Fact Finding Report On Communal Violence in Bharuch District, Gujarat

PUCL

Today PUCL, Gujarat Submitted a fact finding Report to National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), National Commission for Minorities, Chief Minister and Minister of Home and Revenue (Gujarat), Director General of Police (Gujarat).

· Urgent action is demanded in cases of Violation of Right to Life and Liberties, Right to livelihood of the affected people in the villages of Hansot Block, District Bharuch, Gujarat due to communal violence and ineffective/biased state action from December 2014 onwards.

· Three Innocent youth were killed, properties of several people ransacked and families from Muslim community forced to flee from their home and farms in several villages.

· Due to both delayed and biased action on the part of police and administration, they are at the mercy of their relatives as no compensation or support is provided by the state. Their right to live with dignity and safety is violated.

A Summary [1] Report of Incidents of Communal Violence in Bharuch District, Gujarat

(1)  Processes

The fact-finding process was initiated after the affected in the region sought an independent, civil society probe to ascertain the facts on the violence in and around Hansot Block of Bharuch District in Gujarat that caused three deaths on January 14, 2015, the day of Uttarayan Festival.

A team of eminent citizens was constituted by the People's Union of Civil Liberties comprising of

1. Dr. Ghanshyam Shah

2. Dr Trupti Shah

3. Adv. Sofia Khan

4. Mr. Rafi Malek

5. Mr. Krishnakant Chuhan

6. Ms Reshma Vohra

7. Mr. Sharif Malek

8. Ms Mariyam Agarbattiwala

9. Mr.  Hiren Gandhi

10. Mr. Rohit Prajapati

11. Dr. Sarup Dhruv

The fact-finding team first announced its proposed itinerary and agenda through a press note in the local newspaper along with its contact details, so that representations could be heard. On Jan 23, 2015, the team first met at Ankleshwar. The affected persons who had fled their homes or had their properties looted and damaged came from Katpor, Ilav, Sahol and Hansot Villages. They along with local leaders from Bharuch gave oral and written submissions to the team submitting photocopies of their correspondence, complaints  to the official authorities. The team also met Mr. D M Shukla,  Deputy Collector, Ankleshwar.

On Jan 24, 2015, the team visited the violence-affected villages of Hansot, Ambheta, Sahol, Ilav, meeting the parents of deceased, injured, other affected villagers, community leaders, local leaders and also the newly appointed Police Inspector, Mr. J B Sutaria.

On Jan 27, 2014, the team met Mr. Bipin Ahire, District Superintendent of Police, Bharuch and later on Feb 3, 2015 also visited the Ratanpor Village. The team also used the Right to Information Act, 2005 wherever required to seek details of police complaints and official action.

This was not an isolated incident but a part of a series of communal incidents and build-up of tension since December 2014.

Three Innocent youth were killed, properties of several people ransacked and families from Muslim community forced to flee from their home and farms in several villages. Due to both delayed and biased action on the part of police and administration, they are at the mercy of their relatives as no compensation or support is provided by the state. Their right to live with dignity and safety is violated.

We, as concerned citizens of Gujarat, active in protection of Human Rights and Social Movements, are submitting this fact-finding report of Human Rights violation as result of the communal violence that took place in and around Hansot Block of District Bharuch, Gujarat, from December 2014 onwards.

This is a summary report of fact-finding, which includes the methodology of the fact-finding, chronology of events, major conclusions and demands. The detailed fact-finding report is in Gujarati as most of submissions and FIRs are in Gujarati.

The chronology of events will give an idea about the range of issues and incidents along with the extent and intensity communal tension that have taken place in the region since December 2014.

(2)  The chronology of incidents occurred in Hansot block of Bharuch District.

1.    On 9 December, 2014, Sunil Patel alias Sajan of Ambheta  circulated a message on Whatsapp about Prophet Mohammad and Muslims using abusive, pornographic language; this message had very bad repercussions in the minority community.

2.    On 10 December, 2014 protesting against this message, leaders of the Muslim community gave a call for Hansot Bandh (shut down), and police arrested Sajan Mansukhbhai Patel who circulated this message.

3.    The Muslim community organized a rally on 11 December, 2014 from Soneri Mahel of Bharuch to the Collector's Office joined by more than 5000 people; they also submit a memorandum to the Collector.

4.    On 14 December a mob of Hindus besieged the house of Mohammed Gulam Hafiz Danavala in Katpor village and threatened his family to convert to Hinduism or leave the village. A limit of one night's time was given to the family for their conversion.  Fearing a deadly attack Hanifbhai left the village with 10 members of his family. In this context it should also be noted that in 1992 there were 12 Muslim agricultural families in Katpor, and now there are  only two. The village mosque has been captured by the dominant Hindus who are using it to keep their cattle and Muslims have no alternative but to perform namaz in their village. There is reason to believe that this is part of a plan to see to it that the Muslims leave the village and some non-Muslims get their land at a throw- away price.

5.    15 December, 2014: Unrest in Hansot

·         After receiving word that some people are hampering the passage of Muslims' chakdas (Three wheeler for passenger transport) at Sajod Bus Stand, some Muslim youth gathered at Hansot circle.

·         BJP District leader and Executive President of Ankleshwar Taluka Panchayat, Bharat Nagjibhai Patel, lodged an FIR against Sabir Kanuga, Papu Khokhar and others alleging that they had made threatening phone calls to Patel.

6.    21 December, 2014: A huge religious convention was organized at Sajod Village under the banner of Dharm Jagaran Manch. It was claimed that the convention was apolitical, but the leaders of Bhartiya Janta Party played major role in the convention.

As per the information given to the team by the affected people, as a reaction of provocative lectures, the mob returning from the convention chanted abusive slogans against the Muslim community. 

7.    24 December, 2014:

·         The Sarpanch of Ilav Village, Jayesh Patel, went to shops belonging to the market and threatened the Muslims to leave the village and then proceeded to vandalize the shops. Fearing an attack Muslim families quit the village that same day. In the night the poultry farm and shop of Javedbhai Kureshi were looted by a Hindu mob.

·         The wanted accused of Hansot, Puppu alias Safi Khokhar was arrested under PASA.

·         Nasir Shaikh's shop at Hansot by was attacked by a Hindu mob and Vinod Patel's shop by a Muslim mob  in Hansot.

8.    25 December, 2014

·         Hansot Hindu areas were shut down in protest of the attack on Vinod Patel's shop.

·         Inspector N D Chaudhari was appointed in Hansot police station.

9.    31 December, 2015 : The leaders of Ilav Village  brokered a settlement with Muslim families in the police station in the presence of PSI Dhobi, which would allow them to come back to live in the village on the condition that they will not file an FIR for the incidents of 24^th December.

10.  5 January, 2015:  Soeb Isman Patel's crop of sugar cane in Shera village on 60 bigha land was set on fire, leading to the loss of 17 lakhs sugar cane.

11.  Incidents of 14 January, 2015

·         On the day of Uttrayan on 14^th January, 2015  there was a clash between Hindu and Muslim youth over kite. The Muslim boy was beaten by a Hindu mob at Ambheta Village. The boy there after informed his friends of the incident and some youth arrived from Hansot.  A violent clash ensued with weapons between Hindu and Muslim youth. A few people of both the communities were injured and some property was damaged.

·         As the mob returned to Hansot from Ambheta there was a clash between Hindu and Muslim mobs with weapons; in this clash two Hindu youth were killed and one Muslim youth was badly injured and succumbed to death on 17 January in the hospital.

·         While the injured Muslim youth was being taken to the hospital in an ambulance under the police protection, he was attacked at the Sunevkhurd Village.

·         At the neighbouring villages Muslim families were threatened, their property was set on fire, and shops and houses were looted, resulting in their exodus.

·         In other villages, unidentified Muslims were attacked while passing on the roads. According to a report in Gujarat Mitra, Surat's Haquimji's car was attacked while he was returning with his family from Chotumiya Bava's shrine of Hansot. The family fled back to the shrine for protection and phoned the police, yet police did not come to help them till late. There after Haquimji phoned a councillor of Surat, Arsad Kalyani, and the latter along with Rajendrabhai, Trustee of Chosath Jogini Mata Mandir, came to Hansot and helped 16 people relocate to the secured place.

·         Both of the community's shops and Gallas were put on fire and several people were injured including DySp and other police personnel  in Hansot.

·         The Sarpanch in Ilav threatened Muslim families to leave, and disallowed the police from entering into the village. Meanwhile, they vandalized, looted and set on fire the homes, shops and mosque belonging to eight Muslim families . All of the Muslim families fled the village without taking any of their belongings with them.

12.   15 January, 2015

·         Rioters set on fire Jahirudin Sayeed's house in Sahol village. All of the 25 Muslim families of the village fled leaving behind their homes, village, farming and businesses.

·         The same mob also set on fire a police tent deployed in the village. In this fire a wireless system, and other things were burnt, and police vehicles were wrecked.

·         Internet, SMS and bus service from Surat to Hansot were suspended by police for a few days.

13.   16 January, 2015

·         PSI K V Chudasama was appointed in Hansot Police Station.

