Former Afghan president agrees Trump’s deal with Taliban on US withdrawal was a disaster

BY OLAFIMIHAN OSHIN - 08/14/22 

Getty

Former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani agreed on Sunday that the Trump’s administration’s deal with the Taliban that intended to lead to the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country was a disaster. 

During an appearance on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS,” Ghani told host Fareed Zakaria that he was critical of the Afghan government being excluded from initial talks.

Ghani declined to say whether he felt betrayed by the U.S. but when Zakaria asked, “Do you think that Trump accord with the Taliban was a disaster?” Ghani replied, “It was,” adding that he believed the Afghan-led portion of the process was “hijacked.”

“We were excluded from the peace table, and the peace process was incredibly flawed. It’s assumption that Taliban had changed— were delusion,” he added. “The process violates everything that— from Acheson and Marshall to Kissinger and Baker, regarding preparation, regarding organization, we never got to discussions. It was all foreplay.”

Ghani also told Zakaria that Trump initially said his Afghanistan and South Asia strategy was going to be a condition-based agreement. 

“This agreement was supposed to be conditional. But none of the core conditions was not only observed. The government, our partner, the government of the United States became the enforcer of the Taliban agreement on us, threatening us with cut-off of aid, with every conceivable form of pressure to release 5,000 of the most hardened criminals, et cetera,” Ghani told Zakaria. 

Ghani’s remarks come nearly one year after the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, which was ultimately executed by the Biden administration.

The troops’ withdrawal led to the Taliban regaining full control of the country, resulting in thousands of Afghan citizens desperately fleeing the country in fear. The country is plagued with high unemployment rates, soaring food insecurity and setbacks for women seeking an education.

Ghani, who fled the country amid the chaos, told Zakaria that he hopes to return to Afghanistan in the near future.

“I want to be able to help my country heal,” Ghani said. “And I hope to be able to do that from the place that every cell of my body belongs and without which I always feel alien.”

20 years of US occupation worsened Afghanistan crisis: China

TEHRAN, Aug. 14 (MNA) – The Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin has said that the forced transformation imposed by the US on Afghanistan has worsened the crisis of human survival and national development.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin made the remarks in his regular press conference on August 12 and in response to the media's question, "According to reports, more than 70 economists and experts from other fields recently wrote to US President Biden and Treasury Secretary Yellen, criticizing the US government’s executive order that divided the $7 billion of frozen assets of the Afghan central bank into two and calling on the government to immediately return the assets in full. This open letter was published by the Center for Economic and Policy Research and co-signed by Nobel Laureate for Economics Joseph Stiglitz as well as other global scholars. What is China’s comment on that?"

The Chinese foreign ministry spokesman responded, “I have noted that this open letter pointed out that the US government’s decision to seize Afghanistan’s $7 billion foreign exchange reserves “contributed mightily to Afghanistan’s economic collapse”. The US government’s “decision to divide these funds in two is arbitrary and unjustified” and “undermines the recovery” of the Afghan economy."

Wenbib added, "I also noted that it has been almost one year since the US withdrew its troops from Afghanistan. Critics around the world have argued that the US still hasn’t stopped doing harm to the Afghan people. If anything, it has been aggravated. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that millions of Afghans are on the “verge of death”. An official of the World Food Program pointed out at 98% of Afghans are facing food insecurity and nearly half of the Afghan children under the age of five suffer from acute malnutrition."

He further said, “Nearly 20 years of “forced transformation” imposed by the US on Afghanistan have not only failed to lift the Afghan people out of poverty and turbulence but also worsened the crisis of human survival and national development. This is yet another textbook example of how US democracy destabilizes the world. Although US troops have left Afghanistan, the crimes done against the country still persist. Unless the US stops harming the Afghan people, their ordeal will not end.” 

“We urge the US to own up to its wrongdoing and take real action to heal Afghan people’s trauma, and show accountability to the world,”  Wenbin added.

