One concern with EU enlargement is that relatively poorer countries benefit more from becoming members. This column uses data from the 1973 and 1995 enlargements to show that richer countries also benefited a lot from joining the EU. Per capita incomes would have been considerably lower had these countries not joined the EU when they did. Yet, the difference between the estimated benefits for 1973 and 1995 enlargements is large, and thus, should not be attributed to differences in per capita incomes at the time of joining.

By Nauro F Campos, Fabrizio Coricelli, Luigi Moretti

EU members are all alike; every EU candidate is a candidate in its own way. This is, of course, our attempt at rephrasing Anna Karenina’s opener (“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”). Tolstoy had marriage in mind while Diamond (1997) had domesticated animals. For pets and marriages, success happens not because of one particular, positive, exceptional feature, but because of the lack of key negative traits.

Previously, we showed that benefits from EU membership are large and outweigh its costs. We argued that the attendant econometric evidence is disconcertingly thin. We use a novel methodology to estimate that per capita incomes would have been approximately 12% lower without EU membership. Focusing on the 1980s and 2004 enlargements, we reported that per capita incomes would have been smaller for every country, except Greece.

A critic may charge that the 1980s and 2004 are ‘poorer countries’ enlargements and their ‘per capita income gaps at entry’ were hefty. The per capita income gap at entry is the percentage difference between the average per capita income of existing members and that of candidate countries in USD PPP for the official accession year. We calculate that candidate countries in 1973 had on average 96% of the per capita income of existing members, in the 1980s this was 63%,¹ in 1995 – 103%, while in 2004 it was 45%. One may be concerned that the Karenina principle applies: relatively poorer candidates benefit more. Larger gaps should also be associated with sizeable catch-up benefits from integration. To put it bluntly, it may be easy to see why Portugal and Latvia, for example, benefit so much from joining the EU, but it may be harder to see how, say Sweden or the UK, could possibly benefit as much. This column shows they do.

Is this a rich man’s world?

In a recent paper, Campos, Coricelli, and Moretti (2014) use the synthetic counterfactuals method (SCM) pioneered by Abadie and Gardeazabal (2003) to estimate, on a country-by-country basis, the benefits from joining the EU in terms of economic growth and productivity. Figures 1 and 2 show SCM results for the 1973 and 1995 EU enlargements.² The dark line is for actual per capita GDP (or labour productivity), and the red line for the estimated synthetic counterfactual.

Figure 1. Actual and synthetic real per capita GDP and real per worker GDP in the 1973 EU enlargement

SCM estimates the effect of a given intervention (in this case, EU membership) by comparing the evolution of an outcome variable for a country affected by the intervention vis-à-vis that for an “artificial control group” (Imbes and Wooldridge 2009, p. 79). The latter is a weighted combination of other units (countries) chosen so as to match the treated country, before intervention, for a set of predictors of the outcome variable. Using SCM we estimate what would have been per capita GDP if a given country had not become a member of the EU.

In the summer of 1961, Denmark, Ireland, and the UK submitted official applications for accession to the European Communities.³ When France vetoed the UK application, the other candidates withdrew (Bache et al. 2011). Applications were resubmitted and, in 1969, accepted with accession in 1973 (vertical dotted line in Figure 1). The results suggest that per capita GDP would be considerably lower in these countries had they not joined the EU in 1973. The actual and the synthetic series are reasonably close before 1973 (more so for labour productivity than per capita GDP), while they since diverge, indicating that there was little anticipation of the effects from EU membership.⁴ In addition, the difference between actual and synthetic does not diminish, suggesting that the benefits from membership seem more likely to be permanent than temporary. The dynamics of these benefits is noteworthy. For example, the benefits from EU membership for the UK (although substantial throughout) may have slowed down in later years, while for Ireland they seem to have accelerated instead. This suggests that the UK benefited more from the single market while Ireland did benefit mostly from the common currency.⁵

There seems to be evidence of anticipation effects, particularly for Austria. It is widely acknowledged (e.g., Bache et al. 2011) that delays in EU accession of the three 1995 countries are largely explained by their neutrality during the Cold War (e.g., they were never NATO members). Austria officially applies for accession as early as 1989 (which seems, interestingly, reflected in our SCM results), Sweden in 1991, and Finland in 1992.

Figure 2 suggests that the countries that joined in 1995 may not have benefited as much from EU membership as did the 1973 class. Why are benefits relatively large for 1973, and relatively small for 1995?

• We conjecture that this is because the 1973 countries designed, implemented, and benefited from the single market (1986-1992) and – especially in the case of Ireland – from the common currency (as well as from attendant advances in financial integration).
• The main impediment for the 1995 countries to join was political (the Cold War), and their benefits from EU membership seem mostly in terms of labour productivity (and less in terms of per capita GDP).

Future research should investigate fully the reasons for the relatively worse performance of the 1995 class. One line of inquiry we deem worth pursuing stresses institutions. If the bulk of the benefits the EU provide is to encourage institutional change, then one would expect the potential gains that membership could generate in Austria, Finland, and Sweden in 1995 to be indeed smaller than those in Denmark, Ireland, and the UK in 1973.

Figure 2. Actual and synthetic real per capita GDP and real per worker GDP in the 1995 EU enlargements

How big are these benefits?

A measure of the magnitude of the economic benefits from EU membership is given by the difference between the actual per capita GDP for each country (or labour productivity) and that of its SCM artificial control group. We find substantial benefits for the 1973, and modest benefits for the 1995 enlargement. For the first ten years post-accession, per capita incomes for the former would be approximately 12% lower, while that for the latter would be about 4% lower (without EU membership). Alternatively, if we consider all years since accession, the respective figures would be about 34% for the former, and 5% for the latter. We find that per capita incomes in the UK and Denmark would have been 25% lower (if they had not joined the EU in 1973), but that the benefits for Ireland are even larger. Our estimates suggest that per capita income in Ireland would have been about 50% lower if it had not joined the EU in 1973.

Conclusions

This column presents new estimates of the economic benefits from EU membership focusing on the 1973 and 1995 enlargements. The main conclusion is that of substantial and positive pay-offs with benefits from EU membership clearly above direct costs, and with larger gains for the 1973 than for the 1995 enlargement.⁶ Moreover, the difference between the estimated benefits for 1973 and 1995 enlargements is considerable and, thus, should not be attributed solely to differences in per capita incomes at the time of joining. We conjecture that institutions may provide a more promising explanation of these differences if one believes that Austrian, Finnish, and Swedish institutions were better developed or aligned with the EU when these countries joined the European Union.

About the authors:
Nauro F Campos
Professor of Economics and Finance at Brunel University and CEPR Research Affiliate

Fabrizio Coricelli
Professor at Université Paris 1, Panthéon-Sorbonne and CEPR Research Fellow

Luigi Moretti
Senior Research Fellow, Department of Economics and Management, University of Padova

Footnotes
1. Interestingly, the actual figure for Greece in 1981, and Portugal and Spain in 1986, is basically the same (63%); and that for East Germany in 1990 is surprisingly close (64%).

2. Campos et al. (2014) find estimated benefits to be larger for the 1973 (UK, Ireland, and Denmark) and 2004 (transition countries) enlargements, mixed for the 1980s, and modest for the 1995 enlargements, with substantial differences across countries.

3. Recall that these three countries were founding members of the European Free Trade Area (EFTA). EFTA was successful at increasing trade among its members, but not as successful as the European Community. Also note that at the time of entry, Denmark was the richest of the three, with Ireland’s per capita GDP comparable to (slightly higher than) the UK’s. In terms of GDP size, the UK was, and remains, the (much) larger economy.

4. This is generally true for all countries here, with the exception of Finland’s per capita GDP in Figure 2, but this is mostly due to the Finnish banking crisis of 1991-1993.

5. In spite of the sharp contraction of output that Ireland suffered during the Great Recession, its GDP per capita (in PPP) remains in 2014 10% higher than that of the UK (according to IMF WEO data).

6. A reason SCM is not as yet widely used is that “it does not allow assessing the significance of the results using standard (large-sample) inferential techniques” (Billmeier and Nannicini 2013, p. 987). One way of addressing this issue, based on jacknife estimation, was recently proposed by Acemoglu et al. (2014). Campos et al. (2014) propose a different approach based on the differences-in-differences estimator. Using this method, we find the impact of EU membership to be positive and statistically significant at conventional levels, for all enlargements.

References
Abadie, A and J Gardeazabal (2003), “The Economic Costs of Conflict: A Case Study of the Basque Country”, American Economic Review, 93: 113–132.

Acemoglu, D, S Johnson, A Kermani, J Kwak, and T Mitton (2014), “The Value of Connections In Turbulent Times: Evidence from the US”, NBER Working Paper 19701.

Bache, I, S George, and S Bulmer (2011), Politics in the European Union, Oxford University Press.

Billmeier, A and T Nannicini (2013), “Assessing Economic Liberalization Episodes: A Synthetic Control Approach”, Review of Economics and Statistics, 95(3): 983–1001.

Campos, N, F Coricelli and L Moretti (2014), “Economic Growth and Political Integration: Synthetic Counterfactuals Evidence from Europe”, mimeo.

Diamond, J (1997), Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, W W Norton.

Imbens, G and J Wooldridge (2009), “Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation,” Journal of Economic Literature, 47: 5–86.

En route home from his Asia-Pacific trip, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel placed an in-flight call to Ukraine’s Acting Minister of Defense Mykhaylo Koval, Assistant Press Secretary Carl Woog said in a statement issued today.

Woog’s statement reads as follows:

Secretary Hagel spoke by phone with Ukraine’s Acting Minister of Defense Mykhaylo Koval on his return flight to Washington from Beijing. It was their first conversation since the minister took office last month.

Secretary Hagel commended Minister Koval for his leadership of the Armed Forces during this critical time for Ukraine and thanked him for hosting recent bilateral defense consultations in Kyiv. They discussed the situation in Crimea, as well as Russia’s military activities along Ukraine’s borders and attempts to destabilize communities in Eastern Ukraine.

Secretary Hagel told Minister Koval that the United States will continue to stand with Ukraine. They both pledged to remain in close contact going forward.

Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) released Thursday a package of satellite imagery to media outlets from across Europe, that it says shows details of the location and type of Russian units NATO has observed along the border with Ukraine.

NATO assesses that the Russian military has approximately 35-40,000 troops in the vicinity of the Ukrainian border, a claim Russian officials have repeatedly denied is a cause for concern.

Brigadier Gary Deakin, the Director of the Comprehensive Crisis Operations and Management Centre (CCOMC) at SHAPE, spoke to reporters regarding SHAPE’s assessment of the images.

“The Russians have an array of capabilities including aircraft, helicopters, special forces, tanks, artillery, infantry fighting vehicles… and these could move in a matter of hours,” said Brig. Deakin.

“These forces have a destabilizing effect and present serious implications for the security and stability of the region,” he added.

SHAPE said it is observing a small amount of Russian administrative movement on the ground, but the overall lack of activity is raising flags among military staff. According to Brig. Deakin, Russian units have moved into the region and are massing in various locations in the vicinity of the border, rather than conducting specific exercise manoeuvers.

This assessment is shared by the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Philip Breedlove, who said the previous day that he was concerned by the Russian build-up. In speaking about the Russian force he said: “I would characterize it as a combined arms army… it has all of the provisioning and enabling that it needs to accomplish military objectives if given them.”

