just commentary february 2014
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Vol 14, No.02 February 2014
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ARTICLES
LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARRIBEAN
DECLARED AS A ZONE OF PEACE
. THE PROBLEM WITH ROUHANI-GORBACHEV
ANALOGIES
BY GHONCHEH TAZMINI.........................................P 4
By Countercurrents
.FROM WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM TO THE WORLD
SOCIAL FORUM
BYPRAHLAD SHEKHAWAT......................................P 7
.ISRAELI FACTOR IN SYRIAN CONFLICT UNVEILED
BY NICOLA NASSER...................................................P 2
. U.S. ARTIC AMBITIONS AND THE MILITARIZATION
OF THE HIGH NORTH
BY DANA GABRIEL.................................................P 5
Latin American and Caribbean heads of state
adopted a landmark agreement pledging to
make the region a “zone of peace.”
Leaders from the 33-nation Community of
Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac)
signed the Havana Declaration, promising
not to intervene in other countries’ internal
affairs and resolve disputes peacefully.
The agreement followed the two-day Celac
summit and recognised “the inalienable right
of every state to choose its political,
economic, social and cultural system.”
It put in writing the need to resolve
differences “through dialogue and
negotiation or other forms of peaceful
settlement established in international law.”
The declaration also reiterated the need for
total global nuclear disarmament and
highlighted the ongoing importance of the
1967 Tlatelolco Treaty, which established
the region as a nuclear-free zone.
And it emphasised the need to work for
food security, literacy, education, the
development of agriculture and the
achievement of universal public health
services.
The brainchild of late Venezuelan president
Hugo Chavez, Celac was set up in 2011 to
counter the US-dominated Organisation of
American States, which expelled Cuba in
1962 in retaliation for its rejection of
imperialism.
The Declaration: Original signed by the
Heads of State and Governmenent of the
Community of Latin American and
Caribbeans States
The Heads of State and Government of
the Community of Latin American and
Caribbean States (CELAC) gathered in
Havana, Cuba on January 28 and 29, 2014
at the Second Summit, on behalf of their
peoples and faithfully interpreting their
hopes and aspirations,
Reaffirming the commitment of member
countries with the Purposes and Principles
enshrined in the United Nations Charter and
International Law, and aware of the fact
that prosperity and stability in the region
contribute to international peace and security,
Mindful that peace is a supreme asset and a
legitimate aspiration of all peoples and that
preserving peace is a substantial element of
Latin America and Caribbean integration and
a principle and common value of the
Community of Latin American and
Caribbean States (CELAC),
Reaffirming that integration consolidates the
vision of a fair International order based on
the right to peace and a culture of peace,
which excludes the use of force and non-
legitimate means of defense, such as
weapons of mass destruction and nuclear
weapons in particular,
Highlighting the relevance of the Tlatelolco
Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear
Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean
establishing the first nuclear weapon free
zone in a densely populated area, this being
. FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS
BY KATHY KELLY...................................................P 8
. UK ORDERED DESTRUCTION OF ‘EMBARRASING’
COLONIAL PAPERS
BY RUSSIA TODAY...............................................P 9
I N T E R N A T I O N A L M O V E M E N T F O R A J U S T W O R L D
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L E A D A R T I C L E
a contribution to peace and to regional and
international security,
Reiterating the urgent need of General and
Complete Nuclear Disarmament, as well as
the commitment with the Strategic Agenda
of the Organization for the Prohibition of
Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the
Caribbean (OPANAL), adopted by the 33
Member States of the Organization in the
General Conference held in Buenos Aires in
August, 2013.
Recalling the principles of peace,
democracy, development and freedom
underlying the actions of countries
members of SICA,
Recalling the decision of UNASUR Heads
of State of consolidating South America as
a Zone of Peace and Cooperation,
Recalling the establishment, in 1986, of the
Zone of Peace and Cooperation of the South
Atlantic,
Recalling also our commitment, agreed in
the Declaration of the Summit of Unity of
Latin America and the Caribbean, on 23
February 2010, to promote the
implementation of our own mechanisms
for the for peaceful conflict resolution,
Reiterating our commitment to consolidate
Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone
of Peace, in which differences between
nations are peacefully settled through
dialogue and negotiations or other means,
fully consistent with International Law,
Cognizant also of the catastrophic global
and long-term humanitarian impact of the
use of nuclear weapons and other weapons
of mass destruction, and the ongoing
discussions on this issue,
Declare:
1. Latin America and the Caribbean as a
Zone of Peace based on respect for the
principles and rules of International Law,
including the international instruments to
which Member States are a party to, the
Principles and Purposes of the United
Nations Charter;
2. Our permanent commitment to solve
disputes through peaceful means with the
aim of uprooting forever threat or use of
force in our region;
3. The commitment of the States of the
region with their strict obligation not to
intervene, directly or indirectly, in the internal
affairs of any other State and observe the
principles of national sovereignty, equal
rights and self-determination of peoples;
4. The commitment of the peoples of Latin
American and Caribbean to foster
cooperation and friendly relations among
themselves and with other nations
irrespective of differences in their political,
economic, and social systems or
development levels; to practice tolerance
and live together in peace with one another
as good neighbors;
5. The commitment of the Latin American
and Caribbean States to fully respect for
the inalienable right of every State to choose
its political, economic, social, and cultural
system, as an essential conditions to ensure
peaceful coexistence among nations;
6. The promotion in the region of a culture
of peace based, inter alia, on the principles
of the United Nations Declaration on a
Culture of Peace;
7. The commitment of the States in the
region to guide themselves by this
Declaration in their International behavior;
8. The commitment of the States of the
region to continue promoting nuclear
disarmament as a priority objective and to
contribute with general and complete
disarmament, to foster the strengthening
of confidence among nations;
We urge all Member States of the
International Community to fully
respect this Declaration in their
relations with CELAC Member States.
