Government Panics Over Strike

By Ekow Mensah.

There are very strong indications that the Mahama administration has jumped into a state of total panic over the threat by organised labour to organise a national wide strike on Monday, November 18, 2013.

Reliable sources say that Government is fully aware of the fact that the impact of the strike will be massive.

Mr. Kofi Asamoah, Secretary-General of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) says in addition to the 17 national unions affiliated to the TUC, many other organised labour groups will join the strike.

These include, the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT),   the University Teacher Association of Ghana (UTAG) and the Ghana Medical Association (GMA).

Speaking on TV3’s current affairs programme “Hot Issues” Mr Asamoah disclosed that the TUC is also in contact with several market women’s associations.

Government Sources say that  it is prepared to do any and everything to avert the strike.

It is expected that later this week, Government will announce its acceptance of the idea of staggering the utility tariff increase over a period of about three years.

What is not clear is what the first increase will amount to and when the automatic tariff adjustment formular will kick in.

Sources close to organised labour say that their demand is for a starting point increase of not more than 30 per cent.

Earlier, Government had indicated that its starting point increase would be in the region of 60 per cent.

Leaders of organised labour have become increasingly angry at Government propagandist who claim that the opposition is behind the call for the strike.

All things being equal, The Insight expects the Government to put a firm offer on the table for discussion by the close of day, tomorrow.

BAGBIN’S HEFTY BLOWS

Mr Alban Bagbin

Honourable Alban Bagbin is no ordinary member of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC).

Long before he plunged head on into the confusing politics of the NDC, he and several young lawyers, dedicated themselves to dealing with the legal problems of a political party which had been built on the ashes of a 19 year old military dictatorship.

He became a Member of Parliament rose to become the Minority Leader, the Majority Leader and later a Minister with responsibility for Works and Housing and Water  Resources.

His rise to the position of Minister was not without controversy. He had turned his guns on the Presidency of Professor John Evans Atta Mills making all kinds of allegations.

It did not serve the image of Bagbin well when he dropped all of his charges against the Mills administration as quickly as he was made a Minister.

The impression was that he attacked to gain and this is in spite of the fact that perhaps he was more than qualified to be a Minister.

It is also noteworthy that throughout his service as a Minister, he managed to escape allegations of corruption and abuse of power.

With the rise of John Dramani Mahama to the presidency, Bagbin appears to have lost out completely. He is not in the ranks of Parliament and he holds no known position in the NDC.

His appointment as one of the “three wise men” to help the president oversee significant giant projects was seen largely as promotion upstairs.

According to the official announcement, Bagbin and colleagues E.T. Mensah and Cletus Avoka, were to look over such projects as the building of 200 new Senior High Schools, a University, and some hospitals.

The question then was what the role of the Ministers of Education and health would be?

Did the President appoint the three wise men because his confidence in those sector Ministers was below sufficient?

Many analysts both within and without  the party wondered what the three wise men could  be doing and the speculation was that the President had come to realise that the devil will always find work for idle hands especially experienced ones.

Now Bagbin is firing on all cylinders and his target is none other than His Excellency, The President Comrade John Dramani Mahama, Leader of the National Democratic Congress and husband of Madam Lordina Mahama.

Bagbin says that corruption is widespread and there are no indications that Mr President is doing anything about it.

His biggest worry is that the President cannot be reached and therefore is not getting wise counsel from experienced men like the almighty Alban Bagbin.

Bagbin claims that before he went public with his bombastic noise, he actually called the presidency to warn that if his advice will not be taken in private he would offer it in public.

Woow!

So Bagbin one of the three wise men cannot reach the President?

If this is true, then who has been reaching the President and what have they been telling the man whose father served as a Minister in the Nkrumah Government?

Mahama may be young but he must have seen more than his colleagues when it comes to governance because even as a nappy wearing kid he must have seen his father at work in a Government which achieved so much.

The most important point is that one of the people charged with helping the president to achieve his vision says that John Dramani Mahama is out of service area.

Na so?

If John Mahama cannot be reached by his wise men then what is the fate of his gargantuan projects?

Bagbin has indeed dealt hefty blows to the President.

Mahama Speaks To Africawatch

After surviving arguably the most captivating election court case in 56 years of Ghana's independence, President John Dramani Mahama now has the time and comfort to run the country as best he can. In this wide-ranging interview with our executive editor, Steve Mallory, Mahama talks about everything from the election dispute to the economy, energy and labor, as well as the fire-outbreak crisis he encountered in the first few months of his tenure. He also talks about paying his taxes, the nation's oil and gas industry, African and world affairs, and even his love for soccer. So please sit back; this is President John Mahama as you have never known him.

Q: Thank you for agreeing to do this interview, Mr. President. Let's get right to it: You came to office last year under difficult circumstances, following the sudden death of President John Atta Mills. It's now been a little over a year since he died. How well do you think the country has healed from that terrible tragedy?

A: We recently held the first anniversary marking the death of the late president and it brought back all the memories of the difficult period we went through following his death. Since then we have had to handle issues of gravity regarding our democracy and governance. But I believe that the country has healed sufficiently since then, and we now have to confront new issues together as a country, including the recent opposition election petition.

Professor Atta Mills was a good mentor. He was a comrade and a friend, and I learned a lot from him. And those lessons have strengthened me to face the challenges that lie ahead of us.

Q: How about yourself, personally? How well have you dealt with the loss of your dear friend?

