just commentary may 2013

Vol 13, No.05 May 2013

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ARTICLES

SECTARIAN WARFARE GRIPS IRAQ

.THE KOREAN CRISIS: SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL

BY JUST EXCO..........................................................................................................................................P4

STATEMENTS

.THE ECONOMY UNDER NEW OWNERSHIP (PART I)BY MARJORIE KELLY...........................................P 10

.THE NIGHTMARE STORY OF DR. AAFIA SIDDIQUI

BY JUDY BELLO...................................................P 5.INTERNATIONAL CRIMES TRIBUNAL OF BANGLADESH IN

THE LIGHT OF HISTORY

BY ABDULLAH AL- AHSAN.....................................P 7

By Jean Shaoul

.VENEZUELA: RESPECT THE PEOPLE’S WILL: ACCEPT MADURO’S VICTORY

BY CHANDRA MUZAFFAR................................................................................................................................P3.ARMS TRADE TREATY: LEGITIMATE MISGIVINGS

BY JUST EXCO..........................................................................................................................................P4

Escalating violence in Iraq has ledto the deaths of at least 179 people

since Tuesday (26 February 2013), thehighest death toll since the withdrawalof US troops at the end of 2011.

The re-eruption of the sectarianstrife that broke out under the USoccupation testifies to the devastationwrought by the US-led invasion of Iraqand Washington’s whipping up ofethnic and sectarian tensions. It is alsoan extension of the on-going US proxywar in neighbouring Syria, in which itis backing ultra-right Sunni forces tiedto Al Qaeda.

Since December, Iraqi Sunnis,including those with ties to forcesactive in Syria, have been protestingdiscrimination, arbitrary arrests,detention and the execution ofoppositionists by the Shi’ite-ledcoalition government of Nouri Al-Maliki. They are particularly opposedto the sweeping anti-terrorism law they

claim targets them for being membersof Al Qaeda or of the Ba’ath Party offormer President Saddam Hussein.They have called for Maliki’sresignation.

Hundreds of thousands have beenlocked up for years, many withoutcharges, in prisons run by sectarianmilitias. More than 1,400 people faceexecution.

The government’s reliance ondictatorial methods is bound up withthe rising level of unemployment andseething discontent over the lack ofelectricity, water, sanitation and thefailure to rebuild the infrastructure

destroyed by US sanctions and war. Thisis despite the fact that oil production grewby 24 percent last year, with Iraqovertaking Iran to become the biggestmember, after Saudi Arabia, in theOrganization of Petroleum ExportingCountries (OPEC).

This violence follows armed raidsby government troops on a Sunni campin Hawija, near Kirkuk, 170 kilometresnorth of Baghdad, four days aftermilitants attacked a military and policecheckpoint, seized their weapons andkilled a soldier. Ensuing clashes left 53people dead, including three soldiers.

Sunni protesters in Anbar andNineveh provinces have called for ageneral strike and there has been a waveof armed clashes beyond Hawija, killingdozens more. Gunmen tried to stormarmy posts in the nearby towns ofRashad and Riyadh, killing 13. InRamadi, Anbar’s capital, protesters

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threw stones at a military convoy andset army vehicles ablaze. In Fallujah,about 1,000 people took to the streetschanting, “War, war.” Armed clashesbroke out and there were three attackson Sunni mosques.

In Suleiman Beg, between Baghdadand Kirkuk, government forces usedhelicopters against Sunni gunmen whotook over a police station. A militaryspokesman said that the army had madea tactical withdrawal “so we can workon clearing the region, corner bycorner.”

At least ten policemen and 31 Sunnigunmen were killed in armed clashesin northern Iraq after Sunni gunmenseized control of the eastern part ofMosul. It took three days for the armyto regain control after prolonged gunbattles.

In eastern Baghdad, at least eightpeople were killed and 23 morewounded when a car bomb exploded.

Insurgents attacked a pipelinecarrying oil from Kirkuk to Turkey’sMediterranean coast. Kirkuk is thesubject of a bitter dispute betweenBaghdad and the Kurdish RegionalGovernment, which wants to includeit into its autonomous region. A crowdof mourners in Kirkuk numbering inthe thousands chanted, “Death toMaliki” and “Revenge to the agents ofIran.”

Some Sunni sheikhs have joined

with clerics, declaring that thegovernment has crossed “red lines.”They are calling for activists to armthemselves and attack the army,security forces and governmentcollaborators.

Two Sunni ministers in Maliki’scoalition government have resignedover Hawija, adding to the string ofdefections, including a boycott of hisgovernment by Kurdish ministers.

Maliki has blamed the currentunrest on Al Qaeda and “remnants ofBa’ath Party for creating rift” in thecountry. He had earlier called theprotesters’ demands “stinking andsectarian”, but on Thursday adopted amore conciliatory stance, saying “theirdemands were legitimate.”

He offered some concessions,including changes to anti-terrorismlaws targeting the Sunni community,and announced an inquiry into theHawija clashes under the chairmanshipof the Sunni Deputy Prime MinisterSaleh al-Mutlag. He said that thefamilies of those killed and injured inHawija would be compensated.

The upsurge in violence comes justdays after the April 20 provincialelections, themselves characterised byviolence against candidates, mainly ofthe Sunni al-Iraqiya coalition. Fourteenof its candidates were assassinated. Itwon 91 seats in the 2010 parliamentaryelections, two more than Maliki’s Stateof Law coalition.

