LITERALLY A POLITICAL PRISONER
Argentina court hands VP Cristina Kirchner 6-year jail term in graft case

CORRUPTION IS A RIGHT WING CLAIM

THROUGH OUT LATIN AMERICA

Story by By Nicolás Misculin • 

Argentina's Vice President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner holds a party rally, in La Plata© Thomson Reuters

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) -An Argentine court sentenced Vice President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner to six years in jail and disqualified her from holding public office in a high-profile corruption case on Tuesday, though she has immunity due to her public office.

The powerful vice president will not face immediate prison time and is also expected to appeal the sentence, with the case likely to spend years winding through higher courts.

Fernandez de Kirchner served as president for two terms between 2007 and 2015 and commands rock-star crowds of supporters. She faced charges of alleged corruption in the awarding of public works during her presidency. She has denied the allegations and called the court a "firing squad."

In a live-streamed session, Federal Court 2 in Buenos Aires city found Fernandez de Kirchner guilty of the crime of "fraudulent administration" in a case known as "Vialidad" in which construction magnate Lázaro Báez was also sentenced to six years in jail.

Prosecutors alleged that public works contracts were handed to a businessman ally of Fernandez de Kirchner, who then channeled money back to her and late husband Nestor Kirchner, also a former president. Defenders of the vice president maintain that she was a victim of judicial persecution.

Lawyers said that Fernandez de Kirchner would not go to jail any time soon because she has immunity while serving as vice president. She would need to be removed from office in a political trial before she could be sent to prison.

"She currently has privileges as vice president, which means she is one of the officials whose removal requires a political trial," said lawyer Alejandro Carrio, adding that higher courts could spend years going over appeals up to the Supreme Court. "I do not see the process with a case of this magnitude taking less than three years."

The country is on edge after a long economic crisis and inflation heading toward 100%. Supporters of Fernandez de Kirchner gathered in the streets after she survived an assassination attempt this year. The ruling Peronist government of President Alberto Fernandez is facing a tough battle to fend off a challenge from the conservative opposition in general elections set for next year.

(Reporting by Nicolás Misculin; Additional reporting by Belén Liotti; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien and Lisa Shumaker)

 

Guilty of fraud, Argentina’s Kirchner banned from seeking office

This handout photo released by Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s Press Office shows Argentina’s Vice President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner during a meeting with representatives of the Catholic Church who work in poor neighbourhoods, on September 15, 2022, at the National Congress, in Buenos Aires, during her first public appearance after an attempted murder against her on September 1 at the door of her house. — Charo Larisgoitia/Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s Press service/AFP pic

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Wednesday, 07 Dec 2022 7:01 AM MYT

BUENOS AIRES, Dec 7 — An Argentine court on Tuesday sentenced Vice President Cristina Kirchner to six years in jail for corruption, banning the country’s best-known politician from seeking public office after a trial she dismissed as a political witch hunt.

Adored and reviled in equal measure by millions of Argentinians, the divisive former president was declared guilty of “fraudulent administration” over irregular public works contracts awarded during her time as president between 2007 and 2015.

Kirchner wrote on social media that “none of the lies were proven” and that she had been convicted by a “legal mafia”.

“I won’t be a candidate for anything, not a senator, or a deputy or president of the nation,” in 2023 general elections, she wrote on social media after the ruling.

Analysts say it is unlikely that Kirchner will head to jail anytime soon, as she holds congressional immunity through her current role, and still has several avenues for appeal, but the ruling places a giant question mark over her future.

“The verdict will have a strong political impact,” said political analyst Rosendo Fraga of the University of Buenos Aires, although “the chances of her being arrested for the sentence are non-existent.”

Kirchner was charged alongside 12 others for alleged involvement in the illicit attribution of public works contracts in the southern Santa Cruz province in favour of businessman Lazaro Baez.

The period investigated includes Kirchner’s eight years in office and the preceding four years when her late husband Nestor Kirchner, who died in 2010, was president.

The public prosecutor denounced what he called “a system of institutional corruption” and “probably the largest corruption operation” in the country, with “systematic irregularities in 51 calls for tenders” over 12 years.

Eight of Kirchner’s co-accused were found guilty and sentenced to between three and six and a half years in jail. Three were released and another had their case dismissed as it had passed the statute of limitations.

Uncertain future

Kirchner said the charges were a lie made up by her political enemies.

“This court has been a true firing squad,” the veteran politician said during her final address to the court, accusing prosecutors of having “dedicated themselves to disrespecting and insulting me.”

As vice president, Kirchner is head of the country’s Senate and enjoys immunity as a lawmaker.

Fraga said potential appeals could take up to six years or more.

All eyes will be on potential protests after the verdict.

When prosecutors announced they were seeking a 12-year jail term in late August, mass daily demonstrations took place outside Kirchner’s apartment building in the upmarket suburb of Recoleta.

During one of these protests on September 1, a man shoved a revolver in her face and pulled the trigger — but the gun did not fire. Four people have been charged with involvement in the attack.

Adored and hated

Several hundred Kirchner supporters gathered outside the courthouse before the verdict was read.

“I am here to defend Cristina. We defend her for what she has done and what we know she can continue to give,” said 50-year-old Marcelo Graziano, outside the courthouse.

Kirchner came to prominence as part of the ultimate political power couple, with she and her late husband Nestor Kirchner serving a collective 12 years in the Casa Rosada, the pink presidential palace.

To her working-class base, the Kirchners were the saviours after Argentina’s 2001 economic meltdown and social unrest that followed the largest debt default in history, standing up for the little guy against bullies both foreign and domestic.

Her detractors see her as a corrupt, overbearing interventionist who steered the country back towards economic ruin through debt-fuelled spending sprees. — AFP

COP15 

Warning Biological Diversity Conference ‘We are Treating Nature Like a Toilet’, Secretary-General Calls for Global Biodiversity Framework

6 DECEMBER 2022

Following are UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks to the fifteenth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, in Montreal today:

Nature is humanity’s best friend.  Without nature, we have nothing.  Without nature, we are nothing.  Nature is our life-support system.  It is the source and sustainer of the air we breathe, the food we eat, the energy we use, the jobs and economic activity we count on, the species that enrich human life, and the landscapes and waterscapes we call home.

And yet, humanity seems hellbent on destruction.  We are waging war on nature.  This Conference is about the urgent task of making peace.  Because today, we are out of harmony with nature.  In fact, we are playing an entirely different song.

