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Ron Paul: USA Freedom Act Just Another Word For Lost Liberty – OpEd

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Apologists for the National Security Agency (NSA) point to the arrest of David Coleman Headley as an example of how warrantless mass surveillance is necessary to catch terrorists. Headley played a major role in the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack that killed 166 people.

While few would argue that bringing someone like Headley to justice is not a good thing, Headley’s case in no way justifies mass surveillance. For one thing, there is no “terrorist” exception in the Fourth Amendment. Saying a good end (capturing terrorists) justifies a bad means (mass surveillance) gives the government a blank check to violate our liberties.

Even if the Headley case somehow justified overturning the Fourth Amendment, it still would not justify mass surveillance and bulk data collection. This is because, according to an investigation by ProPublica, NSA surveillance played an insignificant role in catching Headley. One former counter-terrorism official said when he heard that NSA surveillance was responsible for Headley’s capture he “was trying to figure out how NSA played a role.”

The Headley case is not the only evidence that the PATRIOT Act and other post-9/11 sacrifices of our liberty have not increased our security. For example, the NSA’s claim that its surveillance programs thwarted 54 terrorist attacks has been widely discredited. Even the president’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies found that mass surveillance and bulk data collection was “not essential to preventing attacks.”

According to the congressional Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 and the 9/11 Commission, the powers granted the NSA by the PATRIOT Act would not have prevented the 9/11 attacks. Many intelligence experts have pointed out that, by increasing the size of the haystack government agencies must look through, mass surveillance makes it harder to find the needle of legitimate threats.

Even though mass surveillance threatens our liberty, violates the Constitution, and does nothing to protect us from terrorism, many in Congress still cling to the fiction that the only way to ensure security is to give the government virtually unlimited spying powers. These supporters of the surveillance state are desperate to extend the provisions of the PATRIOT Act that are set to expire at the end of the month. They are particularly eager to preserve Section 215, which authorizes many of the most egregious violations of our liberties, including the NSA’s “metadata” program.

However, Edward Snowden’s revelations have galvanized opposition to the NSA’s ongoing violations of our liberties. This is why Congress will soon vote on the USA FREEDOM Act. This bill extends the expiring surveillance laws. It also contains some “reforms” that supposedly address all the legitimate concerns regarding mass surveillance.

However, a look at the USA FREEDOM Act’s details, as opposed to the press releases of its supporters, shows that the act leaves the government’s mass surveillance powers virtually untouched.

The USA FREEDOM Act has about as much to do with freedom as the PATRIOT Act had to do with patriotism. If Congress truly wanted to protect our liberties it would pass the Surveillance State Repeal Act, which repeals the PATRIOT Act. Congress should also reverse the interventionist foreign policy that increases the risk of terrorism by fostering resentment and hatred of Americans.

Fourteen years after the PATRIOT Act was rushed into law, it is clear that sacrificing liberty does little or nothing to preserve security. Instead of trying to fool the American people with phony reforms, Congress should repeal all laws that violate the Fourth Amendment, starting with the PATRIOT Act.

This article was published by the RonPaul Institute.

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Lebanon: Foiled Plot To Kill Saudi Ambassador

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Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Ali Awad Asiri confirmed on Sunday that there was an assassination attempt against him by a major terrorist group.

However, he said, the Lebanese authorities had not given him details of the attempt, which also targeted the Saudi Embassy staff in Beirut.

“My safety and the safety of Saudi mission are the responsibility of the Lebanese security forces,” Asiri told Al-Arabiya news channel.

The ambassador’s confirmation came after Al-Shara magazine reported that the Lebanese police had foiled an attempt against Asiri and that two individuals – a Syrian and a Palestinian – were arrested for their involvement in the plot.
Some Saudi bloggers suspected Tehran’s role behind the assassination attempt while some others said Hezbollah would have played a role.

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Has Peshawar Changed Pakistan’s Approach To Tackle Terrorism? – Analysis

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By Rana Banerji*

The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan’s (TTP) terrorist attack on the Army Public School, Peshawar, on December 16, 2014, killing 132 children and several teachers, many from Army background, was traumatic; its intensity and cruelty shocking civil society in Pakistan, much in the same way as the public flogging of a woman by the Taliban in Swat did in April 2009, though with far more tragic consequences this time.

The Operation Zarb-e-Azb in North Waziristan was undertaken from June 2014 after a lot of dilly-dallying by politicians and abortive peace talks with the TTP. `Zarb-e-Azb’ was the Pakistan Army’s unilateral decision. The civilian government was left with no choice but to fall in line. After Peshawar, politicians found it easier to support the crackdown.

A 20 point National Action Plan (NAP) to tackle terror was announced. This too was Army-driven. It included a declaration of intent to execute convicted terrorists under a fast track process, lifting the moratorium on death sentences. It was decided to strengthen and activate the National Counter-Terrorism Authority (NACTA). Units of a Federal Counter Terrorism force were to start functioning in all four provinces. Revamping and reforming the criminal justice system is also envisaged, to strengthen counter-terrorism measures, including granting powers to provincial Criminal Investigation Departments (CIDs) to intercept terrorist communications.

Countering propagation of hate speeches and extremist publications, choking finances for terrorists and terrorist organisations, ensuring that proscribed terrorist organisations do not re-emerge under different names, taking effective steps against religious persecution, registration and regulation of madrassas, monitoring their sources of finance, banning any glorification of terrorism and terrorist organisations through print and electronic media were other facets of this `noble intent’.

However, the fragile consensus to deal with this difficult problem has dissipated from the very outset. Though nine Military Courts have been set up to function for two years by passing the 21st Amendment to the 1973 Constitution and amending the 1952 Army Act, questions about their constitutional veracity were raised. They were seen as ` a very dangerous option’ entailing risks of irreversible miscarriage of justice, wherein` a category of Pakistanis will not deserve the same rights and safeguards as normal citizens’ and `there will be no presumption of innocence’ nor` appeals to appellate courts’. `The presiding military officer will be judge and juror’. A public interest litigation challenging its validity is pending before their Supreme Court. A stay order on executions has been passed. It has even been suggested that `a fifth military coup’ may have silently taken place with the unanimous consent of the National Assembly.

Religious parties like the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JuI) joined this bandwagon of protest. Maulana Fazlur Rehman denigrated the government’s `non-serious attempt to convert an Islamic state into a secular one’.
A crackdown against criminals and terrorists in Karachi has been made part of the NAP. Apex Committee meetings were held in Karachi, associating Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah, former Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, as well as other politicians and senior army commanders. The Pakistan army chief decried the continuing political interference in the functioning of the police in Karachi. He emphasised the need to allow impartial, merit based functioning of the law and order machinery in the city. On March 11, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) headquarters at 90, Azizabad, Karachi, was raided by Pakistan Rangers. Several MQM (A) party workers were arrested.

This did symbolise a change in political realities in Pakistan. Having been unable to effectively cope with internal security issues, especially religious extremism and terrorism, the civilian federal and provincial governments have begun leaning heavily on the Army to pick their chestnuts from the fire. This has been described by political analysts in Pakistan as an `evolution of a new Civil-Military hybrid’.

Will this be temporary or permanent?

The Nawaz Sharif government faces a peculiar dilemma. It can neither afford to alienate the Army top brass nor completely delink itself from right-wing sympathisers of militancy and the madrassa establishment. Therefore, it appears to have adopted a midway approach, conceding space to the Army for now, on counter-terrorism and other related matters, in return for letting the current civilian arrangement drift on till 2018.

Religious hardliners and sectarians groups, especially those entrenched in Punjab do not accept these developments and may try to scuttle implementation of the counter-terrorism agenda in future.

Three imambargahs packed with worshippers were attacked in Peshawar and Rawalpindi in early 2015. Shias in Pakistan continue to be targeted single-mindedly and with a vengeance by outfits like the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ).

Hazaras are fleeing Balochistan, and barricades surround segregated Shia urban neighborhoods in Quetta. Christian congregations have also been targeted in Peshawar and Lahore.

A plethora of militant organisations continue to flourish across Pakistan. A cleric-criminal alliance emerged as a product of deep-rooted social imbalances and state patronised jihad in the 1980s. Religion-based militant groups gained strength from this attitude. Over the passage of time, these militant groups got stronger and gradually became independent. Many have turned against the State and others (even Lashkar-e-Taiba?) may do so in the future.

Tribal areas in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) became important for militants to keep their networks intact and expand their infrastructure. Afghan refugee settlements in Peshawar and Quetta provided space to criminals involved in smuggling arms, explosives and communication tools, besides serving as recruitment centers for potential terrorists. Also, in many cases, militants used these settlements as hideouts. Prisons in Pakistan hold thousands of militant detainees, many of whom have not been tried in court yet. These serve as safe havens, enabling networking, recruitment and running of cells to radicalise fellow inmates. While the military aspects of `Zarb-e-Azb’, clearing and holding militancy infested areas have progressed considerably, civilian efforts to re-settle internally displaced civilians (IDPs) are wanting.

Though the need for regulating the curriculum and financing of madrassas has been recognised in the NAP as vital to control or reverse the tide of Islamic radicalisation, the policy of `enlightened moderation’ has remained on paper. Reform efforts were quietly stymied for lack of adequate political will in the face of orchestrated opposition from the ulema.

In terror-related cases, the lower and higher judiciary has failed to dispense justice in an expeditious manner. Protection of prosecution attorneys or witnesses has been lacking. Conviction rates in charge-sheeted cases have been abysmally low. Important criminal cases involving known terrorists/terror groups were frequently adjourned on flimsy pretexts.

In comparison to the power of the religious right, the fecklessness and lack of spirit of the liberal left stands out. Whereas half-tutored and half-lettered battalions of the religious right are ready to take to the streets at a moment’s notice, liberal activists like the recently assassinated Sabeen Mahmud wage their battles in isolation and in dwindling numbers.

In this backdrop, it would be naïve to expect the Army to make a clean break from spawned terrorists of different hue or take the lead in reversing the religious narrative. Nevertheless, for the time being, the new politico-Army arrangement seems to have engendered hope that religious extremism, sectarianism and terrorism will somehow be brought under control. However, this may prove to be a double-edged sword if civilian institutions and processes for countering terrorism fail to emerge stronger. This will need civilian political will, which is lacking. Would the continuity of this “diffident political-will” lead again to a collapse of democracy in Pakistan? Only time will tell.

 *Rana Banerji
Member, Executive Committee, IPCS

The post Has Peshawar Changed Pakistan’s Approach To Tackle Terrorism? – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The Smaller Middle East: The West’s New Neo-Colonialism – OpEd

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A decade ago, the idea of a “greater Middle East” was in vogue, eliciting a great deal of scholarly and media attention, but today the exact opposite is true, warranting the term “smaller Middle East” in light of Western governments’ systematic efforts to break-up various Middle Eastern countries and thus harvest the benefits of a more controlled (geopolitical and geoeconomics) environment, harking back to the post WWI era.

From Libya to Syria to Iraq and to Yemen, the common thread running through them is a consistent Western policy of destruction of national unity and forcing territorial fragmentation, as a result of which national sovereignty of these countries would be mortgaged to outside control and influence for decades to come.

Needless to say, this has been a risk-prone undertaking that invites chaos, disorder, terrorism, and even economic disincentives that run against the logic of world capitalism. Nonetheless, the Western strategic planners have seemingly settled on the notion of splitting up several Middle East states and thus re-drawing the political borders, with those states mentioned above as merely the starters. Certainly, the list will grow longer as time goes on and the present experimentation with “state-creating” and “state-building” has an inner logic of expansion that, unless somehow checked by the local actors, will continue to operate like a great “political desire machine” or, to use a popular American mythology, “great whale” that keeps smashing the sails in the Middle East in a sea of new dependency.

Of course, in none of these cases there is the slightest fit between the actual policies and the declared policies, and the great chasm between the two is often conveniently masked by a compliant Western media and a whole army of “experts” and their associated “think tanks.” Thus, the “official” policy is widely disseminated as one of “restoring the legitimate government” in Yemen, to take an example, when it is increasingly clear that through their Saudi henchmen, the US is discretely plotting Yemen’s break-up, just as the post-Qadafi Libya has fallen victim to a sinister compartmentalization benefiting the foreign oil companies, or Syria, which is grappling with the de facto partition fueled by Western support. In the case of Iraq, as the US Vice-President Joe Biden once remarked, and fully rationalized by policy papers by certain Washington think tanks, the plan is its split into three zones of power in north, center and south of the country. Little surprise, then, that last Summer President Obama turned a blind eye to ISIS’s invasion of Iraq and initially declared it an “internal matter.” Far from a short-sighted policy error, Obama’s behavior and the subsequent US policy, e.g., arming and organizing the Sunni tribes in parts of Iraq, actually fit the overall pattern of “new fragmentation of Middle East” that is being implemented with so much zeal and energy, albeit with a great deal of subtlety and public gestures to the contrary.

