Most Americans now understand that it was wrong to spend centuries enslaving millions of people. Not many Americans yet understand how equally wrong it is that their government has spent the 21st century killing millions and displacing tens of millions in its post-9/11 wars.
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The US is more dangerous now as it loses global primacy than it has been at any other point in its history. There really are just two options currently on the table: either the US empire relinquishes unipolar domination voluntarily and leads a peaceful transition into a multipolar world, or it takes increasingly drastic and dangerous action to maintain planetary control. The latter choice is both horrifying and likely.
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People in western imperialist nations pretending to care about Muslims in China will never stop being hilarious.
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Remember kids: false flags are crazy conspiracy theories that only ridiculous crackpots believe in, except when they’re reported as fact by news outlets who’ve lied to you about every war.
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Putin has been reading The Art of War in preparation for his unprovoked Ukraine invasion. pic.twitter.com/vukLvJBAL2
Sure is an interesting coincidence how all the (still completely unproven) narratives about Russian 2016 election interference and Trump collusion served perfectly to manufacture consent for all the bat shit insane US/NATO escalations we’re seeing in Ukraine today.
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Everyone who’d support going to war with Russia or China over Ukraine or Taiwan should be regarded with the same revulsion and social rejection as child molesters.
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Capitalism is so innately absurd that its proponents always respond to questions about systemic problems by babbling about what people can do as individuals. People are homeless? Get a job. Jobs don’t pay enough? Get a better job. It’s like addressing the problem of a skyscraper being on fire by saying “Don’t go to the floors that are on fire.”
It’s like if there was a locked room full of ten prisoners and you only gave them enough food to keep seven alive, and you responded to their complaints by saying “Better make sure you grab the food first when I throw it in your cell, then.”
It’s a belief system you can only hold in place with psychological compartmentalization. Tell that one suffering guy to get a better job and save his money, and then simply do not think about the millions of people who are working low-paying jobs and unable to save any money.
Any competition-based system will necessarily have losers as well as winners in those competitions. Saying “Compete better than those you’re competing against” does nothing for the part of the population who must necessarily lose. A collaboration-based system is what’s needed.
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You don’t even need compassion for the poor and disadvantaged to oppose capitalism. You just need some basic self-preservation and an understanding that in a system where human behavior is driven by profit, war and ecocide must necessarily continue as long as they are profitable.
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It's so easy to get lost in the narrative matrix without a good moral compass. You start off opposing right wingers to be a good person, then you fall down a few rabbit holes and before you know it you're telling a Rasmussen pollster you support taking kids from unvaxxed parents. https://t.co/2vrpo5lUJ5
Seems like every day the media have an urgent new report explaining why the free flow of ideas on the internet is dangerous and needs to be curtailed. Today it’s one thing, tomorrow it’ll be something else. It’s not about this or that person or issue, it’s about controlling information on the internet.
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It was pretty clever how they redefined fascism as “being kind of racist” while actual fascism was rebranded as “just normal party politics”.
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Saying propaganda doesn’t work is the same as saying advertising doesn’t work, and advertising is nearly a trillion-dollar industry. Also, advertising would be much more effective than it already is if corporate ads were allowed to disguise themselves as news reports in The New York Times.
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Having strong political opinions on social media is no substitute for doing the work to heal your early childhood trauma.
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If you’re the same person you were a decade ago, you just wasted ten years of your life.
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My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here.
In a drastic pivot from typical denunciations of false flag operations as conspiratorial nonsense that don’t exist outside the demented imagination of Alex Jones, the US political/media class is proclaiming with one voice that Russia is currently orchestrating just such an operation to justify an invasion of Ukraine.
“As part of its plans, Russia is laying the groundwork to have the option of fabricating a pretext for invasion,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Friday. “We have information that indicates Russia has already pre-positioned a group of operatives to conduct a false flag operation in eastern Ukraine.”
“Without getting into too much detail, we do have information that indicates that Russia is already working actively to create a pretext for a potential invasion, for a move on Ukraine,” Pentagon Spokesperson John Kirby told the press on Friday. “In fact, we have information that they’ve pre-positioned a group of operatives, to conduct what we call a false flag operation, an operation designed to look like an attack on them or their people, or Russian speaking people in Ukraine, as an excuse to go in.”
The US government has substantiated these incendiary claims with the usual amount of evidence, by which I of course mean jack dick nothingballs. The mass media have not been dissuaded from reporting on this issue by the complete absence of any evidence that this Kremlin false flag plot is in fact a real thing that actually happened, their journalistic standards completely satisfied by the fact that their government instructed them to report it. Countless articles and news segments containing the phrase “false flag” have been blaring throughout all the most influential news outlets in the western world without the slightest hint of skepticism.
This sudden embrace of the idea that governments can stage attacks on their own people to justify their own pre-existing agendas is a sharp pivot from the scoff which such a notion in mainstream liberal circles has typically received. This 2018 article from The New York Times simply dismisses the idea that the 2014 Maidan massacre was a false flag carried out by western-backed opposition fighters in Ukraine to frame the riot police of the government who was ousted in that coup, for example, despite the existence of plenty of evidence that this is indeed what happened. This BBC article dismisses without argument the idea that the alleged 2018 chemical weapons attack in Douma, Syria could have been a false flag carried out by the Al Qaeda-aligned insurgents on the ground to provoke a western attack on the Syrian government, yet there are mountains of evidence that this was the case.
Articles denouncing the very idea of “false flag conspiracy theories” surface routinely in the mass media. Snopes has a whole article explaining that false flags are kooky nonsense without any mention of the fact that this is a known tactic we’ve seen intelligence operatives discussing in declassified documents, like when the CIA considered planting bombs in Miami to blame Castro. I myself was once temporarily suspended by Facebook just for posting an article about false flag operations that are publicly acknowledged to have occurred. People who dare to question the many gaping plot holes in the official 9/11 narrative have often been treated with the same disdain and revulsion as neo-Nazis and pedophilia advocates.
"A US official told CNN" is not a "Scoop" but demonstrates the willingness of 'journalists' to stenograph unverifiable government disinformation. https://t.co/wr2u3xKtiI
None of this is to say that every theory about any false flag operation is true; many are not. But the way the mass media will instantly embrace an idea to which they’ve heretofore been consistently hostile just because their government told them to to do it says so much about the state of the so-called free press today, and the fact that the rank-and-file public simply accepts this and marches along with it as though talking about false flags has always been normal says so much about the level of Orwellian doublethink that people have been trained to perform in today’s information ecosystem. The way false flag operations were widely considered conspiratorial hogwash until the instant they were reported as real by the media institutions who’ve lied to us about every war is downright creepy.
The problem with preemptive false flag accusations is of course that the side making the claim can simply launch an unprovoked attack and then say “See? They’re staging a false flag to frame our side, just like we said they would!” And then they can present their subsequent actions as defensive in nature, when in reality they were the aggressors and instigators. We are seeing nothing from the obedient western news media to suggest they’d do anything other than uncritically regurgitate such claims into the minds of their trusting audiences.
As the Beltway doctrine that US unipolar hegemony must be preserved at all cost crashes headlong into the reality of an emerging multipolar world, the US government is now more dangerous than it has ever been at any point in its history. We need the press to be holding the drivers of empire to account with the light of truth, and we need the public to be opposing and scrutinizing these reckless escalations. Instead, we are getting the exact opposite. God help us all.
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My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here.
New York, January 13, 2022 – One year into office, President Joe Biden’s administration has emphasized the importance of global press freedom and improved daily relations with U.S. media – but has yet to turn many promises into action, according to a special report by Leonard Downie Jr. for the Committee to Protect Journalists.
The report, ‘Night and day’: The Biden administration and the press, finds an almost complete reversal of the Trump administration’s hostile anti-media rhetoric and a return to a more traditional relationship between the press and the White House. However, while journalists and press freedom advocates welcome the administration’s commitment to keeping the public informed, the report found that they see persistent problems, including issues like the backlog of freedom of information requests, restrictions on journalists at the U.S. southern border, and the use of the Espionage Act against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
“The Biden administration has stopped the poisonous rhetoric against the media of the Trump years. That’s a great start. Now it needs to go further by expanding reporters’ timely access to information and removing the threat of prosecution under the Espionage Act. The United States cannot be an effective champion of media freedoms globally unless it vigorously upholds those freedoms domestically,” said Robert Mahoney, CPJ deputy executive director.
Barriers to accessing government documents and other information also continue to frustrate and concern journalists, as do fears that the espionage indictment against Assange could set a dangerous precedent for use against investigative reporters globally. Despite public commitments by Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland to increase government transparency, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) experts have seen little improvement in the slow and often uncooperative response of government agencies to journalists requests for information.
Structural or substantive changes to address the plight of endangered journalists are lacking, the report found. Press freedom advocates were especially critical of the chaotic evacuation and handling of Priority 2 (P-2) visas for journalists under threat in Afghanistan following the U.S. withdrawal and Taliban takeover in August 2021, as media companies and organizations like CPJ had to work with other governments to extract journalists facing imminent danger.
“The Biden administration still has an opportunity to help Afghan journalists by swiftly processing P-2 visas and by providing assistance for those who fled to safety or remain in the country, reporting in defiance of a repressive Taliban,” said Mahoney. “The U.S. can also heed the lessons of this tragedy by taking the lead in establishing emergency visas for journalists at risk, a critical tool that CPJ has pursued globally.”
On the positive side, journalists interviewed for the report said there have been significant improvements in daily information gathering involving the White House, State Department, Defense Department, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Biden has also restored the editorial independence of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, home of the Voice of America, which the Trump administration had tried to turn into a propaganda agency. However, access to the president is limited, with Biden giving just 22 news interviews by the end of 2021, compared to 92 by Donald Trump, or the 150 by Barack Obama during the same period in their presidencies.
The legacy of former President Donald Trump’s vitriolic anti-press rhetoric also lingers in the form of aggressive actions against reporters. At least 59 journalists were arrested or detained by police in 2021, according to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, and 142 journalists were assaulted either by law enforcement officers or by members of the public while covering events like protests or anti-vaccine rallies.
The report also includes a set of comprehensive policy recommendations by CPJ to the Biden administration to improve compliance and transparency with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, end the unauthorized search of electronic devices and prohibit singling out reporters for their work, among other areas of concern. CPJ sent a letter today to the White House with a copy of the report, the recommendations, and a request for a meeting with Biden.
Note to Editors:
‘Night and day’: The Biden administration and the press, is written Leonard Downie Jr., the Weil Family Professor of Journalism at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and executive editor of The Washington Post from 1991 to 2008. It is based on interviews with more than 30 journalists, academic news media observers, press freedom advocates, and Biden administration officials. Downie also wrote CPJ’s 2013 report on the Obama administration and 2020 report on the Trump administration.
The report is available on CPJ’s website. A video with report highlights is available here and can be reshared in news stories with credit to CPJ.
For questions or to arrange an interview with CPJ experts, email press@cpj.org.
A computer programmer, blogger and high-profile activist who mobilized youths in the uprising that unseated autocrat Hosni Mubarak, Abdel Fattah had been in pre-trial detention since September 2019.
Abdel Fattah, his lawyer Mohamed al-Baqer and blogger Mohamed “Oxygen” Ibrahim were convicted of “broadcasting false news” in their trial in Cairo.
A judicial source, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the verdict and sentencing to AFP.
Rulings in the court cannot be appealed. They require final approval by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
Washington, which has already frozen 10 percent of its aid to Egypt over repeated rights violations, said it was “disappointed” by the sentence. “Journalists, human rights defenders, and others seeking to peacefully exercise their freedom of expression should be able to do so without facing criminal penalties, intimidation, harassment, or any other form of reprisal,” said State Department spokesman Ned Price.
The verdict “demonstrates the lengths to which authorities are willing to go to punish these journalists for their work”, said Sherif Mansour, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa Coordinator. “Both journalists have already spent several years in prison on bogus charges, and authorities must release them immediately and unconditionally,” Mansour added.
Human Rights Watch on Sunday slammed “the government’s rush to use emergency courts… after holding people illegally for years in pretrial detention”. The New York-based rights watchdog then said that if Abdel Fattah and the other activists were to be sentenced, this would confirm “that fierce repression of peaceful critics remains the order of the day in Egypt”.
Abdel Fattah has spent most of the past decade in jail at Tora, one of the country’s most notorious prisons, after previous convictions. His mother, mathematics professor Laila Soueif, wrote in a New York Times opinion piece published on Saturday that “the outside world, once so inspired by the Egyptian revolutionaries, is looking away. His crime is that, like millions of young people in Egypt and far beyond, he believed another world was possible. And he dared to try to make it happen.”
Prolific writer Abdel Fattah’s critically acclaimed essay collection “You Have Not Yet Been Defeated” was published in October.“At its fundamental core, his writing is attached to justice,” Soueif told AFP in October when the book was released.
Ahead of the trial session, Egypt’s foreign ministry lambasted the German government on Saturday for a statement calling for a “fair trial” and the release of the three dissidents. Cairo described the German foreign ministry’s call as “a blatant and unjustified meddling in Egyptian internal affairs”.
In a 2019 interview with the show 60 Minutes on US broadcaster CBS, Sisi said there were no political prisoners in Egypt. And – of course – the official reaction to interventions was: Egypt’s foreign ministry stressed on Monday that it was absolutely not appropriate to comment on or in any way refer to an independent judicial process.
They’ll jail you for stealing from your employer but not from your employees. They’ll jail you for whistleblowing on civilian-killing drone strikes but not for killing civilians with drones. They’ll jail you for insider trading unless you’re doing it openly in the US Congress.
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The main difference between Hollywood stories about evil psychopaths trying to conquer the world and real life is that in real life the psychopaths succeeded a long time ago.
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I used be mad that the US is circling the planet with hundreds of military bases and slaughtering people by the millions in imperialist wars and destroying any nation which disobeys it but then someone informed me that China is building stuff in Africa which is clearly far worse.
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They just killed a few civilians with a drone. It's not like they did something REALLY bad, like tell the truth about killing civilians with drones. https://t.co/Q7R0N2ZzRQ
“China is going to take over and give me a social credit score” is the new “Muslims are going to take over and impose Sharia law.”
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“Of course there’s a lot of propaganda about China, but it’s still definitely a threat.”
“How do you know that?”
“Oh my god dude, it’s all over the news!”
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I’m comfortable holding my positions on China even when I’m getting hate mobbed for them on Twitter because I already saw all that with Russia and was completely vindicated. It taught me that in a highly propagandized population there’s no correlation between how loud people yell at you and how right they are.
I can tell I’m pushing against a wall of pure propaganda when I write about China because so many of the objections I get from people are empty appeals to emotion. No facts, just vapid, sputtering outrage that I would dare question what the TV told them about a government the US doesn’t like.
Another clue is the repetitive nature of the objections. Everyone’s bleating the same lines, just as they’ve been programmed to.
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I’m not even one of those high-octane commies who defends China because it is communist. It’s just clear to me that a mature and impartial analysis of the actions and power dynamics at play shows the US is the aggressor in these escalations and China is responding defensively to those aggressions.
The only way China invades Taiwan is if it is provoked. The only way it would be provoked is if that provocation was orchestrated by the US. They’re fearmongering about Chinese aggressions in a tense standoff that’s only tense because of US aggression.
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China is not actually a problem that needs to be solved.
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Western media virtually never use the word “detente” in reference to cold war escalations against Russia and China. They go out of their way to avoid informing people that de-escalation is even an option. The decision to plunge into cold war brinkmanship has already been made and fully committed to.
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I’m not “pro-CCP” or “pro-Kremlin”, that’s just what I look like from inside a propaganda-warped reality tunnel when I say things about US aggressions that fall outside the virulently pro-US Overton window that’s been constructed for you throughout your entire life.
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The Biden administration could very easily restore the Iran nuclear deal at zero risk to anyone simply by ending the unilateral US sanctions and coming to the negotiating table with the original agreement. They could have done it many months ago. The JCPOA has not been restored because they chose for it not to be.
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As the US war machine’s pivot to Asia sees it scaling down operations in the Middle East, the mass media are now permitted to do critical reporting on the fact that civilian casualties from US airstrikes are frequent and grossly under-reported. And of course they are. Duh.
We are making public hundreds of the Pentagon’s confidential assessments of reports of civilian casualties resulting from airstrikes. The documents lay bare how flawed intelligence has killed thousands of innocent civilians, many of them children. https://t.co/D1vE9aEDYh
The only people to whom these revelations are surprising are those who’ve been assuming you can drop military explosives on inhabited areas without killing civilians. Which is something you only believe because it is comfortable.
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Doing commentary on US warmongering is like being in a hostage situation with a crazed gunman who’s already killed a bunch of hostages, but most of the people in the room act like you’re a weird freak for talking about the gunman all the time instead of focusing on other things.
“Oh my god you only ever criticize that crazed gunman. Enough about the crazed gunman already! One of the other hostages just farted, how come you’re not criticizing her??”
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We still kill people for worshipping the wrong god. It’s just that now our god is a capitalist empire.
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Watching porn to learn how to fuck is like watching pro wrestling to learn how to fight.
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People say “Journalism is not a crime,” but it actually is a crime when those in power say it is. That’s precisely the problem with the Assange case. Many evil things have been legal, and many good things have been illegal. We’re looking at an effort to make critical natsec journalism on the US war machine illegal.
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Extinction is the future’s bouncer. If humanity can’t transcend its maladaptive conditioning and become a species that collaborates with its ecosystem, the bouncer will turn us away at the door like the dinosaurs with a “Sorry man, but you’re not on the list.”
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My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here.
It’s an especially dumb day for anti-China propaganda. The Biden administration has imposed trade restrictions on 34 Chinese institutions on the unsubstantiated allegation that they are developing “brain control weaponry“, a claim the mass media have been all too happy to uncritically pass on to the public. Between that and the ridiculous reporting on Russian Havana Syndrome ray guns it’s like they’re literally trying to get everyone to wear tinfoil hats.