Car bombs went off at rallies andmeetings, killing dozens. In the mainlySunni provinces of Anbar and Nineveh,the government postponed theelections, now set for July 4, with nodate set for the disputed province ofKirkuk. Elections will be held in thethree Kurdish provinces in the autumn.

Maliki heads a corrupt, unpopular

and isolated government, made up ofshifting coalitions, parties and factionsthat are constantly splitting and fightingover influence and sinecures.

Preliminary results of Saturday’sprovincial elections testify to thegovernment’s isolation. Officialestimates claim that 50 percent of theelectorate voted, small itself, but localmonitoring networks claim that the realfigure was 37 percent. In someprovinces, voters found that theirnames were not on the electoral list,which is still based upon the ration cardsystem issued by the Saddam Husseinregime as there has been nocomprehensive census for years.

Maliki’s State of Law coalitionappears to have won a reducedmajority, winning 20 fewer seats andpossibly eight of the twelve votingprovinces, including Baghdad andBasra provinces. His Sunni allies didnot increase their vote, while Shi’iteareas gave their votes for independentpoliticians.

Incapable of resolving the vastsocio-economic problems besettingIraq, the neo-colonial regime inBaghdad, installed by Washington andsupported by Iran, is focused ondividing and oppressing the Iraqiworking class. Maliki has concentratedpower in his own hands, holding thedefence and interior posts, and usedthe anti-terrorist laws against his Sunnirivals, whipping up sectarian tensionsto divide the working class.

A key factor is the on-goingsectarian war for regime change inSyria that has pitted Sunni Islamistmilitias against the government ofPresident Bashar al-Assad, a memberof the Alawite sect, an offshoot ofShi’ism. This has been sponsored,financed and supplied by Iran’s SunniGulf rivals, and also Turkey, at


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Washington’s behest.

They also fear that Maliki, whoseinstallation as prime minister wassanctioned by Washington, is too closeto Tehran. They are acutely consciousof the seething discontent among theirown increasingly embitteredpopulations, many of whom are Shi’ite,who have not shared in the rulingfamilies’ oil- and gas-based wealth.

Iraqi Sunni Islamist fighters linkedto Al Qaeda of Iraq have longed playeda prominent role in the Syrian civil war,sending Jihadi fighters through Anbarprovince. The Al-Nusra Front, thelargest and most effective fightingforce, recently openly swore allegianceto Al Qaeda in Iraq. At the same time,some members of Iraqi Shia militiasare fighting for the Assad government.

The Maliki government has refused

to join in the demands for Assad’souster, earning the enmity of the Sunnimonarchies.

28 February, 2013

Jean Shaoul is professor of publicaccountability at the University ofManchester, UK. She has written onprivatisation and the use of privatefinance in trans port and healthcare.Source: wsws.org

STATEMENT

VENEZUELA: RESPECT THE PEOPLE’S WILL; ACCEPT MADURO’S VICTORY

According to media reports,“thousands of opposition supporters”are protesting the result of the recentlyconcluded presidential election inVenezuela. Violence has begun to tarnishthe protests. Seven persons have beenkilled so far.

It is partly because the victory ofNicolas Maduro was so narrow,50.75% to 48.97% for his rivalHenrique Capriles, that Maduro’sopponents have been emboldened tochallenge the electoral verdict. They arenow accusing Maduro and the NationalElectoral Council (CNE) of fraud andare demanding a full recount.

Independent observers are notconvinced that there was electoralfraud. They say that there may havebeen irregularities here and there but

that would not have altered the finaloutcome. This is why the CNE isinsisting that the result is irreversible.

Capriles and his supporters shouldaccept the election result. During thecampaign, he had pledged to acceptthe verdict. He must keep his word.

It is unfortunate in this regard thatCapriles’s foreign backers, especiallythe United States’ elite, are supportinghis demand for a recount. The US elitehas a vested interest in denyingMaduro his legitimate victory. SinceMaduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez,became President in 1999, the US elitehad gone all out to undermine Chavez’sBolivarian Revolution which seeks touplift the masses and to protect thedignity of the Venezuelan people andthe independence of the oil-rich nation.The US elite knows that Maduro is

deeply committed to advancingChavez’s struggle for justice at thenational, regional and international level.

People everywhere who valuejustice and dignity should come outopenly and endorse Maduro’s victory.They should not allow those who donot care for Venezuela’s independenceand integrity to repudiate the people’swill.

Dr. Chandra Muzaffar,President,

International Movement for aJust World (JUST).

18 April, 2013

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ARMS TRADE: LEGITIMATE MISGIVINGS

The International Movement for aJust World(JUST) expresses itsdisappointment with the stipulations ofthe Arms Trade Treaty recently passedby the General Assembly of the UnitedNations. Twenty-three countriesabstained from the vote (representinghalf the world’s population), includingRussia, China and India, while Iran’sDeputy Permanent Representative tothe UN, Gholam-Hossein Dehqani,called the treaty a political documentdisguised as an arms regulation treaty.Nations that abstained cited the highlyabusable stipulations in the text thatcould easily be susceptible topoliticization, manipulation anddiscrimination. The treaty does notrecognize the rights of all states toacquire, produce, export, import andpossess conventional weapons for theirown legitimate security purposes. Intheory, this treaty gives the world’slargest arms exporters heavy swayover the UN, granting much greaterability to influence whether or not anindividual country is allowed to obtainweapons for its own defense. India’s

lead negotiator Sujata Mehtahighlighted the text’s lack of anyexplicit prohibitions regarding armsproliferation to terrorists and unlawfulnon-state actors, noting that the treatyactually lowers the bar on obligationsof all states not to support terroristsand /or rebel groups.

