Ethiopia: The Agony of Tribal Nationalism

Graham Peebles

In whatever form it manifests, whether it’s distaste for foreigners, refugees and asylum seekers, a nationalistic economic policy or flag-waving patriotism, tribal nationalism is a cancer upon the world. Violent, ugly, and often deadly, it creates and strengthens divisions, often resulting in war, one after another after another throughout history.

Ethiopia is a land rich with ethnic diversity: Some 70 tribal groups live within this ancient nation, all with their own cultures, traditions, and dialects. Tolerance, understanding, and cooperation are essential within such a bountiful landscape.

Since 2018, when the repressive, TPLF-dominated EPRD regime was swept aside and the current government, led by Prime-minister Abiy Ahmed, took office, Ethiopia as an integrated stable nation has been under attack from tribal nationalists of one creed or another. Having forced the US-backed Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) terrorists to disarm, the threat facing the country now comes from extremists within the Oromo region: The Oromo Liberation Front (OLF); its armed wing the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA); the Qeerroo Oromo youth organization; sympathetic/coerced forces within the Oromo Regional Authority (ORA); radicalized elements within the district militia, the Oromo Special Forces (OSF); and many suspect, secessionist elements within the federal government itself.

This brutal coalition seems focused on eradicating the Amhara people from the Oromo region, reducing the overall Amhara population and forcing the creation of an Oromo Republic. They are engaged in a deadly campaign of destruction, threatening to tear the country apart, a project which by any definition qualifies as genocide.

Death, displacement and division

A significant date in the campaign to purge Oromo of Amhara people is the Burayu Massacre of 14-16 September 2018, five months after PM Ahmed became prime-minister and invited exiled political groups to return to Ethiopia. Buoyed by the return of the OLF, a gaggle of Oromo thugs (including radicalized youth), under the banner of ‘Abe Torbee’ (People of the Weak), attacked Amhara people, property and businesses, killing, mainstream media reported, 23 people. Since then thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, have died; hundreds of thousands internally displaced – in a country with the highest number of displaced persons in Africa.

The UN estimate it to be around 5.5 million, but when many of those scattered are living not in organized UNHCR refugee camps, but in makeshift shelters, abandoned buildings or simply on the land, collating accurate statistics is virtually impossible. Suffice to say, huge numbers of men, women, and children, who were living simple, often grueling lives in rural/semi-rural Ethiopia, are destitute, traumatized, and frightened, as a result of the terrorist actions of either the OLF/OLA and associated gangs, or the TPLF.

Ethnic cleansing (a deeply repugnant, inflammatory term, like ‘genocide’) forms the cornerstone of a coordinated Oromo strategy aimed at igniting social unrest and institutional instability in which power becomes usurped, or consolidated. To this end, an assault was made on The Ethiopia Orthodox Tewahedo Church (EOTC) by Oromo nationalists on 22 January.

Three Orthodox bishops unilaterally declared the creation of the “Holy Synod of Oromia”; arguing that their decision was prompted by the failure of the EOTC to offer religious services in tribal languages. This is a hollow justification: EOTC priests routinely preach in regional languages and have always done so. To the dismay of many, the government in the form of PM Abiy, appeared to support the ‘rebel bishops’. Amhara Association of America (AAA), an Ethiopian NGO based in the US, is one of a growing number who believes the government was party to the action. In a statement, they condemned “in the strongest terms the Abiy Ahmed regime’s ongoing persecution of religious leaders and attempt to divide the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (EOTC).”

This attack, on the most trusted national institution, had nothing to do with the church, rather it is part of a political campaign to divide people along ethnic lines and control the populace by infiltrating the EOTC, which is a cornerstone of life for millions of Ethiopians. The ‘rebel bishops’ were swiftly excommunicated by the Tewahedo Church, and across the country hundreds of thousands of people united in solidarity with the EOTC.

Aggression and hatred

At the violent core of Oromo nationalism sits the OLF, regarded (erroneously) after their return to Ethiopia in 2018, as a legitimate political party, and the OLA, officially labelled as terrorists. The OLF and OLA are two arms of one entity united by a single ideology of aggression and hatred. Their primary goal, as spelt out on the OLF website is: “To lead the national liberation struggle of the Oromo people against the Abyssinian colonial rule [a ‘struggle’ that would not exist save for the OLF]……to exercise the Oromo peoples’ inalienable right to national self-determination to terminate a century of oppression and exploitation.” They talk a lot about the ‘empire state of Ethiopia’ (which they appear to associate with Amhara people), policies of ‘divide and rule’ and ‘oppressed people’.

Under the former TPLF-dominated EPRDF government, a brutally repressive dictatorship, the Oromo people, like many others, were cruelly persecuted and oppressed – see Amnesty International report. Anger (widespread among Ethiopians) towards the TPLF, would then be understandable. But far from attacking them, the OLF stood with the TPLF during its two year war (2020-2022) against the Ethiopian State, and is now carrying out ethnically driven atrocities, primarily (but not exclusively) against Amhara people.

These are civilians, not members of an ‘evil empire’, who are being killed and terrorized, their livestock slaughtered and homes destroyed: AAA estimates that in January alone “over 5,885 houses [in Sheger City on the outskirts of Addis Ababa] belonging to non-Oromo owners (mostly ethnic Amharas) were demolished,” resulting in tens of thousands of displaced Amharas. “The demolitions [which are ongoing] were carried out by a task force from the Sheger City administration (Oromia Regional State) in collaboration with Oromia Special Forces (OSF), Oromia police, and local Qeerro (ultranationalist Oromo youth). The Oromia Region security forces [OSF] were also implicated in various abuses against residents including arbitrary arrests and bodily injuries.” The targeted actions, the killings, the destruction of property and false arrests are carried out with total impunity.

Where is the federal government, a government which promised so much when it took office in 2018? Where it should be protecting the Amhara community, arresting those responsible for the killings and dismantling terror groups, it appears largely impotent, or worse, as a growing number of Ethiopians believe, is complicit. The regional authority, the ORA, is undeniably implicated, and this body is accountable to the federal government led by Ahmed.