Then there’s the Tucker Carlson guest who just told Carlson’s massive audience that the US military needs to be full of “Type A men who want to sit on a throne of Chinese skulls.” It’s highly disturbing how much the mass media have been talking about war with China like it’s a foregone conclusion lately, almost as though they’re working to normalize that horrifying idea.
The US military budget has once again increased despite the US ending a war this year, and despite its facing no real threats from any nation to its easily-defended shores. The increase has been largely justified by the need to “counter China” and includes billions in funding for the ongoing construction of long-range missile systems on the first island chain near the Chinese mainland, explicitly for the purpose of threatening China. One need only imagine what would happen if China began constructing a chain of long-range missile systems off a US coastline to understand who the actual aggressor is between these two powers.
Fox guest: "We don't need a military that's woman-friendly, we don't need a military that's gay-friendly," we need "Type A men who want to sit on a throne of Chinese skulls" pic.twitter.com/JztfZKpYyr
In reality, concern trolling from the western political/media class about things China is doing both internationally and domestically has pretty consistently been about actions that China has taken in response to aggressions from the US and its allies. Such concern trolling is generally framed as opposition to alleged human rights abuses and the need to protect China’s neighbors from “Chinese aggression”, but in reality it’s done to facilitate the agenda to make China weaker and smaller by any means necessary.
The actual source of tensions between the US and China never actually has anything to do with “human rights” or “protecting” anyone; that’s just the narrative overlay pinned on top of the actual agenda. The actual source of those tensions is always the fact that it is in the US empire’s interests to make China smaller and weaker and it is in China’s interests to be big and strong. The US resolved after the fall of the Soviet Union to prevent the rise of any other rival superpower, and all of the grievances we see aired about alleged Chinese abuses are really just justifications for aggressions geared toward undermining, subverting, threatening, out-maneuvering and balkanizing China to make it weaker and smaller.
Pretty much everything China gets slammed for by the imperial media is actually a response to western aggressions, whether you’re talking about Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, territorial disputes over borders or ocean waters, or domestic authoritarianism. The US is consistently the aggressor, and China is consistently responding defensively to those aggressions.
Only an absolute moron would believe the US and its allies actually care about Muslims in Xinjiang after they just spent the last two decades slaughtering Muslims by the millions in their post-9/11 wars of aggression. The propaganda narratives focus on human rights, but the real reason is that Xinjiang is a very geostrategically valuable region that US imperialism would benefit from carving away from China, and Beijing would benefit from keeping. Take this excerpt from a 2017 SBS article about China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to illustrate (emphasis mine):
An example of one significant BRI project that has multiple purposes is the creation of an overland route from Xinjiang in China’s far west through Pakistan to its deep water Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea. US$54 billion of infrastructure is planned for this stretch, despite some of the route passing through territory disputed by India and Pakistan.
This route gives China cargo overland access to the Arabian Sea, will spur investment in Xinjiang, and opens up a new route into China for energy imports from the Middle East – a route that is not vulnerable to US maritime power like its east coast sea lanes.
This map says more than any article you'll ever see in corporate media about why Western imperialist countries (that have spent decades killing Muslims) suddenly pretend to care about Uyghurs in Xinjiang, China.
When Uyghur separatist groups began inflicting acts of terror with the goal of driving the Chinese government out of Xinjiang and creating their own state, Beijing had essentially three choices:
To engage in a US-style campaign of mass military slaughter against these groups until they were defeated,
To allow a violent uprising of what would inevitably become western-backed jihadists as they had just seen in Libya and Syria carve away a geostrategically crucial part of China to be exploited by the US and its allies, or
To find some alternative to 1 and 2.
Beijing went with option number three, and the alternative it found was the aggressive deradicalization campaign it ended up implementing and the re-education facilities it has been so widely criticized for. This move would surely have entailed many of the abuses you’d expect from a mass-scale police action and dramatic escalation of authoritarian policies, but claims that it constituted “genocide” have been soundly discredited by independent research groups and by members of the public using publicly available information, while the most egregious allegations of abuse have been shown to be subject to manipulation and riddled with major plot holes.
You can criticize Beijing for how it went about its dilemma in Xinjiang all you want, but it was plainly universes less draconian than the US approach of killing millions and displacing tens of millions in its barbaric “war on terror”. And unlike the “war on terror”, Beijing’s approach actually worked, which even western media have been forced to grudgingly concede as tourism surges in Xinjiang.
I would like to think that maybe in the future people will be slightly more skeptical about sensationalist claims about human rights in official enemy countries but that's probably being optimistic https://t.co/nkdVI3rOsw
The west has understood for a very, very long time that it needs to keep China weak and small to retain supremacy. That’s why so many narratives revolve around “liberating” (balkanizing) parts of China from Beijing. Here’s a Winston Churchill quote from over a century ago:
I think we shall have to take the Chinese in hand and regulate them. I believe that as civilized nations become more powerful they will get more ruthless, and the time will come when the world will impatiently bear the existence of great barbaric nations who may at any time arm themselves and menace civilized nations. I believe in the ultimate partition of China—I mean ultimate. I hope we shall not have to do it in our day. The Aryan stock is bound to triumph.
It’s the same with the militarization of the South China Sea. Xi Jinping had been offering a mutual demilitarization of the sea, and instead Obama ramped up tensions with the still-ongoing “pivot to Asia” which has seen a continuous buildup of US and allied military activity in the area. As former UN Security Council President Kishore Mahbubani explained in an interview last year:
“I quote a former American ambassador to China, Stapleton Roy, who told me, ‘Kishore, when Xi Jinping made an offer to demilitarize the South China Sea, America should have grabbed that offer and agreed to stop all our military activities in the South China Sea. That would have pushed the Chinese out.’ Of course, the Americans would be out too. But the South China Sea is much more important to China than it is to America. If America steps out, the Chinese military steps out. And that’s a win for America, right? Instead, the U.S. Navy responded by sending naval vessels. So Xi said, ‘Okay. You reject my offer. So be it.’”
It’s the same even with the authoritarian domestic policies for which China is frequently criticized by the western world. We learned in a recent Bloomberg article that US spies are finding it hard to conduct operations against the Chinese government because its strict policies make it impossible for them to function.
“CIA officers in China face daunting challenges posed by China’s burgeoning surveillance state, which has blanketed Chinese cities with surveillance cameras and employs sophisticated facial recognition software to track threats,” claim the article’s authors.
Bloomberg explains that China’s anti-corruption measures have made it much harder to recruit CIA assets, writing, “Xi’s broad anti-corruption campaign, which has punished more than 1.5 million officials, has also led to greater scrutiny of Chinese officials’ income, making payments to potential sources far more problematic, two former officials said.”
“Those efforts were detailed extensively in 2017 by the New York Times, which said as many as a dozen U.S. sources were executed by China, with others jailed, in what represented one of the worst breaches ever of American spying networks,” the article also notes.
As John Pilger documented in his prescient “The Coming War On China“, the US has been surrounding the PRC with military bases and weaponry, building a “noose” around that nation which now includes the aforementioned long-range missile systems currently under construction through the first island chain. If any foreign power were doing this to the United States it would be considered an act of war, and war would be declared immediately, but it somehow never enters westerners’ heads that China could be the one who is responding defensively to an aggressor.
None of this means that China is run by innocent little girl scouts who never do anything wrong, it just means it’s clearly not the aggressor in these conflicts, and that the picture we are presented with in the western empire’s frenzied campaign to manipulate public thought about China is not based in reality. The propaganda campaign is so pervasive and forceful that even people who are aware it’s happening still commonly fall for its lies and distortions just because there’s so much of it coming from so many different directions.
The propaganda campaign against China is not going to go away; it’s going to get far louder, crazier, and more aggressive. With each new shrill narrative that comes up, research it with the question “How is this geared toward making China weaker and smaller?” in mind. You’ll find something there every time.
It doesn’t have to be this way. There’s no good reason nations can’t collaborate with each other toward the common good instead of squandering all their energy and resources in this insane struggle of US hegemonic conquest. The word “detente” never enters into mainstream discourse because it does not serve the interests of the western imperialists who rule us, but it does serve everyone else, infinitely more than pouring fortunes into cold war brinkmanship and flirting with the prospect of world war between nuclear-armed nations.
Detente is what’s needed. But in order for that to happen the US empire is going to have to stop aggressing, and it’s going to have to stop lying.
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My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here.
A Republican senator who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee stated on a Tuesday Fox News appearance that he strongly supports keeping US military action on the table if Russia invades Ukraine, up to and including a first-use nuclear attack.
“I would not rule out military action,” Senator Roger Wicker told Fox News host Neil Cavuto. “I think we start making a mistake when we take options off the table. So I would hope the president keeps that option on the table.”
“What does military action mean, senator?” Cavuto asked.
“Well, military action could mean that we standoff with our ships in the Black Sea and we rain destruction on Russian military capability,” the senator replied. “It could mean that. It could mean that we participate – and I would not rule that out – I would not rule out American troops on the ground. You know we don’t rule out first-use nuclear action. We don’t think it will happen. But there’s certain things in negotiations – if you’re going to be tough – that you don’t take off the table.”
Wicker emphasized that his position was entirely bipartisan.
“To the extent that you’ve had Democrats on the show right before me saying that we should be tougher, I support that and I appreciate that,” Wicker said. “I think they represent the fear that we have, the realization that we have in the Congress, that losing a free democratic Ukraine to Russian invasion would be a game-changer for a free Europe.”
Top Biden administration diplomat and neoconservative Ukraine coup plotter Victoria Nuland didn’t go quite as far, but did assert that a perceived attack on Ukraine would see Russia financially cut off from the entire world.
“What we are talking about would amount to essentially isolating Russia completely from the global financial system, with all the fallout that would entail for Russian businesses, for the Russian people, for their ability to work and travel and trade,” Nuland told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday.
It remains to be seen whether tensions between NATO powers and Moscow over Ukraine will improve or get worse after a two-hour talk between President Biden and President Putin on Tuesday, but it is already abundantly clear that we are as usual being aggressively deceived about the situation. As the Moon of Alabama blog explained the other day, the narrative that Russia is poised for an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine is flimsy at best, and could easily be designed to frame Russia as the aggressor should a future attack on rebel-held territories in eastern Ukraine by US, NATO and Ukrainian forces cross one of Putin’s red lines and provoke a military response from Moscow.
Whatever’s happening, hawks in the US political/media class keep trying to amp the public up for a direct military confrontation between nuclear superpowers.
“If Russia invades a non-NATO partner vital to US-led operations in Iraq/Afghanistan, whose integrity we guaranteed in 1994 and defense we materially support, so soon after the abandonment of our allies in Kabul, the damage done to US credibility and hegemony will be immeasurable,” tweeted MSNBC’s Noah Rothman in contribution to the Ukraine controversy.
If Russia invades a non-NATO partner vital to US-led operations in Iraq/Afghanistan, whose integrity we guaranteed in 1994 and defense we materially support, so soon after the abandonment of our allies in Kabul, the damage done to US credibility and hegemony will be immeasurable.
There’s a lot going on in that post, like the ridiculous claim that Ukraine played a “vital” role in US-led operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and the bizarre suggestion that Washington guaranteed it would militarily defend Ukraine’s integrity in 1994. But what’s most interesting is Rothman’s refreshingly honest admission that if the hawks get their way in the event of a Ukraine conflict, people’s sons and daughters would be sent to kill and die in a war over something as stupid as “US credibility and hegemony.”
Indeed, all US wars in recent memory have been over US hegemony. When they occur they are always portrayed as heroic acts of defense against evil hostile aggressors; self-defense, defense of human rights, defending freedom and democracy, defending populations which can’t defend themselves, etc. In the imperial doctrine of the US political/media class, the empire never attacks, it only “defends”.
But if you break down the underlying causes of those military interventions they always boil down to preserving US unipolar hegemony, i.e. undisputed planetary domination. It’s not an accident that US military interventionism is consistently most concentrated in areas of high geostrategic value, focused on maintaining the ability to control the world’s crucial resources and shipping lanes, militarily surrounding disobedient governments, and continually expanding the ability to quickly launch devastating attacks on any population which acts against the will of the empire.
That’s the real reason you’re hearing so much hysterical shrieking about China lately, as well as governments which cooperate with it like Russia. It’s got nothing to do with Ukraine or Taiwan or election meddling or human rights concerns in Xinjiang, it’s because China is the head of a rising bloc of non-empire-aligned governments which threatens US hegemony. It’s because Russia and China have been getting closer and closer after western empire managers predicted the exact opposite would occur.
We are living in a geopolitical watershed moment.
As the US-NATO-EU imperial bloc escalates its new cold war on China and Russia, Beijing and Moscow are on the verge of creating an official alliance – militarily, economically, and politically https://t.co/0fnnDS1ZeE
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the Bloomberg New Economy Forum last month that she’d “heard for years that Russia would become more willing to move toward the west, more willing to engage in a positive way with Europe, the UK, the US, because of problems on its border, because of the rise of China.” But that’s not what occurred.
“We haven’t seen that,” Clinton said. “Instead what we’ve seen is a concerted effort by Putin maybe to hug China more.”
Had the predictions of US empire architects proved correct, the Russia-China tandem described in 2017 by Gilbert Doctorow would never have come to be, and China would have been far weaker and far more vulnerable to US subversion as a result. All the panicked consent-manufacturing you’ve been seeing from empire managers these last few years is due to the frantic need to course-correct after those forecasts fell flat.
As Noam Chomsky recently observed, the real “threat” China poses is that it cannot be bullied into complying with the will of the US empire.
“The U.S. will not tolerate the existence of a state that cannot be intimidated the way Europe can be, that does not follow U.S. orders the way Europe does but pursues its own course. That is the threat,” Chomsky told Democracy Now last month.
Whatever your opinions on Chomsky at this point in his life, you cannot deny that he is correct here. Beltway empire managers determined after the fall of the Soviet Union that the US must prevent the rise of another rival superpower at all cost, and all the attempts you are seeing to undermine China and its geostrategic support system are simply the effects of that resolution playing out exactly as intended.
"What exactly is the 'China threat'? The 'China threat' is China's existence. The US will not tolerate the existence of a state that cannot be intimidated. That does not follow US orders but pursues its own course." –Noam Chomsky slams Biden's hostile foreign policy towards China pic.twitter.com/AebcMZjFJU
But what are the consequences of that resolution? What does it mean when history’s first ever unipolar planetary hegemon must maintain that unipolar hegemony even if it means risking a third world war against an alliance of nuclear-armed nations? What does it mean when the decline of an empire meets with the imperial doctrine that planetary domination must be held in place by any means necessary, and when we now have US senators talking on national television about launching a nuclear first strike on Russia if it invades a nation hardly any Americans could even find on a map?
It means the world has gotten a lot less safe.
The main argument you’ll hear from those who support the continued existence of a US-led world order is that if it wasn’t Washington ruling the world it would be Beijing or Moscow, which is just silly “If I don’t steal it someone else will steal it” nonsense that isn’t substantiated by facts. The planet never had a unipolar hegemon until three decades ago; there’s nothing inscribed upon the fabric of reality which says there needs to be one, and all the evidence coming from Beijing and Moscow is that those governments want a multipolar world, not to dominate a unipolar one. Besides, it’s not like the US has been making global domination look sexy during that time by rapidly burning itself out and teetering on the brink of collapse.
The other main argument you’ll hear in favor of US unipolar hegemony is the claim of “Pax Americana“; that it makes the world a more peaceful place. But, again, how true is that if US unipolar hegemony must be held in place by endless violence and is now forcing humanity toward a world war between powerful nuclear-armed nations?
After all, “Pax Americana” has already killed millions of people and displaced tens of millions in US wars of geostrategic domination just since the turn of this century. The US-backed assault on Yemen alone will have killed 377,000 people by the end of this year, and the horrors show no sign of stopping. Unilateral starvation sanctions on disobedient populations are deliberately murdering civilians around the world. And now, no longer able to make due with simply smashing weaker nations, we are being fed the usual “defense” propaganda about Ukraine and Taiwan to gin up support for world war in the nuclear age.
The western media have been screaming that Russia is about to invade Ukraine any minute now for years on end. The narratives we’re being fed about Taiwan are blatantly propagandistic. All they’re doing is brainwashing the public into consenting to aggressions which are so dangerous that, all by themselves, they completely invalidate the argument that US unipolar hegemony makes the world safer or more peaceful.
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My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here.
On 30 October 2021 AFP reported that a group of UN human rights experts called for the immediate release of Vietnamese activist Pham Doan Trang (pic), who is awaiting trial after a year in detention. The prominent Vietnamese author, who campaigns for press freedom and civil rights, was arrested in October last year. [see: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/laureates/fe8bf320-1d78-11e8-aacf-35c4dd34b7ba]
Trang has pushed for change on a host of controversial issues, including land grabs and LGBTQ rights. “Pham Doan Trang is only the latest victim of the authorities’ use of vaguely-defined propaganda charges to persecute writers, journalists and human rights defenders,” the experts said in a statement.
The UN experts said the charges against her stem from at least three human rights reports she co-authored, plus interviews with foreign media. They accuse the authorities of “criminalising the exercise of their right to freedom of opinion”.
“We urge the authorities to immediately and unconditionally release Ms Pham Doan Trang.“
The UN experts included the special rapporteurs on the right to freedom of opinion, on human rights defenders, and on the right to physical and mental health.
For many years, the United Arab Emirates has been one of Washington’s most repressive military allies. Its brutal targeting of human rights defenders, its leadership role with Saudi Arabia in the war on Yemen, and its crushing of any internal political dissent has made it a focus of Human Rights First’s advocacy for a decade.
I visited the Emirates for Human Rights First in 2015 to research how bad things were, and things have only become worse — the few activists who weren’t intimidated into silence in 2015 have now been pushed into exile or sentenced to long terms in prison.
