Germany Buries the Evidence of Complicity in Genocide: Nicaragua Exposes It

BY JOHN PERRY

 APRIL 18, 2024
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Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

Last Thursday, Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah, the British-Palestinian war surgeon, gave his first address as the newly-appointed rector of Glasgow University, chosen in recognition of his work at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza. The following day he flew to Berlin, where he had been invited to address a major conference about Palestine. On arrival he was taken away by police, interrogated for several hours and eventually told he had to leave Germany and wouldn’t be allowed to return until at least the end of April. Any attempt to speak to the conference via Zoom could result in a fine or even a year’s prison sentence. By the time he was released he couldn’t have taken part in the conference anyway, since it had been already invaded by at least 900 police and closed down. Berlin’s mayor said that it was ‘intolerable’ that the conference was taking place at all.

Speaking about his experience afterwards, Dr Abu-Sittah referred to the fact that Germany had – also last week – been defending itself at the International Court of Justice against charges by Nicaragua that it is an accomplice to genocidal war. ‘This is exactly what accomplices to a crime do’ he said. ‘They bury the evidence and they silence or harass or intimidate the witnesses’.

Watching the live feed of Germany’s lawyers at the Hague a few days earlier had been an odd experience. They gave the impression of being affronted that Germany had been accused of such crimes, especially by a small country which, they argued, had no stake in the case. Also, Israel could not yet be said to be committing genocide, because the ICJ has not yet determined the case brought against it by South Africa, which Germany had supported Israel in contesting. Because Israel was not party to the new case, it should simply be thrown out.

Some research might have given them a better appreciation of Nicaragua’s credentials to bring the case. Its mutual solidarity with Palestine goes back a long way. It also has more experience at the Hague than Germany, including its pioneer action against the US in 1984, when it won compensation of £17 billion (that was never paid) for the damage done to Nicaragua by the US-funded Contra war and the mining of its ports. Carlos Argüello, who led the case last week and many of its previous cases, said that Nicaragua offered its expertise to Palestine and it had already joined in with South Africa’s action. It had decided to target Germany, the second biggest supplier of arms to Israel, because the US, the biggest supplier, is outside the court’s jurisdiction on this issue.

Argüello explains that the object is to create a precedent with wider application – that countries must take responsibility for the consequences of their arms sales to avoid them being used in breach of international law. Germany’s argument that legal action cannot proceed before South Africa’s earlier case is resolved is nonsense, since countries have an obligation to prevent genocide, not merely wait until it is proven to be happening. In any case, Germany must have been aware of the numerous warnings from senior UN officials of the imminence of genocide in Gaza, which began as early as October 9^th.

Germany claimed that it has a “robust legal framework” in place to ensure its arms exports are not misused, and that sales to Israel are now restricted to non-lethal equipment. But any supplies being sent to a genocidal army are helping to sustain its criminal actions, Nicaragua replied.

Much was made of Germany’s historic obligations due to its Nazi history, but Argüello argues that these should relate to the Jewish people, not the Israeli state. He adds that Germany’s past might also oblige it to help prevent genocide wherever it might occur. Its government spokesman on the South Africa case had claimed that Germany is ‘particularly committed to the Genocide Convention’.

The economist Yanis Varoufakis was also banned from speaking in Berlin. He planned to conclude his speech by telling German politicians that ‘they have covered themselves in shame’ through their unflinching support for Israel’s atrocities. Carlos Argüello echoes this point when asked whether a decision by the ICJ can actually be enforced: we have to mobilise shame, he says, ‘…that’s the hope with this. Perhaps being too idealistic, but it’s the only weapon we have’.

Germany confirms its collaboration with genocide

by Rick Sterling / April 15th, 2024

The photo is a screen shot from Press TV showing a demo protest against the shutdown of the conference.

A three day Palestine conference in Berlin was forcibly shut down after three hours on Friday. Electricity was abruptly terminated in the midst of the presentation by Salman Abu Sitta, the 87 year old author of the authoritative “Atlas of Palestine”.

