Obama’s paramilitary police

Andre Damon

On Monday, US President Barack Obama travelled to Camden, New Jersey, America’s poorest city, to praise its brutal police department and reaffirm his support for federal programs that have transferred billions of dollars in military hardware to local police departments.

Reports of police brutality by Camden cops have nearly doubled since 2011, and last year Camden had substantially more reported brutality complaints than Jersey City, which has four times more people.

“This city is on to something,” Obama declared, referring to Camden.

America’s major news outlets, which function as little more than state propaganda outlets, could be counted on to report the exact opposite of reality. According to the New York Times, Obama used his visit to “crack down on overly aggressive police tactics,” and “limit … military-style equipment for police forces.”

These claims are based on Obama’s announcement that the White House will no longer transfer a small range of highly-specialized military assets to local police departments, including bayonets, .50 caliber rifles and tracked fighting vehicles.

These types of ordnance are, from a military counterinsurgency standpoint, either obsolete or inappropriate. The US Army, for example, has dropped bayonet training for recruits, while .50 caliber rifles are generally not considered anti-personnel weapons. They are used instead to target communications systems, grounded aircraft and radar installations, meaning that no sensible anti-civilian death squad would carry them.

Other restrictions proposed by Obama are almost entirely meaningless. TheTimes reports that the list of prohibited items includes “camouflage uniforms,” but a quick glance at the White House document outlining the proposals notes that the restriction does not include “woodland or desert patterns or solid color uniforms,” i.e., the great majority of US military combat uniforms.

Obama’s order explicitly permits the provision of wheeled armored combat vehicles known as MRAPs, as well as assault and sniper rifles, belt-fed machine guns and military aircraft and helicopters.

In fact, essentially none of the hardware deployed by militarized police during the crackdown on peaceful protests in Ferguson, Missouri last year falls under the White House’s prohibitions.

Recent deployments of combat weapons by local police forces have been criticized by sections of the military, which chided the unprofessional character with which police handled their weapons while cracking down on mass demonstrations. Monday’s announcement is the administration’s response to such criticisms: the ordinance transferred to local police will now be more closely monitored, and police will be better trained to use it.

In other words, use of combat weapons by the police will be institutionalized, regularized, and made more like the military, not less.

Together with the new police militarization guidelines, Obama announced an additional $163 million in funding for local police forces, with a large share of the funds targeted for training police to use military hardware.

Obama’s announcement was also timed to correspond with the release of a report by his so-called Task Force on 21st Century Policing, which issued a set of non-binding recommendations for local police departments to rebuild “community trust.”

The actual content of these proposals, however, can be seen in Camden, which recently overhauled its police department to implement “community policing” practices, cracking down on minor crimes and responding to opposition with extreme violence. As a result, arrests for minor offenses soared, with citations for broken taillights increasing by more than 300 percent, according to the ACLU. Reports of police brutality also increased sharply.

In his remarks, Obama offered effusive praise for the police, declaring, “The overwhelming number of police officers are good, fair, honest and care deeply about their community, putting their lives on the line every day.”

These remarks were aimed at solidarizing the White House with the police amid a continuing wave of violence directed against the population, giving rise to protests in St. Louis, New York City, Baltimore and other cities. Through the end of April, police killed 392 people in the US, putting them on track to take significantly more lives in 2015 than even the 1,100 they killed last year.

Every year, cops kill more people in the United States than the number of US soldiers killed in Iraq in 2004, at the height of the conflict.

This reign of police murder and violence takes place with the full support of the Obama administration, which has transferred billions of dollars in military armaments to local police, while working behind the scenes with local authorities to acquit killer cops, such as Darren Wilson, who killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Daniel Pantaleo, the killer of Eric Garner in Staten Island.

Even while working to shield cops from prosecution, the White House has helped to coordinate the military/police crackdown on peaceful demonstrators in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, and in Baltimore last month.

The ultimate root of the ongoing wave of police violence and the militarization of society is the pervasive growth of social inequality. Camden, with 40 percent of its residents below the poverty line, embodies the disastrous impoverishment of the American working class that has taken place over the past several decades. The fact that Obama chose this city to tout his proposals on more aggressive policing expresses the fundamental reality that the ruling class has no answer to poverty besides ever-greater police repression.

Christie’s $1 billion week: Art market heads for the stratosphere

J. Cooper

The week ending May 15 was a banner one for the high-end art market. Christie’s auction house alone set a new record, breaking the $1 billion ceiling for a single week’s sales. Since the opening of the 2015 auction season in sales of post-war, Impressionist and contemporary art at the beginning of May, the leading New York art auction houses, Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips, have sold over $2.7 billion worth of art.

Total sales in the past two weeks are up 74 percent from the art market’s last peak in 2007, before the financial crash. In 2014 total sales in the global art market surpassed €51 billion (approximately $66 billion), setting an all-time record. The previous peak was reached in 2007 at €48 billion.

Christie’s opened the week by breaking with tradition, delaying their Impressionist and Modern art auction, and offering instead a curated auction on May 11, “Looking Forward to the Past,” that combined 20th century and contemporary artists. That auction brought in some $706 million.

Pundits were concerned that buyers might get fatigued rushing from one auction to another (although much of the bidding is conducted by phone, in any case). But with the increasingly global distribution of the super-rich and proxy bidding through dealers and other third-party bidders, the frenzy brought only increased energy. The bidding at Christie’s May 11 auction rippled across the electronic screens in seven currencies, with bidders from over 40 countries taking part.

The chairman and CEO of Phillips, the smaller “boutique” auction house, Ed Dolman, quoted in the Wall Street Journal, said, “Art likes to move around the world, but the scale is so much bigger now. … We’re talking an incredible orgy of spending, and it feels like a total transformation.” Phillips is owned by the Mercury Group, a Russian “luxury retail company.”

On May 11, the record sale for a painting went to Christie’s for Pablo Picasso’s “Women of Algiers (Version O)” for $179.4 million by an anonymous buyer. The previous record was set by Francis Bacon’s triptych, “Three Studies of Lucian Freud,” in November 2013 for $142.4 million, bought by casino magnate Elaine Wynn. Also at Monday’s auction, the record was broken for the highest price ever paid for a sculpture: Alberto Giacometti’s “Pointing Man,” at $141.3 million.

