Middle East Chaos

Conn Hallinan

The splintering of the powerful Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) into warring camps—with Qatar, supported by Turkey and Iran, on one side, and Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), supported by Egypt, on the other—has less to do with disagreements over foreign policy and religion than with internal political and economic developments in the Middle East. The ostensible rationale the GCC gave on June 4 for breaking relations with Qatar and placing the tiny country under a blockade is that Doha is aiding “terrorist’ organizations. The real reasons are considerably more complex, particularly among the major players.

Middle East journalist Patrick Cockburn once described the Syrian civil war as a three-dimensional chess game with five players and no rules. In the case of the Qatar crisis, the players have doubled and abandoned the symmetry of the chessboard for “Go,” Mahjong, and Bridge.

Tensions among members of the GCC are longstanding. In the case of Qatar, they date back to 1995, when the father of the current ruler, Emir Tamin Al Thani, shoved his own father out of power. According Simon Henderson to of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Saudi Arabia and the UAE “regarded the family coup as a dangerous precedent to Gulf ruling families” and tried to organize a counter coup. The coup was exposed, however, and called off.

Riyadh is demanding that Qatar sever relations with Iran—an improbable outcome given that the two countries share a natural gas field in the Persian Gulf—and end Doha’s cozy ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Indeed, if there is any entity in the Middle East that the Saudis hate—and fear—more than Iran, it is the Brotherhood. Riyadh was instrumental in the 2013 overthrow of the Brotherhood government in Egypt and has allied itself with the Israelis to marginalize Hamas, the Palestinian version of the Brotherhood that dominates Gaza.

But fault lines in the GCC do not run only between Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar. Oman, at the Gulf’s mouth, has always marched to its own drummer, maintaining close ties with Saudi Arabia’s regional nemesis, Iran, and refusing to go along with Riyadh’s war against the Houthi in Yemen. Kuwait has also balked at Saudi dominance of the GCC, has refused to join the blockade against Doha, and is trying to play mediator in the current crisis.

The siege of Qatar was launched shortly after Donald Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, when the Saudi’s put on a show for the U.S. President that was over the top even by the monarchy’s standards. Wooed with massive billboards and garish sword dances, Trump soaked up the Saudi’s view of the Middle East, attacked Iran as a supporter of terrorism and apparently green-lighted the blockade of Qatar. He even tried to take credit for it.

Saudi Arabia, backed by Bahrain, Egypt, and the UAE, along with a cast of minor players, made 13 demands on Doha that it could only meet by abandoning its sovereignty. They range from the impossible—end all contacts with Iran—to the improbable—close the Turkish base—to the unlikely—dismantle the popular and lucrative media giant, Al Jazeera. The “terrorists” Doha is accused of supporting are the Brotherhood, which the Saudi’s and the Egyptians consider a terrorist organization, an opinion not shared by the U.S. or the European Union.

On the surface this is about Sunni Saudi Arabia vs. Shiite Iran, but while religious differences do play an important role in recruiting and motivating some of the players, this is not a battle over a schism in Islam. Most importantly, it is not about “terrorism,” since many of the countries involved are up to their elbows in supporting extremist organizations. Indeed, Saudi Arabia’s reactionary Wahhabi interpretation of Islam is the root ideology for groups like the Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaeda, and all the parties are backing a variety of extremists in Syria and Libya’s civil wars.

The attack on Qatar is part of Saudi Arabia’s aggressive new foreign policy that is being led by Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohammad bin Salman. Since being declared “monarch-in-waiting” by King Salman Al Saud, Mohammed has launched a disastrous war in Yemen that has killed more than 10,000 civilians, sparked a country-wide cholera epidemic, and drains at least $700 million a month from Saudi Arabia’s treasury. Given the depressed price for oil and a growing population—70 percent of which is under 30 and much of it unemployed—it is not a cost the monarchy can continue sustain, especially with the Saudi economy falling into recession.

Underlying the Saudi’s new-found aggression is fear. First, fear that the kind of Islamic governance modeled by the Muslim Brotherhood poses a threat to the absolutism of the Gulf monarchs. Fear that Iran’s nuclear pact with the U.S., the EU and the UN is allowing Tehran to break out of its economic isolation and turn itself into a rival power center in the Middle East. And fear that anything but a united front by the GCC—led by Riyadh—will encourage the House of Saud’s internal and external critics.

So far, the attempt to blockade Qatar has been more an annoyance than a serious threat to Doha. Turkey and Iran are pouring supplies into Qatar, and the Turks are deploying up to 1,000 troops at a base near the capital. There are also some 10,000 U.S. troops at Qatar’s Al Udeid Airfield, Washington’s largest base in the Middle East and one central to the war on the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Any invasion aimed at overthrowing the Qatar regime risks a clash with Turkey and the U.S.

While Egypt is part of the anti-Qatari alliance—the Egyptians are angry at Doha for not supporting Cairo’s side in the Libyan civil war, and the Egyptian regime also hates the Brotherhood—it is hardly an enthusiastic ally. Saudi Arabia keeps Egypt’s economy afloat, and so long as the Riyadh keeps writing checks, Cairo is on board. But Egypt is keeping the Yemen war at arm’s length—it flat out refused to contribute troops and is not comfortable with Saudi Arabia’s version of Islam. Cairo is currently in a nasty fight with its own Wahhabist-inspired extremists. Egypt also maintains diplomatic relations with Iran.

Besides the UAE, the other Saud allies don’t count for much in this fight. Sudan will send troops—if Riyadh pays for them—but not very many. Bahrain is on board, but only because the Saudi and UAE armies are sitting on local Shiite opposition. Yemen and Libya are part of the anti-Qatar alliance, but both are essentially failed states. And while the Maldives is a nice place to vacation, it doesn’t have a lot of weight to throw around.

On the other hand, long-time Saudi ally Pakistan has made it clear it is not part of this blockade, nor will it break with Qatar or downgrade relations with Iran. When Riyadh asked for Pakistan troops in Yemen, the national parliament voted unanimously to have nothing to do with Riyadh’s jihad on the poorest country in the Middle East.

The largely Muslim nations of Malaysia and Indonesia are also maintaining relations with Qatar, and Saudi ally Morocco offered to send food to Doha. In brief, it is not clear who is more isolated here.

While President Trump supports the Saudis, his Defense Department and State Department are working to resolve the crisis.  U.S. Sec. of State Rex Tillerson just finished a trip to the Gulf in an effort to end the blockade, and the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee is threatening to hold up arms sales to Riyadh unless the dispute is resolved. The latter is no minor threat. Saudi Arabia would have serious difficulties carrying out the war in Yemen without U.S. weaponry.

And the reverse of the coin?

Doha’s allies have a variety of agendas, not all of which mesh.

Iran has correct, but hardly warm, relations with Qatar. Both countries need to cooperate to exploit the South Pars gas field, and Tehran appreciated that Doha was always a reluctant member of the anti-Iran coalition, telling the U.S. it could not use Qatari bases to attack Iran.

Iran is certainly interested in anything that divides the GCC. The Iranians would also like Qatar to invest in upgrading Iran’s energy industry and maybe cutting them in on the $177 billion in construction projects that Doha is lining up in preparation for hosting the 2022 World Cup Games. Also, some 30,000 Iranians live in Qatar.

Figuring out Turkey these days can reduce one to reading tea leaves.

On one hand, Ankara’s support for Qatar seems obvious. Qatar backs the Brotherhood, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party is a Turkish variety of the Brotherhood, albeit one focused more on power than ideology. Erdogan was a strong supporter of the Egyptian Brotherhood and relations between Cairo and Ankara went into the deep freeze when Egypt’s military overthrew the Islamist organization.

Qatar is also an important source of finances for Ankara, whose fragile economy needs every bit of help it can get. Turkey’s large construction industry would like to land some of the multi-billion construction contracts the World Cup games will generate. Turkish construction projects in Qatar already amount to $13.7 billion.