·         Union minister Mansukh Vasava visited affected areas and said “elements who could not tolerate Gujarat's development are involved in riots.” He visited injured Hindu Kharva  youths but did not pay any visit to Muslim injured youth.

·         20 rioters including Sahol Sarpanch were arrested.

·         Saminudin Sayeed's Della, where livestock had been kept, and 3000 bundles of grass were set ablaze in Ambheta. A complaint was registered  against Manish alias Maniyo Vasava.

14.  17 January, 2015: A meeting of peace committee was held at the District Collector's office. The leaders of various communities took part in this meeting but MLA, Mr. Ishwarbhai Patel, remained absent. In this meeting social worker, Dr. Safi, alleged that the politics of illegal shrimp ponds were responsible for the deadly riots.

15.  18 January, 2015: 

·         After the shrimp ponds as a reason for the riots came  to  light, 200 elected members of Hansot Taluka Panchayat, Ankleshwar Taluka Panchayat and corporation including MLA Mr. Ishwarbhai Patel sent their resignation to BJP office in protest against state leadership, which had allegedly stopped action against illegal ponds in May 2014.

·         As the Panchnama of the destruction of the property of the migrated people of Ilav did not take place, Imran Kureshi, nephew of Ismailbhai Kureshi from London, phoned Vadodara range IG Anup Gehlot. It was only after Kureshi threatened that he would register a complaint from England, that the police went to Ilav on 18^th and completed a Panchnama of lost properties.

16.  19 January, 2015

·         J B Sutaria was appointed as a Police Inspector of Hasot Police Station

·         First time reported in news paper that the reason for quarrel in Ambheta Village on 14^th was not for kite but it was for assault of a girl.

·         An announcement was made that  CCTV cameras would be installed in Hansot and Sajod and Aliyabet was put under the observation of a drone camera.

17.  21 January, 2015: The state IB inspected Aliyabet and nearby 24 square KM area and gathered evidence.

18.  21 January, 2015: The Sangh spokes person declared in the newspaper that deceased youth were RSS workers.

19.  22 January, 2015:

·         A tribute program was held for two deceased Hindu youth.

·         Mr. Pravin Togadiya of Vishva Hindu Parishad, came as chief guest in a Sanatan Dhram Convention held at Sajod village.  Earlier Muslim youth used to do service in this annual convention, but this time they avoided the convention  fearing  the presence Togadiya.

20.  23 January, 2015:

·         The market of Hansot partly opened after eight days .

·         More than 100 affected people represented before the PUCL fact-finding team

·         The investigation team visited the Bharuch Deputy Collector, (in-charge of  Ankleshwar), Mr. Deepak Shukla.

21.  24 January, 2015: The fact-finding team visited the families of three deceased, other affected villages and PI, J B Sutariya of Hansot.

22.   27 January, 2015

·         The investigation team visited Bharuch DSP, Bipin Aahire.

·         The demolition of more than 1200 illegal shrimp ponds on Aliyabet, worth  more than 1500 crores of estimated illegal turn over, was initiated by state machinery.

23. 30 January, 2015: The fact-finding team wrote a letter to the Bharuch Collector with interim demands expecting her to take immediate steps to provide compensation to the affected persons,, attempt to build the environment of trust so the people who have fled can return to their villages, that the accused including murderer and attacker on innocent people of Hansot village  be arrested, and the Panchnamas of lost property be done quickly and statements of affected people taken. It was also demanded that  action be taken against those who profited from the illegal ponds and the government and non government people who helped them. Further, the government should  not stop at only catching a few agents but rather it should restore the employment and human rights of Kuchhi pastoralists who live on Aliyabet from the era before independence.

24. 31 January, 2015: an incident regarding a land dispute in Ratanpor Village of Block Zagadia, Dist. Bharuch was converted in to a clash between Muslims and Tribals.

As this fact finding report is being written the administrative and police department's entire attention is towards illegal shrimp ponds though many people could not return to their villages. Incidents of personal differences and personal animosity in different villages are given communal form and new reasons to attack the minority community are borne.

(3) Key Findings

1. A Three-Week Long Build up of Events:

The communal violence that led to three deaths on 14 January 2015 was not a sporadic incident but rather a gradual build-up that started from Dec 9, 2014 which the local administration failed to anticipate and take proactive steps to contain.

It is significant that communal strife in the Hansot Block of Bharuch region, with a sizable Muslim population, has begun only in recent years. For example, during the 2002 riots the area did not witness major untoward incidents. Now both the local people and the authorities  tend to perceive any dispute  between two members of different communities as communal conflict. Also, the right wing Hindu groups like VHP, Dharma Jagran Manch, etc. frequently hold their public programs which are well attended by local BJP leaders.  

The violent turn of events began from Dec 9, 2014 when Ambheta resident, Sunil alias Sajan Patel circulated abusive messages about the Prophet Mohammed and Muslims on instant messaging app, Whatsapp, with his friends that found way to the local Muslim community too.

On Dec 10, 2014 offended Hansot Muslims called for a bandh (shut down) and police arrested Sunil on Dec 10, 2014.  On Dec 11, 2014 more than 5000 odd Muslims participated in a protest rally at the district headquarters in Bharuch and submit a memorandum to the Collector.

The rally perceived by right wing local Hindus as Muslim show of strength triggered a spate of retaliatory incidents in surrounding villages, including telling Muslims to convert to Hinduism in Katpor Village, forcing them to leave  their 95 bigha farm land, home and property on 14th Dec 2014.

On Dec 21, 2014 at Sajod Village, in a Dharma Jagran Manch rally attended by local BJP leaders, allegedly provocative and abusive speeches against Muslims were delivered.

 Ilav Village's eight Muslim families were forced to leave their homes, shops, and properties on Dec 24, 2014. In Hansot, a Muslim-owned farm was burnt on 5^th Jan. 2015.

Sunil was released on bail on Jan 12, 2015 and Muslims alleged he received a hero's welcome at Ambheta, though Hindus deny it. 

The turn of events indicate clearly that the law and order situation was deteriorating. On the Uttarayan Festival on Jan 14, 2015  a minor dispute led to a Muslim youth being beaten by a Hindu youth which flared into communal clashes that swept across the villages. In a retaliatory attack Muslim youths from Hansot took to violence, which egged on Hindu mobs turning in communal clashes leading to three deaths.

2. Innocents killed, properties ransacked, forced to flee home and farms.

All the three youths who died in the Hansot clashes were innocent bystanders, with no part in the rioting Hindu – Muslim mobs on that day. Coming from lower, middle class backgrounds, they unfortunately were present at that place and were caught up in the hateful violence between sections of youth of the two communities.

Deceased, Pratik Patel (age 29) who came to the village for a kite flying festival and Sandeep Patel (age 32) who was returning from work,  both Hansot residents, were taken by surprise and became victims of the avenging Muslim youth-led mob. Armed with iron rods and sharply edged sticks, they beat both Pratik and Sandeep. Pratik's father and brother who tried to intervene sustained serious injuries. Some distance away, similarly, Mohammed Rafiq Shaikh (age 34), also a Hansot resident and a tempo driver who was returning home, ignorant of the violence, was attacked by Hindu youths armed with rods and swords. Later, Hindu mobs attacked the police escorted ambulance on the way to the hospital near Village Sunevkhurd and further injured Shaikh, who later   succumbed to injuries on Jan 17, 2015 in a Surat hospital.

In surrounding villages retaliatory violence continued with Muslims fleeing their homes, shops and farms, their properties looted and burnt.

Many of the Muslims who have migrated to Surat and nearby safer places had yet not returned to their homes and farms when the fact-finding team visited the region.

 3. Strained inter-community trust and relations

We observed that while mobs of Hindu and Muslim communities indulged in violence in villages and around, the community elders or local authorities did not proactively restrain them. The family members of the deceased Patel youths, as do most Hindus in the area, now tend to derogatively refer to Muslim dominated areas, as the `alien, unfriendly territory' labelling them as `Pakistan.' 

Though there exists a tradition of sharing food, participating in each other's festivals, in visiting Dargah, helping each other in religious gatherings, the increasing presence of rightwing Hindu groups is putting a strain on the shared traditions. While we did not observe a complete break of social and cultural ties, there is definitely a trust deficiency between the two communities, which blames the other for `high handedness'. Partisan role of local elected leaders, which are usually from the BJP and that of the local authorities during any conflicts, tends to aggravate further relations between the two communities instead of normalizing them. There is a complete lack of any trust building exercise, like a peace committee or any inter-community dialogue at the village level in this region and any misdemeanour by Hindu right-wing group/activist is routinely underplayed by local police and authorities.

4. Political interference and biased police action

During our interaction with local police and administration, they labelled the rallies first by Muslim and later by right wing Hindu groups as a show of strength. While we do not deny it, we can clearly observe that the authorities failed to check the right-wing mobilization that has been happening for a long time in the villages by groups like Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal, amongst others. We cannot also deny that the presence of fundamentalist Muslim elements in the region, which find their raison d'etre due to growing assertion of right wing Hindu groups.

