Native Leadership is the Key to Open Climate Justice Door

BY TALLI NAUMANFacebookTwitter

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Haida totem. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

With the release in April of the most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the time is ripe to celebrate a breakthrough by Indigenous Peoples in participation on the scientific advisory board that guides global warming policy for 195 U.N. countries. Opinion leaders should push the envelope for more of the same.

The Inuit Circumpolar Council announced a month earlier that it is the first Indigenous Peoples Organization to obtain formal Observer status to the IPCC. It has been taking part in the Working Group process that resulted in the August report on the “Physical Science Basis” that led to the U.N. Secretary General António Guterres declaring a “code red for humanity”. It joined in the February report on “Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability” and the latest, “Mitigation of Climate Change”.

Inuit Circumpolar Council International Chair Dr. Sambo Dorough said her transcontinental organization has been working with the IPCC “to ensure that consideration is given to Indigenous knowledge in future assessments.” The council emphasizes Indigenous self-determination in research and Indigenous leadership in transformative adaptation and climate resilience.

In a vanguard move, the Canadian government had included the council in its national delegation at IPCC approval sessions. “This positive partnership … is exemplary of how state party members can support and work with Indigenous Peoples Organizations,” the council said. Using the federal backing as a stepping stone, the council achieved its independent Observer status. It now can participate autonomously in IPCC meetings and provide direct interventions.

The council’s impact was clear in the February report, in which Working Group 2 said the vulnerability of Indigenous Peoples to climate change effects is produced and exacerbated by inequities in gender, income, and class status – and by historical marginalization in patterns molded since colonial times that are reinforced in different ways today.

The report calls for the inclusion of diverse sectors — especially Indigenous Peoples — in climate change governance and for collaboration between actors with distinct knowledge bases. Here, the IPCC states that the participation of Indigenous Peoples in climate governance is an ethical and essential requirement. The document recognizes Native traditional knowledge throughout. It says autochthonous involvement augers multiple positive outcomes, including more equitable and socially just adaptation to climate change.

The 50-year-old non-profit International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, IWGIA, joined the Inuit council in immediately responding with a statement. “While these (IPCC) affirmations represent a significant step forward, more decisive actions are still needed to strengthen Indigenous Peoples’ effective participation in climate governance,” they said. The Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities and the Pastoralists Indigenous NGO Forum took part in analyzing the IPCC report.

They offered a series of recommendations to enhance Indigenous Peoples’ participation in the next IPCC cycle and in national climate governance. Among them was: Include Indigenous representatives in national delegations in climate change conferences and intergovernmental fora — strengthening both the capacities of U.N. member states and Indigenous Peoples for such participation.

Also advised: Fortify monitoring and reporting systems for the effective engagement of Indigenous Peoples and knowledge holders; establish grievance mechanisms to ensure the inclusion of Indigenous perspectives. Additionally: Create permanent mechanisms for the participation of Indigenous Peoples in national climate governance.

The organizations further called on the IPCC to “affirm, acknowledge, welcome, and provide the resources to strengthen Indigenous communities’ capacity, based on the Indigenous knowledge systems and customary institutions of the Indigenous Peoples concerned.”

Most significantly, they stressed, Native involvement should be recognized as rooted in worldviews that can point the way to climate problem-solving. This means putting Indigenous representatives in the driver’s seat, not just inviting them to ride along. For example, lead authors and directors should be drawn from the aboriginal constituencies.

By the time of the report from Working Group 3, another step for progress on the issue had been taken. It pointed to “colonialism”, not only as a driver of the climate crisis, but also as an ongoing issue that is exacerbating Indigenous communities’ vulnerability to climate change.

Jade Begay, Climate Justice director at the non-profit NDN Collective responded, “Indigenous Peoples have suffered the brunt of colonialism – and though we have contributed to climate change the least, are suffering from its impacts the most.

Citing “the continued violence and displacement caused by colonialism,” she called out carbon offset schemes – euphemistically dubbed nature-based remedies — as “perfect examples of popular so-called climate solutions that are rooted in a continued colonization mindset and do even more harm by inviting grabs of Indigenous land and warping of our knowledge.”

She concluded: “The inclusion of colonialism in the report gives policymakers no excuse to continue enacting climate policies that don’t include reparations and real solutions to increasing loss and damages. World leaders must actively involve Indigenous leadership in all climate solutions, in order to achieve climate, social, and economic justice.”

Palestine Needs Immediate Attention to Stave off Major Food Crisis

BY RAMZY BAROUDFacebook

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Photograph Source: Marcin Monko – CC BY 2.0

A friend, a young journalist in Gaza, Mohammed Rafik Mhawesh, told me that food prices in the besieged Strip have skyrocketed in recent weeks and that many already impoverished families are struggling to put food on the table.

“Food prices are dramatically surging,” he said, “particularly since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine war.” Essential food prices, like wheat and meat, have nearly doubled. The price of a chicken, for example, which was only accessible to a small segment of Gaza’s population, has increased from 20 shekels (approx. $6) to 45 (approx. $14).

These price hikes may seem manageable in some parts of the world but in an already impoverished place, which has been under a hermetic Israeli military siege for 15 years, a humanitarian crisis of great proportions is certainly forthcoming.

