The Wages Of Rawalpindi’s ‘Good Taliban’ Philosophy – OpEd

Pakistan's General Asim Munir. Photo Credit: ISPR, Wikipedia Commons

 September 8, 2024

By Nilesh Kunwar

Lure of Lucre

It was in the late seventies that CIA finalised its covert plan for waging proxy war against the then Soviet army in Afghanistan by using radicalised Islamic fighters [mujahideen]. Codenamed Operation Cyclone, this devious enterprise came as a windfall for Pakistan’s military dictator-turned-resident Gen Zia ul Haq as it led to a Faustian US-Pakistan bargain [or to put it more precisely, an unholy agreement between CIA and Pakistan army’s spy agency Inter Services Intelligence or ISI].  

Operation Cyclone was a classic example of proxy war. While ISI was required to provide radicalised and trained manpower to fight the occupational Soviet army in Afghanistan, Washington would divert requisite military hardware to arm the fighters as well finances to sustain this venture through CIA. Since ISI physically distributed weapons, military equipment and funds received from CIA to mujahideen groups, substantial diversion of US weapons and money for Pakistan’s proxy war in J&K as well as for lining the pockets of Generals was no big deal for Rawalpindi. 

‘Poisoning’ Pakistani Society

The gains made by Pakistan in terms of extremely generous US military and financial aid packages were indeed enormous. In fact the lure for lucre was so compelling that Pakistan army’s leadership conveniently chose to disregard the inevitable negative consequences that its deeply flawed decision to host religiously indoctrinated Islamic fundamentalists on its soil portended for the hapless people of Pakistan. The saddest part is not Rawalpindi’s continuing state of denial but the pride with which Pakistan army Generals recall this abhorrent bargain that has claimed thousands of innocent lives.

During his 2010 interview given to Spiegel, Pakistan’s ex President and former army chief Gen Pervez Musharraf nonchalantly admitted that “We [Pakistan army] poisoned Pakistani civil society for 10 years when we fought the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s.” He went on to boast that “It was jihad, and we brought in militants from all over the world, with the West and Pakistan together in the lead role.”  This revelation was neither an emotional outburst nor an unintended or accidental utterance.

In 2019, Pakistani politician Farhatullah Babar shared an undated interview clip in which Gen Musharraf can clearly be heard saying that “…In 1979, we had introduced religious militancy in Afghanistan to benefit Pakistan and to push [the] Soviet out of the country. We brought Mujahideen from all over the world, we trained them, supplied weapons. They were our heroes.” Not only this, he even admitted that “Haqqani was our hero. Osama bin Laden was our hero.” [Emphasis added].

What Musharraf euphemistically referred to as “religious militancy” actually preached intolerance, sanctified violence against innocents by brazenly misquoting/distorting Islamic teachings. However, thanks to its effective propagation in madrassas [Islamic seminaries], this fundamentalist interpretation found widespread traction amongst talibs [students] in an impressionable age. Religious extremism thus took root within Pakistani society and spread like wildfire and several terrorist groups espousing such repugnant ideology mushroomed.

One such fanatical terrorist group is Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan [TTP] which shares Afghan Taliban’s skewed interpretation of Islam and wants to enforce it in Pakistan and therein lies the paradox- while Islamabad unconditionally endorses the regressive brand of Islam imposed by Afghan Taliban in Afghanistan, it doesn’t want TTP to do likewise in Pakistan. However, many locals in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province [which was a major religious indoctrination center since the late seventies] approve of TTP’s aim to establish sharia [Islamic religious laws] in Pakistan.

Rawalpindi’s Ambivalent Anti-Terrorism Policy

The Pakistan army makes it a point to repeatedly announce its zero-tolerance for terrorism and keeps reminding the world that it has made the maximum sacrifices in its war against terrorism. While the Pakistan army has definitely suffered inordinately high casualties due to terrorist violence, this doesn’t prove that its famous “We are going after terrorists of all hue and colour” claim made in 2014 during Operation Zarb-e-Azb anti-terrorist campaign in North Waziristan.

While the Pakistan army claimed to have killed more than 3,500 terrorists, surprisingly not even a single  terrorist belonging to the Haqqani network was either killed or captured. That BBC South Asia correspondent Andrew North’s news report was aptly captioned “All hues or some shades in North Waziristan” and mentioned that “… many reports, as well as footage obtained by the BBC, suggest some militants at least got away and some shades of “terrorist” may still be safe.” [Emphasis added].

Rather than taking the menace of terrorism by its horns, Rawalpindi has been brokering peace agreements with various terrorist groups like the Shakai agreement [2004], Sararogha Peace Agreement [2005], Waziristan Accord [2006] and Swat Agreement [2008]. The Pakistan army has also facilitated several unwritten peace deals; some such agreements include those with terrorist leaders Hafiz Gul Bahadur [North Waziristan], Faqir Muhammad [Bajaur Agency] and Lashkar-i-Islami [Khyber Agency].

The fact that despite making several concessions to terrorist groups, none of these agreements endured just goes to prove that terrorists can never be trusted. However, despite being repeatedly backstabbed, Rawalpindi continued to appease TTP and in its desperate bid to make peace with this terrorist group [which was responsible for killing 134 school children in the gruesome 2014 Army School Peshawar massacre],  even unconditionally released more than a 100 TTP fighters in its custody convicted for killing Pakistan army soldiers as well as civilians. 

Prognosis

Pakistan army chief Gen Syed Asim Munir has been waxing eloquent on Rawalpindi’s zero tolerance towards terrorism and promising to slay this dragon- just like his predecessors did. And faithfully following the footsteps of previous army chiefs, he too is busy blaming all and sundry for the sorry state of affairs instead of taking timely and resolute action to tackle this scourge. 

So as far as Pakistan army’s war on terror is concerned, Gen Munir has little to boast about other than attempting to discredit TTP by challenging its Islamic credentials and referring to it as Fitna al-Khawarij [the first religious-political breakaway group in the history of Islam]. He has also provided quasi-legitimacy to suppression to freedom of expression by coining the phrase “digital terrorism” to encompass actions that aim to create a gulf between state institutions and the people of Pakistan- a master stroke to muzzle growing public criticism of Pakistan army’s continuing meddling in political affairs and judicial matters.  

Till now, both Islamabad and Rawalpindi have been primarily accusing foreign powers for fuelling terrorism in Pakistan. However, Gen Munir has taken his ‘digital terrorism’ argument to a different level by classifying inimical forces working acting against national interests into “malicious actors, subversive proxies, and the facilitators of Pakistan’s external and internal adversaries” changing the existing outlook on this issue and preventing constructive criticism of institutions by equating the same with treason!