The actions of BJP-supported village sarpanch as in Sahol village who participated directly in the rampaging incidents of Police Tent and Muslim properties indicate how right wing Hindu groups are emboldened and misused their offices.  Local BJP MLA Ishwarbhai Patel failed to turn up for the peace meeting called by the district collector on January 17, though other Hindu community leaders were present with those of Muslims, clearly indicating that the dominant political mood is to aggravate tempers instead of soothing them. Union minister Mansukh Vasava from BJP, who later visited the riot affected villages, though only met the injured Hindu youths in the hospital and did not visit the injured Muslim youths, clearly demonstrating the bias.

The appointment of police inspector J B Sutaria and K V Chudasama later on 16 January 2015, in Hansot, known for their questionable track record of high handedness and biased action further demonstrates lack of official attempt in confidence building measure between the two communities. Instead, Muslims complained that local authorities resisted efforts for official evaluation of their material loss and also lodging complaints. The police bandobast was removed 2-3 days before 14 January 2015, concurred both Hindus and Muslims from villages around and diverted to Ahmedabad-Gandhinagar for Vibrant Gujarat Summit arrangement. Police officials also admitted that they focussed on Hansot and Ambheta instead of the surrounding region, leading to more arson and violence that spread to other smaller villages. 

5. Fostering trouble - illegal shrimp farming

While talking to police, administration, and members of both communities, it became clear that the illegal shrimp farming in and around Alia Bet is perceived as one of the major reasons for triggering communal tension in the area.

The control over illegal shrimp farming which is about Rs.1500 crore industry uses anti-social elements that resort to inciting trouble to retain control over their ‘area'.

Alia Bet a small islet nearby Hansot is originally home to a community of tribal Muslim pastoral community since centuries, but they are not involved in this illegal shrimp farming, an activity that has much more recent origins.

According to most, the illegal shrimp ponds business have ownership of Hindus who are based in Surat-Olpad region and not the locals from Bharuch, but are protected mainly by local Muslims.

In this illegal nexus between owner/investor in the shrimp ponds based in Surat, the local strongmen, politicians and government officials, protection money is paid up to state level to protect their interest.

The Ankleshwar BJP MLA, Ishwarbhai Patel in his letter to the Sate BJP authorities after this violence allegedly named some of the BJP MLA who were pressurising state authorities to stop the investigations initiated in May 2014, against this illegal business. Incidentally, one of Ishwarbhai Patel's relatives was amongst the several arrested for arson and violence.

The government action, which began again on Jan 27, 2015, to crackdown on illegal shrimp farming, destroys some illegal ponds and arrests the ‘anti-social' elements and so called owners of the ponds is inconsistent. They have not yet arrested any big name who has the power to influence the state government to stop the investigation of this business initiated in May 2014.

6. Increasing use-misuse of social media to incite trouble

This is not the first time social media has been used to incite communal passion. It is happening across India as well as in Gujarat, with provocative content posted on social networking sites and phone message groups. As in Vadodara, (http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/vadodara-violence-flares-mobile-data-services-off/), Pune (http://www.kractivist.org/communal-attacks-on-muslims-of-pune-fact-finding-committee-report/ ) and Khandwa (http://www.hindustantimes.com/madhyapradesh/khandwa-riots-21-year-old-posted-objectionable-content-on-fb-to-take-revenge/article1-1255097.aspx) and many other parts of the country, the police arrests are only after the hateful, inflammatory messages are spread around. A bailable offense, the police action is no deterrent for those who plan, plot and distribute those hateful messages which incites trouble.

The authorities have responded by banning messaging and internet services on mobile phone for few days, which is not a solution to stop misuse of the medium to create trouble.

It is clear that the fundamentalist forces intend to incite communal passion, provoke violent reaction and hatemongering through such messages. We appeal to community leaders and citizens not to succumb to the design of fundamentalist forces. Any violent response to such messages only leads in the loss of life and livelihood for ordinary people from both the communities.

(4)   Demands

1.    Make necessary arrangements for those families who are forced to leave their home, farms, livelihood and stay out from their village, so that they can return back to their houses-shops-lands. These families should also be provided with protection for a minimum of two years so that they can live safely in their own villages and earn their livelihood.

2.    Death compensation to be provided to families of three youths who died in the incident with immediate effect.

3.    Provide compensation to the affected families of Elav, Katpor, Sahol, Abheta and Hasot Villages for the loss of lives, goods, and property damage. Those whose houses are fully damaged and are forced to leave the village and take shelter in their relative's house should be provided immediate cash assistance as per the norms.

4.    In order to create an environment of trust, take appropriate action to arrest all the accused and take stern legal action against them, so that those who are forced to leave their houses can return back. 

5.    Instead of arresting real a crushed, harassment of innocent youths in the name of combing should be stopped immediately.

6.    Appropriate action should be taken against police officers who have not registered complaint or investigate the complaint effectively and impartially. Judicial investigation to be conducted against responsible police officers like PI, DySP, DSP of Hansot for non-performing their duties. Strict action to be taken if the complaint against their non-performance is proved.

7.    Organize collective programs in order to create an environment of trust between two communities.

8.    Bring to a halt all the public programs for show of strength, which can create hatred among communities or increase fear of communal violence in the area. 

9.    Constitute a Judicial Committee for neutral investigation in time bound manner, to investigate the role of all the government employees at all levels including, officers, political leaders whose connivance is responsible for the illegal shrimp ponds at Aliyabet and around. Judicial Committee should comprise of retired High Court Judge, Expert on issue and Representative from local people's organization. Based on the report of Committee legal action should be taken against all the accused.

10.  While investigation procedure is on, proper care should be taken that the human rights of Kutchi Maldhari's who are leaving in Aliyabet even before Independence does not get violated.

11.   Long term program should be planned in collaboration with local leaders and village people in order to revive and strengthen composite, collective culture in this region. 

Transformation

Gaither Stewart

Rome: Change is a word that both intellectuals and the intelligentsia of America are discussing in these times. But one should wonder what kind of change they mean. As a rule intellectuals/liberals usually mean reform (and not enough of it at that). The intelligentsia means another: transformation/radical change. However, it’s an unfortunate paradox that no more than liberals the intelligentsia doesn’t always know what to do with pure and independent intelligence.

History is marked by change but by precious few transformations. Contemporary liberals are eternally concerned with change/reforms. Liberals however have never known exactly who they are or what they mean by liberalism: economic or social reformism. Liberals do not know what they want to create and leave for mankind. Since Spinoza’s creation of economic liberalism in the socially liberal city of Amsterdam in the 17th century, the very term “liberalism” has remained so nebulous that even left-thinking persons like Einstein claimed he believed in Spinoza’s god. And today Russians who follow the U.S. line in East Europe and are rabidly anti-Putin call themselves liberals.

The changes we so need are not the changes promised in each and every electoral campaign. In my opinion, the goal of socially aware people must be the radical transformation of the entire society. I will repeat here what I have written before: The American intelligentsia might keep in mind the comforting thought that of major world countries today perhaps only America is still economically self-contained and self-sufficient enough to support and survive the upheavals of a new socio-political revolution. Despite the statistic I read today according to which nearly half of young Americans are curious about Socialism, the great historical contradiction remains that in no other country is real capitalism so strong and the idea of Socialism so weak as in the United States of America, which in turn has made Socialism so difficult to achieve elsewhere.

Scientists tell us that in the universe nothing is ever lost, although nothing remains the same. Everything is constantly undergoing change, one form replacing another. Each birth and rebirth are the beginnings of something new. Death is the end of an earlier form. Meanwhile, the substance of the universe and of being remains the same.

The creative individual who does not accept the world as it is is Godlike in that like genuine revolutionaries he attempts to not only change it—that is, reform it—but to transform it. The ideological leadership of rebellious 18th century France saw in the collapse of the monarchy a unique opportunity to transform society and realize the ideals of the Enlighten­ment—ideals that went far beyond the limited political scope of the preceding English and American revolutions. French revolutionaries aspired to the creation of a new social order and a new breed of human beings.

“Revolution” then began to refer to grandiose and ambitious plans to transform the world. Revolutionaries no longer limited their goals to mere changes that just somehow happened but to changes brought about by men. Radical communist revolutionaries of late nineteenth century Russia imagined the coming rev­olution as a thorough transformation not only of every political and socio­economic order previously known, but of human existence itself. Revolution’s aim, in the words of Leon Trotsky, was “overturning the world”.

Nonetheless, within our universe the figure of rebellious Adam has shown that nothing new is created, nothing is destroyed; minor changes come about too often for the wrong reasons, while at the very most things can be transformed. First there were forests, then arrived man, and then the desert. Those are transformations. In the same way, centuries ago Westerners abandoned the feudal system and transformed into capitalists—to the same degree that Pinocchio transformed into a real boy.

Moreover, also the world society that capitalists have created testifies to the power and durability of the phenomenon of transformation. Although many changes in capitalism’s nature (as a rule and ultimately for the worse) have occurred, those changes have not affected the essence of capitalism, which, though it goes by different names, its substance remains the same: this is mine and that is yours.

You return to your old hometown to take a look and you might say, “it’s not what it once was.” Something unsettling has changed in your life. That change makes you anxious. Reality is not what you once thought it was. Life in flux and constantly changing is not for many of us. That is why conservatives who resist change are in the majority.

