J&K: Need for an Urgent Review

Ashok Bhan

Indian Army Chief Gen Bipin Rawat has rightly shown his serious concern regarding the developing situation in the Kashmir valley where interference of separatists’ supporters is jeopardising the implementation of collateral-damage-free counter-insurgency operations. These protests have led to losses of lives of security force (SF) personnel and even escape of terrorists - both of which were avoidable. On 12 and 14 February 2017, eight terrorists were killed in three encounters that were  based on specific information regarding the presence of the former in residential houses at Nagbal Frisal (Kulgam), Hajan (Bandipora) and Handwara; but these operations also led to the deaths of two civilians and six SF personnel, including a Major in the Indian Army, and injuries to over a dozen SF personnel (including a Commanding Officer of the CRPF). In these encounters, locals are learnt to have gathered in large numbers and alerted the hiding terrorists, and even pelted stones at the SFs, resulting in unusually large casualties on the SF side.

 

This is not the first time that SF personnel have lost lives fighting terrorists in such numbers. The difference is that in the past, generally, such high numbers of casualties occurred in explosions, suicide attacks, ambushes and hit-and-run incidents in crowded places - always initiated by the terrorists. This time, as well as in most other cases in the recent past, the losses of lives took place during information-based operations wherein the troops had had time to plan and go well prepared. The locals' large scale support for the terrorists during these operations is a cause for concern. The Army Chief has appropriately voiced his concern and has warned those attacking SFs during anti-militancy operations of tough action. There are reports of the state government issuing prohibitory orders in a three kilometre belt surrounding an operation site to keep the protestors away from the line of fire.

 

Security Related Trends

Between January 1990 and December 2016, 5630 SF personnel (including 983 Jammu and Kashmir Police personnel, 486 Special Police Officers and 131 Village Defence Committee members) lost their lives in the ongoing armed conflict. As per the J&K State CID statistics, over 27 years, one SF member has lost his/her life for nearly four terrorists killed (see table below). In the initial years (1990-98) the terrorists were present in large numbers and operations were carried out unhindered, resulting in proportionately fewer losses of SF personnel. During its Kargil misadventure and thereafter (1999-2003), Pakistan inducted hardened foreign mercenaries; and the state witnessed a spate of suicide attacks leading to higher casualties on the SF side, with one soldier's life lost for every three terrorists killed. Thereafter, in the decade spanning 2003-12, a steady ratio of 3.5:1 was witnessed. In the past four years (2013-16) one SF personnel's life was lost for every two terrorists killed.

 

This is indicative, in addition to other evidence, of the drift in the situation on ground, and must be noted with seriousness.

 

TABLE 1

Ratio between terrorists killed in encounters and lives lost by SF personnel (including J&K police) at different stages of armed conflict in Jammu and Kashmir

 

A.

Period [1990-1998 (nine years)]: Terrorists Killed (9734); SF Casualties (1825); Ratio of Terrorists to SF Casualties (5.3:1)

 

B.

Period [1999-2002 (four years)]: Terrorists Killed (6329); SF Casualties (2041); Ratio of Terrorists to SF Casualties (3.1:1)

 

C.

Period [1999-2002 (four years)]: Terrorists Killed (5432); SF Casualties (1543); Ratio of Terrorists to SF Casualties (3.5:1)

 

D.

Period [2013-2016 (four years)]: Terrorists Killed (435); SF Casualties (221); Ratio of Terrorists to SF Casualties (2.0:1)

 

E.

Period [1990-2016 (twenty-seven years)]: Terrorists Killed (21930); SF Casualties (5630); Ratio of Terrorists to SF Casualties (3.9:1)

 

The increase in casualties in the recent times can be partly attributed to fewer numbers of terrorists being spread over a large area, making counter-insurgency operations tedious and man power intensive. Additionally, fresh induction of locals in militant ranks, better training, increased infiltration, ceasefire violations by Pakistan, and increase in local support for terrorists have all contributed to this situation over the past four years. Despite India’s best efforts, Pakistan is not keen on resumption of dialogue and there exists a lull in the engagement with the separatist groups. Meanwhile, Pakistan is exploiting its support base in the Valley to the fullest extent. The 2016 agitation that followed the killing of militant commander Burhan Wani has increased local support for militants and separatists. There are reports of separatists’ plans to resume protests and agitations after winter ends.

 

Political Situation

There is a disconnect between the elected representatives and their constituents, particularly in the Kashmir valley, and alienation has increased. Mainstream politicians, instead of reaching out to the people, are busy indulging in army-bashing at every opportunity. This is demoralising for the SFs and encourages hostile elements to lay impediments to the former's operational duties. Barring the chief minister, all other Valley based leaders are maintaining a studied silence, expecting the SFs to magically bring peace. Meanwhile, the agitating separatists construe this silence as support.

 

It is a tight rope walk for the SFs in such a hostile environment. People-friendly measures to avoid collateral damage and operating with hands tied behind will mean more casualties and demoralisation for the troops and the police. Conversely, harsher measures will further alienate the people. While the SFs must carry out their mandated responsibility of flushing out terrorists, other players cannot ignore their role of reaching out to the people and other stake holders any further. The fact of the matter is that isolating Pakistan or avoiding separatists has not helped India’s cause in Kashmir. The wait-and-watch approach has not yielded any positive results.

 

The peace process in Jammu and Kashmir faces a serious challenge that cannot be met by security forces alone. The Army Chief has voiced his concern and has appropriately reflected on his mandated area of responsibility. The political leadership at the Centre and in the State will have to urgently review the situation and take appropriate initiatives to ease the law and order situation on the ground to prevent recurrence and escalation of the violence and protests of 2016.