NATO said it continues to monitor events closely and has prudently increased AWACS surveillance flights over Romania and Poland in order to maintain awareness of activity in Ukraine. The Alliance has also significantly increased air policing activity and the number of aircraft dedicated to this task.

In early April, NATO Foreign Ministers directed SACEUR to develop additional options to reassure NATO Allies.

SHAPE has submitted a range of options and recommendations to the North Atlantic Council, through the International Military Staff.

“Essentially what we are looking at is a package of land, air and maritime measures that would build assurance for our eastern most allies,” said General Breedlove. NATO has repeatedly called upon Russia to de-escalate the situation by withdrawing troops along Ukraine’s border.

Russian energy giant Gazprom will be compelled to switch over to prepaid gas deliveries to Ukraine or completely cut off natural gas supplies, should the country further violate its terms of payment, Russian President Vladimir Putin wrote Thursday in an open letter to 18 European leaders.

“Gazprom is compelled to switch over to advance payment for gas deliveries, and in the event of further violation of the conditions of payment, will completely or partially cease gas deliveries,” Putin explained, saying this was undoubtedly an extreme measure.

Talk of a gas cutoff came as Ukraine again defaulted on its gas debt in March, swelling past the November record of $1.45 billion.

Putin explained that Gazprom’s decision to switch to upfront payments for gas stemmed from Ukraine’s inability to pay its debts, despite unprecedented price cuts that Kiev had been recently enjoying.

“I would like to draw your attention to the fact that in March there was still a discount price applied, that is [the price was] $268.50 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas. And even at that price, Ukraine did not pay a single dollar,” the president said.

Putin also pointed to a whole string of discounts that Ukraine had been granted over the years, slashing Ukraine’s gas bill by almost a third. But the country continued to violate its contract obligations, prompting Gazprom to rethink its delivery strategy, the Russian leader said.

“We fully realize that this [move] increases the risk of natural gas passing through Ukraine’s territory being siphoned off as it heads to European consumers. We also realize that this may make it difficult for Ukraine to accumulate sufficient gas reserves for use in the autumn and winter period,” Putin wrote.

The president said that uninterrupted gas transit to Ukraine would require the country to pay Russia about $5 billion upfront in the near future, before the state-run energy company pumped 11.5 billion cubic meters of gas into Ukraine’s underground storage facilities.

Putin also noted the European Union was expected to own up to its pledge to help Ukraine out.

“The fact that our European partners have unilaterally withdrawn from the concerted efforts to resolve the Ukrainian crisis, and even from holding consultations with the Russian side, leaves Russia no alternative,” the message read. “Russia cannot and should not unilaterally bear the burden of supporting Ukraine’s economy by providing discounts and forgiving debts and, as point of fact, using these subsidies to cover Ukraine’s deficit in its trade with EU member states.”

Putin called on the country’s EU partners to join consultations at the ministerial level to help Ukraine’s economy out of the woods.

A senior Israeli official has called on Tel Aviv to annex 60 percent of the West Bank in response to its deadlocked US-brokered negotiations with the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Israeli Finance Minister Naftali Bennett has launched a publicity campaign for his plan called ‘Settlement Blocs First,’ urging the regime’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday to annex nearly 60 percent of West Bank in a bid to punish the PA for efforts to further Palestinian recognition at the United Nations.

The Israeli official claims his plan should serve as a retort to the failed talks between Tel Aviv and the Palestinian Authority.

The plan calls for annexing territories such as Ariel and Beit el-Ofra.

Bennett’s call came through a letter to Netanyahu, insisting that the era of negotiations has come to an end.

“It is clear that the diplomatic process has run its course and that we are entering a new era,” Bennett wrote in the letter. “We have been hitting our heads against the wall of negotiations over and over again for years and we kept getting surprised when the wall did not break. The time has come for new thinking.”

On April 6, Netanyahu threatened to take unilateral measures against the Palestinian Authority unless it abandoned plans to join the international agencies and treaties. The PA’s bid to join several UN agencies came in response to Israel’s refusal to free a final batch of Palestinian prisoners as part of a prior deal.

Since the resumption of the direct talks between the two sides in last July, Palestinians have also objected to a number of issues, including Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The Israeli settlements are considered illegal under international law. However, Netanyahu says the settlement construction is part of Israel’s policy and will not stop.

Original article

By D Suba Chandran

Undoubtedly the elections in Afghanistan last week to elect the next President is historical. According to initial reports, more than 60 percent of the 12 million electorate took part in the elections; given the security environment and the ability of the State to organize polling booths in every district, 60 percent is a phenomenal statistics for the Afghan democracy.

Does the positive vote mean end of the road for Taliban and to radical politics through threat and fear? Initial responses to the elections from the US to our own region have been as a vote against the Taliban, or a sign of its decline. But is it not early to make an assertion whether the Taliban would become irrelevant after this election? Does militancy, such as that of the Taliban, really decline and disappear? If it does, under what conditions? What has been the success story in our region so far?

True, the elections were not as violent, as it was expected. There were few high profile attacks, including the use of suicide bombs immediately before the elections. The horror in the Serena Hotel in Kabul and the suicide attacks in one of the offices of the election commission immediately before the elections did raise a fear that the process would be violent. Few polling booths were in fact closed due to security situation; and in many places, especially in the southern and eastern districts, where the Taliban is having its base, post election interviews do inform that the threat from the Taliban against voting did work.

By no stretch of imagination one could make an argument that the Taliban is weak enough not to carry out targeted attacks, or general bomb blasts anywhere in Afghanistan. In fact, there were days in the recent past of Afghanistan, which were even more violent than what one had witnessed during the day of election last week. Though the Afghan national security forces (ANSF) are better trained and equipped today, the security is not fool proof that the Taliban could not penetrate.

Perhaps, this is a calibrated strategy by the Taliban. A section within Afghanistan and outside was not sure about the election outcome; they believed this one would also be as farcical and fraudulent as the previous one in 2009. With a deeply polarized society and strong ethnic differences between the major communities, many considered this election would be contentious and inconclusive, leading only to further political instability.

So the calculation within the Taliban and their supporters elsewhere could have been to wait and watch; if the election process results in political instability, it would only strengthen the case of the Taliban and undermine the democratic process and a transition funded and supported by the “West”. So why use violence and undermine a process that is already seen as faulty and unproductive? Perhaps, this was a strategy in keeping a low profile.

Second reason for Taliban’s relative restraint during the elections is to wait, watch and choose a time and place of their own choice. The Taliban is well aware that this is only the first round; if none of the candidates get the desired percentage of votes, there would be a second round amongst the top two. Taliban could very well target the process at that time; perhaps, this could be a future wait and watch strategy by the Taliban, as it did immediately after the international security forces landed in Afghanistan in 2001-02. They disappeared into the mountains, only to engage in a guerrilla warfare, that too successfully. Perhaps, this time the Taliban wanted to gauge the response of the people, and pursue an appropriate course of action. The fact that the election process in the South and East were stunted does highlight that its base is intact.

To conclude, it is too early to write off the Taliban. Few high profile suicide attacks in Kabul would change the entire context and the discourse.

The larger question and challenge for Afghanistan and the rest of South Asia is – do militancy of the Taliban variety decline and disappear? Or they only decay but only mutate further? Even if the second round of election is free of violence and results in a new President taking over, what is the likely response of Taliban in the near future?

In South Asia – we have few examples – the NSCN in India’s Northeast, Khalistan movement in Punjab, the LTTE in Sri Lanka and the Baloch insurgency in Pakistan. The NSCN today has become a fractionalized movement, and the level of corruption in the State has only made an underground movement into a semi-over ground but parallel government. In Punjab, the State used force on the one hand, but politically co-opted the parties and ensured there is better governance; as a result, the Khalistan movement in Punjab today is all but dead, except occasional posters and periodic discussions.

In Balochistan, Pakistan used brutal force to undermine the Baloch national movements more than three times since independence. Neither there was better governance, nor the local population got co-opted into the mainstream. Same was the case in Sri Lanka as well; the government towards the end of Eelam War, used brute force to physically annihilate the LTTE. Though violence has come to an end, the Sri Lankan Tamils are still far from being satisfied.
Which way would the Taliban insurgency turn into in Afghanistan after the elections? This is an important question not only for Afghanistan, but also for the entire regional security. Much would depend on how the Afghan led and Afghan owned transition takes place at the ground level, in terms of improving the situation of the Afghan people.

Though the ANSF may be better trained and well equipped to take on the Taliban militarily, the military equation between the State and the Taliban is not going to be the decisive factor. Political stability and social reconstruction by the Afghan government, an inclusive economic growth along with equitable distribution of development in urban and rural areas would become the decisive factor. Though corruption is also an issue, in the case of Afghanistan, the critics are exaggerating the case; this is a common issue for the entire South Asia and accusing Afghanistan alone may not provide the right answers.

So the question where would the Taliban go – is not in the hands of Mullah Omar, but with the next President, and the rest of international community including Pakistan. If there is better governance, equitable development and inclusive growth, the Taliban will be relegated into an insignificant militant group that would eventually mutate into splinter groups, like the multiple Mujahideen groups did after the so called jihad against the Russians in the 1980s. If the international community lose interest in Afghanistan and allows the positive developments to go down the drain, along with ignoring any Pakistani ingress, it would only strengthen the hands of the Taliban. Worse, if the next government fail to deliver, support for the Taliban would only increase. Not by design, but by default.

The success and failure of the Taliban, is not in the hands of Mullah Omar. It rests with the next President and his ability to take Afghanistan forward.

D Suba Chandran
Director, IPCS

By arrangement with Rising Kashmir

Reports about torture and abuse in the United Arab Emirates of British nationals, including a former bodyguard of the mother of the crown prince of Abu Dhabi whose half- brother was caught on video several years ago brutally torturing a business associate, raises the spectre of high profile Gulf acquisitions and sponsorships of European soccer clubs serving as a form of reputation laundering.

Noting that the Al Nahayan family, which rules the United Arab Emirates as well as Abu Dhabi, one of its seven emirates, owns Manchester City, the first of a number of high profile Gulf soccer acquisitions, Britain’s The Guardian newspaper reported that the British Foreign Office had documentary evidence of alleged torture of its nationals in Dubai Central Prison. The evidence was acquired during a visit by Foreign Office staff to British detainees held ion drugs charges.

The Brits include Hasnain Ali, a former bodyguard of Shaikha Fatima bint Mubarak Al Ketbi, and. Ahmad Zeidan, a student from Berkshire. Shaikha Fatima is the mother of Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and supreme commander of the UAE armed forces.

The Foreign Office documents assert that in the case of Mr. Ali police officers “hit his head from the left side and pointed a gun to his head”. Mr. Ali was quoted as saying that he had been “repeatedly kicked by the officers”. The British diplomats said they had “found bruises on his back that were a result of his kicking”. They described how Mr. Ali took off his T-shirt to show his visitors “four even scars, two on the right side and two on the left, parallel to each other”.

Mr. Zeidan was also allegedly beaten, hooded, stripped naked and threatened with rape by police officers.

Both men, who said they do not speak Arabic, told the diplomats that they had been forced to sign confessions in Arabic that had not been translated for them. Their plight, which has been raised by British Prime Minister David Cameron with UAE authorities, follows the arrest last year of three Britons on drug charges who were pardoned after they complained about torture in a UAE prison.