Former Greek Finance Minister and leader of DIEM25, Yanis Varoufakis, was prevented from entering Germany to attend the conference. He went on Twitter/X to send a message:

Do you know that the German Interior Ministry has just banned me from entering Germany? Indeed if that were not enough,  I have been banned  from talking to you via zoom, or indeed through a video message like this, exactly like this. The threat being that I will be tried in Germany for breaking German law. Why? Because of a speech that I published yesterday on my blog calling for universal human rights in Israel- Palestine …. So my question to my German friends, to Germans in general whether you agree with me or not doesn’t matter. … Is this (banning) in your name? Is it something that you feel comfortable happening in your democracy? From my perspective this is essentially the death knell of the prospects of democracy in the Federal Republic of Germany.

Another banned guest speaker was UK citizen Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah. He reported on Twitter/X:

I have just returned from Germany where I was prevented from entering the country for attending a conference in Germany to give evidence on the war in Gaza and my witness statement as a doctor working in its hospitals. This morning at 10 I landed in Berlin to attend a conference on Palestine where I had been asked … to give my evidence of the 43 days that I had seen in the hospitals in Gaza, working in both Shifa and al-Ahli Hospital. Upon arrival I was stopped at the passport office. I was then escorted down to the basement of the airport where I was questioned for around 3.5 hours. At the end of 3.5 hours I was told that I will not be allowed to enter German soil and that this ban will last the whole of April. Not just that … if I were to try to link up by Zoom or Facetime with the conference even if I were outside Germany or if I were to send a video of my lecture to the conference in Berlin, then that would constitute a breach of German law and that I would endanger myself to have a fine or even up to a year in prison.

Dr. Abu Sitta further commented:

Germany is defending itself against Nicaraguan charges that it is an accomplice to genocidal war as described by the International Court of Justice. This is exactly what accomplices to a crime do. They bury the evidence and they silence or harass or intimidate the witnesses. …. This crackdown on free speech is a dangerous precedent…  We are watching the first genocide unfold in the 21^st Century and for Germany to become implicated as an accomplice in silencing the witnesses of this genocide does not bode well for the rest of the century.

A large contingent of police invaded the conference and shut off the electricity. Organizers told the reported 250 conference attendees to not provoke the police to violence. Afterward, organizers  held a press conference  reporting on the behaviour of police before and during the crackdown. Even before the conference, police tried to intimidate supporters of the conference and the owner of the conference venue. They threatened the venue owner might not be able to hold events in future if the conference went ahead.  An organizer asked, “Are these the methods of the mafia or democracy?”

Western and Israeli media reported the closure was to prevent “anti semitism” or “hatred of Israel”. On this dubious and hypothetical basis, public education about a real ongoing massacre and mass starvation was made illegal.FacebookTwitterRedditEmail

Rick Sterling is an investigative journalist in the SF Bay Area. He can be reached at rsterling1@protonmail.com. Read other articles by Rick.

 

Suspending the Rule of Tolerable Violence: Israel’s Attack and Iran’s Retaliation

by Binoy Kampmark / April 15th, 2024

The Middle East has, for some time, been a powder keg where degrees of violence are tolerated with ceremonial mania and a calculus of restraint.  Assassinations can take place at a moment’s notice.  Revenge killings follow with dashing speed.  Suicide bombings of immolating power are carried out.  Drone strikes of devastating, collective punishment are ordered, all padded by the retarded notion that such killings are morally justified and confined.

In all this viciousness, the conventional armed forces have been held in check, the arsenals contained, the generals busied by plans of contingency rather than reality.  The rhetoric may be vengeful and spicily hysterical, but the states in the region keep their armies in reserve, and Armageddon at bay.  Till, naturally, they don’t.

To date, Israel is doing much to test the threshold of what might be called the rule of tolerable violence.  With Iran, for instance, it has adopted a “campaign between the wars”, primarily in Syria.  For over a decade, the Israeli strategy was to prevent the flow of Iranian weapons to Hezbollah, intercepting weapons shipments and targeting storage facilities.  “Importantly,” writes Haid Haid, a consulting fellow for Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa Programme, “Israel appeared to avoid, whenever feasible, killing Hezbollah or Iranian operatives during these operations.”

But the state of play has changed.  The Gaza War, which has become more the Gaza Massacre Project, has moved into its seventh month, packing morgues, destroying families and stimulating the terror of famine.  Despite calls from the Israeli military and various officials that Hamas’s capabilities have been irreparably weakened (this claim, like all those battling an idea rather than just a corporeal foe, remains refutable and redundant) the killings and policy of starvation continues against the general Palestinian populace.  The International Court of Justice interim orders continue to be ignored, even as the judges deliberate over the issue as to whether genocide is taking place in the Gaza Strip.  The restraints, in other words, have been taken off.

