The Genocide of Arab Sunnis in Iraq, by Layla Anwar

 [image is from here]

As a white Jew, it appalls me how many genocides occur on Earth that white people ignore, and that Jews ignore. For me, being a white Jew means I must do all I can to know about genocides on Earth, to help make them socially noticed as atrocities that require action by those impacted negatively and their allies, with full accountability to those most directly harmed who survive. 

All that follows is from the blog An Arab Woman Blues, and was written and is owned by Layla Anwar, reposted here in accordance with permissions explicitly stated on her blog. Copy without credit to her and her blog is not permitted. You may link back to her blog post by clicking *here* or on the title under the date below.

April 16, 2010

The Genocide of Arab Sunnis in Iraq.

In all fairness, you can't say I lied...throughout those years of blogging, I have given you the most accurate information available to me, and to the best of my knowledge.

I have not ceased repeating and I will repeat it again today - there was/is a genocide within a grander genocide in Iraq. The smaller genocide if one can appropriately call it that way - is the genocide against ARAB SUNNIS. This smaller genocide is conducted fully by Iran's proxies in Iraq - the Shiite parties and their militias. ALL of the Shiite parties and ALL of their militias. TODAY -this latter upon the orders of Bremer form the BULK of the so-called Iraqi armed forces.

I have not ceased repeating that the majority of Refugees in both Syria and Jordan are Arab Sunnis and Christians.

And the reason I have been delaying writing part 2 on the criminal Muqtada Al-Sadr was because I was waiting to receive SURE information regarding the ethnic cleansing of Arab Sunnis in Baghdad and its provinces. The SURE, RELIABLE, INFORMED figure I received -- 300'000 ARAB Sunnis were murdered by the Shiite militias for the year 2006 ALONE.

Again, I ask you to refer to some of my previous post where I mentioned that ANOTHER 64 and some say 84 MASS GRAVES were discovered (actually they were not discovered recently - the Shiite sectarian government knew about them all along) in Baghdad in the vicinity of SADR city and in Diyala. In 2009, another 17 mass graves were discovered in Anbar. Search my blog.

Let me get back to the Iraqi refugees and their "affiliation" by sect.

This is the FIRST time, that an article written by a Westerner actually gives the break down by sect. I have been reading about Iraqi refugees for over 4 years now, and this is the FIRST of its kind.

But this information, I already gave you, time and time again - namely that ARAB SUNNIS form the bulk of the Refugees in neighboring countries.

In Syria those registered - and many are NOT registered are 62% Sunnis (a must read article). I say the ratio is higher than that. As for Jordan well over 75% of those registered are SUNNIS even though they are no official figures given for that country.

There are a few Shias refugees and I will tell you all about them now.

The Shias refugees in BOTH Jordan and Syria, the MAJORITY of them came BEFORE 2003.
And some came after 2003,but it is a small percentage in comparison.

The Shia Iraqi refugees in Syria and this is a SURE FACT, most of whom live in the Sayyeda Zeinab neighborhood, (which they consider another Shiite shrine when it is a Muslim one ) the GREAT majority of them have official businesses - they run small shops, hotels and some even run Mosques and their Husseiniyat. This category travels back and forth to Iraq on a regular basis.

And it is common knowledge that NO IRAQI refugee can open up a business or work officially at least...hence...make your own deductions.

The Shia refugees in Jordan, the majority of which and who represent a SMALL percentage of the bulk of Iraqi refugees, came before 2003, and they came not because of "repression" but came for economic reasons due to the Embargo imposed on Iraq for 13 years by the americans.

That is not to say that there are no Iraqi Shias driven out of their homes after 2003, due to sectarianism...it is only to say that they do not form a tangible majority.

And the reason I am mentioning this is because the official percentage (first of its kind) for Iraqi Arab SUNNIS refugees in Syria alone --that of 62% -- clearly points that there was DELIBERATE, PLANNED, WELL THOUGHT, ORGANIZED policy to DRIVE ARAB SUNNIS out of Iraq short of KILLING THEM.

Hence, the notion, the well accepted notion that the sectarian civil war was equal in intensity - tit for tat - from both sides -- Sunnis and Shias is another LIE and another MYTH which these figures clearly debunk.

Moreover, the notion, the well accepted notion that both -- IRAN and its parties, and the US included and used in their occupation agenda - namely that IRAQ is majority Shiite like 60% Shiite and 20% Sunnis is another MYTH and another LIE.

Prior to 2003, the Arab Sunnis (am excluding Kurds who are majority Sunnis) formed approximately 45% to 50% of Iraqi society.