Washington continues to enable the Emirates’ dictatorship with weapons and political support; in April the Biden administration confirmed it would proceed with a $23 billion arms deal. But having powerful friends in Washington, and pushing Dubai’s glitzy image of tourism and shopping, can’t hide the reality of what really happens in the UAE.
Click below or listen here to my appearance on a podcast by the European Centre for Democracy and Human Rights (ECDHR) for more on what’s happening in the UAE behind their PR mask.
When Guerline Jozef, co-founder and executive director of the San Diego-based Haitian Bridge Alliance, learned that she had won this year’s RFK award, she wanted to celebrate in another way. She brought the ceremony to the border and led a group, including Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights staff and musician Wyclef Jean, to the Tijuana Immigration Shelter and then to the Otaimesa Detention Center, which houses detainees at the Immigration and Customs Department.
“We wanted to bring this award to people on both sides of the border and let them know that it was for them,” Joseph said. “We hear them. We see them. We keep fighting for them.”
“We went to the border because we heard there were Haitians,” she said in a speech outside the detention center, recalling the early days of her organization’s activities in Tijuana. “We went for the Haitians, but we stayed for everyone, and we continue to fight for everyone.
Kerry Kennedy, daughter of Robert F. Kennedy and president of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, has known Ms Joseph for three years since working together to help Haiti and Cameroon immigrants in Tijuana.
“The great thing about Guerline is that she’s tackling a big problem. She works in a crucible of poverty, race and immigrants,” Kennedy said. “
According to Joseph, her parents gave up a comfortable life in Haiti to move to the United States after the coup. Back in Haiti, they had a big house and her father was the mayor. In the United States, the father became a taxi driver and the mother became a housekeeper. Both worked long hours to take care of their families.
The dilemma facing whistleblowers, journalists and publishers who risk it all to help the world’s people to become more informed. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange finds himself crushed between these two counterbalances — the asserted right of powerful nations to operate in secret, and the right of the press to reveal what goes on in the public’s name.
This week, on October 27-28, Julian Assange appeared before a United Kingdom court defending himself against an appeal that, if successful, would see him extradited to the United States to face a raft of indictments that ultimately could see him spend the rest of his life in prison.
The US lawyers argued largely that human rights reasons that caused the UK courts to reject extradition to the US could be mitigated. That Julian Assange’s case could be heard in Australia and if found guilty serve out jail time in his home country rather than the US.
Assange’s defence lawyer Edward Fitzgerald QC argued: “In short there is a large and cogent body of extraordinary and unprecedented evidence… that the CIA has declared Mr Assange as a ‘hostile’ ‘enemy’ of the USA, one which poses ‘very real threats to our country’, and seeks to ‘revenge’ him with significant harm.” The lawyers said the United States assurances were “meaningless”.
“It is perfectly reasonable to find it oppressive to extradite a mentally disordered person because his extradition is likely to result in his death.” Fitzgerald QC added that a court must have the power to “protect people from extradition to a foreign state where we have no control over what will be done to them”.
Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett, sitting with Lord Justice Holroyde, said: “You’ve given us much to think about and we will take our time to make our decision.”
The judges then reserved their decision. It is expected Assange’s fate will be revealed within weeks.
In this Special Report, we examine why the US wants this man. And we detail the space between whistleblowers, journalists and publishers who risk it all to help the world’s people to become more informed. Julian Assange finds himself crushed between these two counterbalances: the asserted right of powerful nations to operate in secret, and the right of the press to reveal what goes on in the public’s name.
Should Julian Assange be extradited from the UK to face indictments in the United States? Or should he be set free and offered a safe haven in a country such as Russia or even New Zealand?
It was always going to come down to this: Is Julian Assange captured by the assumptions people have of him, or a blurred line between a public’s right and a state’s wrong.
‘Manhunt Timeline’ The United States effort to capture or kill Assange goes back to 2010. But his inclusion in what’s called the “Manhunt Timeline” soon lost its sting when, under US President Barack Obama, it was believed if charges against Assange were brought before the US courts for his publishing activity, then he would be found not guilty due to the US First Amendment “freedom of the press” constitutional protections.
But everything changed with a new president, and a massive leak to Wikileaks of CIA secret information on 7 March 2017.
That leak of what was called Vault 7 information “detailed hacking tools the US government employs to break into users’ computers, mobile phones and even smart TVs.”
CBS News reported at the time: “The documents describe clandestine methods for bypassing or defeating encryption, antivirus tools and other protective security features intended to keep the private information of citizens and corporations safe from prying eyes.” (CBS News)
The Vault 7 leak (and earlier leaks going back to 2010) also revealed information that the US security apparatus argued compromised the safety of its personnel around the world. This aspect is vital to the US Justice Department’s case against Julian Assange.
Among a complex web of indictments and superseding indictments, the US alleges Wikileaks and Assange conspired with whistleblowers (significant among them Chelsea Manning) in what it argues was a conspiracy against the US interest. It also argues that Wikileaks and Julian Assange failed to satisfactorily redact leaked documents before dissemination or publication of the same — including details that put US personnel and agents at risk.
Prominent New Zealand investigative journalist Nicky Hager had knowledge of Wikileaks’ processes, and, going back to 2010, spent time working with Wikileaks on redacting documents.
Hager testified at The Old Bailey in London in September 2020 before a hearing of the Assange case and, according to The Australian, said: “My main memory was people working hour after hour in total silence, very concentrated on their work and I was very impressed with efforts that they were taking (to redact names).” Hager added that he himself had redacted “a few hundred” Australian and New Zealand names.
On cross examination, The Australian reported: “Hager referred in his testimony to the global impact of the publication of the collateral murder video, which shows civilians being gunned down in Iraq from an Apache helicopter, which led to changes in US military policies. He claimed it had a ‘similar galvanising impact as the video of the death of George Floyd’.” (The Australian)
But it was the Vault 7 leak that triggered the then Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director Mike Pompeo to act. After that leak, Pompeo set out to destroy Wikileaks and its publisher Julian Assange.
Pompeo vs Assange
Former CIA director and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Image: ER
Mike Pompeo was appointed as CIA director in January 2017. The Vault 7 leak occurred on his watch. It was personal, and in April 2017 he defined Wikileaks as a “non-state hostile intelligence service”.
That definition triggered a shift of approach. The US intelligence apparatus and its Justice Department counterpart then re-asserted that Wikileaks and its publisher and editor-in-chief Julian Assange were enemies of the United States.
Pompeo’s definition paved the way for a more targeted operation against Assange. But, for the time being, the US public modus operandi was to ensure extradition proceedings, through numerous hearings and appeals, were dragged out while stacking an increasing number of complex indictments on the charge-sheet.
The definitions ensured the UK’s corrections system regarded Assange as a high risk and dangerous prisoner hostile to the UK’s special-relationship partner, the USA.
The tactic is well used by governments and states around the world. But in this case it appears beyond cold and calculated. As the US applied a figurative legal-ligature around the neck of Julian Assange it knew his circumstances — that he was imprisoned, isolated, in solitary confinement, on a suicide watch, handled by prison guards under a repetitive high security risk protocol. It knew the psychological impact was compounding, causing legal observers, his lawyers, his supporters — even the judge overseeing the extradition proceedings — to fear that the wall before Assange of ongoing litigation, compounded with the potential for extradition and possible life imprisonment, would overwhelm him.
Let’s detail reality here. In real terms, being on suicide-watch as a high security risk prisoner, meant every time Assange left his cell for any reason (including when meeting his lawyers), on return he would be stripped, cavity searched (which includes being forced to squat while his rectum is digitally searched, and a mouth and throat search).
This was a similar security search protocol that was used against Ahmed Zaoui while he was held at New Zealand’s Paremoremo maximum security prison. At that time Zaoui was regarded as a security risk to New Zealand. He was of course later found to be a man of peace and given his liberty. Sometimes things are not what they initially seem.
In the UK, for Assange the monotonous grind of total solitude and indignity ticked on. In the US in March 2018, Mike Pompeo was set to be promoted. He received the then US President Donald Trump’s nomination to replace Rex Tillerson as US Secretary of State. The US Senate confirmed Pompeo’s nomination and he was sworn in on 26 April 2018.
Pompeo quickly became one of Trump’s most trusted and powerful White House insiders. As Secretary of State, Pompeo toured the globe’s foreign affairs circuit asserting the Trump Administration’s position on governments throughout the world. As such, Pompeo was regarded as one of the world’s most powerful men.
Looking back, Pompeo wasn’t the first high ranking US official to regard Assange as an enemy of the state. The Edward Snowden leaks of 2014 revealed that the US government had in 2010 added Assange to its “Manhunting Timeline” — which is an annual list of individuals with a “capture or kill” designation.
This designation came during the early stages of the Obama Administration years. However, US investigations into Wikileaks then suggested Assange had not acted in a way that excluded him from being defined as a journalist and therefore it was likely Assange, if tried under US law, would be provided protections under the First Amendment constitutional clauses.
But when Pompeo advanced toward prominence, Obama was gone. And under Donald Trump, the US appeared to ignore such constitutional rocks in the road. Trump had his own beef with the US Fourth Estate, and the conditions for respecting First Amendment privilege had deteriorated.
Did Trump stop the CIA kidnap or kill plan?
Former US President Donald Trump speaking to NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Image: ER
Perhaps we understand the Trump Administration’s mindset more now in the wake of the 6 January 2021 insurrection where supporters of Trump stormed the US House of Representatives seeking to overturn the election result and reinstate Trump as President. Throughout much of that destructive day, Trump reportedly remained at the White House while the mob erected a gallows and sought out Vice-President Mike Pence. The mob’s reason? Because Pence had begun the process of certifying electoral college writs, an essential step toward swearing in as President the newly elected Joe Biden.
It may reasonably be argued that Trump and some members of his Administration displayed a disregard for elements of the US Constitution. But, it must also be said, that Trump had at times displayed an empathy for Julian Assange’s situation.
This week The Hill reported on Trump’s view of Assange through an interview with the former president’s national security advisor, Keith Kellogg (who is also a retired US Army Lieutenant General.
Kellogg told The Hill: “He (Trump) looked at him (Assange) as someone who had been treated unfairly. And he kind of related him to himself … He said there’s an unfairness there and I want to address that.”
Kellogg added that Trump saw similarities between Assange and himself in that Trump would not back down in the face of media attacks: “I think he kind of saw that with Julian in the same way, like ‘ok, this guy’s not backing down’.” (The Hill)
Kellogg’s account seems incongruous to what we now know. On 26 September 2021, a Yahoo News media investigation delivered a bombshell. It revealed how the CIA had planned to kidnap or kill Assange.
But more on the detail of that below. First, let’s look at a confusing picture of how former President Trump’s words do not meet his Administration’s actions.
We know that “someone” in the Trump Administration put a halt to the CIA’s kill or capture plan. We just do not know whether Trump commanded its cessation, or whether Pompeo or Trump’s attorney-general/s operated outside the former president’s orbit. But we do know the US Justice Department pursued Assange through an intensifying relentless application of indictments of increasing severity and complexity. If it is an MO, then it is reasonable to suggest the legal wall of indictments and the CIA’s plan to kill or capture were potentially one of the same.
Which segues back to the details of the US case against Assange.
The US Justice Department vs Assange In March 2019, The Washington Post reported that US Whistleblower Chelsea Manning had been subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury in the investigation of Julian Assange. The Post correctly suggested that the US Justice Department appeared interested in pursuing Wikileaks before a statute of limitations ran out.
Washington Post reported: “Steve Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, said the Justice Department likely indicted Assange last year to stay within the 10-year statute of limitations on unlawful possession or publication of national defense information, and is now working to add charges.” (Washington Post)
Then, On April 11 2019, after high-level bilateral meetings between the US and Ecuador, the Ecuadorian Government revoked Assange’s asylum. The UK’s Metropolitan Police were invited into Ecuador’s London embassy and Assange was arrested.
Once Assange was in custody (pending the outcome of a court ruling of what eventually became a 50 week sentence for breaching bail) the United States made its move. On 11 April 2019 (the same day Ecuador evicted him) US prosecutors unsealed an indictment against Assange referring back to information that Wikileaks had released in stages from 18 February 2010 onwards. (US Justice Department)
Collateral Murder, the video that Wikileaks published that turned public opinion against the US-led occupation of Iraq.
This video, known as the collateral murder video, was among the Wikileaks release. The video is of US military personnel killing what they initially thought were Iraqi insurgents. It also displays an apparent indifference by US personnel when, shortly after, it was revealed by ground troops that there were civilians killed, including women and children (and also what were later found to be journalists). The leaked video exposed the United States to potential allegations of war crimes.
The video, and the accompanying dossier of US classified documents, shocked the world and revealed what had been covered up by US secrecy. The information that was leaked by then US Military intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, and published by Wikileaks and provided to a select group of the world’s most prominent media, was arguably a tipping point for public sentiment regarding the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. It was, in the <2010 decade, on a par with revelations of abuses of detainees by US personnel at Abu Ghraib prison.
In a release to the US press, the Justice Department’s office of international affairs stated: “According to court documents unsealed today, the charge relates to Assange’s alleged role in one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States.”
It connected to how Wikileaks had acquired documents from US whistleblower Chelsea Manning. The leak contained 750,000 documents defined as “classified, or unclassified but sensitive” military and diplomatic documents. The documents included video. The sum of the leaks detailed what were regarded generally as atrocities committed by American armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The leaked material was also published by The New York Times, Der Spiegel and The Guardian. In May 2010, Manning was identified then charged with espionage and sentenced to 35 years in a US military prison. Later, in January 2017, just three days before leaving office, US President Barack Obama commuted Manning’s sentence.
On 23 May 2019, the US Justice Department issued a statement confirming Assange had been further charged in an 18-count superseding indictment that alleged violation of the Espionage Act 1917. It specifically alleged (among other charges) that Assange conspired with Chelsea Manning in late 2009 and that: “… Assange and WikiLeaks actively solicited United States classified information, including by publishing a list of ‘Most Wanted Leaks’ that sought, among other things, classified documents. Manning responded to Assange’s solicitations by using access granted to her as an intelligence analyst to search for United States classified documents, and provided to Assange and WikiLeaks databases containing approximately 90,000 Afghanistan war-related significant activity reports, 400,000 Iraq war-related significant activities reports, 800 Guantanamo Bay detainee assessment briefs, and 250,000 US Department of State cables.” (US Justice Department)
The superseding indictment added: “Many of these documents were classified at the Secret level.”
It’s also important to note, a superseding indictment, in this context carries heavy weight. It isn’t merely a charge lodged by an investigative wing of government, but issued by a US grand jury.
The Washington Post, The New York Times, and media freedom organisations criticised the US government’s decision to charge Assange under the Espionage Act. Image: ER screenshot
The May 2019 superseding indictments ignited a stern rebuttal from powerful media institutions.
The Washington Postand The New York Times, as well as press freedom organisations, criticised the government’s decision to charge Assange under the Espionage Act, characterising it as an attack on the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees freedom of the press. On 4 January 2021, District Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled against the US request to extradite him and stated that doing so would be “oppressive” given his mental health. On 6 January 2021, Assange was denied bail, pending an appeal by the United States. (Wikipedia.org)
In normal times an assault on the US First Amendment through a clever legal move would destroy a presidency. But these were not normal times.
Ultimately, the powerful US Fourth Estate fraternity failed to ward off the Trump Administration’s men. Trump himself was by this time already hurling attacks on the credibility and purpose of the United States media. And, he tapped in to a constituency that distrusted what it heard from journalists.
Then on 24 June 2020, the US Justice Department delivered more charges against Assange, this time with an additional superseding indictment that included allegations he conspired with “Anonymous” affiliated hackers: “In 2010, Assange gained unauthorised access to a government computer system of a NATO country. In 2012, Assange communicated directly with a leader of the hacking group LulzSec (who by then was cooperating with the FBI), and provided a list of targets for LulzSec to hack.” (US Justice Department)
As the Trump presidency ran out of steam, and arguably created its own attacks on the US national interest, Democratic Party candidate Joe Biden won the election and became the 46th President of the United States.
Why Assange was imprisoned in the UK
Julian Assange on the first day of extradition proceedings in 2020. Image: Indymedia Ireland.
Julian Assange was tried before the UK courts and convicted for breaching the Bail Act. He was sentenced to 50 weeks in prison. He was expected to have been released after five to six months, but due to the US extradition proceedings and appeal he was held indefinitely.
The initial bail conditions (of which Assange was found to have breached) were set resulting from an alleged sexual violence allegation made in Sweden in 2010. Assange had denied the allegations, and feared the case was designed to relocate him to Sweden and then onto the US via a legal extradition manoeuvre — hence this is why he sought asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy. Assange was never actually charged by Swedish authorities nor their UK counterparts, but rather the initial bail breach related to a move to extradite him to Sweden.
Also, as a side-note: in November 2019, Swedish prosecutors dropped their investigation into allegations of sexual violence crime. The BBC reported that Swedish authorities dropped the case as it had: “Weakened considerably due to the long period of time that has elapsed since the events in question.”
Meanwhile, Assange was imprisoned at London’s Belmarsh maximum-security prison where he was incarcerated indefinitely pending the outcome of US extradition proceedings.
There is an irony that in January 2021, the week Assange was denied bail pending the outcome of the US-lodged appeal, back in the US a mob loyal to Trump attempted a coup d’etat against the US constitution.
Out with Trump, in with Biden On 20 January 2021, Joe Biden was sworn in as US President. Around the world a palpable mood of change was anticipated. It’s fair to say those involved or observing the Assange case were hopeful the United States under Joe Biden’s presidency would withdraw the initial charges and superseding indictments.
But, that was not to be.
Then on 26 September 2021, a Yahoo News media investigation delivered a bombshell. It revealed how the CIA had planned to kidnap or kill Assange.
