Peace and Justice Post

Arab Leaders think that chaos would rule if they do not rule themselves their people, under heavy dictatorship.

Moubarak was utterly convinced of that: a few days before leaving power, he gave an interview to ABC Channel where he said:

“You don’t understand the Egyptian culture and what would happen if I step down now.”
He added: “ if I resign today, it would be chaos”

This belief, that the Egyptian “culture”, or more extensively, the “Arab culture” is naturally going to lead to chaos if the dictator steps down is shared by almost all policy makers and leaders in the Middle East.

Israeli policy makers are convinced of the same thing: without a dictator ruling, it would be the chaos opening the road for sectarian strife that would result in islamists taking power. They bear in mind the example of Lebanon: a sectarian civil war that led to the emergence of Hezbollah, now their worst ennemy and nightmare. Israeli leaders thus think the end of Assad would open a sectarian strife in Syria that will end with the emergence of a new enemy worse than Assad.

Israelis would love to see Assad go but they are much more afraid of what could come next. As one member of the Netanyahu cabinet puts it: “We know Assad. We knew his father. Of course, we’d love to have a democratic Syria as our neighbour. But do I think that’s going to happen? No.”

Israel leaders can not even imagine a democratic Syria and are equally convinced that anything that happens in Syria will be against them. Israel thinks it is the primary concern of all Arabs, just as Assad thinks Syrians will automatically buy a conspiracy theory involving Israel.

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Yahoo! News, April 1, 201

MANAMA, Bahrain – The official line: Bahrain is back to business as usual. Shiite protesters are off the streets after a month of paralyzing demonstrations. A state-run newspaper’s headline declares the Persian Gulf island to be “Back on Track.”

But police checkpoints dot the highways around the tiny Sunni-led kingdom. Tanks are deployed around the lavish shopping malls in the capital.

And security forces are carrying out nightly raids in the impoverished Shiite villages around Manama, smashing down doors, destroying furniture and spraying graffiti on the walls, residents told The Associated Press.

One Bahraini human rights activist told the AP that he was beaten and hit with shoes by armed, masked men, who threatened him with rape and told to go back to Iran, the Shiite powerhouse across the Gulf.

The relentless crackdown has made major new protests a virtual impossibility for the time being, analysts and Shiite residents say. But the pressure is generating new anger among protesters who had been calling for democratic reform and equal rights for Shiites. Another explosion of unrest in the home of the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet now seems inevitable, they say.

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by Pepe Escobar, CommonDreams.org, April 1, 2011

Source: Asia  Times

You invade Bahrain. We take out Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. This, in short, is the essence of a deal struck between the Barack Obama administration and the House of Saud. Two diplomatic sources at the United Nations independently confirmed that Washington, via Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, gave the go-ahead for Saudi Arabia to invade Bahrain and crush the pro-democracy movement in their neighbor in exchange for a “yes” vote by the Arab League for a no-fly zone over Libya – the main rationale that led to United Nations Security Council resolution 1973.

U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates (front L) is greeted by Saudi field marshal Saleh al-Muhaya (C), the Chief of Generals staff of the Saudi Arabian Army, upon his arrival at King Khalid International Airport on March 10, 2010 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Days later, the Saudi military entered Bahrain. (PHOTO BY Jim Watson-Pool/Getty Images) The revelation came from two different diplomats, a European and a member of the BRIC group, and was made separately to a US scholar and Asia Times Online. According to diplomatic protocol, their names cannot be disclosed. One of the diplomats said, “This is the reason why we could not support resolution 1973. We were arguing that Libya, Bahrain and Yemen were similar cases, and calling for a fact-finding mission. We maintain our official position that the resolution is not clear, and may be interpreted in a belligerent manner.”

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Trend, March 31, 2011

Families of those Pakistani tribesmen who were killed and injured in March in U.S. drone strike Thursday refused to accept the government’s compensation and demanded halt to the American drone strikes in the region, Xinhua reported.