It’s therefore most likely that Rawalpindi will continue with its reactive anti-terrorism strategy based on indiscriminate use of brute force and terrorising people through enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings. That such an inhuman approach will only further aggravate the already precarious situation in Pakistan is obvious, but Rawalpindi doesn’t need to worry because l the blame can conveniently be apportioned on ‘digital terrorists’ and “malicious actors, subversive proxies, and the facilitators of Pakistan’s external and internal adversaries.” 

Tailpiece: Despite Rawalpindi’s bombastic rhetoric aimed at diverting public attention from reality, it’s abundantly clear that the people of Pakistan are suffering [and will unfortunately continue to do so], only because the Pakistan army failed to eschew its puerile ‘good Taliban’ philosophy. 

But Rawalpindi can’t complain that it wasn’t warned- in 2011, didn’t the then US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton during her Pakistan visit remind Pakistan army Generals that “You can’t keep snakes in your backyard and expect them only to bite your neighbors… eventually those snakes are going to turn on whoever has them in the backyard”?

Nilesh Kunwar

Nilesh Kunwar is a retired Indian Army Officer who has served in Jammu & Kashmir, Assam, Nagaland and Manipur. He is a ‘Kashmir-Watcher,’ and now after retirement is pursuing his favorite hobby of writing for newspapers, journals and think tanks.

Investing in clean air can saves lives and combat climate change

07 September 2024

The UN Secretary-General is marking ‘Clean Air Day’ with a call for global investment in solutions that tackle climate change and the increasing public health, environmental, and economic harm caused by air pollution.

This year’s International Day for Clean air and Blue SkiesOpens in new window, celebrated annually on 7 September, is focused on the theme ‘Invest in #CleanAirNow’ and highlights the economic, environmental and health benefits of investing in clean air.

The Day was established in 2019Opens in new window after the UN General Assembly noted how detrimental air pollutants are and recognised the importance of clean air for people’s lives.

UN chief António Guterres said pollution is a silent killer that can be stoppedOpens in new window and urged the world to “invest now, so we can breathe easy”.

Invest in clean air

Mr. Guterres highlighted how harmful pollution can be, noting that 99 per cent of humanity breathes polluted air which leads to millions of global premature deaths.

“Pollution is also choking economies and heating up our planet, adding fuel to the fire of the climate crisis,” the UN chief said. “And it disproportionally affects those most vulnerable in society, including women, children, and older persons.”

The Secretary-General said investing in clean air will take action from governments, businesses, development organizations and more at a regional and global level.

Mr. Guterres is encouraging the relevant stakeholders to decrease their use of fossil fuels, transition to clean cooking and increase air quality monitoring.
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“​​Investing in clean air saves lives, combats climate change, strengthens economies, builds fairer societies, and advances the Sustainable Development GoalsOpens in new window,” he said. “...let’s invest now so we can breathe easy knowing we are securing a healthier planet for all.”
Air quality and climate

Mr. Guterres’ message marking the international day highlights some of the challenges outlined in a new reportOpens in new window from the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMOOpens in new window), which details the impacts of climate change, wildfires and air pollution on human health.

The report noted that both the northern and southern hemispheres experienced “hyper-active wildfire seasons” in 2023 which caused numerous deaths and damaged livestock.

"The 2023 wildfire season set a multi-decade record in Canada in terms of total area burned, with seven times more hectares burned than the 1990–2013 average, according to the Canadian National Fire Database,” the report said.

The wildfires also worsened air quality in eastern Canada and the north-eastern United States.

For that reason, the WMO Deputy-Secretary-General Ko Barrett saidOpens in new window climate change and air quality cannot be treated separately.

“They go hand-in-hand and must be tackled together,” Ms. Barrett said. “It would be a win-win situation for the health of our planet, its people and our economies, to recognise the inter-relationship and act accordingly.”

‘It knows no borders’

Also recognising the need for global change as the international day for clear air approaches is the UN Environment Programme (UNEPOpens in new window) which described air pollution as the “biggest environmental health risk of our timeOpens in new window” noting that it worsens climate change, reduces agricultural productivity and causes economic loss.

Inger Andersen, UNEP’s Executive Director, said, “Every person on this planet has a right to breathe clean airOpens in new window, yet almost every person is having this right violated.”

Ms. Andersen echoed the UN chief’s call for there to be a global investment in clean air.

“We are asking nations and regions and cities to establish robust air quality standards,” she said.

“We are asking them to back renewable energy and sustainable transport to hold industry to account with strict emission standards, and to integrate air quality into climate action,” Ms. Andersen continued.

UNEP says if air pollution is tackled proactively, transformative change and healthy air can be achieved.

Fire breaks out at Kenya girls’ school days after inferno killed 21

A fire has broken out at a girls’ school in central Kenya just two days after a boarding school inferno killed 21 boys at another school.

Two days ago, a fire at a boys' boarding school killed at least 21 students 

[File: AP Photo]
Published On 7 Sep 20247 Sep 2024

Firefighters were battling a blaze at a girls’ school in central Kenya, just two days after an inferno killed 21 boys at another school.

The latest inferno, reported on Saturday evening, took place at Isiolo Girls High School, in Isiolo County in central Kenya.

At least 18 students killed in Kenya boarding school fire

Why have so many school fires occurred in Kenya?

“Around two to three buildings are on fire”, Isiolo County communications director Hussein Salesa told AFP news agency.

National police spokeswoman Resila Onyango said a fire incident had been reported at the school at around 8pm (17:00 GMT).

“Officers from Isiolo Sub County rushed to the scene and the fire has been contained with assistance by Kenya Defence Forces and Isiolo airport fire engines,” she said in a statement. “No injuries reported on the students and staff.”

The Kenya Red Cross also confirmed the incident, saying that a fire “has been reported” and that response teams have been “activated”.

Kenya’s Star news outlet reported that Saturday’s inferno “caused panic among parents and guardians even as locals rushed to the rescue of the students and property”.

The school lies about 140km (90 miles) to the northeast of the Hillside Endarasha Academy, where flames tore through a dormitory full of sleeping boys on Thursday night.

A fire ripped through the dormitory of a boarding school, killing at least 21 boys who were sleeping and injuring 27 others.
Do school fires occur frequently in Kenya?

Unfortunately, yes, particularly fires in boarding schools. In several cases, authorities have confirmed arson as the cause and have usually found students to be the culprits.

In 2016, Kenyan authorities documented 130 cases of school burnings related to student unrest. At least 63 arson cases were reported in 2018, according to parliamentary records.

