Separatist candidates win seats in Hong Kong election

Peter Symonds

The outcome of last Sunday’s election for Hong Kong’s legislature has been a political blow to the Chinese regime with wins by six political activists who were prominent in the protracted protests in 2014 against Beijing’s anti-democratic strictures.

The demonstrations in 2014 erupted in opposition to Beijing’s decision to allow universal suffrage in the 2017 election for Hong Kong’s powerful chief executive, but only for candidates selected by a stacked nomination committee. The protests, which occupied key areas of the city for months and at times swelled to around 100,000, eventually dwindled and were finally dispersed by police.

The organisations which dominated the protests—the Hong Kong Federation of Students, the young organisation Scholarism, and Occupy Central—had no orientation to the working class and made no broader appeal to workers and youth over unemployment, social inequality and the lack of public services.

These groups had no fundamental differences with the so-called pan-democrats who represent layers of Hong Kong’s elite which seek greater autonomy for the former British colony that was handed back to China in 1997. They fear that Beijing’s greater involvement in Hong Kong’s political and economic life will undermine their business interests.

The new parties that were formed following the protests reflected the deep frustration among layers of youth in particular that nothing had changed. Their demands, including in some cases for full independence from China, go much further than the conservative pan-democrats and are combined with parochial and xenophobic attitudes to Chinese mainlanders.

The Chinese government’s refusal to make any, even cosmetic, concessions to the protestors has fuelled a marked increase in separatist sentiment in Hong Kong that was reflected in Sunday’s election. A university poll in July found that 17 percent of respondents supported independence from China with the figure rising to 40 percent among those aged 15 to 24.

The turnout, while still relatively low at 58 percent, was the highest of any election since 1997, up from 53 percent in 2012.

The six protest figures who won in Sunday’s election for the Legislative Council or Legco were Sixtus Leung, 30; Nathan Law, 23; Lau Siu-lai, 40; Eddie Chu, 38; Yau Wai-ching, 25; and Cheng Chung-tai, 33.

Nathan Law, the youngest person ever elected to the Legco, founded the new political party Demosisto in April along with another Scholarism leader, Joshua Wong, who at 19 was too young to stand as a candidate. Demosisto’s manifesto stopped short of calling for full independence from China, instead advocating “self-determination” and a referendum in 10 years’ time to allow voters to decide Hong Kong’s future after 2047.

Hong Kong was returned to China on the basis of “one country, two systems” to ensure that the territory remained a major Asian financial centre. Underpinning its legal system is the Basic Law, which stipulated that Hong Kong was part of China and that the Legco and chief executive would eventually be elected by universal suffrage. The Basic Law is due to expire in 2047.

Prior to last weekend’s election, Hong Kong authorities insisted that all candidates sign a statement declaring that the territory was “an inalienable part of China.” Six candidates were excluded, even though all but one had signed the declaration. In rejecting them, the government said it did not believe their signatures were sincere.

Sixtus Leung and Yau Wai-ching both stood as candidates for Youngspiration, a party formed in 2015 that is explicitly hostile to immigrants and tourists from the Chinese mainland. In July last year, the grouping organised a protest on the reactionary demand that Hong Kong authorities deport a 12-year-old boy who had overstayed a visa and lived with his grandparents for nine years.

Speaking after Sunday’s election, Leung declared that his vision was for an independent Hong Kong. “We think that Hong Kong people are somehow different from other nations, like [the] Chinese. We have different cultures, we have different languages, we have different currencies, and our economic system is different from theirs,” he said.

These parochial sentiments take a particularly vile form with the emergence of the xenophobic Civic Passion which is deeply hostile to socialism, falsely equating it with the Stalinist regime in Beijing. Formed in 2012, it has branded Chinese mainlanders as “locusts” who come to Hong Kong to take jobs and educational opportunities from the city’s residents and drive up prices, especially for housing.

Cheng Chung-tai, a teaching fellow at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, led Civic Passion protests last year against so-called parallel traders—that is, those who buy goods in Hong Kong to take back to China. Civic Passion has clashed with police and aggressively confronted Chinese shoppers claiming they are driving up prices in Hong Kong.

Civic Passion is bitterly opposed to any suggestion of a joint struggle in Hong Kong and China against the government in Beijing, criticising the pan-democrats for their limited calls for democratic rights in China. “For many years, we have seen that many political parties used the slogan of ‘Serve Hong Kong: create a democratic China.’ But we have had enough of it,” Cheng said after the election. “This is our last chance to take an aggressive strategy [against the Hong Kong government].”

The six new legislators will have limited voting clout in the 70-seat legislature. This so-called “localist” group, together with the pan-democrats, holds about a third of the seats as only 40 are directly elected and the remaining 30 are selected from “functional constituencies” representing professions, trades and other interest groups. These associations tend to choose pro-Beijing legislators.

The Chinese government has responded to the election result with threats. As reported by the state-owned Xinhua news agency, a Chinese official declared on Monday: “We resolutely oppose any form of ‘Hong Kong independence’ activity either inside or outside the Legislative Council, and strongly support the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region’s punishing it under the law.”