But if you are uncomfortable with change, as most people are, you might as well forget about transformation. For transformation, as I have intimated above, means something essentially different from change which as a rule means simply reforms. Transformation on the other hand is not just a change of clothing, home, or even life style, any of which can be abandoned or changed back to the former.

Transformation implies radical change and more, a transmutation into something else altogether. After genuine transformation there is no going back. Only in myth and fables can the prince be transformed into a donkey and then back again into a human being. Or a man be turned into a woman and then back to a man again. After transformation a new, radically different model emerges. You can twist and manipulate the clay but never again can you recreate the previous model that had seemed permanent.

A shift in social standing is part of the dangerous game of life but a radically changed situation like a conversion to another faith—or a loss of faith all together—create the risk of no longer understanding who, where and what you are.

Communist Russia set out to transform man as he was and create the Soviet man. The undertaking was only partially successful. However, when the Soviet state system collapsed under the firepower of its enemies, the then halfway Soviet man, was caught up in the nets of an imported form of savage capitalism. He struggled and thrashed around unsuccessfully against what he himself had become. He traveled around the world and is still trying to adjust to capitalism. But, I believe, many traits of the Soviet man remain implanted in contemporary Russians. To him the true essence of capitalism remains foreign and extraneous, irrelevant and inappropriate—if not vulgar. America aspires to domination of the entire world; according to Russian philosophers Russia’s mission is to save the world.

Stories and literature are also temples of transformation. For Nobel Prize winner Elias Canetti, the writer is the priest of change and the custodian of metamorphosis. Narrative fiction, he says—he too sometimes confusing change and transformation—are spheres where man can experiment his desire to metamorphose, change and transform. He calls this alteration the “passion of metamorphosis”. According to Canetti, the true task of the writer is to keep alive the ability to transform, to direct his energies at a passion that exists not for personal gain but for its own sake: the metamorphosis passion.

Marx pointed out that the anarchy of the market itself was sufficient to understand that capitalism cannot work in the long run and was doomed to eventually transform. For the market is anarchy itself. It is evident that when corporations become people—but remain free of accountability and are therefore irresponsible—the result is necessarily anarchy and inhuman totalitarianism.

In Kafka’s The Trial, the law and the trial itself are transformed into life. (For Kafka, the law, empty of content, is indistinguishable from life while the body of Joseph K. becomes the trial.) This transformation however is marked by something of the beyond. I think that genuine transformation lies there in the beyond. In the minds of some people that is progress.

I return again and again to the Russian example because just as the intelligentsia in pre-revolutionary Russia set its stamp on the development of the idea of Socialism there (in the end making the greatest revolution of modern times), when the propitious moment arrives, when what was inexpressible becomes expressible, when events have created a universal mood of revolutionary discontent with the existing system, when tensions reach the boiling point, the American intelligentsia, together with the American wage earners and the growing, multiplying, ever angrier and, one hopes, awakening middle class, will rise against the capitalist system, salvage the positive parts of America and bring about that transformation I am speaking of.

Liberals could of course join in the movement but contemporary liberals alone will never, never bring about real radical social change; at the most they want reforms of the existing system. Liberals never learn. They never change. Most of them are still on the Obama bandwagon, even after their President has condoned torture, formalized the doctrine of American Exceptionalism and American world hegemony, started more wars than George Bush, instituted new controls over Americans at home, and gave up early the struggle even for reforms to align the USA with the rest of the world (health, education, finance, etc.) Liberals can be intolerant and extremist –and also sanctimonious—in their limited views and mindset. Liberals can take strong stands on minor community improvements; they work themselves into a fury and campaign relentlessly and join sit-ins and carry placards concerning, let’s say, how the local school yard is to be used on weekends and still vote for war and ignore the concept of social justice for all. Viewed from the distance, I am dubious about so-called grassroots activities: naturally they are welcome but I suspect in the long run harmless. As a rule Power lets them sit-in, march and carry their placards. As if the military-industrial complex (It really does exist!) of which President Eisenhower warned America, gave one hoot in hell about their protests. And it cares even less about the liberals themselves.

Australia’s Sovereignty Severely Compromised For US-Israeli Designs

Daud Batchelor

As Australia’s international standing has risen, the country’s sovereignty is being dangerously subsumed by the United States, itself controlled by powerful elites:the disproportionately influential military-industrial complex and Zionist lobbies.Australia’s sovereignty is being compromised by the political elite within the ruling Liberal Party and Labour Party caucus. Former PM Malcolm Fraser presciently warned that the relationship was becoming dangerous and we “have effectively ceded to America the ability to decide when Australia goes to war”.

External threats facing Australia include a commercial take over of critical resources, primarily by China. The second is inordinate influence by the US, our “friendly” ally under the ANZUS Treaty. Evidence suggests some US covert involvement in removing former PMs Gough Whitlam and Kevin Rudd. Near neighbours, Indonesia and Malaysia,have no expansionist aims. Our defences should not be overly strained but Australia increased its ‘defence’ budget 32% since 2003 with the target to achieve 2% of GDP.Fighting distant wars of questionable merit and overinflating domestic terrorism sucks funds from needy domestic programmes and puts Australia into massive debt parallelingthe United States itself.

John Howard dramatically changed Australia’s defence policy to project military power globally. The 9/11 attacks occurring while PM Howard visited President Bush Jr cemented a tight alliance. Howard offered virtually a blank cheque for Australia’s military to support future US engagements.Significantly, many since Mearsheimer and Walt’s exposure have chronicled the excessive influence Israeli lobbiese.g. AIPAC,have over US foreign policies.Israeli is set not only on protecting itself but creating a Greater Israel involving fragmentation of neighbouring Arab states - the YinonPlanof the World Zionist Organization. Australia is locked into engagements of the US resulting from certain US-Zionist strategies. The US domineering worldview is inculcated whenever American forces and agencies meet counterparts in the Australian Defence Forces, ASIOand Australian Federal Police.

Impacts on Australia’s foreign polices result from the powerful Murdoch media oligopoly, which champions Israel, and the Zionist-led Lowy Institute for International Policy, which has a snug relationship with the ADF, ASIO and AFP, all Institute members. The Institute’s Board of Directors includes Martin Indyk, former Israeli government propagandist. Great concern is that Allan Gyngell, founding Executive-Director of the Lowy Institute, is now Director-General of Australia’s Office of National Assessments. Gyngell leads a supposedly independent organisation providing key analyses on which Cabinet reliesto decide foreign policies. Zionists can well influence key decisions. Abuse is of grave concern givenfaulty ONA reports claiming WMDs in Iraq used to incite Australia’s participation in theinfamous 2003 invasion.Former ONA officer, Andrew Wilke, resigned claiming pre-invasion pressures to exaggerate reports.

Former Foreign Minister, Bob Carr, explained that the pro-Israel lobby enjoys such a “very unhealthy level” of influence in dictating Australia’s foreign policythrough party donations and MP trips to Israel. The Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council had a direct line into the PM’s office and aggressively lobbied politicians. Politicians have been drawn deeply into Israel’s global strategy: a visit to Israel is essential for any aspiring PM. Australia has developed arguably theharshestanti-terrorism legislation andsupports illegal Israeli settlements.Australia with only the US recently votedagainst a proposal in the Security Council demanding Israel ends itsPalestinian occupation.Israel defies UN resolutions and commits war crimes violatingGeneva conventions and international law. Despite this, the government strongly supports Israel. In the 2008-09 and 2014 Gaza wars, Israel killed 3,500 Palestinians, 75% civilians, while the fewer Israeli fatalities were overwhelmingly soldiers. Israel attacked densely-habited areas causingslaughter and damage to hospitals, schools and UN shelters.Ban Ki-moon and European nations condemned Israel’s disproportionate response and targeting of civilians.Israel could wellface charges in the International Criminal Court.

Legitimate concerns questioning Australia’s involvement in distant wars unrelated to Australia’s securityraise the spectre of ‘blowback’ in supporting American global hegemony and destruction of Muslim lands.Emergence of ISIS is directly linked to failed Australian-Americanstrategies in Iraq. The government’s embrace of Americas’ pro-Israel anti-Muslim agenda is against Australia’s best interests inignoring ourpeaceful Muslim neighbours - Indonesia, and Malaysia,successful liberal democracies on whom Snowdon showed Australian and US governmentsaggressively spy. Suchconduct could drivethese friendly neighbours closer to China and Russia to our detriment.

Prior to expanding anti-terrorist laws deemed by many to be targeting the preponderantly peaceful Muslim community, massive AFP raidswere conductedin NSW and Queensland. Their scale impliedcitizens were under imminent attack by numerousterrorists. Was this to forestallopposition to the government’s retrenchment of citizen rights?Numbers arrested were low and prosecutions will likely be few.Bernard Keane commented, “Australians are less safe now then a few weeks ago because of decisions taken, primarily for political ends, by the Abbott government, namely to intervene in a conflict in Iraq and Syria that has nothing to do with Australia’s national interests”. Apart from the Martin Place shootings, there have been no fatalities in Australia by Muslim handssince1915 when Britain invaded Turkey.PM Abbott over-emphasisesterrorism in Australia while neglecting family violence that causes 80 deaths annually.Samuel Makinda warned that with the expanded anti-terror legislation, politicians have legislated away citizens’ rights.Alerting Australiansthat it was now a “police state”, Gideon Polya, estimated there were “only 6 Australian deaths by terrorists (none Muslim) in the last 36 years. Yet the major Australian parties ... have committed $125 billion in terms of long-term accrual cost to the Islamophobic War on Terror.”