The leading cause of school fires is arson, according to the findings of a study by University of Nairobi researcher Isaac Muasya. Faulty electrical appliances such as electric cookers and flammable substances such as cigarettes also pose a significant risk, Muasya’s study found.
Source: Al Jazeera and news agencies

Brazil's X ban drives outraged Bolsonaro supporters to rally for 'free speech'

A few thousand supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro have begun flooding Sao Paulo’s main boulevard for an Independence Day rally

ByELÉONORE HUGHES

 Associated Press

 and GABRIELA SÁ PESSOA Associated Press
September 7, 2024


SAO PAULO -- Supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro began flooding Sao Paulo’s main boulevard for an Independence Day rally Saturday, buoyed by the government's blocking of tech billionaire Elon Musk's X platform, a ban they say is proof of their political persecution.

A few thousand demonstrators, clad in the yellow-and-green colors of Brazil's flag, poured onto Av. Paulista. References to the ban on X and images of Musk abounded.

“Thank you for defending our freedom,” read one banner praising the tech entrepreneur.

Saturday’s march is a test of Bolsonaro’s capacity to mobilize turnout ahead of the October municipal elections, even though Brazil's electoral court has barred him from running for office until 2030. It's also something of a referendum on X, whose suspension has raised eyebrows even among some of Bolsonaro's opponents all the while stoking the flames of Brazil's deep-seated political polarization.

“A country without liberty can't celebrate anything this day,” Bolsonaro wrote on his Instagram account Sept 4., urging Brazilians to stay away from official independence day parades and instead join him in Sao Paulo.

Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered X’s nationwide ban on Aug. 30 after months of feuding with Musk over the limits of free speech. The powerful judge has spearheaded efforts to ban far-right users from spreading misinformation on social media, and he ramped up his clampdown after die-hard Bolsonaro supporters ransacked Congress and the presidential palace on Jan. 8, 2023, in an attempt to overturn Bolsonaro's defeat in the presidential election.

The ban is red meat to Bolsonaro’s allies, who have accused the judiciary and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s government of colluding to silence their movement.

“Elon Musk has been a warrior for freedom of speech,” staunch Bolsonaro ally and lawmaker Bia Kicis said in an interview. “The right is being oppressed, massacred, because the left doesn’t want the right to exist.”

“Our liberties are in danger, we need to make our voices heard. De Moraes is a tyrant, he should be impeached, and people on the streets is the only thing that will convince politicians to do it,” added retiree Amaro Santos as he walked down the thoroughfare Saturday,

Musk, a self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist,” has also urged Brazilians to turn out in droves for the rally, resharing someone else's post claiming that X’s ban had awakened people “to the fact that freedom isn’t free and needs to be fought for.” He's also created an X account, named for the controversial jurist, to publish sealed court orders directing X to shut down accounts deemed unlawful.

But De Moraes' decision to ban X was far from arbitrary, having been upheld by fellow Supreme Court justices. And while expression, online and elsewhere, is more easily censored under Brazil's laws than it is in the U.S., Musk has emerged as both a cause célèbre and a mouthpiece for unrestricted free speech.

Since 2019, X has shut down 226 accounts of far-right activities accused of undermining Brazil's democracy, including those of lawmakers affiliated with Bolsonaro’s party, according to court records.

But when it refused to take action on some accounts, de Moraes warned last month that its legal representative could be arrested, prompting X to disband its local office. The U.S.-based company refused to name a new representative — as required in order to receive court notices — and de Moraes ordered its nationwide suspension until it did so.

A Supreme Court panel unanimously upheld de Moraes’ decision to block X days later, undermining Musk's efforts to cast him as an authoritarian bent on censoring political speech.

The more controversial component of his ruling was the levy of a whopping $9,000 daily fine for regular Brazilians using virtual private networks (VPNs) to access X.

“Some of these measures that have been adopted by the Supreme Court appear to be quite onerous and abusive,” said Andrei Roman, CEO of Brazil-based pollster Atlas Intel.

In the lead-up to Saturday's protest, some right-wing politicians defied de Moraes’ ban and brazenly used a VPN to publish posts on X, calling for people to partake in the protests.

The march in Sao Paulo is organized in parallel to official events to celebrate Brazil’s anniversary of independence from Portugal. Commemorations have been fraught with tension in recent years, as Bolsonaro used them while in office to rally supporters and show political strength.

Three years ago, he threatened to plunge the country into a constitutional crisis when he declared he would no longer abide de Moraes' rulings. He has since toned down the attacks — a reflection of his own delicate legal situation.

Bolsonaro has been indicted twice since his term ended in 2022, most recently for alleged money laundering in connection with undeclared diamonds from Saudi Arabia. De Moraes is overseeing an investigation into the Jan. 8 riot, including whether Bolsonaro had a role in inciting it.

___

AP Writers Mauricio Savarese in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Joshua Goodman in Miami contributed to this report. Hughes reported from Rio de Janeiro.

The New York Review, of Books

Son of the Thin Man

Andrew Katzenstein, interviewed by Daniel Drake

“I suspect a lot of writers develop their style to offset qualities they otherwise find lacking in themselves.”


September 7, 2024

Andrew Katzenstein

This article is part of a regular series of conversations with the Review’s contributors; read past ones here and sign up for our e-mail newsletter to get them delivered to your inbox each week.

In our September 19 issue, Andrew Katzenstein writes about one of Hollywood’s most distinctive contributions to the world: “The hope is that in figuring out what we mean by ‘screwball comedy,’ we might be better able to understand just what it is about these films that transports us.” Surveying dozens of movies from the 1930s and 1940s—about quick-witted, love-smitten archaeologists, professors, reporters, heirs, heiresses, cardsharps, and gentlemen crooks—he tries to identify how the prewar era in studio filmmaking conspired to produce, in Pauline Kael’s words, a “steady flow of bright comedy.”

A former senior editor at the Review, Katzenstein is also a former musician and a frequent dabbler in the eclectic. In our pages he has written about, among many other subjects, the Brazilian novelist Machado de Assis, the European tradition of Kunstkammern, Alice Coltrane, and Thomas Bernhard, and, for Harper’s, Henrik Ibsen.

This week I e-mailed Katzenstein to ask him about Hollywood farces, what to watch when you’re depressed, and the sociability of writing.

Daniel Drake: What are your favorite screwball comedies?

Andrew Katzenstein: The Lady Eve is my favorite. Years ago I tried to memorize all the dialog—in case I ever found myself up the Amazon for a year, perhaps—and would often fall asleep while it played. I still find it a surprise and delight every time I watch it.

A favorite that I didn’t mention in the piece is Bachelor Mother. Ginger Rogers plays a department store worker who picks up a crying baby on the doorstep of an orphanage; everyone assumes the child is hers. It has an excellent cast (including David Niven and Charles Coburn) and script (by Norman Krasna, who had worked at Macy’s while in law school). It also doubles as a satire of the Production Code: Rogers’s supposed moral transgression makes fools out of those who are eager to find offense wherever they look, and the farce allows the movie to get away with a comic plot involving an unwed mother, which the Production Code Administration (PCA) would have otherwise suppressed.