The investigation’s timeline revealed a plan was developed in 2017 during Pompeo’s tenure at the CIA and considered numerous scenarios where Assange could be liquidated while he resided at the Ecuadorian Embassy. The investigation was backed by “more than 30 US official sources”. (Yahoo News)
The media investigation stated: “… the CIA was enraged by WikiLeaks’ publication in 2017 of thousands of documents detailing the agency’s hacking and covert surveillance techniques, known as the Vault 7 leak.”
It added that Pompeo: “was determined to take revenge on Assange after the (Vault 7) leak.”
Apparently, the CIA believed Russian agents were planning to remove Assange from the Ecuadorian Embassy and “smuggle” him to Russia: “Among the possible scenarios to prevent a getaway were engaging in a gun battle with Russian agents on the streets of London and ramming the car that Assange would be smuggled in.”
It appears a wise-head in the Trump Administration ordered a halt to the CIA plan due to legal concerns. Officials cited in the investigation suggested there were: “Concerns that a kidnapping would derail US attempts to prosecute Assange.”
It would also be reasonable to suggest that a prosecution would be difficult should Assange be dead.
As the US extradition appeal loomed, Julian Assange’s US-based lawyer Barry Pollack reportedly said: “My hope and expectation is that the UK courts will consider this information (the CIA plot) and it will further bolster its decision not to extradite to the US.”
Assange’s partner Stella Morris, on the eve of the US extradition appeal proceedings also said reports of the CIA’s plan “was a game-changer” in his fight against extradition from Britain to the United States. (Reuters)
Greg Barnes, special council and Australian human rights lawyer and advocate spoke this week to a New Zealand panel (A4A via the internet): “Now we know that the CIA intended effectively to murder Assange. For an Australian citizen to be put in that position by Australia’s number one ally is intolerable. And I think in the minds of most Australians the view is that the Australian Government ought to intervene in this particular case and ensure the safety of one of its citizens.”
Barnes added that the Assange case is now a human rights case: “I can tell you that the rigours of the Anglo-American prison complex which we have here in Australia and in which Julian is facing at Belmarsh (prison in London) are such that very few people survive that system without having severe mental and physical pain and suffering for the rest of their lives.
“This should not be happening to an Australian citizen, whose only crime, and I put quotes around the word crime, has been to reveal the war crimes of the United States and its allies.” (A4A YouTube)
The respected journalist advocacy organisation Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontières, or RSF), this week called for the US case against Assange to be closed and for Assange to be “immediately released”. (Reporters Without Borders)
RSF added: “During the two-day hearing, the US government will argue against the 4 January decision issued by District Judge Vanessa Baraitser, ruling against Assange’s extradition to the US on mental health grounds. The US will be permitted to argue on five specific grounds, following the High Court’s decision to widen the scope of the appeal during the 11 August preliminary hearing. An immediate decision is not expected at the conclusion of the 27-28 October hearing, but will likely follow in writing several weeks later.”
RSF concluded: “If Assange is extradited to the US, he could face up to 175 years in prison on the 18 counts outlined in the superseding indictment… (If convicted) Assange would be the first publisher pursued under the US Espionage Act, which lacks a public interest defence.”
RSF recently joined a coalition of 25 press freedom, civil liberties and international human rights organisations in calling again on the US Department of Justice to drop the charges against Assange.
Beyond Belmarsh Prison – human rights and asylum options
Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg speaking to an online panel organised by New Zealand’s A4A group. Image: ER
There remains a logical and considered question as to what will become of Julian Assange should his legal team successfully defend moves of extradition to the United States.
Whistleblower Edward Snowden has found relative safety living inside the Russian Federation. But beyond Russia there are few safe-haven options available to Julian Assange.
This week a group called A4A (Aotearoa for Assange) coordinated an online panel of human rights advocates and whistleblowers to consider whether New Zealand should become involved.
It was a serious move. The panel included the United States’ highly respected Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg. (Pentagon Papers, Wikipedia)
Daniel Ellsberg told the panel: “A trial under (the Espionage Act) cannot be a fair trial as there is ‘no appeal to motives, impact or purposes’.”
“A trial under the Espionage Act could not permit that person to tell the jury why they did what they did,” Daniel Ellsberg said. “It is shameful that President Biden has gone in the footsteps of President Trump. It is shameful for President Biden to have continued that appeal.
“To allow this to go ahead is to put a target on the back of every journalist in the world who might consider doing real investigative journalism of what we call the National Defence or National Security…”
It’s a valid point for those that work within the sphere of Fourth Estate public interest journalism. While in New Zealand, there are rudimentary whistleblower protections, they fail to protect or ensure anonymity. For journalists, if a judge orders a journalist to reveal her or his source(s), then the journalist must consider breaching the code of ethics required from the profession, or acting in contempt of court.
In the latter case, a judge can, in New Zealand, order the journalist to be held in custody for contempt, and it should be pointed out there is no time limit of incarceration. Defamation law is equally as draconian. In New Zealand (unlike the United States) a journalist accused of defamation shoulders the burden of proof — to prove a defamation was not committed.
The chill factor (a reference to pressures that cause journalists to abandon deep and meaningful reportage) is real.
Daniel Ellsberg knows what this means. And he fears, that if the US wins its appeal against Assange, it will erode the Fourth Estate from reporting on what goes on behind the scenes with governments: “… there will be more Vietnams, more Iraqs, more acts of aggression… A great deal rides (on this case) on the possibility of freedom.”
Former NZ Prime Minister and Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme Helen Clark. Image: ER
His comments connect remarkably with those of former New Zealand prime minister, and former administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Helen Clark.
In a previous online discussion, Clark was asked what she thought of Julian Assange’s case. In a considered reply she said: “You do wonder when the hatchet can be buried with Assange, and not buried in his head by the way.
“I do think that information that’s been disclosed by whistleblowers down the ages has been very important in broader publics getting to know what is really going on behind the scenes.
“And, should people pay this kind of price for that? I don’t think so. I felt that Chelsea Manning for example was really unduly repressed.
“The real issue is: the activities they were exposing and not the actions of their exposure,” Helen Clark said.
The US appeals case this week is not litigating the merits of its indictments. But rather it has attempted to mitigate the reasons Judge Vanessa Baraitser denied extradition in January 2021. The US legal team has suggested to the UK court that Assange’s human rights issues could be minimised should he face trial in his native Australia, that if found guilty that he could serve out his sentence there. It gave, however, no assurances that this would occur.
On the eve of the appeal, and appearing before the A4A online panel was Dr Deepa Govindarajan Driver.
Dr Driver is an academic with the University of Reading (UK) and a legal observer very familiar with the Assange case. The degree of human rights abuses against Assange disturb her.
Dr Driver detailed what she had observed: “Julian Assange was served the second superseding indictment on the first day of trial. When he took his papers with him, back to the prison, his privileged papers were taken from him. He was handcuffed, cavity searched, stripped naked on a daily basis. [This is] a highly intelligent human being who we already know is on the Autism Spectrum. To be put through the indignities and arbitrariness of the process which is consistently working in a way that doesn’t stand with normal process…
“For somebody who has gone through all of this for a number of years, it has its psychological impact. But it is not just psychological, the physical effects of torture are pretty severe including the internal damage that he has.”
She added: “We expect the high court will recognise the kind of serious gross breaches of Julian’s basic rights and the inability for him to have a fair trial in the UK or in the US and that this case will be dismissed immediately.”
On the merits of whistleblowers, Dr Driver said: “You can see through the Vault 7 leaks how much the state knows about what is going on in your daily lives… As an observer in court I see how he (Julian Assange) is being tortured on a day to day basis. His privileged conversations with his lawyers were spied on.”
Dr Driver said the Swedish allegations were never backed up with charges. In fact the allegations were dropped due to time and insufficient evidence.
The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, concluded after his investigation of the Swedish allegations that Assange was never given the opportunity to put his side of the case.
Dr Driver said: “In any situation where there is violence against women, and I say this as a survivor myself, people are meant to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. And, this new trend which is accusation-equal-to-guilt is a bad trend because it undermines the cause of women, and it prevents women from getting justice — just as it happened in Sweden because indeed nobody will ever know what happened between Julian and those women other than the two parties there.”
A crime left undefended or a case of weaponising violence against women? Dr Deepa Driver said: “If cases like this are not brought to court, then neither the women nor those accused like Julian get justice. And it is Lisa Longstaff at Women Against Rape who has said time and again, ‘this is the state weaponising women in order to achieve its own ends and hide its own war crimes’. And this is what Britain and America have done in weaponising the case in Sweden, because Sweden was always about extraditing Julian (Assange) to America.”
She suggested Assange’s situation was a human rights case where he was the victim. The view has validity.
United Nations Special Rapporteur Nils Melzer. Image: ER
The United Nations’ special rapporteur Nils Melzer issued a statement on 5 January 2021 welcoming the UK judge’s ruling that blocked his extradition to the United States (a ruling that this week was under appeal).
Melzer went on: “This ruling confirms my own assessment that, in the United States, Mr. Assange would be exposed to conditions of detention, which are widely recognised to amount to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
Melzer said the judgement set an “alarming precedent effectively denying investigative journalists the protection of press freedom and paving the way for their prosecution under charges of espionage”.
“I am gravely concerned that the judgement confirms the entire, very dangerous rationale underlying the US indictment, which effectively amounts to criminalizing national security journalism,” Melzer said.
In summary Melzer said: “The judgement fails to recognise that Mr Assange’s deplorable state of health is the direct consequence of a decade of deliberate and systematic violation of his most fundamental human rights by the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Ecuador.”
He added: “The failure of the judgment to denounce and redress the persecution and torture of Mr Assange, leaves fully intact the intended intimidating effect on journalists and whistleblowers worldwide who may be tempted to publish secret evidence for war crimes, corruption and other government misconduct”. (UNCHR)
A call for New Zealand to provide asylum This week, US whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg applauded New Zealand’s independent global identity. And, he called for New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to provide an asylum solution should Julian Assange be released.
Dr Ellsberg’s call was supported by Matt Robson, a former cabinet minister in Helen Clark’s Labour-Alliance government and whom currently practices immigration law in Auckland.
Matt Robson said: “We can support this brave publisher and journalist who has committed the same crime, in inverted commas, as Daniel Ellsberg — to tell the truth as a good honest journalist should do. Our letter to our (New Zealand) government is a plea to do the right thing. To say directly on the line that is available, to (US) President Biden, to free Julian Assange.”
Australian-based lawyer Greg Barnes said: “New Zealand plays a prominent and important role in the Asia-Pacific region and it is not beyond the realms of possibility that the New Zealand government could offer Julian Assange what Australia appears incapable of doing, and that is safety for himself and his family.”
So why New Zealand?
Daniel Ellsberg said: “There are many countries that would have been supportive of Assange, none of whom wanted to get into trouble with the United States of America. Of all the countries in the world I think you can pick out New Zealand that has dared to do that in the past. I remember the issue over whether they would allow American warships into New Zealand harbours.
“Julian Assange should not be on trial,” Daniel Ellsberg said. “And given he is indicted, he should not be extradited. It is extremely important, especially to journalists.
“To allow this to go ahead is to put a target, a bull’s eye, on the back of every journalist in the world who might consider doing real investigative journalism of what we call national security. It’s to assure every journalist that he or she as well as your sources can be put in prison, kidnapped if necessary to the US.
“That is going to chill (journalists) to a degree that there will be more Vietnams, more Iraqs, more acts of aggression such as we have just seen. The world cannot afford that. A great deal rides on the policy matters on the possibility of freedom,” so said Daniel Ellsberg — the US whistleblower who blew the lid off atrocities that were committed in Vietnam.
Conclusion Of course there are always complications, such as executive government leaders involving themselves in judicial matters. But sometimes a leader does the right thing, simply because it is the right thing to do — as Helen Clark did early on in her prime ministership when she extended an olive branch to people fleeing tyranny onboard a ship called the Tampa, which was under-threat of sinking off the coast of Australia. Helen Clark brought the Tampa refugees home to a new place called Aotearoa New Zealand, and we have been better off as a nation because of it.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
New York, NY – Eric K. Ward, a nationally-recognized expert on the relationship between authoritarian movements, hate violence, and preserving inclusive democracy, will receive the 21st annual Civil Courage Prize virtually on Friday, October 29, 2021.
This is the first time in the award’s history that an American has won the prize, revealing the dangerous proliferation of hate crimes and political violence by authoritarian and extremist movements in the United States.
In his 30+ year civil rights career, Ward has worked with community groups, government and business leaders, human rights advocates, and philanthropists to combat white supremacy, extremism, and anti-democratic activities of the far right. The recipient of the Peabody-Facebook Futures Media Award, Ward’s widely quoted writings and speeches are credited with key narrative shifts in the fight to take white supremacist violence seriously. He currently serves as Executive Director of Western States Center, Senior Fellow with Southern Poverty Law Center and Race Forward, and as Chair of The Proteus Fund.
“There are few with more experience in the realm of civil courage in the United States than Eric Ward. Eric understands the deep connections between creating and sustaining inclusive, democratic institutions and combating extremism, bigotry and racism in all its forms,” said George Biddle, Train Foundation Trustee. “We commend Eric for spending his career and life demonstrating how extremism can only be mitigated through non-violent action and facilitating common ground.”
“The fact that I am the first ever American to win this prize is a clear and jarring message from The Train Foundation to governments and civil society domestically and internationally: the rise of authoritarianism and violent extremism has ended all illusions of ‘American exceptionalism.’ America’s dream of achieving a multiracial and inclusive democracy is in danger, said Eric Ward. “Bigoted and authoritarian ideological movements are now an active threat to the very structures of our democracy established by the 1960s Civil Rights movement. I am grateful and proud to accept this honor on behalf of all those who continue the struggle towards a strong, multicultural democracy.”
Eric Ward has a special interest in the use of music to advance inclusive democracy. In 2020 he helped to launch the Western States Center Inclusive Democracy Culture Lab which works with musicians to create new narratives about anti-bigotry and inclusion, puncture the myths driving our political and social divisions, and invite people who don’t always trust politicians and movement leaders into the safe and trusting conversational space that exists between a performer and their audience.
Ward began his civil rights career at a time when the white nationalist movement was engaged in violent paramilitary activity that posed a threat to democracy and democratic participation in the Pacific Northwest. He founded and directed a community project designed to expose and counter hate groups and respond to bigoted violence before joining the staff of the Northwest Coalition Against Malicious Harassment, where he worked with government leaders, civil rights campaigners, businesses leaders and law enforcement officials in establishing over 120 task forces focused on human rights and anti-violence in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming.
Ward considers himself ‘lucky’ to have had the experience of working closely side-by-side with people who decided to leave any movements which pose a threat to democracy. “I can’t take a lot of claim for that,” he said in an interview with Floss Media earlier this year. “What I think I presented was a doorway out. The truth is when we break this binary of white supremacy and the white nationalism that is trying to turn it into something new, what we find out is we have a lot of problems in common. We also have a lot of dreams in common.”
Indonesian police forcibly broke up a protest marking the 1962 Rome Agreement in front of the US Embassy in Central Jakarta this week and arrested 17 Papuan activists.
One of the demonstrators, former political prisoner Ambrosius Mulait, said the 17 arrested protesters were forcibly taken away by police as soon as they arrived at the US Embassy.
“We hadn’t even started the action and were forced to get into crowd control vehicles,” said Mulait about the protest on Thursday.
Mulait also said that police were “repressive” when they were arresting the protesters by firing teargas until a physical clash broke out between demonstrators and police.
“Some of our comrades were assaulted by the police,” he said.
Central Jakarta district police chief Senior Commissioner Hengki Hariyadi confirmed that 17 Papuan activists were arrested.
Hariyadi said that they did not allow the protest action because Jakarta was currently under a level 3 Enforcement of Restrictions on Public Activities (PPKM) in order to prevent the spread of the covid-19 pandemic.
“During a Level 3 PPKM all activities which have the potential to create crowds are prohibited, in this case they did not have a permit to express an opinion in pubic, so it was without a recommendation from the security forces,” said Hariyadi.
The protest by the Papuan activists made six demands:
[The right to hold] an action in the context of marking the 59th anniversary of the Rome Agreement [that led to Jakarta’s colonisation of Papua];
President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to withdraw all TNI (Indonesian military) and Polri (Indonesian police) from Papua because they were making the situation for the Papuan people “uncomfortable”;
Release political prisoner Victor Yeimo who is currently in ill health and is being detained at the Mobile Brigade (Brimob) command headquarters in Jayapura;
Reject the extension of Special Autonomy for Papua which had failed to bring prosperity to the Papuan people;
Give Papuans the right to self-determination (through a referendum);and
Reject racism and fully resolve human rights violations in Papua.
IndoLeft News backgrounds the crisis:
The 1962 Rome Agreement was signed by Indonesia, the Netherlands and the United States in Rome on September 30, 1962.
The agreement provided for a postponement of a referendum on West Papua’s status which had been scheduled to be held in 1969 under the New York Agreement signed on August 15, 1962, that the referendum would use a consultative process, that the UN’s report on the implementation of the referendum would be accepted without open debate and on US commitments to invest in resource exploration and provide funds for development programmes in West Papua.
It perhaps wasn’t a remarkable coincidence that last month Samoa’s former Ambassador to the United Nations called on the United States to ratify a treaty declaring the South Pacific a nuclear-free zone.
Ali’ioaiga Feturi Elisaia, currently Samoa’s High Commissioner to Fiji, made the comments during a Blue Pacific Talanoa series last month to mark the August 29 International Day against Nuclear Tests.
The treaty created by the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) was called the South Pacific Nuclear-Free Zone Treaty of Rarotonga of which Samoa is a signatory.
The virtual conference also featured high profile state actors including Fiji Prime Minister and PIF Chair Josaia Bainimarama, PIF Secretary-General Henry Puna and the secretary-general for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean, Ambassador Flavio Roberto Bonzanini.