There is no doubt that certain stateswould take advantage of this loophole’svast potential for misuse. Moredisappointingly, the treaty fails toprohibit the transfer of arms tocountries engaged in unprovokedmilitary aggression against othernations, lending credence toaccusations that the treaty is in fact

toothless. The treaty applies to thetransfer of conventional weapons suchas battle tanks, attack helicopters, andmissiles, while the proliferation of UAVdrones and other modern militarytechnology is not addressed orscrutinized. Most importantly, thetreaty does not focus upon actuallyreducing the sale of arms by limitingglobal production, which shouldrightfully be the objective of a treatythat uses global mass causality figuresto legitimize itself. According to the UNOffice for Disarmament Affairs, armedviolence kills more than half a millionpeople each year, a figure that shouldrightfully strengthen calls to regulateand decrease global production ratherthan focusing simply on trade. JUSTis regrettably skeptical that this treatycan reduce human suffering and havea meaningful impact on the lives of themost vulnerable while the text remainsin its current form.

Executive Committee, JUST12 April, 2013

THE KOREAN CRISIS: SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL?The danger posed by the increasing

hostile situation on the Koreanpeninsula cannot be understated. Thereis a frightening possibility that thesituation could spin out of control,leading to a deadly regional conflict inone of the most densely populated partsof the world. North Korea hasembarked on a near-daily onslaught ofbelligerent threats, some of whichinclude its invalidation of the 1953-armistice agreement that ended theKorean War, threats to attack the UnitedStates with nuclear weapons, andthreats to occupy South Korea. Militaryanalysts say that North Korea is at leastseveral years from building a nuclearwarhead or a missile capable of

reaching the US mainland.Pyongyang’s rhetoric matches theirfamiliar brand of psychologicalwarfare tactics aimed at driving up thetensions with Seoul and Washingtonwith destruction, only to be rewardedwith food aid and concessions whenit tones things down. There is no doubt

that if the Kim regime oversteps in itsapproach, there could be severerepercussions for civilians in SouthKorea and Japan, both in range of NorthKorea’s rockets.

The United States recently used twonuclear-capable B-2 stealth bombersand F-22 stealth fighter jets for the firsttime in its annual military drills withSouth Korea forces. The InternationalMovement for a Just World believesthat the tactics taken by the Obamaadministration serve to raiseantagonisms on the Korean peninsula,which in fact legitimizes Pyongyang’srhetoric of the US threatening the Northwith nuclear war. JUST unequivocally

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condemns the proliferation of force byany side and calls on all parties toexercise maximum restraint in the faceof provocations. JUST supports adialogue-based approach that will leadto de-escalation of tensions on the

Korean peninsula and calls on SouthKorea to engage in meaningful dialoguewith Pyongyang aimed at scaling backprovocation displays of force andreestablishing greater inter-Koreaneconomic cooperation. It is ofmaximum importance that levelheaded

diplomacy prevails and needlesslyconfrontational displays of militarymuscle are suspended.

Executive Committee, JUST9 April, 2013

THE NIGHTMARE STORY OF DR. AAFIA SIDDIQUI

ARTICLES

By Judy Bello

A woman finds herself alone on thestreet in an unfamiliar neighborhood ofan unfamiliar city. The people aroundher don’t speak her native language,and in fact, she doesn’t understandtheir language. She is accompanied bya 12 year old boy, Ali. She doesn’trecognize him, but she has a greataffection for children, and he is in hercare. He will later be identified as herson, Ahmed, whom she has not seenin the 5 years since they were abductedfrom a taxi in Karachi not far from theirhome. She doesn’t know how shegot there, and she isn’t entirely surewhy she is there. Small and slender,no more than 110 lbs, She seemsfragile, a little disoriented, out of place.She will later say that she was lookingfor her husband, or another time, thatshe was looking for a particularwoman. It’s possible she reallydoesn’t know why she is there. Shehears the Muezzin’s call and begins tomove towards the mosque. Perhapsshe will find a refuge there.

The Afghan police in Ghazni notice

a woman on the street. Somethingdraws their attention to her. Shedoesn’t appear to belong to the place.Perhaps she isn’t dressed in the localstyle. She is on the street in the earlyafternoon on a Friday when most menare at the Mosque and women are intheir homes. The Police say sheseemed out of place, lost. The policewould later say that she was loiteringafter dark, but among the courtdocuments, there is an interview withthe shopkeeper in front of whose storeshe was detained. He says that hewasn’t in the store because it wasFriday, he was attending the prayerservice at the Mosque. It would havebeen between 1 pm and 3:30 pm. Heswears the woman is a stranger andhe has never seen her before. Thoughthey will later say that they onlyapproached her because she seemedout of place, they check his shop andeven his phone to make sure. Thereis nothing on his phone except somepornographic images of white girls.He is innocent.

