By Johann Hari
The Independent
Friday, 4 February 2011

Very few British people would beat up a poor person to get cheaper petrol. But our governments do it all the time. Why?

The old slogan from the 1960s has come true: the revolution has been televised. The world is watching the Bastille fall on 24/7 rolling news. An elderly thug is trying to buy and beat and tear-gas himself enough time to smuggle his family’s estimated $25bn in loot out of the country, and to install a successor friendly to his interests. The Egyptian people – half of whom live on less than $2 a day – seem determined to prevent the pillage and not to wait until September to drive out a dictator dripping in blood and bad hair dye.

The great Czech dissident Vaclav Havel outlined the “as if” principle. He said people trapped under a dictatorship need to act “as if they are free”. They need to act as if the dictator has no power over them. The Egyptians are trying – and however many of them Mubarak murders on his way out the door, the direction in which fear flows has been successfully reversed. The tyrant has become terrified of “his” people.

Of course, there is a danger that what follows will be worse. My family lived for a time under the torturing tyranny of the Shah of Iran, and cheered the revolution in 1979. Yet he was replaced by the even more vicious Ayatollahs. But this is not the only model, nor the most likely. Events in Egypt look more like the Indonesian revolution, where in 1998 a popular uprising toppled a US-backed tyrant after 32 years of oppression – and went on to build the largest and most plural democracy in the Muslim world.

But the discussion here in the West should focus on the factor we are responsible for and can influence – the role our governments have played in suppressing the Egyptian people. Your taxes have been used to arm, fund and fuel this dictatorship. You have unwittingly helped to keep these people down. The tear-gas canisters fired at pro-democracy protesters have “Made in America” stamped on them, with British machine guns and grenade launchers held in the background.

Very few British people would praise a murderer and sell him weapons. Very few British people would beat up a poor person to get cheaper petrol. But our governments do it all the time. Why? British foreign policy does not follow the everyday moral principles of the British people, because it is not formulated by us. This might sound like an odd thing to say about a country that prides itself on being a democracy, but it is true.

The former Labour MP Lorna Fitzsimons spoke at a conference for Israel’s leaders last year and assured them they didn’t have to worry about the British people’s growing opposition to their policies because “public opinion does not influence foreign policy in Britain. Foreign policy is an elite issue”. This is repellent but right. It is formulated in the interests of big business and their demand for access to resources, and influential sectional interest groups.

You can see this most clearly if you go through the three reasons our governments give, sometimes publicly, sometimes privately, for their behavior in the Middle East. Explanation One: Oil. Some 60 per cent of the world’s remaining petrol is in the Middle East. We are all addicted to it, so our governments support strongmen and murderers who will keep the oil-taps gushing without interruption. Egypt doesn’t have oil, but it has crucial oil pipelines and supply routes, and it is part of a chain of regional dictators we don’t want broken in case they all fall taking the petrol pump with it. Addicts don’t stand up to their dealers: they fawn before them.

There is an obvious medium-term solution: break our addiction. The technology exists – wind, wave and especially solar power – to fuel our societies without oil. It would free us from our support for dictators and horrific wars of plunder like Iraq. It’s our society’s route to rehab – but it is being blocked by the hugely influential oil companies, who would lose a fortune. Like everybody who needs to go to rehab, the first step is to come out of denial about why we are still hooked.

Explanation Two: Israel and the “peace process”. Over the past week, we have persistently been told that Mubarak was a key plank in supporting “peace in the Middle East”. The opposite is the truth. Mubarak has been at the forefront of waging war on the Palestinian population. There are 1.5 million people imprisoned on the Gaza Strip denied access to necessities like food and centrifuges for their blood transfusion service. They are being punished for voting “the wrong way” in a democratic election.

Israel blockades Gaza to one side, and Mubarak blockades it to the other. I’ve stood in Gaza and watched Egyptian soldiers refusing to let sick and dying people out for treatment they can’t get in Gaza’s collapsing hospitals. In return for this, Mubarak receives $1.5bn a year from the US. Far from contributing to peace, this is marinating the Gazan people in understandable hatred and dreams of vengeance. This is bad even for Israel herself – but we are so servile to the demands of the country’s self-harming government, and to its loudest and angriest lobbyists here, that our governments obey.

Explanation Three: Strongmen suppress jihadism. Our governments claim that without dictators to suppress, torture and disappear Islamic fundamentalists, they will be unleashed and come after us. Indeed, they often outsourced torture to the Egyptian regime, sending suspects there to face things that would be illegal at home. Robert Baer, once a senior figure in black ops at the CIA, said: “If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear, you send them to Egypt.”

Western governments claim all this makes us safer. The opposite is the truth. In his acclaimed history of al-Qa’ida, The Looming Tower, Lawrence Wright explains: “America’s tragedy on September 11th was born in the prisons of Egypt.” Modern jihadism was invented by Sayeed Qutb as he was electrocuted and lashed in Egyptian jails and grew under successive tyrannies. Mohammed Atta, the lead 9/11 hijacker, was Egyptian, and named US backing for his country’s tyrant as one of the main reasons for the massacre.

