 |
| Mr Ebenezer Teye Addo, Western Regional Minister |
By Eko Mensah
A battle is raging over the sale of land opposite the
Takoradi Airport.
The Sekondi-Takoradi
Metropolitan Assembly has released the land for the building of a shopping
Mall, but the Air force insists that the land in question is located on the
flight path on the airport and is therefore unsuitable for the project.
Prominent citizens, including
businessman, Francis Eghan and the Association of West Tanokrom Garages
(Artisans) are also kicking against the release of the land arguing that it
will adversely affect the livelihood of about 2000 residents.
In a press release Mr Eghan wrote
“In the case of the land above, it was released through unilateral negotiation
by the Metro Chief Executive without the involvement of the General Assembly.
“The Chief executive failed to take
into account the plight of over 2000 workers on the site who have apprentices
and dependants at home,” he wrote.
Mr. Eghan called on the western
Regional Minister to set up a Committee of Enquiry into the circumstance
leading to the release of the land.
In a petition to the President, the
Association of West Tanokrom Garages whose members are the current occupiers of
the land objected to attempts to relocate them to Kansawrodo/ Mampong.
Members of the Association who spoke
to The Insight claimed that their business would suffer gravely if they are
relocated.
They suggested that the shopping
mall should rather be relocated to Kansawrodo/Mampong.
The case of the Airforce is clearly
set out in minutes of a meeting with residents which is published unedited
below.
FROM AIRFORCE STATION TAKORADI
ISSUES ON LOCATION OF SHOPPING MALL NEAR JUBILEE PARK IN RELATION TO
TAKORADI AIRFIELD
1. Pursuant to your visits and discussions with the Base, a technical visit
was made to the proposed site of the Shopping Mall and evaluation made of the effect of the position 'of the
buildings on the flight operations of the airport. It is worthy to note certain
technical details before commencement
of the project.
2. An approach to (runway is the extended centerline of the
runway out to about 8 kilometers from
the start of the runway. For precision approaches using an instrument landing system, the approach is funnel shaped with the
wider end farther from the
runway. At about lkm to the air-field, this funnel shaped approach narrows to
about 500m left and right of the runway centreline. This is the path which the
aircraft can fly through on its landing
approach. This area about 2 - 3 kms along the centreline and 500m'left and right of the centreline is to be kept
free of obstructions. For' non-precision approaches like that of Takoradi
airfield, the lateral limits are about 800m left and right of the extended
Runway centreline. For natural obstructions, like the Windy Ridge hill, the approach is flown such that any lateral errors are to the east. This hill
and the approach considerations are the reason why Takoradi Airport has a
right-hand circuit pattern which is not the aviation norm. Ghana Civil Aviation Authority
is in charge of granting structures close to the airport, permission to
build, after ascertaining the impact of the structures on the aviation traffic.
It is doubtful if they will
approve of these structures so close to runway.
3. The proposed site of the mall is to cover an area which borders the Jubilee Park on the eastern side and is bounded by a culvert/stream along the western side. The most-distant point of the proposed and site is about 450 metres from the start of Runway 22. Part of the proposed site with a planned 5 storey building lies within the lateral limits of the runway centreline. Considering that the shopping mall will consist of at least a building with 5/6 storey’s, this will mean an obstruction of about 35-45 metres less than 100m laterally from the extended runway path.
4. - Takoradi Airport uses its
right-hand circuit pattern for air traffic for training or even circling to land in bad weather. This right hand
circuit is to the west of the runway and extends laterally from the runway
centreline about 2nm to the west. It is
known as the 'live' side of the runway. In
the ‘live’ side of the runway, no obstructions like masts or tall buildings are
allowed due to the fact that in very bad weather aircraft can fly as low
as 500 - 700 feet to make a necessary landing. This-lack of tall structures can
be verified by anyone who looks at the west side of the airfield from any part
of the runway or even - from the proposed site of the shopping mall. this is in contrast with the 'dead' side that
is the east side of the runway, which has all the tall masts and antennas in
the town. The proposed site of the shopping mall is in the path of aircraft on
'right base' for Runway 22 and especially so for the heavy helicopter traffic
that the airport receives. The structures will be an obstruction to the aircraft using
the circuit pattern.
5. Takoradi Airport is
home to No 1 Squadron, the premier training squadron of the Ghana Air Force. A lot of basic and conversion training is
done on the Base by new pilots. As part of
the training, instrument approaches with baa weather circuits are flown on the
live side of the runway. These circuits ore flown at any safe height that
allows makes a landing possible end can be as low as 300 feet. Any obstruction
in the right base will necessitate the air-craft having to fly higher to see the start of Runway 22 meaning it might be unable to land.
6. Please
note that upon a similar technical consideration
and advise from this Base. Ghana
Civil Aviation Authority; the .Jubilee Park was
built and offset to the east to
avoid the runway path. "This is because normally; aircraft are not to fly over assemblies of people at
a height of less than 500 feet and a lateral distance of lnm. The shopping mall
will definitely lead to a concentration
of people at all times and if an aircraft lands
short or crashes into the area, there is likely to be a heavy casualty
count as Takoradi has limited aerial
fire-fighting
capability.
capability.
7. Looking at the above, it is suggested that a thorough
re-examination of the shopping mall proposal be made with inputs from the major
stakeholders especially GCAA, GAF and GNFS. Much as it is desired that
development and creation of jobs be facilitated, doing it at an increased risk
to aviation and fight operations into the Takoradi Airport leaves much to be
desired.