Newcastle University Overseas Research Scholarship (ORS) 2017/2018 – UK

Application Deadline: 28th April 2017 

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): Newcastle University UK

About Scholarship: Newcastle University is committed to offering support to the very best international students hoping to pursue a programme of research. We are pleased to offer a small number of University funded NUORS awards for outstanding international students who apply to commence PhD studies in any subject in 2017/18.

Type: PhD Research

Selection Criteria and Eligibility: A candidate could be eligible to apply for a NUORS award if:

• they have been offered a place on a PhD research programme
• they have been assessed as international/overseas for fees purposes, and are wholly or partially self-financing
• they intend to register to start your studies during the 2017/18 academic year.

Applications for a NUORS award cannot be made for a course that has already been started by a student.

Number of Scholarships: 15

Value of Scholarship: Each award (value approximately £7,800 – £11,700 per annum) covers the difference between fees for UK/EU students and international students. 

Duration of Scholarship: for the period of the programme

How to Apply

• You must have already applied for and been offered a place to study at Newcastle University before you apply for a NUORS award.
• Please complete the NUORS application form electronically and in accordance with the NUORS regulations, which are provided at the end of the application form.  You will also be required to provide details of an academic referee; the University will then contact your referee directly.
• Applications must be submitted electronically via the email address provided below. Unfortunately paper copies cannot be accepted.
• If you experience problems with the application form, please contact Student Financial Support who can e-mail a copy of the form and the regulations to you.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for Details

Sponsors: Newcastle University, UK

Estonian Government International Scholarships for Short Courses 2017/2018

Application Deadline: 20th March 2017

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (University): 

• University of Tartu
• Tallinn University
• Tallinn University of Technology

About the Award: The scholarships are intended to support participation in summer courses of Estonian language and culture as well as in courses of summer and winter schools related to the English-language curricula of degree study in Estonia.

Type: Short courses

Eligibility: 

• The stipend is available for students of Bachelor’s, Master’s or doctoral studies in foreign universities who are actively involved in the studies at the time of application and have been studying at university for at least one year.
• During the period of payment of grant the scholarship recipient should stay in Estonia.
• The candidate should pre-register to the course for applying for the scholarship.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: The scholarship is used to reimburse up to 500 EUR of the course fee and accommodation costs of 25 EUR per day for a maximum of 28 days per secondment in a calendar year.

Duration of Scholarship: 4 weeks

How to Apply: 

• application form and motivation letter through online application system
• confirmation of admission from the higher education institution in Estonia or confirmation of submission of required admission documents;
• copy of passport or ID-card.
• transcript of records from the home university;
• confirmation of registration from home university containing information on the applicant’s level of study, normal period of studies and progress towards the degree;
• confirmation of admission from organising institution (can be sent by e-mail);

All documents should be in English or Estonian. Documents must be translated to any of these languages if the language of issuance is different. The foundation has the right to require the additional documents. Submitted documents will be not returned to the applicant. The applications which are not full complicated, drawn up as required, include false information or arrive with delay are not assessed.

The application system link: https://taotlused.archimedes.ee/EN/pub_login.php. Please register in order to start the application.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Estonian Government

HEC Paris/Eiffel MBA Scholarships for Developing Countries 2017/2018 – France

Application Deadline: Within 1 week of admission. No essay required

For those admitted and confirmed after 27th December 2016, decisions will be made in March 2018

Eligible Countries: EIFFEL is offered for candidates working in emerging countries

To be taken at (country): HEC – Paris

About Scholarship: Launched in January 1999 by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Ministère des Affaires Etrangères), the Eiffel Scholarship is designed to bolster international recruiting by French schools of higher education, at a time when competition to attract top foreign students is growing among developed countries. HEC reserves the right to submit only those candidates it feels best qualify for the Eiffel Scholarship as the award is particularly competitive and prestigious. Note that applications from students currently studying outside France will be given priority over those from students already studying in France.

Type: MBA

Selection Criteria and Eligibility: The HEC MBA Program applies on behalf of admitted eligible students. In order to be eligible the candidate must:

• Be aged 30 years old or less in the selection year.
• Only admitted candidates can apply for this scholarship.
• Have a single nationality from a developing country deemed an ’emerging country’ by the French state department, especially those in Asia and Latin America, for example, currently under-represented among the student population in France.

Number of Scholarships: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: The Eiffel Scholarship provides participants with a monthly allowance of approximately €1,100, and covers additional expenses including travel, health insurance and cultural activities. Tuition fees are not covered by the scholarship.

Duration of Scholarship: for the period of study

Offered annually? Yes

How to Apply: Interested candidates should first apply for admission into the HEC Paris MBA programme in order to get this scholarship.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for Details

Sponsors: French Ministry of Foreign Affairs

BMCE Bank of Africa – African Entrepreneurship Award – USD$1 Million for Women (and Men) Entrepreneurs 2017

Application Deadline: You can submit your business idea from 17th February, 2017 through 28th April, 2017.

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: African citizens

Area of Interest: Your business must be relevant to one of these categories:

• Education – positively impact education in Africa
• Environment – positively impact the environment in Africa
• Uncharted– a high-impact business venturing into unexplored territory or untested markets

About Award: Are you dreaming of launching or growing your business idea in your community? Join the thousands of women (and men) entrepreneurs creating jobs all over Africa and submit your idea for a chance to share in the $1 million award.