In witness of the undersigned having
duly signed this Proclamation in
Havana, on the 29th day of the month
of January of 2014, in a copy written
in the Spanish, English, French and
Portuguese languages.
31 January, 2014
Source: Countercurrents.org
More than two and a half years on,
Israel’s purported neutrality in the
Syrian conflict and the United States
fanfare rhetoric urging a “regime
change” in Damascus were abruptly
cut short to unveil that the Israeli factor
has been all throughout the conflict the
main concern of both countries.
All their media and political focus on
“democracy versus dictatorship” and
on the intervention of the
international community on the basis
of a “responsibility to protect” to
avert the exacerbating “humanitarian
crisis” in Syria was merely a focus
intended to divert the attention of the
world public opinion away from their
real goal, i.e. to safeguard the security
of Israel.
Their “Plan A” was to enforce a change
in the Syrian regime as their “big prize”
and replace it by another less
threatening and more willing to strike
a “peace deal” with Israel and in case
of failure, which is the case as
developed now, their “Plan B” was to
pursue a “lesser prize” by disarming
Syria of its chemical weapons to
ISRAELI FACTOR IN SYRIAN CONFLICT UNVEILEDBy Nicola Nasser
I N T E R N A T I O N A L M O V E M E N T F O R A J U S T W O R L D
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deprive it of its strategic defensive
deterrence against the Israeli
overwhelming arsenal of nuclear,
chemical and biological weapons of
mass destruction. Their “Plan A”
proved a failure, but their “Plan B” was
a success.
However, the fact that the Syrian
humanitarian crisis continues unabated
with the raging non – stop fighting while
the United States is gradually coming
to terms with Syria’s major allies in
Russia and Iran as a prelude to
recognizing the “legitimacy” of the
status quo in Syria is a fact that shutters
whatever remains of U.S. credibility in
the conflict.
President Barak Obama, addressing the
UN General Assembly on last
September 24, had this justification:
“Let us remember that this is not a zero-
sum endeavor. We are no longer in a
Cold War. There’s no Great Game to
be won, nor does America have any
interest in Syria beyond the well-being
of its people, the stability of its
neighbors, the elimination of chemical
weapons, and ensuring it does not
become a safe-haven for terrorists. I
welcome the influence of all nations that
can help bring about a peaceful
resolution.”
This U – turn shift by the U.S. dispels
any remaining doubts that the U.S. ever
cared about the Syrian people and what
Obama called their “well being.”
The U.S. pronounced commitment to
a “political solution” through co-
sponsoring with Russia the convening
of a “Geneva – 2” conference is
compromised by its purported inability
to unite even the “opposition” that was
created and sponsored by the U.S. itself
and the “friends of Syria” it leads and
to rein in the continued fueling of the
armed conflict with arms, money and
logistics by its regional Turkish and
Gulf Arabs allies, which undermines
any political solution and render the
very convening of a “Geneva – 2”
conference a guess of anybody.
Israeli “Punishment”
Meanwhile, Israel’s neutrality was
shuttered by none other than its
President Shimon Peres.
Speaking at the 40th commemoration
of some three thousand Israeli soldiers
who were killed in the 1973 war with
Syria and Egypt, Peres revealed
unarguably that his state has been the
major beneficiary of the Syrian
conflict.
Peres said: “Today” the Syrian
President Basher al-Assad “is punished
for his refusal to compromise” with
Israel and “the Syrian people pay for
it.”
When it became stark clear by the
latest developments that there will be
no “regime change” in Syria nor there
will be a post- Assad “Day After” and
that the U.S. major guarantor of
Israel’s survival has made, or is about
to make, a “U-turn” in its policy vis-à-
vis the Syrian conflict to exclude the
military solution as “unacceptable,” in
the words of Secretary of State John
Kerry on this October 6, Israel got
impatient and could not hide anymore
the Israeli factor in the conflict.
On last September 17, major news
wires headlined their reports, “In public
shift, Israel calls for Assad’s fall,” citing
a report published by the Israeli daily
the Jerusalem Post, which quoted
Israel’s ambassador to the United
States, Michael Oren, as saying: “We
always wanted Bashar Assad to go, we
always preferred the bad guys who
weren’t backed by Iran to the bad guys
who were backed by Iran.”
“The greatest danger to Israel is by the
strategic arc that extends from Tehran,
to Damascus to Beirut. And we saw
the Assad regime as the keystone in
that arc,” Oren added.