Around the world, for hundreds of years, we have conducted a cacophony of chaos, played with instruments of destruction.  Deforestation and desertification are creating wastelands of once-thriving ecosystems.  Our land, water and air are poisoned by chemicals and pesticides, and choked with plastics.

Our addiction to fossil fuels has thrown our climate into chaos — from heatwaves and forest fires to communities parched by heat and drought or inundated and destroyed by terrifying floods.

Unsustainable production and consumption are sending emissions skyrocketing, and degrading our land, sea and air.  Today, one third of all land is degraded, making it harder to feed growing populations.  Plants, mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish and invertebrates are all at risk.  A million species teeter on the brink.  Ocean degradation is accelerating the destruction of life-sustaining coral reefs and other marine ecosystems — and directly affecting those communities that depend on the oceans for their livelihoods.

Multinational corporations are filling their bank accounts while emptying our world of its natural gifts.  Ecosystems have become playthings of profit.  With our bottomless appetite for unchecked and unequal economic growth, humanity has become a weapon of mass extinction.  We are treating nature like a toilet.  And ultimately, we are committing suicide by proxy.

Because the loss of nature and biodiversity comes with a steep human cost.  A cost we measure in lost jobs, hunger, diseases and deaths.  A cost we measure in the estimated $3 trillion in annual losses by 2030 from ecosystem degradation.  A cost we measure in higher prices for water, food and energy.  And a cost we measure in the deeply unjust and incalculable losses to the poorest countries, Indigenous populations, women and young people.

Those least responsible for this destruction are always the first to feel the impacts.  But, they are never the last.  This Conference is our chance to stop this orgy of destruction.  To move from discord to harmony.  And to apply the ambition and action the challenge demands.

We need nothing less from this meeting than a bold post-2020 global biodiversity framework.  One that beats back the biodiversity apocalypse by urgently tackling its drivers — land- and sea-use change, overexploitation of species, climate change, pollution and invasive non-native species.  One that addresses the root causes of this destruction — harmful subsidies, misdirected investment, unsustainable food systems, and wider patterns of consumption and production.

One that supports other global agreements aiming at protecting our planet — from the Paris Agreement on climate change, to agreements on land degradation, forests, oceans, chemicals and pollution that can bring us closer to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.  And one with clear targets, benchmarks and accountability.  No excuses.  No delays.  Promises made must be promises kept.  It’s time to forge a peace pact with nature.  This requires three concrete actions.

First — Governments must develop bold national action plans across all ministries, from finance and food to energy and infrastructure.  Plans that repurpose subsidies and tax breaks away from nature-destroying activities towards green solutions like renewable energy, plastic reduction, nature-friendly food production and sustainable resource extraction.  Plans that recognize and protect the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities who have always been the most effective guardians of biodiversity.  And national biodiversity finance plans to help close the finance gap.

Second — the private sector must recognize that profit and protection must go hand-in-hand.  In our globalized economies, businesses and investors count on nature’s gifts from all corners of the world.  It’s in their best interests to put protection first.  That means the food and agricultural industry moving towards sustainable production and natural means of pollination, pest control and fertilization.  It means the timber, chemicals, building and construction industries taking their impacts on nature into account in their business plans.

It means the biotech, pharmaceutical and other industries that use biodiversity sharing the benefits fairly and equitably.  It means tough regulatory frameworks and disclosure measures that end greenwashing and hold the private sector accountable for their actions across every link of their supply chains.  And it means challenging the relentless concentration of wealth and power by few that is working against nature and the real interests of the majority.  Businesses and investors must be allies of nature, not enemies.

And third — developed countries must provide bold financial support for the countries of the Global South as custodians of our world’s natural wealth.  We cannot expect developing countries to shoulder the burden alone.  We need a mechanism that can ensure developing countries have more direct, simpler and faster access to much-needed financing.  We know all too well the bureaucratic hurdles that exist today.

International financial institutions and multilateral development banks must align their portfolios with the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.  And as a global community, we need to stand with all countries as they protect and restore their ecosystems following decades and centuries of degradation and loss.

These natural environments have given us so much.  It’s time to give back.  The most important lesson we impart to children is to take responsibility for their actions.  What example are we setting when we ourselves are failing this basic test?

I am always deeply inspired by the young environmental activists around the world calling for change and action.  But. I am also keenly aware that we cannot pass the buck to them to clean up our mess.  It is up to us to accept responsibility for the damage we have caused and take action to fix it.  The deluded dreams of billionaires aside, there is no Planet B.

We must fix the world we have.  We must cherish this wonderous gift.  We must make peace with nature.  I urge you to do the right thing.  Step up for nature.  Step up for biodiversity.  Step up for humanity.  Together, let’s adopt and deliver an ambitious framework — a peace pact with nature — and pass on a better, greener, bluer and more sustainable world to our children.  

Thank you.

Humanity is "at war with nature", says the United Nations' environmental chief at the start of a key biodiversity summit in Montreal.

IMPERIALISM IN SPACE

Geopolitics goes into orbit with the US and China’s space ambitions

7 December 2022

Author: Saadia M Pekkanen, University of Washington

Space stations are the harbinger of a deepening bipolarity in the international relations of space. The United States leads the International Space Station (ISS), and will lead whatever comes after it, but it is no longer seen as the uncontested unipolar power in space. China now also has a national space station, named Tiangong, which represents a momentous achievement for the country’s space program.

The ISS and Tiangong are not divorced from the quest for national technological supremacy. If technology is ‘power in practice’ for China, it is no less important for the United States, which has long seen the transformative potential of technology as critical to its national security.

The United States has also shifted to a more muscular industrial policy in an attempt to lead in the industries of the future. In a bid to sustain its pre-eminence, it has put technological decoupling into motion in such a forthright way that there is little doubt that it seeks to block China from becoming a technological peer of any kind.

Great power competition over technology is now out in the open. This extends to matters in space for both countries and is unlikely to go away anytime soon.

From a US perspective, it is cause for concern that China was the first to land on the far side of the moon, aims for the same lunar resources in the race back to the moon, can carry out complex sample-return missions, has plans for a permanent moon base and now also has a space station that is seen as second only to NASA’s in technological sophistication.

Concerns about technological primacy in space are also intertwined with concerns about other threats that space stations face — or pose.