Australia’s subservience to the US and Israeli lobbies should change and stopfightingtheir wars and blowing out Australia’s finances. With aforecasted A$40 billion budget shortfall, either the government will raise taxes, diminish services, or increase debt. In the absence of military threats at home, our main concern should be economic security. Australians should consider an alternative from heightened militarism in this Gallipoli centenary honouring our heroes, who spoke little wishing not to glorify war for imperialism’s sake. Let us resist the insidious takeover of our independence tochartour own course and further peace and stability of Australia and harmonious relations amongst our own citizens and neighbouring countries.

Why Is Henry Kissinger Walking Around Free?

Andy Piascik

On September 11, 2013, hundreds of thousands of Chileans solemnly marked the 40th anniversary of their nation’s 9/11 terrorist event. It was on that date in 1973 that the Chilean military, armed with a generous supply of funds and weapons from the United States, and assisted by the CIA and other operatives, overthrew the democratically-elected government of the moderate socialist Salvador Allende. Sixteen years of repression, torture and death followed under the fascist Augusto Pinochet, while the flow of hefty profits to US multinationals – IT&T, Anaconda Copper and the like - resumed. Profits, along with concern that people in other nations might get ideas about independence, were the very reason for the coup and even the partial moves toward nationalization instituted by Allende could not be tolerated by the US business class.

Henry Kissinger was national security advisor and one of the principal architects – perhaps the principal architect – of the coup in Chile. US-instigated coups were nothing new in 1973, certainly not in Latin America, and Kissinger and his boss Richard Nixon were carrying on a violent tradition that spanned the breadth of the 20th century and continues in the 21st – see, for example, Venezuela in 2002 (failed) and Honduras in 2009 (successful). Where possible, such as in Guatemala in 1954 and Brazil in 1964, coups were the preferred method for dealing with popular insurgencies. In other instances, direct invasion by US forces such as happened on numerous occasions in Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and many other places, was the fallback option.

The coup in Santiago occurred as US aggression in Indochina was finally winding down after more than a decade. From 1969 through 1973, it was Kissinger again, along with Nixon, who oversaw the slaughter in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. It is impossible to know with precision how many were killed during those four years; all the victims were considered enemies, including the vast majority who were non-combatants, and the US has never been much interested in calculating the deaths of enemies. Estimates of Indochinese killed by the US for the war as a whole start at four million and are likely more, perhaps far more. It can thus be reasonably extrapolated that probably more than a million, and certainly hundreds of thousands, were killed while Kissinger and Nixon were in power.

In addition, countless thousands of Indochinese have died in the years since from the affects of the massive doses of Agent Orange and other Chemical Weapons of Mass Destruction unleashed by the US. Many of us here know (or, sadly, knew) soldiers who suffered from exposure to such chemicals; multiply their numbers by 1,000 or 10,000 or 50,000 – again, it’s impossible to know with accuracy – and we can begin to understand the impact on those who live in and on the land that was so thoroughly poisoned as a matter of US policy.

Studies by a variety of organizations including the United Nations also indicate that at least 25,000 people have died in Indochina since war’s end from unexploded US bombs that pocket the countryside, with an equivalent number maimed. As with Agent Orange, deaths and ruined lives from such explosions continue to this day. So 40 years on, the war quite literally goes on for the people of Indochina, and it is likely it will go on for decades more.

Near the end of his time in office, Kissinger and his new boss Gerald Ford pre-approved the Indonesian dictator Suharto’s invasion of East Timor in 1975, an illegal act of aggression again carried out with weapons made in and furnished by the US. Suharto had a long history as a bagman for US business interests; he ascended to power in a 1965 coup, also with decisive support and weapons from Washington, and undertook a year-long reign of terror in which security forces and the army killed more than a million people (Amnesty International, which rarely has much to say about the crimes of US imperialism, put the number at 1.5 million).

In addition to providing the essential on-the-ground support, Kissinger and Ford blocked efforts by the global community to stop the bloodshed when the terrible scale of Indonesian violence became known, something UN ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan openly bragged about. Again, the guiding principle of empire, one that Kissinger and his kind accept as naturally as breathing, is that independence cannot be allowed. That’s true even in a country as small as East Timor where investment opportunities are slight, for independence is contagious and can spread to places where far more is at stake, like resource-rich Indonesia. By the time the Indonesian occupation finally ended in 1999, 200,000 Timorese – 30 percent of the population – had been wiped out. Such is Kissinger’s legacy and it is a legacy well understood by residents of the global South no matter the denial, ignorance or obfuscation of the intelligentsia here.

If the United States is ever to become a democratic society, and if we are ever to enter the international community as a responsible party willing to wage peace instead of war, to foster cooperation and mutual aid rather than domination, we will have to account for the crimes of those who claim to act in our names like Kissinger. Our outrage at the crimes of murderous thugs who are official enemies like Pol Pot is not enough. A cabal of American mis-leaders from Kennedy on caused for far more Indochinese deaths than the Khmer Rouge, after all, and those responsible should be judged and treated accordingly.

The urgency of the task is underscored as US aggression proliferates at an alarming rate. Millions of people around the world, most notably in an invigorated Latin America, are working to end the “might makes right” ethos the US has lived by since its inception. The 99 percent of us here who have no vested interest in empire would do well to join them.

There are recent encouraging signs along those lines, with the successful prevention of a US attack on Syria particularly noteworthy. In addition, individuals from various levels of empire have had their lives disrupted to varying degrees. David Petraeus, for example, has been hounded by demonstrators since being hired by CUNY earlier this year to teach an honors course; in 2010, Dick Cheney had to cancel a planned trip to Canada because the clamor for his arrest had grown quite loud; long after his reign ended, Pinochet was arrested by order of a Spanish magistrate for human right violations and held in England for 18 months before being released because of health problems; and earlier this year, Efrain Rios Montt, one of Washington’s past henchmen in Guatemala, was convicted of genocide, though accomplices of his still in power have since intervened on his behalf to obstruct justice. And Condoleeza Rice was forced to cancel her commencement appearance at Rutgers this past spring because of student outrage over her involvement in war crimes.

More pressure is needed, and allies of the US engaged in war crimes like Paul Kagame should be dealt with as Pinochet was. More important perhaps for those of in the US is that we hound Rumsfeld, both Clintons, Rice, Albright and Powell, to name a few, for their crimes against humanity every time they show themselves in public just as Petraeus has been. That holds especially for our two most recent War-Criminals-in-Chief, Barack Bush and George W. Obama.

Growing Up In The Shadow Of The American War State

Frida Berrigan

The Pentagon loomed so large in my childhood that it could have been another member of my family. Maybe a menacing uncle who doled out put-downs and whacks to teach us lessons or a rich, dismissive great-aunt intent on propriety and good manners.

Whatever the case, our holidays were built around visits to the Pentagon's massive grounds. That's where we went for Easter, Christmas, even summer vacation (to commemorate the anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki). When we were little, my brother and sister and I would cry with terror and dread as we first glimpsed the building from the bridge across the Potomac River. To us, it pulsated with malice as if it came with an ominous, beat-driven soundtrack out of Star Wars.

I grew up in Baltimore at Jonah House, a radical Christian community of people committed to nonviolent resistance to war and nuclear culture. It was founded by my parents, Phil Berrigan and Liz McAlister. They gained international renown as pacifist peace activists not afraid to damage property or face long prison terms. The Baltimore Four, the Catonsville Nine, the Plowshares Eight, the Griffiss Seven: these were anti-Vietnam War or antinuclear actions they helped plan, took part in, and often enough went to jail for. These were also creative conspiracies meant to raise large questions about our personal responsibility for, and the role of conscience in, our world. In addition, they were explorations of how to be effective and nonviolent in opposition to the war state. These actions drew plenty of media attention and crowds of supporters, but in between we always went back to the Pentagon.

As kids, horrific images of war were seared into our brains from old documentaries about Hiroshima and Nagasaki and newer dispatches from Vietnam, and later El Salvador and Guatemala. And all of them seemed traceable to that one place, that imposing five-sided building overlooking the Potomac and surrounded by parking lots and sylvan acres of lawns and paths.

Burning Hair and Baby Bottles Filled With Blood

In many ways, I grew up at the Pentagon. Our family never sat for a formal portrait. We didn't take snapshots at parties or picnics or on vacation. But what we do have is photo albums stuffed with pictures taken at the Pentagon as we protested there year after year after year.

In one of my favorite photos of myself as a toddler, I'm marching down the Pentagon parade ground, holding a bottle of milk in one hand and tightly grasping the hand of my favorite grown-up, Rosemary Maguire, with the other. The pillars of the River Entrance are behind me. Best guess: it's 1976. My brother Jerry relaxes in a stroller in the background. My mom and other friends are standing nearby. We could be anywhere, but of course we're not. We're at the Pentagon and our protest is either just over or about to begin.