The signs are ominous.  Spilt blood is becoming hard currency.  Daily skirmishes between the IDF and Hezbollah are taking place on the Israeli-Lebanon border.  The Houthis are feverishly engaged with blocking and attacking international shipping in the Red Sea, hooting solidarity for the Palestinian cause.

On April 1, a blood crazed strike by Israel suggested that rules of tolerable violence had, if not been pushed, then altogether suspended.  The attack on Iran’s consular offices in Damascus by the Israeli Air Force was tantamount to striking Iranian soil.  In the process, it killed Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi and other commanders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including Zahedi’s deputy, General Haji Rahimi.  Retaliation was accordingly promised, with Iran’s ambassador to Syria, Hossein Akbari, vowing a response “at the same magnitude and harshness”.

It came on April 13, involving 185 drones, 110 ballistic missiles and 36 cruise missiles, all directed at Israel proper.  Superficially, this looks anarchically quixotic, streakily disproportionate.  But Tehran went for a spectacular theatrical show to terrify and magnify rather than opt for any broader infliction of damage.  Israel’s Iron Dome system, along with allied powers, could be counted upon to aid the shooting down of almost all the offensive devices.  A statement had been made and the Iranians have so far drawn a line under any further military action.  What was deemed by certain pundits a tactical failure can just as easily be read as a strategic if provocative success.  The question then is: what follows?

The Israeli approach varies depending on who is being asked.  The IDF Chief of Staff, General Herzi Halevi, stated that “Israel is considering next steps” declaring that “the launch of so many missiles and drones to Israeli territory will be answered with retaliation.”

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir was taloned in his hawkishness, demanding that Israel launch a “crushing” counterattack, “go crazy” and abandon “restraint and proportionality”, “concepts that passed away on October 7.”  The “response must not be a scarecrow, in the style of the dune bombings we saw in previous years in Gaza.”

Cabinet minister Benny Gantz, who is a voting member of the war cabinet alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, is tilting for a “regional coalition” to “exact the price from Iran, in the way and at the time that suits us.  And most importantly, in the face of the desire of our enemies to harm us, we will unite and become stronger.”  The immediate issues for resolution from Gantz’s perspective was the return of Israeli hostages “and the removal of the threat against the residents of the north and south.”

Such thinking will also be prompted by the response from the Biden administration that Netanyahu “think very carefully and strategically” about the next measures.  “You got a win,” President Joe Biden is reported to have told Netanyahu.  “Take the win.” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has also expressed the view that, “Strength and wisdom must be the two sides of the same coin.”

For decades, Israel has struck targets in sovereign countries with impunity, using expansive doctrines of pre-emption and self-defence. In doing so, the state always hoped that the understanding of tolerable violence would prevail.  Any retaliation, if any, would be modest, with “deterrence” assured. With the war in Gaza and the fanning out of conflict, the equation has changed.  To some degree, Ben Gvir is right that concepts of restraint and proportionality have been banished to the mortuary.  But such banishment, to a preponderant degree, was initiated by Israel.  The Israel-Gaza War is now, effectively, a global conflict, waged in regional miniature.FacebookTwitter

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

 

Ugly Texas

by E.R. Bills / April 16th, 2024

My wife’s dad is from Grenada, and we visited there last October. It was an incredible place and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, but, when I was speaking with one of my father-in-law’s relatives, I unknowingly committed a geo-political faux pas.

It had been a while since I had traveled to a less commercialized destination and, unaware that the relevant categorizations had changed, I said something about being proud of myself because I thought I had gotten too soft to travel in a Third World country. A group of us stayed in a modest seaside villa. The air conditioning was iffy. The water pressure often barely a trickle. My wife and I didn’t have hot water for a week. I bathed in the ocean or the pool. The steering wheel was on the opposite side of the car, and we drove on the opposite side of the patched or crumbling, precipitous roads. And we amateur-Anthony Bourdained our way through practically every meal. We were forced outside our comfort zone, and I found it wonderful, exhilarating and, ultimately, therapeutic.

