| Al Jazeera, Sep 27, 2008 |
|||||
The Palestinian president and Arab countries have criticised Israel over its settlement expansion policy in the West Bank during debates at the United Nations. In a speech to the General Assembly on Friday, Mahmoud Abbas deplored as “racial terrorism” what he said were daily attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian civilians, and urged the international community to take action. “[The settlements] will not allow for the emergence of a viable Palestinian state because they divide the West Bank into at least four cantons,” he said. Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, whose country formally called for the debate, said Israel must halt settlement activity and obey international law. “Settlement makes the creation of a viable Palestinian state impossible,” he said. “The only path to Israel’s security is peace and it is time for Israel to understand that it cannot continue to exempt itself from behaving in accordance to international law,” Prince Saud said. The Palestinian Authority, Saudi Arabia and the Arab League urged the UN Security Council to encourage the faltering peace process by demanding an end to Jewish settlements on Palestinian land. In August, Israel approved the construction of 400 new homes in a Jewish neighbourhood in east Jerusalem and invited bids for the construction of another 416 settler homes in the occupied West Bank. The Middle East diplomatic Quartet on Friday pressed Israel and the Palestinians to seal a peace deal this year, but also expressed “deep concern” over continuing settlement expansion in the West Bank. A ministerial session of Quartet members, the US, Russia, the European Union and the UN, ended with a call on the parties “to make every effort to conclude an agreement before the end of 2008”. Quartet members “expressed deep concern about increasing [Israeli] settlement activity, which has a damaging impact on the negotiating environment and is an impediment to economic recovery and called on Israel to freeze all settlement activity.” They also reiterated that the parties “must avoid actions that undermine confidence and could prejudice the outcome of the negotiations”. In Annapolis, Maryland last November, Israel and the Palestinians revived negotiations toward resolving core problems such as the status of Jerusalem, the borders of a future Palestinian state and refugees, by the end of 2008. Settlement expansion Settlement expansion has nearly doubled since 2007, despite Israel’s pledge to freeze such activities, Peace Now, the Israeli watchdog, said last month. “The situation necessitates a serious stand by the international community and a clear call upon Israel to begin withdrawing its settlers and dismantling its settlements,” Abbas said.
“It was recognised [in Annapolis] that this was a prerequisite for allowing negotiations towards ending the conflict to progress,” he said.But Gabriela Shalev, Israel’s UN Ambassador, told council members that while the settlements are a “delicate issue,” they “are not an obstacle to peace”. “They have been used here as another instrument to bash Israel instead of addressing the realities on the ground,” she said. “There is much that those in the region can do to support that peace process, but it is not about more UN meetings. “It is, first and foremost, about commitment to prepare the people of the region for the price of peace, to accept the true meaning of peace,” Shalev said. The West Bank has been under military occupation by Israel since 1967 and at least 400,000 Israelis have been settled in the territory, including East Jerusalem. The settlements are illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this. Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, whose country currently chairs the European Union, restated the EU view that Israeli settlements, “wherever in the occupied Palestinian territories, are illegal under international law.” He added that settlement “harms the credibility of the process started in Annapolis and affects the viability of the future Palestinian state.” Reaching out Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, shifted the focus of the debate away from settlements, instead urging Arab countries to “consider ways they might reach out to Israel”. She said the Arab world needed to fully understand that: “Israel belongs to the Middle East and will remain” in the Middle East. Meanwhile, a group of 21 leading aid agencies said on Thursday that the Middle East Quartet was “losing its grip” on the peace process and must radically revise its approach. The aid agencies said the Quartet has failed to hold Israel to account for expanding settlements in the West Bank. |
Archive for September, 2008
UN debates West Bank settlements
September 27, 2008
Israeli academic injured in bomb blast
September 27, 2008By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem
The Independent, Thursday, 25 September 2008
One of Israel’s leading centre-left academics was injured early today when a pipe bomb blew up outside his home in an attack which police suspect was the work of Jewish extreme right-wing extremists.
The victim of the attack was Professor Zeev Sternhell, a Holocaust survivor and recent winner of the prestigious Israel prize, who has long opposed Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories.
Police said they had found fliers in the area of the attack offering 1.1m shekels (£173,000) to anyone who kills a member of the long established organisation Peace Now, of which Mr Sternhell is a veteran member.
The professor was in hospital tonight with minor shrapnel wounds in one of his legs. Police said that the explosive had been planted on the doorstep of his Jerusalem home and was detonated when he opened the door.