So what did attract their attention?Most likely we will never know forsure. Maybe its her apparentdisorientation as they will later state,or perhaps it is just that they don’trecognize her. Maybe they have beentipped off to look for her. When theyconfront her, she is startled anddefensive. She screams at them notto touch her. She accuses them of

being Americans or Americanoperatives. It is clear that neither shenor the boy speaks the local language,so a translator is called. A WikiLeakeddocument identifies a shopkeeper whowas enlisted as translator. He saysthat she shouts at the police and cursesthem in Urdu. She calls on Allah anddemands that they not touch her. Ofcourse the same document says thatshe was picked up after dark. If theyare just asking what she is doing, whyis she so distressed? Have theyphysically detained her, or is she justpanicked by their uniforms? They takeher in for questioning.

They have found a number ofincriminating objects in her handbag.According to a document laterpublished through Wikileaks, her pursecontains “numerous documents on howto build explosives, chemical weaponuse, targeting US military assets,excerpts from the Anarchist’s Arsenaland a 1 GB (gigabyte) thumb drive withadditional related material” along with“unknown chemical materials sealed incontainers”. During the course of theinterrogation she is severely beaten.She admits that she is a suicide bomberwhose target is the local governor.Apparently his home is nearby the placeshe was detained. She has a passport,which apparently has her true identitybecause they recognize her name asbeing on the FBI Most Wanted List .

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(Pretty good reckoning for local AfghanNational Police who don’t speakEnglish). Perhaps it just confirms thatshe is definitely the one they were lookingfor. They call Afghan President HamidKarzai and the Americans at Bagram, aswell as the Governor she was supposedlytargeting, who immediately takesadvantage of the opportunity for publicityand calls a press conference.

Soon the Americans arrived, FBIagents with soldiers and translators intow, to collect their prey. She is sittingon a bed behind a curtain in a rather smallroom. She is bruised and exhausted.Perhaps she has dozed and is awakenedby the entrance of as many as 10 meninto the small room where she is beingheld. Now she is alert. It is interestingthat the interrogators have broughtalong translators, but perhaps they needthem to communicate with the Afghanpolice. The woman speaks goodenough English to get a Masters Degreefrom MIT and PhD from BrandeisUniversity. She was a dynamo then,busy with her studies and her charitiesand her family. Now she is exhausted,beaten, frightened, alone in a room fullof heavily armed men.

One of the soldiers seats himselfnear the curtain and sets his automaticrifle on the floor near his chair. Hewill later say that it hadn’t occurred tohim that the prisoner was in the room.I suppose that is understandable. Inthe world these Americans normallyinhabit, prisoners are regularly shackledand hooded. They are brought into aroom when everyone else is in placelike chained animals being brought intothe ring at a circus. Even so, it is apretty serious breach of responsibilityfor the Sergeant in charge of thesecurity team to lay his rifle on the floornext to a closed curtain.

This prisoner is curious about thecommotion and anxious. She wants

to know what is happening. She risesand steps forward. She peeks throughthe curtain . . . Snatches the gun . . .. and Fires the gun . . . according tothe Americans . Someone yells out“The prisoner is free.” Shots ring out.She falls to the ground, wounded, witha bullet in her belly and one in her side.When her attackers come to rescue her,she curses them in English and screamsat them not to touch her, even as theywrestle her to the ground. Later, incourt, the Americans will swear thatshe took the gun and fired it. Theywill say they had no choice but todefend themselves. The Afghans willstate that they didn’t see whathappened but they heard shots fired.The woman says that she came to thecurtain to see what was going on.

The prisoner is brought to BagramHospital for surgery, where a portionof her intestines is removed, along witha kidney. She is in shock and neardeath on arrival. Numeroustransfusions are required to bring herback and stabilize her prior to andduring the emergency surgery.Afterwards, she is shackled, hand andfoot, to her bed. Imagine, if you will,a surgery where the patient is cut frombreastbone to pubis, and then shackledto a bed on her back, bound hand andfoot like a crucifixion. A pair ofwatchful FBI Agents stay by her side,encouraging her to talk about herself,about her life. She will later refer toTHEM as her only friends. She isheavily sedated with pain killers, andone can imagine they might be very

helpful, given her restraints, andcomforting, given her state of utterdependence and aloneness. A weeklater, she is flown to New York andarraigned before the Southern Courtof New York in a wheelchair onseparate charges of obtaining a lethalweapon and of attempting to kill eachperson in the room.

This terrible story is like somethingout of a nightmare, or a bad novel. Butit is a true story, in so far as you canfind the truth of events that are disputedand cloaked in the secrecy of multiple‘security operations’. At least it ispart of the story of the ordeal of Dr.Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani woman,born into an upper middle class familywith conservative religious values,who placed a high value on educationand on service. It is a part of thestory of a young woman who came tothe US, initially to Texas, later toMassachusetts to attend variouscolleges, eventually achieving a degreein ‘Neuroscience’, though she was didnot enjoy biology and chemistry butpreferred the study of psychology andeducation. In fact she had preparedfor a career teaching developmentallydisabled children.