Thus, criticism and suspicion of the government, PM Ahmed in particular, is mounting; ranging from allegations of direct involvement in the Oromo nationalists’ plan, to criminal neglect; political weakness amid powerful Oromo voices (in the ORA and within the governing party); or total incompetence.

Accusations and mistrust that has been compounded in recent weeks by a series of repressive measures. In addition to the attempted church coup d’état, the regime has arbitrarily detained Ethiopian journalists/media workers, suspended media outlets, clamped-down on protests, arrested demonstrators and restricted access to social media; curtailed celebrations of Adwa (Ethiopia’s victory over the Italians at the battle of Adwa 1 March 1896), a national moment of collective pride; and arrested anyone wearing t-shirts with the image of Menellik II, who was enthroned at the time of the battle.

These restrictive acts hark back to the repressive TPLF-led regime (in power for 27 years), when human rights were utterly ignored and fear was widespread. Some dictatorships are born into tyranny, others slide into darkness one repressive act at a time, until one-day paranoia reigns.

The dark stain of duplicity

The first duty of government is to safeguard the populace. The Amhara people, persecuted on and off for generations, are being killed by terrorist gangs and radicalized Oromo groups including the OSF, and the Ahmed government is completely failing to protect them. More than that, by their inaction they are allowing the killings and demolitions to take place, day after day, week after week – giving the ethno-nationalists a green light for their barbarism.

Such criminal indifference by a government does indeed equate to complicity, and throws the light of suspicion directly on the PM. He doesn’t visit IDCs to speak with victims or initiate investigations to establish what happened, fails to offer federal support, reparation and, crucially justice.

A recent incident demonstrates the prevailing attitude of the Ahmed regime to the murders and suffering of Amhara people: In the first week of February, the OLA attacked Amhara residents in an Internal Displacement Camp (IDC) in Anno town, East Wollega. AAA report that 41 people were killed by the terrorists and 12 left injured. At the same time the PM was in Europe visiting Heads of State in Italy and France, where he was filmed smiling happily as he sat in luxury, chatting. No mention was made in press statements or interviews of the murders that had occurred in his absence, or the ongoing ethnic slaughter. Why not? Safeguarding civilians under threat and hunting down perpetrators of mass killing/s should be his and his government’s absolute priority.

A word one hears routinely applied to Ahmed is narcissist – is he more concerned with his international image than the lives of his fellow Ethiopians? Like many such ‘leaders’, no doubt he his focused on his ‘legacy’. Well, unless he acts swiftly and resolutely to the mass killings in Oromo a dark stain of duplicity, and potentially genocide, will run across any such bequest.

The Ethiopian government is not alone in ignoring and thereby facilitating the killing of Amhara people. From what I can see, there has not been a single statement of concern, condemnation or support from the ‘International Community’, i.e. America and her mates. All of whom, following the US lead, were quick enough to make one false accusation after another against the Ahmed government when the country was under attack from the US-backed TPLF. Now, when criticism and suspicion is warranted and a degree of external (diplomatic) involvement justified, urgently needed in fact, not a peep, from any government, Prime-Minister or President.

And barely a by-line in the corporate media, certainly nothing in the world’s loudest voices, the BBC and CNN. Following the lead of the US State Department, both institutions consistently spread propaganda and lies about the Ethiopian government during the TPLF-initiated war. Western governments (and media) approach to foreign affairs is largely dictated by US foreign policy, which is rooted in arrogance and paranoia, and is currently obsessed with Russia and China.

The US administration, the EU, UK etc., are certainly not concerned about the killing of thousands of Amhara people. Unless of course it results in the total destabilization of Ethiopia and an opportunity presents itself for US intervention. Until then, the position seems to be, let the killing continue, after all the victims of tribal hatred are only poor black Africans.

Neglect by the Ethiopian government, Ethiopia’s neighbours, global powers, and the African Union (where, at the recent AU summit, while talking about finding ‘African solutions to African problems, Ahmed shamefully failed to mention the Amhara’s plight/problem), which has also been deafeningly silent, in public at least, arms the gunmen; encourages yobs to smash and burn homes; gives no value to the lives of those men women and children being attacked, and thereby grants license to the terrorists to continue. Stand up, stand up all who are aware of this horror in our midst and demand that the Ethiopian government acts to stop the carnage.

Violence and Resistance in Israel and Palestine Ramps Up

Haley Morrow

Photograph Source: TSGT KEVIN J. GRUENWALD, USAF – Public Domain

Just this week, elite fighter pilots of the Israeli Air Force’s 69th squadron refused to attend training.

This is one of many acts of resistance against the new Israeli government, which is the most right-wing and nationalist in Israeli history. This new government is run by Benjamin Netanyahu, who won the election for Prime Minister in November. Netanyahu’s coalition is known for, among other things, anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab racism.

For weeks, protests have erupted against the Israeli government, most notably the government’s call to change the judicial system. These changes will limit the power of the Supreme Court and strengthen the power of Netanyahu and the Israeli Knesset (parliament) to overrule the judicial system. Conveniently, it will also immunize “Bibi” against multiple corruption charges.

Pandering to the most avowedly misogynist and openly racist Knesset members in order to assemble his ruling coalition, Netanyahu has set the stage for a hard right slide into autocracy, including stripping many of their human rights. Jaffa teacher Yaara Ben Geraluf noted, “This government will not be any good for women, for LGBTQ, for the impoverished people…and of course for Palestinians.”

Since the beginning of the year, Israeli forces and Israeli settlers have killed more than 70 Palestinians, and enraged Palestinians have killed 11 Israelis. Just this past Tuesday, Israeli forces killed six Palestinians and injured 11 during a raid of a camp in Jenin, West Bank. Netanyahu claimed that one of the six people killed was responsible for killing two Israelis last month. This sparked more settler violence in the West Bank.

On February 23rd, the Israeli government approved more than 7000 new settlement homes in the West Bank. Settlement in Palestine is one of the largest problems the Palestinians face. Since 1967, when Israel occupied the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Amnesty International reports that some 600,000 settlers have seized more than a quarter-million acres of Palestinian land and demolished more than 50,000 Palestinian homes.