The lineup of the presenters last month underscored the significance of the issue for the region, which very much remains relevant for Samoa and other Pacific Island nations some 25 years after the last nuclear test explosion by France at the Moruroa and Fangataufa atoll test sites on 27 January 1996.
Lest we forget the Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands where the US unleashed 23 nuclear weapons between 1946 and 1958 to displace the Marshallese people for ever.
Discussions today around nuclear testing or the use of nuclear energy as an alternative energy source are likely to be associated with protest marches in the 1960s and 1970s with public opinion shifting due to the calamitous effect of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings towards the backend of World War Two in 1945.
The 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power disaster in Ukraine (which was at that time part of The Soviet Union) claimed 31 lives, though in 2005 the United Nations reportedly projected that some 4000 people would eventually die due to radiation exposure.
In March 2011, a 9.0-magnitude earthquake in Japan triggered a tsunami, which overran the seawall of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant and flooded the nuclear reactor, triggering a failure of the emergency generators to lead to nuclear meltdowns and the leaking of contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean.
Over a decade later the Japan government announced in April this year that it would release 1 million tonnes of contaminated water from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific, triggering concerns within the region and leading to calls for an independent assessment.
And it appears we in the Pacific are not out of the woods just yet — as more developed and economically affluent nations dabble with this deadly form of energy in our part of the world — despite being privy to data collected showing how thousands of lives were lost and millions displaced due to the use of nuclear weapons or energy in war as well as peacetime over the past 76 years.
So it is disappointing to see reports emerge over the last couple of days on Australia penning an agreement with the US and the UK to acquire nuclear-powered submarines in a bid to beef up its military arsenal.
Why has Australia become a party to a military pact that could now see conflict return to our peaceful islands some 76 years after the end of World War Two?
We are not interested in your wars and the political ideologies that you continue to flout in your quest for global domination.
Nor are we keen on subscribing to a train of thought promoting oligarchy where all power is centred in an individual.
The Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, when defending his country’s decision to sign the military pact with the US and the UK, is of the view that there will be peace and stability in the region due to the partnership.
“She [Jacinda Ardern] was my first call because of the strength of our relationship and the relationship between our countries,” Morrison said when confirming that he had advised his New Zealand counterpart, reports the Associated Press.
“All in the region will benefit from the peace and the stability and security that this partnership will add to our region.”
So what peace and stability is Mr Morrison referring to in his defence of this agreement?
Barring the covid-19 pandemic and its impact on our fragile and vulnerable economies, we in the Pacific are happy where we are.
Our journeys as sovereign nations haven’t been without their challenges and we know the destinations we want to get to with the assistance of bigger nations as well as development partners.
But signing up to a military pact behind the closet and then declaring we in the region will benefit from the peace and stability it would bring is not how friends treat each other.
It is a relief seeing Prime Minister Ardern continuing to maintain the tradition of her predecessors by promoting a nuclear-free Pacific; probably she is the only true friend of the Pacific Islands.
Having lived with and witnessed the ravages of war for close to a century; brought to our doorstep and into our homes without our consent; we expect global leaders to respect the various sovereign nations and their people who make up this huge expanse of an ocean that is now known as the Pacific.
It would be appropriate for Samoa’s first female Prime Minister, Fiame Naomi Mata’afa bringing this to the attention of the international community, in her first maiden address to the United Nations General Assembly.
Samoa Observer editorial on 21 September 2021. Republished with permission.
Australia’s new security pact with the US and the UK has touched a nerve at the core of Pacific regionalism.
The AUKUS alliance, announced by leaders of the three countries last week, finds them seeking strategic advantage in the Indo-Pacific region with a focus on developing nuclear-powered submarines for the Australian Navy.
Announcing the pact via video link with Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his British counterpart Boris Johnson, US president Joe Biden said it was about enhancing their collective ability to take on the threats of the 21st century.
Recalled French ambassador Jean-Pierre Thebault … angry words for journalists on the way to Canberra airport. Image: AJ screenshot APR
France has recalled its ambassadors to the US and Australia for consultations, in a “Pacific” backlash over a submarine deal after Canberra cancelled a multibillion-dollar deal for conventional French submarines, reports Al Jazeera.
President Biden declared: “Today we’re taking another historic step, to deepen and formalise co-operation among all three of our nations, because we all recognise the imperative of ensuring peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific over the long term.
“We need to be able to address both the current strategic environment in the region, and how it may evolve.”
Describing this threat as rapidly evolving, Biden said AUKUS was launching consultations on Australia’s acquisition of conventionally armed submarines powered by nuclear reactors. The president emphasised that the subs would not be nuclear-armed.
Serious concern for Pacific
But the general secretary of the Pacific Conference of Churches, Reverend James Bhagwan, said the move towards nuclear submarines was a serious concern for a region still dealing with the fallout from nuclear weapons tests.
“Three weeks ago, the current chair of Pacific Islands Forum, the Prime Minister of Fiji (Voreqe Bainimarama) reiterated that we want a Blue Pacific that is nuclear free. It’s at the heart of Pacific regionalism,” he said.
The general secretary of the Pacific Council of Churches, Reverend James Bhagwan … “We are still dealing with the fallout from nuclear testing.” Image: Jamie Tahana/RNZ
“From the Sixties, from when the very first tests started in our region, this is something that government, civil society, churches have all been very adamant against, to keep our Pacific nuclear-free. We are still dealing with the fallout from nuclear testing.”
However, Morrison said it was time to take the partnership between the three nations to a “new level”, noting that “our world is becoming more complex, especially here in our region, the Indo-Pacific”, a sign of the alliance’s growing angst over China.
But the move towards nuclear submarines confronts the spirit of a nuclear-free zone that Pacific regional countries signed up to decades ago.
Furthermore, the pact comes as the Pacific Islands Forum continues to protest about Japan’s plans to dump treated nuclear waste water into the ocean from the Fukushima power plant, that was damaged in an earthquake and tsunami 10 years ago.
Taken by surprise The Federated States of Micronesia, a country with close ties to the US, was diplomatic in conveying how the pact caught it by surprise.
A spokesperson for the FSM government said it had “trust, faith and confidence” in the US and Australia in their promotion, and protection, of a Free and Open Indo-Pacific
“It can safely be assumed that the United States and Australia are making security decisions with the best interests of the Pacific in mind, because our vitality is their vitality. That said, this news is a surprise.
“Micronesia is confident this decision makes our country safer, but Micronesia also looks forward to learning more about how precisely that is the case.”
Regional figure … as Pacific Forum chairman, Fiji’s Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimara has outlined the regional aim for a nuclear-free Blue Pacific. Image: Johnny Blades/RNZ
Rather than loss of business, Pacific Islands are more concerned about existential loss, having first hand experience of nuclear testing by French, American and British.
“The ocean impacts on our life,” Reverend Bhagwan said.
“We are the fish basket of the world. So if one submarine comes in and something goes wrong and the nuclear waste from that submarine gets into our ocean, that’s too much already.”
Pacific interests Reverend Bhagwan questioned how the pact stacked up with Scott Morrison’s claims that Australia considered Pacific Islands countries as vuvale, or family.
“This is our Pacific way. Sometimes we don’t agree, but we always act in the best interests, we always come and support one another,” he said.
“This is not Australia acting in the best interests of the rest of its Pacific Vuvale.”
China has described the pact as being detrimental to regional peace and stability.
Relations between Beijing and Canberra are at an all-time low, and a spokesman for the Chinese government urged Australia to think carefully whether to treat China as a partner or a threat.
New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the prohibition of nuclear-powered vessels in its waters remained unchanged, adding that the pact “in no way changes our security and intelligence ties with these three countries”.
She said New Zealand was first and foremost a nation of the Pacific which viewed foreign policy developments through the lens of what is in the best interest of the region.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
We live, to borrow a phrase, in interesting times. The pandemic aside, relations between the superpowers are tense. The sudden arrival of the new AUKUS security agreement between Australia, the US and UK simply adds to the general sense of unease internationally.
The relationship between America and China had already deteriorated under the presidency of Donald Trump and has not improved under Joe Biden.
New satellite evidence suggests China might be building between 100 and 200 silos for a new generation of nuclear intercontinental missiles.
At the same time, the US relationship with North Korea continues to smoulder, with both North and South Korea conducting missile tests designed to intimidate.
And, of course, Biden has just presided over the foreign policy disaster of withdrawal from Afghanistan. His administration needs something new with a positive spin.
Enter AUKUS, more or less out of the blue. So far, it is just a statement launched by the member countries’ leaders. It has not yet been released as a formal treaty.
Australia’s previous A$90 billion deal with the French company DCNS to build up to 12 submarines has been canned.
The Indo-Pacific pivot The new agreement speaks of “maritime democracies” and “ideals and shared commitment to the international rules-based order” with the objective to “deepen diplomatic, security and defence co-operation in the Indo-Pacific region”.
“Indo-Pacific region” is code for defence against China, with the partnership promising greater sharing and integration of defence technologies, cyber capabilities and “additional undersea capabilities”. Under the agreement, Australia also stands to gain nuclear-powered submarines.
To demonstrate the depth of the relationship, the agreement highlights how “for more than 70 years, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States have worked together, along with other important allies and partners”.
At which point New Zealand could have expected a drum roll, too, having only just marked the 70th anniversary of the ANZUS agreement. That didn’t happen, and New Zealand was conspicuously absent from the choreographed announcement hosted by the White House.
Having remained committed to the Five Eyes security agreement and having put boots on the ground in Afghanistan for the duration, “NZ” appears to have been taken out of ANZUS and replaced with “UK”.
Ardern responds to new Australia, UK, US group, says NZ nuclear stance ‘unchanged’ https://t.co/Ot3Ehi0R92
Don’t mention the nukes The obvious first question is whether New Zealand was asked to join the new arrangement. While Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has welcomed the new partnership, she has confirmed: “We weren’t approached, nor would I expect us to be.”
That is perhaps surprising. Despite problematic comments by New Zealand’s trade minister about Australia’s dealings with China, and the foreign minister’s statement that she “felt uncomfortable” with the expanding remit of the Five Eyes, reassurances by Ardern about New Zealand’s commitment should have calmed concerns.
One has to assume, therefore, that even if New Zealand had been asked to join, it might have chosen to opt out anyway. There are three possible explanations for this:
The first involves the probable provision to Australia of nuclear-powered military submarines. Any mention of nuclear matters makes New Zealand nervous. But Australia has been at pains to reiterate its commitment to “leadership on global non-proliferation”.
Similar commitments or work-arounds could probably have been made for New Zealand within the AUKUS agreement, too, but that is now moot.
The dragon in the room
The second reason New Zealand may have declined is because the new agreement is perceived as little more than an expensive purchasing agreement for the Australian navy, wrapped up as something else.
This may be partly true. But the rewards of the relationship as stated in the initial announcement go beyond submarines and look enticing. In particular, anything that offers cutting-edge technologies and enhances the interoperability of New Zealand’s defence force with its allies would not be lightly declined.
The third explanation could lie in an assumption that this is not a new security arrangement. Evidence for this can be seen in the fact that New Zealand is not the only ally missing from the new arrangement.
Canada, the other Five Eyes member, is also not at the party. Nor are France, Germany, India and Japan. If this really was a quantum shift in strategic alliances, the group would have been wider — and more formal than a new partnership announced at a press conference.
Nonetheless, the fact that New Zealand’s supposedly extra-special relationship with Britain, Australia and America hasn’t made it part of the in-crowd will raise eyebrows.
Especially while no one likes to mention the elephant – or should that be dragon? – in the room: New Zealand’s relationship with China.
In this this week’s episode of A View from Afar today, Selwyn Manning and Paul Buchanan are joined by Asia Pacific Report editor Dr David Robie to examine instability in the Pacific – specifically to identify what is going on in New Caledonia, Fiji and Samoa.
This is the second part of a two-part Pacific special.
In the second half, Buchanan and Manning analyse the latest developments on Afghanistan and consider whether the humiliating withdrawal of the US suggests an end to liberal internationalism.
Specifically the first half of this episode looks at:
New Caledonia where there will be a third and final referendum on Kanaky independence;
Samoa where there has been a new government installed — the first in four decades — but only after the old guard attempted to resist democratic change, a move that has caused a constitutional crisis; and
Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama has had a new addition to his political headaches — the question of how Fiji gets its NGO and aid workers out of Afghanistan.
Selwyn Manning, David Robie and Paul Buchanan discuss governance and security issues in the Pacific on A View From Afar today. Image: Screenshot APR
In the second half of this episode Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning dig deep into the latest from Afghanistan.
The deadline for Western personnel to have withdrawn from Afghanistan is looming. The Taliban leadership states it will not extend the negotiated deadline of August 31, and US President Joe Biden insists that the US will not request nor assert an extension.
But Biden has instructed his military leaders to prepare for a contingency plan.
What does this humiliating withdrawal indicate to the world?
Is this the realisation of a diminishing United States, a superpower in decline?
Can the US reassert itself as the world’s policeman, or does Afghanistan confirm the US is in retreat and signal an end of liberal internationalism?
Selwyn Manning, Paul Buchanan and Charlotte Bellis of Al Jazeera discussing Afghanistan on A View From Afar today. Image: Screenshot APR
You get a lot of moral clarity when you realize that the US government is the most despotic and corrupt regime on the entire planet by a very wide margin. This clarity informs your perspective in a way that helps you see through a lot of the propaganda narratives that are laid over the public’s vision about what’s going on in our world.
Whenever I say the US is the most tyrannical regime on earth I get a lot of objections from people, and these are always people who simply haven’t thought very hard about the horrific realities of US foreign policy. Sure you can name some governments who are more brutal and oppressive toward their own citizenry than Washington, but you can’t name any who are more brutal and oppressive overall when you zoom out and look at the big picture.
Biden picked up where Trump left off and has been aggressively bombing Somalia.
Successive US administrations have cycled through a myriad of excuses to bomb the country, not acknowledging that they are bombing the very "terrorists" they created.https://t.co/QJ2yc6YbN8
There is no other government on earth about which you can say anything like any of these things. No other government on earth is doing anything which rises to this level of evil. Not Iran, not North Korea, not Russia or China or any of the other big scary boogeymen we’re told we must be afraid of my the mass media. You can argue that other governments have perpetrated comparable evils in the past, but you cannot argue that any of them are doing so currently. In our present reality as it actually exists, the United States is the worst monster, and it’s not even close.
There’s really no counter-argument to this. Even if you’re an intellectual six year-old and still believed in 2021 that the US uses its military for beneficent purposes, the fact that we now know the US military just wasted trillions of dollars and thousands of lives on a 20-year war which accomplished literally nothing besides making horrible people rich and lied to the world about it the entire time should dispel that childish delusion once and for all.
The fact that the US happens to export the bulk of its tyranny outside of its borders (though certainly not all of it) doesn’t change the fact that it is more tyrannical than any other government. This just means its tyranny dominates the entire world instead of a single nation.
And ordinary Americans don’t even get anything out of it. It would be bad enough if they were consenting to their government committing murderous piracy around the world because all that theft was enriching their lives and making Americans the wealthiest, happiest and healthiest people on earth, but it isn’t. Americans experience some of the world’s worst wealth inequality without any of the social safety nets afforded to people in every other developed nation, so they’re not even getting a slice of the piracy pie. They only consent to their government being the most despotic regime on earth because they are propagandized.
Afghanistan Proves The US Military Needs Its Budget Slashed To Ribbons
For 20 years the Pentagon lied that it's building a government that can stand on its own. Now it's crunch time, and it turns out they were building a fake movie set made of cardboard.https://t.co/ijytSfSuWY
So in this sense all the accusations the US and its allies make against governments which refuse to bow to Washington are in reality a kind of whataboutism. “Whataboutism” is a word empire apologists constantly bleat whenever you point out that the US is perpetrating some version of an abuse it accuses another government of perpetrating (and it always is), but in reality they’re the ones using accusations to try and distract the conversation from what it should actually be about: the most tyrannical and abusive government on earth.
There is no legitimate reason to focus on the abuses of any other power structure as long as the US and its allies are committing vastly worse atrocities. The most powerful and destructive government on earth should be receiving far more criticism than any other, but instead, because its propaganda dominates the world, it actually receives far less criticism. Being clear on this gross imbalance and the need to correct it is instructive for anyone with their eyes open, because it shows where your efforts and opposition should be directed.
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My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here.
Zack Beauchamp in VOX of 28 July 2021 makes a strong but perhaps controversial plea that “In the fight for democracy’s future, Indian and American politics is more important than anything China is doing“:
Donald Trump and Narendra Modi.
One of the emerging tenets of the Biden presidency is that the United States and China are locked in ideological conflict over the fate of democracy.
In March, during his first press conference as president, he declared that “this is a battle between the utility of democracies in the 21st century and autocracies.” In April, during his first address to a joint session of Congress, he labeled this struggle “the central challenge of the age” — and that China’s Xi Jinping is “deadly earnest about becoming the most significant, consequential nation in the world.”
More recently, in last week’s CNN town hall, he warned that Xi “truly believes that the 21st century will be determined by oligarchs, [that] democracies cannot function in the 21st century. The argument is, because things are moving so rapidly, so, so rapidly that you can’t pull together a nation that is divided to get a consensus on acting quickly.”
Inasmuch as there is a Biden doctrine, the notion that the US needs to protect democracy from China’s authoritarian model is at the center of it. “Biden’s administration [is] framing the contest as a confrontation of values, with America and its democratic allies standing against the model of authoritarian repression that China seeks to impose on the rest of the world,” Yaroslav Trofimov writes in the Wall Street Journal.
Biden’s thinking captures an important insight: that the struggle over democracy’s fate will be one of the defining conflicts of the 21st century. But his analysis is crucially flawed in one respect: China is not an especially important reason why democracy is currently under threat — and centering it is not only wrong, but potentially dangerous.