The government had announced 300,000 rupees (about 3,530 US dollars) each for those killed and 100,000 rupees for the injured.

Over 40 tribesmen were killed and many others injured in a drone strike on a jirga of council of tribal elders in Datta Khel area of North Waziristan on March 17. According to the local reports, the jirga was called to settle a dispute over the sale of mineral in the area when the deadly strike was launched.

The Pakistan army chief in rare reaction had strongly condemned the U.S. drone strike on the innocent tribesmen following the March 17th incident. In a harsh statement General Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani said that “such aggression against people of Pakistan is unjustified and intolerable under any circumstances”.

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By Lawrence Davidson, Media With Conscience, March 26, 2011

On 23 March 2011 the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the United Nations Rapporteur Richard Falk (Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University) told the world organization’s Human Rights Council that the “continued pattern of settlement expansion in East Jerusalem combined with the forcible eviction of long-residing Palestinians are creating an intolerable situation..” In fact, he continued, the present process “can only be described in its cumulative impact as ethnic cleansing.” Falk concluded by asking the UN Human Rights Council to request an investigation by the International Criminal Court into whether Israeli actions in the West Bank amount to “colonialism, apartheid and ethnic cleansing inconsistent with international humanitarian law.”

This is not a particularly startling or rare point of view. There are many well versed Israelis, including several reporters for Haaretz (such as Amira Hass and Gideon Levy), who would probably agree with Falk’s position. There are millions of people around the world who are willing to actively boycott Israel due to, in part, its illegal settlement policies. And, the UN Human Rights Council itself has, in the past, repeatedly condemned Israeli settlement policies in the West Bank of Palestine.

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Independent Inquiry Needed to Investigate Torture at Camp Honor; Fears of Abuse at Other Prisons Remain

(Baghdad) – Iraq’s announcement on March 14, 2011, that it will close the Camp Honor detention center after a parliamentary committee uncovered torture there is a positive move but only a first step, Human Rights Watch said today. A pressing need remains for an independent investigation into who was responsible for the abuse there, Human Rights Watch said.

Iraqi officials should establish an independent body with authority to impartially investigate the torture that occurred at Camp Honor and other sites run by the 56th Brigade, also known as the “Baghdad Brigade,” and the Counterterrorism Service – the elite security forces attached to the military office of the prime minister. The investigating body should recommend disciplinary steps or criminal prosecution of everyone of any rank implicated in the abuse, Human Rights Watch said.

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In Balochistan, mutilated corpses bearing the signs of torture keep turning up, among them lawyers, students and farm workers. Why is no one investigating and what have they got to do with the bloody battle for Pakistan’s largest province?

Declan Walsh, The Guardian, March 29, 2011

Lala Bibi with her father and son Saeed Ahmed – and photographs of her murdered son Najibullah and his cousin, who was also abducted. Photograph: Declan Walsh for the Guardian

World Bulletin, March 30, 2011

Saudi authorities arrested a university professor a day after he called for the release of jailed relatives and other prisoners, a Saudi human rights group said on Wednesday.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter and a key U.S. ally, is an absolute monarchy that does not tolerate any form of public dissent.

“Dr. Mubbarak (bin Zuair) was supposed to break the good news to the demonstrators in front of the Ministry of Information who were protesting the extended illegal detention of their loved ones, that some of the detainees would be released,” the Human Rights First Society (HRFS) said in a statement.

“At 10.30 am on March 20, on his way to the Ministry of Information where the standoff was taking place, Dr Mubbarak was stopped and arrested by the secret police,” it added.

Interior Ministry spokesman Mansour al-Turki could not confirm the arrest of bin Zuair, a professor at Alimmam Mohammad Bin Saud University in Riyadh.

On March 19 bin Zuair met with the assistant secretary for security affairs at the ministry to ask for the release of his relatives and other prisoners.

His father, Professor Said bin Zuair, an Islamist and outspoken critic of the Saudi royal family, has been imprisoned without trial for around five years, the group’s president Ibrahim al-Mugaiteeb told Reuters.

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