Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says the final New Zealand Defence Force evacuation flight from Afghanistan landed back in the United Arab Emirates last night, before the bomb attacks killing at least 12 US soldiers and 60 Afghans at Hamid Karzai International Airport.
One hundred people, including New Zealanders and Australians, were on the flight. It is not yet clear how many of those people are destined for New Zealand.
So far, 276 New Zealand nationals and permanent residents, their families, and other visa holders have been evacuated.
There were no New Zealand Defence Force personnel in Kabul and no New Zealand evacuees at the airport at the time of the explosions.
Ardern described the attacks as “appalling” and said the country’s thoughts were with all of those in Afghanistan who had been killed or injured.
“We strongly condemn what is a despicable attack on many innocent families and individuals who were simply seeking safety from the incredibly difficult and fragile situation in Afghanistan,” she said in a statement.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade remained in close contact with New Zealand citizens and permanent residents in Afghanistan who had previously registered on SafeTravel or otherwise made contact.
‘High threat of terrorist attack’
Yesterday, all those known to have been in Afghanistan were advised by MFAT of the “ongoing and very high threat of terrorist attack” and warned not to go to Hamid Karzai International Airport and to leave the airport if they were nearby.
At this stage, there have been no requests for assistance from New Zealanders or other visa holders in Afghanistan related to the explosion. MFAT are trying to contact all those known to be in the region.
Ardern said the situation at Kabul’s airport had been so difficult for both people trying to get out, and those undertaking the evacuations that there would be no more flights into the city.
Over the course of the mission, the NZDF aircraft was able to undertake three flights out of Kabul and had successfully brought out hundreds of evacuees who are destined for both New Zealand and Australia.
Australia also brought out a number of those destined for New Zealand.
Defence Minister Peeni Henare said as well as those who have already arrived in the country, more people eligible for relocation are in transit. Some are being processed at bases outside Afghanistan, so it is still too early to know the total numbers of people who will be returned to Aotearoa, he said.
Ardern said those who remained were in an incredibly difficult position.
Afghanistan situation “complex, fragile”
“The situation in Afghanistan is incredibly complex and fragile and continues to change rapidly. Our next job is to consider what can be done for those who remain in Afghanistan still. That will not be a quick or easy task,” she said.
She also praised those Defence Force personnel who undertook the mission.
“I want to thank our Defence Force personnel who have worked hard to bring those in need home, by establishing a presence on the ground both at the airport in Kabul, and in the United Arab Emirates alongside other government agencies.”
She also thanked New Zealand’s partners, especially Australia, the US and the United Arab Emirates.
It has not yet been confirmed when NZDF personnel and the C-130 aircraft will arrive back in New Zealand.
Fiji evacuations ABC’s Pacific Beat reports that five Fijian workers have been evacuated from Afghanistan after the Taliban took control of the country, three being flown to Kazhakstan.
One Fiji security contractor said a humanitarian crisis is looming with major challenges ahead for the country.
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin has criticised the circumstances which led to last week’s resignation of the new French police commander in New Caledonia, Colonel Eric Steiger.
RNZ News reports that Steiger resigned after public anger in New Caledonia over a report by French media that he had been convicted for domestic violence.
Political leaders across the spectrum and women’s groups had urged Paris to recall Steiger.
“In a country where 22 percent of women are victims of violence, and where the institutions have placed the fight against intra-family violence as a territorial issue, the decision to change the head of the gendarmerie in New Caledonia should be made without hesitation,” she said.
Colonel Steiger, who was recently appointed to head the archipelago’s gendarmerie, was convicted on appeal on May 28, 2021, for “willful violence against a spouse”.
In a televised comment, minister Darmanin said he was opposed to witchhunts which had made the commander the “target of a cabal”, noting that Steiger was not jailed.
On appeal, Steiger’s suspended prison sentence was converted into a 6000 euro fine.
Admitted the facts
In February 2020, Steiger had been sentenced to six months suspended prison sentence but had appealed.
During the second trial, Steiger admitted the facts and declared “his behavior towards his wife had been violent and he wanted to recognise his responsibility”.
The General Directorate of the National Gendarmerie told the French investigative website Mediapart the circumstances were a “painful context of separation of the couple after 20 years of living together”.
Steiger’s former wife Marlène Schiappa told Mediapart reporter Pascale Pascariello she questioned how a violent man could be given such a position in New Caledonia.
According to The Pacific Newsroom, she graphically described Steiger’s verbal humiliation and physical violence which saw the eldest daughter of the couple forced to intervene to protect her mother, as she would confirm during the investigation.
Colonel Steiger’s lawyer, Thibault de Montbrial, told the website “there was violence but no beatings, otherwise the sentence would have been different. Eric Steiger is not a “slugger of women”.
Minister Darmanin said a new commander would be appointed soon.
Via America’s Lawyer: Former Defense Department officials make the rounds on cable news networks criticizing President Biden for withdrawing from Afghanistan and insisting the U.S. continue its 20-year occupation. Left unmentioned were their close ties with defense contractors who hate to watch their Middle East cash cow finally be put out to pasture. Mike Papantonio and Farron Cousins discuss more.
Liverpool campaigners are opposing an arms fair in their city. They don’t want firms who supply repressive regimes doing business on their doorstep. And they plan to fight back against the event taking place on their historic waterfront.
According to Liverpool Against the Arms Fair’s (LAAF) Twitter account, the first action will be held on 11 September.
If you are demonstrating with us against the @ACCLiverpool Arms Fair on September 11th, here is all you need to know.
There are two assembly points, one at 11.30am, one an hour later at 12.30pm.
— Liverpool Against the Arms Fair (@AgainstArms) August 24, 2021
Arms fair
The forthcoming Association of Old Crows (AOC) event will showcase electronic and information warfare equipment for potential customers. It will also feature lectures from experts and senior military officers on security matters. The ‘electronic’ arms fair will feature technology from companies such as Babcock Integrated technology, and other global arms firms.
The AOC event will be held on the city’s waterfront between from 12 to 13 October 2021. The September demo will help build resistance ahead of the fair. And while the focus is on electronic warfare, one campaigner told The Canary:
At this fair arms merchants whose weapons have been used to target civilian populations around the world are due to market and sell their arms and military technology.
They added that the event “will involve companies which supply”:
* nuclear weapons delivery systems to the US and UK (BAE Systems, Raytheon, Babcock) * drones, targeting systems, missiles, components for fighter jets, tanks and munitions to Israel, used in repeated attacks on civilians in Gaza (Elbit, ELTA, Raytheon, BAE Systems, L3Harris, Rafael, Teledyne) * aircraft, bombs, missiles to Saudi Arabia, used in repeated attacks on civilians in Yemen (BAE Systems, Raytheon, MBDA).
They added:
There is growing outcry against this event, especially locally and our group is currently organising a protest to take place on 11th September in opposition.
Resist the arms fair
The event is also opposed by local councillors. In fact, Liverpool mayor Joanne Anderson said in July she had looked at ways to stop the arms fair taking place, but to no avail.
I know that many of us feel it is at odds with the socialist and peaceful values held by the council and that it raises moral and ethical questions.
However, Anderson said that their hands were tied:
as a council we are very limited in what we can do. … I have explored every possible legal option but sadly, while we may want to do more, the position is that lawfully we can’t.
In a letter supported by other local politicians, Anderson said:
Council further notes that a number of dictatorships and military-led Governments have historically and indeed continue to use military equipment and personnel to repress freedoms and human rights.
Showdown
The protest will start at two locations in Liverpool. Firstly, Princes Park at 11.30am.
This is where one leg of the march begins at 11.30am, the gates to Princes Park at the end of Princes Avenue.
In 2008 and 2009, Rory Fanning walked across the entire United States in memory of Pat Tillman, the former NFL-player-turned-Army Ranger who was killed by “friendly fire” in Afghanistan in 2004. Fanning had served beside Tillman during Fanning’s first tour in Afghanistan. During his second tour, he became a war resister by refusing to carry arms.
Fanning’s first Afghanistan tour was bloody and illuminating; he realized the U.S. invasion and occupation was a human rights catastrophe that made the world a much more dangerous place. During his second tour, Fanning dropped out of the Army as a conscientious objector just days after the U.S. military attempted to cover up the cause of Tillman’s death in a propaganda effort to portray the athlete as a war hero. If not for the ensuing media attention, Fanning says, the military may have simply thrown him in jail.
Instead, Fanning returned to the U.S., where the activist and author penned two books and spent years talking to high school students about the grim reality of serving in the U.S. military — a reality students would never hear about from military recruiters. Now, as the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan comes to a chaotic close, Fanning reflects on 20 years of the war on terror, and how anti-racist activism and the push for free college tuition and universal health care can help stem the tide of U.S. imperialism around the world.
This interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity, you can listen to the full interview at the top of the page.
Mike Ludwig: What has been your initial reaction to the latest news out of Afghanistan?
Rory Fanning: Well, it’s mixed emotions. Obviously, I’m happy to see the United States getting out of Afghanistan; [it] should’ve never been there in the first place. But it’s also horrifying seeing all of the people that we’re leaving behind. My thoughts have been: How can I help get these people out? And not just the people who have facilitated the occupation in Afghanistan, but all Afghans. All Afghans deserve a place to go after the United States occupied their country and helped turn it into a pile of rubble in many ways.
Sure. So, you’d like to see maybe a greater refugee relocation effort or more resources for anyone there who’s seeking help?
Yes. Obviously, this should have been done before we withdrew. There should have been a game plan set up and ready to be implemented or implemented already. But yeah, everybody who wants to leave Afghanistan should be able to leave Afghanistan and the U.S. has an obligation to take care of each and every one of those individuals.
Do you want to just go back a little bit and talk about some of your experience there, maybe some of the people you met and why, when you look at the current situation, you think it’s so important for us to be supportive — not just of people who facilitated the occupation, but anyone who feels perhaps threatened by the Taliban?
The United States has been meddling with Afghanistan for the past 40 years, if not more years. And we’ve brought in warlords who are otherwise out of the country, to basically help carry out the U.S. mission, which was not about freedom and democracy or even nation-building, but rather a counterterrorism effort.
And I saw firsthand that Afghanistan is probably one of the poorest countries on the planet. And so, you see this occupying force coming in with suitcases full of money, saying, “identify a member of the Taliban,” and so people who have no money would say, “Oh there, there’s a member of the Taliban right over there.” And we’d fly in and land in their front yard with night vision on and take out a military-age male, put a bag over their heads and take them off to a place like Guantanamo or the like. We later find out that the person that we had taken wasn’t a member of the Taliban or wasn’t a member of an extremist organization, to use the parlance of the U.S. government, but rather just someone who owed his landlord some money. And the landlord saw the U.S. military coming in with bags full of cash as an opportunity to not only get paid, but also get rid of a problem tenant…. So often we were little more than pawns in village disputes.
Or we’d have rockets land in our camp, and we didn’t necessarily see where they came from specifically. So, we’d call in, you know, a 500-pound bomb airstrike on a village and there would be mass casualties. And we know now that more than 80 percent of all those who have died since 9/11 in Afghanistan have been innocent civilians.
So, people who couldn’t even point to Manhattan on the map suddenly had a vested interest in learning about the United States and in many ways, getting revenge on the United States for killing their brother, their sister, their mother, their father, their infant child.
I signed for the military hoping to help prevent another 9/11-type attack, and I saw that I was only creating the conditions for more such attacks. The world is a much more dangerous place as a result of our invasion of Afghanistan.
Absolutely. A lot of the counterinsurgency strategy was to win “hearts and minds” on the ground — after, as you said, so much of life had been disrupted by invasion and occupation. Was there a particular time in your service that you said, “I think I’m opposed to this and I want to become a resister?”
Well, I entered the country a few months after the Taliban surrendered in early 2002. I didn’t know that, at the time, our job was essentially to bring the Taliban back into the fight. The surrender wasn’t good enough for the United States. They wanted revenge for 9/11. Politicians back home wanted revenge for 9/11, I think that was part of it.
But I also think it was an opportunity to create this ubiquitous enemy and maintain Cold War-era military budgets, and, you know, maintain control of the region, or at least think [we] were. And so, I went into the country and realized that we had absolutely no understanding of the culture, no understanding of the language. We didn’t really even care who we were targeting in many ways. What was it about? I mean, to even say that I knew what it was about would be kind of a disservice.
I do think [the mission] was in large part to bring the Taliban back into the fight. And I think that’s what we did. And we know that so many members of the Taliban now are people who were victims of bombings, U.S. bombings, or warlords that we brought into the country. And people who have no other options — it’s not like you go work in an office somewhere in Afghanistan — turn to the Taliban as a place to put food on the table in many ways.
I felt like a bully in Afghanistan. Like I said, I wanted to make the world a safer place, but saw that [the U.S. military] was making it more dangerous. And I didn’t really see if there was an attempt to build schools. If there was an attempt to look out for people, particularly in the countryside, or create an infrastructure in Afghanistan where they could have roads. I haven’t seen any of that.
What is the timeframe of your service in Afghanistan and also for becoming a war resister? What did that look like for you?
I went in after [the U.S. had been in Afghanistan for] a few months, I think it was 2002 toward the tail end of that year. I was really overwhelmed by the level of poverty and the destruction that had been left over from the Soviet occupation of the country.
And we were occupying schools. Some guy, you know, some military-age man with his friend walked by and didn’t show the proper level of deference, and we put one guy in one room and the other guy in another room, and the guy sitting by himself would hear a gunshot, and we’d walk in and ask him if there was anything he wanted to tell us. This was just a desperate attempt to glean information, and it was terrorizing the Afghan population.
And, you know, like I said, that the 500-pound bombs, the lack of understanding of culture, which led us into these ridiculous, horrible situations where you’re taking people off to secret prisons, and then just the general sense of feeling like a bully. As I said, this is not making the world a safer place. It’s making the world a more dangerous place.