Frida (at about two) and Rosemary Maguire at the River Entrance to the Pentagon in 1976. Frida's mom, Liz McAlister, and brother Jerry (in the stroller) can be seen in the background.

When President Gerald Ford requested a post-Vietnam Pentagon budget of $105 billion for 1976, he was asking for an increase of 15% in military spending. American nuclear capabilities, already vast, were to be built up yet more, while conventional non-nuclear forces were to be expanded, too. After debate on the Hill, however, Congress cut his increase in half.

These were overwhelming sums to the adults protesting back then.  And yet, even after adjusting for inflation, they seem almost modest today. Nearly 30 years later, President Barack Obama is requesting $534 billion for the Pentagon and another $50.9 billion for ongoing military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria.  And this doesn't even include the more than $12 billion for maintaining and bolstering U.S. nuclear forces, most of which is tucked away in the Energy Department's budget at a moment when Washington is committing itself to a trillion-dollar, multi-decade upgrade of those forces. 

A snapshot eight or nine years later shows me crouched behind my little sister, then an irresistibly cute toddler of two or three. I'm helping her hand out leaflets to Pentagon employees as they come to work. A woman takes a flyer from her, while grown-up friends hold a banner that reads “Faithfulness to the Covenant Means Disarmament.”

Our house was full of such banners, painted in block letters on sheets. The year might have been 1983 and the Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists then stood at three minutes to nuclear midnight. Caspar Weinberger was Secretary of Defense; the Pentagon was, of course, his office; and he had already earned the moniker “Cap the Ladle” for his efforts to increase spending on nuclear weapons like the MX missile and President Ronald Reagan's futuristic “Star Wars” anti-missile-defense weapons fantasy.

In the picture, I'm in a jean jacket that I loved to rags and wore regardless of the weather, and a regrettable headband with a floppy bow. The Pentagon workers would undoubtedly have refused flyers from me, but they took them with a smile from my little sister. They probably didn't read them, but getting those tracts into their hands seemed like some measure of success.

When I was eight, 75 people from our community were arrested blockading the entrances to the Pentagon. Meanwhile, a few people towed a broken-down station wagon onto its parade ground, disabled it completely, and left it there with “LAST RESORT” spray-painted on its side in big block letters. “Auto workers are sleeping in their cars in Houston,” John Shields, one of the protest leaders, told UPI, “We are making the connection between homelessness and the lack of jobs because of the mad buildup of the arms race.”

In another photo, taken in April 1985, I walk down the River Entrance steps. I am 11 and soaking wet and grimacing. I still remember the moment.  I'm hoarse from chanting “You can't wash the blood away!” as a maintenance crew works to scrub down one of the Pentagon's imposing pillars. They could and did wash the blood away. Their hoses are visible in the background and the pillars are clean. Drawn from the veins of my parents and their friends, the dark red liquid was a potent symbol meant to mark that building with the end result of war. My parents hoped that it would remind those entering of the reality of their work, of what lay behind or beyond the clean offices they labored in and the spiffy suits or uniforms they wore. At the time, the Pentagon was locked in a fierce fight with the CIA and the White House over the wisdom of trading weapons for hostages with Iran and giving the money to U.S.-backed mercenaries in Nicaragua who were fighting a bloody war against peasants, catechists, and communists who wanted land reform, education, and democracy.

Frida and a friend in front of the River Entrance in April 1985, wet from the hoses used to clean off the blood.

Thrown from baby bottles, splattered high onto porous white marble, the blood was hard to wash off. The maintenance guys worked around us as much as possible. They tried not to get us wet. Occasionally, the police would move us out of the way, only to watch us scamper back through the suds and pools of pinkish water.

Sandblasting, power-washing, scraping: it was all tried to get those stains out. Over the years, the columns wore away perceptibly and by that modest measure we marked our success. We were changing the Pentagon, molecule by molecule. It was hard work, but maybe easier than changing the hearts and minds of the men and women who walked through those pools of blood, tracking it onto that building's highly polished floors.

All those years protesting at the “War Department” -- my parents liked to use the old World War II-era name for it -- so many hours spent pleading, haranguing, imploring, condemning, appealing, and confronting, and not surprisingly, a stilted decorum developed around our acts. Ah yes, you again, it must be Hiroshima Day.

We were the reminder, the tweak of conscience, the minor cost of doing business.  They abhorred us but also tolerated us; they welcomed us as a foil or a challenge. Sometimes, it seemed like a little of all three at once. Looking back now, it's kind of incredible that “they” let us be there, year after year. Maybe they appreciated our creativity. One thing was for sure: we knew how to make a spectacle.

In the late 1980s, a group of women cut off all their hair and burned it on the Pentagon steps. Wrapped in burlap sacks, they then keened in mourning for the victims of war -- and let me assure you that burning hair does smell like death, like war, like terror. It may be the most awful smell in the world.

At the time, I was a young teenager in love with my long hair and I held onto it tightly as women I admired cut theirs off. (My mother's hair was already too short to hack away dramatically.) Later, I felt their bare heads in wonder and laughed as one of them tried to lessen or at least neaten the damage with a small pair of scissors and a comb. The stench of their witness lodged in the back of my throat and clung to my jacket for the rest of the winter. This is the smell of the Pentagon, I would tell myself whenever I wanted to toss my coat in the washer. It's good to remember.

In the early hours of one morning during the brief and devastating first Gulf War of 1991 -- who today even remembers “the highway of death”? -- we blocked the roads leading to the Pentagon with huge piles of broken concrete and rebar. A handful of people with banners stood marking the piles as the “rubble of Baghdad.” The police arrested them, but could hold no one because they had no witnesses to the dumping of all that material. One officer even told my mom that she should get “an academy award for this one! This is the best you've ever done!”

In another picture, I am in my late teens, standing at the top of the steps of the River Entrance, along with my brother and another friend. We hold a banner that reads in part “We Remember, We Remember.” I'm squinting into the early morning light and my hand is on my chest. And I do remember, even all these years later, that feeling of dread. I look at the picture and know that my younger self is barely breathing and my heart is racing beneath my hand -- I am that afraid. I still feel that.

Phil Berrigan in front of a "wreckage of war" die-in at the River Entrance. Frida is half-visible behind to the left. Photo taken by Rick Reinhard on December 30, 1996. The banner reads, "The Pentagon Product Is War: Shut It Down.”

Protesting a Pentagon That Is Everywhere 

Ours was not a solitary witness like that of Baltimore Quaker Norman Morrison who, in November 1965, set himself on fire under Defense Secretary Robert McNamara's window to protest the war in Vietnam. With his wife Anne, Morrison was a war-tax resister and peace activist. He was searching for a way to end that grim war. He died of his wounds.

During the Vietnam War there were also huge crowds on the grounds. As many as 50,000 people marched to the Pentagon in a vast and militant October 1967 demonstration, which included an element of the absurd and mystical, a Yippie ritual of exorcism and “transformation” to levitate the Pentagon.

We did not have huge crowds, but we were steady and predictable. Year after year, my family and community made up for our modest numbers by being the most faithful and regular of visitors, willing to risk prison for nonviolent spectacle and witness against war. And we are still there. Every Monday morning at the crack of dawn, a handful of friends brave the cold (or heat) and a long commute to stand with signs of protest inside a fence-enclosed “free speech area.”

But it's another, tighter, more repressive age when it comes to the war state.  Leaflets are no longer allowed, nor are photographs. Any activity or demonstration outside of that grassy little spot is met with arrest, which happens often enough without a lot of media or other attention.  

Since September 11, 2001, the nature of war itself has changed. There is no longer really a battlefield except that semi-metaphorical “global” one, nor any clear delineation between civilian and combatant. There are no front lines. War is now total in a new way: in the air and on the ground, human and robotic, online and cyber.  

In the process, the “footprint” of the Pentagon has been transformed. On that September day, of course, Flight 77 took out one side of the building, killing 125 people. As part of the reconstruction of the site, a whole series of security upgrades and physical changes were made so that visitors -- including protesters -- can get nowhere near it without walking a gauntlet of official searches and scrutiny.

At the same time, monstrously huge as it is, the Pentagon is no longer a single place, a single building at all.  In its way, in the post-9/11 era, the Pentagon and the complex of military corporations that service and serve it have spread all over Northern Virginia. You can find a mini-Pentagon in the Department of Homeland Security and another in the State Department, not to speak of countless police departments across the country.

So much has changed, but the Doomsday Clock has again tick-tocked back down to three minutes to nuclear midnight and wars are raging at every turn. It's been a few years since I paid old Uncle Pentagon a visit. I am long overdue.

Federal Study: US Government Killing Apprximately 1,000 Of Its Own People Per Year

Robert Barsocchini

The federal Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that, on average, US police piled up the bodies of 928 US citizens per year between 2003-2009 and 2011.

And Tom Hall notes: “A list compiled on the website Killed by Police of every police killing mentioned in the American media includes more than 2,000 deaths since May 2013.”

Killings by police in the US “reached a record high last year [461 was the number thought to be a record before the new study was published], while the number of officers killed in the line of duty fell to its lowest level in decades [27].”  (By comparison, police in the UK, Germany, Japan, and Australia killed under ten people each, and some years kill none.)