In this “grand design,” the Europeans are co-conspirators and have been dutifully playing their part subservient to US’s leadership, which is organically in syn with Israel’s map of action for the future of the region. In the process, a good many civilians are sacrificed in these countries, hardly an issue of major concern to the Western powers that have clearly returned to their authentic colonialist identity of the past, irrespective of the facade of post-colonialism and respect for the UN Charter and sovereign rights of nations. In fact, the UN has been a main casualty of this phenomenon and time and again the UN has been turned into a rubbing stamp for the neo-colonial designs, most vividly demonstrated in the atrocious Security Council’s inaction vis-a-vis Saudi Arabia’s blatant violation of Yemen’s sovereignty, and (sadly) giving tacit consent to the on-going Saudi slaughter of Yemeni population and the decimation of the country’s infrastructure. As a result, a whole new era of “global anarchy” has been introduced particularly in the Middle East that, from a historical point of view, is rather familiar and hardly surprising.

The post The Smaller Middle East: The West’s New Neo-Colonialism – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Will Britain’s Election Make Any Difference For Palestine? – OpEd

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By David Cronin

Support for Israel has been hardwired into Britain’s ruling elite.

Both of the two parties vying to form – or more realistically, dominate – the next government bear responsibility for the suffering inflicted on the Palestinians. In 1917, the Conservatives’ Arthur James Balfour made a formal commitment, as foreign secretary, towards ensuring that the Zionist colonisers of Palestine would be accorded greater privileges than its indigenous population. Labour’s 1944 conference effectively gave its blessing to the forced displacement of 750,000 Palestinians that took place four years later; a statement approved by delegates read: “let the Arabs be encouraged to move out as the Jews move in”.

David Cameron has proven to be a capable custodian of Balfour’s toxic legacy. Addressing the Knesset in 2014, Cameron boasted of how he had protected Israeli war criminals by gutting a “universal jurisdiction” law that left them vulnerable to arrest while visiting the UK.

Cameron has occasionally cited his devotion to Israel when trying to score points against his rivals. “Unlike Labour, we in this party oppose boycotts,” he told the annual “business lunch” hosted by the lobby group Conservative Friends of Israel last December.

The inference that Labour has been hijacked by far-left Palestine solidarity activists probably went down well among Tory stalwarts. Yet it was wildly inaccurate. David Cameron and Ed Miliband have adopted almost identical positions towards Israel.

True, the two men have criticized Israel on occasion. Cameron has described Gaza as a “prison camp”. Shortly after becoming the Labour leader, Miliband argued that the siege of Gaza “must be lifted and we must strain every sinew to work to make that happen”.

Miliband’s muscles quickly went limp. Instead of striving to end the blockade, he has been cosying up to the state which imposes it. A “major priority” for a Labour government would be to “further collaborate” with the “economic powerhouse” of Israel, he has pledged.

Contrary to what Cameron has alleged, Labour has refused to heed Palestinian calls for robust action against Israel. Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, has said: “We have no truck with stand-offs and boycotts.”

Labour’s vote in favor of recognizing a sliver of historic Palestine as a state was a derisory response to the massacres Israel carried out in Gaza last summer.

Israel had previously attacked Gaza in November 2012. Less than a year later, Labour bigwig Jim Murphy visited the Middle East to discuss how Britain’s military cooperation with Israel could be deepened.

Most, if not all of Labour’s front bench have pandered to the Zionist lobby. Taking part in activities organized by Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) appears to have become mandatory for the party’s most ambitious representatives. As the book Blair Inc. explains, there is considerable overlap between LFI and efforts to weaken Labour’s bonds with trade unions. LFI activists have been prominent in Progress, the pressure group dedicated to keeping Labour on a Blairite track.

Although Tony Blair may be viewed as a liability by Labour’s rank-and-file, his words have been quoted approvingly by Douglas Alexander, the shadow foreign secretary, during LFI gatherings. Such reverence towards a man widely reviled by ordinary Britons (and across the world) contradicts the perception Miliband wishes to create of Labour having learned from Blair’s “mistakes” – as if the illegal invasion of Iraq was no more than a strategic blunder.

About the only evidence Miliband can point to in this regard is that he helped thwart a planned offensive against Syria. The same Ed Miliband backed NATO’s war against Libya in 2011. That attack was motivated by a desire to keep Middle Eastern and African resources under Western control. Predictably, its consequences have proven disastrous for people in Libya and its neighboring countries.

As an Irishman, I have no intention of advising my British friends on how they should vote next week. Rather, I am seeking to highlight how an imperial mindset still pervades the British establishment. It will take much more than an election to change that mindset.

Having the Scottish National Party as part of a coalition government might be symbolically important, but it is unclear how much difference it will make. Scotland’s foreign minister urged an arms embargo against Israel last year. But would the SNP really act to prevent Raytheon, the huge arms company, from making “smart bomb” components at its plant in Fife? Would it be prepared to put ethics before investment?

Solemn declarations by opposition parties frequently become meaningless once they have a whiff of power. The Liberal Democrats similarly called for the suspension of weapons sales to Israel before the 2010 election. That did not stop their intellectual guru Vince Cable from authorizing British companies to keep selling Israeli weapons when he became business secretary.

Britain’s endorsement of Israeli crimes has arguably become more enthusiastic over the past few decades. Margaret Thatcher condemned the 1982 massacres of Palestinian refugees by Israel’s proxy forces in Lebanon as an “act of sheer barbarism”. More than 2,200 people were murdered by Israel in Gaza last summer; at least 547 of them were children. In an interview for the latest issue of The Jewish Chronicle, David Cameron tries to spin all that slaughter as an act of self-defence.

The recent cancellation by Southampton University of a conference critical of Israel is symptomatic of attempts to smear Palestine solidarity campaigners. Michael Gove, the government chief whip, has accused the Palestinian-led movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel of being a “new outlet for the poisonous virus of anti-Semitism”.

If Gove bothered to do a little research, he would find that the BDS movement rejects all forms of racial and religious discrimination. That is what makes it different from the state of Israel, which remains wedded to the concept that some human beings are more valuable than others.

Zionism, the ideology on which Israel was built, was heavily influenced by British colonialism. Max Nordau, a founder of the World Zionist Organization, once stated: “We will endeavor to do in the Near East what the English did in India. It is our intention to come to Palestine as the representatives of culture and to take the moral borders of Europe to the Euphrates.”

Why does the British establishment denounce Palestine solidarity campaigners in vitriolic terms? One reason may be that many campaigners repudiate the myths that the establishment wishes to propagate.

Used intelligently, the tactics of BDS can be a powerful tool towards raising awareness about how the West shores up Israel’s apartheid system. As Britain was instrumental in creating that system, nobody should be surprised that its elite wants to conceal the truth.

– David Cronin is a journalist and activist living in Brussels. He is the author of Europe’s Alliance With Israel: Aiding the Occupation (Pluto, 2011). His most recent book is Corporate Europe: How Big Business Sets Policies on Food, Climate and War (Pluto, 2013). (This article was originally published in Middle East Eye)

The post Will Britain’s Election Make Any Difference For Palestine? – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Gravity Data Show Antarctic Ice Sheet Melting Increasingly Faster

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During the past decade, Antarctica’s massive ice sheet lost twice the amount of ice in its western portion compared with what it accumulated in the east, according to Princeton University researchers who came to one overall conclusion — the southern continent’s ice cap is melting ever faster.

The researchers “weighed” Antarctica’s ice sheet using gravitational satellite data and found that from 2003 to 2014, the ice sheet lost 92 billion tons of ice per year, the researchers report in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters. If stacked on the island of Manhattan, that amount of ice would be more than a mile high — more than five times the height of the Empire State Building.

The vast majority of that loss was from West Antarctica, which is the smaller of the continent’s two main regions and abuts the Antarctic Peninsula that winds up toward South America. Since 2008, ice loss from West Antarctica’s unstable glaciers doubled from an average annual loss of 121 billion tons of ice to twice that by 2014, the researchers found. The ice sheet on East Antarctica, the continent’s much larger and overall more stable region, thickened during that same time, but only accumulated half the amount of ice lost from the west, the researchers reported.

“We have a solution that is very solid, very detailed and unambiguous,” said co-author Frederik Simons, a Princeton associate professor of geosciences. “A decade of gravity analysis alone cannot force you to take a position on this ice loss being due to anthropogenic global warming. All we have done is take the balance of the ice on Antarctica and found that it is melting — there is no doubt. But with the rapidly accelerating rates at which the ice is melting, and in the light of all the other, well-publicized lines of evidence, most scientists would be hard pressed to find mechanisms that do not include human-made climate change.”

Compared to other types of data, the Princeton study shows that ice is melting from West Antarctica at a far greater rate than was previously known and that the western ice sheet is much more unstable compared to other regions of the continent, said first author Christopher Harig, a Princeton postdoctoral research associate in geosciences. Overall, ice-loss rates from all of Antarctica increased by 6 billion tons per year each year during the 11-year period the researchers examined. The melting rate from West Antarctica, however, grew by 18 billion tons per year every year, Harig and Simons found. Accelerations in ice loss are measured in tons per year, per year, or tons per year squared.

Of most concern, Harig said, is that this massive and accelerating loss occurred along West Antarctica’s Amundsen Sea, particularly Pine Island and the Thwaites Glacier, where heavy losses had already been recorded. An iceberg more than 2,000 square miles in size broke off from the Thwaites Glacier in 2002.

In Antarctica, it’s the ocean currents rather than air temperatures that melt the ice, and melted land ice contributes to higher sea levels in a way that melting icebergs don’t, Harig said. As the ocean warms, floating ice shelves melt and can no longer hold back the land ice.

“The fact that West Antarctic ice-melt is still accelerating is a big deal because it’s increasing its contribution to sea-level rise,” Harig said. “It really has potential to be a runaway problem. It has come to the point that if we continue losing mass in those areas, the loss can generate a self-reinforcing feedback whereby we will be losing more and more ice, ultimately raising sea levels by tens of feet.”

The Princeton study differs from existing approaches to measuring Antarctic ice loss in that it derives from the only satellite data that measure the mass of ice rather than its volume, which is more typical, Simons explained. He and Harig included monthly data from GRACE, or the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, a dual-satellite joint mission between NASA and the German Aerospace Center. GRACE measures gravity changes to determine the time-variable behavior of various components in the Earth’s mass system such as ocean currents, earthquake-induced changes and melting ice. Launched in 2002, the GRACE satellites are expected to be retired by 2016 with the first of two anticipated replacement missions scheduled for 2017.

While the volume of an ice sheet — or how much space it takes up — is also crucial information, it can change without affecting the amount of ice that is present, Simons explained. Snow and ice, for instance, compact under their own weight so that to the lasers that are bounced off the ice’s surface to determine volume, there appears to be a reduction in the amount of ice, Simons said. Mass or weight, on the other hand, changes when ice is actually redistributed and lost.

Simons equated the difference between measuring ice volume and mass to a person weighing himself by only looking in the mirror instead of standing on a scale.

“You shouldn’t only look at the ice volume — you should also weigh it to find the mass changes,” Simons said. “But there isn’t going to be a whole lot of research of this type coming up because the GRACE satellites are on their last legs. This could be the last statement of this kind on these kinds of data for a long time. There may be a significant data gap during which the only monitoring available will not be by ‘weighing’ but by ‘looking’ via laser or radar altimetry, photogrammetry or field studies.”

Harig and Simons developed a unique data-analysis method that allowed them to separate GRACE data by specific Antarctic regions. Because the ice sheet behaves differently in different areas, a continent-wide view would provide a general sense of how all of the ice mass, taken together, has changed, but exclude finer-scale geographical detail and temporal fluctuations. They recently published a paper about their computational methods in the magazine EOS, Transactions of the American Geophysical Union, and used a similar method for a 2012 paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that revealed sharper-than-ever details about Greenland’s accelerating loss of its massive ice sheet.

Robert Kopp, a Rutgers University associate professor of earth and planetary sciences and associate director of the Rutgers Energy Institute, said the analysis method Harig and Simons developed allowed them to capture a view of regional Antarctic ice loss “more accurately than previous approaches.” Beyond the recent paper, Harig and Simons’ method could be important for testing models of Antarctic ice-sheet stability developed by other researchers, he said.

“The notable feature of this research is the power of their method to resolve regions geographically in gravity data,” Kopp said. “I expect that [their] technique will be an important part of monitoring future changes in the ice sheet and testing such models.”

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Saudi-Led Coalition Used Cluster Munitions Supplied By US In Yemen, Says HRW

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Credible evidence indicates that the Saudi-led coalition used banned cluster munitions supplied by the United States in airstrikes against Houthi forces in Yemen, Human Rights Watch said. Cluster munitions pose long-term dangers to civilians and are prohibited by a 2008 treaty adopted by 116 countries, though not Saudi Arabia, Yemen, or the United States.

Photographs, video, and other evidence have emerged since mid-April 2015 indicating that cluster munitions have been used during recent weeks in coalition airstrikes in Yemen’s northern Saada governorate, the traditional Houthi stronghold bordering Saudi Arabia. Human Rights Watch has established through analysis of satellite imagery that the weapons appeared to land on a cultivated plateau, within 600 meters of several dozen buildings in four to six village clusters.