The two prior record sales prices for individual sculptures were also for Giacometti pieces: in 2010 “Walking Man I” sold for $103.7 million to a banking heiress, and in 2014 his “Chariot” sold for $101 million to hedge-fund manager Steven Cohen. As reported by the World Socialist Web Site last March, “A year ago, Cohen’s former hedge fund, SAC Capital Advisors, pleaded guilty to insider trading charges. Cohen himself was never charged, and he simply transferred his fortune to a new firm, Point72 Asset Management. Cohen made $1.3 billion last year, bringing his total net worth to $11.4 billion.”

While the ultra-rich sit on hoards of cash and industrial investment continues to stagnate, in the United States alone, the 400 wealthiest individuals have a combined net worth of $2.29 trillion. Artwork, particularly 20th century and contemporary art, now functions as another commodity to invest and speculate in. The New York Times, in reporting the “First $1 Billion Week” at Christie’s, noted that “the world’s 170,000 or more ultra-high-net-worth individuals—those with at least $30 million in cash to spend, by one estimate—take art as an alternative investment.”

The Times continued, “They have been given confidence by figures such as Laurence D. Fink, chairman of BlackRock Inc., the world’s biggest asset-management company, who on April 21 pronounced in a conference in Singapore that contemporary art, as well as real estate in cities such as New York and London, had usurped gold as a store of wealth.”

The Wall Street Journal observed that “these new global buyers have been joined by an influx of investors eager to store more of their cash in art—particularly now that interest rates remain low. And unlike the old days, when serious collectors typically clung to pieces over the long term, many buyers have become comfortable trading artists often to reap tidy profits.”

Christie’s “spectacle of excess at the highest level,” in the words of Abigail Asher, herself a consultant to the high-end art market, is only the latest episode in the scramble to increase the monetization of great works of art and further degrade the artists’ intent.

Christie’s played a critical role during the recent bankruptcy process in Detroit. One of the key bargaining chips for the creditors was the irreplaceable collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts. Christie’s was brought in to appraise the collection. The report, released in December 2013, “Fair Market Value for Financial Planning,” estimated the cash value of 2,781 pieces at between $454 million and $867 million.

Some of the other highest-selling pieces in Christie’s auctions in New York this month included two works by American painter Mark Rothko (“No. 10,” 1958: $81,925,000 and “No. 36,” 1958: $40,485,000), another painting by Picasso (“Bust of a Woman,” 1938: $67,365,000), “Colored Mona Lisa” by Andy Warhol (silkscreen inks and graphite on canvas, 1963: $56,165,000) Lucian Freud’s “Benefits Supervisor Resting” (1994: $56,165,000), Francis Bacon’s “Portrait of Henrietta Moraes” (1963: $47,765,000), “The Houses of Parliament, at Sunset,” Claude Monet, (1900-01: $40,485,000) and “The Field Next to the Other Road,” Jean-Michel Basquiat (1981: $37,125,000).

This is the new barbarian invasion. These grotesque prices can only be paid by the semi-criminal financial elite, into whose private hands some of the most remarkable works of art ever created are falling. At the same time, public museums and galleries are being starved for cash because “there is no money” for such institutions, and, of course, they cannot possibly compete with the wealthy swindlers and gangsters snapping up these works.

With the possible exceptions of Warhol and Basquiat, the artists in question would most likely have been disgusted by these developments. Each made immense sacrifices for his work.

Lucian Freud, according to a biographer, “was often virtually penniless in his early days, spending almost all his money on paint. ‘Until I was fifty I never had a bank account, always lived from hand to mouth.’” For years, writes a biographer of Claude Monet, “Monet earned hardly any money. Sometimes he could not pay the rent; sometimes his family had no heat; sometimes they went hungry.” Mark Rothko once commented, “When I was a younger man, art was a lonely thing: no galleries, no collectors, no critics, no money. Yet it was a golden time, for then we had nothing to lose and a vision to gain.” Alberto Giacometti, in his notebook in 1934, inveighed against “religion, country and capitalism, of course.”

Last week, the top selling item at Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern sale was a painting by Vincent Van Gogh that sold for $66.3 million. Van Gogh, who died in poverty, having sold only one painting in his short life, once said, “I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say ‘he feels deeply, he feels tenderly.’” Indeed.

Thousands of auto workers strike in Turkey against Renault and union

Halil Celik

Five thousand car workers at French car manufacturer Renault’s plant have gone out on strike in the western Turkish city of Bursat. The strike over wages and benefits erupted on Thursday night in a rebellion against the Metal Workers Trade Union of Turkey (Türk-Metal).

The unofficial action is winning support from workers in nearby factories, under conditions of widespread social discontent and political tensions in the run-up to the parliamentary elections on June 7.

The Renault car workers refused to leave the factory when their shift ended. Together with the incoming shift, they staged a demonstration in the factory’s courtyard, chanting slogans against both the company and Türk-Metal, from which they resigned. The workers are furious that the union had negotiated a 60 percent wage increase at a nearby Bosch car plant while abandoning their own pay claims.

Union officials claimed that the action was a protest, not an official strike.

The Renault factory is one of the biggest car plants in Turkey, producing nearly 400 cars per shift. The French company has operated in Turkey since 1969. It is integrated into the Turkish military establishment and runs its activities jointly with Oyak, the army’s pension fund. Renault, with its annual production of some 318,000 cars, has 43 percent of the domestic car market.

On Friday, the strike spread to Tofaş, a joint venture between Italy’s Fiat and Turkey’s Koç Holding, where 5,000 car workers stopped production in support of the Renault workers’ demands. The Tofaş workers assemble Fiat’s Linea car, the Doblo van and other models for Peugeot, Citroen, Opel and Vauxhall.

Thousands of workers in other factories in Bursa have taken solidarity action with the Renault and Tofaş car workers, while others gathered in front of the plant to show their support.

The Renault workers’ action was provoked by Renault’s refusal to increase wages. The car workers had called for a renegotiation of last year’s deal on terms similar to those agreed with Bosch.