In fact, this was also the warning of the international charity group Oxfam, which on April 11 reported that food prices throughout Palestine jumped by 25% but, more alarmingly, wheat flour reserves in the Occupied Territories could be “exhausted within three weeks”.

The impact of the Russia-Ukraine war has been felt in every part of the world, some places more than others. African and Middle Eastern countries, which have been battling pre-existing problems of poverty, hunger and unemployment, are most affected. However, Palestine is a whole different story. It is an occupied country that is almost entirely reliant on the action of an occupying power, Israel, which refuses to adhere to international and humanitarian laws.

For Palestinians the issue is complex, yet almost every aspect of it is somehow linked to Israel.

Gaza has been under an Israeli economic blockade for many years, and food that Israel allows to the Strip is rationed and manipulated by Israel as an act of collective punishment. In its report on Israeli apartheid published last February, Amnesty International detailed Israeli restrictions on Palestinian food and gas supplies. According to the rights group, Israel uses “mathematical formulas to determine how much food to allow into Gaza”, limiting supplies to what Tel Aviv deems “essential for the survival of the civilian population”.

Aside from many infrastructure issues resulting from the siege – lack of clean water, electricity, farming equipment, etc. – Gaza has also lost much of its arable land to the Israeli military zone established across border areas throughout the Strip.

The West Bank is not much better off. Most Palestinians in the Occupied Territories are feeling the growing burden – the Israeli occupation, compounded with the devastating impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and structural weaknesses within the Palestinian Authority, rife with corruption and mismanagement.

The PA imports 95% of its wheat, Oxfam says, and owns no storage facilities whatsoever. All of such imports are transported via Israel, which controls all of Palestine’s access to the outside world. Since Israel itself imports nearly half of its grains and cereals from Ukraine, Palestinians are, therefore, hostage to this very mechanism.

Israel, however, has been amassing food and is largely energy independent, while Palestinians are struggling at all levels. While the PA should shoulder part of the blame for investing in its ‘security’ apparatus at the expense of food security, Israel holds most of the keys to Palestinian survival.

With hundreds of Israeli military checkpoints dotting the occupied West Bank, cutting off communities from one another and farmers from agricultural land, sustainable agriculture in Palestine is nearly impossible.

Two major issues complicate an already difficult picture: one, the hundreds of kilometers long so-called ‘Separation Wall’, which actually does not ‘separate’ between Israelis and Palestinians but, instead, unlawfully deprives Palestinians from large tracts of their land, mostly farming areas; and two, the outright robbery of Palestinian water from the West Bank’s acquifers.  While many Palestinian communities struggle to find drinking water in the summer, Israel never experiences any water shortage throughout the year.

So-called Area C, which constitutes nearly 60% of the total size of the West Bank, is under complete Israeli military control. Though sparsely populated in comparison, it contains most of the region’s agricultural land, especially areas located in the very fertile Jordan Valley. Though Israel has postponed, under international pressure, its official annexation of Area C, the area is practically annexed, and Palestinians are slowly being driven out and replaced by a growing population of illegal Israeli Jewish settlers.

The rapidly rising food prices are hurting the very farmers and herders who are responsible for filling the massive gaps caused by the global food insecurity as a result of war. According to Oxfam, the cost of animal feed is up by 60% in the West Bank, which adds to the “existing burden” faced by herders, including “worsening violent attacks by Israeli settlers” and “forced displacement”, as in ethnic cleansing resulting from Israeli annexation policies.

Though it may bring partial relief, even a halt to the Russia-Ukraine war will not end Palestine’s food insecurity, as this issue is instigated and prolonged by specific Israeli policies. In the case of Gaza, the crisis is, in fact, fully manufactured by Israel with specific political designs in mind. The infamous comments by former Israeli government advisor, Dov Weisglass in 2006, explaining Israel’s motives behind the siege on Gaza, remain the guiding principle of Israel’s attitude towards the Strip. “The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger,” he said.

Palestine needs immediate attention to stave off a major food crisis. Gaza’s pre-existing extreme poverty and high unemployment leaves it with no margins whatsoever to accommodate any more calamities. However, anything done now can only be a short-term fix. A serious conversation involving Palestinians, Arab countries, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and other parties must take place to discuss and resolve Palestine’s food insecurity. For Palestinians, this is the real existential threat.

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is “These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons” (Clarity Press, Atlanta). Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), Istanbul Zaim University (IZU). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net

To the Home Office We Go: The Extradition of Julian Assange

BY BINOY KAMPMARK

Photograph Source: Jeanne Menjoulet – CC BY 2.0

It was a dastardly formality. On April 20, at a hearing at Westminster Magistrates Court, Julian Assange, beamed in via video link from Belmarsh Prison, his carceral home for three years, is to be extradited to the United States to face 18 charges, 17 based on the US Espionage Act of 1917.

The final arbiter will be the UK Secretary of the Home Office, the security hardened Priti Patel who is unlikely to buck the trend.  She has shown an all too unhealthy enthusiasm for an expansion of the Official Secrets Act which would target leakers, recipients of leaked material, and secondary publishers.  The proposals seek to purposely conflate investigatory journalism and espionage activities conducted by foreign states, while increasing prison penalties from two years to 14 years.