“Saudi-led cluster munition airstrikes have been hitting areas near villages, putting local people in danger,” said Steve Goose, arms director at Human Rights Watch. “These weapons should never be used under any circumstances. Saudi Arabia and other coalition members – and the supplier, the US – are flouting the global standard that rejects cluster munitions because of their long-term threat to civilians.”

Cluster munitions contain dozens or hundreds of submunitions. The submunitions are designed to explode after spreading out over a wide area, often the size of a football field, putting anyone in the area at the time of the attack at risk of death or injury. In addition, many submunitions often do not explode, becoming de facto landmines.

A video with no audio uploaded to YouTube on April 17 by the pro-Houthi September 21 YouTube channel shows numerous objects with parachutes slowly descending from the sky. The video zooms out to show a mid-air detonation and several black smoke clouds from other detonations. Human Rights Watch established the location, using satellite imagery analysis, as al-Shaaf in Saqeen, in the western part of Saada governorate.
An activist based in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, provided Human Rights Watch with photographs he received from a resident of Saada governorate, who said he took them on April 17 at the site of an airstrike in the al-Amar area of al-Safraa, 30 kilometers south of the city of Saada. From the photographs, Human Rights Watch identified the remnants of two CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons manufactured by the Textron Systems Corporation and supplied to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates by the US in recent years. One photograph shows an empty BLU-108 delivery canister, while the other shows a BLU-108 canister with four submunitions still attached to it. The location of the remnants in the photographs is 36 kilometers from where the video was filmed, indicating the possibility of multiple attacks.

Two local residents of al-Safraa told Human Rights Watch that about 5,000 people normally live in the village. They said they witnessed airstrikes in the area on April 27 in which bombs were delivered by parachute. Human Rights Watch was unable to determine whether they saw another attack using CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons or one using other types of bombs.

Human Rights Watch has not been able to obtain information on possible casualties from the attacks.

Since March 26, a Saudi-led coalition including Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Qatar, Sudan, and the UAE has conducted numerous airstrikes throughout Yemen against Houthi forces, also known as Ansar Allah, who effectively ousted the government of President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi in January. None of these countries have signed the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Soon after the airstrikes began, Saudi Arabia denied using cluster munitions in Yemen. At a news conference in Riyadh on March 29, Brig. Gen. al-Assiri told the media, “We are not using cluster bombs at all.”

According to a data sheet issued by the Textron Systems Corporation, the CBU-105 disperses 10 BLU-108 canisters that each subsequently release four submunitions that sense, classify, and engage a target such as an armored vehicle, and are equipped with self-destruct and self-deactivation features. The submunitions of the Sensor Fuzed Weapon explode above the ground and project an explosively formed jet of metal and fragmentation downward.

While the CBU-105 is banned under the Convention on Cluster Munitions, its use is permitted under existing US policy and its export is permitted under existing US export restrictions on cluster munitions.

In August 2013, the US Department of Defense concluded a contract for the manufacture of 1,300 CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons for Saudi Arabia by Textron. The contract stipulated that delivery of the weapons should be completed by December 2015. Human Rights Watch does not know when deliveries began, or if they have finished.

Additionally, the UAE received an unknown number of CBU-105 from Textron Defense Systems in June 2010, fulfilling a contract announced in November 2007.

US policy on cluster munitions is detailed in a June 2008 memorandum issued by then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Under the Gates policy, the US can only use or export cluster munitions that “after arming do not result in more than 1 percent unexploded ordnance across the range of intended operational environments,” and the receiving country must agree that cluster munitions “will only be used against clearly defined military targets and will not be used where civilians are known to be present or in areas normally inhabited by civilians.”

This policy is most recently codified in section 7054(b) of the Consolidated and Continuing Appropriations Act (HR 83) of 2015. According to guidance issued by the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency in May 2011, “the only cluster munition with a compliant submunition [compliant with the reliability standard established by the Gates policy] is the CBU-97B/CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapon.”

In March 2015, Human Rights Watch called on all parties to the conflict not to use cluster munitions in the Yemen fighting. Credible evidence showed that Saudi Arabia had dropped cluster bombs in Saada governorate in November 2009 during Yemeni government fighting against the Houthis. Cluster munition remnants from the 2009 airstrikes, including unexploded US-made BLU-97 and BLU-61 submunitions, were reported by a number of sources.

In addition to the recent transfer of CBU-105, the US provided Saudi Arabia with significant exports of cluster bombs between 1970 and 1999. Saudi Arabia possesses attack aircraft of US and Western/NATO origin capable of dropping US-made cluster bombs. Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and other countries involved in the conflict in Yemen should ratify the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Human Rights Watch chairs the Cluster Munition Coalition US, which in a March 30 letter to President Barack Obama said that the administration should review the Gates policy, including the exception allowing for cluster munitions resulting in less than 1 percent unexploded ordnance rate.

“The Gates policy is providing the US a handy loophole to send cluster munitions to countries like Saudi Arabia, which shouldn’t be using them at all,” Goose said.

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Marriage Prolongs Man’s Life – OpEd

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The most important health care directive ever issued came from God.

In Genesis (3:18) God declares “It is not good that a male should live alone. I shall make a help mate for him.” and the Qur’an (9:71) states, “Believing men and believing women, are protectors (helpmates) of each other.”

Their are many reasons why bachelorhood is bad for men. The most recent evidence comes from a study (published 10/13/11 in BMC Public Health) of 440,000 people in Norway diagnosed with cancer. It shows never married men are less likely to survive cancer than married men, and the mortality gap has widened over the last few
decades.

In 1970, never-married men with cancer were 18 percent more likely to die than married men with cancer, and this risk increased to 35 percent by 2007. While never-married women were also somewhat less likely to survive cancer than married women, the difference between them remained relatively constant over the years. Past research has shown that mortality rates from all causes are higher among unmarried people. Never married people, as opposed to those divorced or widowed, have the highest mortality rates.

Never married men had the greatest risk of death, regardless of various factors, such as age, education and cancer stage. Moreover, the mortality gap between never-married men and married men increased by 3.4 percent every 10 years. Divorced and widowed men with cancer were also more likely to die than married men, though their risk didn’t appear to increase with time. Marriage has a positive effect on health for both men and women because of the pressure a spouse exerts to eat right, exercise and visit the doctor when health issues arise, doctor Kravdal said.

I offer today’s generation a modern midrash (a creative rabbinic interpretation of a Biblical text) to explain why a help mate is so important for a man; God said to Adam, “It is not good for you to be alone. Now you are free to do whatever you want to do. When you are alone you don’t have to share things with others. You don’t have to stop talking and just listen when someone else needs to talk to you. You don’t have to help when others need help. You don’t have to care about how someone else feels. If you had a sister or a brother or a good friend, you would have to do all these things and many more.”

“I don’t like being lonely” said Adam, “ I do have lots of things for fun and games but I get bored with them after a while. I have several pet animals, but even having animals is not enough for me. I still feel lonely and all alone. I need someone who is like me; but at the same time is different. I need a partner. Someone to stand by my side and be my best friend. I need someone I can take care of, and who will care for me.”

“I know just what you need.” said God, “What you need is a help mate. A person with a different personality, who can grow together with you in love, and help you become a mensch. I am going to form her right out of your side, so she will stand side by side with you as your equal partner, your help mate. The two of you will be like one pair of hands. You know, one hand cannot wash itself. But two hands can always wash each other. You will have to be responsible for and to each other. You will no longer be independent. You will not be free to do whatever you want anymore. You will have to think about another person’s feelings. You will have to think less about your self and more about another. That will help you become a better person. You will live a much better and longer life with a partner. I will give you a blessing to help you become a couple.”

God looked down and saw that Adam had fallen into a deep sleep. God hoped that when Adam awoke he would remember all that God had told him. Even if Adam and all his descendants didn’t always become the loving responsible help mates that God wanted them to be, God thought they would be become better by trying. And those who were fully responsible partners and help mates would become God’s blessing for each other.

Doctor Kravdal said he thinks that the cancer survival outlook for unmarried people may be getting worse over time because “our society is becoming increasingly individualistic, with less caring for each other.” Unmarried people now have less social pressure to keep up good health practices than in the past, he argued. Or maybe God is right and “It is not good for a man to live alone.”

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Sri Lanka’s 19th Amendment: Process, Content And Consequences – Analysis

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After a prolonged struggle and negotiations among several political parties, the 19th Amendment to the constitution of Sri Lanka was enacted with an overwhelming majority on April 28, 2015. The way the process was carried out indicates that Sri Lankan political leaders still retain the capacity to negotiate and get things done. Kudos to the parties that were involved in the process because the Amendment faced the prospect of complete derailment while it was being negotiated.

Process

One of the ironies of the 19th Amendment is that even after about a week of its successful adoption, the actual content of the Amendment is not available to the public. Bits and pieces of information are being leaked by various personalities. The original proposal went through a series of changes, thanks to the intervention of the Supreme Court and political parties which came from within and outside of the ruling coalition. It is not clear which draft eventually ended up in parliament for adoption.

Insiders indicate that more than a hundred changes were proposed during the debate and the United National Party (UNP) had to cave in due to its dependence on the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) for the necessary two-thirds majority in the national legislature. Parties represented in parliament proposed some very fundamental changes to the draft bill. Information however, is lacking on exactly what was accepted and incorporated into the final draft that was voted on. Therefore, an actual content analysis should wait until the official version of the Amendment is released by the government. The following analysis relies on public information available on the changes that have been introduced.

Content

One of the salient features of the 19th Amendment is the set of provisions related to the president and presidential powers. Three arrangements are significant in this regard. One, the two-term limit has been reintroduced. The 1978 constitution envisioned two six-year terms for the president. President Rajapaksa removed the limit in 2010 because he believed that with the successful termination of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eeelam (LTTE) he could be in power for a long time, if not for life. Second, the term of the president in office has been reduced from six years to five. Three, the president cannot dissolve parliament after one year of its election as provided in the original constitution. Now the president has to wait for about four years to dissolve parliament.

These arrangements have been hailed as a victory for democratization because they are seen as diluting the presidential powers. However, depicting the first two provisions as diluting presidential powers is a bit of an exaggeration. These two provisions do not take away any powers; they only limit the length of time an elected president can be in office. Hence, they only “soften” the weight of the president.

The third provision however, is related directly to the president’s power. Sri Lankan presidents have used their power to dissolve parliament as a tool for blackmailing representatives of the people. According to the original arrangements of the 1978 constitution, the national legislature becomes vulnerable for dissolution after one year of its election. Therefore, the present arrangement, if it is actually a part of the approved Amendment, has the capacity to reduce presidential power and arrogance to a great extent.

The downside however, is that this provision could become a problem. If and when the president and parliament come from two different parties and have hostile relations, it could lead to a deadlock. The confrontations between the UNP-led government and President Kumaratunga were resolved rather undemocratically when she dissolved parliament using this power in February 2004. Thus, this provision has the potential to become a hurdle in the future.

Another significant (or rather insignificant) element of the 19th Amendment is the establishment of the Constitutional Council, which will advise the government on important public sector appointments. The Constitutional Council was seen as an important instrument to depoliticize public service and was part of the most acclaimed 17th Amendment to the constitution. In its original form the Constitutional Council could have been a useful instrument because it was supposed to be largely an apolitical body. However, the Constitutional Council reintroduced through the 19th Amendment will have more members of parliament than apolitical citizens, thanks to the efforts of the SLFP. Hence, it will be insignificant in terms of depoliticizing the public service.

Winners and Losers

Since the adoption process of the 19th Amendment played out like a political game, naturally, the attention turned to winners and losers and a lot has been already written on this.

Mahinda Rajapaksa

Sri Lanka's Mahinda Rajapaksa

Sri Lanka’s Mahinda Rajapaksa

The clear and undisputed loser is former president Mahinda Rajapaksa. Since his defeat in the January 2015 presidential election, he has been contemplating the idea of a reentry. Because the two-term limit has been reintroduced, he certainly cannot return to power as the president. The door has been completely shut on him in this regard. Encouraged indirectly by the former president himself, his supporters have been demanding his appointment as the prime minister. The prime minister’s office has not been empowered as originally intended and the president will remain as the executive leader with almost all powers conferred by the 1978 constitution. This author does not believe that Mahinda Rajapaksa is interested in a nominal position. He wants real power. Therefore, the successful enactment of the 19th Amendment means the end of the road for Mahinda Rajapaksa. He may however, continue his present political maneuverings to protect his personal, family and supporter interests.

Maithripala Sirisena

Sri Lanka's Maithripala Sirisena. Official photo via Facebook.

Sri Lanka’s Maithripala Sirisena. Official photo via Facebook.

