokowi took the plunge to run for the presidency under the banner of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P). With Jokowi inaugurated as Indonesia’s seventh president, Ahok automatically assumed the position of governor of Jakarta.

While the decision Jokowi took may have been largely driven by a strong wave of popularity, it did raise certain concerns and implications regarding the future role of governorship in Jakarta. Some Indonesians perceive such a move to be opportunistic, citing Jakarta as a ‘stepping-stone’ city of quick fixes and vacuous mega projects. Others see direct presidential ties to Jakarta as an asset and a safeguard. Nonetheless with Jokowi’s precedent many now see the Jakarta gubernatorial elections in a new light.

Ahok’s transition to governor of Jakarta was not smoothing-sailing. Marred by political partisanship, Ahok left his sponsor, the Gerindra Party, due to differences in opinion over the abolition of the Pilkada and became an independent for a period. His characteristically blunt and abrasive manner drew the ire of certain quarters in Jakarta. On the other hand, his no-nonsense attitude towards corruption won him a strong group of supporters also known as ‘Friends of Ahok (Teman Ahok)’. Whereas a Jokowi-Ahok team may initially be a very much preferred option, Jakarta under the governorship of Ahok did not fare badly either.

Stirring up Hornet’s Nest

Despite these innovations, a Jakarta under the governorship of Jokowi (2012-2014) and Ahok (2014-2016) was not one that remained politically unchallenged by the entrenched elite-driven establishment.

Early on in their respective tenures, both Jokowi and Ahok attempted to unravel strongholds that remained impervious to their reformist reach. One of these initiatives was the regulation of mafia-backed street vendors in the Pasar Minggu and Pasar Tanah Abang districts.

These eviction policies were continued by Ahok targeting vulnerable shantytowns along the Ciliwung River in a bid to mitigate the effects of annual flooding. They were however looked upon as unpopular and callous by certain segments of the Jakarta population. Disenfranchised, these communities became genuinely displeased with Ahok. Unfortunately, these grievances also provided fodder for the entrenched Jakartan elites to strike back at governor Ahok, sometimes on dubious grounds.

With the 2017 gubernatorial elections fast approaching in January, three pairs of candidates consisting of incumbent Basuki Tjahaja Purnama – Djarot Syaiful Hidayat, Agus Yudhoyono – Sylviana Murni, and Anies Baswedan – Sandiaga Uno are slated to campaign and participate. In light of the new impact of Jakarta politics on national-level politics in Indonesia, the various teams’ participation carries varying implications that are far-reaching.

Implications of Having Three Competing Teams

The incumbent Ahok-Djarot pair generally represents the status quo of inclusionary politics that had 2012 as its precedent. Their win would certainly be a boost to the Jokowi presidency and factions currently loyal to the administration.

The Agus-Sylviana pair represents a newly emerging political dynasty which many look favourably upon. Agus’ decision to withdraw from the Indonesian military at the height of his career as an infantry major in the army speaks more about the appeal of political office and the even greater attraction of Jakarta as the unequivocal platform.

The Anies-Sandiaga pair represents a viable alternative to national-level politics against the Jokowi faction. Accomplished and charismatic, many believe that winning the gubernatorial elections may provide former education minister Anies in particular the impetus for a shot at national-level politics and even the presidential elections to come.

If anything the gubernatorial elections in Jakarta is certainly one that involve high stakes for Indonesia as a whole. Short of allowing the Jakarta elections to be sabotaged by dirty politicking and disruptive elements hostile to inclusionary forms of politics, the proceedings and results of the 2017 elections will be closely watched by Indonesia watchers.

*Jonathan Chen and Satrio Dwicahyo are respectively Associate Research Fellow and Research Associate at the Indonesia Programme of the S. Rajaratnam of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. This is part of a series.

The Russian Human Rights Council is appealing to Vladimir Putin to take immediate action to save “the approximately 50 peoples of the Russian Federation” that “today are under threat of disappearing,” an appeal that highlights a problem the Kremlin leader has given lip service to in the past but in general has done nothing to address.

One of the authors of the report, Andrey Babushkin, told Ekaterina Trifonova of “Nezavisimaya gazeta” that the possible loss of these peoples “is not only a cultural but a political problem” because it threatens the multi-national nature of the country, something enshrined in the 1993 Constitution (ng.ru/politics/2016-11-29/1_6871_etnos.html).