If you had to hazard a definition of screwball—and perhaps a transhistorical one, which might allow for a modern film to be a screwball—what might it be?

Screwball comedy tends to slip out of whatever bounds critics put it in. Criteria that are too rigid prompt readers to come up with counterexamples, while criteria that are too loose can make a definition seem arbitrary. Genres are porous, and screwball comedy contains elements of other comedy subgenres—in fact, it emerged when a bunch of different styles came together in 1930s Hollywood. So a definition has to be precise yet flexible.

The most important aspects of the genre to me are its treatment of love plots—which are central to the films yet portrayed as a source of humor rather than sentimentality—along with the pace and variety of jokes. The humor in screwball comedies is a mix of high and low, with the sort of sophisticated dialog typical of 1920s Broadway drawing-room comedies mingling with cruder wordplay, as well as with silent-era slapstick and French bedroom farce. Screwball films, at least the good ones, never depend on just one type of gag, which is part of what makes them such a pleasure to watch.

Not coincidentally, I fell in love with the genre during periods of depression; the shifting styles of humor kept me engaged in a way few other films or TV shows could. The frantic first act of His Girl Friday may be the best distraction from melancholy that I’ve encountered. That film’s ending, with Rosalind Russell’s Hildy realizing she can never escape her adrenaline addiction even though she’s desperate to settle down, is also rather satisfying if you’re in a dark mood.

As I try to argue in the piece, what seems essential to the screwball style isn’t the existence of a particular censoring body such as the PCA (as some critics have argued) but the focus on social conventions and the awkward ways people try to get around them. The PCA forced writers to address this in a particularly energetic fashion, but every era has its rules and taboos, which are great targets for comedy.

The twenty-first-century film that best exemplifies screwball qualities is probably Intolerable Cruelty, the 2003 Coen brothers movie about a divorce lawyer and a gold digger who fall in love. Romance is treated as a game whose goals are sexual gratification and financial gain. Everyone is plotting something and no one says what they mean, so the constant deceit and circumlocution provide opportunities for all manner of wordplay, which the Coens have such a good ear for. George Clooney is rare among modern stars for his ability to make himself into a complete ass while remaining attractive, a feat that actors like William Powell and Cary Grant accomplished over and over again. Because the story’s legal trappings force a kind of propriety on the characters, the film’s style evokes the tactics screwball writers and directors employed to get around the censors.


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I understand that, in writing this essay, you watched nearly all of the 136 films identified by Grégoire Halbout in his book about the genre as the only screwball comedies. Why do you favor a sort of definitive, deadlift approach to writing an essay like this? Is it simply to be sure you don’t miss a trick?

I watched around eighty or ninety of Halbout’s 136 before writing the piece—enough, I suppose, to leave the impression that I’d seen more.

I don’t have credentials, there’s no reason why anyone would care what I think, yet I’m asking for readers’ attention. Having a handle on a subject just seems like part of the job. I have broad interests but shallow knowledge, and I often take on projects in a fit of delusional enthusiasm, which leaves me feeling like an interloper when the work begins. Research is necessary for me to believe I’m giving my subject and those who have written on it the respect they deserve. The odds are always high that someone has already said what I want to say, so it seems necessary to familiarize myself with the literature and give credit where it’s due.

Plus, the more I’ve read (or watched, or listened to), the easier it is to avoid repeating obvious facts that everybody mentions and that readers may already know. What’s the point of writing something that’s already been written?

Aside from a particular emphasis on jazz, your CV is charmingly hodgepodge. How do you decide what to write about? Is there a thread uniting your interests?

Sometimes I think of writing as an exorcism, a way of taking control of something that’s been consuming me. That was the case with the screwball piece. Other times I just think it would be fun to learn about something.

I’m constitutionally a dilettante, and I suffer from chronic esprit de l’escalier. Writing forces me to learn in a methodical way and allows me to speak in extreme slow motion (at least compared to conversation). I suspect a lot of writers develop their style to offset qualities they otherwise find lacking in themselves.

I knew you first as an editor—how do think your long experience editing has affected your approach to writing?

Editing is largely a rehearsal of all the ways a piece of writing might be misunderstood. In a mainstream publication like the Review, your readers are intelligent nonspecialists; you have to give them enough information to follow you without being condescending. If I learned to strike that balance in my own writing, it was by working with other editors at the magazine and learning to anticipate the sorts of things that might cause confusion. Sometimes this means spending most of the space you have on exposition rather than argumentation (which is very different from the kind of writing one has to do in school, where the person reading your work is already familiar with the subject), so you have to set up your argument by arranging facts carefully and with a kind of drama.

Editing also taught me that writing is an extremely social pursuit, not a solitary one. As in any workplace, you depend on people who have plenty of other things to worry about. Writing sloppily is like leaving a mess for someone else to clean up. The more I do to ensure that my writing is clean, easy to follow, and well-sourced, the easier it will be for the staff to get it to press. Of course, I still make mistakes and cause confusion, and I’m grateful when editors save me from myself.

What are you reading these days?

Mostly books for pieces I’m writing, and way too much political news. I did recently find a copy of The Scarith of Scornello, by Ingrid Rowland, at a library book sale. It’s about a Tuscan teenager who created fake Etruscan artifacts in the early seventeenth century and insisted on their authenticity despite numerous objections from scholars. It’s a surprising and informative history told like a true crime mystery, and, like everything Rowland writes, it’s a pleasure to read.


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Andrew Katzenstein

Andrew Katzenstein is a former member of the editorial staff of The New York Review. (September 2024)

Daniel Drake

Daniel Drake is on the editorial staff of The New York Review of Books.

 

End the violence, distribute natural resources wealth fairly, pope tells PNG

BenarNews Staff
2024.09.07

Pope Francis delivers his speech at APEC Haus in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)

 AP Photo/Mark Baker

The head of the Catholic Church Pope Francis has highlighted Papua New Guinea’s inequality and instability and called for an end to tribal violence during a public speech in the capital Port Moresby.

Speaking to government authorities and diplomats and huge crowds of PNG people, he also spoke out on women’s equality, fair distribution of wealth from natural resources and resolution of Bougainville’s independence aspirations.

He said it was his particular hope that tribal violence will come to an end, “for it causes many victims, prevents people from living in peace and hinders development.”

Pope Francis is presented with a wooden model of a traditional boat outside the APEC Haus in Port Moresby, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024, as he arrives with Papua New Guinea's Governor General Bob Dadae, left. [Gregorio Borgia/AP]

Deadly clashes between tribes regularly occur in the Pacific island nation of about 12 million people, including 49 killed in February in the mountainous Highlands. At least 16 people died in rioting in the capital Port Moresby a month earlier.

Stability for Papua New Guinea, which gained its independence from Australia in 1975, has remained elusive as it grapples with challenges such as corruption and lack of roads and basic healthcare in many regions. 