Aafia Siddiqui had lived in the USfor more than 10 years, married hereand borne her children here. Shecarried the family standard as sheengaged in teaching and preachingIslam as the clearest and brightest truthand supporting Muslim Charities in warzones like Croatia and later,Afghanistan; sending Qur’ans toprisoners and teaching children at animpoverished inner city mosque. Butsomething has gone terribly wrong tobring our heroine to this terrible pass.And it will only get worse.

Returning to the present story,common sense would indicate it wouldhave been very difficult for this small

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battered woman to have lifted and fireda powerful automatic rifle. The leastamount of compassion would indicatethat even if she did take the gun, evenif she managed to fire the high powerautomatic rifle without being knockedto the ground, the action would havebeen in the service of escape ratherthan a murderous rampage. However,there is no forensic evidencewhatsoever that she held the gun orfired it. No one was shot except theprisoner herself. There were no bulletholes in the walls or ceiling of the smallroom, and no shell casings recoveredfrom the floor. There were nofingerprints on the gun, and there wasno gunpowder on the prisoner’s handsor the curtain in front of her. [CourtDocuments] Yet a year later, Dr. AafiaSiddiqui, a Pakistani national who nevershould have been extradited fromAfghanistan to the US in the first place,a bright, well educated person with aPhD from Brandeis University, nowincapable of a consistent descriptionof where she had been for the past 5years, incapable of recognizing herown son, was convicted of separatecounts of attempted murder and assaultfor every American in the room,sentenced to 86 years in prison andincarcerated in Carswell Medical

Center in Texas.

According to Cornell UniversityLegal Information Institute , underFederal law: the maximum sentence formanslaughter

Sources:The Express Tribune: Wikileaks Aafia’sIncriminating Purse

Court Document, USA vs. AafiaSiddiqui, Document #256 ( AafiaSiddiqui’s testimony to FBI agents ather bedside while in Bagram hospitalafter her surgery )

Sentencing, USA vs. Aafia Siddiqui,Document #314

Case Summary, 1:08-cr-00826-RMBUSA v. Siddiqui, “Count 1: Conspiracy( with whom? ) to Kill A US Citizen []Count 4: Violent Crime/Drugs/ MachineGun (!) (Use of a firearm during crimeof violence (?) “ — Emphasis and redcomments interjected are mine.

Definitions from Findlaw.comAttempt to Commit Murder orManslaughter

Protection of Officers and Employeesof the United States

Assaulting Resisting or ImpedingCertain Officers or Employees

*** Armed Career Criminal Act(Terrorism Enhancement)

Other crimes in 18 U.S.C.Cornell LII: Trafficking with respectto peonage, slavery, involuntaryservitude, or forced labor

Cornell LII: Violence at InternationalAirports

Cornell LII: Manslaughter

Cornell LII: Threatening the President

Cornell LII: Assaulting a SupremeCourt Officer

Cornell LII: Helping Al Qaeda developa nuclear weapon

11 April, 2013Judy Bello is currently a full timeactivist, she is active with The UpstateCoalition to Ground the Drones andEnd the Wars, and with Fellowship ofReconciliation Middle East Task Force.Source: Countercurrents.org

INTERNATIONAL CRIMES TRIBUNAL OF BANGLADESH IN THE LIGHT OF HISTORYBy Abdullah al- Ahsan

Bangladesh has recently capturedheadlines in international media outletsthanks to its International War CrimesTribunal (ICT) which has starteddelivering verdicts on what it callscrimes committed in 1971 whenBangladesh was born out of a bloodywar. These verdicts have ranged fromdeath sentence to life imprisonment.The Tribunal seemed to have expeditedthe process as if it was meeting somedeadline. This has been evidenced in aSkype conversation between the chiefjudge of the tribunal who later resigned

and a lawyer of Bangladeshi origin inEurope. These conversations werefirst reported in the The Economist ofLondon (December 12, 2012). ABangladeshi daily later published the fulltext of these conversations.

The latest verdict sparked seriousviolence throughout the country andthe government had to deploy the armyto control the situation. The Economist(March 9, 2013) reported that,“According to Odhikar, a Bangladeshihuman-rights watchdog, more than

100 people died between February 5thand March 7th in what it called a “killingspree” by law-enforcement agencieson the pretext of controlling theviolence. At least 67 people were killedafter the court awarded the verdict ofdeath by hanging to Delwar HossainSayeedi, one of the leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh’s biggest Islamicparty, for the murder, abduction, rape,torture and persecution of hiscountrymen.

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A number of political leadersincluding the opposition leader andformer Prime Minister Khaleda Zia andParty is in alliance with the government,have expressed the fear that this couldpush the country toward an all-out civilwar. The situation has deterioratedfurther because of the participation oftwo opposing groups: one known asShahbaghi Movement and the otherHefazati Islam. While the formerconsists of arch secularists, the latterrepresents people of deep religiousorientation. Both seem to be adamantin their opposing demands upon thestate.

All these developments raise manyquestions: What sort of crimes thetribunal is addressing? War crimes?What kind of war? Civil war? War ofindependence? Liberation war? Whofought whom? Who are these peoplewho are being tried by ICT? Whenwere these crimes committed? Whocommitted them? Why has this tribunalbeen constituted 42 years after the 1971war? Are there political motives behindthis? Let us consider these questions.

What are the crimes that thetribunal is addressing?