President Maithripala Sirisena certainly emerged as the clear winner. First, he played a pivotal role in the enactment of the 19th Amendment. It is imperative to note that he promised to trim down autocratic powers of the president in his election manifesto. Thus, one of his promises has been fulfilled with the enactment. The significance of this move lies in the fact that all other executive presidents in the past have concentrated on centralizing powers through legal and extra-legal methods. Given the political culture in Sri Lanka, it is doubtful another leader would have facilitated trimming at least some of his or her powers rather willingly. He deserves a pat on the back for this action.
Second, he successfully prevented a split within the SLFP on this issue, because a faction of the SFLP that was sympathetic to Mahinda Rajapaksa was threatening to derail the whole process. Such a scenario would have seriously challenged his authority as leader of the party and even as president. He came out of this process stronger than before. Third and more importantly, he did not lose his executive powers as originally suggested. He managed to sustain his executive powers while taking credit for democratic changes. This is the most important gain President Sirisena has made. Perhaps he is politically shrewder than some estimate him to be.

Ranil Wickremesinghe

The UNP government’s original proposal for constitutional reform contained elements that would have strengthened powers of the prime minister and converted the system into a parliamentary form of governance. Based on this fact, a narrow perception defined Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, leader of the UNP, a loser. The assumption was that he was trying to grab political power through the 19th Amendment and failed.
This is an extremely narrow perception if one takes into account the future in the long term. Wickremesinghe is in active politics and will have no problem fielding himself as the UNP’s candidate for presidency in the next presidential election, probably in 2020. He is currently the prime minister and perhaps will continue to occupy the office until the next presidential election. Meanwhile, President Sirisena has already announced on more than one occasion that he will not contest for the second term. If this is true, Wickremesinghe will not have a serious contender from the SLFP challenging him in the next presidential election.

The present second tier leaders of the SLFP, for example, Nimal Siripala de Silva and Susil Premajayantha are not presidential material. Mahinda Rajapaksa cannot contest as he is not qualified according to the 19th Amendment. With a little bit of luck, Ranil Wickremesinghe will be able to win the next presidential election and enjoy executive powers as well. Therefore, if Wickremesinghe wins the next presidential election, he will be the ultimate winner that emerged from the 19th Amendment.

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Burundi And The April Demon – OpEd

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By Karl-Chris Nsabiyumva*

The truth of the matter is, ethnic bias is very much alive in Burundi. It’s not just alive; it’s legal, considering that it’s in our constitution. The Hutu get 60 percent of the “power” (representation in the government and parliament) while the Tutsi get 40 percent. (In the mix, 30 percent at least must be women and the Batwa must be included somehow, although it’s not clear whom between the Hutu and the Tutsi must give up their place for them… anyway).

How do they know who is what? Well, you state it. I had to, in writing, when applying for my job in the public sector. It sucks, I know… although I believe the power sharing agreement was necessary to create some sort of balance that helped get us out of the civil war. Sadly it’s starting to look like we’re losing the balance dangerously… #MerciNkurunziza.

Everyone agrees that these ethnic labels have been dangerous for our country in the past and that they can still be, especially now. But they’re very much a part of our lives. We talk and sometimes joke about them. I think it’s healthy, as long as they’re not used to harm. Differences are good (except that I do not personally believe the “differences” between Hutu and Tutsi have a scientific basis). Unfortunately, sometimes differences can be used to spread hate. Like today…

I’m writing this article on the night of the 26 April 2015. Today marks the first day of public protests against President Nkurunziza’s announced run for a third term. He is a Hutu, everybody knows, and he is a member of CNDD-FDD, a political party that, for many reasons, is branded as Hutu.

Coincidently, and unfortunately, today’s demonstrations took place in Ngagara, Cibitoke, Musaga, Nyakabiga and Mutakura, neighbourhoods branded as Tutsi (I’m not sure about Mutakura though). There are historic reasons behind this branding. These neighbourhoods were predominantly Tutsi for a long time. Some still are. But another important element we should remember about these neighbourhoods is that unemployed and low-income intellectuals largely populate them. Riots have always started in these areas, even when the Tutsi ran the country. That today’s demonstrations started there has nothing to do with the fact that Nkurunziza is a Hutu from a “Hutu party”, although some perverted spirits may use it to try to make it look like we’re hitting a Hutu Vs Tutsi crisis… again.

The CNDD-FDD claimed today that two of the people who have already died in the protests – God rest their souls – were Imbonerakure (the name the party’s youth go by). We don’t know the circumstances of their deaths (who killed them? The police or the protesters?), nor their ethnic origins, but saying that CNDD-FDD youth died in neighbourhoods that are branded Tutsi is not a piece of information to throw around lightly. It’s dangerous.

It’s amusing but sad how all this wouldn’t mean a thing had the FNL (another “Hutu” party, which is strongly against the third term) participated in the protests today. Nobody would have tried to make it look like a Hutu/Tutsi problem. We’d all be looking at the real issue: people (from all ethnic groups) protesting against the violation of their Constitution.

Unfortunately, the World, and in this case Burundi, is full of people with wrong intentions. We are where we are (and I’m not even talking about the term, but everything the country has gone through) because of such people. Hence it’s unwise to talk about fixing Burundi’s problems without taking into account everything that they may use to hinder the progress.

The ethnic bias is one of them. We need to learn to accept and anticipate that it can be used in a wrong manner. We cannot get annoyed at people for asking questions that bring us back to ethnic labels. Instead we must be ready to bring those people back on the right track when we see them deviating. But this first requires acknowledging that Ngagara, Cibitoke and Musaga are “Tutsi” neighbourhoods (even though Hutus also live in them) and CNDD-FDD a “Hutu” party (even though they have Tutsi followers). Then we explain why these labels exist (and are losing relevance today) AND THEN we show how the protests have nothing to do with the ethnic labels. Ignoring the Hutu/Tutsi element doesn’t work, as much as we’d really want it to disappear.

I sincerely believe that Hutu/Tutsi differences are no longer an issue in Burundi. I’m strongly convinced the people have realised that all the problems we’ve gone and continue to go through are consequences of political games played by greedy and amazingly dumb individuals. I hope from the bottom of my heart that our problems have nothing to do with the shapes of our noses or how tall we are. Not today at least…

But I’m disappointed with some folks I see getting emotional arguing that “ethnic labels are no longer relevant blablabla” while not showing how, and saying things like “poverty knows no ethnic background blablabla”… okay, you’re right but Ngagara, Musaga and Nyakabiga are “Tutsi” and the CNDD-FDD is “Hutu”… How about we start deconstructing any false and dangerous assumptions that may arise from this relatively TRUE information, na’mean?

Anyway, in the meantime, I hope you’re praying that all that’s happening does not degenerate into something nasty and irreversible. April is a really bad month in this part of the world…

* Karl-Chris Nsabiyumva currently lives and works in Bujumbura. You can follow him on Twitter: @Mr_Burundi and check out his blog: misterburundi.wordpress.com.

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Ralph Nader: Obama Should Debate Senator Warren On Global Economic Pact – Letter

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President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Obama:

You have taken a strong across-the-board position favoring the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) nearing completion and scheduled for a fast track clearance vote in the Congress. Indeed, you have descended admirably from your presidential perch to take on the most informed critics of this agreement with Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.

You have accused critics of spreading misinformation, including Senator Elizabeth Warren and Lori Wallach, the director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, who is known for her meticulous research and who was at Harvard Law School during your time there.

With the barrage of commentary on an agreement, labelled singularly as trade promotion by unknowing newspaper columnists and reporters, and the less reported rebuttals that the TPP is far more than a trade agreement (aka treaty) and places serious environmental, health, consumer and labor conditions within its grip, isn’t it time for you to engage with concerned citizens and their representatives rather than assert unilaterally that “Elizabeth Warren is wrong on the facts”? It is time to clarify the issues before a skeptical public and others who are downright confused. Why not debate Senator Elizabeth Warren before a national TV audience?

There are many reasons for you to use this format to engage the American people. They will be the ones paying the price in many dire ways if the mega-corporate promoters of TPP turn out to be as wrong as they have been with prior trade deals, most recently the Korean Trade Agreement (2012) which you espoused and which has worsened the trade deficit with South Korea and caused job loss in the United States.

  1. Vice President Albert Gore debated NAFTA on nationwide television with Ross Perot.
  2. You and Senator Warren have been teachers of the law and share a common law school background—Harvard. A debate would be deliberative and, assuming you and she have read the 29 chapters of the TPP (only a handful of chapters dealing with trade), would be revelatory far beyond the narrow prisms reflected in the mass media.
  3. Like NAFTA and the World Trade Organization, the TPP is a transnational system of autocratic governance that subordinates and bypasses our access to our own judiciary in favor of secret tribunals whose procedures contravene our country’s system of due process, openness and independent appeals. These agreements, as you know, have enforceable provisions regarding the rights and privileges of corporations. The rhetorical assurances regarding labor, environment and consumer rights have no such enforcement mechanisms.
  4. Notwithstanding all the win-win claims of promoters of past trade agreements, our country’s trade deficit has continued to grow over the past 35 years. Enormous trade deficits mean job exports. Given this evidence, the public would be interested in listening to your explanation of this adverse experience to U.S. workers and our economy.
  5. You believe Elizabeth Warren is wrong on the facts relating to the “Investor-State Dispute Settlement” provision of the TPP, which allows foreign companies to challenge our health, safety and other regulations, not in our courts but before an international panel of arbitrators. A perfect point/counterpoint for a debate process, no?
  6. Over the years, it has been abundantly clear that very few lawmakers or presidents have actually read the text of these trade agreements involving excessive surrender of local, state and federal sovereignties. They have relied on memoranda prepared by the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) and corporate lobbies. Given the mass of fine print with portentous consequences for every American, a worthy debate topic is whether to put off submitting this trade pact so that copies can be made accessible to the American people to discuss and consider before going to Congress under very limited debate for an up or down vote without any amendments being permitted. Why the rush when the ink isn’t even dry on the page?

Some may wonder why you don’t call this agreement a “treaty”, like other countries. Could it be that an agreement only requires a 51 percent vote, rather than a two-thirds vote in the Congress for treaty ratification?

You are quoted in the Washington Post decrying “misinformation” circulating on the TPP and pledging that you are “going to be pushing back very hard if I keep on hearing that.” Fine. Push back before tens of millions of people with Senator Elizabeth Warren as your debating counterpart. If you agree, be sure that interested Americans have a copy of the TPP deal first so that they can be an informed audience.

I look forward to your response.

Sincerely yours,

Ralph Nader

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USCIRF Report Won’t Reform Myanmar – OpEd

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The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has recently issued its report on Myanmar (Burma).

The key findings of the USCIRF are: “In 2014, religious and ethnic minorities in Burma continued to experience intolerance, discrimination, and violence, particularly Rohingya Muslims. Bigotry and chauvinism against religious and ethnic minorities grew more pervasive, in some cases provoked by religious figures within the Buddhist community, while the Burmese government demonstrated little willingness to intervene, investigate properly, or prosecute those responsible for abuses in a timely and transparent manner. While the government, at times, denounced violence and incitement, its lack of strong and consistent leadership to condemn intolerance enabled abuses to continue relatively unchecked. Throughout 2014, the expansion of Internet availability and social media played a role in propagating expressions of hatred and spurring violence directed against minority populations. The introduction of four discriminatory race and religion bills in 2014 could well further entrench such prejudices. Based on these systematic, egregious, and ongoing violations, USCIRF continues to recommend in 2015 that Burma be designated as a ‘country of particular concern,’ or CPC, under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA). The State Department has designated Burma a CPC since 1999, most recently in July 2014.”

During its August 2014 meetings in Naypyidaw, the capital of Myanmar, the USCIRF pointed out Burma’s failure to redress serious violations of human rights of the minority Rohingya and other persecuted folks. And yet, when Burma’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, U Wunna Maung Lwin, addressed the UN General Assembly in September 2014, he audaciously claimed that his country had addressed “all major concerns related to human rights” and should be removed from the UN Human Rights Council’s agenda. Obviously, the rogue state is not getting its message right and continues to live in denial.

Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar are the most persecuted people who face a unique level of discrimination, disenfranchisement, and the denial of basic rights that is simply unknown in our time. The government denies them citizenship, which precludes them from ever attaining equal status in law or practice. They also are denied the right to self-identify as Rohingya because many, including the government, claim that they are illegal “Bengali” immigrants from next-door Bangladesh. In fact, a partially implemented pilot verification program in the northern Rakhine (formerly Arakan) State forced Rohingya Muslims to identify as Bengali if they wanted to apply for citizenship, or face indefinite confinement in camps with limited rights, mobility, and access to services.

What is worse, the government representatives at both the central level and within Rakhine State have reacted strongly to the use of the term Rohingya by the international community, particularly the United Nations. Rohingya Muslims are also now among those who will be ineligible to vote in the constitutional referendum expected in May 2015 and likely the general elections later in the year.

More than 100,000 Rohingya are estimated to have fled Burma by boat since 2012, seeking a better life but often facing trafficking, exploitation, and deplorable living conditions. Mass graves of 32 Rohingyas have lately been unearthed in an encampment in the jungle near a town called Padang Baser on the Thai-Malaysia border. The involvement of the Thai officials with the human traffickers has long been known, which has contributed to the misery of the fleeing Rohingyas. They are treated in Thailand as “illegal immigrants” subject to deportation without regard to the threats facing them in Myanmar. Rohingya men are sometimes detained in overcrowded immigration detention facilities across the country, while women and children have been sent to shelters operated by the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security. Many more are believed to be transferred through corrupt arrangements into the hands of human trafficking gangs where they face cruel treatment and no prospect of assistance from Thai authorities. As with previous Thai governments, the military junta of Prime Minister Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha does not permit the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to properly conduct refugee status determination screenings of Rohingya.