And that’s really the crux of the Syrian
conflict: Dismantling this “arc” has
been all throughout the conflict the
pronounced strategy of the U.S.-led
so-called “Friends of Syria,” who are
themselves the friends of Israel.
The goal of this strategy has been all
throughout the conflict to change the
regime of what Oren called the Syrian
“keystone in that arc,” which is
supported by a pro-Iran government
in Iraq as well as by the Palestinian
liberation movements resisting the
more than six decades of Israeli
military occupation, or otherwise to
deplete Syria’s resources,
infrastructure and power until it has
no choice other than the option of
yielding unconditionally to the Israeli
terms and conditions of what Peres
called a “compromise” with Israel as
a precondition for the return of the
Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights.
Syria the Odd Number
This strategic goal was smoke-
screened by portraying the conflict first
as one of a popular uprising turned into
an armed rebellion against a
dictatorship, then as a sectarian “civil
war,” third as a proxy war in an Arab-
A R T I C L E S
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C
BS T A T E M E N T
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Iranian and a Sunni-Shiite historical
divide, fourth as a battle ground of
conflicting regional and international
geopolitics, but the Israeli factor has been
all throughout the core of the conflict.
Otherwise why should the U.S.-led
“Friends of Syria & Israel” care about
the ruling regime in a country that is not
abundant in oil and gas, the “free” flow
of which was repeatedly pronounced a
“vital” interest of the United States, or
one of what Obama in his UN speech
called his country’s “core interests;” the
security of Israel is another “vital” or
“core” interest, which, in his words,
“The United States of America is
prepared to use all elements of our power,
including military force, to secure.”
The end of the Cold War opened a
“window of opportunities” to build on
the Egyptian – Israel peace treaty,
according to a study by the University
of Oslo in 1997. A peace agreement
was signed between the Palestine
Liberation Organization (PLO) and the
Hebrew state in 1993 followed by an
Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty the year
after. During its invasion of Lebanon
in 1982 Israel tried unsuccessfully to
impose on the country a similar treaty
had it not been for the Syrian
“influence,” which aborted and
prevented any such development ever
since.
Syria remains the odd number in the
Arab peace - making belt around Israel;
no comprehensive peace is possible
without Syria; Damascus holds the key
even to the survival of the Palestinian,
Jordanian and Egyptian peace accords
with Israel. Syria will not hand over
THE PROBLEM WITH ROUHANI-GORBACHEV ANALOGIES
this key without the withdrawal of the
Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) from
Syrian and other Arab lands and a “just”
solution of the “Palestinian question.”
This has been a Syrian national strategy
long before the Pan-Arab Baath party
and the al-Assad dynasty came to
power.
Therefore, the U.S. and Israeli “Plan
A” will remain on both countries’
agendas, pending a more forthcoming
geopolitical environment.
14 October, 2013
Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab
journalist based in Birzeit, West Bank
of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian
territories.
Source: Countercurrents.org
By Ghoncheh TazminiA plethora of analyses have surfaced
making wild assumptions about President
Rouhani’s diplomatic manoeuvres,
translating his diplomatic overtures as
reminiscent of Gorbachev’s era of
Perestroika and Glasnost. Is Rouhani an
Iranian Gorbachev? asks Jochen Bittner
of Die Zeit. The Wall Street Journal asks
the same question, featuring an article
titled, ‘Is Rouhani the New Gorbachev?’
Meanwhile, Stephen Kotkin writes about
‘Rouhani’s Gorbachev Moment’ in
Foreign Affairs.
Such analogies shed very little light on
the direction of Iran’s political evolution.
While Rouhani is comparable to
Gorbachev in the sense that he too, is an
agent of change, the exercise of
reforming Iran presents a more complex
picture. Not only are such comparisons
gratuitously redundant (when
Mohammad Khatami launched his reform
programme, numerous works sprung up
comparing the reformer with the former
Soviet leader), they are often dangerously
subjective in nature.
In ‘Why the Democratic Party is
Doomed’, for example, Richard Miniter
compares President Barak Obama to
Gorbachev in an effort to betray a
conviction that the U.S. is in a state of
decline under a leader who is
accelerating that trajectory through his
efforts at reform. Walter Russell Mead
raises a similar concern in ‘The End of
History Ends’, in American Interest, in
which he warns of Obama’s Gorbachev-
like attempt to correct the country’s
past. Mead argues that Obama’s
attempts to disengage from the over-
commitments of the George W. Bush
presidency have emboldened what he
calls the Central Powers: Russia, China
and Iran. With the U.S. in seeming retreat,
these rivals ‘think they have found a way
to challenge and ultimately to change the
way global politics work’.
Analogies with Gorbachev are often
carried out disparagingly and are very
much pejorative. After all, although
Gorbachev was attempting to change an
outmoded, outdated system, the country
over which he ruled disintegrated. The
fact is that Gorbachev remains in the
mind of his compatriots a tragic figure
whom some deify and others hate; some
see him as a great reformer, others as a
perfidious destroyer. For many Russians,
Gorbachev’s legacy was national
humiliation, or what President Vladimir
Putin has called the ‘greatest geopolitical
catastrophe of the century’.