A: I believe that when God places responsibilities on your shoulders, he gives you the strength to carry those responsibilities. At first, I felt a sense of trepidation because I had gotten used to working with a leader to whom I reported. I reported to him and contributed my best in terms of advice and effort, but ultimately the decisions were his to take and the buck stopped with him. Any mistakes the team made were attributed directly to him.

After Prof. Atta Mills death, I had to step up to the plate, and there was nobody to look up to, except God. Everything was so unexpected. I had not anticipated that anything like this would happen. And so, to take over the mantle and have no one to look up to, as I used to do under Prof, was a very bewildering experience.

But there was a lot to do. We had to rally the country together to give Prof. Atta Mills a befitting funeral and I had to be the focus on doing that with his family and widow. And then barely four months after, I had an election to fight. By God's grace we won. We held the inauguration on January 7th and the opposition boycotted it. I believe I have been strengthened by all these experiences for this job.

Q: During my interview with you last year, you mentioned that just a few weeks into the job you were already getting a sense of the strenuous nature of the nation’s highest office. Now that you have been in the job in your own right as president for eight months, how has it matched your expectations?

A: I do not think there can a situation more adverse than what I have been through in the last eight months. There were market fires all over the country.

There were industrial actions various professional groups. We have had problems with the economy, battling a deficit of nearly 12 per cent. Inflation was beginning to rise on the back of removal of fuel subsidies. We were also faced with a serious energy crisis - severe shortage of power as a result of the disruption of the West African Gas Pipeline. There was a general dissatisfaction with the situation and' this was marked by complaints from all segments of the society.

And to cap it all, the opposition refused to accept the results of the election and launched a challenge to overturn the results in court. They declined to recognize my government and this manifested in a boycott of my inauguration and a refusal to participate in the process of vetting my ministers.

This was a combustible combination of elements that made governance very difficult, and one had to remain focused in those circumstances. I believe that such a combination of forces or elements cannot exist again for any president; I don't expect them ever again. In fact I believe they have strengthened me a lot and given me the kind of courage I need for this office.

Q: So what is the score now, Mr. President?

A: We are making progress, although we are not out of the woods yet. We have to ensure that Ghana never again goes through what we have been through in the last eight months. We are engaging with labor, we have a wage bill that is threatening to spiral out of control. We are trying to let labor understand that the budget can only sustain expenditure based on the resources available. We cannot collect tax revenues and use all of it to pay only public service employees. We need to ensure that there is money available to cover goods and services, for capital expenditure, and to provide service for the rest of the population.

In his brief time as president, numerous problems have come to Manama’s desk, including budget woes, electricity shortages and labor strife.

Thank God the market fires are over. Whoever or whatever was setting them off, whether electrical or sabotage, they happily appear to have abated. We are, however, maintaining our vigilance to make sure they don't recur. We have increased visibility of the security services and this is causing the crime rate to go down.

The Supreme Court has given its verdict on the election petition filed by Nana Akufo-Addo and two others, and so we can now put it all behind us and look forward to a brighter future for this country.

Q: During the last interview, you said one of the biggest misconceptions about you was that, and I quote: "People describe me as an affable man, and be- cause of that people think that I'm a soft, quiet and laid-back person. Those who have worked closely with me know differently, and I am sure the nation would get to know me in a better perspective with time." Do you think the nation now knows you better?

A: Yes, I said in that interview that the nation would get to know me better with time. I have principles, I stand by those principles, and I will live by those principles. Istill believe that the nation is getting to know me. It is only eight months into the job, and there are three-and-a-quarter years more to go. Where action has to be taken, I will take it without fear or favor.

Q: Allow me to shift to the election petition case. The Supreme Court dismissed the petition by your opponent, Nana Akufo-Addo, who sought to annul your victory in last December's election. Would you please share with us your thoughts on the election petition case? What does the court victory mean to you personally and to the nation as a whole?

A: We believe that this was one of the cleanest, fairest, and freest elections we have had in this country. The court victory has therefore been a vindication of the position we have always held. Indeed after the last election, we all, as a country, congratulated each other. There was hardly any violence before, during or after. They passed peacefully.

The security services were virtually on holiday - they had no major election incidents to deal with.

It was only when we got to the declaration of results that we received the first hint of trouble. When the NPP called for a suspension of the declaration of results it took all of us by surprise. We thought it was just scare-mongering, or some Halloween ghost.

Subsequently the NPP accused the Electoral Commission of padding the results in my favor. They actually alleged fraud. I believed clearly in my heart that the elections were clean' and reflected the will of the people. We had been vigilant and wanted to make certain that no matter who won, Ghana would be the overall winner by ensuring it was a clean and transparent process.

Of course, we had done enough work to ensure that we would win, and we were confident that we would win.

And so when these allegations came up, it was a real worry. We were anxious to see what evidence the NPP was going to bring. Indeed, at first I thought it was a bluff and that they were just going to huff and puff for a while and then let us get on with the business of running the country.

Finally when they rolled out their evidence, it was obvious to all right-thinking persons that they had just been on a fishing expedition.

Q: Can you elaborate on that?

A: In any human enterprise, there will be mistakes or errors. And I am sure that if you take any election in this country since 1992 and go on a fishing expedition as the NPP did, you will find the errors of presiding officers not signing one form or other; you will find errors in tallying. You will find much of the same evidence that NPP eventually brought up in court.