8. Please study the attached photos which show the location
of the planned shopping mall in relation to
the runway approach path; it reveals that a shift of the proposed
shopping mall more to the west of the approach
path (beyond the red markings on the
sketch) would be more appropriate in line with flight safely.
Editorial
MINISTER MUST ACT NOW
The minister of Energy needs to act
with urgency to reverse the decision of the National Petroleum Authority to
license VIVO Energy to take over the operations of shell Ghana.
The arrangement stinks to the high
heavens for many reasons.
First, it violates the legal
requirement that companies engaged in the retail of petroleum products in Ghana
should have 50 per cent Ghanaian participation.
Secondly, it is clear to us that the
Board of the National Petroleum Authority was not involved in sanctioning this
deal.
Thirdly, there are real fears that
VIVO’s operations could undermine the development of indigenous oil marketing
companies and lead to the establishment of its monopoly in the market.
Fourthly, there is serious talk of
possible breaches of international anti-corruption acts given the fact that transaction
was not sufficiently open.
We urge the Minister to
act now in the interest of the people of Ghana.
Commercial Colonisation of Africa
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| President John Mahama |
The New Wild West
Dancing to the tune of their corporate benefactors,
governments of the ruling G8 countries are enacting complex agriculture
agreements delivering large tracts of prime cut African soil into the
portfolios of their multinational bedmates.
Desperate for foreign investment, countries
throughout Africa are at the mercy of their new colonial masters national and
international agrochemical corporations, fighting for land, water and control
of the world’s food supplies. Driven overwhelmingly by self-interest and
profit, the current crop of investors differ little from their colonial
ancestors. The means may have changed, but the aim to rape and pillage, no
matter the sincere sounding rhetoric, remains more or less the same.
Regarded by her northern guides as agriculturally
underperforming, Sub-Saharan Africa is seen The African Centre for
Bio-diversity (ACB) relate, as a new frontier, a place to make profits, with an eye on land, food and
biofuels in particular". Africa, then, is the new Wild West; smallholder
farmers and indigenous people are the natives Indians, the multi nationals and their democratically elected representatives or salesmen - the
settlers.
Various initiatives offering what is,
indisputably, much needed support and investment flowing north to south. Key
amongst these is The New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition in Africa
(NAFSNA), designed by the governments of the eight richest economies, for some
of the poorest countries in the world.
The New Alliance was born out of the G8 summit in
May 2012 at Camp David and, according to, War on Want (WoW), has been modelled
on the new vision of private investment in agriculture developed by management
consultants McKinsey in conjunction with the ABCD group of leading grain
traders (ADM, Bunge, Cargill and Louis Dreyfus) and other multinational
agribusiness companies. (Ibid) It has been
written in honourable terms to sit comfortably within the Africa Union’s
Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP), bestowing an
aura of international credibility.
At first glance, The New Alliance, with its
altruistically-gilded aims, appears to be a worthy development. Who amongst us
could argue with the intention as reported by the United Nations (UN), to
achieve sustained and inclusive agricultural growth and raise 50 million people
out of poverty over the next 10 years. The means to achieving this noble quest however, are
skewed, ignoring the rights and needs of small-holder farmers and the wishes of local people who are not consulted during the heady
negotiations with government officials local and national, and the multi
zillion $ corporations who are swarming to buy their ancestral land.
Alliance contracts and deals-done favour wealthy
investors, revealing the underlying, unjust G8 initiatives objective, to open
up African agriculture to multinational agribusiness companies by means of
national cooperation frameworks between African governments, donors and private
sector investors, WoW report.
Poverty reduction
(the principle stated aim of the Alliance), will be achieved we are told, not
by rational methods of sharing and re-distribution, but USAID 05/18/2012
reveal, by aligning the commitments of Africa’s leadership to drive effective country plans and policies for food security. Plans and policies, drafted no doubt in
the hallowed meeting rooms of those driving the New Alliance: the G8
governments and their cohorts including The World Bank and, pulling the policy strings, the agriculture companies sitting behind
them, nestling alongside the pharmaceutical giants and the arms industry
magnates. With African governments anxious to eat at the head table, or at
least be invited into the cocktail chamber they have little choice but to sign
up to such unbalanced plans and policies.
To date, nine African countries (from a continent
of 54 nation states), have committed to The New Alliance. First to sign up
were, Tanzania, Ghana and the West’s favoured ally in the region Ethiopia where
wide ranging human rights violations, including forced displacement and rapes
have reportedly accompanied land sales, and where over 250,000 people in
Gambella have been forced into the Orwellian sounding Villagization Programmes.
Then came Burkina Faso, Mozambique and Cote d’Ivoire, followed by Benin,
Malawi, and Nigeria. It is an agreement dripping with strings that promise to
entangle the innocent and uninformed. After wide-ranging consultations on land and
farming, with officials
from potential partner countries, the results of which were ignored in the
agreements with the G8, deals between African governments and private companies
were facilitated by the World Economic Forum, behind, The Guardian report, firmly closed doors.
Conditional to investment promised by The New
Alliance, African leaders, USAID tell us are committed forced may be a better
word - to refine [government] policies in order to improve investment
opportunities.