My father-in-law’s relation listened patiently and then politely corrected me. “The term ‘Third World’ is discouraged, now,” they said. “These days, we say “developing nation.”

I promptly apologized and we continued our conversation. We discussed my travels and many of the developing nations I’d had adventures in over the years. I think they realized I wasn’t the average “Ugly American.”

The term “developing nation” avoids the derogatory connotations of “Third World” nation which, in the last half of the 20th century referred to countries that were economically underdeveloped and had little or no affiliation with major or “First World” powers (i.e., Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, the United Kingdom, the United States, etc.). Many countries formerly dubbed “Third World” nations were also disparagingly deemed “Banana Republics,” which connoted small, poor nations often hamstrung by limited resources and sometimes led by despotic or authoritarian regimes big on corruption and economic exploitation. These countries usually functioned poorly for their general citizenry while disproportionately benefiting a specific “elite” group or class of individuals.

Today, this thought process often comes to mind when Lone Star politicians and pundits try to establish rube cred by threatening to secede from the United States. It simply demonstrates that they don’t know much about most of the rest of the world, much less their own state’s place or perception in the eyes of most of the rest of the world.

These days, America, itself, is hardly impressive or inspiring, specifically because it seems that only Americans are ignorant of their nation’s imperialist agenda. Everyone else knows.

And if so many people are attempting to migrate to the United States it’s not so much that anything is great here—it’s because they, like us, prefer being the boot rather than the ass. The United States bootheel hardly discriminates between the guilty and the innocent in foreign states.

But America as a whole is Camelot compared to Texas.

Texas is unrepentantly Third World and would become Third World on steroids if it seceded. And not because Texas is small, poor, has limited resources or lacks connections with First World powers—it certainly wouldn’t be considered a developing nation. It would be Third World because it’s governed by a rabid, despotic governor and legislature rife with corruption, keen on economic exploitation, and defiantly proud of functioning poorly for its citizenry while disproportionately benefiting a specific “elite” group or gaggle of entitled individuals. So much so that no one even bothers to deny it any more. And, this, trumpeted alongside blatant political chauvinism, gleeful censorship, innumerable challenges to fair representation and frequent, reprehensible threats to freedom of speech, reveals what we really are: ugly.

Ugly Texans.

While we may seem attractive to every Golden State “God and Guns” troglodyte, we are repulsive to decent, fair-minded people all over the world. We seem to aspire to a virulent checklist of vomitous superlatives like most sexist, most racist, most homophobic, most xenophobic, most fascist, most ignorant, and, yes, let’s throw it in—most unAmerican.

This is who we’ve become. These are the “values” our legislature champions.

If the United States was Europe, we’d be the Brexiting British. If the United States was Asia, we wouldn’t be Japan or even China—we’d be North Korea. We’re an international embarrassment full of clueless, separatist blowhards, and the Texas Lege is doing everything it can to ban mirrors.

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Fort Worth native E. R. Bills is an award-winning journalist and author. His latest works include Tell-Tale Texas: Investigations in Infamous History and Letters from Texas, 2021-2023. Read other articles by E.R..

The North American Peace Movement at an Inflection Point

THE STALINIST VIEW

by Roger D. Harris / April 17th, 2024

The North American peace movement is contesting ongoing US wars in Ukraine and Palestine and preparations for war with China. Out of the fog of these wars, a clear anti-imperialist focus is emerging. Giving peace a chance has never been more plainly understood as opposition to what Martin Luther King, Jr., referred to as “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world: my own government.”

Palestinian, Muslim and Arab, and anti-Zionist Jewish groups have been in the forefront of the anti-imperialist peace movement. With strong youth components, they are not confused by either relying on sell-out liberal Democrats (e.g., anti-Iraq War) or by utopian calls for leaderless organizations without concrete demands (e.g., Occupy). Nor have been distracted by individualistic expressions of anger by trashing small businesses or in adventuristic confrontations with the police.

The Palestinian resistance has radicalized millions worldwide. The popular demand for a permanent ceasefire in Palestine is leading to a still larger project to cease the US-led imperialist order.

The overall consciousness of the resurgent peace movement reflects the normalization of anti-imperialism as a leading current; antiwar sentiment is becoming explicitly anti-imperialist.

