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Vol 15, No.06 June 2015
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ARTICLES
THE SECRET CORPORATE TAKEOVER
. THE GREAT GAME IN THE HOLY LAND
BY MICHAEL SCHWARTZ................................P 6
.THE ROHINGYAS- A GLIMMER OF HOPE BY CHANDRA MUZAFFAR....................P2
. ISRAELIS AND SAUDIS REVEAL SECRET TALKS
TO THWART IRAN
BY ELI LAKE....................................................P 10
.REACHING YARMOUK!
BY FATHER DAVE..........................................P 11
. THE SCENE OF THE CRIME (PART 2)
BY SEYMOUR M. HERSH................................P 15
. BHAKTI- SUFI TRADITIONS: UNITING HUMANITY
BY RAM PUNIYANI.........................................P 17
STATEMENTS
.BRICS AND THE FICTION OF “DE-DOLLARIZATION”
BY PROF MICHEL CHOSSUDOVSKY....................P12
. U.S. BACKED WAR ON YEMEN LEAVES 20 MILLION
WITHOUT FOOD, WATER, MEDICAL CARE
BY BILL VAN AUKEN.........................................P 5
By Joseph E. Stiglitz
The United States and the world are engaged
in a great debate about new trade agreements.
Such pacts used to be called “free-trade
agreements”; in fact, they were managed trade
agreements, tailored to corporate interests,
largely in the US and the European Union.
Today, such deals are more often referred to
as “partnerships,”as in the Trans-Pacific
Partnership (TPP). But they are not
partnerships of equals: the US effectively
dictates the terms. Fortunately, America’s
“partners” are becoming increasingly resistant.
It is not hard to see why. These agreements
go well beyond trade, governing investment
and intellectual property as well, imposing
fundamental changes to countries’ legal,
judicial, and regulatory frameworks, without
input or accountability through democratic
institutions.
Perhaps the most invidious – and most
dishonest – part of such agreements
concerns investor protection. Of course,
investors have to be protected against the
risk that rogue governments will seize their
property. But that is not what these
provisions are about. There have been very
few expropriations in recent decades, and
investors who want to protect themselves
can buy insurance from the Multilateral
Investment Guarantee Agency, a World
Bank affiliate (the US and other
governments provide similar insurance).
Nonetheless, the US is demanding such
provisions in the TPP, even though many
of its “partners” have property protections
and judicial systems that are as good as its
own.
The real intent of these provisions is to
impede health, environmental, safety, and,
yes, even financial regulations meant to
protect America’s own economy and
.THE ROHINGYAS- STOP PERSECUTION: END THE EXODUS BY HASSANAL NOOR RASHID.............P4
citizens. Companies can sue
governments for full compensation for
any reduction in their future expected
profits resulting from regulatory
changes.
This is not just a theoretical possibility.
Philip Morris is suing Uruguay and
Australia for requiring warning labels on
cigarettes. Admittedly, both countries
went a little further than the US,
mandating the inclusion of graphic images
showing the consequences of cigarette
smoking.
The labeling is working. It is discouraging
smoking. So now Philip Morris is
demanding to be compensated for lost
profits.
In the future, if we discover that some
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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other product causes health problems
(think of asbestos), rather than facing
lawsuits for the costs imposed on us,
the manufacturer could sue governments
for restraining them from killing more
people. The same thing could happen if
our governments impose more stringent
regulations to protect us from the impact
of greenhouse-gas emissions.
When I chaired President Bill Clinton’s
Council of Economic Advisers, anti-
environmentalists tried to enact a similar
provision, called “regulatory takings.”
They knew that once enacted, regulations
would be brought to a halt, simply
because government could not afford to
pay the compensation. Fortunately, we
succeeded in beating back the initiative,
both in the courts and in the US
Congress.
But now the same groups are attempting
an end run around democratic processes
by inserting such provisions in trade bills,
the contents of which are being kept
largely secret from the public (but not
from the corporations that are pushing
for them). It is only from leaks, and from
talking to government officials who seem
more committed to democratic
processes, that we know what is
happening.
Fundamental to America’s system of
government is an impartial public
judiciary, with legal standards built up
over the decades, based on principles of
transparency, precedent, and the
opportunity to appeal unfavorable
decisions. All of this is being set aside,
as the new agreements call for private,
non-transparent, and very expensive
arbitration. Moreover, this arrangement
is often rife with conflicts of interest;
for example, arbitrators may be a “judge”
in one case and an advocate in a related
case.
The proceedings are so expensive that
Uruguay has had to turn to Michael
Bloomberg and other wealthy Americans
committed to health to defend itself
against Philip Morris. And, though
corporations can bring suit, others
cannot. If there is a violation of other
commitments – on labor and
environmental standards, for example –
citizens, unions, and civil-society groups
have no recourse.
If there ever was a one-sided dispute-
resolution mechanism that violates basic
principles, this is it. That is why I joined
leading US legal experts, including from
Harvard, Yale, and Berkeley, in writing a
letter to President Barack Obama
explaining how damaging to our system
of justice these agreements are.
American supporters of such agreements
point out that the US has been sued only a
few times so far, and has not lost a case.
Corporations, however, are just learning
how to use these agreements to their
advantage.
And high-priced corporate lawyers in the
US, Europe, and Japan will likely outmatch
the underpaid government lawyers
attempting to defend the public interest.
Worse still, corporations in advanced
countries can create subsidiaries in member
countries through which to invest back
home, and then sue, giving them a new
channel to bloc regulations.
If there were a need for better property
protection, and if this private, expensive
dispute-resolution mechanism were superior
to a public judiciary, we should be changing
the law not just for well-heeled foreign
companies, but also for our own citizens
and small businesses. But there has been
no suggestion that this is the case.
Rules and regulations determine the kind of
economy and society in which people live.
They affect relative bargaining power, with
important implications for inequality, a
growing problem around the world. The
question is whether we should allow rich
corporations to use provisions hidden in so-
called trade agreements to dictate how we
will live in the twenty-first century. I hope
citizens in the US, Europe, and the Pacific
answer with a resounding no.
13 May 2015
Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in
economics and University Professor at
Columbia University, was Chairman of
President Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic
Advisers and served as Senior Vice
President and Chief Economist of the World
Bank.
Source : www.project-syndicate.org
THE ROHINGYAS- A GLIMMER OF HOPE
STATEMENTS
By Chandra Muzaffar
It is commendable that the Malaysian
government has undertaken a systematic
Search and Rescue (SAR) operation in
the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal
aimed at saving the lives of thousands
of stranded Rohingyas and Bangladeshis.
The right to life is the highest human
right and all the governments in ASEAN
should have committed themselves to
this sacred principle at the very outset
of the present crisis.
S T A T E M E N T
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Civil society organizations in the region
should also assist in whatever way they can.
In this regard, the effort of Malaysian
philanthropist, Tan Sri Vincent Tan, is
praiseworthy. He was not only among the
first to appeal to the Malaysian government
to launch a humanitarian mission on behalf
of the stranded Rohingyas and Bangladeshis
but has also on his own sent aid in the form
of medicines, food and water to the
Malaysian Navy and the Malaysian Maritime
Enforcement Agency (MMEA) to be
distributed to the refugees and migrants in
rickety boats at sea.
However, to conduct SAR operations
without taking other measures to stem the
flow of refugees and migrants into the
region would not be a wise thing to do.
There must also be a robust ASEAN policy
implemented immediately with the
cooperation of the governments of
Myanmar and Bangladesh to destroy people
smuggling syndicates in those two countries
and in the ASEAN region. Intelligence
gathering capabilities should be enhanced
to enable the authorities to act against the
kingpins in these syndicates before their
boats set sail. More important, corruption
which is one of the main reasons why
human trafficking thrives should be weeded
out. Enforcement agencies not only in
Myanmar and Bangladesh but also within
ASEAN should be purged of corrupt
personnel.
If this is done, it would be easier to repatriate
Bangladeshi migrants to their country. Unlike
the Rohingyas of Myanmar, the vast majority
of Bangladeshis appear to be economic
migrants escaping poverty at home and
hoping to secure decent jobs in Malaysia
and other ASEAN countries. It is revealing
that about 700 of the 1,100 people given
temporary shelter in Langkawi in northern
Malaysia in the last two weeks are actually
Bangladeshi migrants.
As far as the Rohingyas are concerned, the
Malaysian and other ASEAN governments
should increase persuasion and pressure
upon the Myanmar government to treat
these refugees as human beings and
citizens. The fetters imposed upon them
by the State on various aspects of their
lives — their right to employment, to
education, to health care, to free movement
— should be removed immediately. Most
of all, the citizenship of the Rohingya
minority which was rescinded by the
military junta in power in Myanmar in 1982,
should be restored. It is the loss of
citizenship which is the root cause of their
suffering. It is this that has rendered the
Rohingya one of the most persecuted
minorities in the world.