In countries where democracy is at real risk of collapse or even outright defeated — places like India, Brazil, Hungary, Israel, and, yes, the United States — the real drivers of democratic collapse are domestic. Far-right parties are taking advantage of ethno-religious divides and public distrust in the political establishment to win electorally — and then twist the rules to entrench their own hold on power. Leaders of these factions, like former US President Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, aid and abet each other’s anti-democratic politics.
More traditional authoritarian states, even powerful ones like China or Russia, have thus far played at best marginal roles in this struggle.
“Much of the recent global democratic backsliding has little to do with China,” Thomas Carothers and Frances Brown, two leading experts on democracy, write in a recent Foreign Affairs essay. “An overriding focus on countering China and Russia risks crowding out policies to address the many other factors fueling democracy’s global decline.”
This misdiagnosis has real policy stakes. Leaning into competition with China could lead the US to excuse anti-democratic behavior by important partners, like Modi or the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte, in a manner reminiscent of US relations with anti-communist dictators during the Cold War. Moreover, too much emphasis on competition with China could distract from the place where Biden has the most power to affect democracy’s fate — the home front, an area in which voting rights advocates increasingly see him as indefensibly complacent.
There are real problems associated with China’s rise. Its increasing military belligerence, predatory economic practices, and horrific human rights abuses in places like Xinjiang are all very serious concerns. But the fact that China is the source of many real issues doesn’t mean it’s the source of democratic erosion worldwide — and positioning it as such will do little to advance the democratic cause.
Democracies are rotting from within, not without
In his public rhetoric, Biden often argues that the US needs to prove that democracy “works” — that it can “get something done,” as he said last week — in order to outcompete the Chinese model.
While he hasn’t spelled out the nature of this competition all that precisely, the concern seems to center on Chinese policy success: that its rapid economic growth and authoritarian ability to make swift policy changes will inspire political copycats unless democracies prove that they can also deliver real benefits for their citizens.
“I believe we are in the midst of an historic and fundamental debate about the future direction of our world,” the president wrote in a March letter outlining his national security strategy. “There are those who argue that, given all the challenges we face, autocracy is the best way forward. And there are those who understand that democracy is essential to meeting all the challenges of our changing world.”
But at this point, the fear of Chinese political competition is mostly hypothetical. While the Chinese government and state media frequently tout the superiority of its political model to American-style democracy, there’s little evidence that these efforts are all that influential globally — and certainly not in the countries where democracy is most at risk.
A look back at the Soviet Union, the last major challenge to the hegemony of liberal democracy, is telling. ln ideological terms, there’s no comparison: Soviet communism was a far more powerful model than Chinese authoritarian state capitalism is today.
Xi Jinping.
Marxist ideals inspired revolutionary Communist movements and governments around the globe, successfully toppling Western-backed governments in countries ranging from Cuba to Vietnam to China itself. By contrast, there are vanishingly few foreign governments or even political parties today openly vowing to emulate modern China. While the Soviets had the Iron Curtain in Europe, modern China’s most notable client state is North Korea — perhaps the most isolated and mistrusted government on the planet.
In the countries that observers worry most about — established democratic states experiencing “backsliding” toward authoritarianism — Chinese influence is minimal at best.
In backsliding democracies, authoritarian-inclined leaders win and hold power through the electoral system for domestic reasons. Corruption scandals in India and Hungary, violent crime in the Philippines, a racist backlash against America’s first Black president: These are some of the key factors in the rise of authoritarian populists, and they weren’t created or even significantly promoted by China.
Elected authoritarians still bill themselves as defenders of democracy while in power — even after they start undermining the electoral system with tactics like extreme gerrymandering and takeovers of state election agencies. Their political appeal isn’t grounded in an overt rejection of democracy in favor of a Chinese model, but rather a claim to be taking democracy back from corrupt elites in the name of the “true” people, typically defined in ethno-nationalist terms.
The ideology driving modern democratic decline is vastly different from the sort that China promotes at home and through official state media. It represents a home-grown challenge inside the democratic world, rather than an externally stoked, Cold War-style threat.
That’s not to say China does nothing to undermine democracy outside its borders. It has, for example, exported surveillance technology and provided training in “cybersecurity” for foreign officials that amount to teaching them tools for controlling public opinion — underscoring its role as a global pioneer in using technology to repress dissent.
Yet even in this area, China’s influence can easily be overstated. Backsliding countries typically do not ban websites outright or arrest online dissidents in the way China does. Instead, they rely on spreading misinformation and other more subtle uses of state power. When they do use more traditional authoritarian tools, they often don’t need China’s help in doing so — as shown by recent reporting on Israel’s NSO Group, a company with close links to the Israeli state that sold spy software to India and Hungary (whose governments allegedly used it to surveil journalists and opposition figures).
In his recent book The Rise of Digital Repression, Carnegie Endowment scholar Steven Feldstein attempts to systematically document the use of digital tools and tactics for undermining democracy around the world. He found that while such practices were indeed becoming more widespread, this is largely due to domestic factors in authoritarian and backsliding countries rather than Chinese influence.
“China really wasn’t pushing this technology any more so than other countries were pushing advanced technology or censorship technologies,” he told me in an interview earlier this year. “What I saw — when I spoke on the ground to intelligence officials, government officials, and others — was that there were many other factors at play that were much more determinative in terms of whether they would choose to purchase a surveillance system or use it than just the fact that China was trying to market it.”
The problem with blaming China for democracy’s crisis
Biden and his team recognize that many of the challenges to democracy have domestic roots. But in casting the rise of anti-democratic populism as part of a grander ideological struggle against an authoritarian Chinese model, they conflate two distinct phenomena — and risk making some significant policy errors.
Again, an analogy to the Cold War is helpful here. One of the most grievous errors of America’s containment policy was its repeated willingness to align itself with anti-communist dictators. The perceived need to stop the expansion of Soviet influence consistently trumped America’s commitment to democracy — with horrific consequences for the people of Iran, Argentina, Indonesia, and Bangladesh (to name just a handful of examples from a very long list).
The more China is treated like the new Soviet Union — the principal ideological threat to democracy whose influence must be curtailed — the more likely the US is to repeat that mistake.
Take India, for example. In the past six months, Biden has courted Modi’s government as a potential counterweight to China. “There are few relationships in the world that are more vital than one between the U.S. and India. We are the world’s two leading democracies,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a July 28 press conference in New Delhi.
“There has long been a bipartisan consensus in Washington that India is a critical ally in its attempt to check Chinese influence in Asia,” the Indian intellectual Pankaj Mishra wrote in a June Bloomberg column. “In overlooking the Modi government’s excesses, Biden probably counts on support from a US foreign policy establishment invested more in realpolitik than human rights.”
If you take the notion that democracy’s crisis is emerging from within seriously, then it follows that very best thing that Biden could do for democracy’s global future has nothing to do with China or even foreign policy. It’s arresting creeping authoritarianism at home.
Cliff Albright, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, and Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) are arrested during a protest to support voting rights outside of Hart Senate Office Building on Thursday, July 22, 2021.
Biden has acknowledged this at times, writing in his March letter that his global strategy “begins with the revitalization of our most fundamental advantage: our democracy.” And yet that urgency hasn’t translated into action — legislation necessary to safeguard American democracy from the GOP’s increasingly anti-democratic politics appears stalled out. Biden, for his part, has refused to publicly endorse more aggressive action to break the logjam — like abolishing the filibuster for voting rights bills.
The New York Times recently reported that “in private calls with voting rights groups and civil rights leaders, White House officials and close allies of the president have expressed confidence that it is possible to ‘out-organize voter suppression’” — an implausible claim that reflects an administration that, according to activists, has “largely accepted the Republican restrictions as baked in and is now dedicating more of its effort to juicing Democratic turnout.”
Shoring up American democracy after the recent attacks it has suffered should be the top priority of any US government concerned with democracy’s global fate. But for all of Biden’s lofty language about out-competing China and winning the future for democracy, there’s a striking lack of urgency when it comes to the perhaps the most important backsliding country — his own.
In this sense, China has very little influence over the future of democracy globally. The key battles are happening not in the South China Sea or the Taiwan Strait, but in the legislatures of New Delhi and Washington. If there really is to be a grand struggle for democracy’s survival in the 21st century, it needs to start there.
First, she and her husband left the population-dense San Francisco Bay Area where they had lived for 41 years, heading for a semi-rural community in the upper reaches of Northern California.
Somehow, I didn’t think she’d leave an area that was home for so long, especially as one of their two grown children still lives in the Bay Area.
Then Covid-19 upended her plans and Margaret reversed her course about working. She had been in the middle of a two-year trial sabbatical to consider possible retirement.
Born in then-British-occupied Hong Kong, Margaret came to the US in 1973 to study. She had been interested in studying architecture, but was dissuaded by her grandfather who considered the field unladylike.
She then chose to study pharmacy. Luckily, a generous relative assisted with financing of her studies abroad, and she came to the US at 18, experiencing a radical cultural change.
She adapted well, earning her doctorate in the field, marrying another pharmacist, raising a family, and always continuing to work.
She spent 42 years as a pharmacist, with 34 of those as the owner of a pharmacy with her husband.
Margaret (2021).
These years included the active years of the AIDS epidemic. Little do people realise the wealth of experience the person in the white coat may bring.
However, it was time for a change. So, Margaret and her husband packed up for their new home.
But instead of sitting back in the new woodsy setting, Margaret heeded the call. In her area, help administering Covid-19 vaccines was desperately needed.
She told me:
“I consider myself blessed by the pharmacy profession. I want to give back somehow. When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, I saw my opportunity. The timing was right—I thought: ‘All hands on deck!’”
Amid Covid-19: A rise in anti-Asian discrimination
More shock than anger or fear – that was what Singaporean student Jonathan Mok felt when he was jumped by a group of strangers in London in a coronavirus-related #racist attack on Feb 24.#Covid_19#racismpic.twitter.com/h9u6i5UKN7
With rising anti-Asian sentiment in the USA, some advocates blame the anti-Chinese rhetoric of (now) former President Donald Trump who referred to the Coronavirus as “China virus” or “kung flu”.
Likewise, in the UK, the same pattern has emerged. Nepalese musician Kanti Gurung who lives in London recalled how: “people would shout corona, or cough in my face, tell me to go back to my country, and blame me for bringing this virus”.
Again, sentiments are the same in the UK where, for example, John Barco, a Filipino from London, told the Evening Standard that racism against Asians wasn’t “new”. Instead, the pandemic had simply exacerbated the issue.
With the rhetoric of Donald Trump being one such example, such hate is also not only being pedalled on a street level but also by political parties and groups in the USA, Spain, Italy, Greece, France and Germany.
According to Human Rights Watch, they have used the pandemic to “advance anti-immigrant, white supremacist, ultra-nationalist, antisemitic and xenophobic conspiracy theories that demonize refugees, foreigners, prominent individuals, and political leaders.”
It’s sad that a time of insecurity when we should be coming together, hate has once again reared its ugly head.
With Margaret, being of Chinese background in America was discussed around the family dinner table. Her two grown children are very vocal about recent events, and are great advocates for the changes we need in society.
Her son volunteers in the San Francisco area to escort for Asian seniors at risk for attacks. Her daughter, a teacher, is pursuing a doctorate in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
Hardworking souls like their parents!
Thankfully, Margaret has met some very friendly colleagues in the clinic and she clearly enjoys the public.
She wrote on her family blog:
“It was a wrap for another week of Covid vaccine clinics. Now that I am giving mostly second shots to people, I have been touched by their emotions. It was a ‘What a relief!’ expression—tearing up, sobbing, outright laughing, and dancing around me, who’s still holding a retracted syringe and needle!”
Making a contribution to society is critical for Margaret, so retirement among the pines is not on the horizon just yet.
When it does occur, it will be definitely well-earned!
Thank you, Margaret, and of course all our key workers, for helping us through this crisis.
After successfully completing his mission to space, Bezos announced a new initiative titled the Courage and Civility Award to honour “leaders who aim high, pursue solutions with courage, and always do so with civility.”
“We live in a world where sometimes instead of disagreeing with someone’s ideas, we question their character or their motives,” Bezos said. “What we should always be doing is questioning ideas, not the person. We need unifiers and not vilifiers.”
The Courage and Civility Award is a $100 million award for a person to give to charities and non-profit organizations of their choice or keep it for their organization. “It’s easy to be courageous but also mean. Try being courageous and civil. Try being courageous and a unifier. That’s harder and way better and makes the world better,” said Bezos.
Jones was present at the event in Van Horn, Texas to accept the award. He thanked Bezos, and stated: “Sometimes dreams come true and the headline around the world should be anything is possible if you believe,”.
Jones, the founder of Dream Corps, spoke about the importance of dismantling oppressive systems and giving everyone access to opportunities like the one Bezos experienced in space.
Dream Corps is an organization that strives to close prisons and open doors of opportunity by bringing people together across racial, social and partisan lines. Its programs focusing on criminal justice reform, building a green economy and creating equity in the technology industry.
“If this small group of people can make miracles happen in outer space, a bigger group of people can make miracles happen down here, and we’re gonna do it,” Jones said.
America has the single worst government in the world. Shut the fuck up about Cuba.
Hands off Cuba and regime change America.
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“Stop saying the US is the worst government on earth! Others are way worse!”
Name one. Name one that’s currently doing anything that rises to the level of murdering millions and displacing tens of millions in imperialist wars and working to destroy any nation which disobeys it.
You can’t. You can’t name a single government that’s anywhere near as destructive and tyrannical as Washington today. All you can do is talk about what other governments have done generations in the past or pretend domestic oppression is as bad as killing millions in unjust wars.
The US is the most tyrannical regime on earth. Indisputably. Yet because it has such an effective propaganda machine, few people let this indisputable fact inform their worldview and foreign policy perspectives to the extent that they should.
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People only believe the US military can be used to solve problems because they’ve spent their lives watching Hollywood movies glorifying the troops and showing happy endings being reached by Good Guys shooting Bad Guys. That’s why they fall for the bullshit over and over again.
The US military is the One Ring. Everyone thinks they can use its power for good, but it can only ever unleash evil.
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Israel bombed Syria again. The fact that bombings are routinely ignored by news media when they don’t target the US or its allies is yet another item in the mountain of evidence that western media is pure propaganda.
You're reading about this on antiwar dot com instead of the mainstream news because the mainstream news isn't news, it's an indoctrination program disguised as news. https://t.co/N0a6krOCAQ
Hahaha why no I cannot pay you a fair wage you lowly Amazon worker, I need that money for a five billion-dollar carnival ride!
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Blaming unvaccinated people and conspiracy theorists for your country’s problems is the shitlib version of blaming poor people and immigrants for your country’s problems. It’s false, it’s dumb, and it’s very convenient for those who are actually causing your country’s problems.
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“We’ve got to do something about all this disinformation,” said the empire that is made entirely of disinformation.
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Better ways for the US government to fight disinformation:
Spread accurate information
Stop being an evil, opaque and inherently untrustworthy institution
Stop actively sowing disinformation
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Every day the western media spend manipulating people into accepting the murderous and exploitative oligarchic imperialist status quo as normal, they are engaging in disinformation that kills an immense number of people. But you’ll never see the president working to silence them.
The oligarchic empire has no problem with disinformation. It couldn’t exist without disinformation. Its real objection is to people having the ability to share information which it does not control.
Just in America untold thousands of people die every single year as a result of an exploitative status quo which makes them sick and impoverished, and this is made possible solely because of a highly advanced propaganda campaign by the plutocratic class. Once you get out of America’s borders the death toll is far higher, where people are slaughtered by the millions in imperialist wars, proxy conflicts and sanctions regimes the consent for which is manufactured by aggressive disinformation ops.
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A fondness for ice cream is neither a political achievement nor an interesting personality trait.
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It’s creepy how manipulative Jen Psaki is anytime she’s challenged on something gross the administration is doing. It’s always “Well Ted as you’re well aware it’s perfectly normal and good that we’re doing that thing, and you’re kind of crazy and weird for suggesting otherwise.”
The ugliness isn’t that she’s bad at her job, it’s that she’s very, very good at her job. All US press secretaries are professional liars, but the way she’s able to skillfully perception manage any oppositional question to make the questioner look like a weirdo is something rare.
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Pentagon: Let's invade a country. Conservatives: Yeah! Liberals: Okay! Progressives: It's not just about the what but also about the how because the how can become the what and then it's a what how what how what https://t.co/jQLgSoonjP
“Ugh, why must you attack even the US politicians who are furthest to the left??”
Wrong question. The correct question is, why are all US politicians who are operating on the national stage a bunch of shitty imperialist swamp creatures without a single actual leftist among them?
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Telling anti-imperialist socialists not to fight with progressive Democrats who are neither anti-imperialist nor socialist is just telling them to shut up and let Democrats control the American left.
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Mainstream pundits are like “The far left wants to end wars and income inequality, but that’s just unrealistic fairy unicorn talk because people like me are paid by billionaires to prevent that from ever happening.”
“I understand that you want peace and healthcare and a living wage, but you need to be pragmatic and realistic about the fact that we’re going to pour vast fortunes into sabotaging all your attempts to get those things.”
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There’s a focus on profit-driven solutions to climate collapse because our profit-driven global model always values making more things (“men’s work”) and never values cleaning things up (“women’s work”). That’s also why most of the work traditionally done by women is unpaid.
You’re only ever going to look for solutions to problems through the reality tunnel you’ve been conditioned to look through. For thousands of years human civilization has been valuing the making of more things and devaluing the unmaking of things, when the latter is what we need right now. The oceans are our planet’s best carbon sink, for example, and their ability to do that is being choked to death by plastic. Removing plastic from the oceans will not be profitable; it will cost a lot. So there’s no big push to do this. It’s being ignored.
Ending growth for its own sake, producing less, consuming less, paying people to stay home instead of commuting to pointless jobs; all of these would help the ecosystem far more than producing some new battery made of strip-mined materials. But there’s no profit, so they’re overlooked as viable solutions.