They had also demanded the right to choose their own union representatives on a democratic basis and assurances that they would not be fired for resigning from Türk-Metal. Workers have called for Türk-Metal’s expulsion from the factory.

Metalworkers at large factories, including Renault and Tofaş, have complained for months about the three-year deal, signed last year, between Türk-Metal and the employers’ Metal Industrialists Union of Turkey (MESS), demanding its revision.

That agreement was a complete sell out of the workers’ demands. Türk-Metal union chief Pevrul Kavlak and MESS chairperson Mehmet Betil declared that the labour contract was an expression of “mutual devotion and good faith.”

When the union signed a three-year labour agreement with Bosch that gave the workers at the brake system factory better conditions, auto workers resigned from Türk-Metal en masse. The union bureaucrats responded by setting fascist gangs against the workers.

The AKP (Justice and Development Party) government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is responding with increasing severity to strikes and protests.

Earlier this year, the Birleşik Metal-İş (United Metal-Work), a small metalworkers’ union, went on strike for a higher percentage wage rise for low paid workers. Using a law passed in 2012, the government responded by imposing a 60-day postponement of the strike and compulsory arbitration, claiming that the work action endangered national security. The union simply accepted the strike-breaking action.

The government has routinely clamped down on demonstrations, particularly in Istanbul’s Taksim Square. Two months ago, it pushed through new authoritarian measures aimed at suppressing dissent. It vastly expands police powers, enabling the government to deploy force against protesters, including the use of firearms, and to arbitrarily detain people. Another contentious new law allows ministers to restrict access to websites deemed a threat to lives, public order or people’s rights and freedoms.

Weeks ahead of May Day, the government banned all May Day demonstrations, mobilised 10,000 police and anti-personnel vehicles a few days in advance, and closed down much of Istanbul’s public transportation system to prevent large crowds from joining the demonstrations. Despite this, demonstrators gathered in Taksim Square. The police used tear gas and water cannon to disperse the demonstrators, arresting 364 people. At least 18 people were injured.

The eruption of the strike in Bursa takes place amidst a deepening economic crisis for Turkish workers. According to official statistics, 22.4 percent of Turkish households live below the poverty line, which means that poverty has actually increased during the 13 years of AKP rule. In effect, the AKP’s much-vaunted policy of food and coal handouts, and various social welfare support schemes, have turned out to be little more than a massive handout to Turkey’s corporate bosses.

TURK-IS, Turkey’s largest trade union confederation, using different criteria to calculate the poverty line, estimates that nearly half of Turkey’s population lives below the poverty line. The survey shows that the poverty rate is higher in larger families. In households with two parents and three or more dependent children, the poverty rate rose to 49.6 percent in 2014, up from 41.9 percent in 2013.

Turkey has also seen rising inflation. Prices rose by 7.9 percent in April, up from 7.6 percent in March, despite falling oil prices. The cost of food and beverages has risen by 14 percent in the last year, hitting the poorest particularly hard.

Unemployment reached 11.2 percent for the first three months of this year, up from 10.2 percent during the same period last year. Twenty percent of young people are unemployed, up from 17 percent last year. The rise in unemployment is accompanied by slowing economic growth, with Turkey’s growth falling from 4.2 percent in 2013 to 2.9 percent in 2014.

At the same time, the Turkish Lira has fallen in relation to the US dollar, reducing the value of Turkey’s exports and increasing the cost of imports. Since around 30 percent of bank loans are denominated in foreign currency, this means a corresponding increase in the cost of debt service and repayments.

In the upcoming elections, Erdoğan is seeking an increased majority for his ruling AKP government in order to push through constitutional changes to move to ever more dictatorial forms of rule, amid a deepening political and economic crises and the threat of war in neighbouring Iraq and Syria.

However, polls are predicting that AKP will win 290-300 seats, far short of the majority required for a constitutional amendment.

US panel’s screening guidelines threaten mammograms for 17 million women

Kate Randall

An estimated 17 million women could lose access to free annual mammogram coverage if the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) adopts its new proposed breast cancer screening guidelines.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires that many health plans cover certain preventive services at no cost to patients if a procedure receives a grade of A or B. The USPSTF is proposing a letter grade C for breast cancer screening mammograms for women ages 40-49, potentially disqualifying them from guaranteed free coverage.

A study by consulting firm Avalere Health estimates that 17 million women are at risk of losing access to free mammograms, including 13.4 million with employer-based health insurance, 1.3 million with non-group coverage, 1.2 million with ACA coverage and 1.1 million with coverage under the ACA’s expansion of Medicaid.

If the new recommendations are adopted and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) does not oppose them, thousands of cases of breast cancer will be missed and thousands of preventable deaths will result. Working class women who are unable to pay the cost of the mammograms out of pocket will be most affected.

Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer for US women of all races and ethnicities. An estimated 231,840 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed in 2015, and about 40,290 people will die from the disease, according to the American Cancer Society.

USPSTF is a panel of primary care physicians and epidemiologists funded, staffed and appointed by the HHS’s Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Despite claiming that cost does not factor into its recommendations, the panel utilizes so-called evidence-based research to weigh the benefits of preventive screenings with the aim of cutting costs for government, insurers and the health care industry.

In 2009, USPSTF made a similar recommendation on breast cancer screenings, sparking opposition from medical organizations, members of Congress and some White House officials. The task force’s recommendation was sidestepped via an amendment to the ACA which allowed women in their 40s to continue to get free mammograms.

The new guidelines have been roundly condemned by medical groups and breast health advocates, the vast majority of who recommend annual mammograms for all women from the age of 40. The USPSTF also recommends only biennial mammograms for women ages 50-74 and has no guidelines for women over age 75.

In a letter to President Obama and HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell, the American College of Radiology wrote: “If the draft recommendations are adopted as final, many women could be forced to make a financial decision about breast cancer screening and may not be able to benefit from the shared decision making process with their physicians, as recommended by the Task Force.”

A statement by the Susan G. Komen for the Cure advocacy group noted: “We believe that all women should be able to make informed decisions about breast cancer screening with their health care providers and develop a schedule that is right for them, without fear of economic or other barriers to their care.”

