Australian government dismisses international law in The Hague over Timorese oil theft

Patrick Kelly

The Australian government’s contempt for international law was again on display last week as it rejected the authority of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague to conciliate an agreed maritime border between Australia and East Timor.

The legal case underscores Australian imperialism’s staggering hypocrisy. It has joined Washington in publicly demanding that China recognise and abide by a PCA ruling issued last July in favour of the Philippines’ challenge to Chinese maritime claims in the South China Sea.

The Philippines’ case was prepared with US assistance to bolster Washington’s militarist campaign to maintain its geostrategic dominance in East Asia against the threat posed by Beijing, yet the Australian government endorsed it as a legitimate exercise in international law.

However, when it comes to another disputed maritime border—in the Timor Sea, just 2,000 kilometres from the South China Sea—Canberra maintains that the PCA is an illegitimate tribunal.

In 2002, the Australian government declared it would not abide by any International Court of Justice ruling on maritime boundaries, nor accept the procedures on disputed boundaries under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

These moves were made on the eve of East Timor’s declaration of independence and were transparently aimed at securing Australian control over the lion’s share of the oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea. Canberra had previously supported the 1975 invasion of the former Portuguese colony by General Suharto’s Indonesian military regime, later negotiating a lucrative deal that carved up Timor’s energy wealth between Australia and Indonesia.

In 1999, a year after Suharto was removed from power, Canberra launched a bogus “humanitarian intervention,” deploying troops to East Timor to oversee the transition to nominal independence, while maintaining its dominance over the Timor Sea. This was secured through subsequent treaties negotiated between Dili and Canberra, accompanied by overt Australian bullying and blatant dirty tricks.

East Timor is now challenging the legitimacy of the 2006 treaty known as CMATS (Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea). It has invoked a never-before-used UNCLOS compulsory conciliation clause. This involves a five-member PCA panel, chaired by former Dutch diplomat and UN jurist Peter Taksøe-Jensen, hearing the rival Australian and Timorese claims and issuing a non-binding finding that is supposed to form the basis of a negotiated settlement.

The conciliation commission heard the rival submissions over several days last week, mostly behind closed doors but with the opening presentations delivered in a public hearing on August 29.

The Australian government’s legal team began by contesting the “competence of the commission” to hear the case.

Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) deputy secretary Gary Quinlan declared there was “no proper basis” for East Timor “to bring this claim.” He insisted that doing so “violates treaty commitments … under which both countries have committed not to bring proceedings against each other on maritime boundaries.”

Quinlan claimed that Canberra was “motivated by a serious regard for principle … at a time when the rules-based order globally is under serious challenge, it is vital that countries stand by their treaty commitments.” For good measure, he concluded by chiding East Timor that “it is not a mark of good neighbourliness to initiate a compulsory procedure in breach of your own treaty commitments to that neighbour.”

This talk of “principles,” “rules-based orders” and “good neighbourliness” is nothing short of obscene in the context of Australian imperialism’s predatory relationship with East Timor. The treaties that the Australian government now maintains are sacrosanct were delivered through threats and provocations.

In November 2002, then Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer met with then Timorese Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri. Downer demanded that the Timorese drop their demand for an equidistant maritime border between the two countries, consistent with international law, and threatened to sabotage the Bayu-Undan gas field that has since provided 95 percent of total Timorese government revenue.

“If you want to make money, you should conclude an agreement quickly,” Downer declared. “We are very tough. We will not care if you give information to the media. Let me give you a tutorial in politics—not a chance.”

This mafioso performance was followed in 2004 by an illegal Australian intelligence operation to bug Timorese government offices, under the cover of a humanitarian construction program. The intelligence gathered was used in the lead up to the finalisation of the CMATS treaty.

Royalties from the massive, as yet undeveloped, Greater Sunrise oil and gas fields were to be split 50-50 between East Timor and Australia, with the setting of a maritime border postponed for 50 years. The arrangement was a blatant theft. Under international legal norms governing maritime boundaries, Australia’s claim of Greater Sunrise would likely be less than 20 percent.

East Timor’s legal team at The Hague was led by Xanana Gusmão, a former president and prime minister, who now serves as the country’s investment minister and chief Timor Sea negotiator.