Chief Magistrate Senior District Judge Paul Goldspring was never going to rock the judicial boat.  He was “duty-bound” to send the case to the home secretary, though he did inform Assange that an appeal to the High Court could be made in the event of approved extradition prior to the issuing of the order.

It seemed a cruel turn for the books, given the ruling by District Court Judge Vanessa Baraitser on January 4, 2021 that Assange would be at serious risk of suicide given the risk posed by Special Administrative Measures and the possibility that he spend the rest of his life in the ADX Florence supermax facility.  Assange would be essentially killed off by a penal system renowned for its brutality.  Accordingly, it was found that extraditing him would be oppressive within the meaning of the US-UK Extradition Treaty.

The US Department of Justice, ever eager to get their man, appealed to the High Court of England and Wales.  They attacked the judge for her carelessness in not seeking reassurances about Assange’s welfare the prosecutors never asked for.  They sought to reassure the British judges that diplomatic assurances had been given.  Assange would be spared the legal asphyxiations caused by SAMs, or the dystopia of the supermax facility.  Besides, his time in US detention would be medically catered for, thereby minimising the suicide risk.  There would be no reason for him to take his own life, given the more pleasant surroundings and guarantees for his welfare.

A fatuous additional assurance was also thrown in: the Australian national would have the chance to apply to serve the post-trial and post-appeal phase of his sentence in the country of his birth.  All such undertakings would naturally be subject to adjustment and modification by US authorities as they deemed fit.  None were binding.

All this glaring nonsense was based on the vital presumption that such undertakings would be honoured by a government whose officials have debated, at stages, the publisher’s possible poisoning and abduction.  Such talk of assassination was also accompanied by a relentless surveillance operation of the Ecuadorian embassy in London, directed by US intelligence operatives through the auspices of a Spanish security company, UC Global.  Along the way, US prosecutors even had time to use fabricated evidence in drafting their indictment.

The Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales Ian Burnett, and Lord Justice Timothy Holroyde, in their December 2021 decision, saw no reason to doubt the good faith of the prosecutors.  Assange’s suicide risk would, given the assurances, be minimised – he had, the judges reasoned, nothing to fear, given the promise that he would be exempted from the application of SAMs or the privations of ADX Florence.  In this most political of trials, the judicial bench seemed unmoved by implications, state power, and the desperation of the US imperium in targeting the publishing of compromising classified information.

On appeal to the UK Supreme Court, the grounds of appeal were scandalously whittled away, with no mention of public interest, press freedom, thoughts of assassination, surveillance, or fabrication of evidence.  The sole issue preoccupying the bench: “In what circumstances can an appellate court receive assurances from a requesting state which were not before the court at first instance in extradition proceedings”.

On March 14, the Supreme Court comprising Lord Reed, Lord Hodge and Lord Briggs, delivered the skimpiest of answers, without a sliver of reasoning.  In the words of the Deputy Support Registrar, “The Court ordered that permission to appeal be refused because the application does not raise an arguable point of law.”

While chief magistrate Goldspring felt duty bound to relay the extradition decision to Patel,

Mark Summers QC, presenting Assange, also felt duty bound to make submissions against it.  “It is not open to me to raise fresh evidence and issues, even though there are fresh developments in the case.”  The defence team have till May 18 to make what they describe as “serious submissions” to the Home Secretary regarding US sentencing practices and other salient issues.

Various options may present themselves.  In addition to challenging the Home Secretary’s order, the defence may choose to return to the original decision of Baraitser, notably on her shabby treatment of press freedom.  Assange’s activities, she witheringly claimed, lacked journalistic qualities.

Outside the channel of the Home Office, another phase in the campaign to free Assange has now opened.  Activist groups, press organisations and supporters are already readying themselves for the next month.  Political figures such as former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn have urged Patel “to stand up for journalism and democracy, or sentence a man for life for exposing the truth about the War on Terror.”

Amnesty International’s Secretary General Agnès Callamard has also fired another salvo in favour of Assange, notingthat the United Kingdom “has an obligation not to send any person to a place where their life or safety is at risk and the Government must now abdicate that responsibility.”

The prospect of enlivening extraterritorial jurisdiction to target journalism and the publication of national security information, is graver than ever.  It signals the power of an international rogue indifferent to due process and fearful of being caught out.  But even before this momentous realisation is one irrefutable fact.  The plea from Assange’s wife, Stella, sharpens the point: don’t extradite a man “to a country that conspired to murder him.”

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com

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'Incredibly rare' white whale spotted off NSW could be offspring of Australia's beloved Migaloo

Romy Gilbert, Apr 22 2022

Rare new vision of an all white humpback whale captured by a Queensland teen has sparked speculation Australia's beloved Migaloo may have reproduced.

Rare new vision of an all white humpback whale captured by a Queensland teen has sparked speculation Australia's beloved Migaloo may have reproduced.

Brayden Blake spotted the white whale about 500 metres off the coast of Fingal Head, while holidaying in New South Wales on Thursday.

The 16-year-old instantly thought of the famed whale Migaloo, who hasn't been seen yet this season, but marine expert Dr Wally Franklin thinks the "extremely intriguing" footage could indicate an even more impressive sight - a new albino white whale.