The life of any physical infrastructure can only extend so far. The ISS is currently projected to survive to 2030, while Tiangong is expected to remain operational for about 10 years. But collisions with debris and other objects are a common threat. The ISS can dodge speeding debris, but sometimes gets hit. Mega-constellations of satellites are also a challenge for space stations. Starlink satellites have already been confirmed to have had close encounters with China’s space station and it, too, has engaged in collision avoidance.

Then there are the disturbing ‘uncontrolled’ threats. As the viability of China’s space stations has grown, so too has the finger pointing about uncontrolled entries and failures to engage in responsible behaviour. China has drawn flak for the uncontrolled re-entries of parts of its Long March 5B rocket that delivered modules to Tiangong. The debris has scattered all over the world — in the Ivory Coast in 2020, in the Indian Ocean in 2021, and near the Philippines’ Palawan Island and in the Pacific Ocean in 2022. The uncontrolled entry of its experimental space lab in 2018 was also a cause for global apprehension.

In China, one view is that these criticisms are simply attempts to discredit or sabotage progress on its space station. After all, the ISS has itself gotten out of control, leaving everyone from the ground to the ISS scrambling to regain stability of the sprawling station. In 2021, a software glitch caused the ISS to pitch out of its normal flight position, and both attitude control over the station and communication with its seven-member crew were lost.

These threats are common to all space stations and when wrapped up in geopolitics they can be useful for bringing allies on board. While it is not clear whether allies will stay glued to one side or the other, it is evident that alliance politics is extending to space more than ever before. This is why China may well work towards cultivating a reputation for more responsible stewardship of space.

The United States cocooned the ISS in an alliance architecture, drawing together even former adversaries. Led by NASA, a 1998 agreement between five space agencies — belonging to the United States, Canada, Japan, Europe and Russia — has governed collaboration on the ISS.

The ISS is heavily promoted as an inspiring scientific achievement. Over 260 individuals from 20 countries have visited the largest collaborative infrastructure ever built in space to date, and thousands of researchers from across the world have used its facilities to carry out experiments.

But the ISS is only scientific and international up to a point. Canada, Japan and Europe are also core US military allies, a fact that is proving useful to the United States in the new lunar space race. And China has not been able to gain entry.

China is itself on a quest for space allies and partners. Through Tiangong, it strives to showcase scientific and technological experiments and exchanges. As with the ISS, China parades its space station’s range of partners — including the European Space Agency, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Pakistan, Kenya and the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs. Tiangong is hailed as the ‘first of its kind open to all UN member states’.

If things stay their course, China may well be the only country with a functioning national space station. This is because, aside from opening the ISS for commercial and marketing opportunities, the post-ISS future is a work in progress for the United States. The US is tied to the dream of commercial space stations, but whether this space dream comes to fruition remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, it is foreseeable that there might be a gap in US presence in space, one that China is aiming to fill.

Saadia M Pekkanen is the Job and Gertrud Tamaki Endowed Professor and the founding director of the Space Law, Data, and Policy Program (SLDP) at the University of Washington, and the founding co-chair of the US–Japan Space Forum.

Macron’s Plan on Migrants: Deport More, Give Others Legal Status

Under pressure from the right, the government of President Emmanuel Macron tries to balance a perceived immigration problem with a need for migrant workers.

The French interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, spoke about immigration policy on Tuesday in Parliament.Credit...Julien De Rosa/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

By Constant Méheut
Dec. 6, 2022, 

PARIS — The issue of immigration once again took center stage in French politics on Tuesday, as President Emmanuel Macron proposed a tougher stance on deportations, while also extending work opportunities for migrants with needed skills.

Mr. Macron’s government is trying to balance pressure from a rising far right to get immigration under control, against France’s need for immigrant labor. Its bill reflects his long-stated willingness to streamline both admissions and deportations, fulfilling a promise he made during his re-election campaign earlier this year.

Recent incidents — including a schoolgirl’s killing by an illegal migrant and the disputed docking of a migrant rescue vessel — have also pushed the government to try to take the heat out of a combustible issue.

Immigration has long been a fixation of politics in France — the president’s proposal would be the country’s 29th immigration and asylum law in four decades — where politicians and commentators, particularly on the right, often describe a country fending off an out-of-control influx of migrants. In reality, France has a smaller proportion of immigrants in its population than most of its neighbors, and in the past decade, immigration has grown less there than in the rest of Europe.

For four hours on Tuesday, lawmakers debated Mr. Macron’s balancing-act plan, which is expected to come to a vote next spring. The government is hoping to win the votes of opposition members on the left and right, which it needs to pass the bill, after the president’s party lost its absolute majority in the National Assembly.

“It is legitimate to raise the question of our migration policy: to say who we want, who we can welcome, and who we don’t want, who we can’t welcome,” Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne told the National Assembly, the lower and more powerful house of Parliament.


Image

Undocumented workers from subsidiaries of La Poste (French National Post Office) demonstrated on Tuesday in front of the French National Assembly in Paris.

Credit...Teresa Suarez/EPA, via Shutterstock

The main goal of the bill is to streamline the country’s sluggish deportation process. Over the past decade, only about 15 percent of migrants ordered to leave actually departed the country, according to a Senate report released in May.

Under the proposal, the number of possible appeals for rejected asylum seekers would be reduced to four from 12; deportation procedures would be sped up; and some safeguards for foreigners would be removed to make it easier to expel them if they were convicted of crimes.

“We must be able to take in more quickly those who deserve asylum, and refuse more quickly those who cannot obtain it on our soil,” Gérald Darmanin, Mr. Macron’s hard-line interior minister, said on Tuesday.

A collective of aid groups, including Amnesty International, denounced in a statement what they saw as measures that “risk further eroding the rights of foreigners,” such as the rights to asylum and to a fair trial, and may result in “the worsening of the precariousness” of asylum seekers.

That insecurity has played out for several days in central Paris, near the Louvre museum, where dozens of young migrants have set up tents in the freezing cold to demand that they be recognized as unaccompanied minors and be offered asylum.

François Héran, a leading expert on migration who teaches at Collège de France, said France delivered “far too many removal orders,” more than it can enforce, including to migrants who are working and well integrated.

According to the Senate report, the number of orders issued doubled in the past decade, reaching 122,000 in 2019, the same level as “Greece, Spain, and Italy combined, which face at least comparable migration pressure.”

Mr. Héran added that the law illustrated what he says is France’s refusal to accept that rising immigration is now a global phenomenon affecting all Western countries. “The current debate is totally out of step with the reality,” he said.