In plain English,
African countries are required to, change their trade and agriculture laws to
include ending the free distribution of seeds, relax the tax system and
national export controls and open the doors for profit repatriation (allowing the money as well as the crops to be exported). In Mozambique, as
elsewhere across the continent, local farmers have been evicted from their land
under land sales agreements, and The Guardian 06/10/2013 report, is now obliged
to write new laws promoting what its agreement calls "partnerships"
of this kind. A polluted term,
disguising the real relationship between African governments and the
multi-national investors, which is closer to master and maid than equal
collaborators.
The Alliance offers a combination of public and private money to African countries
willing to take the G8 plunge into international political-economic duplicity,
with, ACB relate the large multinational seed, fertiliser and agrochemical
companies setting the agenda and philanthropic institutions (like AGRA and
others) establishing the institutional and infrastructural mechanisms to
realise this agenda.
Britain has
pledged £395 million of foreign aid whilst, according to the UN over 45 local
and multinational companies have expressed their intent to invest
over $3 billion across the agricultural value chain in Grow Africa countries [a
Programme of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) established
by the African Union in 2003.].
In order to get their hands on some of the corporations
billions however, African nations are required to change their seed laws, trade
laws and land ownership in order to prioritise corporate profits over local
food needs, Mozambique e.g. is
contracted, The Guardian tell us to systematically cease
distribution of free and unimproved seeds", and is drawing up new laws
granting intellectual property rights (IPR) of seeds, that will "promote
private sector investment". In other words, laws are being written that allow
foreign companies investors (a word used to mislead and bestow legitimacy) - to
grab the land of their African partners, patent their seeds and monopolise
their food markets. In Ghana, Tanzania and Ivory Coast, similar regulations sit
on the table waiting to be rubber-stamped.
The re-writing of seed laws, along with the fact
that these unbalanced deals allow big multinational seed, fertiliser and
agrochemical companies such as Yara, Monsanto, Syngenta and Cargill to set the
agenda, is a major concern
expressed by environmental NGO’s and campaigners, Reuters 06/20/2013 report.
These are concerns that the initiating G8 governments, were they at all
troubled by the impact of their meddling, should share.
The wide ownership,
by a small number of huge agro-chemical companies of
the rights to seeds and fertilisers, is creating, the UN in their report on the
Right to Food, state: monopoly privileges to plant breeders and patent-holders
through the tools of intellectual property. This growing trend, facilitated through
the support of the G8 governments is placing more and more control of the
worldwide food supply in their hands, and is causing, the poorest farmers [to]
become increasingly dependent on expensive inputs, creating the risk of
indebtedness in the face of unstable incomes. India is a case in question where farmers strangled by debt
are committing suicide at a rate of two per hour.
Investment Support Sharing
African farmers, and
civil society along with 25 British campaign groups
including War on Want, Friends of the Earth, The Gaia Foundation and the World
Development Movement, have declared their objections to the New Alliance and
asked that the government withhold the £395 million so generously pledged by
Prime Minister Cameron. The African civil society are in no doubt that opening
markets and creating space for multinationals to secure profits lie at the
heart of the G8 intervention,
they recognise the New Alliance is a poisoned chalice, and they are right to reject it,
asserts Kirtana Chandrasekaran of Friends of the Earth (FoE).
Having made a
continental mess of their own countries economies, not to mention the
environmental mayhem caused by their neo-liberal economic policies, It is with
unabashed colonial arrogance that the G8 governments deem to tell
African countries what to do with their land and how best to do it. Not only do
they have no genuine interest in Africa, save what can be gained from it, but
they have no legitimacy to intervene in matters of food, hunger and land tenure
in Africa or any other part of the world, as WoW make clear. The New Alliance, according to David
Cameron, is a great combination of promoting good governance and helping Africa
to feed its people. He and the rest of the G8 sitting comfortably
club, are, FoE state, pretending to be tackling hunger and land grabbing in
Africa while backing a scheme that will ruin the lives of hundreds of thousands
of small farmers. This new deal is a
pro-corporate assault on African nations, providing investment and support
opportunities for greedy investors, looking to further expand their corporate
assets with the support of participating governments obliged to provide a
selection box of state incentives.
The ending of hunger in sub-Saharan Africa, India
and elsewhere, will not be brought about by allowing large tracts of land to be
bought up by corporations whose only interest is in maximizing return on
investment. Far from providing investment and support for the people of Africa,
The Alliance is a mask for exploitation and profiteering: True investment in
Africa is investment in the people of Africa; the smallholder farmers, the
women and children, the communities across the continent.
It involves working collectively, consulting,
encouraging participation and crucially sharing. Sharing of knowledge,
experience and technology, sharing the natural resources the land, food and
water, the minerals and other resources equitably amongst the people of Africa
and indeed the wider world. Such radical, commonsense ideas would go a long way
to creating not only food security but harmony, trust and social justice which
just might bring about peace.
Pregnant Anti-War Soldier Sent to Prison
 |
| Kimberly Rivera and kids |
By Amy
Goodman
"ULTIMATELY,
the success of the nation depends on the character of its citizens." So
said George W. Bush in his speech at the dedication of his presidential library
in Texas. The library officially opened to the public May 1, the 10th
anniversary of his famous "Mission Accomplished" speech aboard the USS
Abraham Lincoln, anchored just off the coast of San Diego. Bush, in his
remarks at the library, along with President Barack Obama, former Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice and others all failed to mention the word
"Iraq."