Beijing fears that any moves towards independence in Hong Kong could encourage similar separatist movements in other parts of China, including Tibet and Xinjiang, to more aggressively pursue their demands. It is already under intense pressure from the US, which is engaged in a diplomatic offensive and military build-up throughout the Asia Pacific aimed against China.

Washington will be following the political development in Hong Kong closely to see if the “localist” movement can be exploited to weaken Beijing. The CIA has longstanding connections with Tibetan and Uighur exile communities that are pressing for greater autonomy or independence for Tibet and Xinjiang.

None of these movements represents the interests of the working class. Rather they speak for layers of the local bourgeoisie and upper middle class who regard Beijing’s dominance as an impediment to their own business interests and careers but are deeply hostile to the struggles of workers.

The working class in Hong Kong can only fight for its democratic and social rights by turning to workers in China, throughout Asia and the world in a joint struggle against capitalism on the basis of socialist internationalism.

Mounting evidence of British “boots on the ground” in Syria

Jean Shaoul

Yesterday, Britain hosted the High Negotiation Committee (HNC), representing more than 30 Syrian political and military forces seeking the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad.

UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson used the occasion to urge Russia to stop supporting the government and commit to a supposedly “democratic transition.” However, this only underscores the increasingly prominent role the UK is playing in the US-led regime change operation, including a covert and illegal military role on the ground with the aim of carving up Syria into ethno-religious enclaves.

Pictures published by the BBC in August showed a British Special Air Service (SAS) unit operating in Syria near an army base belonging to “rebel forces” close to the Syria-Iraq border. The pictures confirmed an earlier BBC report in March 2015 on British Special Forces’ operations on the front line, in defiance of the 2013 House of Commons vote against military intervention in Syria, which former Prime Minister David Cameron had promised to honour. Last December, parliament voted to support an air campaign against Islamic State (ISIS-Daesh) in Syria, but not the use of ground troops and Special Forces.

The secret deployment of the SAS is of a piece with the government’s campaign of lies, deceit and disinformation throughout the five-year-long civil war that has killed more than 400,000 people and displaced nearly half the Syrian population.

The war to topple the Assad regime is aimed at undermining the regional influence of his allies, Iran and Russia.

The Guardian recently produced further evidence of Cameron’s flouting of parliament’s officially declared wishes and disregard of the electorate. According to leaked contract documents, dated November 2014, soon after the 2013 vote, the government secretly began funding a press office for the US and UK’s proxies in Syria, as part of Cameron’s “propaganda war against ISIS.”

The Foreign Office, in conjunction with the Ministry of Defence, hired contractors at a cost of millions to produce films, videos, military reports, radio broadcasts and social media posts in Arabic using the militias’ logos to deliver “strategic communications and media operations support to the Syrian moderate armed opposition” (MAO). Operating out of Istanbul, they were apparently using a front organisation, a humanitarian-style human rights organisation called the Conflict and Stability Fund.

It was part of a broader propaganda offensive focused on Syria, intended to promote “the moderate values of the revolution,” demonstrate the effectiveness of the MAO and create a climate of public opinion rejecting both the Assad regime and ISIS. The Guardian quoted a British source knowledgeable about the contracts as saying that the government was essentially running a “Free Syrian Army press office.”

The British government was closely monitoring their work and nothing was done without Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence approval.

The effort is in part an attempt to make good Britain’s failure, in 2013, to support military intervention in Syria which had angered Washington, as the Guardian ’s source explained. The films and propaganda sent a message to the US State Department and its regional allies that were arming the SFA and the so-called “moderate” groups, and “That’s good PR to go back to the Pentagon.”

The character of the so-called moderates Britain was supporting emerged in June 2015, during the trial in London of a Swedish man, Bherlin Gildo, who was accused of terrorism in Syria. The prosecution was forced to abandon the case after it became clear that British intelligence had been arming the very same rebel groups the defendant was charged with supporting. The defence argued the trial was an “affront to justice,” given that there was plenty of evidence the British state was providing “extensive support” to the armed Syrian opposition. It cited the example of MI6’s cooperation with the CIA in facilitating a “rat line” of arms transfers from Libya to the Syrian rebels in 2012, following the NATO-led toppling of the regime and the brutal murder of its leader, Muammar Gaddafi.

The government evidently viewed the contract to promote the Free Syrian Army as a holding operation until British military forces could participate openly, as it offered “the capability to expand back into the strategic space as and when the opportunity arises” [emphasis added.]

This was an open admission that British forces had been operating in Syria long before the government lost the 2013 vote.

In 2012, the Israeli website DEBKAfile, which has close links to Israel’s military intelligence, suggested that SAS Commandos were inside Syria conducting covert operations alongside the insurgents. Britain was also providing intelligence from its Cyprus bases on Syrian regime movements to Turkey to be passed on to the Free Syrian Army—something the Ministry of Defence only confirmed in October 2014.

In June 2012, it was widely reported that the prospect of British Special Forces entering Syria on the ground or operating on the Turkish border close to Aleppo, was growing. In 2014, a BBC Newsnight team reported that the British military had drawn up plans in 2012 to train 100,000 Syrian rebel forces. It was rejected as too risky after discussion in both Britain and the US.