As reported by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, policing is not one of the top ten most dangerous jobs in the US, and most police deaths “occurred accidentally rather than feloniously … in routine traffic accidents.”

It is also important to note how police brutality is protested elsewhere: In China, protesters expressing opposition to the recent police killing of an unarmed woman overwhelmed officers and killed four of them, also destroying their cars as they stood by, unable to respond.

The question clearly becomes how to reduce police brutality before an eruption like the one in China occurs here, which, given the extreme militarization of domestic forces in the US and already-existing willingness of US forces to dispatch US citizens as if they were trash, could well result in a Tienanmen type event, which itself could then escalate.

Forced Sterilization, Exclusion, Persecution, Cultural Genocide: The Situation Of Ahwazi Women

Al-Sharq Newspaper

An Interview with Mona Oudeh an Ahwazi Arab activist

Mona Oudeh

Mona Oudeh, an Ahwazi activist based in London, said in an interview with Al-Sharq Newspaper that she has always carried the burden of the Ahwazi cause like every other Ahwazi Arab woman who rejects and repudiates the Persian occupation of Al-Ahwaz that has forced her to leave her homeland.

Mona, who devotes all of her time to the Ahwazi cause, has spoken about some of the atrocities perpetrated by the Persian occupation against her Arab compatriots, and in particular, against women, affirming the fact that due to decades of Iranian occupation, Ahwazi Arab women have been subjected to human rights violations such as being deprived of their inalienable right to education in Arabic, their native language.

Al-Sharq: How do Ahwazi women consider the Persian occupation of their homeland Ahwaz?

MO: First I would like to express my gratitude to the venerable Al-Sharq newspaper for allowing me this opportunity to talk about Al-Ahwaz case.

Also, let me take this opportunity to extend my appreciation to the Saudi people, brothers, and all observers, and to all those interested in news and developments in the matter of Al-Ahwaz. To answer your question, Ahwazi women, as an integral part of their society, believe that the occupation has to be overthrown, even militarily, if necessary, and the area returned to Ahwazi Arab rule.

The occupation is entirely illegal, and there is no doubt that sooner or later it is bound to disappear. The occupation is the root cause of my people’s suffering, and Ahwazi women endure additional repression and exclusion, such as losing their right to live in dignity in their homeland.

In fact, since the start of Iranian occupation and domination of Al-Ahwaz, the ultra-national Persian institutions have systematically implemented policies of racial discrimination against the entire Ahwazi population, and in particular, of Ahwazi women, who have been excluded from all rights and privileges including educational opportunities, employment, intellectual, literary and artistic participation, as well as the denial of exercising their indigenous cultural activities.

Mona continued, saying that crimes of the occupation are incalculable, but the worst crime committed against the majority of Ahwazi women is through the policy of ethnic cleansing practiced in the cruelest manner, by preventing women of childbearing age to bring about demographic change in the areas of Al-Ahwaz.

The occupation authorities are forcing Ahwazi women to give birth through “Caesarean” procedure rather than natural birthing, and in many cases the authorities urge the doctors to carry out sterilization on birthing women without their knowledge or prior approval, through the process of tying the fallopian tubes. This results in Ahwazi women no longer being able to have more than one child, and thus, it reduces population growth among the Arabs.

She pointed out the suffering of the Ahwazi women as a consequence of the apartheid policies of Iranian occupation. Women are subjected to arbitrary arrest, imprisonment, physical harassment, psychological and physical torture as well as the death penalty like all Ahwazi activists. The Arab and international stance regarding our plight is still weak, and our cause must be activated and placed on the table of international forums.

Al-Sharq: What else do the Ahwazi women suffer because of the occupation?

MO: If we want to describe and analyze the nature of oppression and suffering of Ahwazi women under the grip of Iranian Occupation, then it would require us to write books about it.

This is because of a racist, anti-Arab mentality and ideology of the Iranian occupation against Arab people generally, and particularly against Ahwazis. As a matter of fact, the intensity of the regime’s racial oppression and segregation falls primarily on the Ahwazis in comparison to other ethnic and indigenous peoples in Iran, which is reflected in all aspects of their social, economic, and political lives and many other areas.

In this case, because the Iranian occupation harbors hatred towards Arabs, the Ahwazi women suffer and endure the most vicious types of harassment, arrest, imprisonment, physical and psychological torture because of three major factors, the first one is their female gender and, the second is their Arab ethnicity and the third is because they are Ahwazi women freedom fighters.

Ahwazi women, as Ahwazi men, face the death penalty because of their struggle against the Iranian occupation, and while sometimes the Ahwazi woman activist has undergone such heavy and cruel punishment, the most prominent Ahwazi woman imprisoned in an Iranian jail is Ms. Faheme Esmaili Badawi. She is an elementary school teacher and political activist who was arrested in 2005 and is currently serving 15 year’s imprisonment in exile from her homeland.

In December 2006, the Iranian occupation regime executed her husband Ali Matouri Zadeh, the Ahwazi activist and founding member of the moderate Hizbal-Wifaq (Reconciliation Party).

The suffering of Faheme Esmaili Badawi cannot be easily summarized through her arrest and the injustice of her husband’s execution, during imprisonment she was forced to give birth to her daughter Salma without receiving adequate medical assistance and in the most unsanitary conditions. Her daughter Salma is now seven years old, and she lives without her mother and her father, who was unjustly hanged by the regime.

Al-Sharq: What is your view of the stance of Arabs and Muslims toward your issue?

MO: Honestly, the position of the Arab and Islamic countries toward the issue of Ahwaz is very weak and timid. It cannot in anyway be considered a significant stance, neither can it be called advocacy or support for it. So far, however, hopeful and positive indicators have recently occurred in one or two of the Arab Gulf countries. However, we can say that there is no Arab state with a clear and explicit stand in support for the Ahwazi issue. In reality, the promises made regarding supporting Ahwazi people were only words spoken, no actions have been taken. There are Arab countries allied with Iran, and these countries, especially the Syrian regime, have handed over political Ahwazi activists to Iran to be sentenced to death and executed.

As for the European position, through the work of human rights and civic organizations, it has resulted in the right of assembly and demonstration for Ahwazi communities in European countries. European governments have met with Ahwazi organizations in order to learn about and understand their cause.

Al-Sharq: What is the stance of the United Nations and international organizations toward the plight of the Ahwazi people?

MO: All that the United Nations and human rights organizations have done is to condemn and denounce the crimes committed by the Iranian occupation authorities in Al-Ahwaz, despite the fact that the Iranian crimes against Ahwazis have reached the level of ethnic cleansing and genocide. The international community has to do its duty to prosecute those responsible for these heinous crimes.

The secret letter leaked from the office of “Abtahi” during the tenure of the President Mohammad Khatami clearly indicated a policy of ethnic cleansing, a policy that is still ongoing and expanding. The letter stipulates orders and certain conditions for conducting systematic ethnic cleansing of Ahwazis within 10 years, such as the banishment of influential and educated Ahwazis such as teachers, university professors and governmental employers to remote Persian areas. This is facilitated through different enticements, particularly by making them promises of providing better living conditions, promotions and increased salaries and then replacing them with Persian settlers who implement the orders of the occupation government in Al-Ahwaz.

Al-Sharq: How do you see the future of the Al-Ahwaz cause and Middle East?

MO: I think that all Ahwazi activists believe that the demise of the occupation and the establishment of the state of Ahwaz is a fact that will come into being and what separates us from our goal is just a matter of time and the need to improve Ahwazi capabilities and facilities that will ensure the development of tools for the Ahwazi struggle to defeat the Persian occupation. Ahwazis fully believe in the future of their cause and work on this basis.

We know the rule says that the revolutionary struggle for liberation from the clutches of colonialism and oppression requires manpower, in fact, we have the manpower that is willing to sacrifice in order to regain the legitimate rights of Al-Ahwaz.

But, we also need foreign support and backing at all levels for our struggle against the Iranian occupation. We need the international human rights and law agencies to decry the human rights abuses practiced against Ahwazi Arab people.

Additionally as Al-Ahwaz has been occupied military and the enemy only understands force, there has to be a regional strategy to supply us with arms and training, as well as the implementation and full force of international law, to recognize us as an occupied and oppressed people. It is the responsibility of the global media and regional media to expose our suffering to the world.

Lack of attention to our just cause is only in the interest of the Iranian occupation to perpetuate its illegal existence and crimes and expansionist aspirations which know no boundaries not only in Al-Ahwaz but all the neighboring Arab countries, as today it is more evident than any other time, when we see Iran’s occupation of Syria, Iraq, Yemen destroying our people’s revolutions through their mercenaries. The only tool that can foil the regime’s devastating colonial advancement in the region is by supporting Ahwazis and other non-Persian ethnic groups such as Turks, Kurds and Baluchs in Iran.

In my point of view, this is the only way we can trample the regime, because as long as the regime exists and there is the absence of a comprehensive national Arabic project to deal with Iran, nowhere in the Middle East will there be peace and stability. Thus, the absence of the Ahwazi cause in the international and regional arena only serves the regime, as the Iranian regime’s major strength has originated from its domination of Al-Ahwaz’s sea oil and gas, albeit, the Ahwazi indigenous people have gained nothing from their vast resources, which have become a curse against them solely.