Violence in Iraq surged this April. In waves of attacks and
counterattacks that resembled the high point of sectarian violence there from
2006 to 2008, 460 people were killed, and 1,219 people were injured, mostly
civilians. At least 13 were killed on May 1, portending an equally violent
month.
Her attorney, James Branum, who defends soldiers who resist deployment, told me: "She felt that she morally could not do what she was asked to do; at the same time, she realized that she would put other soldiers in danger if she didn’t pull the trigger when the time came. She talked to a chaplain about it. The chaplain largely pushed her aside, did not give her the counsel that she really needed." The chaplain should have advised her that she could apply to be a conscientious objector.
Not knowing what her options were, while on leave in Texas in January 2007, Kimberly decided she could not return to war. With her husband, Mario, and their two young children, she drove to Canada, and settled in Toronto as she sought refugee status. She and Mario had two more children there.
Canada has a long tradition as a refuge for war resisters. During the Vietnam War, tens of thousands (the exact number is unknown) of young men fled the U.S. to avoid the draft, refusing to fight. After the war, most were granted amnesty and returned home. In 2004, Jeremy Hinzman became the first U.S. soldier known to flee there in opposition to the Iraq War. The War Resisters Support Campaign was formed in Toronto shortly thereafter. At least 11 have been granted permanent residency in Canada, recognizing their refugee status. Kimberly Rivera has this group’s support, along with that of members of the Canadian Parliament, Amnesty International and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize winner. Despite the precedent and the outpouring of support, the Canadian government denied her refugee application. She turned herself in to U.S. authorities at the border on September 20, 2012.
At her court-martial at Fort Carson in Colorado, the judge sentenced her to 14 months’ imprisonment, which was lowered to 10 months based on a plea agreement. James Branum said of the sentence: "The prosecutor at trial said that he asked the judge to give a harsh sentence to send a message to the war resisters in Canada. Many other resisters receive little jail time or no jail time. And people that desert, generally, over 90 percent do no jail time at all. And so, we feel that Kim was singled out."
Kimberly Rivera refused to shoot at children in Iraq. She had the courage to dissent, to resist. Now she sits in prison, pregnant, away from her husband, Mario, and four young children: Christian, 11; Rebecca, 8; Katie, 5; and Gabriel, 2. George W. Bush was right when he said that the success of the nation depends on the character of its citizens - citizens, that is, like Kimberly Rivera.
Morsi ousted to stop Egypt military attack on Syria’s Assad
By
Dr. Webster G. Tarpley
Convincing
evidence suggests that Egypt’s President Mohammad Morsi was ousted from power
in a military coup in part because the Egyptian army feared he was plotting to
order them to invade Syria in support of the embattled death squad insurgency
against the Assad government there.
The combination of Morsi’s aggressive designs against Syria,
together with some trial balloons from presidential circles about a possible
conflict with Ethiopia, plus the massive anti-Morsi demonstrations organized by
the National Salvation Front and the Tamarod movement, convinced military
leaders that the incompetent and erratic Morsi, who had destroyed his own
popularity by selling out to the demands of the International Monetary Fund
last November, represented an intolerable risk for Egypt.
According to the Washington Post, the dissatisfaction
of the Egyptian military with Morsi “peaked in June, when Morsi stood by twice
as officials around him called for Egyptian aggression against Ethiopia and
Syria, threatening to suck Egypt into conflicts that it could ill afford,
former military officials said.”
Morsi’s call for Holy War against Assad came just three days after
US Secretary of State John Kerry, at a meeting of the Principals’ Committee of
the US Government, tried to ram through an immediate bombing campaign against
Damascus, but had to settle for the option of arming the Syrian terrorist
opposition, leading many observers to conclude that the Egyptian president was
acting as part of a US anti-Syrian strategy.
June 15: Morsi Breaks Diplomatic Relations with Damascus
The beginning of the end for Egypt’s first elected president came
in mid-June, when he attended a militant Islamist conference “in support of the
Syrian uprising” at a 20,000-seat indoor stadium in Cairo. As the packed hall
chanted and applauded deliriously, Morsi announced: “We have decided to close
down the Syrian Embassy in Cairo. The Egyptian envoy in Damascus will also be
withdrawn. The people of Egypt and its army will not leave Syrians until their
rights are granted and the new elected leadership is chosen.”
By thus breaking off diplomatic relations with another Arab state,
Morsi was joining the dubious company of the NATO-backed puppet regimes in
Libya and Tunisia, the only Arabs so far to have called home their envoys from
Damascus. And for Cairo, such a move has far greater significance, given that
Egypt and Syria were politically united between 1958 and 1961 in a single
nation as the United Arab Republic, one of the fruits of President Nasser’s
Pan-Arab Socialism.
Using the now familiar Moslem Brotherhood doubletalk, Morsi urged
NATO to impose a no-fly zone over Syria - a measure which would entail a
bombing campaign of many weeks, with inevitable heavy losses for the Syrian
population. But Morsi them shifted his ground to condemn foreign interference in
the Syrian conflict, declaiming that “Hezbollah must leave Syria; there is no
place for Hezbollah in Syria.” Morsi was accompanied to the anti-Syria rally by
his top political affairs and foreign policy advisers, one of them a leading
Salafist.