Palestinians are forced out of their homes and stripped of their land, their olive orchards, and communities when Israeli settlers take over. Friction and violence between settlers and Palestinians are thus a daily occurrence. Israeli forces patrol the settler communities, “protecting the settlers.” Hundreds are killed, and thousands are injured yearly due to the settler violence.

With settlement in the West Bank, Israeli strips Palestine of its ability to build a strong economy. Natural resources, such as water and agricultural production in the West Bank are controlled by Israel. This restricts Palestinians from accessing these resources.

Settlement also prevents Palestinian freedom of movement as nearly five million Palestinians are forced to go through checkpoints and roadblocks just to move around, often even from a family farmhouse to their own farms, frequently taking literally hours to cross the checkpoint. Continued settlement not only adds to the tension in the region but directly undermines the possibility of a two-state solution.

Violence between the Israelis and Palestinians has gotten significantly worse over the past year. Each side blames the other for the conflict and its protracted nature. For many Palestinians, the expansion of settlement is seen as the root cause of the conflict, and the reason for violence in the West Bank.

As one political analyst noted,” The Palestinians will continue to resist with whatever they have in order to protect their lives and their property.”

While privileged people living in peace cannot judge Palestinians for their resistance methods, scholars in the field of civil resistance put the Palestinian chances for justice higher with nonviolent methods, especially if the US citizens could demand that US aid to Israel be tightly conditioned to Israeli observance of human rights for all.

Christian persecution and human rights

Ranjan Solomon

In  the last three years, India ranks as tenth most dangerous for Christians across the world

Christians have traditionally adopted a posture of social leadership to the wider community in multiple ways. Education, medical care, social services, rural development, services to the hungry and poor, vocational training, community development, and a host of other development models were introduced by the church and its lay affiliates through Indian history. The post-independence model of community development adopted by the Government in 1952 when Five Year Plans were inaugurated by the Government had its origins in YMCA philosophy and ideology.  One could reel off unending and vibrant specifics about Christian contribution to Indian society; the facts are astounding. Christians have imbibed the notion of ‘Antodya’ – welfare of the people in the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid. It is, therefore, a shocker that the persecution of Christians today is currently on overdrive countrywide despite its historical and continuing accomplishments in favour of the least and last of society.

In 2014 the Ministry of Home Affairs reported a “steep 30 per cent rise in the number of communal violence incidents in 2013 as compared to 2012. Reported incidents of abuse carried out against Christians in India went up to 177 in 2015, and have, since, steadily escalated. Those figures have sharply risen and today the escalation is full-fledged.

The Pew Research Centre has noted that conversion is now a dangerously contentious issue in India. Nine states have enacted laws against proselytism as of early 2021. While Christianity is a proselytizing religion, many other religions in India are non-proselytizing, and religious conversion is rare in the country. Overall, just 2% of respondents report a different religion than the one in which they were raised, including 0.4% who are converts to Christianity. Christian converts in India are former Hindus and tend to belong to lower castes – that is, they identify with Dalits, Scheduled Tribes or Other Backward Classes. Most converts also come from poor backgrounds.

It was during and after the Kandhamal  riots in August 2008, which left 39 Christians dead, over 395 churches vandalized, 600 villages ransacked; over 5,600 houses were looted and over 54,000 people left homeless, that it became clear to Christians that communalism did not draw boundaries among minorities.

Anti-Christian hate crimes have doubled since 2014. Catholic churches in New Delhi, have faced vandalization. Christian leaders pleaded with PM Modi for intervention only to be rebuffed.  The United Christian Forum reports that growth in recorded incidents is increasing “not just year-on-year, but even month-on-month.” UCF counts a total of 511 incidents reported as of Nov. 21 this year as against 505 in 2021. PM Modi’s promise of “inclusive growth” has gone astray. There is resentment that Christian communities now exceed on indicators of human development. Therefore, schools, including those where the major percentage of students are non-Christian, are frequently attacked in anti-Christian riots.

In almost all incidents of Christian persecution, reported from across the country, vigilante mobs comprising extremist elements were involved. They construct allegations of religious conversion, attack prayer gatherings, attack individuals or small groups of Christians. Mob crimes are carried out with impunity as the police turned a blind eye. They even arrested Christians under charges of forced conversions. UCF’s President A C Michael further observes:  “This is despite a slew of directions to the government from the Supreme Court of India to stop the horrendous acts of ‘mobocracy.” There are 79 cases registered against pastors in the country alleging their involvement in religious conversion activities, though not a single case has been proved in court so far. Several lay people are languishing in jail under denial of bail by courts.

Human Rights Watch has classified violence against Christians in India as a tactic by right-wing Sangh Parivar organizations to encourage and exploit communal violence and advance political ends. Persecution often includes: arson of churches, conversion of Christians by force, physical violence, sexual assaults, murders, rapes, and the destruction of Christian schools, colleges, and cemeteries.

Multiple sources have reported an increase in the number of incidents of violence against Christians after the new BJP government under Narendra Modi came to power after the general election in April–May 2014.   In 2016, India was ranked 15th in the world in terms of danger to Christians, a sharp surge from rank 31 in 2012. A church was burnt down or a cleric beaten on average 10 times a week in India in the year to 31 October 2016, a threefold increase on the previous year. The All India Christian Council testified to an attack on Christians recorded every 40 hours in India in 2016. Persecution Relief reported from its study that crimes against Christians increased by 60% from 2016 to 2019.

Upper-caste Hindu nationalists fear that with the arrival of non-Hindus, higher fertility rates among minority groups and conversions to Christianity, the Hindu majority might become a minority.  The fear of being overtaken is irrational.  Christians have remained 2.3 percent of the population since the 1951 census. Still they seek to integrate a larger section of middle castes, Adivasis and Dalits to sustain a majority.

The Centre must declare a zero-tolerance policy to persecution. It would have dramatic impact. 93 Former Civil Servants in an Open letter to the PM described the ‘Climate of Fear among Christians’ and underline increasing incidents of outright discrimination. The Union government is inert and not protecting Christians. The PM must guarantee Christians that they will get justice from the executive and the law, they suggest.

Article 25 of the Constitution of India asserts “all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right to freely profess, practices, and propagate religion subject to public order, morality and health.” 