At the African Entrepreneurship Award, know your business idea is safe, your time is respected, and your mentorship is our key priority. In 2015, just 25% of our business proposals came from women. For 2016, we want to change that.

Offered Since: not specified

Type: Entrepreneurship award

Eligibility: You, the entrepreneur, must meet the following criteria as you submit your business proposal:

• You must be a citizen of an African country
• You must be a minimum of 18 years old as of October 1, 2016
• Your business must be applicable in an African country
• Your business proposal must include a technological component (digital, machinery, computers, ICT, automated processes, field related technologies, etc.)
• Your business must be for profit.

Additional Information

• You can submit a proposal as a resident of any country worldwide – keeping in mind that you must be a citizen of an African country
  • For example, a resident of the United Arab Emirates with Egyptian citizenship is eligible for this Award
• Your business can operate in any African country even if you are not a citizen of that country
  • For example, you can submit a proposal for a different country in Africa than your personal, African citizenship (e.g. a Ghanaian citizen can submit a proposal for a business in Liberia)
• You can submit a proposal for a business already in operation
• Your business can operate across borders in multiple African countries
• Your business should demonstrate the potential to scale beyond one region in Africa to pan-African impact
• You can operate in multiple countries, but you will be asked to designate a primary community in Africa that will benefit or be impacted by your business.

Number of Awards: several

How to Apply: Submit your business idea beginning February 17, 2017 through April 28, 2017. Soon after you submit a completed proposal, a mentor will be in touch with you, guiding you to bettering your idea. And yes, if you have a better idea, you can resubmit it at least once before April 28, 2017.

You can submit a business proposal in one or two of the three Award categories: Education, Environment, or Uncharted

Visit Awards Webpage for details

Award Provider: BMCE Bank of Africa

Friedrich Naumann Doctoral Scholarships for International Students 2017 – Germany

Application Deadline: 30th April 2017 and  31st October 2017

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): Germany

About the Award: Are you a doctoral student in search of funding opportunities? Are your academic achievements first-class and are you socially engaged? Then apply for a scholarship from the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, a foundation closely affiliated to Germany’s Free Democratic Party (FDP). Applications are welcome from doctoral students of any nationality, in all disciplines and of any age.

Type: PhD

Eligibility: Requirements for applicants include the following:

• non-German citizenship
• unconditional university admission
• full-time PhD in Germany at a state or state-recognised university
• academic project of considerable relevance to research
• knowledge of German

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: Scholarship holders receive a maximum stipend of 1,000 euros per month. In addition, a health insurance subsidy of up to 125 euros per month will be granted. The scholarship is initially approved for a one-year period, and can be extended by one further year upon application.

How to Apply: The online application (in German) is open from 1 to 30 April.

online application

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Friedrich Naumann Foundation

The Target of the “Border Adjustment Tax” is You

Thomas L. Knapp

“[O]n life support,” says US Senator John Cornyn (R-TX)of the “Border Adjustment Tax,” proposed during last year’s GOP presidential primaries by US Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and backed by Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI). If the idea is indeed dead, American workers and consumers should heave a sigh of relief. It’s a very bad idea, in more ways than one.

The BAT is promoted as a “tax on imports.” Which, I guess, is technically accurate, but doesn’t tell the whole story. It’s not just a tax on imports. It’s a tax on people who buy the imports. That is, it’s a tax on you.

For obvious reasons, retail merchants don’t like the idea very much. It would force them to raise prices on lots of items. Which is the same reason you shouldn’t like it, unless you like paying more for stuff than you pay now.

For equally obvious reasons, some American manufacturers love the Border Adjustment Tax. Every extra dollar you have to pay in tax for something made abroad is a dollar they don’t have to find ways to cut from their manufacturing costs to compete on price. For them it’s the equivalent of running a race in which their competitors have to carry backpacks full of lead and they don’t.

The politicians behind the idea love it because it would let them give their business cronies a huge tax cut — reducing the corporate tax rate from 35% to 20% — without reducing government spending.

Ultimately American consumers pay both types of taxes, of course, but the BAT would shift the burden to customers who buy goods made in China, Mexico, South Korea, Pakistan and so on, hurting retailers who sell those things in order to subsidize American manufacturers at everyone else’s expense.

All this talk of “tax reform” is just smoke and mirrors, a way of disguising the reality that every dollar government spends has to come from somewhere, and that that somewhere is taxation. Borrowing money is just promising to tax later. Inflating the currency is just a hidden tax.

Shifting the tax burden around with tricks like a “Border Adjustment Tax” isn’t real reform, it’s just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The first step in any meaningful reform is for Congress to commit to spending no more money than it takes in. The second is for it to start taking in less.

Trump, Moral Panics and Resistance

Dave Brotherton

From the outset of Donald Trump’s campaign for the Presidency the infamous New York billionaire made it clear that the tactic of moral panic would be his chosen route to making it all the way to the White House. Like many politicians of the wealthy classes before him, threatening images of the “dangerous classes” were used wantonly to illustrate the common sense behind his ultra-conservative solutions to social and economic problems caused by fundamental disenfranchisement, inequality and poverty. Thus, the Trump campaign have treated us incessantly to scabrous descriptions of human beings who are supposedly arrayed against our innocent American sensibilities. They came thick and fast in the form of immigrant Mexican rapists, black urban gang bangers, Latino drug dealers and Muslim terrorists, among others. In each case, of course, it was always Donald the righteous who would save us from ourselves and thereby from these modern day “folk devils.”