The 2014 census, Myanmar’s first in more than 30 years, largely excluded Rohingya Muslims if they identified their ethnicity as Rohingya, and counts of ethnic minorities were not conducted in large parts of Kachin State. Rohingya Muslims, who were issued the White Cards which since then have been confiscated by the government, are barred from participating in the coming election. What future awaits them next is still unknown. In fear of losing their identity – the proof of their birth and existence in the land of their forefathers – many Rohingya Muslims have refused to handover their White Cards.

The USCIRF report underscores the toxic and sinister influence of fascist elements within the Buddhist community in deciding the fate of Myanmar. At the prompting of ultra-chauvinist Buddhists and with the support of the central government, Burma’s 2015 session of parliament opened with consideration of a package of four race and religion bills that would further restrict religious freedom and discriminate against all minority faiths in matters of conversions, marriages, and births, mostly to restrict the rights of Muslims. Even visits to the country and expressions of concern by high level UN representatives about religious and ethnic minorities were met with rebukes, protests, and even vitriolic language from Rakhine State and national-level officials, as well as Buddhist monks in this den of hatred called Myanmar. Many such protests were orchestrated by the government – central and local.

In January 2014, violence directed at Rohingya Muslims in Arakan resulted in the deaths of at least 40 people. The government’s investigation, however, concluded that only a policeman was killed in the violence, effectively denying the civilian Rohingya deaths despite detailed information provided by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and others. MSF’s role in reporting publicly the killings contributed to its nearly year-long expulsion from Myanmar. Other international organizations have had difficulty trying to provide assistance to Rohingya Muslims in Arakan, mostly due to the reactions of hostile Rakhine Buddhists who displayed unfathomable intolerance and hatred towards the Rohingya and other Muslims.

Inter-communal violence in Mandalay in July 2014 resulted in the deaths of two men – one Muslim and one Buddhist – as well as several injuries and vandalized property (almost all belonging to the Muslim community), including the burning of a mosque and several copies of the Qur’an inside. The violence was spurred by a blog post about an alleged rape, later proven to be fabricated, that was circulated online and posted to the Facebook page of Wirathu – the terrorist monk of Mandalay who enjoys wide support inside the Buddhist community. Soon thereafter, the members of his 969 fascist group viciously attacked the local Muslims and had it not been for the efforts of the Mandalay Peace Keeping Committee, a non-governmental group comprised of religious and community leaders of various faiths, and others who had intervened the situation could have deteriorated further.

Visits by the members of the international NGOs to the IDP camps for internally displaced persons in Meiktila and the Rakhine state have repeatedly revealed that much progress remains in finding a durable solution for the persecuted communities.

The USCIRF report noted that expressions of intolerance toward Muslims by senior political and Buddhist leaders are on the rise in Burma, particularly among those who seek to advance anti-Muslim agendas of hate and discrimination. The growing use of social media to communicate messages of intolerance has exacerbated tensions and encouraged violence. However, intolerance is not only limited to online platforms or attacks on Muslims; those rejecting anti-Muslim hatred and discrimination have also been targeted. For example, former National League for Democracy (NLD) official Htin Lin Oo is facing criminal charges of religious defamation and hurting religious feelings for speaking out, in his capacity as a writer, against religious nationalism and the use of Buddhism for extremist purposes in a public speech at an October 2014 literary event. After drawing the ire of Buddhist monks for allegedly insulting the faith, NLD relieved him of his position within the party and he was formally detained and indicted in December 2014. He faces three years in jail. As I have noted before there is no denying that genocidal campaign against Muslims has become a national project with deep rooted support enjoyed from top to bottom of Myanmar’s Buddhist community.

Many of the Buddhist hate provocateurs continue to play their sinister role to incite violence which has led to genocidal activities against the targeted minorities like the Rohingya Muslims. They need to be caught, tried for war crimes and punished. Interestingly, many such inciters of genocidal crimes live in places like the USA, the UK, Germany and Japan (just to name a few countries). For instance, Aye Chan who teaches at Kanda University lives in Japan. The governments of these countries must list such nationals for their evil deeds including inciting to violence. In the USA, such war criminals ought to be included in the “specially designated nationals” list by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) with respect to individuals who have participated in human rights abuses, including religious freedom violations, such as by instigating, carrying out, or supporting publicly anti-Muslim violence and discrimination.

I am afraid that as long as we continue to let these hate provocateurs get away scot-free we shall continue to see the suffering of the Rohingya and other persecuted peoples, and all these USCIRF reports won’t be worth the paper on which these are written.

The USCIRF has recommended that the United States and the international community should continue to press the government of Burma to prioritize religious freedom and related human rights. Respecting the rights and dignity of religious and ethnic minorities, particularly Rohingya Muslims, is critical to the reform process, and the United States should continue to stress this consistently at every level of its engagement with Burma. It urged the US government to engage the government of Burma, the Buddhist community and especially its leaders, and religious minorities on issues of religious freedom, tolerance, inclusivity, and reconciliation to assist them in promoting understanding among people of different religious faiths and to impress upon them the dangers of de-linking political improvements from improvements in religious tolerance and religious freedom; use the term Rohingya, both publicly and privately, in respect for the Rohingya Muslim community’s right to identify as they choose; encourage crucial legal and legislative reform that strengthens protections for religious and ethnic minorities, including citizenship for the Rohingya population through the review, amendment, or repeal the 1982 Citizenship Law or some other means, and support the proper training of local government officials, lawyers, judges, police, and security forces tasked with implementing, enforcing, and interpreting the rule of law; continue to support the unconditional release of all persons detained for the peaceful exercise of religious freedom and related human rights.

The USA government, disappointingly, beyond keeping an existing arms embargo, has softened considerably its attitude towards Myanmar, which it continues to call by its former name Burma. Since President Obama’s and Secretary Clinton’s visits, trade and commerce with the pariah state has grown sharply. Myanmar has benefitted tremendously as billions of dollars have poured into the country from greedy investors further solidifying the regime’s grip on the once impoverished country while true reform remains absent or a thing of a distant future.

Since 2012, many Rohingyas have lost everything that they once possessed. Some 140,000 of them are forced to live inside concentration camps, the so-called IDP (Internally Displaced Person) camps. The living condition there is simply deplorable and as recently noted in the Newsweek, it is also dangerous for Muslims. Akyab (now called Sittwe), the town, which was home to many Rohingyas who gave its original name, is now a town without any Muslim to be seen, painfully reminding what has gone so wrong there. Before their recent plight, the Muslim population comprised roughly half the total population in the town. They have been ethnically cleansed by the terrorist Rakhine Buddhists as part of a very organized and sinister plan.

To quote from the Newsweek article, “A tense normality has returned to Sittwe, but there are no Muslims to be seen. They are either in the ghettos sealed by police, or in the camps outside. Nazir quarter where they once lived is now an empty lot, reclaimed by tropical vegetation. But few of the Rohingya I spoke to have any doubt about the ultimate aim of this segregation. ‘The extremists want to ethnic cleanse,’ Mojuma Begum said. ‘They want to carry out genocide.’ A fear confirmed by the chilling words of a young Rakhine refugee. ‘I want to kill the Muslims,’ said Aung Ko Naing. ‘Many feel like me… I want to get rid of them all.’”

That is a grim reminder again of the genocide that is taking place inside Myanmar. The powerful states of our time, sadly, are too keen on making money and doing business, and have done nothing substantial that protects the victims. It is shameful!

The post USCIRF Report Won’t Reform Myanmar – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Armenia And Nagorno-Karabakh: Playing ‘Elections’– OpEd

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By Fuad Huseinzadeh

Armenia is undertaking another political provocation upon the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. The so called “parliamentary elections” – farce elections – that the Armenian occupation regime is organizing in Nagorno-Karabakh is having a negative impact on the negotiating process related to the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. This is the reaction of Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry to the anti-constitutional attempt by the separatists to hold these “parliamentary elections” on a sovereign part of Azerbaijan.

“The holding of these so-called ‘elections’ on the Azerbaijani territories occupied by Armenia is a political provocation. With these illegal elections Armenia is pursuing a policy of deceiving the world community. What is more, in keeping with the essence of Armenia’s political regime, the ‘elections’ being held involve large-scale falsification. This is in complete contradiction to the Constitution and Legislation of Azerbaijan and is aimed at torpedoing the negotiating process,” the head of the Foreign Ministry press service, Hikmat Haciyev, stated to Region plus magazine. The Azerbaijani diplomat said that the illegality of these “elections” is yet again being stressed in the statements of foreign states.

Moreover, the Armenian side is reckoning on the fact that, just as before, a large number of foreign observers will monitor theses “elections”. In the separatists’ view, this will also testify to the “international recognition of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic” or this will at least help to facilitate this recognition. The Armenian media recall that at the previous “parliamentary elections” organized by the separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh five years ago, something like 120 observers from 15 states were monitoring them. Naturally, in their customary manner the Armenians prefer not advertise the composition of these “monitoring missions”.

At best the foreign observers conducting the checks are members of parliament with a penchant for material rewards and jollies from individual countries whose authorities then hasten to cross themselves, officially recognizing Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan. There were not even a dozen and a half of these monitoring-countries; to make it look more respectable, the Armenians included on the list of states that made the trip to the occupied lands unsanctioned by Baku, not only Armenia itself, but puppet regimes like that in Nagorno-Karabakh, in the Transnistria [Prinestrovian Moldovian Republic], Abkhazia and South Ossetia [Georgia]. Incidentally, this is a serious reason for the authorities in Georgia and Moldova to give thought to the fact that the parts of their territories recognized by the UN are gloried in by journalists in Armenia to whom they appear no different from “independent states”.

But times are changing and not in favor of the Armenian side. Azerbaijan has set about taking more effective measures to put a stop to foreign citizens visiting the occupied lands. These visits unapproved by Baku and even more so the statements of support for separatism in Nagorno-Karabakh may not only mean that foreigners are “black-listed” by the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry, but may also face criminal charges.

A few days ago the Foreign Ministry and Azerbaijan’s Office of the Public Prosecutor stated that the former speaker of the Slovak parliament, Frantisek Miklosko, who has lobbied in support of the separatists’ aspirations has been declared by the Azerbaijani side to be the subject of an international criminal investigation for perpetrating anti-Azerbaijani activities and visiting the occupied territories illegally.

During the investigation it was established that F. Miklosko had visited the territories occupied by Armenia repeatedly without the consent of Azerbaijan’s relevant state structures and that he had participated in the so-called “elections” held there as an “observer” and incited racial discrimination there on an ethnic and religious basis. The Serious Crime Directorate of Azerbaijan’s Office of the Public Prosecutor has instituted a case against F. Miklosko for urging the public to seize power by force and for crossing the frontier illegally. The District Court of the city of Baku has demanded this Slovak citizen’s arrest and issued an international warrant for his arrest.

According to the Foreign Ministry press secretary, H. Haciyev, the criminal investigation on this case is continuing and in this connection the Azerbaijani side envisions to appeal accordingly in the bodies of law and order in Slovakia.
As it can be seen, Azerbaijan has armed itself with Georgia’s practice according to which foreigners making unauthorized visits to Abkhazia and South Ossetia risk getting a prison sentence.

Nor will any such “elections” with the involvement of any kind of observers help to legalize the occupation regime in Nagorno-Karabakh, which is not recognized by a single country in the world, including Armenia. The issue of Nagorno-Karabakh recognition periodically raised by certain groups in the Armenian parliament is being put on the back burner by the ruling party as “inexpedient” and “the time not being right time for it”. The last time this happened, in November last year, the faction from the Ruling Republican Party of Armenia did not even take part in the voting.

As the Armenian authorities have evasively noted, recognition by Yerevan of the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh at this stage would mean a break-down in the talks on a settlement of the conflict. With an evasive formulation like this, the Armenian side is attempting to conceal its fear that this step would test for Azerbaijan’s patience to its utmost and would provoke it to resolve the problem by force. The Armenians have always feared this, especially today when Azerbaijan is increasingly toughly reminding them of its rights to the Nagorno-Karabakh territory and the Armenian army is suffering unprecedentedly high losses in the conflict zone.

On the other hand, the course of events on the European continent over the last year, in particular the events surrounding Ukraine have drawn the attention of the world community to conflicts throughout the territory of the former Soviet Union. But in the never-ending conflict of the principles of territorial integrity and the rights of nations to self-determination of later preference in the greater part of the world community is being given to the former principle. In this connection, Azerbaijan is quite rightly demanding that sanctions be applied to Armenia which has occupied Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent districts.

