The Louse That Halted an Army in Russia BY CESAR CHELALA

The disastrous effects of the Russian invasion on Napoleon Bonaparte’s army are well known. Less widely known are the reasons for the defeat of Napoleon’s Grand Army. Although Russian resistance, brutal weather and the lack of food and water decimated the French army, new genetic evidence proves that Pediculus humanus, otherwise known as body lice, had a key role in the debacle. Years ago, researchers led by Dr. Didier Raoult unearthed 2 kg of material containing bone fragments, clothing remnants, and segments of body lice from soldiers buried in a mass grave in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. Analysis of the material proves that almost one-third of those buried there were affected by louse-born infections such as typhus and trench fever. Raoult and his colleagues from the University of the Mediterranean, Marseille, France, studied segments of body lice as well as the dental pulp from soldiers’ teeth. The dental pulp revealed DNA from Bartonella quintana and Rickettsia prowazekii, the agents that cause trench fever and epidemic typhus, respectively. When the DNA of such pathogens is present in teeth, the team concluded, it is very likely that the organism was the cause of death. Typhus fever and typhoid fever are two different entities. While typhoid fever is a water-borne disease caused by a bacillus, typhus fever derives from a class of organisms that are carried by lice and are between a large bacterium and a virus in size. Under epidemic conditions, the typhus mortality rate nears 100 percent. In 1812, Napoleon marched into Russia with 500,000 soldiers, leading what up to then had been Europe’s largest army. By the time the French army reached Moscow, only 90,000 soldiers out of a central force of more than 300,000 remained. Conquering Moscow proved to be a Pyrrhic victory, for most of the capital’s citizens had already abandoned the city and set fire to it. There was almost no food, no shelter, and typhus raged among the soldiers. The only option was retreat. Until recently, it had been assumed that Russia’s brutal winter was one of the main causes of the French soldiers’ deaths. This idea had been buttressed by Napoleon’s report to the Senate on Dec. 20, 1812: “My army has had some losses, but this was due to the premature rigor of the season.” He thus tried to deflect criticism of his bad decisions during the campaign. One decision that proved particularly costly was to continue the march toward Moscow despite tremendous loss of life during the march and his own generals’ desperate pleas to halt the invasion. Undaunted, Napoleon answered his generals: “The very danger pushes us on to Moscow. The die is cast. Victory will justify and save us.” In December 1812, the retreating army reached Vilnius with only 7,000 soldiers and 20,000 stragglers. From there they continued their retreat, leaving the sick and wounded in Vilnius. Those who died there were buried in mass graves. Napoleon’s Grand Army was destroyed during the invasion of Russia. Of the more than 400,000 military deaths, 220,000 can probably be attributed to typhus. A great dream had become a great nightmare. Although historians had assumed that disease played a big part in dooming the invasion of Russia, the investigation by Raoult and his colleagues provided the first solid evidence in support of this belief. The confirmation by a team of medical researchers that typhus transmitted by lice was one of the main reasons for Napoleon’s defeat shows the value of their technique in helping to reinterpret history. That Europe’s most powerful army was defeated by a humble microbe should be cause for sobering reflection in these troubling times. Dr. Cesar Chelala is a co-winner of the 1979 Overseas Press Club of America award for the article “Missing or Disappeared in Argentina: The Desperate Search for Thousands of Abducted Victims.”

India’s Farm Crisis: “We Will Protest as Long as Possible” BY PARTH M.N.

“No parent should experience the trauma of losing a child,” says Sirvikramjeet Singh Hundal, father of Navreet Singh, who died on January 26, during the farmers’ tractor rally in Delhi. At their home in Uttar Pradesh’s Dibdiba village, Navreet’s portrait rests against a wall of the room where Sirvikramjeet, 45, and his wife, Paramjeet Kaur, 42, have been receiving visitors coming to offer their condolences. Their son’s death has left an irrevocable void in the parents’ lives. “He helped me in the farm. He cared for us. He was a responsible child,” says Sirvikramjeet. Navreet, 25, had gone to Ghazipur, on the Delhi-UP border, to take part in the Republic Day rally in Delhi. His grandfather, Hardeep Singh Dibdiba, 65, had been camped there since the farmers’ protests began at Delhi’s borders on November 26, 2020. Navreet was driving a tractor, which overturned at the security barricades set up by the Delhi Police on Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg. While the police say that Navreet died because of injuries he sustained when the tractor toppled, his family believes he was shot before the accident occurred. “We will prove it in court,” says Srivikramjeet, referring to the petition filed by Hardeep Singh in Delhi High Court, seeking an official inquiry into the cause of Navreet’s death. Since the tragedy, farmers in northwest UP’s border district of Rampur – where Dibdiba is located – have become more determined to press on with their demand for a repeal of the new farm laws introduced by the central government in September 2020. Across the border from Rampur, in Uttarakhand’s Udham Singh Nagar and Kashipur districts, in the Kumaon region, the resolve of the farmers is just as strong. The death of their son, Navreet Singh (in the framed photo), has left a void in Paramjeet Kaur (left) and Sirvikramjeet Singh Hundal's lives. Left: The death of their son, Navreet Singh (in the framed photo), has left a void in Paramjeet Kaur (left) and Sirvikramjeet Singh Hundal’s lives. Photo: Parth M.N. About 15 kilometres from Dibdiba, in Udham Singh Nagar’s Saijani village, farmer Sukhdev Singh, 42, says, “The boy [Navreet] was from a nearby village, not far from here. After he died, the farmers here became more determined [to protest].” From when the protests first began at Delhi’s borders, Uttarakhand’s farmers have been there with other farmers, mainly from Punjab, Haryana and UP, to oppose the three new farm laws. Uttarakhand is farthest from the national capital when compared to the other three states, but the distance hasn’t dissuaded the state’s farmers from lending their voice at Ghazipur. When the famers from Udham Singh Nagar and Kashipur started marching towards Delhi in November, getting there was not easy, says Sukhdev. The UP Police stopped them at the state border, on the Rampur-Nainital highway (NH 109). “We stayed on the highway for three days and nights. The police tried everything to send us back. We were allowed to pass through eventually, when they realised we were not going to back down.” The farmers have been making the long journey from their homes because the new farm laws will destroy their livelihoods, says Sukhdev, who owns 25 acres of land in Saijani, which is in Udham Singh Nagar’s Rudrapur tehsil . The laws they have been opposing are The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020 ; The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020 ; and The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020 . These laws, say the farmers, undermine the main forms of support to the cultivator, the farmers, including the minimum support price (MSP), the agricultural produce marketing committees (APMC), state procurement and more. Sukhdev accepts that the existing APMC mandi system is not the best sales outlet for farmers. “We never said it was perfect. We need reforms.” But the question is, reforms for whom – farmers or the corporate world? At times, the mandis find fault in the quality of the harvest and refuse to buy it, adds Sukhdev. “We have to camp at the mandis for days before they buy from us. And even after that, the money does not come through on time,” says Sukhdev. “I sold about 200 quintals of paddy at a mandi in October 2020. “I still haven’t received about Rs. 4 lakh for it.” In Dibdiba, where Sirvikiramjeet and Paramjeet own seven acres of farmland, the situation is slightly different. “The government mandi is close by, so I sell most of my harvest at the MSP. It is very crucial for our survival,” says Sirvikramjeet, who cultivates paddy in the kharif season and wheat during rabi . Across the border, farmers in Saijani sell their unsold stock to private traders. “We sell it to them at lower rates,” says Sukhdev. Yet, the MSP is a benchmark for farmers when the mandis don’t buy, says Sirvikramjeet. “If the MSP for rice stands at Rs. 1,800 per quintal, private traders procure it for around Rs. 1,400-1,500,” he adds. “If the government mandis lose their utility, then the private traders will have free rein.” The ‘reforms’ brought in by the government are not wanted by the farmers, says Sukhdev. “Instead of passing a law that weakens the mandi system, the government should focus on expanding it so that more farmers have an assured market.” The new laws have been criticised for giving large corporates greater power over farmers and farming. “The entry of the private sector is never good news. They have a simple rule: to make profits at any cost. They won’t think twice before exploiting the farmers,” says Sukhdev. After their principled march towards Delhi in the early days of the farmers’ protests, Uttarakhand’s farmers have adopted a more strategic approach. Since the end of January, they have been taking turns to camp at Ghazipur, with about 5-10 farmers from each village leaving at a time and returning after 1-2 weeks. After their principled march towards Delhi in the early days of the farmers’ protests, Uttarakhand’s farmers have adopted a more strategic approach. They take turns to camp at Ghazipur, with about 5-10 farmers from each village leaving at a time “We maintain a presence at the [Delhi] border and, at the same time, we work on the farms back home. We spend not more than a week or two at a stretch. It keeps everyone charged,” says Sukhdeo Chanchal Singh, 52, a 20-acre farmer in Saijani. “This way, we will carry on with the protests for as long as possible.” When a member of the family is away, the rest of the family keeps the household going, says Baljeet Kaur, 45. “We have three buffaloes that I look after,” she says, while cleaning dishes in the verandah of her home in Saijani. “Besides, looking after the household, cleaning and cooking is all on me. My 21-year-old son looks after the farm when his father is away.” Baljeet’s husband, Jaspal, 50, has gone to Ghazipur twice – the last time was from the end of February to first week of March. She says, she does not sleep well when he’s away. “The good thing is that the whole village is supporting one another. If my husband is away, then someone else will water the crop in case my son can’t.” It is such support and solidarity that has helped Sirvikramjeet and Paramjeet in their time of grief. “We are united by our occupation [farming],” says Sirvikramjeet. “Farmers from Uttarakhand, Punjab and Haryana, many of them strangers, have come to console us.” “We are getting by because people around us have been our strength,” adds Sirvikramjeet. “If only this government had half the empathy shown by the farming community, it would have repealed the three farm laws.”

The Nakba of Sheikh Jarrah: How Israel Uses ‘the Law’ to Ethnically Cleanse East Jerusalem BY RAMZY BAROUD