The other problem with such comparisons
is the element of wishful thinking. For the
West, Gorbachev was the visionary leader
who tackled the economic and political
failings of the Soviet Union’s authoritarian
system, introducing an era that ended
Communist oppression, brought down the
Berlin Wall, ended the Cold War and
expanded Europe’s community of
democracies. Mainstream media and Iran
bashers and detractors often make these
I N T E R N A T I O N A L M O V E M E N T F O R A J U S T W O R L D
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A R T I C L E S
dubious analogies in the hope that some
Gorbachev-esque character will suddenly
turn up to unravel the Islamic Republic at
the hems. Others make cynically
protestations, contending that in fact,
Rouhani is No Gorbachev! And that he is
really is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, cut from
the same cloth as the conservative,
traditional establishment and is therefore,
alas, unlikely to bring the country to
disintegration!
This short expository underscores the
problem with Gorbachev-analogies. Either
way you look at it comparisons with
Gorbachev are bound to be riddled with
bias and partiality. Iran’s pathway to reform
is far more complex and variegated. Since
the revolution, the political inclination of
Iranian heads of state has been very much
determined by the prioritisation,
instrumentalisation or sometimes the
interplay of these four principles: (1)
Republicanism: This element was
central to Mohammad Khatami whose
reform movement symbolised an effort
to consolidate the rule of law and to
stimulate civic activism; (2)
Development: This was the
cornerstone of Akbar Hashemi-
Rafsanjani’s presidency, which focussed
on reviving the post-war economy; (3)
Justice: The pursuit of justice was one
of the main pillars of Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad’s political platform, which
was founded on tackling poverty and
corruption, and redistributing wealth; and
(4) Independence: The emphasis is on
resistance of foreign encroachment. This
was the goal of the father of the Islamic
Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini with the
revolutionary slogan – ‘Esteghlal
(independence), Azadi (freedom),
Jomhouri Islami (Islamic Republic)’.
Iran stands at the intersection of multiple
factors that shape its political reality.
President Rouhani’s challenge is to strike a
balance between these factors and to achieve
a balance point or the ‘nokhteh taadol’. If
we are to understand Iran’s transformation,
we need a solid understanding of ideational
factors and historical legacy rather than
simplistic and platitudinous analogies made
by so-called serious analysts. The task ahead
of the President means finding a balance
between continuity and change - this is a
challenge Gorbachev never lived up to, love
him or loathe him.
11 January, 2014
Dr. Ghoncheh Tazmini is a postdoctoral
visiting fellow at the London Middle East
Institute, School of Oriental and African
Studies (SOAS), London. She is also a Just
member.
U.S. ARCTIC AMBIIONS AND THE MILITARIZATION OF THE HIGH
NORTH
By Dana Gabriel
Canada recently took over the
leadership of the Arctic Council and
will be succeeded by the U.S. in 2015.
With back-to-back chairmanships, it
gives both countries an opportunity to
increase cooperation on initiatives that
could enhance the development of a
shared North American vision for the
Arctic. The U.S. has significant
geopolitical and economic interests in
the high north and have released a new
national strategy which seeks to
advance their Arctic ambitions. While
the region has thus far been peaceful,
stable and free of conflict, there is a
danger of the militarization of the Arctic.
It has the potential to become a front
whereby the U.S. and other NATO
members are pitted against Russia or
even China. In an effort to prevent any
misunderstandings, there are calls for
the Arctic Council to move beyond
environmental issues and become a
forum to address defense and security
matters.
In May, Canada assumed the
chairmanship of the Arctic Council
where they will push for responsible
resource development, safe shipping
and sustainable circumpolar
communities. The Arctic Council is the
leading multilateral forum in the region
and also includes the U.S., Denmark,
Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and
Russia. During the recent meetings,
members signed an Agreement on
Cooperation on Marine Oil Pollution
Preparedness and Response in the
Arctic which seeks to improve
coordination and planning to better
cope with any such accidents. In
addition, China, India, Japan,
Singapore, South Korea, along with
Italy were granted permanent observer
status in the Arctic Council. With the
move, China has gained more
influence in the region. The potential
for new trade routes that could open
up would significantly reduce the time
needed to transport goods between
Europe and Asia. The Arctic is an
important part of China’s global vision,
as a place for economic activity and a
possible future mission for its navy. In
order to better reflect the realities of
politics in the high north, there are calls
to expand the Arctic Council’s mandate
to also include security and military
issues.
Writing for the National Post, Rob
Huebert of the Canadian Defence &
Foreign Affairs Institute explained that,
“One issue that has not received much
attention is the need to discuss the
growing militarization of the Arctic.
While the Arctic Council is formally
forbidden from discussing military
security in the Arctic, the time has
arrived to rethink this policy.” He went
on to say, “The militaries of most Arctic
states are taking on new and expanded
roles in the region that go beyond their
traditional responsibilities, which may
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create friction in the region.” Huebert
also stressed that, “These new
developments need to be discussed to
ensure that all Arctic Council member
states understand why they are
occurring, and increase the confidence
of members that these new
developments are not about a conflict
in the Arctic, but about the defence of
core strategic interests.” He further
added, “It is easy to see how both the
Americans and Russians will become
increasingly concerned about the
security steps that the other is taking.
