Five Boston public schools slated for closure

John Marion

Once again, workers’ wages and benefits are being used by a city as an excuse for imposing austerity measures. With an estimated fiscal year 2016 budget shortfall of $42-51 million, the Boston Public Schools and their interim superintendent have announced the closing of five schools.

As with previous closings in 2011 and 2014, authorities aim to push through this year’s attack at public hearings designed to let off steam. Last year a parent accurately summed up such hearings by stating that “parents work hard to provide for our children and we get reduced to two minutes to beg for essential services.”

The cuts imposed by the School Committee last year included the replacement of school bus service with MBTA public transit passes for all students in the 8th grade and above. The callousness of this measure was on full display last month as students were either late for school or had to wake up hours early when the MBTA system was crippled due to a series of snowstorms.

The schools slated for closure in the coming year include:

• Community Academy high school in Jamaica Plain, which has offered small classes and one-on-one tutoring to students who don’t learn well in a larger setting.

• Middle School Academy in South Boston, formerly the Gavin Middle School, which was converted to a charter in 2011 by UP Academy, an organization with ties to the Gates Foundation.

• Rogers Middle School in Hyde Park, which has taught children for 100 years and offers not just high-school level algebra but also dance, drama, chorus, soccer, basketball, baseball, volleyball, track and cross country.

• Elihu Greenwood Leadership Academy, a Hyde Park school for grades K2-5 that offers Sheltered English Immersion along with before- and after-school programs.

• West Roxbury Academy, a business-oriented high school that “partners” with Turner Broadcasting.

Interim Superintendent John McDonough began his letter to parents of children at these schools with the cynical statement that “this is an exciting time in the history of the Boston Public Schools.” In the next paragraph he got to the heart of the matter, writing that the school system needs to “maximize resources” and “address the hard reality that we have too many empty seats in some of our schools.”

McDonough’s pledge to “consolidate half-full classrooms” and close under-enrolled schools means that teachers at other schools will be expected to take on more work without extra pay.

The average BPS teacher makes slightly less than $90,000 per year in one of the most expensive areas of the country. Librarians’ salaries are similar, while clerical and custodial staff make less than $50,000 on average. Substitute teachers make between $137 and $277 per day.

Despite the replacement of yellow buses with MBTA passes, the fiscal year 2016 budget being considered by the Boston School Committee lumps an increase in transportation costs in with salary and benefit increases to calculate a $58 million increase for next year. The BPS has slightly more than 4,500 teachers teaching 57,000 students in 128 schools.

While students, parents, and school staff are expected to sacrifice, no similar demands will be made on investment firms, private universities, large hospitals, or other Boston employers. In its most recent tax filing, Partners Healthcare, which runs Massachusetts General Hospital and other Boston-area hospitals, reported $10 billion in revenue and 14 executives earning $1 million or more per year.

While the Boston area is home to some of the nation’s most prestigious universities, the city’s public school system is starved for funds. Boston University has an endowment of more than $1.6 billion, making it the 54th wealthiest university in the country.

State Street Corporation had revenues of more than $10 billion in 2014 but paid only $434 million in income taxes across all of its operations. Abigail Johnson, the president of Fidelity Investments, is worth more than $13 billion and is 85th on Forbes’ list of the world’s wealthiest people. Boston.com, citing statistics from The Northern Trust Company, estimates more than 7,000 millionaires in Suffolk County.

None of this wealth, however, will be made available to the public schools. Not-for-profits, including universities and hospitals, made payments in lieu of taxes totaling only $73 million in the year ending June 30, 2014. Aside from real estate taxes, for-profit corporations pay nothing to the city. In addition, corporate taxes make up only about 14 percent of state revenues, an amount similar to that derived from the regressive sales tax.

While the city has offered BPS an estimated $29-38 million increase from its General Fund for fiscal year 2016—a drop in the bucket compared to the total BPS budget of nearly $1 billion—that additional funding is partly offset by the loss of $14 million in state and federal funding. To make matters worse, Chapter 70 local aid from the state to Boston is declining because of the siphoning off of tuition to charter schools.

Local aid, known as Chapter 70 in the state laws, has been calculated according to Foundation Budget and cost-sharing formulas established in 1993 and modified in 2007. This aid, as a percentage of total BPS revenues, has been declining drastically, from 31 percent in 1999 to 11 percent in the current fiscal year.

The latest school closings in Boston occur against the backdrop of a statewide attack that will involve charter school conversions and the possibility of implementing standardized tests tied to the Common Core. On Friday, Republican Governor Charlie Baker announced that Paul Sagan, a venture capitalist, will be the new chairman of the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Sagan, identified in the Boston Herald as a former “executive in residence” at Cambridge firm General Catalyst Partners, has also been an “unpaid adviser” for MATCH Charter Schools for many years and chairman of the Mass. Business Leaders for Charter Public Schools.

For his part, Baker is seeking “public input” on whether to replace the MCAS standardized tests with Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, exams statewide.

Toronto university strikes: OFL head conceals unions’ support for Liberals

Carl Bronski

Sid Ryan, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) and the former president of the Ontario division of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), spoke last week at rallies of strikers at both the University of Toronto and York University. In his addresses Ryan cynically masqueraded as an opponent of the big business Liberal government of Premier Kathleen Wynne, concealing the support he and the unions have provided for the Liberals and their austerity agenda.

Ten thousand education workers at Toronto’s two principal universities are entering their second week of job action against administration attacks on their living standards and the lack of job security.

Teachers' rally at York University

Teaching assistants and contract instructors at York University began a strike last week after voting down a contract offer that failed to address concerns over job security for the non-tenured teaching staff and tuition costs for graduate students. Early Saturday morning it was announced that a revised tentative agreement will be placed before the York strikers, members of CUPE Local 3903, Monday evening. Strikers knowledgeable about the contents of the revised offer have denounced it in an avalanche of emails to the Local 3903 membership.

The job action affecting 3,700 York education workers began a day after CUPE picket lines went up at the University of Toronto (U of T), where over 6,000 teaching assistants and non-tenured faculty are on strike against the administration’s grossly inadequate funding package that caps TAs annual salaries at $15,000 per year—well below the provincial poverty line. Workers there had voted overwhelmingly to turn down a tentative contract endorsed by the union local executive.

Over 100,000 students are affected by the two strikes.

At the two rallies, featured speaker Sid Ryan offered his trademark bombast, excoriating an Ontario Liberal government that has steadily reduced funding for higher education for years as part of its ongoing austerity policies.

Listeners, however, might be forgiven for giving their earmuffs a smack in the sub-zero Toronto cold. Indeed, as one striker at the U of T rally cried out in exasperation during Ryan’s oration, “Then why did you support the Liberal budget”?

Good question.