Trump would not be the first Republican Presidential candidate to employ such tried and tested racialized “others” to reach the desired levels of fear and loathing among his supporters. Nixon in 1968 invoked the image of the “silent majority” encircled by rioting urban blacks and rampaging students, Reagan in 1976 used the specter of the black “welfare queen” to symbolize the “waste” of the entitlement system, George H. W. Bush in 1988 conjured the black rapist in the guise of Willie Horton to highlight the misplaced liberalism of his challenger Michael Dukakis, while George W. Bush appealed to the ongoing enemy of post-9/11 Islamic terrorism to shore up his inept time in office. But no one other than Trump has so brazenly, single-mindedly and arguably successfully used the moral panic strategy to advance his ambitions for public office.

Why then has this tactic of systematic lies, distortion and hyperbole gone from being so effective in the earlier stages of his presidential run now to be in tatters such that a journalist at Trump’s first solo press conference after just over three weeks in the job asked him, “Why should America trust you?” Meanwhile, as of writing, the renowned Pew Research Center announces that Trump’s approval ratings are once more at “historic lows” and hitting the 39 percent mark, in stark contrast to Obama who was getting 64 percent during the same time in his first presidency and even George W. Bush who was at 53 percent during his initial go at playing commander-in-chief.

To understand this turn of events it is important to consider how the pioneers of the concept saw the moral panic as a process with a life cycle and not at all as a “big lie” machine that was entirely sustainable. They all pointed out that the groups, persons or communities singled out by “right thinking people” through scapegoating and stereotypification reflected unresolved social anxieties produced by a social control system unable to base itself any longer on a moral consensus. They concurred that the more a regime depends on moral panics to govern the more it undermines its own legitimacy which is precisely what we are witnessing in the present White House melt-down. Such a regime through its addiction to its own rhetoric eventually sews the seeds of its own destruction.

Several British sociologists were at the forefront of this research. Stan Cohen, one of the first to coin the phrase while describing the media frenzy in the ‘60s over brawling English “mods and rockers” saw that it was youth’s embrace of hedonism and consumption undermining the message of disciplined work and restraint that was really at stake. Jock Young, who studied the public condemnation of “drug-takers” during the same period, concluded that the social interventions did more harm than the so-called “deviant” behavior (the U.S. War on Drugs is an ongoing example). Meanwhile, Stuart Hall described Margaret Thatcher’s discovery of young black “muggers” terrorizing English inner-cities as more about her commitment to be the virus that killed socialism and the global project of hyper-wealth concentration and inequality (what we now call “neo-liberalism”) than any concern over crime rates. Consequently, moral panics are never things in themselves no matter how self-serving. Further, they will always eventually motivate much larger sectors of society to question the legitimacy of both the diagnoses and policies that follow while encouraging new bonds of solidarity with those populations most targeted and vilified.

What we currently witness therefore is a moral panic process that instead of functioning as a unified narrative that constantly injects momentum into the various apparatuses of ideological production, pushing us ever closer to the practices of tyranny and dictatorial necessity, instead becomes the very object of our scorn and disbelief. This growing opposition to the cynical manipulation of our fears and vulnerabilities, whether real or imagined, in turn prompts us to envision a quite different world in which to resolve our social discontent and political unhappiness.

We see this with each Trumpian Punch and Judy show, a debilitating spectacle that has become both the form and essence of the Presidential regime. In response we, the people, recoil in disgust and amazement at the level to which our fellow human beings have debased themselves while we also begin to realize and accept the fallacy of our political fantasy, i.e., that we have been living in a world that pretentiously refers to itself as fundamentally democratic.

In other words, the dialectics of the moral panic now ensure that we not only participate in the death agony of what one Guardian writer describes as “a terrible mistake” but in the unraveling of society’s general fabric. It is not that the Emperor has no clothes but rather the whole neo-liberal project becomes revealed in all its stark naked ugliness along with the body politic that has enabled it. These are definitely new times. From where I sit the removal of Trump and his gaggle of know-nothings will only be the beginning as we enter a time when the future is truly up for grabs.

Trump Administration Adopts Ruthless New Immigration Protocol

Eric London

The Trump administration officially adopted new immigration enforcement policies yesterday that place all undocumented immigrants living in the US at risk of deportation.

The new policies were outlined in Department of Homeland Security (DHS) memos leaked over the weekend. These memos were subjected to only minor changes before DHS Secretary John Kelly made them official on Monday.

Press Secretary Sean Spicer addressed the White House press corps Tuesday: “Everyone who is here illegally is subject to removal at any time,” he said. Spicer explained that the DHS memos establish guidelines for those undocumented immigrants who are the first priority for deportation, a staggering one million people.

These immigrants have already been found removable in court and are subject to final orders of removal. The government will also target immigrants with any criminal record, as well as those who have supposedly “abused” public services (a very broad category that includes anyone who filed a false Social Security number or gave a false answer on an official document about their immigration status) and those who have been charged with or are suspected of committing a crime.

But Spicer explained that after the government expels the first million immigrants, agents will move in stages against the remaining population: “The president has made clear that when you have 12, 14, or 15 million [immigrants] here illegally, there has to be a system of priority.” He added, “We are doing this one step at a time in a very methodical way.”

The language of the memos confirms this. “Department personnel have full authority to arrest or apprehend an alien whom an immigration officer has probable cause to believe is in violation of the immigration laws,” one memo said. “They also have full authority to initiate removal proceedings against any alien who is subject to removal under any provision of the [Immigration and Nationality Act].”