Drawing on official statistics, the report notes that of the 156 languages spoken by indigenous peoples of Russia in the 19^th century, “seven have already died out, and the same fate now threatens several others.” Yug, a non-literary paleo-Asiatic language in the Yenisei valley, for example, had 131 speakers in 2002, but “today already no one speaks it.”

Babushkin blames this pattern on “the low effectiveness of state policy in support of numerically small indigenous peoples” despite Putin’s “repeated” talk about “the need for the preservation of ethnic multiplicity.” However, “the majority of the ‘dying’ languages as before have not been given regional or even local status.”

According to the Human Rights Council, “the Russian authorities are not interested in the preservation of national dialects” because they believe that children who study them will find it more difficult to achieve their personal goals in a Russian-dominated country and will be “subject to discrimination.”

That attitude which is behind the closure of Karel language kindergartens in Karelia “ignores international experience with bilingualism,” Babushkin says. But because of it, “among children of the numerically small indigenous peoples of the North only 47 percent study their native language as an independent subject and only three percent as an optional one.”

Moreover, officials have refused to create an official Red Book of indigenous numerically small peoples as many other countries have. And despite numerous calls, they have blocked the inclusion of such groups as the Pomors, the Karaims, and the Krymchaks on semi-official listings of ethnic groups in trouble.

The Human Right Council is calling on Putin to push for a law “on the preservation of the national and linguistic multiplicity of the peoples of Russia” that would, among other things classify the smallest groups in terms of the threats they face to their survival now and in the future.

The first of these groups would be those at risk but still having more than 10,000 members/speakers; the second would include those at risk but having fewer than 10,000 in them; and the third would include those having 100 to 1000 members/speakers and thus being at risk of disappearing if nothing is done immediately.

The fourth group, those which are dying out now, would include groups having fewer than 100 members/speakers. The Human Rights Council would like more to be done for all these groups but especially for the last, “but only,” the Moscow journalist notes, “if they do not conduct an amoral way of life.”

For those language communities at the edge of extinction or that have already died out, the Council calls for special efforts to collect and preserve linguistic and ethnic data and to identify those who may be linked with these groups who could then be offered subsidies in order to revive these languages.

In addition, Trifonova reports, the body is calling for a number of other measures: the inclusion in the list of numerically small peoples of Russia of the Pomors, Ainu, Karaims, Krymchaks “and others;” the creation of a special advisor to governors on the defense of minority language rights; the establishment of a register of those who could teach these languages; the setting of special quotas for minorities to get into universities; and the preparation of textbooks.

Few of these proposals are likely to be adopted at a time of budgetary stringency and one when the Kremlin is celebrating the unity rather than the diversity of “the Russian nation.” But this appeal highlights something some Moscow experts and officials deny: numerous languages and the nations which speak them are dying out in Russia even though they could be saved.

By Lt Gen (Retd) Syed Ata Hasnain*

Something that escaped most observers even as queues at ATMs increased and worries about the next purchase of vegetables kept attention focused, is the sudden quieting of the situation in the Kashmir Valley. In ferment since 08 July 2016, when Burhan Wani was killed, stamina just collapsed after the Durbar moved to Jammu for the winter. Perhaps it was realised well in time that demonstrations and stone throwing are supposedly instruments to communicate collective negative emotions and angst. However, when there is no government to paralyse, no tourists to harass and no minorities to intimidate, there is not much point in protesting. That is the phenomenon that always takes place around the end of the year in the Valley. No doubt this year the de-monetisation exercise is contributing to ensure that professional stone throwers cannot earn their bread nor the smack, ganja or other drugs because there is not cash around with the organisers.

There is an opportunity beckoning here that needs to be grabbed. The emerging window is one in which the missing outreach can be restored. There has been much public debate through the summer such that awareness levels on the real problem of J&K have risen considerably. Everyone blames Pakistan for creating the mayhem on the streets and the strife. But equally after many years there is a majority consensus that the governance and outreach deficits are as much to blame. It is long since any commentaries have appeared blaming Article 370, the failure of ensuring conditions for safe return of the Pandits or even the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). Jammu has approached the problem with sincere maturity through the last many months, without raising a voice of protest despite that there has been reason to feel slighted. There cannot be a better time than now to demonstrate how the Establishment can empathise with the plight of those in the Valley who want to be delivered from the control of the young vigilantes and stop becoming a mirror image of Pakistan with radical faith dictating their lives. Scratch and scratch hard, because under the surface, there is a public awaiting a kind word and a change of heart.