AY/PR

A year after humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan, US keeps on warmongering

New York, IRNA – Hazardous and humiliating pull-out of the US forces from Afghanistan can be seen as the sunset of Washington’s hegemony in West Asia, as the White House is still suffering from the heavy price of the defeat one year after the failure.

The administration of George W. Bush invaded Afghanistan in 2001 under the excuse of terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York and the severe damage done to the Pentagon on September 11 in the same year. Accompanied by its NATO allies the US attacked Afghanistan to hunt al-Qaeda elements and overthrow their Taliban supporters, but the 21-year invasion destroyed Afghanistan’s political, economic, and social structures; thus, the American forces had to withdraw from the war-stricken country on August 15, 2021.

The speedy advancement of Taliban forces in different provinces caused great shock not only among regional and international analysts but also among American and Afghan statesmen in early August last year.

Then, only 48 hours after the controversial escape of former Afghanistan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani, different top officials met with him to discuss the fall of Herat Province on August 13, when all high-ranking officials accused each other on the situation and were shocked by soldiers’ refusal to fight Taliban forces.

Later, he announced in an interview that United States Ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad divided all Afghan politicians.

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) issued a report on the last days of previous Afghan government, quoting one of the then high-ranking Afghan officials as saying that nobody took defending capital Kabul seriously. On that day, president Ghani urged participants of the meeting to stop arguments and focus on approaching of Taliban to the capital city and he decided to address the nation in a video message that the Afghan government will resist to stop Taliban's advancement.

Ghani expected that Kabul can stand against Taliban in the next two weeks in order to pave the way for handing over the government smoothly, but Taliban advancement was not reversible.

The former Afghan officials also said on condition of anonymity that some top authorities were still of the thought that Taliban would not enter Kabul because they reached an agreement with the US to stop entering the capital until withdrawal of international forces, but Taliban violated its agreement and entered the city.

Afghanistan retreatment, a negative point in Biden’s record

David Reynolds Ignatius, prominent American journalist and analyst, wrote in The Washington Post on December 21, 2021, that the worst mistake of the Biden administration’s foreign policy was hazardous management of withdrawal from Afghanistan and that Biden wanted to end the longest US war, but the process was costly for the United States’ prestige.

Continuation of US wars

The New York Time reported on September 22, 2021, that Biden claimed that the war has come to an end, but the US wars are still going on.

In the last year’s UN General Assembly summit, Biden alleged that for the first time in the last 20 years, the United States was not involved in a war; however, in fact only one day before the speech, a US drone targeted a car in a remote road in northwestern Syria, and three weeks prior to that occasion, the US army attacked al-Shabab group in Somalia.

According to The New York Times, the US military forces might not be present in Afghanistan, but the US wars are still ravaging different parts of the world.

Biden sent a letter to the Congress in June, naming all countries where the US has military forces or continues military operation. According to the letter, there are 40k US troops in the Middle East. The president also acknowledged that the US Army is going to conduct future operation in Afghanistan against terrorist threats.

In fact, the US’s military decision-makers have found excuses to continue some operation in North Africa, Asia, and other places under the pretext of emergence of groups to affiliated Daesh.

One year after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, Biden still seeks to fan the flame of the so-called war on terrorism in a bid to pave the way for saving his presidency and helping the Democrat Party to win in the upcoming congressional midterm elections; therefore, he announced on August 2 that the United States killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri on July 31, 2022.

It seems that the American statemen always link their government’s survival to warmongering policies around the world, and bitter experiences of historical failures could not stop their eagerness to embark on new conflicts.

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Taliban spend day on pedalos as they celebrate year of ruling Afghanistan

Tom Fenton 13 August 2022 

Taliban soldiers have been spotted enjoying some leisure time in pedalo boats on the one-year anniversary of their return to power in Afghanistan.

The group swept through the central Asian country last August, sending shockwaves around the world when they eventually stormed the capital city of Kabul - and toppled the existing Afghan government.

Taken from one of the lakes at Ban-e-Amir National Park, Taliban soldiers were pictured enjoying the sunshine earlier this week, with some even seen with their families.

Others could be seen jumping into the water, amid sweltering temperatures of 40 degrees in the surrounding region.