The Pope amended his written remarks, according to Associated Press, to include violence against women, saying women “are the ones who carry the country forward they give life, build and grow a country, let us not forget the women who are on the front line of human and spiritual development”

People dressed in traditional attire wait for the arrival of Pope Francis at Caritas Technical Secondary School in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024. [Mark Baker/AP]

Domestic violence affects more than two-thirds of women in Papua New Guinea. In March 2019, more than 200 domestic violence and sexual violence cases were reported in Lae and Port Moresby, where over 23 murders alone were attributed to domestic violence.

The Pope singled out PNG’s rich natural resources which he said were “destined by God for the entire community. “

 “Even if outside experts and large international companies must be involved in the harnessing of these resources, it is only right that the needs of local people are given due consideration when distributing the proceeds and employing workers, in order to improve their living conditions” he said.

He appealed for the people of PNG to embark on the path that leads to fruitful cooperation for the benefit of all the people of the country.

The Pope also referred to the autonomous state of Bougainville, which is seeking independence from the PNG Central Government. An estimated 10,000-15,000 people died in a decade-long civil war between Bougainville and Papua New Guinea that ended with a peace agreement in 2001.

The Pope said fruitful cooperation can create the conditions in which the question of the status of Bougainville Island can also find a definitive solution while avoiding the rekindling of ancient tensions.

Pope Francis meets performers outside the APEC Haus in Port Moresby, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024, where Pope Francis and Papua New Guinea's Governor General Bob Dadae attended a traditional dance performance. [Gregorio Borgia/AP]

Today is the first full day of the Pope’s two-day visit to PNG, a country of devout Christians, of whom an estimated 31-percent are Catholics. 

Followers have walked for days through remote mountains while others have made long journeys by canoe to see the Pope.

Tomorrow the Pope will hold an open-air mass which is expected to be attended by thousands in the Sir John Guise stadium in the capital before flying to the border town of Vanimo for a brief visit. He departs Port Moresby on Monday morning. 

Francis is on an 11-day, four nation tour that began in Indonesia, he will head to East Timor next before his final stop in Singapore

Visiting Papua New Guinea, pope says

 natural resources must benefit all

By AFP
September 7, 2024


The 87-year-old pope is on a marathon 12-day visit to the Asia-Pacific - Copyright AFP Tiziana FABI
Clément MELKI

Pope Francis visited Papua New Guinea Saturday, where he called for vast natural resources to benefit the “entire community” — a politically charged demand in a nation where many believe their riches are being stolen or squandered.

Addressing political and business leaders, the 87-year-old pontiff hailed his hosts as being rich in culture and in natural resources — a nod to vast reserves of gold, copper, nickel, gas and timber.

But, he suggested, the tens of billions of dollars made from digging, dredging and drilling the earth needed to benefit more than a fraction of the country’s 12 million people.

“These goods are destined by God for the entire community,” Pope Francis said.

Despite its resource wealth, Papua New Guinea is one of the poorest countries in the Pacific.

Between a quarter and half the population lives in extreme poverty. Scarcely more than 10 percent of homes have electricity.

Even if “outside experts and large international companies must be involved in the harnessing of these resources”, they should not be the only ones to benefit, the pope said.

“It is only right that the needs of local people are given due consideration when distributing the proceeds and employing workers, to improve their living conditions,” he added.

It is a message likely to resonate with millions of Catholics in Papua New Guinea — and with millions more in resource-rich regions of Africa, Latin America and elsewhere.

Twenty-two-year-old pilgrim Jonathan Kais, from Manus Island, welcomed the pope’s remarks and said he hoped they would spur the government to provide better services.

“The service we receive in our villages by our leaders at the parliament, it’s not much (compared to) what they are getting from the resources of the country,” he told AFP.



– ‘Poverty hardly changed’ –



For decades, Papua New Guinea has been dotted with vast American, Australian, Canadian, European and Chinese-run mines.

A $19 billion project led by ExxonMobil has produced tens of millions of tonnes of liquified natural gas since operations began in 2014.

But economists have found little evidence that any of the projects have helped poor Papua New Guineans.

A recent World Bank study showed that between 2009 and 2018, the country’s gross domestic product per person grew by more than a third on the back of the resource boom.

“Poverty hardly changed over that time,” the report’s authors said.



– ‘Spiral of violence’ –



Pope Francis is on a marathon 12-day visit to the Asia-Pacific, visiting Indonesia, East Timor and Singapore as he promotes interfaith dialogue and embraces regions on the periphery of world affairs.

On Saturday he also made a plea for Papua New Guineans to “stop the spiral” of tribal violence that has killed untold numbers of people and displaced tens of thousands more.

“It is my particular hope that tribal violence will come to an end,” he said.

“It causes many victims, prevents people from living in peace and hinders development.”

There are few reliable estimates as to how many people have died during decades of tribal unrest between dozens of clans in the country’s Highlands.

But UN agencies estimate that about 100,000 people have been displaced by the cycle of retaliatory attacks, which have intensified in recent years.

The murders are often extremely violent, with victims hacked by machetes, burned, mutilated or tortured. Civilians, including pregnant women and children, have been targeted in the past.

An influx of mercenaries and automatic weapons has made clashes much more deadly. Where bows, spears and clubs were once the weapons of choice, now tribesmen have a veritable armoury of SLR, AK-47, and M16 rifles.

Papua New Guinea’s stretched government has tried suppression, mediation, gun amnesties and a range of other strategies to control the situation, with little success.

But experts say the violence has little to do with ancient customs, and is more about the modern problems of a surging population, a breakdown in traditional rules of war, joblessness and the rising cost of living.

And there is growing concern that violence is spreading to other parts of the country.

In July, at least 27 people — among them 11 children — were massacred in Angoram District, not far from the northern coast.

Pope calls for greater care of indigenous

 populations in Papua New Guinea


Pope Francis visits Street Ministry and Callan Services in the Caritas Technical Secondary School in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, Saturday. Photo by Alessandro Di Meo/EPA-EFE

Sept. 7 (UPI) -- Pope Francis said the world needs to address climate change while visiting the Pacific Island nation of Papua New Guinea, which is partly endangered by a rising Pacific Ocean.

The Pope began his visit Friday in the nation where islanders living near coastal areas might have to relocate if waters rise too much. It's the Pope's second stop during an 11-day tour of four nations in the region.

Deforestation and pollution from mining operations also are affecting the nation's water supplies.

"Climate change is real," Papua New Guinea Governor-General Bob Dadae told the Pope Saturday in Port Moresby. "The rise in the sea level is affecting the livelihoods of our people.

He asked Francis. 87, to advocate for nations to do more to counteract climate change and exploitation of natural resources.