But now is the time for all to openly
discuss these developments so that old
suspicions and distrusts do not
resurface.”
As part of efforts to strengthen Arctic
security cooperation, in June, the
Northern Chiefs of Defence Meeting
was held in Greenland. It brought
together representatives from the U.S.,
Canada, Denmark, Russia, Sweden,
Norway, Finland and Iceland. Gen.
Charles Jacoby, Commander of North
American Aerospace Defense
Command (NORAD) and U.S.
Northern Command (USNORTHCOM)
also attended the event. The second
annual gathering was used as an,
“opportunity for direct multilateral and
bilateral discussions focused on
Northern issues. Topics discussed
included the sharing of knowledge and
expertise about regional operational
challenges; responsible stewardship of
the North; and the role Northern
militaries can play in support of their
respective civil authorities.” The
Northern Chiefs of Defence meeting
has become an essential forum to
address common Arctic safety and
security concerns.
Ahead of Secretary of State John
Kerry’s trip to attend the Arctic Council
Ministerial Session in May, the White
House unveiled a National Strategy for
the Arctic Region. It outlined strategic
priorities including advancing U.S.
security interests, pursuing responsible
stewardship and strengthening
international cooperation. The
document acknowledged competing
environmental and economic goals, but
in the end sets an aggressive agenda
for the exploitation of Arctic oil, gas
and mineral reserves. In addition, the
strategy recommended enhancing
national defense, law enforcement,
navigation systems, environmental
response, as well as search-and-rescue
capabilities in the Arctic. It also builds
on National Security Presidential
Directive-66 issued by the Bush
administration in 2009. In coordination
with the new plan, the U.S. Coast
Guard has released their Vision for
Operating in the Arctic Region which
will work towards improving
awareness, modernizing governance
and broadening partnerships. According
to James Holmes, professor of strategy
at the U.S. Naval War College, the
Coast Guard and Air Force could
become the military’s odd couple in
defending America’s Arctic front.
Several months back, Congressman
Don Young testified in front of Armed
Services Committee in support of
Alaska national defense priorities. He
proclaimed, “We must be able to project
power into the Arctic environment and
extensive Arctic training is needed to
do that.” Some have pointed out that
the true nature surrounding U.S. plans
to shift additional missile interceptors
to Alaska is not to protect against a
North Korean threat, but is instead
aimed at control over Arctic resources.
Meanwhile, there have also been
renewed discussions about Canadian
participation in the U.S. anti-ballistic
missile shield, a move that could
damage relations with Russia and
China. In order to enhance its presence
and security in the Arctic, the U.S. is
increasing cooperation with Canada.
This includes expanding joint military
exercises and intelligence gathering
operations in the region. Professor
Michel Chossudovsky of Global
Research has described Washington’s
militarization of the Arctic as part of
the process of North American
integration.
In December 2012, the U.S. and
Canada signed the Tri-Command
Framework for Arctic Cooperation
which is part of efforts to further
merge USNORTHCOM, Canadian
Joint Operations Command (CJOC)
and NORAD. A press release explained
that the framework is designed to,
“promote enhanced military
cooperation in the Arctic and identify
specific areas of potential Tri-
Command cooperation in the
preparation for and conduct of safety,
security and defense operations.”
USNORTHCOM, CJOC and NORAD
have also pledged to work closer
together with regards to planning,
domain awareness, information-
sharing, training and exercises,
capability development, as well as in
the field of science and technology. In
the coming years, the Arctic will
become an even more important part
of North American perimeter security.
While the Arctic remains a region of
strategic interest to the alliance,
Secretary General Anders Fogh
Rasmussen recently rejected a direct
NATO presence. For a number of
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FROM WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM TO THE WORLD SOCIAL FORUM
By Prahlad Shekhawat
The Davos World Economic Forum is
an exclusive or excluding club where
the rich and mighty proponents of the
neo-liberal economic model and
corporate bosses converge to celebrate
their self fulfilling prophecy. In a year
of a huge economic downturn they
cannot get away with their splendid
complacency. The World Social
Forum has emerged as a significant
counterpoint to the World Economic
Forum. After the collapse of the
movement for the New International
Economic Order in the eighties and
after the disillusionment with ritualism
of the UN sponsored summits and
conclaves, the World Social Forum
claims to provide a silver lining for
struggling societies particularly in poor
countries. The peace, environmental,
women and human rights movements
are especially able to converge at the
Social Forum.
The World Social Forum (WSF)
characterises itself as not an
organisation, not a united front, but an
open meeting place for thinking,
democratic debate of ideas,
formulation of proposals and inter-
linking for action through groups and
movements of civil society. It is
opposed to neo-liberalism and
domination of the world by capital or
any form of imperialism. It is
committed to building planetary society
directed towards furthering relations
among mankind and between it and the
earth.