Many of the Taliban soldiers Took their guns on the boats. Credit: Getty Images

However, away from the picturesque lake, a group of women who have had many of their rights stripped away by the repressive regime were making themselves heard on Saturday morning (13 August).

A rally, taking place just a day before the one-year anniversary of the Taliban's return to power, was organised outside of the Education Ministry building in Kabul.

Over 40 women attended, chatting 'bread, work and freedom', in response to some of the laws the Taliban has introduced over the past year.

Some even cried, "justice, justice...we're fed up with ignorance", which eventually led to intervention from the Taliban intelligence service - who began firing bullets into the air.

Over the past year, the group has rolled back many of the freedoms Afghan women were afforded under the previous US-backed regime.

Credit: meanderingemu/Alamy Stock Photo

This includes the right to attend school, which the Taliban famously banned girls from during its first stint in charge of the country back in the 1990s.

The Taliban's strict interpretation of Islam places numerous limits a woman's autonomy, as they are no longer able to travel alone on long trips, and cannot visit parks in the capital on days when men will be present.

Alongside the banning of tens of thousands of girls from secondary schools, the country's supreme leader and Taliban chief Hibatullah Akhundzada mandated that women should fully cover themselves in public places.

Richard Bennett, UN special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, told reporters that the policies showed a 'pattern of absolute gender segregation and are aimed at making women invisible in the society' during a visit to Kabul back in May. 

While demonstrations against the Taliban were initially regular occurrences, numbers are dwindling of late due to the group's tough stance against those who partake in them.

Afghan Economic Crisis Worsens as Taliban Mark Anniversary

August 13, 2022 
Mirwais Rahmani
Roshan Noorzai

A person holds a bundle of Afghani banknotes at a money exchange market, following banks and markets reopening after the Taliban took over in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sept. 4, 2021.

WASHINGTON —

A year into the Taliban’s de facto government in Afghanistan, the war-torn country has experienced an economic crisis that has worsened the already dire humanitarian situation there.

The economy collapsed after the Taliban seized power in August 2021 and the international community placed sanctions on the Islamist group and suspended non-humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan.

“The sanctions and frozen assets, as well as drought, are contributing significantly, bringing hardships in the form of higher prices,” said Shah Mehrabi, a member of the Supreme Council of the Central Bank of Afghanistan and a professor of economics at Montgomery College in Maryland.

He added that the situation was compounded by increasing global energy and food prices that “are exacerbating the poverty for many ordinary Afghans.”

According to the United Nations, half of the Afghan population, about 19 million people, experience acute food insecurity. Ninety percent of the population faces insufficient food consumption.

The World Bank reported in July that the prices of consumer products such as diesel, flour, rice and sugar in Afghanistan increased 50% from the previous year.

Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis has economic causes, Mehrabi said. “It all boils down to how the economy has been affected since the new regime came into power.”

Hundreds of thousands of people lost their jobs in Afghanistan after the Taliban took control. Many businesses were closed, and most of the social services were suspended.

Just two months after the fall of Kabul, the International Monetary Fund predicted the Afghan economy will contract up to 30% by the end of 2021, as nonhumanitarian aid was suspended and foreign assets were frozen.

“The resulting drop in living standards threatens to push millions into poverty and could lead to a humanitarian crisis,” IMF said in October 2021.

Humanitarian assistance

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, addressing a virtual pledging conference in March 2022, said that “without immediate action, we face a starvation and malnutrition crisis in Afghanistan.”

International donors pledged more than $2.4 billion in humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan, in addition to $1.2 billion that was pledged in September 2021.

Donors Pledge $2.4 Billion for Afghan Relief

The U.S. Treasury Department issued two licenses in September 2021 to authorize humanitarian activities and the delivery of food and medicine to Afghanistan.

In February, U.S. President Joe Biden signed an executive order authorizing the use of $3.5 billion in Afghan central bank reserves for humanitarian purposes via a trust fund, while the remaining half was subject to ongoing litigation by U.S. victims of the September 11 attacks.