When we fund the violent suppression of people, they hate us, and want to fight back. None of these factors that drove our governments to back Mubarak’s dictatorship in Egypt have changed. So we should strongly suspect they will now talk sweet words about democracy in public, and try to secure a more PR-friendly Mubarak in private.

It doesn’t have to be like this. We could make our governments as moral as we, the British people, are in our everyday lives. We could stop them trampling on the weak, and fattening thugs. But to achieve it, we have to democratise our own societies and claim control of our foreign policy. We would have to monitor and campaign over it, and let our governments know there is a price for behaving viciously abroad. The Egyptian people have shown this week they will risk everything to stop being abused. What will we risk to stop our governments being abusers?

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-we-all-helped-suppress-the-egyptians-so-how-do-we-change-2203579.html

– a video by Ken O’Keefe

By James M. Dorsey | 02 FEB 2011

Thinking the Unthinkable: Is the Gulf Next?

It’s time to think the unthinkable: Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich Gulf states may be getting in line for their turn at confronting widespread popular discontent.

As a wave of mass protests sweeps the Arab world, shaking the regime of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to the core, rumblings of popular restlessness are bubbling to the service in the Gulf.

Shiite opposition groups in Bahrain, a strategic island kingdom that hosts the U.S. Navy’s 5^th Fleet, have called for protests on February 14 to demand greater political freedom, a halt to attempts to redress the sectarian balance in a Shiite-majority country ruled by a Sunni minority, an end to human rights abuses and improved economic opportunities.

Over the past month, Saudi Arabia’s dismal soccer performance in the Asian Cup, unemployment, floods in Jeddah that killed at least four people and the granting of asylum to the ousted Tunisian leader have sparked protests and criticism on newspaper op-ed pages as well as on blogs and in Internet chat rooms.

Read more of the story at The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer

——–

James M. Dorsey, a former Wall Street Journal foreign correspondent, writes about ethnic and religious conflict. He is the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog.
======================================================

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Dear friends,

Millions of brave Egyptians are right now facing a fateful choice. Thousands have been jailed, injured or killed in the last few days. But if they press on in peaceful protest, they could end decades of tyranny.

The protesters have appealed for international solidarity, but the dictatorship knows the power of unity at a time like this – they’ve desperately tried to cut Egyptians off from the world and each other by completely shutting down the internet and mobile networks.

Satellite and radio networks can still break through the regime blackout — let’s flood those airwaves with a massive cry of solidarity showing Egyptians that we stand with them, and that we’ll hold our governments accountable to stand with them too. The situation is at a tipping point — every hour counts — click below to sign the solidarity message, and forward this email:

Yasmine Jaffri


https://secure.avaaz.org/en/democracy_for_egypt/97.php?cl_tta_sign=887eb39ee0031d3012345f2fa90c21cf


People power is sweeping the Middle East. In days, peaceful protesters brought down Tunisia’s 30-year dictatorship. Now the protests are spreading to Egypt, Yemen, Jordan and beyond. This could be the Arab world’s Berlin Wall moment. If tyranny falls in Egypt, a tidal wave of democracy could sweep the entire region.

Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak has tried to crush the rallies. But with incredible bravery and determination, the protesters keep coming.

There are moments when history is written not by the powerful, but by people. This is one of them. The actions of ordinary Egyptians in the coming hours will have a massive effect on their country, the region, and our world. Let’s cheer them on with our own pledge to stand with them in their struggle:


https://secure.avaaz.org/en/democracy_for_egypt/97.php?cl_tta_sign=887eb39ee0031d3012345f2fa90c21cf


Mubarak’s family has left the country, but last night he ordered the military into the streets. He’s ominously promised 0 tolerance for what he calls ‘chaos’. Either way, history will be made in the next few days. Let’s make this the moment that shows every dictator on our planet that they cannot stand long against the courage of people united.

With hope and admiration for the Egyptian people,
Ricken, Rewan, Ben, Graziela, Alice, Kien and the rest of the Avaaz team

More Information:

Egypt unrest: Alert as mass protests loom

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12303564

Egyptian government shuts down the Internet

http://www.renesys.com/blog/2011/01/egypt-leaves-the-internet.shtml

North Africa: Will dominoes fall in the region?

http://allafrica.com/stories/201101280659.html

‘Beginning of the end’ for Egypt’s Mubarak as son and wife flee

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/105117/20110126/beginning-of-the-end-for-egypt-s-mubarak-as-son-and-wife-flee.htm

Amnesty International condemns the crackdown on demonstrations

http://amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/egypt-must-stop-crackdown-protesters-2011-01-26

Regular updates are being posted by Egyptian activists here:

http://www.elshaheeed.co.uk

ACCESS campaign for digital freedom in Egypt:

https://www.accessnow.org/page/s/help-egypt

Daily Mirror

THURSDAY, 23 SEPTEMBER 2010 00:00

The 4th article of the Dasa Raja Dharma, Lord Buddha’s incomparable treatise on good governance is about Ajjava, i.e. honesty and integrity. The ruler, the Buddha said must be absolutely straightforward and must never employ any crooked means to achieve ends. This week I planned to dwell on this particular aspect of good governance but am compelled to employ the idea to dissect something more specific. I write about honesty and integrity but only in terms of how they relate to the month of September.