Gusmão said “the achievement of maritime boundaries in accordance with international law is a matter of national sovereignty and the sustainability of our country.” In the period immediately after independence, East Timor was “vulnerable to duress and exploitation.” Because the government was “desperate for revenue to rebuild our country from ruins, we succumbed to Australia’s pressure and signed the CMATS treaty.”

Gusmão and other Timorese representatives argued that the 2004 spying operation rendered the treaty invalid.

While there is little question that international law is on the side of the East Timorese, the case in The Hague has inadvertently shed light on the desperate manoeuvres of the impoverished country’s government.

Dili does not require the PCA to overturn CMATS—the treaty itself contains provisions for either party to withdraw from it. Rather, the East Timor government wants to use the legal proceedings to put pressure on Canberra for concessions, while at the same time reassuring energy companies of profitable returns on investment.

As Timorese representatives before the conciliation commission explained, the government wants to coordinate a new treaty with Australia in order to “ensure a smooth transition for the benefit of both states, and also of the petroleum industry.”

The Hague court also heard that Timorese government ministers had in the past month travelled to oil and gas company headquarters in Australia and the US, “to see their senior executives personally to explain the situation and to seek their views … those visits have been very well received and we are working on a post-[CMATS] termination plan to meet the investors’ requirements.”

Tens of thousands of Australian public sector workers set to strike

Oscar Grenfell

Tens of thousands of federal public sector workers are set to strike on Friday, in opposition to ongoing moves by the Liberal-National Coalition government of Malcolm Turnbull to slash wages and conditions.

The widespread support for the action among public sector workers reveals an increasing militancy and desire to fight back against a decades-long assault on jobs and working conditions prosecuted by successive governments, Labor and Coalition alike.

The Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU), which covers the public sector, however, has limited the stoppage to 24 hours and is using it to promote the illusion that the government can be pressured into altering its course in enterprise bargaining negotiations. At the same time, the union is seeking to politically corral opposition behind the Labor Party, which has been one of the chief architects of the assault on the public sector.

Workers participating in Friday’s strike action include employees of Centrelink, Medicare, the Tax Office, Child Support Defence, the Bureau of Meteorology, Agriculture and Water Resources, and the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. CPSU airport workers are also expected to take limited industrial action, with warnings from the government of delays.

The strikers are among around 100,000 public servants who have opposed regressive Enterprise Bargaining Agreements (EBA) put forward by the Liberal-National governments over the past two-and-a-half years.

As a consequence of the delayed agreements, the bulk of the CPSU’s members in the federal public sector have not had a pay rise in over two years. The government has stated that any agreements will not be back-dated which means that CPSU members have effectively been locked into a pay freeze since 2013. Cost-cutting agreements covering another 50,000 workers have been pushed through. Agreements covering some 20,000 workers over four departments have been imposed since the July 2 federal election.

Over the course of the protracted dispute, the union has reduced its pay claim from a 4 percent increase over four years, to between 2.5 and 3 percent. The government has offered nominal pay increases of 2 percent per year, which it has stated will be tied to “productivity” measures aimed at slashing costs.

Workers have resoundingly rejected deals put forward by a number of departments. Employees in the Department of Immigration rejected an offer of a 3.4 percent over three years last September, with 91 percent voting against. Some 81 percent voted down a 6 percent offer over three years in March. The same month, 71 percent of the Australian Communication and Media Authority’s workers voted down an annual 2 percent pay rise. In May, 71 percent of employees rejected the latest offer put forward by the Australian Tax Office. In most departments, workers have voted against two or three concession EBAs.

The ballot results express widespread anger over the intensified assault on public sector jobs and conditions. In its May budget, the Liberal-National government committed to almost $2 billion in cuts to the public sector in the form of “efficiency dividends” over the next four years.

The government is conducting reviews into a host of departments, and foreshadowed the destruction of up to 250 smaller public sector bodies. At the same time, job cuts are being extended, with 810 sackings slated in the Department of Human Resources, 300 at the Immigration Department and 344 in Social Services. The union has warned that up to 800 more additional jobs may be destroyed in immigration.

The government’s offer for Department of Immigration workers included the abolition of multiple allowances, which could see some workers up to $8,000 worse off annually, along with the scrapping of flexible working hours.