"While foreign companies are involved in resource extraction, it is only fair that local populations benefit from the income and labor to improve their living conditions," Francis said while advocating for the "common good" for all people.

The Pope also called for greater recognition of the roles women fulfill in Papua New Guinea and other nations.

Women "are the ones who carry the country forward, give life, build and grow a country," Francis said.

While meeting with Bishops, clergy and others later Saturday, Francis said it's important to care for the "marginalized and wounded,both morally and physically, by prejudice and superstition."

Pope Francis also visited the Shrine of Mary, Help of Christians, in Port Moresby Saturday, where he praised the work of missionaries to brought Christianity to the island nation.

"It is thanks to them, to their starts and restarts,that we are here and that despite the current challenges ... we continue to move forward without fear, knowing we are not alone," Francis said.

Francis traveled to Papua New Guinea after visiting Indonesia during his tour of four nations in Southeast Asia and Oceania from Monday through Thursday.

On Sunday, the pope will travel to Vanimo, a city in the northwesternmost province of Papua New Guinea.

The 11-day trip is the longest Francis has undertaken while Pope and concludes with visits to East Timor and Singapore.

A Lawsuit Promises Justice for Rio Tinto’s Mining Disaster in Bougainville. Some Say It’s Nothing But a Cash Grab.

The Panguna mine made a fortune but left war and pollution in its wake. A new lawsuit backed by anonymous investors is now seeking billions in compensation – and raising concerns about who stands to benefit.


Two young women gave their accounts of rape by Russian soldiers to the Kyiv Independent, who set out to identify those responsible.

Reported by
Aubrey Belford (OCCRP)
August 1st, 2024

High in the forested mountains of Papua New Guinea’s Bougainville Island lies an abandoned, kilometer-wide crater cut deep into the earth.

Formerly one of the world’s largest gold and copper mines, the open pit now serves as an unsightly monument to the environmental and social chaos that underground riches can create.

Run for years by a subsidiary of Anglo-Australian giant Rio Tinto, the Panguna mine earned millions for Papua New Guinea (PNG) and helped bankroll its newfound independence. But it also poured waste into local waterways and fuelled anger among locals who felt robbed of the profits. When an armed uprising ultimately shuttered the mine in 1989, the impoverished island was left reeling.

Nearly three decades later, in late 2022, human rights activists, the local government, and the mine’s former operators joined forces to produce a definitive assessment of the mine’s toxic legacy. Their report, due to be released later this month, will become the basis for negotiations aimed at getting the mining companies to finally clean up the mess and compensate affected communities.

But its supporters now worry their efforts will be undermined by a class-action lawsuit launched in May against the mine’s erstwhile operators. The legal effort is being championed by former rebel leaders — and backed by anonymous offshore investors who stand to make hundreds of millions of dollars if it succeeds.

The lawsuit is part of a worldwide boom in litigation financing that seeks to take multinational companies to task for ecological or social damage while potentially reaping a fortune for lawyers and funders.

Critics in Bougainville worry the lawsuit will reopen old wounds at a time when the island is making a push to break free of PNG and become the world’s newest sovereign nation. Many Bougainvilleans are hoping to reopen the mine, using its wealth to fund their own independence this time around.

The region’s government and many local leaders believe the class action could put the mine’s revival at risk. There are also concerns the lawsuit would leave many Bougainvilleans empty handed, while the anonymous foreign investors would walk away with a significant share of the payout.

Unlike the official assessment, which seeks to identify everyone who needs to be compensated, the class action will only share its winnings — which could potentially be in the billions of dollars — with the locals who have signed on. Others will get nothing.

“There’s already fragmentation in the community and families are already divided,” said Theonila Roka Matbob, who represents the area around Panguna in the island’s parliament and has helped lead the government-backed assessment process as a minister in the Autonomous Bougainville government.

She speaks from personal experience. The chief litigant in the class-action lawsuit, Martin Miriori, is her uncle. The two are no longer on speaking terms.

A Losing Deal

Gouged from Bougainville’s lush volcanic heart, the Panguna mine in its heyday supplied as much as 45 percent of PNG’s export revenue, providing it with the financial means to achieve independence from Australia in 1975.

The windfall, however, didn’t extend to Bougainvilleans themselves. Ethnically and culturally distinct from the rest of PNG’s population, they saw Panguna as a symbol of external domination. The mine delivered only a miserly 2-percent share of its profits to their island — along with years of environmental havoc.

Locals walk by buildings left abandoned by a subsidiary of Rio Tinto at the Panguna mine site.

 (Photo: Aubrey Belford/OCCRP)

During the 17 years of Panguna’s operation — from 1972 to 1989 — over a billion metric tons of toxic mine waste and electric blue copper runoff flooded rivers that flowed downstream towards communities of subsistence farmers. The result was poisoned drinking water, infertile land, and children who were drowned or injured trying to cross engorged waterways.

In 1989, enraged Bougainville locals launched an armed rebellion against the PNG government. The mine was shut down, closing off a vital source of revenue for the national government in Port Moresby. A brutal civil war raged on for nearly a decade, leaving more than 15,000 people dead, while a naval blockade by PNG’s military obliterated the island’s economy.

A peace deal in 2000 granted Bougainville substantial autonomy. But nearly a quarter-century later, the legacy of Panguna and the war it provoked is still deeply felt.

There are few paved roads and bridges in the island’s interior. Residents earn a modest living through cocoa and coconut farming, or by unregulated artisanal mining in and around the abandoned Panguna crater. Rivers polluted by years of runoff are still an otherworldly shade of milky blue.

At least 300,000 people are estimated to live on Bougainville, including as many as 15,000 who live downstream of the mine. Of those, some 4,500 have joined Miriori — Roka’s estranged uncle and a tribal leader whose brother, Joseph Kabui, served as the first president of autonomous Bougainville — in seeking restitution through the class-action suit.

“We've got to make people happy,” Miriori said. “They've lost their land forever, environment forever. Their hunting grounds. Their spiritual, sacred grounds.”

M

artin Miriori, the primary litigant in the class action lawsuit. (Photo: Aubrey Belford/OCCRP)

‘Alert to Opportunities’

Miriori took many by surprise when he became the public face of the suit filed in PNG’s National Court in May against Rio Tinto and its former local subsidiary, Bougainville Copper Limited.

While the tribal leader and former rebel is a well-known figure in Bougainville, the funders of the lawsuit are not. They have managed to keep their identities secret in part because the company behind the suit, Panguna Mine Action LLC, is registered on Nevis, a small Caribbean island that does not require companies to publicly disclose their shareholders and directors.

Miriori declined to comment on who was behind the company, saying, “I will not tell you where the funding is based … you can source that from our people down there [in Australia].”

James Sing, an Australian based in New York, is Panguna Mine Action’s chief public representative. He initially agreed to an interview, but later referred reporters back to a London-based public relations agency, Sans Frontières Associates. The agency declined to reveal Panguna Mine Action’s investors.