In a crescendo of doubletalk, Morsi intoned: “The Egyptian people
have stood by the Lebanese people and Hezbollah against the [Israeli] attack in
2006, and today we stand against Hezbollah for Syria.” According to the
Jerusalem Post, he also asserted that Syria was the target of “a campaign of
extermination and planned ethnic cleansing fed by regional and international
states,” which the Israelis claimed was a veiled reference to Hezbollah and
Iran.
Responding to the Cairo anti-Syrian rally, a Syrian government official
told the news agency SANA that Morsi had joined the “conspiracy of incitement
led by the United States and Israel against Syria by announcing the cutting of
ties yesterday…. Syria is confident that this decision does not represent the
will of the Egyptian people.” This official branded Morsi’s severing of
diplomatic relations as “irresponsible… the Syrian Arab Republic condemns this
irresponsible position.”
Sunni Extremists Declare Jihad against Syria, Morsi Silent
The Cairo crowd had been warmed up for Morsi by extremist Sunni
preachers like Mohammed Hassan and Mohammed Abdel-Maqsoud (leader of the
Islamic Legitimate Body of Rights and Reformation), who both ranted about the
“necessity of declaring Jihad in Syria, in which Syrians and any capable Moslems
shall take part.” There were also calls to Morsi to keep Shiites out of Egypt,
on the basis that they are “unclean.” About 1% of Egypt’s population are
Shiites, and about 10% are Coptic Christians.
According to the Irish Times, “at the June 15th rally,
Sunni Muslim clerics used the word ‘infidels’ to denounce both the Shias
fighting to protect Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and the non-Islamists that
oppose Mr. Morsi at home. Mr. Morsi himself called for foreign intervention in
Syria against Mr. Assad…”
On June 13, Morsi had attended a gathering of sectarians from
across the Middle East labeling itself “The Position of the Nation’s Scholars
on the Developments in Syria.” Here he had rubbed elbows with the fiery
preacher Qaradawi, who regularly incites violence against Syria before an
audience of some 60 million viewers worldwide on his program entitled “Shariah
and Life,” broadcast on the Al Jazeera Arabic service from Qatar. One June 13
there was already much talk of jihad against Syria, which was obliquely
endorsed by Morsi’s Presidential Coordinator for Foreign Affairs Khaled
al-Qazzaz, who noted that the Egyptian government would not undertake any
measures against Egyptian citizens who go to fight in Syria, since the right to
travel is always open. It was practically a call for volunteers.
Egyptian Generals Warn Morsi: Army’s Task Is Defending Borders
Egyptian military leaders were deeply concerned about the
inevitable radicalization of Islamist militants who might return from waging
war against the Assad government in Syria. But they were most immediately
alarmed by the idea that Morsi might try to deploy the considerable forces of
the Egyptian army against Syria. They quickly distanced themselves from the
reckless plan for aggression which the president had been toying with at the
June 15 mass rally. As the Irish Timesreported, Morsi’s bellicose
bluster lead to “a veiled rebuke from the army, which issued an apparently
bland but sharp-edged statement the next day stressing that its only role was guarding
Egypt’s borders.”
According to one anonymous military source reflecting the views of
the Army staff quoted by the Irish Times, “the armed forces were
very alarmed by the Syrian conferences at a time the state was going through a
major political crisis.” Yasser El-Shimy, an analyst with the International
Crisis Group, stressed that from the point of view of the Army, Morsi’s
performance at the Syria rally had crossed “a national security red line” by
prodding Egyptians to fight abroad, thus threatening to create a new generation
of violent jihadists.
Morsi’s anti-Syrian turn was also a deeply unpopular among the top
bureaucrats of the Egyptian government, many of whom had advised him not to go
down this path, reported Al Ahram Online on June 16. According to this paper,
some powerful bureaucrats saw the potential damage as “irreversible,” and
viewed the breaking of diplomatic relations as “a decision made by the
President against the advice of top bureaucratic aides….” This account also
stressed that, by praising the mediation efforts of Saudi Arabia and Turkey,
but by pointedly excluding Iran, Morsi was jettisoning the four power contact
group he himself had proposed for a Syrian settlement at the nonaligned
conference in Tehran last August. “This would simply mean that Egypt has
decided that its relations with Tehran would have to be sacrificed in favor of
winning the support of Washington, and maybe even Riyadh,” said one source
quoted by Al Ahram.
Egypt’s Generals Fear “Devastating Sunni-Shiite War”
These developments were considered extremely ominous by top
Egyptian civil servants. As Al Ahram wrote, “Egypt, according to concerned
quarters in Egyptian bureaucracy, is now being driven to take part in a
‘devastating Sunni-Shiite war’ that could wreck the entire region. The concern
is not just about Syria, but about the entire Arab Mashraq, including Lebanon
and Iraq particularly. Al Ahram pointed to a possible additional venal motive
for Morsi and his controllers in the Muslim Brotherhood: “Egypt has been trying
to break the ice with Saudi Arabia for a few weeks now in the hope of
soliciting desperately needed financial aid. Saudi Arabia has been adopting a
strictly sectarian approach towards developments in Syria since the beginning
of the uprising there, and all the more so since the entrance of Hezbollah into
the war in Syria on the side of the Assad regime.”