Prior to the June 2014 provincial election call, most of Ontario’s union officialdom, including the OFL and CUPE Ontario, had been pressuring the NDP to continue propping up the minority Liberal government, as they had done since 2011. Both OFL President Sid Ryan and Jerry Dias, the head of Unifor, Canada’s largest industrial union, lauded the 2014-15 budget the Liberals tabled in the legislature and urged the NDP to ensure its passage. Ryan glowingly described the budget as an “NDP budget,” while Dias claimed that under the “leadership of Kathleen Wynne and NDP leader Andrea Horwath, Ontario has the opportunity to rebuild and ensure all Ontarians can prosper.”

This was no aberration. The first of the Liberal austerity budgets—passed with the acquiescence of the social democrats of the NDP in 2012—made $14 billion in cuts to provincial expenditures over the ensuing three years, including for Colleges and Universities.

It has been estimated that 105,000 jobs have been lost as a result of the Liberals’ austerity measures. Health care has been starved of funds and 8,000 more hospital beds cut, escalating the pace of the disintegration of quality public health care. Seniors are now means-tested for pharmaceutical prescription charges. Public schools have closed and other services, including child welfare, early learning, and mental health programs, slashed. Poorly paid part-time and contract work have continued to increase on university campuses as class sizes grow larger and fewer tenured professors are hired.

The centerpiece of the April 2012 budget was the imposition of a two-year wage freeze on 1.2 million provincial public sector workers, including civil servants, teachers, nurses, hospital workers and municipal employees. That stricture led directly to the Liberals illegalizing teacher job action after elementary and high school teachers resisted the government wage freeze and other concession demands. Even after this, the NDP, at the urging of Ryan, the OFL and the rest of the union bureaucracy, continued to prop up the Liberals. Indeed, the NDP’s Horwath briefly flirted with the idea of joining Wynne in a formal coalition.

Under Ryan’s leadership, the OFL campaigned enthusiastically for the return of the Liberal government in the June 12, 2014 Ontario election. His “strategic” or “smart” vote campaign— which is to be the model for the Canadian Labour Congress in this year’s federal election—calls for the unions to throw their support and financial and organizational muscle behind Liberal candidates whilst backing a smaller number of sitting NDP legislators.

Ryan was joined at the U of T rally by NDP provincial legislator Peter Tabuns. Like Ryan, he denounced the Liberal government whilst neglecting to mention that his party campaigned on an austerity platform last June and had propped up the big business Liberal government for the three years prior to that.

Ryan’s and Tabuns’ bluster notwithstanding, the NDP and the unions have responded to the deepest crisis of world capitalism since the Great Depression of the 1930s by shifting ever further to the right. The party system at Queen’s Park—and in Canadian national politics generally—are mechanisms through which the ruling class regulates class tensions so as to divert and diffuse social discontent and politically suppress the working class.

At the rally at York University, Ryan’s lying oratory was once again put on full display. There, Ryan claimed that the three month long strike by education workers at York in 2008-2009—when Ryan was president of CUPE Ontario—was a “victory”. Trade union leaders have a long history of portraying abject defeats as brightly coloured feathers in their caps. In fact, the York strikers were legislated back to work by the Ontario Liberal government with none of their demands met. When strikers in the local threatened to seek a court order against the legislation, the central union apparatus pressured them to stand down.

In a 2013 interview in the Guardian, Tyler Shipley, a York striker in 2008 and CUPE Local 3903’s chief spokesperson at the time, stated unambiguously that the strike had been lost. Shipley went on to condemn the chicanery emanating from CUPE headquarters. The union bureaucracy interfered with the bargaining process, censored communications from the striking local, and withheld strike pay over the Christmas holiday, despite having promised it.

Some strikers interviewed by the WSWS at the U of T rally were initially buoyed by Ryan’s oration. Upon further discussion about the union’s support for the Liberals, many paused to take a closer look at a WSWS article being distributed on the strikes. Others gave a more broad response.

Jim, a U of T graduate student in the sciences, said: “You have to look at beyond what is happening here. It’s not simply the immediate contract issues, as important as they are. You have to look at the years of budget cuts by the government. You have to look at the ever-rising tuition fees. Heck, even if we win this strike and get a few extra dollars, tuition hikes, transit costs and just trying to live in Toronto is going to eat that up. So, really, we still lose. I don’t see anyone in the unions truly fighting against that.”

At York, a striker called for a broader mobilization of the working class, “The universities are all fighting about the same issues—not enough funding, tuition is too high, precarious work. And there may be more strikes. These patterns are common across all the provinces in Canada and are the same even in the United States.” He continued, “We are leading the way in a sinking ship in terms of our action, so we need to build more provincial and national and truly international organizations that can take on the political fight.”

Mounting anger over Bangladeshi ferry disasters

Wimal Perera

Recent ferry disasters in Bangladesh have resulted in dozens of deaths and mounting anger among victims’ relatives against government authorities over their criminal negligence regarding unsafe conditions in the country’s water transport system.

At least 80 passengers are dead and several still missing in the latest incident involving the ferry MV Mostafa, which collided with the cargo vessel Nargis-1 in the Padma River, west of Dhaka, on February 22. Another ferry sank on February 13 killing at least seven passengers.

The Shanghai Daily reported on February 24: “Grief over the disaster has now turned into public outcry, as survivors and relatives of the victims point an accusing finger at the government and maritime authorities as responsible for the tragedy…

“Scores of anxious and angry people, who waited over the last few days on the banks of the Padma River for the bodies of relatives, claimed that the government has been remiss in its duty to protect ferry passengers and have done nothing to prevent recurrence of such tragedies.”

In an attempt to divert this anger, Shipping Minister Shajahan Khan accused the ferry captain of being “in a race” with the cargo vessel. Then, he promised 100,000 Taka ($US1,280) as compensation and additional 5,000 Taka for burial costs for each family of the dead. The Manikganj district administration also announced a nominal compensation of 20,000 Taka for each of the families of the deceased.

As in previous disasters, the Shipping Ministry and the Department of Shipping has established two committees to probe the disaster and called on “them to submit reports in 15 working days.” This report, like many previous ones will be a whitewash.

Between 80 and 90 passengers were saved—some by rescuers and others by swimming 500 metres to shore. While 27 bodies were recovered from inside the ferry when it was pulled ashore, another 43 bodies were retrieved from the river, of whom more than half were women and children. Those who survived were passengers on the upper deck.

Though the ferry was allowed to carry only 140 passengers, it loaded about 200, according to the survivors. The ferry did not have proper safety equipment.

Police have seized the cargo vessel involved in the collision on its way to a river port in Sirajganj and arrested the captain and his three crew members. While the ferry captain is reportedly missing, Bangladesh’s Rapid Action Battalion has arrested the son of the ferry’s owner.