I am writing this on September 22, 2010. September 22 is significant for a specific and personal reason. It marks an anniversary. On this day, exactly one year ago, the Daily Mirror published an article by me titled ‘Welcome to Sri Lanka Ms. Patricia Butenis’. Ms. Butenis had just assumed duties as the US Ambassador to Sri Lanka. My comment followed a statement she issued to the press subsequent to presenting credentials to President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

She said in that note, ‘No country, including the United States, has a perfect record in safeguarding human rights’ but said that even while addressing its own shortcomings, the USA has a responsibility to advocate for the rights and freedoms of people worldwide. Ms. Butenis is aware I am sure of the adage that charity begins at home. I expressed in my response to her ‘note’ the hope that once she recovers from jet-leg, Ms. Butenis would write a lengthy piece informing Sri Lankans about what exactly the USA has been doing by way of addressing shortcomings.

A lot has happened since September 22, 2009. We’ve had Nick Clegg of Britain’s Liberal Democratic Party confessing while acting as Prime Minister that the invasion of Iraq was illegal. We’ve had ‘Wikileaks’ telling us of the horrendous and systemic perpetration of atrocities by US troops in Afghanistan. We’ve had the US justice system virtually giving a green light to torture of prisoners as long as it happens outside the borders of that country. We’ve had President Barack Obama wanting photographic evidence of excesses perpetrated by US troops in Iraq suppressed in the name of ‘national security’. We’ve not had Ms. Butenis saying a word about these things.

Here are some sobering numbers. The number of Iraqis slaughtered since the US invaded Iraq stands at 1,366,360. That’s close to 1.4 million people. The USA has lost 4,739 military personnel. This means that roughly 288 Iraqis have died for each US soldier. Ms. Butenis knows of all this because she tried to buy the silence of one Mohammed Hafidh after trigger-happy security personnel deployed to protect a US diplomat belonging to the contractor Blackwater opened fire on a group of civilians killing his 10 year old son Ali. Ms. Butenis was at the time the Deputy Chief of Mission in Baghdad and had offered the boy’s father US$ 12,500. He had refused. She must know these numbers. She must know what that invasion was about. She must know that the US invaded that unhappy country in order to eliminate non-existent weapons of mass destruction. She must know that in addition to the 1.4 million Iraqis killed after the invasion, half a million Iraqi children died courtesy of the US-led economic sanctions imposed on that country. I am yet to hear Ms. Butenis talk of ‘shortcomings’. Her country has already spent US $ 1,083,252,716,408 in executing the wars on the people of Iraq and Afghanistan and I refuse to believe that these adventures did not generate returns that justified investment.

There are 30 days in September. On the 24th day of this month in the year 2009, it was revealed that declassified documents of the US embassy in Bogota showed that US authorities had been aware since 1990 that the Colombian military had been murdering civilians and dressing them up as guerrillas to increase body counts. Colombia is the largest recipient of US military aid in the Western hemisphere. Ms. Butenis knows. She was Consul (1990-1993) and Consul General (2001-2004) in the US Embassy in Bogota. She could not have been ignorant of these matters.

Ms. Butenis also served as the US Political Officer in El Salvador (1982-1985) and as El Salvador Desk Officer (1988-1990). This was when that country was in the middle of a civil war where US-backed dirty tactics (developed using CIA experience from ‘Operation Phoenix’ in Vietnam) caused over 75,000 deaths. And this lady had the audacity to tell the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee that ‘the Lankan government must seriously address precious human rights abuses, including establishing accountability and rule of law by bringing to justice those responsible for extrajudicial killings, disappearances and numerous attacks against press freedom that have occurred in the last several years’. Ms Butenis could tell us what kind of bringing-to-justice was facilitated by her Government of murders her Government has supported and continues to support in Latin America. Given the posts she has held, Washington’s policy directives she had to execute as part of her JD and her sanctimonious posturing, it is indeed surprising that she’s in Colombo and not in the Hague.

My ‘welcome note’ to Ms. Butenis is no longer available on the internet. I saw it a few days ago, posted the link on facebook, but it’s since disappeared. I am not surprised. I have a copy saved though. Here’s a quote referring to her meddling stint in Bangladesh:

‘At a farewell speech at the Gulshan Club, Dhaka, she had said that although some Bangladeshis believed she was sometimes too outspoken, this was because Ambassadors must be clear about their country’s interests and viewpoints to avoid misunderstanding. I was told that Dr. Abdullah Dewan, Professor of Economics at Eastern Michigan University and a Bangladeshi American had observed: There was no “misunderstanding” on our part; she was not just “outspoken”, but openly meddled, apparently beyond her mandated duty, in the internal affairs of a sovereign country and made it look like a client state of America.’