I decided, after my first tour, that I was going to become a war resister. And they said, “No, you’re coming back with us to Afghanistan.” And I said, okay, well I refuse to hold, carry a weapon. And so, I kind of walked with the donkeys in remote regions of Afghanistan on my second tour for about four months.
Fascinating. Do you have any impressions of the country that you got from that experience? I feel like we don’t hear enough in the media about what life is like in Afghanistan, especially in the rural areas. We hear a lot about drugs. We hear a lot about war, but we don’t hear that much about what life is like.
Like anywhere in the world, I think 99.9 percent of the population are incredible people. Most people are good, no matter where you go in the country, I was really struck by the sense of community that I saw. When you have conversations with people they’re really engaged. There was a lack of insecurity that you see when you’re having a conversation with many Americans, [a] lack of self-consciousness. There was a real presence in my interactions with Afghans. And I was envious of [the] sense of community that they had.
So yeah, my experience with Afghans, at least when we were going into towns, was just one of a kind of appreciation for who they were and their community…. I mean, there was obviously a resistance, but they’re very hospitable in the sense that they’d have dinners waiting for us, and they’d have rice and yeah, maybe it was because of pressure, but maybe it was because of just a general sense of hospitality. I felt like most Afghans that I interacted with were far healthier than the occupying force that had visited their country.
At some point, that second tour where you refused to carry a gun came to an end and you came back to the U.S. — and then did you join the antiwar movement? Were you involved in organizing?
It took me a while to kind of settle into that. I came from a fairly right-wing Catholic family who liked the idea that they had a freedom fighter in the family. And so, when I got back, I kind of kept a lot of it to myself, and I spent about five years working in a cubicle, doing what I didn’t want to do … and realizing that I was kind of a half of a person in this process. And I felt like I had to shake things up and eventually, you know, speak about my experiences.
So, I decided to walk across the United States for the Pat Tillman foundation. Pat and his brother Kevin were two of the only people in the military that supported my decision when I became a war resister. And in large part, I didn’t go to jail because of the way Pat died, because they just wanted me out of the unit. You know, the reason they wanted me out of the military at the time, it was because they were covering up his death. I guess they didn’t want the added pressure of someone who was questioning the mission. I felt like on a lot of levels, I owed Pat something. So, I walked across the United States for his foundation.
You said that the Army was interested in covering up Pat Tillman’s death, so you kind of got a pass, and you were in the same unit?
Yes. In the 2nd Ranger Battalion.
What was the reason they were trying to cover it up? What was the story around his death and why the military was so concerned?
Well, first, they tried to make Pat into the poster boy for the war on terror. If someone could give up a $3.6 million NFL contract to go and serve in the military and defend freedom and democracy, then you can too! And this made Pat obviously very uncomfortable, but this is what the U.S. was trying to do.
And so, when they ended up killing Pat in an act of friendly fire, they wanted to cover it up. They burned his uniform and his diary and covered it all the way up to the highest levels of the Bush administration. At the very least, Donald Rumsfeld knew, most likely George Bush knew about it. And, then it all came out.
It was bad PR for the military, really bad PR, because they had used Pat Tillman as a propaganda point.
Exactly.
So, you walked across the country. I imagine that at this point, you were starting to engage in the antiwar movement. And I remember being an activist in the movement and meeting a lot of veterans, both from Afghanistan and Iraq, who’d either become resisters, or after their tours became antiwar activists. And I fear that a lot of their contributions at the time have now been lost in the media. I’m curious about your experience in the antiwar movement and with other veterans who may have agreed with you and organized with you.
Yeah, well, I mean, even after I finished walking across the country, I was still scared to share my story. And it wasn’t until I kind of retraced my steps via history books and saw all of these war resisters of different kinds along my path that I actually didn’t even know about when I was walking. I walked where Ida B. Wells wrote her anti-lynching papers, where the San Patricio Battalion refused to fight Mexicans in the Mexican-American War, where Dolores Huerta organized. And these were kind of war resisters of a different kind, and if they could do what they did, then I could certainly share my story. And so, once I read about these histories, that motivated me to kind of want to get out and meet other people who felt betrayed by the U.S. military, and there are plenty of them out there.
In addition to all the dissenters, the people who’ve left the military and have spoken out after the fact, according to some estimates there’s as many as 80,000 war resisters, people who refuse to fight after entering the military based on what they saw in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. So, there’s quite a number of people out there, it’s just … there’s not a lot of space for dissenting voices to speak out and do their thing.
I realized that getting into high schools was actually a very important thing. There’s more than 10,000 recruiters stalking the [school] hallways around the country, sharing very little about what is actually happening in Afghanistan and Iraq. And I wanted to fill in some of those blanks in high schools. So, the Chicago Teacher’s Union gave me a grant to go in and speak to as many high schools as I could, and that was actually very difficult because even with the grant, most people see the military as a positive option for young people, particularly in places like the South and West Side of Chicago, where there are not a ton of options after graduation.
I found a lot of community and comfort in meeting other antiwar veterans.
I’m so glad you brought that up, because my entry into the antiwar movement was in high school. I was a freshman when 9/11 happened and began doing counter-recruiting activism in whatever limited ways I could as a high school student. And I not only met antiwar activists that way, but I met veterans as well. I saw veterans as so crucial to the antiwar movement; their experiences were truth to be told in this country. But I also remember the antiwar movement being very factionalized at the time and not everybody seeming to be on board with veterans, possibly because their politics didn’t quite match up. Did you have any problems like that with the movement itself where you didn’t feel welcome for some reason, because you had participated in the war?
I feel like there was a discomfort around some people in the movement, I think there were certain situations where that was the case. I think people with slightly more sophisticated politics were able to see beyond that someone would sign up for the military and actually look a little deeper as to why they would sign up for the military, given the billion-dollar-a-year-propaganda budget the U.S. military has. You know, just the lack of education in schools when it comes to talking about the history of U.S. imperialism — and also giving people the opportunity to change their minds based on what they saw.
I think it’s important for people to be able to hear the voice, the experience of veterans, particularly those who are considering entering the military. You have people just going in and wagging their fingers, saying, “Don’t join the military. It’s a horrible thing.” You know, that’s one thing. And I should say, there needs to be more of that in high schools — but I think you’re more likely to communicate something to a high school-age person if you’ve actually lived it and say, “This is actually why you should think twice about joining the military. Killing someone for a cause that you don’t understand is the worst thing you could possibly do, it’s maybe better to die yourself than to kill someone for a cause you don’t understand.” And then be able to speak [from] a position of authority in that regard. I think it’s hard to replicate that.
Are there any political messages that you would like to get out, that you would draw from all these experiences … now that it’s been about 10 years since the media has had a serious discussion about Afghanistan?
Well, I signed up thinking the United States was a force for good around the world and actually cared about things like freedom and democracy. I realized that that certainly wasn’t the case, and U.S. imperialism is something that benefits a small percentage of the population at the great expense of everyone else. And then there are certain tools that need to be implemented in order to have enough people sign on — to stock the approximately 800 military bases the United States has around the world.
And I think there are xenophobia and racism … this belief that the United States is superior, and that the mission of the United States, which largely is rooted in white supremacy, is the best alternative — that we need to be the police of the world.
I’ve seen some of the mechanisms that allow for endless wars and trillion-dollar-a-year military budgets, and I’ve also come to see some of the ways that we can fight it without necessarily directly being part of the antiwar movement…. There are other ways that you can fight it, like advocating for free education and free health care. I mean, that’s a major blow to U.S. imperialism — when people aren’t signing up for the military because they don’t have to, because they don’t need to have their college paid for or have health care, so they don’t have to do a job that they don’t want [to be] guaranteed healthcare.
If you really care about climate change, you need to go after the people that are most responsible for it. The U.S. military is one of the greatest polluters on the planet, if not the greatest polluter on the planet.
I’m still wondering the best way to challenge U.S. imperialism. It’s certainly not an easy thing, but I think it’s crucial if we’re going to solve a lot of the problems like free education, free healthcare, building a better sustainable infrastructure in the United States, and I don’t know, fighting climate change.
And also, being an anti-racist is at the core of it. I mean, it is very hard to go convince someone to kill somebody if they are anti-racist. If they see that they have much more in common with ordinary people in Afghanistan or North Korea than they do the people telling them to go and fight those people. So, fighting Islamophobia, fighting anti-Black racism here in the United States, those are all part of the ways that we can challenge U.S. imperialism.
Just because we pulled out of Afghanistan doesn’t mean U.S. imperialism is over. As you mentioned, the U.S. has hundreds of bases all across the world. Do you have any thoughts about the future?
Yeah, well, I mean, [imperialism] walks side by side with capitalism. The U.S. ruling class is constantly looking for new markets to exploit, more resources to steal, and ways to dominate other powers around the world. As long as profit is the main concern of those who are running the show, you can expect the empire to continue to fight and look for those markets and do so in extremely violent ways.
In the American Prospect, there’s a really great article by Rozina Ali about how the law is kind of constantly manipulated, changed, and interpreted in a way that makes endless war lawful — to support things like the drone wars, endless wars, things like Guantanamo Bay. I mean, war should technically adapt to the law, but it’s usually the opposite. So, I think there’s going to be constant attempts to manipulate [the law] and justify drone strikes and secret prisons and 800 military bases around the world. The ruling class will use every trick in the book in order to convince people that what they’re doing is okay. There used to be big debates around military conflicts, you know, particularly in lead up to World War II or World War I, but there is [little] of that debate anymore. It’s whether things are lawful or not, and you can manipulate the law to make everything justified, or allowed. And I think that’s what we’re seeing. And I think we’ll continue to see that.
One of the things that Chelsea Manning showed was how vetted the media is when it comes to covering wars. I think there were seven journalists inside of Iraq, behind “enemy lines,” at the time. And so, people aren’t seeing what’s going on around the world, they don’t know that the United States has had military operations in nearly all of the African countries since 2011 alone.
But I think it’s really important for places like Truthout and other independent outlets to cover this stuff and let people know that they’re still spending a trillion dollars a year on the military, and that trillion dollars a year isn’t going toward the infrastructure, it’s not going toward education. It’s lining the pockets of people who are already rich.
Five Fijians who are based in Afghanistan say they are safe and well.
Speaking to FBC News, one of them who is living in the capital Kabul, said they kept tabs on each other and shared information on the Taliban takeover.
They say that they will only leave Afghanistan if the situation worsens.
Meanwhile, RNZ News reports that the first group of New Zealand citizens, their families and other visa holders evacuated arrived yesterday in New Zealand.
New Zealand lawyer Claudia Elliott has worked across Afghanistan with the United Nations and is now trying to get visas to get at risk Afghani professionals to also be evacuated to New Zealand.
She says seeing the Taliban’s takeover has been traumatising – she is worried about how those who are given visas to New Zealand will actually be able to get out of Afghanistan.
In the past year alone, nearly 3 million women in the United States have been forced out of the workforce due to coronavirus-related issues. Across the country, women are being pushed into crushing poverty as homelessness and mass incarceration rise among women and children at alarming rates, and health care, voting and reproductive rights continue to be under assault.
What’s the government’s response? Passing expanded paid family leave? No. Continuing expanded unemployment benefits? Absolutely not. Unwilling to provide solutions to the very real issues that everyday people are facing, Congress has instead found a way to suck more resources into the war machine: expanding the draft to include women.
The National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service is a task force created in response to a ruling by the courts in 2016 that the male-only U.S. military draft and draft registration was unconstitutional. This commission recently recommended that Congress expand “Selective Service” — the precursor to a general draft — to include women. Last March, despite 90 percent of public comments opposing expansion of the draft, the commission concluded its report with a recommendation to Congress to include women in the registration for the Selective Service. Too bad for them, because we know that our liberation will not be realized through war crimes.
As 18- to 25-year-olds, we are within the age range to have to register with Selective Service. As we face a global public health crisis, environmental disasters and increasing state violence, the recommendation for expanding the draft at this time should be seen as a declaration of war on all future generations.
Our generation is growing stronger. Young people are the emerging leaders of struggles for water in places like Detroit, and defenders of land and sovereignty of Indigenous nations. We have been on the streets in the battles for health care, voting rights and for a world that places life above profit. We have engaged in the Movement for Black Lives and last summer’s uprisings for George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. We have organized and participated in what have become the largest demonstrations for Palestine that the U.S. has ever witnessed.
We are a generation that understands that no matter how hard the military tries to co-opt feminism and progressive ideals, war will never be a part of a framework for imagining equity because the first casualty of war is always human dignity. As draft-age people, the only military draft system reform we support is the complete abolition of compulsory military service.
We don’t just want to abolish selective service; we want to abolish the poverty draft, and U.S. militarism altogether. The U.S. military regularly uses economic coercion to bolster its numbers. Recruiters prey on low-income Black and Indigenous youth and communities of color who are simply trying to survive. Recruiters tell them that joining the military is the only way to achieve financial security. But if the U.S. is actually concerned about equity, it doesn’t look like selective service, and it certainly doesn’t look like an economy that forces young marginalized people to join the military.
The commission sees the draft recommendation as a “low-cost insurance policy against an existential national security threat.” We have seen how in the past, concerns about “national security” have led to atrocious civil rights violations including Japanese internment, racialized McCarthyism against Black activists and surveillance of Muslim Americans. These “concerns” have never panned out.
Our lives have been marked by lies, surveillance and the realization that our government is constantly trying to manufacture our consent for war. We know very well that the military-industrial complex is a violent and bloodthirsty monster, and we want nothing to do with it. The draft has always faced loud and public resistance, and it certainly will now too. Young people who oppose militarism will not let our friends buy into war propaganda.
In a nation that has the world’s largest military budget and more than 800 overseas military bases, we refuse to let our bodies be a source of endless cannon fodder and exploitation: One in four women in the U.S. military have reported experiencing sexual assault and more than half have experienced some form of harassment. Requiring women to register for the draft would endanger them in more than one way should they ever need to be selected.