An editorial in the Daily Star on February 24 commented: “What makes these deaths even more unacceptable is that such launch accidents have now become a norm, rather than an exception, in the country… In order to prevent such future accidents, we must not only take the people responsible for the accidents to task, but also undertake corrective measures at multiple levels, guarantee the most efficient rescue operations and ensure that faulty vessels and reckless sarengs [captains] are not allowed on the waters.”

Similar editorials have been written in the past and routinely ignored. The newspaper praised the minister’s decision to probe the incident, then declared: “In the past, however, we have noticed that most of the reports weren’t made public, and no lasting reforms were made in the sector to address the underlying structural problems.”

Citing a report by nine non-government organisations, the Daily Star pointed out that “about 500 committees had been formed since independence to probe into launch accidents and only four reports were published.” TheDhaka Tribune noted that “even these recommendations [of those reports] have not been implemented.”

The official response to the ferry disaster has followed a well-worn pattern to quell public anger: the media and politicians express outrage, limited compensation is offered, inquiries are announced and scapegoats are found. Once the outrage dies away, the government and the media buries the incident and nothing is done to improve water safety.

Following an inquiry report into the Pinak 6 tragedy last year, the authorities sacked three staff members of the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) and punished four others. But nothing was done about the report’s recommendations in relation to vessels’ structural and technical defects, uncertified changes in vessel design, overloading of passengers and goods, irresponsible piloting, and ignoring meteorological department advisories.

Successive governments—whether under the currently ruling Awami League or the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)—have taken no action to end the high death toll from ferry disasters on Bangladesh’s extensive river network. According to a BIWTA study, 10,436 people have died in over 20,000 ferry accidents since 1972. Four major ferry disasters, including the recent capsize of the MV Mostafa, have occurred over the past three years, with a total death toll of 396.

According to the NGO report cited by the Daily Star, the substandard design of vessels has also made them vulnerable to disasters. If correctly designed to international rules, water cannot enter into the vessels even after tilting 40 degrees. Ferries built in Bangladesh, however, can sink even when the tilt is just 15 to 18 degrees.

More than 80 percent of vessels have no form of proper certification. There are about 35,000 vessels operate on Bangladesh rivers of which only 13,000 are registered. Only five engineers and ship surveyors have the necessary qualifications to certify passenger vessels and they can only examine about 900 vessels a year.

Bangladesh has the largest inland water network in the world, with about 700 rivers and tributaries. Its inland ports handle about 40 percent of the country’s foreign trade. River transport accounts for about 13 percent of all passengers and 25 percent of freight in the country—higher than for the rail network.

Inland water transport in Bangladesh is mainly used by the poor, because it is relatively cheap. Ferry owners maximise their profits by violating safety regulations including through overloading, in league with government authorities, at the expense of passengers’ lives.

Australian Labor Party lines up behind big business agenda

Nick Beams

The Australian Labor Party has aligned itself directly with the demands of the corporate and financial elite for intensifying attacks on the working class, involving major cuts to social services, health and education, stretching into the indefinite future.

This is clear from a comment written by Labor’s treasury spokesman Chris Bowen published in today’s Australian under the title “Doomsayers contort the debt debate” in which he specifically identified himself with the approach taken by the Business Council of Australia (BCA) in its submission for the 2015 budget issued last week.

Bowen devoted the first half of his article to denunciations of what he called the “inflammatory rhetoric” of the Liberal Party on the question of government debt and the budget deficit. The Liberals, he claimed, talked of “budget emergencies” when in opposition, and invoked the spectre of Greece, “bankruptcy” and “going broke” when in government.

When it was pointed out that this was not the situation, “members of the government and their cheerleaders like to assert that there is no case for sensible measures to ensure the long-term health of our budget.”

“Let us be clear,” he continued, “Labor not only believes in the case for sensible saving measures, we believed in them in office.”

Bowen criticised the Liberal Party for its contradictory policies, specifically citing the decision to repeal the carbon tax while leaving in place the measures to compensate for it.

Echoing comments he has made previously, that the days of “Santa Claus economics” are over, Bowen insisted that Labor would not repeat the mistakes of Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Treasurer Joe Hockey. He previously criticised them for pledging to reduce the budget deficit before the election without specifying the means to achieve that goal.

“We’ll be upfront with our plans for a credible fiscal strategy,” he wrote. “We’ll seek to win a mandate for a plan that will give us a better chance to get it through parliament, something this government has singularly failed to do.”

In other words, Labor’s central criticism of the government’s May budget is not that its core objective was severe reductions in social spending but that its attacks on pensioners, lower-income groups and students were too open, provoking widespread hostility and leading to a situation where the Labor Party and the minor parties felt compelled to oppose them in the Senate.

While Bowen did not refer to it in his comment, where the government’s measures were more carefully crafted, such as the major reductions in the provision of federal funds to the states for hospitals, Labor supported their passage through the Senate.

Bowen made clear that economic growth would not return a surplus as “structural challenges” to the budget were the function of a “complex transition in our economy and our society, which has been unfolding since before the global financial crisis.”

These changes had impacted on government revenues as a percentage of the economy and therefore both revenue and spending decisions had to be “on the table” in any budget decisions. Labor, he continued, “believes difficult, but not unfair, decisions are necessary for budget repair” and associated himself directly with the BCA’s agenda.

“Labor supports the underlying principle in the Business Council of Australia’s budget submission … and welcomes a discussion about the structural challenges facing the budget.”

The BCA comprises the chief executives of Australia’s top 100 companies and its governing board includes representatives of the banks, major mining companies and retail giants.

In its submission, the BCA made clear that maintaining budget sustainability was aimed at ensuring the stability of finance and profits.

“Preserving Australia’s AAA credit rating to consolidate the government’s financial credibility, retaining financial capacity and investor confidence,” was the first of what it listed as its “four primary goals.” The second was to restore the budget to surplus so that it would be able to deal with economic shocks and volatility, that is, to ensure that the government was in a position to bail out the banks in the event of another global financial crisis.

The BCA submission made clear where the resources for this agenda had to come from: reduced spending and the transformation of social services into a safety net—that is merely providing the bare minimum—and increased productivity, that is higher profits, achieved through the lowering of real wages and cuts in working conditions.

Bowen has solidarised himself with this program.

“The budget is not in immediate crisis,” he wrote. “But as the BCA points out, ‘Australia has a 10-year window to make the necessary transition in a deliberate and inclusive way.’ This is similar to the approach we have articulated.”

According to Bowen, over the next 10 years, Labor policies would involve more saving than new spending, providing for a “gradual and credible return to surplus.”