You will find much of the same because elections are a human enterprise. In the excitement of an election, a presiding officer might forget to sign his or her signature. And in most of the examples adduced, party agents had signed as a testament of the results. Must that invalidate the votes of hardworking citizens who had done their patriotic duty of queuing for hours to cast their votes? Indeed the request was absurd. To ask the Supreme Court to annul more than four million of your compatriots' votes (almost one third of the total votes) in order that someone can be president is clearly a backdoor route to the presidency.

Q. Do you accept that the court case has taken some shine off Ghana's democratic credentials?

In a way it has. Ghana has made a lot of progress and our democracy has matured. Our electoral system has been touted as one of the best in Africa. And it is unfortunate for us to have done this to ourselves. I feel sad about it. Our electoral system has developed over elections. We have translated the experiences learned to improve the integrity of the system.

When we vote, the whole community comes out at 5 a.m. and queues through the day to cast their vote. And at 5 p.m. when it is all over, we count the votes along with the presiding officer. You hear the whole community shouting "one, two, three, four," until the whole count is over.

When people have entered into an enterprise with such pureness of faith, it is cruel to ask that their votes be annulled.

I knew right from the start that justice would be served. That is why I said I knew in my heart, and by God's faith, that we did nothing to rig this election and I believed that the Supreme Court could reach no other conclusion than that. That was because I believed in our defense, and I am happy that I was vindicated. I am also happy the Electoral Commission was vindicated.

Q. Your joy notwithstanding, the court expressed some concerns about certain shortcomings of the electoral system that need to be looked at. Will that review indeed take place?

A: Yes, we will support the Electoral Commission to make any reforms they wish to do post the election petition. We have been having electoral reforms over the years. Remember, we started in 1992 with metal ballot boxes that were already sealed when they were brought to the polling stations, and so you did not know what was in the boxes. Everybody cast their votes in those already sealed boxes, and at 5 p.m. the boxes were taken away in the back of pickup trucks to a counting center where the votes were counted. You only heard the next day or sometime after that so-and-so had won or lost. That's where we started from.

Our Electoral Commission has done well over the years. From those metal boxes, we moved to transparent boxes, and we have since added the presence of party agents at all polling stations to the equation.

Today every party is represented by agents at the polling stations and they monitor the process from the beginning to the end.

From there we went on to having the votes counted in situ, in front of the public. We

have since improved the sys- tem by introducing biometric registration.

Incidentally, this is the first election in which we used the biometric system and technology has its glitches. One of the problems was with the verification machine. So for a farmer who has his finger- prints sometimes eroded by the rigors of farming activity, such that the verification machine fails to recognize his fingerprints, and yet the farmer has his voters' identity card on which he has his photograph to prove his identity, the photo is a likeness of him and every- body at the polling station can confirm that this is Agya Koo, the farmer. And so because some imported gizmo fails to work he cannot vote?

These are fundamental issues of our democracy. I am happy the Supreme Court reached such a verdict, dismissing the petition. We have the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC). I think the IPAC should scrutinize the issues raised in the NPP petition and continue to improve our electoral system.

Q: Indeed, the nation went through trying times. Some people were uncertain about the outcome, and that made governance a bit difficult, as you say.
But you kept your cool and managed the affairs of the nation. How did you do that and what really inspired you?

A: Because I believe in the maturity of Ghana's democracy, I say always, when I have the opportunity, that Ghana's democracy has come too far to be reversed. I also say that Ghana has achieved a certain political maturity that ensures that our institutions are growing stronger and stronger. Parliament is getting strengthened, the Executive is getting strengthened and becoming more transparent, and our Judiciary and other governance institutions are getting strengthened.

I have a belief in the judicial system, and knew that in the election petition case the truth would be upheld. And so for me, I made sure that I was not distracted. I just encouraged myself to focus on the issues that mattered. The economy was of critical concern and it was at a time when we were preparing for a launch of the Eurobond.

I also needed to focus on re-solving the energy crisis. Energy is a priority to ensure sustained economic growth. We had to fast-track the commissioning of the first two turbines of the Bui hydropower station in order to stabilize the energy situation. I applied diplomacy and contact to ensure a speedy restoration of the West African Gas pipeline. I have also had my eye keenly on our own gas development. So I couldn't afford to let the court case distract me. While we are not out of the woods yet, it has been eight months of hard work.

Q. Ghanaians have accepted the Supreme Court verdict in good faith and the nation has moved on. The country is as peaceful as ever. What do you think that says about the character of Ghana's people?

A: I have absolute faith in my country and believe that when the chips are down, Ghanaians will always rise to the occasion. Ghana has always shown the way in Africa in terms of the liberation struggle, freeing ourselves from colonial rule.

In terms of coup d'etats and in removing governments, we were among the first to experience violent overthrows of government. And then again we were among the first to lead the return to stable democratic governance. In 1992 we wrote a new constitution, held elections and returned to civilian rule after many years of military rule.

And since then Ghana has been consistent in showing Africa the way in how democracy should be practiced.

Q: Were there any tense moments for you, as you considered what might happen?

A: Not really. I had absolute faith that peace was going to prevail. But there were a few doomsayers who had had visions of clouds of uncertainty hanging over the country. As president therefore, it was my duty to take the necessary precaution. I asked the security agencies to present a contingency plan to contain any unexpected violence. We reviewed the plan together and approved the deployments.