The USPSTF’s recommendations are based on the assertion that “some women in their 40s will benefit from mammography, most will not, while others will be harmed.” Apparently, the task force considers that those in this age group who stand to benefit do not exist is sufficient numbers to warrant the free screenings.

According to the American Cancer Society, however, one in six breast cancers occur in women aged 40-49, and the 10-year risk for breast cancer in a 40-year-old woman is one in 69.

The mortality rate for breast cancer for all age groups has decreased by 34 percent since 1990. Women under 50 have experienced the largest decreases in death rates, most likely as a result of advances in treatments and earlier detection through screenings and increased awareness, according to Breastcancer.org, a non-profit group dedicated to breast cancer information. It is precisely this age group that is being targeted by the task force.

The potential harms cited by the USPSTF for breast cancer screenings for women in their 40s include “a false-positive test result, which often leads to additional tests and procedures. While some women do not mind the anxiety that accompanies a false-positive mammogram, other women consider this a harm.” What goes unstated in this argument, and what is of particular concern for the task force and the government, is the potential cost of these “additional tests and procedures.”

In a video post on the task force’s web site, USPSTF Vice-Chair Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, Ph.D., M.D, states, “Women deserve to be empowered with the scientific data about the benefits and harms of mammography so they can make informed choices about their health. Supported by the science, every woman should use her own values, preferences, and health history to make the decision that is right for her.”

This is so much cynical hogwash. If it is supposedly up to a woman to determine whether she wants to risk the potential harm from a false-positive mammogram, the reality is that this decision would be taken out of her hands if a “C” ruling of the task force places the mammogram out of her financial reach.

Of the potential harms cited by the task force of breast cancer screenings for women in their 40s, “the most serious is unneeded diagnosis and treatment for a type of breast cancer that would not have become a threat to a woman’s health during her lifetime.” Conveniently, there is no data on such non-life-threatening breast cancer cases, and there are no reliable methods to determine whether cancer that is detected early might not have led to death if left untreated.

The threat to deprive millions of women of life-saving breast cancer screenings is another demonstration of the drive by the government and corporations to ration health care for ordinary Americans. The program popularly known as Obamacare is being used as a model for slashing medical costs in the health care system as a whole.

Specifically, the US Preventive Services Task Force is utilizing comparative effectiveness research (CER) to determine which screenings, tests and procedures should be allowed, and which are “unnecessary” and should be denied to patients unless they pay in full.

As with many medical procedures in the US, the cost of a screening mammogram varies widely—from as low as $75 to more than $1,000, depending on location. For the wealthy, this is of little concern. For working-class women who cannot afford to pay out of pocket, it could mean the difference between life and death.

Egyptian regime hangs six after ex-president Mursi sentenced to death

Bill Van Auken

The Egyptian regime of General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi carried out the hanging Sunday of six individuals convicted in a frame-up military trial on terrorism charges. The mass execution came just one day after ousted President Mohamed Mursi was sentenced to death along with 105 other defendants in another politically motivated and rigged proceeding.

Together, these actions are emblematic of the vicious police-state character of the regime in Cairo, which is a key pillar of US and Western European imperialist interests in the Middle East. The judicial proceedings that led to the death sentences for the six men hanged Sunday constituted a cruel farce.

The six were charged with killing nine members of the state security forces during armed operations claimed by the Sinai-based Islamic militant group Ansar Beit al-Maqdis during March 2014.

Known as the Arab Sharkas case, after the village north of Cairo where the defendants were allegedly captured in a police raid on a warehouse, the prosecution was based on lies and fabrications from beginning to end.

The security forces who raided the warehouse reported that they had killed six men there, leaving no one alive. Lawyers and family members of the accused told Amnesty International that three of the men had been arrested were secretly imprisoned at the time of their alleged crimes, while the other three had been arrested and held incommunicado in an army jail before the raid in Arab Sharkas.

Calling the trial “grossly unfair,” Amnesty noted that the case was based upon confessions that the defendants said were extracted under torture.

The same methods utilized against the men who were hanged Sunday were employed in the trial of Mursi and his 105 codefendants. The charges against them stemmed from a mass prison break in which they were freed from illegal administrative detention. Their jailing had been ordered by the former dictator, Hosni Mubarak, as part of a state of emergency aimed at crushing the January 25th Revolution of 2011, which ultimately forced him from power.

The case fabricated against Mursi and his codefendants rested on the allegation that the break from Cairo’s Wadi al-Natroun prison had been a conspiracy developed between the Muslim Brotherhood, the Palestinian group Hamas, the Lebanese Shia movement Hezbollah and “varied criminals.” They were accused of damaging and setting fire to prison buildings, killing guards and looting weapons.

In reality, prisoners testified at the time that they were herded out of the jail by armed men dressed in civilian clothes who threatened to kill them if they did not leave. One witness reported that the men assured them that they had nothing to fear because “we’re not patrolling the streets anymore,” leading them to understand that they were members of the Mubarak regime’s security forces.

As for the supposed Hamas connection, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu-Zuhri revealed that some of the Hamas members named as codefendants in the case against Mursi had died before Egypt’s 2011 uprising even took place, while others were serving long prison terms in Israeli jails at the time of the alleged offenses.

Similarly, the civilian kangaroo court issued death sentences for 16 other defendants, including Muslim Brotherhood leaders Mohamed El Beltagy and Khairat El Shater, on charges of espionage and “conspiring with foreign powers”—namely Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard—to destabilize Egypt.

Mursi was also charged in this second case, but no ruling against him or 18 other defendants was announced Saturday. It has been postponed until June 2, leading to speculation that he will probably not receive a second death sentence, but rather be condemned to life imprisonment.

Among those sentenced to die in this second conspiracy trial was one woman, 28-year-old Sondos Asem, a member of Mursi’s Freedom and Justice Party (the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood) who served as the former international media coordinator for Mursi’s administration, edited the movement’s online English-language web site and was part of the group’s foreign relations committee. She was tried in absentia.

Also sentenced to die in this second trial was Emad Shahin, a professor at Georgetown University and a visiting scholar at Columbia University in the US, who was likewise tried in absentia.