Tzipi Livni, foreign minister and the prospective Prime Minister, said that the attack was “intolerable” and could not be glossed over. Ehud Barak, the Labour leader and Defence Minister also strongly condemned the attack “from a dark corner” of Israeli society against a “very gifted person who never shies away from expressing his opinion.”
In a statement which coupled condemnation of the attack on Professor Sternhell with a reference to the apparently growing instances of settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, Peace Now said: “Those who don’t enforce the law on violent settlers… will find himself with a Jewish terror organization in the heart of Israel.”
In contrast with the West Bank, political violence by right wing extremists inside Israel has been relatively rare-with the notable exception of the assassination of the then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in Tel Aviv in 1995. Another extremist killed a member of Peace Now with a grenade at a 1983 peace protest.
The future is one nation
September 27, 2008The two-state approach in the Middle East has failed. There is a fairer, more durable solution
- The Guardian, Thursday September 25 2008
Imagine the scene: the United Nations general assembly meets to discuss a resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Unlike previous resolutions, which have been based on a Jewish state in most of historic Palestine with Palestinians relegated to the remnants, this one calls for a new state, covering what is now Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, whose present and former inhabitants are equal under the law. Such a resolution has, in fact, already been drafted and discussions have begun to place it on the agenda at the UN.
The one-state solution is now part of mainstream discourse. Increasingly, Palestinians – and some Israelis – support it as the only alternative to a Palestinian state subordinate to Israel. One-state groups have sprung up and conferences and studies are under way.
A UN resolution is the logical next step, underlining the issue’s global importance and exposing the inequity and dishonesty of the two-state solution, to replace it with something fairer and more durable. It would be encapsulated in the following clauses, part of the draft UN resolution for a one-state solution, which has been under discussion for six months. Its principal authors are my fellow Palestinian Karl Sabbagh and myself:
“The general assembly notes the failure of recent efforts made by regional and international parties to resolve the conflict through the creation of two states; Recalling the recent history of the former [Palestine] Mandate territory as a land where Arabs and Jews shared equal rights of habitation; Reviewing Israel’s non-compliance with UN Resolution 194, requiring Israel to repatriate the Palestinian refugees, and its illegal conduct in the occupied territories.
“Calls upon representatives of Israel and Palestine to agree on behalf of their peoples to share the land between the Mediterranean and the river Jordan … by setting up a state which is democratic and secular, in which the rights of all people living within its borders to freedom of worship, security, and equality under the law are enshrined in a new constitution, to replace the separate forms of government that apply currently in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.”
The two-state adherents will not approve. David Miliband at the Labour party conference this week continued to argue for a two-state solution. Tomorrow in New York, Mahmoud Abbas will petition George Bush for the same thing. Both are on a hiding to nothing.
The pace of Israeli colonisation, unimpeded since 1967, redoubled after the Oslo accords, demonstrating Israel’s aversion to a two-state solution. By 2007, the West Bank Jewish settler population had reached 282,000. In East Jerusalem, it rose to 200,000, massively Judaising the city and precluding it as a Palestinian capital. Today the West Bank is a jigsaw of settlements, bypass roads and barriers, making an independent state impossible. Gaza is a besieged enclave. In 2006 the UN special rapporteur in the Palestinian territories concluded that “a two-state solution is unattainable”. Avraham Burg, former Knesset speaker, told the Israeli daily Haaretz in June that “time was running out for the two-state solution”.
Scores of others have articulated the same view. The peace process predicated on the two-state solution is stagnant, and a momentum has started towards the obvious alternative, a unitary state. This month a new forum, encompassing Palestinian personalities from the occupied territories and outside, has published a petition in the Arabic daily Al-Hayat to halt negotiations, annex the territories to Israel and demand equal rights in one state. This echoes many recent Palestinian demands to dissolve the Palestinian Authority and start an anti-apartheid campaign for equal rights.
The UN high commissioner for human rights has referred us to Robert Serry, the UN official responsible for the peace process, who stated that UN policy must conform to the Palestinian formal position, the two-state solution. A change in that position is not unthinkable. For our resolution to be discussed at the UN, a member state would have to present it, and several are privately known to support our aims.
A unitary state is inevitable. Establishing an exclusive state defined along ethnic-religious lines and excluding its previous inhabitants was unjust and ultimately unsustainable. No political acrobatics will alter this. The sooner the UN, which unwisely created Israel in the first place, takes charge of the consequences, the better it will be for Palestinians, for Israelis and for the region as a whole.