Spicer’s estimate that the Trump administration plans on ultimately deporting as many as 15 million immigrants nearly doubles an earlier estimate by the Los Angeles Times that 8 million were at risk. This much higher figure raises the specter that Trump will also seek to deport green-card holders, revoking their status as legal permanent residents.

Though the memos do not repeal Obama’s executive order establishing the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, covering 750,000 immigrants who were brought to the US as children, the DHS notes that the issue will be addressed in the future. However, DACA enrollees who have been convicted or charged with a crime or who immigration officials believe may have committed a chargeable offense can be slated for removal. One DACA enrollee was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Washington State last week.

“We will have more [orders],” Spicer said. “Immigration is one of those issues [Trump] was clear and consistent on throughout the campaign.”

The World Socialist Web Site outlined the DHS memos in detail yesterday. The construction of new detention centers and a border wall, the hiring of 15,000 immigration and deportation officials, and the deputizing of local police agencies to detain and deport migrants will result in a significant police-state build-up in cities across the country.

“These memos lay out a detailed blueprint for the mass deportation of 11 million undocumented immigrants in America,” Lynn Tramonte, deputy director of America’s Voice Education Fund, told USA Today. “They fulfill the wish lists of the white nationalist and anti-immigrant movements and bring to life the worst of Donald Trump’s campaign rhetoric.”

The Trump administration is fearful that the memos will set off a wave of mass social protest. A DHS official told the press yesterday, “We do not need a sense of panic in the communities.”

Both Spicer and the DHS have sought to downplay risks that the government is going to immediately round up and incarcerate millions and millions of undocumented workers. At his press briefing Tuesday, Spicer explicitly disavowed a suggestion that the goal of the new Trump initiative was “mass deportation.” The DHS official said: “We do not have the personnel, time or resources to go into communities and round up people and do all kinds of mass throwing folks on buses.”

In other words, the Trump administration does plan on deporting millions, but to do so at once would be physically impossible and to announce it as a goal would be politically dangerous. The deportations will likely speed up, however, once sufficient police manpower has been mobilized and once a large network of detention centers has been constructed.

The DHS official also said, “We’re not creating anything out of the whole cloth.” The Trump administration’s attempts to hide the qualitatively different scale and depth of their anti-immigrant attacks are disingenuous and false. However, Trump’s immigrant program is an extension of the anti-immigrant policies of the Obama administration, which deported 2.7 million immigrants—more than all his predecessors combined.

The statutory framework used by Trump to deport over ten million undocumented people was established in a bipartisan effort. The Illegal Immigrant Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 would not have passed without the support of Democratic members of Congress and was signed into law by Democrat Bill Clinton. The Secure Fences Act of 2006, which Trump cites to justify his wall construction program, was supported by Senators Hillary Clinton, Obama, Biden, and Schumer.

Thirty seven of 48 Senate Democrats, including Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders, voted to confirm Secretary John Kelly—the signatory of the DHS memos—to head the DHS earlier this month. Sanders said he hoped Kelly would “have a moderating influence on some of the racist and xenophobic views that President Trump advocated throughout the campaign.”

Adopting the fraudulent “public safety” narrative of the Trump administration, Sanders told NBC News last week, “I think the vetting mechanisms are very, very strong. If there’s any way to make them stronger, let’s go forward. I don’t think there is any debate that we want to keep the United States safe and we want to be 100 percent clear that anybody who comes into this country should not be coming into this country to do us harm.”

The claims by both parties that immigrants represent a threat to “public safety” or “national security” are fraudulent. The Trump administration seeks to scapegoat immigrants for a social crisis caused by the capitalist system, in an attempt to pit workers against one another and prevent them from fighting their real enemy: the ruling class.

No significant opposition to these measures will come from the Democratic Party. The phase-in of Trump’s deportation program will devastate the lives of millions of immigrants and their families, the overwhelming majority of whom are working class, and it is from the working class that opposition to these reactionary and xenophobic measures is emerging.

Immigrant and US-born workers must unite to mobilize against efforts by the Trump administration to deport their co-workers. Immigrants will receive no protection from the Democratic Party, from the trade unions who support Trump’s economic nationalism, or from hollow appeals to “change the minds” of the politicians. The right to live and work with full citizenship rights must be available to all workers, regardless of immigration status.

The working class must rely on its own social strength to defend these rights through the establishment of committees in workplaces, neighborhoods, and schools aimed at developing a political strategy for blocking deportations and prohibiting the government from removing immigrant workers from the country.

Conflict And Rapes In Kashmir

Mushtaq Ul Haq Ahmad Sikander

“Rape” the word carries with it a host of meanings and in East or Orient cultural baggage too. The term signifies violence, anger, atrocity, patriarchy, imposition and coercive submission. It is particularly used by men against women or children, though in rare cases men can be victim of rape too in particular sodomy. Rapes have been happening in the past and future would be no exception viz a viz the crime of rape is concerned. Indian subcontinent due to its patriarchal culture is still a bastion of rapists and the notion of ‘honor’ and ‘shame’ associated with rape does not let the crimes of rape to be reported in Police stations, hence most of the rapists are never brought to the book. Women especially in the conservative, traditional, orthodox and Eastern societies are considered to be the repositories of honor; hence to humiliate, deflower, and dishonor them through rape is to humiliate the collective honor, masculinity and strength of the society. Even in the Western countries where the sexual freedom has landed the societies into sexual anarchy, rape is considered as a grave crime, and when its use as a weapon to humiliate an ethnic group, population, a nation or a society is the order of the day, it is considered as a crime against humanity, whose perpetuators must be dealt with a serious punishment.