A Palestinian man, Atef Yousef Hanaysha, was killed by Israeli occupation forces on March 19 during a weekly protest against illegal Israeli settlement expansion in Beit Dajan, near Nablus, in the northern West Bank. Although tragic, the above news reads like a routine item from occupied Palestine, where shooting and killing unarmed protesters is part of the daily reality. However, this is not true. Since right-wing Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, announced, in September 2019, his intentions to formally and illegally annex nearly a third of the occupied Palestinian West Bank, tensions have remained high. The killing of Hanaysha is only the tip of the iceberg. In occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank, a massive battle is already underway. On one side, Israeli soldiers, army bulldozers and illegal armed Jewish settlers are carrying out daily missions of evicting Palestinian families, displacing farmers, burning orchards, demolishing homes and confiscating land. On the other side, Palestinian civilians, often disorganized, unprotected and leaderless, are fighting back. The territorial boundaries of this battle are largely located in occupied East Jerusalem and in the so-called ‘Area C’ of the West Bank – nearly 60% of the total size of the occupied West Bank – which is under complete and direct Israeli military control. No other place represents the perfect microcosm of this uneven war like that of the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in occupied East Jerusalem. On March 10, fourteen Palestinian and Arab organizations issued a ‘joint urgent appeal to the United Nations Special Procedures on forced evictions in East Jerusalem’ to stop the Israeli evictions in the area. Successive decisions by Israeli courts have paved the way for the Israeli army and police to evict 15 Palestinian families – 37 households of around 195 people – in the Karm Al-Ja’ouni area in Sheikh Jarrah and Batn Al-Hawa neighborhood in the town of Silwan. These imminent evictions are not the first, nor will they be the last. Israel occupied Palestinian East Jerusalem in June 1967 and formally, though illegally, annexed it in 1980. Since then, the Israeli government has vehemently rejected international criticism of the Israeli occupation, dubbing, instead, Jerusalem as the “eternal and undivided capital of Israel”. To ensure its annexation of the city is irreversible, the Israeli government approved the Master Plan 2000, a massive scheme that was undertaken by Israel to rearrange the boundaries of the city in such a way that it would ensure permanent demographic majority for Israeli Jews at the expense of the city’s native inhabitants. The Master Plan was no more than a blueprint for a state-sponsored ethnic cleansing campaign, which saw the destruction of thousands of Palestinian homes and the subsequent eviction of numerous families. While news headlines occasionally present the habitual evictions of Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan and other parts of East Jerusalem as if a matter that involves counterclaims by Palestinian residents and Jewish settlers, the story is, in fact, a wider representation of Palestine’s modern history. Indeed, the innocent families which are now facing “the imminent risk of forced eviction” are re-living their ancestral nightmare of the Nakba – the ethnic cleansing of historic Palestine in 1948. Two years after the native inhabitants of historic Palestine were dispossessed of their homes and lands and ethnically cleansed altogether, Israel enacted the so-called Absentees’ Property Law of 1950. The law, which, of course, has no legal or moral validity, simply granted the properties of Palestinians who were evicted or fled the war to the State, to do with it as it pleases. Since those ‘absentee’ Palestinians were not allowed to exercise their right of return, as stipulated by international law, the Israeli law was a state-sanctioned wholesale theft. It ultimately aimed at achieving two objectives: one, to ensure Palestinian refugees do not return or attempt to claim their stolen properties in Palestine and, two, to give Israel a legal cover for permanently confiscating Palestinian lands and homes. The Israeli military occupation of the remainder of historic Palestine in 1967 necessitated, from an Israeli colonial perspective, the creation of fresh laws that would allow the State and the illegal settlement enterprise to claim yet more Palestinian properties. This took place in 1970 in the form of the Legal and Administrative Matters Law. According to the new legal framework, only Israeli Jews were allowed to claim lost land and property in Palestinian areas. Much of the evictions in East Jerusalem take place within the context of these three interconnected and strange legal arguments: the Absentees’ Law, the Legal and Administrative Matters Law and the Master Plan 2000. Understood together, one is easily able to decipher the nature of the Israeli colonial scheme in East Jerusalem, where Israeli individuals, in coordination with settler organizations, work together to fulfill the vision of the State. In their joint appeal, Palestinian human rights organizations describe the flow of how eviction orders, issued by Israeli courts, culminate into the construction of illegal Jewish settlements. Confiscated Palestinian properties are usually transferred to a branch within the Israeli Ministry of Justice called the Israeli Custodian General. The latter holds on to these properties until they are claimed by Israeli Jews, in accordance with the 1970 Law. Once Israeli courts honor Israeli Jewish individuals’ legal claims to the confiscated Palestinian lands, these individuals often transfer their ownership rights or management to settler organizations. In no time, the latter organizations utilize the newly-acquired property to expand existing settlements or to start new ones. While the Israeli State claims to play an impartial role in this scheme, it is actually the facilitator of the entire process. The final outcome manifests in the ever-predictable scene, where an Israeli flag is triumphantly hoisted over a Palestinian home and a Palestinian family is assigned an UN-supplied tent and a few blankets. While the above picture can be dismissed by some as another routine, common occurrence, the situation in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem has become extremely volatile. Palestinians feel that they have nothing more to lose and Netanyahu’s government is more emboldened than ever. The killing of Atef Hanaysha, and others like him, is only the beginning of that imminent, widespread confrontation.

Myanmar protests continue a day after more than 100 killed

Protesters in Myanmar have returned to the streets to press their demands for a return to democracy, just a day after security forces killed more than 100 people on the bloodiest day since last month’s military coup. Protests were held on Sunday in Yangon and Mandalay, the country’s two biggest cities, as well as elsewhere. Some of the demonstrations were again met with police force. At least 114 people were killed on Saturday as security forces cracked down on protests against the February 1 coup that overthrew Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government, according to the online news service Myanmar Now. The reported fatalities included several children under 16 years old. Similar tallies of the death toll were issued by other Myanmar media and researchers, far exceeding the previous highest death toll on March 14. The number of killings since the coup is now more than 420, according to multiple counts. The coup reversed years of progress towards democracy after five decades of military rule and has again made Myanmar the focus of international scrutiny. The Saturday killings by police and soldiers took place throughout the country as Myanmar’s military celebrated the annual Armed Forces Day holiday with a parade in the country’s capital, Naypyidaw. The bloodshed quickly drew international condemnation, both from diplomatic missions within Myanmar and from abroad. The human rights group Amnesty International revived criticism that the international community was not doing enough to end the state violence in Myanmar. “UN Security Council member states’ continued refusal to meaningfully act against this never-ending horror is contemptible,” said Ming Yu Hah, the organisation’s deputy regional director for campaigns. The Security Council has condemned the violence but not advocated concerted action against the military government.Anti-coup protesters take positions behind a barricade in Yangon. Protesters in Myanmar returned to the streets on Sunday, just a day after security forces killed more than 100 people in the bloodiest day since last month's military coup. [AP]

Should R2P Be Invoked in the Case of Myanmar?

Earlier this week, the former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans wrote a short article in which he claimed that the crisis in Myanmar meets the threshold for the invoking of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine. Since the military’s seizure of power on February 1, the country has been engulfed in protest as hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets in protest. In the ensuing crackdown, at least 261 mostly unarmed protesters have been confirmed killed by the security forces (and probably many more) while several thousand have been detained for anti-coup activities. “The present crisis in Myanmar demands unequivocally to be treated as an R2P one – as were the early periods of one-sided repression of peaceful dissent in Libya and Syria,” Evans wrote. The point has been made by others, but carries additional weight given the role that Evans played, as co-chair of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, in the establishment of R2P as an internationally recognized norm. Endorsed by all member states of the United Nations in 2005, R2P advances a potentially revolutionary idea: that state sovereignty entails a responsibility for a government to protect its population from mass atrocity crimes and human rights violations. When a nation fails to exercise this responsibility, R2P grants the “international community” the legal warrant to intervene. The doctrine authorizes the use of a range of coercive tools, with military intervention as a last resort. In his article, Evans called for more concerted action by the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, which earlier this month passed a presidential statement calling for the military and its auxiliaries to exercise “utmost restraint” and “stress[ing] the need to uphold democratic institutions and processes, refrain from violence, fully respect human rights and fundamental freedoms and uphold the rule of law.” R2P’s applicability to Myanmar has raised directly by many of those protesting the military junta, who have held up placards calling for international intervention to restore democratic rule under the aegis of R2P. Evans acknowledged that military intervention under R2P was a non-starter, for a variety of practical and political reasons, but said that the rest of the “R2P toolbox” should be employed to bring the crisis to an end, “including not only more naming and shaming, but U.N.-endorsed targeted sanctions, embargoes, and threats of [International Criminal Court] prosecution.” Yet Evans also recognized the limitations of outside powers to bring about a resolution to the complex, combustive crisis that has followed the Myanmar coup. He rightly pointed out that “internal dynamics rather than any kind of external pressure” would ultimately carry the day, adding, “The hope must be that the military will either split apart, or come to recognize that the country has simply become ungovernable and will become even more so until they step back.” To this end, there was an important role for a U.N.-led international response, to “give the opposition forces continued heart, and make the Tatmadaw understand their friendlessness in the wider world even if they, for now, think they can stare that down.” Yet Evans also stated that, while threatening ICC prosecutions and other punishments, the nations of the world should also begin contemplating an option that currently “nobody on either side is willing to even begin to contemplate – i.e. some kind of military-face-saving compromise… whereby things return to something like the status quo ante.” “That is not the revolution that the population want, need and deserve,” Evans acknowledged. “But if the military refuses to divide and crumble enough for that to happen, it would beat the hell out of another catastrophic 1988-scale massacre.” On that count he is certainly correct. But if this is the desired endgame, it remains to be seen whether sanctions and threats of ICC persecution are more or less likely to bring Sen. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing and his fellow generals to the table. For now, the jury is out. But just as the invocation of R2P by Myanmar’s protesters testifies to the doctrine’s growing international prestige, Evans’s invocation of “hope” is an indication of just how far we remain from a lasting solution to the challenge posed by governments that abuse their own people.

CNN: Police report active shooter in Boulder, Colorado

show people lying on the ground inside and outside the store, and purported gunshots are heard. The video, taken by Dean Schiller, is part of a longer live stream that he took as the shooting progressed and police arrived. In the excerpt, Schiller is heard calling out saying that people need to call 9-1-1. “We don’t know if there’s a shooter — active shooter, active shooter somewhere,” Schiller said in the video. Schiller is heard on the video asking what appears to be a store employee whether a shooter went into the store. Here's how that conversation played out: "Yeah, he went in there," the man responded. “He went in the store?” Schiller asked. “He went right down there,” the man responds. “Oh my god,” Schiller reacts. “People we got people down inside Kings Soopers.” Schiller then says, “Look there’s-,” but doesn’t finish his sentence as two gunshots stop his speaking. Some background: Boulder Police had tweeted earlier on Monday there was an, “Active Shooter at the King Soopers on Table Mesa. AVOID THE AREA.” CNN affiliate KMGH’s helicopter recorded a shirtless man being taken from the supermarket. The man had what appears to be blood on his arm and right leg and his hands appeared to be cuffed behind him as two officers escorted him away. The man was taken away in an ambulance. Ryan Borowski, one of the people inside the King Soopers grocery store when a shooter starting firing shots, said everyone helped each other get out of the back of the store. He said he heard two loud sounds, and by the third one, he and the people around him realized they were gunshots. He said they started running to the back of the store and employees helped them out the back door. "We told employees what was going on so everybody helped each other and we just ran to safety as quickly as we could," Borowski told CNN from behind the store in Boulder, Colorado, about two hours after the shooting. Borowski said he was going to get ice cream, but then changed his mind and started walking the other way. "I didn't see the shooter. I saw terrified faces running towards me and that's when I turned and ran the other direction," he said. He said everyone was helping each other, but while some people ran, others froze. "We ran and I don't know why other people didn't and I am sorry that they froze and I just wish that this didn't happen – I wish I had an answer for why it did," he said. He said he could have never imagined a situation like this happening in Boulder. "Boulder feels like a bubble and the bubble burst and that's heartbreaking. To think that people died today," Borowski said. Police have not confirmed whether anyone was killed. "This feels like the safest spot in America and I just nearly got killed for getting a soda, you know, and a bag of chips. Doesn't feel good," he added.