However, this attempt to dress up a program of deepening austerity as “gradual” adjustment and the path to a return to “normal” is belied by two decisive developments in the global economy. Firstly, recessionary trends are deepening, amid growing signs of another financial crisis. Secondly, international competitive pressures are intensifying—one of the main reasons why business organisations, such as the BCA, have increasingly drawn attention to the higher wages of Australian workers compared to their counterparts in the US and New Zealand.

Bowen’s comment, based on an explicit association with the BCA, makes clear that Labor opposition to the Liberals’ budget measures has got nothing to do with the defence of the interests of the working class. Rather, it is aimed at sending a message to the corporate elites that the widespread hostility to the budget means that the Liberals are unable to carry out their demands and this task must be entrusted to Labor.

Snowden documents reveal New Zealand’s spying in Pacific

Tom Peters

US National Security Agency documents released on March 5 by whistleblower Edward Snowden reveal that New Zealand’s intelligence agency, the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), spies intensively on “nearly two dozen countries” in the Asia-Pacific region.

The documents were revealed by Ryan Gallagher from the Intercept website, in collaboration with investigative journalist Nicky Hager, and published in theNew Zealand Herald and Sunday Star-Times. They show that the GCSB spies on all communications in Tonga, Samoa, Vanuatu, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Nauru, the Solomon Islands and Fiji, the French colonies New Caledonia and French Polynesia, and New Zealand’s colonies Niue and the Cook Islands.

Hager indicated that future reports will reveal other countries that New Zealand spies on. Asked by Fairfax Media if China is on the list, he said “wait and see.” The Dominion Post pointed out that a leak in 2006 revealed that under the Labour government in the 1980s the GCSB “was spying not just on the South Pacific, but also on Egypt, Japan, North Korea, the Philippines, South Africa and on United Nations diplomatic communications.”

The indiscriminate spying on millions of Pacific Islanders and New Zealanders is a violation of democratic rights on an immense scale. The revelations are an indictment of the government and opposition parties, which all support the existence of the GCSB.

The latest documents illustrate the staggering extent of surveillance by the NSA-led Five Eyes alliance, which includes Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. Even in tiny, remote countries like Tuvalu and Nauru (each with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants) every phone call, text message and email, along with other internet data, is recorded by the GCSB and shared with other members of the Five Eyes alliance—the US, Britain, Australia and Canada.

The GCSB’s Waihopai spy base moved to “full take” surveillance in 2009, meaning it captures the contents of private communications and the metadata (details of who people communicate with and how) by tapping satellites and undersea cables. This information can be searched by the GCSB and its Five Eyes partners using the XKeyscore tool, which is described as Google for spies.

Predictably, Prime Minister John Key attempted to dismiss the revelations, asserting that the GCSB had not broken the law, and that some of Snowden’s claims were “just plain wrong”—although he refused to give any details. He told the Herald it was “bizarre” to release the documents given that the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was “reaching out to cause harm to New Zealanders.”

The government has repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims of terrorist threats to justify expanding the GCSB’s powers, including a deeply unpopular law change in 2013 which legalised spying on New Zealand citizens. In reality, as Hager and Gallagher noted, “the Snowden papers show that counter-terrorism is at most a minor part of the GCSB’s operations. Most projects are assisting the US and allies to gather political and economic intelligence country-by-country around the world.”

Claims that the GCSB operates within the law are untrue. People born in Niue and the Cook Islands have New Zealand citizenship, meaning that prior to the 2013 amendment the agency was spying on them illegally. Hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders visit the Pacific on holiday or have family in the region. Last year Snowden revealed that from his desk in Hawaii, where he worked as a NSA contractor until mid-2013, “I routinely came across the communications of New Zealanders.”

According to Hager and Gallagher, the fact that the GCSB shares data with the NSA “suggest[s] an astonishing lack of independence in New Zealand intelligence operations.” Hager told Fairfax Media that the GCSB’s activities were “the price of being in the [Five Eyes] club... Otherwise, would New Zealand be bothering to spy on the Prime Minister of Samoa? I don’t think so.”

The implication that the GCSB is simply the puppet of Washington is false. New Zealand’s ruling class has maintained an alliance with the US since World War II—and before that with Britain—to pursue its own neo-colonial interests in the Pacific. Samoa was invaded by New Zealand in 1914 and remained a colony until 1962. New Zealand and Australia also seized Nauru to exploit its valuable phosphate deposits.

Over the past two decades, Australia and New Zealand have sent troops to East Timor, the Solomon Islands and Tonga in order to defend their interests in those countries. Dominion Post columnist Tracey Watkins defended spying on “the region of most strategic importance to us,” noting that the Pacific “is rife with poverty, corruption and a rising tide of dispossessed, jobless and angry youth, all of which is a breeding ground for instability.”

The newspaper’s editorial today asserted that “China’s great-power machinations in the area are well-known and a source of natural anxiety to Western countries.” Beijing has recently given generous loans to impoverished countries, including Fiji, Samoa and Tonga, which previously depended on aid from US allies New Zealand and Australia.

Wellington, Canberra and Washington share the strategic goal of rolling back China’s economic and diplomatic influence. The GCSB’s blanket surveillance of the Pacific undoubtedly plays a significant role in the Obama administration’s aggressive “pivot” to Asia, a strategy to militarily encircle and prepare for war against China.

According to Fairfax, Tongan Prime Minister ‘Akilisi Pōhiva described the GCSB’s spying as a “breach of trust,” adding that his country was powerless to stand up to New Zealand and that “China is on the radar... so what can we do?”

New Zealand’s opposition Labour Party leader Andrew Little criticised the “mass intrusion of privacy of innocent citizens.” However, Little defended the country’s membership in the Five Eyes and its right to spy on the Pacific, telling Radio NZ that “China is showing a greater interest in the Pacific, so it wouldn’t surprise me that we would monitor what was going on there.”

Little told Fairfax that Labour wanted to “ensure our security agencies stick to the mandate we’ve given them, which is counter-espionage, counter-terrorism, and protecting our commercial interests.” In other words, the GCSB is needed to defend the predatory interests of New Zealand capitalism from any opposition abroad and at home.

Labour fully supports the military-intelligence alliance with the US. Little recently suggested that GCSB agents be deployed to help plan air strikes in Obama’s renewed war in Iraq, as they have previously done in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The 1999–2008 Labour government, which was supported by the Green Party and the “left-wing” Alliance Party, sent troops to join the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Greens accused the GCSB of breaking the law and lodged a complaint with the government’s Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security. However, they are no less committed to defending the interests of New Zealand imperialism. According to Newstalk ZB, Greens co-leader Russel Norman worried that the latest revelations would be “extremely corrosive for our influence in the South Pacific and could actually boost the influence of other nations, such as China.”

The Snowden revelations are a sharp warning to workers and youth throughout the Pacific and in New Zealand. Like its counterparts in the US and Europe, New Zealand’s ruling elite has put in place the framework of a police state, aimed at suppressing any opposition to social inequality, maintaining dominance over the Pacific, and helping the US to prepare for war with China.