However, the only “support” that the government told the public about in 2012 was the supply of “non-lethal” equipment to the Islamist militias in Syria, including vehicles, trucks and VSATs (small satellite systems for data communications), and training to the Syrian opposition forces. Just months later, the Daily Telegraph reported that British military “advisers” were operating on Syria’s borders, while the Croatian press reported that Britain had been participating in a major US airlift of heavy arms to Syrian rebels through Zagreb since November 2012, in defiance of a European Union embargo on sending weapons to Syria.

Further indirect evidence of Britain’s role is provided by a heavily redacted August 2012 US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) report, published by the right-wing watchdog Judicial Watch. The report noted that the US and its allies were supporting the armed insurgency in Syria knowing that it was dominated by Salafists, the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaida in Iraq. The US knew that these forces wanted to establish a Salafist state in eastern Syria, and this was “exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime.”

Given London’s close relationship with Washington, it is inconceivable that Britain was not “one of the supporting powers,” behind the Islamists from the earliest days of the Syrian civil war, and the attempt to divide the country. The Saudis were widely reported to be arming these forces and Britain, as one of Riyadh’s main arms suppliers, was therefore directly involved.

In September 2014, Cameron said there was a case for airstrikes against ISIS, but acknowledged this would need parliament’s approval. Nevertheless, in July 2015, it emerged that British forces were taking part in airstrikes in Syria, alongside US and Canadian forces, without such approval.

The lies and subterfuge follow inexorably from the government’s commitment to wars of aggression, which have no popular mandate, in support of the financial elite’s predatory commercial interests in the oil-rich region. This underscores the political significance of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s refusal to insist on Labour MPs voting in line with Labour’s policy of opposing intervention in Syria and allowing a free vote on December 2 last year.

Giving Labour’s warmongers free rein—including allowing then Shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn to sum up for the opposition in the debate with a speech applauded by the Conservatives—saw 66 Labour MPs vote with the government. By deliberately demobilising the substantial opposition within Labour’s membership to the right-wing, Corbyn’s actions both gave the Tories crucial cover for advancing their war plans and set the stage for the present efforts by the Blairites to remove him as leader and purge his supporters from the party.

Turkey prepares joint action with US in Syria

Bill Van Auken

The Turkish government is prepared to carry out a joint assault with the US on the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) “capital” in Raqqa, Syria, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has told the Turkish media.

Erdogan made the remarks to journalists on board his plane returning from the G20 summit in Hangzhou, China, where he said US President Barack Obama had proposed the joint action.

“Obama particularly wants to do something together [with us] about Raqqa,” Erdogan said, according to the daily Hurriyet. “We have told him that this is not a problem for us.” He added that top level military commanders from both sides should meet and “then what is necessary will be done.”

Turkey launched what it has dubbed “Operation Euphrates Shield” two weeks ago, sending troops and tanks across its border to attack both ISIS positions and those of the Syrian Kurdish separatists of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its armed wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG). The Kurdish forces have been employed as the Pentagon’s main proxy forces in terms of ground operations against ISIS, receiving weapons, funding, training and support from US special operations units on the ground in Syria.

Turkey has backed its own “rebels,” comprised of Sunni Turkmen and Arab Islamist militias, to not only attack ISIS but drive the Kurdish forces out of areas that they had wrested from ISIS with US backing. From the outset of the intervention, it has been evident that these forces are Turkey’s main target. Ankara fears that continued military successes by the YPG could consolidate an autonomous Kurdish region on its border and encourage Turkey’s own Kurdish separatist movement, the PKK, with which the Syrian Kurdish movement is politically aligned.

Turkey’s deputy prime minister, Nurettin Canikli, told the media that Turkish forces had so far killed a combined total of 110 ISIS and Kurdish fighters. Three Turkish soldiers were reportedly killed in an ISIS rocket attack on Tuesday, while another died at the outset of the offensive in clashes with the YPG.

The Turkish official added that, after having secured the border area, Turkish forces could push further into Syria.

It appears that is what the Turkish military is preparing. Syrian sources reported Wednesday that Turkish warplanes struck targets in the ISIS-held town of Al-Bab, which is 180 kilometers northeast on the highway leading to Raqqa. At least 14 civilians were reportedly killed in the Turkish bombardment.

A battle for control of Al-Bab could prove particularly bloody and involve multiple antagonists in addition to ISIS. Turkish forces and Turkish-backed Islamist militias are advancing on the town from the west, the Russian-backed Syrian army is within striking distance from the south and US-backed Kurdish forces are approaching from the north and east. The main Turkish objective appears to be to prevent the Kurdish militia from taking Al-Bab, which would allow them to join their main enclave in northeastern Syria with territory they control in the northwest.

Turkish officials are already speaking of the latest incursion carving out a “de facto safe zone” that would divide Syrian Kurdish controlled areas in the east and west of the border area and leave Turkey in a more or less permanent occupation of a swathe of Syrian territory.