Evolving understanding of the Ukraine conflict

The peace movement recognizes that, although Hamas’s action of October 7 came as a surprise, it did not simply erupt out of the blue. The uprising had a 75-year gestation starting with the Nakba of 1948 and the establishment of the settler colonialist State of Israel.

Initially, there was less clarity regarding the events in Ukraine of February 24, 2022. With research and reflection, most of the movement came to understand the conflict did not begin that day. The supposedly “unprovoked” Russian intervention in Ukraine was sparked by NATO moving closer and closer to the Russian border, the 2014 Maidan coup, the sabotage of the Minsk agreements, etc.

A consensus is maturing in the antiwar movement that Ukraine is a proxy war by the US and its NATO allies to weaken Russia. Even key corporate press and government officials now recognize the conflict as a “full proxy war” by the US designed to use the Ukrainian people to mortally disable Russia.

Likewise, opinions are coalescing around recognizing that there is just one superpower with hundreds of foreign military bases, possession of the world’s reserve currency, and control of the SWIFT worldwide payment and transaction system. Simply reducing the conflict to one of contesting capitalists obscures the context of empire.

The antiwar movement may differ on whether to call February 24 an invasion, an incursion, or a special military operation to protect ethnic Russian regions of Ukraine under attack. But unity has been forged that the solution to the conflict is a negotiated settlement and that the US/NATO project of “winning” the war is a threat to world peace. The outlier is the Ukraine Solidarity Network (USN).

Still using the language of anti-imperialism, USN’s  left-leaning intellectuals and activists are opposed to a negotiated peace but champion a “victory” backed by the US and NATO. Further, they uphold the “right” of the US to fund what they personalize as a war against Putin. Their statement on the second anniversary of the war accuses Washington of having a “double standard” for supporting imperialism in Palestine but being on the side of justice in Ukraine. Other peace activists see USN’s opposition to the US involvement in Palestine, but not to its complicity in Ukraine, as a double standard.

The USN’s call for a Ukraine victory is consonant with the Democratic Party’s. In contrast, for example, the United National Antiwar Coalition’s (UNAC) position on Ukraine is: “No to NATO’s proxy war and Biden’s $80 billion military aid to Ukraine! No to Ukraine’s joining NATO!” Similarly, the Peace in Ukraine Coalition demands: “”STOP the weapons! START the talks!”

The emerging anti-imperialist peace movement sees the nature of US imperialism as systematic and not elective. The US empire is fundamentally imperialist; it is not a matter of choice.

First major antiwar conference since the Covid pandemic

In the first major antiwar conference since the Covid pandemic, UNAC brought together 400 activists in Saint Paul, MN, on April 5-7, under the banner of “decolonization and the fight against imperialism.”

Among the some fifty groups participating were the Alliance for Global Justice, American Muslims for Palestine, Black Alliance for Peace, CodePink, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, US Palestinian Community Network, and Workers World Party. Local organizations included Students for Justice in Palestine, Twin Cities Students for a Democratic Society, and the venerable Women Against Military Madness, who have been protesting weekly in the streets since 1982.

The immediacy of militant organizing was reported by Danaka Katovich of CodePink, Cody Urban of the Resist US Wars, Wyatt Miller of the Minneapolis Antiwar Committee, and a number of other youthful leaders.

Palestinian liberation against colonialism was a major focal point of the conference. Mnar Adley, editor of MintPress News, movingly described her experience of living under Israeli suppression. Today, she explained, “the Intifada has been globalized,” adding that the Palestinian resistance and the movement in its support have exposed the Democrats as the “bloodthirsty war-hungry party that it is.”

With the US presidential election imminent, conference participants had no illusions that either corporate party stands for peace. The initiative to cast ballots in the Democratic primary for “uncommitted” (to signify opposition to Biden’s complicity in the war on Gaza and to demand a ceasefire) received considerable support. Spontaneous chants of “shame” erupted throughout the conference whenever the Democrats’ conduct was raised.

K.J. Noh of Pivot for Peace warned about US preparations for war against China. Michael Wong of Veterans for Peace described the world struggle as not one of democracy versus authoritarianism but of national liberation versus imperialism.