In a country like present-day Egypt, a coup d’état should not be
undertaken lightly. But one consideration which might justify such coup is the
urgent need to prevent an erratic and incompetent ruler like Morsi from
embroiling the country in a ruinous foreign war. To be able to respond to
Morsi’s war talk in such a timely and decisive way, the Egyptian army must
contain officers of exceptional intelligence and determination, gifted with
that quality which Machiavelli called virtu and von Clausewitz called
Entschloßenheit. (Since the firing of General Douglas MacArthur in 1951, this
quality has been largely extinct from the US officer corps.) We may thus be
justified in hoping that the great tradition of President Nasser is alive among
Egyptian military and government leaders.
Leftists See Morsi as Cat’s Paw For US Against Syria
The leftist April 6 Movement (aka Democratic Front) suggested that
Morsi was acting as a tool of the US campaign against Syria, saying in a
statement that “The decision to open the doors of jihad is coming from
Washington sponsored by … Salafist Sheikhs.” The anti-Morsi umbrella
organization Tamarod added that “Morsi’s speech reveals that the Syria file has
been handed over from Qatar to Saudi Arabia and Egypt and that Morsi is
answering America’s instructions.”
The fateful rally attended by Morsi was backed by the Asala Party,
a Salafist group, by a number of prominent Salafist preachers, by the Islamic
Legitimate Body of Right and Reformation, and by the Guidance Bureau of the
Muslim Brotherhood, meaning Morsi’s own controllers. Another sponsor was the
Gama Islamiya movement.
As Morsi encountered more and more hostility from centrists and
leftists, he attempted during the last phase to gain backing from Salafist and
other doctrinaire and holier-than-thou forces to his right. This included the
appointment of the “retired terrorist” al Khayat of Gama Islamiya as the governor
of Luxor province, the site of the Valley of the Kings, the Temple of Karnak,
and one of the greatest international tourist destinations. In 1997, a
terrorist action had resulted in the deaths of almost seventy foreign tourists,
who were killed deliberately as part of a campaign designed to discourage
foreign infidels from coming into Egypt. Khayat was a member of the political
arm of Gama Islamiya, and his appointment was hardly designed to encourage
tourism.
Post-Qusayr Climate of Imperialist Desperation
Since the fall of the Syrian rebel stronghold of Qusayr on June 5,
aggressive circles including Cameron and Hague of the British Tory regime, the
Vichy socialists Hollande and Fabius, the Israelis, the US neocon faction, and
Secretary Kerry have been pressing for immediate military action against Syria
to save the international terrorist forces from as far away as Chechnya and
Afghanistan who now face looming defeat. These efforts have included an
attempted cold coup or palace coup by Kerry in the June 12 meeting of the White
House Principals’ Committee, when his demand to start bombing Syria was blocked
by a combination of military figures and Obama loyalists, including Joint
Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Martin Dempsey. For the aggressors, the
essential problem is the refusal thus far by Obama to launch a large-scale
bombing campaign with several hundred aircraft, followed in all likelihood of
by an invasion requiring several armored and infantry divisions - resources
which the United States simply cannot afford.
The aggressive forces have attempted to accuse the Syrian
government of using chemical weapons. They have also supported the limited
hangout around purported NSA leaker Edward Snowden, whose short-term effect has
been to weaken Obama’s support from his own liberal base, as well as to
undercut his ties to NATO Europe, making the White House more susceptible to
Anglo-French pressure for war. Attempts have been made to goad Turkey into an
attack on Syria, but the embattled Erdogan regime is now determined not to get
out in front on this project.
With the failure of the anti-Syrian Egyptian gambit, London,
Paris, Tel Aviv, the neocons, and Foggy Bottom must now be on the verge of
total hysteria. These are the circumstances in which recourse to a new Gulf of
Tonkin incident or a new false flag terror attack to be blamed on Syria,
Hezbollah, and their allies becomes a clear and present danger.
Morsi Cronies Discuss Striking Ethiopia
Egyptian military is not anxious to undertake armed interventions
abroad. One exception was Egypt’s participation in Operation Desert Shield and
Operation Desert Storm. But since then, Egypt has declined US requests to send
troops to fight in Afghanistan in 2001, and any Iraqi been 2003.
In the spring of this year, tensions rose between Egypt and
Ethiopia when the government in Addis Ababa announced its intention to build a
dam on the Blue Nile, prompting concerns by some in Egypt about future water
supplies downstream. On June 2, with Morsi in attendance, Islamist politicians
recklessly discussed how to sabotage the dam by funding Ethiopian rebel groups,
followed by an attack by the Egyptian air force. Unknown to the participants,
this incendiary discussion was broadcast on live television. Many were long to
see that Morsi did not repudiate these proposals for naked aggression, but
instead later commented that “all options are open.”
Orange violence,
hangover from British misrule
 |
| British Premiere David Cameron |
By
Finian Cunningham
To
many people around the world, the violence in Northern Ireland this weekend may
seem incomprehensible. After all, it is nearly 15 years since the political
conflict in the British province of Ireland was officially declared over, with
the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.
That agreement was meant to signal
the peaceful end of a nearly 30-year conflict that cost the lives of more than
3,000 people, which proportionate to the population of Northern Ireland
represented a huge number of deaths.
Now it appears that street violence
has once again returned with scenes over the weekend from the main city Belfast
looking like a war zone. Dozens of policemen were injured in riots, properties
and vehicles were set ablaze, family homes were targeted by petrol bombs and
hundreds of police reserves had to be flown in from England, Scotland and Wales
to back up the overstretched security forces.