Last September I made a list and shook it twice at Ms. Butenis, in lieu of an official red-carpet welcome. This is the list.

US troops massacred 300 Lakotas in 1890. The USA has sent troops abroad or carried out military strikes against other countries on 216 occasions since independence from Britain. Since 1945, the USA has intervened in more than 20 countries throughout the world. People are aware of ‘Vietnam of course, where over 3 million people were killed before the then US President decided to withdraw. There are other unhappy countries. These include China (1945-46), Korea (1950-53), Guatemala (1954), Indonesia (1958), Cuba (1959-60), Guatemala (1960), Congo (1964), Peru (1965), Laos (1964-73), Vietnam (1961-73), Cambodia (1969-70), Guatemala (1967-69), Grenada (1983), Lebanon (1984), Libya (1986), El Salvador and Nicaragua (throughout the 1980s), Panama (1989), Iraq (ongoing), Sudan (1998), Afghanistan (ongoing) and Yugoslavia (1999). After World War II, the USA has assisted in over 20 different coups throughout the world and the CIA orchestrated countless assassinations and attempted-assassinations of dozens of political heads of state.

I also pointed out that Ms Butenis does not have to read Noam Chomsky to understand that Uncle Sam will support democratic regimes, dictatorships, monarchies, military juntas and all manner of totalitarian regimes guilty of horrendous crimes against humanity as long as US interests are served. That is the bottom line and I was sure Ms. Butenis must have been briefed on this when she was inducted into the US Foreign Service.

The USA has on numerous occasions deployed military police overseas, mobilized the National Guard, sent her Navy to patrol seas off the coast of numerous countries to show strength, carried out covert actions where US forces were not under direct US command, deployed US pilots to fly foreign planes, trained and advised military hierarchies in unpopular and tyrannical regimes and of course assassinated heads of state and other ‘undesirables’.

I strongly recommended that Ms. Butenis read Willian Blum’s ‘Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions since World War II’. I said that if the US throws the book at us, we can drown them with a hundred books, such is the magnitude of that country’s crimes against humanity.

Ms. Butenis’ contention that it is good not to have misunderstanding was taken in that spirit. I asked her to comment. I hoped there wouldn’t be selective amnesia. One year later, I can report that we didn’t get ‘selective amnesia’ from Ms. Butenis. We got blanket silence. In Sinhala we would say ‘kata uththara nehe’ (silence on account of being tongue-tied).

Ms. Butenis might not have heard of the Dasa Raja Dharma. A year ago I might have thought that she would know the words ‘honesty’ and ‘integrity’. Today, the 22nd day of September, 2010, one year after Mr. Butenis received that open welcome note I am saddened to observe that this lady doesn’t seem to have a clue and this because those are the two most inconvenient concepts for a diplomat from her country.

I finished that note with the following:

‘Don’t underestimate us. Don’t misread ‘smile’ for ‘pliant’. We will be watching your every move, trust us.’

I wished her an enjoyable tenure in Sri Lanka. I take this opportunity to tell her that we haven’t dropped our guard or blinked even once.

You are being watched Ms. Butenis. With greater suspicion in fact. You can thank your silence, double-standards, deceit and continued meddling for this.

Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer.

———–

Patricia Agatha Butenis was nominated U.S. Ambassador to the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka and the Republic of Maldives on May 27, 2009.

Prior to this assignment,  she served as the Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad from 2007-2009. From 2006-2007, she served as Ambassador to Bangladesh and from 2004-2006 as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad.

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Murdoch phone hacking scandal engulfs all Britain’s major parties

By Jean Shaoul
22 September 2010

World Socialist Website

A desperate damage control operation is underway as further allegations emerge about the extent of the illegal phone hacking at the Rupert Murdoch-owned News of the World. The paper’s royal editor and a private investigator were found guilty of hacking into the voice mail of members of the Royal family and their aides in 2007.

It is now alleged that the practice was much more prevalent than was revealed at the time and that the Metropolitan Police failed to investigate all the cases known to them.

Journalist Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire were found guilty at the Old Bailey in January 2007 after they admitted hacking into phones. Goodman was jailed for four months and Mulcaire for six months.News of the World editor Andy Coulson resigned following the case. He denied knowing about the hacking, but he accepted ultimate responsibility as editor of the paper. Prime Minister Gordon Brown immediately phoned to offer his commiserations. He assured the journalist that he had acted honourably in resigning and expressed his confidence that Coulson would soon have another job.

Coulson is now Prime Minister David Cameron’s director of communications and at the centre of the new allegations. His presence in the new Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition administration implicates all three major political parties in the affair. It is now suggested that under the previous Labour government, the police and parliamentary investigations were cut short. The Liberal Democrats, who challenged Coulson’s claims that he was ignorant of the phone hacking, are now part of an administration in which Coulson plays a key role and must, as deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg did in the House of Commons earlier this month, defend him.