It is encouraging that the Foreign Minister
of Myanmar in his meeting with his
Malaysian counterpart in Naypyitaw ( the
capital of Myanmar) yesterday indicated
that his government was prepared to
cooperate fully with Malaysia in trying to
resolve the crisis involving Rakhine state (
the province in Myanmar where the
Rohingya live). Other ASEAN governments
should also persuade the Myanmar
government to address the root cause of
the crisis. Indeed other Asian governments
such as China, India, Japan and South
Korea should also play their role. China in
particular with its extensive economic ties
with Myanmar — including investments
in Rakhine — should make it very clear
that it is deeply concerned about the plight
of the Rohingya people. It is a pity that it
has been rather quiet on this fundamental
question of human dignity. The United
States and the European Union who had
once imposed sanctions upon Myanmar
because of its appalling human rights record
underscored by the detention of Aung San
Suu Kyi should now apply maximum
diplomatic pressure upon Myanmar to
compel it to accord a modicum of respect
to the persecuted Rohingya minority. If the
Myanmar government does not respond
positively to world opinion, the United
Nations should once again focus upon
Myanmar and its abysmal treatment of the
Rohingya and other minorities.
This is perhaps the right time for the
world to act for two reasons. One, the
tragedy of thousands of human beings
struggling to survive — many have died
of starvation — in the open sea has
pierced the conscience of humanity as
never before at least on the question of
the fate of the Rohingyas. Two, there
are now influential voices within
Myanmar pleading with the government
to grant citizenship to the Rohingyas. In
a recent media interview, a spokesperson
of the National League for Democracy
(NLD), the main opposition party in the
country, has called upon the government
to recognize Rohingyas who have lived
in Myanmar for generations as citizens
with the same rights as other Myanmar
citizens. A leading Buddhist monk, U
Pinyasiha, has also asked the government
of Thein Sein to resolve the issue of
citizenship for the Rohingyas. From the
perspective of Buddhist principles, which
emphasize saving lives and showing
compassion to fellow human beings
regardless of religion, it is only right, he
has argued, to help the Rohingyas.
Let’s hope that the Myanmar
government will now listen and act.
*The NCD had subsequently denied
authority any such statement.
-editor.
22 May 2015
Dr. Chandra Muzaffar is the President
of the International Movement for a Just
World (JUST).
S T A T E M E N T
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S T A T E M E N T S
THE ROHINGYAS: STOP PERSECUTION: END THE EXODUS
By Hassanal Noor Rahshid
It is imperative that the Rohingya issue be
addressed as soon as possible.
The plight faced by these persecuted people
has been thrust into the headlines of
international news recently, following cases
of thousands of boat people stranded at sea
as well as reports of slave labour camps
and mass graves.
These Rohingya immigrants who sought
to escape persecution from a country that
has long eroded their cultural identity and
civil rights, entrusted themselves to
opportunistic and deceitful human
traffickers who see their plight not as a
humanitarian issue, but as nothing more than
a lucrative opportunity. This has resulted in
extreme cases where people were allegedly
thrown overboard, or whole ships left
abandoned, its passengers left to fend for
themselves against the harsh elements of
the sea, many suffering and succumbing
to malnutrition.
At least 30 mass graves have been
discovered at the identified slave camps near
the south of Thailand in the Songkla
province.Survivors of such camps report
of the deplorable conditions they have been
forced to live in as well as the alleged use of
coercion and violence to extort more money
from the Rohingya families.
As Malaysia shares the borders close to
where this incident has happened, it is feared
that such camps may exist within
Malaysia’s boundaries and perhaps Malaysia
has unknowingly facilitated the trafficking
and abuse of the Rohingya people.
However while the responses have been
mainly aimed towards the human
traffickers, with military action being
considered, there is a far greater crime being
played out that demands justice for these
people who have to suffer so much
unnecessary hardships.
The Myanmar government is equally, if not
wholly responsible, for the sorry state of
affairs the Rohingyas find themselves in.
As noted by the report published by the
Equal Rights Trust, the Rohingyas trace
their ancestral roots in the Rakhine region
several centuries back, long before the
creation of modern day Myanmar. The term
is derived from the word Rohang which is
the name of the Rakhine state. 1
This claim to historical ancestry is
rejected on many levels in Myanmar.The
Myanmar government claims that the
Rohingyas are in fact migrants from
Bangladesh and have no rights to
indigenous identity in Myanmar. The
term” Rohingya” is not recognized by
the government and the Rohingya people
— in spite of their protest and rejection
—- are referred to as Bengali.
The result of this unwillingness to recognize
that the Rohingyas are part of the Myanmar
demographic landscape, coupled with their
contentious religious relationship with the
majority Buddhist populace which denies
much of the historical Muslim influences
upon Rakhine state, have led to the
purposeful and systematic deprivation of
the civil rights of the Rohingya community.
The Rohingyas are prevented from using
the term in official documentation including
identity cards, passports and were even
disqualified from the country’s census of
March 2014 unless they agreed to the term
Bengali.
The consequence of this can be seen now
as many Rohingyas, who possess no legal
documentation, have become stateless and
have been forced to flee Myanmar in order
to escape persecution in a country that has
become —- as some have described it —
- an open-air prison.
The Rohingyas have no other alternatives
than to procure the services of smugglers,
who they pay a significant amount of money
in order to obtain passage to another
country. The problem then morphs into
human trafficking.These refugees are
unknowingly trading one prison for another.
It is therefore not enough to address the
issue of human trafficking by bringing the
traffickers themselves to justice. It is
necessary to make the Myanmar
government accountable for this travesty,
addressing the problem of ethnic
persecution within the country itself and
ensuring that the civil rights of the Rohingyas
are restored, or, at the very least, their basic
human rights respected.
The only significant hindrance would be the
strict adherence to the non-interference
policy which ASEAN governments have
maintained. Malaysia and Indonesia have
turned away many of the boats opting to
send these refugees back to the country that
does not recognize their basic humanity. The
Malaysian and Indonesian governments do
not want to be inundated with illegal
immigrants that they just cannot cope with.
There is a distinction that needs to be
made between refugees and illegal
immigrants, as the current discourse
labels the Rohingyas mainly as the latter,
when in fact given the mentioned
historical and political context, it would
be more appropriate to term the
Rohingyas as political refugees.
With the increasing outflow of these
refugees from Myanmar, the ASEAN policy
of non-interference has proven to be
untenable, given the humanitarian crisis
which has gotten far worse over the years.
The Malaysian, Indonesian and Thai
governments should apply diplomatic
pressure immediately upon the Myanmar
government to address the root problem
which is the persecution of the Rohingyas.
Once the persecution stops, the massive
exodus of refugees through land and sea
will also come to an end.
15 May 2015
Hassanal Noor Rashid is the Program
Coordinator of the International Movement
for a Just World (JUST)
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A R T I C L E S
ARTICLES
U.S.-BACKED WAR ON YEMEN LEAVES 20 MILLION WITHOUT
FOOD, WATER, MEDICAL CARE
By Bill Van Auken
The US-backed war against Yemen has
left some 20 million people—nearly 80
percent of the country’s population—
facing a humanitarian disaster, without
access to adequate food, water and
medical care, the United Nations top
aid official informed member nations
of the UN Security Council this week.
UN Emergency Relief Coordinator
Stephen O’Brien described the
situation confronting the population of
the Arab world’s poorest country as
“catastrophic,” placing much of the
blame on the Saudi-led air strikes that
have devastated Yemeni cities, and
Saudi Arabia’s blockade of Yemen’s
ports, which have prevented not only
the arrival of emergency relief supplies
but also the basic flow of goods that
existed before the war.
“The blockade means it’s impossible
to bring anything into the country,”
Nuha Abdul Jaber, Oxfam’s
humanitarian program director in the
Yemeni capital of Sanaa told the
Guardian newspaper. “There are lots
of ships, with basic things like flour,
that are not allowed to approach. The
situation is deteriorating, hospitals are
now shutting down, without diesel.
People are dying of simple diseases. It
is becoming almost impossible to
survive.”
The Guardian , citing a report by the
aid group Save the Children, reported
that hospitals have closed down in at
least 18 of the country’s 22 governates,
along with 153 health centers that
provided nutrition to at-risk children
and 158 outpatient clinics that treated
children under five. “At the same time,
due to lack of clean water and
sanitation, cholera and other diseases
are on the rise,” the paper reported.
“A dengue fever outbreak has been
reported in Aden.”
The Saudi monarchy, meanwhile, has
provided none of the $274 million for
an emergency humanitarian fund that
it promised to create when, in late
April, it announced an end to what it
had dubbed “Operation Decisive
Storm” and declared that it would shift
from military operations to “the
political process.”
Since then, along with the blockade,
the air war against Yemen’s
impoverished population, now in its
third month, has continued unabated.
On Wednesday and Thursday alone,
at least 58 civilians were reported killed,
as bombs struck a number of areas
including in the north near the Saudi
Arabian border, where 48 people,
mostly women and children, were
reported killed in a single village.
According to the UN’s estimate, at
least 2,000 civilians have lost their lives
since the onset of the war.
The Obama administration has provided
the Saudis with logistical and
intelligence support, helping to select
targets for bombardment, sending
refueling planes to keep the bombers
of Saudi Arabia and its Gulf monarchy
allies in the air and rushing bombs and
missiles to replace those dropped on
Yemen.
It was reported Thursday that the
leadership of the Houthi rebels have
agreed to attend UN-brokered peace
talks in Geneva on June 14. Agence
France Presse quoted Daifallah al-
Shami, a politburo member of the
Houthi militia’s political wing as saying,
“We accepted the invitation of the
United Nations to go to the negotiating
table in Geneva without preconditions.”