A spokesperson for the YPG said that the group had asked US forces to take a stand in their defense against the Turkish offensive. “They replied that a decision will be made in Washington,” he said.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement Wednesday expressing concern over Turkey’s offensive into Syria. “This calls into question the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic,” it said, adding, “We call on Ankara to refrain from any steps which can further destabilize the situation in Syria.” It pointed out that the Turkish operation had been launched without either the permission of the Syrian government or authorization by the United Nations.

Turkey established closer relations with Moscow last month in the wake of the abortive July 15 coup, which was widely seen as having been backed by Washington. The de-escalation of tensions played a significant role in freeing Ankara’s hand to launch its Syrian operation. After an incident in November of last year in which Turkish warplanes ambushed and shot down a Russian jet in the border area, relations were broken and the threat of a major armed conflict between Russia and Turkey, a member of the US-led NATO alliance, rose sharply.

The Erdogan government now appears to be disposed to pursuing its own interests by playing off Washington and Moscow, whose strategic objectives Syria—under the veneer of a common struggle against terrorism—are diametrically opposed.

Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov are set to meet in Geneva on Thursday and Friday, the Russian Foreign Ministry reported. Washington has demanded the implementation of an immediate ceasefire, particularly in the area of Aleppo, where a government offensive has thrown back the Al Qaeda-linked militias that Washington and its allies have backed in the five-year-old war for regime change in Syria.

“We’re not going to take a deal that doesn’t meet our basic objectives,” US deputy national security advisor Benjamin Rhodes told reporters during a stop by President Obama in Laos.

These “objectives” were spelled out Wednesday in a 25-page “transition plan” issued by the so-called High Negotiations Committee, a front representing the Islamist militias and Syrian exile politicians aligned with various powers and their intelligence agencies that was cobbled together by the Saudi monarchy. It demands the ouster of “Bashar al-Assad and his clique” within six months and the installation of a “transitional governing body” that would rule the country for 18 months leading up to elections.

How such a body would be selected is not specified, but the transparent aim is to impose a regime in Damascus that would be aligned with Washington and its allies, thereby achieving US imperialist aims of furthering hegemony over the oil-rich Middle East and further isolating Russia and China.

The insistence on these objectives coupled with the increasing weakness of US-backed forces on the ground in Syria and the new aggressive intervention by NATO member Turkey are creating an extremely volatile situation in which the threat of a direct confrontation between the world’s two foremost nuclear powers, the US and Russia, is growing.

INSEAD Alumni Fund (IAF) Women’s Scholarship(s) 2017/2018

Brief description: The INSEAD Alumni Fund (IAF) is offering scholarships to Women from any country to study for an MBA degree at one of the world’s leading and largest graduate business schools, INSEAD

Application Deadline for January 2017 Class (Round 1): 6th June, 2016

Application Deadline for January 2017 Class (Round 2): closes 3rd August, 2016

Application Deadline for August 2017 Class (Round 1):  Opens 24th of October, 2016 – closes:5th November, 2016

Offered annually? Yes

Scholarship Name: INSEAD Alumni Fund (IAF) Women’s Scholarship(s)

Eligible Field of Study: Masters in Business Administration

About Scholarship: The INSEAD Alumni Fund (IAF), created in 1977, raises funds from alumni for INSEAD’s development. A significant portion is allocated to scholarships that will underwrite the breadth of diversity of INSEAD participants: country of origin, background, gender, etc. The IAF Women’s Scholarships support INSEAD’s commitment to bring outstanding women professionals to the MBA Programme and to increase representation of women in leadership positions in the business community. Some 10 to 15 awards are made per class and most are allocated at the time of admission based on merit.

Scholarship Offered Since: 1977

Scholarship Type: MBA Scholarships for women

Selection Criteria and Eligibility

INSEAD seeks bright, dynamic and motivated women who are making significant achievements in their professional and/or personal lives. Merit scholarships will be awarded to recognize these outstanding women. Their financial situation may also be taken into consideration.

Essay topic : No essay required

Number of Scholarships: 10 to 15 awards are made per class

Value of Scholarship: € 20,000

Duration of Scholarship: for the period of study

Eligible Countries: Any country

To be taken at (country): INSEAD, France.

How to Apply: To be considered for these scholarships please submit your application on line before the specified deadlines. Candidates will also be considered for the INSEAD Judith Connelly Delouvrier Scholarships.

Visit Scholarship webpage and description page for details

Sponsors: The INSEAD Alumni Fund (IAF)

What Obama Doesn’t Want You to Know About Uzbekistan

Ted Rall

Death is usually a sad event. The passing of a world leader, particularly one who brought stability to a tense part of the Muslim world for several decades, is typically cause for concern.

The death of Uzbekistani president Islam Karimov is not typical.

For the majority of the long-oppressed citizens of Uzbekistan, the end of one of the world’s bloodiest and most corrupt dictators — and, to our eternal shame, an American ally — is cause for joy and gleeful celebration.

The SOB died 82 years too late.