The Iraq War: 18 Years Later BY VINCENT EMANUELE

‘You sit in your room, and you talk to the wall You’re feeling small but still have a ball And you can’t explain what’s anyway in vain And you paint your face and dress in black Wear your shades and still can’t express The way you feel about a lousy fill And you dance until the morning All by yourself And somehow you know You’re not alone And you dance until the morning All by yourself And somehow you know You’re not alone’ — ‘You’re Not Alone,’ Amon Düül II Eighteen years ago, I was perched on my bunk in a makeshift squad bay, awaiting final orders to cross the border from Kuwait to Iraq. Fellow marines wrote letters to their sweethearts, checked their gear for the thousandth time, jerked off in the bathroom, or nervously smoked cigarettes. Others joked about fucking Iraqi women and who would kill the most Iraqis. You know, all American boys, fighting the good fight, with God on our side, as Dylan once sang. After several months of boot camp and infantry training, it was time to rock n’ roll. Finally, the war had arrived. Back home, a halfwit loser and draft dodger who, eager to compensate for his father’s political failures and yearning for his own, serenaded Americans with a trite speech that marked the beginning of the most destructive and consequential war of the 21st century. At the time, few understood the catastrophic gravity of Bush’s decision, both for the United States and the rest of the world, though to be fair, many antiwar activists did. At the time, the Bush administration had spent several months lying to the American public about Iraq’s supposed connections to the attacks of 9/11. Dick Cheney argued that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were good pals, but the relationship never existed in reality. They argued that Saddam had Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs), but those too didn’t exist. Phantoms haunted Bush and his Cold War-era neoconservative comrades, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. And they turned those ghosts into fear — the ammunition needed to remake the world in their vision, or so they thought. Before long, morale sank in our platoon. Weeks turned into months, and months turned into many more. What was supposed to be a repeat of the 1991 Gulf War quickly morphed into a violent counterinsurgency campaign, the likes of which U.S. troops hadn’t experienced since their failed attempt to defeat anti-imperialists in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Car bombs and IEDs replaced punji sticks and highly-coordinated mobile attacks and ambushes. Men in white pajamas replaced the men in black pajamas. In the U.S., people remained disorganized after several decades of neoconservative and neoliberal political victories, particularly the destruction of organized labor. The left, barely alive, mounted antiwar rallies and protests but never developed much of a vision beyond large mobilizations. And even if it would have, the social and political infrastructure to carry out such a concept didn’t exist. That said, I give tremendous credit to those who spoke out at the time. Young people might not remember, and older folks might choose to forget, but protesting the war in the years following 9/11 took some courage. People who spoke out about the war were called traitors and terrorist sympathizers by rightwing media personalities, conservative activists, and mainstream Republicans. To oppose the war was to hate veterans and the flag. At least that was the line at the time. Of course, the dreams, desires, and fears of the Iraqi people, who, after the devastating Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988), the quick, bloody, and chemically infused Gulf War (1990–1991), and murderous sanctions (1991–2003), were never discussed or considered. According to the Marine Corps and the men who trained me, Iraqis were “sand niggers,” “hajis,” and “camel jockeys.” Back home, they were called “terrorists” or “towel heads.” American xenophobes confused Sikhs for Muslims, harassing the former in search of the latter. On September 15, 2001, less than a week after 9/11, Balbir Singh Sodhi was attacked and killed by 42-year-old Frank Silva Roque outside of the Chevron gas station Balbir owned in Mesa, Arizona. At the time, Balbir was planting flowers outside of his store when Roque pulled up in his pickup truck and shot him five times with a semiautomatic handgun. Balbir’s younger brother, Sukhpal, was killed by a stray bullet while driving his taxi in San Francisco less than a year later. Only in America. In Iraq, things went from bad to worse and from worse to untenable within a few years. By our second deployment (August 2004 — April 2005), we could see the writing on the wall: Uncle Sam wasn’t leaving Mesopotamia anytime soon. Unlike Vietnam, this war had genuine geopolitical significance: oil. Even George F. Kennan, the godfather of the ‘Domino Theory,’ testified against U.S. involvement in Vietnam to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1966. But oil alone wasn’t enough to keep the U.S. in Iraq. Bush and Co. had to save face. International embarrassment wasn’t an option. Even though the Iraqi resistance had already thoroughly weakened the U.S. military effort, George Bush couldn’t admit defeat, not then, not now, not ever. The war was just. The cause was righteous. “To hell with the naysayers!” chanted the neoconservatives and evangelical Christians who so fervently backed the war, few having served themselves. Unsurprisingly, most of them still defend the war. It turns out, hubris and ideological dogma are just as potent powerful forces, especially when combined, as material interests or perceived realpolitik. In the end, however, none of that mattered. The Iraqis, much like the Vietnamese, engaged with U.S. troops, always knowing one thing: no matter what happened, they were fighting in their homeland. The U.S. was temporarily visiting. And whether that momentary stay lasted fifteen years or five decades, the Iraqis would always endure. A culture that stretched back to the dawn of civilization was fighting a culture that grew up on BigMacs. The outcome was predictable, regardless of America’s military, technological, and economic superiority. In Iraq, Marines went from dodging IEDs and shooting at civilians to torturing prisoners all in a day’s work. Mechanized units terrorized peasants and slapped sandbags on the heads of innocent young Arab men who were considered ‘High-Value Targets’ (HVTs). Most couldn’t speak English and never understood why they were taken captive. Too bad for them, eh? They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s how it goes. Wars are messy, at least that’s what our generals told us. Morale sunk to an all-time low at the end of the second deployment when our commanders informed the battalion that some of us would deploy a third time. By then, cocaine and weed had become mainstays at the basecamp. Some of us were blowing lines and smoking bowls on patrol and while standing duty on observation posts. Marines were getting drunk regularly and patrolling without their proper equipment. No one gave a fuck. Those who did were laughed at or ignored. By the time we came home, most of the platoon was full-blown alcoholics, drug addicts, sex fiends, or some mixture of the three. Divorces, assault charges, DUIs, and stints in rehab facilities commenced, including suicides, drug overdoes, and cancer diagnoses. You know, the sort of shit they don’t show you on the commercials or talk about at the recruitment center. But that’s only half the story. The aftereffects of combat are often more devastating than the action itself, which, to be honest, was quite fun at times. Nothing beats the adrenaline dump of a firefight. Nothing. That’s why so many guys miss it. That’s why so many seek adventure in civilian life, sometimes to the detriment of themselves and others. Fast cars and motorcycles leave mangled corpses. The needle can only bring so much comfort: the bottle, the same. It’s true: civilian life is boring. Everyone who has experienced combat understands that much. On a very personal level, at the cellular level, war permanently changes you. At the geopolitical level, we have yet fully understood the long-term impacts of the Iraq War. Perhaps we never will. The human toll is staggering: anywhere from 250,000–1,000,000+ dead, with millions displaced externally and internally. Hundreds of thousands endure lifelong illnesses due to chemically-laced munitions such as depleted uranium or maimed bodies due to bombing raids, drone strikes, a stray bullet, or some garden variety shrapnel. The Iraq War caused the greatest refugee crisis since World War II. It unleashed forces across Libya, Syria, and beyond that resemble the most reactionary and murderous forces of the Middle Ages. Thousands of U.S. troops died because of lies and hubris. Their families are forever emotionally, socially, and spiritually scarred. The same is true of the families of the nameless Iraqis who perished on the dusty battlefields of Mesopotamia. Tens of thousands of veterans have killed themselves, leaving behind broken families and generations of emotional trauma. Picking up your dead friend or his shredded and bloody limbs is terrible enough, but it’s much worse when you finally realize it was all for nothing, otherwise known as ‘Moral Injury.’ Well, not exactly nothing — we made many people a hell of a lot of money and stoked the egos of insecure men who thought they controlled the world. In the future, I can imagine young people talking about the ‘Great Oil Wars of the 21st Century.’ Fighting wars for oil, the very commodity that might cause the end of civilization. Oh, the irony. Within a few months, a young man or woman who wasn’t even born when the Iraq War started will step onto the sands of Iraq as a contractor, DoD official, or military personnel. Can you imagine? Back home, the war helped destroy what was left of an already undemocratic and antiquated political and legal system. Americans have less trust in the media due mainly to the lies journalists, and news outlets told during the lead-up to the war. The Iraq War ushered in a period of cynical distrust in liberal institutions. Without question, a trend growing long before 2003, but one accelerated by lies justifying costly imperial adventures ($2 trillion and counting). By 2008, however, reality truly lifted the veil of American Empire and capitalism. The same press and government that had lied about WMDs were now lying about the origins (blaming poor people and unions instead of bankers and corporations) of the Great Recession, the most significant economic calamity to strike the U.S. since 1929 (until COVID hit). As a result, by 2010, the Tea Party took power. In 2017, Trump entered the White House, and the rest is history. Now, eighteen years after W’s criminal decision to invade and occupy Iraq, humanity finds itself at a unique historical precipice. Climate Change alone will reconfigure the global landscape and every aspect of our lives in ways that none can imagine. It’s already doing so. The global economy, dependent on a never-ending growth model, can’t provide a decent and dignified living to most people, pushing billions to the margins of society. Our political and legal systems remain wholly dysfunctional, outdated, and inadequate. Authoritarian governments are on the rise. And so far, the global left hasn’t provided an organized, serious, and coherent alternative. Yet, alternatives are needed now more than ever. Indeed, radical changes are required, not for ideological, moral, or ethical purposes but for the sake of survival. Today, however, I will take a moment and think about my dead friends and the lives I took on Iraq’s battlefield, a distant topography of forgotten dreams and splintered memories. Unlike previous years, I won’t cry. My reservoir of tears dried up long ago. My gas tank, usually filled with anger, is currently running on empty. I’m worn out. The war has taken its toll. Eighteen years of reflections, protests, nightmares, essays, speeches, interviews, documentaries, conversations, and ghosts have rendered me somewhat bewildered and suspicious, sometimes cynical, yet more curious and committed than ever. Yes, I continue to speak out about the war. It’s my responsibility. I have to answer to two groups of people: my loved ones (family and friends) and the people of Iraq. They are the only people on this planet to whom I owe an outstanding debt, one I will spend the rest of my time repaying. And that’s okay. That’s life. Without responsibility and accountability, love and respect, and the prospects of redemption and rebirth, where would we be as a society, as a species? I long ago forgave myself for participating in the war. I no longer lose sleep over it. These days, I lose sleep over our inability to develop political institutions capable of providing an alternative to capitalism and empire, racism and patriarchy, ecological devastation, and violence. In the end, human beings are resilient and highly adaptive creatures. We’re not inherently peaceful or violent — we’re a bit of both. That, among other things, is what makes us so unique, complex, and volatile. Evolution gave us these gigantic brains, but we still haven’t perfected how to use them—what a fascinating challenge. Someday, perhaps humanity can live in peace. Until then, we should fight like hell to nudge the species in that direction. That starts by telling the truth. That starts by remembering our collective history and our subjective location within it. Eighteen years later, let’s not forget the Iraq War. Vincent Emanuele is a writer, antiwar veteran, and podcaster. He is the co-founder of PARC | Politics Art Roots Culture Media and the PARC Community-Cultural Center located in Michigan City, Indiana. Vincent is a member of Veterans For Peace and OURMC | Organized & United Residents of Michigan City. He is also a member of Collective 20. He can be reached at vincent.emanuele333@gmail.com

UN official: Myanmar people want UN sanctions, peacekeepers

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The people of Myanmar have huge expectations from the United Nations and the international community following the Feb. 1 coup, with many calling for sanctions and some urging the U.N. to send peacekeepers to stop the killings of peaceful protesters seeking a return to democracy, the top U.N. official in the country said Friday. Acting resident and humanitarian coordinator Andrew Kirkwood said in a video briefing to U.N. reporters from Myanmar’s largest city Yangon that Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and other U.N. officials have been very consistent about what’s really needed: “collective member state actions in the Security Council.” Guterres echoed that message again on Friday, saying “a firm, unified international response is urgently needed” to stop the violence by security forces and return Myanmar to the path of democracy, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. “Many people will have seen people carrying placards saying, ‘how many more bodies?’" Kirkwood said. “People are really looking for concerted international action in terms of sanctions. Frankly, some people here want to see peacekeepers." “There’s a huge expectation on the United Nations, with the entire international community," he said. “We are doing everything we can in the current situation, and there is still frustration among the people that the international community hasn’t done more to date.” The coup reversed years of slow progress toward democracy in Myanmar, which for five decades had languished under strict military rule that led to international isolation and sanctions. As the generals loosened their grip, culminating in Aung San Suu Kyi’s rise to power after 2015 elections, the international community responded by lifting most sanctions and pouring investment into the country. The Security Council adopted a presidential statement -- one step below a resolution -- on March 10 calling for a reversal of the coup, strongly condemning the violence against peaceful protesters and calling for “utmost restraint” by the military. It stressed the need to uphold “democratic institutions and processes” and called for the immediate release of detained government leaders including Suu Kyi and President Win Myint.