"If it is Migaloo, he's the only albino whale in the eastern Australian group, which now numbers over 40,000 whales and if it's a younger white whale, that'd only be two out of 40,000," Franklin told 9News.com.au

"So it's an incredibly rare occurrence.

"This is the first time that I've been able to say that the white whale I'm looking at could be a white whale other than Migaloo.”

Brayden does drone shark surveillance for Surf Live Saving NSW and couldn't believe his eyes when he saw a white whale splashing in the water.

BRAYDEN BLAKE/NINE
The white whale was seen frolicking with dolphins off the coast of NSW.

He raced home to grab his personal drone to nab some footage, which has led to the potentially new discovery being pursued by experts.

"My heart was racing ... it was just really, really cool," Brayden told 9News.com.au.

"I was so lucky to see it."

The whale can be seen frolicking with a pod of dolphins in footage exclusively obtained by 9News.

Franklin said there is a strong chance this white whale may follow in Migaloo's footsteps and show up in Queensland's Hervey Bay, as Migaloo did in 1992.

DR WALLY FRANKLIN/NINE
Dr Wally Franklin said this is the first time he's seen a white whale and is not convinced it's Migaloo.

'Distinctive' markings used as 'fingerprint' to identify whales

While Franklin believes the new discovery is remarkable, he said at this stage "we are not close enough to affirm the individuality of the whale".

However, he said there are several things that indicate the whale is not Migaloo and instead a potential offspring.

One hint could be the timing of this sighting as younger whales are believed to begin their migration from Antarctica to Queensland before older ones.

"The timing of the sighting is consistent with it being a younger whale, because it's still very early in the season," Franklin said.

He said normally Migaloo turns up in late June, early July.

"He's been very consistent with those initial sightings so that could be a good indication that this might be a second white whale, which in itself would be quite incredible," the marine scientist said.

Franklin has been able to identify Migaloo from photographs of his dorsal fin, "which has quite a distinctive shape".

"Along the backbone of the humpback whale, the knobs of the backbone do often show," he said.

"In in the case of Migaloo, he has two distinctive knobs on his backbone, relative to the dorsal.

BRAYDEN BLAKE/NINE
A 16-year-old boy has captured new vision of a white whale, believed to potentially be Migaloo's offspring.

"You've got to be able to photograph the dorsal on the back, which you can get because he does tend to flick up when he rises up out of the water.”

"The trailing edge of his flute has a very distinctive shape as well because humpback whales have a serrated edge to their tale flute and that's quite unique.

"Humpbacks are the only whale out of the 80 odd species that have a serrated edge.

"It is like a fingerprint."

The new vision comes as major news to experts and Migaloo fans abroad, with Franklin believing there to be more opportunities this whale watching season for people to view the spectacular animal.

"There will be opportunities for other people to sight him, possibly photograph him."

However, due to the hype that came about when the famous white Migaloo was first spotted in 1991, the Queensland government implemented legislation which aimed to protect him and any whale of his kind.

Queensland law requires that Migaloo, or any white whale, be given 500 metres of space under a Special Management Declaration.

DR WALLY FRANKLIN/NINE
A photo of Migaloo taken by Dr Dan Burns off Ballina in 2004.

Who is Migaloo?

The all white was first pictured on June 28, 1991 passing Byron Bay.

The indigenous community in Queensland used the world "migaloo" to describe a "white fella" – sparking the name that's now been heard around the world. At the time he was the only documented all-white whale on the planet.

Skin samples were collected from Migaloo in 2004, which allowed researchers from Southern Cross University Whale Research Centre to confirm he is a male born in 1986.

He's been sighted along the east coast of Australia with another whale known as Milo, which provided "valuable insight into the migratory behaviour of humpback whales" along Australia's coast.

This story was originally published on 9News.com.au and is republished with permission.

 

Watch: Chinese scientists develop ‘robot rat’ to assist in post-disaster rescue missions

The robot rat is expected to provide assistance in spaces that are too narrow for rescuers to reach.

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Germany to Evict Existing Afghan Refugees for Clearing Out Accommodation Centres for Arriving Ukrainians

April 22, 2022

© Cineberg Ug | Dreamstime.com

German authorities are displacing existing refugees to make way for those coming from Ukraine, as several Afghan nationals have revealed.

Miriam Arween, a social activist from Afghanistan, says she was having breakfast with her family when a social worker knocked on her door and said they had to clear out the place for arriving refugees from Ukraine without questions of negotiations and within the next 24 hours, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.

“The evictions purposefully weren’t publicised. Some people had lived in their homes for years and were ripped out of their social structures, including children who were moved to locations far from their respective schools,” Tareq Alaows, a board member of the Berlin Refugee Council – a collaboration of different organisations that aim to improve refugees living conditions.

On the other hand, as Alaows points out, the government justified the actions by saying the time had come anyway for Afghan refugees to leave as “arrival centres” were meant for short-term stays. But there were families living in such centres for years now, while other families evicted were living in other accommodation spots rather than arrival centres.

“Few people’s living conditions improved, but most were afraid to speak up, afraid it could impact their immigration status,” Alaows said, pointing out that around ten residences had been emptied in Berlin for the arriving refugees.