The rebels have refused to submit to a
one-sided resolution pushed through
the United Nations Security Council in
April by the US and its allies (with
Russia abstaining), imposing an arms
embargo directed solely against the
Houthi rebels, while demanding that
they disarm, cede territory under their
control and recognize the government
of President Abd Rabbuh Mansour
Hadi, a puppet of Washington and Saudi
Arabia, who fled the country in March.
The Security Council resolution made
no criticism whatsoever of the Saudi
air strikes, launched against a civilian
population in violation of international
laws against aggressive war.
Representatives of Hadi, who is holed
up in Riyadh, are also reported to have
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A R T I C L E S
continued from page 5
agreed to attend the Geneva talks.
Previously, Hadi had demanded that the
Houthis bow to the UN Security
Council resolution before any peace
talks.
Also expected to join the talks are
representatives of former president and
longtime strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh,
whose loyalists allied themselves with
the Houthis.
Not expected to participate are rebel
factions in the south of Yemen who
have resisted the Houthis but have no
interest in restoring Hadi to power,
fighting instead for the independence
of South Yemen, a former British
colony which existed as an independent
state aligned with the former Soviet
Union before its unification with the
north in 1990. That unity broke down
in 1994, resulting in a civil war that
ended with the secessionist south
defeated and forced back into
unification.
The war in Yemen has led to a
ratcheting up of tensions throughout
the region, with the Saudi monarchy
and Washington both charging Iran with
supporting the Houthis, who are based
among the Zaidi Shiites, and who make
up approximately one third of Yemen’s
population, dominating the north of the
country.
Washington has repeatedly charged
Tehran with supplying arms to the
Houthis, while presenting no evidence.
Iran has denied the charges.
06 June 2015
Bill Van Auken is a politician and
activist for the Socialist Equality Party
and was a presidential candidate in the
U.S. presidential election of 2004,
announcing his candidacy on January
27, 2004. His running mate was Jim
Lawrence.
Source: WSWS.org
THE GREAT GAME IN THE HOLY LAND
By Michael Schwartz
How Gazan Natural Gas Became the
Epicenter of An International Power
Struggle
Guess what? Almost all the current wars,
uprisings, and other conflicts in the Middle
East are connected by a single thread, which
is also a threat: these conflicts are part of an
increasingly frenzied competition to find,
extract, and market fossil fuels whose future
consumption is guaranteed to lead to a set
of cataclysmic environmental crises.
Amid the many fossil-fueled conflicts in the
region, one of them, packed with threats,
large and small, has been largely overlooked,
and Israel is at its epicenter. Its origins can
be traced back to the early 1990s when
Israeli and Palestinian leaders began sparring
over rumored natural gas deposits in the
Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Gaza.
In the ensuing decades, it has grown into a
many-fronted conflict involving several
armies and three navies. In the process, it
has already inflicted mindboggling misery
on tens of thousands of Palestinians, and it
threatens to add future layers of misery to
the lives of people in Syria, Lebanon, and
Cyprus. Eventually, it might even immiserate
Israelis.
Resource wars are, of course, nothing new.
Virtually the entire history of Western
colonialism and post-World War II
globalization has been animated by the effort
to find and market the raw materials needed
to build or maintain industrial capitalism. This
includes Israel’s expansion into, and
appropriation of, Palestinian lands. But fossil
fuels only moved to center stage in the
Israeli-Palestinian relationship in the 1990s,
and that initially circumscribed conflict only
spread to include Syria, Lebanon, Cyprus,
Turkey, and Russia after 2010.
The Poisonous History of Gazan Natural
Gas
Back in 1993, when Israel and the Palestinian
Authority (PA) signed the Oslo Accords that
were supposed to end the Israeli occupation
of Gaza and the West Bank and create a
sovereign state, nobody was thinking much
about Gaza’s coastline. As a result, Israel
agreed that the newly created PA would
fully control its territorial waters, even
though the Israeli navy was still patrolling
the area. Rumored natural gas deposits there
mattered little to anyone, because prices
were then so low and supplies so plentiful.
No wonder that the Palestinians took their
time recruiting British Gas (BG) — a major
player in the global natural gas sweepstakes
— to find out what was actually there. Only
in 2000 did the two parties even sign a
modest contract to develop those by-then
confirmed fields.
BG promised to finance and manage their
development, bear all the costs, and operate
the resulting facilities in exchange for 90%
of the revenues, an exploitative but typical
“profit-sharing” agreement. With an already
functioning natural gas industry, Egypt
agreed to be the on-shore hub and transit
point for the gas. The Palestinians were to
receive 10% of the revenues (estimated at
about a billion dollars in total) and were
guaranteed access to enough gas to meet
their needs.
Had this process moved a little faster, the
contract might have been implemented as
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written. In 2000, however, with a rapidly
expanding economy, meager fossil fuels,
and terrible relations with its oil-rich
neighbors, Israel found itself facing a
chronic energy shortage. Instead of
attempting to answer its problem with
an aggressive but feasible effort to
develop renewable sources of energy,
Prime Minister Ehud Barak initiated the
era of Eastern Mediterranean fossil fuel
conflicts. He brought Israel’s naval
control of Gazan coastal waters to bear
and nixed the deal with BG. Instead, he
demanded that Israel, not Egypt, receive
the Gaza gas and that it also control all
the revenues destined for the Palestinians
— to prevent the money from being used
to “fund terror.”
With this, the Oslo Accords were
officially doomed. By declaring
Palestinian control over gas revenues
unacceptable, the Israeli government
committed itself to not accepting even
the most limited kind of Palestinian
budgetary autonomy, let alone full
sovereignty. Since no Palestinian
government or organization would agree
to this, a future filled with armed conflict
was assured.
The Israeli veto led to the intervention of
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who
sought to broker an agreement that would
satisfy both the Israeli government and
the Palestinian Authority. The result: a
2007 proposal that would have delivered
the gas to Israel, not Egypt, at below-
market prices, with the same 10% cut
of the revenues eventually reaching the
PA. However, those funds were first to
be delivered to the Federal Reserve Bank
in New York for future distribution,
which was meant to guarantee that they
would not be used for attacks on Israel.
This arrangement still did not satisfy the
Israelis, who pointed to the recent victory
of the militant Hamas party in Gaza
elections as a deal-breaker. Though
Hamas had agreed to let the Federal
Reserve supervise all spending, the Israeli
government, now led by Ehud Olmert,
insisted that no “royalties be paid to the
Palestinians.” Instead, the Israelis would
deliver the equivalent of those funds “in
goods and services.”
This offer the Palestinian government
refused. Soon after, Olmert imposed a
draconian blockade on Gaza, which
Israel’s defense minister termed a form
of “‘economic warfare’ that would
generate a political crisis, leading to a
popular uprising against Hamas.” With
Egyptian cooperation, Israel then seized
control of all commerce in and out of
Gaza, severely limiting even food imports
and eliminating its fishing industry. As
Olmert advisor Dov Weisglass summed
up this agenda, the Israeli government
was putting the Palestinians “on a diet”
(which, according to the Red Cross,
soon produced “chronic malnutrition,”
especially among Gazan children).
When the Palestinians still refused to
accept Israel’s terms, the Olmert
government decided to unilaterally extract
the gas, something that, they believed,
could only occur once Hamas had been
displaced or disarmed. As former Israel
Defense Forces commander and current
Foreign Minister Moshe Ya’alon
explained, “Hamas... has confirmed its
capability to bomb Israel’s strategic gas
and electricity installations... It is clear
that, without an overall military operation
to uproot Hamas control of Gaza, no
drilling work can take place without the
consent of the radical Islamic
movement.”
Following this logic, Operation Cast Lead
was launched in the winter of 2008.
According to Deputy Defense Minister
Matan Vilnai, it was intended to subject
Gaza to a “shoah” (the Hebrew word
for holocaust or disaster). Yoav Galant,
the commanding general of the
Operation, said that it was designed to
“send Gaza decades into the past.” As
Israeli parliamentarian Tzachi Hanegbi
explained, the specific military goal was
“to topple the Hamas terror regime and
take over all the areas from which rockets
are fired on Israel.”
Operation Cast Lead did indeed “send
Gaza decades into the past.” Amnesty
International reported that the 22-day
offensive killed 1,400 Palestinians,
“including some 300 children and
hundreds of other unarmed civilians, and
large areas of Gaza had been razed to
the ground, leaving many thousands
homeless and the already dire economy
in ruins.” The only problem: Operation
Cast Lead did not achieve its goal of
“transferring the sovereignty of the gas
fields to Israel.”
More Sources of Gas Equal More
Resource Wars
In 2009, the newly elected government
of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
inherited the stalemate around Gaza’s gas
deposits and an Israeli energy crisis that
only grew more severe when the Arab
Spring in Egypt interrupted and then
obliterated 40% of the country’s gas
supplies. Rising energy prices soon
contributed to the largest protests
involving Jewish Israelis in decades.