Ambassadors Lautaro Sandino from Nicaragua, whose government is taking Germany to the World Court for facilitating Israel’s genocide, and Dr. Sidi M. Omar of the Polisario Front of Western Sahara addressed the conference. International solidarity was affirmed in workshops on Zones of Peace in Our Americas, opposition of coercive economic measures, and NO to NATO.

Combating repression against the movement was highlighted by Efia Nwangaza’s presentation on the campaign to “Stop Kop Cities” and Dr. Aisha Fields’ on resisting the attacks on the African People’s Socialist Party. Mel Underbakke addressed FBI frame ups of Muslims, and FBI whistleblower Colleen Rowley briefed the conference on the mobilization for Julian Assange. Lessons were also drawn by speakers from the successful defenses of the Antiwar 23 and the freeing of Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab.

Tasks ahead

Janine Solanki with the Mobilization Against War and Occupation in Vancouver spoke about the “unfolding antiwar and pro-Palestine movement that has a potential to go beyond the Vietnam antiwar movement.” She advised that what has been a mass spontaneous movement now needs to progress into a more coordinated and structured form. “We have humanity on our side…our role is to really organize these forces.”

Black Agenda Report (BAR) executive editor Margaret Kimberley concluded the conference with the mandate to stop the wars at home and abroad. The current context is a neoliberal economic regime failing to meet basic domestic needs and a global pax Americana becoming increasingly contested. In reference to the workshop on climate change, she observed, “we are in a battle for survival; that’s not hyperbole.”

In short, the conference was indicative of the larger movement that is melding youthful demographics – buoyed by the mass protests against the war on Palestine – with the mature understanding of the gravity of the tasks ahead. Kimberly closed with the guidance to “engage in principled struggle with our comrades; if you’re not struggling with someone you’re not doing enough work.”

Prospects for the anti-imperialist movement

Will the Democratic Party’s formula of “Trump trumps everything” quash the antiwar initiative? Back in 2015, the late BAR editor Glen Ford presciently wrote: “The Democrats hope the Black Lives Matter movement, like the Occupy Wall Street movement, will disappear amid the hype of the coming election season.” What will happen to the 2024 antiwar protest movement when another US presidential election looms five months from now?

Resisting being absorbed into what Ford called the Democratic election blitz to bury the movement will be the People’s Conference for Palestine, May 24-26, in Detroit, which will bring together anti-imperialist groups including the Palestine Youth Movement, National Students for Justice in Palestine, Al-Awda, and Healthcare Workers for Palestine. The ANSWER Coalition, associated with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, is a leading element. ANSWER and some of these other groups had also been instrumental in building major pro-Palestine demonstrations in Washington DC, the biggest ever in the US.

Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), the largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization in the world, is among the faith-based groups that have carved out a new and implicitly anti-imperialist identity for their followers. Surely JVP, along with other Jewish activist organizations, like IfNotNow and International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, will continue to militantly protest US support for Israel’s apartheid system in unity with Palestinian and other activist groups.

Come this summer, CodePink, Bayan, and others will be confronting the largest joint war exercises in the world with Cancel RIMPAC. Protests are also scheduled for NATO’s 75th anniversary summit, July 6-7, in Washington DC; the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, July 15-18; and the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, August 19-22FacebookTwitter

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Roger D. Harris is with the human rights group Task Force on the Americas and the US Peace Council. Read other articles by Roger D..

 

We’re Still Breathing: Amhara Genocide in Ethiopia Official Trailer

by Graham Peebles / April 17th, 2024

Award Winning Documentary Film by Graham Peebles

Ignored by western governments and largely overlooked by media a genocide is taking place in Ethiopia. The Amhara people, a large ethnic group, are being ethnically cleansed from the region of Oromia, the largest region in the country.

Tens of thousands of Amhara have been killed by Oromo fanatics (estimates range from 30,000 – 50,000); over three million have been displaced, homes, land and livestock stolen.

The Oromo Liberation Front (OLF or Shene) together with the Oromo regional militia are responsible for the carnage, with the support of the Oromo Regional Authority and the federal government.

In addition to mass murder and wholesale displacement, estimates claim that more than 300,000 Amhara have been arrested. Journalists, human rights workers, parliamentarians, academics, protestors and students, are all among those interned without trial, often in undisclosed locations. In detention, torture and execution is reportedly widespread.