In Goa, Christians feel defenseless at the frenzied anti-minority sentiment being whipped up in the name of rebuilding temples destroyed by the Portuguese. The claim about the Portuguese is plausible. The matter obliges political prudence, rather than communal propaganda.

US complicity in Nord Stream bombing stands exposed

Andre Damon

On September 30, 2022, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was asked by a reporter if the US or its allies were to blame for the attacks that destroyed the Nord Stream pipelines between Russia and Germany three days earlier.

“I really have nothing to say to the absurd allegation from President Putin that we or other partners or allies are somehow responsible for this,” Blinken said.

Asked about claims by Russian officials that the US was responsible for the attacks, US President Biden replied after the bombings, “Just don’t listen to what Putin’s saying. What he’s saying we know is not true.”

Six months later, on Tuesday, the New York Times and Washington Post carried news reports, based on interviews with intelligence officials, asserting that a “pro-Ukraine group” destroyed the pipelines.

In a separate article, the German newspaper Die Zeit stated that the attack was carried out from a yacht owned by two Ukrainians operating from Germany. Building on that narrative, the Times of London reported that the attack was carried out via a “private venture originating in Ukraine.” The newspaper added, “The name of the suspected private sponsor, a Ukrainian not affiliated with President Zelensky’s government, has been circulating in intelligence circles for months but not revealed.”

This flood of news reports follows the publication by veteran journalist Seymour Hersh of a report that the US Navy directly planted the explosives that destroyed the pipelines, using military operations in the Baltic Sea as a cover.

Based on his contacts within the military and state apparatus, Hersh reported that the plan for the attack began in December 2021, months before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

All variants of the story have one thing in common. They show that Blinken was lying on September 30. The US “or other partners or allies” clearly did carry out the bombing.

With regard to the reports in the Times and the Post, the notion that a massive, highly sophisticated international undersea terror attack simultaneously destroying four separate pipelines would have been launched by Ukrainians operating from Germany without the knowledge of the Ukrainian government, Germany or the United States is laughable. If a “pro-Ukrainian” group was in fact responsible, it was, at the very least, carrying out the openly stated wishes of the White House, which vowed to “end” the existence of the pipeline.

Whether the US Navy carried out the bombing, or had its Ukrainian proxy forces do it, the United States is clearly to blame.

Biden himself had declared that the US would “bring an end to” the pipeline as part of a war over Ukraine, and US officials gloated over the destruction after it happened. In congressional testimony in January, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland said, “I think the administration is very gratified to know that Nord Stream 2 is now, as you like to say, a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea.”

These revelations confirm what the World Socialist Web Site wrote on September 28:

Accusations of Russian involvement in the bombings lack all credibility and detract from the far more likely perpetrator: the United States. The first question that has to be asked about the Nord Stream bombing is: Cui bono? Who benefits, and who had the motive to carry it out?

The revelations also fully implicate the entire US media in an effort to blame Russia for the crime. Responding to the attack on Russian energy infrastructure, the Washington Post wrote on September 27:

The leaks are more likely a message: Russia is opening a new front on its energy war against Europe. First, it weaponized gas supply, halting shipments, including via the Nord Stream pipeline. Now, it may be attacking the energy infrastructure it once used to ship its energy.

The Heritage Foundation, a US think tank, declared, “Russia’s Attack on Nord Stream Pipelines Means Putin Has Truly Weaponized Energy.”

Critically, even after the exposure of Washington’s lies, the cover-up continued. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius suggested that the evidence of Ukrainian involvement means the attack may have been a “false flag” operation conducted by Russia. “We have not been able to determine who was behind [it],” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday.

The exposure of the involvement of the US or its proxy forces in Ukraine fits a definite pattern, including the assassination of the Russian fascist intellectual Daria Dugina and the bombing of the Kerch Bridge, in which US and Ukrainian officials categorically declared that they had no involvement, only for subsequent media reports to attribute the attacks to the Ukrainian government.

Just minutes after Blinken flatly denied that the US had carried out the bombing on September 30, he gave a very clear explanation of the United States’ motive for the attack. Blinken declared:

And ultimately this is also a tremendous opportunity.  It’s a tremendous opportunity to once and for all remove the dependence on Russian energy and thus to take away from Vladimir Putin the weaponization of energy as a means of advancing his imperial designs.  That’s very significant, and that offers tremendous strategic opportunity for the years to come.

Indeed, major US energy companies profited massively from this “opportunity,” selling Europe record quantities of liquified natural gas, at record prices, and fueling record profits. The US and NATO allies utilized it as an “opportunity” to justify a further expansion of the war.

There can be little doubt that the collapse of the official narrative of the bombing was a major subject of discussions between US President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz last week. But the concern of Biden and Scholz was how to manage the popular reaction and outrage to the exposure, and how to ensure that this criminal act would not lead to the expansion of popular opposition to the war.

The exposure of US complicity in the bombing of the Nord Stream pipeline raises ominous and troubling questions. If the United States was capable of carrying out what was in effect an act of war and international terrorism, not only against Russia but also against Germany, what else is it capable of?

It remains an inescapable fact that after the US pledged itself to the most sweeping and far-reaching goals in the Ukraine war, the Ukrainian military is suffering major setbacks on the battlefield. There exists no public support for further escalation of the war, much less the deployment of NATO troops necessary for the achievement of these aims.

Manchester Arena bombing inquiry delivers cover-up “in the national interest”

Laura Tiernan

“…the bereaved families are entitled to know all of the evidence, except in so far as it would damage national security to disclose it publicly.” Sir John Saunders, Inquiry Chairman

The final report by Sir John Saunders from the inquiry he led into the Manchester Arena terrorist bombing is a state cover-up. It conceals the role of MI5, MI6, the Ministry of Defence and successive British governments in the grooming and protection of far-right Islamists who were deployed to achieve imperialist foreign policy objectives in Libya and throughout the Middle East.

Forensic officers work near the Manchester Arena in Manchester, Wednesday, May 24, 2017. [AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth]

Saunders’ final volume released last week includes a “closed” report whose content and findings are being withheld from the victims’ families and the British public because it “contains material that would be damaging to national security if it were to become public.”