In an effort to balance tighter admission rules with better settlement conditions, the government also announced that it planned to create renewable one-year residence permits for undocumented migrants who are already in France and want to work in sectors suffering staffing shortages, such as catering.

“Immigration has always enabled France to respond to the needs of its economy,” Olivier Dussopt, the country’s labor minister, said.

Migrants have pitched tents to protest the lack of housing in Paris.

Credit...Pascal Rossignol/Reuters

But that proposal has come under fire from the center-right Les Républicains opposition party, which holds the key to a potential majority on the bill and with which the government has hoped to build a coalition in Parliament.

“When it comes to immigration, there can be no ‘at the same time,’” said Pierre-Henri Dumont, a member of Les Républicains, in a nod to the catchphrase Mr. Macron has long used to signal his bipartisanship. “If you maintain your willingness to regularize illegal immigrants on a massive scale, we will vote against all of your entire future bill.”

Lawmakers on the left also voiced sharp criticism of the government’s bill, denouncing what they called a repressive stance that is out of step with growing migration flows around the world because of wars and climate change.

In 2018, Mr. Macron’s government passed a law meant to tighten immigration, and which resulted from two pressing realities that remain today: a growing number of asylum seekers and increasing pressure from the far right.

Last month, Britain and France signed a new agreement to stem the growing number of small boats carrying migrants across the English Channel. The deal came nearly a year after 27 people died in a failed attempt to cross the busy waterway, one of the deadliest accidents in the channel in modern memory.

WikiLeaks editor-in-chief warns Assange may be extradited "within weeks"

Laura Tiernan

WSWS.ORG

Julian Assange could be extradited to the United States within weeks, WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson has warned. He told journalist Glenn Greenwald that Assange was “running out of time” and that legal avenues in London to challenge his unlawful extradition were being exhausted, “he will never get a fair trial there”.

WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson speaks with Glenn Greenwald in Brazil. 

[Photo: screenshot: System Update, Rumble]

Hrafnsson’s urgent warnings came during an interview in Brazil, published Monday on Rumble. He told Greenwald, “Julian’s case is coming to the end of all possibilities of getting a fair solution through the court proceedings. He is fighting extradition in London. Within weeks he could be extradited.”

Assange has been charged under the Espionage Act (1917) for WikiLeaks’ publications exposing war crimes by US imperialism in Iraq and Afghanistan, and anti-democratic conspiracies of the US government and its intelligence agencies throughout the world. If found guilty, the 51-year-old journalist and father of three faces 175 years in a US federal prison. He has already spent more than a decade in detention in the UK, including three years without charge in Belmarsh maximum security prison.

Hrafnsson was appointed WikiLeaks editor in 2018 after Assange’s communication with the outside world was cut under pressure from the US government, a prelude to his seizure from the Ecuadorian Embassy in April 2019. An award-winning journalist in his own right, Hrafnsson worked with Assange to verify WikiLeaks’ most famous release, the Collateral Murder video, travelling to Iraq in early 2010 to interview relatives of civilians killed by targeted airstrikes launched from US AH-64 Apache helicopters.

Speaking last week in Brazil, Hrafnsson said legal channels for Assange to appeal his extradition are fast closing. In June, then UK Home Secretary Priti Patel approved Assange’s extradition after the High Court overturned an earlier court decision barring it on medical grounds. The High Court accepted worthless assurances by the US government that Assange would not face oppressive treatment, ignoring overwhelming evidence that the CIA plotted to kidnap and kill Assange.

Britain’s courts have mounted a legal vendetta against Assange, approving the extradition request in violation of his fundamental legal and democratic rights as a publisher and journalist.The High Court and Supreme Court have handed down rulings aimed at speeding his dispatch to his would-be assassins. In March, the High Court refused Assange’s application to appeal its earlier ruling to the Supreme Court. His lawyers have since appealed the Home Secretary’s extradition order.

Hrafnsson said, “We are now in a waiting period for the appeal court in London, the High Court, to give us the answer of whether they will hear an appeal by Julian to push back against the extradition. If they decide not to hear the appeal—which would be scandalous in itself—then there is the Supreme Court, which could decide quickly not to hear the case, you know, ‘not of importance to the public’… Under the worst-case scenario, he could be on a plane to the US within weeks.

“In my perception, and I’ve been sitting in on all the proceedings in London, all the extradition proceedings in London have exposed only one thing, and that’s the fact that this is just not going to be won in a court. There’s no justice to be had in court rooms in London. That’s obvious and I don’t have to mention the United States, that’s one of the essences of the defence in fighting the extradition, that he will never be able to get a fair trial there. So, we’re running out of time. We need to push this on a different level and so I decided that we needed to go on a tour to shore up political support, because the only way to fight a political persecution is through political means.”

Hrafnsson and WikiLeaks Ambassador Joseph Farrell are currently touring Latin America, starting with a one-hour private meeting in Colombia with President Gustavo Petro and Foreign Minister Alvaro Duran at the Presidential Palace in Bogotá on November 21.

In Brazil, they held a private meeting with President Lula da Silva on November 29, followed by an address to Brazil’s parliament. In Rio De Janeiro they held a public meeting at the Brazilian Press Association, followed by a reception at the home of famous musician-composer Caetano Veloso. They have since met privately with Argentinian Vice President Cristina Kirchner and with President Alberto Fernández at the Casa Rosada. They are visiting Chile and Mexico next.

Hrafnsson told Greenwald, “Our aim is to get political leaders to apply pressure, if you want to call it that, or just request of the Biden administration to reconsider, to stand behind their own ideals, the ideals that they preach around the world of press freedom and not put this pressure on the First Amendment and their treaty commitments and basically drop the charge against Julian. That’s the only way out.”

There is enormous support for Assange and WikiLeaks in Latin America. The workers and oppressed masses of the region have suffered brutal US-backed military dictatorships that claimed tens of thousands of lives in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panama and Guatemala. But the statements of support by Latin America’s bourgeois politicians are politically worthless. Lula, Kirchner and company have demonstrated their loyalty to imperialism, enforcing International Monetary Fund austerity and state repression against the working class.

Appeals to Biden, who has designated Assange a “hi-tech terrorist”, are more bankrupt still. Even after former US president Donald Trump called for the “termination” of the Constitution last week, Biden remained silent. Not even Trump’s fascist coup attempt in January 2021 could rouse him to defend the Constitution, let alone its First Amendment guarantees to free speech, press and assembly. Last week Biden oversaw watershed legislation enforcing a White House-brokered employment contract and banning tens of thousands of US railroad workers from striking.