On the other hand, Turkey is also trying to woo Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies for their investments. Erdogan even joined in the GCC’s attacks on Iran last spring, accusing Tehran of “Persian nationalist expansion,” a comment that distressed Turkey’s business community. As the sanctions on Iran ease, Turkish firms see that country’s big, well-educated population as a potential gold mine.

The Turkish President has since turned down the anti-Iran rhetoric, and Ankara and Tehran have been consulting over the Qatar crisis. The first supportive phone call Erdogan took during the attempted coup last year was from Qatar’s emir, and the prickly Turkish President has not forgotten that some other GCC members were silent for several days. Erdogan recently suggested that the UAE had a hand in the coup.

Is this personal for Turkey’s president? No, but Erdogan is the Middle East leader who most resembles Donald Trump: he shoots from the hip and holds grudges. The difference is that he is far smarter and better informed than the U.S. President and knows when to cut his losses.

His apology to the Russians after shooting down one of their fighter-bombers is a case in point. Erdogan first threatened Moscow with war, but eventually trotted off to St. Petersburg, hat in hand, to make nice with Russian President Vladimir Putin. And after hinting that the Americans were behind the 2016 coup, he recently met with Tillerson in Istanbul to smooth things out.  Turkey recognizes that it will need Moscow and Washington to settle the war in Syria.

The Russians have been carefully neutral, consulted with Turkey and Iran, and have called on all parties to peacefully resolve their differences.

There is not likely to be a quick end to the Qatar crisis, because Saudi Arabia keeps doubling down on one disastrous foreign policy decision after another, including breaking up the Arab world’s only viable economic bloc. But there are developments in the region that may eventually force Riyadh to back off.

The Syrian War looks like it is headed for a solution, although the outcome is anything but certain. The Yemen War has reached crisis proportions—the UN describes it as the number one human emergency on the globe—and pressure is growing for the U.S. and Britain to wind down their support for the Saudi alliance. And Iran is slowly but steadily reclaiming its role as a leading force in the Middle East and Central Asia.

There is much that could go wrong. There could be a disastrous war with Iran, currently being pushed by Saudi Arabia, Israel and neo-conservatives in the U.S. and Russia, the U.S. and Turkey could fall out over Syria.  The Middle East is an easy place to get into trouble. But if there are dangers, so too are there possibilities, and from those springs hope.

Collateral Damage: U.S. Sanctions Aimed at Russia Strike Western European Allies

Diana Johnstone

Do they know what they are doing?  When the U.S. Congress adopts draconian sanctions aimed mainly at disempowering President Trump and ruling out any move to improve relations with Russia, do they realize that the measures amount to a declaration of economic war against their dear European “friends”?

Whether they know or not, they obviously don’t care.  U.S. politicians view the rest of the world as America’s hinterland, to be exploited, abused and ignored with impunity.

The Bill H.R. 3364 “Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act” was adopted on July 25 by all but three members of the House of Representatives.  An earlier version was adopted by all but two Senators. Final passage at veto-overturning proportions is a certainty.

This congressional temper tantrum flails in all directions. The main casualties are likely to be America’s dear beloved European allies, notably Germany and France.  Who also sometimes happen to be competitors, but such crass considerations don’t matter in the sacred halls of the U.S. Congress, totally devoted to upholding universal morality.

Economic “Soft Power” Hits Hard

Under U.S. sanctions, any EU nation doing business with Russia may find itself in deep trouble.  In particular, the latest bill targets companies involved in financing Nord Stream 2, a pipeline designed to provide Germany with much needed natural gas from Russia.

By the way, just to help out, American companies will gladly sell their own fracked natural gas to their German friends, at much higher prices.

That is only one way in which the bill would subject European banks and enterprises to crippling restrictions, lawsuits and gigantic fines.

While the U.S. preaches “free competition”, it constantly takes measures to prevent free competition at the international level.

Following the July 2015 deal ensuring that Iran could not develop nuclear weapons, international sanctions were lifted, but the United States retained its own previous ones. Since then, any foreign bank or enterprise contemplating trade with Iran is apt to receive a letter from a New York group calling itself “United Against Nuclear Iran” which warns that “there remain serious legal, political, financial and reputational risks associated with doing business in Iran, particularly in sectors of the Iranian economy such as oil and gas”.  The risks cited include billions of dollars of (U.S.) fines, surveillance by “a myriad of regulatory agencies”, personal danger, deficiency of insurance coverage, cyber insecurity, loss of more lucrative business, harm to corporate reputation and a drop in shareholder value.

The United States gets away with this gangster behavior because over the years it has developed a vast, obscure legalistic maze, able to impose its will on the “free world” economy thanks to the omnipresence of the dollar, unrivaled intelligence gathering and just plain intimidation.

European leaders reacted indignantly to the latest sanctions.  The German foreign ministry said it was “unacceptable for the United States to use possible sanctions as an instrument to serve the interest of U.S. industry”.  The French foreign ministry denounced the “extraterritoriality” of the U.S. legislation as unlawful, and announced that “To protect ourselves against the extraterritorial effects of US legislation, we will have to work on adjusting our French and European laws”.

In fact, bitter resentment of arrogant U.S. imposition of its own laws on others has been growing in France, and was the object of a serious parliamentary report delivered to the French National Assembly foreign affairs and finance committees last October 5, on the subject of “the extraterritoriality of American legislation”.

Extraterritoriality

The chairman of the commission of enquiry, long-time Paris representative Pierre Lellouche, summed up the situation as follows:

“The facts are very simple.  We are confronted with an extremely dense wall of American legislation whose precise intention is to use the law to serve the purposes of the economic and political imperium with the idea of gaining economic and strategic advantages. As always in the United States, that imperium, that normative bulldozer operates in the name of the best intentions in the world since the United States considers itself a ‘benevolent power’, that is a country that can only do good.”

Always in the name of “the fight against corruption” or “the fight against terrorism”, the United States righteously pursues anything legally called a “U.S. person”, which under strange American law can refer to any entity doing business in the land of the free, whether by having an American subsidiary, or being listed on the New York stock exchange, or using a U.S.-based server, or even by simply trading in dollars, which is something that no large international enterprise can avoid.

In 2014, France’s leading bank, BNP-Paribas, agreed to pay a whopping fine of nearly nine billion dollars, basically for having used dollar transfers in deals with countries under U.S. sanctions.  The transactions were perfectly legal under French law.  But because they dealt in dollars, payments transited by way of the United States, where diligent computer experts could find the needle in the haystack.  European banks are faced with the choice between prosecution, which entails all sorts of restrictions and punishments before a verdict is reached, or else, counseled by expensive U.S. corporate lawyers, and entering into the obscure “plea bargain” culture of the U.S. judicial system, unfamiliar to Europeans.  Just like the poor wretch accused of robbing a convenience store, the lawyers urge the huge European enterprises to plea guilty in order to escape much worse consequences.

Alstom, a major multinational corporation whose railroad section produces France’s high speed trains, is a jewel of French industry.  In 2014, under pressure from U.S. accusations of corruption (probably bribes to officials in a few developing countries), Alstom sold off its electricity branch to General Electric.

The underlying accusation is that such alleged “corruption” by foreign firms causes U.S. firms to lose markets.  That is possible, but there is no practical reciprocity here.  A whole range of U.S. intelligence agencies, able to spy on everyone’s private communications, are engaged in commercial espionage around the world.  As an example, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, devoted to this task, operates with 200 employees on an annual budget of over $30 million. The comparable office in Paris employs five people.

This was the situation as of last October.  The latest round of sanctions can only expose European banks and enterprises to even more severe consequences, especially concerning investments in the vital Nord Stream natural gas pipeline.

This bill is just the latest in a series of U.S. legislative measures tending to break down national legal sovereignty and create a globalized jurisdiction in which anyone can sue anyone else for anything, with ultimate investigative capacity and enforcement power held by the United States.