On May 22, 2017, Salman Abedi detonated a bomb inside Manchester Arena killing 22 people at an Ariana Grande concert. His youngest victim, Saffie-Rose Roussos, was just eight years old. Most of the other victims were young.

Saunders’ “Volume 3: Radicalisation and Preventability”, purports to examine the causes of Abedi’s terrorist atrocity, and whether it could have been prevented by Britain’s security services. His carefully circumscribed finding of an undisclosed “missed opportunity” for investigating Abedi, including “a failure by a Security Service officer to act swiftly enough” (also unidentified) secures a finding that “It is not possible to reach any conclusion on the balance of probabilities or to any other evidential standard as to whether the Attack would have been prevented.”

Family members of those killed have spoken out in response. Caroline Curry, whose 19-year-old son Liam Curry died in the blast, told the press, “From top to bottom, MI5 to the associates of the attacker, we will always believe that you all played a part in the murder of our children.”

Andrew Roussos, father of Saffie-Rose said, “MI5, for me, had most of the blame”. The domestic intelligence service had “22 pieces of information about Salman Abedi” but had failed to act.

Roussos has instructed lawyers to investigate grounds for a lawsuit against MI5 over its failure to stop the bombing, and several other families are reportedly willing to join a class action against Britain’s domestic intelligence agency. Roussos has campaigned tirelessly, alongside other families, stating previously, “MI5 has blood on its hands”.

What are they hiding?

The Manchester bombing occurred at the height of the 2017 snap general election triggered by the Brexit crisis. It was seized on by Conservative government Prime Minister Theresa May to bolster her re-election on national security grounds, beating the patriotic drum and pouring hundreds of armed British troops onto the streets. After Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn timidly suggested a connection between British military interventions in the Middle East and the rising threat of domestic terrorism—a phenomenon known as “blowback”—he was branded by senior military and political figures as an apologist for terrorism and a threat to national security who must never become prime minister.

British military personnel alongside armed police guarding the Palace of Westminster as part of Operation Temperer [Photo by Katie Chan / CC BY-SA 4.0]

The campaign against Corbyn, spearheaded by the Parliamentary Labour Party, reached fever pitch, stoked by corporate and state media outlets and the military. Colonel Richard Kemp, who commanded British military forces in Afghanistan, insisted, “Jeremy Corbyn as prime minister would simply aid our enemies”, while General Lord Dannatt, former head of the British Army, declared that a Corbyn premiership would threaten Britain’s security. Their comments ratcheted up threats by senior military figures after Corbyn’s election as party leader in September 2015, when an unnamed general threatened a “mutiny” by the armed forces if Corbyn ever became prime minister. Chief of defence staff, Sir Nicholas Houghton, had spoken of the “worrying constraints” of parliamentary consent.

The execution and timing of the Manchester Arena bombing, carried out by an individual known to the military and security services, raised sinister issues. The World Socialist Web Site warned that the democratic rights of the working class were endangered by the ensuing campaign against Corbyn, which sought to subvert the election and criminalise opposition to Britain’s filthy military operations in Libya and the Middle East.

Prime Minister Theresa May and the leader of the opposition Jeremy Corby process through Central Lobby to the House of Lords at the 2017 State Opening of Parliament [Photo by UK Parliament/Flickr / CC BY 2.0]

While Corbyn refused to challenge the state forces raised against him, public sentiment against May’s government hardened, fueled by widespread suspicion of a cover-up. Leaks from US and French intelligence agencies revealed within days that Abedi was a known terror threat. US sources claimed the FBI had warned MI5 that Abedi was planning to attack political targets in the UK.

At the general election on June 8, the Conservatives lost their overall majority and were forced into a confidence and supply agreement with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). Labour gained 30 seats, winning 40 percent of the vote, its highest increase in vote share since 1945 when it defeated Churchill’s government in a landslide victory after World War II. It was the closest contest between Labour and the Conservatives since the 1974 general election, held in the midst of strikes by miners and dockworkers, which Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath lost under the slogan, “Who rules Britain?” Corbyn’s popularity reflected an underlying leftward shift in the working class, which Britain’s ruling class feared he would be unable to contain if he were elected prime minister. The bomb that tore through Manchester Arena created the conditions for a state witch-hunt aimed at intimidating the working class and concealing the truth. Corbyn offered no resistance to this state conspiracy.

Britain in Libya

Saunders concluded the intelligence agencies had no forewarning of the Manchester bombing, but his report provides ample evidence of a terrorist atrocity planned and executed virtually under the nose of MI5. The 22-year-old Abedi worked with Islamist fighters who were trained, armed, and financed by the British state and NATO to topple Libyan leader Muammar and install a puppet regime.

British imperialism has a long and bloody record in Libya. The north African country was placed under British and French occupation during World War II, with nominal independence granted in 1951 under King Idris bin Muhammad al-Mahdi as-Senussi, whose regime, bankrolled by the US and Britain, was overthrown by Colonel Gaddafi’s 1969 military coup. Gaddafi’s bourgeois nationalist regime took over the holdings of British Petroleum and ultimately controlled around 70 percent of domestic oil production. But the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991 ushered in three decades of imperialist violence as the United States asserted military dominance over the oil-rich Middle East, opening a renewed scramble for Africa.

While Gaddafi believed he could find a place in this new world order, especially after Tony Blair’s 2004 “deal in the desert”, he was instead assassinated in 2011 by Libyan “rebel” forces backed by the US, Britain and France.

Saunders’ report found Abedi’s actions were driven by “noxious absences and malign presences”. Dr. Matthew Wilkinson, an expert in Islamist extremism, testified about Abedi’s background, “I have never seen such a complete picture of the petri dish absolutely brimming with germs”. His analogy captures the lawless and toxic character of imperialist foreign policy and its diseased domestic repercussions.

The inquiry found, “the Abedi family holds significant responsibility for radicalisation of SA and HA” (Abedi’s younger brother Hashem Abedi is serving a 55-year prison sentence for his role in the mass killing). The family’s connections with Islamist terror groups in Libya—including al-Qaeda, February 17th Martyrs Brigade and Islamic State—are described by Wilkinson as a “malign presence” in the brothers’ lives. Saunders writes, “The long-running conflict in Libya represents the critical background to SA’s journey to radicalisation.”

