Fake Food, Fake Meat: Big Food’s Desperate Attempt to Further the Industrialisation of Food

Vandana Shiva

The ontology and ecology of food

Food is not a commodity, it is not “stuff” put together mechanically and artificially in labs and factories. Food is life. Food holds the contributions of all beings that make the food web, and it holds the potential of maintaining and regenerating the web of life. Food also holds the potential for health and disease, depending on how it was grown and processed. Food is therefore the living currency of the web of life.

As an ancient Upanishad reminds us “Everything is food, everything is something else’s food. “

Good Food and Real Food are the basis of health .

Bad food, industrial food, fake food is the basis of disease.

Hippocrates said “Let food be thy medicine”. In Ayurveda, India’s ancient science of life, food is called “sarvausadha” the medicine that cures all disease.

Industrial food systems have reduced food to a commodity, to “stuff” that can then be constituted in the lab. In the process both the planet’s health and our health has been nearly destroyed.

75% of the planetary destruction of soil, water, biodiversity, and 50% of greenhouse gas emissions come from industrial agriculture, which also contributes to 75% of food related chronic diseases. It contributes 50% of the GHG’s driving Climate Change. Chemical agriculture does not return organic matter and fertility to the soil. Instead it is contributing to desertification and land degradation. It also demands more water since it destroys the soil’s natural water-holding capacity. Industrial food systems have destroyed the biodiversity of the planet both through the spread of monocultures, and through the use of toxics and poisons which are killing bees, butterflies, insects, birds, leading to the sixth mass extinction.

Biodiversity-intensive and poison-free agriculture, on the other hand, produces more nutrition per acre while rejuvenating the planet. It shows the path to “Zero Hunger” in times of climate change.

The industrial agriculture and toxic food model has been promoted as the only answer to economic and food security. However, globally, more than 1 billion people are hungry. More than 3 billion suffer from food-related chronic diseases.

It uses 75% of the land yet industrial agriculture based on fossil fuel intensive, chemical intensive monocultures produce only 30% of the food we eat. Meanwhile, small, biodiverse farms using 25% of the land provide 70% of the food. At this rate, if the share of industrial agriculture and industrial food in our diet is increased to 45%, we will have a dead planet. One with with no life and no food.

The mad rush for Fake Food and Fake Meat, ignorant of the diversity of our foods and food cultures, and the role of biodiversity in maintaining the our health, is a recipe for accelerating the destruction of the planet and our health.

GMO soya is unsafe for the environment and the eater

In a recent article “How our commitment to consumers and our planet led us to use GM soy” Pat Brown, CEO & Founder of Impossible Foods states that:

“We sought the safest and most environmentally responsible option that would allow us to scale our production and provide the Impossible Burger to consumers at a reasonable cost”.

Given the fact that 90% of the monarch butterflies have disappeared due to Roundup Ready Crops, and we are living through what scientists have called an “insectageddon”, using GMO soya is hardly an “environmentally responsible option”.

In writing this, Pat Brown reveals his total ignorance that weeds have evolved resistance to Roundup and have become “superweeds” now requiring more and more lethal herbicides. Bill Gates and DARPA are even calling for the use of gene drives to exterminate amaranth, a sacred and nutritious food in India, because the Palmer Amaranth has become a superweed in the Roundup Ready soya fields of the USA.

At a time when across the world the movement to ban GMOs and Roundup is growing, promoting GMO soya as “fake meat” is misleading the eater both in terms of the ontology of the burger, and on claims of safety.

The “Impossible Burger “ based on GMO, Roundup sprayed soya is not a “safe” option, as Zen Honeycutt and Moms across America just announced:

“that the Impossible Burger tested positive for glyphosate. The levels of glyphosate detected in the Impossible Burger by Health Research Institute Laboratories were 11 X higher than the Beyond Meat Burger. The total result (glyphosate and it’s break down AMPA) was 11.3 ppb. Moms Across America also tested the Beyond Meat Burger and the results were 1 ppb.

“We are shocked to find that the Impossible Burger can have up to 11X higher levels of glyphosate residues than the Beyond Meat Burger according to these samples tested. This new product is being marketed as a solution for “healthy” eating, when in fact 11 ppb of glyphosate herbicide consumption can be highly dangerous. Only 0.1 ppb of glyphosate has been shown to destroy gut bacteria, which is where the stronghold of the immune system lies. I am gravely concerned that consumers are being misled to believe the Impossible Burger is healthy.”

Recent court cases have showcased the links of Roundup to cancer. With the build up of liabilities related to cancer cases, the investments in Roundup Ready GMO soya is blindness to the market.

Or the hope that fooling consumers can rescue Bayer/Monsanto.

There is another ontological confusion related to fake food. While claiming to get away from meat “fake meat” is about selling meat-like products.

Pat Brown declares “we use genetically engineered yeast to produce heme, the “magic” molecule that makes meat taste like meat — and makes the Impossible Burger the only plant-based product to deliver the delicious explosion of flavor and aroma that meat-eating consumers crave.”

I had thought that the plant based diet was for vegans and vegetarians, not meat lovers.

Big Food and Big Money is driving the Fake Food Goldrush

Indeed, the promotion of fake foods seems to have more to do with giving new life to the failing GMO agriculture and the Junk Food Industry, and the threat to it from the rising of consciousness and awareness everywhere that organic, local, fresh food is real food which regenerates the planet and our health. In consequence, investment in “plant based food companies “ has soared from near 0 in 2009 to $600m by 2018. And these companies are looking for more.

Pat Brown declares, “If there’s one thing that we know, it’s that when an ancient unimprovable technology counters a better technology that is continuously improvable, it’s just a matter of time before the game is over.” He added, “I think our investors see this as a $3 trillion opportunity.”

This is about profits and control. He, and those jumping on the Fake Food Goldrush, have no discernible knowledge, or consciousness about, or compassion for living beings, the web of life, nor the role of living food in weaving that web.

Their sudden awakening to “plant based diets” , including GMO soya, is an ontological violation of food as a living system that connects us to the ecosystem and other beings, and indicates ignorance of the diversity of cultures that have used a diversity of plants in their diets.

Ecological sciences have been based on the recognition of the interconnections and interrelatedness between humans and nature, between diverse organisms, and within all living systems, including the human body. It has thus evolved as an ecological and a systems science, not a fragmented and reductionist one. Diets have evolved according to climates and the local biodiversity the climate allows. The biodiversity of the soil, of the plants and our gut microbiome is one continuum. In Indian Civilisation, technologies are tools. Tools need to be assessed on ethical, social and ecological criteria. Tools/ technologies have never been viewed as self referential. They have been assessed in the context of contributing to the wellbeing of all.

Through fake food, evolution, biodiversity, and the web of life is being redefined as an “ancient unimprovable technology”, ignorance of the sophisticated knowleges that have evolved in diverse agricultural and food cultures in diverse climate and ecosystems to sustain and renew the biodiversity, the ecosystems, the health of people and the planet.

The Eat forum which braught out a report that tried to impose a monoculture diet of chemically grown, hyperindustrially processed food on the world has a partnership through FrESH with the junk food industry, and Big Ag such as Bayer, BASF, Cargill, Pepsico amongst others.