The forum is particularly opposed to
militarism, racism, casteism, religious
fanaticism, sectarian violence and
patriarchy. It stands for universal
human rights, justice, real participatory
democracy, equality, solidarity among
people and genders and planetary
citizenship to build a new world. Its
fight for peace and collective security
implies confronting poverty,
discriminations, domination and the
creation of an alternative sustainable
society. The Social Forum has laudable
achievements beginning with the
incipient rallying call against the World
Economic Forum and the maturing into
a huge global movement with inspiring
ideals beginning with the World Social
Forums in Porto Allegre in Brazil . Some
regional Social Forums have been held
in different parts of the world.
If the total interest is calculated the
external debt of the countries of the
South has been repaid several times
over. Illegitimate, unjust and fraudulent,
debt functions as an instrument of
domination, depriving people of their
fundamental human rights with the sole
aim of increasing international usury.
The Social Forum demands
unconditional cancellation of debt and
the reparation of historical, social and
ecological debts. The countries
demanding repayment of debt have
engaged in exploitation of the natural
resources and knowledge systems of
the South.
Water, land, food, forests, seeds,
culture and people’s identities are
common assets of humanity for
present and future generations. It is
essential to preserve biodiversity.
People have the rights to safe and
permanent food free from genetically
modified organisms. Food sovereignty
at the national, regional and local level
is a basic human right; in this regard
democratic land reforms and peasant’s
access to land are fundamental
requirements.
The Social Forum points out that the
United States government, in its efforts
to protect the interests of big
corporations, arrogantly walked away
from negotiations on global warming,
the anti-ballistic missile treaty, the
Convention on Biodiversity, the UN
conference on racism and intolerance
years, Norway has been pushing for
NATO to increase its focus in the Arctic
and has called for more joint northern
exercises. Even though NATO has yet
to truly define its role in the area, Arctic
member countries are stepping up
military and naval operations in the high
north. In the future, NATO’s mandate
could include economic infrastructure
and maritime security. It could also
serve as a forum for discussing Arctic
military issues. Expanding NATO
activity in the region might signal the
militarization of the Arctic which could
raise tensions with both Russia and
China.
There are fears that the Arctic could
become an arena for political and
military competition. With potential new
shipping routes and countries further
staking their claims to the vast
untapped natural resources, defending
strategic and economic interests may
lead to rivalries in the region. There is
also the possibility that conflicts which
originate in other parts of the world
could spillover and affect the stability
of the Arctic.
23 July, 2013
Dana Gabriel is an activist and
independent researcher. He writes about
trade, globalization, sovereignty,
security, as well as other issues.
Source: Be Your Own Leader
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continued next page
continued from page 7
and the talks to reduce the supply of
small arms, proving once again that US
unilateralism undermines attempts to
find multilateral solutions to global
problems.
All this is happening in the context of a
global recession. The neo-liberal
economic model feeds the greed of the
corporations and is destroying the
rights, living conditions and livelihoods
of people. Using every means to protect
their ‘share value’, multinational
companies lay off workers; slash
wages and close factories, squeezing
the last dollar from workers.
Governments faced with this
economic crisis respond by cutting
social sector expenditures and
permanently reducing worker’s rights.
This recession exposes the fact that the
neo-liberal promise of growth and
prosperity is not true.
Two leading figures of the global civil
society, Vandana Shiva and Helena
Norberg-Hodge, advocate a de-linking
from world markets and focusing on
local sustainable self-reliant economies.
They say, ‘WTO should only be
responsible for preventing dumping of
goods by rich countries in poor
countries while Oxfam and other
groups seek better terms of trade to
reform the global economy.’
Some of the proposals for an alternative
world order that have been proposed
at the WSF, are: 1 A tax on international
speculative equity finance such as the
Tobin tax to fund the social sector in
poor countries and close tax havens. 2
Humanise and democratise institutions
like WTO,World Bank, IMF and make
multinational corporations more
accountable and socially responsible
under a global democratic regime. 3
Minimise agriculture subsides in rich
countries. 4 Emphasise the UN Human
Development Agenda over narrow
economic growth. 5 Strengthen and
implement agreement reached at Rio
Earth Summit, other environment
summits and Kyoto Protocol 6
Planetary citizenship should lead to a
world parliament of people. 7 Move
from national security and power
towards human and environmental
security agenda. 7 Situate internet
search engines outside the United States
who should not be allowed to get away
from reducing democratic globalisation
to global illegal spying breaching
privacy and liberty
The forum epitomises two related
tendencies. First, it is the shift from
national and international security to
human and global environmental
security. The second is the shift from
international state treaties and
conventions to trans-national people’s
alliances. At the Mumbai WSF, there
emerged a tension between two
strategies. The first emphasised a
unified party model seeking a cohesive
strategy. The second view which
prevailed, stressed a multiplicity model
seeking plurality of approaches with
no intention of merging view points.
The forum’s deliberations have three
aspects; denunciation of neo-liberal
globalisation, share and express ideals
and ideas, formulate proposals for the
alternative.
The limitations of the World Economic
Forum and its idea of progress have
been well revealed. It remains to be
seen if the World Social Forum runs
the risk of being relegated to the realm
of utopian idealism in this cruel, unfair
world of political realism. Can bridges
be built between the two extremes:
mainstream neo-liberal model and the
alternative movement signified by the
Social Forum so that a common
middle ground can be found for the
sake of our common humanity? Is
another world possible?