· Ghada Karmi is research fellow at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, Exeter University g.karmi@exeter.ac.uk
Revolutionary poet Fredrico Garcia Lorca
September 26, 2008| Source: Cybersapin.com
|
 |
Federico García Lorca was born in Fuente Vaqueros, Granada on the 5th of June, 1898 and died the 19th of August, 1936. His life spanned the years between the Year of Disaster and the Spanish Civil War which ultimately victimized him. He travelled throughout Spain and America, principally Argentina, living and writing some of the most beautiful poetry ever written. His poetry has been translated into a dozen languages and his name is known worldwide. His personal life is the subject of much debate now, relating to his tendencies and friends. This page is dedicated to his poetry, written by him for us to enjoy instead of dissecting his personality.
| Lorca’s poetry and plays combine elements of Andalusion folklore with sophisticated and often surrealistic poetic techniques, cut across all social and educational barriers. Works include: Thus Five Years Pass, The Public, Dona Rosita. He is toted to have succeeded in the creation of a viable poetic idiom for the stage, superior to the works of his contemporaries, Yeats, Eliot and Claudel.
August 9, 1936, Falangist soldiers dragged the Spanish poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca into a field, shot him and tossed his body into an unmarked grave… Franco’s government tried to obliterate Lorca’s memory. His books were prohibited, his name forbidden. |
 Lorca and his good friend, film director Luis Buñuel |
One of the first and most famous casualties of the Spanish Civil War, Lorca quickly became an almost mythical figure, a symbol of all the victims of political oppression and fascist tyranny. People began speaking publicly about Lorca again in the late 1940’s, and The House of Barnardo Alba was the first of his plays to be produced in Spain (1950), since his death and since the end of the war. Though foreign influence helped to loosen the Franco regimes control over Lorca’s work, bans were still placed as late as 1971. Due to public outcry however, Lorca’s work was produced.
Lorca’s reconquest of the Spanish public, and his growing prestige among scholars is a relatively recent phenomenon. When his works began to recirculate freely, many people who knew only the Gypsy Ballads and two or three of the more popular plays considered Lorca a poet of limited interest and local color. When his later poetry –Poet in New York– and experimental plays such as The Public came to be better known and understood, attitudes changed.
Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias
(fragment)
1. Cogida and death
At five in the afternoon.
It was exactly five in the afternoon.
A boy brought the white sheet
at five in the afternoon.
A frail of lime ready prepared
at five in the afternoon.
The rest was death, and death alone
at five in the afternoon.
The wind carried away the cottonwool
at five in the afternoon.
And the oxide scattered crystal and nickel
at five in the afternoon.
Now the dove and the leopard wrestle
at five in the afternoon.
And a thigh with a desolate horn
at five in the afternoon.
The bass-string struck up
at five in the afternoon.
Arsenic bells and smoke
at five in the afternoon.
Groups of silence in the corners
at five in the afternoon.
And the bull alone with a high heart!
At five in the afternoon.
When the sweat of snow was coming
at five in the afternoon,
when the bull ring was covered in iodine
at five in the afternoon.
Death laid eggs in the wound
at five in the afternoon.
At five in the afternoon.
Exactly at five o’clock in the afternoon.
A coffin on wheels in his bed
at five in the afternoon.
Bones and flutes resound in his ears
at five in the afternoon.
Now the bull was bellowing through his forehead
at five in the afternoon.
The room was iridescent with agony
at five in the afternoon.
In the distance the gangrene now comes
at five in the afternoon.
Horn of the lily through green groins
at five in the afternoon.
The wounds were burning like suns
at five in the afternoon,
and the crowd was breaking the windows
at five in the afternoon.
At five in the afternoon.
Ah, that fatal five in the afternoon!
It was five by all the clocks!
It was five in the shade of the afternoon!
2. The Spilled Blood
I will not see it!
Tell the moon to come
for I do not want to see the blood
of Ignacio on the sand.
I will not see it!
The moon wide open.
Horse of still clouds,
and the grey bull ring of dreams
with willows in the barreras.
I will not see it!
Let my memory kindle!
Warm the jasmines
of such minute whiteness!
I will not see it!
The cow of the ancient world
passed her sad tongue
over a snout of blood
spilled on the sand,
and the bulls of Guissando,
partly death and partly stone,
bellowed like two centuries
sated with treading the earth.
No.
I do not want to see it!
I will not see it!
Ignacio goes up the tiers
with all his death on his shoulders.
He sought for the dawn
but the dawn was no more.
He seeks for his confident profile
and the dream bewilders him.