I was proved right. On the day, the world was astounded. The world must take notice now that Ghanaians are determined to ensure that we continue to be a model of democratic governance. All we wish to do is concentrate on lifting our people out of poverty and create a decent and dignified life for them. That is what I am focused on doing. I want to give selfless and dedicated service to my nation. I want to give a leadership that creates opportunities for all our people regardless of their ethnic, political, or religious origins. That is my focus.

Q: After the verdict Akufo-Addo called to finally concede defeat and congratulate you. It was eight long months late, but how did you feel about it?

A: I am a very gracious per- son and I am not vindictive. On Aug. 29, I went to the office at 9:30 a.m. and was hoping to watch the verdict from my office on TV at about 10 a.m. The vice president and other senior staff joined me. We waited for a while, and the broadcast was not starting. We all wondered what was going on.

Eventually the verdict was given. Shortly after that one of my aides handed me a phone and said Nana Akufo-Addo was on the line. We spoke. It was a very short conversation. He extended congratulatory wishes to me.

I didn't feel victorious. I could feel the emotion in his voice. It must have taken a great effort to make that call and I appreciate him for that.

Q: There is talk about an "all inclusive" government to make the country more united and to consolidate the peace. What do you think about it?

A: We are not going to jump into an incestuous relationship with our opponents, the NPP. That would amount to shortchanging the people of Ghana. Any arrangement to change the "first past the post," "winner take all" system must be done through a review of our constitution. There must however be space within the parameters of our current constitution for us to be less partisan and for people to be able to serve their country irrespective of which party is in power. There is a bitter rivalry between the two main parties that makes it difficult to work together.

Q: Is that the only reason?

A: Well, because of the rivalry it has become very difficult for us to work together as a country. In other countries, once elections are over, the country comes together. Yes, there is competition on policies and other issues but still, to a large extent, when the interest of the country is involved, all come together to make sure the country continues to move forward.

Unfortunately, that is not the case in Ghana. I have always held the view that we need to put all the human resources of this country to work, and that it should not really matter a person's political color, if they have a skill that is useful, we must allow them to serve the country.

Q: That attitude is quite a departure from some other political leaders in Africa, who seem to be engaged in perpetual political witch hunts.

A: I do not believe in hunting ghosts and witches and throwing people out of work all because of who they are unless they are involved in a deliberate sabotage of the government. Otherwise, if people are working for the good of their country, they should be allowed the peace to do so. We need to create an atmosphere that allows this to happen.

Q: But can't the constitution be amended to allow such an all-inclusive government?

A: We currently have a constitutional review process on- going. If we think this is useful we can consider it. For now, based on the way our constitution is structured, there is no room for power sharing. The constitution creates an Executive president with enormous powers. Ultimate responsibility for the success of the government is placed on the shoulders of the president.

Every morning, from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m., I get verbally abused on radio phone-ins for every single mistake that is made anywhere in the country. We must have a system for holding public officers accountable to the people. The time has come for us to learn to hold people at the subsidiary level also accountable for their work.

Q: Now that the court case is over, do you expect the level of political sniping and insults to tone down in the Ghanaian media?

A.: [Laughs] I want to change the word "expect" to "hope." I hope it will, but knowing the bitter rivalry that exists in our politics I am not very hopeful. But I believe that we have' all learned some lessons, that there is a limit to how we can push the kind of freedom of expression we have on our airwaves and in our media.

Some people recently have been jailed for contempt and it reminded people after a long while that there are limits to freedom of expression, even though our constitution guarantees it the right.

We have a very liberal chapter on the media in our constitution, yet the same constitution says those freedoms are subject to laws that are necessary for the maintenance of peace and public safety, etc., etc. The Executive
does not have the kind of powers that the courts have.

We expect that the media will exercise some form of self-regulation. Unfortunately that doesn't appear to be happening.

The Ghana Journalists Association has a code of ethics, but it's completely ignored. Ghana I guess has the highest media exposure per capita in the world. For a population of 24 million people living in the size of territory that we have, we have about 250 radio stations. Almost every district in this country has multiple radio stations. So we must surely have the highest media 'exposure in the world per capita.

In Accra alone, for every micro-centimeter that you tune your radio, you land on another station.

And every radio station has something to say. Unfortunately, salaries are low in broadcasting and so most of the radio stations do not really care to get trained journalists to come and work for their establishments because of the low salaries they pay. So they just pick anybody who has a talent.

Q: Let's talk about the economy. As the election neared, you stated that some of your priorities for the year included holding down inflation and maintaining macro-economic can claim all the money and take it but what good would that do to you, if the government, for instance, does not have money to provide good quality schools for your children?

Q: And the labor leaders were convinced?

A: I believe so. At least the strikes have abated a bit. We are reforming the public finance system with a program called GIFMIS [Ghana Integrated Financial Management Information System]. It allows us to appraise the budget in real time. It allows for more transparency and people are willing to understand if they know what is going on.

It will help us monitor taxes and also expenditures. We must expand the tax net. Only a minority percentage of our population declares and pay their taxes regularly. We all demand the best services and yet many of us are reluctant to pay the taxes that provide these services. All of us must contribute to make this country a better place.

Q: That reminds us of the little trouble about you paying tax when the constitution exempts the president from paying tax. How could the constitution exempt the president, the leader of the country whose government must collect taxes from the people, from paying tax himself?