The persecution of Assange is the spearhead of a massive assault on democratic rights, aimed at destroying freedom of speech, illegalizing investigative journalism, intimidating and terrorizing critics, preventing the exposure of government crimes and suppressing mass popular opposition to social inequality and war. The British government’s plans to ban strikes, including its threats to mobilise the military, show that Assange’s fate is inextricably linked to that of the working class.

NATO’s escalating war against Russia is being accompanied by authoritarian measures. The British government’s “emergency powers” are being combined with denunciations of strikers as “Putin’s stooges” – repeating word for word the Pentagon’s narrative against Assange and WikiLeaks.

Assange’s fate must not be left in the hands of political forces such as Lula, Biden and other enemies of the working class. A powerful mass constituency for Assange’s defence—and the struggle to win his freedom—is growing among millions of workers and young people who are entering the global fight against capitalist austerity, state repression and war.

Rebellion in Resistance: Profile of a Palestinian Educator


Author:
Laila Shadid
2022 REPORTING FELLOW

PULITZER CENTER

Country:
PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES

A section of the apartheid wall in Bethlehem, a five minute walk from Mariam's home.

 Image by Laila Shadid. Palestinian Territories, 2022.

Mariam* is rebellious, she always has been.

You can often find her with a guitar in her lap, strumming chords to songs she wrote herself. Mari - am doesn’t know how to read music, no, she taught herself by listening, feeling the rhythm, matching her hand placement to the pitch of her voice. When Mariam sings, you feel, you understand, even if you don’t know the language of her Arabic words. She tilts her head back and shakes the red curls that pop against her pale face, curls as fiery as her personality. Around her, whether it be one or 20, people clap, smile, and sing along.

Fourteen years ago, Mariam and her husband founded a kindergarten and elementary school with the mission of providing holistic, trauma-in - formed education to children in the Palestinian town of Al-Eizariya and its surrounding areas. It is the first and only school of its kind in the West Bank to use non-violent and trauma-informed Waldorf education.

In Palestine, childhood is under attack. As of October 17, 2,226 children have been killed as a result of Israeli military and settler presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories since 2000, according to Defence for Children International-Palestine (DCI).

The sun setting in the Jordan Desert. Image by Laila Shadid. Palestinian Territories, 2022.

The cliff overlooks the Dead Sea, its blue water punctuated by pink mountains in the distance. Image by Laila Shadid. Palestinian Territories, 2022.

“Each year approximately 500-700 Palestinian children, some as young as 12 years old, are detained and prosecuted in the Israeli military court system,” DCI stated. “The most common charge is stone throwing.”

It is this reality that makes Mariam’s work invaluable. Despite the obstacles of occupation, she has dedicated her life to bettering children’s lives through progressive, unconventional education.

Mariam describes herself as “different”—she recognizes that she doesn’t fit in' in Al-Eizariya. She knows to dress conservatively. Mariam wears long sleeve button-ups, loose t-shirts and pants that come down well past her knees, but she also has four tattoos. Only one is visible on a daily basis: the “om” on her forearm—a nod to the spirituality that guides her life and work. While Mariam was raised by a Catholic family in Bethlehem, the Church does not speak to her beliefs. Mariam is not religious. Instead, she believes in the power of the mind, body, and soul.

In any conversation, Mariam has a book to recommend, among them Paulo Cohelo’s The Alchemist and Rudolf Steiner’s Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment. A bowl of rubber bullets and empty tear gas canisters sit atop the bookshelf, the Hebrew letters fading from their silver shells. Mariam and her husband Khalil* collect them from their garden where Israeli soldiers throw them over the apartheid wall.

“This is just an appetizer,” Mariam explained about the small bowl. “I have garbage bags filled.”
Paintings of influential Palestinian leaders cover the wall of The Citadel, a cafe and community center in Beit Sahour, Bethlehem. Image by Laila Shadid. Palestinian Territories, 2022.

Mariam grew up in a two-bedroom apartment tucked in between one of Bethlehem’s main streets, Al-Khalil Road, and the Al-Aza refugee camp. She lived with her two sisters and parents. As a child, Mariam remembers encountering soldiers and learning Hebrew through the cartoons on TV, but she didn’t immediately register this as Israeli occupation. She remembers the Second Intifada (2000-2005) as a defining period of her teenage years. Walking up the stairs to her childhood home, Mariam touched the remnants of bullet holes in the wall, now filled in with plaster. She explained that their building was often in the crossfire of clashes and violence. Inside the apartment, she folded her arms across her chest and squeezed herself into the corner between the kitchen and the living room, demonstrating her hiding position from the bullets that flew into her home. Once, when she returned from hiding at her grandparents’ home in the Old City, she found a bullet hole where her head would have been.

“Here,” Mariam pointed between her eyebrows, “it would have hit me right here.”

Next door, in the bedroom she shared with her sisters, Mariam showed me where she once hung a poster of Che Guevara.

“I started being different in all the ways,” Mariam explained about her adolescence. “I didn’t understand myself. I didn’t understand the community. I felt my energy is big and the community is small.”

Mariam was traumatized by the Intifada— the curfews, the lockdowns, the tear gas, the bombs, the tanks, the murders. She witnessed it all.

“Teenage years are hard enough without occupation.”

Palestinian flags line a stone archway in the village of Deir Istiya. Image by Laila Shadid. Palestinian Territories, 2022.

"Soon everything will be magic," reads the graffiti on Al-Eizariya's apartheid wall, and underneath it, "Free is all you have to be, dream dreams no one else can see." Image by Laila Shadid. Palestinian Territories, 2022.

In early July, Mariam, her husband, and two children—eight-and 11-years-old—took me on a day trip to a Bedouin village in the Jordan Desert. A Bedouin tour guide drove us down a bumpy, rollercoaster-like path to a cli $ that overlooked the Dead Sea to watch the sunset. the view was breathtaking. The sea mirrored the blue sky, separated by pink mountains in the distance. It was a breath of fresh air from life under occupation: a reminder of the land’s beauty, tranquility, and ethereality that transcends con %ict. We all sat on the edge, mesmerized. Mariam walked o $ to a spot of her own, creating space for a moment of spirituality and connection.

I didn’t even realize when the Jeep pulled up.