In addition, he points out that this situation doesn’t have to do with Ukrainians but rather with Germany’s solidarity if it is only targeting certain people, also saying that recent months demonstrated that refugees could be treated differently, implying the EU and Germany were particularly friendly to refugees from Ukraine.

On the other end, the decision made by Berlin’s Senate Department for Integration, Labor, and Social Services showed that the measure was “based on operationally necessary and difficult considerations,” and there were no other options.

“We regret that this caused additional hardships to the Afghan families [and that] the affected people had to move out of their familiar surroundings and now possibly have to keep up with their social connections with great difficulty,” the department’s press secretary, Stefan Strauss, said

He also noted there were 83 accommodation spots for refugees in Berlin – which accommodated 22,000 people, but those had to be cleared out as more Ukrainian refugees were arriving. In addition, the department’s secretary said that instead, evicted Afghans were granted other “permanent” accommodation with similar living conditions.

However, Foreign Policy points out that although Arween and her family had been moved to a slightly better apartment, there are other issues to be tackled. For example, the new place is believed to be an accommodating spot for homeless people, and some residents even have criminal backgrounds, which leaves the mother of a five-year-old and an infant of eight months concerned about their safety.

UN refugee agency ‘shocked’ at Rohingya deaths in Malaysia escape

Six people, including two children, were killed trying to cross a highway after hundreds fled a detention centre amid a riot.

More than 500 Rohingya fled immigration detention in Malaysia on Wednesday but most were recaptured within hours [AFP]

Published On 22 Apr 2022

The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) has said it is “shocked and deeply saddened” by the deaths of six Rohingya, including two children, who died on Wednesday in an escape this week from a temporary immigration detention centre in northern Malaysia.

The group was among 528 Rohingya people who fled the facility in the early hours of Wednesday morning after what authorities said was a riot.

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The UNHCR, which has an office in Kuala Lumpur, said in a statement late on Thursday, that it was also concerned about the incident that led to the escape.

Tens of thousands of Rohingya, a mostly Muslim minority who have long been persecuted in Myanmar, have sought safety in Malaysia with many risking dangerous boat journeys to get to the country following a brutal military crackdown in 2017 that is now the subject of an international genocide case.

The UN refugee agency said it did not have any information regarding the incident or the individuals involved, and revealed that it had not been allowed to access any immigration detention centres in Malaysia since August 2019.

“This has unfortunately prevented UNHCR in seeing detained persons of concern in order to determine those in need of international protection and to advocate for their release,” the statement said, noting that there are “detained persons of concern, including vulnerable individuals, requiring our attention” in immigration detention centres across Malaysia.

It said it was ready to work with the Malaysian government on alternatives to detention, especially for children and the elderly.

“Depriving individuals of their liberty in order to deter others from entering the country is unlawful, inhumane and ineffective,” the statement said. “Seeking asylum is not an unlawful act. In all cases detention should be a measure of last resort, should be authorized by the law and only undertaken if necessary and reasonable in all the circumstances, and proportionate to a legitimate aim.”

The six people who died were killed as they tried to cross the North-South Highway, the main road that links northern Malaysia to Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.

The immigration department said most of the group was rearrested hours after they escaped, but police continue to search for nearly 100 people who remain free.

Some 664 people were in the centre at the time of the disturbances, 137 of them children, Malaysia’s home minister Hamzah Zainudin told local media on Wednesday. The Rohingya had arrived by sea in 2020 and had been transferred from the resort island of Langkawi, he added.

“Because there were so many detainees in a cramped space, things got out of control and the detainees took the opportunity to break out,” Hamzah said.

Some 181,000 people in Malaysia are officially registered as refugees and asylum seekers, according to the UN, and about 57 percent of them are Rohingya. Like many countries in the region, Malaysia does not recognise the UN Refugee Convention and those caught without papers are considered “illegal” migrants.

“Even before the incident, many of these refugees would have already been undergoing huge trauma, having escaped a genocide against them in Myanmar,” Tun Khin, president of the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK, said in a statement. “Malaysian authorities must not only treat them with compassion but also get to the bottom of what triggered the incident.”

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

India's Muslims face genocide. But don't expect Boris Johnson to mention it

Under Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi, India has embarked on a dark path - and the UK knows it. Yet a potential trade deal will ensure Johnson's silence on the matter

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Indian counterpart

 Narendra Modi meet at Hyderabad House in New Delhi on 22 April 2022 (AFP)

Peter Oborne
22 April 2022 

There’s something that makes me sick in the stomach about Boris Johnson’s trip to India.

We’ve seen the obligatory pictures of Johnson on a rickshaw. We’ve read the carefully briefed articles by lobby correspondents about differences with Narendra Modi over Russia and Ukraine.

We’ve not read a word from the British press about Modi’s systematic, organised, murderous persecution of India's 200 million Muslims

We’ve studied the photos of a relaxed Johnson briefing a huddle of British journalists on his plane. And being received by an official delegation getting off the plane. And, of course, we’ve read the informed speculation that a trade deal will be struck.

But we’ve not read a word from the British press about Modi’s systematic, organised, murderous persecution of India’s 200 million Muslims. And I’d be astonished if we hear a word on the subject.