30 January, 2014
Source: Countercurrents.org
FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLSBy Kathy Kelly
“Our only hope today lies in our ability
to recapture the revolutionary spirit and
go out into a sometimes hostile world
declaring eternal hostility to poverty,
racism, and militarism. ... A genuine
revolution of values means in the final
analysis that our loyalties must become
ecumenical rather than sectional. Every
nation must now develop an overriding
loyalty to mankind as a whole in order
to preserve the best in their individual
societies. –”A Time to Break Silence
(Beyond Vietnam)” Dr. Martin Luther
King, April 4, 1967
This month, from Atlanta, GA, the King
Center announced its “Choose
Nonviolence” campaign, a call on
people to incorporate the symbolism of
bell-ringing into their Martin Luther
King Holiday observance, as a means
of showing their commitment to Dr.
King’s value of nonviolence in resolving
terrible issues of inequality,
discrimination and poverty here at
home. The call was heard in Kabul,
Afghanistan.
On the same day they learned of the
King Center’s call, the young members
of the Afghan Peace Volunteers, in a
home I was sharing with them in
Kabul, were grieving the fresh news
of seven Afghan children and their
mother, killed in the night during a
U.S. aerial attack - part of a battle in
the Siahgird district of the Parwan
province. The outrage, grief, loss and
A R T I C L E SI N T E R N A T I O N A L M O V E M E N T F O R A J U S T W O R L D
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pain felt in Siahgird were echoed,
horribly, in other parts of Afghanistan
during a very violent week.
My young friends, ever inspired by Dr.
King’s message, prepared a Dr. King
Day observance as they shared bread
and tea for breakfast.They talked about
the futility of war and the predictable
cycles of revenge that are caused every
time someone is killed. Then they made
a poster listing each of the killings they
had learned of in the previous seven
days.
They didn’t have a bell, and they didn’t
have the money to buy one. So
Zekerullah set to work with a bucket,
a spoon and a rope, and made
something approximating a bell. In the
APV courtyard, an enlarged vinyl
poster of Dr. King covers half of one
wall, opposite another poster of Gandhi
and Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan, the
“Muslim Gandhi” who ledPathan tribes
in the nonviolent Khudai Khidmatgar
colonial independence movement to
resist the British Empire.Zekerullah’s
makeshift “bell’ was suspended next
to King’s poster. Several dozen friends
joined the APVs as we listened to rattles
rather than pealing bells. The poster
listing the week’s death toll was held
aloft and read aloud.
It read:
“January 15, 2014: 7 children, one
woman, Siahgird district of Parwan,
killed by the U.S./NATO. January 15,
2014, 16 Taliban militants, killed by
Afghan police, army and intelligence
operatives across seven regions,
Parwan, Baghlan, Kunduz, Kandahar,
Zabul, Logar, and Paktiya. January 12,
2014: 1 police academy student and
one academy staff member, killed by a
Taliban suicide bomber in Kabul on the
road to Jalalabad. Jan 9, 2014: 1 four
year old boy killed in Helmand, by
NATO. Jan 9, 2014: 7 people, several
of them police, killed in Helmand by
unknown suicide bombers. January 7,
2014: 16 militants killed by Afghan
security forces in Nangarhar, Logar,
Ghanzi, Pakitya, Heart and Nimroz.”
We couldn’t know, then, that within
two days news would come, with a
Taliban announcement claiming
responsibility, for 21 people, 13
foreigners and eight Afghans, killed
while dining in, or guarding, a Kabul
restaurant. The Taliban said that the
attack was in retaliation for the seven
children killed in the airstrike in Parwan.
Week after bloody week, the chart of
killings lengthens. And in Afghanistan,
while war rages, a million children are
estimated to suffer from acute
malnourishment as the country faces
a worsening hunger crisis.
This Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, we
can and should remember the dream
Dr. King announced before the Lincoln
Memorial, the dream he did so much
to accomplish, remembering his call
(as the King Center asks) for
nonviolent solutions to desperate
concerns of discrimination and
inequality within the U.S. But we
shouldn’t let ourselves forget the full
extent of Dr. King’s vision, the urgent
tasks he urgently set us to fulfill on his
behalf, so many of them left unfinished
nearly forty-six years after he was
taken from us. One year to the day
before his assassination, he said:
... A true revolution of values will soon
look uneasily on the glaring contrast
of poverty and wealth. With righteous
indignation, it will look across the seas
and see individual capitalists of the West
investing huge sums of money in Asia,
Africa, and South America, only to take
the profits out with no concern for the
social betterment of the countries, and
say, “This is not just.”... The Western
arrogance of feeling that it has
everything to teach others and nothing
to learn from them is not just.
A true revolution of values will lay
hand on the world order and say of
war, “This way of settling differences
is not just.” This business of burning
human beings with napalm, of filling
our nation’s homes with orphans and
widows, of injecting poisonous drugs
of hate into the veins of peoples
normally humane, of sending men
home from dark and bloody battlefields
physically handicapped and
psychologically deranged, cannot be
reconciled with wisdom, justice, and
love. A nation that continues year after
year to spend more money on military
defense than on programs of social
uplift is approaching spiritual death.