Except for the time Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson called it “a small, insignificant state…Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan,” the hell on earth created by Karimov doesn’t get much coverage in the news media. Few Americans could find this backwater on a map to save their lives. Yet Uzbekistan, once known as the underbelly of the USSR, is incredibly important. Which is why the rich and powerful – military generals, energy company executives, Hillary Clinton – know all about it.

Unfortunately for the Uzbeks, these American elites’ interest in their country has made their lives unspeakably miserable. And unless something radically unexpectedly takes place, that’s likely to continue. Which is why, during this presidential election season, American voters ought to ask the candidates most likely to win (Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump) as well as those who should be most likely to win (Jill Stein and Gary Johnson) how they would change American foreign policy in obscure/important places like Uzbekistan.

American policymakers care about Uzbekistan because it is an energy giant: one of the largest producers of natural gas in the world, a significant supplier of oil, and the fourth-largest source of gold in the world. Sitting smack dab in the middle of Central Asia, the nation has undeniable strategic importance. Uzbekistan has the region’s largest population, its most sophisticated infrastructure and its biggest cities: Tashkent, a city of 2.3 million people, even has a subway.  It also has the blockbuster tourist attractions: the Silk Road cities of Khiva, Bukhara and Samarkand should be on any world traveler’s wish list.

Uzbekistan is the only Central Asian republic with common borders with all of the others, as well as with perpetually troubled Afghanistan. Oil and gas pipelines to and from the biggest source of fossil fuels on earth, the Caspian Sea, crisscross this blisteringly hot, dry nation.

Given Uzbekistan’s tremendous oil, gas and mineral wealth and its geographically and geopolitically strategic importance, its citizens ought to enjoy a high standard of living. Instead, the average Uzbek subsists on $3 to $8 per day. Where does all that energy wealth go? Karimov, his family and cronies steal it. Gulnara Karimova, the deceased despot’s flamboyant chanteuse daughter, is accused of breaking in over $1 billion in bribes from telecommunications companies seeking permits to do business. Another daughter, Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva, is linked to shell companies that own gaudy multimillion estates in the U.S.

Cultural and ethnic heirs to Genghis Khan’s Golden Horde, Uzbeks are neither stupid nor lazy. It requires and incredibly brutal and ruthless military and police apparatus to prevent them from rising up and overthrowing their oppressors. So this is exactly what the Karimov regime has delivered since the country became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991. (Karimov kept his job as boss of the Uzbek SSR, which he scored from outgoing Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev.)

Uzbekistan is routinely awarded the world’s “Worst of the Worst” status for its extreme corruption and violations of fundamental human rights. Phones are tapped and militsia goons shake down motorists at innumerable checkpoints. Print and broadcast media are completely state-controlled. There’s a zero tolerance policy toward political opposition.

In 1999, Karimov said: “I am ready to rip off the heads of 200 people, to sacrifice their lives, for the sake of peace and tranquility in the country.” By which he meant his peace and tranquility.

Four percent of the population are subjected to slavery. At least 10,000 political prisoners are rotting in the nation’s prisons. Torture is standard and endemic; Team Karimov landed a rare spot in the news for boiling dissidents to death. In 2005, President Karimov asked security forces confronting protesters in the southern city of Andijon to wait for his arrival from the capital of Tashkent so he could personally witness and coordinate their massacre. An estimated 700 to 1200 Uzbeks were slaughtered. “People have less freedom here than under Brezhnev,” a U.S. official admitted.

Every now and then, some naïve US State Department official has issued a toothless tisk-tisk report documenting human rights abuses in Uzbekistan. But the Americans who run the show are obsessed with maintaining the country’s role in the Northern Distribution Network, a crucial aerial and ground supply line between the US and its European allies and the endless war against Afghanistan and Pakistan. They’re willing to do pretty much anything to protect the NDN — including funneling weapons to one of the most disgusting regimes on the planet.

In 2012, the Obama administration quietly lifted a post-Andijon ban on weapon sales. One major shipment included a 2015 delivery of 320 armored personnel vehicles to Karimov – exactly the kind of equipment an authoritarian state uses to crush demonstrations. “Perhaps worse than equipping a government so well-known for abuses against its own people and for its defiance of international norms with such powerful military equipment,” said Steve Swerdlow of Human Rights Watch, “is the message that the Obama administration is sending the people of Uzbekistan: that Islam Karimov has gotten away with it.”

American news accounts of Karimov’s death omitted America’s role propping him up.

It would be nice to hope that the flowers of democracy will sprout in the soil of the dictator’s grave. But years of suppression have destroyed the opposition groups that might have been able to step into power as part of a post-Karimov transition. The post-KGB security forces will continue to protect themselves and their kleptocratic bosses. Acting Uzbek president Nigmatulla Yuldashev will no doubt call for another of the country’s sham elections, which a hand-selected member of the ruling elite is predestined to win. And Obama will keep the military aid flowing.

This is the kind of thing that causes Muslims to hate us. It’s why we are a constant target of terrorism. But nothing is going to change there unless something changes at the top here.