Israel takes Palestinian FM's VIP pass over ICC meeting

Israeli authorities confiscated the VIP border pass of Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki upon his return to the West Bank from a meeting at the International Criminal Court, a Palestinian official said on Sunday. Ahmed al-Deek, an official at Maliki's office, said the Israeli move was linked to Maliki's meeting with ICC lead prosecutor Fatou Bensouda at her office in The Hague on Thursday. Walla!News website cited unnamed Israeli officials who said Maliki's ICC visit was the reason for the revocation of his VIP card, an Israeli-granted pass that enables dozens of senior Palestinian officials to move freely through border crossings. Spokespeople for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli foreign ministry did not respond to requests for comment. "This is the Foreign Minister of the State of Palestine. He doesn't represent himself. He represents the State of Palestine, and we regard this as an attack against the State of Palestine," said Deek.

Israeli settlers storm Palestinian town, torch cars

Israeli settlers stormed the Palestinian town of Beit Iksa near Jerusalem early on Friday morning, torching two cars and spray-painting graffiti, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported. The Palestinian Civil Defence rushed to put out the fires in the two vehicles following the attack. The settlers’ graffiti read: "Greetings from Ahuvia" - a reference to Ahuvia Sandak, a 16-year-old Israeli settler who was killed in a car crash in December after being chased by Israeli police, who pursued him when he reportedly threw stones at Palestinians. Sandak was a resident of Maoz Esther, a settler outpost which has not been authorised by the Israeli government. Approximately 475,000 Israeli settlers live in the occupied West Bank, which has a Palestinian population of 2.7 million. All Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are illegal under international law. Some settlers have established "outposts" without the permission of the Israeli government, on land owned by private Palestinian individuals. Read also: How Israeli industrial zones exploit Palestinian land and labour Settlers in Maoz Esther have been evicted several times by the Israeli government, only to return. Israeli settlers carry out regular attacks on Palestinian civilians and their property, throwing stones, destroying olive and fruit trees, and even attacking children. Following Sandak’s death in December, attacks by settlers increased. An 11-year-old girl from the Palestinian village of Madama near Nablus was seriously wounded and had to be treated for injuries to her head and face that month after settlers stormed the village. Also on Friday, Israeli soldiers shot and killed Atef Hanaysheh, a 42-year-old Palestinian man after he reportedly threw stones at them during a protest against settlement activity in the village of Beit Dajan near Nablus.

Netanyahu turns to extremist party that calls for expelling Arabs from Israel to help win election

Shira Rubin and Steve Hendrix Tel Aviv, Israel - Itamar Ben Gvir hails from a fringe of Israeli politics so extreme it was outlawed. A lawyer known for defending Jewish settlers accused of violence against Arabs, he has roots in the overtly racist Kach party, founded by radical American rabbi Meir Kahane and banned by Israel decades ago. But now, Ben Gvir and thousands of new-generation Kahanists are on the verge of a political comeback, thanks to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's need for parliamentary seats in Tuesday's national election. Backed by Netanyahu, Ben Gvir's Jewish Power party is poised to gain its first spot in Israel's Knesset and possibly even a cabinet position in the next government, providing the ultranationalist group with a foothold in its bid for legitimacy. That prospect has electrified thousands of modern-day Kahanists, who see Ben Gvir as the kind of polished leader who can make their ideology palatable to an increasingly right-wing electorate. He advocates expelling Arabs deemed "disloyal" from Israel and the occupied territories and calls for Israel to annex the entire West Bank, which is home to some 3 million Palestinians. "Itamar is this new generation, a generation that knows that the way to participate in public discourse is to talk positively - not about hating Arabs, but about loving the Jewish nation, though the core ideology is the same," said Nati Smadar of the far-right advocacy group Lahava, whose members have been convicted of arson attacks on mixed Arab-Jewish schools and have protested at weddings between Jews and Arabs. Many mainstream Israelis have reacted with horror at the prospect of a Kahanist comeback. One political commentator labelled Ben Gvir's views as "reptilian," another as "repugnant." Major Jewish groups in the United States have condemned previous attempts by Ben Gvir to enter parliament. "The views of [the Jewish Power party] are reprehensible," the American Jewish Committee said in a statement in 2019. AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group, tweeted at the time that it "has a long-standing policy not to meet with members of this racist and reprehensible party." "It's a nightmare," said Stav Shaffir, a former Labor Party lawmaker who is being sued by Ben Gvir for allegedly comparing his views to Nazism. "For years, it has been the consensus on the left and the right that he shouldn't be in parliament. The only way he can get a seat is if Netanyahu is working for him." The alliance between Netanyahu's dominant Likud party and one of the country's most fanatical groups stems from Israel's ongoing political stalemate. Over three elections in the past two years, no party has won a decisive victory, thwarting efforts to assemble a governing coalition in the Knesset. In vote after vote, the coalition of right-wing and ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties that has kept Netanyahu in power for 14 years has fallen short of extending his run. Fractious anti-Netanyahu forces - including leftist, centrist and Arab parties - managed together to win more seats each time than the prime minister's coalition but failed to agree on a united front that would unseat him. An emergency unity government that formed last year to face the coronavirus pandemic lasted only seven months before collapsing amid infighting. For this fourth attempt, Netanyahu has been looking for new votes wherever he can, including a campaign to attract voters in Israel's Arab communities. And almost as a soon as new elections were called, he began brokering a deal between Ben Gvir's Jewish Power and the Religious Zionist party headed by Bezalel Smotrich, a firebrand conservative and self-declared "proud homophobe." By combining forces, they have a better chance of reaching the minimum number of votes required to enter the Knesset, and recent polls show their ticket could garner as many as four seats, a potentially critical boost for Netanyahu in his bid for a majority. "Our bond is good news for anyone who wants an ideological political home that will not compromise on its values," Ben Gvir told reporters. (He declined to be interviewed for this article.) According to local media reports, Netanyahu promised the combined parties control of at least one ministry in his next government, although he has recently downplayed the possibility that Ben Gvir would receive a top position. Ben Gvir, 44, lives in the militant West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba near Hebron and has been the lawyer in some of Israel's most notorious Jewish terrorism cases. His clients, for instance, have included two teenagers accused of an arson attack that killed three members of a West Bank Palestinian family. He originally came to prominence in 1995, soon after Prime Minister Itzhak Rabin signed a peace deal with the Palestinians. Ben Gvir appeared in a television interview holding a car ornament that he said he had stolen from Rabin's Cadillac. "We got the car. We'll get to Rabin too," he said. Weeks later, Rabin was assassinated by a right-wing Israeli extremist. Ben Gvir has no known connection to the killing, though he campaigned for the assassin's release from prison. Ben Gvir is an acolyte of Meir Kahane, the Brooklyn-born rabbi who founded the vigilante Jewish Defense League, which the FBI later named as a right-wing terrorist group. In the 1970s, after Kahane was convicted of participating in a bomb making plot and given a suspended sentence, he immigrated to Israel and founded the Kach party, which promoted stripping most Arabs of their voting rights and making sexual relations between Jews and Arabs illegal. He was banned from the Knesset in 1988 after one term on grounds of inciting racism. He was assassinated in New York two years later by an Egyptian militant. After a fellow Kach politician, American-Israeli Baruch Goldstein, killed 29 Palestinian worshippers at Hebron's Cave of the Patriarchs in 1994, Israel declared the party a terrorist organization. After that, the party's leaders mostly came to be regarded as pariahs. But Kahanism took on a new life as an alt-underground youth movement. "I think Rabbi Kahane was a holy man, a righteous man, who fought for the Jewish people and was murdered for the sanctification of God's name. . . . I take from Rabbi Kahane many, many good things," Ben Gvir said in an interview last month with the right-wing media site Srugim. "But after all that, no, I'm not Rabbi Kahane word for word," he said, adding for example that he would not propose legislation creating segregated beaches for Jews and Arabs. Now, with Ben Gvir - who once kept a portrait of Baruch Goldstein on his living room wall - on the threshold of entering the Knesset, views that were once considered "delusional" in mainstream politics have gained legitimacy with the Israeli public, said Tom Nisani, a 32-year-old field coordinator with the far-right activist group Im Tirzu. Today's Kahanists profess to reject violence. But many defend attacks on Palestinians in the occupied territories as a warranted response to their hostility. "I'm not about to start a war for the land," said Michael Miller, a 30-year-old American-born Jewish Power voter. "But if, God forbid, our neighbors decide to be hostile against us, then yes, dare I say it would be a mitzvah to conquer the land back. To take back what is rightfully ours."

18 Years Ago Today the US War on Iraq Began By Ann Wright

March 19 is the 18th anniversary of the U.S. government’s political decision to invade and occupy oil-rich, Arab/Muslim Iraq, a country of 32 million people. U.S. elected officials and their advisers decided it would be in the U.S. national security interest to attack and overthrow the Iraqi government. We saw how the military attack on Iraq — which was based on the lie that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction — destroyed hundreds of thousands of lives, homes, infrastructure and culture and unleashed a whirlwind of unintended (or sometimes intended) consequences that we are dealing with even now 18 years later. At the time I was a U.S. diplomat assigned as the deputy chief of mission (deputy ambassador) in Mongolia. I had spent most of my adult life in the U.S. government’s national security agencies. I served 29 years in the U.S. Army and Army Reserves and retired as a colonel. I was a U.S. diplomat for 16 years and served in U.S. embassies in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia and Mongolia. I was on the small team that reopened the U.S. embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, in December 2001 and remained in Afghanistan for four months. At the U.S. Department of State, I had assignments in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs in the office of International Security Affairs and in the office of Arms Control. On that day 18 years ago, I resigned from the U.S. government in opposition to the disastrous U.S. war on Iraq, the results of which has continued to destabilize the Middle East. Hearing in Hawaii Now, 18 years later, on Friday, the Hawai’i State Legislature will have a hearing on increased military weaponry that is a part of the U.S war machine. Due to citizen activism against militarization of Hawai’i, the State Legislature will discuss the citizen written resolution that opposes the construction of a $1.9 billion Homeland Defense Radar in Hawai’i. I oppose the $1.9 billion Homeland Defense Radar site on any of the islands of Hawai’i. I am opposed to wasting our tax money on obsolete weapons systems. The Homeland Defense Radar will not defend against the newer generations of ballistic, hypersonic, and low-flying cruise missiles that are capable of Mach 4 speed and being developed by China, Russia (and yes, by the United States). These missiles can evade ground-based radar detection by overflying air defense sensors and flying below ballistic missile sensors, rendering the HDR-H obsolete. Recognizing that the radar will not be useful against these weapons, the Missile Defense Agency of the Department of Defense defunded the Homeland Defense Radar-Hawai’i in the 2020 Defense Authorization Act. Instead, the Missile Defense Agency funded a next generation space-based global sensor system and upgraded the sea-based X-band radar “golf ball” for $47,000,000 in place of the already obsolete HDR-H. The upgrade of the X-Band radar is five times cheaper than even the $255,000,000 that has been allotted alone for the environmental impact statement for the ultimate site of the radar. It is through the work of the Hawai’i congressional delegation that the funding request for the Homeland Defense Radar was put back into the Department of Defense budget. As I well know having worked in both the Departments of Defense and State, members of the U.S. Congress put into the national budget, weapons systems that DoD does not need or want. This is done to create jobs in their congressional districts and to reward corporations and industries that make financial contributions to their congressional political campaigns. As a former diplomat, I think $1.9 billion could be used in more effective ways to counter threats to U.S. national security. It appears that the U.S. political establishment and those who make money out of military confrontation have decided that China’s economic and cyber threats to the U.S. can be solved by an U.S. increase in military weaponry. I sincerely doubt they believe that actual warfare against the 1.3 billion persons who live in China is advisable, but the weapons build-up is a way to assert U.S. power in the Western Pacific. Let us hope that none of our politicians believe that nuclear bombing or any type of military attack on any of the over 130 cities in China that have over 1 million inhabitants (the U.S. has 45 cities with over 1 million while in all of the European Union there are 36 cities with over 1 million) will enhance U.S. national security. With 30+ years working in the U.S. national security establishment, I firmly believe that an investment of $1.9 billion in diplomatic, nonviolent initiatives with China, North Korea and Iran will go much further toward resolving U.S. national security issues that the construction of the Homeland Defense Radar-Hawai’i and the increasing military confrontation with China in the Western Pacific. For these reasons, I strongly oppose construction of the Homeland Defense Radar-Hawai’i. And I oppose U.S. wars everywhere as they are evidence of the profitability of war…and the lack of effort to resolve international issues nonviolently through negotiation and diplomacy. Ann Wright served 29 years in the U.S. Army and Army Reserves and retired as a colonel. She was also a U.S. diplomat for 16 years and served in U.S. embassies in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Mongolia and was on the small team that reopened the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, in December 2001 and remained in Afghanistan for four months. She resigned from the U.S. government on March 19, 2003 in opposition to the U.S. war on Iraq. She lives in Honolulu.