Moreover, the military shouldn’t be planning strategies that depend on having women like us available to kill, maim or morally wound. The U.S. invaded Afghanistan by leveraging concerns about women’s rights under Taliban rule. Now, after 20 years of military occupation, thousands of Afghan women have been killed and displaced by war. The Taliban was not deterred and took Kabul this week, shortly after the U.S. pulled out. Women’s rights will never be achieved through military occupation and bombing.
The words of civil rights activist Ella Baker echo in our vision for peace: “You and I cannot be free in America or anywhere else where there is capitalism and imperialism, until we can get people to recognize that they themselves have to make the struggle and have to make the fight for freedom every day in the year, every year, until they win it.”
Instead of expanding draft registration to women, Congress should abolish the Selective Service. The military doesn’t need it. The people don’t want it. Young people hate it, as evidenced by the low rate of compliance with the requirements to register and to report each change of address. Congress doesn’t want to have to pass it. Now is the time to end the draft system — in all its forms — for everyone.
When it became clear the Taliban would take Kabul, mainstream western journalists quickly pointed out the dangers this posed for the rights and safety of the Afghan people. One particular focus was the rights and safety of Afghan women. And, according to reportsfromsources in Afghanistan, those dangers are real.
But, these cries of politicians and mainstream media pundits about rights for Afghan women are hard to swallow given the realities of life in Afghanistan
Moreover, the last 20 years of western military occupation, not to mention British and Soviet occupations since the early 19th century, haven’t exactly delivered full equality for women. Nor have they been about supporting human rights for Afghan people. So these sudden cries for equality by the western mainstream media and others are utterly meaningless.
Women’s rights under military occupation
A number of right-wing politicians across Europe have sought to exploit women’s rights in Afghanistan to pedal their usual bile. UK politicians have also expressed their concern for the position of women now that the Taliban is in control.
We must continue to support the women and girls of Afghanistan who face unspeakable levels of oppression. That’s why we’re prioritising them in the new Afghan Citizens’ Resettlement Scheme.
Many people in Afghanistan right now fear oppression, dehumanising treatment & death – especially women, girls, persecuted minorities & brave Afghans who worked with
But Patel’s concern for settling citizens will confuse and utterly gall so many. As home secretary, not only has she presided over the deportation of UK residents to Jamaica, she’s trying to criminalise refugees. As written by The Canary’s Tom Coburg:
Her Nationality and Borders Bill has passed its second reading in parliament. Should it be enacted in its present form, the UK could be in contravention of several international laws and conventions. Ultimately, it may see the Johnson government open to condemnation and prosecution in the international courts.
Kathy Kelly of Ban Killer Drones spoke to The Canary. Kelly is also formerly of Voices for Creative Non-Violence (VCNV). Since 2009, VCNV “has led delegations to Afghanistan to listen and learn from nonviolent grassroots movements and to raise awareness about the negative impacts of U.S. militarism in the region”. Kelly told The Canary that while things improved in terms of education and employment for some women in major cities during military occupation, it was also the case that women:
had to be very very careful about how they presented themselves outside of the home in terms of their clothing, in terms of their obedience to whomever the male supervisors in their lives were
Life under military occupation
As Kelly goes on to explain, there are many other complicating factors for life in Afghanistan. Kelly told us that when the US began its occupation, Afghanistan had one of the highest rates of infant mortality in the world. And:
After these 20 years of US occupation that’s still true
According to Kelly, while this isn’t the sole responsibility of the US military occupation:
the United States did not accomplish measures which would have made a significant difference for Afghan women in terms of the ability of an Afghan woman to assure that her child would be well nourished and well fed.
She recalled how VCNV regularly worked with people who would tell them they couldn’t feed their children, or that all they had to offer was “stale bread and tea without sugar”. She says during the occupation “there were soaring populations in the refugee camps”. And these camps were:
squalid and dangerous places. Dangerous because when the winter weather came, and it gets very very cold, people had no means to acquire wood or coal for fuel. They were burning plastic, burning tires. People didn’t have access to clean water
Moreover, Kelly says:
some of those refugee camps were right across the road from sprawling US military bases being serviced every day by truckload after truckload of food and fuel and water and ammunition.
She added:
I think there was always a sense, during the United States occupation of Afghanistan, that the cares and concerns of women and children were not anywhere near the importance of the United States maintenance of large bases – which could assert a US presence in the region that had great relativity to China and Russia.
She also said the US military presence:
had very little relative impact [on] bettering the human rights… and shelter for many many many ordinary Afghans.
Prosperity to the region? Hardly.
Kelly believes the US didn’t care about peace in Afghanistan nor people’s livelihoods. Because as she explained:
Eventually it became the case that the only way to get a job…especially if people didn’t want to engage in producing opium…the jobs available were working for the Afghan national security and defence forces, for the Afghan local police, for local warlords or for some version of the United States militarism. And what kind of job is that? You learn how to pick up a gun and shoot.
She said that in some of the areas she’d been to people were really crying out for the kinds of jobs that would have supported agricultural infrastructure. But it didn’t happen. And worryingly:
The United States was being informed regularly, through the special inspector general in Afghanistan reports, about all of the ways in which the military was becoming rife with corruption. And they didn’t act on that.
What needs to happen next
For the time being at least, Kelly hopes:
neighbouring countries will expand their refugee resettlement, that people will support the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in being able to rapidly expand their capacity to receive refugees at every country, certainly my country [the USA]
And she hopes too that:
Every country will start to make plans so that those who feel that they must leave, that they are at risk, can get out… we owe it to Afghanistan
[especially] Those of us who live in countries whose governments waged this terrible war for year after year after year [will help also].
Kelly took particular aim at the arms industry:
Boeing and Raytheon and Lockheed Martin and General Atomics. These companies pocketed billions of dollars by dropping their weapons and strewing their hideous weaponry, their grotesque weaponry, all across Afghanistan.
It’s happened in Ireland as well, but the Irish were able to send the Raytheon Company packing up in Derry and we should learn from those models.
But at any rate, [Noting that our economy has been] bolstered by these wars, [she argues that we should now] do everything we can to make room and say: ‘You are welcome’ [to refugees].
It’s difficult to believe any invader of Afghanistan has the betterment of its people at heart. Western pundits claiming to support women’s rights are ignoring the obvious. More specifically, that imperial intervention severely complicates the lives of minorities, like women, whose lives are made significantly more dangerous by military presence and a heavily-funded arms trade.
For Western media and politicians to have, all of a sudden, discovered their inner ‘human rights activist’ is not only hypocritical, it’s galling. That faux outrage isn’t fooling anybody – nor does it hide the damage done to all people of Afghanistan.
A pro-independence activist in Indonesia’s Papua province will stand trial next week on charges of treason, says his lawyer.
A day earlier, one protester suffered gunshot wounds when police opened fire to disperse a rally demanding the activist Victor Yeimo’s release, activists and a church group said.
Yeimo’s attorney, Gustav Kawer, said his client’s arraignment was scheduled for Tuesday, August 24, and expressed concern about his deteriorating health.
“Despite his health condition, he is still forced to go on trial. This is an attempt to pursue a timetable regardless of the quality of the trial,” Kawer told BenarNews.
Yeimo, the international spokesman for the West Papua National Committee (KNPB), a group seeking a referendum on independence for the region, was arrested in May for allegedly leading anti-Jakarta demonstrations that turned into deadly riots there in 2019.
Yeimo is facing charges of treason, desecration of state symbols, and weapons smuggling, police said. He could face two years to a maximum of life in prison, if found guilty.
In 2019, more than 40 people were killed in Papua during demonstrations and riots sparked by the harsh and racist treatment of Papuan students by government security personnel in Java that August.
The incident cast another spotlight on longtime allegations of Indonesian government forces engaging in racist actions against indigenous people in mainly Melanesian Papua, where violence linked to a pro-independence insurgency has simmered for decades, and grown in recent months.
Last year, at least 13 Papuan activists and students were convicted for raising Morning Star flags — the symbol of the Papuan independence movement — during pro-referendum rallies in 2019 as part of nationwide protests against racism towards Papuans.
They were sentenced to between nine and 11 months in prison on treason charges.
Detained Papuan leader Victor Yeimo … “clear victim” of Indonesian racism and his health is deteriorating. Image: Foreign Correspondent
Team of doctors ‘not independent’ Yeimo’s lawyer, Kawer, said that repeated requests from the legal team for his client to undergo a comprehensive health check-up were denied, although he had complained of chest pain and coughed up blood.
Yeimo is being detained at a facility run by the Mobile Brigade police unit, Kawer said. The activist is lodged in a cell with minimal lighting, poor air circulation, and located next to a septic tank, he added.
Kawer said he had sent a letter to the prosecutor’s office requesting that Yeimo be transferred to the main Abepura prison in Jayapura but there had been no response.
Kawer acknowledged that his client had previously undergone two health examinations since his detention — the last one on June 17 — but they had not been thorough.
“We suspect that the team of doctors is not independent. We are very worried that the results will be brought to court, but they are not in accordance with Yeimo’s actual condition,” Kawer said.
Police spokesman Ahmad Musthofa Kamal denied that Yeimo was ailing.
“He is fine. He has been examined by hospital doctors, not from the police, and is accompanied by a lawyer,” Kamal said.
Bail to be requested
The head of the Papuan branch of the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), Frits Ramandey, said he would request bail for Yeimo.
Yeimo’s arrest was not his first brush with the law.
In 2009, he was arrested and sentenced to a year in prison for leading a rally demanding a referendum on self-determination for Papua.
In 1963, Indonesian forces invaded Papua and annexed the region, which makes up the western half of New Guinea Island. Papua was formally incorporated into Indonesia after a disputed UN-sponsored ballot called the “Act of Free Choice” in 1969.
Locals and activists said the vote was a sham because only about 1000 people took part. However, the United Nations accepted the result, which essentially endorsed Jakarta’s rule.
The region is rich in natural resources but remains among Indonesia’s poorest and underdeveloped ones.
‘They beat us with rifle butts’ On Monday, a 29-year-old protester, Ferianus Asso, suffered a gunshot wound to his stomach after police opened fire to disperse the crowd during a rally demanding Yeimo’s release in Yahukimo regency on Monday.
“Ferianus is still undergoing treatment at a hospital in Yahukimo,” said Jefry Wenda, spokesman for the Papuan People’s Petition.
Wenda said police detained at least 48 protesters in Yahukimo but all but four had been released.
Papuan police spokesman Kamal said all detainees had been released.
“We are not detaining any protester at the moment,” Kamal said.
In the provincial capital Jayapura, KNPB chairman and former political prisoner Agus Kossay suffered a head injury after he was hit by a police gunstock — a support to which the barrel of a gun is attached.
“They sprayed us with water and beat us with rifle butts until we bled, but even if they beat and kill us, we will still fight racism, colonialism and capitalism,” Kossay said in a video clip sent to BenarNews.
‘Violating’ covid-19 rules
Jayapura police chief Gustav R. Urbinas said the mass dispersal was carried out because the demonstration did not have an official permit and violated covid-19 social distancing rules.
Urbinas said that the crowd attacked the police who tried to disband the protest.
“Our personnel had to take firm action to prevent them from causing public disturbances,” he said in a statement.
Kossay, however, said the organisers had notified the police about the protest three days earlier.
Reverend Socratez S. Yoman, president of the Fellowship of Baptist Churches of West Papua, condemned the use of violence by police against the protesters.
“This kind of cruelty and violence by the security forces has led to an increase in the Papuan people’s distrust of Indonesia,” he said in an open letter.
Via America’s Lawyer: After President Biden finally pulls the plug on the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan, Taliban forces quickly overwhelm the country – undoing the past 20 years in a matter of weeks. While American troops are able to evacuate, they leave behind countless Afghan civilians that are faced with the choice of either fleeing the country […]
The war on Afghanistan has been anything but. It’s actually been a money grab for private security firms and arms traders. There’s been a grab at resources and infrastructure. Most importantly of all, it’s been a decimation of Afghan people.
And, really, there’s no reason to assume that these things won’t continue on the part of the West.
Understanding the war on terror
You can’t really understand Afghanistan without having, at the very least, the context of the last 20 years of the so-called ‘war on terror.’ 9/11 started a concerted campaign headed by the US that’s been the latest breeding ground of suspicion and surveillance against Muslims. The foreign policy of Western nations can’t be understood without this context – that’s how central it is to global politics.
It’s almost 20 years since 9/11, and 20 years of injustices have followed. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have seen these countries ransacked and gutted. Cultures, histories, and peoples have been decimated. Torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib. Illegal detainments in Guantánamo Bay. Surveillance of Muslim communities globally.
Point out a major Western nation, and you can point out foreign and domestic policy stitched together with a deadly suspicion trained at Islam and Muslims.
Debates on outcome
Historically, many nations around the world have had the British invade and then ‘leave’ at some stage. The last 20 years of the ‘war on terror’ are full of multiple instances where the British and the US have invaded and then left a country.
The latest instance has had the usual crowd of ex-soldiers, foreign policy ‘experts’, and other assorted whites offering up their opinions.
As usual, these opinions pay no attention to the colonial interests of invading militaries. The fact that the US left Afghanistan after 20 years and the Taliban took over in 10 days has been pointed to as a reason why the whole thing has been a failure. People have also pointed to how this means lots of soldiers died for nothing.
They didn’t die for nothing – they died to preserve Western interests (financial or otherwise). They died to allow the West to assert control over a region which has had more written about its women, culture, and religion than George W. Bush has done dodgy paintings in his retirement from being a war criminal.
These efforts in Afghanistan are about the West’s power and control over so-called developing nations. They’re about the West sustaining itself on the resources, people, and cultures of nations who’ve been outstripped by the machine of neoliberalism.
It’s imperial fantasy wrapped up in modern day coloniality.
Civilising mission
Despite what all those foreign policy experts are saying, there was only ever one desired outcome: a civilising mission that took centre stage while Western nations ransacked the place backstage.