FRESH’s Junk Collaborators.

Fake food is thus building on a century and a half of food imperialism and food colonisation of our diverse food knowledges and food cultures.

Big Food and Big Money is behind the Fake Food Industry. Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos are funding startups.

We need to decolonise our food cultures and our minds of Food imperialism

The industrial west has always been arrogant, and ignorant, of the cultures it has colonised. “Fake Food” is just the latest step in a history of food imperialism.

Soya is a gift of East Asia, where it has been a food for millennia. It was only eaten as fermented food to remove its’ anti-nutritive factors. But recently, GMO soya has created a soya imperialism, destroying plant diversity. It continues the destruction of the diversity of rich edible oils and plant based proteins of Indian dals that we have documented.

Women from India’s slums called on me to bring our mustard back when GMO soya oil started to be dumped on India, and local oils and cold press units in villages were made illegal. That is when we started the “sarson (mustard) satyagraha“ to defend our healthy cold pressed oils from dumping of hexane-extracted GMO soya oil. Hexane is a neurotoxin.

While Indian peasants knew that pulses fix nitrogen, the west was industrialising agriculture based on synthetic nitrogen which contributes to greenhous gases, dead zones in the ocean, and dead soils. While we ate a diversity of “dals” in our daily “dal roti“ the British colonisers, who had no idea of the richness of the nutrition of pulses, reduced them to animal food. Chana became chick pea, gahat became horse gram, tur became pigeon pea.

We stand at a precipice of a planetary emergency, a health emergency, a crisis of farmers livelihoods. Fake Food will accelerate the rush to collapse. Real food gives us a chance to rejuvenate the earth, our food economies, food sovereignty and food cultures. Through real food we can decolonise our food cultures and our consciousness. We can remember that food is living and gives us life.

Boycott GMO Impossible Burger. Make tofu. Cook Dal.

The US-UK “Special Relationship” is a Farce

Peter Bolton

The beginning of this month saw the sorry spectacle of Trump’s state visit to the United Kingdom. In spite of him hurling insults at London’s mayor and shamelessly intruding into British political affairs by endorsing Boris Johnson in the Conservative Party leadership race, the UK government nonetheless rolled out the red carpet and spared no expense in kissing his derrière. Though only two members of his immediate family have official positions within his administration, Trump brought the whole clan along for the festivities, including a four-course banquet hosted by the Queen, which the UK government didn’t hesitate to accommodate. This nauseating act of sycophancy was, of course, funded entirely by public money. This is no small matter in a country in which a significant proportion of its population, according to a recent United Nations report, has been subjected to “systematic immiseration” as a result of a decade-long austerity program enacted by successive Conservative governments.

But none of this seems to matter to the mainstream press on both sides of the Atlantic, which waxed lyrical about the so-called “Special Relationship” between the two nations. Odes were sung to (now former) Prime Minister Theresa May’s jubilant talk of an “enduring partnership” and Trump’s promise that his administration will work to forge a “phenomenal” trade deal with a post-Brexit UK. The coverage got particularly gushing when May harkened back to the two countries’ cooperation on D-day during the Second World War, which forms part of the Anglo-American mythology that it was “us,” rather than the Soviet Union, that defeated Hitler.

But for all the pomp and ceremony and lazy self-congratulation in the media, there’s one glaring problem: the “Special Relationship” is a complete farce. And as a historical analysis shows, the reality is that the alliance is one of utter subservience. It all began, ironically enough, after the Second World War. Though Britain was technically on the winning side, it turned out to be a pyrrhic victory. The conflict left the UK and the rest of Western Europe bankrupt. US defense spending soon began to dwarf that of Britain – and, indeed, that of the rest of the world. The bankruptcy also forced the UK to dispense with its remaining colonies – a process that Washington encouraged. Any lingering doubt about the end of its status as a world power was demolished a decade later in 1956 when it was humiliated during the Suez Crisis. After sending troops to the Sinai Peninsula in response to then-Egyptian President Gamal Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal, the US successfully pressured Britain to withdraw its forces. Ever since, the UK has had no real foreign policy of its own – it simply follows orders from Washington.

As a result, successive post-war British governments have supported practically every major US foreign policy intervention since, often in spite of overwhelming public opposition. The February 2003 mobilization against the Iraq War in London, for instance, has been described as “the largest protest event in human history.” Yet Tony Blair, of the center-left Labour Party, supported George W. Bush’s invasion nonetheless. This followed a long-established historical pattern. The UK contributed British troops to the First Gulf War, launched by George H.W. Bush, in the early 1990s. Paradoxically, it also backed Ronald Reagan’s support for Iraq during its conflict with Iran in the 1980s – and, like the US, supplied then-President Saddam Hussein’s governments with weapons. A similar story played out during the Vietnam War. Though Britain did not contribute troops, historian Mark Curtis points out that Britain “gave important private backing to the US at every stage of military escalation.”

Of course, there are those who attempt to play down Britain’s subservience and argue that it is still an important country on the world stage in its own right. They point, for example, to the fact that Britain has a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and an independent nuclear deterrent. But can anyone seriously imagine the UK casting a different vote at the Security Council from that of the US? As for the UK’s nuclear deterrent, known as “Trident,” it has been described by former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix as “more a question of sentimental status-seeking” than sensible policy. “I think it’s a tremendous cost, and I do not see that it really, perceptively adds to British security,” Blix said during an Al-Jazeera interview with Mehdi Hassan, adding that there was no particular enthusiasm for Trident in Washington.

Nonetheless, US neoconservatives have the gall to complain that the US contributes a disproportionately large sum to NATO’s budget. Trump himself repeated this mantra during the state visit. “The prime minister and I agree that our NATO allies must increase their defense spending, we’ve both been working very hard to that end,” he stated, adding:

We expect a growing number of nations to meet the minimum 2 percent of GDP requirement. To address today’s challenges, all members of the alliance must fulfil their obligations. They have no choice.

Here we get a glimpse into the incredible narcissism and psychopathy of US power. Make no mistake, Washington’s foreign policy is predicated on one thing and one thing alone – advancing its own geostrategic interests and those of its corporate masters, which neocons now literally make no secret of. The UK and Washington’s other European allies neither benefit from nor have any say over major foreign policy decisions – as was made crystal clear by Donald Rumsfeld and other Bush Jr. administration officials in the run-up to the Iraq War. So, the neocons essentially want Washington’s NATO allies to pay more while remaining completely impotent on the world stage. Large sections of the British public seem to have woken up to this fact, as evidenced by extensive polling data showing overwhelming opposition to UK support for US foreign military interventions and mass demonstrations such as the aforementioned march against the Iraq War.