The tribunal claims to address thealleged crimes committed in the formerEast Pakistan (now Bangladesh), whichin 1971 was under military rule.Allegations against the Pakistani militaryrange from premeditated murder toorganized rape: from denial of civil,political and human rights to humiliation

and persecution. Although the Pakistanmilitary’s actions were highlighted andstrongly condemned by the internationalcommunity and the media, nobody washeld responsible for those allegedcrimes. Initially the government ofBangladesh listed 195 officers of thePakistan armed forces for theseviolations, but charges were droppedin an agreement between governmentsof Bangladesh, India and Pakistan in1974 in an accord called the SimlaAgreement. What is noteworthy is thatnobody determined the intensity ofthese crimes. Even the government ofBangladesh never conducted anyenquiry examining the extent ofatrocities and determining the numberof people killed or women raped in1971. The government of Pakistanprepared a report on the basis of officialcorrespondence between its EasternCommand and its armed forces GeneralHeadquarter, (GHQ) and on solicitingwitnesses from all walks of life whowere directly or indirectly involved inthe tragedy. According to this report,authored by the Chief Justice ofPakistan Supreme Court at that time,Justice Hamoodur Rahman, himself aBengali, approximately 26,000 personshad been killed in the conflict. SomeBangladeshi sources put the figure at 3million. This fantastic claim does notseem to include the pro-Pakistani andnon-Bengali elements killed in theconflict. Based on eye witness accountsand media reports the Norway basedPeace Research Institute, which has thereputation of collecting information onthe number of deaths in such conflictssince 1900; put the figure of death tollin the entire conflict at 58,000. OneAmerican/ Indian scholar, Sarmila Bosein her recent book Dead Reckoning:Memories of the 1971 Bangladesh War(2011, Columbia/Hurst), has studied thesubject academically and has challengedthe pro-Bangladeshi narratives. Since itspublication Bangladeshi government andits supporters are scoffing at her. But

the fact remains that to date Bose’swork is one of the most reliableaccounts of the 1971 war.

Background of the Conflict

In order to address questionsrelated to 1971 one needs to take along view of history. Bangladeshseems to have achieved independencefrom two different “colonial powers”in a span of only 25 years. Althoughtoday’s Bangladesh and Pakistanachieved independence from theBritish rule in 1947 and establishedone nation, the area that constitutesBangladesh today came under BritishEast India Company (EIC) rule in1757 while most areas that constitutePakistan today came under Britishimperial rule after 1857. During thefirst one hundred years the EICcrushed the local Muslim aristocracyand promoted the Hindu communitythrough its divide and rule policy. TheBritish patronage of the Hinducommunity created what has beencalled the 19th century Bengalrenaissance and a large Bengali Hindumiddle class. On the contrary, veryfew Muslim aristocrats survived inBengal to send their children tofaraway places such as Aligarh whereMuslims had established an institutionfor European education. As a resultthe new Pakistani civil service in 1947was dominated by non-Bengali elitesalthough Bengalis constituted themajority population in independentPakistan. Non-Bengali elites had nodesire to address questions ofhistorical disadvantages that EastPakistan had suffered.

Another noteworthy phenomenonof this period was the division ofBengal in 1905 by the new Viceroy inorder to create more opportunities forMuslims and establish a university inDhaka. The Hindu community fiercelyopposed the creation of a newMuslim-majority province of East


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Bengal. The British yielded to thepressure and the new province wasdissolved.The Bengali Muslimsresponded to the middle class-led Hinduanimosity by organizing in 1906 the AllIndia Muslim League in Dhaka – thepolitical party that established Pakistanin 1947. The Bengal Muslim Leaguescored a convincing victory against theIndian National Congress in the 1930sand it was a Bengali leader who movedthe Pakistan Resolution in 1940.Pakistan, in a vital sense, was thus agift of Bengali Muslims for the IndianMuslim community.

In independent Pakistan however,soon the democratic process collapsedand the military and civil bureaucratstook control of governance. The roleof Bengalis in achieving independenceof the country was not only ignored;they were denied their political andeconomic rights. The gap between thetwo wings of Pakistan widened. Thefirst national elections were held 23years after independence in which allnational political parties were almostwiped out. East Pakistan-based AwamiLeague, led by Shaikh MujiburRahman, campaigned for economicand financial self-determination andwon all seats but two in East Pakistanwith an overall majority at the nationallevel. The vested interests in WestPakistan took serious note of this andbegan conspiring against the AwamiLeague forming government at thecenter. Although national politicalparties such as the Muslim League andJamaat-i-Islami expressed theirunreserved support for transfer ofpower to Awami League, military andregional political leaders formed acoalition against the Awami League.Military dictator General Yahya Khanand political leader Zulfiqar Ali Bhuttoput up a facade of negotiation withShaikh Mujibur Rahman for about amonth, only to prepare for the ultimateshowdown against the democratic

forces in East Pakistan. Eventually thecentral government took military actionon 25 March 1971, creating terror inDhaka and forcing millions to flee toIndia for safety. Many pro-independence elements in East Pakistanresponded by attacking non-Bengalicivilians in various parts of the territory;the struggle for economic self-determination turned out to be an all-out civil war.