A network of relationships has been exposed which reveal the incestuous nature of the British political elite and its ties to global corporate interests, in particular to Rupert Murdoch’s News International Corporation. A coalition government has just come to power that supposedly represents a new chapter in British political life after 13 years of Labour rule. But the Murdoch empire has slipped seamlessly from one government to the next. Even if Coulson is never charged with any crime and never found guilty of any crime, this affair will have demonstrated beyond a shadow of doubt that official politics in Britain is entirely divorced from the interests of ordinary people and in the hands of a criminal oligarchy who act outside the law.

Real political power lies with this plutocratic layer and not with elected representatives in Parliament. Allegations have emerged this month that the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee held back from pursuing its investigation into phone hacking at the News of the World. Adam Price, a former Plaid Cymru MP who retired from Parliament in May, claims that MPs were afraid that their private lives would come under investigation if they called on News International Chief Executive Rebekah Brooks to testify. Members of the committee discussed getting the sergeant-at-arms to issue a subpoena for Mrs. Brooks.

“We could have used the nuclear option. We decided not to, I think to some extent because of what I was told at the time by a senior Conservative member of the committee, who I know was in direct contact with NI execs, that if we went for her, called her back, subpoenaed her, they would go for us—which meant effectively that they would delve into our personal lives in order to punish them and I think that’s part of the reason we didn’t do it. In retrospect I think that’s regrettable.” Price told Channel 4 News.

Price made his claim as the Standards and Privileges Committee, which is the most powerful of the cross-party parliamentary committees, considered launching its own inquiry into the phone hacking allegations. Speaking in support of an emergency motion backing the call for an inquiry, Tom Watson MP, who is often regarded as a left, although he was a loyal supporter of Tony Blair until recently, set out the situation in rather too candid terms.

“The truth is that all of us in this House, in our own way, are scared of the Rebekah Brooks of this world. If you fear passing this resolution, think of this: it’s almost laughable, here we sit in Parliament, the central institution of our sacred democracy, between us some of the most powerful people in the land and we are scared of the power she wields without a jot of responsibility or accountability. They, the barons of the media, with their red topped assassins, are the biggest beasts in the modern jungle. They have no predators.”

Watson’s words proved to be rather more correct than he might have imagined. The emergency motion was passed, but the Standards and Privileges Committee immediately made it clear that their investigation was not about to take on News International. The committee hurriedly issued a statement pointing out that it was only authorised to act in cases of contempt of Parliament and it was not sure if hacking into phones could be regarded as contempt.

“The Committee has agreed to start its inquiry by seeking evidence from the Clerk of the House and from outside experts on the law of Parliament on whether, and if so in what circumstances, hacking of MPs’ phones could be a contempt of Parliament.”

So not only are the front benches of the parliamentary parties powerless to act against News International, but the backbenchers are equally caught up in Murdoch’s trawls. The British Parliament is entirely subservient to Murdoch.

Nor do matters stop with Parliament. Many of the most recent allegations have been published in the New York Times, which is involved in a circulation battle with the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal. It suits the New York Times to expose the alleged misdeeds of its competitor in London, since across the Atlantic it is safe from both the notorious English libel laws and the political repercussions. Journalists at the Times have spoken to more than a dozen former reporters and editors of News of the World who have painted a picture of widespread hacking.

“Scotland Yard’s narrow focus has allowed News of the World and its parent company, News International, to continue to assert that the hacking was limited to one reporter,” the New York Times wrote.

“Scotland Yard had chosen to notify only a fraction of the hundreds of people whose messages may have been illegally accessed—effectively shieldingNews of the World from a barrage of civil lawsuits.”

That barrage is now being unleashed. As a result of the Times’s revelations, a growing number of prominent public figures have decided to bring lawsuits against News International and, in the case of former Labour Party deputy leader Lord John Prescott, against the Metropolitan Police. The response of the police has been to intimidate possible witnesses by interviewing them under caution as suspects and warning them that anything they say may be used as evidence against them in court.

Former News of the World journalist Paul McMullan has alleged that Andy Coulson must have known about phone hacking as editor. Sean Hoare, who worked as a reporter for the paper, has claimed that Coulson encouraged him to engage in phone hacking. The Metropolitan Police have interviewed both men under caution.

“All this seems very strange. I can well understand that those who thought they could put their part of what happened, may now say to themselves they do not want to find themselves being questioned by police under caution,” Labour MP David Winnick commented.

Close relations exist between the Metropolitan Police and the British-based Murdoch papers. Andy Hayman, who, as Assistant Commissioner for Specialist Operations, led the investigation into phone hacking at News of the World, is now a columnist for the Murdoch-owned Times of London. A practice of collaboration has been developed between the Metropolitan Police and the News of the World in the investigation of high-profile criminal cases. Journalists and police made their careers in this way and in the process boosted the circulation of the paper, which is Britain’s top-selling Sunday and the second-largest-selling English language newspaper in the world.