What, then, explains successive UK governments’ loyalty to US foreign policy? The answer lies in the realm of economics. For one thing, UK economic and political elites benefit from the process of globalized capitalism that the US imperial system upholds. This largely explains why “Brexit” was led by figures such as Jacob Rees-Mogg and Nigel Farage – both of whom made fortunes in London through involvement in the kinds of work that have been made insanely lucrative by this system. Boris Johnson (who at the time of writing is poised to become the UK’s next prime minister), on the other hand, made his fortune propagandizing for it as a “journalist” at right-wing publications like The Spectator. These figures see the European Union as providing the last vestiges of those pesky regulations and social protections that, for all its imperfections, the EU does provide to some limited extent. To them, leaving the EU would free the UK from this counterbalance to US corporate power and allow full integration into the yoke of US world economic hegemony. This looming reality was on full display during Trump’s visit as he openly boasted about how a post-Brexit US-UK trade deal could lead to privatization of the National Health Service by US corporate interests. Given that proposing such a thing has long been considered political suicide since the institution was founded in 1948, it is clear just how great a threat US globalized capitalism is not just to such social democratic gains as public universal healthcare but to the very idea of democracy itself.

But what, then, explains Labour governments also falling in line with US foreign policy? In the case of Tony Blair, it was simply a matter of him being a right-wing infiltrator who hijacked the Labour Party to serve the same interests represented by the Conservative Party. But for previous Labour leaders, the answer to this question is a bit more complex. As both the sole remaining superpower and the largest economy in the world, the US has had huge economic as well as political influence over Europe since the end of the Second World War. The US’s huge import market has given it immense buying power that exerts enormous economic pressure on European exporters. They need their governments to be on friendly terms with the US government, which largely acts as the political wing of corporations and financial capital, in order to maintain access to the huge North American market. Furthermore, European governments have been subservient to Washington via its preferred international organizations, especially the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In 1976, for instance, the Labour government of James Callaghan was offered a loan from the IMF on the condition of enacting austerity measures. In spite of fierce opposition from the labor movement his party was founded to represent, he followed IMF dictates. (Ironically, this was the direct cause of the “Winter of Discontent” of the late 1970s – not, as is often falsely claimed, his initial (mildly) left-wing policies.) Washington has used this imbalanced economic relationship to demand obedience to its foreign policy. And European government have, for the most part, been too scared to ever test whether or not Washington is bluffing.

In short, successive UK governments have seen themselves as having two options vis-a-vis relations with the US – either to kowtow to Washington and stay afloat in the global economy or else sink. Whether the choice was actually this binary is, of course, somewhat of an academic question at this point. Perhaps it was a necessity of the power structure of the Cold War era or perhaps it was a case of an overly meek Labour Party failing to stand up to Washington. But either way, in the here and now there is a huge opportunity for a change of course. Though the Cold War is over, US power is also in decline. Any remaining lipstick on the ugly face of US neoliberal imperialism was washed away by the election of Donald Trump, who personifies the fascist trajectory that it had long been taking. Though the US has long been one of the most hated countries in the world, his presidency has plunged its image and reputation to new depths of acrimonious scorn across the globe. Furthermore, several developments in global affairs have brought the primacy of US power into question. From the failure of the US-instigated coup attempt in Venezuela (supposedly the US’s “backyard”) to the refusal of European governments to cooperate with the Iran nuclear deal withdrawal, there are growing signs that US power might be on the wane. Above all, the rise of Russia and China as major players on the world stage who are consistently willing to take an independent approach signals a seismic shift in global power relations. In Latin American and Africa, they have proven themselves as more neutral actors who, unlike the US, will happily invest without attaching political strings – as has so long been Washington’s modus operandi.

On the back of these developments, the UK along with the US’s other historic European allies have the opportunity to create a new non-aligned movement to challenge US global hegemony. Democratization and grassroots organizing has led to the UK Labour Party being led by an actual socialist for the first time since the early 1980s. It is currently the largest political party in Europe by membership. The election of Alexis Tsipras in Greece and the emergence of left-wing populist parties like Podemos in Spain and the Five Star Movement in Italy leaves open the possibility of a Europe-wide progressive movement that could resist US power.

In sum, the UK puts a lot into its alliance with the US and gets little in return. The ultimate irony of the “Special Relationship” is that the UK is not even the US’s number one ally; that distinction goes to Israel. The UK would do better to forge a more independent stance on foreign policy – even if doing so doesn’t ultimately affect US behavior on the international stage in the short- to medium-term. In the run up to the Iraq War, for instance, the French government of Jacque Chirac took a brave stand against Washington by refusing the back the UN resolution to intervene in Iraq. Even if the UK had done likewise, it probably wouldn’t have affected the outcome. But it would have at least underlined how the US was at core unilaterally launching an illegal war of aggression. But as life-long anti-imperialist George Galloway pointed out at the time, Tony Blair instead choose to become Bush’s poodle in order to preserve the “Special Relationship” – even though the price was British dignity.

India, Pakistan and China increasing nuclear arsenals size

Abdus Sattar Ghazali 

At the start of 2019, the United States, Russia, Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea had a total of some 13,865 nuclear weapons, according to a new report by the Stockholm-based International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

That represents a decrease of 600 nuclear weapons compared to the start of 2018 but all nuclear weapon-possessing countries are modernizing (upgrading) these arms – and China, India and Pakistan are also increasing the size of their arsenals, the SIPRI report added.

North Korea has an estimated 20 to 30 nuclear warheads, which SIPRI said was a priority for the country’s national security strategy. However, it noted that North Korea has not tested a nuclear weapon or long-range ballistic missile since it entered into denuclearization talks with the United States in 2018.

France has 300 nuclear warheads, China 290, the UK 200 and Israel 80 to 90.

To date, the United States is the only country to have the ignominy of resorting to the use of nuclear weapons when it dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima (August 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (August 9, 1945) in the final days of World War II.

Within the first four months of the bombings, the radiation had already killed 90,000–166,000 people in Hiroshima and 60,000–80,000 in Nagasaki; nearly half of the deaths in each city occurred on the first day of the bombings.

Israeli nuclear arsenal

In total, the SIPRI report estimated that Israel possesses between 80 and 90 nuclear weapons, an increase over previous years.

The SIPRI report described Israel’s nuclear arsenal as follows: 30 gravity bombs capable of delivering nuclear weapons by fighter jets; an additional 50 warheads that can be delivered by land-based ballistic missiles; and an unknown number of nuclear-armed, sea-launched cruise missiles that would grant Israel a sea-based second-strike capability.

During a speech last August in front of the Dimona nuclear reactor in the Negev Desert, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to use nuclear weapons to “wipe out” Israel’s enemies. More recently, Netanyahu and his allies in the U.S. accused Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons, despite the fact that intelligence agencies of both the U.S. and Israel have long recognized that Iran has no such program.

India and Pakistan

Nuclear rivals India and Pakistan, which have 130 to 140 and 150 to 160 nuclear warheads respectively, are increasing the size of their arsenals while also developing new systems.

“India and Pakistan are expanding their military fissile material production capabilities on a scale that may lead to significant increases in the size of their nuclear weapon inventories over the next decade,” said Shannon Kile, director of the SIPRI Nuclear Arms Control Program.

It may be recalled, the Congressional Research Service’s May 15 2009 report to US lawmaker said that Pakistan’s nuclear energy program dates back to the 1950s “but it was the loss of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in a bloody war with India that probably triggered a political decision in January 1972 (just one month later) to begin a secret nuclear weapons program.”