The UAE has consistently denied reports of abuse and torture.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) in statements last year to The Guardian warned that the UAE was using soccer to launder its image. Former English Football Association chairman Lord Triesman called at the time for making a country’s human rights record one of the criteria for establishing whether a state entity or member of a ruling family passes the “fit and proper person test” for ownership of a Premier League club.

The calls and statements by Amnesty International, the Emirates Centre for Human Rights and prominent human rights lawyers and activists like Sir Geoffrey Robertson followed a mass trial of 94 people, 69 of whom were sentenced to lengthy prison terms on charges of plotting to overthrow the government, that the activists denounced as unfair and a violation of due process. The defendants were denied legal assistance while being held incommunicado pre-trial, allegedly tortured, and refused the right of appeal. In its response at the time, the UAE justice ministry implicitly did not rule out torture and argued that alleged victims should have reported abuse to the police.

HRW researcher Nicholas McGeehan, describing the UAE as “a black hole” for basic human rights, told The Guardian that “In this situation, a Premier League club (Manchester City) is being used as a branding vehicle to promote and effectively launder the reputation of a country perpetrating serial human rights abuses. That should be of concern to football supporters as well as human rights organizations.” The paper quoted Human Rights Watch as further saying that Abu Dhabi’s purchase of Manchester City enabled it to “construct a public relations image of a progressive, dynamic Gulf state, which deflects attention from what is really going on in the country”.

The portrayal of acquisitions and sponsorships of prominent soccer clubs as an effort to launder a country’s reputation casts a shadow over the use of soccer as part of the soft power strategy of the UAE as well as Qatar that is designed to embed themselves in the international community in a way that would ensure public support in times of need. Both countries recall the success of Kuwait, another small Gulf state incapable of defending itself, in rallying the international community in 1990 to force the withdrawal of invading Iraqi forces.

The issue of human rights violations in the UAE compared to criticism of the conditions for foreign workers in Qatar, which owns Paris Saint Germain and will host the 2022 World Cup, highlights different approaches in the Gulf when states are attacked for their human rights record.

Qatar despite persistent criticism by trade unions and human rights groups has engaged with its critics and taken initial steps to address their concerns and repair reputational damage suffered. Repairing reputational damage will depend on quick and efficient implementation of those steps.

“In my meetings with the people in charge of Qatar 2022, they made some big promises of change. After this investigation, it’s urgent that they deliver,” British Labour Member of Parliament and shadow international development secretary Jim Murphy told the Daily Mail during a fact finding mission organized by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), one of Qatar’s harshest critics.

In its latest response to its critics, Qatar this week issued a handbook of standards for accommodation of foreign workers at construction sites. With foreign workers already the majority of its population, Qatar expects to import a million more to complete World Cup-related projects in coming years.

In contrast to Qatar, the UAE so far has limited its response to official denials of allegations of torture and abuse.

Manchester City was bought in 2008 by Deputy UAE Prime Minister Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, a brother of Abu Dhabi crown prince Sheikh Mohammed and a half-brother of UAE president Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan. Sheikh Mansour is the senior official responsible for the Abu Dhabi judiciary. UAE officials have insisted that the acquisition as well as last year’s agreement to invest in the creation of a 20th Major League Soccer team in the United States was a personal rather than a government investment.

The allegations of abuse of British nationals are not the first time that the UAE has faced allegations of human rights violations. A court acquitted Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan, a brother of Sheikh Mansour, Sheikh Mohammed and Sheikh Khalifa in 2010 on charges of torture and rape of an Afghan merchant even though the allegations were documented on a widely distributed graphic video.

The court did not dispute the fact that Sheikh Issa was among those depicted in the tape alongside a man in a police uniform torturing the Afghan with cattle prods and at one point running him over repeatedly with a sport-utility vehicle. It argued that Sheikh Issa could not be held accountable because he had been drugged by two former business associates.

Sheikh Mansour became deputy prime minister after Sheikh Khalifa removed two of Sheikh Issa’s brothers from his cabinet in the wake of the incident.

By Subir Bhaumik

Rarely have India’s neighbours taken as much interest in the country’s parliament elections as they are doing now. One could imagine why. From Islamabad to Dhaka, Yangon to Beijing or Colombo to Male, the first question for those around us seems to be whether India will get a stable and strong government or a loose federal coalition with too many players and diverse interest that fail out as consistent national policy .

The reason for that is obvious. The Congress-led UPA is looking weak and tired , seemingly on its way out. The two choices before the country is one between a coalition powered by the Hindu right, and led by the poster-boy of Hindutv Narendra Modi, a and a loose federal coalition powered by regional chieftains. With Narendra Modi playing the stability card and asking the country to give his coalition 300 seats, India’s neighbours are trying to figure out whether that would finally work or would India vote regionally and be ruled by a truly federal coalition, whose stability may be suspect but which could stop the Hindu right in its tracks . That could start a process, described by historian Sugato Bose (now Trinamul Congress candidate in Jadavpur, Calcutta) as the “critical phase of federal re-negotiation” .

Our neighbours may not necessarily like to see a “strong and stable” government in Delhi, specially one led by the religious right and a leader who is capable of bullying smaller neighbors. But for any country and its diplomats, it will not be easy to deal with than ten to twelve key players in a federal coalition. Let us take Bangladesh’s predicament as a case in point.

Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League government is most comfortable if the Congress is in power. But as it prepares to deal with an Indian government that will possibly be non-Congress, it is caught between the proverbial devil and deep sea. The Awami League is uncomfortable dealing with the BJP because (a) last time it was in power it warmed up to BNP-Jamaat alliance government in 2001; (b) because the Awami League’s principal adversary in Bangladesh is the Islamic right (c) because the BJP’s anti-infiltration rhetoric has potential to create fresh tensions with Bangladesh; (d) because the BJP has opposed the land boundary agreement which Manmohan Singh signed with the Hasina government.

Modi’s distinction between “Hindu refugees” and “Muslim migrants’”from Bangladesh and the differential approach he advocates towards them also unnerves many in Dhaka who dont not want the religious factor played up in Indian states bordering Bangladesh. But there are some in Awami League who would prefer a strong Indian government under Modi, mindful of India’s security and other interests, which can stand up to US bullying in Bangladesh and defend the present government from being pressurized into holding snap polls.

That may not be the case if a Federal Front comes to power with Mamata Banerjee emerging as an important player. So the Awami League government may quietly deal with Modi but they know they will have much more trouble if Mamata has much influence in Delhi. But what if Modi comes to depend on Mamata’s support to form a government – surely the worst case scenario for Hasina and best for Khaleda?

Similar problems of choice face all small neighbours from Sri Lanka to Nepal and Bhutan. A tough rightist government can become a bully but a weak government in Delhi driven by regional players like the Tamil parties may be worse for Sri Lanka as Mamata would be for Bangladesh. And for those in India’s neighborhood who feel Modi may be as pragmatic as Atal Bihari Vaypayee – by compulsion if not by choice — the preference would be for a BJP-led government rather than one run by something like the Federal Front.

But in Pakistan’s political circles, there is considerable nervousness over the prospect of Modi and a BJP-led government. Not just because of Modi’s rhetoric, but about what his Kashmir policy would look like and also India’s future role in Afghanistan. The army in Pakistan though would love Modi in Delhi to justify their rising defence budgets.

Myanmar is headed for parliament polls within a year after India. NLD and other pro-democracy forces are closely watching who takes the reins in Delhi. The last time when BJP was in power, India was kowtowing to the military junta in pursuit of its own national interest to ensure a level playing field with China. Aung Sang Suu Kyi remains sore with Indian policy for befriending the junta. She would not want a government in Delhi that does not place a premium on restoration of democracy in the region . But the generals, including those in civilian clothes now running the show in Myanmar, may just be comfortable with the Hindu right as it promotes a new thuggish brand of anti-Muslim Buddhism chauvinism, specially in minority regions, to retain majority Burman support.

China may not be too upset with a Modi led government, despite belated US attempts to warm up to him. The Hindutva poster boy is seen in China as someone who can solve problems – and who in pursuit of India’s interest would befriend China and not antagonize it . Gujarat is the only government with a trade office in Kunming, capital of Yunnan, China’s bridgehead province with South and South-east Asia.

On the other hand, the Chinese who are puzzled by the contradictions of India’s plural and diverse democracy, are uncomfortable with a Federal Front which may have players influenced by the US and unwilling to work towards a resolution of the long festering border dispute. They would surely miss someone like National Security Adviser Shiv Shanker Menon, who knows China, and is seen as having pushed through a border management agreement within four months of the Ladakh imbroglio.

(Subir Bhaumik, a veteran journalist and author, closely watches India’s neighborhood. He can be contacted at sbhaum@gmail.com)

This article appeared at South Asia Monitor and is reprinted with permission.

By Gaurav Dixit

What may appear to be a prompt unplanned action by the Indian police in arresting a large number of jihadi terrorists from across the country this year is actually a long and focused effort by the intelligence agencies and police forces to derail the terrorists’ intention to create mayhem in India in 2014. This has been pointed out in intelligence reports earlier of large cross border influx of terrorists as well as revival of terrorist activities in India after the change of guard in Afghanistan.

As the international troops are preparing to move out of Afghanistan, a large number of terrorists operating in that country and around border areas are being diverted towards India to disrupt the security condition. General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the 15 Corps, Lieutanant General Gurmit Singh, voiced the apprehension and asked the army to be ready for the possible influx in Kashmir region.

Unlike 2013, militant activities in Kashmir Valley have risen this year. The first terrorist elimination last year was around mid-April. In contrast, the army has eliminated 24 terrorists by the end of March.

It is not just around Kashmir. Police have arrested many extremists, including top Indian Mujahideen (IM) and Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) operatives, in other parts of the country in 2014. According to the partial data collected by South Asia Terrorism Portal, the Indian police with the assistance of intelligence agencies have arrested at least 77 terrorists in 2014 from across the country.

Majority of the arrests include jihadi extremists and terrorist operatives, Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agents, and nationals from the South Asia region of Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan.

The arrests include top Indian operatives for IM, Tehseen Akhtar alias Monu, and another top IM operative, Abdul Wahid Siddibappa alias Khan by authorities in Abu Dhabi. Majority of those arrested are either operatives of IM or a part of its parent outfit SIMI. The intensification of tracking and arrest of IM and SIMI operatives can be traced to last year’s major arrests by Indian agencies in India and the Indo-Nepal border areas.

Top Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative Abdul Karim Tunda was arrested last year near the Indo-Nepal border. Similarly, top IM operative Yasin Bhatkal along with his aide Asadullah Akhtar alias Haddi was arrested from the Indo-Nepal border areas.

Sudden upsurge or plotted

The pertinent question in this sudden upsurge in non-violent yet, militant activities points to a strategic use of Indian-based militant outfits to restructure and re-channelize its network in the region. The rise in activities is not merely a happenstance, but a purposeful move by the Pakistan-based agencies and terrorist outfits.

The idea of exploitation of Indian militant outfits to create havoc in India through either state agencies like ISI or non-state agencies like LeT, Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) has been the principal plan of Pakistan since several years. Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde confirmed the role of Pakistan in Indian terror plots, and said the IM draws its “motivation and sustenance from inimical forces” in Pakistan.