Western exceptionalism underpins the machinery of war and the theatre of civilising missions that fuels countries like the US and Britain. Western exceptionalism uses Afghani women as symbols of how civilised, democratic, and free white and Western women are.
Afghanistan was never invaded to save women. It was invaded to cement the identity of Western nations as civilised, peaceful, and freedom loving.
It was never about women. The endless pieces on Afghani women who skate, or the pictures of Afghani women in hijab – the cheap novels featuring heavily lined eyes staring out from a veil – all of these products exist to reinforce certain values. These values try to tell us that Afghani and Muslim women are backwards – other. Caught in the fantasy of aggressive and uncultured Brown men who control them, these women are just puppets for Western values.
White people in the West need to think of women halfway across the world as inferior, backwards, and repressed. We think we have it bad over here, but look over there! We could never be that oppressed! Let’s go and save them! By bombing them!
As usual, these types of views say more about colonisers than they do the colonised.
Clash of cultures
Which takes us to where we are now.
It’s little wonder that people are constantly wringing their hands in Britain about race relations, ethnicity, diversity, or multiculturalism. You can understand why British people as a society are so racially illiterate. Just like clockwork, there’ll be another moral panic about race. The same red-faced talking heads will froth at the mouth about political correctness gone mad. And so the cycle goes.
They simply don’t have the range to understand the weight of colonialism and the impact it has now.
Afghanistan is the latest version to be in British news cycles. All the discussion of refugees and heart-wrenchingly desperate people clinging to a moving plane has been set in motion by a decades-long campaign that has displaced millions of people.
This is who Britain is
These Western values are about world-building. It doesn’t matter if it’s documentaries, novels, images, or news media about Afghanistan. If it’s made in the West, it tells us more about the West than it does about Afghanistan.
Gargi Bhattacharyya, a sociologist who works on racial capitalism, writes:
As long as the great men believed their own stories, they felt justified in using violence to maintain their privilege; after all, this was the right and natural order. As long as the rest of the world believed at least some of the great men’s stories, they remained feeling sad and powerless, unable to imagine routes out of social structures which accorded them no value.
Much of the coverage of Afghanistan has been dripping with Islamophobia and racism. That changes how we understand the narrative of Afghanistan. It also changes how we understand the people of Afghanistan. They’re not stories, or lessons, or warnings. They’re humans who have been terrorised by Western nations.
The very least the rest of the world can do is to imagine pathways out of the stifling narratives presented to us.
A Labour MP’s ISIS claim during the Commons Afghanistan debate has led to questions about her knowledge of the region. Stella Creasy, who is on the right of the party, was roundly attacked on social media. She’d played up the risk of the Taliban providing a “safe haven” for the militant group ISIS.
The debate followed the rapid collapse of the Afghan government in the face of a rapid Taliban advance. This collapse followed the withdrawal of the US military occupation which had held the regime together.
President Biden may not have spoken to other world leaders since the fall of Kabul, so I am pleased to hear that the Prime Minister is, because we need to get agreement, via the UN and NATO, that if the Taliban provide a safe haven for al-Qaeda or ISIS, we will not stand for it.
Twitter users were quick to pull her up about her words.
They pointed out that the Taliban and ISIS were, in fact, deadly enemies who have been at war for years. The rift was first reported in 2015 when a pro-ISIS splinter group in Zabul province got into a gun battle with conventional Taliban forces. Both sides took heavy casualties. The groups have been in conflict ever since. A fact which even a basic internet search will bring up.
Attacked?
A Twitter user quickly pointed out Creasy’s mistake:
Stella Creasy MP wading in, raising the prospect of the Taliban "harbouring ISIS" which seems unlikely, given they're actively fighting each other in Afghanistan and have been for over 5 years
— Fahad Ansari (Activist Lawyer) (@fahadansari) August 18, 2021
Northern Independence Party founder and Middle East anthropologist Philip Proudfoot added his criticism:
Here is Labour MP @stellacreasy suggesting that the Taliban must not provide a safe haven for "Al-Qaeda or ISIS." The Taliban have been at war with ISIS for 6 years. pic.twitter.com/mxwu44RT69
In the same speech, Creasy also used a version of a famous Afghan expression: “you may have the watches, but we have the time”.
She said the saying “reflects the speed with which the Taliban have acted”.
The phrase itself speaks to the slowness and patience of insurgents, and the vast technological differences between guerrilla and occupier – not the idea of a rapid advance as we have seen in Afghanistan in the last week.
One critic said as much:
Also found this gem from a little earlier in her speech where she seems to have completely misunderstood the meaning of "You have the watches, we have the time" pic.twitter.com/3mlZj94MMD
Creasy fired back at her critics by claiming she had not said what was recorded on Hansard and in the video of her speech on Twitter.
Perhaps if you consider yourself an activist lawyer you would bother to check the record as that’s not what I said at all @fahadansari …. https://t.co/iZkv5EBcUG
Creasy claimed she was being trolled. Apparently angered, she suggested that those who were questioning her couldn’t read. But Twitter users had zero time for that argument:
You're not being spammed. You sneered at a lawyer who commented on your lack of understanding of Afghan politics. You could have ignored, blocked or moved on. You chose not to.
— CrémantCommunarde#TimeToBreakthrough (@0Calamity) August 18, 2021
Establishment politicians stilldon’t understand the region despite being there for the last 20 years. Something which remains true despite the decades-long military occupation which has come crashing down in a few short weeks.
After the fall of Kabul, the obvious question for New Zealanders is whether we should ever have joined the American war in Afghanistan. Labour and National politicians, who sent our Special Forces there, will say yes.
The Greens, who opposed the war from the start, will say no.
Back in 2001, we were the only party to vote against a parliamentary motion to send an SAS contingent to Afghanistan. As Green foreign affairs spokesperson during the first decade of the war I was often accused by Labour and National MPs of helping the Taliban.
By their reasoning you either supported the American war effort, or you were on the side of the Taliban.
To the contrary, I said, New Zealand was helping the Taliban by sending troops. It was handing the Taliban a major recruiting tool, that of Afghans fighting for their national honour against a foreign military force.
And so it has proved to be. The Taliban didn’t win because of the popularity of its repressive theocracy. Its ideology is deeply unpopular, particularly in the Afghan cities.
But what about the rampant corruption in the Afghan political system? Wasn’t that a big factor in the Taliban rise to power? Yes, but that corruption was enhanced by the presence of the Western forces and all the largess they were spreading around.
Both sides committed war crimes
Then there was the conduct of the war. Both sides committed war crimes, and it has been documented that our SAS handed over prisoners to probable torture by the Afghan National Directorate of Security.
Western air power helped the government side, but it was also counterproductive, as more innocent villagers were killed or wounded by air strikes.
In the end all the most sophisticated American warfighting gear couldn’t uproot a lightly armed insurgent force.
Taliban claims it will respect women’s rights, press freedom. Reported by New Zealand journalist Charlotte Bellis for Al Jazeera. Video: AJ English
There was another course America (and New Zealand) could have taken. Back in 2001 the Greens (and others in the international community) were pushing for a peaceful resolution whereby the Taliban would hand over Osama bin Laden to justice. The Taliban were not ruling that out.
But America was bent on revenge for the attack on the World Trade Centre, and quickly went to war. Ostensibly it was a war against terrorism, but Osama bin Laden quickly decamped to Pakistan, so it became simply a war to overthrow the Taliban government and then to stop it returning to power.
The war had this exclusively anti-Taliban character when New Zealand’s SAS force arrived in December 2001. The war would grind on for 20 years causing so much death and destruction for the Afghan people.
The peaceful way of putting pressure on the Taliban, which could have been adopted back in 2001, is similar to how the world community is likely to relate to the new Taliban government.
Pressure on the Taliban
That is, there will be considerable diplomatic and economic pressure on the Taliban to give Afghan people (particularly Afghan women) more freedom than it has to date. How successful this will be is yet to be determined.
It depends on the strength and unity of the international community. Even without much unity, international pressure is having some (if limited) effect on another strongly anti-women regime, namely Saudi Arabia.
The Labour and National governments that sent our SAS to Afghanistan cannot escape responsibility for the casualties and post-traumatic stress suffered by our soldiers. Their line of defence may be that they didn’t know it would turn out this way.
However, that is not a good argument when you look at the repeated failure of Western interventions in nearby Middle Eastern countries.
America has intervened militarily (or supported foreign intervention) in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Palestine, Somalia and Libya. All of these peoples are now worse off than they were before those interventions.
“Civilising missions”, spearheaded by the American military, are not the answer, and New Zealand shouldn’t get involved. We should have learnt that 50 years ago in Vietnam, but perhaps we’ll learn it now.
Former Green MP Keith Locke was the party’s foreign affairs spokesperson. He writes occasional pieces for Asia Pacific Report. This article was first published by The Spinoff and is republished here with the author’s permission.
Scotland’s first minister has criticised the UK government for failing to do enough to help Afghan refugees fleeing the Taliban takeover of the country.
Abandoning the Afghans
Following its defeat in Afghanistan, the UK government has announced plans to resettle 20,000 vulnerable Afghans – particularly women and girls – with 5,000 arriving in the first 12 months.
Nicola Sturgeon said more needs to be done to help and Scotland stands ready to play its part. She told the PA news agency:
I don’t think the UK Government is doing enough or stepping up and meeting its responsibilities.
Twenty-thousand (refugees) over what they’re describing as the long term – I don’t know exactly what they mean by that – doesn’t even live up to the Syrian resettlement programme. I think the commitment is only for 5,000 in this first year.
What’s unfolded in Afghanistan over the past days and weeks is horrifying and it has been contributed to because of the abrupt, unmanaged withdrawal of troops.
I think countries across the world have a real obligation – for humanitarian and human rights reasons – not to simply abandon the people of Afghanistan, women and girls in particular, to the mercies of the Taliban and to whatever fate has in store for them.
Instead, we must show willing to provide help, support and refuge, so I would call on the UK Government to build on its announcement today, for them to do more, and I will repeat the commitment that – just as we did in the Syrian resettlement programme – the Scottish Government stands ready to play our full part in helping meet that obligation.
She said the Scottish Government is considering using its Humanitarian Emergency Fund to provide aid for Afghans.
A plane lands at RAF Brize Norton, Oxfordshire, carrying British nationals and Afghans escaping Kabul (Mark Large/Daily Mail/PA)
Collapse
MPs returned from recess for an emergency sitting of Parliament on 19 August to debate the situation in Afghanistan.
Prime minister Boris Johnson told the Commons it is an “illusion” to believe the UK alone could have prevented the collapse of Afghanistan after US troops withdrew. Speaking on the matter, Johnson suggested that the Taliban may have been surprised by how vulnerable to defeat the US-implemented government was:
I think it would be fair to say that the events in Afghanistan have unfolded and the collapse has been faster than even the Taliban themselves predicted
He further suggested that the rapid collapse of the country to the very forces the coalition sought to defeat was “part of our planning”:
What is not true is to say the UK Government was unprepared or did not foresee this. It was certainly part of our planning – the very difficult logistical operation for the withdrawal of UK nationals has been under preparation for many months.
He said the priority was to evacuate as many of the remaining UK nationals and Afghans who had worked with the British in the country as quickly as possible.
‘Massive failure’
Speaking in the Commons debate, the SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford repeated calls for a future “judge-led inquiry” into the war in Afghanistan, saying it is needed to ensure “such a massive foreign policy failure is never again repeated”.
There can now be little doubt that the chaos and crisis being inflicted upon the Afghan people is the biggest foreign policy failure of modern times. @BorisJohnson must, for once, show leadership on this. Scotland is willing and ready to play our part. pic.twitter.com/D9D1TGcpXJ
He also again called for a summit of the four UK nations to house those fleeing Afghanistan and said the UK government’s approach to refugees needed “fundamental change”.
The Scottish Refugee Council’s chief executive Sabir Zazai said:
The UK Government’s announcement of an Afghan Citizens’ Resettlement Scheme is a welcome first step but we also need to provide immediate help to those fleeing the crisis in Afghanistan.
The sad truth is that not everyone who needs to reach safety from Afghanistan will be able to do so through this scheme. The scenes at Kabul Airport are a reminder that people don’t get a choice over the way they escape.
He called on the UK to commit to a “fair and humane asylum system”, drop plans for the Borders and Nationality Bill, give refugee status to Afghan nationals currently in the UK asylum system, and commit to widening family reunion laws.
Immigration Secretary Yogesh Karan has confirmed that 13 Fijians who are currently stuck in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover last Sunday are safe and officials are working to repatriate them as soon as possible.
Karan said two worked for private contractors and the other 11 were with international organisations.
He said they had had a discussion with the Australian High Commission which gave an assurance that they would make every effort to “include our people in the evacuation flight”.
Karan said it was very difficult to contact them because Fiji did not have a mission in Afghanistan and they are trying to contact them via New Delhi.
He added Fiji was also working with UN agencies and the Indian government to get them out of there as quickly as possible.
Karan was also requesting anyone who had contacts with anyone in Afghanistan to let the ministry know so they could note their details.
NZ promises repatriation RNZ News reports that people promised help in getting out of Afghanistan were desperate for information, saying they did not know where they should be or who to contact.
New Zealand citizens and at least 200 Afghans who helped New Zealand’s efforts in the country were expected to be repatriated.
Diamond Kazimi, a former interpreter for the NZ Defence Force in Afghanistan, who now lives in New Zealand, has been getting calls from those who helped the military and wanted to know when help is coming.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade is providing consular assistance to 104 New Zealanders in Afghanistan but would not say where they were, what advice they were being given, or how they planned to make sure they were on the repatriation flight.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
As the Taliban take over Kabul’s presidential palace, you’d be forgiven for wondering who it is that two decades of war and foreign occupation has benefited.
In 2001, the US, UK, and their allies invaded Afghanistan. The invasion certainly hasn’t benefited the people of Afghanistan; since 2001, an estimated 47,245 civilians have been killed.