Moral Idiocy in the Halls of Power

Lawrence Davidson

It was on 12 August 1949 that the nations of the world, with Nazi atrocities still in mind, updated what are known as the Geneva Accords. This constituted an effort to once again set limits on the wartime behavior of states and their agents. Among other things, the accords set the range of acceptable behavior toward prisoners of war, established protections for the wounded and the sick, and the necessary protections to be afforded civilian populations within and approximate to any war-zone. Some 193 countries, including the United States, have ratified these agreements. Now, as of August 2016, they are 67 years old. Have they worked? The answer is, in all too many cases, no.

In just about every major conflict since 1949 the Geneva Accords have been partially or completely ignored. Certainly that was the case in the Vietnam War, where civilian deaths came close to 1.5 million people. The treaties have had minimal impact in Afghanistan (during both the Russian and U.S. invasions), Iraq, the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, Russia’s military activity in Chechnya, and various conflicts in Africa and Asia. The International Red Cross, which oversees observance of the accords, has not been able to do much more than shine lights on the breaches of the law and pick up the bloody pieces in the aftermath. At the rate our nation-states slaughter the innocent, it is a wonder there is an overpopulation problem.

There are likely two main reasons why the Geneva Accords have had so little influence on behavior: hypocrisy and ignorance.

As to hypocrisy, it is the case that, except in rare instances, there are no serious consequences for violating the law. Particularly, if you are agents of a strong state, or the ally (like Israel) of a strong state, the chances of state leaders or agents being arrested for war crimes or crimes against humanity is exceedingly low.

One wonders why nations bothered writing and enacting the Geneva Accords in the first place. The reason might have been specific to the moment. Faced with the atrocious behavior of leaders and soldiers (it is most often the behavior of the defeated party that is pointed to, so think here of the Holocaust), and the immediate outcry this behavior produced, the pressure for some sort of reaction carried the world’s leaders forward to make and ratify agreements to prevent future repetitions of such crimes.

Yet, as it turns out, these were not serious efforts except when applied to the defeated and the weak. For the strong, it is one thing to enact an international law, it is another thing altogether to apply it to oneself or other strong states.

As to ignorance, to date it is obvious that the politicians and soldiers who wage war, or who are responsible for the arming and training of allies who do so, do not regard seriously, and in some cases are not even familiar with, the Geneva Accords. In my experience, they often cannot, or will not, discuss them when asked, and regard statements referencing the disobeying of illegal orders in the Uniform Code of Military Justice, to be rightfully honored only in the breach.

And that is the important point. We can safely say that when it comes to waging war, or for that matter, aiding and abetting others doing so, the accepted behavior of both soldiers, statesmen, and diplomats is that called moral idiocy.

Moral Idiocy is not something this writer, creative as he is, has simply made up. It is a real concept in psychology that has been around for over a century. However, in our increasingly relativistic societies, it has fallen into disuse. Briefly, it means the “Inability to understand moral principles and values and to act in accordance with them, apparently without impairment of the reasoning and intellectual faculties.” The key word here is “understand.” It is not that moral idiots do not know, intellectually, that something called morality exists, but rather they can not understand its applicability to their lives, particularly their professional lives. At best they think it is a personal thing that operates between friends or relatives and goes no further – a reduction of values to the narrowest of social spaces. This is paralleled by the absence of such values as guiding principles for one’s actions in the wider world.

There are innumerable examples of such apparent moral idiots acting within the halls of power. The following short list specific to the U.S. reflects the opinion of this writer: George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, John Bolton, Oliver North, Richard Nixon and, my favorite, Henry Kissinger. Those reading this both in and outside of the United States can, no doubt, make a list of their own.

A particular incident related to Henry Kissinger’s behavior gives us an excellent example of this moral failing. The story is told by Stephen Talbot, a journalist and documentary producer, who in the early 2000s interviewed Robert McNamara, who had been U.S. Secretary of Defense for much of the Viet Nam War years and was, by the 1990s, full of remorse and feelings of guilt for his behavior while in office. Then, shortly thereafter, Talbot interviewed Kissinger, who had been Richard Nixon’s Secretary of State and National Security Advisor during the Viet Nam War’s final years. Here is how Talbot describes what, for us, is the relevant part of his interview with Kissinger: “I told him I had just interviewed Robert McNamara in Washington. That got his attention. . . . and then he did an extraordinary thing. He began to cry. But no, not real tears. Before my eyes, Henry Kissinger was acting. ‘Boohoo, boohoo,’ Kissinger said, pretending to cry and rub his eyes. ‘He’s [McNamara] still beating his breast, right? Still feeling guilty.’ He spoke in a mocking, singsong voice and patted his heart for emphasis.”

Kissinger obviously held McNamara and his feelings of guilt in utter disdain. He had actually committed greater crimes than McNamara – crimes documented in Christopher Hitchens’s 2001 book, The Trial of Henry Kissinger – and yet apparently felt no remorse at all. How does one get like that?