On Wednesday, Johnson arrived in Gujarat, Modi’s political base. He announced new India investment deals in science and technology. A routine exchange of political favours. But the British prime minister courteously made no reference to the Gujarat pogrom, which left more than 1,000 dead 20 years ago, with Modi accused of fanning the violence.

If this terrible event had been an isolated episode, fair enough. But it has gone on to set the pattern for Modi’s premiership.

Anti-Muslim narrative

In the eight years he has been Indian prime minister, Modi has repudiated the multi-faith India embraced by the nation’s founding fathers, Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. Remember that Modi has been a member of the Nazi-influenced Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), out of which his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has grown, since he was a boy.

Under his leadership, a terrifying anti-Muslim narrative has emerged. Modi’s BJP follows a Hindu nationalism that sees India’s 200 million Muslims as foreigners and invaders.

For Indian Muslims the end times have arrived 

Read More »

Arundhati Roy, the Booker Prize-winning novelist, has recently claimed that the situation for Indian Muslims is approaching genocidal and that India may be broken up.

In December, an event was held in the northern Uttarakhand state at which participants urged the mass killings of Muslims. "Even if just a hundred of us become soldiers and kill two million of them, we will be victorious," one woman said about Indian Muslims. A video of the event went viral.

The meeting was attended by at least one member of Modi’s BJP. Another delegate, Prabodhanand Giri, often photographed with senior BJP members, declared that "like Myanmar, the police, politicians, the army and every Hindu in India must pick up weapons and do this cleansing".

As in other countries, the government and sections of the media accuse Muslims of disloyalty. In a farcical case in point, Indian Muslims were arrested for celebrating Pakistan’s cricketing defeat of India in November 2021.
A dark path

The Indian government is seeking to alter the demography of India’s Muslim-majority state, Jammu and Kashmir, by encouraging Hindus to move there. The state has been under a dense military occupation for decades; most Kashmiris do not wish to be part of India. In August 2019, Prime Minister Modi revoked Kashmir’s historical semi-autonomous status.

That same year, Modi’s Citizen Amendment Act excluded Muslim refugees from citizenship. Arundhati Roy wrote that Modi was enacting “India’s version of Germany’s 1935 Nuremberg Laws, which deprived Jews and other minorities of their citizenship rights”.

Muslims break their fast at the Jama Masjid mosque during Islam's Holy month of Ramadan in the old quarters of Delhi on 13 April, 2022 (AFP)

There is no doubt that India under Modi has embarked on a dark path. The BJP's president, Amit Shah, has compared migrants from Bangladesh to "termites", drawing comparisons with Nazi language about Jews in the 1930s or the language used about the Tutsis during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Gregory Stanton, the founder and director of Genocide Watch, recently warned the US Congress there were early “signs and processes” of genocide in the Indian state of Assam and Indian-administered Kashmir. Stanton, who warned about the Rwandan genocide three years before it happened in 1994, drew parallels between Modi’s policies and Myanmar’s treatment of Rohingya Muslims ahead of the 2017 slaughter.

The Holocaust Memorial Museum in the United States is on record as stating that India is the second most likely country to experience mass killings in 2022. Total silence about this from the British government, and the accompanying press party.

Threat of genocide

To be fair, Boris Johnson is in India to bring home a trade deal, and he cannot afford to jeopardise that cherished prize. Nor can we reasonably expect the United Kingdom to solve all of the world’s problems.

Nevertheless, in high-profile negotiations of this sort, I think it is fair to expect a British prime minister to raise concerns about India’s treatment of Muslims, highlight them publicly and report back not just to the British parliament but also to the international community.

Johnson can’t claim ignorance. Modi’s assault on Muslims is well-documented by the relevant international organisations

All the more so because Johnson can’t claim ignorance. Modi’s assault on Muslims is well-documented by the relevant international organisations. We can therefore be confident that the British High Commission in Delhi, however silent, knows all about it. British foreign correspondents, too.

In Johnson’s defence, Labour leader Keir Starmer has been silent, too. He did not raise the persecution of India’s Muslims when he had the chance at yesterday’s prime minister's questions. To sum up, this week, Boris Johnson stepped foot in Narendra Modi’s India. It contains 1.4 billion souls, 200 million of whom are Muslims. According to good judges, under Modi they face the threat of genocide.

Yet not a word from Johnson, his Labour opponent Starmer, or the British political press.

Research for this piece by Mahdi Mustafa

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Daniel Ellsberg on the Existential Threat of Global Conflict

“As the world has correctly perceived, this has the seeds of a regional nuclear war and all-out war between the US and Russia.”

By Sasha Abramsky

Daniel Ellsberg receives the the 7th International Peace Prize at the Semper Opera in Dresden, Germany, February 2016. (Arno Burgi / picture alliance via Getty Images)

Arguably no human on earth has given more thought over the past 65 years to the possibilities of nuclear war—intentional or accidental—than Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg. Since Ellsberg joined the RAND Corporation as an analyst in 1958, he has accumulated a vast wealth of knowledge and perspective on how superpowers use their nuclear muscle to impose their will on the world, and on how their political and military elites strategize about conflicts in the nuclear era.