Because we’ve got millennia of conditioning toward the worldview of “Men’s work valuable, women’s work free,” even the most awake among us can scan right over the obvious solutions to ecological collapse without seeing them, because it would mean a wildly different way of being. That’s why people so often succumb to hopelessness on this front, and why the quote “It is easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to capitalism” rings so true for us: because from the point of view we’ve been conditioned to look through, there is no solution. We cannot consume our way out of this.
When in reality there is a solution right here under our noses, it’s just not good for billionaires. It’s going to cost a lot, and it’s going to entail doing a lot less. But it will work, and, if we can pry the fingers of the bastards off the wheel, it can be put into action.
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False spirituality gives you beliefs. True spirituality destroys them.
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My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here.
Shawn Utley reports in the Madison Leader Gazette of July 14, 2021 on a Freedom House “webinar” about the alleged Iranian plot to kidnap Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad.
A newly released Justice Department indictment charging four Iranian intelligence operatives with plotting to kidnap a New York-based journalist who had criticized the Iranian regime, dramatically underscores how transnational abductions are becoming the new “normal” for repressive regimes around the world, two human rights activists said Wednesday.
“It’s a horrific attempt to silence dissent,” Saudi activist Lina Alhathloul said during a Freedom House “webinar” about the alleged Iranian plot to lure Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad to a third country so she could be forcibly rendered to Iran.
Her sister, prominent women’s rights activist Loujain Alhathloul, was abducted in Dubai in 2018 and flown to Saudi Arabia, where she was thrown in prison and tortured under the direction of a top aide to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, or MBS, according to U.S. officials and the accounts from the Alhathloul family.
“This is very much a moment when we see this phenomenon is becoming mainstream,” added Nate Schenkkan, director of research strategy at Freedom House, “It’s becoming something that dozens of governments around the world use to control exiles and diaspora members. Countries do it because they can get away with it and because the consequences are not there.”
The comments came during a Freedom House-sponsored panel dedicated to the growing threat of the transnational repression trend, as detailed in a recent report and video from the group, and to the new season of Yahoo News “Conspiracy land” an eight-episode podcast that uncovered new details about the brutal murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018.
As was noted in the panel discussion, there are striking parallels between the Saudi plot to assassinate Khashoggi and the alleged Iranian plot to kidnap Alinejad. Both targeted journalists who, after criticizing their governments, had moved to the United States to live in exile. Khashoggi had excoriated the harsh crackdowns by MBS, including the detention of Loujain Alhathloul. Alinejad had criticized the corruption and repressive measures of former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Jamal Khashoggi. (Getty Images)
Both plots involved extensive surveillance on U.S. soil. In Khashoggi’s case, Saudi operatives recruited spies inside Twitter to steal personal data about regime critics and later used sophisticated spyware to hack the phones of one of those critics who was in extensive contact with the Saudi journalist. In Alinejad’s case, Iranian intelligence operatives used private investigators to follow, photograph and video-record the Iranian-American journalist and members of her family in Brooklyn, according to federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, who on Tuesday brought the indictment against the Iranian operatives, all of whom reside in Iran..
Some protestors wanted president Miguel Díaz-Canel to step down, calling for “freedom”.
US blame
Díaz-Canel said the US blockade of Cuba had caused the economic crisis, and urged revolutionaries to take to the streets against protestors.
Bolivian news agency Kawsachun Newsreported that some Cubans were taking to the street in defence of the revolution.
Writing for Jacobin, columnist Ben Burgis said it was “far too early” to define factions amongst the protestors, but said lifting the embargo would best help Cubans.
The single most important thing that US politicians can do to help Cuba is to call for their country’s near 60-year blockade to be lifted – as the world has voted for time after time at the United Nations.
The embargo
The US first imposed an embargo on arms sales to Cuba in 1958 during Fulgencio Batista’s presidency. After the Cuban revolution in 1959, the US imposed a “near-full trade embargo” in 1960. In 1962 after the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Kennedy administration prohibited all trade to Cuba.
The United Nations (UN) has made 29 resolutions calling for an end to the US embargo, most of which the US has voted against other than a single abstention by Obama in 2016.
The two countries had a slightly better relationship during Obama’s presidency. Obama eased restrictions on travel, removed Cuba from the terrorism list, reopened the US embassy in Cuba, and visited the country.
After Trump’s election, he reinstated the travel and some business restrictions, and later announced more sanctions and put Cuba back on the US list of state sponsored terror.
As of June 2021, the Biden administration has continued to vote against UN calls for the end of the embargo.
The effect on Cuba
According to the UN, the trade embargo has cost Cuba more than $130bn over the 60 years it has been in place.
Cuba’s economy has been struggling, made worse by the pandemic restricting its tourism income. Its sugar harvest has also not earned as much as expected. Consequently, the government has not had enough foreign currency to make up for shortages.
Inflation has grown, and there have been shortages of medicine, food, and other products.
The Goldman Environmental Prize, the “green Nobel Prize”, is awarded annually to activists fighting for the well-being of the planet. They’re often called “heroes”. But, foremost, they’re people. Common folk just like us. They don’t have superpowers or wear capes. And that’s what makes them so special. They’re the activists that are celebrated yearly by the Goldman Environmental Prize, also known as the “green Nobel Prize” [for more on this award and its laureates, see: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/awards/928A7FD2-4E3D-400E-BCE9-488658DA3BAF]
The winners of the 2021 Goldman Environmental Prize
Gloria Majiga-Kamoto, Malawi, Africa
Concerned about the environmental damage caused by plastic pollution in the southeast African state of Malawi, Gloria Majiga-Kamoto decided to fight against this industry by campaigning to stop the production of thin plastics, a type of single-use polymer. Thanks to her campaign a national ban was adopted in 2019. This is the first time a person from Malawi wins the Goldman Prize.
Thai Van Nguyen is the founder of the NGO Save Vietnam’s Wildlife, responsible for saving 1,540 pangolins from the illegal wildlife trade between 2014 and 2020. Nguyen also instituted the first Vietnamese anti-poaching unit. Since 2018, it has destroyed 9,701 animal traps, torn down 775 illegal camps, confiscated 78 guns and brought to the arrest of 558 poachers, leading to a significant reduction in illegal activities in Pu Mat National Park.
Together with the women in her village, Maida Bilal mounted a 503-days-long protest to stop the construction of two new dams on the Kruščica River in December 2018. The Balkans are home to Europe’s last wild rivers, but demand for hydroelectric power is threatening these precious ecosystems. This marks the first time that a person from Bosnia and Herzegovina receives the Goldman Environmental Prize.
After the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, Japan began relying on coal-based rather than nuclear energy. Kimiko Hirata’s decade-long campaign has stopped 13 new coal power plants from being built throughout the country. These would have released over 1.6 million tonnes of CO2 over their lifetimes. Therefore, Hirata’s efforts have avoided emissions equivalent to those of 7.5 million cars a year, for forty years.
In September 2019, Sharon Lavigne, a special education teacher and climate justice advocate, succeeded in stopping the construction of an enormous plastic production plant in Mississippi, in the state of Louisiana. Lavigne mounted an opposition campaign, raised awareness in her community and organised peaceful protests to protect the right of her fellow citizens, especially African-Americans. The plant would have led to the release of huge amounts of toxic waste in an area where pollution is already destroying many lives.
Liz Chicaje Churay, Peru, South and Central America
Thanks to Liz Chicaje Churay and her supporters, in January 2018 the Peruvian government created Yaguas National Park, which protects 800,000 hectares of the Amazon rainforest. The park is key to conserving local biodiversity as well as safeguarding thousands of unique species, carbon-rich peatlands and protecting indigenous peoples.
According to the Bureau minutes of 2 and 4 June 2021, the extraordinary modalities for the 47th session should be similar to the modalities applied during the 46th session.
Thematic areas of interest:
Sexual orientation and gender identity
The Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity will present his report, followed by an interactive dialogue on 24 June. The report seeks to document how particular narratives on gender are being used to fuel violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. In the report, the Expert examines how the incorporation of comprehensive gender theory enables more accurate and appropriate consideration of dynamics of negation and stigma, and the key role of law, public policy and access to justice in promoting either continuity of injustice or social change.
The report highlights the mandate’s position in relation to current narratives and constructions through which the application of gender frameworks, especially its promise for gender equality across diverse persons, is challenged; and build on gender concepts and feminist analysis to further substantiate the mandate’s understanding of root causes and dynamics of violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
This report will be presented in the context of high levels of violence against trans and gender nonconforming people and those defending their rights. Beyond this, the COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted trans and gender nonconforming people and those defending their rights worldwide, especially those most marginalised.
Systemic racism, police brutality and violence against peaceful protests in the United States and globally
The High Commissioner will present the comprehensive report of Resolution 43/1 to the Council on 12 July followed by an interactive dialogue. ISHR previously joined 171 families of victims of police violence in the United States and over 270 civil society organisations from more than 40 countries in calling on the Council to establish an independent commission of inquiry into police killings of Black men and women, as well as violent law enforcement responses to protests in the United States….
The Council should ensure the establishment of robust international accountability mechanisms which would further support and complement, not undermine, efforts to dismantle systemic racism in the United States and globally, especially in the context of police violence against Black people.
Business and human rights
June 2021 marks the tenth anniversary of the unanimous endorsement by the Council of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). The Guiding Principles have become one of the key frameworks for private business to carry out their responsibility to respect human rights, for States to discharge their obligations under international law in relation to business activities, and for civil society and human rights defenders to utilise the UNGPs to demand structural changes in the way companies operate internationally. Human rights need to be an essential element of how businesses design their operations. After 10 years, we have the chance to look back and into the future with a critical eye. In that regard, a ‘Roadmap for the Next Decade’ will be presented by the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights this month. ISHR continues to work with the UN, civil society and progressive companies to protect and promote the work of human rights defenders.
In tandem with its annual report, the UN Working Group will also present in June a long-awaited guidance document on business and human rights defenders based on the UNGPs. The ‘United Nations Guidance on the role of the Guiding Principles for engaging with, safeguarding and ensuring respect for the rights of human rights defenders’ was supported and informed by ISHR and partners, and builds on the experiences gathered through the Business Network on Civic Freedoms and Human Rights Defenders, an initiative ISHR co-founded with the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre. This document will become a key instrument for civil society, businesses and States in ensuring that human rights defenders are protected and recognised as essential actors in maintaining rule of law and a functioning shared civic space.
During the 42nd session, the Council adopted a resolution which listed key trends such as the patterns of reprisals, increasing self-censorship, the use of national security arguments and counter-terrorism strategies by States as justification for blocking access to the UN. The resolution also acknowledged the specific risks to individuals in vulnerable situations or belonging to marginalised groups, and called on the UN to implement gender-responsive policies to end reprisals. The Council called on States to combat impunity and to report back to it on how they are preventing reprisals, both online and offline.
Item 5 of the Human Rights Council’s agenda provides a key opportunity for States to raise concerns about reprisals, and for governments involved in existing cases to provide an update to the Council on any investigation or action taken toward accountability to be carried out.
During the organisational meeting held on 7 June, the President of the Council stressed the importance of ensuring the safety of those participating in the Council’s work, and the obligation of States to prevent intimidation or reprisals.
ISHR recently launched a study analysing 709 reprisals cases and situations documented by the UN Secretary-General between 2010 and 2020 and looked at trends and patterns in the kinds of cases documented by the UNSG, how these cases have been followed up on over time, and whether reprisal victims consider the UN’s response effective. Among other things, the study found that nearly half the countries serving on the Council have been cited for perpetrating reprisals. The study also found that the HRC Presidency appears to have been conspicuously inactive on intimidation and reprisals, despite the overall growing numbers of cases that are reported by the UNSG – including on individuals’ or groups’ engagement with the HRC – and despite the Presidency’s legal obligation to address such violations. The study found that the HRC Presidency took publicly reported action in only 6 percent of cases or situations where individuals or organisations had engaged with the HRC. Not only is this a particularly poor record in its own right, it also compares badly with other UN actors.
In line with previous calls, ISHR expects the President of the Human Rights Council to publicly identify and denounce specific instances of reprisals by issuing formal statements, conducting press-briefings, corresponding directly with the State concerned, publicly releasing such correspondence, and insisting on undertakings from the State concerned to investigate, hold the perpetrators accountable and report back to the Council on action taken.
Other thematic reports
At this 47th session, the Council will have dedicated debates with the mandate holders and the High Commissioner, including interactive dialogues with:
The High Commissioner on State response to pandemics
The Special Rapporteur on the right to housing
The Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health
The Independent Expert on human rights and international solidarity
The Special Rapporteur on the right to education
The Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
The Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions
The Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association
The Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression
The Working Group on arbitrary detention on its study on drug policies
The Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy
In addition, the Council will hold dedicated debates on the rights of specific groups including:
The Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants
The Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons
The Special Adviser on Prevention of Genocide
The Working Group on discrimination against women and girls
The Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
The Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children
The Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers
The Special Rapporetur on the elimination of discrimination against persons affected by leprosy and their family members
Country-specific developments
China
One year after the UN Special Procedures issued a sweeping statement calling for the international community to take ‘decisive action’ on the human rights situation in China, much more remains to be done. Calls are growing for more clear and timely reporting from the UN, including the High Commissioner for Human Rights and her Office, on the repressive policies and practices targeting Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims. At the same time, worrying news continues about violations of cultural rights of Tibetans, while Hong Kong’s democratic institutions – and its people – have suffered a series of blows from legislative, policy and legal decision targeting pro-democracy leaders. For the first time since 1989, peaceful public demonstrations to commemorate the massacre on Tiananmen Square were prohibited.
At the 46th session of the Council, over 30 States led by Finland urged Egypt to end its repression of human rights defenders, LGBTI persons, journalists, politicians and lawyers under the guise of countering-terrorism. The joint State statement ended years of a lack of collective action at the Council on Egypt, despite the sharply deteriorating human rights situation in the country. Egypt must answers these calls, starting by releasing the thousands arbitrarily detained, protecting those in custody from torture and other ill-treatment, and ending the crackdown on peaceful activists. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has previously concluded that arbitrary detention is a systematic problem in Egypt and the Committee against Torture has concluded that torture is a systematic practice in Egypt. To date, Egypt has failed to address all the concerns expressed by States, the High Commissioner and Special Procedures, despite repeated calls on the government, including most recently by over 60 NGOs. ISHR joined over 100 NGOs from across the world in urging the Council to establish a monitoring and reporting mechanism on Egypt and will continue to do so until there is meaningful and sustained improvement in the country’s human rights situation.
Saudi Arabia
This session will mark two years since the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions presented to the Council the investigation into the unlawful death of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and yet no meaningful steps towards accountability have been taken by the Saudi authorities. The Special Rapporteur called on Saudi Arabia to “demonstrate non-repetition by: releasing all individuals imprisoned for the peaceful expression of their opinion and belief; independently investigating all allegations of torture and lethal use of force in formal and informal places of detention; and independently investigating all allegations of enforced disappearances and making public the whereabouts of individuals disappeared”. To date, Saudi Arabia has refused to address these key concerns, which were also raised by over 40 States at the Council in March 2019, September 2019 and September 2020, further demonstrating its lack of political will to genuinely improve the human rights situation and to engage constructively with the Council. The sentencing and subsequent release of several women’s rights activists highlights the importance of the Council’s scrutiny which must be sustained in order to secure meaningful, concrete, and systematic gains. We recall that the Special Rapporteur also called on Member States to support resolutions that seek to ensure or strengthen accountability for the execution of Khashoggi. ISHR reiterates its call on the Council to establish a monitoring and reporting mechanism on the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia.
Colombia
After more than a month of strikes and street protests in Colombia, which have seen protestors killed at the hands of law enforcement officers and civilians, and human rights defenders covering the events threatened and attacked, the Council session provides States with the opportunity to take action. States must call on Colombia to respect the human rights of its people – including the right to freedom of peaceful assembly – and address the underlying causes of the protests, including violations of economic, social and cultural rights, inequality and racial discrimination. This situation of violence and non-compliance with all standards of the use of force has had a particular impact on the Afro-descendant population. Specific calls from Colombian civil society include for OHCHR to investigate and report on the protests in the country including gather statistical data on the facts that threaten the human rights of Afro-Colombian people; for the High Commissioner to visit Colombia when possible; and for Colombia to open its doors to a range of Special Rapporteurs to allow for ongoing monitoring and reporting. The High Commissioner, who has made a statement on the situation in the country, will present her annual report at the start of the session and it is hoped and expected that Colombia will feature as a country of concern. [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2020/01/20/colombia-21-january-2020-civil-society-begins-a-much-needed-patriotic-march/]
Nicaragua
Last March, the Council renewed its resolution on the human rights situation in Nicaragua, which strengthened the High Commissioner’s office monitoring and reporting mandate, by including an interim oral update with recommendations in the context of upcoming national elections. Despite the resolution’s clear calls on the Government to repeal recently adopted laws that harshly restrict civic space, stop targeting human rights defenders and journalists, and urgently implement reforms to ensure free and credible elections, the Nicaraguan authorities have acted in the opposite direction. While UN experts ‘deplore spate of attacks and arrests of human rights defenders’, the OHCHR publicly expressed their deep concern that ‘Nicaragua’s chances of holding free and genuine elections on 7 November are diminishing as a result of measures taken by authorities against political parties, candidates and independent journalists, which further restrict the civic and democratic space’. As the High Commissioner will present her oral update on Nicaragua on 22 June, States should call on Nicaragua to urgently reverse course and implement the recommendations from resolution 46/2, in particular to guarantee the enjoyment of the rights to freedom of information, expression, association and assembly, and the right to take part in the conduct of public affairs; and to swiftly put an end to the harassment (including the judicial harassment) and detention of journalists and ex-members of the Violeta Chamorro Foundation and Confidencial media outlet.