Let’s start our speculation in this regard by stating that none of us is born with a gene that tells us right from wrong. Those notions are cultural, though some basic principles (say, seeing murder within one’s tribal or clan network as morally wrong) come close to being universal. Nonetheless, because we are not dealing with something genetic, it is quite possible that all of us have a potential for this moral failing. That being said, the vast majority of folks do successfully learn from their cultures that moral indifference is wrong and that committing what their society deems bad behavior should result in remorse and feelings of guilt. It also seems that a minority do not learn this, or learn it only superficially. Most of this minority, realizing that such indifference is viewed negatively, keep it hidden as much as they can. Yet when, on occasion, these closet moral idiots reach positions of power and influence, they can cause enormous damage.

There is a corollary to this. One can get socially sanctioned subgroups within which one is expected, at least temporarily, to act without reference to moral values. The military is a good example of this environment. And, under certain circumstances, so is the State Department or other foreign offices. In such a situation, most people “go with the flow” even if they know better, and then, in later life, some suffer from the trauma of the experience.

Moral idiocy can be seen as a very long-standing cultural flaw that often gives license to the violence that law and cultural mores are, simultaneously, trying to control. And, who are those who most often take advantage of this loophole? Ironically, it is the very people who lead our societies and those assigned to defend the culture and enforce the law. Lack of accountability makes for very poor public hygiene.

Undeclared War Of Sorts In Kashmir?

P.S. Sahni & Shobha Aggarwal

“Raina:      Some soldiers, I know, are afraid of death

Captain Bluntschli:        All of them, dear lady,

                                       All of them, believe me.”

-‘Arms and the Man’, George Bernard Shaw, 1894

Two months have passed since the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen Commander, Burhan Wani on 8 July, 2016. The imposition of curfew over Kashmir continues amid temporary relaxations; mobile internet service is shut down; attendance in government offices is thin. Clashes between protesters and the police, para-military continue on a daily basis. The number of injured till date is reported to be about 12,000. Over nine hundred have had eye injuries due to rubber pellets fired by the security personnel; seventynine have been reportedly killed. The monumental figure of those injured includes mainly the protesters, by-standers as also the police/para-military personnel. Thus on an average about 200 people have been injured per day or about eight per hour. The number of injured over a period of sixty days is frightening and calls for a comparison with other conflict situations in the last hundred years where the Indian army/ British Indian Army was engaged with an uprising within the country or a conflict with a neighbouring country.

1. Jallianwala Bagh massacre, 1919

During  theJallianwala Bagh massacre on 13 April, 1919, the British Indian army unit under the command of Colonel Reginald Dyer fired upon a crowd of non-violent protesters, along with Baisakhi pilgrims who had gathered in Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar, India. The struggle for getting British rulers out of India was on. The troops numbering fifty fired on the unarmed protesters for ten minutes continuously. The bullets were directed towards the few open gates through which people were trying to flee. The British rulers admitted to twelve hundred wounded; the number of dead is believed to be between 379 (official figure) to well over 1000 by other sources.

A young Bhagat Singh had visited the Jallianwala Bagh massacre scene. This had left a deep impression in his mind. Later when Lala Lajpat Rai died in 1928 after being injured during a lathi charge by a police force led by James A. Scott on those protesting against the Simon Commission in Lahore, Bhagat Singh and his colleagues pledged not to let Scott go free. Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev were hanged to death in Lahore jail for the killing of John A. Saunders, assistant superintendent of police (mistaken for James A. Scott).

The Jallianwala Bagh massacre was deeply engraved in Udham Singh’s mind.  At the age of sixteen years he had defied the curfew and was wounded in the course of retrieving a body in the aftermath of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. In 1940 Udham Singh was charged with the murder of Sir Michael O’Dwyer, the former Lt. Governor of Punjab who had approved of the action of Brigadier General R.E.H. Dyer at Jallianwala Bagh. He was hanged on 31st July, 1940.

Ironically Burhan Wani,as per media reports, had seen his brother Khalid Muzaffar being tortured at the hands of armed forces when the two were returning home during the 2010 protests in Kashmir which left more than hundred people dead. Wani reportedly vowed to take revenge.

In the above three situations it was the excesses of the security forces – British or Indian – which forced people to take up arms; a lesson for governments to humanize its policies.

2. First Kashmir War, 1947

The Indo-Pakistan war of 1947 (first Kashmir war) was fought between the newly independent nations of India and Pakistan over the princely state of Jammu and Kashmirand lasted for over one year and two months. The conflict started when Pashtun tribal forces and later Indian and Pakistani army regulars entered the state. On 1.1.1949 a formal ceasefire was declared. The number of killed was reported to be 1500 and 6000 respectively for India and Pakistan. While the number of wounded was reported to be 3500 for India and 14000 for Pakistan.

3. Sino-Indian War, 1962

The Sino-Indian war fought between India and China lasted from 20 October to 21 November 1962 i.e. about a month resulting in Chinese victory with the forward Indian posts and patrols removed from Aksai Chin. While 1383 Indians were reported to be killed and 1047 wounded, the number of Chinese killed were 722 and 1697 wounded. The Indian army had to retreat back to Tejpur, a district in Assam. It was a humiliating act of the armed forces as the Chinese had penetrated close to the outskirts of Tejpur. The local people were left to fend for themselves.  Later the Chinese army retreated on its own. The Indian Government ordered an independent report to be prepared on the war.