Litigation funding documents obtained by OCCRP, however, shed some light on the history of the case. The documents show that Panguna Mine Action began to investigate the possibility of a class-action suit as early as July 2021. The Bougainvillean claimants, led by Miriori, were formally brought into an agreement with the company and its Australian and PNG lawyers in November 2022. The suit was publicly announced this May.

The lawsuit’s investors stand to profit handsomely from any eventual settlement: Panguna Mine Action is poised to receive a cut of 20 to 40 percent of any payout resulting from the suit, with the percentage increasing the longer the process takes, the funding documents show. In interviews and statements, both Miriori and Panguna Mine Action have put the potential value of any award in the billions of dollars.

The lawsuit’s financiers defend their substantial share of the potential benefits as standard practice. “The costs of launching and running the class action against a global miner are significant, and almost certainly could not be met from within Bougainville without funding from an external party,” the company said in its statement. Panguna Mine Action added it would bear sole responsibility for costs if the lawsuit is unsuccessful.

According to Michael Russell, a Sydney-based class action defense lawyer, such funding arrangements are typical in the burgeoning world of litigation finance, where investors seek out cases that promote virtuous social causes while offering huge potential payoffs.

A similar case is unfolding in Latin America, where more than 720,000 Brazilians are seeking $46.5 billion as part of a gargantuan class action suit against mining giant BHP and its local subsidiary for their role in a 2015 dam collapse.

In such cases, funders can justify walking away with significant cuts of any winnings because of the substantial risk they face of losing their investment if a case fails, Russell said.

Such cases are rarely initiated at the grassroots level by the victims themselves, he added.

“Most of the time, either the plaintiff firms or the funders will be the catalyst for a claim,” he said. “They are very alert to opportunities.”

Rival Restitution Plans

Government officials including Miriori’s niece, Roka, say the class-action case, which is due to hold opening arguments in October, threatens to derail the ongoing impact assessment aimed at calculating the full cost of the mine’s environmental impact and developing recommendations for addressing the damage.

The assessment, which counts community members among its stakeholders and bills itself as an independent review, is supported by Australia’s Human Rights Law Centre, who has hailed the project as “an important step” towards rectifying the mine’s devastating impact on thousands of Bougainvilleans.

However, while Rio Tinto and Bougainville Copper are both funding the project, they have not yet committed to paying for any compensation or cleanup. Roka said she was concerned the lawsuit could reduce the company’s willingness to engage with the process, since it could view the assessment as a tool that could be used against them in the courtroom.

The island’s president, Ishmael Toroama, backs the impact assessment and has lambasted the class-action suit as the work of “faceless investors… taking advantage of vulnerable groups.” (His office did not respond to an interview request.)

He also expressed concern that the court proceedings threaten to “disrupt” his government's efforts to reopen the mine, which still holds an estimated $60 billion in untapped deposits. Bougainville’s leaders see the mine as key to securing the island’s economic future as it sets out to form an independent state – a dream that drew overwhelming public support in a 2019 referendum.

Earlier this year Toroama’s government granted Bougainville Copper a five-year exploration license for the Panguna site.

The lack of media and polling in Bougainville make it hard to measure public opinion on plans to reactivate the mine, but many locals appear to support reopening it under local control as an essential tool for achieving independence.

Bougainville Copper’s brand is still toxically associated with Rio Tinto and its past abuses, despite the fact that the international mining giant gave away its majority stake for no money in 2016. The publicly traded company is now majority co-owned by the governments of PNG and Bougainville, and Port Moresby has pledged to hand over all its shares to the autonomous region in the near future.

Panguna Mine Action acknowledges that its effort could stand in the way of the mine’s reopening — but the company says that’s a good thing.

“It is our understanding that the people of Bougainville do not wish mining to be recommenced under any circumstances or, alternatively, unless Rio Tinto and Bougainville Copper acknowledge the past, pay compensation and remediate the rivers and surrounding valley,” the company said in a statement.

Rio Tinto declined to comment. Mel Togolo, the chairman of Bougainville Copper, told OCCRP that the lawsuit was the work of “a foreign funder who no doubt is seeking a return on an investment.”

View of the tailings located downstream of the Panguna mine. (Photo: Aubrey Belford/OCCRP)

‘Only Those Who Have Signed Will Benefit’


The fight over Panguna adds even more uncertainty to long-running anxiety over Bougainville’s future.

With global copper prices soaring on high demand for renewable energy and electric vehicles, the Panguna mine would be an attractive prize for both Western mining companies and firms from China, which is dramatically expanding its influence in the South Pacific.

Since a future Bougainvillean state would be economically dependent on the mine’s revenue, some have raised concerns that control of the mine could become a proxy battle for geopolitical influence in the broader region.

For his part, Miriori expressed little concern that a multibillion-dollar payout might stir resentment by reaching only a fraction of the people affected by the mine’s environmental destruction.

“Only those who signed will benefit,” he said, adding that the opportunity was made “very clear to people” through awareness campaigns.

“Those who have not signed, it’s their freedom of choice.”

A family panning for gold in the polluted waters of the Jaba River, which flows from the Panguna mine. (Photo: Friedrich Stark/Alamy Stock Photo)

Among those who didn’t sign is Wendy Bowara, 48, who lives in Dapera, a bleak settlement built on a hill of mine waste. Bowara said she is looking to the government-backed assessment, not the lawsuit, to deliver compensation and clean up Panguna’s toxic legacy.

“We are living on top of chemicals,” she said. “Copper concentration is high. I don’t know if the food is good to eat or if it’s healthy to drink the water.”

But while it may seem odd given her grim surroundings, Borawa says she strongly supports reopening the mine.

“It funded the independence of Papua New Guinea,” Bowara said. “Why can’t we use it to fund our own independence?”

Allan Gioni contributed reporting.

'OVERWHELMING SUPPORT': 

National Fraternal Order of Police endorses Trump

Sep 7, 2024

 #foxnews

National Fraternal Order of Police President Patrick Yoes sheds light on their endorsement of former President Trump and weighs in on Vice President Harris' approach to crime.

'History made': Fraternal Order of Police blasted for endorsing criminal Donald Trump

Sarah K. Burris
September 6, 2024 


Former President Donald Trump arrives for an arraignment hearing at NYS Supreme Court on April 4, 2023, in New York. - Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images North America/TNS

As Donald Trump speaks to the Fraternal Order of Police roundtable in North Carolina Friday after the group endorsed him, one reporter noted that they made history by endorsing a criminal.

Trump was found guilty by a New York jury on 34 felony counts of business fraud.

"Here it is: Fraternal Order of Police just endorsed a criminal. History made," wrote Huffington Post reporter S.V. Dáte.