Wrecking the European Economy

Over a dozen European Banks (British, German, French, Dutch, Swiss) have run afoul of U.S. judicial moralizing, compared to only one U.S. bank: JP Morgan Chase.

The U.S. targets the European core countries, while its overwhelming influence in the northern rim – Poland, the Baltic States and Sweden – prevents the European Union from taking any measures (necessarily unanimous) contrary to U.S. interests.

By far the biggest catch in Uncle Sam’s financial fishing expedition is Deutsche Bank.  As Pierre Lellouche warned during the final hearing of the extraterritorial hearings last October, U.S. pursuits against Deutsche Bank risk bringing down the whole European banking system.  Although it had already paid hundreds of millions of dollars to the State of New York, Deutsche Bank was faced with a “fine of 14 billion dollars whereas it is worth only five and a half. … In other words, if this is carried out, we risk a domino effect, a major financial crisis in Europe.”

In short, U.S. sanctions amount to a sword of Damocles threatening the economies of the country’s main trading partners.  This could be a Pyrrhic victory, or more simply, the blow that kills the goose that lays the golden eggs.  But hurrah, America would be the winner in a field of ruins.

Former justice minister Elisabeth Guigou called the situation shocking, and noted that France had told the U.S. Embassy that the situation is “insupportable” and insisted that “we must be firm”.

Jacques Myard said that “American law is being used to gain markets and eliminate competitors.  We should not be naïve and wake up to what is happening.”

This enquiry marked a step ahead in French awareness and resistance to a new form of “taxation without representation” exercised by the United States against its European satellites. They committee members all agreed that something must be done.

That was last October.  In June, France held parliamentary elections.  The commission chairman, Pierre Lellouche (Republican), the rapporteur Karine Berger (Socialist), Elisabeth Guigou (a leading Socialist) and Jacques Myard (Republican) all lost their seats to inexperienced newcomers recruited into President Emmanuel Macron’s République en marche party.  The newcomers are having a hard time finding their way in parliamentary life and have no political memory, for instance of the Rapport on Extraterritoriality.

As for Macron, as minister of economics, in 2014 he went against earlier government rulings by approving the GE purchase of Alstom.  He does not appear eager to do anything to anger the United States.

However, there are some things that are so blatantly unfair that they cannot go on forever.

The Cardinal, The Church And Legal Theatre

Binoy Kampmark

“The world is watching.”

Cathy Kezelman, Blue Knot Foundation president, The Washington Post, Jul 25, 2017

The show on Wednesday was grim, busy, crowded.  Cardinal George Pell, the highest Vatican official thus far to be brought within the legal fold of accusation and accountability for historical crimes of sex abuse, fronted for the briefest of shows at a lowly Magistrates Court in Melbourne.

There was much chatter prior to his arrival on Wednesday morning as to what would happen. For one, a taster was provided that the number of police was simply not enough to contain matters.  Ringed by the boys and girls in blue, he seemed in a floating daze, though officially committed to the task at hand.

The other point was that the media outlets seemed indifferent to the linguistic differences of “historic” and “historical” in terms of designating the alleged crimes.  Would historical sex abuse charges become historic in due course?

A bigger court room, one that would have enabled more spectators to sit, was not in the offing. An ordinary magistrates setting seating up to 80 was going to supply distinct shock treatment, a cold shower of immensity far from the plushness of the Vatican setting.  Some journalists grumbled that a more expansive setting should have been provided.

The press were also keen to run snippets and biographies prior to the Wednesday stomp, with the defence team revealed for being proficient in having defended the less savoury elements of society.  Robert Richter QC, Pell’s main barrister, was written up in The Age as, “One of Australia’s top criminal barristers who has represented his share of controversial figures.”

Ruth Shann, assisting, was also noted as having previously “represented killer Sean Price, and former St. Kilda footballer Stephen Milne, who was charged with sex offences.” Paul Galbally, completing the charming triumvirate, was quoted as happy to represent those accused of the most serious crimes.  “You either have a disposition or a personality that can deal with this work or you don’t.” All too true.

The wily and seasoned Richter, chocked with grand wizard experience, realises that the game is afoot.  Keep matters as staggered as possible, possibly over the course of three separate trials.  Frustrate the burrowing journalists, those squirreling for information about specific matters.

This, after all, is the steal of the decade, a high figure of the Vatican, effectively the Pope’s accountant.  The question is whether his client has the stamina to last such legal wrangling, given the fact that a fate worse than the privations of prison is one permanently engulfed by the sallies of lawyers.

“For the avoidance of doubt,” submitted Richter in court, “and because of the interest, might I indicate that Cardinal Pell will plead not guilty to all the charges and will maintain his presumed innocence that he has.”

Strict control would be maintained over reporting on Pell’s situation.  Prosecutor and senior counsel Andrew Tinney was rebuking and stern. There was to be no slack behaviour in observing protocol in terms of protecting the accused and his innocence.

“Any publication of material speculating about the strength or otherwise of the case, the prospect of a fair trial or trials being had, whether the accused should or should not have been charged, the likelihood of conviction or acquittal, or any such matters would be in contempt of court.”

But there was little giving: Leaving aside the fizzling pyrotechnics is the sheer secrecy at play. “My apologies,” wrote a disappointed David Marr, short changed on what was being provided.  “I can’t tell you what’s going on.”

It had been several months, and the charges were still not clear. “Even if they fell into my lap,” scribbled Marr, “I would not say a word.  Why not?  Sorry, that’s a secret too.” Outlets such as The Washington Post noted that Pell had made “his first court appearance in Australia on Wednesday on charges of sexual abuse” but were none the wiser as to what they were.

When the Cardinal appeared, he did so in impassive fashion. It was undeniably the Pell show.  He had only one ultimate incentive to attend the hearing, something he did not need to: defeat the case against him, and tidy up a sullied name.

Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton claimed that Pell might be taken through an underground entrance in October, given the sheer magnitude of the crush.  “There’s a couple of different options that we’ll look at, certainly won’t rule that out.”  There was just one snag: “One of the issues going underneath through the roller doors is you’ve got a lot of prisoners down there.  We’ve got to get those prisoners up to court.”

The international and local contingents of the press were essentially paying homage to a display with one significant meaning: the imposition of the law over the Church, the temporal order casting its net over a representative of the supposedly divine.  But they were also being kept in a darkness that may only partially abate, and if so, over a lengthy period of time.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Steps Down

Abdus Sattar Ghazali 

Prime Minister of Pakistan Mian Mohammad Nawaz Sharif’s third term in power ended Friday (July 28) unceremoniously after the Supreme Court disqualified him from holding public office in a landmark unanimous decision on the so-called Panama Papers case.

“The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) shall issue a notification disqualifying Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif from being a member of the Parliament with immediate effect, after which he shall cease to be the Prime Minister of Pakistan,” Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan told the packed courtroom Friday afternoon.

The prime minister was disqualified from holding his office as the judges ruled that he had been dishonest to parliament and the courts and could not be deemed fit for his office.

Finance Minister Ishaq Dar and son-in-law of Nawaz Sharif, Captain Safdar, who is a member of parliament, were also declared unfit for office. Dar was disqualified for being unable to explain his ownership of assets beyond his means.

The judges ruled that Nawaz had been dishonest to the parliament and the courts in not disclosing his employment in the Dubai-based Capital FZE company in his 2013 nomination papers, and thus, could not be deemed fit for his office.

“It is hereby declared that having failed to disclose his un-withdrawn receivables constituting assets from Capital FZE Jebel Ali, UAE in his nomination papers filed for the General Elections held in 2013 in terms of Section 12(2)(f) of the Representation of the People Act, 1976 (ROPA), and having furnished a false declaration under solemn affirmation respondent No. 1 Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif is not honest in terms of Section 99(f) of ROPA and Article 62(1)(f) of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973and therefore he is disqualified to be a Member of the Majlis-e-Shoora (Parliament).”