Adding to the bewilderment of
observers is that the rioting crowds are supporters of a seemingly arcane
institution called the Orange Order. Their members dress with strange-looking
orange-coloured sashes, wear quaint black bowler hats and carry swords and
flags to commemorate a battle that occurred more than 320 years ago between
rival Protestant and Catholic English kings on Irish soil.
The commemoration of the Battle of
the Boyne in 1690, in which Protestant King William of Orange defeated the
Catholic King James, is held every year on the 12th July. The annual Orange
marches are held by Protestant descendants of British settlers who invaded the
North of Ireland as part of Britain’s colonial conquest and demographic
engineering against the native, mainly Catholic Irish.
The truth is that every year these
marches are accompanied by violence, even in recent years of so-called peace.
Why? Because the Orange Order was from its inception nearly 200 years ago set
up deliberately as a sectarian instrument of British colonial domination in
Ireland. The Order was exclusively Protestant, pro-British and rabidly
anti-Catholic. The British colonial authorities fomented the Order and its
vicious sectarianism as a way of driving a wedge between the communities and in
particular to subjugate the rebellious Irish.
British partition of Ireland in 1921 into a
nominally independent southern state and a British-run northern province has
always been a bone of contention for the northern pro-independence Irish. They
have felt alienated within a British gerrymandered northern state, denied of
their national rights and dominated by a false pro-British Protestant majority.
For the maintenance of this injustice, successive British governments have
relied on the sectarianism of the Orange Order to enforce their unlawful
imperialist presence in Ireland.
Every year, the pro-British
Orangemen would march through the mainly Catholic nationalist villages, towns
and areas of Belfast in a demonstration of the second-class status that the
native Irish were assigned by the British authorities. The Orange Order and its
triumphal boorish marches were aimed at denigrating the Irish Catholics, to
remind them that the British state bestowed its favor on the Protestant,
pro-Unionist community. The marchers would be draped with British Union flags
and the foulest insults would be chanted or sung while the processions passed
by Catholic homes and churches.
One of the popular songs of hatred
sung by the Orangemen is ‘The Sash’. With drums banging out the rhythm, the
marchers would sing: “We’re up to our knees in Fenian [Catholic] blood.” Can
you imagine the humiliation and terror that Catholic households must have felt
during these grotesque carnivals of vilification conducted right outside their
homes?
Here is another example of the
depraved mentality of these Orange marches. In one mainly Catholic area of
Belfast called the Lower Ormeau a group of five unarmed men in a sporting
office was slaughtered by a British paramilitary death squad in 1992. In
subsequent years when the Orange marchers would parade past the Catholic
residents, the Orangemen would in unison raise their arms with five fingers
pointed at the households and neighbors of the murdered men. That was meant as
a sickening degradation of that community aimed to demonstrate
British-state-sanctioned superiority of the Orangemen.
Typically, the 12th July marches -
thousands of them all across the British territory of Northern Ireland - would
proceed in the morning through the Catholic areas on the way to a designated
gathering point for dozens of Orange lodges emanating from different
directions. All day in the field, the Orangemen and their paramilitary
supporters would listen to bloodcurdling speeches denouncing Catholics as
“enemies of the British state”. Copious amounts of alcohol would be consumed to
fire up the hatred.
Then in the evening, the Orange marchers
would make their return procession through the same Catholic areas that they
had debased earlier that day. That is when the violence would often ignite,
mostly provoked by the Orange side. To compare the Orange Order to the Ku Klux
Klan is a fair assessment. Can you imagine the KKK being allowed to march
through an African-American district of New York, Los Angeles or Georgia? Maybe
a few centuries ago such a supremacist provocation could have happened against
African-Americans. But only a few years ago, in the heyday of the British
Orange state of Northern Ireland with its state-sanctioned discrimination
against Catholics, the Orange Order would be fully facilitated in its
provocative marches by the mainly Protestant-manned police force; and all with
British government tacit approval from London.
Today, such outrageous state backing
of sectarian provocation and humiliation is no longer acceptable or
countenanced. The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 stipulated “equality” for all
cultural traditions in Northern Ireland. The Police Service of Northern Ireland
replaced the hated sectarian and death-squad-colluding Royal Ulster
Constabulary, and a Parades Commission was set up to restrain the worst
excesses of the Orange Order.
Nevertheless, it is still
reprehensible that any Catholic community in Northern Ireland should have to
endure any level of sectarian menace from the Orange Order and its paramilitary
supporters. The latest violence in Northern Ireland has flared because the
Parades Commission ruled that the Orangemen could not make their “traditional”
return march through the Catholic North Belfast area of Ardoyne. During the
decades of conflict, the community in Ardoyne saw hundreds of its people killed
by British-state-sanctioned Protestant death squads. Yet, the same like-minded
bigots in the Orange Order are aggrieved because their days of coat-trailing
triumphalism through Catholic areas like the Ardoyne are now on the wane.
The Orange Order and its supporters
make the absurd claim that such restrictions amount to “an erosion” of
Pro-British Protestant culture. Of course, British media and politicians in
London are wringing their hands over the latest upsurge in Orange
violence.
London-appointed Northern Ireland
minister Theresa Villiers said of the mayhem this weekend: “This sort of
behavior does nothing to promote ‘Britishness’ or the pro-Union cause.”