"Yep. And the Fraternal Order of Police just endorsed someone who also sent people to attack the police on January 6th," agreed former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-FL).

Read Also: DeJoy faces pain over postal 'crime wave

NBC News reporter Ryan Reilly also pointed out, "The Fraternal Order of Police has endorsed Donald Trump, who has repeatedly said he would pardon criminals convicted in a violent riot that injured dozens upon dozens of police officers and resulted in officers' deaths."

Capitol Police Officer Michael Fanone revealed in 2021 that after the attack on him and other officers, the FOP didn't contact him.

"I finally picked up the phone and called the president of the national FOP, Patrick Yoes and, and described to him the displeasure I felt that there was no outreach being done not only to myself but to other officers," said Fanone in an interview with CNN. "And I asked him to do a few things to make up for that lack of support, and he was unwilling to do any of them. I asked him to publicly denounce the 21 house Republicans that voted against the gold medal bill."

He also asked the FOP to shut down Rep. Paul Gosar's (R-AZ) attacks on officers, whom he said were involved in the shooting death of Capitol rioter Ashli Babbitt.


The Justice Department's investigation into the shooting declared it justified.

'Equal And Loud': Pride Marchers In Belgrade Press Demands For Rights

Participants in the Pride parade in Belgrade on September 7

BELGRADE -- Thousands of LGBT supporters turned out on September 7 for a Pride march in Belgrade, where organizers said their demands that the government pass laws to recognize same-sex unions and gender identity remain their top priorities.

Marchers waved rainbow flags as they walked along a route secured by a heavy police presence behind a colorful banner with the phrase "Pride Means People" in Serbian. Several beat drums, while others held posters with phrases such as, “No one is free until everyone is free,” and, “Love wins.”


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One poster called for people in Serbia’s LGBT community to have the same rights as Ana Brnabic, the former prime minister and current parliament speaker, who is openly lesbian.

Filip Vulovic, one of the organizers of the march, said participants wanted it to be “equal and loud."

The march ended without any incidents after passing by the Serbian parliament building and the building that houses the presidency, pointing out the discrimination and violence faced by LGBT people.

Four government ministers, including Tanja Miscevic, who is in charge of Serbia's EU integration, took part. In a statement, Miscevic said the government is discussing the Law On Same-Sex Unions in the context of the experiences of other countries that have introduced similar laws.

"It is a matter of protection of a part of citizens who must be equal in law with other citizens," she said.

A small group of opponents of the Pride march gathered in the center of Belgrade, carrying church symbols, Serbian flags, and a banner that read: "Parade Humiliation." A police cordon prevented them from getting close to the march.

Goran Miletic, a spokesman for the organizers of the march, said the LGBT community has eight demands this year, but the most important is the adoption of the Law On Same-Sex Unions and the Law On Gender Identity.

Among the other demands are an improvement in health care for transgender people and public condemnation of government representatives for spreading hate speech.

SEE ALSO:
Serbia's Conservatives Seek Textbook Ban Over 'LGBT Ideology'

“I want to live freely and authentically," said Ana Jovanovic, a member of the organizing committee, saying that as a trans woman in Serbia she faces obstacles that make her life difficult.

"My path was not easy, but I am here to raise my voice on behalf of those who cannot be heard,” she said.

Police began deploying for this year’s Belgrade Pride march, which was held under the slogan "Pride Is People," on September 6, blocking traffic on the streets in the capital that were on the march route.

Homosexuality was decriminalized in Serbia in 1994, but LGBT people say they still experience repression and violence.

There were 85 incidents last year in Serbia that were motivated by hatred toward LGBT people, according to data compiled by the Da Se Zna (Let It Be Known) group, which documents violence and discrimination motivated by homophobia and transphobia. The NGO said most incidents are not reported to authorities due to distrust in institutions.

Human Rights Watch warned in a report in early 2024 that LGBT people in Serbia face intolerance, threats, and violence, and the ombudsman of Serbia highlighted on the eve of the Pride march the need for stronger institutional support for LGBT people to prevent violence and other forms of discriminatory behavior to which they are still exposed.

A proposed law that would enable LGBT people to register as partners is pending. The Green-Left Front sent the proposal to the Serbian parliament last year, but the government has not brought it up for debate.

The law would allow same-sex couples some of the basic rights heterosexual couples have with regard to property, inheritance, and decision-making in case of illness. Right-wing parties and organizations and the Serbian Orthodox Church oppose the proposed law.

President Aleksandar Vucic said in August 2023 that he would not sign it, saying it would create "some third gender where you're not a man or a woman."

Pride march held in conservative Serbia under heavy police protection

A Pride march in Serbia’s capital of Belgrade has pressed for the demand that the government improve rights for the LGBTQ+ community who often face harassment and discrimination in the highly conservative Balkan country

By JOVANA GEC

 Associated Press
September 7, 2024,


BELGRADE, Serbia -- A Pride march on Saturday in Serbia's capital pressed for the demand that the populist government improve the rights of the LGBTQ+ community who often face harassment and discrimination in the highly conservative Balkan country.

The march in central Belgrade was held under heavy police protection because of possible attacks from right-wing extremists. Organizers said assailants had assaulted a young gay man in Belgrade two days ago and took away his rainbow flag in the latest incident.

Serbia is formally seeking entry into the European Union but its democratic record is poor. Serbia's LGBTQ+ community is demanding that authorities pass a law allowing same-sex partnerships and boosting other rights.

“We can't even walk freely without heavy (police) cordons securing the gathering,” said Ivana Ilic Sunderic, a resident of Belgrade.

The event on Saturday was held under the slogan ‘Pride are people.’ It also included a concert and a party after the march.

Participants carried rainbow flags and various banners as they danced to loud music played from a truck at the front. The crowd passed by the Serbian government headquarters and the National Assembly building.

Dozens of Russians, who fled the war in Ukraine and the regime of President Vladimir Putin, also could be seen at the march. Mikhail Afanasev said that it was good to be there despite the Belgrade Pride being cordoned off by police.

“I came from Russia where I am completely prohibited as person, as gay, (a) human being,” he said, referring to the pressure on gay people in Putin's Russia. "We want to love, we want to live in a free society, and to have those rights, like all other people have.”

No incidents were reported. Regional N1 television said that a small group of opponents sang nationalist and religious songs at one point along the route, carrying a banner that read: Parade-Humiliation.

Western ambassadors in Serbia, opposition politicians and liberal ministers from the Serbian government joined the event. But the right-wing Belgrade mayor openly opposed the Pride gathering.


Pride marches in Belgrade had been marked in the past by tensions and sometimes skirmishes and clashes between extremist groups and police. The populist government of President Aleksandar Vucic in 2022 first banned a pan-European pride event in Belgrade but later backed down and allowed the march to take place.