UN team visits remote Bangladesh island where Rohingya relocated

Al Jazeera A United Nations delegation is on a three-day visit starting Wednesday to a remote Bay of Bengal island where Bangladesh has moved more than 13,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees since December despite criticism from rights groups. Bangladesh wants to eventually transfer 100,000 of the more than a million refugees living in overcrowded border camps to Bhasan Char island, which emerged from the sea only two decades ago and is considered vulnerable to floods. “This initial three-day visit will bring together experts from UN agencies engaged in the Rohingya refugee response in Bangladesh,” the UN refugee agency told Reuters in an email. “The visit will look at the current situation and facilities on Bhasan Char, appraise the needs of the Rohingya refugees relocated there, as well as discuss with the authorities and others currently working on Bhasan Char.” The UN earlier said it had not been allowed to conduct a technical and safety assessment of the island and was not involved in the transfer of refugees there. Bangladesh says the relocation is voluntary, but some among a first group to be moved spoke of being coerced. The Rohingya, a minority group who fled violence in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, are not allowed to move off the island, which is several hours’ journey away from the southern port. Bangladesh has dismissed safety concerns over the island, citing the building of flood defences as well as housing for 100,000 people, hospitals and cyclone centres. It also says overcrowding in refugee camps fuels crime, while some Rohingya said frequent violence in the camps had driven them to relocate. “We hope it will remove any concerns that the UN has about the relocation and they will get involve in the relocation and provide Rohingya people the support they need,” a senior official at the foreign ministry said.

Libya arms embargo ‘totally ineffective’: UN

The arms embargo imposed on Libya since 2011 is “totally ineffective,” say UN experts in a stark report released on Tuesday which underscores “extensive, blatant” violations by actors including its own member states. The six experts charged with monitoring the embargo on the civil war-torn state pointed the finger at an array of international backers on both sides of its conflict, plus private mercenaries and non-state actors – including the Russian Wagner group as well as former Blackwater head Erik Prince. They used photos, diagrams and maps to support their accusations in the report of 550-plus pages, which covers the period from October 2019 to January 2021. “The arms embargo remains totally ineffective. For those member states directly supporting the parties to the conflict, the violations are extensive, blatant and with complete disregard for the sanctions measures,” they wrote. “Their control of the entire supply chain complicates detection, disruption or interdiction,” the report continued, explaining that both factors “make any implementation of the arms embargo more difficult.” The experts have been denouncing violations of the embargo for years. Libya has been torn by chaotic war since a NATO-backed uprising led to the toppling then killing of longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The country has in recent years been split between a Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli, and an eastern-based administration, backed by strongman Khalifa Haftar. But earlier this week, a unity government – chosen via a UN-supported process – was sworn in, raising hopes for an end to the conflict. Haftar’s international supporters – including the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Russia, Syria, and Egypt – have all been singled out in previous UN reports or in the one published on Tuesday. Turkey and Qatar, which support the authorities in Tripoli, have also been named by the experts. They have identified Russian mercenaries from the private Wagner group, as well as up to 13,000 Syrian rebels and Chadian or Sudanese groups, all acting for one side or the other.Tuesday’s report strongly reinforces the earlier accusations and adds more, such as the one aimed at Erik Prince, founder of the now-defunct Blackwater security company and a fierce supporter of former American President Donald Trump. Prince has denied the accusation he sent or wanted to send a force of foreign mercenaries and weapons to Haftar in 2019. Bribes for power The experts estimate that up to 2,000 Wagner mercenaries have been deployed in Libya. “Notwithstanding the ceasefire agreement of 25 October 2020, there have been no indications of any withdrawal from Libya by ChVK Wagner,” they wrote. Another private Russian company, Rossiskie System Bezopasnosti Group, is cited for its role in refurbishing fighter jets; while the Turkish military contractor SADAT, which has denied any illegal activity in Libya, is also on the list of those incriminated. The experts reached an identical conclusion when it came to economic sanctions levelled at individuals or entities, citing a “persistent lack of transparency”. “Implementation of the assets freeze and travel ban measures with regard to designated individuals remains ineffective,” they wrote. They also say officials in Libya’s east “have continued their efforts to illicitly export crude oil and to import aviation fuel.” Refined petroleum products continue to be illicitly exported by land, the report said, adding that while the activity is small it has increased compared with previous years, particularly in western Libya. The UN experts recommended that the Security Council impose “flag deregistration; a landing ban; and an overflight ban” on aircraft identified as having violated the embargo. They also asked it to “authorise member States to inspect, on the high seas off the coast of Libya, vessels… that they have reasonable grounds to believe are illicitly exporting or attempting to export crude oil or refined petroleum products.” The report also said at least three participants in UN-led peace talks held in Tunisia in November were offered bribes to vote for a prime ministerial candidate. Interim Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, who was sworn in on Monday, has called the report fake and asked the UN experts to make public the report that alleged vote-buying.

Muslim organisations boycott UK government's Prevent review

Leading British Muslim civil society organisations and mosques said on Wednesday they would boycott a review of the government's Prevent counter-terrorism strategy over the appointment of William Shawcross. In a statement, the coalition of more than 450 organisations and 90 prominent community figures including scholars and academics said that Shawcross had a “track record of hostility to Islam and Muslims”. “No serious, objective, critical review can be undertaken by someone with such a track record – rather we should expect him to promote a hardening of policies towards Muslims. So, if Muslim organisations engage with this Review, it strengthens its legitimacy and its power to recommend policies more harmful to the community,” the statement said. Organisations that signed the statement include the Federation of Student Islamic Societies, the Muslim Association of Britain, the Association of Muslim Lawyers and the Islamic Human Rights Commission, as well as regional organisations representing mosques in England and Scotland. The boycott is the second to be announced since Shawcross's controversial appointment to conduct the long-delayed review in January. Last month, leading human rights and civil liberties organisations including Amnesty International and Liberty said they would not engage with the review over concerns the government was using the process to “whitewash” Prevent. Layla Aitlhadj, director of PreventWatch, which supports people affected by the strategy, said: “The review lacks credibility, its current reviewer, William Shawcross, is seen as partisan, and the government has no intention of taking our concerns seriously. In short, this government cannot be trusted to make a truly independent and comprehensive assessment of Prevent.” Criticism of Shawcross's appointment has focused on comments he made in a speech in 2012 in which he described Islam as “one of the greatest, most terrifying problems of our future”. At the time Shawcross, a journalist and author, was director of the Henry Jackson Society, a controversial neoconservative thinktank. Shawcross subsequently led the Charity Commission from 2012 to 2018, during which time the regulator was accused of unfairly targeting Muslim charities, many of which were involved in sending aid to Syria. The commission denied targeting Muslims or any other religion or type of charity. In a letter to the Guardian last month addressing criticism of his appointment, Shawcross said he had in his past work “attempted to deal head-on with the thorny moral and legal issues that emerged as the West responded to the threat of Islamist terrorism after 9/11". “This has led to some of my views being misrepresented or misinterpreted,” he said. Critics of Prevent say that the strategy disproportionately targets Muslims and point to concerns raised by human rights groups, Muslim community organisations and United Nations special rapporteurs. What is the Prevent Strategy? + Show The UK government bowed to pressure for an independent review of Prevent in January 2019, but it was forced to drop its original choice of reviewer, Lord Carlile, in December 2019 following a legal challenge over the peer's past advocacy for Prevent. The review is now due to be completed by August, but its terms of reference have still to be announced. Critics say that a truly independent review must consider whether Prevent should be scrapped altogether. But government ministers have repeatedly suggested that the purpose of the review is to make the strategy more effective. In its statement on Wednesday, the Muslim coalition said that Prevent had promoted “unacceptable harms” including the profiling and targeting of Muslim children, demonising aspects of Islam, and silencing legitimate speech. “We boycott the review because Prevent disproportionately targets the civil liberties of British Muslims and demonises the Islamic faith. Prevent is counter-productive and leaves both liberty and security damaged and diminished for all British citizens and residents, not just those of the Muslim faith,” the statement said. In a letter to Prevent practitioners last month, Shawcross indicated that he intended to build on the work of his predecessor, and said he was “open minded and want to hear all the evidence”. “The aim of the review is to look at the effectiveness of present strategies to protect vulnerable people from being drawn into terrorism and make recommendations for the future,” he wrote.

Russia Recalls Its US Ambassador After Biden Calls Putin a ‘Killer’

Dave DeCamp Russia called its ambassador to the US back to Moscow on Wednesday after an interview of President Biden aired where Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “killer.” In the interview, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked President Biden if he believes that Putin is a “killer,” to which Biden responded, “Uh-huh. I do.” Biden said he once told Putin that he believed the Russian leader had no “soul.” Stephanopoulos and Biden also discussed an assessment from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that claimed Putin sought to hurt Biden in the 2020 election. Biden said Putin will “pay a price” for the allegations made by the ODNI. Like most US claims of Russian meddling, no evidence has been presented to back up the latest allegations besides the intelligence assessment, and the ODNI report did not explain how the conclusion was reached. Russia dismissed the accusation as “baseless” and said the assessment was likely going to be used as a pretext for sanctions. Announcing the recall of the US ambassador, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Moscow was hoping for better relations with the US. “Russian Ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov has been invited for consultations in order to figure out what to do and where to move in terms of relations with the United States,” Zakharova said in a statement. “The main thing for us is to find out ways to improve Russia-US relations,” she added. Also on Wednesday, the US slapped more sanctions on Russia over the alleged poisoning of opposition figure Alexei Navalny. A report from CNN on Tuesday night said the US is expected to impose more sanctions on Russia next week over the ODNI report on the 2020 election. FacebookTwitterWhatsAppRedditLinkedInTumblrEmailPrintShare Author: Dave DeCamp Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com