In 1971, horrified by the trajectory of the Vietnam War, Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times. More recently, in 2017, he published a book, The Doomsday Machine, revealing secret US nuclear strategies—several of which, in the 1960s, Ellsberg himself was involved in crafting—and acts dating back to the dawn of the Cold War.

Last year, I interviewed Ellsberg, who lives in Berkeley, when he turned 90. On Monday, we resumed our conversation. Over the course of one and a half hours we discussed Ellsberg’s understanding of the war in Ukraine, the likelihood of hostilities between China and Taiwan as a spillover effect, the risk of nuclear bombs being unleashed, and the potentially cataclysmic impact the war could have on the ability of the global community to cooperate on anti-climate-change policies.

Ellsberg was adamant that this was a brutal and unjustified war of aggression launched by Putin. But he was incredulous at the notion, too often accepted as a given by commentators, that no superpower since the end of World War II has committed such heinous atrocities. “I’m 91,” he says. “So, I’m burdened by an awful lot of historical analogies in my lifetime, many of which I participated in: the buildup of nuclear weapons, and the Vietnam War, which were moral catastrophes. Putin is a bad guy, very clearly. His aggression is murderous and as illegitimate as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.” He pauses. “Or the US invasion of Afghanistan or Iraq. Or Hitler’s invasion of Poland. Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam by the US—we haven’t reached that level remotely yet [in Ukraine.]”

Ellsberg specifically mentioned the use of phosphorous bombs, which burn through to the bone, by the United States and its allies in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and napalm used against civilians in Vietnam. Then, going back to World War II and the all-out effort to defeat fascism, he spoke of allied bombing raids that deliberately created firestorms in Dresden and Hamburg—killing tens of thousands of civilians in single nights in the two German cities—as well as a raid against Berlin, in February 1945, which failed to generate a firestorm but still killed roughly 25,000 people. He detailed the bombing of 64 cities in Japan before the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that cumulatively killed roughly 900,000 people—including up to 120,000 who died in Tokyo in a firestorm created by saturation bombing.

“The atom bomb didn’t change the policy of trying to kill as many people as possible; it just made it cheaper and more efficient,” Ellsberg argued.

As the US and the USSR built up their nuclear arsenals in the first four decades of the nuclear era, they developed launch-on-warning policies that could send ICBMs hurtling toward their targets in response not to bombs exploding but to satellite systems sending a warning signal that they had identified incoming missiles. The planet balanced on the edge of an abyss. As Ellsberg and others have documented, several times the world came within a whisker of an accidental nuclear war based on faulty readings from these warning systems.

Now, in 2022, with Europe once more witnessing a catastrophic land war, with Putin having put Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert, and with Ukrainian forces humbling Russia’s conventional army, Ellsberg is desperately concerned that things could spiral out of control, and the Great Powers could topple into the abyss.

He is furious at the shortsighted policies pushed by George W. Bush’s administration, and continued by the administrations that came after, to expand NATO east onto Russia’s flank. He quotes Cold War theorist George Kennan’s warning that such an expansion was “a fateful error,” the most historic blunder since the end of the Cold War, arguing that it made it almost certain that a humiliated Russia would turn toward nationalism and militarism. In dangling the prospect of NATO membership before Ukraine’s government, even if NATO didn’t actually want the country as a member, Washington was, Ellsberg came to feel, deliberately tempting Russia to intervene.

Ellsberg is worried that a reinvigorated NATO, and a military-industrial complex champing at the bit to sell ever more weapons—both to sustain Ukraine in resisting invasion, and, if it were to be successfully occupied, to make possible years of insurgency—in combination with a revanchist and paranoid Russia, could plunge the world into years of conflict.

“It can get a lot worse, and it almost certainly will get a lot worse,” he says, as he contemplates a war that is being broadcast by the minute into homes across the world, further inflaming public opinion in the west. “Committing these crimes on television has made it an irreversible split between the US and Russia.”

Ellsberg argues that a critical mass of ordinary Americans are paying attention to, and being morally outraged by, the “demolition” of a democratic, mainly white, and mainly Christian country in a way that past wars didn’t—particularly those launched by the US against non-white, non-Christian, non-democratic countries over recent decades. The loss of life and destruction of infrastructure in say, Iraq, a country long dictatorially ruled by Saddam Hussein, didn’t register emotionally with many Americans the way that today’s war in Ukraine has. “You’ve got this split in the world now that we’ve been moving toward for decades. And that means global collaboration on climate change, and reducing nuclear weapons, looks to me out of possibility. Without huge collaboration with the US and China and India and Russia, climate catastrophes are going to happen.”

More immediately, Ellsberg fears that the taboo against using nuclear weapons in a regional war is on the verge of being breached. If that happens, he says, it could easily precipitate a Mad Max era of “small nuclear wars,” with dozens of countries rapidly acquiring nuclear capabilities in a desperate effort to fend off atomic bullies in their geographical vicinity. “An era of proliferation may be underway already.”

“As the world has correctly perceived, this has the seeds of a regional nuclear war and all-out war between the US and Russia,” Ellsberg said.