It is precisely for this reason that Azerbaijan is unambiguously coming out in favor of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, did not join in the indiscriminate criticism of Russia and blindly back the sanctions’ policy of the West.

Government officials in Baku rightfully detect double standards over sovereignty and self-determination. They raise a legitimate question why the West punishes Russia for annexing Crimea, but not Armenia for similar behavior in Nagorno-Karabakh. Many raise the question on why the West approves the use of force by Ukraine to restore territorial integrity, but insists on Azerbaijan’s peaceful patience. Such a double standard attitude, is leaving the government of Azerbaijan without any other choice but “to begin questioning the ability of the Western countries and the Minsk Group to deter and bring a peaceful solution to the occupied territories of Azerbaijan,” says Peter Tase, a contributor of the Eurasia Review Journal in the United States.

What can the puppet regime in Nagorno-Karabakh reckon on, if the puppet-masters in Yerevan are themselves somebody else’s puppets? The Armenian public was able to see for themselves that this is the case not so long ago when Russian commanders announced that the Russian military were being drilled, unbeknown to Armenia’s Ministry of Defense, to take part in the military parade in Yerevan.

“Armenia’s Defense Ministry found itself in a somewhat awkward position owing to statements by the Russian side regarding the parades in Yerevan and Gyumri, since this came as a complete surprise to Armenia’s Defense Ministry,” the Armenian newspaper “Aykakan Zhamanak” wrote ironically in a tone of impending doom. Well, the expression of the well-known hero of Soviet literature “I will be the one to command the parade” does not refer to Armenians at all and it does not refer solely to the military sphere either.

Over the last few years the balance of forces between the sides in the Nagorno-Karabakh confrontation has cardinally changed. A few years ago official Baku toughly posed the issue in key international organizations of the impermissibility of any kind of activity on the occupied territories, no matter whether it was economic activity or the policy of settling Armenians who had newly arrived there on this territory. To the great dissatisfaction of the Armenians, this matter was placed under international control: a fact-finding mission which included representatives of the UN and the OSCE visited this zone twice and found traces of illegal activity and included the information they obtained in their report.

The diplomatic expansion of Azerbaijan aimed at extending the circle of foreign partners and allies is resulting in countries and even representatives of business circles of Armenian nationality being increasingly less eager to set their sights on the prospects for economic activity in Azerbaijan’s occupied lands or to even give them up altogether. Unlike previous times, today Armenians cannot carry on large-scale economic activity on the occupied lands. Everything connected with those pompous projects has ended in failure.

The building called “The International Airport” which has been completed by the separatists continues to lie empty and is today more like a monument to crumbling Armenian hopes of linking Nagorno-Karabakh to other countries or even other regions by air routes. Neither Yerevan’s expectations nor the Armenian government’s program to resettle Armenian refugees from Syria on the occupied lands have justified themselves. Practice has shown that even those Syrian Armenians who have survived the horrors of civil war have not found the prospect of living on a deserted foreign land and have decided to move in more attractive countries.

Naturally, all this is the result of an intensive diplomatic activity on the part of Azerbaijan. The unfounded conviction of the Armenians that they could do anything they liked on the occupied lands with impunity has evaporated in an instant when an “Igla” missile released by a portable anti-aircraft missile system shot down an Armenian military provocateur helicopter in November last year.

In the wake of this, several attempts by groups of Armenian saboteurs to commit sorties across the Nagorno-Karabakh border have been stopped in an uncertain fashion, resulting in the deaths of more than 50 Armenian servicemen since the beginning of the year. “If you don’t want to die, get out of Azerbaijani territories!” Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev toughly warned the Armenians at the recent expanded meeting of Azerbaijan’s Cabinet of Ministers.

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Good-Neighbour Bangladesh Acts Against Anti-India Insurgents – Analysis

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By Rupak Bhattacharjee*

In yet another instance of good neighbourliness, Bangladesh has held two northeastern militants responsible for abetting cross-border terrorism. In a landmark judgment on April 8, a court in northern Bangladesh’s Kishoreganj district sentenced two United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) activists, Ranjan Choudhury and his associate Pradip Marak, to life imprisonment for intrusion, illegal possession of weapons and involvement in terrorist acts.

Bangladesh’s elite security force, Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), had arrested the two on July 17, 2010 from Lakshimpur in Kishoreganj district with a number of weapons in their possession. Police registered four cases against them under the Arms Act, Explosives Substances Act, illegal immigration and anti-terrorism acts. Choudhury was found guilty on all four counts while Marak was acquitted of the charge under Arms Act but the prosecution proved the remaining three, including the tough Anti-Terrorism Act.

The police investigation report revealed that Choudhury, alias Major Ranjan, had been staying in Bangladesh illegally since 1997 and maintaining close contacts with the top leaders of the proscribed outfit. The chief prosecutor too said they had used Bangladeshi territory to carry out attacks in the Indian state of Assam before they were detained with arms and explosives. Police brought formal charges against the duo in late 2010 and their trials began on February 3, 2013. After hearing for the last four years, the court of Kishoreganj’s District and Session Judge delivered the verdict in the presence of two defendants.

According to the chief prosecutor, Choudhury acted as a key coordinator of ULFA’s activities in Bangladesh and had been frequently visiting India on organisational purposes. Under his leadership, the ULFA cadres remained active in Sherpur, Kurigram and Sylhet districts bordering Assam. Reports say Choudhury is a Central Committee member of the banned outfit and specialist in military training. Regarding Marak, Assam police say he was a lesser known face of the outfit in the state since he had been operating mainly in Bangladesh. The RAB officials stated that Marak was running an NGO for the outfit in Sherpur on the instruction of Choudhury.

It is the third time Bangladesh’s court has convicted ULFA militants on terrorism charges. The outfit’s founding general secretary Anup Chetia was arrested in Dhaka on December 21, 1997 and subsequently sentenced to seven years in jail on various charges. Again on January 30, 2014, Chittagong’s Metropolitan Special Tribunal-1 awarded death penalty to 14 people, including ULFA’s c-in-c Paresh Baruah, for their involvement in Bangladesh’s biggest-ever arms haul of April 2004.

In addition to the judiciary, Bangladesh’s security forces also acted against the Indian insurgent groups which had established numerous camps across the country. Following her assumption of power in January 2009, Sheikh Hasina undertook firm steps against the Indian militant outfits which had been given sanctuary in Bangladesh by the previous Khaleda Zia-led Bangladesh Nationalist Party-Jamaat coalition government (2001-2006). In a major crackdown on northeastern militants, the security forces arrested nearly 50 ULFA leaders, including the outfit’s co-founder and chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa on November 30, 2009 and handed him over to the Indian authorities.

Reports suggest that about 200 armed cadres belonging to militant outfits active in Assam and Tripura had fled the crackdown that continued for two months. Some of them also surrendered. Bangladesh did not witness such a comprehensive campaign against the Indian insurgents using its territory. It completely demoralised the militant leaders based in Bangladesh. The most dominant outfit of Assam, ULFA, which had maintained several bases and “safe houses” in Bangladesh since the early 1990s, suffered the worst setbacks. The arrests of its key functionaries had in fact caused a vertical split in the organisation and prompted the surrendered leaders to start peace negotiations with the centre by softening their stand on the issue of Assam’s sovereignty.

New Delhi repeatedly said the militant leaders had trained their new recruits in Bangladesh and sent them back to India to launch attacks. The eviction of hundreds of militants in the 2009 crackdown undoubtedly exposed the previous BNP regime’s persistent denials about the presence of Indian separatists in that country. Besides, the convictions of BNP and Jamaat ministers, top bureaucrats and intelligence officials in the arms haul case unearthed the nefarious designs of Bangladesh’s rightist and reactionary forces to subvert friendly relations between the two neighbours and undermine peace and stability in India’s restive northeast.

Under the patronage of successive BNP regimes, the ULFA leadership had built a huge network of training camps and logistical support inside Bangladesh. The country also emerged as a hub of lucrative businesses for some ULFA leaders. During the last two decades, they invested heavily in sectors like shipping, media, real estate and power. The BNP regimes facilitated the process by offering all kinds of assistance.

In sharp contrast to the BNP’s approach, the Awami League (AL) government has been consistently pursuing its policy of zero-tolerance towards terrorism. It has thwarted the diabolical plans of forces inimical to India. The latest conviction is a clear demonstration of the ruling AL’s sincere effort to address India’s security concerns. Describing India as a good neighbour and friend which helped Bangladesh during the Liberation War, the chief prosecutor observed that the country cannot allow any separatist group to use its territory against India.

Reports indicate that Bangladesh’s intelligence agencies have been monitoring the activities of the business and industrial firms where ULFA’s military chief had invested. The AL government also attached all bank accounts of Baruah after the Chittagong tribunal verdict. New Delhi appreciated the Bangladesh government’s steps against the anti-Indian elements.

The conviction of the two ULFA activists also assumes significance as the Indian militants pose threat to Bangladesh’s internal security as well as the AL government. An Indian security agency in its recent report said the hardline faction led by Baruah or ULFA (Independent) had been involved in gun-running for the fundamentalist Jamaat. Some leaders of Jamaat, BNP and two ULFA (I) representatives held a secret meeting in Sherpur district on October 15, 2014 to strike a deal on small arms and ammunition with the outfit. This incident clearly indicates that ULFA (I) has not totally stopped its terrorist activities in Bangladesh.

There may not be any more camps in Bangladesh as most of the militant hideouts were dismantled during the 2009 crackdown. But the Indian security forces maintain that the militants from Assam and Meghalaya continue to operate through the porous Indo-Bangladesh borders. Measures like joint-management of the borders and close cooperation between the security and intelligence agencies of the two countries could check the menace of cross-border terrorism. Both the nations have initiated several steps in this direction after the October 2014 Burdwan blast.

*Dr. Rupak Bhattacharjee is an independent analyst based in Delhi. He can be reached at contributions@spsindia.in

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Maldives: To Make A ‘Flawed’ And Fractured Democracy Work – Analysis

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By N. Sathiya Moorthy*

Continuing political impasse in democratised Maldives has been hurting the 2008 constitutional scheme and has raised questions about the basic flaws, if any, in the transition process at the time. Both the questions and the answers for rectification lie within the country and the existing scheme, but it requires genuine efforts and serious follow-up by all stakeholders for the country to pull out of the quagmire.

The ‘flaws’ began with the pro-democracy (read: anti-Gayoom, anti-status quo) political groups in parliament sticking to a draft constitution for a Westminster scheme even after the people had voted for continuing with the presidential form of governance in a national referendum. With this as a contributing factor, the evolving democracy witnessed the ‘checks and balances’ scheme, and became checks without any balance.

This was compounded by an inheritance of a visibly fractured polity under ‘strong’ leaders’ sans name tags. The urge for democracy, building up since Independence (1965), was hence not matched by an evolutionary process of ‘democratic dynamism’, involving inevitable splits in an umbrella leadership in the name of identifiable socio-political constituencies.

Nowhere else have the ‘flaws’ and ‘fractures’ shown up better – or, worse — than in the popular election of two successive presidents under the democratised scheme. Successive multi-party presidential elections saw the single most popular leader (Maumoon Abdul Gayoom: in 2008, 40 per cent vote share; Maldivian Democratic Party’s Mohamed Nasheed: in 2013, 45 per cent) from the first round, losing the final tally to a conspiracy of circumstances. A third one, Dr Waheed Hassan, derived legitimacy from a constitutional saving clause aimed at extraordinary circumstances, mostly of the nature’s kind.

The ‘conspiracies’ involved aspirations without negotiations, expectations sans promises. They resulted in mutual ‘annihilation’ in the place of anticipated assimilation. ‘Democracy’ had meant different things to different people, who otherwise had been comfortable and complaining at the same time about a thousand years of sultanates. That included a failed experiment with an ‘elected’ sultanate, but possibly improvised by and for president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom in his time.

Tasked by history to protect, preserve and propagate democracy, then president Nasheed, a self-styled and self-taught student of Nehruvian India in particular, did not extend his lessons in foreign policy to the democratic traditions and values that the other South Asian leader had inculcated in future generations in his country. Gayoom would leave the political party (Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party-DRP) that he had founded to form another (Progressive Party of Maldives-PPM) as he could not bring himself to working with and under the successor that he had identified.

Course correction

It’s not as if the problems were not identified or possible solutions thought about. Some had identified the flaws at democratic inception and had also linked them to the fractured nature of the nation’s polity. The impasse provided by the Nasheed-Waheed transition and the consequent impasse-cum-interregnum even revived chamber dialogues for course correction, but the All-Party Conference aimed at it could not really take off as the stakeholders feared the possibility of changes and the possible changes, more than one another.

Nasheed’s MDP has made appropriate noises, at inappropriate times as well, but has always remained non-serious and less predictable when it comes to more serious business of governance. During the current phase of ‘transitional democracy’, the party started off with street protests for ‘Defending the Constitution’ but demanded ‘regime change’ of a non-constitutional kind.