Most people in the US haven’t benefited either, with $2.261tn spent on the war, and 2,442 military personnel killed.
Neither has it helped ordinary people in the UK. More than 450 British soldiers have been killed, and in 2013, the estimated cost of the UK’s war in Afghanistan stood at £37bn. Most UK combat troops withdrew from Afghanistan in 2014, but 750 remained until this summer as part of NATO’s force.
So who has benefited?
One of the groups of people who have clearly benefited from two decades of war are the CEOs and directors of international arms companies.
For example, British weapons company BAE’s profits shot up after the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Many of the people who’ve been at the helm of the UK’s Afghanistan policy have also directly had skin in the arms game.
Defence secretary Ben Wallace cried crocodile tears on LBC recently. But what he didn’t mention is that he used to be a director of QinetiQ, an arms company whose share prices were soaring 11 years ago after it gained contracts to supply weapons for the war in Afghanistan. British rapper Lowkey tweeted:
Ben Wallace was Overseas Director of arms company QinetiQ, which benefited handsomely from the occupation of Afghanistan. https://t.co/d4mmDgm9BO
The revolving door goes the other way too. Data from Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) shows that 196 ex-public servants are now in arms trade jobs.
And they’re meeting in London this September
From 14-17 September, one of the world’s largest arms fairs is coming back to London’s Docklands. At least 1,700 arms companies will be exhibiting, and official delegations and government employees from the UK and abroad will be doing their shopping. No doubt the industry attendees will be counting their profits from two decades of war in Afghanistan and looking for new conflicts to exploit.
It’s worth remembering that the Defence Security and Equipment International (DSEI) arms fair was underway 20 years ago, on 11 September 2001, when the planes hit the World Trade Center and lit the spark which paved the way for the US’s disastrous ‘War on Terror’.
One person who was at the demonstration back in 2001 reflected:
On [September 11] I was among about the hundreds of people taking part in a protest organised by CAAT outside the DSEi arms fair. Many events were cancelled that day and in the following days and weeks. Sports events, cultural events, political events, the UN Special session on Children, which I was had been doing some work around – all these we cancelled. The arms fair however, continued. More deals were signed and more arms contacts were made even in the light of that awful mass killing.
Whilst the fact that there was a major arms fair taking place in the UK at the very same time as this awful act of terrorism was something of a coincidence I think there are [connections] here. I think there are real connections between for example, our proliferation of weaponry through the arms trade and our real insistence – despite all evidence to the contrary – that world security is best served by an ever increasing ability to inflict death and destruction on others – and that desperate, awful, self-destructive act of mass violence.
The Canary‘s senior editor, Emily Apple, was also at the protests that week:
On 12 September, share prices across the world had crashed and many major events were cancelled. But DSEI continued and arms company share prices soared. So we were back on the streets, blockading arms dealers from reaching the fair. We were told by the police that we should be ashamed of ourselves, that we had no respect for the dead because we were out protesting. But they didn’t think to question the fact that DSEI continued, didn’t care that those who’d make obscene profits from the attack, and the inevitable subsequent war, were continuing their business as usual.
Two decades of resistance
DSEI has encountered over two decades of mass street resistance. As the US’s ‘War on Terror’ got underway – a smokescreen for neo-colonial foreign policies – thousands took to the streets. Shoal Collectiveinterviewed anti-militarist organiser Sam Hayward in Red Pepper:
That year, millions of people were involved in the opposition to the invasion of Iraq,’ Sam says. ‘When the war began it wasn’t clear how to oppose it and many anti-militarist activists fell away, not knowing what to do. I started thinking about how imperialist wars couldn’t happen without the weapons being manufactured and sold by the arms companies — beneficiaries of aggressive imperialist wars.’
One tactic at DSEI 2003 was to stop the arms dealers from getting to the ExCeL Centre. Sam explains how this happened: ‘Activists climbed onto the roofs of DLR trains and locked themselves on, stopping the trains. As a result, the arms dealers were brought in on buses. Protesters stopped the buses, laying down in front of them. Delegates started arriving by taxi and on foot, so people blocked the roads. There were thousands of activists involved. It was successful in delaying the arms dealers getting there, but ultimately the arms fair still took place’.
In 2011, anti-militarists rowed kayaks into the path of a battleship, which was on the way to be used as a reception area at the DSEI arms fair. One of them toldRed Pepper:
Four of us launched inflatable kayaks from a hidden spot in the Thames, so we were on our way before the river police spotted us. The ship was equivalent to about three storeys tall.
“blocking the DSEI arms fair is an obligation”
In 2019, I joined the resistance against DSEI along with several other writers from The Canary. One of them was Canary journalist Eliza Egret, who wrote at the time:
For me, blocking the DSEI arms fair is an obligation. My activism and writing has taken me to Palestine, Kurdistan and Syria. I have seen first-hand the devastation caused by this sickening arms industry. I have interviewed families whose children have been murdered with weapons made in Europe. I have met a 10-year-old boy who miraculously survived after an Israeli sniper shot a bullet through his brain. I have had tear gas and sound grenades fired at me in Palestine, and I have been surrounded by armoured vehicles in Kurdistan. I have stood on rubble that was once family homes, and I have seen human blood splattered on the walls of buildings.
So it is my duty to take action against this disgusting weapons exhibition. As I write this, arms deals are being made, mostly by privileged men who have never had to experience the terror of living in a war zone.
Two of us from The Canary also launched kayaks on to the water and disrupted a military boat display by BAE Systems at the fair.
Join us at DSEI 2021
In 2021, campaign group Stop the Arms Fair is calling for people to take action to disrupt the setting up of the arms fair. The set-up of DSEI is a major operation, as the exhibition itself takes place on 100,000 square metres of land at the ExCeL Centre in London’s Docklands. It set out some of the actions that have happened in previous years:
As lorries and trucks transporting armoured vehicles, missiles, sniper rifles, tear gas and bullets attempted to get on site, people from around the world were there to put their bodies in the way.
Dabke-dancing, aerobics, an academic conference, a gig on a flatbed truck, abseilers dangling from a bridge, theatre, military veterans undertaking unofficial vehicle checks for banned weapons, Kurdish dancers, rebel clowns, religious gatherings, hip-hop artists, radical picnics, a critical mass of cyclists, Daleks, political choirs, and lots of people in arm-locks all blocked the entrances to the DSEI arms fair repeatedly over the course of a whole week.
Thousands more amplified the protests by signing petitions, lobbying decision-makers, speaking out online and in their own communities, and helping in diverse ways to make the protests possible.
In September, arms dealers, many of whom will have profited from Afghanistan, will be coming together to make more deals that will cause more war and suffering. It’s important to be there to resist the fair, and to show solidarity with those who are under attack by state militaries armed with weapons bought at DSEI.
In the current upheaval, it is difficult to obtain figures on how many journalists have been attacked, but the Afghan Independent Journalist Association and Afghanistan’s National Journalists Union express grave concerns for the well-being of journalists and media personnel.
UNESCO has recorded five deaths of journalists in Afghanistan in 2021, making it the country with the world’s greatest number of journalists’ deaths this year. Four have been women, reflecting the higher risk of attacks on female journalists.
The Taliban has a long-established pattern of striking out against journalists.
A Human Rights Watch report, released in April 2021, in the lead up to the United States and NATO troop withdrawal, noted that Taliban forces had already established a practice of targeting journalists and other media workers.
Journalists are intimidated, harassed and attacked routinely by the Taliban, which regularly accuses them of being aligned with the Afghan government or international military forces or being spies.
Female journalists face a higher level of threats, especially if they have appeared on television and radio.
International Press Institute figures, released in May 2021 at the start of the troop withdrawals, also showed that Afghanistan had the highest rate of deaths of journalists in the world.
The IPI expressed concern about an intensification of attacks on journalists and the future of the news media in Afghanistan.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
The increasingly desperate situation in Afghanistan has led to widespread calls for the UK to welcome Afghan refugees despite Priti Patel’s plans to crack down on immigration.
Refugee Action summed up the situation:
When Parliament reconvenes to discuss the crisis, the Government must recognise the cruelty of its current position, and abandon it. Can its message to desperate Afghan people really be that they must go to local embassies for visas and book commercial flights?
Do they really think people in fear of their lives are going to wait around for a ‘safe route’ to be created by the UK Government, when it currently offers none?
It also highlighted the need for “concrete action”:
Thousands of people have tried to escape on flights out of the country and millions more are terrified. Our thoughts and hopes are with them.
But in a situation unfolding so quickly, we can waste no time in turning from thoughts to concrete action. 2/9
Thousands of Afghan people are currently trying to escape from Afghanistan. But the Home Office has yet to confirm how many refugees it will welcome.
Fear in Afghanistan
The Taliban took control of Kabul early on Sunday 15 August, and Afghanistan’s president has fled the country. The takeover is expected to mark the beginning of a new era of Taliban rule. The UNHCR reported in July that Taliban advances had already displaced 270,000 people in Afghanistan this year. As Taliban control increases across the country, this figure will only grow.
Afghan women are scared they won’t be able to continue their education, careers, or independence. Writing in the Guardian, one women stated:
I worked for so many days and nights to become the person I am today, and this morning when I reached home, the very first thing my sisters and I did was hide our IDs, diplomas and certificates. It was devastating. Why should we hide the things that we should be proud of? In Afghanistan now we are not allowed to be known as the people we are.
International action?
Despite the dire situation, international action in welcoming refugees has been slow.
Canada has pledged to accept 20,000 ‘vulnerable’ Afghans who need protecting from the Taliban.
But EU countries Germany, Greece, Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Belgium asked the EU for permission to continue deporting Afghan refugees they had already rejected for asylum. Since then, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands have reversed their position and paused deportations.
Gov must provide answers and assurances today about what they will do to help those at grave risk in Afghanistan. They have a moral responsibility along with the international community to urgently evacuate refugees under threat to a safe and welcoming place.
But these figures are a drop in the ocean when figures from July show that total number of displaced people is 3.5 million.
The UK and refugees
Home secretary Priti Patel recently criticised France for ‘failing’ to stop migrants crossing the channel. She further warned that the UK would be seeing more people wanting to enter the country due to them fleeing Afghanistan.
The Home Office recently abandoned numerical targets for resettling refugees, instead claiming it will strengthen “safe and legal” ways for refugees to enter the country by ensuring:
resettlement programmes are responsive to emerging international crises – so refugees at immediate risk can be resettled more quickly.
But the Home Office’s hostile environment is likely to only make the situation worse for those trying to flee to the UK. Refugee advocates have warned that the Nationality and Borders Bill, currently at the committee stage, could prevent thousands of people from claiming asylum in the UK.
It's now abundantly clear that the Government’s plans must be halted immediately and reversed. The #AntiRefugeeBill (Nationality and Borders Bill) would take a wrecking ball to the right to claim asylum for Afghans and others fleeing terrible situations elsewhere. 3/9
The #AntiRefugeeBill and the lack of commitment to resettlement are wrong and unsustainable. Both must now be swept away on the tide of compassion brought by the events in Afghanistan. We are witnessing how quickly people can be left desperately struggling to find safety.
Welcoming refugees
The UK must allow, pro-actively help and welcome Afghan refugees fleeing persecution and fear. And it must go further than following the Canadian model of accepting just 20,000 people.
It is the UK that helped create the current situation and it is down to the UK to urgently take action and help those facing an increasing desperate situation. It must happen quickly and it must mean giving people housing and rights – not condemning people who have already suffered so much to unsafe and appalling conditions in places like Napier Barracks.
This crisis further highlights the fight we have in ahead of us against the racist Nationality and Borders Bill. This bill, and the hostile environment created by this government, must be stopped.
There are no plans for Boris Johnson to meet Gurkha veterans who are on day 10 of a hunger strike over their pensions, the prime minister’s spokesperson has said.
Equal rights
The group outside Downing Street is calling for equal pensions for Gurkhas who retired before 1997 but are not eligible for a full UK armed forces pension. On 16 August, the Support Our Gurkhas protesters had reached their 10th day of not eating.
A Gurkha veterans protest opposite Downing Street (Hollie Adams/PA)
The prime minister’s spokesperson was asked whether any talks were planned after the protesters said they would end their hunger strike if a meeting was arranged. He said:
I believe the Defence Secretary said that he would be happy to meet with any Gurkha.
The spokesperson added there were “no plans” for Johnson to join a meeting.
On 13 August, defence secretary Ben Wallace said he was happy to meet protesters, but argued no government “of any colour” had ever made retrospective changes to pensions like the ones the demonstrators are calling for.
“Address the injustices”
On 14 August, actress and campaigner Joanna Lumley urged the government to meet the “brave and loyal” veterans “to address the injustices highlighted”.
Joanna Lumley during the Gurkha 200 Pageant (Jonathan Brady/PA)
The 75-year-old, who in 2009 led a campaign to allow Gurkhas settlement rights in Britain, was born in India and moved to England as a child. Her father was a major in the Gurkha Rifles. The Absolutely Fabulous actress said:
Only a deep sense of injustice could drive these brave and respectful souls to this point.
At the heart of this matter is how we value those who have offered, and sometimes given, the ultimate sacrifice to protect our way of life and to keep us safe.
Service record
Around 200,000 Gurkhas, recruited from Nepal, fought in both world wars, and they have also served in places such as Hong Kong, Malaysia, Borneo, Cyprus, the Falklands, Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
Those who served from 1948 to 2007 were members of the Gurkha Pension Scheme until the Labour government of the time eliminated the differences between Gurkhas’ terms and conditions of service and those of their British counterparts.
Serving Gurkhas, and those with service on or after 1 July 1997, could then opt to transfer into the Armed Forces Pension Scheme. The change was brought in after an amendment to immigration rules in 2007, backdated to July 1997, meant more retired Gurkhas were likely to settle in the UK on discharge.
Ben Wallace (Ian West/PA)
Waiting for the organ grinder, not the monkeys
Wallace told Sky News on 13 August:
I am very happy to meet any Gurkha. My father fought alongside the Gurkhas in Malaya in the 1950s, it is a pretty remarkable group of people.