Hundreds of Amhara men and boys have been herded into industrial detention centres (that some are calling concentration camps), where they are held without charge and injected with contagious diseases.

At the request of an Ethiopian human rights group (Amhara Association of America) I travelled to Ethiopia in June 2023 to make a short documentary. We spent time in Internal Displacement Camps and met some of the people affected. Their stories were deeply distressing: children murdered in front of their parents; young men slaughtered en masse; pregnant women attacked, their bellies stabbed, the baby killed. Whole communities eradicated.

The purpose of the film is to raise awareness of this appalling issue, and to add our voice to those calling on western governments (the US, EU and UK in particular), to apply pressure on the Ethiopian Government, led by Prime-Minister Abiy Ahmed.

Screenings of the award winning documentary (Best Documentary at the Global Film Awards and Best Human Rights Film at the World Film Festival in Cannes) have taken place in Washington DC, Dallas, Toronto, Canada. More screenings are planned in April/May/June in the US.TwitterRedditEmail

Graham Peebles is an independent writer and charity worker. He set up The Create Trust in 2005 and has run education projects in India, Sri Lanka, Palestine and Ethiopia where he lived for two years working with street children, under 18 commercial sex workers, and conducting teacher training programmes. He lives and works in London. Read other articles by Graham, or visit Graham's website.

 

America’s Now Evident Plan to Use AUKUS to Spark War With China

The U.S. regime’s aggressive intent against China is now undeniable

by Eric Zuesse / April 17th, 2024

There was much concern, in international circles, about the the U.S. Government’s recent efforts to open a NATO office in Tokyo so as to extend its military alliance against Russia to become also a military alliance against China. When that initiative scared some other NATO members, it was stopped, and the fear temporarily subsided. But then suddenly, on April 8, it was announced that (despite some hurdles that would first need to be overcome) America’s new (2021) anti-China military alliance, AUKUS, is “considering” (meaning here intending) to, in effect, bring into that alliance Japan (which has 79 U.S. military bases). On April 10, U.S. President Joe Biden and Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida met at the White House to plan how this would be done. The next day, Defense News bannered “AUKUS allies float path for Japan to join tech sharing pact”. So, the U.S., which has 900 foreign military bases and actually spends around half of the entire planet’s military expenses, and therefore has no actual need for any military ‘allies’, but instead brings them in to serve as proxies for itself and to be able to say (for propaganda-purposes) “we” when referring to itself, so as to ‘justify’ its numerous invasions and to prevent any of its ‘allied’ (or colonial) countries from criticizing it, is now effectively displaying the reality to anyone who worries about such matters. This reality is: Yes, the U.S. Government is demanding to, and will, control China, too. The U.S. already has military bases against China in Australia, Guam, Japan, South Korea, Marshall Islands, Mariana Islands, Palau, Philippines, Samoa, Singapore, and Thailand; so, it can invade China almost instantly from plenty of bases to China’s south and east.

Even some Australians (though hardly yet any Brits to my knowledge) are raising alarms at this accession of Japan into AUKUS. For example, the Australian commentator John Menadue, a former Cabinet Minister, published at his blog on April 16th, “Lest We Forget: Japan joining AUKUS a stark reminder of China’s Century of Humiliation”, by  Robert Macklin, which opened:

With the addition of Japan, AUKUS ceases to be a device to supply nuclear powered submarines to Australia several decades in the future but a stark reminder of the oppressive powers that abused Chinese sovereignty in the 19th and 20th centuries.

It was Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles who first suggested that the inclusion of Japan in the AUKUS group was a natural ‘evolution’ of the pact. As such it was risible, if understandable; Marles is not the sharpest knife in the Cabinet drawer.

But when it was adopted by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese – and then the American president Joe Biden – there is cause for concern. With the addition of Japan, AUKUS ceases to be a device to supply nuclear powered submarines to Australia several decades in the future but a stark reminder of the oppressive powers that abused Chinese sovereignty in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Japan’s membership could hardly be more provocative to a country that suffered the indignity of Japanese control of its Taiwan province for 50 years from 1895 and its invasion of the mainland throughout the second world war.