US hypocritically denounces Chinese internet spying

Thomas Gaist

President Barack Obama issued criticisms and threats this week against the Chinese government over its “anti-terrorism” legislation, requiring technology companies operating in China to install special backdoors in their security systems and hand over encryption keys to Beijing.

In a staggering display of imperialist hypocrisy, Obama denounced the Chinese regime for seeking policy changes that closely parallel data-sharing arrangements already implemented by the US government and US tech firms over the past decade. Obama threatened to break off economic ties with China unless US firms are granted exemptions protecting their security systems from being compromised by Chinese intelligence.

“Those kinds of restrictive practices I think would, ironically, hurt the Chinese economy over the long term because I don’t think there’s any U.S. or European firm, any international firm that can credibly get away with that wholesale turning over of data, personal data over to a government,” Obama said.

Beijing’s proposed legislation, Obama continued, “would essentially force all foreign companies, including US companies, to turn over to the Chinese government mechanisms where they can snoop and keep track of all the users of those services.”

“We have made it very clear to them that this is something they are going to have to change if they are to do business with the United States,” Obama said. “As you might imagine, tech companies are not going to be willing to do that.”

The hypocrisy of the American president is staggering. While the Chinese Stalinist regime is undoubtedly stepping up spying and Internet censorship aimed above all at the Chinese working class, the fact remains that Washington is the chief snooper and violator of privacy in the world. It presides over the most comprehensive surveillance system in human history.

For years, US internet and communications firms have turned over electronic data about citizens of the United States and of the world wholesale to US intelligence agencies, including the NSA. Through overlapping wiretapping and data mining programs, US intelligence collects and sifts through virtually all communications data stored on corporate servers worldwide.

Beginning with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978, the US Congress, executive branch and judiciary have overseen and sanctioned the erection of a parallel court system which rubber-stamps the vast majority of direct, warrantless requests for bulk data submitted by the government to the companies.

In the immediate aftermath the September 11 attacks, the Bush administration launched data mining operations inside central AT&T facilities as part of a secret contract with the company, seizing all telephone and internet data passing through AT&T hardware. By 2007, all of the leading US technology and communications transnationals, including Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and Facebook, granted the US government virtually unfettered access to their central servers as participants in the NSA’s PRISM program.

NSA slides leaked by whistle-blower Edward Snowden boasted that PRISM gives the agency “extensive, in-depth surveillance on live communications and stored information” from the systems of participating “corporate partners.” This includes real-time and archival search access to emails, online video and voice chats, Skype calls and social media data.

Significantly, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) defended its legislation by insisting that it is only copying the wholesale Internet spying carried out by Washington.

“This approach is also common with international practice and will not affect the legitimate interests of Internet firms.” Fu Ying, spokesperson for the National People’s Congress (NPC) said last week. “In reality, the U.S., U.K., and other Western countries have spent many years demanding that tech companies disclose their encryption methods.”

Indeed, the CCP’s demand for backdoors and access keys to corporate encryption and cybersecurity systems is virtually identical to those demanded by FBI Director James Comey in speeches given last year at the Brookings Institute and elsewhere.

Comey denounced even the most minimal safeguards to limit government surveillance of data stored on new generations of smart phones, insisting that Washington be granted backdoor access to all counter-surveillance technologies used by data and communications firms. Under Comey’s leadership, the FBI pushed aggressively for expanded powers to install sophisticated surveillance malware on US-based computers without any legal or warranting process.

According to the Washington Post, the Chinese legislation is intensifying a “serious rift between Washington and Beijing over cyberspace.” The US media is abetting the anti-China drive by promoting fear campaigns based on unsubstantiated allegations about Chinese hacking and cyber-warfare against US firms and institutions.

Similar efforts to drum up hysteria against alleged Chinese hacking were severely discredited shortly after they emerged in the spring of 2013, when documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden showed conclusively that illegal US surveillance programs are targeting not only China’s basic Internet infrastructure, but the population of the entire world.

Snowden revealed elaborate hacking, sabotage and infiltration operations run by the NSA, CIA and Pentagon targeting Chinese academic, military and corporate institutions. This is part of a broader agenda announced in 2011 with Washington’s “pivot to Asia,” aimed at isolating China in Asia and threatening it with war.

Since then, the Obama administration has tightened a US military encirclement of China that includes massive naval, air and ground deployments throughout the North Pacific Ocean, while rallying an anti-China military bloc including Japan, Vietnam, and South Korea to ratchet up the pressure on China’s southern and eastern flanks.

Even as Obama blasted the proposed legislation, the Beijing Morning Post reported this week that the US Navy is conducting blanket spying against the Chinese coast, tracking the movement of all Chinese vessels.

There are indications that official fears about US political and strategic pressure are a main driver of the CCP’s new data mining protocols. These protocols require Chinese state agencies to closely monitor financial flows to non-governmental organizations (NGOs), including foreign activist, non-profit, and other “civil society” groups.

Such organizations have been used extensively to organize CIA-backed regime change operations in countries in Europe and the former USSR, including Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine.

Chinese leaders justified their new surveillance laws by citing separatist groups in China’s Western provinces, some of which receive backing from the CIA and other US government agencies.

Amid US talks with Iran, France debates rapprochement with Syria’s Assad

Antoine Lerougetel

An unofficial delegation of four French parliamentarians traveled to Damascus last month, meeting with Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad on February 25, as US-led talks in Geneva move towards a possible normalization of relations between Washington and Iran, Syria’s main regional ally.

The delegates were PS deputy Gérard Bapt and conservatives Pierre Vial, François Zocchetto and Jacques Myard—all members of the parliamentary France-Syria Friendship group, which Bapt chairs.

The trip produced some embarrassment in the French ruling elite. Paris broke diplomatic relations with President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in 2012 and even recognized the Syrian National Coalition (SNC) group, which has since collapsed, as Syria’s government. It pressed aggressively for war with Syria in 2013, only to back down when the Obama administration decided not to go to war. Amid shifting US relations with Iran and attempts to assemble a coalition of proxies against the Islamic State (IS) militia, however, Paris is considering whether to bring Assad in from the cold.

In line with the propaganda that has predominated until now, President François Hollande and Prime Minister Manuel Valls issued cynical denunciations of the four parliamentarians for dealing with a “dictator” and “butcher” of his own people. Of course, such hypocritical humanitarian posturing did not prevent Paris from selling dozens of Rafale fighters last month to President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi of Egypt, whose regime has carried out mass slaughters of Egyptians in the streets.

PS first secretary Jean-Christophe Cambadélis announced on February 26 that Bapt would be disciplined for his diplomatic outreach to Syria.