Tellingly, Nawaz Sharif has been ousted on graft charges once before, sacked by the country´s then-president during the first of his three terms as prime minister in 1993.

Shortly after the Supreme Court Order, the PM House issued a notification saying that Nawaz Sharif, despite having “strong reservations” on the SC’s verdict, has stepped down from his post as the premier.

Reacting to the court’s order, a Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz spokesperson said that the party will utilize all legal and constitutional means to contest the verdict.

The federal cabinet was dissolved after Nawaz Sharif relinquished his responsibilities as the prime minister of Pakistan.

As the head of the ruling PML-N, he will still be able to nominate his successor. Sharif’s chosen candidate will be put to a vote in the National Assembly — a rubber stamp affair as the PML-N holds a strong majority in the house.

Joint Investigation Team

On April 20 the Supreme Court appointed a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) to probe the case and collect evidence, if any, showing that Nawaz Sharif or any of his dependents or benamidar owns, possesses or acquired assets or any interest therein disproportionate to their known means of income.

The six-member JIT’s damning report, submitted after a 60-day investigation that sought answers to 13 questions raised by the Supreme Court’s larger bench, had maintained that Prime Minister’s family owned assets beyond its known sources of income. It declared that his sons, Hussain and Hassan Nawaz, were used as proxies to build family assets.

Consequently, the six-man JIT concluded that it was compelled to refer to sections 9(a)(v) and 14(c) of the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO) 1999, which deal with corruption and corrupt practices, though such charges are yet to be proven in an accountability court.

The JIT pointed out failure on the part of the Sharifs to produce the required information that would confirm their “known sources of income”, saying that prima facie, it amounted to saying that they were not able to reconcile their assets with their means of income.

References in accountability courts

Justice Khan said that the bench had recommended that all material collected by the joint investigation team (JIT) tasked with probing the Sharif family’s financial dealings be sent to an accountability court within six weeks.

The bench said that on the basis of this information, cases would be opened against Finance Minister Ishaq Dar; MNA Captain Muhammad Safdar (son-in-law); Maryam (daughter, Hassan and Hussain Nawaz (sons); as well as the premier.

A judgment on these references should be announced within six months, he said. One judge will oversee the implementation of this order.

Panama Papers

The controversy erupted last year with the publication of 11.5 million secret documents from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca documenting the offshore dealings of many of the world´s rich and powerful.

Three of Sharif´s four children — Maryam, his daughter, and his sons Hasan and Hussein — were implicated in the papers.

At the heart of the case is the legitimacy of the funds used by the Sharif family to purchase several high-end London properties via offshore companies.

The PML-N insists the wealth was acquired legally, through Sharif family businesses in Pakistan and the Persian Gulf.

Pak politicians, businessmen own companies abroad

According to investigating reporter Umer Cheema of The News:

The names found in the secret files range from those of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s family to Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s relatives; from Benazir Bhutto to Javed Pasha; from Senator Rehman Malik to Senator Osman Saifullah’s family; and from Waseem Gulzar (a relative of the Chaudhrys of Gujrat) to Zain Sukhera, who was co-accused with former Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani’s son in the Haj scandal.

Businessmen featured in the record range from hotel tycoon Sadruddin Hashwani to real estate czar Malik Riaz Hussain’s son; from the Hussain Dawood family to the Abdullah family of Sapphire Textiles, Gul Muhammad Tabba of Lucky Textiles as well as Shahid Nazir of Masood Textiles and from Zulfiqar Ali Lakhani to Zulfiqar Paracha.

Members from the bar and the bench were also spotted in the documents include one serving judge of the Lahore High Court, Justice Farrukh Irfan; and one retired judge, Malik Qayyum. Owner of Hilton Pharma, Shehbaz Yasin Malik opened the company for a Swiss bank account. Chairman ABM Group of Companies Azam Sultan, Pizza Hut owner Aqeel Hussain and Chairman Soorty Enterprise Abdul Rashid Soorty were also identified along with the family members.

Records spanning four decades buried behind the tight wall of secrecy are on open display now confirming doubts and fuelling debate about the offshore jurisdictions like the British Virgin Island, Panama and Seychelles etc. Data made available is of one little known but a big law firm based in Panama, Mossack Fonseca, having global footprints in terms of its offshore clients.

Over 200 Pakistanis have been identified and the counting is still in progress. The data under examination covers nearly 40 years from 1977 through the end of 2015. Pakistanis started figuring in the record from 1990 onward.

Not a single PM completed five-year term in Pakistan

Not a single prime minister in Pakistan has been allowed to complete his tenure since the country’s inception 70 years ago.

According to investigating reporter Usman Manzoor of The News:

Pakistan’s first prime minister was murdered in Rawalpindi on October 16, 1951. He had assumed the charge of the premier on August 15, 1947. Then the second PM Khawaja Nazimuddin was sent home by Governor General Ghulam Muhammad on April 17, 1953. Nazimuddin knocked the doors of the Supreme Court where Justice Munir had to invent the doctrine of necessity to validate Ghulam Muhammad’s illegal act. Then came Muhammad Ali Bogra who too was dismissed by Ghulam Muhammad in 1954 but later was again appointed as PM but he did not enjoy majority in the Constituent Assembly therefore Governor General Iskender Mirza dismissed his government in 1955. Chaudhary Muhammad Ali succeeded in becoming the PM in 1955 but because of his conflict with Iskender Mirza who had become president as a result of 1956 constitution, Muhammad Ali resigned on September 12, 1956. Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy was the leader of Awami League and led the party through a victory in the 1954 elections for Constituent Assembly. He was the first person from another party than Muslim League to be appointed as a Prime Minister in 1956. He was deposed in 1957, due to differences with Iskander Mirza.

Ibrahim Ismail Chundrigar was appointed by Iskander Mirza after the resignation of Suhrawardy. He remained prime minister for almost two months. Chundrigar resigned from the post in December 1957. Then Mirza appointed Feroz Khan Noon as the seventh prime minister of Pakistan. He was dismissed after Martial Law was declared in 1958 by Ayub Khan.

After thirteen years of Martial Law, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto succeeded to power. Bhutto remained President under special arrangement till 1973 Constitution was passed. He resigned as president to become the prime minister of Pakistan after the 1973 Constitution. He went in to elections in 1977 and succeeded but was deposed the same year through coup d’état by General Muhammad Ziaul Haq in July 1977. He was hanged in 1979 by all powerful military-judicial nexus.

In 1985 non-party elections, Muhammad Khan Junejo was elected as PM of Pakistan under the worst dictators of Pakistan. As he was a political breed, he remained a threat to the dictator therefore his government was dismissed on May 29, 1988, just days after Junejo announced to probe the Ojhri Camp incident in Rawalpindi in which military’s weapons depot was exploded killing around 100 people and injuring thousands.

In 2012, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani was convicted in a contempt of court case in Supreme Court for not writing a letter against the sitting president to the Swiss authorities to reopen corruption cases. Gilani remained PM of Pakistan from March 25, 2008 to June 19, 2012. The remaining term of PPP government was completed by Raja Pervaiz Ashraf who held the office from June 2012 to March 2013 when general election was held and Nawaz Sharif’s Muslim League got sweeping majority in the National Assembly.

Nawaz Sharif is the third Prime Minister who resigned after Panama Leaks scandal

On April 5, 2016, Iceland’s Prime Minister Sigmundur Gunnlaugsso rerisgned after appearance of his name in Panama Leaks. Gunnlaugsso and his wife had an offshore company. Likewise, Panama Leaks controversy forced Ukrainian Prime Minister to abdicate on April 10, 2016.

On April 15, 2016, Spanish industrial minister resigned as his name was mentioned in the leaks.