Assistant Metropolitan Commissioner John Yates has opened a new police inquiry following the recent allegations. Yates has stuck firmly to the line that the phone hacking was small scale. He told the Home Affairs Select committee earlier this month that he thought there might be “10 to 12” cases involved at the maximum. He denied that there was any evidence that any other phones had been hacked. Scotland Yard would interview Andy Coulson, Yates said. The prime minister’s director of communications issued a statement saying that he would talk to the police. An unnamed Whitehall source told reporters that this should “put the matter to bed, once and for all”.

The political establishment has pulled out all the stops in an attempt to draw a line under the phone hacking affair, but the coalition government is becoming increasingly unstable, and it may not be possible for them to prevent more damaging revelations from coming out.

Sadly, this is not restricted to Sri Lanka alone. SA.

———————————————————

Editorial, The Sunday Leader, 11 April 2010

Switch off the lights. Rend your hair. Don only white. It is time to go into mourning. An old and ailing relative  democracy, has died an inevitable death. Dead at barely 60 years old though the abuse it suffered during its short life span made it appear much older.

Like the aunt who lingers on long after most of the family believe she is already dead, this week’s death was a quiet one, it was long expected, some would say even overdue. There was no shock, no sudden loss.

Democracy in this country wasn’t overthrown by a dictator, nor shattered suddenly by the chaos of war and revolution. Instead it died a painful, slow death. Strangled by corruption, stifled by authoritarianism and finally snuffed out by the disinterest and apathy of the general public.  And while it somehow lingered on despite being savaged by decades of war, riots, and attempted revolutions,  this week we finally saw democracy die in the hearts and minds of voters.

The turn out  for the 2010 general election stands as the lowest in history  only  50% of the country’s people made the effort to participate in the country’s political process; not enough to sustain democracy’s ebbing life force.  While some will criticise the voters’ apathy, in reality you can only marvel at the patience of a people who voted regularly for six decades.   At the devotion of a population who after years of false promises and disappointment continued to vote until finally a lack of credible candidates, tangible issues and the impossibility of effecting real change finally destroyed their interest in democracy.

Of course the truth is and always has been that  regardless of the final results of this election, thugs, cronies and criminals will continue to rule this country. And regardless of anyone’s vote the present  situation of lawlessness,  emergency rule and authoritarianism is guaranteed to continue. The election was never going to address this country’s fundamental issues. Its lack of law and order, its almost medieval levels of women’s representation, the broken education system.

None of these things were even on the agenda. With victory guaranteed  the most keenly fought battles in this year’s election took place within the ruling party, as the government’s heavy weight candidates fought openly over the spoils of certain UPFA victory; the 20 million vassals and serfs who no longer enjoy even the pretense of rights.

Instead of issues and achievements, candidates  struggled to display their closeness to the country’s centre of power.  We were treated to the unashamed sycophantism of  posters showing Wimal Weerawansa sharing breakfast with our leader and  Bandula Gunawardena daring to pass the  phone to the President.  Eventually  desperation for inter-party preference votes saw  government candidates desecrate Buddha statues and violate every section of the country’s election law  with impunity.

Seeing the ugliness of the government, the impotence of the opposition and the hypocrisy  of the institutions – police, courts, charged with safeguarding democracy the people were inevitably disgusted.   And at  a crucial moment in the country’s history they  chose to hide their faces from this mockery of the democratic process. They looked away  from the hideous posters, meaningless slogans and the futile opposition  and refused to make the effort to vote.

But while everyone looked away  democracy died a second death – that of the two thirds majority.  Figures indicate that the UPFA  will receive nearly two-thirds of the votes  cast.  And with this majority comes nothing less than absolute power. The ability to amend the constitution, the very basis of  the nation’s law. The checks and  balances that  are the key to democracy have disappeared.   And with the government in such a comfortable position the reforms that could  possibly have breathed new life into the islands democracy  the 17th Amendment, quotas for women, a Right to Information Act, will never materialise.

Democracy in Sri Lanka is beyond revival. And in its place we now have just one party or more accurately, one  family.  And the country’s citizens have just one choice, either demonstrate their loyalty, obedience and gratitude to the ruling family or risk detention, death or worse the utter irrelevance of  powerlessness.

This is no longer a criticism or a warning,  it is simply reality. One chapter of the country’s history is now closed  – the flickering light of democracy has gone out.  The ailing opposition, the clapped out General, the toothless UNP will never be able to restore the people’s right to democracy.  Instead if it is ever to return, democracy in this country will have to be reborn. Instead of  being imposed by colonial masters it will have to take hold again in the hearts and minds of the people.

If nothing else this year’s low turn-out indicates dissatisfaction  with the current political system and perhaps  a longing for a process we can all believe in;  it is still possible that the country’s people still long for genuine democracy.  But until that hope manifests itself as a genuine grass roots movement for a return to a politics based on principles, representative politics and good governance we  have dark years of despotism ahead of us.

Democracy is dead. And today only thugs, cronies and sycophants  have reason to celebrate; the rest of us will be in mourning for a weak, flawed but comforting old friend.