The CPSU has played the central role in preventing the development of a unified struggle against the cuts. Throughout the wage dispute, the union has stressed its willingness to “negotiate” a “reasonable outcome.”

The union has repeatedly appealed to the government to utilise its services to impose new agreements, which would inevitably entail further cost-cutting.

In comments last month, CPSU national president Alistair Waters denounced the government’s “unworkable approach to public sector bargaining” and declared that Michaelia Cash, the employment minister, had “tried to undermine our attempts to help her fix the Turnbull government’s bargaining mess.” Nadine Flood, the union’s national secretary, reiterated in comments published yesterday that the CPSU is appealing for the government to “engage with us on a sensible alternative.”

The CPSU’s role in isolating employees in each department, and limiting industrial action to partial strikes, has been aimed at wearing-down and dissipating opposition.

In March, the union cancelled a strike of airport workers after an appeal from Malcolm Turnbull which included vague references to “terror threats,” establishing a precedent that can be used against other industrial and political actions. The following month, the union acceded to a ruling by the Fair Work Commission, banning industrial action by Border Force workers on the grounds of “national security.”

This has played directly into the hands of the government. On Wednesday, Fairfax Media reported new moves to force through EBAs and stated, “some departmental secretaries and agency chief executives now see an opportunity to capitalise on weariness among their employees with the protracted stoush.”

The union has advanced the lie that the Labor Party will reverse the assault on the public sector. Featured speakers at a strike event in Brisbane will include former Labor treasurer Wayne Swan and other prominent Labor Party figures.

The union campaigned for Labor in the 2016 federal elections and promoted its fraudulent populist posturing, including claims that it would wind back “efficiency dividends” which have been the chief mechanism for decades of cutbacks. One union statement, for instance, was headlined, “Community wins, consultants lose with Labor ‘efficiency’ dividend policy.” In reality, Labor merely committed to a 2017 review into dividends and refused to specify whether it was proposing their abolition.

It was the Labor government of Bob Hawke that introduced “efficiency dividends” in 1987. The measure—an annual funding reduction for government agencies—has been the basis for an unending assault on jobs, wages and conditions across the public sector.

Prior to the 2007 election, then Labor leader Kevin Rudd declared that his government would take a “meat axe” to the public service. The Labor governments of Rudd and Julia Gillard proceeded to destroy as many as 14,500 public sector jobs between 2007 and 2013, repeatedly increasing the “efficiency dividend.” In 2013, the Rudd government boosted the dividend from 1.25 percent to 2.25 percent laying the basis for cuts subsequently enforced by the Abbott Coalition government.

The attack on the public sector is part of a broader offensive against the entire working class, amid relentless demands by the corporate and financial elite for austerity measures in line with the social counter-revolution being imposed in Europe and the United States. During the election campaign, Labor pledged to make some $33 billion in cuts, including to healthcare, education and welfare. Since the formation of a Liberal-National government, Labor has stressed its “bipartisan commitment” to so-called “budget repair”—a code-word for slashing spending.

At the same time, the slowdown of the Australian economy is being used to overhaul working conditions across the board, and eliminate hundreds of thousands of jobs.

The only way forward for public sector workers is to break out of the shackles imposed by the CPSU, and begin an independent political struggle in defence of all jobs, wages and conditions. Workers should establish rank-and-file committees as centres of an industrial and political fight aimed at uniting public sector employees throughout all departments and with other sections of the working class.

Above all, what is required is a socialist perspective and the fight for a workers’ government, which would end the subordination of social need, including to a decent, well-paying job, to the dictates of the capitalist market.

ITT Tech shuts down after federal government withholds student funding

Nick Barrickman

ITT Technical Institute, one of the country’s largest for-profit colleges, announced the sudden closure of its 130 campuses throughout the United States on Tuesday, leaving its more than 40,000 students without a means of obtaining a degree and over 8,000 personnel without jobs.

The closure of ITT marks the second mass closing of a for-profit college program in as many years. In June of 2014, Corinthian College Inc. (CCI) announced the selling-off of 85 campuses after the federal government stopped funding to the college, citing violations of federal law.