Others key names who resigned on moral grounds include Chile Transparency International President Gonzalo Delaveu, FIFA Ethics Committee member Juan Pedro Damiani  of Uruguay and ABN AMRO Bank Member of Supervisory Board Bert Meerstadt of Netherlands.

The Panama leaks, comprising 11.5 million documents from Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca, shows how some of the world’s most powerful people have secreted their money offshore.

The documents from around 214,000 offshore entities covered almost 40 years.

Among those named in the documents are Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s family , friends of Russian President Vladimir Putin, relatives of the leaders of China, Britain, and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

Nawaz Sharif Exits But Corruption Eradication Is A Herculean Task In Pakistan

Vivek Kumar Srivastava

Pakistan’s three times Prime Minister and a businessman turned politician Nawaz Sharif has been declared disqualified by the apex court in Pakistan in corruption case. The petition was initiated by cricketer turned politician Imran Khan and others. In a country like Pakistan where political culture is of lower quality and the constitutionalism is still to take roots and most of the institutions weakened making the country a fragile state, the decision is a welcome development.

The Supreme Court in its verdict stated that PM Nawaz was disqualified from the membership of the Parliament and thereafter he cannot continue as the PM of the country. He was disqualified on the charge that he had not disclosed about his employment in a company-Capital FZE Jebel Ali, Dubai in 2013 nomination papers. Thus he had not maintained honesty to parliament and court and disqualified in terms of Representation of People’ Act and Constitution of 1973.
Supreme Court has given a verdict which may kindle of hopes for the suppressed people in the country that now a phase may start for their lives but overpowering negative impact of corruption on masses is highly established. As rightly summed up by José Ugaz, Chair of Transparency International that “ in too many countries, people are deprived of their most basic needs and go to bed hungry every night because of corruption, while the powerful and corrupt enjoy lavish lifestyles with impunity.” The removal of Nawaz may give a hope that some changes may occur in the political life of the country; but it may turn a day dream as a new oppressive and corrupt institution army is likely to play more decisive role in the political affairs of the country. The verdict shows that in Pakistan the corrupt politics had existed for a long time with disobeying the constitutional norms and public opinion and removal of PM is a just a symptom of a grave disease-the corruption.

The departure of PM was censured by a just institution which has brought into focus the level of the corruption prevailing in the Pakistan like societies that the head of the government is found involved in malpractices and common folks never in a position to speak against the power holders due to their overpowering political power and clout. Thus morality is decided by the corrupt politicians and that moral structure is never questioned; if anyone speaks against to it then the adverse lethal impact is to be thrust upon such whistle blowers. In such a morally deficient society the verdict is a sign of the positive hope which needs to be strengthened at wider scale with more vigorous efforts.

The departure also needs to be interpreted in terms of the state of corruption in South Asia as Pakistan is a core member of the region. According to Transparency International’s ‘the Corruption Perception Index 2016’ South Asia’s stands low – Bhutan stands at 27 (the best in South Asia), India at 79, Sri Lanka and Maldives both at 95, Pakistan at 116 (along with Mali and Tanzania at same rank),Nepal at 131,Bangladesh at 145, Afghanistan at 169( the worst in the region),whereas the least corrupt country is Denmark standing at rank 1st. the UN report has also declared Denmark as the happiest country in the world; suggesting that corruption index has a determining factor in the creation of happiness. It means people of Pakistan and rest are quite less happy, a fact which none can deny.

Pakistan now stands at a cross road as it is to take a crucial decision as what should be the political approach towards the corruption. It is likely that Nawaz may promote someone from his family as PM as Lalu Yadav did in Bihar when he brought his wife as CM of Bihar. These developments are disguised corruption. As these not only lead to the dynasty politics but also secure the corruption to continue.

In this respect the analysis of Transparency international on the role of political leaders need to be taken into account. It says that ‘people are fed up by too many politicians’ empty assurances to tackle corruption and many are turning towards populist politicians who promise to change the system and break the cycle of corruption and privilege. Yet this is likely to only exacerbate the issue. In countries with populist or autocratic leaders, we often see democracies in decline and a disturbing pattern of attempts to crack down on civil society, limit press freedom, and weaken the independence of the judiciary. Instead of tackling crony capitalism, those leaders usually install even worse forms of corrupt systems, Only where there is freedom of expression, transparency in all political processes and strong democratic institutions, can civil society and the media hold those in power to account and corruption be fought successfully.’

Pakistan has emerged its classical example where politicians have attempted to drag democratic norms in the negative direction. The untruth of Nawaz Sharif by not disclosing the realities show that politicians in developing countries believe that rule of law and judicial supremacy can be dealt with the tricks and nexus with evil elements but now leaders need to understand that non transparent and corrupt regimes cannot stay long as People have become aware about their clever activities.

In spite of this bold assertion several points weaken the fight against corruption as dynasty politics may take control and Nawaz guiding from behind; military taking control or increasing its control; suppression of civil society and truth speakers etc. any of these developments will allow the continuation of corruption, hence fight against corruption is a long drawn battle in Pakistan. As long as the value system by better education does not improve in country as a whole till then all hopes of corruption free Pakistan is a distant dream.

The Global Crisis and Role of So-Called Renewable Energies in Solving It

Saral Sarkar

Aspects and Causes of the Crisis
The climate crisis is only one aspect of the global crisis. Yet, generally speaking, Western governments, media, politicians, NGOs, and publicists have been trying to make us believe that it is the only dangerous and the only global crisis. It appears that for them all other crises in the world are only partial or regional problems of secondary importance. But this is a patently reductionist and superficial view of the present global crisis. Consequently, also the policies that are being pursued for solving the climate crisis are wrong.

  The aforementioned agents of worldwide climate politics plus the UN pressurized nearly all states of the world to sign up to the Paris accord (2015). But no similar global effort is being made to address, let alone solve, the global ecology crisis, the various, seemingly unending civil wars and uprisings in the world, the terrorist attacks of various kinds, increase in crime rates almost everywhere, the unemployment-and-poverty problem in all poor and “developing” countries, and the massive refugee-migrant crises in many parts of the world – in short, the globally growing failed and failing states crisis. To my mind, this is the right description of the critical state of the world today. The climate crisis is only one part of it, and as a crisis, it is of recent origin. It is, of course, also a major, but not a basic (i.e. deeper), cause of the global crisis.

 To justify why I do not consider the climate crisis to be a basic cause of the global crisis, I would like to refer to the present situation in Mexico and Venezuela. They are very advanced candidates for the title “failed state”. In Mexico, in short, the main cause of this situation is widespread drug-related crimes, in Venezuela it is the totally wrong economic policy of successive governments of a petro-socialist state. Or take for instance the two cases of South Sudan and Central African Republic. People there are not suffering from any climate-change-related drought or flooding.

Dubious Politics of Climate Politicians
Let us first examine the understanding that climate change is at present the greatest danger to mankind and that, therefore, it should be addressed as the most important task of governments.

Most government leaders and party politicians admit that climate change is a big danger, but they are not prepared to make an all-out effort to avert or mitigate it. Their topmost policy-priority is continuous economic growth. For stabilizing global warming below two degrees Celsius in the near future, they think it would suffice if the world economy could gradually be made to run on an energy mix of various sources, including some so-called renewables, and that, according to IPCC chief economist Edenhofer,* would not cost the world more than 0.06 percent growth.

But radical climate NGOs and activist groups maintain that the economies of highly industrialized countries such as Germany could run 100% on the basis of “renewable energies”. And they say that a rapid replacement of fossil-carbon and nuclear energy industries through renewable energy industries would create many new jobs, thus becoming the main pillar of green growth. They have more or less concrete ideas for the transition, even very detailed action plans for a quick transition to 100% “renewables”.