A: The constitution says the president should not pay tax on his or her income. So the president's salary is not subject to taxes. I believe it is unfair. The president must set the example by being the first to pay his taxes. Happily that is going to change in the constitutional review process.

I am the son of a farmer and I enjoy farming. I have a farm and I earn income from my farm. I also earn money from family properties that were left to us by my father. I have also published a book. All these bring me additional income other than my salary as president. I had always de- taxes prior to becoming president. I therefore sought the advice of my lawyers, and it was their opinion that, while my salary was constitutionally exempt from taxes, any additional income was subject to tax. I dutifully declared those incomes and paid tax on it.

A few all-knowing people criticized me and questioned why I was earning extra income aside from my salary and why I was paying tax. Isn't that interesting?

Q. It is quite interesting, blaming you for paying taxes. That reminds us of another thing that happened early this year, when you took some heat for the country's energy crisis. This made you promise to improve the situation, which you did. But how did you do it?

A:  The energy crisis became my main focus at the time. I met with my minister of energy every other day, and I asked for a status report on every single utility. So every other day I took an interest in what our stock of light crude was. I took an interest in which power station was running and at what level. We delayed servicing schedules of some power stations to ensure that there was enough generation in the system.

I needed to have more generation in the system to cover the deficit. The Bui hydropower project was coming on stream. We discussed with the officials of the Bui Power Authority how we could fast-track feeding power from the new hydro project into the system. They gave various scenarios. We requested the engineers to fast-track the project and get a turbine of the dam into operation earlier than planned.

Even though the dam is due to be commissioned in November, we managed to get the first and second turbines into... to be continued.

US legalizing a new kind of illegal war

By David Swanson

There's a dark side to the flurry of reports and testimony on drones, helpful as they are in many ways.

When we read that Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch oppose drone strikes that violate international law, some of us may be inclined to interpret that as a declaration that, in fact, drone strikes violate international law. On the contrary, what these human rights groups mean is that some drone strikes violate the law and some do not, and they want to oppose the ones that do. 

Which are which? Even their best researchers can't tell you. Human Rights Watch looked into six drone murders in Yemen and concluded that two were illegal and four might be illegal. The group wants President Obama to explain what the law is (since nobody else can), wants him to comply with it (whatever it is), wants civilians compensated (if anyone can agree who the civilians are and if people can really be compensated for the murder of their loved ones), and wants the US government to investigate itself. Somehow the notion of prosecuting crimes doesn't come up. 

Amnesty International looks into nine drone strikes in Pakistan, and can't tell whether any of the nine were legal or illegal. Amnesty wants the US government to investigate itself, make facts public, compensate victims, explain what the law is, explain who a civilian is, and -- remarkably -- recommends this: "Where there is sufficient admissible evidence, bring those responsible to justice in public and fair trials without recourse to the death penalty." 

However, this will be a very tough nut to crack, as those responsible for the crimes are being asked to define what is and is not legal. Amnesty proposes "judicial review of drone strikes," but a rubber-stamp FISA court for drone murders wouldn't reduce them, and an independent judiciary assigned to approve of certain drone strikes and not others would certainly approve of some, while inevitably leaving the world less than clear as to why. 

The UN special rapporteurs' reports are perhaps the strongest of the reports churned out this week, although all of the reports provide great information. The UN will debate drones on Friday. Congressman Grayson will bring injured child drone victims to Washington on Tuesday (although the US State Department won't let their lawyer come). Attention is being brought to the issue, and that's mostly to the good. 

The UN reports make some useful points: US drones have killed hundreds of civilians; drones make war the norm rather than an exception; signature strikes are illegal; double-tap strikes (targeting rescuers of a first strike's victims) are illegal; killing rather than capturing is illegal; imminence (as a term to define a supposed threat) can't legally be redefined to mean eventual or just barely imaginable; and -- most powerfully -- threatened by drones is the fundamental right to life.

However, the UN reports are so subservient to western lawyer groupthink as to allow that some drone kills are legal and to make the determination of which ones so complex that nobody will ever be able to say -- the determination will be political rather than empirical. 

The UN wants transparency, and I do think that's a stronger demand than asking for the supposed legal memos that Obama has hidden in a drawer and which supposedly make his drone kills legal. 

We don't need to see that lawyerly contortionism. Remember Obama's speech in May at which he claimed that only four of his victims had been American and for one of those four he had invented criteria for himself to meet, even though all available evidence says he didn't meet those criteria even in that case, and he promised to apply the same criteria to foreigners going forward, sometimes, in certain countries, depending. Remember the liberal applause for that? Somehow our demands of President Bush were never that he make a speech.

(And did you see how pleased people were just recently that Obama had kidnapped a man in Libya and interrogated him in secret on a ship in the ocean, eventually bringing him to the U.S. for a trial, because that was a step up from murdering him and his neighbors? Bush policies are now seen as advances.) 

We don't need the memos. We need the videos, the times, places, names, justifications, casualties, and the video footage of each murder. That is to say, if the UN is going to give its stamp of approval to a new kind of war but ask for a little token of gratitude, this is what it should be. But let's stop for a minute and consider.

The general lawyerly consensus is that killing people with drones is fine if it's not a case where they could have been captured, it's not "disproportionate," it's not too "collateral," it's not too "indiscriminate," etc., -- the calculation being so vague that nobody can measure it. 