The party is yet to withdraw the unconvincing central committee resolution asking President Abdulla Yameen to hand over power to Jumhooree Party’s (JP) Gasim Ibrahim, a ‘non person’ in the hierarchy scheme of the constitution. The ‘seeds of suspicion’ had been sown where it mattered, and JP’s early protestations against the call for ‘regime change’ of the kind and for Gasim to become the face of that ‘change’ could not stop their crossing over to the opposition camp through a fast-tracked incremental process, building into the people and systems.

The MDP appointed a joint committee with the JP, calling for the government to invite them for a dialogue, but rechristened the combined opposition movement as ‘Alliance Against Brutality’ after Nasheed’s conviction and imprisonment for 13 long years. They have now been joined by the religion-centred Adhaalath Party (AP), which had aligned with every political party and player and dumped every one. Before seeking to lend the all-important ‘religious’ face to the anti-Yameen protests, the AP had ‘succeeded’ in suo moto launching the ‘December 23 movement’ that ended in the Nasheed-Waheed power change in February 2012.

Less said about the government and the Yameen presidency the better. There is no knowing why President Yameen did not follow up on his post-election promise of ending political vendetta against Nasheed (which only referred to the ‘Judge Abdulla abduction case’ for which the latter has since been penalised). There is also no knowing why he could not have engaged the opposition in a dialogue, if he had felt vindicated about his position on ‘non-interference’ of the Executive in the affairs of the Legislature and the Judiciary.

Sense of insecurity

An eternal sense of political insecurity has been driving leaders, both within their own parties and with the rest of the nation’s polity, to ‘offensive’ tactics that either assume the characteristics of ‘defence’ or end up being one.

With only 30 per cent of the votes for him under a united PPM that his half-brother Maumoon Gayoom still heads, Yameen needs the party and the people more than ever for a successful and meaningful completion of his first term and stake his fortunes for a second one, in 2018. He only needs to look back at the closing years of Gayoom era and how democratic dynamics has a life and course of its own – and gets reflected in election results. The silent majority that democracy entails can be more forceful than what street protests can achieve, and neither side is wiser to the event until after it’s behind them.

There can thus be no denying the ‘popularity’ of Nasheed, who has been barred by law from contesting (presidential) elections, starting with the one scheduled in 2018. Parliament is also seized of a law barring him from heading the MDP even while continuing as a party member, as recommended by President Yameen when the original bill was sent to him for assent.

Unless Nasheed gets acquitted by an appeals court, it could open a Pandora’s Box of ‘silent aspirants’ in the MDP who could not match him in his charisma and leadership skills, and would need his unqualified attestation and blessing, if and when he is not around. Needless to say, such aspirants would have to promise his cadres and voters that their first job if elected president would be to vacate the same after facilitating his return.

Pitted against these forces of ‘ideology driven’ elite politics of the Male nobility are the socio economic constituency that Gasim’s 25 per cent vote-share represented in 2013 (up from 15 per cent in 2008). It is not about individuals alone, but the causes and constituencies that they represent and at times come to personify against the status quo.

Conventional wisdom has it that they would be ignored until they overwhelm the rest. Given the unacknowledged fluidity of the polity and the unfathomable frustrations of the youth that heralded and championed democracy at birth and through the birth pangs earlier, there is no knowing to which direction this segment comprising nearly a half of the population would turn to, for solace and solutions. It can cut both ways, and more than two ways – and already there is demonstrable sign of the same happening.

Not an option

Maldives may be in peril, which the political stakeholders have all along ignored. Going back on democracy is not an option. A yard stick in the voter turn-out has only been increasing at every turn, topping now at 92 per cent in the second run-off round of the presidential polls in 2013. But then, the polarisation of politics cuts across the society, including individual families. The large pool of government employees, including the uniformed services, is unfortunately not exempt either.

The initiative for working with democracy naturally lies with the man in power, President Yameen. Elder statesmen and influential intellectuals too should rise to the occasion, and above it. Other stake holders cannot continue to run with the hare and hunt with the hound. But they too have been doing as much, turning a Nelson’s Eye to events and developments all around them.

*N. Sathiya Moorthy is Director, Chennai Chapter of the Observer Research Foundation. He can be reached at sathiyam54@gmail.com

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Saudi Arabia Says New-Look Government To ‘Secure Nation’

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The new appointments to the Cabinet announced by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman are aimed at ensuring a stable and secure country in the face of increasing threats in the region and elsewhere.

This was the sentiment of ministers at their weekly Cabinet meeting chaired by King Salman at Al-Yamamah Palace in Riyadh on Monday, said Adel Al-Toraifi, minister of culture and information.

He said the king welcomed the new Crown Prince Mohammed bin Naif, deputy premier and minister of interior, and Prince Mohammed bin Salman, deputy crown prince, second deputy premier and minister of defense, wishing them and the new ministers and officials every success in their new posts.

The king also praised Prince Muqrin, former crown prince, and other princes and officials for their services to the nation, said Al-Toraifi.

The Cabinet reiterated the importance of a fair price for both oil producers and consumers and the industry, and the cooperation of states, producers and consumers to ensure transparency and reduce volatility. The Cabinet decided to reduce the price of jet fuel by 15 halalas a liter at King Abdulaziz International Airport and King Khalid International Airport, and by 20 halalas a liter at the rest of the Kingdom’s airports.

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Engaging With India: Will Australia Miss The Boat, Yet Again? – Analysis

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By Amit Dasgupta*

The back-to-back visits of Australian Ministers Julie Bishop and Andrew Robb to India auger well for bilateral relations. A historic shift in relations took place during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Australia tour. Body language and symbolism apart, Prime Ministers Modi and Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott were emphatic that a substantive engagement was mutually beneficial and long overdue.

This requires shifting mind sets. But that’s easier said than done. Australian business continues to be mired in the 3C’s model (customer, competitors, corporation) and is yet to see India as a strong market that offers a robust and long-term partnership. It is time that they take a leaf from the experience of other global companies. Take the German company Siemens, for instance. It started its operations in India in 1867 and continues to grow strong. Indeed, its India operations are among its most successful enterprises. No Australian company can boast of such an engagement in any country. Unless Australian companies start to think different, they will yet again miss the bus. The vocabulary needs to shift from the 3Cs to the 3Es: economy, energy and education.

Prime Minister Modi’s recent three-nation tour of France, Germany and Canada has been highly productive. According to Canadian government reports, more than C$1.6 billion worth of business deals were inked, covering a wide range of sectors, including aerospace and defence, education, energy, mining, infrastructure, sustainable technologies, information and communication technology. In France, the government-to-government purchase of Rafael fighter aircraft and the Airbus announcement that it would ‘Make in India’ has been a game changer. In Germany, India was the guest of honour at the Hannover Trade Fair and the already robust trade relations have received a further boost.

With positive outlook projections by the World Bank and international ratings agencies, India is fast emerging as the preferred investment destination. Australian business and industry needs to rewire its strategy to take advantage of the playing field or it will, yet again, find itself as the latecomer to the party.

Take the energy sector for instance. Australia needs to recognize that it does not enjoy a monopoly. All countries have realized that with India on a high growth trajectory, its energy requirements would dramatically escalate. Should Australia not take advantage of this? Subsequent to agreeing to sell uranium to India, for instance, it continues to remain caught up in technical procedures, albeit obligatory. Sitting on a vast reservoir of uranium does not automatically result in its sale. Canada has now entered into an agreement with India and Canadian uranium would soon be making its way to India. When does India see Australian uranium?

Take the education sector and Prime Minister Modi’s flagship ‘Make in India’ project, which necessarily rests on a robust skilling programme. Unless the VET (Vocational education and training) sector and TAFE (technical and further education) remodels selling its expertise, German institutions would rapidly enter the vast space that exists in India. Australian educational institutions need to recall that following the Marshall Plan at the end of the Second World War, it was Siemens which built up India’s polytechnics to service its own requirements within India. Today TAFE Australia continues to nurture its legacy model of hoping to attract students to Australia for VET education rather than turning the model around and providing the education in India. This can be a lucrative business model, but is anyone listening?

Perhaps some hard facts are worth noting. India needs to create 1 million new jobs everyday. Over the next few years, it would need 1 million new teachers, 55,000 new polytechnics and 1,000 new universities. Unless the young are skilled and thus, productively employed, India’s demographic dividend has the potential of becoming a demographic disaster. The education and vocational training space is enormous and one that Australia can take advantage of. However, this requires that it learns to unlearn the way it has been approaching India.

Minister for Trade and Investment Andrew Robb’s visit next week will give an impetus to the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) negotiations. This is good. It would be useful if a mechanism were to be set up through which regular visits and networking of Australian business and industry along with their counterparts could be set up. This will facilitate engagement and investment. Perhaps it will also allay fears that Australian business might have on procedures and challenges of doing business in India.

Every step that fast tracks the engagement is useful. It’s been far too long that the two countries have ignored each other.

*Amit Dasgupta was the Indian Consul General in Sydney from February 2009 – June 2012; He is presently in Mumbai with the SP Jain School of Global Management. He can be reached at amit.dasgupta@spjain.org

The post Engaging With India: Will Australia Miss The Boat, Yet Again? – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Kenya: Kerry In Nairobi To Help Fight Al Shabab

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US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Kenya on Sunday to discuss cooperation between the two nations in countering the Somali al Shabab militants, responsible for the recent attack against the University of Garissa that left 148 dead.

“We think the Kenyans are doing their best. Fighting terrorism is tough, and particularly fighting it in this region is very tough. Kenya has been the victim of multiple attacks – the Garissa attack starkly illustrated the extent to which al Shabab can have an impact on innocent civilians”, Kerry stated in a news conference.

During his visit, which precedes that of President Barack Obama in late July, the head of US diplomacy should also meet with representatives of the civil society to address the delicate issue of human rights abuses in the “fight against terrorism”.

Kerry’s visit, unthinkable until a short while ago, marks renewed relations between Kenya and the US after a year of tension surrounding Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta being charged by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity over his role in the 2007-2008 post-election violence. The ICC then dropped the charges in December against Kenyatta, however denouncing “attempts to intimidate and threaten witnesses”.

Barack Obama, born from a US mother and Kenyan father, will come for a first visit at the end of July. The US President will attend the World Summit on entrepreneurial spirit that will unite over a thousand African and US entrepreneurs to focus on the innovation of the continent.

The post Kenya: Kerry In Nairobi To Help Fight Al Shabab appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Pakistan: Shooting The Messenger In Balochistan – Analysis

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By Tushar Ranjan Mohanty*

One more messenger of peace fell prey to Pakistan’s Mullah-military nexus in the night of April 24, 2015, when unidentified assailants shot dead Sabeen Mahmud, a prominent Pakistani women’s rights activist, in the Phase-II area of the Defence Housing Authority (DHA) in Karachi, the provincial capital of Sindh. According to reports, Sabeen, accompanied by her mother, was just returning home after organizing a discussion on ‘Unsilencing Balochistan’ at ‘The Second Floor’ (T2F), a café that had been developed as a forum for open debates, of which she was Director. The event, “Un-Silencing Balochistan (Take 2)” was organized after the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) cancelled the talk due to security threats allegedly from Pakistan’s intelligence agencies. The panelists in the discussion included ‘Mama’ Abdul Qadeer Baloch, the President of Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP), who had led a ‘long march’ to protest forcible disappearances in Balochistan; Baloch activists Farzana Baloch and Mir Muhammad Ali Talpur; and journalists Malik Siraj Akbar and Wusut Ullah Khan.

Sabeen sought ‘an open and honest debate’ on Baloch disappearances and, acknowledging that there were strong opinions on the issue, she urged a debate that was mutually respectful. She joked that, while LUMS had been forced to cancel its event, she had received no such warning about the talk at T2F, knowing little that she was crossing a critical red line by organizing an event highlighting the Baloch issues. Zohra Yusuf, Chairperson, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) observed after the killing, “It appears that an attempt is being made to silence human rights defenders or those who take up the causes of the people.”

Meanwhile, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesperson Mohammad Khorasani declared, on April 26, 2015, “We categorically deny involvement in the murder of Sabeen Mahmud” and that “investigation by the TTP’s intelligence wing suggests Government agencies are behind the killing of Sabeen Mahmud.”

During the talk show, Qadeer Baloch spoke at length about the forced disappearance and extrajudicial killings of Balochs and the role of Army. He noted:

The situation today is that thousands of Baloch are victims of violence in the army’s torture cells. The courts, political parties, human rights organizations, and civil society are helpless in front of the Pakistan Army and its agencies. The media is forced to remain silent on the missing persons and the tortured bodies [that are found regularly in Balochistan]. International human rights organizations and media is forbidden from going to those areas… Today when I am addressing this conference, the number of missing persons from Balochistan is over 21,000. This is the figure for 2014. We are writing up the figures for 2015 and release them every six months together. So until 2014, over 21,000 missing persons and over 6,000 tortured bodies have also been found. We knocked on every door for the missing person’s issue.