He sought for his beautiful body
and encountered his opened blood.
I will not see it!
I do not want to hear it spurt
each time with less strength:
that spurt that illuminates
the tiers of seats, and spills
over the corduroy and the leather
of a thirsty multitude.
Who shouts that I should come near!
Do not ask me to see it!
His eyes did not close
when he saw the horns near,
but the terrible mothers
lifted their heads.
And across the ranches,
an air of secret voices rose,
shouting to celestial bulls,
herdsmen of pale mist.
There was no prince in Seville
who could compare to him,
nor sword like his sword
nor heart so true.
Like a river of lions
was his marvellous strength,
and like a marble toroso
his firm drawn moderation.
The air of Andalusian Rome
gilded his head
where his smile was a spikenard
of wit and intelligence.
What a great torero in the ring!
What a good peasant in the sierra!
How gentle with the sheaves!
How hard with the spurs!
How tender with the dew!
How dazzling the fiesta!
How tremendous with the final
banderillas of darkness!
But now he sleeps without end.
Now the moss and the grass
open with sure fingers
the flower of his skull.
And now his blood comes out singing;
singing along marshes and meadows,
sliding on frozen horns,
faltering soulless in the mist,
stumbling over a thousand hoofs
like a long, dark, sad tongue,
to form a pool of agony
close to the starry Guadalquivir.
Oh, white wall of Spain!
Oh, black bull of sorrow!
Oh, hard blood of Ignacio!
Oh, nightingale of his veins!
No.
I will not see it!
No chalice can contain it,
no swallows can drink it,
no frost of light can cool it,
nor song nor deluge of white lilies,
no glass can cover it with silver.
No.
I will not see it!
Pakistan and US troops exchange fire
September 26, 2008
(Emilio Morenatti/AP)
Pakistan’s president Asif Ali Zadari warned against allied incursions into Pakistan in a speech to the UN
Israel asked US for green light to bomb nuclear sites in Iran
September 26, 2008US president told Israeli prime minister he would not back attack on Iran, senior European diplomatic sources tell Guardian
- guardian.co.uk,
- Thursday September 25 2008 19:02 BST
A view of the nuclear enrichment plant of Natanz in central Iran. Photograph: EPA
Israel gave serious thought this spring to launching a military strike on Iran’s nuclear sites but was told by President George W Bush that he would not support it and did not expect to revise that view for the rest of his presidency, senior European diplomatic sources have told the Guardian.
The then prime minister, Ehud Olmert, used the occasion of Bush’s trip to Israel for the 60th anniversary of the state’s founding to raise the issue in a one-on-one meeting on May 14, the sources said. “He took it [the refusal of a US green light] as where they were at the moment, and that the US position was unlikely to change as long as Bush was in office”, they added.
The sources work for a European head of government who met the Israeli leader some time after the Bush visit. Their talks were so sensitive that no note-takers attended, but the European leader subsequently divulged to his officials the highly sensitive contents of what Olmert had told him of Bush’s position.
Bush’s decision to refuse to offer any support for a strike on Iran appeared to be based on two factors, the sources said. One was US concern over Iran’s likely retaliation, which would probably include a wave of attacks on US military and other personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as on shipping in the Persian Gulf.
The other was US anxiety that Israel would not succeed in disabling Iran’s nuclear facilities in a single assault even with the use of dozens of aircraft. It could not mount a series of attacks over several days without risking full-scale war. So the benefits would not outweigh the costs.
Iran has repeatedly said it would react with force to any attack. Some western government analysts believe this could include asking Lebanon’s Shia movement Hizbollah to strike at the US.
“It’s over ten years since Hizbollah’s last terror strike outside Israel, when it hit an Argentine-Israel association building in Buenos Aires [killing 85 people]”, said one official. “There is a large Lebanese diaspora in Canada which must include some Hizbollah supporters. They could slip into the United States and take action”.
Even if Israel were to launch an attack on Iran without US approval its planes could not reach their targets without the US becoming aware of their flightpath and having time to ask them to abandon their mission.
“The shortest route to Natanz lies across Iraq and the US has total control of Iraqi airspace”, the official said. Natanz, about 100 miles north of Isfahan, is the site of an uranium enrichment plant.
In this context Iran would be bound to assume Bush had approved it, even if the White House denied fore-knowledge, raising the prospect of an attack against the US.
Several high-level Israeli officials have hinted over the last two years that Israel might strike Iran’s nuclear facilities to prevent them being developed to provide sufficient weapons-grade uranium to make a nuclear bomb. Iran has always denied having such plans.