Suddenly, four armed soldiers in camouflage suits and face masks stepped out of the vehicle. They started yelling in Arabic, Hebrew, and English for the family’s IDs. Apparently, we weren’t allowed to be there. Nowhere did I see a sign confirming their claims. I stood there frozen, watching a scene unfold that I had absolutely no control over. I wanted to scream, I wanted to tell them that we had every right to be here, that their humiliation tactics were so obviously a power trip—not law enforcement. I watched Mariam’s children hide in the back of the Jeep as their parents argued against a 300 US dollar fine for the driver.

“No, I don’t want to give you my ID,” she said. “No, I don’t want to give you my phone!”

Mariam had no fear, no hesitation.

Standing feet away from their M-16s, Mariam looked one of the soldiers in the eyes, the only part of his face visible.

“I know you are a human being. I know that you have a heart. But I see you killing me in the West Bank. This is what I have seen in my life.”

“Don’t continue! Khalas!” He yelled.

“You want me to stop because you don’t want to think,” Mariam continued. “You don’t want to feel your heart. You just want to say they are Arabs, they are enemies.”

Another soldier stepped in. “If you have a problem with occupation, go to the government,” he screamed. “Occupation is not my problem!”

They issued the fine, and before we left, ordered us to get out of the car. They searched every inch while we stood and watched.

Mariam turned to me. “They want to humiliate us.”

 

This large red sign in Arabic, Hebrew, and English is common across the West Bank, often standing in the middle of a rotary that leads to a Palestinian city in one direction, and an Israeli settlement in the other. Image by Laila Shadid. Palestinian Territories, 2022.

At the top of an apartment building overlooking Hebron, a satellite dish matches the view—homes surrounded by a wall on one side, and a fence on the other. Image by Laila Shadid. Palestinian Territories, 2022.

Later she explained how she felt, how the sight of these soldiers triggered her years of trauma.

“When I saw the soldiers, my mind blew away,” Mariam said. “How come you are here after me in the middle of the desert? I was unconscious and conscious at the same time.”

“Why is the occupation not ending?” she asked. “Because the government has brain - washed Israelis to believe they have to see us as enemies.”

“I am a nonviolent person. I really want peace, I want us to live all together. But I want my respect, I want my dignity, and I want my freedom.”

*All names have been changed.

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 The Constitution Has Already Been Terminated – OpEd

December 7, 2022 John W. Whitehead 0 Comments

By John W. Whitehead


If there is one point on which there should be no political parsing, no legal jockeying, and no disagreement, it is this: for anyone to advocate terminating or suspending the Constitution is tantamount to a declaration of war against the founding principles of our representative government and the rule of law.

Then again, one could well make the case that the Constitution has already been terminated after years on life support, given the extent to which the safeguards enshrined in the Bill of Rights—adopted 231 years ago as a means of protecting the people against government overreach and abuse—have been steadily chipped away at, undermined, eroded, whittled down, and generally discarded with the support of Congress, the White House, and the courts.

Consider for yourself.

We are in the grip of martial law. We have what the founders feared most: a “standing” or permanent army on American soil. This de facto standing army is made up of weaponized, militarized domestic police forces which look like, dress like, and act like the military; are armed with guns, ammunition and military-style equipment; are authorized to make arrests; and are trained in military tactics.

We are in the government’s crosshairs. The U.S. government continues to act as judge, jury and executioner over a populace that have been pre-judged and found guilty, stripped of their rights, and left to suffer at the hands of government agents trained to respond with the utmost degree of violence. Consequently, we are at the mercy of law enforcement officers who have almost absolute discretion to decide who is a threat, what constitutes resistance, and how harshly they can deal with the citizens they were appointed to “serve and protect.” With alarming regularity, unarmed men, women, children and even pets are being gunned down by the government’s standing army of militarized police who shoot first and ask questions later.

We are no longer safe in our homes. This present menace comes from the government’s army of bureaucratized, corporatized, militarized SWAT teams who are waging war on the last stronghold left to us as a free people: the sanctity of our homes.

We have no real freedom of speech. We are moving fast down a slippery slope to an authoritarian society in which the only opinions, ideas and speech expressed are the ones permitted by the government and its corporate cohorts. In more and more cases, the government is declaring war on what should be protected political speech whenever it challenges the government’s power, reveals the government’s corruption, exposes the government’s lies, and encourages the citizenry to push back against the government’s many injustices. The ramifications are so far-reaching as to render almost every American who criticizes the government an extremist in word, deed, thought or by association.

We have no real privacy. We’re being spied on by a domestic army of government snitches, spies and techno-warriors. This government of Peeping Toms is watching everything we do, reading everything we write, listening to everything we say, and monitoring everything we spend. Beware of what you say, what you read, what you write, where you go, and with whom you communicate, because it is all being recorded, stored, and catalogued, and will be used against you eventually, at a time and place of the government’s choosing.

We are losing our right to bodily privacy and integrity. The debate over bodily integrity covers broad territory, ranging from forced vaccinations, forced cavity searches, forced colonoscopies, forced blood draws and forced breath-alcohol tests to forced DNA extractions, forced eye scans, and forced inclusion in biometric databases: these are just a few ways in which Americans continue to be reminded that we have no real privacy, no real presumption of innocence, and no real control over what happens to our bodies during an encounter with government officials. The groundwork being laid with these mandates is a prologue to what will become the police state’s conquest of a new, relatively uncharted, frontier: inner space, specifically, the inner workings (genetic, biological, biometric, mental, emotional) of the human race.

We no longer have a right to private property. If government agents can invade your home, break down your doors, kill your dog, damage your furnishings and terrorize your family, your property is no longer private and secure—it belongs to the government. Hard-working Americans are having their bank accounts, homes, cars electronics and cash seized by police under the assumption that they have allegedly been associated with some criminal scheme.

We have no due process. The groundwork has been laid for a new kind of government where it won’t matter if you’re innocent or guilty, whether you’re a threat to the nation, or even if you’re a citizen. What will matter is what the government—or whoever happens to be calling the shots at the time—thinks. And if the powers-that-be think you’re a threat to the nation and should be locked up, then you’ll be locked up with no access to the protections our Constitution provides.

We are no longer presumed innocent. The burden of proof has been reversed. Now we’re presumed guilty unless we can prove our innocence beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. Rarely, are we even given the opportunity to do so. The government has embarked on a diabolical campaign to create a nation of suspects predicated on a massive national DNA database. Having already used surveillance technology to render the entire American populace potential suspects, DNA technology in the hands of government coupled with artificial intelligence will complete our transition to a suspect society in which we are all merely waiting to be matched up with a crime.