According to Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) team, the German Bakery blast in Pune in 2010 which killed 17 people and injured at least 60 more was the first terrorist activity of IM in coordination with the Pakistan-based LeT. In fact, the Dilkushnagar blast in Hyderabad last year was planned in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir at a joint summit of terror outfits on Feb 9 -10, 2013, attended by outfits like LeT, JeM and HM. The diversity of the outfits suggests an unprecedented involvement of terrorist outfits from across the border into Indian activities.

It was after the weakening of the LeT in Pakistan and IM in India that forced the ISI to take charge of militant outfits in India, confirmed by arrested IM operational chief in India, Yasin Bhatkal.

He also observed that IM was fully funded and managed by Pakistani intelligence agency, the ISI. In fact, an intercept by intelligence agencies confirmed Bhatkal’s claims. The intercept revealed that ISI gave around Indian Rs.26 crore to IM operative Riyaz Bhatkal in the last three years for anti-India operations. Overall, the ISI has given around INR 800 million to IM and its associates to carry out terror strikes in India, another Intelligence Bureau report suggests.

Similarly, Asadullah Akhtar alias Haddi confessed to have got arms training in a camp organized by ISI. Such revelations are pointing towards a dangerous deviance from the normal course of terrorist activities in India, which was more or less featured as a kind of retaliation by a section of a community who felt betrayed and marginalised by the Indian government. Unlike militant activities of early 1990s, recent revelations show a new political trend of militancy which threatens the Indian state through and in connivance with state and non-state agencies of the neighbouring country.

Another disturbing feature of the recent revelations is the realignment of Indian terrorist outfits with top international militant outfits like Taliban and Al Qaeda, going beyond their traditional allies like LeT, HM, JeM. These ultra-radical agencies, their ideals and intent are about violent universal Islamic values, and there is little variation across the globe. Needless to mention, the entire strategy of these outfits is to dethrone democratic institutions and replace them with Islamic governance.

The recent trend of alignment of Indian militant outfits with major terror outfits abroad portrays a disturbing vision of the future, to combat which would require not only the Indian governments’ commitment but large-scale coordination among international players fighting against terrorism.

(Gaurav Dixit is an independent strategic analyst based in New Delhi. He can be contacted at gauravdixit04@gmail.com)

This article appeared at South Asia Monitor and is reprinted with permission.

The emergence of overt supporters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS) in Indonesia has raised concerns regarding links between local and global jihadi groups. This overt support does not necessarily mean ISIS may take root in Indonesia.

By Navhat Nuraniyah

ON 16 MARCH 2014 hundreds of Islamist extremists carrying the flags of the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS) rallied in the heart of Jakarta. Campaigns in support of ISIS, a designated terrorist group operating in Syria, also took place in other parts of Indonesia.

The emergence of overt supporters of ISIS in Indonesia has raised concerns regarding the revival of links between local and global jihadi groups. There is also a concern that ISIS supporters might want to establish its affiliate group in Indonesia. While it might not pose any immediate threat, the development might indicate an increasingly blurred distinction between extremism and terrorism in Indonesia.

“Fan Club”, not affiliate

The event, however, does not necessarily signify the emergence of an ISIS affiliate in Indonesia for two reasons. Firstly, the Jakarta rallies were organised by above-ground pro-sharia advocacy groups including Forum for Islamic Sharia Activists (FAKSI), Sharia4Indonesia, Islamic Reform Movement (GARIS), and Congress of Bekasi Muslims (KUIB). The pro-sharia groups act more like a “fan club” of ISIS than committed soldiers.

In general, like their jihadist counterparts, pro-sharia advocacy groups reject democracy and secularism. Both also believe in the supremacy of the Islamic political system as the ideal. But pro-sharia advocacy groups generally differ from more radical jihadist groups in that they focus on the gradual implementation of Islamic law and enhancement of public morality rather than armed struggle as a way to build an Islamic state. They do not, however, entirely dismiss armed struggle especially in the context of political instability and chaos.

The pro-sharia advocacy groups support ISIS largely because they expect it to be an embryonic transnational caliphate. The Jakarta rally was said to promote the so-called emerging caliphate in the Indonesian society. Given their mission to win the hearts and minds of society, they prefer a public relations approach than violence, as reflected in the peaceful rallies.

Secondly, in the jihadist worldview, support is not similar to bai’ah (giving allegiance). While the groups participating in the campaign expressed support for ISIS, they have not explicitly committed to become ISIS’ soldiers in Syria. The “fan club” merely expressed passive support. For instance, it was mentioned that they would join ISIS in a distant scenario in which ISIS would become an international caliphate, which is not in ISIS’ agenda yet as it is facing mounting opposition in Syria. Short of pledging allegiance, ISIS supporters are arguably no more than a “fan club” and thus not an immediate threat.

Tension between “Fan Clubs”

Pro-ISIS campaigns in Indonesia are arguably also a response to the recent split between ISIS and Al-Qaeda (AQ). ISIS was first established in 2006 as the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) by various jihadist groups, most significantly Al-Qaeda in Iraq, before it decided to expand to Syria in 2013. Earlier this year, ISIS broke away from AQ central command and the two have been competing for supremacy in global jihad.

Since Indonesian extremists and their media have been following closely the events in Syria, they also started taking sides. Pro-ISIS media include Al-Mustaqbal, whose editor is an important figure in Sharia4Indonesia, and Millahibrahim that is linked to influential jihadist cleric, Aman Abdurrahman. Despite the seemingly growing media fanfare for ISIS, most Indonesian fighters on the ground in Syria reportedly got there through Ahrar Al-Syam, one of ISIS’ rivals.

Representing the anti-ISIS camp is Arrahmah.com. A “publication war” has been taking place between both camps. Arrahmah has been bashing ISIS for killing members of AQ affiliates in Syria while pro-ISIS media came to its defence and accused Arrahmah of biased reporting.

The campaigns are possibly just an extension of the growing tension between both “fan clubs”. The declaration of support recited during the campaign mentioned that it not only aimed to show support but also to defend ISIS against criticism from other groups. Therefore, although Syria offered new opportunities for local jihadist groups to participate in global jihad, it has also led to growing friction among them.

Blurring line between extremists and terrorists

Perhaps the only source of concern here is the blurring distinction between extremism and terrorism. While the ideology of pro-sharia advocacy groups involved in pro-ISIS campaigns could be categorised as extremist in the sense that they advocate religious supremacy and oppose the existing system of democracy, they nonetheless refrain from the use of terror. It is true that some pro-sharia advocacy groups have shown solidarity for imprisoned jihadists as a form of support to ‘fellow Islamic activists’. However, formally supporting an internationally recognised terrorist organisation is a step further.

The prospect of blurring boundaries between extremism and terrorism is especially alarming due to the apparent links between Indonesian pro-sharia groups with Anjem Choudary, a United Kingdom-based extremist preacher. Choudary’s aboveground pro-sharia and pro-jihad advocacy group, Islam4UK – formerly called Al-Muhajiroun – was banned by the UK government as it was revealed that a number of individuals convicted of terrorism were linked to the group. Choudary and his organisation provide an example of how non-violent extremism could in some cases generate violent extremism, thus his growing proximity with Indonesian extremist groups merits concern.

In recent years, Choudary has become a highly regarded figure among Indonesian pro-sharia advocacy groups. He, for instance, has been a regular speaker at Sharia4Indonesia’s conferences in Jakarta and other regions in Indonesia. In a video message especially addressed to Muslims in Indonesia, Choudary encouraged them to rise against the current regime in order to accelerate Islamic revolution. Choudary’s statements in support of ISIS and jihad in Syria were also published in Indonesian jihadi media particularly Al-Mustaqbal.

It is possible that Indonesian pro-sharia advocacy groups’ support for ISIS might have been partly inspired by Choudary. Furthermore, as Al-Muhajiroun and its networks have allegedly recruited and facilitated European fighters to go to Syria, they could potentially provide Indonesian extremists with yet another link to Syria. Hence, the situation deserves to be monitored.

Navhat Nuraniyah is an Associate Research Fellow at the Centre of Excellence for National Security (CENS), a constituent unit of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University.

The headline over a presentation (http://jfjfp.com/?p=57943) by Jews for Justice for Palestinians of the text of a talk given by Norman Finkelstein to a number of British universities in mid-March was The End of Palestine? It’s time to sound an alarm. The purpose of this article is to do just that.

In his talk which analysed U.S. Secretary of State Kerry’s peace initiative (“a sham”), Finkelstein explained at length that the Palestinians are on their own because the powers that be in the Western and Arab worlds want them to accept crumbs from Zionism’s table and effectively surrender to Zionism’s will. (I’ve been saying that for ages).

He also notes, and I agree, that the Palestinian cause is not as alive and well as it once was in the hearts and minds of the Arab masses, not least because they have troubles of their own.

Finkelstein’s summing up included this:

QUOTE The PA fantasizes that it can liberate Palestine via international diplomacy, while BDS fantasizes that it can liberate Palestine via international sanctions. But the only ones who can liberate Palestine are the Palestinian people themselves, principally those living under occupation. Only mass nonviolent civil resistance can catapult Palestine back on the international stage.

If a popular revolt, like the first intifada, erupts under the simple slogan Enforce the Law, and if the international solidarity movement does its part, it might be possible to mobilize public opinion – including sectors of liberal American Jewish opinion – and exert sufficient pressure on the international community such that Israel will be compelled to meet its legal obligations. UNQUOTE

My purpose is to put some flesh on the bone of the statement that the Palestinians themselves must take the lead if their cause is not to become a lost one.

In my analysis a Palestinian strategy for taking the lead has begin with the DISSOLUTION OF THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY (PA), which in Gideon Levy’s words is more or less a “sub-contractor for Israel”, and HANDING BACK TO ISRAEL THE FULL RESPONSIBILITY AND ACCOUNTABILITY FOR OCCUPATION.

This would impose significant burdens on Israel.

Without the PA’s American trained security forces to keep the Palestinians of the occupied West Bank under control for Israel, having to take complete responsibility for occupation would be costly in terms of the additional call on Israel’s own security forces and financially.

More to the point, dissolving the PA could be the beginning of a process to make calling and holding the Zionist (not Jewish) state to account for its defiance of international law and crimes something less than what it is at present – a mission impossible.

Such a process could and would be assisted by the occupied and oppressed Palestinians resorting to a campaign of non-violent protest. It could take the form of silent gatherings of Palestinians in each and all of their locations, with each and every one of them holding above their heads a placard bearing the words END THE OCCUPATION. The placard would not need to be anything fancy. The words, large enough for the cameras to capture, could be written on cardboard. In my view the combination of the silence of the gatherings and the message of the placards would help to focus the attention of the outside world.

As I write I find myself wondering how the government of Israel would respond to such demonstrations on, say, a weekly basis. Quite possibly it would pass a law declaring that any gathering of Palestinians anywhere on the West Bank for a political purpose would be illegal without a permit. They, permits, would not be granted and, in theory, that would free up the IDF to take whatever action it deemed to be necessary – tear gas, rubber bullets and even live ammunition – to disperse the silent protest gatherings. I say “in theory” because IDF violence to disperse silent and peaceful protest gatherings of Palestinians on their own land (what’s left of it) would help to swell the rising global tide of anti-Israelism and add substance to the perception of Israel as a pariah state. Surely no government of Israel would be that stupid…..?