Following the court’s decision, Shahin declared in a statement: “For over two years, the army and security agencies have staged a counterrevolution against all those associated with the January 25 Revolution, combating the aspirations of Egyptians for building a free and democratic society. Agencies that are supposed to serve the people are instead oppressing them.”

Indeed, the handing down of death sentences against Mursi and his codefendants is only the latest in a series of repressive measures. The junta formed by Sisi unleashed a bloodbath in the wake of the July 2013 coup that ousted Mursi, massacring over 1,000 protesters in Cairo’s Rabaa Square. Over 40,000 Egyptians have been imprisoned on political charges.

The principal target of this violent state repression is the Egyptian working class, which was the principal social actor in the mass upheavals that overthrew Mubarak. The criminalization of all forms of social opposition and protest and the branding of all opposition to the ruling regime as “terrorism” is meant to quell the movement of the Egyptian workers, which erupted into a massive strike wave before, during and after the events of January and February of 2011.

Late last month, an Egyptian court ruled that any strike by workers in the state sector was against the “public interest” and that anyone participating in a walkout or sit-in would be summarily fired from their jobs. The ruling also stated that strikes were a violation of Islamic sharia law. The decision provoked outrage among public employees and warnings that it would soon be extended to the private sector.

The United States is “deeply concerned” about the Egyptian court decision to seek the death penalty against Mursi, a State Department official said on Sunday, speaking to the media only on condition of anonymity. Such ritualistic statements of “concern” over the Sisi regime’s crimes cannot mask the fact that this brutal repression enjoys firm support from Washington.

The State Department official neither disputed the grotesquely fabricated charges against Mursi and his codefendants, nor challenged the appropriateness of their being sentenced to hang. Rather, this toothless protest concerned itself only with the form of the judicial railroading, suggesting that “mass trials and mass sentences” are illegitimate.

At the same time, the US official stressed that the sentences were only “preliminary,” echoing the Sisi regime’s own response to international outrage over the court rulings.

Under the civilian court system in Egypt, the sentences are subject to a nonbinding review by the country’s chief Muslim cleric, the Grand Mufti, as well as a separate judicial appeal. The state-controlled media has charged that criticism of the mass death sentence was “unfair” because of its supposedly preliminary character. It stressed that in the last such mass ruling in April, in which 683 individuals were sentenced to hang; objections from the mufti led to the death sentences being confirmed for “only” 183 of them.

Behind its human rights pretenses, the real position of the Obama administration has been made clear through its restoration of full military aid to the Egyptian regime, amounting to some $1.3 billion annually. It both relies on Sisi’s police state to quell the revolutionary strivings of the Egyptian working class and to provide it with local forces to intervene on behalf of imperialism in neighboring countries, including both Libya and Yemen.

UK government counter-terrorism bill would criminalize speech, political activity

Jordan Shilton

The Conservative government in Britain is preparing to enact new legislation that, under the guise of the “war on terror,” will vastly expand police-state powers and essentially criminalize speech and other political activity.

Presented officially as an anti-terrorism bill, the proposed measures will be targeted at any popular opposition to the government’s policies of aggressive militarism abroad and austerity measures in Britain.

Following his party’s victory in the May 7 general election, Prime Minister David Cameron announced the proposal at last week’s National Security Council (NSC) meeting. The meeting, chaired by Cameron, brings together leading government officials with the heads of Britain’s security agencies.

The new bill will include a series of measures targeting groups and individuals deemed by the government to be “extremist.” This term is defined so vaguely as to encompass a wide array of political activity.

The new bill will create extremist “disruption orders” for individuals and “banning orders” for groups. The targets for these new police powers will be those who have conducted “harmful” behaviour.

According to the Guardian, the “harmful” behaviour covers activities that pose “a risk of public disorder, a risk of harassment, alarm or distress or creating a ‘threat to the functioning of democracy’.”

This will be used to criminalise campaigns critical of government policy and protests, which are frequently dispersed by the police on precisely the grounds that they disrupt public order. The language also indicates that the government would have the authority to target those merely planning such activity prior to it taking place.

Extremist disruption orders will permit the government to take action against individuals considered to have engaged in such harmful behaviour, or whom the government claims have attempted to “radicalise” youth.

The orders contain bans on individuals broadcasting their views on television, and anyone subject to an order will be compelled to submit any written publication, including social media posts, to the police before it is printed. In addition, the orders will make it illegal for individuals to attend or address public gatherings or protests.

OffCom, the broadcast regulator, is to be given powers to move against channels judged to be broadcasting “extremist” material. The charity commission will be able to take action against charities that “fund terrorism.”

Banning orders will allow the government to outlaw “extremist” organisations. If such a move is taken, anyone found to be a member of the organisation will be guilty of a criminal offence. Authorities will also be able to shut down premises used by groups to promote “extremism.”

Human rights group Privacy International branded the new proposal as an “assault on the rights of ordinary British citizens.”

Islamist groups will not be the main focus of the new law. As the Guardian ’s home affairs editor wrote in an analysis of the proposal, “the official definition of non-violent extremism is already wide-ranging and, as Big Brother Watch has pointed out, the national extremism database already includes the names of people who have done little more than organise meetings on environmental issues.”

The requirement that the government apply to the courts to obtain such orders will do little to prevent their abuse. The government has repeatedly invoked national security considerations to present evidence to the courts in secret. It even intended to hold an entire terrorism trial in secret last year before abandoning it at the last minute. The declaration of a national security threat would thus permit government claims about an individual or group to go unchallenged in the courts by an independent lawyer, since the only individuals allowed access to such information are government-appointed legal representatives.

Together with a sweeping attack on democratic rights and legal norms, the Conservatives’ anti-terror bill will further advance the government’s right-wing agenda of whipping up anti-immigrant sentiment. New powers will be established to deny immigrants entry on the grounds of preaching extremist views.

Cameron’s proposals make clear that the Conservatives are determined to vastly expand the repressive powers of the state, including by reintroducing the controversial “snooper’s charter” which would grant intelligence agencies the power to conduct mass surveillance and store data from emails and other internet data from social networking sites and messaging services. It will also allow authorities to access encrypted messages.