As it happened, however, the Netanyahu
regime also inherited a potentially
permanent solution to the problem. An
immense field of recoverable natural gas
was discovered in the Levantine Basin, a
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mainly offshore formation under the
eastern Mediterranean. Israeli officials
immediately asserted that “most” of the
newly confirmed gas reserves lay “within
Israeli territory.” In doing so, they
ignored contrary claims by Lebanon,
Syria, Cyprus, and the Palestinians.
In some other world, this immense gas
field might have been effectively exploited
by the five claimants jointly, and a
production plan might even have been
put in place to ameliorate the
environmental impact of releasing a future
130 trillion cubic feet of gas into the
planet’s atmosphere. However, as Pierre
Terzian, editor of the oil industry journal
Petrostrategies, observed, “All the
elements of danger are there... This is a
region where resorting to violent action
is not something unusual.”
In the three years that followed the
discovery, Terzian’s warning seemed ever
more prescient. Lebanon became the first
hot spot. In early 2011, the Israeli
government announced the unilateral
development of two fields, about 10%of
that Levantine Basin gas, which lay in
disputed offshore waters near the Israeli-
Lebanese border. Lebanese Energy
Minister Gebran Bassil immediately
threatened a military confrontation,
asserting that his country would “not
allow Israel or any company working for
Israeli interests to take any amount of
our gas that is falling in our zone.”
Hezbollah, the most aggressive political
faction in Lebanon, promised rocket
attacks if “a single meter” of natural gas
was extracted from the disputed fields.
Israel’s Resource Minister accepted the
challenge, asserting that “[t]hese areas
are within the economic waters of Israel...
We will not hesitate to use our force and
strength to protect not only the rule of
law but the international maritime law.”
Oil industry journalist Terzian offered this
analysis of the realities of the
confrontation:
“In practical terms... nobody is going to
invest with Lebanon in disputed waters.
There are no Lebanese companies there
capable of carrying out the drilling, and
there is no military force that could protect
them. But on the other side, things are
different. You have Israeli companies that
have the ability to operate in offshore
areas, and they could take the risk under
the protection of the Israeli military.”
Sure enough, Israel continued its
exploration and drilling in the two disputed
fields, deploying drones to guard the
facilities. Meanwhile, the Netanyahu
government invested major resources in
preparing for possible future military
confrontations in the area. For one thing,
with lavish U.S. funding, itdeveloped the
“Iron Dome” anti-missile defense system
designed in part to intercept Hezbollah and
Hamas rockets aimed at Israeli energy
facilities. It also expanded the Israeli navy,
focusing on its ability to deter or repel
threats to offshore energy facilities.
Finally, starting in 2011 it launched
airstrikes in Syria designed, according to
U.S. officials, “to prevent any transfer
of advanced... antiaircraft, surface-to-
surface and shore-to-ship missiles” to
Hezbollah.
Nonetheless, Hezbollah continued to
stockpile rockets capable of demolishing
Israeli facilities. And in 2013, Lebanon
made a move of its own. It began
negotiating with Russia. The goal was to
get that country’s gas firms to develop
Lebanese offshore claims, while the
formidable Russian navy would lend a
hand with the “long-running territorial
dispute with Israel.”
By the beginning of 2015, a state of
mutual deterrence appeared to be setting
in. Although Israel had succeeded in
bringing online the smaller of the two
fields it set out to develop, drilling in the
larger one was indefinitely stalled”in light
of the security situation.” U.S.
contractor Noble Energy, hired by the
Israelis, was unwilling to invest the
necessary $6 billion dollars in facilities
that would be vulnerable to Hezbollah
attack, and potentially in the gun sights
of the Russian navy. On the Lebanese
side, despite an increased Russian naval
presence in the region, no work had
begun.
Meanwhile, in Syria, where violence was
rife and the country in a state of armed
collapse, another kind of stalemate went
into effect. The regime of Bashar al-
Assad, facing a ferocious threat from
various groups of jihadists, survived in
part by negotiating massive military
support from Russia in exchange for a
25-year contract to develop Syria’s
claims to that Levantine gas field.
Included in the deal was a major
expansion of the Russian naval base at
the port city of Tartus, ensuring a far
larger Russian naval presence in the
Levantine Basin.
While the presence of the Russians
apparently deterred the Israelis from
attempting to develop any Syrian-
claimed gas deposits, there was no
Russian presence in Syria proper. So
Israel contracted with the U.S.-based
Genie Energy Corporation to locate and
develop oil fields in the Golan Heights,
Syrian territory occupied by the Israelis
since 1967. Facing a potential violation
of international law, the Netanyahu
government invoked, as the basis for
its acts, an Israeli court ruling that the
exploitation of natural resources in
occupied territories was legal. At the
same time, to prepare for the inevitable
battle with whichever faction or factions
emerged triumphant from the Syrian
civil war, it began shoring up the Israeli
military presence in the Golan Heights.
And then there was Cyprus, the only
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Levantine claimant not at war with
Israel. Greek Cypriots had long been
in chronic conflict with Turkish
Cypriots, so it was hardly surprising
that the Levantine natural gas discovery
triggered three years of deadlocked
negotiations on the island over what to
do. In 2014, the Greek Cypriots signed
an exploration contract with Noble
Energy, Israel’s chief contractor. The
Turkish Cypriots trumped this move
by signing a contract with Turkey to
explore all Cypriot claims “as far as
Egyptian waters.” Emulating Israel and
Russia, the Turkish government
promptly moved three navy vessels into
the area to physically block any
intervention by other claimants.
As a result, four years of maneuvering
around the newly discovered Levantine
Basin deposits have produced little
energy, but brought new and powerful
claimants into the mix, launched a
significant military build-up in the
region, and heightened tensions
immeasurably.
Gaza Again — and Again
Remember the Iron Dome system,
developed in part to stop Hezbollah
rockets aimed at Israel’s northern gas
fields? Over time, it was put in place
near the border with Gaza to stop
Hamas rockets, and was tested during
Operation Returning Echo, the fourth
Israeli military attempt to bring Hamas
to heel and eliminate any Palestinian
“capability to bomb Israel’s strategic
gas and electricity installations.”
Launched in March 2012, it replicated
on a reduced scale the devastation of
Operation Cast Lead, while the Iron
Dome achieved a 90% “kill rate” against
Hamas rockets. Even this, however,
while a useful adjunct to the vast
shelter system built to protect Israeli
civilians, was not enough to ensure the
protection of the country’s exposed oil
facilities. Even one direct hit there
could damage or demolish such fragile
and flammable structures.
The failure of Operation Returning Echo
to settle anything triggered another round
of negotiations, which once again stalled
over the Palestinian rejection of Israel’s
demand to control all fuel and revenues
destined for Gaza and the West Bank.
The new Palestinian Unity government
then followed the lead of the Lebanese,
Syrians, and Turkish Cypriots, and in late
2013 signed an “exploration concession”
with Gazprom, the huge Russian natural
gas company. As with Lebanon and
Syria, the Russian Navy loomed as a
potential deterrent to Israeli interference.
Meanwhile, in 2013, a new round of
energy blackouts caused “chaos” across
Israel, triggering a draconian 47%
increase in electricity prices. In response,
the Netanyahu government considered
a proposal to begin extracting domestic
shale oil, but the potential contamination
of water resources caused a backlash
movement that frustrated this effort. In
a country filled with start-up high-tech
firms, the exploitation of renewable
energy sources was still not being given
serious attention. Instead, the
government once again turned to Gaza.
With Gazprom’s move to develop the
Palestinian-claimed gas deposits on the
horizon, the Israelis launched their fifth
military effort to force Palestinian
acquiescence, Operation Protective Edge.
It had two major hydrocarbon-related
goals: to deter Palestinian-Russian plans
and to finally eliminate the Gazan rocket
systems. The first goal was apparently
met when Gazprom postponed (perhaps
permanently) its development deal. The
second, however, failed when the two-
pronged land and air attack — despite
unprecedented devastation in Gaza —
failed to destroy Hamas’s rocket
stockpiles or its tunnel-based assembly
system; nor did the Iron Dome achieve
the sort of near-perfect interception rate
needed to protect proposed energy
installations.
There Is No Denouement
After 25 years and five failed Israeli
military efforts, Gaza’s natural gas is still
underwater and, after four years, the
same can be said for almost all of the
Levantine gas. But things are not the
same. In energy terms, Israel is ever
more desperate, even as it has been
building up its military, including its navy,
in significant ways. The other claimants
have, in turn, found larger and more
powerful partners to help reinforce their
economic and military claims. All of this
undoubtedly means that the first quarter-
century of crisis over eastern
Mediterranean natural gas has been
nothing but prelude. Ahead lies the
possibility of bigger gas wars with the
devastation they are likely to bring.
26 February, 2015
Michael Schwartz, an emeritus
distinguished teaching professor of
sociology at Stony Brook University, is
a TomDispatch regular and the author
of the award-winning books Radical
Protest and Social Structure and The
Power Structure of American Business
(with Beth Mintz). His TomDispatch
book,War Without End, focused on how
the militarized geopolitics of oil led the
U.S. to invade and occupy Iraq.