We have lost the right to be anonymous and move about freely. At every turn, we’re hemmed in by laws, fines and penalties that regulate and restrict our autonomy, and surveillance cameras that monitor our movements. Likewise, digital currency provides the government and its corporate partners with a mode of commerce that can easily be monitored, tracked, tabulated, mined for data, hacked, hijacked and confiscated when convenient.

We no longer have a government of the people, by the people and for the people.

 In fact, a study conducted by Princeton and Northwestern University concluded that the U.S. government does not represent the majority of American citizens. Instead, the study found that the government is ruled by the rich and powerful, or the so-called “economic elite.” Moreover, the researchers concluded that policies enacted by this governmental elite nearly always favor special interests and lobbying groups. In other words, we are being ruled by an oligarchy disguised as a democracy, and arguably on our way towards fascism—a form of government where private corporate interests rule, money calls the shots, and the people are seen as mere subjects to be controlled.

We have no guardians of justice. The courts were established to intervene and protect the people against the government and its agents when they overstep their bounds. Yet through their deference to police power, preference for security over freedom, and evisceration of our most basic rights for the sake of order and expediency, the courts have become the guardians of the American police state in which we now live. As a result, sound judgment and justice have largely taken a back seat to legalism, statism and elitism, while preserving the rights of the people has been deprioritized and made to play second fiddle to both governmental and corporate interests.

We have been saddled with a dictator for life. Secret, unchecked presidential powers—acquired through the use of executive orders, decrees, memorandums, proclamations, national security directives and legislative signing statements and which can be activated by any sitting president—now enable past, president and future presidents to operate above the law and beyond the reach of the Constitution.

Unfortunately, we have done this to ourselves.

We allowed ourselves to be seduced by the false siren song of politicians promising safety in exchange for relinquished freedom. We placed our trust in political saviors and failed to ask questions to hold our representatives accountable to abiding by the Constitution. We looked the other way and made excuses while the government amassed an amazing amount of power over us, and backed up that power-grab with a terrifying amount of military might and weaponry, and got the courts to sanction their actions every step of the way. We chose to let partisan politics divide us and turn us into easy targets for the government’s oppression.

Mind you, the powers-that-be want us to be censored, silenced, muzzled, gagged, zoned out, caged in and shut down. They want our speech and activities monitored for any sign of “extremist” activity. They want us to be estranged from each other and kept at a distance from those who are supposed to represent us. They want taxation without representation. They want a government without the consent of the governed.

They want the Constitution terminated.

“We” may have contributed to our downfall through our inaction and gullibility, but we are also the only hope for a free future.

After all, the Constitution begins with those three beautiful words, “We the people.” Those three words were intended as a reminder to future generations that there is no government without us—our sheer numbers, our muscle, our economy, our physical presence in this land.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, when we forget that, when we allow the “Me” of a self-absorbed, narcissistic, politically polarizing culture to override our civic duties as citizens to collectively stand up to tyranny and make the government play by the rules of the Constitution, there can be no surprise when tyranny rises and freedom falls

Remember, there is power in numbers.

There are 332 million of us in this country. Imagine what we could accomplish if we actually worked together, presented a united front, and spoke with one voice?

John W. Whitehead is an attorney and author who has written, debated and practiced widely in the area of constitutional law, human rights and popular culture. He is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. 

Whitehead can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org.

UN calls on Taliban to release women's rights activists

The U.N. human rights chief on Friday called on Afghanistan's Taliban government to release five people the U.N. says were detained during a news conference organised by a women's civil society organisation. Rights groups say women's freedoms in Afghanistan have been undermined since the Taliban seized power in August 2021 as international forces backing a pro-Western government pulled out.

Reuters | Geneva | Updated: 04-11-2022

The U.N. human rights chief on Friday called on Afghanistan's Taliban government to release five people the U.N. says were detained during a news conference organised by a women's civil society organisation. Police disrupted a news conference in Kabul on Thursday intended to launch a new women's movement called 'Afghan Women’s Movement for Equality', the U.N rights office said.

A female activist, Zarifa Yaqobi, and four male colleagues were arrested. The other female participants in the room were also temporarily detained and subject to phone and body searches, before being released, it added. "We are concerned about the welfare of these five individuals and have sought information from the de facto authorities regarding their detention," said U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk via a spokesperson at a Geneva news briefing.

A Taliban spokesperson did not immediately provide a comment and said he would look into the matter. Rights groups say women's freedoms in Afghanistan have been undermined since the Taliban seized power in August 2021 as international forces backing a pro-Western government pulled out. They point to new curbs on their clothes, movement and education despite earlier Taliban vows to the contrary.

Facebook threatens to remove all news content if bill forcing payments to local media outlets passes


Robert Channick, Chicago Tribune
Tue, December 6, 2022 

Meta/Facebook is threatening to remove all local news from its platform following reports that proposed legislation to force Big Tech to pay publishers for news content is being added to a defense bill in a bid to win approval during the lame-duck Congress session.

The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act made it through the Senate Judiciary Committee in September, but is running out of time to pass before the end of the year, when the House will flip to Republican control. Including it in the National Defense Authorization Act, an annual “must-pass” bill, is seen as a strategy for getting it done before the new Congress convenes in January.

The legislative maneuver generated criticism Monday from Meta/Facebook, which issued a statement in opposition to the journalism act and its potential pairing with the defense act. The text of the defense bill had not been released as of Tuesday afternoon, but a source familiar with the matter told the Tribune that lawmakers are considering adding the journalism measure to the legislation.

“If Congress passes an ill-considered journalism bill as part of national security legislation, we will be forced to consider removing news from our platform altogether rather than submit to government-mandated negotiations that unfairly disregard any value we provide to news outlets through increased traffic and subscriptions,” Meta/Facebook said in its statement, which was posted on Twitter.

A Meta/Facebook spokesperson Tuesday declined to explain the mechanism for eliminating local news content, which proliferates in posts across the social media platform.

A Google spokesperson declined to comment.

The News Media Alliance, a Washington, D.C.-based newspaper trade organization that has lobbied in favor of the legislation, criticized Facebook’s statement but declined to comment on any efforts to include the measure in the defense bill.

“Facebook’s threat to take down news is undemocratic and unbecoming,” the News Media Alliance said in a statement Monday. “As the tech platforms compensate news publishers around the world, it demonstrates there is a demand and economic value for news.”