Olmert himself raised the possibility of an attack at a press conference during a visit to London last November, when he said sanctions were not enough to block Iran’s nuclear programme.
“Economic sanctions are effective. They have an important impact already, but they are not sufficient. So there should be more. Up to where? Up until Iran will stop its nuclear programme,” he said.
The revelation that Olmert was not merely sabre-rattling to try to frighten Iran but considered the option seriously enough to discuss it with Bush shows how concerned Israeli officials had become.
Bush’s refusal to support an attack, and the strong suggestion he would not change his mind, is likely to end speculation that Washington might be preparing an “October surprise” before the US presidential election. Some analysts have argued that Bush would back an Israeli attack in an effort to help John McCain’s campaign by creating an eve-of-poll security crisis.
Others have said that in the case of an Obama victory, the vice-president, Dick Cheney, the main White House hawk, would want to cripple Iran’s nuclear programme in the dying weeks of Bush’s term.
During Saddam Hussein’s rule in 1981, Israeli aircraft successfully destroyed Iraq’s nuclear reactor at Osirak shortly before it was due to start operating.
Last September they knocked out a buildings complex in northern Syria, which US officials later said had been a partly constructed nuclear reactor based on a North Korean design. Syria said the building was a military complex but had no links to a nuclear programme.
In contrast, Iran’s nuclear facilities, which are officially described as intended only for civilian purposes, are dispersed around the country and some are in fortified bunkers underground.
In public, Bush gave no hint of his view that the military option had to be excluded. In a speech to the Knesset the following day he confined himself to telling Israel’s parliament: “America stands with you in firmly opposing Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions. Permitting the world’s leading sponsor of terror to possess the world’s deadliest weapon would be an unforgivable betrayal of future generations. For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”
Mark Regev, Olmert’s spokesman, tonight reacted to the Guardian’s story saying: “The need to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons is raised at every meeting between the prime minister and foreign leaders. Israel prefers a diplomatic solution to this issue but all options must remain on the table. Your unnamed European source attributed words to the prime minister that were not spoken in any working meeting with foreign guests”.
Three weeks after Bush’s red light, on June 2, Israel mounted a massive air exercise covering several hundred miles in the eastern Mediterranean. It involved dozens of warplanes, including F-15s, F-16s and aerial refueling tankers.
The size and scope of the exercise ensured that the US and other nations in the region saw it, said a US official, who estimated the distance was about the same as from Israel to Natanz.
A few days later, Israel’s deputy prime minister, Shaul Mofaz, told the paper Yediot Ahronot: “If Iran continues its programme to develop nuclear weapons, we will attack it. The window of opportunity has closed. The sanctions are not effective. There will be no alternative but to attack Iran in order to stop the Iranian nuclear programme.”
The exercise and Mofaz’s comments may have been designed to boost the Israeli government and military’s own morale as well, perhaps, to persuade Bush to reconsider his veto. Last week Mofaz narrowly lost a primary within the ruling Kadima party to become Israel’s next prime minister. Tzipi Livni, who won the contest, takes a less hawkish position.
The US announced two weeks ago that it would sell Israel 1,000 bunker-busting bombs. The move was interpreted by some analysts as a consolation prize for Israel after Bush told Olmert of his opposition to an attack on Iran. But it could also enhance Israel’s attack options in case the next US president revives the military option.
The guided bomb unit-39 (GBU-39) has a penetration capacity equivalent to a one-tonne bomb. Israel already has some bunker-busters.
Map showing nuclear activity in Iran
Aid groups: Tony Blair faces imminent failure in Middle East
September 25, 2008
(Justin Lane)
The Middle East Quartet, of which Tony Blair has been the representative for the past year, is accused of “losing its grip” on the peace process
Image :1 of 2
The Quartet — the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia — has “fundamentally failed to improve the situation on the ground,” David Mepham, the director of policy for Save the Children UK, said. “Unless the Quartet’s words are matched by more sustained pressure and decisive action, the situation will deteriorate still further.
“Time is fast running out. The Quartet needs to radically revise its existing approach and show the people of the region that it can help make a difference.”
The report, released as the Quartet meets in New York to review progress, said that despite repeated calls from the international community to halt the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank — considered illegal under international law and seen as a major obstacle to any peace agreement — there has been a “marked acceleration in construction, and no serious attempts by the Israeli authorities to dismantle outposts”.