The group of people currently protesting are groups affected by the change by the Labour government in 1997 to 2003. This was about people who are under a 1947 pension, it is a very small group of Gurkha pensioners, they had different advantages in their pension scheme in that old scheme.
That scheme said that you got it after 15 years when a British soldier got it after 22, but there is a difference and they feel that difference needs to be made up.
That is not the same as the Gurkhas of today or the Gurkhas after 2003 – they get exactly the same pensions as British serving personnel.
Leo Docherty, minister for defence people and veterans, has said the group has refused to meet him. He said:
I was disappointed the Satyagraha protest group declined to meet with me and hope they will engage positively in the Gurkha veterans dialogue the Defence Secretary hosts in early September.
We greatly value the contribution that Gurkhas make and consider the 1948 Gurkha Pension Scheme to be objectively fair and equitable, but I am always willing to speak with veterans and help resolve any such welfare concerns.
Former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark says the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan shows “a catastrophic failure of intelligence in Western foreign policy” and to say that she is pessimistic about the country’s future would be an understatement.
Taliban insurgents have entered Kabul and President Ashraf Ghani has fled Afghanistan, bringing the Islamist militants close to taking over the country two decades after they were overthrown by a US-led invasion.
Clark has also served as administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for eight years and has advocated globally for Afghan girls and women.
“We are working through this with the utmost urgency,” she said.
The government was also aware of 37 individuals who had helped the NZ Defence Force (NZDF).
Gains for women, girls
Clark said today: “Twenty years of change there with so many gains for women and girls in society at large and to see what amounts to people motivated by medieval theocracy walk back in and take power and start issuing the same kinds of statements about constraints on women and saying that stonings and amputations are for the courts – I mean this is just such a massive step backwards it’s hard to digest.”
Clark said to find out what had gone wrong it was necessary to look back a couple of decades and it was not long after the Taliban had left that the US administration started to look away from Afghanistan, turning instead towards its intervention in Iraq.
“With the gaze off Afghanistan the Taliban started to come back. When I was at UNDP I would meet ambassadors from the region around Afghanistan and they would say ‘look 60 percent of the country is in effect controlled by the Taliban now’ and I’m going back four or five years, six years in saying that.”
Former NZ prime minister Helen Clark … extremely dubious that this is “a new reformed Taliban”. Image: RNZ/Anadolu
Helen Clark is extremely dubious that this is “a new reformed Taliban”. Photo: 2018 Anadolu Agency
Clark said at that time the Taliban did not have the ability to capture and hold district and provincial capitals, but the Taliban was waiting for an opportunity and that came when former US president Donald Trump indicated they would withdraw troops from Afghanistan and current US President Joe Biden then followed through on that.
“Looking at it from my perspective I think the thought of negotiating a transition with the Taliban was naive and I think the failure of intelligence as to how strong the Taliban actually were on the ground is, as a number of American commentators are saying, equivalent to the failure of intelligence around the Tet Offensive in 1968 in Vietnam – I mean this is a catastrophic failure of intelligence in Western foreign policy,” she said.
Clark said the Taliban would be under pressure from Western powers to do anything if it was able to enlist the support of other powers.
Pessimistic about Afghanistan’s future
She said to say she was pessimistic about Afghanistan’s future would be an understatement and there were already reports of women being treated very badly in regions where the Taliban has taken over.
“We’re hearing stories from some of the district and provincial capitals that they’ve captured where women have been beaten for wearing sandals which expose their feet, we’re hearing of one woman who turned up to a university class who was told to go home, this wasn’t for them, women who were told to go away from the workplace because this wasn’t for them.”
Clark said she very much doubted that this was “a new reformed Taliban”, an idea that was accepted by some negotiators in Doha.
She said she did not expect that the UN Security Council would be able to do anything to improve the situation.
Clark said it met about Afghanistan within the last couple of weeks and the Afghanistan permanent representative pleaded on behalf of his elected government for support but there was no support forthcoming.
Clark said the UN Security Council was unlikely to get any results and the UN would likely then say that it needed humanitarian access.
Catastrophic hunger
“Because these developments create catastrophic hunger, flight of people, illness — but you know the UN will be left putting a bandage over the wounds and there will be nothing more constructive that comes out of it.”
Clark said Afghanistan’s problems were never going to be solved in 20 years.
“I understand that the Americans are sick of endless wars, we all are. But on the other hand they’ve kept a 50,000 strong garrison in Korea since 1953 in much greater numbers at times, they maintain 30,000 troops in the Gulf. They were in effect being asked to maintain a very small garrison which more or less kept the place stable enough for it to inch ahead, build its institutions and roll out education and health, when that commitment to do that failed then the whole project collapsed.
“This is not so much a Taliban takeover as simply a surrender by the government and by forces who felt it wasn’t worth fighting for it.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says work to get New Zealanders out of Afghanistan has ramped up, as commercial options become unavailable.
Yesterday the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it was aware of 17 New Zealanders who were in Afghanistan, but Ardern said that number is now believed to be closer to 30 when citizens and family members were taken into account.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade have been actively trying to contact those that they believe may be in Afghanistan and working to get people out,” she said.
“Previously there have been commercial options for people to leave on if they’re able to get to the point of departure. That will increasingly, if not already, no longer be an option,”
She said that was when the government would step up the work it was doing to try to get them out.
Ardern said that the situation was moving fast and quick decisions would need to be made in terms of those New Zealanders in Afghanistan.
“That is something we’ve been working on, as you can imagine, in a very changeable environment for the past, wee while and is something we will continue to work on.
Additional consideration
“There’s also for us … the additional consideration of those who may have who may have historically worked to support the New Zealand Defence Force or who may have been on the ground over many years in Afghanistan their safety situation, so that’s also something we’re moving as quickly as we can on,” she said.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern … “There’s also for us … the additional consideration of those who may have who may have historically worked to support the New Zealand Defence Force.” Image: Samuel Rillstone/RNZ
Ardern said New Zealand had been working with partners to try and determine a safe passage for these New Zealanders, but would not give details about which other countries had been approached.
“There will be security issues around me giving much more detail than I’ve given now, but I can tell you we are working at the highest level alongside our partners to support those New Zealanders who may be on the ground.”
Interpreters contact NZ government
Cabinet is meeting today to consider whether New Zealand can evacuate Afghanistan nationals who supported our military efforts there. The situation is urgent, with civilian lives believed to be in danger.
A small group of people who were not eligible for the Afghan interpreters package in 2012 have now made contact with the New Zealand government, Ardern said.
She said fewer than 40 people, have identified themselves as having worked alongside New Zealand forces, but the majority of these cases are historic and they were not eligible under the previous National government’s “interpreter package”.
Ardern said at that time they were not seen as directly affected or at risk from the Taliban but the current situation has changed dramatically.
“It was basically interpreters at that time who were brought over as they were considered to have the strongest, or face to strongest risk at that time, there were others who weren’t eligible for that who have subsequently made contact.
“Cabinet will be discussing today what more needs to be done to ensure the safety of those who are directly connected to them.”
Ardern said they would need to ensure that these people were in fact working directly alongside the NZ Defence Force and that would be considered by Cabinet today.
Focused on security
She said it was too soon to look ahead with the international community to what would be done regarding the Afghanistan situation.
“We’re quite focused on the security situation on the ground right now, getting those who need to get out out, and doing what we can to support those who supported us, so that’s our immediate consideration I think then we’ll be looking over the horizon to what next with the international community.”
Ardern said it was devastating to see what was happening in Afghanistan now, but that did not diminish the roles of those New Zealanders who served there.
“Everyone makes the best decisions they can at the time they’re made … and in the environment in which they’re made and all I would say to our New Zealand troops who were in there, they would have seen for themselves the difference that they made at that time,” she said.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The US‘s withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan has gone alongside a stunning recapture of much of the country by the Taliban. This has naturally raised predictable whines from neoconservative elements who believe that withdrawal has “led to a Taliban triumph”.
However, not only is continuing the occupation of Afghanistan an abject exercise in futility, the US also has partly itself to blame for the rise of the radical Islamist group. A closer examination of history shows that this ascendency traces its roots to US interference in earlier decades.
Taliban sweeps up control of most of the country
On 14 August, the Guardianreported that the Taliban had taken control of Mazar-i-Sharif. This is Afghanistan’s fourth-largest city and “the government’s last major stronghold in the north”. On the same day, the New York Timesreported:
President Biden’s top advisers concede they were stunned by the rapid collapse of the Afghan army in the face of an aggressive, well-planned offensive by the Taliban that now threatens Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital.
President Biden repeated that he wouldn’t reverse his decision. He pointed out that four presidents have presided over the US occupation of Afghanistan. He affirmed that he “would not, and will not, pass this war on to a fifth”. Biden first announced a US withdrawal on 14 April. He had set a deadline of 11 September, 2021 – the 20 year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in 2001.
Another attempt at peace?
Meanwhile, Afghan president Ashraf Ghani said in an address to the nation that he would reorganise the military and begin a process of consultation with Afghan society and international allies. Rumours have been swirling that Ghani might step down as part of some kind of peace deal. In 2018, the Trump administration sent a ‘special envoy’ to begin a peace dialogue with the Taliban. The US then agreed to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners in exchange for a ceasefire in 2020.
The Taliban eventually agreed to peace talks with the Afghan government in that same year, but the talks didn’t go anywhere. The former didn’t have much incentive to negotiate even then given their military strength throughout the country. The Afghan government, meanwhile, has never had much credibility. It’s largely considered a US puppet that owes its position to the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan, which toppled the then-Taliban-led government.
A proxy war with each of the world’s superpowers on either side
There is a stunning irony to this. The US labelled the Taliban an enemy in the wake of the 11 September terrorist attacks (based on arguably dubiousallegations that the Taliban had ‘harboured terrorists’ and had links to Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaida). The reality, however, is that the Taliban owe their rise in part to US interference in Afghanistan.
During the Cold War, Afghanistan became a major focal point of proxy conflict between the world’s then dominant powers, the US and the Soviet Union (USSR). The USSR was allied to Afghanistan’s socialist government of Mohammed Najibullah. So the US intervened on the side of its opponents by launching ‘Operation Cyclone’.
Most expensive covert action in history
The operation was hatched by the US’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Its aim was to covertly arm and finance a group of rebel guerrilla fighters called the ‘mujahideen’. It ultimately channeled $2bn to the Islamist group in what became the most expensive covert action in history.
Hostilities culminated in the Afghan Civil War, which pitted US-backed mujahideen against the Soviet-backed government. The problem was that, having now given this latter group support, the US couldn’t put the genie back in the bottle. When hostilities ended in the early 1990s, the Taliban emerged as a mujahideen splinter group. By 1996, it had taken control of most of the country and was essentially the government of Afghanistan.
A vicious cycle
So when the US invaded Afghanistan to remove the Taliban, it was toppling a ruling faction that it had helped create in the first place. And this shines a light onto the vicious cycle that can emerge when Western powers interfere. Initial interference creates unintended consequences that then provide a ruse for further interference.
Another example is that of Vietnam. The country’s move toward communism was sparked in large part by French colonialism. (The communists were, after all, the most militant and committed of the anti-colonial movement’s factions.) This ‘problem’ was then ‘solved’ by the US first backing a puppet government in South Vietnam. It then invaded when this weak and unpopular government struggled to resist both an invasion from the communist-controlled north and an internal guerrilla insurgency.
Let Afghans lead the fight against the Taliban
To be clear, given its poor record on issues like women’s rights, the Taliban’s return to power is nothing to celebrate. But those who actually have credibility when it comes to opposing the Taliban are local Afghan democratic socialist factions like the Progressive Democratic Party of Afghanistan and the Solidarity Party of Afghanistan (SPA). Though these parties unequivocally stand against the Taliban, they stand against the US occupation in the same way. In fact, the SPA boycotted the last election since it claims no one can get elected without US support.
The US, on the other hand, obviously doesn’t have a shred of credibility when it comes to opposing the Taliban. Because just like the monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the US created a problem that it ultimately couldn’t contain. Worst still, Washington then ended up using that problem to provide bogus justification for its self-serving foreign policies. It’s time to break this vicious cycle of interference begetting further interference.
The Civil Society Alliance — which is made up of a number of organisations in Indonesia and Timor-Leste — is urging President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to revoke the Bintang Jasa Utama (1st Class Star of Service) award for “civil bravery and courage” in times of adversity which was given to former East Timorese pro-integration militia leader Eurico Barros Gomes Guterres.
“[We] urge President Joko Widodo to revoke the decision to give the Bintang Jasa Utama award to Eurico Guterres,” said Alliance representative Fatia Maulidiyanti, reports CNN Indonesia.
Bestowing this award added futher to the injury felt by victims of gross human rights violations and was like reaffirming impunity, she said.
“Today President Joko Widodo gave the Bintang Jasa Utama award to Eurico Guterres, which is like rubbing salt into the wounds of [his] victims.
“Once again, the space is narrowing for efforts to resolve gross human rights violations which continues to suffer pressure and recession.”
In 2002, Guterres was sentenced to 10 years in prison by the Ad Hoc Human Rights Court for East Timor. The decision was upheld in an appeal with the Supreme Court.
Guterres was found guilty of crimes against humanity.
Released early from jail
However the deputy commander of the pro-Indonesia militia in East Timor was released following a judicial review in 2008.
Maulidiyanti added that giving the award to Guterres was a serious betrayal of humanitarian values and morality and sidelines justice for the victims.
The decision showed that the administration of Joko Widodo and Vice-President Ma’ruf Amin had lost any legitimacy as a government with good intentions, she said.
“To cite the maxim of Immanuel Kant on the morality of the categorical imperative – that ‘actions must be based on moral goals which are objective’.
“Meanwhile conferring this award clearly places the victims as just tools of power, not the goals let alone the raison d’etre of this government,” she said.