“The origins of the Pakistani nuclear program lies in the deep national humiliation of the 1971 war with India that led to the partition of the country, the independence of Bangladesh and the destruction of the dream of a single Muslim state for all of south Asia’s Muslim population.”

On the other hand, White House insider Bruce Riedel, who co-authored the Obama administration’s Af-Pak policy, offered the following sequence in a op-ed, broadly concurring with the CRS report:

“The new prime minister of those times, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, secretly convened the country’s top 50 scientists in January 1972 and challenged them to build a bomb. He famously said that Pakistanis would sacrifice everything and “eat grass” to get a nuclear deterrent. The 1974 Indian nuclear test helped Pakistan to tell the world that this is the cause of their nuclear bomb. Starting in 1972, Pakistan came up with its own nuclear bomb in 1998 with the slight help of China, just a few days after India’s second nuclear test.”

The CRS Report further added, “Mr. Bhutto received an unsolicited letter from a Pakistani scientist who had studied in Louvain, Belgium, Abdul Qadeer Khan, offering to help by illegally acquiring sensitive centrifuge technology from his new employers at a nuclear facility in the Netherlands. Over the next few years—with the assistance of the Pakistani intelligence service, the Inter Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI)—Mr. Khan would acquire the key technology to help Pakistan produce fissionable material to make a bomb.”

Both the CRS report and Riedel pointed out to the help which China gave to Pakistan in its nuclear weapons quest, a subject successive US administrations are leery of broaching for fear of angering Beijing. “Islamabad gained technology from many illegal sources,” says the CRS report, adding, “This extensive assistance is reported to have included, among other things, uranium enrichment technology from Europe (stolen by Khan, according to Riedel), blueprints for a small nuclear weapon from China, and missile technology from China and North Korea.”

India plans a covert military attack on a Pakistani nuclear reactor

In their book, Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the Global Nuclear Conspiracy, Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark claim that Indian military officials secretly travelled to Israel in February 1983 to buy electronic warfare equipment to neutralize Kahuta’s air defences. Israel reportedly also provided India with technical details of the F-16 aircraft in exchange for Indians providing them some details about the MiG-23 aircraft. In mid- to late-1983, according to strategic affairs expert Bharat Karnad, Indira Gandhi asked the IAF once again to plan for an air strike on Kahuta.

The mission was cancelled after Pakistani nuclear scientist Munir Ahmed Khan met Indian Atomic Energy Commission chief-designate Raja Ramanna at an international meet in Vienna and threatened a retaliatory strike on Bhabha Atomic Research Centre at Trombay, according to Sushant Singh of Indian Express who also wrote in October 2015:

The next time India is believed to have seriously considered attacking Kahuta was in September-October 1984. It has also been rumored that Israeli air force was part of the plans to attack Kahuta in 1984 because it did not want to see an “Islamic Bomb” developed by Pakistan. Israel was supposed to lead this attack and not merely play the role of advising the IAF. Bharat Karnad has written that Israeli aircraft were to be staged from Jamnagar airfield in Gujarat, refuel at a satellite airfield in North India and track the Himalayas to avoid early radar detection, but Indira Gandhi eventually vetoed the idea. Levy and Scott-Clark though claim that Indira Gandhi had signed off on the Israeli-led operation in March 1984 but backed off after the US state department warned India “the US will be responsive if India persists”.

Earlier inn January 2015, India Times reported:  “In 1981, India planned to bomb Pakistan’s nuclear plant at Kahuta, inspired by Israeli attack on under-construction Iraqi nuclear reactors, the India Times reported on January 25, 2017.”

According to the India Times about 930,000 declassified documents posted online by the CIA provide interesting insights into India’s increasing concerns over Pakistan’s nuclear program in the early 80s. One such set of documents pointed out how India had planned to bomb Pakistan’s nuclear plant at Kahuta. This was a covert operation planned by India that was shelved after international pressure.

The India Times also said:

“Secret documents revealed that the US Ambassador to Pakistan handed over a letter by President Ronald Reagan to General Zia-ul Haq which warned Pakistan about a possible Indian military attack on the Pakistan’s nuclear reactor at Kahuta.

“An article in Washington Post in 1982 revealed Indira Gandhi was advised by the Indian military to target the Pakistani nuclear plant.

“Israel, according to reports, wanted to use Gujarat’s Jamnagar base to launch its jets and another base for refuelling. In March 1984, Indira okayed the operation, bringing India, Pakistan and Israel within striking distance of a nuclear conflict. But Gandhi backed off after the Regan administration warned of action, say reports.”

2019 report  about India-Israel joint plan to target Pakistani nuclear facilities

More recently, Daily Pakistan Global reported on March 4, 2019, Pakistan has disclosed a joint plan by India and Israel to target its nuclear facilities ostensibly on the pretext of anti-terror war in the wake of Pulwama attack.

The daily reported that as tension between Pakistan and India lingers on, official reports by the government of Pakistan confirm that India and Israel were ready for a joint attack against Pakistan, however, the threat of retaliation and active vigilance staved off the strike a few days ago.

Multiple journalists in Pakistan, while quoting official sources and meeting with Prime Minister Imran Khan have revealed that the joint plan was thwarted due to the contact between the spy agencies of the South-Asian countries and threat of retaliation by the armed forces of Pakistan. “High-level sources have informed us that there was a plan to attack 7-8 places in Pakistan from a base in Rajasthan, India. Pakistan had learnt that Israel was helping India in this plan and this was a joint plan of these countries,” the Daily Pakistan Global quoted a veteran journalist as saying.

Interestingly Shimon Arad, a retired Israeli colonel, wrote on National Interest website in February 2018, ‘How Israel and Pakistan Can Avoid a Nuclear Showdown?’ He said:

“The advancement of Pakistan’s nuclear-missile capabilities and Israel’s growing military ties with India are increasing their respective military relevance for each other. In the absence of formal diplomatic relations and against the backdrop of a prevailing antagonistic public dialogue, the need for an effective and discreet channel of communication between Islamabad and Jerusalem to mitigate misunderstandings and misperceptions about each other’s intentions is growing.

Col. Arad  recalled that a website called “AWD News” claimed that Israel’s defense minister had threatened to destroy Pakistan with a nuclear attack if it sent ground troops to Syria on any pretext. Although clearly fake (the website misidentified the Israeli defense minister as Moshe Ya’alon, who resigned in the previous May), Pakistan’s defense minister hastily tweeted a nuclear threat and warned Israel that “Pakistan is a nuclear state too.”

Solarisation of Agriculture is the need of the hour

Yuz Gonsalves

Undoubtedly, agriculture is a power intensive sector. Farmers predominantly rely on diesel and electric pumps for irrigation. However, the scale of use of diesel and electric pumps in the sector contribute to severe environmental problems.