“We are urgently working to address concerns about the use of the licensed $3.5 billion in Afghan central bank reserves to ensure, to see to it, that they benefit the people of Afghanistan and not the Taliban,” Ned Price, U.S. State Department spokesperson, said in a news conference on July 19.

Banking crisis

About $9 billion in the Afghan Central Bank assets — $7 billion in the U.S. and $2 billion in Europe — were frozen as part of the sanctions on the Taliban.

The group has urged the U.S. to “unconditionally” release the frozen assets of Afghanistan held in the U.S.

Taliban Tout Governance Gains, Urge US to Release Afghan Assets

Mehrabi said that not having access to the reserves hurt Afghan businesses, as it resulted in a liquidity crisis in the banking sector there.

“The commercial banks do not have adequate, again, USD and Afghanis to be able to disburse for import or other purposes that ordinary Afghans or businesses would like to go ahead and engage in,” Mehrabi said.

Ahmad Wali Haqmal, the Taliban’s spokesperson for the Ministry of Finance, told VOA the sanctions on the banking system are the country’s key economic issue.

“Our main problem is the sanctions on our banking system. Most businessmen and ordinary people suffer because they cannot send money in and out [of Afghanistan]. This is a major problem that has to be solved,” he said.

A former employee of the Afghan Ministry of Finance told VOA the Taliban do not have the technical staff to run the economy.

“Most of the educated and skilled Afghans working in the ministry left the country, and the Taliban brought their own people with no skills and even education,” said the former employee of the Afghan Ministry of Finance, who requested anonymity for his safety.

He noted the Taliban are thinking “it is the 1990s when they could run the government on their own.”

William Byrd, senior Afghanistan expert at the U.S. Institute of Peace, told VOA the situation is “completely” different from the 1990s when the Taliban were in power.

“The challenge for the Taliban in a way is much greater than it was in the 1990s, because the economy has developed in many ways. Social service is much developed since the '90s, and there is a lot more room for decline and for things to go wrong,” Byrd emphasized.

International engagement

The donors are “facing a dilemma,” according to Roxanna Shapour of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, adding that they want to assist Afghanistan, but “they are not sure how to engage with the Taliban.”

Shapour noted that the international community does not recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government. This “has made the economic and development assistance to the country difficult, and to an extent, impossible,” she said.

She pointed out that many countries provide humanitarian assistance, but it “would not help in changing the economic conditions. … I do not think that the economy is going to get better in the future,” she said.

The World Bank’s latest report stated that “Afghanistan will face a smaller economy, significantly higher rates of poverty and more limited economic opportunities for the 600,000 Afghans reaching working age every year.”

“Afghanistan’s economic outlook is stark,” the World Bank report stated.

This story originated in VOA’s Afghan Service.

Afghan artist exiled in France makes work about female liberation 

Aug 13, 2022

FRANCE 24 English

The 15th of August will mark the one-year anniversary of the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan. FRANCE 24 has been talking to refugees who have fled the country. In episode three of our series of special reports, we meet Kubra Khademi, an Afghan artist exiled in France.

  https://f24.my/8pV2.y

CONSULTING WITH THE GOP

Taliban to bring new curriculum in Afghanistan for girls' education

After backlash by the international community over the neglect of girls' education in Afghanistan, the Taliban have created a "directorate of academic curriculum"

ANI Last Updated at August 14, 2022 

Women students in Afghanistan (Photo: ANI)

After backlash by the international community over the neglect of girls' education in Afghanistan, the Taliban have created a "directorate of academic curriculum", local media reported on Saturday.

Under the direction of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the Afghan university officials would revise the curriculum of local institutions, Khaama Press reported.

Ahmad Taqi, a spokesman for the Ministry of Higher Education, said the directorate is aimed at reviewing and developing the academic curriculum of all universities across Afghanistan in light of Islamic laws.

Khaama Press reported that the office will have six directors and fifty-two employees.

"We created commissions to review the curriculum, invited representatives and experts from public and private universities from all over the country, held several meetings and reconsidered the curriculum," Taqi said, as TOLOnews quoted.