The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act would temporarily exempt newspapers, broadcasters and other publishers from antitrust laws to collectively negotiate an annual fee from Google and Meta/Facebook, which dominate the nearly $250 billion U.S. digital advertising market. Backers say it will boost struggling news organizations and level the playing field with Big Tech, while critics question whether local journalism or large media companies will be the true beneficiaries of the bill.

Introduced in the House and the Senate last year, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., is the lead co-sponsor of the bill, which covers thousands of local and regional newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune and other Tribune Publishing newspapers. The proposed legislation excludes large national publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal.

Local TV and radio broadcasters — including network owned and operated stations — that publish original digital news content and meet other eligibility requirements would also be covered by the bill.

A Klobuchar spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

Opposition to the bill has been mounting over everything from the temporary antitrust exemption to undermining fair use on the internet. A coalition of 27 groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, Common Cause, Public Knowledge and United Church of Christ Ministry, sent a letter to Congressional leaders Monday opposing the act and its possible inclusion in the defense legislation.

“This bill, despite months of advocacy and multiple revisions, contains far too many contradictions, complexities, and problems to be included in any omnibus or must-pass legislation,” the coalition said in the letter.

News publishers have struggled during the new millennium. Newspaper ad revenue, which peaked at $49.4 billion in 2005, fell by more than 80% to $9.6 billion in 2020, according to the Pew Research Center. More than a fourth of the nation’s newspapers have folded since 2005, according to a study by Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

In August, Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper chain, laid off 400 employees, or about 3% of its U.S. workforce. Last week, Gannett began another round of layoffs, cutting its news division staff of 3,440 by 6%, or about 200 positions.

McLean, Virginia-based Gannett publishes USA Today and more than 230 other newspapers.

Big Tech is eating up most of the digital advertising pie. Google is projected to generate nearly $70.1 billion and Meta/Facebook $55.5 billion, or more than 50% of the total U.S. digital ad spend this year, according to Insider Intelligence.

Under the bill, the annual fee paid by Big Tech would be distributed to all local publishers that participate in the collective negotiations, with 65% of the allocation based on how much they spend on journalists as a proportion of their overall budget.

As legislators weigh forcing social media giants to pay for aggregating local news content, Facebook, which changed its name to Meta in October to reflect ambitions to expand its social media platform into the virtual reality metaverse, is moving in the opposite direction.

In 2019 Facebook agreed to pay licensing fees to The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post and Chicago Tribune, among others, to run their content. But with revenues declining, the company announced in July it would no longer pay news publishers to aggregate curated stories.

On Monday, Meta/Facebook distanced itself even further from its former initiative to support local journalism.

“No company should be forced to pay for content users don’t want to see and that’s not a meaningful source of revenue,” the social media giant said in its statement.

rchannick@chicagotribune.com

S.Africa’s Ramaphosa future fragile despite party backing


ByAFP
Published December 6, 2022

Ramaphosa is not charged yet over the scandal - Copyright AFP Marco Longari
Susan NJANJI

The threat of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s immediate exit from office over a cash-in-sofas scandal has temporarily faded after his party vowed to rally around him at next week’s impeachment vote, but his woes are far from over.

The next days are critical for the head of state who has been championed as a graft-busting saviour after the corruption-drenched tenure of predecessor Jacob Zuma.

Ruling African National Congress (ANC) party lawmakers vowed to close ranks around him at an impeachment vote in parliament next week, but Ramaphosa remains embroiled in the worst scandal of his career that could yet bring him down.

After a tumultuous week following a report by a parliament-sanctioned independent panel which found that he “may have committed” serious violations and misconduct, Ramaphosa appeared to have earned a respite.

The parliament sitting to vote on whether he should face impeachment, initially slated for Tuesday, was at the 11th hour pushed back by a week, prolonging the uncertainty around Ramaphosa’s future.

That vote will come just three days before the ANC meets for its five-yearly conference to elect a new president. Ramaphosa is the leading candidate of the two nominees named so far for the party leadership.

But that is no guarantee he will be re-elected, or serve out his full state presidential term which should run until April 2024.

ANC members facing criminal allegations or charges are expected to step aside.

Ramaphosa is not charged yet over the scandal dubbed “Phala Phala farm-gate”, after the name of the estate in northeastern South Africa.

That gives him room to still try his luck and contest the ANC leadership — a ticket to the national presidency.

“The step-aside rule doesn’t apply here, Cyril Ramaphosa is not charged with anything,” lawyer and ANC veteran Mathews Phosa told eNCA news at the weekend.

But scandals do not necessarily decide the fate of an ANC president and the party throughout its nearly three decades in power has exhibited a tendency to protect its own people.

“In the ANC you could be charged for rape and still become president, you could be charged for an international arms deal and still be a president,” said political analyst Sandile Swana.

– Undignified exit? –

Formerly a wealthy businessman, the president may follow the footsteps of two of his predecessors, Zuma and Thabo Mbeki, who did not complete their tenures and were forced out by the ANC.

“The presidency of Ramaphosa is going to be short,” said Swana, but “his chances of leaving in a dignified manner are minimal”.

The 70-year-old president found himself in hot water in June when South Africa’s former spy boss filed a complaint to the police alleging Ramaphosa had concealed a huge cash theft from his game and rare cattle farm in 2020.

He accused the president of having organised for the burglars to be kidnapped and bribed into silence.

Ramaphosa has denied any wrongdoing, saying the cash — more than half a million dollars, stashed beneath sofa cushions — was payment for buffaloes bought by a Sudanese businessman.

But his explanations did not convince the special panel, which raised questions about the source of the cash.

On Monday Ramaphosa rushed to the country’s top court asking it to annul the panel’s report, but it is uncertain if his request will be granted.

The Constitutional Court case, which may take days or weeks to be concluded, “does not in itself stop the parliamentary (impeachment) proceedings from continuing”, said public law professor at the University of Cape Town Cathy Powell.

If the impeachment process is greenlighted it will take months of investigations and hearings before the final vote.

“The problem with this one is that it doesn’t seem to be completely frivolous,” the question whether it is serious enough to be fired for, said Powell.

When lawmakers meet next week a simple majority in the National Assembly, where the ANC has 230 out of 400 seats, will be required to initiate the impeachment process.

The impeachment vote itself would need a two-thirds majority to succeed.

If the impeachment proceedings go ahead, Ramaphosa risks being the first South African leader to be formally removed from office by parliament, said Swana.

The scandal has preoccupied South Africans who are already battling economic hardships, the inadequate provision of basic services such as electricity and a dizzying rate of unemployment.