Paul Quilès, a defense minister under PS president François Mitterrand (1981-1995), defended the delegation in Le Figaro, however, declaring such criticisms “excessive” and “unjust.” Deputies of the conservative Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) also defended their initiative.

A previously inaudible faction pressing for working with Assad is now out in the open. On February 27, Le Monde described the forces supporting a policy shift as a “heterogeneous coalition stretching from the far right (National Front) to the radical left,” including the pro-Russian lobby, pro-Iranian supporters of former PS prime minister Michel Rocard, Catholic traditionalists, and France’s oil and defence corporations.

The debate over how to proceed in imperialist circles testifies to the disaster unleashed in the Middle East by the NATO proxy wars against Libya and Syria, fought by Islamist insurgents and supported by pseudo-left groups like France’s New Anti-capitalist Party.

Syrian society has been shattered by a brutal imperialist proxy war for regime change, justified through the demonisation of the Assad regime. Over 200,000 Syrians have been killed, and over 10 million displaced, with at least 3.3 million Syrian refugees abroad and 7.2 million displaced within Syria itself, according to UN figures.

The imperialist powers’ moves towards Assad, faced with the emergence of IS from the chaos their war has provoked in the region, makes clear that their wars to dominate the oil-rich region were peddled on the basis of lies and hypocrisy.

Laurent Fabius and Philip Hammond, French and British Foreign Ministers respectively, tried to maintain the old line in a joint statement published in Le Monde on February 27. They rejected Assad’s “moves to rehabilitate himself” by trying “to take advantage of the fright provoked by IS.”

Nonetheless, Fabius and Hammond proposed that elements of the Assad regime would continue to play a role in Syria. They foresaw an alliance with “the different Syrian parties leading to a unity government,” which would “comprise some of the existing structures of the regime, the National Coalition and other components which have a moderate vision for Syria.”

In Le Figaro, Quilès pointed to the continuing strength of the Assad regime, which “still enjoys significant support, not only with the minorities, especially the Alawites, but also with a majority of Sunnis.”

Quilès painted a devastating picture of the outcome of the NATO proxy war in Syria: “The Western backed Syrian National Coalition seems to be under the influence of the Muslim Brothers. The Free Syrian Army... is divided, in disagreement with the National Coalition and very much weakened militarily.”

He attacked nominal allies Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey for their “tolerant attitude [towards] the Al Nusra Front and even IS ... Today, the fall of Assad without an organised transition would lead to a Libya-type situation, the collapse of the state, chaos, then the destabilisation of Lebanon and doubtless Jordan too.”

Calling for further talks in Geneva and better relations with Syria and Iran, Quilès urged an initiative by France to help shift US policy: “Let’s not wait, because of their needs in relation to their Iran policies, for the US to decide on their own to take a step towards the Syrian regime.” He proposed instead an immediate joint offensive against IS.

He also pointed out that Washington and Paris are already collaborating with Assad. French intelligence services met their counterparts in Syria in 2013 “to obtain necessary intelligence for the fight against terrorism,” and US planes striking at IS positions have been “sharing the skies with Assad’s forces.”

In the spirit of the imperialist adage “We have no permanent allies, only permanent interests,” Mitterrand’s old war minister made clear that France was not abandoning in the longer term the aim of regime change, against Assad in Syria and beyond. “Coming to terms with keeping Assad in power is out of the question, even more with his crimes. But we must carry out a policy which responds to the reality and urgency of the situation, which is alarming,” he said.

Suspects arrested in Boris Nemtsov murder

Andrea Peters

Five suspects in the murder of Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov have been detained by the authorities in Moscow, with two already having been charged with the crime.

A judge ordered that Khamzat Bakhaev, Tamerlan Eskerkhanov, Shagit Gubashev, Anzor Gubashev, and Zaur Dadayev be held in custody on the grounds that they could hide from investigators, threaten witnesses, or destroy evidence if released.

A sixth suspect, Beslan Shavanov, allegedly blew himself up with a grenade on Sunday when security services surrounded his apartment in Grozny in an effort to arrest him. According to local government sources, Shavanov had not been on any list of suspected criminals in the region. A press account reported that he threw one explosive device at the police and then took his own life.

Three of those arrested—Shagit Gubashev, Bakhaev, and Eskerkhanov—have admitted to participating in the crime. Eskerkhanov claims to have an alibi, stating that he was at work at the time of Nemtsov’s murder. Dadayev, who served in the Russian Ministry of the Internal Affairs’ “Sever” Battalion in Chechnya, has reportedly already confessed to being involved.

Dadayev’s mother, however, told Russia’s Interfax news agency that she does not believe that her son or her nephews—the Gubashev brothers—could have committed the crime. She stated that Dadayev had been fighting alongside forces allied to Kremlin-backed Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov against Islamic fundamentalists and underground criminals for 10 years.

With the exception of Dadyev’s ties to the state security services and the fact that Anzor Gubashev worked as a guard at a supermarket on the outskirts of Moscow, little has been reported about the background of the suspects. No motive has been given for their alleged participation. Former Federal Security Services (FSB) head Aleksandr Bortnikov told RIA Novosti that the investigation would now have to concentrate on determining who ordered the assassination, since those arrested “are most likely just the executors [of the crime].”

All six suspects were from the North Caucasus region of Russia, indicating that the Russian government may be pursuing the avenue that Nemtsov’s killing has something to do with the ongoing conflict in this region. The North Caucasus has been the site of bloody confrontations between Russian government forces and US-backed Islamic separatists for years.

Immediately after Nemtsov’s death in the center of Moscow two weekends ago, Russian officials declared the murder a “provocation” and put forward the possibility that the murder was bound up with Nemtsov’s support for Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical magazine whose writers were the victims of a terrorist assault in Paris in January over their publication of anti-Islamic cartoons.

Massive demonstrations took place after the Paris terrorist attacks in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, against the promotion of anti-Muslim sentiment in the West. In a republic with a total population of just 1.26 million people, 800,000 people took part.

As Washington has promoted Islamist separatism against Moscow in the North Caucasus since the Stalinist dissolution of the USSR in 1991, indications of possible Chechen involvement in a killing motivated by Islamist sentiment cast doubt on initial, hysterical accusations in the Western media that the Kremlin was responsible for the killing of Nemtsov. However, at this stage the identity and motives of the assassins remain unclear.

In the days after Nemtsov’s death, the WSWS explained that the assassination could only be understood in the context of the confrontation between the US and Russia that has emerged most sharply in the NATO-led putsch and the resulting proxy war in Ukraine. Regardless of whether the crime has its origins in Moscow or Washington, it is being used by US imperialism to whip up anti-Putin sentiment, turning Nemstov into a martyr around which all forces of Russia’s free-market opposition can rally.