She said that Widodo’s move clearly showed an authority which denied the experience, aspirations and advocacy efforts by civil society and the victims of human rights violations in realising the values of justice and efforts to prevent a repetition of such violations.
“Giving an award to Eurico Guterres sets a bad precedent for the democratic process in Indonesia after emerging from the shackles of authoritarianism.
Rooted in impunity
“On the contrary, this award in fact proves how deeply rooted the practice of impunity is, especially after more than two decades of reformasi,“, said Maulidiyanti, referring to the political reform process that began in 1998.
The Civil Society Alliance is made up of number of organisations, including the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), Indonesian Human Rights Watch (Imparsial), the Institute for Human Rights Studies and Advocacy (ELSAM), Asian Justice and Rights (AJAR) and the Indonesian Association of the Families of Missing Persons (IKOHI).
Individual representatives include Roichatul Aswidah, Miryam Nainggolan, Sri Lestari Wahyuningroem and Uchikowati.
Earlier, Widodo through Presidential Decrees Numbers 76, 77 and 78 TK/TH dated August 4, 2021, gave the Bintang Mahaputera (Star of Mahaputera), the Bintang Jasa Utama and the Bintang Budaya Parama Dharma (Cultural Merit Star) decorations to a number of figures.
Aside from the Bintang Jasa Utama given to Guterres, who is the general chairperson of the Timor Aswa’in Union Congress (UNTAS) and the East Timor Fighters Communication Forum (FKPTT), Widodo also awarded the late former Supreme Court Justice Artidjo Alkostar and 325 healthcare workers with the Bintang Mahaputera Utama.
The Palace itself has not yet responded to the accusations against Guterres.
Australian human rights defender Patrick Walsh writes: “It is unthinkable that the President, once applauded for championing ordinary people, would not have been briefed on Guterres criminal record.
“Is it also unlikely that Jakarta would not have cleared the award first with the authorities in Dili or ignored their protests?
“What is this really all about? Why are victims and justice being treated so shabbily by Jokowi’s government for which such high hopes were once held?”
Background
Eurico Guterres is a former pro-integration militia leader recruited by the Indonesian military during East Timor’s bid for independence between 1999 and 2000.
He was involved in several massacres in East Timor and was a chief militia leader during the post-independence killings and destruction of the capital Dili.
Guterres was tried by the Ad Hoc Human Rights Court for East Timor for crimes against humanity on charges of murder and persecution along with 17 other defendants and subsequently sentenced to ten years imprisonment in November 2002, for which he was imprisoned in 2006 until 2008.
International pressure is mounting on Indonesia to free West Papuan activist Victor Yeimo, the international spokesperson for the peaceful civilian West Papua National Committee (KNPB), as concern grows over his worsening state of health.
Following the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders Mary Lawlor’s declaration on twitter two days ago that Yeimo was at risk of being infected with covid-19, the Australia West Papua Association (AWPA) has written to Foreign Minister Marise Payne saying there was concern over his deteriorating health.
“He is losing weight and has been coughing blood for the past few days,” spokesman Joe Collins said in the letter today.
Amnesty International Indonesia has also raised concerns about Yeimo and about the arrest of 14 Cendrawasih University (Unicen) students who on Tuesday called for his release from Mako Brimob prison in the Papuan capital Jayapura.
Suara Papua reports that the KNPB on Monday urged the Papua regional police and the Papua chief public prosecutor to immediately release Yeimo because there was no legal basis for his detention and his health had been deteriorating since his arrest on May 9.
“For the sake of humanity and the authority of the Indonesian state, immediately release Victor Yeimo and all Papuan independence activists who have been arrested without [legal] grounds, evidence or witnesses,” said KNPB chairperson Agus Kossay in a media statement.
“The Papuan people are not the perpetrators of racism.”
‘Disturbing reports’
Lawlor’s twitter post the following day said: “I am hearing disturbing reports that human rights defender from #WestPapua, Victor Yeimo, is suffering from deteriorating health in prison. I’m concerned because his pre-existing health conditions put him at grave risk of #COVID-19.”
I am hearing disturbing reports that Human Rights Defender from #WestPapua, Victor Yeimo, is suffering from deteriorating health in prison. I’m concerned because his pre-existing health conditions put him at grave risk of #COVID19. pic.twitter.com/q6Exq4LibE
— Mary Lawlor UN Special Rapporteur HRDs (@MaryLawlorhrds) August 10, 2021
Yeimo faces a number of charges, including treason, because of his peaceful role in the anti-racism protests on 19 August 2019.
He is accused of violating Articles 106 and 110 of the Criminal Code on treason and conspiracy to commit treason.
Many analysts on West Papuan affairs consider these charges to be trumped up.
Amnesty International Indonesia deputy director Wirya Adiwena said that the students protesting for Yeimo should be protected — not arrested and treated like criminals.
“Like Victor, these Uncen students are only using their right to exercise freedom of expression, assembly and association, to peacefully speak their minds,” said Adiwena.
Against human rights
The jailing of peaceful activists because they had taken part in a demonstration was against their rights under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states,
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek receive and impart information and ideas though any media and regardless of frontiers (Article 19).
Article 20(1) states that everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
Lawyer and human rights activist Veronica Koman also called for the release of Yeimo.
“Victor Yeimo will not be safe if he remains behind [the bars] of a colonial prison. Colonialism will continue to demand political sacrifices,” wrote Koman on her Facebook.
Collins of AWPA said his movement was greatly concerned that by denying Yeimo proper adequate medical care, the Indonesian authorities were putting his him at “grave risk of death or other irreversible damage to his health”.
The AWPA called on Minister Payne “to use your good offices with the Indonesian government to call for the immediate and unconditional release of Victor Yeimo and all political prisoners”.
US officials are telling the press that Kabul will fall to the Taliban within 90 days and perhaps within the month as US troops withdraw from the war-torn nation.
“One official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the issue’s sensitivity, said Tuesday that the U.S. military now assesses a collapse could occur within 90 days. Others said it could happen within a month,” reports The Washington Post. “Some officials said that although they were not authorized to discuss the assessment, they see the situation in Afghanistan as more dire than it was in June, when intelligence officials assessed a fall could come as soon as six months after the withdrawal of the U.S. military.”
Meanwhile the US is still raining down explosives and murdering Afghan civilians to temporarily slow the inevitable Taliban takeover long enough for the Biden administration to have its ridiculous 9/11 “victory” party. Biden has said the US will continue providing “air support” (imperialist for bombing campaigns) to the Afghan government, for however long that government exists.
Taliban fighters have taken more than a quarter of the Afghanistan's provincial capitals in less than a week.
Kabul could fall within a month, according to US officials
This is an unforgivable outrage that cries out to the heavens for vengeance. Not the Taliban takeover; that was always the inevitable result of letting Afghanistan be controlled by Afghans. I’m talking about the invasion and 20-year occupation of that nation by the US and its allies.
It is only by the most aggressive narrative management and journalistic malpractice that people around the world are not calling for the heads of the architects of this occupation. For twenty years the world was systematically lied to that the US coalition was building a government and military that could stand on its own, and that this goal was right around the corner and just needs a little more time. Now it’s crunch time, and we learn that what they’ve been building in Afghanistan this entire time was a fake movie set made of cardboard.
This should be an international scandal for which scores of people should be sentenced to spend the rest of their lives behind bars. More than this, every military which participated in this unforgivable crime should have its budget slashed to a tiny fraction of what it is.
Biden’s massive air-raid by B52 bombers targeted a medical clinic & high school, killing 20 civilians & children. Despicable war crimes for no purpose than to slightly delay the “total Taliban takeover” bad press so he can have his 9/11 victory celebration https://t.co/YRITIQrV1d
A military which can afford to spend trillions of dollars on a devastating 20-year war which accomplished literally nothing besides making war profiteers fabulously rich is a military which needs its budget slashed to ribbons. Clearly if Pentagon officials can waste such unfathomably vast fortunes lining the pockets of the military-industrial complex to the benefit of not one single ordinary American, they do not need anything like the obscenely bloated military budget the United States currently has.
Just thinking about the things those two trillion dollars could have been spent on instead, like fully ending bothhomelessnessandchild poverty in the United States, for example, should make Americans howl with rage. Hell, spending two trillion dollars building a useless brick mountain in the middle of the Mojave Desert would’ve been an infinitely better use of that money than murdering hundreds of thousands of people with US troops dying by the thousands and wounded by the tens of thousands. That last bit alone should have every military family member marching on Washington and Arlington today.
The US government is the single most tyrannical regime on this planet, without exception. It has killed millions and displaced tens of millions just since the turn of this century, solely in its wars that are still currently happening, all in the name of power and profit and destroying anyone who disobeys its dictates. Anyone who cares about humanity should place the defanging of this horrific monster at the very forefront of their values.
________________________
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I thank The Fiji Timesfor covering this story. I also thank Archbishop Peter Chong for providing a space for men to talk about issues that affect them. My shared experience with thousands of other Fijians, an experience of torture and abuse – we only have our faith to turn to. Here is what happened to me after the 5 December 2006 military coup in Fiji.
It was Christmas Eve 2006, we had returned from Mass. The sermon, Christmas carols, the nativity play — and the reaffirmation of Christ’s presence among us! It was a beautiful service. I recall meeting [former Minister of Labour] Kenneth Zinck outside church. We wished each other a Merry Christmas!
I remember helping my late mum prepare for the next day’s cooking [because Mum cooked one day ahead] — I placed the corned beef on the stove and brought the pork out of the fridge to defrost — little did I know, that I wouldn’t eat any of it.
Around this time, I received a phone call, that the Republic of Fiji Military Forces (RFMF) were at my gate, it was around 11pm. My late stepfather, Ratu Timoci Vesikula, ran out and told off the men who came to take me.
I recall him saying that this was too late in the night to be taking anyone to the military camp.
Eight solders with guns. I asked my stepdad to let me go, as I did not know what these men were capable of — since they were holding guns. When I got in the car, I saw my good friend [activist] Laisa Digitaki in the vehicle. We had a brief chat, before she was dropped off at a very dark QEB [Queen Elizabeth Barracks]. When I say dark, I mean they had turned off all the lights — that was strange to me.
I was ordered to stay in the vehicle and that I was to go and collect my cousin Jacque. I recall as I and Jacque conversed as we journeyed back to the camp, I realised both her and Laisa had canvas on. I had flip flops.
Christmas was fast approaching! And I’m not sure whether it was my idea or my cousins, but I started wishing all the officers along the checkpoints a Merry Christmas.
Friendly, then things changed
The two officers driving us to the camp, were friendly. When we reached the camp, things changed.
As we drove into the camp, there was silence in the car. The whole complex was blacked out, I recall the only light was from the vehicle that was carrying us. Weirdly as we exited the vehicle, the soldiers asked for our phone and wallet.
I didn’t have my phone on me, so I gave over my wallet that had some money in it — my wallet was returned the next day, without the contents.
The soldiers said “Waqavonovono” and they told me to run up to the Mess Hall. I stared at them, firstly because I didn’t know where the Mess Hall was and secondly, I didn’t understand why they were telling me to run anywhere.
Than they told us to run to the ground. As I jogged to the ground these same men followed me and they kept hitting me and swearing at me. I stopped and tried to catch a glimpse of their faces and I am sure that I gave one them a left hook, this was when I was violently knocked to the ground and kicked repeatedly.
The Fiji Times front page, 10 August 2021. Image: APR screenshot
I heard the voices of the then commander and the land force commander. I shielded my face as they all had a go at me.
They dragged me to the cricket pitch. Here I realised that there were other people lying on that pitch. They kept kicking and punching us, but what I didn’t understand was the stomping on our backs and the demand that we kiss their boots.
Refusal to kiss their boots
My refusal to kiss their boots, gave me more kicks!
As they attacked us, they kept referring to the [2006] coup and that they were trying to help Fiji, I was not helping them do their job effectively. I recall them asking someone near me, if she was pregnant — I am certain I heard a yes.
That’s when I heard her scream! I tried to stand up, but was pinned down and told to stay down.
A soldier knelt down and told me that I would be killed that night. I was told that my body would be dumped in the sea — no one would care. This same officer put a gun to my head and pressed it hard against my head. He said that I could be easily killed.
Around this time, was when I realised two things, the smell of alcohol from the officers and the fact that a separate group of officers were singing Christmas Carols.
I have never heard Christmas Carols sung in a such a circumstances. Disgusting! Shameful!
As we lay on the cricket pitch, I felt something heavy on my head. It was someone’s boot.
Standing on my head
Someone was standing on my head and pressing it to the cement pitch. The officer released their hold, and walked to line of soldiers that stood facing us.
I was punched in the face, for looking at the gentlemen who lined up in front of us. We were ordered at the count of three, to run to Lami and tear down our Democracy Shrine.
[What we didn’t know, was that officers had already torn down the signs and ransacked the property in Lami].
Like a child, I picked myself up and ran at the mention of the number three. There was a drain that we had to jump over, someone feel in, I helped the person out. As we ran I noticed Imraz Iqbal [then a journalist and activist] in front of me, as we jogged out of QEB, I noticed a vehicle and Shamima Ali was standing there trying to tell officers to let us go.
This is when I realised, that part of group that had just been attacked, was Viri.
It was around this time where a few soldiers stopped me and tried to pick a fight with me. They continued to hit me as I ran, at one point I stopped and took a boxing pose, the soldiers tackled me and continued to beat me.
I was placed in the tray of a vehicle and taken back to the camp.
Dragged into a room
I accepted that I probably would die, when I was dragged into a room and two soldiers preceded to beat me up, they were interested in right leg and continued to kicked it.
One of the men then held me down, while the other decided to pull my pants down and sodomise me. This is when I realised that since they were raping me, they could actually kill me. My cries didn’t stop them, as they taunted me.
Another soldier walked into the room and I recall him being very disappointed with the two. He told them off, and told them to take me home. They instead threw me on the side of the road at Colo-i-Suva.
A vehicle picked me up, and took me home from there.