Diesel pumps depend on exploitation of fossil fuel resources, increase fuel cost for farmers and emit toxic fumes that pollute the environment and affect human health. Whereas, electric pumps which are operated on subsidised or free electricity supplied by state governments also largely depend on fossil fuel. While the need for irrigation in today’s increasingly unpredictable climatic conditions is indisputable, diesel and electric pumps are not sustainable long term solutions.

In regard to this, solar irrigation is a crucial part of India’s efforts to transform towards renewable energy. Of India’s target of achieving 175 GW of renewable energy by 2022, 100 GW is solar-based.

I here, want to present a brief analysis of couple of successful solar irrigation models, I had chance to visit.

Vaishali in Bihar

A German development agency, has been experimenting with different service delivery models in the eastern parts of India. GIZ piloted a service delivery model of pay-as-you-go in Vaishali district (Lalpur, Baniya and Harharo) of Bihar. Envisioned as a community based model, it is based on sharing a solar pump within an irrigation water-sharing group of farmers. The GIZ pilot collaborated with a local organisation, VASFA, to implement its pilot solar irrigation project in Vaishali district. So far, this collaboration has resulted in the implementation of 3 fixed solar irrigation pumps and 5 portable solar irrigation pumps.

These solar irrigation pumps are managed and operated by farmers groups. The farmers sharing the solar pump either need to have their land adjacent to the water pump or within the catchment area of the pump. Each group has a group leader elected from the group for oversight and collection of service charges and an operator for daily operation of pump. Water is sold to group members on priority and then to surrounding farmers for a service charge based on the quantum of water delivered. The sequence in which members and non-members receive water in a particular day is decided by the group leader. Data analysis by externals also shows that the solar irrigation pump in Lalpura village is predominantly used by members of the group. The service charge to be collected is decided by the group and the charge for non-members is slightly higher than that for members. Both group members receive water at Rs 30 per hour, and non-members hire the services of the pump at Rs 50 per hour. The collected money is used for salary of the operator and the rest is deposited with VASFA for maintenance of the asset. The catchment area of the pump is about 40 acres. The areas nearer to the pump are serviced through canals and the remaining areas are serviced through delivery pipes. The experience of farmer’s organizations with the solar irrigation has so far been positive.

Dhundi in Gujarat

A grid-connected solar irrigation pump was installed in Thamna village of Anand district in Gujarat in 2015, the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) in collaboration with the Tata Trust initiated conversation with farmers in Dhundi village. The Cooperative was to implement six grid-connected solar irrigation pumps with a total capacity of 56.4 kWp that can ensure irrigation and evacuation of solar power to utility grid. The cooperative was formally registered in February 2016; it was deemed to be the first solar cooperative in the world.

The benefits from this project have been multifold. Use of diesel has almost come to an end in our village. The income that the cooperative members earn from sale of water and electricity has substantially improved farmers lives.

For all nine solar pumps that are in Dhundi, the cooperative reports that the company has provided support whenever required, both over telephone and through trips to Dhundi. In 2017, when three of Keiloskar’s pumps malfunctioned, cleantech company transported them to their workshop, repaired them and installed them back. This grid-connected solar irrigation model implemented by IWMI-TATA not only ensures assured access to irrigation and electricity, it also provides the farmer with the dual economic benefit of selling surplus electricity to the DISCOM and selling water to farmers. This has resulted in substantial economic benefit to the nine cooperative members in Dhundi. However, a large portion of the equipment cost was borne by the project, without which the project may not have been viable.

Conclusion

It must be noted that both these irrigation models were initiated by private companies but the farmer groups assisted them and ownership remains with the farmer groups. Therefore, in countries such as India which are suffering from high temperatures, heat waves and scarce water resources, the solar irrigation systems could also contribute to an efficient water management. This is all the more important as farmers have to face three challenges: save water, money and energy. Solar irrigation systems shall turn out to be the perfect answer to face these challenges. Although these systems are still quite expensive and complicated to settle, government subsidies and policy intervention by state and central governments can help in democratization of the use of solar power in agriculture, which, in the future (and even now), could play a vital part in the management of the food and energy crisis.

US-backed repression by Honduran military leaves four dead

Andrea Lobo

The repression by the Honduran regime of Juan Orlando Hernández against mass strikes and demonstrations that began on April 26 over efforts to facilitate the privatization of the education and health care sectors turned to the open use of deadly violence, as the military began firing volleys of live bullets into crowds on Wednesday.

Eblin Noel Corea, 17, was shot dead at a demonstration in the central department of La Paz, while Luis Antonio Maldonado, 29, was fatally shot in the head in Tegucigalpa. Hospital authorities reported at least 21 demonstrators were injured that day, most of them from gunfire. Reuters and local media reported that the deaths and injuries were the result of “repression by the military.”

On Thursday, local media reported that two youth—one identified as Eliud Orellana— were shot dead at a roadblock by unidentified attackers near the Caribbean town of Jutiapa, where teachers have been leading protest actions since late April.

The brutal repression has only fueled the mass demonstrations, while teachers and doctors continue to strike, and roadblocks are built and rebuilt. The anniversary of the June 28 military coup in 2009, which was backed by the Obama administration and installed the National Party regime, continued by Hernández, is expected to generate even more widespread demonstrations calling for an end of the US-backed regime.

Reports in the US corporate media this week have repeated that on May 29 and June 2, respectively, the gates of the US embassy and dozens of Dole fruit containers and trucks were burned down presumably by demonstrators. The response by US corporate circles in defense of their property and trade across the Central American isthmus has been ruthless. Dole temporarily suspended the contracts of over 3.000 workers to demonstrate its willingness to cut the means of subsistence for entire impoverished towns.

Washington is openly backing the deadly repression as fears mount that demonstrators will target US investments. Privatizations, austerity and repression are being orchestrated from Washington to defend the interests of US capital and its local client elite.

The latest killings follow the activities of death squads snatching demonstrators in broad daylight earlier this month, and the finding on June 3 of the dead body of a young doctor who was participating in the protests in the western department of Copán.

Truckers struck and joined demonstrators Monday in blocking the key highway CA-5, which connects the city of San Pedro Sula with the capital, Tegucigalpa. The truckers, both owners and employees, were demanding higher rates for their services. On Thursday, when fuel shortages were becoming widespread, Tegucigalpa business organizations demanded an end to the strike. The truckers’ associations reached an undisclosed deal with the government to end the action.

Between Tuesday night and Thursday night, hundreds of anti-riot police went on strike, after using tear gas and firing their guns into the sky to kick out their superiors and occupy their main base in Tegucigalpa. While demanding improvements in their conditions and a halt to the repression, police were filmed chanting “Out JOH [Juan Orlando Hernández]!”. A spokesman chosen by strikers apologized for the repression and declared “We don’t want a government that is not worth it.”

In response, the Department of Disciplinary Affairs of the Police threatened strikers that they had all been identified and would be fired, while Hernández responded by deploying the military across the country.

By Friday morning, the police ended the strike, agreeing to a set of pitiful and empty promises by the regime to improve food and uniform quality, respect human rights, make no reprisals. The police agreed to pursue their grievances within the established “internal channels.”