The attack on Sabeen Mahmud for bringing the Baloch plight into the limelight is no aberration. Exactly a year ago, top Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir barely returned from the brink of death after he was attacked on April 19, 2014, soon after he left Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport on the way to his Jang group-owned Geo TV’s office. He was going to Geo TV’s Karachi studios to interview the same ‘Mama’ Qadeer Baloch, who had led more than 2,000 kilometers-long ‘peace march’ with relatives of ‘disappeared/missing’ persons of Balochistan, from Quetta to Islamabad, in February 2014. Mir had earlier told his family, friends, colleagues, Army and Government officials in writing that he would hold ISI chief Lt. Gen. Zaheerul Islam responsible if he was attacked. Hamid Mir had been relentlessly highlighting the issue of missing persons in Balochistan.

The threat to media persons and activists raising Baloch issues is particularly acute. State agencies, the ISI and their non-state proxies have executed and abducted a number of Baloch journalists who had focused on forced disappearances in Balochistan. On August 21, 2013, for instance, the body of Haji Abdul Razzaq Baloch (42), a sub-editor at the Daily Tawar (Voice), a leading anti-military Baloch newspaper published in Urdu, was recovered from the Surjani Town area of Karachi. His face was mutilated, and his body showed signs of torture and strangulation. He had ‘disappeared’ from Chakiwara area of Lyari Town in Karachi on March 24, 2013. Razzaq was also a supporter of the Baloch National Movement, a nationalist political organization.

Similarly, the mutilated body of Javid Naseer Rind, the former Deputy Editor of Daily Tawar, had been recovered from the Khuzdar area of Balochistan on November 6, 2011. He had been abducted by unidentified persons on September 10, 2011, from the Hub Chowki area of Lasbela town in Balochistan. His relatives blame ISI for his abduction and killing.

Malik Baloch, Chief Minister of Balochistan, on March 20, 2014, announced the formation of a Special Task Force to arrest culprits involved in the murder of around 30 journalists in the Province over the preceding seven years. He announced the decision to journalists protesting outside the Provincial Assembly. The President of the Balochistan Union of Journalists (BUJ), Irfan Saeed, however, pointed out on the same day, “Despite repeated assurances, the killers of journalists are still at large.”

Significantly, on February 7, 2014, a BUJ delegation headed by Irfan Saeed, met with Balochistan’s Inspector General (IG) of Police, Mushtaq Ahmad Sukhera, to ask for immediate Government action to arrest those responsible for the killing of Mohammad Afzal Khawaja, a reporter for Daily Balochistan Times, on February 2. The IG had then promised that the Police Department would take ‘all measures’ to ensure the speedy arrest and trial of the reporter’s murderers. However, no arrest has yet been made in this case.

Despite repeated efforts to focus on the issue of ‘disappearances’ in Balochistan, the official response has been suppression and falsification. A July 23, 2014, report by the Home Department stated that only 71 people were missing in the Province [Balochistan]. Human rights organisations and Baloch activists variously estimate between 8,000and 21,000 disappearances, with Mama Baloch claiming over 6,000 tortured bodies recovered.

There was a staggering rise in recoveries of such tortured bodies in 2014, primarily accounted for by the discovery of three mass graves in the Totak area of Khuzdar District. Between January 25, 2014, and April 2, 2014, a total of at least 103 bodies were recovered from these graves (local sources claimed that 169 bodies were found). The bodies were too decomposed for identification. According to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), based on open media sources, at least 153 bullet-riddled bodies were recovered in Balochistan through 2014, as against 39 such recoveries in 2013. 124 of the bodies found in 2014 where recovered from the Baloch separatist areas of South Balochistan, and 29 from Pashtun-dominated North Balochistan. Significantly, on February 10, 2015, the Pakistan Supreme Court directed the Federal and Provincial Governments to launch coordinated efforts for the recovery of missing persons as well as to address the issue of unidentified dead bodies found dumped in different areas.

Of the 3,375 civilian fatalities recorded in Balochistan since 2004 [data till May 3, 2015], at least 837 civilian killings are attributable to one or other militant outfit. Of these, 325 civilian killings (202 in the South and 123 in the North) have been claimed by Baloch separatist formations, while Islamist and sectarian extremist formations – primarily LeJ, TTP and Ahrar-ul-Hind (Liberators of India) – claimed responsibility for another 512 civilian killings, 506 in the North (mostly in and around Quetta) and six in the South. The 325 civilian killings attributed to Baloch formations include at least 146 Punjabi settlers since 2006. The remaining 2,538 civilian fatalities – 1,543 in the South and 995 in the North – remain ‘unattributed’. A large proportion of the ‘unattributed’ fatalities, particularly in the Southern region, are believed to be the result of enforced disappearances carried out by state agencies, or by their proxies, prominently including the Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Aman Balochistan (TNAB, Movement for the Restoration of Peace, Balochistan). The large number of unattributed civilian fatalities strengthens the widespread conviction that Security Agencies engage in “kill and dump” operations against local Baloch dissidents, a reality that Pakistan’s Supreme Court has clearly recognized.

The Supreme Court has been hearing the Balochistan missing person’s case since 2012 and has already reprimanded the Government for its failure to comply with its orders on several occasions. The Government has, on occasion, pleaded helplessness in the matter. Significantly, a three-member bench of the Supreme Court, headed by then Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, on December 10, 2013, had ordered that all the missing persons be recovered or accounted for by December 19, 2013, and made the Federal and Balochistan Governments responsible for execution of its directive.

Having failed to implement the order, the Balochistan Government on January 30, 2014, conceded before the Supreme Court that it was handicapped in recovering missing Baloch persons, because it had no effective control over the Frontier Corps and none of the 16 FC officials accused in missing persons cases, had appeared before the Police to record their statements. As a result, on March 7, 2014, the Supreme Court sought a reply from the Balochistan Government as to whether it would proceed against the FC officials involved in missing persons cases under the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), or refer the matter to the Army to take action against them under the Army Act 1952.

On March 25, 2015, the Federal Government and counsel for Frontier Corps (FC) told the Supreme Court that a requisition has been sent to the Army for trial of two Army officers; Major Saif and Major Moin, allegedly involved in enforced disappearances, while the Army had also assured the initiation of proceedings against the officers. During the hearing, the counsels told the Court that trial of these two Army officers would start ‘soon’. The proceedings are yet to commence.

Balochistan in general and the issue of Baloch disappearances in particular are no-go areas for Pakistan’s security establishment, media and activists. Those who have tried to cross the line have faced the extreme consequence. Like others, Sabeen Mahmud lost her life as she hit too close to the state’s vulnerabilities. Though there has been some hue and cry about her killing and a ‘high level enquiry’ has been ordered by the Government, it is unlikely to yield results any different from those of similar enquiries in the cases of the killing of journalist Saleem Shehzad and the assassination attempt on journalist Hamid Mir. The tragedy of Balochistan has no proximate ending.

* Tushar Ranjan Mohanty
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

The post Pakistan: Shooting The Messenger In Balochistan – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

India: Rudderless Process, Aimless Violence In Nagaland – Analysis

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By Giriraj Bhattacharjee*

As the violent incidents of last few months suggest, NSCN-K’s decision to unilaterally call off the ceasefire, the split within its ranks, and the Union Government’s failure to make any progress with regard to talks with NSCN-IM, could lead to greater violence in Nagaland and neighboring northeastern states. SFs, who had enjoyed clear respite from terror, will, in particular, face the brunt of escalating violence, if these developments continue. Intelligence inputs predict a spike in hit-and-run attacks on SFs over the coming days, particularly by NSCN-K militants operating from across the Indo-Myanmar border. — SAIR Volume 13, No. 41, April 13, 2015

Twin ambushes by Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland-Khaplang (NSCN-K) resulted in the death of eight Security Force (SF) personnel – seven of them from the ‘C’ company of 23 Assam Rifles (AR) and another from the 164 Naga Territorial Army (TA) Battalion – in the Mon District along the Indo-Myanmar border on May 3, 2015. Nine other troopers were injured in the ambushes.

Reports indicate that the first ambush occurred at around 14:45 hrs [IST] when the AR personnel in a truck were escorting a tanker to fetch water from Changlangshu to Tobu town. Three troopers died in the attack. On learning of the ambush, an AR reinforcement party, rushed to the spot, where NSCN-K cadres were lying in wait and launched the second ambush. Another five troopers were killed. The AR reinforcement party reportedly retaliated, killing one NSCN-K cadre, identified as Ngamwang Konyak, while another was injured and dragged away by the rebels. According to Nagaland Director General of Police L.L. Doungel, another four troopers are reported missing after the incident.

This is the first major incident (resulting in three or more fatalities) in the State involving SFs since April 7, 1998. In the 1998 incident, eight Army personnel were killed and another 15 were injured in an ambush by suspected NSCN-Isak Muivah (NSCN-IM) militants on an army convoy on its way to Kechire from Zunheboto in Zunheboto District.

This is the first major attack carried out by NSCN-K against SF personnel since February 19, 1997. On that day, suspected NSCN-K cadres had killed seven personnel of the Army Development Group and had injured another four in an ambush at Thingtin village, about 74 kilometers from Kohima town in Kohima District.

Prior to the May 3, 2015, incident, NSCN-K had recently targeted SFs on two separate occasions in Kohima District – on March 26 and April 25. In the April 25 incident an AR trooper, identified as Rifleman Vijay Singh Rathore, was killed near Classic Island on Raj Bhavan road in Kohima city. Four AR personnel had sustained injuries in the March 26 incident.

On March 27, 2015, NSCN-K had unilaterally called off the ceasefire, claiming that there is “no use extending ceasefire without discussing the issue of Naga sovereignty”. The Press release by NSCN-K ‘chairman’ S.S. Khaplang declared, “Clamouring for peace without even an inclination to discuss sovereignty issue or resolution of sovereignty is only farce and any settlement or solution short of sovereignty would only be a betrayal of Nagas historical and political legacy.” The ceasefire agreement with NSCN-K was signed on April 28, 2001. Meanwhile, the Union Government also called off the agreement with NSCN-K in a statement released on April 28, 2015.

Soon after the twin ambushes on May 3, NSCN-K reiterated that it was determined to “uphold and carry on the struggle, regardless of anti-Naga and anti-NSCN campaign launched by Naga collaborators and Indian agencies, after entering into cease fire with India.” It warned that it would “fight to the last remaining man and shall never be cowed down by the threat of collaborators and traitors.”

Significantly, on April 23, 2013, reports indicated that as many as nine Northeast militant groups – including the United National Liberation Front (UNLF) and the Coordination Committee (CorCom), an umbrella group of six militant groups in Manipur – had formed a joint front, the United National Liberation Front of West South East Asia (UNLFW) in the Sagaing Division of Myanmar, with S.S. Khaplang of NSCN-K as its ‘chief’.

Meanwhile, on April 27, 2015, the Union Government signed a ceasefire agreement with the breakaway faction of the NSCN-K, NSCN-Reformation (NSCN-R), for one year duration. The modalities for the ceasefire with the NSCN-R are almost the same as those with other Naga groups. The area of ceasefire will be confined within the state of Nagaland in writing, but the outfit stated that the Union Government had verbally agreed to extend the truce up to Arunachal Pradesh. The NSCN-R was formed on April 6, 2015, after the split in NSCN-K.

It is noteworthy that an earlier split in NSCN-K, resulting in the creation of the Khole Kitovi faction of the NSCN (NSCN-KK), in 2011, was followed by an increase in fratricidal killings. Such killings, however, declined through 2014, principally due to the signing of the ‘Lenten Agreement’ on March 28, 2014, during a two-day reconciliation meeting of three Naga militant groups – NSCN-IM, NSCN-KK and Naga National Council/ Federal Government of Nagaland (NNC/FGN) – at Dimapur, under the banner of the Forum for Naga Reconciliation (FNR). Three incidents of fratricidal clashes, in which two militants were killed, have already been reported from the State in the current year, (data till May 3, 2015). In the most recent incident, on April 30, 2015, a former NSCN-K militant, identified as Mughato, was killed in a factional clash in Dimapur District. NSCN-KK admitted to their involvement in the killing, stating that he was a “habitual defector”, who had defected to NSCN-K along with arms belonging to NSNC-KK. Through 2014, two militants had been killed in three such incidents.

Further, there has been no positive development with regards to talks with the NSCN-IM even after 70 rounds of discussion. The Union Government’s interlocutor for Naga peace talks and chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), R. N. Ravi, dismissed reports of any time bound strategy to deal with the NSCN-IM, stating, on April 6, 2015, “The Government has not given any timeline to end the talks. I have no knowledge of it but we are trying to come to a logical conclusion as early as possible.” However, on October 18, 2014, National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval, had asserted, “There should never be any feeling that it (talks) is protracted… The (peace) process is the means to an end and if there is an end, which is a desired end, it must be found in real time. There should be rule of law in the Naga insurgency-affected areas for which peace process must be completed as early as possible.”

According to reports on May 3, 2015, AR sources in Kohima had said they have not started operations against the NSCN-K to avoid causing inconvenience to the people. However, they warned that they would not remain silent if attacked. It can now be expected that operations against NSCN-K will be initiated without any further delay.

* Giriraj Bhattacharjee
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management

The post India: Rudderless Process, Aimless Violence In Nagaland – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

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