Senegal: Anti-French sentiment on the rise as protests continue

Scores of French-owned businesses across the Senegalese capital, Dakar, are still coming to terms with the devastation of smashed windows, broken liquor bottles and burned-out premises after days of nationwide anti-government protests in the West African country. French supermarkets, petrol stations and mobile phone booths were torched and looted as largely peaceful protests against rampant inequality, government corruption and stringent coronavirus restrictions morphed into anger against the former colonial power. The latest protests were sparked after the arrest of an outspoken opposition leader who had been accused of rape. Ousmane Sonko, who is popular with the country’s youth, has since been released on bail but the rape charges remain. The French presence is an everyday reality for the Senegalese people, with French troops visibly garrisoned in the capital, which is also home to France’s largest embassy in sub-Saharan Africa. The country still uses the colonial-era CFA franc currency and retains French as an official language. If you sabotage things in Senegal you have a high probability of sabotaging French property and business. We are a Franco-African country. NDONGO SYLLA, AN ECONOMIST AT THE ROSA LUXEMBOURG FOUNDATION Some critics say this arrangement, known as “Franceafrique”, is at the root of anti-French discontent because it benefits France at the expense of Senegal, where nearly 40 per cent of the population lives in poverty. Other observers point instead to the political rise of opposition figure 46-year-old Sonko, whose arrest en route to court on March 3 triggered the protests. Critics allege that his fiery rhetoric may have whipped up his young supporters into a frenzy of anti-French rage. French businesses targeted by protesters included TOTAL petrol stations, Orange mobile phone booths, Eiffage toll gates, and 21 Auchan supermarkets in Dakar, all part of a French sector that accounts for 25 percent of Senegalese gross domestic product (GDP). France is the leading investor in Senegal and its number one trading partner. ‘We are a Franco-African country’ Ndongo Sylla, an economist at the Dakar branch of Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, explained that the sheer number of key French businesses across the capital made them an easy target for looters. “If you sabotage things in Senegal you have a high probability of sabotaging French property and business,” he said. “We are a Franco-African country.” Sylla said that French businesses were perceived as much as virtual monopolies edging out the local competition as powerful symbols of the country’s stark inequalities. The Auchan supermarket chain, accused of using its foothold in the food distribution sector to undercut locals, is viewed by many as affordable for the middle classes, said Sylla, who added that impoverished looters appeared perplexed at the tubs of yoghurt that fell into their hands. Meanwhile, toll roads, managed by French engineering firm Eiffage, he said, have “created an economic divide between those who could afford them and others who have to endure long hours in traffic jams”. “People have destroyed them and are now circulating frequently,” he added. Senegal’s uneasy relationship with France stretches deep into the colonial era, a major flashpoint being the massacre in the Dakar suburb of Thiaroye in 1944 of hundreds of West African soldiers who fought to liberate France in World War II. Meanwhile, successive Senegalese presidents have enjoyed impeccably close ties with Paris, most notably the poet-president, Leopold Senghor, who was the first African to be elected to the French academy, and who lived out the last decades of his life in the northern French region of Normandy. Colonial resentments Colonial resentments and suspicion of elite collusion with France have become heightened in recent years, as a younger generation enters the political fray faced with the stark inequality in the country. Marame Gueye, Associate Professor of African and African Diaspora Literatures at East Carolina University, said an incendiary 2007 speech given by French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar marked a turning point. “The tragedy of Africa is that the African has not fully entered into history,” Sarkozy said. “They have never really launched themselves into the future.” The speech caused an outrage in Senegal, with a leading newspaper Sud Quotidien calling it “an insult”. Writers, intellectuals and politicians from across Africa joined in the condemnation of the address, which they said was based on long-discredited stereotypes. Meanwhile, the faith Senegalese youth had placed in Macky Sall in the 2012 election that brought him to power, faded fast, Gueye said, as he failed to stem rocketing youth unemployment and a crumbling education system. Additionally, she says: “People criticised Sall for supporting France during the [2015] Charlie Hebdo massacre when he went to France to offer his condolences but did not say a word when young people in Senegal died trying to board boats toward Europe.” 2018 saw the emergence of “France Degage” (France Go), a major grassroots movement focused on disengaging from the CFA franc, used by 14 mainly former French colonies in Sub-Saharan Africa, and regarded as the most poignant symbol of French economic neocolonialism. “The debates around the CFA franc have been an important part of the fight to develop a consciousness to decolonise the relationship with France,” said Sylla, coauthor of Africa’s Last Colonial Currency. Rise of Sonko The following year, the CFA franc debate, hitherto a taboo subject in Senegalese political discourse, entered the mainstream, as Sonko, a tax inspector-turned whistle-blower ran for president in 2019. Sonko took 15 percent of the vote, electrifying young voters with a slick social media campaign as well as fiery speeches denouncing the CFA and Senegal elites’ cosy relationship with France. “Our politicians are criminals,” Sonko said in a video in 2018. “Those who have ruled Senegal from the start deserve to be shot!” Lamine Niang, a researcher at Dakar’s School for International Training, thinks that such bombast from Sonko has been responsible for an uptick in anti-French sentiment. “French-owned businesses were targeted because of the rhetoric that Ousmane Sonko has been using,” he said. “He has been denouncing the French neocolonial attitude towards Senegal.” Niang said that Sonko had characterised Macky Sall as a “puppet”, leading his young supporters to “believe that Macky Sall serves French interests, not Senegalese ones”. For his part, Sonko struck a more conciliatory tone when he spoke to Al Jazeera on Wednesday, denying he had incited supporters. “Our relationship with France like any other countries need to be more balanced, it has to be a win-win relationship – not a one-way relationship,” he said. “People are looting not because they support me but because they need provisions…The looting shows the failure of the state.” Asked about the strength of feeling some in Senegal have towards France, Ndongo Sylla from the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation said: “I would not call it “anti-French” sentiment, it’s just African desire for emancipation, for liberation from neocolonialism.” SOURCE : AL JAZEERA

Jewish Settlers Open Fire at Two Palestinian Children in Masafer Yatta

Jewish settlers opened fire at two Palestinian children near the town of Yatta in the southern West Bank, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA. Rateb Jabour, the coordinator of the Wall and Colonization Resistance Commission in Hebron, told WAFA that armed settlers opened gunfire towards two children from the Hrezat family while they were grazing sheep in the area of Masafer Yatta. The two children, said to be 12 and 13 years old respectively, survived the attack and were able to leave to a safe haven. In the meantime, Israeli occupation forces raided the village of Karmel, one of the hamlets of Masafer Yatta area, and stormed and searched the homes of local Palestinian residents, wreaking havoc behind. The area of Masafer Yatta, a collection of about 19 nomadic Bedouin hamlets, has been a frequent target of almost daily assaults by the Israeli military and settlers, who wish to empty the area of its indigenous population for settlement expansion purposes. Almost every day, attacks by the Israeli occupation forces or settlers on Palestinians are reported in the area. (WAFA, PC, Social Media)

‘Engaging the World’: The ‘Fascinating Story’ of Hamas’s Political Evolution by Romana Rubeo and Ramzy Baroud

by Romana Rubeo and Ramzy Baroud Posted onMarch 13, 2021 On February 4, representatives from the Palestinian Movement, Hamas, visited Moscow to inform the Russian government of the latest development on the unity talks between the Islamic Movement and its Palestinian counterparts, especially Fatah. This was not the first time that Hamas’s officials traveled to Moscow on similar missions. In fact, Moscow continues to represent an important political breathing space for Hamas, which has been isolated by Israel’s Western benefactors. Involved in this isolation are also several Arab governments which, undoubtedly, have done very little to break the Israeli siege on Gaza. The Russia-Hamas closeness is already paying dividends. On February 17, shipments of the Russian COVID-19 vaccine, Sputnik V, have made it to Gaza via Israel, a testament to that growing rapport. While Russia alone cannot affect a complete paradigm shift in the case of Palestine, Hamas feels that a Russian alternative to the blind and conditional American support for Israel is possible, if not urgent. Recently, we interviewed Dr. Daud Abdullah, the author of Engaging the World: The Making of Hamas’s Foreign Policy, and Mr. Na’eem Jeenah, Director of the Afro-Middle East Center in Johannesburg, which published Dr. Abdullah’s book. Abdullah’s volume on Hamas is a must-read, as it offers a unique take on Hamas, liberating the discussion on the Movement from the confines of the reductionist Western media’s perception of Hamas as terrorist – and of the counterclaims, as well. In this book, Hamas is viewed as a political actor, whose armed resistance is only a component in a complex and far-reaching strategy. Why Russia? As Moscow continues to cement its presence in the region by offering itself as a political partner and, compared with the US, a more balanced mediator between Israel and the Palestinians, Hamas sees the developing Russian role as a rare opportunity to break away from the US-Israel imposed isolation. "Russia was a member of the Quartet that was set up in 2003 but, of course, as a member of the (United Nations) Security Council, it has always had an ability to inform the discourse on Palestine," Abdullah said, adding that in light of "the gradual demise of American influence, Russia realized that there was an emerging vacuum in the region, particularly after the (Arab) uprisings." "With regard to Hamas and Russia the relationship took off after the (Palestinian) elections in 2006 but it was not Hamas’s initiative, it was (Russian President Vladimir) Putin who, in a press conference in Madrid after the election, said that he would be willing to host Hamas’s leadership in Moscow. Because Russia is looking for a place in the region." Hamas’s willingness to engage with the Russians has more than one reason, chief among them is the fact that Moscow, unlike the US, refused to abide by Israel’s portrayal of the Movement. "The fundamental difference between Russia and America and China … is that the Russians and the Chinese do not recognize Hamas as a ‘terrorist organization’; they have never done so, unlike the Americans, and so it made it easy for them to engage openly with Hamas," Abdullah said. On Hamas’s ‘Strategic Balance’ In his book, Abdullah writes about the 1993 Oslo Accords, which represented a watershed moment, not only for Hamas but also for the entire Palestinian liberation struggle. The shift towards a US-led ‘peace process’ compelled Hamas to maintain a delicate balance "between strategic objectives and tactical flexibility." Abdullah wrote, "Hamas sees foreign relations as an integral and important part of its political ideology and liberation strategy. Soon after the Movement emerged, foreign policies were developed to help its leaders and members navigate this tension between idealism and realism. This pragmatism is evident in the fact that Hamas was able to establish relations with the regimes of Muammar Gaddhafi in Libya and Bashar al-Assad in Syria, both of whom were fiercely opposed to the Muslim Brotherhood." In our interview, Abdullah elaborated: "From the very beginning, Hamas adopted certain principles in respect to its international relations and, later on, in the formation of a foreign policy. Among these, there is a question of maintaining its independence of decision-making; non-alignment in conflicting blocks, avoidance of interference in the affairs of other states." Mr. Jeenah, an accomplished writer himself, also spoke of the "delicate balance." "It is a delicate balance, and a difficult one to maintain because, at this stage, when movements are regarded and regard themselves as liberation movements, they need to have higher moral and ethical standards than, for example, governments," Jeenah said. "For some reason, we expect that governments have to make difficult choices but, with liberation movements, we don’t, because they are all about idealism and creating an ideal society, etc." Jeenah uses the South Africa anti-apartheid struggle which, in many ways, is comparable to the Palestinian quest for freedom, to illustrate his point: "When the liberation movement in South Africa was exiled, they took a similar kind of position. While some of them might have had a particular allegiance to the Soviet Union or to China, some of them also had strong operations in European countries, which they regarded as part of the bigger empire. Nevertheless, they had the freedom to operate there. Some of them operated in other African countries where there were dictatorships and they got protection from those states." Hamas and the Question of National Unity In his book, which promises to be an essential read on the subject, Abdullah lists six principles that guide Hamas’s political agenda. One of these guiding principles is the "search for common ground." In addressing the question of Palestinian factionalism, we contended that, while Fatah has failed at creating a common, nominally democratic platform for Palestinians to interact politically, Hamas cannot be entirely blameless. If that is, indeed, the case, can one then make the assertion that Hamas has succeeded in its search for the elusive common ground? Abdullah answers: "Let me begin with what happened after the elections in 2006. Although Hamas won convincingly and they could have formed a government, they decided to opt for a government of national unity. They offered to (Palestinian Authority President) Mahmoud Abbas and to (his party) Fatah to come into a government of national unity. They didn’t want to govern by themselves. And that, to me, is emblematic of their vision, their commitment to national unity." But the question of national unity, however coveted and urgently required, is not just controlled by Palestinians. "The PLO is the one that signed the Oslo Accords," Abdullah said, "and I think this is one of Hamas’s weaknesses: as much as it wants national unity and a reform of the PLO, the fact of the matter is Israel and the West will not allow Hamas to enter into the PLO easily, because this would be the end of Oslo." On Elections under Military Occupation On January 15, Abbas announced an official decree to hold Palestinian elections, first presidential, then legislative, then elections within the PLO’s Palestine National Council (PNC), which has historically served as a Palestinian parliament in exile. The first phase of these elections is scheduled for May 22. But will this solve the endemic problem of Palestinian political representation? Moreover, is this the proper historical evolution of national liberation movements – democracy under military occupation, followed by liberation, instead of the other way around? Jeenah spoke of this dichotomy: "On the one hand, elections are an opportunity for Palestinians to express their choices. On the other hand, what is the election really? We are not talking about a democratic election for the State, but for a Bantustan authority, at greater restraints than the South African authority." Moreover, the Israeli "occupying power will not make the mistake it did the last time. It will not allow such freedom (because of which) Hamas (had) won the elections. I don’t think Israel is going to allow it now." Yet there is a silver lining in this unpromising scenario. According to Jeenah, "I think the only difference this election could make is allowing some kind of reconciliation between Gaza and the West Bank." Hamas, the ICC and War Crimes Then, there is the urgent question of the anticipated war crime investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC). Yet, when the ICC agreed to consider allegations of war crimes in Palestine, chances are not only alleged Israeli war criminals are expected to be investigated, but the probe could potentially consider the questioning of Palestinians, as well. Should not this concern Hamas in the least? In the Israeli wars on Gaza in 2008, 2012 and 2014, Hamas, along with other armed groups had no other option but to "defend the civilian population," Abdullah said, pointing out that the "overriding concept" is that the Movement "believes in the principle of international law." If Hamas "can restore the rights of the Palestinian people through legal channels, then it will be much easier for the Movement, rather than having to opt for the armed struggle," Abdullah asserted. Understanding Hamas Undoubtedly, it is crucial to understand Hamas, not only as part of the Palestine-related academic discourse, but in the everyday political discourse concerning Palestine; in fact, the entire region. Abdullah’s book is itself critical to this understanding. Jeenah argued that Abdullah’s book is not necessarily an "introductory text to the Hamas Movement. It has a particular focus, which is the development of Hamas’s foreign policy. The importance of that, in general, is firstly that there isn’t a text that deals specifically with Hamas’s foreign policy. What this book does is present Hamas as a real political actor." The evolution of Hamas’s political discourse and behavior since its inception, according to Jeenah, is a "fascinating" one. Many agree. Commenting on the book, leading Israeli historian, Professor Ilan Pappé, wrote, "This book challenges successfully the common misrepresentation of Hamas in the West. It is a must-read for anyone engaged with the Palestine issue and interested in an honest introduction to this important Palestinian Movement." [Dr. Daud Abdullah’s book, Engaging the World: The Making of Hamas’s Foreign Policy, is available here.] Romana Rubeo is an Italian writer and the Managing Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. Her articles appear in many online newspapers and academic journals. She holds a Master’s Degree in Foreign Languages and Literature and specializes in audio-visual and journalism translation. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle.