In recent years, the police forces have repeatedly responded to the escalation of deadly repression against demonstrations by striking, which led the Hernández government, in partnership with USAID, the Inter-American Development Bank, several US think tanks and firms such as Giuliani Security & Safety (owned by Trump’s attorney and former New York City mayor, Rudy Giuliani) to initiate in 2016 a seemingly permanent Special Purge and Transformation Commission. This body has fired more than 5,200 officers, alleging corruption and human rights abuses, while its representatives travel frequently to Washington to report directly to the US State Department.

Criterio reported that the police strikers expressed fears, recalling the reprisals that followed when police struck across Honduras in late 2017 during the brutal crackdown that left more than 30 demonstrators dead during protests against the fraudulent election of Hernández. “Many were fired, others jailed, and others escaped the country,” the report notes.

The purge was framed as a response to the widely reported killing in March 2016 of environmental activist Berta Cáceres, which saw four Honduran military officers arrested, two trained by the US. However, it has been used as an axe to threaten police against striking. Most officers live in the impoverished neighborhoods that are subject to the social attacks and terror of the regime.

This aim was explicitly revealed by the statements of the Honduran National Council on Defense and Security led by Hernández and the US government. It passed a resolution Thursday backing “police transformation and consolidation” while expressing thanks for “the backing of international cooperation.” On Wednesday, the US embassy in Honduras tweeted about its “firm support for the reform of the Honduras Police.”

Most strikingly, however, the commander of the US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), which oversees Pentagon operations across Central and South America, Adm. Craig Faller, arrived in Honduras Friday morning to participate in the opening ceremony of the deployment in the country of a Marine-SOUTHCOM special purpose task force.

This followed reports Thursday night that gunfire was exchanged, without resulting in casualties, between police strikers and the military police sent to patrol the police base in Tegucigalpa.

After a century and a half of imperialist political control and economic plunder of Honduras, which was used as a platform for US counter-insurrectionary operations during the civil wars in the 1980s across Central America, the presence of the US commander during the deadly crackdown in Honduras should be taken as a warning that US imperialism is ready to renew its direct military interventions in its “backyard” against any challenge to its interests from below.

More broadly, Washington is turning Central America into an open-air labor prison. After blackmailing Mexico with threats of tariffs, the Trump administration has secured the mobilization of thousands of Mexican military and an expansion of checkpoints and detention camps across southern Mexico against immigrants. It has also begun joint deployments of the US border patrol and the Guatemalan police and military along Guatemala’s northern border.

While Trump threatens to begin mass roundups and the deportation of “millions” starting on Sunday across the US, it has become clear that the Mexican government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has agreed not only to deploy its troops as an extension of the US border patrol, but also to play the role of colonial administrator. It is has reached “cooperation” agreements over the last week with the governments of the Northern Triangle—Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras—to “join efforts in dealing with irregular migration.”

US names Taiwan a “country,” stoking tensions with China

Robert Campion

The United States continues to pursue a reckless course in the Asia-Pacific by ratcheting up tensions with China over Taiwan. This includes the possibility of a break with the longstanding “one China” policy, as well as deepening political and military ties between Washington and Taipei.

The US Defense Department’s “Indo-Pacific Strategy Report,” released June 1, designates Taiwan a “country.” The wording is highly provocative to Beijing, which views Taiwan as a renegade province that should one day rejoin the Chinese mainland. As such, Beijing has repeatedly stated that any moves to declare an independent Taiwan will lead to a military confrontation.

The report denounces China as a “revisionist power,” stating, “As democracies in the Indo-Pacific, Singapore, Taiwan, New Zealand, and Mongolia are reliable, capable, and natural partners of the United States. All four countries contribute to US missions around the world and are actively taking steps to uphold a free and open international order.” (emphasis added)

The statement was neither an innocuous remark nor a mistake, given the emphasis Washington is placing on its military build-up in Asia. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan made this clear when he wrote in the report’s opening line, “The Indo-Pacific is the Department of Defense’s priority theatre.”

Beijing is deeply sensitive to any suggestion of Taiwanese independence, including even the use of the name Taiwan in an official capacity. The reference to Taiwan as a country, rather than as part of China, goes against the “1992 Consensus” in which both Beijing and Taipei accept that there is only one China but agree to disagree on which is the rightful ruler of China. In addition, since 1979, the United States has formally recognized Beijing as “China,” despite maintaining close economic and military ties with Taipei.

The decision to flout this longstanding policy in a prominent defence paper is highly provocative and aimed at placing additional pressure on China while deepening relations between Washington and Taipei in preparation for war. It comes as the Trump administration has increased weapons sales to Taiwan, held exchanges between high-level officials, and increased the number of warships passing through the Taiwan Strait.

On Monday, the Wall Street Journal, quoting three anonymous White House officials, published an article claiming a rift exists in the Trump administration over its Taiwan policy, with a faction fearing that closer relations with Taipei will harm the chance of a trade deal with Beijing. At one point, Trump reportedly greeted attempts by anti-China hawks to build closer relations with Taipei with anger. However, Trump came around “and he now sees the value in using Taiwan as a bargaining chip in his talks with China,” the Wall Street Journal writes.

Regardless of the behind-the-scenes machinations, Washington’s moves to strengthen Taipei politically and militarily are worrying Beijing. “There is growing anxiety in China that the administration is really pushing the envelope and no longer adhering to any sense of maintaining an unofficial relationship with Taiwan, and maybe even moving toward abandoning the One China policy,” stated Bonnie Glaser, a senior adviser for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

China has repeatedly stated it will use military force to prevent Taiwan from declaring or being recognized as a separate independent country. Speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue summit in Singapore earlier this month, Chinese Defense Minister Gen. Wei Fenghe stated, “China must be and will be reunified. We find no excuse not to do so. If anyone dares to split Taiwan from China, the Chinese military has no choice but to fight, at all costs, for national unity.”

Beijing’s concerns are driven by other recent provocations. On June 6, US and Taiwanese officials met in Taipei for the re-naming ceremony of Taiwan’s de facto embassy in Washington. Previously known as the Coordination Council for North American Affairs, the new agency is called the Taiwan Council for US Affairs, utilizing both the name of the island and the US. Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, who attended the event, called the renaming a “milestone” in relations between the two. She was joined by the de facto US ambassador to Taiwan, Brent Christensen.

In May, Taiwan’s national security chief David Lee met his counterpart, national security advisor John Bolton, in Washington—the first such top-level visit since 1979. The visit is one of an increasing number of high-level exchanges since Washington passed the Taiwan Travel Act in March 2018, authorizing such contact.

US naval incursions as a show of force through the Taiwan Strait are also becoming routine despite the fact that Beijing has threatened to retaliate militarily if it believes a US war ship is likely to dock at a Taiwanese port. The latest provocation through the strait took place on May 22 involving the guided missile destroyer USS Preble and the oiler USNS Walter S Diehl.

Washington also intends to sell $2.6 billion worth of tanks and missiles to Taiwan, including 108 M1A2 Abrams tanks as well as 250 Stinger anti-air missiles, 409 Javelin and 1,240 TOW anti-tank missiles. Undoubtedly, this is what the “Indo-Pacific Strategy Report” refers to as “sustaining a credible combat-forward posture; strengthening alliances and building new partnerships; and promoting an increasingly networked region.”