Venezuela
Venezuela will be back on the Council’s agenda with OHCHR providing an update on the situation of human rights in the country, including in regard to UN recommendations (5 July). Recent positive developments in the country, including the nomination to the National Electoral Council of individuals supported by a broad swathe of civil society, are offset by continuing human rights and humanitarian crises. The UN’s recommendations to Venezuela are numerous, wide-ranging and largely ignored. States must use opportunities at the Council to press home the importance of those recommendations being heeded. ISHR looks forward to making a statement during the dialogue, focusing in on levels of implementation of recommendations. Given that reprisals against Venezuelan defenders have been common over recent years – with cases cited in eight of the Secretary General’s reports on cooperation with the UN since 2010 – it is essential that States speak out in support of civil society engagement and that the UN define a preventative strategy to ensure defenders’ protection.
Burundi
On 30 June 2020, the Supreme Court of Burundi set aside the ruling by the Appeals Court to uphold the 32-year sentence in Rukuki’s case and ordered a second appeal hearing, citing violations to his right to a fair trial. This second appeal hearing took place 8 months later on 24 March 2021 in Ngozi prison, where he is currently detained. According to the Burundian Code of Criminal Procedure, following the hearing the Court has 30 days to return a verdict on the case, but this verdict is still pending nearly 60 days later. This delay clearly demonstrates a lack of due process in the case of the internationally recognised human rights defender and political prisoner. In an open letter, a group of civil society organisations denounced the dysfunctioning of judicial proceedings in the country. After confirming the 32 years sentence of defender Germain Rukuki, Burundi continues its crackdown against civil society. Germain Rukuki has now spent nearly 4 years in prison. He has already waited an additional 30 days for this final verdict to be announced without any legal reason; he should not have to wait any longer. In addition to ensuring the continued work of the Commission of Inquiry on Burundi, members of the Council need to call on Burundi to demonstrate their commitment to respect the independence of the judiciary and comply fully with the fair trial obligations of Burundi under international law and announce the verdict in this case without any further delay. [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2019/03/29/ngo-statement-condemns-new-irregularities-in-the-case-of-germain-rukuki-burundi/]
The Council will consider reports on and is expected to consider resolutions addressing a range of country situations, in some instances involving the renewal of the relevant expert mandates. These include:
Interactive Dialogue with the SR on the situation of human rights in Eritrea
Oral update by the High Commissioner on the situation of human rights in Nicaragua
Interactive Dialogue with the SR on the situation of human rights in Belarus
Interactive Dialogue with the Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic
Interactive Dialogue with the High Commissioner on the human rights situation of Rohingya Muslims and other minorities in Myanmar and Interactive Dialogue with the SR on the situation of human rights in Myanmar
Interactive Dialogue with the SR on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territories occupied since 1967
Interactive Dialogue with the High Commissioner on Ukraine and interim report of the Secretary-General on human rights in Crimea
Interactive Dialogue with the Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in the Central African Republic
Council programme, appointments and resolutions
During the organisational meeting for the 47th session held on 7 June the President of the Human Rights Council presented the programme of work. It includes seven panel discussions. States also announced at least 22 proposed resolutions. Read here the reports presented this session.
The President of the Human Rights Council will propose seven candidates for the following sevent mandates:
The Independent Expert on the enjoyment of human rights by persons with albinism;
The Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy;
The Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences;
Two members of the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent (one from Asia-Pacific States and one from Eastern European States);
A member of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, from Western European and other States;
The Independent Expert on the effects of foreign debt and other related international financial obligations of States on the full enjoyment of all human rights, particularly economic, social and cultural rights
As of 8 June, however, the recommended candidates list was only available for four of the above positions, due to challenges among the Consultative Group, the five individuals appointed from each UN region to interview and shortlist candidates. It is critical that the process overcome such delays, so as to avoid any protection gaps arising from a failure to appoint a new mandate holder.
Resolutions to be presented to the Council’s 47th session
The following resolutions were announced (States leading the resolution in brackets):
Menstrual hygiene, human rights and gender equality (Africa Group)
Elimination of harmful practices (Africa Group)
Cooperation with and assistance to Ukraine in the field of human rights (Ukraine)
Situation of human rights of Rohingya Muslims and other minorities in Myanmar (OIC)
The protection of human rights in the context of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) (Brazil, Colombia, Mozambique, Portugal, Thailand)
The human rights situation in the Syrian Arab Republic, on missing persons and enforced disappearances (France, Germany, Italy, Jordan, Kuwait, Netherlands, Qatar, Turkey, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, United States of America)
The human rights situation in Belarus, mandate renewal (EU)
The human rights situation in Eritrea, mandate renewal (EU)
Negative impact of corruption on the enjoyment of human rights ( Austria, Argentina, Brazil, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Morocco, Poland, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland)
Enhancement of international cooperation in the field of human rights (Azerbaijan on behalf of NAM)
New and emerging digital technologies and human rights (Austria, Brazil, Denmark, Morocco, Republic of Korea, Singapore)
Human rights of migrants (Mexico)
Impact of arms transfers on human rights (Ecuador, Peru)
Civil society space (Chile, Ireland, Japan, Sierra Leone, Tunisia)
Realizing the equal enjoyment of the right to education by every girl (UAE, UK)
Preventable maternal mortality and morbidity (Colombia, New Zealand, Estonia)
The promotion, protection and enjoyment of human rights on the Internet (Brazil, Nigeria, Sweden, Tunisia, United States of America)
Accelerating efforts to eliminate all forms of violence against women (Canada)
Right to education (Portugal)
Adoption of Universal Periodic Review (UPR) reports
During this session, the Council will adopt the UPR working group reports on Federated States of Micronesia, Lebanon, Mauritania, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Australia, Saint Lucia, Nepal, Oman, Austria, Myanmar, Rwanda, Georgia, Sao Tome and Principe and Nauru.
ISHR supports human rights defenders in their interaction with the UPR. We publish and submit briefing papers regarding the situation facing human rights defenders in some States under review and advocate for the UPR to be used as a mechanism to support and protect human rights defenders on the ground.
Panel discussions
During each Council session, panel discussions are held to provide member States and NGOs with opportunities to hear from subject-matter experts and raise questions. Seven panel discussions are scheduled for this upcoming session:
High-level panel discussion on the multisectoral prevention of and response to female genital mutilation
Panel discussion on the tenth anniversary of the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights
Panel discussion on the human rights of older persons in the context of climate change [accessible panel]
Annual full-day discussion on the human rights of women, one on violence against women and girls with disabilities, and another on gender-equal socioeconomic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic
Quadrennial panel discussion on promoting human rights through sport and the Olympic ideal [accessible panel]. Theme: The potential of leveraging sport and the Olympic ideal for promoting human rights for young people
Annual thematic panel discussion on technical cooperation and capacity-building. Theme: Technical cooperation to advance the right to education and ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning for all
Early last December, water futures were traded on Wall Street for the first time in history. Introduced by CME Group, the contracts are linked to the California water index and intended to measure water scarcity for major consumers (Chipman, 2020). The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to water condemned the creation of a water futures market, concerned that it would invite speculative trading (OHCHR, 2020). However, proponents of the water futures market contend that futures trading will safeguard water access as the American Southwest experiences increasingly dangerous droughts (Fickling, 2020). What both parties fail to acknowledge is that, regardless of its efficacy, the water futures market represents another frontier at which the state retreats from its obligations to the public and normalises the intercession of private interests into the distribution of an essential resource. Human rights practitioners are familiar with the concept of progressive realisation and the significance of norm-building. The water futures market embodies a progressive degradation of our recognition of water as a vital public good. Also, the financialisation of water resources cannot be extricated from its context: though a water protection bill has recently been introduced in Congress, the US has a demonstrable record of contempt for the equal allocation of water resources.
California’s water management systems support the country’s most populous state of 40 million residents, as well as millions of acres of irrigated farmland, and CME Group has directed their marketing materials primarily to California farmers (CME Group, 2021). The process of futures trading is meant to proceed thusly: during January, farmers will purchase futures contracts for their anticipated water shortfall, for example, 100 acre feet of water. If the spot price (the actual price of water rights) and the futures price are each at about $500, farmers will post margin, paying a percentage of the $50,000 total price to secure their position. If the spot price and futures price have risen when they later require that water, farmers will close their position and sell their futures contracts the day prior to purchasing water rights, having offset the increased spot price with the sale of their futures contracts.
Beyond the UN, multiple outlets have observed that the creation of a water futures market could lead to speculative trading (Tappe, 2020; Hodgson, 2020). If hedge funds and banks were to bet on water futures contracts, driving up the price, the futures price could influence the spot price and provoke an affordability crisis for the state of California, repeating in miniature the global food crisis of 2007 when, as a result of commodity trading, grain prices soared, exacerbating global hunger (Kaufman, 2011). Burgeoning water prices could threaten food production, reduce the performance of California’s environmental protection programs, and increase the costs of urban living, precipitating a cascade of potential human rights violations (Public Policy Institute of California, 2019).
However, analysts have discounted the possibility of trade-induced price inflation. Washington Post contributor David Fickling argues that water’s abundance and weight preclude it from becoming the next site of global commodities investment, therefore decreasing the likelihood of speculative activity (2020). Fundamentally, water is difficult to ship and, relative to other major commodities, easy to acquire. In a column for Global Water Intelligence, Christopher Gasson concurs and asserts that water is only valuable if it is used, thereby necessitating that investors commit to its distribution (2021). Camilla Hodgson joins them in the Financial Times, stressing the significance of the limits imposed by the water market’s modesty and inherent regionality (2020). In 2019, just over 200 transactions were made in the water rights spot market in California, a miniscule number in the context of global commodity trading (Hodgson, 2020). Further, water scarcity in the American Southwest is not necessarily a meaningful indication of global water scarcity. Ultimately, it is likely that the localised nature of the California water market will insulate it from injurious speculative activity. Furthermore, several analysts anticipate that CME’s projections will hold true, allowing futures trading to operate as a means by which to improve the distribution of water resources.
Despite these innate counterchecks, the increased financialisation of water is nonetheless worthy of scrutiny. The futures market is just one factor in California’s water management, which has for decades been marked by profiteering and privatisation. The state’s water rights spot market is labyrinthian, often capricious, and attracts exploitative private investment. Almarai, a Saudi Arabian agricultural conglomerate, owns 15,000 acres of California farmland and, with the protection of a 150-year-old claim, enjoys unrestricted access to the Colorado river (Markham, 2019). Harvard University’s endowment manager has also been accruing water rights in California, with the value of their investments almost tripling in five years (Gold, 2018). And several million state residents rely on privately held facilities for the distribution of their daily water (Water Education Foundation). These are among the entities most likely to benefit from the water futures market, while small-scale users are expected to be marginalised (OHCHR, 2020).
In July 2020, the previous Special Rapporteur on the right to water issued a report for the UN General Assembly which noted that “the financialisation of the water and sanitation sector creates a disconnect between the interests of the company owners and the goal of realising the human rights to water and sanitation” (UN General Assembly, 2020: 8). The same report also indicated that private sector involvement in water distribution tends to exacerbate inequality of water resources, as private entities only allocate services to areas that provide financial returns (UN General Assembly, 2020: 17). Researchers at UC Irvine confirm this analysis, finding that low-income and rural communities are disproportionately affected by water quality issues (Science Daily, 2018). Water futures trading is merely one aspect of increased financialisation, which is itself simply one element in the processes of privatisation. But, even if financial analysts are correct in their predictions that the water futures enterprise will have a positive impact on water distribution, futures trading will legitimate the ongoing advancement of governance by market logic and the detachment of water management from human rights priorities.
The Water Affordability, Transparency, Equity and Reliability Act was recently reintroduced in Congress; if it passes, it will fund the improvement of water infrastructure and includes language that prioritises disenfranchised populations (Congresswoman Brenda Lawrence, 2021). It remains to be seen if the legislation will be signed into law or if the subsequent application is effective in its mandate—there is ample historical precedent to suggest that state funds are often monopolised by subcontractors and consultancy firms to the detriment of the beneficiaries of the appropriated funding. While the WATER Act is promising and stands in contrast to the futures market and its intrinsic prioritisation of investment interests, it arrives after decades in which the US made evident it’s lack of commitment to the equitable distribution of water resources.
Beyond California’s perpetual droughts, the US is no stranger to water emergencies. The winter of 2021 alone saw disastrous mismanagement of water resources in Texas and Mississippi. In the past decade, there have been a number of contiguous water crises, often affecting Black, indigenous, and immigrant communities at disproportionate rates (National Resources Defense Council, 2019). Perhaps most notoriously, the Flint crisis exposed the country’s indifference to basic water needs of its citizens. Newark subsequently experienced an identical lead-poisoning crisis, while in Alabama the failures of wastewater management in another primarily Black community has provoked a public health disaster that the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty indicated was unprecedented in a ‘developed’ country such as the US (Okeowo, 2020). A 2019 report by the US Water Alliance also found that indigenous Americans were the most likely of any demographic to be disenfranchised of water access (2019). In the Navajo Nation, tribal members are sometimes required to travel for miles to purchase water that is fit for consumption, as the groundwater has been tainted by abandoned uranium mines (Morales, 2019).
In a history filled with neglectful management of water, the introduction of a water futures market represents an implicit hierarchisation of profit motives above fundamental human rights. More research will be needed to understand how the water futures market actually affects the distribution of water, as well as its overuse, as its current structure offers little incentive for usage reduction (Hodgson, 2020). In the event that the futures market functions as envisioned by CME group, its positive impact would nonetheless entrench the encroachment of private interests into the distribution of a vital public good. Despite an increasing appreciation for the significance of global business to the realisation of human rights, states remain the ultimate guarantors of those rights, and the volatile, profit-driven logic of private investment is not an acceptable equivalent.
Rising tensions between Australia and China have raised the question of where New Zealand would stand if things escalate further.
Close trans-Tasman friend and ally Australia is taking a more aggressive stance against China – with South China Sea and Taiwan potential flashpoints.
And recent statements from its defence minister about a possible conflict with China have caused some alarm – a prospect that could put New Zealand under real pressure – to pick a side.
New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Nanaia Mahuta said she could not comment on “prospective thinking about what may or may not happen”, adding New Zealand “values” the important relationship with Australia.
It did “make for an uncomfortable situation” to have Australia and China at loggerheads and “where you see your neighbours being treated in such a punitive way”, she said.
Australia was in a different position to New Zealand and “obviously see things in a certain way, because they have neighbours and are in a part of the region where they feel several things more acutely and we will remain closely connected in the way that we share our view of what’s happening in our region”, Mahuta said.
‘Nimble, respectful and consistent’
If it came down to taking sides – what would New Zealand do?
“New Zealand is very aware that we are a small country in the Pacific,” Mahuta said.
“And we are also aware that the nature of our relationships, both bilateral and multilateral, require us to be nimble, respectful, consistent and predictable in the way that we treat our nearest neighbours, but also those who we have bilateral relationships with, no matter whether they are big or small relationships.”
Leading defence analyst Dr Paul Buchanan said storm clouds were gathering and armed conflict was now a “distinct possibility”.
“Maybe not directly between the Australians and the Chinese, unless there’s a miscalculation involving a Australian warship, doing freedom of navigation exercises in the South China Sea,” Dr Buchanan said.
“But more than likely, as part of a dispute that gets out of control and Australia, as part of a coalition of countries, probably led by the United States, that is duty bound to respond, so for example, Taiwan.”
If such a conflict erupted, that would leave New Zealand “between a rock and hard place” because it would be asked to join that coalition, Dr Buchanan said.
That would require some “hard decisions … that have been in the making for well over a decade when we decided to throw most of our trade ships into the Chinese market”.
“Now we’re in on the horns of a dilemma and a bit of a quandary should our security partners ask us to join them in the common defence of a country suffering from Chinese aggression,” he said.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Rising tensions between Australia and China have raised the question of where New Zealand would stand if things escalate further.
Close trans-Tasman friend and ally Australia is taking a more aggressive stance against China – with South China Sea and Taiwan potential flashpoints.
And recent statements from its defence minister about a possible conflict with China have caused some alarm – a prospect that could put New Zealand under real pressure – to pick a side.
New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Nanaia Mahuta said she could not comment on “prospective thinking about what may or may not happen”, adding New Zealand “values” the important relationship with Australia.
It did “make for an uncomfortable situation” to have Australia and China at loggerheads and “where you see your neighbours being treated in such a punitive way”, she said.
Australia was in a different position to New Zealand and “obviously see things in a certain way, because they have neighbours and are in a part of the region where they feel several things more acutely and we will remain closely connected in the way that we share our view of what’s happening in our region”, Mahuta said.
‘Nimble, respectful and consistent’ If it came down to taking sides – what would New Zealand do?
“New Zealand is very aware that we are a small country in the Pacific,” Mahuta said.
“And we are also aware that the nature of our relationships, both bilateral and multilateral, require us to be nimble, respectful, consistent and predictable in the way that we treat our nearest neighbours, but also those who we have bilateral relationships with, no matter whether they are big or small relationships.”
Leading defence analyst Dr Paul Buchanan said storm clouds were gathering and armed conflict was now a “distinct possibility”.
“Maybe not directly between the Australians and the Chinese, unless there’s a miscalculation involving a Australian warship, doing freedom of navigation exercises in the South China Sea,” Dr Buchanan said.
“But more than likely, as part of a dispute that gets out of control and Australia, as part of a coalition of countries, probably led by the United States, that is duty bound to respond, so for example, Taiwan.”
If such a conflict erupted, that would leave New Zealand “between a rock and hard place” because it would be asked to join that coalition, Dr Buchanan said.
That would require some “hard decisions … that have been in the making for well over a decade when we decided to throw most of our trade ships into the Chinese market”.
“Now we’re in on the horns of a dilemma and a bit of a quandary should our security partners ask us to join them in the common defence of a country suffering from Chinese aggression,” he said.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
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