All the more striking then that his final report rules the issue off-limits, evading any examination of the role played by the British government, military and intelligence agencies in Libya, “The interaction between various factions involved in the Libyan civil war, which began on 17 February 2011 is ‘dizzyingly complex’ and beyond the scope of this report.”

Salman Abedi’s family had extensive contacts with Islamist terror groups in Libya, although Saunders’ report provides only the sketchiest outline. His father Ramadan Abedi was offered political asylum by the British government in 1993 and granted citizenship in 2007, despite his connections to known terrorists. In passing, Saunders notes that Ramadan Abedi was “friends” with Abu-Anas al-Libi, an al-Qaeda commander linked to the 1998 terrorist bombing of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. Abedi’s sons were photographed with al-Libi’s sons in military uniform and carrying weapons in 2011, most likely with the February 17th Martyrs Brigade.

The entire Abedi family travelled freely between Libya and Britain throughout the civil war. In 2014, Britain’s Royal Navy war ship MHS Enterprise evacuated the Abedi brothers from Libya “because extremist militias were fighting in the area” (Saunders). The report is silent on the subsequent debrief they reportedly made to military and/or intelligence officers. It was during their repeated visits to Libya from 2011 to 2017 that Salman and Hashem Abedi joined rebel training camps, “and it is probable they obtained some form of training and assistance in how to build a bomb”.

HMS Enterprise sea training in UK waters in 2019 [Photo: Ministry of Defence-Open Government Licence version 1.0]

The British military spent £212 million supporting Libyan rebel forces in 2011, according to then Defence Secretary Philip Hammond.

The extent of British and NATO involvement with Islamist terror groups was exposed during extraordinary testimony by jailed ISIS recruiter and convicted terrorist Abdalraouf Abdallah, who communicated with Abedi in the lead-up to the Manchester Arena bombing and was found by Saunders to have been a significant radicalising influence on Abedi. Abdullah testified he was trained by NATO and fought alongside NATO military forces in Libya, backed by the British government, “David Cameron praised us very well.” Britain backed Islamist groups in Libya which it had designated elsewhere as terrorist, “maybe for their own gain or something like that.”

Saunders interjected at once, “I don’t want to get involved in that because it’s not relevant to what I’m deciding, do you understand?” The exchange appears in a video produced by Declassified UK which has been censored (i.e., removed) by YouTube.

Significantly, key members of the Abedi family—father Ramadan and eldest brother Ismail—were able to evade testifying at the inquiry, in circumstances that are deeply suspicious. Ismail left Britain despite being stopped at Manchester airport just 24-hours prior. Doubtless the family has information that the British state would prefer to keep secret.

While the inquiry had broad powers under the Public Inquiries Act to compel testimony, neither former Prime Minister David Cameron nor Theresa May were called to explain their governments’ open door policy for Libyan terrorists. Neither did Saunders’ inquiry compel representatives of MI6 or the Ministry of Defence to testify on their relationship with the Abedis and the extensive network of Islamist rebels in Libya, Syria and elsewhere.

Questions that Sir John Saunders refused to ask of Britain’s intelligence agencies, military and government include the following:

Was the Abedi family listed by MI6 as a protected asset due to its role in furthering British foreign policy objectives in Libya?

Why were the Abedi brothers evacuated from Libya by the British Royal Navy and what information did they supply to the British government? What did the British military or intelligence agencies provide to the Abedi family in return?

What intelligence did MI5 and MI6 receive from French and US security agencies about the threat posed by Salman Abedi? Who received the intelligence and why was it not acted on?

No mainstream media outlet has opposed the inquiry’s blatant cover-up or its withholding of information from the public on national security grounds. The Guardian’s defence and security editor Dan Sabbagh wrote last week, “it would be unwise to be excessively critical” of the final report. He concluded, “There is no independent way of knowing whether this amounts to a cover-up.”

A Guardian editorial next day judged that “missed opportunities” by MI5 to stop the terror attack came from a “faulty mindset”. According to the Guardian’s editors, “Britain’s air force was deployed with no proper intelligence analysis, and the mission drifted [!] into an unannounced goal of regime change”. Britain was “shirking its moral responsibility to rebuild Libya”. It lectured, “Levels of secrecy that go beyond MI5’s operational needs damage public confidence and breed conspiracy theories.”

The Guardian speaks for affluent, corrupt upper middle class “liberals” who have embraced imperialist war under the banner of “humanitarian intervention” and whose only real fear is that the crimes of the British state are being exposed. The verdict of Andrew Roussos and other families who lost loved ones, that “MI5 has blood on its hands”, speaks to a growing awareness that British and NATO ‘s military operations for oil and resources are a criminal enterprise, with deadly consequences for the working class in Britain, the Middle East and internationally.

The most explicit recommendation from Saunders’ final report is that the 2021 Commission for Countering Extremism report, currently under consideration by Home Secretary Suella Braverman, be acted on “as a matter of urgency”. Its definition of “hateful extremism” is “activity or materials directed at an out-group who are perceived as a threat to an in-group motivated by or intending to advance a political, religious or racial supremacist ideology.”

Pacific Island of Vanuatu devastated by twin cyclones

John Braddock

The small Pacific nation of Vanuatu, 2,600 kms north east of Sydney, is under a state of emergency after two cyclones and two earthquakes hit in as many days last week.

Satellite image of path of Judy and Kevin cyclones that swept through Vanuatu, March 4 and 6, 2023. [Photo: Zoom Earth]

Tropical Cyclone Kevin built to a category four on March 4 as it passed the capital Port Vila and travelled south-east. Wind gusts reached up to 230 kilometres an hour in the early morning hours.

Hundreds of people were in emergency evacuation centres as destructive winds and heavy rainfall hit. No casualties were immediately reported but a number of properties were flattened and many homes and businesses reported power outages.

Initial reports from Vanuatu’s National Disaster Management Office indicated about 80 percent of the country’s population of 320,000 has been affected, including 125,500 children. Many still remain without power, clean water or telecommunications.

Cyclone Kevin came just two days after category four Cyclone Judy, that caused widespread damage and flooding. Cyclone Judy battered Port Vila the previous Wednesday, cutting power and forcing some residents to evacuate.