The Army has been the quickest to realise it, as usual, sensing an opportunity. Throughout the summer and the autumn, it doggedly continued its counter-terrorism campaign without getting involved with too many stone throwers and demonstrators. As Headquarters Northern Command made available two brigades to 15 Corps, the challenge was in understanding, evolving, communicating and executing the concept of operations. The demonstration of its concept is best exemplified not by its operations on the LoC, which have been professional no doubt and not by the quick control it established over the so called fedayeens who were threatening to go out of control at a point in time. Instead, it is demonstrated by the runaway success of the most innocuous of all things – a program called ‘School Chalo’ (Let us go to School), once again confirming the immense role of military soft power.

Readers would be aware that schools in the Valley have been shut for the last four months. An atrocious program of burning of schools has been undertaken by unknown elements that are anti-national in character. The Separatists perceive that a way of preventing the return of normalcy is to ensure schools remain closed. The young vigilantes in the rural areas, the ones controlling the stone throwing and holding their parents and elders to ransom, also have no wish to return to school.
However, a vigorous social media campaign run by the Army in South Kashmir to bring home the message of its support to elders and parents, resonated splendidly in the hearts of the weary population. Schools reopened, the examinations drew 98 per cent attendance and the enthusiasm as per ground reports, was palpable.

This is one of the major successes of the Army employing a combination of ground campaign and social media outreach. It gives an indicator that more than anything else, the Army has simply to lead the way in outreach, social engagement and restoration of confidence. The State Government must take ownership of this success; it is not the Army’s success alone because through and through it would have been discussed at the frequent Unified Command meetings and the Chief Minister would have been well aware of it, making it her success.

What does this signify? For those observing the virtual great game in the Valley, it should send home the lesson that a weary population needs to be handled with a heart and requires its hearts to be touched. This is a hearts game waiting to be played all over again. Restoration of self-esteem is the need as much as weeding out of rabble rousers. A degree of reverse vigilantism on the mosques; facilitation of the movement and meeting of political representatives with their constituencies; energetic return of governance demonstrated by good administrative performance against the vagaries of the expected severe winter; and domination of the social media space by positive messaging, will communicate the State Government’s will and capability. The Army must assist in this energetically and whole heartedly. Just remember, it is all about ‘whole of government approach’ which will turn the tide and the Army must guide the government through with all its experience and knowledge of conflict.

The concept of Moral Dominance of the narrative remains the job of the Army, just as I strongly advocated in September 2016 when two infantry brigades were moving into deployment in South Kashmir. That is the way forward. Subsequently, build on it next summer. India will yet mainstream the Kashmiri populace – the Awam.

* Lt Gen (Retd) Syed Ata Hasnain
Member, Governing Council, IPCS, & former GOC, 15 Corps, Srinagar

I am the faculty advisor for the Florida State University Students for Liberty. I am guessing that is the reason I received an email from the FSU Students for Democratic Society which says, in part:

Anyone who has been following Donald Trump’s campaign has seen examples of Trump’s racist, xenophobic, and misogynistic, far-right ideology. Supporting the deportation of Muslims, building a wall on the US-Mexico border, and carpet bombing Syria are just a few examples of what Trump is trying to accomplish. … On January 20th the day of Trump’s inauguration, we are interested in organizing a campus wide walk-out. Afterwards during Trump’s Inauguration ceremony, there will be a protest at the old Capitol Building organized by various progressive groups at FSU, TCC and FAMU.

I replied to the email noting the irony that an organization which claims to support “democratic society” is protesting the outcome of a democratic election. I can well-understand why people might be uneasy about the impending Trump presidency, but it is more difficult to understand why an organization that, by its name, purports to be pro-democracy, would object to the outcome of a democratic election before the person who was democratically elected has even taken office. If Trump eventually engages in anti-democratic actions after he takes office, that might merit a protest by a pro-democracy group. In this case, it appears that the SDS is anti-democratic.

Yes, I know the left-wing history of the SDS. My comment isn’t so much expressing surprise at the group’s dislike for Trump, but rather noting that the Students for Democratic Society is demonstrating by its actions that in fact, it does not support democracy.