The role of Mr Blair and the Quartet were limited by President Bush, who gave his British ally the task of reviving the Palestinian economy to make it ready for future statehood, leaving the political process in the hands of Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State.
Mr Bush promised a deal by the end of this year. Most politicians in the region see that as unlikely.
“We are facing a vacuum in leadership,” said Martha Myers, CARE International’s director for the Palestinian territories. “The Quartet has been unable to hold parties to their obligations. The Quartet’s credibility is on the line and we hope it will use this meeting to show it is able to make a real difference to the lives of Palestinians and Israelis.”
While it credits Mr Blair with securing donor funding and encouraging private investment in the Palestinian territories, the report noted that his project unveiled last May to focus on rejuvenating the economy in specific areas such as Jenin and Jericho had made only a localised impact.
A spokesman for Mr Blair denied that he was stretching himself too thinly with his other projects. These include tackling climate change, poverty in Africa, a Faith Foundation to bridge the gaps between world religions, lectures at Yale University and lucrative posts as an adviser to JP Morgan and Zurich Financial Services.
Peace barriers
Settlements The peace “Road map” called for the dismantling of Jewish settlements built since 2001 and freezing all settlement growth
Palestinian security “Road map” called for a rebuilt Palestinian Authority security apparatus to confront terrorism. An EU-trained police force has been introduced in the West Bank but Palestinians are still afraid for their security
Source: US State Department, Middle East Quartet
Targeting Muslims and Christians
September 25, 2008Humra Quraishi | Kashmir Times online
There’s an ongoing sense of alienation coupled with helplessness amongst the Muslims and Christians. And why not? Look at the way there’s been an ongoing systematic attack on the Christian property and churches in at least three BJP run states of this country. An unabated state of terror seems unleashed on the Christians. And what is the establishment at the Centre doing to cry halt?
Can you imagine such blatant forms of destruction going on, and yet we sit like mute spectators. Helplessly watching this horror show, where the police and politicians are holding sway.
And don’t ask me how upset are the Muslims residing in Delhi’s Jamia Nagar and surrounding localities. And this feeling of utter helplessness cum anger is spreading out, at the way and manner in which the police conducted that so called encounter at Jamia Nagar’s Batla House. No, none of the residents believe the police theories. As a young person commented “Jamia Nagar seems another Srinagar in the making.. there’s police all around, encircling the place, barging into homes, harassing us…we want justice because we don’t believe these stories getting churned by the police.”
And on September 22, at the Press conference held at the Press Club of India, the Coordination Committee of Indian Muslims, supported by Gopal Rai -convenor of Teesra Swandheemta Andolan and Bhai Tej Singh -president Ambedkar Samaj Party, minced no words in their utter disgust at the recent happenings. I quote from their press statement -” …We feel that the Muslim community in general and the Muslim youth in particular are being targeted in the name of fighting terrorism. While security agencies should go about their work to secure the country from terror and make inquiries and arrest the accused and suspects, the same must not take place in an intimidating and insensitive manner. We are opposed to the insensitive style of the police functioning which creates terror and panic in the Muslim localities. We condemn the security and intelligence agencies’ rush to the media after any such incident with theories and conclusions before any real and proper investigation.. More specifically, we reject the Batla House style of encounter killings. We fail to understand why the alleged terrorists were not caught alive. People in the area believe that it was a fake encounter, that it was a one -sided and pre-planned affair. With this encounter the police has discovered a new ‘mastermind’ for all the explosions in the past, which means that India will no longer face terrorist blasts. We demand a high level judicial enquiry into the Batla House encounter so that all facts come out…”
WHERE’S INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM?
I think what we lack today is serious investigative journalism. The way we go on and on repeating the versions provided by the police. And I find it frightfully upsetting when the electronic media puts it all so very simply – a so and so in police custody has admitted he’d committed the crime, “usne apna jurm qubool kar liya. “ As though some ‘nikah’ ceremony was taking place! How very simplistic ! How very naive ! How very insensitive! As though the hapless detained creature has any other option in the midst of the third degree torture sessions he must be getting subjected to !
And how dare we pass judgements that he or she caught is actually a terrorist. Maybe the actual terrorist is sitting high up and here we go nabbing and killing some poor hapless souls ! How do we know that the so called ‘caught terrorist’ is actually the culprit! Maybe he is framed and with that sits ruined for years to come!
Tell me how many of these arrested students would have the means to fight a legal battle for justice, to prove their non – involvement, their innocence. In this context I feel that Professor Mushirul Hasan’s decision to fight the legal battle for the two arrested students of Jamia Millia Islamia is the right decision. After all, they are students of this university and with that they have every right to get justice in a democratic set – up.