 I can here take just one example, only Bill McKibben’s action plan entitled A World at War.1 In it he calls for a “war” effort – although “war” is here only a metaphor – as huge as the American military and industrial mobilization for World War II. In naming his enemy, however, McKibben makes the initial big error in analysis. He thinks it is climate change. He imagines this enemy is committing a huge aggression against us. Once he calls it an “enemy as powerful and inexorable as the laws of physics.”  

  Isn’t it absurd? Any person with some common sense knows that climate change is only the result of global warming. But even global warming cannot be the “enemy”. We know today that it is man-made. For a moment McKibben also recognized his error. He himself mentions in a half-sentence “our insatiable desires as consumers,” but he does not spell it out as the ultimate cause of the malady.

 Anyway, he demanded of the then US government (and its future successors) that it should initiate and organize a huge industrial mobilization to get “a hell of a lot of factories” built in order to turn out “thousands of acres of solar panels, wind turbines the length of football fields, and millions and millions of electric cars and buses.” David Roberts2  made it vivid:

“Well, have a look at Solar City’s gigafactory, … . It will be the biggest solar manufacturing facility … covering 27 acres, capable of cranking out 10,000 solar panels a day – a gigawatt’s worth in a year. At the height of its transition to WWS [wind, water, solar], the US would have to build around 30 gigafactories a year devoted to solar panels, and another 15 a year for wind turbines. That’s 45 of the biggest factories ever built, every year. That is [even for an American] a mind-boggling pace of building, … .”

Imagine now the huge amount of shit this gigantic effort would simultaneously produce: the environmental pollution, resource depletion, and waste that has to be dumped somewhere.

We may allow McKibben his war metaphor in the name of poetic license. But if a general makes a wrong analysis of the war situation or, said in the jargon of applied medical science, if the diagnosis is wrong, the strategy or the prescribed medicine may do more harm than good. McKibben’s prescription, the huge dose of the wrong medicine – i.e. a huge mobilization for the “Third World War” that climate change, he imagines, is waging against us – is actually uncalled-for. There can be a much lighter and more effective medicine to cure the severe illness based on his more correct diagnosis, namely his half-sentence “our insatiable desires as consumers“.    

Any adherent of the old left (old socialism) of any kind would speak of thecapitalists‘ insatiable desire for profit and capital accumulation as the main cause of our troubles. She would call upon us to wage class struggle. But McKibben and climate activists like him are not old-leftists. They are not willing to fight against capitalism, but only against climate change. And this he wants to do, like all past and present old-leftists, by technological means. Blinded by technological optimism, such people believe that a 100% transition to “renewable” energies is possible. They say we need more technology, not less; they assert we could overcome all crises and problems of mankind by means of technology. I already heard in 1984 that the intermittency-and-storage problem of renewable energies can be easily solved, namely by means of batteries and liquid hydrogen.

Critique of technological solutions
Such activists are suffering from some illusions. They appear not to know the most inexorable of all the laws of physics, namely the Second Law of Thermodynamics (AKA the Entropy Law that also applies to matter). In reality, so-called renewable energies are neither renewable nor clean. One makes this mistake due to a logical error that must be rectified. We have to differentiate between sources of energy and equipments needed to convert them into electricity and heat. Sunshine, wind, and flowing water are sources that will still be there after Homo sapiens has disappeared from the surface of the earth and will still supply useful energies to the next hominid species– e.g. as driver of sailing boats and as supplier of warmth. So they indeed are renewable and also clean. But the equipments needed to generate electricity from these sources are made of materials that are nonrenewable. And the energy used to produce these material things comes till today for the most part from fossil-carbon and nuclear fuels, both of which are nonrenewable and dirty. So how can solar, wind and hydro-electricity be called renewable and clean? And how can electric cars be preferable to combustion engine cars if the batteries made of nonrenewable materials store nonrenewable and unclean electricity?

Moreover, these so-called renewable energies are not viable, although they are feasible. Suppose tomorrow, accepting the demand of the movements, all states decide to leave all the still unextracted fossil-carbon and nuclear fuels in the ground. How will then the said equipments be manufactured/built?

And the equipments that have already been manufactured/built and are supplying electricity have a lifespan of 20-30 years. When they are no longer working and must be replaced, the second generation thereof cannot be manufactured/built, because then, we shall not have any fossil or nuclear energy to be used. Either the fossil-carbon and nuclear fission materials are exhausted or our governments have decided to leave them in the ground. To make the point clear, let me quote an impatient discussant, who, using the pseudonym “foodstuff”, put the following questions to protagonists of the so-called renewable energies:3

“I still want to know if the following can be done:

1. Mine the raw materials using equipment powered by solar panels.
2. Transport and convert metal ores, e.g. bauxite-aluminum, using equipment run by solar panels and in a factory built using the energy from solar panels.
3. Make the finished panels in a factory run by solar panels, including building and maintaining the factory.
4. Transport, install and maintain the solar panels using equipment running on solar panels.
All this is presently being done [mainly] with the energy from fossil fuels. How will it be done when they are gone?”

EROEI
Protagonists of 100% “renewable energies” say: we must use a large part of the generated renewable energies for producing the equipment needed for producing the second generation of equipment for producing renewable energies. And so it will go on and on.

 Here comes the crucial question of EROEI (Energy Return on Energy Invested or energy balance). Assuming that the first generation equipments do produce some net energy, i.e. EROEI is positive, how large is the amount of this net energy? Let us Remember, hundreds of millions of households and enterprises producing consumer goods will first consume electricity from this source. Will there be anything left for investing in production of all the equipments, i.e. producing and reproducing everything necessary for running an industrial economy?

There is no certainty in this question. Many experts who tried to measure it expressed doubt that the EROEI of solar energy technology is positive. Why is the matter so uncertain?

The gross ER (energy return) part of the question is easy to answer, and correctly, if you have a good meter attached to the solar panel. But how do you measure the EI (energy invested) part of the question? What the experts do is actually guesstimating. Here bias starts playing a role. So I answer the question in a different, and I think more convincing, way:

Since almost all raw materials and energy that are till today used to produce the required equipments are nonrenewable, the old mines and wells of the same gradually get exhausted. Miners must then go to ever remoter and ever more difficult places to extract them out of new mines/wells. That means, energy invested (EI) in fuels and minerals progressively increases. That means EI – not only for energy equipments but also for any industrial product – continuously increases. Remember, we are not talking of prices and money costs which depend on many variable factors, but of EI, of energy cost of a product. For example, money cost of production of solar panels would fall further, and hence also their price, if production is transferred from China to, say, Bangladesh, where wages are lower than in China.

 In case of minerals such as copper and Nickel we are digging deeper and deeper and going to ever hotter and icy-colder deserts and polar regions. The copper mine of Chuquicamata in Chile’s Atacama desert is in the meantime so deep that the big heavy trucks that bring the ore to the surface can only be seen like toys down below. For oil, we are since long boring in deep seabed. Recently, geologists have found a mountain containing huge quantities of extremely rare cadmium telluride, the material that can greatly increase the efficiency of solar cells. But it stands at a depth of 1000 meters down in the Atlantic Ocean. If that is the objective situation, no small innovation improving the ER side can, I think, in the long run offset the secular trend of rising energy costs (EI). For such small innovations cannot overcome the two cosmological constants involved here, namely (1) the intensity of solar radiation reaching the surface of the earth at any particular place – which is very low, so that organisms can survive – and (2) the fact that the sun does not shine in the night.4

Conclusion–Perspective on a Future Sustainable Society
I hope now it has become clear to my readers that “renewable energies” cannot play any role in solving the multifaceted global crisis of today and that, on the contrary, investing in these technologies is a waste of time, effort, energy and, most important of all, scarce resources. If scientists and engineers were honest, they should say that the only really renewable and clean sources of energy, apart from our own physical energy, are wood and other biomass products for fire, windfor sailing boats and wind mills, and flowing water in rivers and streams for water mills – the last two only for generating kinetic energy. And, if we are prepared to exploit other living beings, then also the muscle power of domestic animals.