Several human rights and education activists had urged world leaders in an open letter recently to mount diplomatic pressure on the Taliban to reopen secondary schools for girls in the war-torn country as the Taliban's brutal regime in Afghanistan will soon complete a year in August.

Young girls and women have been compromising with their aspirations as it has been almost 300 days since their development has been distorted, the activists said adding, that if this situation persists, their aims and hopes will suffer greatly, reported Khaama Press.

World leaders, regional allies, and international organizations were urged in the letter to take serious actions to fulfil their commitments in order to promote and protect Afghan girls' rights, especially the right to education which was snatched away from them after the Taliban-led Afghan government banned the education for girls in classes 6 and above.

Taliban has imposed draconian restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression, association, assembly and movement for women and girls.

The Taliban's decision to ban female students above grade six from going to school has drawn widespread criticism at the national and international levels. Further, the Taliban regime which took over Kabul in August last year has curtailed women's rights and freedoms, with women largely excluded from the workforce due to the economic crisis and restrictions.

As a result of this, women and girls in Afghanistan are facing a human rights crisis, deprived of the fundamental rights to non-discrimination, education, work, public participation and health. Afghan women are staring at a bleak future due to a number of restrictions imposed by the Taliban governing aspects of their lives within 10 months of Afghanistan's takeover.

According to HRW, women and girls are blocked from accessing health care as well. Reports suggest that women and girls facing violence have no escape route. Allowing girls into schools and other educational institutes has been one of the main demands of the international community.

The majority of countries have refused to formally recognize the Taliban amid worries over their treatment of girls and women and other human rights issues.

Women are no longer allowed to travel unless accompanied by men related to them and are being curtailed from wearing make-up as well as their reproductive rights.

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Qatar ‘disappointed’ over measures taken against Afghan women

 August 14, 2022
By Ariana News


Qatar expressed its disappointment in measures taken against Afghan women and girls by the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) on Friday, just days ahead of the one-year mark of their takeover of Kabul.

“Of course, we’ve been very much disappointed in some of the measures taken against the Afghan girls and women and we encourage the Taliban (IEA)to reverse those measures and give everyone in Afghanistan their rights and access to education,” Qatar’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani told a press conference in Malaysia.

The Qatari diplomat’s remarks came during a press conference alongside his Malaysian counterpart Saifuddin Abdullah, Doha News reported. His visit to Kuala Lumpur came as part of a tour in Asia that kicked off on Thursday in Singapore.

The humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan was among the key issues of common concern during the meeting between Al Thani and Abdullah. Both officials urged all parties to preserve the rights of all Afghans, especially females.

Qatar has repeatedly stressed the need to respect the rights of all segments of Afghan society. It also previously expressed its disappointment in March when girls were returned home after attempting to resume their education, Doha News reported.

Qatar, which hosts the IEA’s political office, also urged all parties to stick to the 2020 Doha Agreement.

“We are very much concerned about the situation in Afghanistan and urge all the parties to stick to the Doha Agreement, especially their commitment to counterterrorism,” said Sheikh Mohammed.

The Doha Agreement was signed in Qatar in February 2020 under the former US Donald Trump administration following intensive negotiations in Qatar between the warring sides.

China calls on US to release Afghanistan’s assets
August 13, 2022
By Ariana News


Wang Wenbin, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said Friday the freezing of $7 billion of Afghanistan’s foreign reserves has caused the economic crisis in Afghanistan to intensify, and that Beijing sees the continued blocking of these assets as “unjustifiable”.

“The freezing of seven billion dollars in assets of the Central Bank of Afghanistan has played a negative role in aggravating the economic crisis in this country and the US government must release these assets of the Afghan people and there is no justification for the continued blocking of Afghanistan’s assets,” said Wang.

China and Russia, the two fierce rivals of the US, have reacted to the freezing of Afghanistan’s assets several times since the Islamic Emirate in Afghanistan (IEA) took power. The two countries have also called for the release of the foreign reserves on a number of occasions.