The ultimate goal of the imperialist campaign is to lay the groundwork for regime change and the ethnic partition of Russia—a point to which Russia’s ruling oligarchs refer only with euphemisms, as they seek to work out a corrupt deal with the imperialist powers in Europe and America.

In a December speech, Putin declared that some of Russia’s “close friends and even allies” were sponsoring terrorism on its soil and “would gladly let Russia follow the Yugoslav scenario of disintegration and dismemberment.” The Kremlin initially labeled Nemtsov’s assassination a “provocation,” and early on investigators indicated that they were pursuing the possibility that it was aimed at “destabilizing” the Russian state.

In another development related to Nemtsov’s killing, Anna Duritskaya, a Ukrainian model who was with Nemtsov when he was murdered, has sought protection from the Ukrainian police reportedly due to threats being made against her.

She returned to Ukraine shortly after Nemtsov’s death. She was unharmed in the attack and told the Russian police that she suffered shock at the moment of the event and could not remember the details of what happened. The Ukrainian government has stated that Duritskaya will not be allowed to leave Ukraine and return to Russia, regardless of requests made by the Russian government.

Ahwazi Mass Demonstration In Front Of The European Parliament In Brussels

Rahim Hamid

The Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Al-Ahwaz has organized a mass demonstration, under the title “We will never forget our Ahwazi people” in front of the European Parliament in Brussels, the Belgian Capital.

The Demonstration took place on Friday 6th of March to condemn the policies of Iranian occupation and the ongoing anti-human atrocities against the Arab people of Ahwaz.

The Ahwazi community organized this massive demonstration as a message of solidarity with the enormous sacrifices of the Ahwazi Arab people in the path of preserving the Arab identity and liberation of the Al-Ahwaz land from Iranian domination which has brought nothing but destruction and murder to its indigenous Arab people. Also, it acts upon the belief in the feasibility of using all legal means in combating the unlawful Iranian occupation and its non-humanitarian practices in Al-Ahwaz.

This demonstration was a part of series of demonstrations and activities undertaken by the Arab Struggle for the Liberation of Ahwaz as a bid to expose the obnoxious occupation policies of the Iranian regime. In addition, to make heard the oppressed voice of Ahwazi Arabs who are under extreme oppression from the occupation by Iran, the likes of which is not known to the world at large, despite the objective brutality of this occupation.

Hundreds of Ahwazis and Syrian took part in the mass demonstration, as there was a significant presence of Arab communities including Iraqis, Lebanon, Yemenis and Palestinians who came from various European countries as well as distinguished media figures and human rights advocates who came from Arab Gulf states and other countries for the purpose of supporting the Ahwazi cause.

Non- Persian communities such as Turks from South Azerbaijan and Kurds from East Kurdistan and Baluchis attended this demonstration to denounce the Iranian regime over its atrocious policies that are murdering their people in cold blood and in particular, against the ongoing machine of execution that is being used at an alarming rate against their activists.

Ahwazi women along with other non-Persian women including Kurds and Turks who came from different countries took part in this demonstration to protest against the violated women’s rights, for their fundamental rights to education in their mother language and for the right to freedom of expression, against sex discrimination and inequality that the totalitarian Iranian regime has been committing against them for decades.

During the demonstration, participants raised the national flag of Ahwaz and the flags of the struggle movement and images of Ahwazi martyrs and prisoners and numerous banners in Arabic and English denouncing the continued policies of forced displacement and changing the demographic structure of Ahwazi Arab areas through construction of exclusive vast settlements for bringing Persian settlers. There were also banners whose theme was the dryness of Ahwazi Rivers and marshlands via construction of excessive dams.

Many outspoken political figures emphasized the necessity of supporting the Ahwazi Arab cause in their long struggle against Iranian occupation and ongoing Iran oppression and to denounce the abuse of human rights of Arab people in occupied Ahwaz territory. Moreover, they stress the necessity of implementing an effective political and media strategy to highlight the Ahwazi Arab issue not only amid the Arab world but also on the international level.

As the Arabic region is on the verge of mass domestic unrest and instability, important speeches were addressed to the audience regarding Arab national security and the increasing threat of Iranian influence and its terrorism-driven campaign in Arab countries- Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Bahrain and the necessity of Arab countries to build strong alliances to tackle the aggressive Iranian foreign policy which is extending serious repercussions outwards, as its expansionist ambitions to achieve more influence politically and economically in the Arab world countries, mainly Arab Gulf states, become more evident each day.

The partial list of names of veteran political and journalism figures who were present at the demonstration are Dr. Walid Tabtabai, the Former Kuwaiti MP, Mohammad Al-Emadi and Nasser Al-Fezalle the MPs in Bahrain's parliament, Rashid al-Fayed, the veteran politician and representative of the Lebanese Future Movement, Anwar Malek, an Algerian human rights advocate, Behjet Al-kurdi,the Iraqi political activist, Ayed Al-Shemeri, the prominent Saudi journalist, Delegation from PJAK party, Delegation from Baluchistan and Democratic Party of South Azerbaijan.

The participants spoke about ways to support the struggle of the Arab people of Ahwaz in order to lift the injustice, oppression and racial discrimination which has been practiced against them and also viable solutions to reclaim their freedom and exercise the right to self-determination of Ahwazi Arab people who have sought to end Iranian occupation of their homeland for years.

The demonstration has witnessed notable coverage by Arabic and foreign newspapers as well as TV news channels such as Al-Arabiya, Orient, Alrafidain, Wesal and Lebanon Future Channel.

The Arab Struggle Movement, in a letter submitted to the European Union, called for urgent intervention to immediately stop the Iranian regime’s arbitrary arrests and executions of Ahwazis.

The Movement also appealed to the European Union and its institutions to visit Al-Ahwaz to uncover and document the Iran regime’s occupation practices that have polluted and destroyed the environment, leading to the large-scale spread of dangerous diseases in all parts of Al-Ahwaz.

The delegation of the Arab Struggle Movement met with a number of European Union officials in Brussels after the demonstration.

The delegation stressed the need for the European Union intervention and implementation of safeguards as provided for in international treaties and conventions to protect oppressed peoples under military occupation, in particular, the Arab people of Ahwaz.

The Arab Struggle Movement also expressed its hopes thatthe EU's relations with the occupying Iranian regime would not be at the expense of the right of peoples under Iranian occupation, and to be supportive of the demands of the peoples struggling for their freedom and the formation of their Independent States.

The final statement which came out with five recommendations was stated by Musa Mehdi Fakher, the Ahwazi political activist. The some of the notable recommendations are as follow:

- Stop ongoing violent persecution ranging from execution, torture and detainment of Ahwazi Arab people.

- Unconditional release of all Ahwazi political and cultural prisoners.