Port Vila experienced the full force of Kevin’s winds. Evacuations took place in the capital. Vanuatu journalist Dan McGarry told Radio NZ Port Vila had been “badly knocked about.” Fuel was in short supply and a boil water order was in effect. UNICEF's Eric Durpaire said: “It’s crazy, Vanuatu is used to natural disasters, but I think this is the first time it has had two cyclones back to back.”

Devastated Vanuatu village. [Photo: @KatiegIFRC]

Prime Minister Ishmael Kalsakau announced a state of emergency last Friday, saying the cyclones had created a “sad state of affairs.” He called on local authorities to “support the communities in their clean-up and prevent the spread of diseases.” Boats were advised to avoid going to sea and a red alert was in effect for Tafea province, home to just over 30,000 people.

As with all such “natural disasters,” the twin cyclones are exposing the consequences of mass poverty and the lack of basic infrastructure. Thousands of people who live in makeshift shanty towns will be homeless in coming weeks and months and left to fend for themselves.

Up to two thirds of the population relies on subsistence agriculture of yams, taro and sweet potato and face the destruction of their crops. According to McGarry, vulnerability to the impact of the cyclones was most evident in poorer communities, many in rural areas. “The most vulnerable are those living in impromptu housing… they’re the ones who lost their houses and had their belongings destroyed,” he said.

Dickinson Tevi, secretary general of the Vanuatu Red Cross Society, noted that medical centers, hospitals, and schools have been affected. “Some children may not be able to go to school for weeks, maybe months,” he said.

Making matters worse, the island of Espiritu Santo was rocked by twin earthquakes as residents began to clean up Cyclone Judy’s damage. The first, a magnitude 6.5 earthquake, struck around 90 km from the city of Luganville at 5 a.m. on Friday, while a second 5.4 magnitude tremor was felt at 6.30 a.m. The island of 40,000 residents reported no casualties, but with communications down the situation remains unclear.

Spread across 13 principal islands, Vanuatu is in the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” where tectonic plates collide, and experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity.

As the cyclone system moved away from Vanuatu, Fiji was the next hit. Fiji’s National Disaster Management Office on Monday reported flash flooding in the West, North & Central Divisions. Schools were closed on Tuesday due to continuous rain, flooding, and disruptions to public transport. Heavy rain and flood warnings remain in place for Fiji.

While the damage from the twin cyclones was reportedly not as bad as Cyclone Pam in 2015, which devastated Vanuatu, Climate Change Minister Ralph Regenvanu has now invoked the Disaster Risk Management Act to extend a six-month state of emergency to cover the entire nation.

McGarry has previously noted that Pacific governments are increasingly quick to invoke extraordinary emergency powers “to secure themselves in positions of increasing impunity.” Vanuatu’s Disaster Risk Management Act has been used by successive governments, but the constitution requires that a state of emergency extension may only be made by parliament, and only for three months. The state of emergency has never been debated in parliament, McGarry reported.

Cyclones Judy and Kevin hit Vanuatu late in the region’s cyclone season, which stretches from November to April, but the coincidence of two such events occurring at the same time is extremely rare. They followed Cyclone Gabrielle, which hit New Zealand on February 13 and left large parts of the North Island, including the major city of Auckland, in a state of devastation after unprecedented flooding, affecting hundreds of thousands of people.

Cyclone Gabrielle also followed similarly catastrophic flooding in California in January and in Lismore, Australia last year. While individual extreme weather events cannot be traced directly to global warming, a UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report (2022) found that catastrophic flooding is becoming more likely.

The report noted that small islands such as those in the Pacific are “increasingly affected by increases in temperature, the growing impacts of tropical cyclones (TCs), storm surges, droughts, changing precipitation patterns, sea level rise (SLR), coral bleaching and invasive species.”

A 2018 communiqué by the Pacific Islands Forum declared climate change as the “single greatest threat to the livelihoods, security and wellbeing of the peoples of the Pacific.” According to the UN World Risk Index, Vanuatu is more vulnerable to natural disasters than any other country on the planet. The 10 most vulnerable countries also include the Philippines, the Solomon Islands, Tonga and Papua New Guinea. Yet the populations of these countries lack basic protection against disasters.

The regional imperialist powers, Australia and New Zealand, which have maintained neo-colonial control over the region for over a century, keeping Pacific nations in a state of impoverishment and backwardness, have done nothing to mitigate the increasingly existential threats of climate change.

Last week, Vanuatu’s United Nations representative said that 105 states, including Australia, had co-sponsored a bid to have the International Court of Justice rule on the legal obligations that states have to respond to climate change.

A General Assembly vote would seek a formal opinion from the international legal body on what “legal obligations” countries have in countering climate change. Any ruling, however, will not be binding. The initial bid did not have signatures from China or the United States, nor Indo-Pacific powers such as Indonesia and India.

As has become usual with such disastrous events, the response of the major powers is not to address the urgent needs of the population but to utilise them to boost their diplomatic and geo-strategic interests and push back against China, including despatching military hardware and personnel.

Canberra has sent the naval ship HMAS Canberra to Port Vila with more than 600 Australian Defence Force personnel on board along with supplies. A small, 12-strong Australian rapid assistance team is in the country and Australian Air Force aircraft are conducting aerial surveillance. France has meanwhile mobilised military assistance from its base in New Caledonia.

Whatever aid funding is allocated to the disaster-affected region will be a miserable pittance compared to what is required. New Zealand’s Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta has announced an “initial” financial contribution of just $150,000, along with an Air Force transport plane containing some supplies.

The earthquake disaster in Turkey and Syria and the role of German imperialism

Ela Maartens

In an earlier comment, the World Socialist Web Site described the major earthquake disaster that shook large areas of southern Turkey and northern Syria in early February as “a devastating indictment of world capitalism.” While governments worldwide expend enormous resources on rearmament and war, they are neglecting the most urgent needs of the broad masses of the population. The victims of the earthquake are being given only paltry handouts.