Blame austerity, not old people, for
the plight of Britain's young
 |
| Elizabeth II |
By
Will Hutton
We
are governed by charlatans. The scale of economic mismanagement of our country
is too little understood. We connive in epic mistakes and unnecessary
suffering, legitimised by a suffocating and destructive economic consensus
whose analytic underpinnings are in shreds – and known to be in shreds. Who
cares for the condition of Britain or its people?
The
facts are brutal. By 2018, 10 years after the financial crisis began, our GDP
will be, cumulatively, 16% lower than it would have been had the crisis not
broken. Only war has provoked such a discontinuity in our growth performance in
modern times. This is imposing incredible and growing hardship on everybody,
except for a few. Average incomes have fallen by 7% from their peak. You can
see the effects in any high street. It's a world where good jobs are scarce,
half a million rely on food
banks,
zero-hour contracts mushroom and the future is dark.
The
young are at the centre of this maelstrom. Between 2008 and 2012, the Institute of Fiscal Studies reports that average incomes for people in their 20s fell by
12% – the largest of any group. The reason is not hard to find: there has been
a collapse in demand for their labour. Firms, fearful for their own future, are
not offering first "entry" jobs on any scale, let alone promoting and
giving opportunity to the young they do employ. A quarter of firms offer no
entry jobs at all. One in five 16- to 24-year-olds is without work.
The
young know the score. Universities and further education colleges across the
country report that incidences of stress are rising sharply as students know
their exams are never more important, with the chances of successfully finding
satisfying work so slim. A society that neglects its young on this scale, and
puts such pressure on them, is one that has lost its way. In today's vengeful
climate, the old are rounded on as the enemies of the young, prospering from
their suffering and not taking their share of the pain. But we shouldn't be
talking in terms of pain and attacking the living standards of the elderly to
bring them down too.
And
yet on Wednesday, George Osborne will proudly tell Parliament that the government has found
the spending cuts to keep the country on course for the biggest shrinkage of
the state ever overseen by any large industrialised country over eight years.
Indeed, as debate rages worldwide over the rights and wrongs of austerity in
the wake of the financial crisis, the IMF's
Fiscal Adjustment in an Uncertain World (April 2013, Methodological Appendix, Table 3) shows that
only three other countries – Iceland, Ireland and Greece – are mounting public
spending cuts that are proportionately larger over the same period. No large
country in the eurozone is being asked to deliver spending austerity on this
scale.
It
is unnecessary and counterproductive. Eurosceptic pundits warn that the
eurozone is about to break up because of its internal strains without ever
recognising that the strain in their own backyard is much more intense. The governor of the Bank of
England intones that Britain's
longest depression and slowest recovery for more than a century is in part
because of the crisis in the eurozone – without acknowledging the extent of
British state-led austerity.
The
austerity and the miserable life chances for our young represent a choice.
Table 12a in the same IMF paper shows that Britain's fiscal position, when
taken in the round, is comfortingly sound. Long-term health and pension
expenditure is firmly under control. Total financing needs – the combination of
meeting the public deficit in any financial year together with refinancing
government debt that matures every year – are running at 13% of GDP, roughly
half the average of the Group of Seven. Government debt is very long term: at more
than 14 years, it is the longest of any advanced industrialised country. Better
still, only 30% is held by non-residents compared with an average of more than
50% for other advanced countries, so the debt is more grounded in British
ownership.
Together,
this means we have the best protected public debt position of any country in
the world top 30, the least likely to suffer any speculative attack. We do not
have to rival the Greeks in a crash austerity programme. All the stuff about
tough but necessary hard choices, not passing on too much debt to the next
generation, is hogwash. It is a highly selective marshalling of facts to
support an ideological crusade against the state.
The
starting point should, instead, be redesigning our capitalism so that it serves
our people, particularly the young. We could gradually reconfigure the state
and social settlement around the sustainable tax revenues that a new
progressive capitalism generates from a much broader tax base – drawing more
from property and multinational companies. And, on top, inflation of 3% or 4%
would not be the end of the world. No sane policy-maker would make deficit
reduction the sole aim of economic policy, or indiscriminate
spending cuts the chief means of achieving it, whatever the economic conditions
– more so given the soundness of the overall fiscal position. This is insanity.
Two
very good new books – Progressive
Capitalism by David Sainsbury and The Entrepreneurial State by Mariana Mazzucato – complement each other in setting out an entirely new
framework in which to get British capitalism to perform. Sainsbury focuses on
the two heartland areas – finance and the knowledge infrastructure – that are
in desperate need of reform and urges an enabling state to do just that.
Mazzucato's argument is that history's lesson is irrefutable: only with state
support do innovators take big risks.
This,
then, becomes a world with a future – and a world with a future wants to enlist
the young to its cause. One quick win would be to bring back the successful
future jobs fund cancelled by the coalition; for a mere £6,500 subsidy per job,
it created 105,000 for unemployed youngsters within the 18 months to March
2011. But society's benefit was £7,750 per person, estimated the Department of
Work and Pensions. I would buttress this with a massive mobilisation of funding
for proper apprenticeships – and also a house-building programme to offer our
young somewhere affordable to live.
Instead,
we occupy an universe in which, beyond the top 1%, only the old seem to
prosper: pensioners have seen their incomes steadily rise. But let's not speak
of vengeance or generational conflict. We should be talking about building a
better future, and that needs an enabling, entrepreneurial state. It is not
finance or debt that stops us from having one. It is will and conviction.
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