Source: TomDispatch.com
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By Eli Lake
ISRAELIS AND SAUDIS REVEAL SECRET TALKS TO THWART IRAN
Since the beginning of 2014,
representatives from Israel and Saudi
Arabia have had five secret meetings to
discuss a common foe, Iran. On
Thursday, the two countries came out
of the closet by revealing this covert
diplomacy at the Council on Foreign
Relations in Washington.
Among those who follow the Middle East
closely, it’s been an open secret that Israel
and Saudi Arabia have a common interest
in thwarting Iran. But until Thursday,
actual diplomacy between the two was
never officially acknowledged. Saudi
Arabia still doesn’t recognize Israel’s
right to exist. Israel has yet to accept a
Saudi-initiated peace offer to create a
Palestinian state.
It was not a typical Washington think-
tank event. No questions were taken
from the audience. After an introduction,
there was a speech in Arabic from Anwar
Majed Eshki, a retired Saudi general and
ex-adviser to Prince Bandar bin Sultan,
the former Saudi ambassador to the U.S.
Then Dore Gold, a former Israeli
ambassador to the United Nations who
is slotted to be the next director general
of Israel’s foreign ministry, gave a speech
in English.
While these men represent countries that
have been historic enemies, their message
was identical: Iran is trying to take over
the Middle East and it must be stopped.
Eshki was particularly alarming. He laid
out a brief history of Iran since the 1979
revolution, highlighting the regime’s acts
of terrorism, hostage-taking and
aggression. He ended his remarks with a
seven-point plan for the Middle East.
Atop the list was achieving peace
between Israel and the Arabs. Second
came regime-change in Iran. Also on the
list were greater Arab unity, the
establishment of an Arab regional military
force, and a call for an independent
Kurdistan to be made up of territory now
belonging to Iraq, Turkey and Iran.
Gold’s speech was slightly less
grandiose. He, too, warned of Iran’s
regional ambitions. But he didn’t call for
toppling the Tehran government. “Our
standing today on this stage does not
mean we have resolved all the
differences that our countries have
shared over the years,” he said of his
outreach to Saudi Arabia. “But our hope
is we will be able to address them fully
in the years ahead.”
It’s no coincidence that the meetings
between Gold, Eshki and a few other
former officials from both sides took
place in the shadow of the nuclear talks
among Iran, the U.S. and other major
powers. Saudi Arabia and Israel are
arguably the two countries most
threatened by Iran’s nuclear program, but
neither has a seat at the negotiations
scheduled to wrap up at the end of the
month.
The five bilateral meetings over the last
17 months occurred in India, Italy and
the Czech Republic. One participant,
Shimon Shapira, a retired Israeli general
and an expert on the Lebanese militant
group Hezbollah, told me: “We
discovered we have the same problems
and same challenges and some of the
same answers.” Shapira described the
problem as Iran’s activities in the region,
and said both sides had discussed political
and economic ways to blunt them, but
wouldn’t get into any further specifics.
Eshki told me that no real cooperation
would be possible until Israel’s prime
minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, accepted
what’s known as the Arab Peace
Initiative to end the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. The plan was first shared with
New York Times columnist Tom
Friedman in 2002 by Saudi Arabia’s late
King Abdullah, then the kingdom’s crown
prince.
Israel’s quiet relationships with Gulf Arab
states goes back to the 1990s and the
Oslo Peace Process. Back then, some
Arab countries such as Qatar allowed
Israel to open trade missions. Others
allowed an Israeli intelligence presence,
including Abu Dhabi, the capital of the
United Arab Emirates.
These ties became more focused on Iran
over the last decade, as shown by
documents released by WikiLeaks in
2010. A March 19, 2009, cable quoted
Israel’s then-deputy director general of
the foreign minister, Yacov Hadas, saying
one reason for the warming of relations
was that the Arabs felt Israel could
advance their interests vis-a-vis Iran in
Washington. “Gulf Arabs believe in
Israel’s role because of their perception
of Israel’s close relationship with the
U.S. but also due to their sense that they
can count on Israel against Iran,” the
cable said.
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But only now has open cooperation
between Saudi Arabia and Israel become
a possibility. For Gold, it represents
something of a sea change. In 2003, he
published a book, “Hatred’s Kingdom,”
about Saudi Arabia’s role in financing
terrorism and Islamic extremism. He
explained Thursday that he wrote that
book “at the height of the second intifada
when Saudi Arabia was financing and
fundraising for the murder of Israelis.”
Today, Gold said, it is Iran that is primarily
working with those Palestinian groups
that continue to embrace terrorism.
Gold went on to say that Iran is now
outfitting groups such as Hezbollah in
Lebanon with precision-guided missiles,
as opposed to the unguided rockets Iran
has traditionally provided its allies in
Lebanon. He also said Iranian
Revolutionary Guard Corps forces
propping up the Bashar al-Assad regime
are now close to the Israeli-Syrian border.
A few years ago, it was mainly Israel
that rang the alarm about Iranian
expansionism in the Middle East. It is
significant that now Israel is joined in this
campaign by Saudi Arabia, a country that
has wished for its destruction since 1948.
The two nations worry today that
President Barack Obama’s efforts to
make peace with Iran will embolden that
regime’s aggression against them. It’s
unclear whether Obama will get his
nuclear deal. But either way, it may end
up that his greatest diplomatic
accomplishment will be that his
outreach to Iran helped create the
conditions for a Saudi-Israeli alliance
against it.
4 June 2015
Eli Lake is a Bloomberg View
columnist who writes about politics and
foreign affairs. He was previously the
senior national security correspondent
for the Daily Beast.
Source: www.bloombergview.com
REACHING YARMOUK!By Father Dave
It was quite surreal – enjoying the
sunshine as we stood on the doorstep of
Yarmouk – an area that the United
Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-
moon, recently described as Syria’s
“deepest circle of hell”! Admittedly, we
were on the right side of the dividing line
between the ISIS-controlled section of
Yarmouk and the greater area controlled
by the Syrian Arab Army (SAA). Even
so, we were “within sniper range”, or
so we were warned.
I didn’t take the sniper warning too
seriously until one of our guides pointed
to a mosque that was only about 300
metres away. “They certainly have
snipers in that minaret” he said. He spoke
calmly, as tour-guides do when pointing
out landmarks. And he wasn’t running
for cover either, and neither were the
children who were milling about with us
at the end of the street. Presumably the
takfiri had more important targets to
occupy themselves with.
We went into a school, the entrance of
which was only a few metres from
where we were standing. It was a ‘safe
place’ – a compound where the army
had relocated families who had fled the
ISIS advance. The complex was dotted
with mothers with young children and
elderly men. Nonetheless, it was
evidently still functioning as a school too.
We didn’t speak to the leadership team
initially but instead went out into the
courtyard and got our boxing gear out.
Within moments we had a team of
children around us. At first they were
reluctant to try on the gloves, but after
the first brave recruit had given it a go,
there was a predicable clamor of ‘me
next’ that lasted until we had worked our
way through the entire group.
I assume ‘me next’ was what they were
saying anyway. I must learn some
Arabic! I’m certain it wasn’t anything
nasty. The kids were lovely. They were
kids, though some of them must have
already seen more than a lifetime’s quota
of violence.
It was a fantastic experience – making it
to Yarmouk, playing with the kids,
laughing and taking photos with the SAA
boys. It was exactly what we’d traveled
half way around the world to do!
Of course we hadn’t just come to teach
boxing. We’d come to see for ourselves
the truth behind the media narrative.
Various media sources were depicting the
people of Yarmouk as the meat in the
sandwich – hammered by ISIS on the
one hand and pounded by the Syrian Arab
Army on the other! From my friends in
Syria though I’d been receiving a
difference story – that the Syrian Arab
Army was doing all it could to relocate
people stuck in Yarmouk to safe places
outside the firing zone. Of course we
couldn’t see the whole of what was
going on, but from our end of Yarmouk
it was obvious that the Syrian Army was
doing all it could to help these kids.
“We lack pillows” the School Principal
said to me afterwards, as we debriefed
in his office. “We have food and blankets
now but no pillows”.
I don’t think he really expected me to
bring a quantity of pillows with me on
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my next visit. Even so, he was focused
on his job and ready to accept help from
any source.
In truth, the greatest help we can give
these people is not to send our troops
into their country. Contrary to popular
opinion, that’s not the sort of help they
want from us.
That’s the update for now, fellow
fighters. Thank you for your support in
helping us get to Yarmouk.
I hope you can see the significance of
this visit. Bringing some joy to these kids
and leaving them with gloves and pads
(courtesy of our friends at SMAI) was
of great value but there is something of
much greater significance I hope we can
achieve for these children though this visit
– namely, help discredit the media
narrative that threatens to unleash further
violence upon them!
Whatever you think of the Syrian
government, it was crystal clear to me
from our day in Yarmouk that these
people do NOT want our foreign military
intervention. That will only lead to more
death and suffering.
I’ll be back to you soon. Until then I
remain …
Your brother in the Good Fight,
28 April 2015
Dave Smith, also known as Fighting
Father Dave, is an Anglican Parish Priest,
based in Australia.
BRICS AND THE FICTION OF “DE-DOLLARIZATION”By Michael Chussudovsky
The financial media as well as segments
of the alternative media are pointing to
a possible weakening of the US dollar
as a global trading currency resulting
from the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India,
China, South Africa) initiative.