The online military magazine Defense One criticized the sale for being insufficient, saying, “This would be fine if Taiwan were preparing for a ground war, but the real conflict if China invades will be at sea and in the air. Taiwan should focus on acquiring the most cost-effective methods of stopping a Chinese invading force before it lands.”

The reality though is that for all the talk of “Chinese aggression,” it is the US that is preparing for war on the Asian continent, with Taiwan a major base for launching attacks. Since 2008, the US has sold more than $22 billion worth of arms to Taiwan.

European Union rearms for World War III

Johannes Stern

Following the announcement last week by the US Defense Department of its biggest ever arms deal involving the purchase of nearly 500 F-35 fighters, Europe replied in kind on Monday. At the world’s largest air show in Le Bourget near Paris, the German defence minister Ursula von der Leyen, together with her colleagues from France, Florence Parly, and Spain, Margarita Robles, signed major agreements to develop a joint European air combat system (Future Combat Air System—FCAS).

Ursula von der Leyen (left), Future Combat Air System (right). Credit: WikiMedia Commons.

The cost of FCAS, which is announced to be operational by 2040, is immense. Up to €8 billion will flow into joint development alone. Overall, costs are expected to be more than €100 billion. The Handelsblatt newspaper reports that “by the middle of the century” the FCAS project could devour “up to €500 billion.” The same sum would finance Germany’s entire education budget for 27 years!

The massive armaments project is part of plans to transform the European Union into a major military power capable of waging war independently of and, if necessary, against the United States.

According to a report posted on the official web site of the German Defence Department: “FCAS is not just a fighter plane, but a composite system.” Under the proposed “‘System of Systems,’ manned fighter aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles (‘remote carriers’) would be integrated into a network. In addition, navy vessels and land vehicles could be included in the network. Air force, navy and army could thereby act closely together.”

After the unveiling of a first model of the new NGWS (New Generation Weapon System) at Le Bourget, von der Leyen said: “Today is an important day in two respects: firstly, the Franco-German fighter plane system is a big step forward in modernising the Bundeswehr (German army). But secondly, it is also a great day for the European Defence Union, because for the first time we are jointly launching a European fighter system,” Thirdly, it is “a great day for European industry, which will be given a huge boost by this fighter plane system.”

The inspector general of the German air force, Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz, praised the joint development of the NGWS as a sign of “Europe’s great innovative power.” The head of the French military aircraft manufacturer Dassault Aviation, Eric Trappier, assessed the project as an important step towards achieving autonomy with regard to armaments and military requirements. Up until now, European countries have tended to buy US defence equipment. “Now we are offering Europeans a European plane that is independent of US technology,” he told the French news channel CNews.

The decision by central European powers to develop a US-independent air combat system will further exacerbate transatlantic tensions.

Most recently, at the beginning of May the US administration warned the EU against excluding US arms companies from European defence projects, describing the creation of independent European military structures, such as the European Defence Fund and enhanced EU defence cooperation (Pesco), as “deeply worrying.” A US letter dated May 1 to the EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini stated that the provisions made for both projects represented “a dramatic step back in three decades of growing integration of the trans-Atlantic defence industry.”

In response to US threats and Washington’s preparations for war against Iran, which are also directed against the economic and geostrategic interests of European powers in the region, leading EU nations are aggressively stepping up their own foreign and defence policy.

In the “Strategic Agenda for 2019-2024,” which will be adopted at the EU summit in Brussels today, the EU sets out its claim to be a world power in the future. Europe strives to “reinforce its global influence” and “influence the course of world events,” the document reads. To achieve this goal, the EU must “move forward towards a genuine European Defence Union.” This would “allow Europe to take further responsibility for its own security” and “improve its strategic autonomy.”

These plans are explicitly directed at preparing for war. The section titles “Protective Europe” states that the EU should “focus on areas where cooperation can result in clear benefits, such as in defence industry and research, cyber-defence, military mobility, hybrid crisis management, and missions and operations abroad.” Leading political and military strategists openly declare that the EU is preparing for conflicts with other major powers, entailing the danger of a third world war.

We find ourselves “in a historically unique situation in which Europe is being challenged or under pressure from three major powers—from a revisionist Russia, an economically and politically expanding China and an America, under President Trump, moving on several fronts against the EU,” declared the new president of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), Tom Enders, in a recent interview. Enders was previously head of Europe’s second largest European arms company, EADS.

“There can only be one answer,” Ender continues. “The governments of Europe must not allow themselves under any circumstances to be further divided, but must find joint answers, especially in foreign policy, foreign trade and security policy. And those in charge should not be dissuaded by threats from Washington.”

Above all Enders maintains that Germany is obliged to take the lead in developing an independent European military and great power policy. We need “a public, non-ideological, strategic debate in Germany, based on the realities of power-politics, not sentimentalities, and starting from our special responsibility for the development of Europe.” A country that “pretends to have no national interests, but always takes the moral high road and as a vegetarian in a world full of carnivores ignores the need for military measures” made a “common foreign and security policy for Europe” impossible.

Thirty years after the reunification of Germany and the restoration of capitalism in Eastern Europe, the German ruling class is openly returning to its former militaristic traditions. In a commentary headlined “Europe Needs More,” Wolfgang Schäuble, acting president of the German Bundestag and former interior and finance minister, called for the rapid development of “a European army” as “an effective instrument of security and defence policy.” In addition, it was necessary to agree “upon the type of threatening situations joint forces should be used for,” he writes.

In order to enforce this war policy in the face of the growing popular resistance, Schäuble argues, among other things, to abolish parliament’s scrutiny of military intervention enshrined in the country’s Basic Law, following the crimes committed by German imperialism during the First and Second World Wars. Accordingly, every Bundeswehr mission outside NATO territory requires the prior approval of the Bundestag.

“If Europe is serious about common defence, we have to change national laws and seek legal harmonisation,” Schäuble writes. That applies “to all partners in the Union. Even Germany with its historically justified narrow constitutional requirements—note: parliamentary accord—will have to move.”

As was the case in the 1930s, massive military rearmament and preparations for war require an authoritarian and ultimately a fascist program. That is why French President Emmanuel Macron recently paid tribute to the fascist dictator and Nazi collaborator Philippe Pétain, and the ruling class in Germany calls for “more tolerance towards the right wing” (ex-president Joachim Gauck) while tolerating right-wing extremist terrorist structures with close links to parts of the military, police and intelligence apparatus.

The fact that all the imperialist powers are preparing for war makes clear that workers and young people are faced with revolutionary tasks. European capitalism cannot be tamed any more than American capitalism. In the Manifesto of the Fourth International published at the beginning of World War II, Leon Trotsky stated: “The task posed by history is not to support one part of the imperialist system against another but to make an end of the system as a whole.”

This task is raised again today with great urgency. In order to prevent a fresh lapse into world war and barbarism, the working class must take up a struggle against all of the capitalist warmongers based on an international socialist program.