We're not wrong to trumpet the good parts of these reports, but let's be clear that the United Nations, an institution created to eliminate war, is giving its approval to a new kind of war, as long as it's done properly, and it's giving its approval in the same reports in which it says that drones threaten to make war the norm and peace the exception. 

I hate to be a wet blanket, but that's stunning. Drones make war the norm, rather than the exception, and drone murders are going to be deemed legal depending on a variety of immeasurable criteria. And the penalty for the ones that are illegal is going to be nothing, at least until African nations start doing it, at which point the International Criminal Court will shift into gear.

What is it that makes weaponized drones more humane than land mines, poison gas, cluster bombs, biological weapons, nuclear weapons, and other weapons worth banning? Are drone missiles more discriminate than cluster bombs (I mean in documented practice, not in theory)? Are they discriminate enough, even if more discriminate than something else? Does the ease of using them against anyone anywhere make it possible for them to be "proportionate" and "necessary"? If some drone killing is legal and other not, and if the best researchers can't always tell which is which, won't drone killing continue? The UN Special Rapporteur says drones threaten to make war the norm. Why risk that? Why not ban weaponized drones? 

For those who refuse to accept that the Kellogg Briand Pact bans war, for those who refuse to accept that international law bans murder, don't we have a choice here between banning weaponized drones or watching weaponized drones proliferate and kill? Over 99,000 people have signed a petition to ban weaponized drones at . Maybe we can push that over 100,000 ... or 200,000. 

It's always struck me as odd that in civilized, Geneva conventionized, Samantha Powerized war the only crime that gets legalized is murder. Not torture, or assault, or rape, or theft, or marijuana, or cheating on your taxes, or parking in a handicapped spot -- just murder. But will somebody please explain to me why homicide bombing is not as bad as suicide bombing? 

It isn't strictly true that the suffering is all on one side, anyway. Just as we learn geography through wars, we learn our drone base locations through blowback, in Afghanistan and just recently in Yemen. 

Drones make everyone less safe. As Malala just pointed out to the Obama family, the drone killing fuels terrorism. Drones also kill with friendly fire. Drones, with or without weapons, crash. A lot. And drones make the initiation of violence easier, more secretive, and more concentrated. When sending missiles into Syria was made a big public question, we overwhelmed Congress, which said no. But missiles are sent into other countries all the time, from drones, and we're never asked. 

Paranoid Saudis fear US treachery

By Finian Cunningham

The Saudis are sulking big time with Washington. This is not just due to a temper-tantrum by the kingdom’s spymaster, Prince Bandar. The entire House of Saud is in ructions over what the rulers perceive as “American treachery”.

When Prince Bandar bin Sultan briefed anonymous Western diplomats at his Jeddah majlis last weekend about a “strategic shift” by Saudi Arabia away from its long-time ally, there was speculation that the Saudi intelligence chief was perhaps speaking out in a personal capacity. 

That is unlikely; subsequent furious comments by former ministry of interior chief, Prince Turki al-Faisal, about Washington’s “farcical policies”, and a testy meeting in Paris between US top diplomat John Kerry and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal earlier this week confirm that the kingdom’s inner circle is up in arms with its American patron. 

Bandar’s frustration is symptomatic of paranoia in the House of Saud. When he churlishly “threatens” a “strategic shift” it is not actually on the Saudis mulling such a move away from its historic sponsor in Washington, but rather it betrays a distrust among the Saudi rulers that it is the Americans who are the ones stealthily shifting.

But what the Saudi monarchs are confusing in their reactionary mindset is the difference between American tactics and strategy in the Middle East. 

Bandar, who was Saudi ambassador to Washington for 22 years, is a senior member of the House of Saud. He was appointed personally by the Saudi king to oversee the funding, arming and logistics of the Saudi contribution to the West’s covert terror war in Syria. 

Known as “Bandar Bush” because of strong personal connections to not only the former US president but to the Washington establishment generally, his appointment for running Syria operations was based precisely because of his direct line to US government. 

In that regard, Bandar is both the Saudi terror master and the point man for American collusion in the regime change campaign against Syria. 

It is thus a safe bet that Bandar’s pique with US policy in the Middle East is shared among the inner circle of Saudi rulers, all the way up to aging King Abdullah. 

That means there is a potential fracture in the historic alliance between the two countries - an alliance that goes back to the foundation of Saudi Arabia as a state in 1932. 

One former member of the US National Security Council, Michael Doran, told the Daily Telegraph that he had “never seen relations so low” as they are now. 

Doran is quoted as saying: “Iran is the number one issue - the only issue for Saudi policy makers.” 

Recall that diplomatic cables between Riyadh and Washington leaked in 2010 cited King Abdullah as urging the Americans to “cut off the head of the snake” - meaning Iran. 

Tensions between the Saudis and the Americans have been rumbling over the past year. These tensions have expressed Saudi frustration over what they claim as Washington not doing enough to arm the militants fighting in Syria to topple the government of Bashar al-Assad - a close ally of Iran.

The deadly chemical incident near the Syrian capital, Damascus, on 21 August, which implicates the involvement of Saudi intelligence, led by Prince Bandar, can be seen as an attempt by the Saudis to push US President Barack Obama into all-out military attack on Syria. 

That gambit failed, from the Saudi viewpoint, for various reasons, including the mobilization of anti-war protests in the West and a timely diplomatic intervention by Russia to secure a chemical weapons decommissioning deal. 