One of the central arguments in this
debate on competing World currencies
hinges on the BRICS initiative to create
a development bank which, according
to analysts, challenges the hegemony
of Wall Street and the Washington
based Bretton Woods institutions.
The BRICS New Development Bank
(NDB) was set up to challenge two
major Western-led giants – the World
Bank and the International Monetary
Fund. NDB’s key role will be to serve
as a pool of currency for infrastructure
projects within a group of five
countries with major emerging national
economies – Russia, Brazil, India,
China and South Africa. (RT, October
9, 2015, emphasis added)
More recently, emphasis has been
placed on the role of China’s new Asia
Infrastructure Investment Bank
(AIIB), which, according to media
reports, threatens to “transfer global
financial control from Wall Street and
City of London to the new
development banks and funds of
Beijing and Shanghai”.
There has been a lot of media hype
regarding BRICS.
While the creation of BRICS has
significant geopolitical implications,
both the AIIB as well as the proposed
BRICS Development Bank (NDB) and
its Contingency Reserve Arrangement
(CRA) are dollar denominated entities.
Unless they are coupled with a multi-
currency system of trade and credit,
they do not threaten dollar hegemony.
Quite the opposite, they tend to sustain
and extend dollar denominated lending.
Moreover, they replicate several
features of the Bretton Woods
framework.
Towards a Multi-Currency
Arrangement?
What is significant, however, from a
geopolitical standpoint is that China
and Russia are developing a ruble-yuan
swap, negotiated between the Russian
Central Bank, and the People’s Bank
of China,
The situation of the other three BRICS
member states (Brazil, India, South
Africa) with regard to the
implementation of (real, rand rupiah)
currency swaps is markedly different.
These three highly indebted countries
are in the straightjacket of IMF-World
Bank conditionalities. They do not
decide on fundamental issues of
monetary policy and macro-economic
reform without the green light from the
Washington based international
financial institutions.
Currency swaps between the BRICS
central banks was put forth by Russia
to:
“facilitate trade financing while
completely bypassing the dollar. “At the
same time, the new system will also
act as a de facto replacement of the
IMF, because it will allow the members
of the alliance to direct resources to
finance the weaker countries.” (Voice
of Russia)
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While Russia has formally raised the
issue of a multi-currency arrangement,
the Development Bank’s structure does
not currently “officially” acknowledge
such a framework:
“We are discussing with China and our
BRICS parters the establishment of a
system of multilateral swaps that will
allow to transfer resources to one or
another country, if needed. A part of
the currency reserves can be directed
to [the new system]” (Governor of the
Russian Central Bank, June 2014,
Prime news agency)
India, South Africa and Brazil have
decided not to go along with a multiple
currency arrangement, which would
have allowed for the development of
bilateral trade and investment activities
between BRICs countries, operating
outside the realm of dollar denominated
credit. In fact they did not have the
choice of making this decision in view
of the strict loan conditionalities
imposed by the IMF.
Heavily indebted under the brunt of
their external creditors, all three
countries are faithful pupils of the IMF-
World Bank. The central bank of these
countries is controlled by Wall Street
and the IMF. For them to enter into a
“non-dollar” or an “anti-dollar”
development banking arrangement with
multiple currencies, would have
required prior approval of the IMF.
The Contingency Reserve Arrangement
The CRA is defined as a “framework
for provision of support through
liquidity and precautionary instruments
in response to actual or potential short-
term balance of payments pressures.”
(Russia India Report April 7, 2015). In
this context, the CRA fund does not
constitute a “safety net” for BRICS
countries, it accepts the hegemony of
the US dollar which is sustained by
large scale speculative operations in the
currency and commodity markets.
In essence the CRA operates in a
similar fashion to an IMF precautionary
loan arrangement (e.g. Brazil
November 1998) with a view to
enabling highly indebted countries to
maintain the parity of their exchange
rate to the US dollar, by replenishing
central bank reserves through
borrowed money.
The CRA excludes the policy option
of foreign exchange controls by BRICS
member states. In the case of India,
Brazil and South Africa, this option is
largely foreclosed as a result of their
agreements with the IMF.
The dollar denominated $100 billion
CRA fund is a “silver platter” for
Western “institutional speculators”
including JP Morgan Chase, Deutsche
Bank, HSBC, Goldman Sachs et al,
which are involved in short selling
operations on the Forex market.
Ultimately the CRA fund will finance
the speculative onslaught in the
currency market.
Neoliberalism firmly entrenched
An arrangement using national
currencies instead of the US dollar
requires sovereignty in central bank
monetary policy. In many regards,
India, Brazil and South Africa are (from
the monetary standpoint) US proxy
states, firmly aligned with IMF-World
Bank-WTO economic diktats.
It is worth recalling that since 1991,
India’s macroeconomic policy was
under under the control of the Bretton
Woods institutions, with a former
World Bank official, Dr. Manmohan
Singh, serving first as Finance Minister
and subsequently as Prime Minister.
Moreover, while India is an ally of
China and Russia under BRICS, it has
entered into a new defense
cooperation deal with the Pentagon
which is (unofficially) directed against
Russia and China. It is also cooperating
with the US in aerospace technology.
India constitutes the largest market
(after Saudi Arabia) for the sale of US
weapons systems. And all these
transactions are in US dollars.
Similarly, Brazil signed a far-reaching
Defense agreement with the US in
2010 under the government of Luis
Ignacio da Silva, who in the words of
the IMF’s former managing director
Heinrich Koeller, “Is Our Best
President”, “… I am enthusiastic [with
Lula’s administration]; but it is better
to say I am deeply impressed by
President Lula, indeed, and in particular
because I do think he has the
credibility” (IMF Managing Director
Heinrich Koeller, Press conference, 10
April 2003 ).
In Brazil, the Bretton Woods
institutions and Wall Street have
dominated macro-economic reform
since the outset of the government of
Luis Ignacio da Silva in 2003. Under
Lula, a Wall Street executive was
appointed to head the Central Bank, the
Banco do Brazil was in the hands of a
former CitiGroup executive. While
there are divisions within the ruling PT
party, neoliberalism prevails. Economic
and social agenda in Brazil is in large
part dictated by the country’s external
creditors including JPMorgan Chase,
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 A R T I C L E S
14
continued from page 13
continued next page
Bank America and Citigroup.
Central Bank Reserves and The
External Debt
India and Brazil (together with Mexico)
are among the World’s most indebted
developing countries. The foreign
exchange reserves are fragile. India’s
external debt in 2013 was of the order
of more than $427 billion, that of Brazil
was a staggering $482 billion, South
Africa’s external debt was of the order
of $140 billion. (World Bank, External
Debt Stock, 2013).
External Debt Stock (2013)
Brazil $482 billion
India $427 billion
South Africa $140 billion
All three countries have central banks
reserves (including gold and forex
holdings) which are lower than their
external debt (see table below).
Central Bank Reserves (2013)
Brazil $359 billion
India: $298 billion
South Africa $50 billion
The situation of South Africa is
particularly precarious with an external
debt which is almost three times its
central bank reserves.
What this means is that these three BRICS
member states are under the brunt of their
Western creditors. Their central bank
reserves are sustained by borrowed
money. Their central bank operations
(e.g. with a view to supporting domestic
investments and development programs)
will require borrowing in US dollars.
Their central banks are essentially
“currency board” arrangements, their
national currencies are dollarized.
The BRICs Development Bank (NDB)
On 15 July 2014, the group of five
countries signed an agreement to create
the US$100 billion BRICS Development
Bank together with a US dollar
denominated “ reserve currency pool”
of US$100 billion. These commitments
were subsequently revised.
Each of the five-member countries “is
expected to allocate an equal share of the
$50 billion startup capital that will be
expanded to $100 billion. Russia has
agreed to provide $2 billion from the
federal budget for the bank over the next
seven years.” (RT, March 9, 2015).
In turn, the commitments to the
Contingency Reserve Arrangement are as
follows;
Brazil, $18 billion
Russia $18 billion
India $18 billion
China $41 billion
South Africa $5 billion
Total $100 billion
As mentioned earlier, India, Brazil and
South Africa, are heavily indebted
countries with central bank reserves
substantially below the level of their
external debt. Their contribution to the
two BRICs financial entities can only be
financed:
by running down their dollar denominated
central bank reserves and/or
by financing their contributions to the
Development Bank and CRA, by
borrowing the money, namely by
“running up” their dollar denominated
external debt.
In both cases, dollar hegemony prevails.
In other words, the Western creditors
of these three countries will be required
to “contribute” directly or indirectly to
the financing of the dollar denominated
contributions of Brazil, India and South
Africa to the BRICS development bank
(NDB) and the CRA.
In the case of South Africa with Central
Bank reserves of the order of 50 billion
dollars, the contribution to the BRICS
NDB will inevitably be financed by an
increase in the country’s (US dollar
denominated) external debt.
Moreover, with regard to India, Brazil
and South Africa, their membership in
the BRICS Development Bank was no
doubt the object of behind closed doors
negotiations with the IMF as well as
guarantees that they would not depart
from the “Washington Consensus” on
macro-economic reform.