Sri Lanka to ban burqa, shut many Islamic schools, minister says

Reuters: Minister for public security Sarath Weerasekera told a news conference he had signed a paper on Friday for cabinet approval to ban the full face covering worn by some Muslim women on “national security” grounds. “In our early days Muslim women and girls never wore the burqa,” he said. “It is a sign of religious extremism that came about recently. We are definitely going to ban it.” The wearing of the burqa in the majority-Buddhist nation was temporarily banned in 2019 after the bombing of churches and hotels by Islamic militants that killed more than 250. Later that year, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, best known for crushing a decades-long insurgency in the north of the country as defence secretary, was elected president after promising a crackdown on extremism. Rajapaksa is accused of widespread rights abuses during the war, charges he denies. Weerasekera said the government plans to ban more than a thousand madrassa Islamic schools that he said were flouting national education policy. “Nobody can open a school and teach whatever you want to the children,” he said. The government’s moves on burqas and schools follow an order last year mandating the cremation of COVID-19 victims - against the wishes of Muslims, who bury their dead. This ban was lifted earlier this year after criticism from the United States and international rights groups.

The Myanmar coup-2021 and Aung San Suu Kyi by Dr. Shwe Lu Maung

By Shwe Lu Maung Prologue This article is written to mark the 2nd March 1962, the day the Myanmar Armed Forces seized power and enslaved the peoples under the military colonialism. On that very night, a meeting of the Rangoon University Students Union was held. About 300 students attended the meeting. Some 50 of them pledged to oppose and fight the junta. I was one of them. Now, after 59 years, I am the only one surviving and talking. With this humble article, I honor my comrades who sacrificed their lives in our fight for freedom from the military colonialism. You can find the brief account of the student meeting in my book (http://www.shwelumaung.org/BNI) Burma: Nationalism and Ideology, University Press Ltd., Dhaka, 1989, page 45, Note 1. Déjà vu On the 1st day of February 2021, there was a "coup" in Myanmar, again! The military takeover in Burma, aka Myanmar, is nothing new. As a matter of fact, calling it a "coup" is a misnomer because the Burmese military has been in power since 1962. It never left power. The Revolutionary Government of the Union Burma (1962-1974), the Socialist Government of the Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma (1974-1988), the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC, 1988-1997), and the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC, 1977-2010) were the military governments. As per the Constitution-2008, the Myanmar military stays at the "backstage" behind the curtain rather than at "frontstage" in front of the curtain. Now, the Myanmar military comes out to the "frontstage." The word "coup," though, is catchy and easy to use, with a punch. Suu Kyi's dilemma In 2010, a general election was held as per Constitution-2008, and the so-called "democracy transit" took its first step. However, the very essence of the Constitution-2008 is the military rule. The constitution itself was approved by a national referendum held at gunpoint by the SPDC. Aung San Suu Kyi and her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), boycotted the 2010 election. It did not accept the constitution and did not recognize the 2010 Naypyitaw government led by President Thein Sein, a former general and chair of the pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP). However, Aung San Suu Kyi changed her mind in 2015, took part in, and won the election to form the Naypyitaw government. As such, Aung San Suu Kyi recognized the Constitution-2008 and legitimized the military power in the Myanmar government. Aung San Suu Kyi voluntarily entered into the trap laid by the Myanmar military. This was her big mistake. She should have remained aloof from the party politics and power struggle. She should have let the NLD go into the power struggle while she remains as the "democracy icon" opposing the Constitution-2008. After a momentary refusal, she accepted the "dinner invitation" and then criticized the host for the "bad dinner." This is a bad policy. Suu Kyi's struggle for presidency Suu Kyi won the 2015 election with over 60% majority in both houses of the parliament. After the win, her struggle was to revoke Constitution-2008 Section 59(f) that makes Suu Kyi ineligible for the presidency due to her marriage to a foreigner so that she can be the president of the country. Her adviser Ko Ni, a lawyer by profession with specialization in the constitutional laws and a Burmese Muslim of Indian ancestry, charted out the office of State Counsellor. Suu Kyi took his advice and bypassed the president in her capacity as the State Counsellor, becoming the de facto ruler. Ko Ni was assassinated in the broad daylight at Rangoon Airport on Sunday, January 29, 2017. The mastermind of the assassination was a retired Lt. Colonel who vanished into the thin air, as per media reports. Despite becoming the de facto ruler, her power remained limited due to the various constitutional provisions. Constitutional gameNine objectives of the SAC Feb 2021A The most known part of the Myanmar Constitution-2008 is the Section 109 that gives the 25% of the parliamentary seats to the military representatives at all levels from the state and regional to the union or central legislature. However, the key is that the Myanmar armed forces known as the Defence Services or Tatmadaw is a totally independent body and is not under the government. Although the Constitution-2008 Section 342 says, "The President shall appoint the Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Services," the President is required to appoint the person "proposed and approved" by the Tatmadaw-controlled "National Defence and Security Council." In short, Tatmadaw is a state within the state that controls the state. The term "the Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Services" appears 51 times in the Myanmar Constitution-2008 in contrast to only one time in the US Constitution. The Myanmar president is not the commander in chief. The Ministries of Defence (MoD), Home Affairs (MoHA), and Border Affairs (MoBA) are completely under Tatmadaw. The other ministries are under the president. Nevertheless, the catch is here. Under the Ministry of Home Affairs is the General Administrative Department (GAD). No administrative or government business can be done without the knowledge and approval of the GSD in the entire Myanmar. In order to be the real power holder, Suu Kyi wanted to bring the GAD under her command. A technical move Aung San Suu Kyi successfully removed the General Administrative Department (GAD) from the military-controlled Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA) to place it in the newly created Suu Kyi-controlled Ministry of the Office of the Union Government (MoOUG) by a law adopted by the NLD-led union parliament in December 2018. The GAD, a copy of the British colonial public administration or Indian Civil Service (ICS), is the key of the Myanmar civil administrative machinery. Her success in bringing the GAD under her control was hailed as a major achievement of Suu Kyi's democratization. In reality, it is hard to call it "democratization" because the GAD is a copy of the British colonial ICS system of 1858, which was a child of the East Indian Company Act 1853. It was and still is not a civil service but a surveillance system. Therefore, the oppression and exploitation go on as usual. The most known example is the conviction of the two Reuters journalists, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, for their 2018 exposure of the Myanmar military 2017 massacre of the Rohingya people at Inn Din village. Aung San Suu Kyi called the journalists "the traitors." The thought of the Myanmar military's coming to the "frontstage" was born when the GAD was revoked from the military-controlled MoHA and invoked in the Suu Kyi-controlled MoOUG in 2018. As mentioned earlier, the GAD is a copy of the 19th century British colonial administration system. Without it, the Bama majority will not be able to rule the 134 non-Bama minorities. For example, the world witnessed the rise of the Arakan Army (AA) in the Rakhine State, in 2018. All through from December 2018 to December 2020, the Myanmar military had to engage in deadly battles with serious losses. The question is: how the Arakan Army was able to field more than 5,000 well-trained fighters in Arakan while it was headquartered and trained in the Northern Kachin State? One explanation is that the Myanmar army was devoid of intelligence since the GAD was taken away from its hand in 2018. I believe it was just a sheer coincidence of the time in the rise of the Arakan Army and the GAD transfer. Nevertheless, it is highly probable that the GAD under Suu Kyi deprived the Myanmar military of the intelligence to a considerable extent in 2019 and 2020. The Myanmar military considers the GAD the crucial instrument in the intelligence collection for "the non-disintegration of the Union, nondisintegration of National solidarity, and perpetuation of sovereignty" as highlighted in the Preamble of the Constitution-2008. The Constitution-2008 Section 20(e) says, "The Defence Services is mainly responsible for safeguarding the nondisintegration of the Union, the non-disintegration of National solidarity and the perpetuation of sovereignty." There it goes. The Defence Services is just doing its duty! In bottom line, the GAD must be shredded and trashed. A brand new citizen-friendly, decentralized and transparent public service system to meet the need of the 21st century must be introduced. The game of election The "changing hands" of the GAD is a drastic change of the personnel of the pro-military to pro-Suu Kyi. Rigorously, Suu Kyi reshuffled the GAD with her people and prepared for the great 2020 election victory. In Myanmar, since the days of U Nu, the elections are "made" by the ruling party through their faithful. Strictly speaking, in Myanmar, the election fraud is a common feature though it is done using the various loopholes of the law. Bribes such as a government job, a promotion, a business license, a business loan, and intimidation such as arrest with the charges of insurgent-connection, sedition, and corruption are very common. Irregularities can hardly be seen on the election-day. Suu Kyi government and her NLD party did the same "Myanmar customary election business." On the top of that the NLD was quite successful in changing the "demography," especially in the Chin, Kachin and Karen States, in favor of her and the NLD. In addition, the NLD-controlled Election Commission fully or partially cancelled the election in a number of ethnic constituencies, amounting to 15-20 parliamentary seats, in the Rakhine, Kachin, Shan, Karen, and Mon States, where NLD was sure to lose. The result was that her NLD won 315 of 440 or 71.5% in the House of Representatives and 161 of 224 or 71.8% of the House of Nationalities. This amount of majority is not large enough to change the Constitution-2008 Sections 6(f), 109(b), and 141(b) that enable the military participation in politics and allotment of 25% of parliamentary seats to the military. Similarly, it is not good enough to change the Constitution-2008 Section 59(f) that makes Suu Kyi ineligible for the presidency due to her marriage to a foreigner. It needs a 75% majority and a national referendum to repeal these sections. Such a national referendum will never happen because the military will surely stop it for reasons of national security. The election 2020 result is not the main cause of the military coming out to the "frontstage," but a convenient excuse. It is true, though, that Tatmadaw is deeply concerned of Suu Kyi's ambition for the presidency. So, why wait until the moonless midnight? Street protests Throughout the history of the 20th century, in no country, the street protests changed the government. The Myanmar new military government, known as the State Administrative Council (SAC), has made the prisons ready for the new prisoners by releasing nearly 24,000 old prisoners. It appears to be a well-calculated plan, and many protestors will end up in the jail for up to 20 years, and many may get killed on the streets and