As I have stated in previous articles, the occupied and oppressed Palestinians would themselves be stupid if they resorted to violent protest because that would play into Israel’s hands and save its leaders from creating a pretext for a final ethnic cleansing. (It really is the case, as noted recently by Bassem Khoury, a former PA minister, that “Israel hasn’t changed.” He added, “It is the same old colonial entity pursuing the same ethnic cleansing policies it did for decades.” But unlike what happened in 1948, I add, today’s ethnic cleansing is happening slowly and by stealth).

As I indicated above, the dissolution of the PA would be only the beginning of a strategy for preventing the Palestinian cause from becoming a lost one. The other essential element of it has to be the Palestinian diaspora becoming engaged and putting its act together to bring the Palestine National Council (PNC) back to life.

Once upon a time the PNC, a parliament-in-exile with its members elected or at least nominated by diaspora communities throughout the world, was the highest decision-making body on the Palestinian side. (The Arab regimes loathed it because more often than not it was a manifestation of democracy in action). Bringing the PNC back to life would require fresh elections to it throughout the Palestinian diaspora and, Israel permitting, the occupied West Bank and the blockaded Gaza Strip.

The composition of the Palestinian diaspora by countries and numbers of Palestinians resident in them is roughly the following. Jordan – 2,900,000; Israel – 1,600,000; Syria – 800,000 Chile – 500,000; Lebanon – 490,000; Saudi Arabia – 280,245; Egypt – 270,245; United States – 270,000; Honduras -250,000; Venezuela – 245,120; United Arab Emirates – 170,000; Germany -159,000; Mexico – 158,000; Qatar – 100,000; Kuwait – 70,000; El Salvador – 70,000 Brazil – 59,000; Iraq – 57,000; Yemen – 55,000; Canada – 50,975; Australia – 45,000; Libya – 44,000; Denmark – 32,152; United Kingdom – 30,000; Sweden – 25,500; Peru – 20,000; Columbia – 20,000; Spain – 12,000; Pakistan – 10,500; Netherlands – 9,000; Greece – 7,500; Norway – 7,000; France – 5,000; Guatemala – 3,500; Austria – 3,000; Switzerland – 2,000; Turkey – 1,000; and India – 300.

The number of Palestinians resident in each country would determine how many representatives in each country were to be elected to the PNC.

The role of the PNC brought back to life would be to debate and determine Palestinian policy and then to represent it by speaking to power, on behalf of all Palestinians everywhere, with one credible voice.

If the Palestinian diaspora is unwilling to play its necessary part in keeping the cause alive, the judgement of history one day will most likely be that it was complicit by default in Zionism’s final ethnic cleansing and the closing, never for re-opening, of the Palestine file.

My question for the Palestinian diaspora is this. Can you not hear the alarm?

Footnote

In an article for today’s Ha’aretz, Henry Siegman, formerly the national director of the American Jewish Congress, argues that America is “irrelevant” to Middle East peacemaking because it won’t use its leverage over Israel and, therefore, that the Palestinians should resort to “a non-violent, anti-apartheid struggle.”

By Balasubramaniyan Viswanathan

Around 18 years ago on March 20, 1995, the Aum Shirikyo cult in Japan released Sarin nerve gas onboard five trains converging at Tokyo’s Kasumigaseki station, resulting in 12 fatalities and 1,039 injured. This was the first known instance of a non-conventional attack by a non-state actor in the history of terrorism. And experts have christened attacks like it as “super terrorism.”

Super terrorism can be defined as an act of terrorism carried out by a terrorist group using nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons. The scope of this definition has been further widened recently to encompass cyber attacks as well. The primary ingredients required to classify or define acts of terror as super terrorism are twofold – one is the non-conventional aspect of the attack (means) and the other is the resulting mass casualties (ends). The former is the cause and latter is the effect.

Though fearsome in its intent, there have only been a handful of known attempts in the past by non-state actors to procure nuclear weapons. For instance, according to 2001 testimony by Jamal Al Fadal, an Al Qaeda operative, Al Qaeda attempted to acquire uranium through its contacts in Sudan in 1994 for USD 1.5 million. The uranium was meant to be used in a crude device which for unknown reasons was never produced. There is no evidence to suggest that any other non-state actor has been successful in acquiring nuclear weapons.

Groups like Al Qaeda are known to have attempted to produce biological and chemical weapons in the past. For instance, Al Qaeda conducted clandestine experiments to develop a chemical and biological weapon program known as the “yogurt project” under the aegis of Ayman Al Zawahiri. The program had a proposed start-up budget of $2,000 to $4,000.

Super Terrorism: Fact or Fiction

Expert opinion on super terrorism has been divided. However, many analysts are of the view that the possibility of a nuclear terrorist attack has in all likelihood receded (given rigid institutional controls) compared to other possibilities such as chemical and biological terrorism. This is due to the relative ease of production and related costs associated with the latter two.

Against this backdrop, some open source reports indicate attempts by Indian Mujahideen to procure a nuclear weapon to be deployed in Surat, Gujarat. This information has been culled from the interrogation report of Yasin Bhatkal (co-founder of Indian Mujahideen). These revelations have sparked a lively debate, driven by deep schisms among the counterterrorism community in India, on whether the threat of super terrorism in India is fact or fiction.

Nuclear terrorism has been debunked by many in India, who state that the Indian Mujahideen has neither the capacity nor the resources to access, procure, or use a small (tactical) nuclear device. For all practical reasons, the idea of Indian Mujahideen getting access to nuclear weapons appears far-fetched, borrowed straight out of a James Bond movie.

On the other hand, threats from chemical and biological weapons remain in India. Last year, intelligence reports indicated that Maoists have hired chemical engineers to train them in the use of methane and nitrogen compounds in liquefied form. These weapons are either hung on treetops or thrown at patrols and set on fire, creating an “incendiary” effect.

The use of biological weapons by non-state actors in India is also a possibility. According to Vicky Nanjappa, a journalist and expert on Islamic terrorism in India, Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and its front organizations, complemented with an apparatus of hospitals, labs and medical professionals, could draw on these resources for a bio-attack on Indian targets if it wanted to do so.

Notwithstanding the above, other variants of super terrorism – like targeting nuclear installations using conventional methods or using weapons to create nuclear/radiological dispersions, appear to be a possible alternative for terror groups in India. Terror groups have been known to target vital installations in the past. For instance, according to David Coleman Headley, Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC) was on the LeT’s radar, albeit strictly the living quarters of the scientists.

Intent vs. Capability

Given the above, do Indian groups have the capability to carry out a super terorrist attack? The fact that super terrorism is a product of both the “intent” and “capabilities” of a terror group is fundamentally important to this argument.

According to various open source analysis based on the interrogation report of Yasin Bhatkal, groups like Indian Mujahideen have shown clear intent to acquire weapons which could cause mass casualties. In 2010, a hitherto unknown group claiming themselves to be Indian Mujahideen (Assam) sent a message threatening to unleash biological weapons if their demands were not met.

Though these threats cannot be considered credible, they are still a wakeup call for Indian policy planners. They establish the fact that there is clear intent to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Now the question becomes whether or not they have the capability to do so.

This “intent” is more magnified when terrorists loose the edge of using a conventional attack due to target hardening measures. Degraded conventional attack ability could push terrorists to look for a possible alternative. For instance, in 1990, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) used chlorine gas against Sri Lankan army formations when faced with an ammunition shortage after several successful attacks by opposing forces.

Thus, groups in India like Indian Mujahideen could resort to a low-level non-conventional attack in order to offset their degraded conventional capacity. According to the interrogation report of Yasin Bhatkal, the Indian Mujahideen wanted to nuke Surat as their previous attempt to create serial bomb blasts in Surat with improvised explosive devices (IEDs) failed in 2008. Recent arrests of its top leaders like Yasin Bhatkal, Tahseen Akhtar, and Waqas have put the Indian Mujahideen on the back foot. This, in turn, has created or presented an opportunity for the desperate remnants of Indian Mujahideen to retaliate using any means at their disposal.

Presently, terrorists groups in India do not have the resources (financial or human) to access to nuclear weapons or the nuclear weapons material to create a nuclear attack or even radiological dispersal. However, technological advances have rendered the other dimensions of super terrorism, such as a chemical and biological attack, more easily accessible as the cost and effort to manufacture them are less and less compared to the nuclear/radiological realm. For instance, a state-of-the-art biological laboratory could be erected and made functional with as little as USD 10,000 worth of off-the-shelf equipment, and would be small enough to house in a small room.

Conclusion

Nuclear terrorism is still a distant dream for terror groups in India. However, low costs associated with a chemical or biological attack could present the desperate elements with an ideal and viable alternative to conventional bomb attacks. However, it is imperative to state that terrorists would certainly measure and evaluate the tradeoff between conducting a spectacular non conventional attack against loosing local support due to the colossal human loss involved. This could be the real factor that deterred occurrence of such attacks to date in India. But it must be said this “self-restraint” may not last forever.

Balasubramaniyan Viswanathan is a contributor to Geopoliticalmonitor.com, where this article first appeared.

(EurActiv) — Pro-Russian separatists reinforced barricades around the state security building in the eastern Ukrainian city of Luhansk yesterday (9 April) and called on President Vladimir Putin for help after the government warned it could use force to restore order.

Protesters were also engaged in talks to ease the standoff, which Kyiv has said could provide a pretext for a Russian invasion, and lawmakers from eastern Ukraine proposed an amnesty for protesters to defuse tension.

The former KGB headquarters is one of three government buildings seized this week in eastern Ukraine by protesters demanding regional referendums on independence from Kyiv.

Tensions have risen in the mainly Russian-speaking east since the overthrow of Ukraine’s Moscow-backed president and the installation of a new pro-European government.

“Of course we must ask Russia to take us in because I don’t see an alternative,” said a man dressed in camouflage who gave his name as Vasiliy, and said he was the commandant of the building. “Putin help us!” he said.

In a news conference held inside the occupied building late on Wednesday, Valery Bolikov, who said he was a representative of headquarters of the Southern and Eastern Army, said talks with authorities had failed to yet bring an agreement.

“Talks are continuing there are a few issues which are being dealt with but they haven’t come to their logical conclusion,” he said in Ukraine’s Security Services ornate conference hall.

While some protesters have championed the idea of joining Russia like Crimea, Bolikov said that their demands went no further than a referendum to vote whether to give Luhansk more autonomy as part of a federal structure in Ukraine.

“[We will leave the building] only after the fulfilment of our demands of the carrying out of a referendum on federalization,” he said.

Outside of the conference hall, masked men armed with kalashnikovs, pistols and guns lined the building’s many corridors. Tensions around the seizure of the building rose after the protesters broke into the security service’s arsenal.

One protester put the arsenal at around 200-300 rifles.

Local police spokeswoman Tatyana Pogukai said that police were not taking any action while negotiations were ongoing.

“We don’t want any violence. No one needs any death or blood,” she said over the telephone.

‘Forceful answer’

Protesters in Donetsk, to the south, remain in control of the main regional authority building, but authorities have ended the occupation in the city of Kharkiv.

“A resolution to this crisis will be found within the next 48 hours,” Interior Minister Arsen Avakov told reporters in the capital Kyiv.

“For those who want dialogue, we propose talks and a political solution. For the minority who want conflict, they will get a forceful answer from the Ukrainian authorities,” he said.