  Humanity has lived for thousands of years with only such energies. In a not so distant future, we have to be satisfied with that. But that would be impossible with 9+ billions of us. Let me quote here an impossibility theorem that I formulated some time ago:

It is impossible to fulfill the continuously growing “needs”, demands, wishes, aspirations and ambitions of a continuously growing world population while our resource base is continuously dwindling and the ability of nature to absorb man-made pollution is continuously diminishing. It is a lunatic idea that in a finite world infinite growth is possible.

    Our top-priority political tasks today and for a transition period of uncertain duration would therefore be (a) to start a massive campaign for a population control program with the long-term goal of bringing down the world population of homo sapiens to, say, two billions; (b) a campaign for reducing consumptionsimultaneously with a campaign against the growth ideology; (c) propagating alternative conceptions of peaceful human societies (my own preference is aneco-socialist society); (d) a campaign to let wild forests and the number of wild animals expand.

These are very broadly defined tasks. Details need to be worked out, which however can only be done if many people show interest.

Ten Avatars of Indian Corruption

Satya Sagar 

It is an emotionally loaded term like ‘faith’, ‘nationalism’ and ‘family’, that is often used by the middle-classes to provoke strong feelings of anger and disgust against politicians. And yet on closer scrutiny the phrase ‘corruption’ turns out to be a fuzzy concept, that  fails to capture how power and injustice really operate in human societies.

In its popular interpretation, ‘corruption’ refers to the way rules are bent or power misused to gain access to resources and accumulate wealth.Typically, those targeted as ‘corrupt’ include politicians, bureaucrats, police or anyone who works for the modern state machinery, though businessmen are also recognized as the drivers of corruption. Many claim that everything will be well in a country if only ‘corruption’ were to be rooted out.

However, the version of ‘corruption’ as ‘violation of law’ has  nothing to say about the many other ways in which assets are accessed or acquired disproportionately,  due to the special advantages derived by some people based on their identities, professions, social/cultural background and other historical factors. In most of these cases it is the law itself that facilitates and protects the breaking of ethical and moral principles like equal opportunity, no double standards and compassion for the weak.

One simple example of this phenomenon historically, is the way colonialism operated around the world – whereby several European nations forcibly occupied and systematically looted resources from Asia, Africa and Latin America for several centuries. Since they were the ones in the seat of power they made laws that whitewashed the fact they were simply stealing other people’s goods. The poverty and misery they created not just killed millions but left the colonized countries – including India-  debilitated for decades.

Since the end of colonialism around half a century ago none of the colonized countries have been compensated in any way for the theft of property, lives, resources of their citizens. Instead, what the world witnesses regularly is that sordid spectacle of former colonizers pretending to be the only ones who uphold ‘rule of law’ and the former colonies as being run by ‘lawless’, ‘corrupt’ regimes. The motto seems to be ‘No one is allowed to break the law once WE have finished OUR looting’!

It is indeed afact that the greatest concentrations of wealth in modern times have also happened with the aid of new laws that are designed to enrich those who lobbied for them in the first place. A good example of this are the ‘intellectual property laws’ framed by Western nations and rammed down the throats of their former colonies, resulting in massive transfers of wealth away from poorer countries to the already rich ones. Microsoft and its owner Bill Gates could not have become the wealthiest entities in the world without such laws.

In the Indian context itself, there are at least ten ‘avatars’ of corruption around that hardly get any attention despite the fact they have helped make a tiny section of the country’s population very rich or make some sections of the population highly privileged. Here is the list, by no means exhaustive, but illustratingthe different shapes and sizes in which ‘corruption’ happens in real, day-to-day life.

1) Caste: This is the oldest form of corruption in the Indian sub-continent and one that continues to this day- the historical hegemony of the ‘upper’ castes over the ‘lower’ ones. In traditional India laws were always discriminatory in content, prescribing as they did different kinds of punishment to people from different rungs of the caste ladder for the same crime. It is common in many parts of India for a savarna to go scot-free after murdering a Dalit, while the latter can be lynched for even skinning a dead cow. People of the same caste favour each other over members of other castes all the time in different sectors of Indian life from government and business to sports and even crime. The domination of Bollywood by the upper castes is easily evident from the simple fact that the hero of every movie is either a Singh, Sharma or a Verma and almost never an Ahir, Topno, Pramanik or Sutar. For that matter, there are very few in the English and Hindi language media too with such non-savarnasurnames.

2) Class: Money power has become the biggest bender of established rules in India as the wealthy get away with almost anything and everything from evading taxes and stealing common resources to changing national policies to suit their personal or business interests. Across political parties today members of parliament have become puppets of different big Indian and even foreign corporations and act against the interests of the ordinary Indian people. Even more than the politicians, who are mostly middlemen, it is the Tatas, Ambanis, Adanis and Mittals who wield real power in India and are the ultimate ‘lawmakers’.

The distortion of priorities, principles and institutional processes due to the exercise of money power is obvious, but don’t expect most politicians to ever ever say, ‘I will not shake hands with MukeshAmbani, because he might try to grease my palm!’

3) Race: When ArogyaBharati, a RSS-affiliated outfit in Bengal recently announced it has the secret formula to help produce babies with ‘fair complexion’ the ‘white supremacist’ mindset of the forces that are in political power in India today was amply evident. Racism of skin color and looks is deeply rooted in a lot of Indian society and is a constant source of discrimination in not just public behavior but also national policy and politics. What else, if not racism, could be the reason that every depiction of ‘Bharat Mata’ be of a fair skinned Aryan looking lady with pink lips and not one with dark skin or curly hair or non-savarnalooks?

4) Gender: The ratio of women to men in the Indian population has been steadily falling in many parts of the country as a silent genocide takes place every hour with parents willfully killing off their girl children. According to the UNICEF fetal sex determination and sex selective abortion by unethical medical professionals has today grown into a Rs. 1,000 crore industry. Women get routinely discriminated against in job selection, the wages they get and the public and domestic violence they are subjected to. Denying women their equal rights is a form of corruption that not only violates the right to equality enshrined in the Indian Constitution but also basic human principles.

5) Nepotism : This is the most widespread form of corruption in the Indian context with not just politicians but film stars and cricketers promoting their kids over other more competent candidates all the time. Power, wealth, beauty, talent almost everything it seems can be ‘inherited’ without any effort and leads to the accumulation of undue influence in the same few families. The most glaring form of nepotism is practiced by family run business houses of India where, irrespective of their competence or ability, the reins of control keep passing on from father to son or daughter. If Indians want the country to be run solely on merit and transparent rules then they should insist that the CEOs of Indian companies be selected on the basis of an all India examination where everyone can compete equally. A severe taxation on inherited property as practiced in the UK and other countries will also go a long way in promoting a truly merit-based society.

6) Urban Bias: Here I am referring to the discrimination against rural Bharat by urban India of course. Despite being home to nearly 60% of India’s population agriculture and allied sector share only 17.32% of India’s GDP. Whether it be in terms of remuneration for their work and produce, investment in infrastructure, job opportunities, healthcare or education the rural Indian is far worse off than the urban one. While hundreds of thousands of farmers have committed suicide due to economic distress over the last couple of decades there has been serious change in national policies to divert resources back to the countryside.So while the government promotes ‘Smart Cities’, the money to make them happen seems to be coming from ‘Dumb Villages’.

7) Hindi Chauvinism: Forget about the imposition of Hindi on the people of southern India, it turns out that the ‘national language’ is in fact being forced upon the so-called Hindi speaking states. Over a dozen languages like Bhojpuri, Awadhi, Maithili, Rajasthani, Bundelkhandi, Sadri, Chhattisgarhi are given short shrift by the upper caste, urban and middle-class champions of a highly Sanskritised Hindi in the northern Indian states. The lack of educational materials in their mother tongue has resulted in low literacy rates for both children and adults in these parts of India for decades, keeping them at a perpetual disadvantage. In states where the local languages are properly supported and promoted like in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, West Bengal and Gujarat there is much greater literacy and also empowerment of the people. The Indian state favouring Hindi over others is a violation of the principle of equal access to opportunities and a form of systemic corruption that has not been properly addressed as yet in the country.