The shuttering of ITT came two weeks after officials from the Department of Education (DOE) banned the for-profit institute from receiving any further government-based Title IV student aid. That decision was tied to an investigation launched into ITT by the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS) in April, which cited the school’s organizational integrity, financial viability and academic standards as cause for concern.

In addition, the DOE required that ITT Tech raise more than $247.3 million, or nearly 40 percent of all government loans received by the education company, to cover any potential student defaults on existing debts.

Speaking to ITT students in a mass email, representatives stated, “Please know we worked diligently to identify alternatives that would have allowed you to start or continue your education at ITT Tech, and earn your degree… But the Department of Education’s actions have forced us to cease operations at the ITT Technical Institutes. We are truly sorry to have to make this decision.”

ITT spokespeople have accused the government of being “inappropriate and unconstitutional” in stopping funds “without proving a single allegation.”

The DOE declared that it plans to help students currently enrolled or out of school by less than 120 days discharge their loans if they choose to drop out, forfeiting all received credits. The total for discharging loans for all 40,000 students at the for-profit could cost well over $500 million for taxpayers.

ITT Tech is currently facing legal challenges at the state and federal levels, including two lawsuits from the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, for violations regarding its in-house loans program, which the government alleges was used to lure students into taking on debt with draconian and undisclosed penalties if payments were missed. In connection to these lawsuits, the ACICS launched an investigation into the credit-worthiness of the for-profit last April.

The ACICS, a non-profit agency whose stamp of approval is seen as the “gatekeeper” for several billion dollars in federal aid, has itself come under scrutiny from the US government in recent months for lax standards in school accreditation.

In June, the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity, a federal body, voted to “de-recognize” the ACICS as the agency in charge of accreditation for for-profit and independent institutions for what DOE Under Secretary Ted Mitchell referred to as a “wide and deep failure” in “making the determinations we, you and the public count on.”

In addressing the interruption the closure could have for thousands of students, employees and their families, Mitchell stated that he knew it could “cause disruption, confusion and disappointment,” but the government’s “responsibility is not to any individual institution. It’s to protect all students and all taxpayers.”

Rising tuition costs and the prospect of graduating without access to decent-paying jobs is a reality for tens of thousands of young people and workers returning to school seeking to receive an education in the US. The current level of student debt in the US is $1.2 trillion, the largest form of debt among the population.

A study released last year by the Brookings Institute discovered that students leaving for-profit schools and community colleges in 2011 constituted nearly 70 percent of all student loan defaults for that year.

Many for-profit universities maintain political ties in order to ward off investigations into their practices and obtain business opportunities.

A recent investigation conducted by the conservative Judicial Watch found that between 2010 and 2015, former President Bill Clinton received $17.6 million serving as “honorary chancellor” at Laureate International Universities, a connection which allowed representatives of the for-profit college to attend State Department functions and receive the latter’s support in overseas endeavors, where the majority of Laureate’s campuses are located.

In addition, the school has donated over $5 million to the Clinton Foundation and owner Douglas Becker is listed as a Hillary Clinton campaign donor. The average tuition costs at Laureate’s US-based schools exceed ITT’s by several thousand dollars and their graduation rates are nearly identical.

A recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece noted, “ITT investors must be wishing they had ponied up for political protection like Laureate International Universities, the for-profit college that paid Bill Clinton $17.6 million to serve as its ‘honorary chancellor.’”

Separatist candidates win seats in Hong Kong election

Peter Symonds

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jean Shaoul

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Turkey prepares joint action with US in Syria

Bill Van Auken

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Offered annually? Yes

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

Eligible Field of Study: Masters in Business Administration

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

Scholarship Offered Since: 1977

Scholarship Type: MBA Scholarships for women

Selection Criteria and Eligibility

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

Essay topic : No essay required

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

Value of Scholarship: € 20,000

Duration of Scholarship: for the period of study

Eligible Countries: Any country

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

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

Visit Scholarship webpage and description page for details

Sponsors: The INSEAD Alumni Fund (IAF)

What Obama Doesn’t Want You to Know About Uzbekistan

Ted Rall

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

The death of Uzbekistani president Islam Karimov is not typical.

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

The SOB died 82 years too late.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Moral Idiocy in the Halls of Power

Lawrence Davidson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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