This article was published at The Beacon.

By Sarral Sharma*

On 26 November 2016, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif confirmed the appointment of Lt Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa as the new Chief of the Army Ataff (COAS). Lt Gen Zubair Mahmood Hayat takes the charge as the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Committee (CJCSC). Gen Bajwa assumes office on 29 November 2016 as the current COAS, Gen Raheel Sharif, completes his three-year tenure.

The successful transition of power will boost the confidence of Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government which has seen many ups and downs in its relations with the military in the last three years. The new army chief will take at least two to three months to settle in, to make new appointments and to build his new team. During that period, Sharif will have the window of opportunity to assert a bit more on crucial issues such as improving relations with India. However, it is expected that this time around, Sharif will be cautiously treading the path of restarting any dialogue process with India. This is because even one wrong decision would eventually give leeway to the new army chief to dominate both domestic and international policies.

Sharif is likely to have an upper hand in the coming months as far as the relations with India are concerned. He is expected to move towards resuming the dialogue process with India. It appears that he has already made the first move in that direction. Pakistan’s Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs, Sartaz Aziz has confirmed Islamabad’s participation at the upcoming Heart of Asia (HoA) conference, scheduled to be held in Amritsar, India, from 3-4 December 2016. Although the focus of the conference is the situation in Afghanistan, it is possible that Aziz (if he represents Pakistan at the conference) will meet his Indian counterpart on the sidelines of the summit. If the meeting happens, it will be a deja vu moment for both countries. In 2015, India’s Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj met her Pakistani counterpart on the sidelines of the HoA conference in Islamabad, which paved the way for Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi’s surprise visit to Lahore. However, the leadership change in the Pakistan Army will likely to have some impact on the resumption of talks between India and Pakistan.

The army chief’s succession may not immediately bring about a major policy change in Pakistan but it could still have important implications on India and Pakistan relations. The change may also hamper Sharif’s efforts to normalise relations with India like it has done in the past. Institutionally, it is Rawalpindi that is in the driver’s seat vis-a-vis prioritising the strategic outlook in Pakistan. The three main strategic considerations of the army are internal security apparatus, the situation in Afghanistan, and the Kashmir-centric India policy. The army’s strategic outlook changes according to the domestic, regional and geo-political situation.

Gen Raheel Sharif prioritised the internal security situation in Pakistan over the situation in Afghanistan and Kashmir. He initiated Operation Zarb-e-Azb in North Waziristan in 2014, which is still ongoing, to target the Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP) operatives; and the Karachi operation against local criminal syndicates, etc. to improve the overall security environment in Pakistan. During his tenure, the India-Pakistan bilateral has witnessed numerous highs and lows, beginning from Sharif’s visit to India and Modi’s visit to Lahore, the Pathankot and Uri attacks, and finally, the surgical strikes across the Line of Control (LoC).

The new COAS will take some time to draw the roadmap for next three years. His strategic priorities are expected to include the clampdown on home-grown groups – such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), Jamaat-ul-Ahrar – affiliated to the Islamic State (IS); continuing military operations against Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) in the Federally Administered Tribal Agency region; monitoring the separatist activities in Balochistan and Sindh provinces; helping the Sharif government in its efforts to mainstream FATA into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa before the 2018 elections; resumption of peace talks with the Taliban along with countries including China and Russia.
Presently, India and Pakistan are fighting a limited tactical battle along the LoC and the International Border (IB) with regular incidents of cross-border firing. In such a scenario, Gen Bajwa’s foremost priority would be to either continue the present status quo along the border or consider a possible shift in the Pakistan Army’s Kashmir policy. Having spent a considerable part of his military service in the Rawalpindi-based 10 Corps that is responsible for guarding the LoC, it is expected that Gen Bajwa would try to use his organisational experience to influence the Sharif government’s Kashmir-centric India policy.

It is a wait-and-watch situation for India. The future of any dialogue process between India and Pakistan is heavily dependent on the civil-military relations in Pakistan. With the considerably weak Opposition and the change in military leadership, Sharif has a plausible chance to consolidate his influence in the domestic arena. In order to do that, Sharif will direct his ministers and diplomatic advisors to continue to internationalise the Kashmir issue. It is also possible that Pakistan will raise the Kashmir issue at the upcoming HoA conference in India. That will satisfy the domestic audience, whom Sharif is targeting for the 2018 general elections, and will also send across a strong message to the new military leadership in a bid to bolster civil-military relations.