The General Character of the Warand the International Media

Pakistani authorities not only tookmilitary action to prevent thedemocratic forces, they also arrestedShaikh Mujibur Rahman leaving theparty in disarray. Most other leadersfled to neighboring India which waswaiting for an opportunity for decadesto dismember Pakistan. The exiledleaders of Awami League declared theformation of an independentgovernment of Bangladesh, while asignificant number of Bengali speakingmembers of the Pakistan armed forcesdeclared a war of liberation againstPakistani military authorities. Theinternational media was mercilessagainst Pakistan, exaggerating theatrocities of the Pakistan military andtotally ignoring the equally brutalkillings of pro-Pakistani civilians andnon-Bengali East Pakistanis.

As for the war, the fightingcontinued for about 8 to 9 months withthe participation from both sides ofsociety. There were the AwamiLeaguers and left-wing activists whowere willing to greet India’s invasionof Pakistan to facilitate theirindependence. But there were manyamong the liberation fighters who werereluctant to accept India’s militaryassistance and wanted to fight theirown war. Then there were those whowanted to solve the problems ofpolitical and economic inequalitybetween the two wings of the countrywithin the framework of a united

Pakistan through political struggle.Almost every family was divided alongthese political lines. In this fundamentalsense the conflict was a classic civilwar until it culminated with India’sdeclaration of war against Pakistan.

Culmination of the War and PostIndependent Bangladesh

India officially attacked Pakistan inearly December claiming that Pakistanhad attacked India on several fronts.At the end of the war Pakistan’sEastern Command surrendered andIndia took more than 90,000 Pakistaniprisoners of war. Later, in 1974 Indiasigned an accord with Bangladesh andPakistan under which Pakistani POWswere released unconditionally withindemnity for Pakistani militarypersonnel against any future trials.Within four years of Bangladeshindependence, in August 1975, someBangladeshi military officers assassinatedShaikh Mujibur Rahman and his family.The mutineer received a hero’s welcomein the streets of Dhaka since Mujib hadearlier introduced a new constitutionestablishing a one-party dictatorship witha provision to ban all independentnewspapers. Another importantmotivation for the coup was the generalperception that Mujib had surrenderedBangladesh’s sovereignty to India. Sincethen Bangladesh has been governed bothby civilian and military administrationsbut tension still remains between pro-Indian and Bangladeshi nationalist forces.

Why Has the Issue been raised now?

This is the most appealing question


10


THE ECONOMY: UNDER NEW OWNERSHIP (PART I)By Marjonie Kelly

continued next page

in the context of the current politicalsituation in Bangladesh. The generalelection is due within a year and thecurrent administration seems to beworried about its prospects ofwinning. Most independent observersbelieve that the Awami Leaguegovernment wants to eliminate theopposition coalition through this trial.The government also knows very wellthat it would be impossible to convictthese accused had the judiciary beenindependent and impartial. That is why

the government has ignored persistentdemands of the international legalcommunity to adhere to internationallyrecognized norms of justice and dueprocess. It is obvious that thesepolitically-motivated trials will have nolegitimacy whatsoever given the waythe ICT has been conducting itself sofar. From among members of theinternational community only Turkeyand a number of NGOs includingHuman Rights Watch, AmnestyInternational, and International BarAssociation have raised voices about the

legitimacy and impartiality of thistribunal. The faster the rest of theinternational community joins in, thebetter it is for international peace andsecurity.

23 April, 2013

Dr. Abdullah al- Ahsan is the Vice President

of JUST and also the Deputy Dean and

Professor of History, International Institute

of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC),

International Islamic University Malaysia.

Pushing my grocery cart down theaisle, I spot on the fruit counter a dozenplastic bags of bananas labeled“Organic, Equal Exchange.” My heartleaps a little. I’d been thrilled, monthsearlier, when I found my local grocercarrying bananas—a new product fromEqual Exchange—because thisemployee-owned cooperative outsideBoston is one of my favoritecompanies. Its main business remainsthe fair trade coffee and chocolate thecompany started with in 1986. Sincethen, the company has flourished, andits mission remains supporting smallfarmer co-ops in developing countriesand giving power to employees throughownership. It’s as close to an idealcompany as I’ve found. And I’mdelighted to see their banana businessthriving, since I know it was rocky fora time. (Hence the leaping of my heart.)

I happen to know a bit more thanthe average shopper about EqualExchange, because I count myselflucky to be one of its few investorswho are not worker-owners. Overmore than 20 years, it has paidinvestors a steady and impressiveaverage of 5 percent annually (thesedays, a coveted return).

Maneuvering my cart toward the

dairy case, I search out butter madeby Cabot Creamery, and pick up someCabot cheddar cheese. I choose Cabotbecause, like Equal Exchange, it’s acooperative, owned by dairy farmerssince 1919.

At the checkout, I hand over myVisa card from Summit Credit Union,a depositor-owned bank in Madison,Wis., where I lived years ago. Creditunions are another type of cooperative,meaning that members like me arepartial owners, so Summit doesn’tcharge us the usurious penalty rate of25 percent or more levied by otherbanks at the merest breath of a latepayment. They’re loyal to me, and I’mloyal to them.

On my way home, I pull up to thedrive-through at Beverly CooperativeBank to make a withdrawal. This bankis yet another kind of cooperative—owned by customers and designed toserve them. Though it’s small—withonly $700 million in assets, and justfour branches (all of which I couldreach on my bike)—its ATM card isrecognized everywhere. I’ve used iteven in Copenhagen and London.