- Granting the prisoners their legal rights of having access to lawyers and having an open, transparent and non-biased trial respecting human rights standards.

- Stop changing the main courses of Karoon, Jarahi, Karkheh Rivers, and stop damaging the environment in Ahwaz.

- Stop the forced displacement and construction settlement policies that are conducted in line with ethnic cleansing policies against Ahwazi Arab people.

- Support the protesters who are protesting against the Iranian occupying authorities in destroying the environment in Ahwaz.

- Demand for sending specialist envoys to Al-Ahwaz by the United Nations to stand up against the repeated cases of abuse suffered by the people of Ahwaz, where some of them reached the level of extermination and ethnic cleansing crimes, and demand the punishment of those individuals who must be held accountable for these offences.

- Refusal to make the Ahwazi, Kurdish, Baluchi and Turkish Azeri people issues and the violations of human rights of the occupying clerical regime as issues of compromise during the ongoing negotiations between the West and the occupying Mullah regime over its nuclear program. As it is not permissible to compromise on the fundamental rights of these peoples supported by international law under any circumstances.

To conclude, we demand the free world, specifically the EU, to assume its full humanitarian responsibilities and to stand by the side of Ahwazi people and other non-Persian peoples in their legitimate struggle for their freedom and to maintain their dignity.

It is worth mentioning that this demonstration is the third of its kind this year, as the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz has already organized a mass demonstration, entitled "We will never forget our Ahwazi oppressed people" in front of the Embassy of the State of Iranian occupation in the Danish capital, Copenhagen on10 January 2015. Followed by another massive demonstration in front of the UN headquarters in the Austrian capital Vienna on 20 February 2015, to support the Ahwazi peoplerising up at home against the Iranian occupation policies.

What About India’s Daughters In The Conflict Zones?

Devika Mittal

With the Government’s ban on “India’s documentary”, made around the 16 December gang rape case known as the Nirbhaya case, the case is once again in the public sphere. The BBC documentary was scheduled for release on the International Women’s day. The documentary led to a controversy pertaining to the statement of one of the rapists who still blamed the victim. Another controversy attached with it has been the permission issue, the Government denies having given the permission to interview the rapists. In the light of these controversies, the Government decided to ban it. However, the people have resisted the ban. Since its release online, the documentary claims a viewership of about a million.

The documentary has also been a point of talk because of the controversial statements. Since its release, people have shared their views, debated on the statement, on how the statement may not be an unusual mentality. The mentality is embedded in the patriarchal society. It is recognized that this mentality is also shared by people’s ‘representatives’, the politicians and those who are supposed to defend us or impart justice. People have also been suggesting that the system needs to be improved, needs to be empowered to curb these incidents. While this is true, what is still required to recognize and highlight is that not just the mentality to justify rape, the inefficiency of the system but how the very system has also used rape as a weapon to control dissent or voice against the oppression of the State.

This is to point at the cases of rape and sexual violence in the conflict zones of India – the North-East states (except Sikkim), Jammu & Kashmir and Naxalite zones. To tackle the challenges in the conflict zones, the Indian State has adopted draconian laws which in the garb of restoring law and order have led to gross violation of human rights’. One such law is the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). Enforced in the North-East states (except Sikkim) and the state of Jammu & Kashmir, AFSPA gives the right to the armed forces to shoot at sight, torture, raid houses, arrest without warrant AFSPA also protects the army persons with legal impunity. These extra-ordinary and unrestrained powers to the armed forces have led to extra-judicial killings, fake encounters, extra-judicial disappearances, tortures and rapes.

This has been corroborated by the reports of the national and international human-rights’ commissions and organisations, Government’s own appointed committees and the Judiciary. The Justice J.S. Verma Committee that was set up to suggest amendments to laws relating to crimes against women, has recommended review of the continuance of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) in the context of extending legal protection to women in conflict areas. It also recommended that the security forces should not be able to take cover under the AFSPA in cases of rape and sexual assault and that cases of sexual violence against women by members of the armed forces or uniformed personnel should be brought under the purview of ordinary criminal law.

Similarly, the laws used to control naxalism have also led to the violation of human rights. Innocent tribals are falsely implicated in cases, tortured, raped and killed. While there are thousands of cases of sexual violence, known and unknown, reported and unreported, here are some of the known cases that still await justice:

Thangjam Manorama from AFSPA-affected Manipur – On 10 July 2004, Thangjam Manorama, a Manipuri woman, was picked up from her home by the Indian paramilitary unit, 17th Assam Rifles on allegations of being associated with a militant group. The next morning, her bullet-ridden corpse was found in a field. There were bullet marks even in her private parts. An autopsy revealed semen marks on her skirt suggesting rape and murder. It has been 10 years now but justice is yet to be done.

Rape and Killing of Asiya and Nilofar Jan - On 29th May 2009, in Shopian (J&K), two women named Asiya (age 17) and Neelofar (age 22) went missing. Their dead bodies were found next morning. The people alleged it to be a case of rape and murder by security forces who were camped nearby.

Initially, no FIR was lodged and police told that postmortem report cleared injuries over private parts. However, the people believed that police report about postmortem is fake and so they continued protests and forced J&K Government to form a judicial panel. Under judicial inquiry, the Forensic lab report established that they had been gang-raped. Apart from few suspension and transfers from police department, nothing has happened in this case.

Victims of the mass-rape of Kunan Posphora Village - During the intervening night of February 23 and 24 in 1991, the twin villages of Kunan and Poshpora in north Kashmir’s Kupwara district witnessed mass rape of over 40 women by the soldiers of the Army’s 4 Rajputana Rifles of 68 Brigade. The victims included young female children, pregnant women and even aged women. This incident has been acknowledged even by the Former Union External Minister, Salman Khurshid’s who said, “I am ashamed that it happened in my country. I am apologetic and appalled that it has happened in my country.” However, justice continues to evade them.

Sexual Harrasment of Soni Sori, an Adivasi Civil Rights’ Activist - Soni Sori, a 35-year-old Adivasi school teacher in Chhattisgarh, was alleged to be a Naxalite. While evidence shows that she was against them, she was framed by the Chhattisgarh police. She was sexually harassed by the police and was also given electric shocks. In the medical examination, small stones were found in her vagina and rectum. The main person who had supervised the torture was Ankit Garg, the Superintendent of Police. What did the state do? He was honored with the President's Award on Republic Day.

As stated previously, sexual violence in the conflict zones are not an aberration. They are widespread. Yet, they do not evoke the same outrage that this particular incident in a non-conflict zone has received. The Government, the judiciary and even those people who are aware of this reality remain silent. Aren’t these the daughters of India too? Aren’t they women as well? This hypocrisy needs to be addressed. Respect and rights cannot be exclusive or the entitlement of only a particular section of women.