“United States is the political and economic opponent of China, and the Chinese make moves against the US from any source,” said Sayed Massoud, a university professor.

After the IEA swept to power in August last year, the US froze almost $10 billion dollars of the country’s foreign reserves.

US President Joe Biden, signed an order on February 11, 2021, that half of the reserves be allocated to the families of victims of the 9/11 attacks in 2001. He instructed that the balance be used for humanitarian aid to the people of Afghanistan.

Breakthrough for transplant patients as donor lungs converted to universal blood type

Nina Massey -

Researchers have converted lungs donated for transplants to a universal blood type in a step towards creating neutral organs that could expand the options for patients awaiting a transplant.


© Provided by MetroDr Aizhou Wang, demonstrating the enzyme delivery to an ex vivo lung perfusion (EVLP) system. (Credits: PA)

The achievement could mean blood-matching no longer being an issue, resulting in more lives being saved and fewer organs being wasted.

Scientists were able to treat donated lungs and convert them from blood type A lungs into universal type O without causing any damage to the organs, and essentially making them neutral.

Lung transplants can be the last resort for people with end-stage lung diseases such as cystic fibrosis, but wait times can be extremely long due to constant shortages of donor organs.

These waits are made worse by the need to match the blood types of the donor and the recipient, for the best chance of a successful transplant.

The need to match blood types also leads to the waste of unmatched organs and disproportionately impacts certain patients.

For example, patients with blood type O have a 20% greater risk of dying while waiting for a suitable donor.

Marcelo Cypel, surgical director of the Ajmera Transplant Centre and the senior author of the study, said: ‘With the current matching system, wait times can be considerably longer for patients who need a transplant depending on their blood type.’

He added: ‘Having universal organs means we could eliminate the blood-matching barrier and prioritise patients by medical urgency, saving more lives and wasting less organs.’

If someone who has type O blood received an organ from a type A donor, for example, it is likely the organ would be rejected.


© Provided by MetroThe need to match blood types also leads to the waste of unmatched organs (Credits: Getty Images/Canopy)

Therefore donor organs are matched to potential recipients on the waiting list based on blood type, among other criteria.

On average, patients who are type O wait twice as long to receive a lung transplant compared to patients who are type A, explained Aizhou Wang, scientific associate at Dr Cypel’s lab and first author of the study.

Dr Wang said: ‘This translates into mortality. Patients who are type O and need a lung transplant have a 20% higher risk of dying while waiting for a matched organ to become available.’

But this issue is not unique to lungs, and the disparity exists for other organs, where a patient who is type O or B in need of a kidney transplant will be on the waiting list for an average of four to five years, compared to two to three years for types A or AB.

Dr Wang said: ‘If you convert all organs to universal type O, you can eliminate that barrier completely.’

In the new study, human donor lungs not suitable for transplantation from type A donors were put in a machine that pumps nourishing fluids through organs, enabling them to be warmed to body temperature, so that they can be repaired and improved before transplantation.

One lung was treated with a group of enzymes to clear the antigens – which determine blood type – from the surface of the organ, while the other lung, from the same donor, remained untreated.

Each of the lungs was tested by adding type O blood and it was found that the treated lungs were well tolerated, while the untreated ones showed signs of rejection.

The team treated eight blood type A lungs and discovered the treatment removed more than 97% of blood type A antigens within four hours.

Researchers plan to conduct further studies in mice to determine the long-term benefits and viability of lung transplants converted with their method.

The study, carried out the Latner Thoracic Surgery Research Laboratories and University Health Network’s Ajmera Transplant Centre, is published in Science Translational Medicine.

PRESS FREEDOM

Journalism Under Attack by Neo-Populist Governments in Central America

By Edgardo Ayala

Reporters and photojournalists cover an Aug. 11 press conference at the Supreme Electoral Tribunal in San Salvador. Independent media outlets in El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua suffer constant persecution and harassment by state entities and government officials in an attempt to silence them and discredit investigations into corruption and mismanagement of public funds. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

SAN SALVADOR, Aug 15 2022 (IPS) - Practicing journalism in Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador is becoming increasingly difficult in the face of the persecution of independent media outlets by neo-populist rulers of different stripes, intolerant of criticism.