Although the Syrian army was not the culprit for the use of chemical weapons, as Western governments and media were claiming, nevertheless President Assad turned diplomatic tables on his enemies by signing up to the decommissioning plan. 

The veering away from war plans against Syria by the Obama administration must have been a stinging blow to Prince Bandar and the House of Saud. Saudi Arabia wants to destroy Syria as an independent Arab state for several geopolitical reasons. Chief among these reasons is to curb any move towards democracy in the Middle East. Syria under Assad represents a relatively progressive, pluralist state, and therefore from the Saudi view, must be subverted.

Another reason is the deep pathological hatred from the Wahhabi House of Saud towards Syria’s Shia-affiliated alliance with Iran. Cutting off the head in Syria is Saudi Arabia’s method of trying to decapitate Iran. 

The feudal oil kingdom, with its vast disparity of wealth between a ruling elite and massive poverty among the ordinary population, sees Iran as its nemesis for influence in the Middle East region. The latest UN Human Development report (2013), which puts “Iran among those making fastest progress” (despite Western sanctions), can only but drive Saudi rulers livid with envy. 

This explains why the Saudis joined the Western campaign for regime change in Syria with such bloodthirsty zeal. The Saudi rulers have been the main sponsors on the ground for an array of murderous mercenary groups, including Al Nusra, Liwa al-Islam and the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant. It is elite Saudi obsession with Iran that is the motive for this fanaticism to destroy. 

Washington, London and Paris of course share this geopolitical campaign to defeat Syria in order to cement a bridgehead for further regime change in Iran. But the West has sufficient intelligence to know that the military option in Syria is all but redundant because of the steadfastness of the Assad government, its popular mandate and the professionalism of the Syrian army. 

That explains why the Western powers are now belatedly pushing for the political process through the putative Geneva II conference. The West is shifting tactics to the political field away from the exhausted battlefield. But the strategy for regime change remains. That’s what the Saudi rulers fail to grasp. 

This shift in tactics by the West may also explain why the US has suddenly turned, ostensibly, to rapprochement with Iran. Washington knows that if it is to gain any traction in its political maneuvers over Syria, it must engage Tehran, even though that engagement is being presented as a separate initiative over the nuclear dispute. 

On two scores then, the House of Saud is shaking with ire at shifting US policy. 

Firstly, from the US not bombing Syria, and secondly from Washington appearing to pursue warmer relations with Iran. In the Saudi mindset, this must appear as the most fiendish treachery by the Americans. Added to that is that the House of Saud is up to its neck in guilt with Western intrigues and plots against neighboring countries, including the subversion of Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Lebanon and Palestine, as well as Syria and Iran. 

The Saudis know full well that the Americans or the other Western former colonial allies cannot be trusted. Their complicity in past Western treachery fuels Saudi suspicions. But that paranoia is blurring Saudi judgment presently about American tactics for regime change, misconstruing the change as a strategic shift that might betray the House of Saud.

Washington has no intention of doing that. Its imperialist hegemony in the Middle East rests upon the pillars of Saudi and Zionist despotism. But the clumsy paranoia of the Saudi rulers may lead to an unintended fatal rupture with the US. 

What the frack?

This week’s anti-fracking protest has put Canada’s First Nations at the forefront of Canada’s political life, injecting spirit back into our moribund political scene. Canadians watching the evening news were shocked by scenes of burning police cars, a riot squad of 100 police wielding tear gas and tasers on horseback.

Demonstrations to protest shale gas exploration on native lands near Rexton, New Brunswick, had been mounting for months, and when the RCMP moved in to take down the Mikmaq Elsipogtog tribe’s barriers, it was hardly surprising that the standoff became violent, starting with demonstrators throwing rocks, bottles and paint, and, when Chief Arren Sock was arrested, setting fire to six police cars. At least 40 people were arrested Thursday for violating a court-order injunction and disturbing the peace. 

Fracking is a method of gas extraction where water is mixed with sand and chemicals and injected at high pressure into a wellbore to create small fractures, yielding natural gas and petroleum. In the process, it pollutes ground water, which now bears toxic chemicals and dangerously high levels of radiation, as well as emitting foul odors. The local Mikmaq claim that the Canadian subsidiary of the American frackers, Southwest Energy (SWN), is operating illegally on tribal land, and activists began blocking the highway between Rexton and Sainte-Anne-de-Kent on 28 September. SWN used its muscle and money to get a court injunction evicting the protestors. 

But SWN’s irresistible force had met an immovable object. Speaking on “Columbus Day” on 12 October, “a day which celebrates 521 years of genocide and oppression of Indigenous peoples”, Mikmaq Warrior Society activist Suzane Patles declared 18 October to be a day of protest against the court injunction, calling for other native groups across the country to raise their banners in solidarity. Renaming Columbus Day “Treaty Day”, Chief Sock presented a Band Council Resolution stating that his community is prepared to reclaim all unoccupied Crown Lands in Signigtog District (New Brunswick), stating, “Prime Minister Harper and the Canadian government have washed their hands with regards to the environmental protection of our lands and waters.” Chief Sock issued his own eviction notice, warning the oil and gas company to leave native land.