The notorious Massacre of Nanking – where the atrocities included 200,000 murders and 20,000 rapes of the civilian population – was but one of hundreds of outrages visited upon the Chinese people. …

When he referred there to America’s having created AUKUS as “a device to supply nuclear powered submarines to Australia several decades in the future,” he was referring to the shady excuses that it gave at the time for creating AUKUS, and which entailed an open affront to France — including coercion forcing France to cancel a lucrative contract France had with Australia’s Government, which affront France promised to (but never did) retaliate against the U.S. for. But, now, this bringing of the first non-Anglo member into America’s (initially pure-Anglo) military alliance against China, proves that its real target, and the real aim of AUKUS, is to conquer China — nothing less than that (just as NATO demands to win its war against Russia in the battlefield of Ukraine on Russia’s border).

On April 15, Lin Congyi, of China’s Defense Ministry, headlined “AUKUS makes more mistakes by roping in Japan”, and he commented:

Recently, the US, the UK, and Australia announced that Japan would join AUKUS, causing great concern among the international community. This is the first time that the three countries have announced a partner since the organization was established in September 2021. Japanese officials responded by saying that Japan “recognizes” the importance of AUKUS. Many Japanese citizens criticized AUKUS for promoting membership expansion regardless of concerns from all walks of life, which will intensify camp confrontation and the risks of nuclear proliferation, and undermine peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region.

AUKUS is short for the Trilateral Security Partnership between Australia, the UK and the US, which has two main pillars. Pillar I focuses on the deployment of nuclear submarines in Australia and the joint research, development and construction of the next-generation nuclear submarines by the three countries. Cooperation in this area is “limited to the US, UK and Australia”. Pillar II focuses on the joint development and deployment of new technologies to enhance advanced combat capabilities.

Why did they choose Japan in the first place? Analysts believe that there are two reasons. From a technical perspective, the US, the UK and Australia have their respective shortcomings in the field of high technology, while Japan, with advantages in the fields of hypersonic weapons, quantum technology, electronic warfare and artificial intelligence, can play a greater role in defense technology. On the part of Japan, it hopes to improve its defense capabilities and increase its military influence in the Asia-Pacific region by sharing sensitive military technologies with the US, the UK, Australia, and other countries.

Strategically, these countries also have their own calculations. The US sees AUKUS as a key part of the implementation of the so-called “Indo-Pacific Strategy” and wants to attract more allies to join in order to achieve the goal of containing China. The UK is pushing ahead with the “Global Britain” strategy, and its security cooperation with Japan is becoming deeper. It hopes, in a bid to become more involved in Asia-Pacific affairs with the aid of Japan and expand its influence in the Asia-Pacific region.

Australia, on the other hand, put high expectations on Pillar II due to the sluggish progress of Pillar I and thus supported the inclusion of Japan. As for Japan, it wants to use AUKUS as a new tool to carry out its military agenda in the Asia-Pacific region and contain China. …

The U.S. Government, and its UK partner, are going for broke, in order to win an all-inclusive U.S.-UK empire — a U.S./UK global dictatorship that includes all of the world’s nations as its colonies (INCLUDING Russia and China). The idea here is nothing less than to terminate national sovereignty and replace it with an international global dictatorship by the U.S./UK partnership: all sovereignty being based in Washington and London, no longer under the internal control of any other individual nation. This is the contemporary U.S./UK vision for their Brave New World. Never has that vision been more clear than it now is: indisputable. (The links here document it.) If this effort to bring Japan into AUKUS succeeds, it will be a virtual declaration of war against China.

As regards China’s alleged imperial ambitions, an April 16 article in Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post headlined “China was never an imperialist state” and pointed out that “it could be highly problematic to map directly the Western experience of empire, such as when we talk about the Spanish, Portuguese, British, or even the American empires” because “The Chinese empire, through different dynasties, often functioned more like the opposite of an empire, and the oft-cited tribute system frequently worked in reverse,” meaning that what some Westerners have alleged to be or to have been ‘imperialism’ by China was actually dynastic feuds within China. China’s invasions were internal — as contrasted to the Western experience, which explored, exploited, and invaded, far away from the homeland, in order to conquer, control, and extract from, a distant culture. What America is now trying to do to China (make it become yet another U.S. colony), has no parallel to anything that China has ever done. It is pure foreign aggression — which since 1945 has been the U.S. specialtyEmail

Eric Zuesse is an investigative historian. His new book, America's Empire of Evil: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public. Read other articles by Eric.