Ukraine’s state security service said that 50 people had left the building in Luhansk overnight. Protesters confirmed that some had left.

“Those who left were not ready to stay and fight,” said Vasiliy, who said his “soldiers” would fight on until a referendum on independence from Kyiv was held.

Occupation leaders said those who stayed behind were trained soldiers who had fought in Chechnya and Afghanistan.

“We won’t be the first ones to fire a shot but we will defend ourselves,” said Pavel Strupchevsky.

Protesters insist that they have no help from Russia and that no Russians are among their ranks, but Ukraine’s government says the actions are part of a Russian-led plan to dismember the country, a charge Moscow denies.

US Secretary of State John Kerry accused Russian agents and special forces on Tuesday of stirring up separatist unrest and said Moscow could be trying to prepare for military action as it had in Crimea.

Russia denied the accusations on Wednesday and dismissed concerns over a troop buildup near the border with Ukraine in what has become the worst East-West crisis since the end of the Cold War in 1991.

“Russia has stated many times that it is not carrying out any unusual or unplanned activity on its territory near the border with Ukraine that would be of military significance,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

A lawmaker from the most popular political party in the east, the Party of Regions, on Wednesday said he planned to ask parliament to amnesty the protesters, following the success of a similar move to reduce tension in Kyiv two months ago.

“The situation is so tense and complex that one stray word might cause a flare-up,” said Oleksandr Yefremov. “To prevent people suffering … we are proposing a draft law on an amnesty.”

Diplomatic stunt

The European Union said on Tuesday that top diplomats from the EU, Russia, Ukraine and the United States would meet next week to discuss the crisis, but Russia says it wants to know more about the agenda for such a meeting.

“Lavrov noted that this format could be useful if it is aimed not at discussing various aspects of one bilateral relationship or another, but on helping to arrange a broad and equal internal Ukrainian dialogue with the aim of agreeing mutually acceptable constitutional reform,” the Russian foreign ministry said.

Lavrov told Kerry “the authorities in Kiev must finally respond to the legitimate demands of eastern and southern regions of the country,” the ministry said.

On Wednesday, the EU created a dedicated support group to advise Ukraine on political and economic reforms and coordinate with other donors and international lenders.

The new round of talks between Iran and the world powers over Iran’s nuclear program has ended in Vienna, and the two sides are set to meet on May 13 to continue the negotiations.

Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief, said in a joint statement on Wednesday April 9 with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif: “A lot of intensive work will be required to overcome the differences which naturally still exist at this stage in the process.”

The two sides are looking at drafting a final agreement in May.

Meanwhile, IAEA chief Yukiya Amano announced that Iran is responding well to inspectors from the UN watchdog and living up to its side of the bargain as stipulated in November’s Geneva agreement.

The talks also included negotiations between Iranian and U.S. representatives behind closed doors. Iranian deputy foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said since sanctions against Iran are largely unilateral sanctions by the U.S., they require “more serious and comprehensive talks.”

Google is taking new steps to ensure Android users are protected from malware and other harmful apps, Mashable reports.

The company announced Thursday, April 10, it is expanding its app verification service to monitor all the apps on users’ devices — including those downloaded from the Google Play Store.

Previously, when the Verify Apps service was enabled, only apps from third-party app stores were scanned, and only upon installation. Now Verify Apps will check every app before it is installed — and will regularly check that all of a user’s installed apps are “behaving in a safe manner.”

“Because potentially harmful applications are very rare, most people will never see a warning or any other indication that they have this additional layer of protection,” said Android security engineer Rich Cannings in a blog post. “But we do expect a small number of people to see warnings (which look similar to the existing Verify apps warnings) as a result of this new capability.”

Google already has a system, codenamed “Bouncer,” that analyzes each app uploaded to the Google Play Store for malware. But this service doesn’t check apps from third-party stores or applications that have already been downloaded.

The Verify Apps setting, found under the security settings menu on most versions of Android, is enabled by default on Android smartphones and tablets.

By Paul Craig Roberts

American Cold War propaganda had little, if anything, to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, by dramatizing Soviet mendacity it made the world blind to Washington’s mendacity.

When Soviet authorities refused to publish prominent Soviet writer Boris Pasternak’s masterpiece, Dr. Zhivago, the CIA turned it into a propaganda coup. An Italian journalist and Communist Party member learned of the suppressed manuscript and offered to take the manuscript to the Italian communist publisher in Milan, Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, who published the book in Italian over Soviet objections in 1957. Feltrinelli believed that Dr. Zhivago was a masterpiece and that the Soviet government was foolish not to take credit for the accomplishment of its greatest writer. Instead, a dogmatic and inflexible Kremlin played into the CIA’s hands.

The Soviets made such a stink about the book that the controversy raised the book’s profile. According to recently declassified CIA documents, the CIA saw the book as an opportunity to make Soviet citizens wonder why a novel by such a prominent Russian writer was only available abroad.

The CIA arranged for a Russian language edition to be published and distributed to Soviet citizens at the World Fair in Brussels in 1958. The propaganda coup was complete when Pasternak received the Nobel Prize for literature in October 1958.

The use of Pasternak’s novel to undermine Soviet citizens’ belief in their government continued as late as 1961. That year I was a member of the US/USSR student exchange program. We were encouraged to take with us copies of Dr. Zhivago. We were advised that it was unlikely Soviet customs inspectors would know English and be able to recognize book titles. If asked, we were to reply “travel reading.” If the copies were recognized and confiscated, no worry. The copies were too valuable to be destroyed. The custom officials would first read the books themselves and then sell them on the black market, an efficient way to spread the distribution.

You can read the Washington Post’s report here:

The declassified CIA documents can be read here:

What strikes me about the CIA memos is how similar the United States government is today to the Soviet government of 1958. The chief of the CIA’s Soviet Division described in a July 1958 memo why Dr. Zhivago was a threat to the Soviet government. The threat resided in “Pasternak’s humanistic message that every person is entitled to a private life and deserves respect as a human being.”

Tell that to the National Stasi Agency and to Homeland Security and to the detainees in Guantanamo and the CIA’s torture prisons. In the US individual privacy no longer exists. The NSA collects and stores every email, every credit card purchase, every telephone conversation, every Internet search, every use of social media of every citizen. Pasternak had far more privacy than any American has today….

Penalties Soviet citizens paid for uttering truths inconvenient for the government were no more severe than the penalties imposed on Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, and Edward Snowden.

Today Russian citizens are more free to have private lives than are Americans, and the Russian press is more lively and more critical of government than the American press. As I wrote in one of my columns, when communist East Germany dissolved, the Stasi moved to Washington.

By John Grobler

Swiss commodity giant Trafigura, partnering with the politically connected Angolan company Cochan Limited and the mysterious China International Fund, has quietly gained total control of Angola’s railway infrastructure, fuel distribution network and iron ore deposits via a vast global network of off-shore companies registered in various tax havens. Using funds generated by Angola’s oil sales to China, the consortium has built up a vast business empire as the DT Group. It consists of property, fuel, steel-making, shipping and logistics holdings that could have profound economic and political implications for all of south-western Africa.

China had overtaken Portugal as Angola’s top source of both imports (28 percent) and exports (46 percent) by late 2012, largely due to a series of oil-for-infrastructure deals that started in 2003. A confluence of interests at the centre of the DT Group has taken advantage of this position to dominate the petroleum and mining commodity trade in Angola and the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). With a rebuilt deepwater port on the Atlantic coast at Lobito, replete with a new bulk ore terminal, a nearby 200,000 barrel-a-day oil refinery under construction and a new, Chinese-built railway system poised to enter the DRC’s troubled Katanga province, questions are being asked about the intentions of Angola’s DT Group.

The strategic Caminho de Ferro de Benguela (CFB), the shortest rail line linking Congolese and Zambian mining interests to European markets, could prove to be a double-edged sword for the DRC. Katanga is now at risk of being caught between the devil and the deep blue sea – quite literally. Once the 1,344km Benguela line is connected to the rail system in Katanga, it could become a game-changer for the southern African mining industry. At the moment, all minerals are exported via Richard’s Bay in South Africa, some 8,000km away by train or truck. Lobito’s brand-new facilities are less than 2,000km away – and the Angolans hope to be transporting 20-millions tons over the new railway line by 2015.

But, apart from diamond mines in north-west Angola too remote to benefit from the CFB, there are no other functioning mines in Angola – so where will this 20-million tons of ore come from? According to AidData.org, an NGO that tracks Chinese investment in Africa, the rebuilding of the CFB (and two other railway lines in Angola) is a “mixed investment”, meaning there are also private investors involved. Who they are is not known: China International Fund failed to respond to inquiries.

“The question we have is, just who will own this railway line?” asked a Likashi-based manager for a large mining services company. “Whoever controls that line will control Katanga’s mineral exports.” Like many sources interviewed in Katanga, the manager would only speak on the condition of anonymity.

Mutual distrust on either side of the border runs deep, especially since the recent resurgence of a 30-year old secessionist ghost – the dream of an independent Katanga – has seen hundreds of civilians massacred since 2011 by a shadowy militia calling itself Kata Katanga (“Chop off Katanga”). Some 365,000 people, mostly from DRC President Joseph Kabila’s Balubakat ethnic group, have been displaced in northern Katanga over the past year by this shadowy force.

The violence wracking Katanga is a symptom of a larger but hidden struggle for control of the province’s mineral resources, which provided more than half of the world’s cobalt supplies last year as well as about 4 percent of all copper. It has enormously rich copper, gold, manganese, uranium, tin tungsten and ferrous minerals deposits.

The rebirth of the Lobito Corridor is viewed with mixed feelings by Katanga’s mining industry: while it would mean greater economic efficiency, it could also put them at the mercy of whoever controls the Angolan infrastructure. Because fuel and transport average 50 percent of a mine’s operational costs, whoever could supply both fuel and bulk transport from Angola would also have significant price-making power over the Katanga mining industry – especially if the fuel and transportation suppliers are also the buyers of the mines’ production.

If there’s a frontline in this secret war, it is on the Angolan border at Luau. Here, the China Railway Engineering Company (CREC) is now advancing, rail by rail, on the Katangan frontier-post of Dilolo on the opposite bank of the Kasai River. The contrasts between Luau and Dilolo could not be greater.

Dilolo is a dirty, run-down smugglers’ paradise, replete with predatory and corrupt border police. Across the river, Luau is rising like a Chinese phoenix from the ashes of Angola’s civil war: a newly tarred main road, a glittering new railway station, all built by Chinese contract workers under a 2002 oil-for-infrastructure deal.

On an early Sunday morning in late 2013, a CREC-20 locomotive rolled into the new railway station to deliver a team of Chinese workers, many dressed in military camouflage, to the construction site for a new international airport on the western outskirts of town.

The Chinese driver, face streaked with exhaustion from what he said was an all-day, all-night ride from Huambo, some 650km to the west, squinted at two Angolan security guards wearing new uniforms emblazoned “China International Fund” across the back. “This company, no good. Work all the time, Saturday, Sunday. Not good company,” he said.

A glimpse into the Hong Kong-based China International Fund (CIF) – also known as the 88 Queensway Group after their address – provides some clues into this battle unfolding in the new scramble for Africa’s mineral riches. While there has been speculation that the CIF is Beijing’s official representative in Angola, Chinese diplomats have repeatedly distanced themselves from the company’s sharp-elbowed business practices.