Rape as a weapon of war has always been used by the occupational forces to demean, debase and finally destroy the social rubric of the enemy. In case of the secessionist tendency, the defiant population is tried to inculcate spirit of submissiveness and unconditional obedience by using various strategic tactics, and Rape is one of them. In every conflict rape has been used against the womenfolk of the other or enemy, in order to make them understand how weak and vulnerable they are and make a living testimony of their helplessness before the mighty institutions and a constant reminder not to side with the ‘other’ as the punishment awaits them in the form of rape of their womenfolk.

Since the inception of armed insurgency in Kashmir, the military approach towards the insurgency has resulted in numerous rapes of innocent women. Various tactics were employed by the soldiers to rape women, who on the excuse of searching militants or arms would barge into a house and rape women, during crackdowns. A whole area would be sealed with men assembled at a community ground and women and girls left behind in the houses would be gang raped, during nocturnal raids women were raped, women were intimidated that if they wouldn’t comply and resist the gang rape their sons and husbands would be killed, revenge rapes were also perpetuated on innocent victims when an army man would be killed in the militant assault the army would rape women by barging into their homes, in some cases the male members of the family were first killed and then the women were raped.

The free license to raid, search any premise gave army an upperhand to rape, who would even resort to loot, robbery, arson and even rape during the search operations. They would render eatables defunct by mixing them with oil, kerosene in order to starve the household. In many cases the victims reported that the soldiers said that they were given the orders of enjoyment and can’t take any second chances as the Kashmiri girls are too beautiful to resist.

The aftermath of rape is most agonizing for the victim, and most of the victims suffer from depression and psychological trauma and many victims have even committed suicides. According to a survey conducted by Medicans San Frontiers(Doctors Without Borders) an International NGO in 2006 on “Kashmir: Violence and Health”, 11.6 percent of interviewees said they had been victims of sexual violence since 1989. Almost two thirds of the people interviewed (63.9 percent) by MSF had heard about cases of rape during the same period. The study revealed that Kashmiri women were among the worst sufferers of sexual violence in the world. The figure is much higher than that of Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Chechnya and Ingushetia. Many teenage girls are now going for counseling in order to cope the rising psychological impact of the atrocities on women perpetuated by army and police.

The Justice System in Kashmir is in shambles, as Kashmir has become a Police State, where the State tries every tactic to save the culprits of the heinous crimes who happen to be its soldiers. The various acts provide impunity to the army personnel to be tried in civil courts, and even the Police and State machinery is hesitant to file cases against the army as it will affect their morale. Hence not a single soldier has been brought to book and victims are still awaiting Justice which will elude them till eternity, be it the victims of Kunanposhpora or Shopian double murder and rape case, plus the police enquiry has never helped the victims who now even don’t bother to report the same.

There has been little sensitivity depicted by the society while dealing with the rape survivors. Kashmir being a patriarchal society, woman is treated as a second class inferior citizen whose only purpose of life is to satisfy the carnal desires of her husband, raise the children and look after his household. She is being praised for her selfless household activities and dedication towards her husband. Her salvation in the hereafter depends on how happy her husband is with her services. Any disobedience is treated as sin. She is doomed to raging fires of hell if her husband is unhappy with her. The disobedience of her husband is equal to disobedience to creator. The misogynist Hadith wrongly attributed to Holy Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) try to reinforce this mindset. The patriarchal mindset wants to demean the status of women by stating that “if Prostration was allowed for anyone other than Allah then it would have been allowed for a wife to prostrate before her husband”. Also another misogynist Hadith states that, “If a husband is angry with his wife, Allah doesn’t listen to her prayers”. Also another Hadith that tries to reinforce the upperhand of husbands by stating that, “If a husband doesn’t permit his wife to fast, she shouldn’t keep the non obligatory fasts”. When the patriarchy and misogyny is inculcated and camouflaged in religious terms then obedience and submission becomes a religious duty that few women would dare to oppose. Islam, Quran and Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) gave revolutionary rights to women that were snatched by Muslim men over centuries.

The situation of Kashmiri Muslim women is pathetic, as Fatwas and Mullahs try to deny them rights on religious pretext. In Kashmir there is no training for gender sensitivity both within homes as well as in schools. The father and male teachers are mostly misogynist and patriarchal in their worldviews. The children learn same and indoctrinate similar values. The lewd jokes with deep misogynist overtures depict our bias towards half of our population. The use of women’s bodies as a subject of abuse and the declining sex ratio with thousands of girls missing is a living testimony of the status women today enjoy in Kashmir.

Associated with the rape is the concept of shame and honor. Both of them have been wrongly attributed to the survivor. Till the shame and dishonor is the associated with the perpetuator, the survivors will find it quite difficult to cope with the aftermath of rape. Immediate family plays a big role in making the survivor strong giving her a new hope of life. The concept of virginity also needs to be relooked. Husband can play an important role towards her wife if she is a rape survivor, instead of ridiculing or divorcing her by labeling her as ‘impure’. Rape should be treated like an accident, in which the survivor with the help of immediate kith and kin can make the guilty face rule of law. The role of counselors is also important but in Kashmir we have a dearth of professional ones. We have still not developed any social consensus about the rape survivors and in most cases they find it hard to get married if they are spinsters. As a society we need to come forward with a strong institutional mechanism to help survivors live a life free of shame, dishonor, impurity, guilt and hopelessness.

Australian tabloid vilifies Muslim immigrants and welfare recipients

Max Newman

The Murdoch-owned Daily Telegraph, a Sydney tabloid, recently launched a campaign to collectively demonise Muslim immigrants, refugees and welfare recipients. It led with a front-page article claiming that “Middle Eastern migrants are piling up the dole queue.”

These efforts, based on lies and distortions, aim to generate support for the Turnbull government’s assault on welfare entitlements, including the reintroduction of widely-despised welfare cuts, while whipping up anti-Muslim bigotry as a means of diverting social discontent away from the government and the corporate elite that are demanding the brutal cuts.

Taking isolated statistics completely out of their economic and social context, the article claims the unemployment rate among Middle Eastern and North African immigrants has more than doubled in the past ten years and they are “three times more likely than European or Asian immigrants to be out of work in the first five years.”

These claims are drawn from monthly labour force data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) since January 1991. The figures indeed indicate that the official unemployment rate among workers from North Africa and the Middle East—33.5 percent—is much higher than those “born in Australia”—5.5 percent. But the claim that this rate has more than doubled in the past decade deliberately distorts the statistics, which display considerable volatility.

While the figure for December 2016, 33.5 percent, is more than double the rate in December 2006, 14.1 percent, it is not double the figure in January 2007, which is 20.7 percent, one month later. The average unemployment rate for those from North Africa and the Middle East in 2006 was 18.8 percent, just 3.2 percent lower than 2016, whose average was 22 percent.

Moreover, the December 2016 result is not the highest in the past ten years—it reached 40.2 percent in March 2009. In the past, the percentage has been even higher, ballooning to 64.8 percent in February 1996.

The Daily Telegraph’s inflammatory article singling out and blaming Muslims for being on the dole queue stands reality on its head.

The figures indicate that, as expected, new arrivals face great difficulty in finding work, both as a result of the ongoing destruction of full-time jobs for all workers and endemic discrimination by employers against immigrant workers, who generally regard them only as opportunities for super-exploitation.

All those who are unemployed, whatever the statistics for particular ethnic groups, should have the basic social right to decent welfare payments, which are an essential protection against destitution, under conditions of worsening unemployment and under-employment.

Yet that social right is precisely what is under attack across the board. As one of the most vulnerable layers of the working class, these refugees and immigrants are being targeted as part of a wider drive to further wind back the totally inadequate, below-poverty-line payments that are made to jobless and disabled workers.

Though the article refrains from drawing direct conclusions on Australia’s refugee program, it refers disparagingly to government spending on education programs for humanitarian visa holders. It also states that, unlike “other migrants,” refugees do not have to “wait two years for welfare payments.” The implication is that those Muslims in the “dole queue” are mainly refugees.

The Daily Telegraph insinuates that Australia is accepting too many Middle Eastern immigrants and refugees. The article states that the number of Iraqi-born migrants has increased by 38 percent in ten years, to 63,000 and that the “number of Syrian settlers is set to double” as a result of the government’s promise, more than a year ago, to accept 12,000 refugees from Syria.

This material is part of a broader campaign to channel the mounting social tensions produced by the destruction of jobs, cuts to basic services and soaring housing prices in reactionary and divisive directions, and away from the real causes of the worsening social conditions, which lie in the capitalist profit system itself.

The propaganda goes hand in hand with the Murdoch press’s promotion of right-wing populists, like One Nation’s Pauline Hanson, who advocate immigration bans, welfare cutoffs and increased military spending. Emulating US President Donald Trump, Hanson has stridently backed his measures to ban Muslims from entering the US, and demanded similar measures in Australia.

In the corporate media, people relying on pitiful welfare benefits are routinely depicted as parasites or fraudsters, in line with the government’s proposed $7.5 billion cuts to welfare over the next four years and its deepening welfare “debt” crackdown. In recent months, thousands of unemployment and sickness benefit recipients have been sent letters demanding they pay back thousands of dollars in alleged overpayments, and threatening them with debt collectors and jail.

Despite a public outcry against this offensive, and protests by the Centrelink workers who have been ordered to carry it out, the government plans to soon extend it to sole parents, pensioners and others relying on welfare.

The scapegoating of immigrants is not isolated to the Murdoch media. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, a state-funded network, published a report last month declaring that “high immigration masks Australian economic decline.” According to the article, immigrants are driving soaring house prices and reductions in wages.

The article concluded by saying the “reason why many people feel that they haven’t benefitted from Australia’s long stretch of economic expansion, is quite simply because they haven’t.” This was put down to high immigration being good for business, but not “necessarily good for ordinary workers.”

Such demagogy is used to conceal the true source of the worsening social conditions and widening inequality, both in Australia and worldwide. That is the ever-more ruthless and parasitic operations of the financial and corporate elites, which profit both by eliminating jobs and driving down wages and conditions, and by speculative investment in the real estate and share markets. US-led militarism across the Middle East, in which Australian forces are heavily involved, has also caused the greatest refugee crisis since World War II, with more than 60 million people forced to flee their homes.

The capitalist class is not only seeking to eliminate every basic social program that once ameliorated, if only slightly, the constant financial stress that working-class households confront. Amid the rising trade and military tensions between the US and other major powers, there is also a drive to place the country on a war footing, with $195 billion to be spent on military hardware over the next decade, the cost of which will be borne by workers and youth.

BT Italia engulfed in “accounting irregularities” scandal

Simon Whelan

British Telecom’s (BT) Italian arm, BT Italia, is under investigation for so-called “accounting irregularities.”

Italian prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into BT Italia. Fabio De Pasquale, the Milanese prosecutor working on the case, said the probe was focused on allegations of “false accounting and embezzlement,” but would not comment further when pressed.

BT Italia is accused of using a financial transaction called “factoring”—a form of debtor finance, in its Italian operations. Factoring involves a business selling its accounts receivable (invoices) to a third party at a discount. What appears to have occurred at BT Italia is that they over-reported their earnings for years, while they borrowed money against unpaid debts and used that money to then pay the company’s own suppliers—thereby masking their underlying cash position.

Britain’s Serious Fraud Office has yet however to intervene in the affair, stating, “We have noted the news. We cannot confirm or deny our interest.”

Last October, BT announced a warning to investors and the markets that what they termed “inappropriate management behaviour” and equally unspecified “accounting irregularities” at their Italian operation, would cost approximately £145 million to rectify.

However in late January this year, on the verge of releasing their third quarter results, BT announced that after further investigation by auditors KPMG, the BT Italia affair would now cost somewhere in the region of £530 million to correct. Their shock profit warning was compounded by a downturn in BT’s British fortunes, uncertain market conditions and the loss of British and European state contracts.

Upon the announcement of profit warnings, BT’s share price collapsed, wiping off £8 billion from their FTSE 100 company share valuation. Forecasts for BT’s next two operating years have been cut. As a result, profits are estimated to be £300 million lower than previously expected. BT’s ability to outbid Rupert Murdoch’s Sky for the broadcasting rights to televise lucrative European Champions League soccer may be affected.

BT has a vast global presence with operations in 180 countries. Earlier this month, it was revealed that Deutsch Telekom—the German company that is BT’s largest single shareholder—is set to announce in its full-year results on March 2 a £3 billion write-down on its shareholding.

One after another household names from the blue chip FTSE100 have come under investigation for alleged criminal business practices designed to secure profits and market dominance. The investigation into BT Italia follows hot on the heels of the record fine of Rolls Royce aerospace for corrupt activities.

Not worried by the consequences and knowing no serious punishment will be meted out, BT merely suggested a “need to reflect” on why the illegal behaviour was not spotted by BT Italia’s management, the wider BT group, or even by its auditors.

BT’s London based senior management claim they were initially alerted by a whistleblower to wrongdoings at their Italian division last summer. BT Italian chief executive Gianluca Cimini and chief operating officer Stefania Truzzoli have since left the business, after their initial suspension by BT.

In business circles, BT’s serious profit warning was deemed far more critical in than any alleged crimes committed at BT Italia. Bloomberg’s Gadfly column typically bemoaned how “Britain’s largest provider of communication services used the bad tidings from Italy to bury even worse news: a profit warning.”

In light of the scandal BT’s remuneration committee are to examine bonus payments, previously paid to leading directors based on profit targets that were probably never achieved in the real world. Any such moves may well require the paying back of such payments given to senior Italian executives, two of whom were initially suspended and have now left the business. In addition, BT’s European head, Corrado Sciolla resigned from his post shortly after the scandal broke.

BT chief executive Gavin Patterson said BT was investigating its other overseas interests, but believed the problem was specific to Italy. Patterson argued that the BT Italia affair involved a very complex set of manipulations, involving lots of people over many years. He stated, “This is a very disappointing situation. It’s been going on for a number of years. It’s a complex situation that’s involved a lot of people and a business we thought was profitable but in truth was probably unprofitable for a number of years.”

Patterson alone earned some £5.3 million during 2016, including an annual bonus worth over £1 million, and share options worth another £3 million. BT’s international finance director, Tony Chanmugam, due to step down in the summer, received £2.8 million with a further £587,000 bonus.

BT and their auditors PwC have not offered as yet any explanation as to why and how the wrongdoing at their Italian operations apparently continued year after year, unabated until recently. BT’s chief executive said only, “We need to take stock and understand why the company’s management, internal audit and auditors failed to spot this over time.”

The crisis at BT has a widespread knock-on effect within the UK population, as some 700,000 of its 827,000 shareholders own 1,600 shares or fewer.

In the summer of 1982, the Thatcher Conservative government sold off what had been until 1977 an integral part of the state-owned Post Office. The Carter Report was designed to begin breaking up state monopolies and to introduce free market principles. It separated British Telecommunications, trading as British Telecom, off from the Post Office. In November 1984, more than 50 percent of British Telecommunications shares were sold to the public, in what was at the time the largest share issue in the world. Within a decade, the government’s remaining shares in British Telecommunications were sold off, raising £5 billion. A third flotation in July 1993 saw 750,000 new shareholders to the company taking out a stake.

What had previously been commonly termed the “country’s crown jewels,” i.e. gas, water, electricity, the telephone system and later the train transportation system—British Rail—were all privatised, with prices and bills for consumers skyrocketing.

BT Italia was originally formed by British Telecom in the late 1990s, together with a number of other regional privately owned media corporations. These included Mediaset, owned by former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, as the Italian government aped the British example and privatised whole swathes of their economy.

The scandal surrounding business practices at BT Italia compounds protracted issues over the company’s huge pension deficit, which has recently climbed to approximately £7 billion. According to a report published last year by MSCI, which analysed the health of more than 5,000 company pension funds across the globe, BT has the second-worst funded pension scheme in the world. The dire state of its pension system meant that BT has not been able to be sold or merged. The financial chicanery revealed at BT Italia is a culmination of this process, with new criminal means devised in order to enrich a few major players.

BT joins other formerly state owned companies like British Steel and British Aerospace that were privatised during the 1980s and have since come to grief. The orgy of more than 50 privatisations of public services and utilities that occurred during the Thatcher- and Major-led Tory administrations has been a disaster for the consumer and a boon for its richest shareholders.