Under a scheme whereby these
countries were to be in be in full control
of their Central Bank monetary policy,
the contributions to the Development
Bank (NDB) would be allocated in
national currency rather than US dollars
under a multi-currency arrangement.
Needless to say under a multi-currency
system the contingency CRA fund
would not be required.
The geopolitics behind the BRICS
initiative are crucial. While the BRICS
initiative from the very outset has
accepted the dollar system, this does not
exclude the introduction, at a later stage
of a multiple currency arrangement,
which challenges dollar hegemony.
8 April 2015
Prof Michel Chossudovsky is a
Canadian economist and founder of the
website GlobalResearch.
Source : GlobalResearch.com
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continued next page
THE SCENE OF THE CRIME
By Seymour M. Hersh
(This is the second part of a three part
article. The remaining last part will
appear in the next issue of the
Commentary … Editor)
Part 2
On my recent trip, I spent five days in
Hanoi, which is the capital of unified
Vietnam. Retired military officers and
Communist Party officials there told me
that the My Lai massacre, by bolstering
antiwar dissent inside America, helped
North Vietnam win the war. I was also
told, again and again, that My Lai was
unique only in its size. The most
straightforward assessment came from
Nguyen ThiBinh, known to everyone in
Vietnam as Madame Binh. In the early
seventies, she was the head of the
National Liberation Front delegation at the
Paris peace talks and became widely
known for her willingness to speak
bluntly and for her striking good looks.
Madame Binh, who is eighty-seven,
retired from public life in 2002, after
serving two terms as Vietnam’s Vice-
President, but she remains involved in
war-related charities dealing with Agent
Orange victims and the disabled.
“I’ll be honest with you,” she said. “My
Lai became important in America only
after it was reported by an American.”
Within weeks of the massacre, a
spokesman for the North Vietnamese in
Paris had publicly described the events,
but the story was assumed to be
propaganda. “I remember it well, because
the antiwar movement in America grew
because of it,” Madame Binh added,
speaking in French. “But in Vietnam there
was not only one My Lai—there were
many.”
One morning in Danang, a beach resort
and port city of about a million people, I
had coffee with Vo Cao Loi, one of the
few survivors of Bravo Company’s
attack at My Khe 4. He was fifteen at
the time, Loi said, through an interpreter.
His mother had what she called “a bad
feeling” when she heard helicopters
approaching the village. There had been
operations in the area before. “It was not
just like some Americans would show
up all of a sudden,” he said. “Before they
came, they often fired artillery and
bombed the area, and then after all that
they would send in the ground forces.”
American and South Vietnamese Army
units had moved through the area many
times with no incident, but this time Loi
was shooed out of the village by his
mother moments before the attack. His
two older brothers were fighting with
the Vietcong, and one had been killed in
combat six days earlier. “I think she was
afraid because I was almost a grown boy
and if I stayed I could be beaten up or
forced to join the South Vietnamese
Army. I went to the river, about fifty
metres away. Close, close enough: I
heard the fire and the screaming.” Loi
stayed hidden until evening, when he
returned home to bury his mother and
other relatives.
Two days later, Vietcong troops took Loi
to a headquarters in the mountains to the
west. He was too young to fight, but he
was brought before Vietcong combat
units operating throughout Quang Ngai
to describe what the Americans had done
at My Khe. The goal was to inspire the
guerrilla forces to fight harder. Loi
eventually joined the Vietcong and served
at the military command until the end of
the war. American surveillance planes and
troops were constantly searching for his
unit. “We moved the headquarters every
time we thought the Americans were
getting close,” Loi told me. “Whoever
worked in headquarters had to be
absolutely loyal. There were three circles
on the inside: the outer one was for
suppliers, a second one was for those
who worked in maintenance and logistics,
and the inner one was for the
commanders. Only division commanders
could stay in the inner circle. When they
did leave the headquarters, they would
dress as normal soldiers, so one would
never know. They went into nearby
villages. There were cases when
Americans killed our division officers, but
they did not know who they were.” As
with the U.S. Army, Loi said, Vietcong
officers often motivated their soldiers by
inflating the number of enemy
combatants they had killed.
The massacres at My Lai and My Khe,
terrible as they were, mobilized support
for the war against the Americans, Loi
said. Asked if he could understand why
such war crimes were tolerated by the
American command, Loi said he did not
know, but he had a dark view of the
quality of U.S. leadership in central
Vietnam. “The American generals had to
take responsibility for the actions of the
soldiers,” he told me. “The soldiers take
orders, and they were just doing their
duty.”
Loi said that he still grieves for his family,
and he has nightmares about the
massacre. But, unlike Pham Thanh
continued from page 15
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 A R T I C L E S
16
continued next page
Cong, he found a surrogate family almost
immediately: “The Vietcong loved me
and took care of me. They raised me.” I
told Loi about Cong’s anger at Kenneth
Schiel, and Loi said, “Even if others do
terrible things to you, you can forgive it
and move toward the future.” After the
war, Loi transferred to the regular
Vietnamese Army. He eventually became
a full colonel and retired after thirty-eight
years of service. He and his wife now
own a coffee shop in Danang.
Almost seventy per cent of the population
of Vietnam is under the age of forty, and
although the war remains an issue mainly
for the older generations, American
tourists are a boon to the economy. If
American G.I.s committed atrocities,
well, so did the French and the Chinese
in other wars. Diplomatically, the U.S. is
considered a friend, a potential ally
against China. Thousands of Vietnamese
who worked for or with the Americans
during the Vietnam War fled to the United
States in 1975. Some of their children
have confounded their parents by
returning to Communist Vietnam, despite
its many ills, from rampant corruption
to aggressive government censorship.
Nguyen Qui Duc, a fifty-seven-year-old
writer and journalist who runs a popular
bar and restaurant in Hanoi, fled to
America in 1975 when he was seventeen.
Thirty-one years later, he returned. In San
Francisco, he was a prize-winning
journalist and documentary filmmaker,
but, as he told me, “I’d always wanted
to come back and live in Vietnam. I felt
unfinished leaving home at seventeen and
living as someone else in the United
States. I was grateful for the
opportunities in America, but I needed a
sense of community. I came to Hanoi
for the first time as a reporter for National
Public Radio, and fell in love with it.”
Duc told me that, like many Vietnamese,
he had learned to accept the American
brutality in the war. “American soldiers
committed atrocious acts, but in war
such things happen,” he said. “And it’s a
fact that the Vietnamese cannot own up
to their own acts of brutality in the war.
We Vietnamese have a practical attitude:
better forget a bad enemy if you can gain
a needed friend.”
During the war, Duc’s father, Nguyen
Van Dai, was a deputy governor in South
Vietnam. He was seized by the Vietcong
in 1968 and imprisoned until 1980. In
1984, Duc, with the help of an American
diplomat, successfully petitioned the
government to allow his parents to
emigrate to California; Duc had not seen
his father for sixteen years. He told me
of his anxiety as he waited for him at the
airport. His father had suffered terribly
in isolation in a Communist prison near
the Chinese border; he was often unable
to move his limbs. Would he be in a
wheelchair, or mentally unstable?Duc’s
father arrived in California during a
Democratic Presidential primary. He
walked off the plane and greeted his son.
“How’s Jesse Jackson doing?” he said.
He found a job as a social worker and
lived for sixteen more years.
Some American veterans of the war have
returned to Vietnam to live. Chuck
Palazzo grew up in a troubled family on
Arthur Avenue in the Bronx and, after
dropping out of high school, enlisted in
the Marines. In the fall of 1970, after a
year of training, he was assigned to an
élite reconnaissance unit whose mission
was to confirm intelligence and to
ambush enemy missile sites and combat
units at night. He and his men sometimes
parachuted in under fire. “I was involved
in a lot of intense combat with many
North Vietnamese regulars as well as
Vietcong, and I lost a lot of friends,”
Palazzo told me over a drink in Danang,
where he now lives and works. “But the
gung ho left when I was still here. I
started to read and understand the politics
of the war, and one of my officers was
privately agreeing with me that what we
were doing there was wrong and
senseless. The officer told me, ‘Watch
your ass and get the hell out of here.’ “
Palazzo first arrived in Danang in 1970,
on a charter flight, and he could see
coffins lined up on the field as the plane
taxied in. “It was only then that I realized
I was in a war,” he said. “Thirteen
months later, I was standing in line, again
at Danang, to get on the plane taking me
home, but my name was not on the
manifest.” After some scrambling,
Palazzo said, “I was told that if I wanted
to go home that day the only way out
was to escort a group of coffins flying
to America on a C-141 cargo plane.” So
that’s what he did.
After leaving the Marines, Palazzo earned
a college degree and began a career as
an I.T. specialist. But, like many vets, he
came “back to the world” with post-
traumatic stress disorder and struggled
with addictions. His marriage collapsed.
He lost various jobs. In 2006, Palazzo
made a “selfish” decision to return to Ho
Chi Minh City. “It was all about me
dealing with P.T.S.D. and confronting
my own ghosts,” he said. “My first visit
became a love affair with the
Vietnamese.” Palazzo wanted to do all
he could for the victims of Agent Orange.