Also, it is important to understand that the Pakistani military’s institutional thinking is unlikely to change in the near future. Gen Bajwa might consider targeting terror groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), or the Haqqani Network under international pressure. But Pakistan is likely to continue its current orientation of supporting certain non-state actors and concurrently, playing the nuclear card as a deterrence policy against India.

* Sarral Sharma
Researcher, IReS, IPCS
E-mail: sarral.sharma@ipcs.org

Sri Lanka’s President Maithripala Sirisena said he would fulfill all responsibilities to protect, preserve and nurture Buddhism as a Buddhist and as enshrined in the Constitution.

Sirisena made these remarks at the religious ceremony to mark the 95th birthday of the Maha Nayaka of the Ramanna Chapter Most Ven. Napane Premasiri Thero, on Nov. 27 at the Sri Vidyasagara Piriven Temple, Hurikaduwa, Menikhinna, Kandy.

Sirisena opened the newly built golden fence at this occasion. Also, the new Bhikku Hostel and the alms-hall were vested with the Maha Sanga.

Sirisena congratulated the Premasiri Mahanayake Thero and offered a souvenir him. The Thero also presented a souvenir to the President.

The President, who commended the service of the Maha Nayaka Thero to the Shasana and society, stated that the Buddhist monks like Ven. Napane Thero are a pride not only to the Bhikku society, but also to the entire country.

Sirisena further stated that the young Buddhist monks should study the exemplary character of Most. Ven. Napane Premasiri, who was honored and respected by all Buddhist people in world as a disciplined and erudite Bhikku.

By Ana Maria Touma

In the wake of the election of Moldova’s Eurosceptic new leader, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis said on Tuesday that Bucharest’s objective continues to be Moldova’s European integration and the consolidation of its democracy.

“Our strategic objective is Moldova’s European integration, supporting its clear orientation towards the EU and connecting Chisinau to Europe, as it becomes a solid democracy; it is a process in which Romania can and should play a main role,” Iohannis said.

He was speaking after a National Defence Council meeting – the first high level foreign policy event in Bucharest after Moldovans elected Socialist president Igor Dodon on November 13.

Dodon has spoken in favour of Moldova pulling out of its Association Agreement with the EU, which Romania has been supporting for years, and is also an advocate for rapprochement with Moscow.

The National Defence Council decided to set up a working group at government level meant to oversee the implementation of a strategy on future relations with Moldova.

Iohannis said that the new Moldova strategy is meant to be pragmatic, based on the current complicated context in Europe and the unstable political environment in Chisinau.

His comments came after new Moldovan president Dodon said in an interview with Romanian public television on Friday that he resents Bucharest politicians’ elder-brotherly attitude towards their Chisinau counterparts.

“We’re neighbours, we’ve got historical ties, we’re brothers. But each brother should only be king in his own house. I respect the Romanian state and I want Romania to respect the Moldovan state,” Dodon said.

However, he said that as president, he cannot break off the Association Agreement with the EU, no matter how strongly he might have advocated it during the election campaign.

He also said he wanted to bring Brussels and Moscow to the negotiating table over Moldova’s status.

Dodon then accused the Bucharest government of supporting movements in Chisinau to unite Moldova with Romania.

“I have never been anti-Romanian, but I am an anti-unionist,” Dodon said in the interview.

Moldova’s Prime Minister Pavel Filip, a member of the right-wing Democratic Party, is one of the supporters of the Association Agreement and is set to continue the administrative reforms required by Brussels, he said on Tuesday during a meeting with the EU’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini.

India is a powerful game player in South Asia. How India shapes its diplomatic policies and markets its strategic culture will determine or determines the strategic culture of South Asia. The United States is keen on building close strategic ties with India as a counterweight to China in the South Asian Region.

International Politics thrives on balance of power. In strategic culture power plays a very key role. Power determines wars and nature of conflict and post conflict transformation of societies. Diplomatic and military policies also determine power structure in International Politics. Without force there can be no strategic culture. Deployment of the armed forces is a natural corollary to safeguarding territorial boundaries and homeland security.

India’s strategic thought is largely determined by the currents and undercurrents of politics in Pakistan. The recent change of guard, Army Chief has added to the woes of Indian establishment trying to settle disputes, proxy wars and Pakistan backed terrorist activities on Indian Soil.

What is war or strategic culture?

Strategic culture in the words of Johnston is an integrated set of symbols (i.e. argumentation structures, languages, analogies, metaphors etc) that acts to establish pervasive and long lasting grand strategic preferences by formulating concepts of the role and efficacy of force in interstate political affairs and by clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the strategic preferences seem uniquely realistic and efficacious.

Karl von Clausewitz’s argument that war ‘is only a part of political intercourse, therefore by no means an independent thing in itself. War is nothing but a continuation of political intercourse with an admixture of other means’. This definition helps in understanding the broader setting in which war is located. Voices all across the academia has elicited the response that the entire spectrum of war or strategic culture has shifted inexorably from the traditional military dimension to areas like political and economic warfare, psychological warfare, etc.

War is the use of organized force between two human groups pursuing contradictory policies, each group seeking to impose its policies upon the other’. Malinowski defines war as an ‘armed conflict between two independent political units, by means of organized military force, in pursuit of a tribal or national policy.’

Quincy Wright accepts that war is waged on the diplomatic, economic, and propaganda fronts as well as on the military front and that the art of war coordinates all these elements to the purpose of victory.

What is victory?

Was the recent cancellation of SAARC summit to be held in Islamabad a victory of the SAARC nations over Pakistan? Irrational use of resource, is it victory? The very purpose of the United Nations was to save the succeeding generations from the scourge of war. Are UN sanctions victory?

Strategic culture is also piling up of nuclear weapons in the name of self defense. In a word torn apart by conflict this is a serious issue? The solution is nothing but economic development, trade and smart business investments development of smart cities etc. Addressing the issues of hunger poverty, malnourishment, child mortality rate, human rights violations, human trafficking, gender based violence are all important components of strategic culture.

India is heading towards becoming a global power and in what appears to be a clear indication from the Indian establishment that one needs to develop deeper insights into understanding foreign relations with India’s neighbosrs all of them and form a common culture of strategic policy and diplomacy.

Means rather than ends are important. And the means are economic empowerment and socio-political development of the region. The Nehurvian policy that Pakistan can be dealt with dialogue is utopian now.

Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy announced on ‘La Tarde’, on the COPE radio station, that he is going to ask the Lower House of Parliament to support an increase to 400, in the number of Guardia Civil and military personnel that form part of the international coalition to fight DAESH (Islamic State).

Rajoy made this announcement during the course of a telephone address on the programme ‘La Tarde’, on the COPE radio station, broadcast live from Baghdad (Iraq), where 307 Spanish servicemen are providing training to the Iraqi Army.

Rajoy stated that “there are now just over 300 servicemen and we would like to see this rise to 400, which is what our allies are calling for.” He also stressed that they carry out “such an important, dignified and fundamental task as guaranteeing the security, the liberty and the fundamental rights of all Europeans and all Spaniards”.

According to Rajoy, “the war on terror is global and all of us who defend certain values, principles and ideas must work together and be aware that it is very important to do things in this manner.”

In this regard, he underlined that “the battle must be fought everywhere, above all at source”, but that “we may be struck at home”, as has already happened in France, Belgium, the United Kingdom and Spain.

The international coalition against Jihadi terrorism, made up of 60 countries and headed up by the United States, seeks to halt the advances made by the terrorist group DAESH in Syria and Iraq. Training the Iraqi Army is part of the coalition’s strategy to help the Government of Iraq recover the territory occupied by terrorists.

Rajoy recalled that, as well as Iraq, the overseas missions being undertaken by the Spanish Armed Forces extend to other zones, such as the Sahel, Mali, Senegal and Turkey.

By Niharika Tagotra*

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s policy towards China can be best described as a balancing act displaying elements of both pragmatism and realism. India has sought closer ties with countries like the US and Japan, but has simultaneously also displayed its willingness to accommodate Chinese interests in the region. After the initial euphoria over the prospects of strengthening the bilateral ties, Modi’s China policy has been remarkably re-shaped by the changing ground realities.

The bilateral relations between the two countries under Modi have taken the slow yet steady route. Modi himself has agreed that while India can “speak to China eye-to eye,” the objectives of foreign policy lay not in “changing mindsets” but in “finding common grounds for converging interests.” This careful deliberation of interests with a hint of realpolitik is also reflected in India’s stance over issues of critical importance to China. For instance, while India has been more assertive in demanding a peaceful resolution to the South China Sea (SCS) dispute, in May 2016, it refused to hold joint patrols with the US in the region. It also explicitly ruled out its participation in any such future patrols. This, however, was in stark contrast to India’s participation with the US and Japan in the trilateral naval exercise held in June 2016 in the West Philippine Sea, treading dangerously close to the SCS region. This could be read as a sign of India’s assertion of its dominance over the Indian Ocean, while simultaneously respecting China’s interests in the SCS. Modi during his recent US visit also gave reassurances that China would not be not be “demonized” in view of the developments in the India-US bilateral ties.

India has been even more accommodating towards China in the economic sphere. Under Modi, there’s been a growing emphasis on demarcating India’s core strategic interests from its economic interests. This is an acknowledgment of the fact that while India benefits from aligning with the US in the strategic sphere, economically, its regional interests resonate more closely with those of China. India has pushed for deals worth $22 billion with China, despite the growing trade deficit. That India sees its economic ties with China, with whom it shares tremendous economic complementarities, as vital to the country’s growth can be ascertained from India’s particularly cooperative attitude towards the China-led multilateral economic initiatives such as the Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank and the New Development Bank.

The Pakistan conundrum has, however, cast a long shadow over the India-China ties. India’s opposition to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, in view of the threat it poses to India’s strategic interests in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, as along with China’s attempts to block the UN ban on Jaish-e-Mohammed Chief Masood Azhar highlights how the Pakistan factor has further complicated India-China relations. India has been unable to clearly factor in China’s interests in Pakistan as a part of its own China policy. While the rhetoric over the issue has been high, the response by the current Indian establishment has been remarkably muted. There have been attempts to delink Pakistan from India-China ties, but Modi’s back and forth on the ties in view of the developments in the China-Pakistan relations has caused a certain degree of ambiguity.

The present regional security scenario presents India with a range of very complex policy options. China’s attempts at widening its regional influence can substantially threaten India’s core strategic interests, which primarily include a strategic pre-eminence in the South-Asian region, and control of the energy and mineral resources, and the sea lines of communication. Any ambiguity in spelling out its strategic choices will cost India a lot of manoeuvring space in the future. Moreover, in order to benefit from the bilateral economic relations, India will also need to de-link its economic engagements with China from its security interests. Growing bilateral economic interdependence can potentially blunt the more contentious aspects of the relations. This is also the policy that China has been following in its engagement with the US. Despite the usual rhetoric that the two countries engage in over the SCS region, the trade ties between them run deep, hovering around $562 billion in 2013. China is currently the third largest export market for US while the US is China’s largest export market. This has given China a substantial amount of strategic space with respect to the US, an approach that holds important lessons for India.

The organic continuum of India-China relations will also be of much significance in the changed geo-political scenario. With the change of regime in the US, the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific could see significant alteration with smaller states in the region possibly bandwagoning with a more assertive China. This will, in turn, have important consequences for India, which will now need to re-think the regional implications of its global alliances and recalibrate accordingly. The India-US relationship and the US’ China policy, both of which are poised for changes under the new government, will also impact India’s China policy. In the face of changing times, India will need to wait and watch for the events to unfold in the next few months. Until then, the best strategy for India would be to tone down the public rhetoric against China, and look for possible avenues of economic cooperation, while pursuing more robust strategic alliances with the other states in the Asia-Pacific region.

* Niharika Tagotra
Research Intern, IPCS

March 2012 was unusually warm. Biomass crops around the Midwest were well established and thriving. But when a late frost came in mid-April, all of that changed.

“When I went out in the morning, I was just shocked,” said University of Illinois agronomist D.K. Lee. “All the grasses were covered in frost. By noon, Miscanthus and switchgrass had turned black. The only plant that was untouched was prairie cordgrass.”

Lee already knew that prairie cordgrass, Spartina pectinata, was especially tolerant of flooding and salt stress, but this discovery confirmed his suspicion that cordgrass was tolerant of freezing, too. Being tolerant of environmental stress factors is important for biomass crops, because they are often grown on so-called marginal land where conditions are far from perfect. With its tolerance of several major stress factors, cordgrass has the potential to be grown in more places than other perennial energy crops.

The next step for Lee and his research group was to identify the molecular changes that keep cordgrass perky in cold weather.

“Unlike salt and flooding stress, freezing usually happens abruptly. The plant has to react quickly. To find out what was happening at the molecular level, we grew cordgrass in a growth chamber at 25 degrees Celsius and then abruptly moved them into another growth chamber set to -5 degrees.”

“We looked at gene expression within five minutes after exposure to freezing temperatures. We found some unique genes being activated right away and then different ones turning on 30 minutes later,” Lee said.

The team suspects that the initial genetic response protects the cells from freezing. Typically, ice crystals form in the spaces outside the cell when a plant is exposed to freezing temperatures. Once these “seed crystals” form, they grow quickly and burst the living cells. To avoid this, cordgrass may quickly pump ions outside the cell, keeping ice crystals from forming or growing. The secondary reactions that occur after 30 minutes may have to do with repairing damaged cells, allowing the plant to recover more quickly.

Lee said the findings just scratch the surface; much more needs to be done to fully understand the genetic mechanisms that allow cordgrass to avoid tissue damage during freezing temperatures. Once the system is fully understood in cordgrass, the hope is that it can be applied to other crops.

“Corn farmers are always looking to plant earlier in the spring,” Lee said. “They think if they plant early, they could see a yield benefit. Currently, crop insurance won’t cover corn if farmers plant before a certain date, because there’s a big risk of frost. If we understand more about freezing tolerance, we could eventually apply it to annual crops and potentially expand the production area for crops such as corn.”

(EurActiv) — Turkey’s EU Affairs Minister, Ömer Çelik, on Tuesday dismissed a European Parliament vote to freeze accession talks with Ankara as the “most unjust resolution in history” and urged solidarity instead.

During a visit to Brussels, Çelik sought to ease tensions exacerbated by the non-binding vote last week to halt Turkey’s membership process over its “disproportionate” crackdown since July’s failed coup.

“Turkey is a big country, a magnificent country and the people of this country live in pluralism. They stand up for democracy,” Çelik told both European and Turkish journalists.

“The European Parliament’s taking this resolution against such a society is the most unjust resolution in history,” he said trying to clear up what he sees as EU misperceptions. “Today, now is the time for solidarity.”

Ahead of talks with the European Commission’s First Vice-President Frans Timmermans and other officials, Çelik, renewed charges that the EU failed to show sympathy with a democratic country rocked by the deadly July 15 coup attempt.

“Please try to empathise with us,” he pleaded.

But the parliamentary vote underscored growing European concerns over rights and democracy in Turkey, especially over the coup crackdown that has seen almost 37,000 arrested, formally applied to become an EU member in 1987 and accession talks only began in 2005, even though Ankara’s aspirations to become part of the bloc dates back to the 1960s.

“If there were objective, fair negotiations… then there is no reason why Turkey would not be a full member state today,” Çelik said.

The parliament vote escalated tensions with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who threatened to retaliate by rupturing a March deal that has sharply reduced the flow of migrants to Europe.

Erdoğan on Tuesday said his country has not yet given up on its ambition to join the EU but has “many other alternatives” if the stalled process goes nowhere.

“We have not yet closed the European Union book right now,” Erdoğan told an international conference in Istanbul. “But nobody should forget that Turkey always has many other alternatives.”

Last week the European Parliament backed a freeze in Turkey’s membership talks, angering Erdoğan who threatened to retaliate by rupturing a migrant deal curbing the flow of refugees to Europe.

The deal has substantially helped reduce the wave of migrants since it was signed in March. Erdoğan said last week that the non-binding vote at the European Parliament “upset” Turkey, adding it did not currently have “positive” feelings on the accession talks.

If the EU path is blocked, Erdoğan said, “we’ll continue our road by evaluating one of those alternatives”, without naming them.

“I don’t find it right to say it here but we are of course continuing our talks with those alternatives.”

Earlier this month, Erdoğan again floated the idea of joining Russia and China in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

The SCO is a loose security and economic bloc. Other members are Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

But Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told a televised interview last week however that the SCO was not an alternative to Ankara’s EU accession talks.