The most recent high-profile case was the Jul. 29 arrest of José Rubén Zamora, founder and director of elPeriódico, one of the Guatemalan media outlets that has been most critical of the government of right-wing President Alejandro Giammattei, who has been in office since January 2020.

The union of Guatemalan journalists and the reporter’s family say the arrest is a clear example of political persecution as a result of the investigations into corruption and mismanagement in the Giammattei administration published by the newspaper, which was founded in 1996.

"The last bastions of the independent press (in Nicaragua) are under siege and the vast majority of independent journalists, threatened by abusive legal actions, have had to flee the country" -- Reporters Without Borders

“I definitely believe it is a case of political persecution and harassment, and of violence against free expression and the expression of thought,” Ramón Zamora, son of the editor of elPeriódico who has been imprisoned since his arrest, told IPS from Guatemala City.

A case out of the blue

The 66-year-old journalist is one of the most recognized in Guatemala and in the Central American region, and has been awarded several times for elPeriódico’s investigative reporting.

Zamora is being charged with money laundering, influence peddling and racketeering, although the evidence shown at the initial hearing by prosecutors “are poor quality voice messages that show nothing,” according to Ramón.

The preliminary hearing ended on Aug. 9 with the judge’s decision to continue with the case and keep Zamora in pre-trial detention. Prosecutors now have three months to present more robust evidence before taking him to trial, while the defense will seek to gather evidence in order to secure his release.

“We are going to clearly demonstrate as many times as necessary that this case was staged, that the evidence, or rather the evidence they have, cannot be stretched as far as they are stretching it,” said Ramón, 32, an anthropologist by profession.

He added that from the beginning President Giammattei showed signs of intolerance towards criticism of his administration.

“We knew he was an angry person, authoritarian in the way he acted, but we never thought he would go this far,” he said.

Since the arrest, Ramón said that his father is in good spirits, upbeat, although he has had problems sleeping, while the newspaper continues to be published in the midst of serious difficulties due to the temporary seizure of its bank accounts and liquidity problems to pay the staff and other costs.

On Friday Aug. 12, elPeriódico gave key coverage to a decree approved by the Guatemalan legislature that gives life to a Cybercrime Law, which could become another governmental tool to silence critics.

The newspaper quoted the organization Acción Ciudadana, according to which article 9 of this law “contravenes free access to sources of information – a right stipulated in the constitution; furthermore, it violates the Law of Broadcasting of Thought, restricting freedom of information.”

Zamora Jr. regretted that in Central America journalistic work is restricted and persecuted by governments and other de facto powers, as is happening in Guatemala with Giammattei, in El Salvador with the government of Nayib Bukele, and in Nicaragua, with that of Daniel Ortega.

“Ortega, in Nicaragua, is a mirror that we all have in front of us in the region, it is worrisome,” he said.

Journalist José Rubén Zamora, editor of elPériódico, one of the newspapers most critical of the government of Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei, leaves the courtroom on Aug. 9 after a judge ordered pretrial detention, on accusations of money laundering. But his family, the journalists’ union and civil society organizations maintain that the case is part of political persecution promoted by the government. CREDIT: Courtesy of elPériódico

Press freedom in free fall

In these three countries there is an openly hostile policy against the independent media, whose journalists suffer harassment, persecution, blackmail, intimidation and restrictions of all kinds in the line of duty.

Central America, a region of 38 million people, faces serious economic and social challenges after leaving behind decades of political strife and civil wars in the 1970s and 1980s, specifically in Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador.

Further progress towards democracy is undermined by attacks on or harassment of media outlets that criticize corrupt governments, according to reports by national and international organizations.

In this regard, the World Press Freedom Index 2022 report by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) points out the decline suffered by Nicaragua, which dropped 39 positions in the ranking to 160th place out of 180, and El Salvador, which lost 30 positions, dropping to 112th place.