New Age Editorial

DAILY STAR Editorial

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

PRESS RELEASE

23 March 2010

Bangladesh: Lift ban on extrajudicial killings exhibition. Amnesty International is urging the Bangladeshi authorities to lift a ban on an exhibition of photographs raising awareness about alleged extrajudicial executions carried out by a special police unit.

“Yesterday’s closure of the Drik Picture Library exhibition “Crossfire” in Dhaka is a blow to the right to freedom of expression,” said Amnesty International’s Bangladesh Researcher, Abbas Faiz. “The government of Bangladesh must act immediately to lift the police ban and protect the right to peaceful expression in words, images or any other media in accordance with Bangladesh’s constitution and international law.”

Hours before the “Crossfire” exhibition was due to open at a special ceremony in Dhaka, police moved in and demanded that the organizers cancel it. When they refused to shut it down police closed the premises, claiming that the exhibition had no official permission to open and would “create anarchy”.

The exhibition includes photographs based on Drik’s case studies of killings in Bangladesh, which government officials have portrayed as deaths in “crossfire”.

Hundreds of people have been killed in Bangladesh since 2004 when the special police force, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), was established.

In most cases, victims who die in the custody of RAB and other police personnel, are later announced to have been killed during “crossfire” or police “shoot-outs”.

Amnesty International and other human rights organizations consider these killings to be extrajudicial executions.

Human rights lawyers in Bangladesh see the closure of the exhibition as unjustified and with no legal basis. They are seeking a court order to lift the police ban on the exhibition.

Drik’s Director, Shahidul Alam says he has held hundreds of other exhibitions without needing official permission, and that “the government invoked a prohibitive clause only because state repression was being exposed”.

Abbas Faiz said:“By closing the “Crossfire” exhibition, the government of Bangladesh has effectively reinforced a culture of impunity for human rights violations. Amnesty International is calling for the government to take action against those who carry out extrajudicial executions, not those who raise their voices against it.”

The ban is also inconsistent with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s pledges that her government would take action to end extrajudicial executions.

Amnesty International is urging authorities to allow peaceful protests against the killings and to bring the perpetrators to justice.

END/

News in USA

Police in Bangladesh Close Photo Exhibit

By David Gonzalez

New York Times

Writer and translator Tarek Omar Chowdhury, a committed Maobadi and a dear friend, was deeply worried. `Of course I do not support what happened, although I must admit I look at it  differently.’ He was referring to the government’s pressure to close down ‘Into Exile – Tibet 1949 – 2009,′ an exhibition organised by the Bangladeshi chapter of Students for a Free Tibet (SFT), in partnership with Drik, November 1 – 7. `I express my solidarity,’ said his e-mail.

At first it had been the cultural counsellor from the Chinese embassy in Dhaka. Turning up at Drik he told Shahidul Alam, its managing director, “We would like you to cancel the Tibet exhibition.” Tibet was a part of China. If the exhibition was held, the relationship between Bangladesh and China would be affected. Drik, he was politely told, was an independent gallery. They did not have the right to tell Drik what it could, or could not show. But other visits and phone calls soon began: Bangladeshi government officials, police, special branch, members of parliament. Using either intimidation or persuasion, they basically conveyed the same message. The show must be cancelled. Later, the police insisted that Drik needed official permission but were unable to produce any written document. On the 1st afternoon, police in riot gear entered Drik’s premises and locked it up. A symbolic opening, inaugurated by professor Muzaffer Ahmed, was held on the street outside. Having registered its indignation, Drik decided to close down the exhibition the next day as a mark of protest.

Policemen encircle Professor Muzaffer Ahmad, chairman of the Bangladesh chapter of Transparency International, as he went to Drik Gallery in the capital Dhaka to open an exhibition titled ‘Into Exile – Tibet 1949–2009’ on November 1. — New Age photo

I am thinking of writing about it, said Tarek. But of course, you must, I said. His piece, `Tibboter odekha chobigulo onek kotha boley’ appeared in Samakal, 13 November. While highly critical of government interference and heavy-handedness, Tarek voiced suspicion about the SFT and its funding sources, whether the opening was timed to coincide with Dalai Lama’s Arunachal visit, to draw media attention, to villify China by portraying it as an occupying force in Tibet. The US government, more particularly the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), wrote Tarek, has directly funded the Tibet movement from 1956 to 1972, and later, indirectly, through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), an organisation best described in the words of its first acting president, Allen Weinstein, “A lot of what we [the NED] do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”

What Tarek has written is amply supported in research conducted by many academicians and scholars. The NED was established in 1984 with both Republican and Democratic party’s support during president Reagan’s administration to “foster the infrastructure of democracy – the system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities” around the world. Created by an act of Congress, it is funded primarily through annual allocations from the Congress. It operates through four core institutes: the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDIIA), the International Republican Institute (IRI), the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS), and the Center for International Private Enterprise. The latter, CIPE, has in recent years awarded a grant to the Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and more recently, it has supported an initiative undertaken by the Bangladesh Enterprise Institute (BEI). But I will write about that some other day. To return to Tibet and CIA connections: NED-funded organisations include SFT, which was founded in 1994 in New York. Together with five other organisations, the SFT in January 2008 proclaimed “the start of a ‘Tibetan people’s uprising” and co-founded a  temporary office in charge of coordination and financing. Other published sources document how, in the USA, “the American Society for a Free Asia, a CIA front, energetically publicized the cause of Tibetan resistance, with the Dalai Lama’s eldest brother, Thubtan Norbu, playing an active role in that group. The Dalai Lama’s second-eldest brother, Gyalo Thondup, established an intelligence operation with the CIA in 1951 [although CIA aid was only formally established in 1956]. He later upgraded it into a CIA-trained guerrilla unit whose recruits parachuted back into Tibet.” (Michael Barker, “Democratic Imperialism” ).