8) Politics of Education: The open economic and cultural discrimination practiced against the ‘uneducated’ people of India is a form of corruption that most ‘educated’ people don’t even  want to recognize because such bias obviously works in their own favour. As a result of this prejudice those with degrees – both real and fake- get paid many, many times more than those who never went through school and are confined to manual work of different kinds. Many well-meaning people think that the solution to poverty is to provide ‘education’  to the masses of India, obfuscating the fact that the ‘uneducated’ need food, clothing, shelter and dignified jobs before anything else.

9) Religious Apartheid: The biggest religious discrimination in India is not really against Muslims, who are at least organized and vocal about their problems, but against the Adivasi populations of the country. Subsumed under the category ‘Hindu’ there is no recognition as yet of their spiritual and religious traditions that are distinct from Hinduism in many, many ways. Several Adivasi groups in recent years have been demanding that the Indian government categorise their faiths as a separate religion called ‘Adi-Dharm’ or ‘Sarna’, a call that has repeatedly fallen on deaf ears. Forcing indigenous people, who form over 10 percent of the Indian population, into a religious identity not of their choice is to deny them their Constitutional right to freedom of religion. Instead of imposing Hindu gods on them and seeking to ‘convert’ them to Hinduism they should be allowed to practice whatever religion they want, derived from their own historical roots.

10) Imprisoned Nations: India, for all its ancient glory and history, is really a new nation forged together by first the Mughals and then the British empire. The latter in particular forced dozens of smaller nationalities to become part of the ‘Raj’, whose territory was inherited by the current Indian Republic. Gandhi, more than anyone else in the Indian freedom movement was sensitive to this and had in fact declared his support for the demand for independence of the Naga people. However, the reduction of the entire idea of Indian nationalism to control over territory and domination over smaller nationalities has been the biggest blot on the record of modern India in the last six decades. It has led to countless killings of innocent people and even crimes against humanity in the name of protecting the ‘integrity’ of the nation and is a corruption of every principle of non-violence and humanism that Gandhi espoused.

Next time someone waxes eloquent about the evils of ‘corruption’, it may be good to remind them the Lord appears in our land in at least these ten different avatars.

Government inaction exacerbates BC wildfire disaster

Janet Browning & Roger Jordan 

Over 50,000 people have been forced from their homes over recent weeks by wildfires that are still raging in British Columbia. Air quality alerts have been issued as far away as Manitoba.

As of yesterday, thousands still remained homeless, while a further 20,000 were on evacuation stand-by. Those able to return home in recent days have confronted widespread destruction, including the loss of their homes, livestock, and agricultural equipment, and major damage to public infrastructure. Many have seen their livelihoods wiped out. The fires have burned some 377,000 hectares of land, meaning that ranchers will have the added expense of purchasing feed for those animals that survived.

Emergency Management BC deputy minister Robert Turner said EMBC is gearing up for a “prolonged” wildfire season. The long term forecast is for more hot and dry weather.

In Williams Lake and numerous smaller communities surrounding it, thousands of residents were ordered to immediately evacuate July 16 as fire threatened to cut off a nearby highway, the only remaining exit route. An area southwest of Prince George was also evacuated.

The chaotic evacuation of thousands of people in the face of rapidly expanding wildfires is the direct result of the failure of successive federal and provincial governments to act on warnings issued by scientists and other experts. BC has experienced a dramatic increase in large wildfires over the past decade, with the province overspending its wildfire management budget every year except one.

Following the last major wildfires to affect urban areas in BC in 2003, when over 300 homes were destroyed in Kelowna, the BC Liberal government commissioned former Manitoba Premier Gary Filmon to investigate. The Filmon “Firestorm 2003 report” made a series of recommendations, including altering land management practices to include community protection among its goals and the hiring of additional fire experts.

But many of these were not carried out. According to Phil Burton, co-editor of the Canadian Journal of Forest Research, adequate safety measures would require establishing fire protection zones of between 5 and 20 kilometers surrounding at-risk communities, in which trees would be thinned out, parks created, and/or deciduous trees planted to cut down the fire risk.

“There was funding for this sort of thing 10 years ago,” Burton told the Vancouver Sun, “but then funding fizzled, with only a small proportion of the needed work done.”

In the 11 years following the publication of the Filmon Report, the province invested just $100 million in wildfire hazard mitigation.

On top of budget cuts, part of the reason for the government’s failure to make such changes is bound up with the impact they would have on logging, a major BC industry and export. Burton pointed out that logging in fire protection zones would not be possible given the changed nature of the trees grown there. A failure to plant new trees in areas already logged has helped fuel wildfires. It also should be noted, logging large trees which are more resilient to fire is more profitable than cutting down smaller and dead trees.

Filmon’s report included 41 recommendations for governments at all levels over a wide range of areas, all of which were described as “urgent.” “We believe that governments have a once in a lifetime opportunity to implement risk-reduction policies and legislation while the devastation of Firestorm 2003 is fresh in the public’s mind and the costs and consequences of various choices are well understood,” the report noted.

Close to a decade-and-a-half after these stark warnings were made, the inadequacy of government preparation has left charities like the Canadian Red Cross to fill the gap. The BC government has provided $100 million in funding for the Canadian Red Cross to provide assistance to communities, with direct financial assistance of just $600 to each evacuee. The funds began to be distributed last week.

Notwithstanding their best intentions, charities are unable to cope with such large-scale disasters. Jamie Hughes, an evacuee from 105 Mile House, told CTV she attempted to contact the Red Cross for three days to obtain the $600 payment without success. “Other communities have had forms filled out and they’ve been given food allowances and such and our community didn’t have any of that,” Hughes said. “They were not prepared.” She added, “There has been a lack of organization and information and people are getting really stressed out.”

A representative of the Thompson-Nicola Regional District, one of the areas most affected by the fires, acknowledged that hundreds of people had to wait for hours to be registered at evacuation centers and that the location of one of the main centers in Kamloops had to be moved.

The lack of government preparedness, at both the federal and provincial levels, is made all the more scandalous by the inevitability of larger blazes breaking out due to ever longer fire seasons caused by climate change. BC’s fire season now runs until the end of September, with the most devastating fires typically breaking out at the end of July, meaning the worst could be yet to come.

Last year a wildfire engulfed Fort McMurray, Alberta, forcing 90,000 people from their homes and burning more than 2,000 properties. The fire was exacerbated by the fact that the city, at the heart of Alberta’s tar sands operations, had virtually no protected areas between residential buildings and dense forest, and only one exit highway out. Just weeks before the inferno erupted, the newly-elected NDP provincial government cut the wildfire management budget.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is set to visit the BC Interior next week to tour areas impacted by this year’s wildfires. The federal government’s principal role so far has been to send hundreds of police officers and military personnel to BC.

The scale of this year’s blaze in the BC Interior has even created difficulties for trained firefighters, many of whom have been treated for smoke inhalation. A team of 50 highly-trained personnel recently arrived from Australia in response to BC’s request for aid.

Oil and gas companies are taking steps to protect their operations as pipelines are predicted to be within the fire perimeter within the coming days. Lumber mills have closed. Mount Polly mine, located 56 km northeast of the Williams Lake, ceased operation on July 17.

While all sections of the population are hit hard by the destruction wrought by wildfires, poorer layers of society are most at risk. Low-income households and families with a history of trauma struggle to bounce back, according to Jeremy Stone, a researcher with UBC’s School of Community and Regional Planning. “People with money, resources, and time, they generally fare better,” he said.