Italy: Captain in court for saving people in distress at sea

Marianne Arens 

In Italy, the captain and nine crew members of the NGO ship Juventa are under investigation. Pia Klemp, who has rescued about 5,000 people in distress in a total of six missions, faces up to 20 years imprisonment and heavy fines.

Following her biology studies, the 36-year-old captain from Bonn, Germany, had worked for the marine conservation organization Sea Shepherd and participated in missions against illegal whaling. Klemp, who initially started as a simple deckhand, later becoming a petty officer, worked her way up to become captain. From 2015, she has participated in maritime rescue operations on several ships of the non-governmental organizations Youth Rescue and Sea-Watch.

In August 2017, the Juventa, belonging to the Berlin association Jugend rettet(Youth Saves) was confiscated in the harbour of the Italian island of Lampedusa. The official Maritime Rescue Center (MRCC) in Rome had piloted it to where several Coast Guard ships with blue lights flashing and armed crew were waiting for them and secured the ship.

Since then, the Sicilian prosecutor in Trapani has initiated a lawsuit against the captain and nine other crew members, who are accused of “aiding illegal immigration, which is punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Specifically, they are accused of having collaborated with people smugglers and returned dinghies to Libya for re-use. The prosecution is relying on fabricated evidence and statements. Italian intelligence agents had bugged the Juventa, intercepted the crew’s mobile phones, and placed undercover investigators in their ranks.

Pia Klemp believes that the allegations are easy to refute. The whole thing was nothing more than “fictitious, amateurish nonsense,” she told Switzerland’s Basler Zeitung. “We have only followed international law, especially the law of the sea, where it is the top priority to save people in distress,” Klemp said. She did not expect a conviction and was prepared to go “as far as Strasbourg” (the European Court for Human Rights) if necessary. But the trial was already having grave consequences: “Rescue at sea is being criminalized. We are already being paralyzed. And that’s why people are dying on the Mediterranean.”

The aid organizations SOS Méditerrannée and Doctors Without Borders (MSF) have explicitly warned that many more people could die. The risk of drowning when crossing the Mediterranean today is four times higher than last year. Since then, Italy has consistently blocked its ports for rescuers, with at least 1,151 people having drowned in the central Mediterranean.

Those who manage to be rescued at sea usually have a year-long odyssey through North Africa behind them. In Libya, thousands of refugees are trapped in barbarous internment camps, where they face torture, rape, slavery and even murder. An EU delegation had already officially defined these prisons as “concentration camps.”

But this is not stopping the EU states tightening up their laws to prevent refugees from escaping from this hell to Europe. On June 11, at the behest of far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini (Lega), the Italian government passed a decree further obstructing rescue at sea. It threatens private rescuers who bring those rescued into Italian territorial waters with fines between 10,000 and 50,000 euros.

News weekly Der Spiegel wrote on June 14, “The dreams of Europe’s hardliners have come true: rescue at sea is almost halted, the routes across the Mediterranean are more or less closed.”

However, it is not only Europe’s “hardliners” who are responsible for this, as Der Spiegel suggests. It is not just the representatives of the far-right such as Salvini, Sebastian Kurz (Austria) or Horst Seehofer (Germany) who are involved in the decisions, but also the Social Democratic governments in Spain and Malta and the Syriza government in Greece, a close partner of Germany’s Left Party.

Since 2015, the EU has withdrawn its own rescue vessels from the Mediterranean and financed violent militias such as the Libyan Coast Guard to act as the doorkeepers of the EU, preventing refugees from reaching Europe. At the same time, more and more people are being displaced by new armed conflicts in the Maghreb and Central Africa and are forced to flee.

On June 3, a group of lawyers filed for an injunction against the EU with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague accusing the EU of crimes against humanity because of its refugee policy. This policy has led to more than 14,000 deaths in the Mediterranean in the last three years. According to the 244-page indictment, the EU and the Italian government specifically have targeted NGOs “with intimidation, defamation, harassment and official criminalization.. This indictment and the WSWS report on it reveal that the EU has a deliberate policy of mass murder.

The fate facing the crew of the Juventa is not the only case in which those openly conducting rescue missions are being criminalized and hampered with legal proceedings. The London-based Institute for Race Relations (IRR) research group has recently produced a study about how often EU citizens end up in court for assisting refugees.

One month ago, Lifeline captain Claus-Peter Reisch was fined 10,000 euros in Malta for not having properly registered his ship, which had saved migrants from drowning, according to the court.

Even on land, the authorities are acting increasingly aggressively against people who help migrants, refugees and those without legal papers. Last year alone, the IRR listed 99 cases in which people had already been charged or convicted for even minor acts of assistance. In the previous year, there had been only half as many, namely 45 cases. As the Berlin Tagesspiegel comments, the Reisch and Klemp cases are just “the visible tip of a pretty impressive iceberg.”

The list included such scandalous cases as the mayor of Riace, who had taken refugees into his community. He was placed under house arrest while the Salvini government deported all immigrants from his village. It also affected six Tunisian fishermen who had rescued shipwrecked people, as well as a Spaniard living in Morocco who had volunteered to monitor the coast to inform sea rescue services of emergencies. A French mountaineer was also prosecuted after helping a Nigerian family on the Italian-French border and bringing the pregnant mother to a hospital.

Those carrying out sea rescues, such as Pia Klemp and Claus-Peter Reisch and many others who use their lives and money to help people who are fleeing, face lawsuits that could destroy their livelihoods. Last but not least, the apprehension of the WikiLeaks founder and courageous journalist Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian embassy and his detention in the maximum-security prison in Belmarsh has literally unleashed and intensified these attacks by state authorities. As the WSWS pointed out, it has ushered in “a new stage in the destruction of democratic rights.”

However, in its report the London group IRR also points to the increase in solidarity and readiness to help in the population. Opposition to this brutal policy is clearly growing throughout Europe and around the world. This is shown by the willingness to donate and the support that the rescue teams are receiving. A petition on Change.org calling for the immediate release of the Juventa crew has received well over 200,000 signatures so far.

Commenting on the Juventa captain, Peter Scott Smith, the son of well-known World War II veteran Harry Leslie Smith, said in a tweet, “In days gone by, Pia Klemp would have rescued Jews from annihilation. The fact that she could face twenty years imprisonment in 2019 for rescuing refugees in distress condemns the EU for hypocrisy and abetting crimes against humanity for allowing this show trial in Italy.”

In May, a foundation in St. Gallen awarded the crew members of Juventa the Grüninger Prize, which is endowed with 50,000 Swiss francs. The name commemorates the Swiss border guard Paul Grüninger, who, during the Nazi period, took Jews to Switzerland and was sacked as a result by the Swiss government.

At the conclusion of her interview with the conservative Basler Zeitung, Pia Klemp told the astonished journalists: “I do not want a society where someone has to be a cleaner for 50 years, and instead of a pension, has to apply for welfare, while elsewhere there are bankers who have millions in their accounts, even though they have contributed to the financial crisis. I just do not want this predatory, criminal capitalism.”

The lawyers for Pia Klemp and the Juventa crew expect an indictment before autumn.