CIF is the exclusive broker for all large Angolan infrastructure contracts. A United States congressional report into CIF identified its president as Sam Pa, also known as Xu Jhiang, a former military officer believed to be close to senior leaders in the Chinese military leadership who had done military training with Angolan President Eduardo dos Santos in Soviet Russia.

Sam Pa has been accused of shady business in every troubled African country from Guinea to Madagascar, touting minerals-for-infrastructure deals, and appears to have been at least the main representative for DT Group in China for the first five years of the arrangement when all infrastructure deals were channeled via the CIF.

CIF’s Angolan partner, the DT Group, is owned by generals. Its Asian holding arm, DTS Holdings (Singapore), lists General Leopoldino “Dino” de Nascimento as its sole director. De Nascimento is the former information chief under Angolan President Eduardo dos Santos and advisor to General Manuel Helder Veira “Kopelipa” Dias.

De Nascimento recently announced his retirement from active politics to concentrate on his business interests, while Kopelipa Dias – a battle-hardened former Special Forces commander – is believed to harbour presidential ambitions.

The Angolan government has made liberal use of Chinese loan facilities to rebuild the railway line – but the control of the entire railways system falls under a company owned by a small handful of officials in the office of the Angolan president. DT Group’s Angolan shareholding is held via Cochan (Angola), a company created in 2009 by Dos Santos’s billionaire daughter, Isabel, according to the Angolan government gazette Diario. All three are closely associated with former Sonangol CEO and current Vice-President Manuel Vincente, widely touted to become the next Angolan president.

Corporate intelligence reports on CIF have painted it as a “general-to-general” arrangement. According to the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, the CIF is closely linked to the Chinese Ministries of Foreign Affairs, as well as the Public Security and State Security ministries. Research by Angolan specialist Lucy Corkin showed that the CIF had become the sole conduit for all China-Angola joint ventures post-2004, using Chinese state-sponsored lines of credit to finance Angola’s ambitious reconstruction programme, and repaid with a daily uplift of 100,000 barrels of Angolan oil. All of this was being run through Trafigura’s extensive network of dealers, whose headquarters was moved to Singapore last year.

Although China’s state-owned Sinopec oil company initially was to partner Angola’s state-owned oil company Sonangol in the construction of a new refinery outside Lobito, this role appeared to have been assigned to interests aligned to the Trafigura-CIF-DT Group, with construction currently being undertaken by Brazil’s Oderbrecht conglomerate.

Trafigura and DT Group, via a series of “Chinese Box” front companies set up in Angola, the Bahamas and Singapore since 2009, now control one of the largest oil swap arrangements in the world by which most of Angola’s estimated $20-billion per annum oil exports to China are sourced.

Trafigura’s annual profits have increased 250 percent to $1-billion since entering this partnership in 2009. It is, however, just the most visible face of a financial-political-military juggernaut perhaps best described as an ultra-multinational company that blends public and private interests into massive profits for a small group of autocrats and their billionaire families and friends.

Through their Puma Energy Holdings, registered in the British Virgin Islands, this syndicate is now also the dominant mid- and down-stream fuel distribution company in sub-Saharan Africa, with a network of 320 outlets across seven countries that spans the girth of Africa from Angola to Tanzania.

The DT Group-Trafigura relationship is no secret. Berne Declaration, a Swiss NGO that promotes socially and ecologically responsible behaviour by Swiss companies and financial interests, published a critical seven-page investigation of Trafigura in 2013. Trafigura acknowledges the relationship on its website, but its secret control of all of Angola’s railway structure was not previously known.

According to Trafigura’s website, the project includes “plant processing, logistics and port facilities”, and the local railway network concession is “being handed over” to the mining company, Angola Exploration Mining Resources. The railway piece of the project will be managed by Vecturis, which has “extensive experience” in Africa’s railway industry, and which has formed a joint venture with DT in Angola, the website says.

DT’s ambitions are made clear through this entry on its website: “The Singapore registered joint venture between Cochan Group and Trafigura provides logistic and trading services, in Angola and surrounding countries.”

Angola’s government gazette shows that DT Group owns 99.9 percent of Vecturis (Angola), with 0.1 percent allocated to DTS Servicos, the DT Group’s services arm. DTS Servicos’ shareholders in turn hold extensive mining, property and energy interests in the DRC via ESCOM, the commercial trading arm of Portuguese Banco Espirito Santo, in which Isabel dos Santos holds a 19 percent interest, records show.

Trafigura does not search for oil – the so-called upstream sector – but its profits lie in its diversified portfolio, of which iron ore makes up a considerable part. The company, being privately owned, is not obliged to disclose its trades, but Trafigura has been aggressively pursuing off-take agreements with any potential iron ore producer since 2009, according to the owners of one such prospect who were approached by Trafigura’s dealers.

Meanwhile, DT Group has taken over Ferrangol, the state-owned iron ore mining company and all of its concessions in Angola via a joint venture called Angola Exploration Resource Mining. This effectively makes it the final gatekeeper for any mining ventures in Angola by control over the entire logistics chain.

Vecturis was also a major player in the restructuring of the Société des Chemin de Fer du Congo (SNCC), with the World Bank pumping $374-million into restoring the utterly rundown and over-staffed state-owned company.

The responsible official at the World Bank, Jean-Charles Crochet, said most of this was to upgrade the busiest section from Kolwezi to the Zambian border, as well as acquire 20 new locomotives and 800 wagons.

Restoring the remaining 600km between Kolwezi would require a public-private partnership – something Vecturis was already successfully doing in Madagascar and Colombia, according to its website. In both cases, Vecturis’s contracts are closely associated with huge mining projects: iron in Madagascar and coking coal in Colombia, destined for the resource-hungry Chinese “special export zones”.

Most of the $255-million World Bank grant disbursed in April 2011 was used to fix the SNCC’s most immediate problems, including paying off about 35 percent of a bloated workforce of some 12,000 people, Crochet explained. But the workers – from shunters to mid-level managers – have uniformly complained about not being paid, and accuse senior management of misappropriating funds for their own pet projects.

There appears to be no great urgency from the DRC side to rebuild the line to the Angolan border. The bimonthly train from Lubumbashi to Dilolo can take up to three weeks per trip because of frequent de-railings.

The ore trains to Zambia’s refineries and South Africa’s harbours, in contrast, are noticeably busier than previous years, thanks to nine locomotives SNCC rents from Cheltam, a subsidiary of South Africa-based Grindrod Shipping Lines.

So, who will finance and rebuild this last, critical 600km of rail? That role appears to have fallen to the Chinese, whose 2008 offer of $8-billion worth of infrastructure for 10 years’ worth of tax-free mining attracted wide condemnation from quarters like the World Bank.

Although this was reduced to $6-billion and on more equitable terms, the Kolwezi-Dilolo track seemed an obvious investment target, especially now that China is increasingly making its presence felt in this ultra-competitive sector.

Workers attached to the China Railway Engineering Company Unit 20 work on reinforcements on the CFB line outside Huambo in Angola. The Chinese supply every level of artisan except common labourers, who in the rural areas often are only paid in food. The Chinese workers earn between $150 and $250 a month – in a country where a basic meal costs $15.

The Angolans, however, appear to have the biggest plans for Katanga. Apart from the new Luau International Airport, the government is also constructing a massive container depot, matching a similar one in Lobito, and a series of bonded warehouses in a town of only about 12,000 people, local officials said.

The scope of these plans is evidenced by the rails that the CREC-20 team is laying en route to Luau: the new Benguela line runs on the most heavy-duty rail available, which is typically used for carrying ore wagons weighing 400 tons.

According to Angolan anti-corruption campaigner Rafael Marquez, the CFB project, while ostensibly a national one, has private objectives. It follows a persistent pattern he has come to recognise after years of investigating corruption among the Angolan elite, he said.

“All that operation in Luau is tied to [Angolan] military ambitions for the control of Congolese resources for the profit of the Angolan ruling elite, and their foreign business associates,” he charged.

Considering that Angola does not have a single mine within 600km of Luau, it would appear that the fight for Katanga is only about to begin.

John Grobler is a Namibian journalist. Funding for this investigation was provided by the Wits China-Africa Reporting Project, the Forum for African Investigative Reporters and the Review of African Political Economy.

THE VIEWS OF THE ABOVE ARTICLE ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR/S AND DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE PAMBAZUKA NEWS EDITORIAL TEAM

By Baruti Amisi

The Congo River watershed feeds not only Africa’s second longest river (after the Nile), but is also a vital site of struggle over BRICS’ role in Africa. In coming decades, both western and BRICS multinational corporations will use hydropower at what will be the world’s largest dam, financed by the World Bank, London markets and China, to fuel intensified mineral extraction.

The river is a site of potential Western-BRICS alliances, aiming to maximise profits. In the process, such alliances will intensify repression against those who object, in a resource cursed country that within the past two decades has suffered more than six million unnecessary civilian deaths.

The Congo River has always been abused, as a natural entry point into the central African region. It was always ‘the key to Africa for Europeans, it allows them access to the centre of the continent without having to physically cross it,’ Joseph Conrad explained in The Heart of Darkness. ‘The river also seems to want to expel Europeans from Africa altogether: its current makes travel upriver slow and difficult, but the flow of water makes travel downriver, back toward ‘‘civilisation’’, rapid and seemingly inevitable.’

The river was vital to the previous conquest of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) under the pretext of Belgium’s self-described ‘philanthropy’, its attempt to ‘civilise’ backward indigenous people, and its imposition of modernity. The death toll was between 10 million and 15 million, depending on the source.

The current race to capture the DRC’s natural resources, including hydroelectricity, is not new. But new runners in this race to self-destruction include BRICS countries. Russia represents the shadow of the former Soviet Union which – alongside the West – has been present in the DRC since the 1950s for the same interests.

This deadly race is exacerbated by the urgent need for electricity to facilitate extraction and processing of natural resources by companies taking advantage of weak labour laws and easy dispossession of the Congolese from their land and water areas, alongside commodification of basic needs.

SOUTH AFRICA LEADS

The most direct BRICS beneficiary of the world’s largest dam will be South Africa, as a result of both mining activities and the import of hydroelectricity from the Inga Hydropower Projects (IHP). South Africa’s Eskom electricity parastatal, its Development Bank of Southern Africa and SA construction corporations will have to compete with those from other sub-imperialist countries such as China and South Korea, in search for the same energy, minerals and contracts.

China is best situated to take advantage of construction contracts, as Sinohydro and the Three Gorges Corporation of China have recently built the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangze River, which at 14,000 megawatts capacity is the world’s largest. The full IHP could be three times larger.

South Korea owned MNCs in association with Canadian SNC-Lavelin will also compete with South Africa. The third group of competitors comprises Spain’s Actividades de Construccion y Servicios and MNCs from Europe, e.g. Eurofinsa and AEE. South African firms will probably lose in this tough competition, despite Pretoria’s role in UN peace initiatives in the DRC from 1996 – between Laurent Kabila and the ousted dictator Mobutu Sese Seko – to as recently as late 2013 between the M23 rebel movement and Joseph Kabila’s government.