For years, the Veterans Administration,
citing the uncertainty of evidence,
refused to recognize a link between
Agent Orange and the ailments, including
cancers, of many who were exposed to
it. “In the war, the company commander
told us it was mosquito spray, but we
could see that all the trees and vegetation
were destroyed,” Palazzo said. “It
occurred to me that, if American vets
were getting something, some help and
compensation, why not the Vietnamese?”
Palazzo, who moved to Danang in 2007,
is now an I.T. consultant and the leader
of a local branch of Veterans for Peace,
an American antiwar N.G.O. He remains
active in the Agent Orange Action Group,
continued next page
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 A R T I C L E S
17
continued from page 16
which seeks international support to cope
with the persistent effects of the defoliant.
In Hanoi, I met Chuck Searcy, a tall, gray-
haired man of seventy who grew up in
Georgia. Searcy’s father had been taken
prisoner by the Germans in the Battle of the
Bulge, and it never occurred to Searcy to
avoid Vietnam. “I thought President
Johnson and the Congress knew what we
were doing in Vietnam,” he told me. In 1966,
Searcy quit college and enlisted. He was an
intelligence analyst, in a unit that was situated
near the airport in Saigon, and which
processed and evaluated American analyses
and reports.
“Within three months, all the ideals I had as
a patriotic Georgia boy were shattered, and
I began to question who we were as a
nation,” Searcy said. “The intelligence I was
seeing amounted to a big intellectual lie.”
The South Vietnamese clearly thought little
of the intelligence the Americans were
passing along. At one point, a colleague
bought fish at a market in Saigon and noticed
that it was wrapped in one of his unit’s
classified reports. “By the time I left, in June
of 1968,” Searcy said, “I was angry and
bitter.”
Searcy finished his Army tour in Europe.
His return home was a disaster. “My father
heard me talk about the war and he was
incredulous. Had I turned into a
Communist? He said that he and my mother
don’t ‘know who you are anymore. You’re
not an American.’ Then they told me to get
out.” Searcy went on to graduate from the
University of Georgia, and edited a weekly
newspaper in Athens, Georgia. He then
began a career in politics and public policy
that included working as an aide to Wyche
Fowler, a Georgia Democratic
congressman.
In 1992, Searcy returned to Vietnam and
eventually decided to join the few other
veterans who had moved there. “I knew,
even as I was flying out of Vietnam in 1968,
that someday, somehow, I would return,
hopefully in a time of peace. I felt even back
then that I was abandoning the Vietnamese
to a terribly tragic fate, for which we
Americans were mostly responsible. That
sentiment never quite left me.” Searcy
worked with a program that dealt with mine
clearance. The U.S. dropped three times
the number of bombs by weight in Vietnam
as it had during the Second World War.
Between the end of the war and 1998, more
than a hundred thousand Vietnamese
civilians, an estimated forty per cent of them
children, had been killed or injured by
unexploded ordnance. For more than two
decades after the war, the U.S. refused to
pay for damage done by bombs or by Agent
Orange, though in 1996 the government
began to provide modest funding for mine
clearance. From 2001 to 2011, the Vietnam
Veterans Memorial Fund also helped finance
the mine-clearance program. “A lot of
veterans felt we should assume some
responsibility,” Searcy said. The program
helped educate Vietnamese, especially
farmers and children, about the dangers
posed by the unexploded weapons, and
casualties have diminished.
Searcy said that his early disillusionment
with the war was validated shortly before
its end. His father called to ask if they could
have coffee. They hadn’t spoken since he
was ordered out of the house. “He and my
mother had been talking,” Searcy said. “And
he told me, ‘We think you were right and
we were wrong. We want you to come
home.’ “ He went home almost immediately,
he said, and remained close to his parents
until they died. Searcy is twice divorced,
and wrote, in a self-deprecating e-mail, “I
have resisted the kind efforts of the
Vietnamese to get me married off again.”
*An earlier version of this article misstated
the organization for which Neil Sheehan was
a reporter
27 March 2015
Seymour M. Hersh wrote his first piece
for The New Yorker in 1971 and has been
a regular contributor to the magazine since
1993.
BHAKTI- SUFI TRADITIONS: UNITING HUMANITY
By Ram Puniyani
In contemporary times, religions’
identity is being used as cover for
political agenda. Be it the terrorist
violence or the sectarian nationalism
in various parts of the World, religion
is used to mask the underlying
politics. While one was talking of
separation of religion and politics
many decades earlier, the times have
been showing the reverse trends,
more so in South Asia. Globally one
came across the news that American
President sent a chador [a ceremonial
sheet of cloth] to the annual
observation at the shrine of Khwaja
Moinuddin Chishti at Ajmer. (April
2015). Later one also read (April 22,
2015) that Sonia Gandhi, Atal Bihari
Vajpeyi, and Narendra Modi has also
offered chadors at the shrine.
Keeping the relation between state,
politics and religion apart, it is
interesting that some traditions within
religion have appeals cutting across
the religious boundaries. The Sufi and
Bhakti tradition in Pakistan-India,
South Asia are two such humane
trends from within Islam and
Hinduism respectively, which harp
more on unity of humanity as a whole
overcoming the sectarian divides.
The saints from these traditions had
appeal amongst people of different
religions and they were away from
continued from page 17
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 A R T I C L E S
18
the centers of power, unlike the
clergy which was close ally of the
rulers in medieval times. We have seen
rich traditions of people like Kabir,
Tukaram, Narsi Mehta, Shankar Dev,
Lal Dedh, clearly from within Hindu
tradition, while Nizamuddin Auliya,
Moinuddin Chishti, Tajuddin Baba
Auliya, Ajan Pir, Nooruddin Noorani
(also known as Nund Rishi) coming
from a clear Islamic Sufi tradition
and Satya Pir, Ramdev Baba Pir,
having a mixed lineage where Bhakti
and Sufi themselves are deeply
intertwined.
Sant Guru Nanak did try a conscious
mixing of the two major religions of
India, Hinduism and Islam. He
traveled up to Mecca to learn the
wisdom of Islam and went to Kashi
to unravel the spiritual moral aspects
of Hinduism. His first follower was
Mardan and Miyan Mir was the one
who was respectfully invited to lay
the foundations of Golden Temple;
the holy Sikh Shrine. The Guru
Granth Sahib has an inclusive
approach to religious wisdom and it
takes the verses from Koran, couplets
from Kabir and other Bhakti saints.
No wonder people used to say of him
‘Baba Nanak Sant Fakir, Hindu ka
Guru Musalman ka Pir’ (Saint Nanak
is sant for Hindus and pir for
Muslims)
In today’s scenario the global
discussion has been centered round
religion due to its use in political
sphere. Now the renewed interest in
Sufi tradition at one level is
heartening. Sufism has been
prominent in South Asia from last ten
centuries. Word Sufi means coarse
wool fabric, the type of clothes
which were worn by Sufi mystics.
It grew within Shiaism but over time
some Sunnis also took to this sect.
It has strong streaks of mysticism
and gave no importance to rituals and
tried to have understanding of God
by transcending the anthropomorphic
understanding of Allah, looking at him
more as a spiritual authority. This is
so similar to the belief held by Bhakti
saints also. Many Sufis had
pantheistic beliefs and they articulated
their values in very humane way.
In the beginning the orthodox sects
started persecuting them but later
compromises were struck. The Sufis
formed the orders of roving monks,
dervishes. People of all religions in
many countries frequent their shrines,
this again is like Bhakti saints, who
have following amongst people of
different religions.
On parallel lines Bhakti is probably
the most outstanding example of the
subaltern trend in Indian religious
history. The Bhakti saints came from
different streams of society,
particularly from low caste. Bhakti
opposed the institutionalization of
religion, tried to decentralize it, and
declared that religion is a private
matter. It gave respectability to the
separation of state power and religion
and merged the concept of God
worship with the process of getting
knowledge. Travails of poor people
are the focus of bhakti saints’ work.
Bhakti traditions gave respectability
to many low castes. This tradition
had inclusive approach towards
Muslims as well. This tradition posed
a challenge to upper caste hegemony.
Bhakti tradition opposed the rituals,
hegemony of elite of society. They
adopted the languages more popular
with the masses. Also they talked of
one God. In India in particular Hindu
Muslim unity has been one of the
concerns expressed by many of the
saints from this tradition.
What one needs to realize is that there
are various tendencies with every
religion. The humane ones as
represented by Bhakti and Sufi are
the ones which united Humanity and
harped on morality-spirituality of
religions. The intolerant tendencies
have been usurped by political forces
for their political agenda. In sub
continent during the freedom
movement the declining sections of
society, Rajas, Nawabs, Land lords
came up with Muslim and Hindu
communalism to begin with. This
nationalism in the name of religion had
nothing to do with morality of
religions. It was use of religion’s
identity for political goals. In the
national movements we had people
like Gandhi, Maulana Abul Kalam
Azad who were religious but opposed
to religious nationalism.
The essence of Sufi and Bhakti
tradition are reminders to us that
spirituality, morality part of the
religion has been undermined in the
current times. The inclusive-humane
nature of these traditions needs to be
upheld and the divisive-exclusionary
versions of religions have to be
ignored for better future of humanity.
08 May, 2015
Ram Puniyani is a former professor
of biomedical engineering and former
senior medical officer affiliated with
the Indian Institute of Technology
Bombay.
Source: Countercurrents.org
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