“For the second year in a row El Salvador had one of the steepest falls in Latin America,” the report states.

And it adds that since he took office in 2019, Bukele, described as a “millennial” leader with a vague ideology and an “authoritarian tendency…is exerting particularly strong pressure on journalists and is using the extremely dangerous tactic of portraying the media as the enemy of the people.”

According to the Association of Journalists of El Salvador (Apes), from January to July 2022, 51 incidents have been reported against the press, related to digital attacks and obstruction of journalistic work by state institutions, officials and even supporters of the ruling party.

Bukele himself, in press conferences, often accuses the media and even specific journalists, who he names, of being part of an opposition plan to discredit the work of the government.

A number of reporters have left the country to avoid problems.

Of those who have left the country, at least three have done so almost obligatorily because government agencies or officials have pressured them to reveal their sources of information, Apes Freedom of Expression Rapporteur Serafín Valencia told IPS.

“Bukele decided to undertake a wave of attacks against the press, although not against the entire press, but against those media outlets and journalists who have a critical editorial line and try to do their work in an independent fashion,” said Valencia.

With regard to Ortega in Nicaragua, the RSF report states: “Nicaragua (160th) recorded the biggest drop in rankings (- 39 places) and entered the Index’s red zone.”

It adds: ” A farcical election in November 2021 that carried Daniel Ortega into a fourth consecutive term as president was accompanied by a ferocious crackdown on dissenting voices.

“The last bastions of the independent press came under fire, and the vast majority of independent journalists, threatened with abusive prosecution, were forced to leave the country,” says the report.

“You can’t kill the truth by killing journalists” reads a banner set out by press workers following the death of a colleague in Nicaragua, where the government of Daniel Ortega has shut down critical media outlets and forced many independent reporters into exile. CREDIT: Jader Flores/IPS

Guerrilla leader accused of being a dictator

One of the reporters who had to leave Nicaragua was Sergio Marín, who for more than 12 years hosted a radio program called La Mesa Redonda.

“There were very strong indications that my arrest was imminent,” Marín told IPS from San José, the capital of Costa Rica, the country he fled to on Jun. 21, 2021.

Marín said that the situation in Nicaragua was, and continues to be, untenable for independent media outlets and reporters since Ortega returned to power in January 2007, after a first stint as president between 1985 and 1990.

Ortega was a leader of the leftist guerrilla Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) that in July 1979 overthrew the Somoza dynasty’s dictatorship, which directly or through puppet rulers had been in power since the 1930s.

But the FSLN’s progressive ideas of justice and freedom were soon buried by Ortega’s new power dynamics: he forged obscure pacts with the country’s political and economic elites to set himself up as Nicaragua’s strongman, with actions typical of a dictator.

“With Ortega’s return to power in 2007, he began a process of isolation of journalists who ask questions that question power,” said Marín, 60.

Then, according to Marín, the government threw up a “financial wall”: denying state advertising to media outlets that were critical, or even advertising from private businesses allied with the Ortega administration.

That is when the first media closures began to be seen, he said.

The situation worsened with the popular uprising against the government in April 2018, massive protests that were stopped with bullets by the police, military and pro-Ortega paramilitary forces.

Around 300 people died in the repression unleashed by Ortega, said Marín.

These events were a turning point for journalism because, in the face of the crackdown, the media in general, except for pro-government outlets, came together in a united front.

“So the regime identified us as a key enemy, which must be silenced,” Marin added.

Since then, the Ortega government has maneuvered to close down independent media outlets and critical news spaces, such as those directed by veteran journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro, who is now also in exile in Costa Rica.

“Now, the newspaper El Nuevo Diario is closed, and La Prensa was taken over by the government and the entire editorial staff is in exile, and in total there are more than 70 journalists who have left the country,” he added.

In the first week of August Ortega stepped up harassment against dissenting voices, and began targeting Catholic priests. Since Aug. 4 police forces have been holding Bishop Rolando Alvarez, of the Diocese of Matagalpa, in the north of the country, in the Episcopal Palace.