Cameron claimed that the UK has been a “‘passively tolerant society’ for too long, saying to our citizens: as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone.”

This extraordinary declaration is a backhanded acknowledgement that those who Cameron intends to target with the new law have committed no crime under the existing legal system.

“This government will conclusively turn the page on this failed approach. As the party of one nation, we will govern as one nation and bring our country together. That means actively promoting certain values. Freedom of speech. Freedom of worship. Democracy. The rule of law. Equal rights regardless of race, gender or sexuality,” Cameron proclaimed.

Cameron’s reference to “one nation” were especially sinister. It suggests that anyone challenging the political interests of the British ruling class and championing the rights and interests of the working class will be targeted for surveillance and repression.

The “values” Cameron talks about promoting are precisely those that have been used by successive governments to wage aggressive wars abroad to uphold British imperialist interests, and carry through an assault on social and democratic rights at home.

These policies have seen British imperialism, alongside American imperialism, aligned with some of the very Islamist forces it now seeks to present as the greatest threat to the country. In the 2011 regime change operation in Libya, Britain participated in the NATO bombing campaign that toppled the Gaddafi regime, while supplying weapons to Islamist groups in the country. Many of these groups had ties to Al Qaida and later moved to Syria with CIA support, where some elements came together to form the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

The assertion that Britain has been “passively tolerant” for too long is a lie. The entire political establishment, including the opposition Labour Party, has been complicit in erecting the framework of a police state in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001 and the London bombings in 2005.

The Labour government under Tony Blair brought forward “anti-terror” measures in 2001 that included wide-ranging police powers to detain suspects for crimes committed under an expanded definition of terrorism. In 2006, a further law allowed the prosecution of those “encouraging” terrorism, which saw individuals put on trial purely for making statements or posting videos online that had no connection to a specific terrorist attack.

However, the push to go even further has been growing for some time. In the wake of the attacks on the offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo earlier this year, political figures and intelligence operatives criticised Britain’s anti-terror laws for not doing enough to monitor the Internet.

The planned actions in the UK are part of an escalating international assault on democratic rights. Earlier this month, the French National Assembly passed legislation sanctioning mass spying and other police state measures. Also this month, the Canadian House of Commons passed the “Anti-Terror Act,” which gave the state vast new powers, including the ability to target any activities declared a danger to “national security.”

US special forces stage raid into Syria

Patrick Martin

The US government said Saturday that soldiers in the elite Delta Force, the main Pentagon Special Forces unit, had carried out a raid into eastern Syria, killing a leader of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and other members of the Islamic extremist group.

The Pentagon identified the high-level ISIS official as a Tunisian who had assumed the name Abu Sayyaf (Arabic for “father of the sword”). According to the US government, when he fought back against the attacks, the commandos killed him and a dozen other men, before returning to Iraq with two female captives.

President Obama gave the order for the raid, the White House said, based on the “unanimous recommendation” of US national security officials, and with the consent of the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi for the use of Iraqi bases to launch the attack inside Syria.

US press coverage supplemented the brief announcement by Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, giving details of the raid supplied in unattributed interviews from Obama administration officials in both the White House and Pentagon.

By these accounts, US Huey helicopters and Osprey vertical takeoff planes transported the Delta Force commandos from a base in Iraq to the location at al-Amr, the largest Syrian oil field, about 20 miles south of Deir el Zour in the eastern desert.

The commandos allegedly encountered resistance when they attempted to seize Abu Sayyaf and his wife, and killed him and a dozen other ISIS fighters, before retreating under fire to their aircraft and returning to Iraq with two women: Umm Sayyaf, the ISIS leader’s wife, and a Yazidi woman in their household. The US troops suffered no casualties despite the supposedly fierce firefight and “hand-to-hand” combat.

Weekend news reports in the United States were devoted to celebratory accounts of the raid and the daring of the Special Forces commandos, the “courage” of Obama in ordering the attack, ad nauseam, with no discussion of the likely consequences of such military actions becoming more frequent in the future.

None of the details provided in the press accounts can be accepted as fact, given that the US officials refused to provide details that could be independently verified. Such anonymous leaked accounts have been used to plant false reports, most notoriously in relation to the May 1, 2011 commando raid that killed Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

A lengthy exposé by veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, published May 10 by the London Review of Books, argued that virtually every detail of the raid that killed bin Laden was falsified by US official spokesmen, from President Obama on down.

Similarly, the claims about Friday’s raid should be treated as entirely unproven at this stage. The US government has admitted that its troops entered Syria without notifying the government of that country, making its operations there completely illegal under international law. Anything beyond that remains to be demonstrated.

Syrian official television initially claimed that the raid was conducted by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, not those of the United States, and that five leaders of ISIS were among the dead, including a Tunisian, a Chechen, a Turk, a Saudi and an Iraqi.

The White House adamantly denied the Syrian claim. National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan told reporters, “The US government did not coordinate with the Syrian regime, nor did we advise them in advance of this operation.”

Meehan continued, using a different acronym for Islamic State, “We have warned the Assad regime not to interfere with our ongoing efforts against ISIL inside of Syria. The Assad regime is not and cannot be a partner in the fight against ISIL.”

This statement has ominous implications. What will happen if US forces come into contact with Syrian government forces during future operations like Friday’s raid? There is every reason to believe that a major purpose of such incursions into Syrian airspace and Syrian territory is to create a pretext for a direct US attack on the Syrian army and the Assad government.

There was some substantiation of at least part of the Syrian television account of the raid on the al-Amr oilfield. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group hostile to Assad and aligned with efforts to promote foreign intervention in Syria to overthrow the regime, reported that the US special forces raid killed 32 ISIS fighters, including four leaders, identifying them as “IS oil chief Abu Sayyaf, the deputy IS defence minister, and an IS communications official.”

This puts the death toll at much higher than reported by the Pentagon, and confirms the Syrian claim that a group of ISIS leaders, not just one, were killed.

The exact circumstances of the raid may not be known for some time. But the political context in which it takes place suggests a significant escalation by the Obama administration.