An Australian journalist, Neville Maxwell in an interview with the Times of India (2 April, 2014) opined that it wasn’t China, but Nehru who declared 1962 war:

“The report was an internal Indian Army enquiry into its rout in the 1962 war with China — Maxwell was the New Delhi correspondent for The Times, London, at the time — but in the 51 years since the report was written up by Lt Gen Henderson Brooks and Brig PS Bhagat, successive Indian governments have refused to make it public. Only two copies of the report were thought to be in existence, although there was never any doubt that Maxwell had had access to the report for his 1970 book India’s China War quoted extensively from it…

If the Henderson Brooks Report is read closely in India (and it’s not easy reading!) people will see that political favouritism put the Army under incompetent leadership which blindly followed the Nehru government’s provocative policy.”

Till date the Government of India has not made the Henderson report public.

4. Mizo National Front uprising, 1966

In March 1966 the Mizo National Front (MNF) launched an uprising and revolt against the Government of India by declaring independence on 1 March, 1966. Government offices and posts of security forces faced a coordinated attack in various parts of the Mizo district (as it then was) in Assam. The Government suppressed the rebellion with the Indian Air Force carrying out air strikes in Aizawl; a rare instance of India carrying out air strikes in its own civilian territory; this was denied by the then Prime Minister. The Government of India recaptured by 25 March, 1966 all the places seized by the MNF. Insurgency continued for twenty years more till 1986. While the air strikes took place during Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s regime, the Mizoram Accord between Government of India and MNF was signed in 1986 when Rajiv Gandhi was Prime Minister of India. While 59 were killed and 126 wounded on the Indian side; the number of Mizos killed were 95 and another 35 wounded.

5. Sri Lankan civil war& Indian intervention, 1987-89

The Indian intervention in the Sri Lankan civil war started on 29 July, 1987; the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) started withdrawing in 1989 with the withdrawal being completed in 1990. The IPKF intervened to end the civil war between militant Sri Lankan Tamil nationalists, principally the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) and the Sri Lankan military.

During 1983 and 1984 the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) of the Indian Government got involved in training the militant Tamil group, as some authoritative sources maintain. It is public knowledge that LTTE camps operated from Tamil Nadu. Ironically the same LTTE killed 1138 IPKF personnel and wounded another 2762; also killing 28 Sri Lankan Military personnel and wounding 578. The figures of LTTE killed and injured are not known.

6. Operation Pawan, 1987: A bitter chapter in Indian Military history

Operation Pawan was undertaken by IPKF to take control of Jaffna in late 1987. It took three weeks for the IPKF to take control of Jaffna peninsula from the LTTE. 40 IPKF personnel were killed and 700 wounded, whereas 200 LTTE personnel were killed. The number of LTTE personnel wounded is not known. The third party – Sri Lankan army – was not in the picture; so its number killed/wounded is not available.

The LTTE had received support from politicians in Tamil Naduand wanted a separate Tamil Eelam in north and east of Sri Lanka for Tamil people. Ironically LTTE was responsible for assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, former Prime Minister of India in 1991. The Supreme Court of India held the LTTE alone responsible for the assassination.

7. Kargil War, 1999: India & Pakistan at the brink of a nuclear war

The Kargil war took place from 3rdMay to 26thJuly 1999. It resulted in the killing of 527 Indians and 1363 wounded. While the corresponding Pakistani figures are 357-453 killed and 665 plus wounded. At the end of the war India regained possession of Kargil district, Jammu & Kashmir.

The table below summarizes the number of killed and injured during the aforementioned internal uprisings and wars:

	Internal uprisings/wars	Injured	Dead	Time period	Approx. Injuries per day
1.	JallianwalaBagh massacre	1200 (to 1500)	379 – 1000	10 minutes in a single day	1200 to 1500
2.	First Kashmir War, 1947	17500	7500	438 days	40
3.	Sino-Indian War, 1962	2744	2105	32 days	85
4.	Mizo National Front Uprising, 1966	161	154	24 days	7
5.	Sri Lankan Civil War	–	–	29 July 1987 to 1989	–
6.	Operation Pawan	–	240	21 days	–
7.	Kargil war	2028	884-980	85 days	24
8.	Kashmir Uprising, 2016	12,000	79	60 days	200

Barring the JallianwalaBagh massacre where up to 1500 people got injured in one single day, the present uprising in Kashmir has seen the maximum number of injured people per day among the aforementioned conflicts where data is available!

Even the mainstream print media in India is now forced to refer to the brutalization produced by the war in Kashmir. When a formal war declaration is made then international laws, agencies like U.N. and International Red Cross Society come into play. Simple things like access to medical care of those injured are assured. The world community gets a sense of the actual happenings. The people of India, Kashmir and the world have a right to know the ground reality in Kashmir.

(The numbers of injured and dead in the aforementioned internal uprisings and wars have beenculled from various sources viz official, independent, and UPPSALA Conflict Data Program (UCDP), Sweden. The figures of LTTE killed and injured during 1987-89 are not known. Again, the number of LTTE personnel wounded in Operation Pawan is not known.)