We must never forget the full range of
Dr. King’s vision, nor the full tragedy
of the world he sought to heal, nor the
revolutionary spirit which he saw as
our only hope of achieving his vision -
making do with everything we have to
try to keep freedom ringing, despite
the pervasiveness of the evils that beset
us, and a world that needs vigorous
effort to save it from addictions to
tyranny and violence practiced by
reckless elites.
“America, the richest and most
powerful nation in the world, can well
lead the way in this revolution of
values. There is nothing except a tragic
death wish to prevent us from
reordering our priorities so that the
pursuit of peace will take precedence
over the pursuit of war.”
Kathy Kelly ([email protected]) co-
coordinates Voices for Creative
Nonviolence (vcnv.org)
22 January, 2014
Source: Countercurrents.org
A R T I C L E SI N T E R N A T I O N A L M O V E M E N T F O R A J U S T W O R L D
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By Russia Today
U.K ORDERED DESTRUCTION OF ‘EMBARRASING’ COLONIAL PAPERS
Britain systematically destroyed
documents in colonies that were about
to gain independence, declassified
Foreign Office files reveal. ‘Operation
Legacy’ saw sensitive documents
secretly burnt or dumped to cover up
traces of British activities.
The latest National Archives publication
made from a collection of 8,800 colonial-
era files held by the Foreign Office for
decades revealed deliberate document
elimination by British authorities in
former colonies.
The secret program dubbed ‘Operation
Legacy’ was in force throughout the
1950s and 1960s, in at least 23 countries
and territories under British rule that
eventually gained independence after
WWII. Among others these countries
included: Belize, British Guiana, Jamaica,
Kenya, Malaysia and Singapore, Northern
Rhodesia (today Zambia and Zimbabwe),
Tanzania, and Uganda.
In a telegram from the UK Colonial Office
dispatched to British embassies on May
3, 1961, colonial secretary Iain Macleod
instructed diplomats to withhold official
documents from newly elected
independent governments in those
countries, and presented general
guidance on what to do.
British diplomats were briefed on how
exactly they were supposed to get rid of
documents that “might embarrass
members of the police, military forces,
public servants (such as police agents
or informers)” or “might compromise
sources of intelligence”, or could be put
to ‘wrong’ use by incoming national
authorities.
‘Operation Legacy’ also called for the
destruction or removal of “all papers
which are likely to be interpreted, either
reasonably or by malice, as indicating
racial prejudice or bias”.
The newly declassified files revealed that
the Royal Navy base in Singapore was
turned into the Asian region’s primary
document destruction center. A special
facility called a “splendid incinerator” was
used to burn “lorry loads of files”,
Agence France-Presse reported.
The “central incinerator” in Singapore
was necessary to avoid a situation similar
to that in India in 1947, when a “pall of
smoke” from British officials burning
their papers in Delhi, ahead of India
proclaiming independence, filled the local
press with critical reports. That
diplomatic oversight was taken into
account, as ‘Operation Legacy’
operatives were strictly instructed not to
burn documents openly.
But not all the doomed archives could be
shipped to Singapore. In some cases
documents were eliminated on site,
sometimes being dumped in the sea “at
the maximum practicable distance from
shore” and in deep, current-free areas,
the National Archives publication claims.
The newly published collection of
documents reveals that the British
cleared out Kenyan intelligence files
that contained information about abuse
and torture of Kenyans during the Mau
Mau uprising against British colonial
rule in the 1950s. A special committee
formed in 1961 coordinated document
elimination in Kenya. Yet some files
were spared simply when an estimated
307 boxes of documents were
evacuated to Britain, just months ahead
of the country gaining independence
in December 1963.
The existence of some remaining Mau
Mau legal case documents was revealed
in January 2011.
Even after eliminating important
evidence half a century ago, earlier in
2013 the British government was forced
to pay 23 million dollars in compensation
to over 5,200 elderly Kenyans, who had
suffered from Britain’s punitive measures
during the Mau Mau uprising.
In another documented occasion, in April
1957, five lorries delivered tons of
documents from the British High
Commission in Kuala Lumpur to the
Royal Navy base in Singapore. Files were
incinerated there; these contained details
about British rule in Malaya, such as a
massacre of 24 rubber plantation
workers at the Malayan village of Batang
Kali in 1948, who had allegedly been
murdered by British soldiers.
Despite the mass document elimination,
Britain’s Foreign Office still has some
1.2 million unpublished documents on
British colonial policy, David Anderson,
professor of African history at the
University of Warwick, told AFP.
So Her Majesty’s government might still
publish more valuable material that can
shed more light on how one of the biggest
empires in human history used to be
governed. Overall, Britain had total
control over 50 colonies including
Canada, India, Australia, Nigeria, and
Jamaica. Currently, there are 14 British
Overseas Territories that remain under
British rule, though most of them are self-
governing and all have leaderships of
their own.
02 December 2013
Source: RT.com
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