With this series of transactions onone afternoon, I am weaving my way

through a profoundly different andvirtually invisible world: thecooperative economy. It’s an economythat aims to serve customers, ratherthan extract maximum profits fromthem. It operates through variousmodels, which share the goal of treatingsuppliers, employees, and investorsfairly. The cooperative economy hasdwelled alongside the corporateeconomy for close to two centuries.But it may be an economy whose timehas come.

Something is dying in our time. Asthe nation struggles to recover fromunsustainable personal and nationaldebt, stagnant wages, the damageswrought by climate change, and more,a whole way of life is drawing to aclose. It began with railroads and steamengines at the dawn of the IndustrialAge, and over two centuries hasswelled into a corporation-dominatedsystem marked today by vast wealthinequity and bloated carbon emissions.That economy is today provingfundamentally unsustainable. We’rehitting twin limits, ecological andfinancial. We’re experiencing bothecological and financial overshoot.

If ecological limits are something

How cooperative are leading the way to empowered workers and healthy communities

I N T E R N A T I O N A L M O V E M E N T F O R A J U S T W O R L D A R T I C L E S

11


many of us understand, we’re justbeginning to find language to talk aboutfinancial limits—that point ofdiminishing return where the hunt forfinancial gain actually depletes the tax-and-wage base that sustains us all.

Here’s the problem: The very aimof maximum financial extraction is builtinto the foundational social architectureof our capitalist economy—that is, theconcept of ownership.

If the root of government issovereignty (the question of whocontrols the state), the root constructof every economy is property (thequestion of who controls theinfrastructure of wealth creation).

Many of the great social strugglesin history have come down to the issueof who will control land, water, andthe essentials of life. Ownership hasbeen at the center of the most profoundchanges in civilization—from endingslavery to patenting the genome of life.

Throughout the Industrial Age, theglobal economy has increasingly cometo be dominated by a single form ofownership: the publicly tradedcorporation, where shares are bought andsold in stock markets. The systemiccrises we face today are deeply entwinedwith this design, which forms thefoundation of what we might call theextractive economy, intent on maximumphysical and financial extraction.

The concept of extractiveownership traces its lineage to Anglo-Saxon legal tradition. The 18th centuryBritish legal theorist William Blackstonedescribed ownership as the right to“sole and despotic dominion.” Thisview—the right to control one’s worldin order to extract maximum benefitfor oneself—is a core legitimatingconcept for a civilization in whichwhite, property-owning males have

claimed dominion over women, otherraces, laborers, and the earth itself.

In the 20th century, we wereschooled to believe there wereessentially two economic systems:capitalism (private ownership) andsocialism/communism (publicownership). Yet both tended, inpractice, to support the concentrationof economic power in the hands of thefew.

Emerging in our time—in largelydisconnected experiments across theglobe—are the seeds of a different kindof economy. It, too, is built on afoundation of ownership, but of aunique type. The cooperative economyis a large piece of it. But this economydoesn’t rely on a monoculture ofdesign, the way capitalism does. It’sas rich in diversity as a rainforest is inits plethora of species—with commonsownership, municipal ownership,employee ownership, and others. Youcould even include open-source modelslike Wikipedia, owned by no one andmanaged collectively.

These varieties of alternativeownership have yet to be recognizedas a single family, in part becausethey’ve yet to unite under a commonname. We might call them generative,for their aim is to generate conditionswhere our common life can flourish.Generative design isn’t about dominion.It’s about belonging—a sense ofbelonging to a common whole.

We see this sensibility in a varietyof alternatives gaining ground today.New state laws chartering benefitcorporations have passed recently in12 states, and are in the works in 14more. Benefit corporations—likePatagonia and Seventh Generation—build into their governing documents acommitment to serve not onlystockholders but other stakeholders,including employees, the community,

and the environment.

Also spreading are socialenterprises, which serve a socialmission while still functioning asbusinesses (many of them owned bynonprofits). Employee-owned firmsare gaining ground in Spain, Poland,France, Denmark, and Sweden. Stillanother model is the mission-controlledcorporation, exemplified byfoundation-owned companies such asNovo Nordisk and Ikea in northernEurope. While publicly traded, thesecompanies safeguard their socialpurpose by keeping board control inmission-oriented hands.

If there are more kinds ofgenerative ownership than most of usrealize, the scale of activity is also largerthan we might suppose—particularlyin the cooperative economy. In theUnited States, more than 130 millionpeople are members of a co-op or creditunion. More Americans holdmembership in a co-op than hold sharesin the stock market. Worldwide,cooperatives have close to a billionmembers. Among the 300 largestcooperative and mutually ownedcompanies worldwide, total revenuesapproach $2 trillion. If these enterpriseswere a single nation, its economy wouldbe the 9th largest on earth.

Often, these entities are profitmaking, but they’re not profitmaximizing. Alongside more traditionalnonprofit and government models, theyadd a category of private ownershipfor the common good. Their growthacross the globe represents a largelyunheralded revolution.

28 February, 2013Part II of this article will be publishedin the June 2013 JUST Commentary.

Marjorie Kelly is a fellow with the Tellus

Institute in Boston and director of ownership

strategy with Cutting Edge Capital.

Source: YES! Magazine

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