We ask the international community to support our cause in accordance with the norms and the international conventions because we are a suffering and oppressed people undergoing countless policies of racial discrimination.

The Iranian regime is attempting to melt us down in the crucible of Persian culture, eliminating our Arabic origins. As earlier mentioned, the regime has exercised such brutal racial discrimination policies that have amounted to ethnic cleansing through forcible displacement, reverse migration, and settlement construction for installing Persian settlers in Al-Ahwaz in order to impose a new demographic reality on us and the future of Al-Ahwaz.

The brutal oppression of the indigenous Ahwazi Arab people encompasses political, economic, social and cultural measures has been going on for years, and the sheer injustice imposed on my Arab people has gone unreported for decades, never getting the attention that it deserves. Our cause has been sanctioned due to regional plots related to bilateral economic and political interests.

The most unfair tool that is still used against our plight is the Media Blackout made of the spilled blood of my people who have dared to speak out against the Iranian occupation. Is their blood so cheap, without global condemnation?

The truth is that Ahwazis are sieged and restricted and unable to convey their voices out because the internal media is controlled by the regime and even the outside Persian opponent the media are bribed and supportive of the regime’s crimes against us and deliberately hide our news and events taking place on the ground, as such biased media stigmatizes Ahwazi Arab fighters by describing them as foreign stooges scheming with Britain and Saudi Arabia who want to break up the country and bring corruption, terrorism and Wahhabism.

Likewise, the occupying judicial system presses the same charges against the Ahwazi prisoners and simply executes them. This is because the racism and the anti-Arab sentiment has taken deep root into the minds of the entire Farsi-speaking community. Furthermore, Arab and Western media also have not really put a spotlight on our issue because of the aforesaid reasons, turning our issue into a regional and global orphan.

The outcry of Ahwazi prisoners remains unheard behind bars, so our most basic and smallest demand is to receive help and solidarity from Media outlets to break the Iranian occupation blackout, to make known the reality of the Ahwazis and other ethnic groups, where our most basic conditions are so low in the framework of Iran’s petrified ideology.

We need the world to hear our voice and stand by our side against the Persianization policies and genocide campaign that look like a fatal cancer metastasizing to the whole Ahwazi Arab society as an attempt to erase the Arabic identity of Ahwazis. For instance, as I mentioned earlier, this vicious occupation policy, through denying our native Arabic language, has caused the Ahwazi people to be stammering and uneducated in our own tongue, not able to speak Arabic or write in it.

My people have had enough of torture, prison, execution, poverty and illiteracy. We have had enough of the grief of mothers whose loved ones are executed or imprisoned for years. Let’s stop here because I am speechless. I have run out of words. I cannot depict the gravity of the nameless crimes exercised by the Iranian occupying authorities in Al-Ahwaz. I just look forward to seeing a better future for my Ahwazi oppressed people as they are free of any chains of oppression and living in safety and dignity.

Additional information for those readers who are not familiar with the plight of Ahwazis:

Ahwaz is occupied Arab land with more than 8 million population that is located in the South- West and South of so-called Iran’s map.

The name of Al-Ahwaz has changed to Khuzestan, Bushehr and Hormozgan in 1935 after the invasion of the Emirate of Al-Ahwaz in 1925 and toppling the last Arabic rule of Amir Khazaal Al-Kaabi in Mohammareh city.

The Iranian regimes of Pahlavi and the Islamic Republic deployed different tools to suppress the Ahwazi Arab people.

Lack of actual mainstream media coverage on Al-Ahwaz issue has allowed the Iranian occupation authorities to commit serious crimes against the Ahwazis who are struggling for freedom and liberation of their homeland under the unlawful Iranian domination over eight decades.

Ahwaz region is the wealthiest land with multiple resources including oil, gas and steel and water, although the Ahwazi Arab people are one of the most destitute and impoverished people in Middle East.

Bitter fact is that Al-Ahwaz region was annexed by Iran forcibly apart from the will of its people in 1925 as the region was independent in advance. The region is the primary source of revenue for Iran's oil and gas. It is the second vital and strategic region after Tehran for Iran and directly related to the national security of the occupying clerical regime. Al-Ahwaz holds 70% of the sources of oil and 30 % of water flowing from more than five rivers such as Karoon, Dez, and Karkheh, with vast agricultural and fertile lands.

East Turkestan’s Uyghurs: The Wrong Minority, With The Wrong Faith, In The Wrong Place, At The Wrong Time

Tim Robertson

China’s rate of economic growth is unlike anything the world has ever seen and, with the United States in decline, there will likely come a time in the not too distant future when China is – as America’s been since the Second World War – the world’s singularly dominant power. Thus, a question that inevitably looms large is: Will China become an expansionist and neo-colonial power and what form may this take?

There are those who argue that to assume China will take the same path as the European Empires and the United States is to project Western values onto a nation that has only embraced these ideals in the most superficial sense: China is, undeniably, still very much a product of her unique history.

Martin Jacques, for example, in his brilliant book When China Rules the World argues that China’s conception of herself is different to that of other nation-states. China, he claims, is better described and thought about as a civilisation-state, which makes her less prone to expansionism and more focused on preserving the elements of Chinese civilisation that can be traced through her history and remain present and visible in modern China.

Nevertheless, it’s difficult to feel optimistic about a country that has no regard for the rule of law, practices widespread and systematic human rights abuses, has little regard for the will of her people and has embraced a kind of authoritarian uber-capitalism. To believe that this kind of regime will be a benign force in the world – especially when less restrained that she is currently – is to be imbued with a kind of optimism that escapes me.

Far from the east coast metropolises of Beijing and Shanghai, in the western region of Xinjiang (referred to as East Turkestan by Uyghurs), the Muslim Uyghur minority has long been struggling under the repressive rule of the Communist Party (CCP). The Uyghurs – who speak a Turkic language and have much more culturally in common with their Central Asian neighbours – want independence from China. For the CCP, who see itself as the guardian of the civilisation-state, this kind of ‘separatism’ is unacceptable: It poses an existential threat to China because its borders pre-date the modern nation-state system and any challenge to that could precipitate other territorial disputes that could make her like any other country – that’s to say, arbitrary lines on a map.

But in a sense, that East Turkestan now resides within China’s borders, belies the fact that China too is an arbitrary construct and certainly not the homogenised place many in the West believe her to be (and the CCP’s seems, at times, to wish her to be). In the early period of the Manchu-controlled Qing dynasty (from 1644 until the late eighteenth century), the slaughter and bloodshed that characterised the conquest of what’s now Xinjiang was so excessive that an entire population that once occupied the land, the Zunghars, were extirpated.

So, in a time when what a future China will look like and how she’ll act remain unclear, why isn’t the West reaching out to the people who’ve experienced her repression firsthand and, presumably, know best?

Firstly, the relative isolation of many cities in Xinjiang allows the CCP to act with impunity, safe in the knowledge that outside observers can be easily monitored and kept away. The provincial capital, Urumqi, was once a major hub on the Silk Road, but now holds the unenviable title of the world’s most remote city from any sea in the world.

The CCP has been known to deliberately crash telephone and internet communications, the military patrol the streets and security officials watch foreigners closely, often intervening to question them about what they’re doing so far west. These measures would never be possible in the cities further east that the CCP uses to lure foreign investment and tourism dollars.

Moreover, the CCP also claim that the western border poses a significant security risk – a point at which terrorists, usually Pakistan and Afghanistan are the countries cited, could enter the country to carry out attacks. Whether they really believe this is unclear, but they certainly use it to incite fear among Han Chinese and as an excuse to persecute Uyghurs.

Secondly, at a time when Western animosity towards Muslims is at an unprecedented high, in the minds of Western governments, the Uyghurs are simply to wrong religion. Support for a Muslim minority in China, while fighting against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, is simply too complex a narrative for Western governments to sell their constituents.

Rightwing megaphones, like US Senator Lindsey Graham, are fixated on having the battles against the Islamic State classified as a Religious War, presumably so they can continue to channel Samuel Huntington’s clash of civilisations theory, while stopping just short of invoking the Crusades.

In Australia, Prime Minister Tony Abbott quoted Egyptian coup-leader-turned-president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, about the need for a ‘religious revolution’ within Islam. Never mind the crimes al-Sisi has committed, the message is clear: There is a fundamental problem with Islam and, by connotation, Muslims in general.

Thirdly, China is becoming increasingly dominant. In 2013, she overtook the United States as the world’s largest trading nation, passing $4 trillion for the first time. That means other nations are increasingly reliant on China to ensure their own economic security. With Beijing known to be sensitive to accusations of human rights abuse – a domestic matter is the Party line – other nations a weary of supporting the Uyghurs out of fear there could be economic backlash.

In an age where Western governments need to sell all their policies through the lens of self-interest – how will this affect us? Will this make us better of? Is our national security threatened – the Uyghurs struggle for recognition and assistance is an up-hill one. But their plight – because of a coincidence of geography and time – is rarely even acknowledged in the West, which seems odd seen as it may well provide the best insight into what a more powerful unchecked China may one day look like.