in detention. It is a story of heartbreaking anguish. I went through it in my days, and I ended up as a revolutionary in the armed insurrection. I am still carrying on the revolution, though unarmed, with a heavy cost on my scientific career. The big question is to create a condition that will make Tatmadaw withdraw from the politics. This is a very big task. It needs a philosophy, a strategy, and the tactics as well as the techniques. A street protest is simply symptomatic and emotion-driven. It is philosophy-less, strategy-less and tactics-less. It has some techniques only. In Myanmar, it was not successful in 1962, 1974, and also in most famous 1988. It will not be successful in 2021 either. Ethnic politics Unfortunately, the ethnic tension, that is Bama-nonBama tension, grew in the days of Suu Kyi government. Serious human rights violations of the Rohingya, amounting to ethnic cleansing and genocide, occurred in 2017 under the watchful eyes of Suu Kyi, and she, regardless of the Nobel Peace Prize, defended Myanmar at the ICJ in December 2019. The rise of the Arakan Army in the Rakhine State in 2018 and the serious battles with great loss to the Myanmar military is another significant failure of Suu Kyi. The "terrorist" classification of the Arakan Army by the Suu Kyi government keeps the peace-talk impossible. In 2015, Tatmadaw and Thein Sein government planned out a 7-point Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) and invited the Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs) to enter into the ceasefire agreement. The most significant part of the NCA is that the term EAOs is used and such conventional terms as "insurgents," "rebels," or "minorities" are completed discarded. The NCA was signed by the eight EAOs, and the government (President Thein Sein) and Tatmadaw (Senior General Min Aung Hlaing) at Naypyitaw on October 15, 2015 and with another two EAOs on February 13, 2018, bringing to total of 10 EAOs into the NCA. The agreement was also signed by China, India, Japan, Thailand, the EU, and the United Nations, as the international witnesses. There are 21 EAOs in Myanmar. Among the remaining 11 EAOs are the powerful groups like United Wa State Army, Kachin Independence Organization/Army, Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, Ta’ang National Liberation Army, and United League of Arakan/Arakan Army, five of which together make up a fighting force of 60,000 under the banner of the Northern Alliance. When Suu Kyi came into power in 2015, she undermined the NCA by initiating her own peace program known as the Panglong-21, citing her father Aung San's initiative of the 1947 Panglong Agreement that brought in the Chin, the Kachin, and the Shan into the Union of Burma. This action of hers visibly annoyed Tatmadaw. The result was that neither the NCA nor the Panglong-21 made any progress in the last five years. The peace process was completely stalled. Only the cosmetic once-a-year celebrative meetings were held for publicity with no substance. It is interesting to note that on the 9th of December 2020, Tatmadaw had an "informal" meeting with the Arakan Army at Wa Self-Administered Zone’s capital, Panghsang, Northern Shan State, near the China border. They agreed to an "informal" unconditional ceasefire as long as needed to reach a "formal" agreement. To my amazement, the meeting was facilitated by a Japanese mediator and the United Wa State Army, a friend of China. When asked why the Tatmadaw talked with the terrorist organization, Arakan Army, Tatmadaw replied that it never called "AA, terrorist," implying that the "terrorist" designation is the job of Aung San Suu Kyi. The "informal" ceasefire happened at a snap, much unexpected and much out of the way. I was totally puzzled. Only when the coup took place on the 1st of February 2021 the reason for the rush of the ceasefire with the Arakan Army was enlightened. Tatmadaw cannot afford a war while taking over power at Naypyitaw. Soon after the coup or assuming the duty assigned by the Union President as per Constitution-2008 Section 413(b), the Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing formed the State Administrative Council (SAC) consisting of 17 members, with him in the Chair or Chief Administrator. Out of the 17 members, eight are the soldiers, and nine are the civilians. All soldiers are ethnic Bama, but among the civilians, 6 are non-Bama, from the Chin, Kachin, Karen, Kaya, Rakhine, and Shan ethnicity. Except for one banker, the rest of the civilians are seasoned politicians with their own parties that compete with the NLD, Suu Kyi's party. This is the first time in the history of Myanmar that the top state administrative body is constituted with the inclusion of the non-Bama ethnic peoples, up to 35%. After formation of the SAC, the new junta announced nine objectives in three categories: 1. Political affairs, 2. Economic affairs, and 3. Social affairs. Each category has three objectives. In the political affairs, the two top objectives are (1) formation of a federal union, and (2) establishment of peace through the NCA. Obviously, Tatmadaw is making alliance with the non-Bama ethnic forces to counter Aung San Suu Kyi. The Arakan Army (https://www.arakanarmy.net) As described earlier, the rise of the Arakan Army is phenomenal. It started with 15 youths in 2009, and in November 2018, it fielded some 1,000 fighters in the Northern Arakan, it increases to 3,000 in 2019 and to more than 5,000 in mid 2020. In March 2020, the Arakan Army wiped out one whole company of Tatmadaw airborne soldiers and captured some 40 men, including its commanding officer, a major. Only the heavy air raids saved the Tatmadaw field command headquarter. At present, in the Northern Arakan, Tatmadaw controls only the city municipal areas, which is only 20%. That means the Arakan Army controls 80% of the Northern Arakan or the Rakhine State. Bordered with Bangladesh and India, it creates a worrisome situation for Tatmadaw. In particular, the Arakan Army is making good progress in forging a friendship with the Arakan Muslims. History evidenced the rise of Arakan and Mrauk-U glory with the Buddhist-Muslim alliance from 1430 to 1784. Map of Northern Arakan showing the area occupied by the Arakan Army (AA) as of November 2020. The label AA....AA indicates the Arakan Army-occupied Areas.Map of the AA-occupied Northern Arakan Tatmadaw believes that Aung San Suu Kyi, in the last five years of her in power, had every opportunity to cooperate with Tatmadaw in the NCA peace process to achieve the goal of a federal union, but Aung San Suu Kyi simply wasted her time with her struggle to become the president of the country. The weakening of the NCA peace process due to her launching of Panglong-21 excluding the "terrorist Arakan Army" was a contributing factor to the rise of the Arakan Army. It also believes that Suu Kyi's cancellation of the election in the ethnic areas where she was sure to lose, in particular in the Rakhine State, created a grave situation that can escalate the ongoing deadly armed conflict to an unmanageable level. In November 2020, with the guarantee of peace and smooth election, the Arakan Army and Tatmadaw both called for the Rakhine State cancelled elections to be held. Unfortunately, Suu Kyi and her Election Commission turned down the call. Also, in the same time, the Rakhine State Parliament, including the military representatives, unanimously presented an official request to the Suu Kyi government to repeal the terrorist designation of the Arakan Army in order to enable a ceasefire talk. Suu Kyi turned it down. In the given situation, Tatmadaw made an "informal" ceasefire with the Arakan Army and also set free the top Rakhine politician Dr. Aye Maung and his young colleague historian-writer U Wai Hin Aung from the infamous InSein prison on the 15th of February, just two weeks after the coup. The duo was arrested by the Suu Kyi government in January 1918 on the charges of high treason and connection to the "terrorist" Arakan Army under the Penal Code Articles 122 and 505, and sentenced to 20-year imprisonment in March 2019. At present, the Rakhine State is peaceful and quiet, while Rangoon and Mandalay boil with the protests. The protests in the Kachin, Karen, and Shan areas are minimal while there are no protests in the Chin, Kaya, and Rakhine States. The Arakan War is the major factor in the coup-2021, just like the Shan factor was in the coup-1962. In a short time in late 2020, the Arakan Army strength went up to about 10,000 with a combat force of more than 7,000. This is the main concern. Military withdrawal from politics Now and then, Tatmadaw had said it would withdraw from politics when the ethnic armed conflict ends and no more internal danger to "the Union integrity, the National solidarity, and the sovereignty." Myanmar needs to create a condition that will make Tatmadaw withdraw from the politics. Tatmadaw came into politics with the 1962 coup d'état putting up a strong reasoning that the Union of Burma was at the brink of disintegration due to the ethnic tension. Since then, the army stays on in power. The Constitution-2008 Section 20(e) says, "The Defence Services is mainly responsible for safeguarding the nondisintegration of the Union, the non-disintegration of National solidarity and the perpetuation of sovereignty." On this ground that Tatmadaw again comes out to the "frontstage" that we conveniently call a "coup." Tatmadaw put the blame on the politicians and the EAOs for creating a condition that endangers the very existence of the Union of Myanmar. In response, the EAOs have announced and promised that their fight is for a genuine federal union, nothing more, nothing less. In return, in 1990, Tatmadaw admitted that it was wrong to equate federalism with secessionism. Tatmadaw stops calling the EAOs secessionists, separatists, insurgents, or rebels and honors them with a respectful nomenclature of Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs). Tatmadaw, also in 1990, erased out the term "minorities" and introduced "ethnic peoples" or "Taiyinthar" that was happily welcomed by the ethnic peoples. At that time, General Than Shwe told the nation that Tatmadaw knows the ethnic peoples more than anybody else because of the Tatmadaw's long experience in the ethnic areas in the civil war. His wife, Daw Kyaing Kyaing, is a Pa-O. They have eight children, a large family in Myanmar. Then and again, Tatmadaw highlights that it is the Tatmadaw that initiated the peace process with the first peace-talk in 1964. The main objective of the present Tatmadaw-led State Administrative Council (SAC) is to build a genuine federal union through the NCA peace process. What shall we do? In light of the above discussion on the core issue, though it does not cover many other important aspects of Myanmar life, it will be reasonable for us to help Myanmar, in particular her Tatmadaw and the EAOs, achieve a federal union with genuine democracy through the NCA peace process. It is especially so because Aung San Suu Kyi's politics is filled with "personality cult," casting a shade on the post-Suu Kyi era. It is also a fact that under her rule Myanmar witnessed increased armed conflicts and atrocities, and poverty escalation in the ethnic areas. Without peace and adequate social-economic security in the ethnic areas, Myanmar's "democracy transit" is meaningless. How to help? 1. To accord international recognition of autonomy struggle of the Myanmar ethnic peoples and their armed organizations in accordance with (1) the promise of the UN Charter Preamble objective 2: "to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small," and (2) the UN Charter, Chapter 1, Article 1.2 "the principle of equal rights and self-determination." 2. To hold a UN-sponsored all-inclusive peace conference with all openness and fairness to help the Myanmar peoples formulate a new peaceful and lasting peace and federation in accordance with the promise of the UN Charter Preamble objective 3: "To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion." Italics are my highlights to draw the attention of relevancy. Epilogue Myanmar is in crisis for more than 70 years. The world is wrong to lock it up in the conventional, outdated, and rotten dungeon of "domestic affairs." Jumping and shouting only when the fire flares up is sheer stupidity. The problem is not just a question of a power struggle between Tatmadaw and Aung San Suu Kyi or democracy and authoritarianism. It is a struggle of all Myanmar peoples "for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion."