India: COVID-19 and Women’s Reproductive and Sexual Health

Akanksha Khullar


Due to a wide range of factors, Indian women have historically faced multiple barriers to accessing sexual and reproductive health (SRH) care products and services. The COVID-19 pandemic and consequent disruptions have exacerbated these barriers and their adverse effects.

Pre-Pandemic State-of-Affairs
In 1952, India became the world’s first country to launch a national family planning programme. Since then, New Delhi has become a signatory to various international covenants and conventions related to feminine health and hygiene, and has launched several relevant national programmes. However, despite these efforts, India still has a long way to go vis-à-vis ensuring women’s comprehensive access to SRH care.

For instance, there are several shortcomings in India’s maternal care landscape. On one hand, there is limited provision of antenatal and postnatal care services within the Indian public health system. On the other, there are challenges—such as socio-cultural and financial factors, lack of public awareness about the significance of maternal care, etc—that negatively impact women’s access to antenatal and postnatal care. According to the National Family Health Survey, in 2015-16, only 21 per cent of women in India received complete antenatal care during pregnancy, and about 62.4 per cent received postnatal care within two days of delivery.

Access to contraceptives and abortion services—which are also essential for women to exercise agency over their own bodies—is even more complicated. Although abortion is legal in India (albeit in certain circumstances), millions of women continue to undergo unsafe abortions, risking injury and death. While there are several risk factors contributing to India’s high maternal mortality rate—including anaemia, sepsis, hypertension, etc—unsafe abortions have become one of the most common causes of maternal mortality, with nearly 8 per cent of all maternal deaths attributed to complications from unsafe procedures.

Moreover, nearly 12.9 per cent of women in India do not have access to their preferred method of contraception, and 5.7 per cent have no access to spacing methods that could be used between pregnancies to maintain their health. Additionally, regressive social norms and limited legal reform along with various other structural factors only exacerbate the problem, impeding women’s access to comprehensive SRH care.

Access to SRH care is even more problematic for women from smaller towns or rural areas. They typically rely on traditional methods where their family planning needs, pregnancy care, and access to SRH products are often made possible by locally accredited social health activists (ASHA) and anganwadi workers. These workers form the backbone of primary healthcare in the country’s 6 lakh villages. However, they continue to face several challenges—including lack of access to essential medicines and pregnancy testings kits, hurdles to working at night time etc—to rendering essential services, which in turn deprives women in rural India of necessary SRH care.

The Impact of COVID-19
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing physical restrictions have negatively impacted even existing access to SRH products, services, and information for many Indian women from diverse backgrounds across various socio-economic groups.

This is largely because a majority of public healthcare resources—even those reserved for SRH care—have been redirected towards mitigating the impact of the virus and treating infected patients. Thus, in addition to prevailing shortcomings in India’s SRH landscape, the availability of medical amenities, diagnostic centres, and doctors trained SRH care related services has reduced further.

Anecdotal evidence shows that some women seeking essential SRH services were turned away as medical facilities are overwhelmed by COVID-19 services and thus unable to accommodate them at that juncture.

Compounding this is the problem of disrupted pharmaceutical supply chains. The nationwide lockdown, transportation limitations, and a shrinking labour market have forced several drug manufacturing plants to close down or reduce capacity. Production has dropped, thereby affecting the availability of SRH products such as contraceptives, antibiotics to treat sexually transmitted diseases, and antiretroviral medicines for AIDS/HIV etc.

The disrupted supply chains could in turn cause price hikes, forcing women to look for alternatives. This could potentially increase health and mortality risks, placing a severe strain on their overall well-being.

Given the pre-existing challenges in women’s access to over-the-shelf contraceptives, these product shortages, coupled with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare’s decision to temporarily suspend sterilisations and insertion of intra-uterine contraceptive devices at public facilities, could also result in millions of unintended pregnancies, unsafe abortions, and even maternal deaths. An analysis by the Foundation for Reproductive Health Services in India predicts that the lockdown and subsequent lack of facilities will lead to an additional 1.94 million unintended pregnancies; 1.18 million abortions (including 681,883 unsafe abortions), and 1,425 maternal deaths.

Women in rural India are all the more vulnerable due to limitations in access to treatment, products, and information. With restrictions on movement and the threat of infection, locally assigned maternal care attendants are finding it difficult to travel to patients’ homes, which leaves several pregnancies and health unmonitored.

Conclusion
In India, women’s access to essential SRH services has been deeply compromised in the ongoing crisis. While the central government’s approach has rightly focused on containing the spread of the virus, SRH care cannot become collateral damage, should instead be an essential component of the immediate response strategy.

Time to Empower the Invisibles: India Awaits a Mental Health Revolution

Priyanka Singh & Sujeet Singh

Mental health is an inherent and the most paramount aspect of our well being, without it a qualitative life is barren to imagine. These ‘Covidnary Times’ are extremely turbulent, where ‘Normality’ will be more sidelined with ‘Abnormality.’ The side-effects of Covid-19 will keep hunting our World for ages to come. Surging mass layoffs, transcendental change in our social and community relations, deterioration of physical and financial health, lives being lost and even the right to ‘Rest In Peace’ has been violated by Coronavirus disease.

Covid-19 has made our society multiple times vulnerable and an easy prey to Mental illness like never before.

“Life is a tregedy when seen in close-up but a comedy in long shot”. There is nothing more tragic in human life than someone anguished from a chronic disabling disease and at the same time is forced by the society at the receiving end of Ignorance, mockery, exploitation, abuse (physical, Sexual) and socio-economic exclusion.

It’s quite atrocious, that in our society a person who suffers from mental illness is put on ‘Twin Jeopardy’ where the person suffers from within the body and at the same time is stigmatized, excluded and discriminated by the community in which they dwell.

In case of mental illness ‘Ignorance is a Sin’ whereas timely intervention with community and family support holds the key to bring life back on track.

Mental illnesses are treatable just like diabetes, but a long run comprehensive approach needs to be applied as pointed out by many. Medication, cognitive behavioural therapy with other social supporting factors plays a huge role in recovery. According to WHO, people suffering with Severe Mental illnesses can recover significantly by providing them through supportive Employment programs with family and community support where they are given a productive and inclusive life. Employment programs can work wonders in empowering and integrating them with the mainstream.

Two Golden principles related to Combating mental illnesses are Timely Treatment and their Inclusion. These two principles are supposed to be followed by the State as well are the Civil Society.

Simply put Mental illness acts as a detriment in the individual capacity and capabilities to work, where his ability to communicate, socialize and express gets hampered. When an individual stymies to comprehend reality. Where the individual goes through Vicious cycle of emotional booms and busts. Tiny day-to-day problems seem unmanageable. And the person gets engulfed in his or her own imagined set of World, the perception about reality does not remain real anymore.

Countering Mental illness is a challenging task and a multi-dimensional approach is required. Cynically it’s still missing in Indian society. People with Mental disorders are more at a risk of other deadly diseases like for instance the cardiovascular disease, obesity which increases the risk of premature mortality among them.

Also the diagnosis of mental illness is not a universal and uniform test, psychiatrist evaluation of mental health is only based on the behavioural symptoms of the patient or his family member interviews. The evaluation may differ plus there is no one size fit all approach for Treatment.

But our major obstacle is lack of mental health Awareness, Education and Stigma associated with Mental disorders. In our society the Psychosocial awareness is too ground zero that mental illness is often linked with some paranormal aspect rather than being provided treatment the sufferer is often taken to bogus self proclaimed faith healers, this is especially true for our rural settings. Even in our educated and informed Urban pockets people perceive and equate mental illness with depression or being sad.

What is more Heart-Breaking is that despite having all the required legislations in place, derogatory remarks are often used openly and brazenly against the mentally ill like retard, mad and crazy. What’s even more daunting is that studies suggest that even health workers were found to be misbehaving and have discriminating attitudes against the Mentally ill. The ‘Sensitisation’ and robust training of Mental health Workers, Personnel is needed on an emergent basis.

Gloomily in the present scenario most of our discussion and debate around Mental health is more centered around Depression only, other Severe mental illnesses like Schizophrenia, Bipolar disorder are not given the needed attention. According to the National Institute Of Mental Health the real burden of mental illness is particularly concentrated among those who suffer from Serious mental illness. Globally 45 million suffer from Bipolar disorder and 20 million from Schizophrenia.

Moreover the stigma attached to mental health is real and the problem is not confined to India alone. One will be surprised to find that even in a highly developed Nation like in Canada, mental illnesses are also Stigmatised. Around 43 per cent Canadian are reluctant to socialize with a friend having mental illness and 27 per cent of them are afraid to be with someone having serious mental illness.

And an individual who is mentally ill with severe mental illness are more likely to remain unemployed than others. They certainly are the most exploited and vulnerable group, multiple times prone to abuse, sexually and physically by the community and particularly within given households.

Almost all age groups, gender and socio-economic classes are at the risk of getting affected by mental illness. But evidence suggests that almost 50 percent of all the mental illness begins by the age of 14 years and almost 75 per cent by the age of 24. It’s not difficult to grasp that mental illness is nobody’s fault and it’s not a crime either, it’s an illness and anyone can fall victim to it. Hence, once for all, the community should “Stop Harassing and Stigmatising the Mentally ill.”

Various studies suggests that Mental illness is not caused by any single set of factors, numbers of interconnected factors like genetics, environment, social, economic factors play a role.

According to a recent study done by Lancet Psychiatry 2019, 1 in every 7 indian was found to be affected by mental disorder in the year 2017 and the proportion of mental disorders almost doubled since 1990. With a significant 10.5 per cent or more of the Indian population suffering from mental illness and India is among the most depressed Countryside Worldwide. Also our first National Mental Health Survey 2016, stated that the Treatment gap in India for any Mental Disorder is at a shockingly higher percentage of 83. It’s highly alarming for us at these Covidnary times to initiate focusing on Mental Well being. Otherwise, It’s now or never!

Mental health related information, reporting and surveillance systems play an extremely important role in delivering efficient and effective mental health care services. Our Mental health surveillance system remains more or less non-existent. With only an exception of Gujarat which monitors health indicators regularly and publishes reports on Mental health indicators.

Mental illnesses are not only underreported in India but are not reported at all. Still whatever data is available, it clearly depicts the dreadful stage that we have reached in terms of our Mental health. A total of 197.3 million people in India are estimated to be suffering from any mental disorder. In our case maximum load of mental illness is coming from Depression and Anxiety disorder with a striking 45.7 million and 44.9 million being prey to it respectively. Whereas 7.5 million are suffering from Bipolar and 3.5 million from Schizophrenia. And we also need to understand that people having mild depression may report and seek help more easily than someone having Severe Mental illness.

The discrimination, exploitation and underreporting is multiple times higher in Severe Mental illiness.

With such a horrific state of mental health, our counter mechanism to deal with it lacks significantly. Although the Government of India has taken a number of commendable measures, but unfortunately having Law codes and Policies on paper doesn’t really help much if the implementation at ground-level is not ensured by all the concerned actors, especially State level Government and Civil society need to work together with uniformity.

We have a dismal status in mental health care resources. With a population of more than 1.3 billion only around 9000 psychiatrists exist. A mere 0.75 Psychiatrists cater to about one lakh population in India whereas the desired number is above 3, in US and Europe there are 16 and 10 Psychiatrists to serve 100000 population respectively. US has almost 30 percent of World’s total Psychiatrists. At State level only Kerala has 1 psychiatrist per 1 lakh population.

The National Mental Health Survey, 2016 statistics revealed that in terms of Mental Health, only Gujarat and Kerala have performed well. Gujarat and Kerala are only Indian States that separately report the Budgetary allocation to Mental Health in their State Budget. But the total budgetary allocation for mental health remains below 1 per cent in all the Indian states. And whatever is allocated, mostly it is spent only in paying salaries of staff. Majority of the Budget rests unutilized. Mental Rehabilitation facilities for mentally ill are also absent with only exception of West Bengal. No Indian State other than Gujarat and Kerala were found to be having State specific policy on mental health. The social welfare schemes associated with mentally disabled such as pension schemes were almost negligible & non-existent. Limited mental disability certificates were issued due to which reservation based jobs to mentally ill are missing with only exception being Gujarat.

And we should always remember that our Indian Constitution upholds the dignity, rights and equality of every Citizen including the Mentally ill. It’s our Indian Constitution that laid the very foundation of an inclusive society. Article 41, directs the State to make effective provisions to secure right to work, education, public assistance in case of any disablement. Article 21, Right to life & liberty bestows the right to dignified life which is Fundamental Right of every person including the Mentally ill as noted by Supreme Court.

Thus exclusion of mentally ill is not only a social Evil or Sin it’s also Unconstitutional in nature.

But the Government of India in recent years has taken a number of appreciably sweeping measures, for instance the Right of Person With Disability Act 2016 has included persons with Mental illness as a disability, the section 92 of this act discuss the provisions of imprisonment along with fine in case of atrocities against Persons With Disability including mentally ill. The provision for 1 per cent reservation to Mentally ill is also dictated by this phenomenally empowering act but neither the disability certificates are issued to mental ill nor they are made aware of their legal rights. Moreover the very recent Mental Healthcare Act 2017 for the very first time has made the right to mental health care as Justiciable right. This legislation is a ray of hope amid the darkness, it gives rights to the most vulnerable group of Mentally ill, it speaks against their human rights violations and has various provisions for a dignified living. Both these acts are in consonance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability, 2007 (UNCPWD) . According to the Art 27 of UNCPWD, recognise the right to work and participate in labour market that should be open, inclusive and accessible to persons with disability which after passing of RPWD ACT 2016 includes mentally ill as well.

Finally it can be concluded that the moment of realisation in the name of ‘Covid 19’ has knocked our door. It has exposed our vulnerability with respect to Mental Health. Time is Ripe & Right to Empower, Acknowledge and Address the Mentally ill who are certainly the most vulnerable and marginalized section of our Society.

Peace process in Afghanistan: En route to failure?

Maryam Mastoor

The ongoing peace process provided an opportunity for Afghan factions to unite and undo all the wrongs committed against them in the past 20 years. Unfortunately, the internal strife of Afghanis has again prevailed over this opportunity. Explicitly, compelled by the upcoming election promise, the US wishes to withdraw forces from Afghanistan. China and Pakistan are earnestly pushing the peace process. Pakistan appointed a special envoy Muhammad Sadiq Khan to facilitate the process. General Bajwa, Pakistan’s Army Chief visited Afghanistan and held talks with President Ashraf Ghani, the Foreign Minister of Pakistan held his first foreign visit to Afghanistan.

All this shows that peace in Afghanistan is in utmost interest of Pakistan. Recently, Pakistan has also opened transit trade facility for Afghan exports to India through the Wagah border. This initiative of resuming transit trade facility via Wagah might help strife-ridden Afghanistan to immediately boost its exports to India and support its economy.

The question arises who doesn’t want peace? According to Taliban official in Doha, Khairullah Khairkhaw, the Kabul administration doesn’t want the foreign troops to withdraw. As all the benefits they avail now shall be curtailed if the foreign forces will withdraw. Abdullah Abdullah recently reiterated his commitment to peace, but also asserted that violence must stop. On the other hand, Taliban on their website allege, that afghan intelligence is behind all the violence, even the attack on the hospital was carried by the Kabul administration to convince the foreign forces that Afghanistan will further plunge into chaos, if they’ll leave.

By closely examining, one can understand that if Taliban conducted attacks against civilians, they could have lost the support of local population. As in guerrilla warfare, support of the local population is of utmost importance. Ironically, the local population scarcely show any affiliation with the Afghan government. It can be further testified from a very slim turnout in afghan elections of 2019. The Afghan leaders, both Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani seem absorbed in their self-interest. By working together for four years in a government they could not build trust and again entered into a tug of war after the 2019 elections.

India is also closely watching the developments in Afghanistan. It has recently appointed Rudrendra Tandon as a new envoy to Afghanistan. He is considered as a specialist of Afghanistan. It would not be in interest of India, if Taliban take control of Afghanistan. On the other hand, Russia doesn’t want the US presence in Afghanistan. It is alleged that Russia had been paying bounties to Taliban to kill Americans. However, Taliban have denied the claims and attributed it as a mischievous plan of Afghan intelligence, to malign them.

A recent report by UN Sanctions Monitor has caused damage to Taliban who largely tout about severing ties with Al Qaeda. The report says that Taliban still have linkages with Al Qaeda. This report can have serious repercussions on the intra Afghan dialogue as well. In the backdrop of the report, US central command top general, Gen Kenneth F Mckenzie cautioned against the complete withdrawal of the US troops from Afghanistan until Taliban clearly demonstrate that they have no links with Al Qaeda. Interestingly, on the website controlled by Taliban, Taliban have mentioned various mistakes in the report, and termed it fictitious based on information provided by Afghan intelligence.

Amazingly, what Taliban have pointed out is true. The report says that Mawlawi Nooruddin was killed in American night raid and later mentioned his name as a current shadow governor for Samanjan. There are couple of other mistakes on similar pattern. In the peace deal, there was a provision that the UN security council must remove sanctions on Taliban by May 24th, 2020 and US sanctions by August 2020. This report shall certainly curtail this probable development. Is this report another spoiler?

With all this discussion another important question comes to the mind, does the US really wishes to withdraw troops? Dr. Maleeha Lodhi is of the view that the troops will drawdown even if the intra Afghan rapprochement is not achieved. However, Michael E. O’ Hanlon, an expert on Afghanistan at Brookings says that the US should be committed on stabilizing Afghanistan. He proposed a slogan of 5000 troops for five years. Apparently, the public opinion of the US is also not in favour of complete drawdown. According to a survey conducted by Shilbi Telhami, senior nonresident fellow at Brookings, American people do support maintaining US foot print in Afghanistan.

America has spent 3 trillion dollars in Afghanistan, it has built five bases, would it leave just like that. China might also benefit, if the US completely drawdown. China’s BRI project that includes almost 60 countries, cautiously excluded Afghanistan. However, in 2016 both counties signed a memorandum of understanding to enhance cooperation. Afghanistan is pivotal in connecting Chinese markets to the rest of Asia, Europe and East Africa. Afghanistan government with the help of China has launched projects such as the Sino-Afghan Special Railway Transportation. This will link Afghanistan to China, via Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, thereby prioritizing connectivity. Owing to the Belt and Road Initiative and CPEC, China does not want a protracted conflict near a key belt of its ambitious connectivity initiative.

But it appears, that the U.S wishes to have a ‘safe stay’ in Afghanistan. Till elections, it is trying to buy time. Once a new leader takes office, be it a republican or a democrat, the US shall perpetuate its presence in Afghanistan. Even now, it is preparing its nation towards fulfilling a ‘moral’ duty of the US to protect the freedom of people of Afghanistan.

It seems that Taliban are also buying time, they may not be conducting attacks against civilians but they are conducting attacks on the Afghan forces. In the recent interview of Khairullah Khairkhaw, a political representative of Taliban, the truce was to stop attacks on the US forces not the Afghan government forces. They know that they control seventy percent of Afghanistan. Once, the forces shall leave, the Taliban can easily take over.

Hence, all this discussion establishes that Afghan peace process is in doldrums. There can be two main scenarios afterwards. The US forces shall withdraw even if the intra Afghan dialogue fails to install a mutually agreed upon governmental setup. Or the US forces shall maintain presence. Both these scenarios entail serious implications for the region. Is the region ready for the fall out of the impending Afghan crisis?

Rising Suicidal Tendencies Among Teenagers

Abid Shafi Banday

Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young adults worldwide. Close to 800 000 people die due to suicide every year, which is one person every 40 seconds. Suicide is a global phenomenon and occurs throughout the lifespan. Studies from India consistently document the highest suicide rates in the world, and the majority of completed suicides had been within adolescents. Every hour one student commits suicide in India, with about 28 such suicides reported every day, according to data compiled by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). The NCRB data shows that 10,159 students died by suicide in 2018, an increase from 9,905 in 2017, and 9,478 in 2016. As per reports of WHO, Suicide is the third leading cause of death in 15-19-year-olds.

It is a worrying situation nowadays that everyday we hear about students in the age group of 15-25 are attempting suicides in our valley. In recent past , some 3-4 days back a young girl attempted suicide in Budgam District, on next day a case was reported from North Kashmir’s Baramulla District and yesterday reported from Kulgam. We need to think effectively regarding the rising attempts and must take appropriate steps to prevent these mishapennings. The risk of suicidal behavior associated with Anxiety Disorders among adolescents is known. Anxiety Disorder is associated with the risk for potential suicidal behaviour. Adolescent boys with Anxiety and Depressive Disorders need to be identified as the high risk group for suicide prevention in the community. There is a growing recognition that prevention strategies need to be tailored and to be implemented in a culturally-sensitive manner. We must identify the factors which are pushing our young generation to attempt suicides. Is it pressure of exam, fear of failure, social negligence or something else ?. People from conflict zones have high tendency to suicide attempts also.
While the link between suicide and mental disorders (in particular, depression and alcohol use disorders) is well established in high-income countries, many suicides happen impulsively in moments of crisis with a breakdown in the ability to deal with life stresses, such as financial problems, relationship break-up or chronic pain and illness.
In addition, experiencing conflict, disaster, violence, abuse, or loss and a sense of isolation are strongly associated with suicidal behaviour. Suicide rates are also high amongst vulnerable groups who experience discrimination, such as refugees and migrants; indigenous peoples; and prisoners. By far the strongest risk factor for suicide is a previous suicide attempt. In general, people try to kill themselves for these reasons:

They’re depressed. This is, without question, the most common reason people die by suicide.

They’re psychotic. Malevolent inner voices often command self-destruction for unintelligible reasons. Psychosis is much harder to mask than depression, and is arguably even more tragic.

They’re impulsive. Often related to drugs and alcohol, some people become maudlin and impulsively attempt to end their own lives. Once sobered and calmed, these people usually feel emphatically ashamed.

They’re crying out for help, and don’t know how else to get it. These people don’t usually want to die but do want to alert those around them that something is seriously wrong

They have a philosophical desire to die. The decision to die by suicide for some is based on a reasoned decision, often motivated by the presence of a painful terminal illness from which little to no hope of reprieve exists. These people aren’t depressed, psychotic, maudlin, or crying out for help. They’re trying to take control of their destiny and alleviate their own suffering, which usually can only be done in death.

The rising incidents among students is one of the consequence of pressure from the parent side and from the society where we live. Parents usually come to psychiatrists to push youngsters harder and make sure they get into IIT, IIM,Medical Colleges if not Harvard. Everything else that they could do well like sport, music, painting are pushed to the past. The damage this can do to a child’s self-esteem is enormous. Behind the scenes, more alarmingly, students are also experimenting with performance-enhancing drugs. One such case was of a Lucknow girl, a College student who used to take Anacardium, a homeopathic solution, to keep nerves stress-free during exam. But there are others, who take serious anti-depressants and steroids. Doping for exam is prevalent among affluent students schools and colleges. Because Failure is a word that gives students continuous nightmares. After all, parents don’t give them credit for any activity they excel in, besides studies. Ingestion of pesticide, hanging and firearms are among the most common methods of suicide globally. It is estimated that around 20% of global suicides are due to pesticide self-poisoning, most of which occur in rural agricultural areas in low- and middle-income countries. Knowledge of the most commonly used suicide methods is important to devise prevention strategies which have shown to be effective, such as restriction of access to means of suicide.

Suicide does not just occur in high-income countries, but is a global phenomenon in all regions of the world. In fact, over 79% of global suicides occurred in low- and middle-income countries in 2016. According to WHO, Suicide is a serious public health problem; however, suicides are preventable with timely, evidence-based and often low-cost interventions. For national responses to be effective, a comprehensive multi-sectoral suicide prevention strategy is needed.

Prevention and control

Suicides are preventable. There are a number of measures that can be taken at population, sub-population and individual levels to prevent suicide and suicide attempts. These include:
• Reducing access to the means of suicide (e.g. pesticides, firearms, certain medications).
• Reporting by media in a responsible way.
• School-based interventions.
• Introducing alcohol policies to reduce the harmful use of alcohol.
• Early identification, treatment and care of people with mental and substance use disorders, chronic pain and acute emotional distress.
• Training of non-specialized health workers in the assessment and management of suicidal behaviour.
• Religious leaders have a crucial role to play in order to do proper counselling.
• Follow-up care for people who attempted suicide and provision of community support.
Suicide is a complex issue and therefore suicide prevention efforts require coordination and collaboration among multiple sectors of society, including the health sector and other sectors such as education, labour, agriculture, business, justice, law, defense, politics, and the media. These efforts must be comprehensive and integrated as no single approach alone can make an impact on an issue as complex as suicide.

War crimes in Afghanistan covered up by UK Ministry of Defence

Jean Shaoul

The government has been caught out lying about evidence on the killing of civilians in Afghanistan by the elite Special Air Service (SAS).

Three years into a civil case in the High Court brought by Saiffulah Yar into the deaths of four family members at the hand of the SAS, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has finally handed over a tranche of e-mails and documents revealing official concerns about the killing of Afghan civilians. The MoD previously indicated it had no such documents.

The documents, written by SAS officers and military personnel, provide evidence of war crimes. They show that while the government claimed that there was no credible evidence about these events, the evidence had been sitting in Whitehall.

It is a damning confirmation of the criminality of the 2001 US-led invasion and occupation of Afghanistan that has led to more than 175,000 deaths, hundreds of thousands of wounded, and millions forced from their homes.

The intervention in Afghanistan, planned well in advance of the bombing of the twin towers in New York in 2001, was not launched to prosecute a “war on terrorism” but rather to project US military power into Central and South Asia. The US was intent on seizing control of a country bordering on the oil-rich former Soviet republics of the Caspian Basin, as well as China. The UK joined as a willing partner on behalf of its own oil corporations in this criminal venture.

The High Court has now ordered Ben Wallace, the Secretary of State for Defence, to explain why the ministry withheld evidence suggesting SAS soldiers executed 33 civilians in Afghanistan in early 2011. He has until November to reply. The MoD claimed it was not new evidence, as it had been reviewed by the official inquiry—Operation Northmoor—into allegations of civilian killings.

Saifullah brought the case against the MoD to discover what happened to his family and whether the case had been thoroughly investigated by the British authorities. His father, two brothers, and a cousin were killed during a raid on his family’s home in Qala-e-Bost, east of Lashkar Gah in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, under British occupation in 2011.

After the raid, Saifullah, who was 16 at the time, found his father, Haji Abdul Kaliq, 55, two brothers, Sadam, 23, and Atullah, 25, and a cousin shot dead. One of his brothers and his father had been handcuffed and hooded before being shot as they lay face down on the ground. Royal Military Police (RMP) officers had arrived at his family’s compound by helicopter and handcuffed and fingerprinted him, along with the other male members of his family, before he was taken to a barn with the women and children, where they were guarded by soldiers during the raid. He denies that his family had any weapons or were connected to the Taliban, the ostensible cause of the raid.

According to the 1977 Geneva Conventions, shooting civilians is only lawful if they are participating directly in hostilities. With no precise definition of “direct participation,” civilians are expected to be given the benefit of the doubt. Under UK domestic law, which is applicable to the armed forces, a soldier can use force to defend him/herself and others, including lethal force, only provided it is reasonable in the circumstances.

The MoD had previously maintained that it was unaware of any complaint about the raid until the family launched a legal case in 2013. But six years later, it transpired that the Royal Military Police (RMP) had interviewed 54 soldiers involved in the operation leading up to the raid on Saifullah’s family home, with the government’s lawyers claiming that none of those involved could remember very much about the operation.

The documents, first revealed by BBC TV’s Panorama and the Sunday Times, tell a different story. They confirm claims that the government covered up dozens of allegations—including by UK soldiers—of the killing of innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Philip Alston, the former UN Special Rapporteur on executions, told Panorama, “ I have no doubt that overall many of the allegations [of innocent people being killed] are justified, and that we can conclude that a large number of civilians were killed in night raids, totally unjustifiably.”

One of the e-mails, sent by an SAS officer the morning after the raid, described it as “the latest massacre!” and added, “I’ve heard a couple of rumours.” Another document revealed that there had been a secret review of suspicious killings and a string of related incidents in which the SAS had killed fighting-age men, often during a search of premises, allegedly because they had picked up a weapon.

According to the review that covered the first quarter of 2011, 23 people were killed and 10 guns were recovered in three operations. It was clear a senior officer examining the official reports filed about the SAS’s night raids was sceptical of their veracity, remarking on their similarity in that the detained men suddenly grabbed a weapon. He found at least five separate incidents where more people were killed than weapons were recovered. Taken together, this led him to conclude, “In my view there is enough here to convince me that we are getting some things wrong, right now.”

One SAS commander even wrote to London warning there was “possibly a deliberate policy” and that the SAS troops had potentially strayed into “indefensible behaviour” that could amount to being “criminal.”

His concern was that the killings were jeopardising the support of Afghan forces, which were refusing to accompany the British on night raids, and “put[ting] at risk the [redacted] transition plan and more importantly the prospects of enduring UK influence” in Afghanistan.

While the RMP had launched an investigation called Operation Northmoor into 657 allegations of abuse, mistreatment, and killings, including into the deaths of Saifullah’s family members, at the hands of British forces, the government closed it down in 2017. Once again, a three-year-long official probe, costing at least £10 million, failed to result in a single prosecution.

The corporate media had gone into overdrive, branding the investigations as a witch-hunt. The MoD filed complaints against the lawyers bringing civil suits against it, including against Saifullah’s lawyer Leigh Day. Leigh Day was cleared of wrongdoing after a six-week tribunal in September 2017.

In March, the government introduced legislation proposing a five-year limit on prosecutions for soldiers serving outside the UK. With its “presumption against prosecution” that gives the green light to future war crimes, including the mass murder of civilians, the military will now be above the law.

It was WikiLeaks publisher and journalist Julian Assange who, by publishing the Afghan war logs in 2010, a vast trove of leaked US military documents, first brought to the world’s attention evidence of the criminality of a war that has now lasted 19 years. The Afghan war logs exposed the myth that the occupation of Afghanistan was a “good war,” supposedly waged to defeat terrorism, extend democracy, and protect women’s rights. They revealed the mass killings of civilians by both US and UK forces, detailing at least 21 occasions when British troops opened fire on civilians.

It is not just those soldiers who perpetrated these crimes on behalf of British imperialism that have escaped punishment. The guilty include those at the top of the political and military ladder that planned and executed this criminal war, even as they plot new crimes, including catastrophic conflicts with nuclear-armed powers such as China and Russia.

Instead, the only two people who have faced criminal repercussions are those who reported the crimes: Chelsea Manning, who has endured a decade of persecution, and Julian Assange, who is imprisoned in Britain’s maximum-security Belmarsh Prison awaiting court hearings for his extradition to the US where he faces 175 years of imprisonment under the Espionage Act. The exposures of the horrors of both the Afghan and Iraq wars earned Assange the undying hatred of Britain’s political establishment, which is why they have hounded, intimidated, tortured and imprisoned him.

NTEU enforces deep pay and job cuts at Australian universities

Mike Head

The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) is pressing ahead in its collaboration with university managements to inflict cuts to wages, jobs and basic conditions. This is despite a rebellion by union members that led to the collapse of NTEU’s “national framework” that offered managements wage cuts of up to 15 percent at all 39 public universities and still accepted the loss of 18,000 jobs.

In the latest outrage, the NTEU national executive is urging staff members at Adelaide University to take pay cuts of up to 15 percent and still accept the elimination of 200 jobs. The union struck a deal with the management following talks that the university’s grateful acting vice-chancellor described as “constructive.”

The Adelaide agreement again demonstrates that the union will stop at nothing to assist the employers and governments as they exploit the global COVID-19 pandemic to impose unprecedented attacks on university workers, who already have experienced years of under-funding, soaring workloads and casualisation.

Like workers everywhere, university educators and professional staff members are being forced by the trade unions to pay the price for the failure of global capitalism to protect lives and livelihoods from the pandemic, which is resurging around the world as a direct result of the ruling elite’s “economic reopening” program.

The NTEU’s collaboration is paving the way for an acceleration of this offensive as the pandemic worsens. Adding to the tidal wave of retrenchments already underway, thousands more university jobs will be destroyed because of the COVID-19 catastrophe in the state of Victoria. The resulting economic hit nationally, and the extension of travel bans and other restrictions, will further devastate universities.

Universities Australia previously predicted up to 30,000 positions would be destroyed in the next three years because of an expected $16 billion of lost revenue, primarily due to the loss of high fee-paying international students. Those estimates are now clearly an understatement.

Melbourne University Vice-Chancellor Duncan Maskell yesterday announced the scrapping of 450 full-time jobs—5 percent of the workforce—plus an unknown number of casual and fixed-term positions. But he said he would consult the NTEU on how to implement the cuts and university would do “everything we can to minimise involuntary redundancies”—which is a means of working with the union to try to stifle resistance.

This is part of an avalanche of job cuts, including 493 at the University of New South Wales, 277 at Monash University, 210 at the University of New England, more than 200 at Charles Sturt University, up to 20 percent of the workforce at Sydney’s Macquarie University and still-to-be finalised numbers at Newcastle University.

The NTEU is trying to sidetrack the outrage of university workers and students into a parliamentary petition campaign, imploring Centre Alliance and other right-wing senators to block the Liberal-National government’s latest student fee hikes and funding cuts. This serves only to stifle independent action by university staff.

At the same time, the union is joining hands with big business leaders, such as Business Council chief executive Jennifer Westacott, to plead with the government to recognise that universities deliver the kinds of “dynamic” graduates that employers want. According to NTEU national president Alison Barnes, writing in the August edition of the union’s Sentry magazine, this business support shows that “everyone looks to the government for a plan to stop Australian universities from sinking beneath the waves.”

Alongside this partnership with business leaders, the NTEU is urging university workers and students to sign a sycophantic open letter to university vice-chancellors, asking them to “stand with us” and oppose the government’s measures. These are the same vice-chancellors with whom the NTEU is holding hands as they shut down courses, close campuses, slash wages and axe jobs.

Adelaide University Acting Vice-Chancellor Professor Mike Brooks sent an email to staff welcoming the “in-principle” deal with the union, endorsed by the NTEU national executive. Clause 19.2 of the agreement states that the total wage reduction can be “an amount equivalent to a maximum total of 15 percent of a staff member’s salary in any given pay period.”

These reductions can include three weeks of compulsory leave purchase, a 3.5 percent wage cut over nine months, the deferral of a pay rise and the axing of annual holiday leave loading. From September, for example, an administrative worker on just above the median full-time female wage of $65,000 a year would lose 8 percent—$263 per fortnight.

Supposedly, this would “save” 200 of the 400 full-time jobs currently facing elimination, but there is no real guarantee of this, especially as the health and economic crisis continues.

At some universities, the NTEU has opposed management proposals, but only because they have been drafted without consultation with the union, which is preoccupied solely with retaining its role as the vehicle for policing the requirements of the employers.

At Victoria’s Deakin University, the NTEU last month appealed to the Fair Work Commission, the federal government’s industrial court, over the management’s plans to axe 427 jobs. Recognising the value of the union’s services, the commission ordered the management to conduct “meaningful consultation” with the union and staff. The order instructed the university to provide “some limited information” on its plans to “the relevant NTEU officials.”

Far from being a protection of jobs, the order permitted the university to continue pursuing “voluntary” redundancies, with the commissioner encouraging the management to “seek some accommodation with the NTEU.”

As a result of this supposed “victory,” the union is imploring the management to “come back to the negotiating table in good faith.” Similar appeals to the Fair Work Commission have become another means for the NTEU to head off the discontent of university workers.

Likewise, at Brisbane’s Griffith University, the NTEU is advocating a “no” vote to a management plan that the union calls “sub-standard,” while insisting that “NTEU members agree” that “everyone has to chip in to help in these difficult times.” On that basis, it is urging its members to tell the management “to negotiate a better deal.”

University workers need to reject the ultimatums being put forward by the NTEU, governments and management: accept wage cuts and other concessions or face redundancies. This is the framework created by governments and the financial elite.

The global pandemic is not the only cause of the deep crisis in the universities. It has accelerated what has been happening for years. Billions of dollars have been cut from universities, since massive cuts introduced by the last Greens-backed Labor Party government of 2010-2013.

Yesterday’s revelation that universities have illegally underpaid casual workers by millions of dollars over the past decade underscores how far this process had gone, long before COVID-19, all facilitated by enterprise agreements negotiated by the NTEU.

The record demonstrates that university academics, staff and students can defend jobs and fight for free, high-quality education, only through a rebellion against the NTEU and other unions and the entire political establishment.

The NTEU’s intensifying collaboration with the employers shows the necessity of the joint call issued on June 15 by the Committee for Public Education (CFPE) and the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) for university workers and students to unite to form independent rank-and-file committees, to prosecute a genuine industrial and political struggle against all the union-enforced attacks.

That requires challenging the capitalist profit system and its grip over society. This means turning to a socialist perspective, based on the total reorganisation of society in the interests of all, instead of the financial oligarchy.

Germany: Right-wing terror in Erfurt

Marianne Arens

In the night of August 1, three men from Guinea were brutally attacked by neo-Nazis in Erfurt and had to be taken to hospital. One of them, a 21-year-old youth, suffered such severe head injuries that his condition was still considered “critical” days later; he is still in hospital.

It was in the early hours of the morning when the three happened to pass a neo-Nazi meeting place. They did not know that the “Neue Stärke Erfurt e.V.,” a martial arts club in a former shopping centre in the south of the city, had been occupied for five years by fascists from “Der III. Weg” (“The 3rd Way”) and used as a clubhouse. Several men standing around outside on that night attacked the three passers-by without any cause, beating and kicking them most brutally.

The police arrested 12 of them, but after a few hours, the violent perpetrators, all neo-Nazis known to the city authorities and the police, were free again. Senior Public Prosecutor Hannes Grünseisen, spokesman for Thuringia’s Public Prosecutor General’s Office, reported they were under investigation for committing “grievous bodily harm and breach of the peace.” However, since there was “no danger of a cover-up or of them fleeing,” there was “no reason for their detention.”

Witnesses are still being sought to clarify the exact course of events. The injured victims, whose death the Nazi thugs had accepted, are apparently out of the question as witnesses.

The attack is only the tip of an iceberg. In Erfurt, right-wing gangs of thugs can act completely freely and uninhibitedly under the eyes of the state authorities. This is what happened just a few days earlier, on July 18, when masked right-wing extremists attacked a group of young people celebrating in front of the state chancellery, where surveillance cameras record everything, day and night. At least five of the 12 or so attacked, including young women, were left lying on the floor, some of them seriously injured. As in the case of the Guineans, the Thuringian State Criminal Office (LKA) quickly took over the investigation—and apparently, let it fizzle out.

Last Saturday, about 400 protested in an Erfurt demonstration against racism, right-wing violence and its cover-up by the state. A spokeswoman for the Thuringian Ezra victim advisory service, Christin Fiedler, described the attack in front of the state chancellery:

“This was not a ‘mass brawl’ or ‘confrontation,’ but a targeted, coordinated and insidious attack on people celebrating peacefully by right-wing violent criminals, presumably experienced in martial arts. The perpetrators were partially masked and knew exactly what they were doing. They acted without restraint and with enormous brutality and knowingly accepted causing possible fatal injuries, for example by continuing to kick people who were lying unconscious on the ground.”

For Fiedler, the fact that the attack took place in public, with video monitoring directly in front of the building of the Thuringia state government shows “how secure the perpetrators felt, who did not even stop when the police were already on the scene.”

The fascist attacks in Erfurt are part of a wave of right-wing extremist and anti-Semitic violence. These have increased considerably in Germany. Even the federal Interior Minister, Horst Seehofer, had to admit this when he spoke of a “long trail of blood” in May, when presenting the police crime statistics, which leads from the actions of the neo-fascist NSU, responsible for a series of xenophobic murders, to the attacks in Munich, Halle and Hanau, to the murder of Kassel’s district president Walter Lübcke. Seehofer said, “The greatest threat in our country comes from the right.”

But the neo-Nazis and anti-Semites have no mass support among the population, unlike the 1930s. The majority hates and despises right-wing extremism and expresses this again and again—sometimes in mass demonstrations. The fascists only feel so strong because they know that the “state within the state”—the dark channels and neo-Nazi networks in the police, the Bundeswehr (Armed Forces) and the secret service—are at their side. That is why Erfurt’s well-known neo-Nazis, who are prepared to use violence, are again at large in the city, even though they have just beaten three Guineans half to death.

The decision to let them roam free evinces such open support for the right-wingers that Thuringia state interior minister Georg Maier (Social Democratic Party, SPD) felt compelled to publicly criticise it. “The Nazi thugs of Erfurt are all walking free again,” Maier tweeted. “I know it’s not my place to criticise the justice system, but it’s a disaster for the victims and the people of Herrenberg.” Herrenberg is the housing estate where the attack took place.

Like Seehofer, Maier is trying to cover his tracks. The federal interior minister showed his solidarity with radical right-wing protests in Chemnitz in September 2018, among other things. Maier is part of a state government in Thuringia, which is led by a state premier from the Left Party, Bodo Ramelow, and which courts the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and seeks to cooperate with it. This was demonstrated only a few hours after Ramelow’s re-election in the spring.

On March 6, Ramelow used his casting vote to help the AfD take over the vice presidency of the Thuringia state legislature. Ramelow then explicitly stated on Twitter that he had “very fundamentally decided to use my vote to clear the way for parliamentary participation, which must be granted to every parliamentary group.”

The Left Party, for which many voters had only cast their ballot because they wanted to set an example against the right wing, thus very consciously ensured the AfD’s “parliamentary participation”—a party that plays down Nazism, fans racism and, especially in Thuringia, has open neo-Nazis in its ranks. It is precisely this policy of the Left Party and the SPD that strengthens and encourages the extreme right-wing gangs of thugs. The SPD interior minister is only concerned because the effects of the right-wing policies of the Ramelow government are visible. He is not taking any action in the matter, despite the public prosecutor’s office being part of his department.

Nazi parties such as “Die Rechte” (“The Right”) and “Der III. Weg” have been explicitly allowed to use the building in Erfurt-South, where the Guineans were attacked, as a clubhouse for five years. Undisturbed by the authorities, they organize right-wing rock concerts, martial arts training, and party meetings there. Enrico Biczysko, is a right-wing figurehead in Erfurt’s city council for the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party of Germany, and the neo-Nazis have friends and supporters in the judiciary and police.

The first police press release after the attack was already characteristic for this right-wing swamp. In officialese, it blandly states, “On 01.08.2020 at about 03:05, a verbal dispute between a group of three foreign fellow citizens and about 10 Germans occurred, which culminated in a physical confrontation. In the course of this quarrel, two persons with a migration background were injured, some of them seriously.” The cynicism of this police communication can hardly be surpassed. Through their presence in Germany, the Guineans had put themselves in danger and ultimately brought about their own injuries.