So, I asked Shahidul, what made you agree to co-hosting this exhibition? I thought it would be an interesting one, he replied. The public would have the opportunity to see rare photos. And I did tell the embassy officials that we would be happy to show a Chinese exhibition, if the quality was right. Our point is to open up the debate. And it’s nothing new, we have faced pressure before. From the British Council in Dhaka over the European Currency Unfolds show. From Bangladesh government officials over some images of 1971. And then, Dhaka’s Alliance Francaise had backed out from sponsoring my exhibition which was critical of Ershad’s military rule. So did the Art College. Intimidation, fear, exhortations to self-censorship—that too, by progressive institutions—these are not new. But of course, he added, this does not mean that we should not critically appraise ourselves. We are not above criticism. I invite it.

My attention turned to something Barker had written. NED’s funding issue, he says, is clearly problematic for Tibetan (or foreign) activists campaigning for Tibetan freedom. Progressive activists should first and foremost cast a critical eye over the antidemocratic funders of Tibetan groups. Only then can progressive solutions for restoring democratic governance to Tibet be generated by concerned activists. Or else, he says, we get what William I Robinson terms polyarchy, or “low-intensity democracy” which mitigates the “social and political tensions produced by elite-based and undemocratic status quos” and suppresses “popular and mass aspirations for more thoroughgoing democratisation of social life in the twenty-first century international order.” As I read, I was reminded of Mairead Corrigan Maguire, who received the Nobel Peace prize (1976) in recognition of her determined attempts to peacefully resolve the troubles in Northern Ireland. Maguire had gone to Israel in 2004 to welcome  Mordechai Vanunu, on his release from prison after serving an 18-year prison sentence for disclosing Israel’s nuclear secrets.  She was hit by a rubber-coated bullet in 2007, while participating in a protest against the construction of Israel’s security fence outside the Arab settlement of Bil’in. She was taken into custody by the Israeli military this year for being on board a small ferry carrying humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. Recently (October 2009), Mairead was one of three Nobel Peace laureates to launch a major `Thank You Tibet!’ Campaign to commemorate Tibetan peoples 50 years in exile. The Campaign statement extends support to “His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the people of Tibet.” It says, “They are a model for all of us: despite the attack on their people and the displacement of their culture they preach and practice compassion and respect for the dignity of every person.”. Compassion and respect for all? Some may not agree. Recently (October 2009), when asked about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, His Holiness had replied, “I think too early to say.”

To return to Tarek. I did tell him, I don’t agree with everything that you say. One area of contention is an old one, centering on whether Tibet is better or worse off, under Chinese communism. As Michael Parenti, severely critical of the Hollywood `Shangri-La’ myth puts it, old Tibet, in reality, was not a Paradise Lost. But if Tibet’s future is to be positioned somewhere within China’s emerging free market paradise—with its deepening gulf between rich and poor, the risk of losing jobs, being beaten and imprisoned if workers try to form unions in corporate dominated “business zones,” the pollution resulting from billions of tons of industrial emissions and untreated human waste dumped into its rivers and lakes—the old Tibet, he says, may start looking better than it actually was.

The other point has to do with recent news reports of the presence of Chinese interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who had gone to grill Uighurs (a Muslim minority from the autonomous region Xinjiang, in western China). Chinese officials were actively assisted by US military personnel to soften up the Uighurs for interrogation: sleep deprivation, freezing temperatures, isolation, holding up their head by the hair and beard so that Chinese officials could take facial photographs. According to them, it was “their lowest point” at Guantanamo. This active assistance was extended, while Washington reportedly continues to support secessionist movements in Xinjiang by supporting several Islamist organizations through CIA-ISI (Pakistani military intelligence) liaison.

Another friend, a keen political analyst, predicted that the US officialdom stationed in Dhaka would soon enough overcome its prolonged misgivings about Drik, as expressed in an e-mail from the USIA director John Kincannon, `Given what I’m reading in Meghbarta and your apparent active opposition to President Clinton’s visit to Bangladesh, it seems odd that you would expect USIS would have much interest in cooperating with Drik on anything’ (March 16, 2000). My friend was right. An invitation extended by the US ambassador himself arrived, sooner than predicted, for Shahidul.

Published in New Age 23rd November 2009.

Further analysis by Omar Tarek Chowdhury