The RCMP claimed that at least one shot was fired Thursday “by someone other than an officer”, recalling past escalations between police and natives. In 1990, the Mohawks blockaded a bridge in Oka, Quebec, to protest the building of a golf course on native lands. That standoff also involved armed resistance resulting in the death of a Quebec policeman, and became a national crisis. Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney ordered the mobilization of 2,500 Canadian troops. The courage of the Oka Mohawks inspired First Nations protests across Canada and forced the government to ‘buy back’ the land from the municipality (land which was never theirs in the first place) and prevent any further development. 

Another now legendary standoff was at Ipperwash Provincial Park in Ontario in 1995, over the confiscation of a sacred Ojibwa burial ground in 1942 to use as a firing range for the Canadian Army. The natives had been camping on the firing range since 1993 to stop the desecration of their ancestors, and warned in the spring of 1995 that they would occupy the park if nothing was done. Nothing was done-by another Conservative leader, Ontario Premier Mike Harris-and when the tourists packed up on Labour Day and the natives moved in, Harris ordered a police sniper team to get “the f&%king Indians out of my park”. This led to the shooting and death of one of the leaders, Dudley George (and a suspended two-year sentence for the sniper). Finally, in 2009, 65 years after it was stolen, the land was returned by the government, just as in Oka, and as will surely happen in New Brunswick. 

The legacy of the latest corporate insanity-fracking-will last for generations, poisoning ground water, destroying wildlife and making vast tracks of land uninhabitable, speeding up global warming-all for the sake of burning every-increasing amounts of energy. Instead of opposition party leaders joining the Mikmaqs on the barricades in protest, Canadians are left with the impression that natives are violently violating the ‘law’. But whose ‘law’? 

Since Stephen Harper came to power at the head of the Conservative Party in 2006, he has been busy dismantling laws that virtually all that Canadians hold dear, with no effective opposition from the Liberals or New Democrats. His legacy includes withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocols, twice proroguing parliament and stifling freedom of speech, and electoral fraud (“robocalls”). 

His government has been notable for its refusal to try to resolve simmering treaty disputes with Canada’s First Nations. Instead, in 2008, he signed a ‘treaty’-a public security cooperation “partnership”-with Israel, which, like Canada, violates its treaty obligations with its own native Palestinians. The Conservatives’ Bills C-38 and C-45 were blatant attempts to replace the government’s treaty obligations with market mechanisms, spelling the death knell of its obligations to First Nations.

Saskatchewan native women began a hunger strike in protest last November, which Ontario Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence brought to national attention with her own hunger strike near Ottawa’s Parliament Hill in December. Their actions gave rise to Idle No More, a pan-Canadian native organization that has attracted support from Canadians of all stripes. 

In this latest standoff, as the police cars burned, Chief Sock was released and spirited to a 3-hour meeting with New Brunswick Premier David Alward. Sock called for a 30-day moratorium to allow tempers to cool and for reflection. The blockade of highway 11 continues, and native activists from across Canada are joining the Mikmaq in solidarity. Meanwhile, demonstrations broke out in cities across Canada, including Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa and Thunder Bay, as well as in New York and at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, DC. 

This principled action by New Brunswick natives is being echoed in dozens of other campaigns by native communities across Canada, where natives are stubbornly refusing to be swallowed up by corporate Canada. Even more appalling than fracking-if that’s possible-are the Alberta tar sands, Canada’s largest source of greenhouse gases, arguably the most environmentally destructive undertaking in history. And the construction of the necessary pipelines to bring the toxic sludge to happy consumers across North America and beyond. All enthusiastically promoted by the Harper government. 

Demonstrations against the tar sands are going on this very minute across Canada and the US, with natives in the forefront. The “No Line 9!” campaign to stop a pipeline between Sarnia and Montreal, passing through 18 First Nation communities, held a protest at the National Energy Board in Toronto 19 October, even as the Alberta government declared a state of emergency and evacuated residents when 13 rail cars carrying crude oil and liquefied gas exploded and leaked their poison, as if to prove the demonstrators’ point. 

In Saugeen Shores, Ojibwa First Nation Chief Randall Kahgee refuses to be railroaded into approving a plan by Ontario Power Generation to turn the Bruce Peninsula, a World Biosphere designated area, into a nuclear waste dump. The Saugeen First Nation chief told the Joint Review Panel: “Those generations yet to come, they’re going to want to know, what did our ancestors do to make sure we still have our relationship to those lands and those waters.” 

Northern Ontario natives are now being pressured by both Harper and ‘advised’ by former Liberal and NDP leader Bob Rae to open their fragile sub-Arctic territories to chromite mining and smelting projects in the James Bay ‘ring of fire’. What does Rae think of the Mikmaqs’ refusal to allow fracking on their lands? The tar sands? The nuclear waste dump in Bruce County? Will Rae convince his tribal friends to cede the rights to their fragile sub-Arctic lands for a few hundred million dollars?

There is ample evidence that fracking is disastrous. River water in western Pennsylvania has radium levels 200 times higher than normal downstream from a gas treatment plant, according to a Duke University study. The toxic tar sands project has prompted Europe to threaten to boycott Canadian oil. Nuclear waste will continue to ‘give’ for tens of thousands of years. 

For the first time in Canadian history-from the native point of view, a history of occupation, dispossession and manic economic development-the Mikmaqs of New Brunswick and their allies across Canada in Idle No More are putting the option of “No!” on the table, not just “How much money will we get to let the corporations destroy our land?” “Treaty Day” replaces Columbus Day on my calendar, and I hope, will someday be celebrated as an official Canadian holiday.