DOES THIS GOVERNMENT REALIZE …
In fact, whilst I’m keying in these sentences, what’s hovering around is this thought – does the very establishment realize that the very alienation of the minority communities isn’t really healthy for the very fabric, for the very system Yet, this alienation is going on because of the sheer ruthlessness of the machinery and the way and manner in which the minorities are getting side tracked. Today, talk to any Muslim or Christian (bypassing those who are sitting in political camps) and they’d invariably relay a deep sense of anguish cum alienation There’s little trust in the police and the politician and with that insecurities hit as never before.
There seems only one way out. Apolitical from the majority community has to come forth and speak out at what’s been happening. The concerned citizens of this country from all cross sections will have to voice their disgust cum concern at what’s been happening! Hounding and pounding of innocents has to be halted before our secular fabric gets totally twisted, riddled with fears and suspicion of the so called ‘other’.
SOME OF THOSE QUESTIONS DOING THE ROUNDS –
Shabnam Hashmi, Satya Sivaraman, Manisha Sethi, Tanweer Fazal, Arshad Alam, Pallavi Deka have raised these queries about the so called encounter at Jamia’s Batla House, together with this backgrounder.
I quote them -” Some Questions about the Counter-Terror Operation at Jamia Nagar, New Delhi- A team comprising activists, academicians and journalists visited the site of the police operation against alleged terrorists staying in an apartment in Jamia Nagar in the afternoon of 20.09.2008 (Saturday). Two alleged terrorists Atif and Sajid, along with Mohan Chand Sharma, an inspector of the Delhi Police’s Special Cell died in the operation while a third alleged terrorist was arrested.
On the basis of our interactions with the local residents, eye witnesses and the reports which have appeared in the media, we would like to pose the following questions:
1) It has been widely reported (and not refuted by the Police) that in early August this year Atif, who is described by the Delhi Police as the mastermind behind the recent terrorist bombings in Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Delhi, underwent a police verification exercise along with his four roommates in order to rent the apartment they were staying in Jamia Nagar. All the five youth living in the apartment submitted to the Delhi police their personal details, including permanent address, driving license details, address of the house they previously stayed in, all of which were found to be accurate.
Is it conceivable that the alleged kingpin behind the terrorist Indian Mujahideen outfit would have wanted to undergo a police verification- for whatever purpose- just a week after the Ahmedabad blasts and a month before the bombings in Delhi?
2) The four-storeyed house L-18 in Jamia Nagar, where the alleged terrorists were staying, has only one access point, through the stair case, which is covered by an iron grill. It is impossible to leave the house except from the staircase. By all reports, the staircase was taken over by the Special Cell and/ or other agencies during the counter-terror operation. The house, indeed the entire block, was cordoned off at the time of the operation.
How then was it then possible, as claimed by the police, for two alleged terrorists to escape the premises during the police operation?
3) The media has quoted ‘police sources’ as having informed them that the Special Cell was fully aware about the presence of dreaded terrorists, involved in the bombings in Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Delhi, staying in the apartment that was raided.
Why was the late Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma, a veteran of dozens of encounter operations, the only officer in the operation not wearing a bullet proof vest? Was this due to over-confidence or is there something else to his mysterious death during the operation? Will the forensic report of the bullets that killed Inspector Sharma be made public?
4) There are reports that towards the end of the counter-terror operation, some policemen climbed on the roof of L-18 and fired several rounds in the air. Other policemen were seen breaking windows and even throwing flower pots to the ground from flats adjacent or opposite to L-18
Why was the police firing in the air and why did it indulge in destruction of property around L-18 after the encounter?
5) The police officials claim that an AK-47 and pistols were recovered from L-18.
What was the weapon that killed Inspector Sharma? Was the AK-47 used at all and by whom? Going by some reports that have appeared (see ‘Times of India’, 20.09.08), the AK-47s have been used by the police only. Is it not strange that alleged terrorists did not use a more deadly and sophisticated weapon like the AK-47, which they purportedly possessed, preferring to use pistols?
We feel that there are far too many loose ends in the current story of the police encounter at L-18 in Jamia Nagar. We demand that a fair, impartial and independent probe into the incident be initiated at the earliest to answer the above questions as also any other ones that arise from the contradictions of the case.
*(Humra Quraishi is a freelance columnist based in Delhi and is currently a visiting Professor in the Academy of Third World Studies in Jamia Milia University).