Before 1994, the apartheid regime in Pretoria had a very strong relationship with Mobutu, and in the early 2000s Pretoria’s financing of repayments on the DRC’s debt to the International Monetary Fund was , in turn, the basis for Thabo Mbeki’s introduction of major Johannesburg mining magnates (e.g. Tokyo Sexwale) to the DRC leadership. By 2013, the players had changed, and it was Khulubuse Zuma – nephew to president Jacob Zuma – whose oil exploration activities would potentially benefit if the SA National Defence Force continued to pacify the eastern region of the DRC.

HYDROPOWER FOR EXTRACTION

New revelations from the DRC government have allowed critics of IHP, including Rudo Sanyanga of International Rivers, to show who benefits from the $12 billion in next-stage investment (‘New twists in DR Congo’s Inga 3 Dam saga’, Pambazuka 669, 13 March 2014http://www.pambazuka.org/en/issue/669 http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/90935) Kinshasa officials admit, ‘Allocation of most of the power produced by Inga 3 Basse Chute to the public power grid would be the preferred option from a social point of view, since the proportion of our population with access to electricity is three times lower than the Sub-Saharan average. However, such an allocation would result in a low bankability of the Inga 3.’

This means that if the project is built, the power will be redirected from nearby residents to corporations ripping up the mountains in the east or the copper from the south – or exported to the most voracious consumer of electricity: corporate South Africa.

Who will win?
The construction companies, investors, international financial institutions, development agencies, and socio-political and economic elites involved in stages of these activities. These individuals and institutions own shares in the development projects; get money for personal gain through corruption, overpricing, tender allocation to their friends and relatives, cost overruns, optimism bias; and feed off the dependency relations.

Some leaders in civil society also win. They have paradoxical interests at times, because by supporting unpopular, undemocratic, and incompetent government decisions, many then use their organisations as steppingstones into government political posts or key positions in the same MNCs that civil society regularly challenges. As a result, as soon as charismatic leaders emerge, they are co-opted (or alternatively, intimidated) by both the government and the MNC. The same applies to legislators.

IHP LOSERS

The losers of this scramble by BRICS countries for the DRC are ordinary local residents, and indeed all Congolese who will owe as much as $100 billion in new foreign debt. Ordinary citizens in both donor and recipient countries usually,lose, through repayment of debts incurred to build these projects and without necessarily getting anything in return. Most local communities in the vicinity of the IHP have no access to electricity, but those who do have power but cannot afford their electricity bills, will suffer.

One clan representative I interviewed for my PhD research in 2012, complained that earlier IHP work had no community benefit. ‘There is no free school for the children of the affected communities. The parents must pay for their children’s education and health care despite the level of impoverishment of these communities due to dispossession of their land and water without compensation.’

According to the interviewee, ‘As a consequence of lack of access to education, the dam-affected communities have not produced a single graduate from university since the 1960s. They stay home where they are often victims of teenage pregnancy, increased number of HIV&AIDS cases, and alcohol and drug abuse.’

But it is not only the poor who worry. Those Congolese in business – like another interviewee in Kinshasa – have suffered because of SNEL’s erratic supply: ‘The companies increase the cost of production of everything that people sell in the DRC because of regular load shedding. Electricity is not permanently supplied. There are indeed several intermediaries between SNEL and big consumers of electricity. ‘

This businessperson argues that with electricity priced too high, it is hard to sell even basic electrical appliances: ‘Affordable electricity should allow people to buy stoves for example. This should lead to production of more stoves and an increased consumption of electricity.’ But SNEL’s high prices negate potential positive spin-off effects. And to repay a $100 billion project will require major price increases.

The scramble for Africa’s natural resources is not new. The difference now is that there are new agents – particularly Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – positioning themselves to renew the old colonial infrastructure and extraction. But the more extreme these agents behave, as a mirror image of the old powers, the more they delegitimise their broader subimperialist agenda, and create new generations of activist resistance.

Baruti Amisi is a doctoral candidate in development studies associated with the University of KwaZulu-Natal Centre for Civil Society.

*THE VIEWS OF THE ABOVE ARTICLE ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR/S AND DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE PAMBAZUKA NEWS EDITORIAL TEAM

By Jaya Ramachandran

A group of eight United Nations human rights independent experts have urged the Egyptian authorities to quash the 529 death sentences announced in Egypt and give the defendants new and fair trials, in line with international human rights law.

“The right to life is a fundamental right, not a toy to be played with. If the death penalty is to be used at all in countries which have not abolished it, international law requires the most stringent respect of a number of fundamental standards,” the experts said in a news statement.

On March 24, 2014 the 529 defendants were convicted of various charges, including membership in an unlawful organization (the Muslim Brotherhood), incitement to violence, vandalism, unlawful gathering and the killing of one police officer. All the charges relate to events in August 2013 after the Government of President Mohamed Morsi was ousted. The exact charges against each defendant are unclear as they were not read out in court, and at least 600 more individuals are currently under trial for similar charges.

“We are appalled by the lack of clarity of the charges under which each individual was sentenced to death. Reports that some of them received capital punishment for charges of unlawful gathering, or any other offence not involving murder, indicate a clear violation of international law,” the experts stressed, recalling the “most serious crimes” provision under international law, according to which only crimes of intentional killing may be punishable by death.

“The imposition of the sentence of death on 529 defendants, after a two-day trial that was rife of procedural irregularities, and on unclear or sometimes insignificant charges makes a mockery of justice,” added the experts. “There is a clear need for a serious and comprehensive reform in any legal system that allows for such developments to occur.”

The independent experts also expressed deep concern about numerous procedural irregularities reported during the recent proceedings, such as limited access to lawyers, trials in absentia, or the mass imposition of the death sentences, all of which are in breach of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Egypt is a party.

“International law also requires that, in cases of capital punishment, trials must meet the highest standards of fairness and due process,” they noted.

Warning that the absence of a fair trial is likely to “undermine any prospects for reconciliation within the Egyptian society,” the experts reminded the Egyptian authorities “how crucial it is that the future of the Egyptian society be based on dialogue, justice, and respect of human rights.”

Independent experts or special rapporteurs are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council to examine and report back on a country situation or a specific human rights theme. The positions are honorary and the experts are not UN staff, nor are they paid for their work.

The group of eight experts was comprised of: Christof Heyns, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions; Gabriela Knaul, Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers; Juan Méndez, Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; and Pablo de Greiff, Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence.

Also a part of the statement were: Mads Andenas, Chair-Rapporteur of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention; Maina Kiai, Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association; Frank La Rue, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression; and Ben Emmerson, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism.

“The astounding number of people sentenced to death in this case is unprecedented in recent history,” Rupert Colville, spokesperson for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), told a news conference in Geneva.

“The mass imposition of the death penalty after a trial that was rife with procedural irregularities is in breach of international human rights law.”

Sooner or later it had to happen; the West’s CIA imperial fingers had been playing with Pandora’s Box carelessly in Ukraine and the lid gave way: the box has been opened and the Un-Evil Empire is left buck naked internationally to face the truth. And the truth is clear, raw and simple no matter what machinated twists and turns of propaganda come out of the hawks’ nests in Washington to keep Americans brainwashed, ready to accept the warmongering ways of the nation’s powerful elite.

Although the Cold War with the USSR ended a quarter of a century ago, America has not acquiesce to just the spoils of an ideological victory over communism; no, that would be only a Pyrrhic victory, and American imperialism requires a much bigger prize. Thus, the constant encroachment – or fear of encroachment – thrust on Russia during all these years after Mr. Gorbachev’s celebrated gift of peace via his perestroika and glasnost; starting with the disbanding of the USSR-dominated Warsaw Pact, followed by the emancipation or breakup of the republics which made up the Soviet Union… and, finally, today, with the prospect of NATO holding sardonic military “vigilance” of Russia at her very own borders.

George Bernard Shaw may have been referring to the United Kingdom, or the British Empire, when he said truth telling is not compatible with the defense of the realm, but for all intents and purposes it can also apply to the America we live in today, or for that matter to Russia. So why act surprised when NATO-members (the US as its head) or Russia patently lie concerning past, present and future matters dealing with Ukraine?

Ukraine has been providing the buffer zone Russia has required for her own self-defense coupled with Russia’s constant reminder to the US that provocative “defensive” missile sites in the contiguous former Warsaw-Pact nations would be looked upon as intrusive… perhaps not even be tolerated.

Russia has been paying for years a hefty rent to Ukraine for this buffer role, mostly in energy subsidies and a somewhat subsidized large commercial trade, independent of the rental cost of having a naval base in Crimea. This symbiotic relationship which might be considered impartially as economically favoring Ukraine no doubt received Russia’s consent after added consideration for their Slavic sisterhood; the sizeable ethnic-Russian population living in Ukraine; and the cultural-linguistic ties which elevate the Russian language as the de facto co-lingua-franca in all Ukraine. [Even in Kiev, capital and largest city of 2.7 million, only one in eight people hold an ethnic-Russian bloodline; yet the latest survey (2006) indicated that about half of the Kievans speak Russian at home, while a quarter of them communicate in Ukrainian, and the other quarter alternate between Russian and Ukrainian.]

Even the most critically-benign who have followed Ukraine’s march from socialism to capitalism will agree that the metamorphosis has been chaotic, perhaps the worst in all the former soviet republics; economic thuggery and corruption being the order of the day. Mafiosi-oligarchs were created who “inherited” the people’s wealth… and they came from ambidextrous corruption, from the right and from the left. The last two role-thug models being Yulia Tymoshenko, an ultra-nationalist, ethnic-Ukrainian and former prime minister; and the recently deposed-by-force prime minister, Viktor Yanukovych, ethnic-Russian, now living in exile in Russia.

And while these hyenic prowlers of the Ukrainian economy were amassing personal fortunes, that nation’s economy was marching in a straight line towards bankruptcy, where the nation finds itself today… even with a helping hand from its older sibling, Russia, in both commerce and energy subsidies. And that’s where the entire fiasco had its start, the EuroMaidan protests… the CIA finding willing players ready to stir things up, opening up a new possibility for the Pentagon to get American missiles closer to that hateful Kremlin and those sons-of-…Bolsheviks. However, the acumen of US intelligence experts was pulverized in a dash and, in a coup de balai, Vladimir Putin took control of the situation, peacefully and authoritatively, finding diplomatic language and reason in what he was doing, much in contrast to America’s trashy politicians. We vividly recall the insulting venom coming out of John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and the no-nothing legislators infesting Capitol Hill shepherded, as always, by Light-Brain-Heavy-Words “Doomsday” McCain.

Ukraine is likely to stay whole if Putin and reason prevail… but if America feels obliged to unnecessarily save face, look for pro-Russia Maidans extending throughout much of the land east of the 30th Meridian (Kharkiv, Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Odessa…), much of the population wishing to become part of Russia. And the European Union will inherit, or at least have at its doorstep, a small, unproductive beggar-Ukraine seeking help to subsist… help that will require added sacrifice to an EU still in economic dire straits.

One way or another we can be sure of one thing: Vladimir Putin will find a way to ascertain that the buffer zone Russia requires for her self-defense, free from US missiles, will remain intact. Almost 52 years ago, Kennedy was resolute in not letting Russian missiles be pointed at the US from Cuba… which most Americans scored as Kennedy 1-Khruschev 0. Let’s be practical this time and, instead of scoring Putin 1 – Obama 0… be fair and score it Kennedy 1 – Putin 1. And let Ukraine find its own future.