I was told to leave Suva, and the next day [Christmas Day], I flew to Levuka — with my wounds still raw and myself being unable to walk.
I testify, if it weren’t for my family, I would have done something terribly wrong to myself. I would wake up at odd hours, reliving my ordeal, I had suicidal thoughts, and to see the people that attacked me running the country — that really broke my spirit.
I recall, a session I had with one of my cousins — he actually was very disappointed that a few days after been taken to the camp, I was still meeting with pro-democracy advocates and speaking out!
Family critical for recovery
But in the end family play a critical part in my recovery — they encouraged me to realise that I needed to talk to an expert. I spoke to a Catholic priest and a psychologist – they helped me understand that I had a greater purpose and that I had to release my perpetrators.
I forgave them, all the soldiers that hurt me and those that abused me — I forgave them. I forgave them, stood up, and continued my work! I wish I could say, it was easy getting over what happened to me — it wasn’t!
For those of you who were also tortured by the military, please know that not all officers are disgusting and violent. But for that small group of officers that arrested me and tortured me, I hope that they one day have the guts to speak about their actions — they carry a heavy burden in their hearts, they need closure.
Sadly, I could not take this matter to court because of the immunity provisions in sections 155 to 158 of Fiji’s Constitution, which act as a barrier to any investigation and prosecution of torture cases.
So family, friends and professional mental health providers stepped up for me!
Torture is wrong, in any situation, it is wrong!
I know I am not the only one who has faced this type of brutal force – I understand that there are many others like me who are dealing with our situation, but our scars exist for a reason! And they highlight lessons that should be learnt.
I still speak up! I still protest! I still pray for them! I still defend my country!
Pita Waqavonovono, one of the so-called Democracy Six group in 2006,is a youth activist and was president of the opposition Social Democratic Liberal Party (SODELPA) youth wing. The Fiji Times published a front page report about his allegations yesterday and put questions to Republic of Fiji Military Forces Commander Rear Admiral Viliame Naupoto but had received no reply at the time the newspaper went to press. Waqavonovono’s account of the torture allegations circulated on social media is published here with the permission of the author.
Via America’s Lawyer: Biden’s administration is holding firm on arms deals with the United Arab Emirates. Mike Papantonio and Farron Cousins discuss more. Plus, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland sets new restrictions on the DOJ’s surveillance activities against U.S. journalists. RT correspondent Brigida Santos joins Mike Papantonio to explain more. Transcript: *This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any […]
Lawyer and human rights activist Veronica Koman has spoken out about the worsening health of Papuan activist Victor Yeimo who has been detained at the Mobile Brigade command headquarters detention centre (Rutan Mako Brimob) for the last three months, reports Suara Papua.
“Victor Yeimo will not be safe if he remains behind [the bars] of a colonial prison. Colonialism will continue to demand political sacrifices,” wrote Koman on her Facebook on Monday.
Koman said that Yeimo’s imprisonment is part of the colonisation of the Papuan people’s dignity which had been going on for decades.
“The imprisonment of Victor is a problem of trampling on the West Papuan people’s dignity: The West Papuan people aren’t allowed to fight racism, the West Papuan people aren’t allowed to speak about self-determination — even in a peaceful manner,” she wrote.
Koman believes that moving Yeimo, who is in a weak condition, to Abepura prison is the same as moving him from one “tiger’s den” to another.
“The Abepura prison is over-capacity, so it’s a nest of covid-19. Because of this, [we must] unite in the demand: Release Victor Yeimo right now!” said Koman.
Yeimo, who is the West Papua National Committee (KNPB) international spokesperson and spokesperson for the Papua People’s Petition (PRP), was arrested by police in the Tanah Hitam area of Abepura in Jayapura city on May 9.
He was detained at the Papua regional police headquarters before being transferred to the Brimob detention centre.
Since his arrest there have been ongoing calls for his release from the charges against him. The charges and lack of access to lawyers and family are considered not to be in accordance with the law.
Because of this, the government of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo is being urged to immediately release Yeimo along with all Papuan students and people from prisons in Indonesia.
“Victor Yeimo is not the perpetrator of racism. He is in fact a victim of racism. He was not involved in the [August-September 2019] riots in Jayapura city.
“Why after three months is he still being held at the Papua Brimob? His health is deteriorating. We are asking that he be released immediately from prison,” said Sam Gobay, who is on the management board of the Mee ethnic group traditional council in Mimika regency.
From information received by Gobay, Yeimo’s health had deteriorated drastically.
“There is no access to healthcare for Victor Yeimo. He’s ill, he’s not being allowed treatment. He also isn’t being given food. All access is restricted.
“What is the plan for Victor Yeimo? We’re asking for Victor’s immediate release”, he said.
The arrest of detention of Yeimo is seen as part of curbing democratic space and even an effort to criminalise Papuan activists.
“What kind of legal basis is there for the state to discriminate against Victor Yeimo. He is not a perpetrator of racism, let alone labeling him as committing makar [treason, rebellion, sedition].
“Everyone knows that Victor Yeimo was not involved in the demonstrations which ended in riots in Jayapura city,” said Gobay.
“The Papuan people are urging Bapak [Mr] Jokowi to immediately urge the Indonesian police chief and the Papuan regional police chief to release Victor Yeimo from the Brimob detention centre,” said Gobay.
A similar statement was made by KNPB general chairperson Agus Kossay in a press release on Monday.
The KNPB is urging the Papuan regional police and the Papua chief public prosecutor to immediately release Yeimo. According to Kossay, Yeimo had been detained without legal basis and his health continued to deteriorate.
“For the sake of humanity and the authority of the Indonesian state, immediately release Victor Yeimo and all Papuan independence activists who have been arrested without [legal] grounds, evidence or witnesses. The Papuan people are not the perpetrators of racism,” said Kossay.
KNPB spokesperson Ones Suhuniap, meanwhile, said that if Yeimo was not released then the KNPB would call on all Papuan people and all KNPB activists to get themselves arrested by police.
He also believes that the Papua regional police and the prosecutor’s office have violated Indonesian law.
“Victor Yeimo must be released for the sake of the law because based on the KUHP [Criminal Code] the 60 day period of detention has already passed, but the addition of 30 more days detention for Victor Yeimo violates the law itself,” said Suhuniap.
Earlier, Yeimo’s lawyer Emanuel Gobay, who is from the Papua Law Enforcement and Human Rights Coalition (KPHHP), urged the Papuan and Jayapura chief prosecutors to respond to their call to transfer Yeimo from the Brimob detention centre to Abepura prison.
This call, according to Gobay, is based on the fact that Yeimo had been incarcerated at the Brimob detention centre since May 10 and his rights as a suspect had not been met.
“When the prosecutor questioned Victor Yeimo in relation to matters that he wished to convey, Victor asked to be transferred from the Rutan Mako Brimob to the Abepura prison in consideration of meeting his rights as a suspect.
“Victor argued that since the start of his detention at the Papua regional police Mako Brimob he has been neglected because of the Mako Brimob’s standard operating procedures. Also because of his psychological condition as a result of being left alone in a stuffy cell which could endanger his health,” explained Gobay.
Unfortunately, said the director of the Papua Legal Aid Foundation (LBH), the prosecutor failed to respond professionally to Yeimo’s request.
“The Papua chief public prosecutor [must] immediately instruct the Papua chief public prosecutor supervising prosecutor acting as the Jayapura chief public prosecutor supervising prosecutor to examine the prosecutor who received the dossier of the suspect in the name of Victor F Yeimo which was not conducted in accordance with the instructions of Article 8 Paragraph (3) b of Law Number 8/1981,” he said.
Also, the head of the Papua representative office of the Ombudsman of the Republic of Indonesia has been asked to supervise the Jayapura district attorney’s office in its implementation of Yeimo’s rights as a suspect which is guaranteed under Law Number 8/1981.
This call was made after the Papua regional police investigators handed Yeimo’s dossier over to the Jayapura district attorney’s office on August 6.
Late last year, with the pandemic in full, brutal swing, Boris Johnson’s Conservative government in the U.K. announced a nearly 17 billion pound (what was then $21.9 billion) increase in military spending. The increase, spread over four years, represented the largest hike in “defense” investments since the end of the Cold War, and, while it was a tiny fraction of what the U.S. spends annually on defense, made clear Britain’s ambition to be seen as a global military superpower once more. In an era of escalating tensions between a U.S.-led NATO and Russia, and during a period in which economic competition between China and the West is increasingly morphing into a high-stakes arms race, Britain’s move to ramp up military spending made clear that the U.K. won’t be sitting out these new global struggles.
In fact, the U.K.’s decision to escalate military investments was based on an evolving military doctrine of “constant competition” with adversaries that would keep opponents such as China and Russia off-balance while, hopefully, staying just clear of provocations that could lead to war.
Folded into the new, more aggressive military posture, were changes that went far beyond the nuclear arsenal. Johnson’s government unveiled plans for advanced new naval systems, set up a new space command and committed to large investments in futuristic artificial intelligence research.
As a part of this new posture, in which post-Brexit Britain, isolated from its half-century-long relationship to the EU (or what was formerly known as the European Economic Community) and the power-brokers on the continent, takes on increasingly confrontational military policing roles globally and regionally, the U.K. recently sent an aircraft carrier and broader naval strike group into the South China Sea. The vessels, part of an international effort ostensibly designed to preserve freedom of navigation in contested international waters, sailed between Singapore and the Philippines, deliberately coming within a few miles of contested islands claimed by China in the region.
One can well make the claim that both Russia and China are taking deeply irresponsible actions on the world stage. Yet acceptance of that critique is different from acceptance of the desirability of giving Boris Johnson’s government carte blanche to launch whatever military adventures it chooses to embark upon.
In fact, Johnson’s government, seeking to shore up its right-wing populist credentials, seems now to want to reach for military solutions even against recent allies. This spring, in one of the stranger post-Brexit moments, the Brits began scrambling up naval vessels against French and other EU fishers in the English Channel. The vessels were rushed off to the island of Jersey and were apparently aimed at breaking a “blockade” of the local waters by fishers from the continent irate that their long-standing right to fish these waters had now been terminated. In the end, both sides stood down, but the very notion that the U.K. and France could come to the edge of a naval confrontation over fishing rights — with the British government egged on by a snarling, far right, flag-worshipping tabloid press — is simply astounding, and shows exactly how far Britain has veered off-course since the Brexit vote of 2016 set in motion the years-long process of divorce between the U.K. and its erstwhile partners within the European Union.
French fishing vessels haven’t been the only targets of the British military in the seas abutting Britain. For much of the past year, as Johnson’s government has ramped up its rhetorical and legal campaigns against asylum seekers, ultra-sophisticated military drones have patrolled British waters, looking for migrants desperately trying to enter the country’s waters on rafts.
The arms build-up, and Britain’s growing willingness to needle opponents militarily, is, to say the least, disconcerting. Yet it isn’t exactly a development out of the blue. For while Britain has, for most of its modern history, steered clear of maintaining large standing armies during peacetime, it hasn’t hesitated to use its naval assets to secure global influence.
In fact, in many ways, the U.K.’s new doctrine of constant competition and ongoing military assertiveness is a souped-up version of a mid-19th century imperial doctrine, “gunboat diplomacy,” perfected by statesmen such as Lord Palmerston as a way to realize British ambitions around the world without actually triggering war with other behemoths on the global stage. Palmerston was a master of the art of military populism; he routinely sent gunboats to potential flashpoints while talking about the military muscle-flexing as simply being a defense of British values of liberty, democracy and freedom. The press and much of the British public relished these shows of force, and for many years, Palmerston bestrode the halls of Westminster, first as foreign secretary, and then as prime minister. He relied on Britain’s raw power to impose his views, but, as importantly, he relied on bluster, in the sense that he was just gung-ho enough, just trigger-happy enough, to follow through on his threats, to convince opponents that ceding to Britain would serve their interests better than forcing an actual fight.
Today, Johnson is reimagining British diplomacy in a similar way. His government pledged to cut international aid from 0.7 percent of the gross national income to 0.5 percent, and recently won a parliamentary vote on the issue, despite former Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May joining with a group of rebel members of parliament to vote against Johnson’s plan. Yet, even as his government slashes overseas aid in a cruel effort to balance a budget following stimulus measures designed to counter the economic impact of the pandemic, it increases military spending.
This combination of withdrawal from non-military international obligations and high-profile military spending speaks volumes for the priorities of post-Brexit Britain. Moreover, it speaks volumes about the values underpinning Johnson’s particularly noxious brand of right-wing, nationalistic populism.
Activists from Palestine Action (PA) have occupied the London HQ of Israel arms firm Elbit Systems. Arriving on the morning of 6 August, the group quickly blocked the entrance to the firm’s offices. They also sprayed red paint around the site to symbolise the oppression of Palestinians by Israel.
PA was founded one year ago this week. In its press release, PA said that 105 days of that year had been spent occupying Elbit Systems sites or locations where Elbit components were made.
The group tweeted a video of members on a rooftop above the building entrance.
Death dealers
Elbit is Israel’s largest arms firms. Large parts of its infrastructure is based in the UK. In its press release, PA said:
The action taken today, as with all actions by Palestine Action, has been taken in order to end the supply of UK made arms, drones, munitions and military technology to Israel.
Elbit technology also sells weapons to other repressive governments around the world, PA said:
This tech, manufactured at Elbit’s 10 sites across the UK, is sold to Israel for the express purpose of repressing, brutalising, and killing Palestinian people. After being “battle-tested” (in Elbit’s words) on Palestinian civilians, it is then sold on the global market to some of the world’s most repressive regimes.
But hindering Elbit isn’t all that PA has done. It says it’s forced the firm to increase spending on security to keep PA activists out – a move which doesn’t seem to have worked very well so far.
(@PhilipProudfoot) 
(@0Calamity) 
(@RefugeeAction) 
Taliban fighters have taken more than a quarter of the Afghanistan's provincial capitals in less than a week.