Peace and Justice Post 
Financial Meltdown: The Financial Edifice of U.S. Imperialism is
September 26, 2008Raymond Lotta, Global Research, September 24, 2008
The events of the last ten days on Wall Street represent a new and more destabilizing phase of the turmoil gripping financial institutions and markets in the U.S. A financial crisis has been unfolding for more than a year. It is now the most serious financial crisis of U.S. capitalism since the Great Depression of the 1930s. And it is by no means contained or under control.
The financial edifice of U.S. imperialism is in danger of crumbling. And the U.S. ruling class is cobbling together desperate measures to prevent wholesale collapse.
This analysis examines the recent eruptions on Wall Street of mid- and late September and the deeper structural causes of the crisis.
I. Wall Street Panics, the Guardians of U.S. Capitalism Scramble
A). A Week of Deepening Financial Crisis
Two of the last two independent investment banks on Wall Street ceased to exist in mid-September. In a matter of hours, Lehman Brothers went bankrupt on September 15, while Merrill Lynch was forced into liquidation and then absorbed by Bank of America. This follows the government-promoted buyout in April of Bear Stearns, another giant investment banking firm that was on the ropes, by JPMorgan Chase.
It was only several weeks earlier that the U.S. government had taken over the two major and failing mortgage-finance giants–Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. At the time, this takeover was presented as providing an effective firewall against future financial eruptions. But it proved to be no more than the patching up of a pothole during an earthquake. This past week the government had to take over the American International Group (AIG), the giant insurance-financial firm.
AIG had over a trillion dollars in assets. It had earned enormous profits from insuring mortgage-backed investments circulating in the financial system that were held by other banks. But this has turned into a disaster. Here is some of what happened:
Through deceit and aggressive marketing, banks pushed mortgages on people. The Federal Reserve Bank had pumped low-cost funds into the banking system to prop up mortgage loans. These loans were then combined into larger groups of loans by investment banks (like Lehman Brothers) and turned into financial products that were sold on financial markets. All kinds of lending took place with these original loans as collateral. But when housing prices fell, and mortgages could not be paid, much of this collateral became worthless.
AIG was insuring much of this lending against the risk of loss. But as the losses mounted astronomically, AIG could neither cover the costs of backing this debt nor borrow funds on the financial markets to keep itself afloat.
The financial markets had basically lost confidence, and AIG’s assets tumbled in value. AIG was in danger of collapse. But if AIG went under, the probability was great that it would have taken down other financial institutions with it. This forced the government’s hand.
Normally, so-called bad debt is marketed at distress prices. During the financial storm of mid-September, not only were there no takers for debt but it also proved impossible for the financial markets to establish any kind of value on this debt.
As the pace of the financial crisis grew more frenetic during the week of September 15, the U.S. ruling class was faced with a two-fold danger: additional and cascading losses and bankruptcies in the financial sector; and the possible choking up of lending channels, which could send the economy as a whole into a rapid downward spiral.
On September 19th, the U.S. government announced what will likely turn out to be the largest bail-out operation in U.S. history. Its initial cost is $700 billion, and this is on top of the $200 billion earmarked to shore up Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and the $85 billion to bail out AIG.
B). International Dimensions
This is a rolling financial and credit crisis. It is amplifying internationally with bursts of instability. In the midst of last week’s U.S. market gyrations, the Russian stock market sank and shut down for two days. In other parts of the world, concern spread about whether dollar-based loans in global markets would continue on the scale necessary to sustain daily business operations. In response, the central banks of Germany, Japan, England, Canada, and Switzerland pumped some $185 billion into the financial markets.
And investor worry is mounting in East Asia. China, Japan, and South Korea, for instance, count on the U.S. as a major export market.
One of the most significant features of world growth and expansion over the past decade has been the deepening integration of the world capitalist economy. This is happening both on the level of production and trade—like the parts that go into an automobile being manufacturing in different factories around the world. And it is happening at the level of finance—where banks are more globally and tightly interlinked with one another through chains of borrowing and lending and even, as in the case of AIG, insuring the risks of borrowing and lending.
The rescue operation announced by the U.S. government was motivated, on the one hand, by the need to stanch the bleeding of the U.S. financial system; and, on the other, by the need to restore international confidence in the U.S. economy.
Raymond Lotta is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Raymond Lotta
Share this:
Tags:American financial crisis, American imperialism, American International Group, bail-out operation, Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, financial markets, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, mortgages, Wall Street
Posted in Commentary, imperialism, US policy | Leave a Comment »