The raid is the fourth US special forces operation in the Middle East in less than a year, including an unsuccessful raid last summer on an ISIS facility in Raqqa, allegedly to rescue US hostages who were later executed, and two unsuccessful raids in Yemen in November and December, supposedly to rescue an American held prisoner by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). The American AQAP prisoner and a South African fellow captive were killed during the second raid.

Meanwhile, US-led airstrikes on ISIS targets across eastern Syria continue. In the 24 hours ending Sunday morning, the Pentagon reported eight bombing attacks, including six near the city of Hasakah, in the northeast, and two near Kobani, a Kurdish-populated town where a lengthy ISIS siege was broken by US saturation bombing.

In an editorial published May 13, the Washington Post urged the Obama administration to openly declare the goal of its intervention in Syria to be the overthrow of the Assad government. Pointing to the mounting disagreements between Obama and the Gulf sheikdoms, reflected in the near-boycott of last week’s Camp David meeting by four of the six Gulf monarchs, the Post declared, “But there is a way that Mr. Obama could serve both US interests and those of the Gulf allies: by attacking the Middle East’s most toxic and destabilizing force, the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria.”

China-Sri Lanka: Maritime Infrastructure and India’s Security

Roshni Thomas

When the new government of Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena decided to review every Chinese investment approved by the previous President Mahinda Rajapakse’s government – including the Colombo Port Expansion Project (CPEP) – many believed this would lay the groundwork for Sri Lanka’s China policy.

Indian observers keenly monitored developments to see if the CPEP would be approved, as a disapproval of the project would lead to probable closer relations with India. Much to India’s dismay, the Sri Lankan government approved the $1.4 billion project in April 2015, indicating that Sirisena’s foreign policy was going to be rather China-friendly.

Why Does China Invest in Sri Lanka’s Maritime Infrastructure?China depends heavily on Africa and West Asia for its oil and gas imports. Beijing has revamped its policy to have strategic influence in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) to reduce its dependence on the Malacca straits.

China’s cargo ships have tremendously increased in size to accommodate the growing trade. These state-of-the-art cargo ships require modern ports to handle logistics.

Sri Lanka receives a great deal of its revenue due to its strategic position in the Indian Ocean.  Economically Colombo would greatly benefit from the modernisation of its ports. China has a strong involvement in Sri Lankan ports; for instance, the re-structuring and revamping projects for both Colombo and Hambantota ports have been commissioned to Beijing. These ports will now be developed to accommodate the large-sized cargo vessels.

China is economically aggressive in its approach and invests wherever it can reap benefits from. Sri Lanka knows it needs to build on its strengths of occupying a strategic geographical position in the IOR. Thus, it’s a win-win situation for both countries.

But is this engagement solely an old-fashioned trade and economic exchange or are there ulterior motives to the Chinese economic activity?

In September 2014, New Delhi was alarmed when Sri Lanka agreed to dock China’s warship and nuclear submarine at the Colombo port – that is controlled by a Chinese developer. Warship Chang Xing Dao and submarine Changzheng-2 arrived at the southern port of Colombo, supposedly for refuelling purposes. New Delhi raised concerns about Chinese influence in the Palk Strait, located in close proximity to the Indian coastline.  With the construction of these new ports, will India witness more Chinese warships and submarines at its doorstep in the name of anti-piracy rounds in the Gulf of Aden?

To matters complex, India does benefit from the re-construction and modernisation of Colombo Port as over 70 per cent of India’s trading ships make halts at Colombo. This is due to an age old Indian policy that does not allow merchant ships to make more than one port call at a time on the Indian coast. These ships have to invariably go through Sri Lanka. This is due to the lack of facilities in our domestic ports and our outdated maritime policy.

Why India Needs to ReactMost of India’s trade passes through Sri Lanka, which makes the latter a key component of ensuring India’s security. New Delhi’s inability to invest in Colombo and Beijing’s growing readiness is a matter of concern. There is an urgent need to modify our maritime policies in the light of the changing global maritime environment.

India may not undertake large commercial investments like China, but it invests on the lines of aid –unlike Chinese investments, which are in the form of loans.
  

Besides the construction of ports in Sri Lanka, the state-owned China National Electronic Import and Export Corporation (CNEIEC) has also undertaken the $103 million Lotus Tower project. The CNEIEC is involved in defence electronics and other military services. It is not difficult to believe that the Lotus Tower, the tallest in South Asia, will be used as a surveillance facility. This not only raises security concerns in India but also in the broader South Asian region.

India does not have the required investment capability to match or outbid the Chinese capacity, but is not investing hampering our security? There are also growing concerns due to the flourishing China-Pakistan bilateral.  India may be unable to, and will not, directly counter China. However, it could adopt a collective security mechanism along with other regional powers. This would be a much-needed pragmatic approach to counter China’s influence in the region.

Given the evolving geopolitics in the larger IOR, India has begun playing a more strategic role. There are great expectations from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recently-concluded China visit, (that preceded his visits to Mongolia and South Korea). Is this India’s response to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visits to India’s neighbours? Most countries in Asia are apprehensive about their relations with China. With China’s phenomenal rise, it is understood that they do not hesitate to exploit but India still maintains a more fair and peace-oriented image among its neighbours. With the Indian Ocean being an integral factor for security, it is time for Modi to apply his best diplomatic efforts with the rest of the Asian countries to bring about greater cooperation and security in the region before the string of pearls becomes a hangman’s knot.

The Whole Truth About Israel In One Sentence

Alan Hart

It was written by Gideon Levy, the conscience of Israeli journalism, in an article for Ha'aretz, and here it is.

QUOTE

The two-state solution is dead (it was never born); the Palestinian state will not arise; international law does not apply to Israel; the occupation will continue to crawl quickly to annexation, annexation will continue to crawl quickly toward an apartheid state; "Jewish" supersedes "democracy", nationalism and racism will get the stamp of government approval, but they're already here and have been for a long time.

UNQUOTE

The somewhat satirical headline over Gideon's article was Stop whining, Long live Israel's new and honest government. He set the scene for his one sentence statement of the truth with these words.

QUOTE

The 34th government will deserve Israel; Israel will deserve the 34th government. This is an authentic and representative government, the true manifestation of the spirit of the times and the deepest feelings of most Israelis. It will be a true government, without pretence, without makeup and without self-justification. What we’ll see is what we’ll get. Welcome to the fourth Benjamin Netanyahu government.