Aerial photo shows the destruction in Kahramanmaras, southern Turkey, Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023. [AP Photo/Ahmet Akpolat]

German imperialism is playing a particularly vile role in this regard. To date, the German government has pledged just 108 million euros to support those in the affected region. Compare this sum to the 100 billion euros made available virtually overnight to finance the biggest military rearmament in Germany since Hitler, announced a year ago by Chancellor Scholz (SPD) in his infamous “new foreign policy era” speech. The sum allocated for extra spending on the German army is almost a thousand times more than the money allotted for the earthquake victims in Turkey and Syria!

Almost a fortnight ago, both Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Green Party) and Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) travelled to the earthquake region to feign sympathy for the victims.

“Our sympathy is not exhausted in words,” declared Baerbock, adding that such sympathy would not abate even if the catastrophe and its consequences were replaced by other headlines in the news.

Her colleague Faeser laid it on even thicker: “It tears our hearts to see the inconceivable devastation and endless suffering this earthquake has caused in Turkey and Syria.” It was very important for the German government to provide immediate and comprehensive assistance in close coordination with the Turkish authorities, the Interior Minister said.

Who are Baerbock and Faeser trying to kid with their crocodile tears? The German government is coldly abandoning the people in Turkey and Syria to their fate. The special funding provided by the government to escalate NATO’s war against Russia in Ukraine would be sufficient to repair the worst of the earthquake damage and also provide considerable reconstruction aid.

According to the World Bank, the material damage caused by the earthquake, which caused countless people to lose all their belongings, amounts to at least 34.2 billion US dollars (about 32.4 billion euros) for Turkey. For Syria, the property damage is estimated at around 5.1 billion US dollars (around 4.8 billion euros), although this figure is provisional. The reconstruction costs for both countries are estimated to be about double that sum. Although severe aftershocks may still increase the property damage (and also the human suffering), even then the 100 billion euros would probably not be exhausted.

The sum pledged so far by the German government to earthquake victims is merely a drop in the ocean, at the same time the ruling class in Germany is demanding even more for rearmament. More and more heavy weapons are being delivered to Kiev for the NATO war against Russia, as Scholz revealed in his government statement on the anniversary of his “new era” speech.

Far more serious than the material damage is the human tragedy of the disaster: According to current estimates, 53,000 people have died so far. In Turkey, 45,089 deaths have been confirmed and 8,476 in Syria. More victims are being added every day, and the number of unreported cases is likely to be far higher than the official figures for both countries. Meanwhile, an entire region suffers from homelessness, hunger and adverse climate conditions. Many have to hold out in emergency shelters or even in tents.

Many people in Germany want to help their relatives in the affected region in Turkey, but the German Foreign Office’s supposedly “simplified, pragmatic visa procedure” reads like a bad joke. In cooperation with the Ministry of the Interior, this procedure is supposed to enable relatives from the disaster area to travel to Germany quickly.

The list of required documents, which according to the Foreign Ministry have been reduced “to a minimum,” is utterly cynical in view of the situation on the ground. In order to go through the procedure successfully, earthquake victims are expected to submit the following documents:

• Official application form
• Valid Turkish passport
• Health insurance for the Schengen area
• Biometric passport photo
• Letter of commitment from a first or second degree relative
• Copy of the identity card/passport and, if applicable, the residence permit of the inviting person
• Proof of residence (which must have been in the earthquake area at the time of the disaster)
• Proof of relationship
• Written description of the emergency situation
• Signatures/notarised consent of parents in the case of minors

The Foreign Office’s requirements are not only an extra affront for traumatised people from the Turkish earthquake region trying to save their lives; the actual and bureaucratic hurdles simply make it impossible to fulfill the requirements of the visa process.

A special arrangement for those who have lost their travel documents in the rubble of their former homes—which is likely in the vast majority of cases—has been ruled out by the Foreign Office. In such cases, those affected must rely on the (unlikely) cooperation of the Turkish authorities.

In addition, the declaration of commitment of the relatives in Germany must be sent as a copy to an existing address to the applicant in Turkey—a completely hopeless undertaking in view of the destruction on the ground. The same applies to the copy of the inviting person’s identity document.

In the meantime, families in Germany have set off by car to the dangerous earthquake region to bring their relatives the required documents in person. The route from Berlin to the completely destroyed city of Gaziantep in Turkey is no less than 3,635 km.

Moreover, many families of Turkish origin in Germany do not know whether and for how long they will be able to bear the financial burden (currently up to 500 euros per person per month) that comes with the declaration of commitment. The scurrilous demand to describe the personal plight of the applicant in writing shows the utter indifference with which the German ruling class regards the earthquake region.

About 20 million people in Turkey have been affected by the earthquake, according to the German Foreign Office, but only 1,097 three-month visas have been issued so far under the “simplified” procedure for Turkish citizens. Just 159 persons, about half of them from Syria, have received a visa for the purpose of family reunification.

Earthquake victims in Syria are excluded from the ostensibly “simplified” visa procedure. They have been allowed their own ostensibly simplified procedure for permanent residence in Germany, but in fact the hurdles are even higher than for those trying to migrate from Turkey.

Those who want to take advantage of the visa procedure must, in addition to having the financial means to travel to Lebanon, Jordan or Istanbul, embark on a journey that was already almost impossible before the earthquakes. (The German embassy in Damascus remains closed.) Only in exceptional cases is it even possible to cross the Syrian-Turkish border.

The German ruling class bears a massive share of responsibility for the fact that Syria has been plunged into an even deeper social catastrophe by the earthquakes and that necessary aid has failed to arrive. Since 2011, it has supported the war for regime change in Syria, a war which has cost the lives of hundreds of thousands and forced millions to flee with large parts of the country destroyed.

At that time, the then German government led by Angela Merkel supported EU sanctions against Syria, which have been extended every year since. According to the aid organisation Malteser International, these sanctions make it even more difficult to deliver aid today to the earthquake zone.

The German Foreign Office boasted at the beginning of February that the sanctions took into account the need to avoid “negative consequences of any kind for the civilian population.” This is a blatant lie. As a result of the sanctions, direct bank transfers, for example, which could be used to support relatives on the ground, are prohibited. Nor can any sort of medical care in hospitals be guaranteed because equipment, spare parts or medicines cannot be paid for by bank transfer.