In Putin’s threats of nuclear attack against those who would intervene to defend Ukraine, Ellsberg sees echoes of Nixon’s self-proclaimed “madman strategy,” in which he periodically let the Vietnamese know that he was actively considering exploding nuclear weapons on their country if they didn’t back down. So, too, he sees echoes of Eisenhower’s declared willingness to launch a nuclear war against the Chinese during the early days of Mao’s rule; and the Strategic Air Command’s determination, documented in Ellsberg’s book, that, in the event of a US-Soviet nuclear conflict, in addition to targeting all major Soviet cities, US forces would also be ordered to launch nuclear attacks on all major Chinese population centers.

The nonagenarian, who has dedicated decades of his life to warning of the dangers of nuclear warfare, believes that the war in Ukraine could also lead to a series of events that culminates in a Chinese-US conflict. Here’s how it goes, he explains: China has always said that if Taiwan, which it regards as a breakaway province, formally declares independence, it would invade. To avoid provoking a conflict, the United States has never officially recognized Taiwan’s sovereignty. Now, however, looking at how Russia has treated Ukraine, there’s a growing drumbeat in Taiwan to declare independence and at the same time to obtain security guarantees from Western powers to protect its sovereignty; and there’s a growing cadre of US political figures willing to treat Taiwan as a sovereign power and issue those guarantees.

“Both the Taiwanese and Chinese have to be drawing lessons from Ukraine, hour by hour,” says Ellsberg. “Putin thinks of Ukraine as part of Russia, and Ukraine as having illegitimately seceded. From his point of view he’s conducting a civil war; he’s Lincoln, who doesn’t want to accept secession. Every leader of China since Mao has said ‘one China,’ and ‘Taiwan is a province of China. And Taiwan is acting as if it wants to secede, and we will not accept it.’” In such a context, he says recognizing Taiwan would be “insane. I can’t see anyone would see a silver lining to that, except people who want to sell more weapons to Taiwan.”

Ellsberg has spent decades shouting from the rooftops to get humanity to change its course when it comes to existential threats from nuclear weaponry and climate change. Now, with Ukraine ablaze, he is deeply pessimistic. “Eliminate ICBMs? That ship has sailed—and it has sailed into iceberg waters at full speed at night, just like the Titanic. On climate, I think we’ve hit the iceberg. I think that this invasion, which was never certain and never necessary, and could have been averted, has shut the door on averting the traps we have set for our species.”


Sasha Abramsky writes regularly for The Nation, is the author of several books, including Inside Obama’s Brain, The American Way of Poverty, The House of 20,000 Books, Jumping at Shadows, and, most recently, Little Wonder: The Fabulous Story of Lottie Dod, the World’s First Female Sports Superstar. Subscribe to The Abramsky Report, a weekly, subscription-based political column, here.

COINCIDENCE? NO SUCH THING

Two Russian oligarchs found dead one day apart alongside their wives and children

22 April 2022

Sergei Protosenya, left, was found dead in Spain alongside his family. Vladislav Avayev, right, was found dead in Moscow. Picture: Facebook/Social media

By Asher McShane

@ashermcs

Police are investigating the deaths of two Russian oligarchs who were found dead alongside their wives and children one day apart in their luxury homes in Moscow and Spain.

Vladislav Avayev, the former vice president of Gazprombank, was found dead of a gunshot wound in his Moscow apartment on Monday, according to Russia's TASS news agency.

Investigators have reportedly said their main theory is that Avayev shot his wife and daughter, and then himself.

Avayev, 51, his wife Yelena, 47, and their 13-year-old daughter Maria were found with gunshot wounds in the Russian capital.

They were discovered by Avayev's 26-year-old daughter Anastasia after she was unable to contact them, police spokeswoman Yulia Ivanova told state-owned new agency TASS.

The door of the 14th floor apartment is said to have been locked from the inside, with officials suspecting a murder-suicide. They believe Avayev's wife and daughter were shot before he was.

Anastasia told officers she found a gun in her father's hand.

The following day another oligarch, Sergei Protosenya, was found hanged in Spain with his wife and daughter stabbed to death, according to Spanish media.

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Their bodies were found Tuesday reportedly with a bloodstained knife and an axe at his side.

Protosenya was the former vice president and chief accountant of Novatek, a major gas company with close connections to Gazprombank who boasted a fortune of over £333million.

Protosenya his wife, and his daughter, were staying in a rented luxury mansion in Lloret de Mar for the Easter period, according to Spanish news outlet Telecinco.

Natalia and Maria are thought to have been been hacked to death in their beds with an axe, according to reports.

Police were alerted to the deaths when the oligarch's son, who was in France, raised the alarm after nobody picked up the phone, Telecinco reported.

Officers checked on the villa and found Protosenya dead outside the home.

Police in the region have confirmed they are investigating the deaths, they said in a statement: "Police officers from the Generalitat-Mossos d'Esquadra of the Criminal Investigation Division (DIC) of the Girona Police Region are investigating the deaths of three people in a home in Lloret de Mar.

"This afternoon, [police] received a warning that the Lloret de Mar Local Police had found the body of three people in a private home in the town.

"Several police officers have moved to the scene. The DIC has opened an investigation to clarify the circumstances of the deaths."

Last month, Ukranian-born oligarch Mikhail Watford, 66, who made his fortune in oil and gas, was found dead in his mansion in Surrey.