They won’t talk haughtily and they won’t spout hollow slogans. Not about peace and not about human rights; not about two states and not about negotiations; not about international law, justice or equality. The truth will be thrust in the faces of Israelis and the world.

UNQUOTE

Born in Tel Aviv in 1953 to Czech parents who fled from the Nazi holocaust, Gideon started life as a normal Israeli - brainwashed by Zionist propaganda. He has described his political views as a teenager as typically mainstream. "I was a full member of the nationalistic religious orgy. We all were under the feeling that the whole project (of Israel) is in an existentialistic danger. We all felt that another holocaust is around the corner."

Today Gideon describes himself as a "patriotic Israeli" and the target he constantly fires at is what he sees as Israel's "moral failure".

In 2007 he wrote that the plight of the of the Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip made him "ashamed to be an Israeli".

And after Israel's last war on it he wrote this. "The conclusion is that Israel is a violent and dangerous country, devoid of all restraints and blatantly ignoring the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, while not giving a hoot about international law."

Gideon describes his "modest mission" as being "to prevent a situation in which many Israelis will be able to say 'We didn't know.'"

In my view that's not a modest mission. It's awesome and perhaps a mission impossible. Why? Another part of the truth which Gideon didn't mention is not only that most Israelis don't know what is being done to the Palestinians in their name - they don't want to know.

To say that Gideon Levy is courageous is an understatement. His truth-telling provoked a call for him to be put on trial for treason and he frequently receives death threats. I will not be surprised if one morning I wake up to the news that he has been assassinated.

The question arising from his one sentence statement of the truth is something like this. Is there any real sign of an end to what Ilan Pappe has described as "the continued apathy and indifference of the Western political elite and media to the plight of the Palestinians"?

The answer is "No" and that makes the Western political elite and media complicit, partly by design in the past but mainly by default today, in Israel's crimes.

The U.N. At 70: Is It Still Fit For The Purpose?

Julia Rainer

Events are being organized around the world to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations, but a recent seminar held in the Austrian capital was not held to applaud the body’s past contributions.

Rather, the 45th International Peace Institute (IPI) Seminar, held from May 6 to 7, saw representatives from the political, NGO, media and military sectors come together to discuss the organization’s capability to deal with the crises and challenges of the future.

There was consensus among participants that the difficulties in the realms of international peace and security are very different today from those that dominated the international community at the time of the foundation of the United Nations in 1945.

Not only has the number of member states quadrupled since then, the global scenario has seen the entry of non-state “actors” such as criminals and terrorists representing a real threat to stability of the international system that the United Nations was set up to safeguard.

At the same time, the planet is afflicted by other threats that do not stop at national borders, such as climate change, pandemics and wars, which have global dimensions and are extremely difficult to contain in our globalised world.

As Martin Nesirky, Director of the United Nations Information Service (UNIS) in Vienna, put it: “The UN grew from the ashes of World War Two and there has been no global conflict since then, but neither has there been global peace.”

This year, debate about reform of the United Nations comes at a time that represents a possibility for change and action on two major fronts.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), although they have not yet been fully realized, are being pushed forward in the spirit of adapting a new development agenda in the form of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Furthermore, there are hopes that a global agreement on climate change will finally be reached in Paris in December at the U.N. Climate Change Conference.

According to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, “this is not just another year, this is the chance to change the course of history.”

However, the not all participants at the IPI seminar were convinced that the United Nations could fulfil its destined role without adapting to the fast changing circumstances that shape the world community.

A hotly debated issue was the long demanded reform of the U.N. Security Council and the power of veto held by its five permanent members – China, United States, France, United Kingdom and Russian Federation – which were said not to represent the world community.
Some participants noted that the current geopolitical situation is marked by a breakdown of power relations which have complicated the work of the United Nations enormously.

Richard Gowan, Research Director at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation (CIC) and a Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), expressed his concern about the escalation of power struggles in recent years.

“Tensions between Russia and the West, and to some extent China and the West, have severely impaired the UN’s ability to deal with the Syrian crisis and stopped the UN having a serious role in the Ukrainian crisis altogether.”

He called for resolution of ongoing geopolitical competition to enable the United Nations to regain the strength to deal with pressing crises” and warned that “if the Security Council breaks down, the rest of the UN will ultimately break down.”

Meanwhile, as the world faces the most severe refugee crisis since the Second World War, it was stressed that the proper functionality of international institutions – and of the United Nations in particular – is of the highest importance. More than 53 million people worldwide have been forcibly displaced today, a figure equal to the entire population of South Korea.

The last tragic incidents of hundreds of refugees drowning in the Mediterranean have shown that the international community is failing to ensure the security of those seeking a safe future in Europe. “Desperation has no measure and no cost,” said Louise Aubin, Deputy Director of the Department of International Protection at the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

During her work for the U.N. refugee agency, Aubin came face to face with the situation of the world’s largest refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya, situated some 100 kilometres from the Kenya-Somalia border, which houses an estimated 500,000 Somali refugees, some of whom are third generation born in the camp.

“It’s impossible for me to explain as a parent that I would actually accept that situation,” Aubin said.” There is no way I would not do anything in my power to try to send my children somewhere else. And that somewhere else is across the Mediterranean.”

In the light of the recent tragedies suffered by refugees, participants said that it is necessary to create safe access to asylum in order for refugees to enjoy the rights that are theirs under international law.

It is clear that this responsibility does not lie only with the United Nations, they agreed, pointing to the role of the European Union in dealing with refugee flows.

However, both the United Nations and the European Union are only as strong as their member states allow them to be.

If the UN at 70 turns out not be fit for the purpose, it has to take immediate measures to become so – otherwise it would be letting down people in need and compromising its legitimacy.

The Rohingyas: Stop Persecution, End The Exodus

Hassanal Noor Rashid

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.

TheseRohingya 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 Rohingyapeople --- 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.

TheRohingyas 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 morphsinto 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.

(1.) Equal Right Trust (2014) Equal Only in Name: The Human Rights of Stateless Rohingya in Thailand