Today IN IRAQ, they do not form more than 15% of Iraq society. Today Sunnis have become a minority.
The figure for the Shias in Iraq has been grossly over inflated. And bear in mind that about 4 MILLION Iranians today carry the Iraqi nationality and live in Iraq.

I believe that the 300'000 Sunnis killed in 2006 ALONE, the mass graves that keep being unearthed and the over 70% of refugees who are Sunnis explains beyond the shadow of any doubt how this segment of the population dwindled down from 50% to less than 20%.

Some of you may argue - OK what about the bombs that target " majority Shiite" neighborhoods ? My reply to that is:

- there are in Baghdad alone over 1'400 checkpoints and over 1 million Iraqis great majority Shiite in the armed forces - police, special units, so-called army. How can these sectarian checkpoints and armed forces not be able to stop these explosions ?!!

- it is a known fact that Iran's special intelligence operatives have been caught time and time again planting bombs and explosives in Shiite places.

- another important point - all explosive experts agree that it takes at least 55 minutes to determine the nature of an explosion i.e meaning what kind of detonator and method used. After each explosion in Baghdad and elsewhere, within minutes both the americans and the Iraqi government blame a suicide bomber - within minutes when it usually takes at least 55 mn to determine the exact cause.

So, when any of you speak of Sunnis and Shias not managing to live together, and when any of you speak of so-called Islamic militants/insurgents targeting the Shias, and when any of you speak of the "sectarianism of the Sunni led Dictatorship", do me a small favor -- re-examine the figures I just gave you.

Posted by Layla Anwar at 16.4.10  

A Proletären Interview with Radical Feminist Malalai Joya (in Swedish)

"They will kill me but they will not kill my voice, because it will be the voice of all Afghan women. You can cut the flower, but you cannot stop the coming of spring."

-- Malalai Joya

What follows is a cross post, in Swedish, from *here* at

Redaktionen

Prenumerera!

Kommunistiska Partiet

Startsidan Afghansk aktivist i stor intervju om ockupation och kvinnoförtryck 2010-04-14 ”Afghanistans modigaste kvinna” har hon kallats. Det är förståeligt. Den 31-åriga före detta parlamentsledamoten Malalai Joya stämplar president Hamid Karzais regim som korrumperade krigsherrar och narkotikahandlare. Hon utmålar talibanrörelsen som hemmahörande på medeltiden. Och hon uppmanar alla länder med trupper i Afghanistan att ta hem dem – genast! När Malalai Joya nyligen besökte Sverige fick Proletären en intervju. – USA och Nato har under åtta långa år skamlöst hävdat att de hjälper det afghanska folket och hjälper världens folk genom sitt så kallade krig mot terrorismen. Men det finns ingen frihet i Afghanistan idag. Landet har istället blivit en fristad för terrorism och ett centrum för världens narkotikahandel. Det är en underdrift att kalla Malalai Joya för frispråkig. Hon säger vad hon tycker, kritiserar dem som hon anser bör kritiseras och uppmärksammar övergreppen på det afghanska folket, oavsett vem förövaren är. – Ockupationsmakterna stöder mitt folks fiender. Krigsherrarna i Norra alliansen, som nu har makten i Afghanistan, har lärt sig att bära kostym och slips. Men deras mentalitet är densamma som talibanernas. Förhållandena för kvinnorna är katastrofala, de lever i helvetet. Miljontals afghaner lider av de utländska truppernas närvaro, av bristen på säkerhet, av korruption och orättvisor, av arbetslöshet, av fattigdom… Hon talar snabbt och engagerat, tvekar inte en sekund över vad hon ska svara på en fråga eller hur hon ska formulera sig. Men så har hon också under lång tid höjt sin röst mot makten.  Första gången Malalai Joyas namn spreds över världen var i december 2003. Då var hon delegat i den församling som skulle ta fram en ny afghansk konstitution. I ett inlägg kritiserade hon att de krigsherrar som låg bakom det förödande inbördeskriget på 1990-talet fanns i församlingen och gavs ledande poster, när de snarare borde ställas inför rätta för sina förbrytelser. Från den dagen har dödshoten varit en del av Malalai Joyas vardag. Men det har inte fått henne att tystna. I skrivande stund reser hon runt i Europa, talar på möten och ställer upp på intervjuer för att sprida sitt budskap. Vi börjar med att tala om den makt som bär huvudskulden till ”helvetet” i hennes hemland. • Ockupationen av Afghanistan inleddes under George W Bush i oktober 2001. Har presidentskiftet förändrat något? – Tyvärr är Barack Obama en ännu större krigshetsare än krigsförbrytaren Bush, svarar Malalai Joya. Obama skickar fler trupper till Afghanistan. Han fortsätter kriget i Irak, tiger om förtrycket i Palestina, planerar krig i Pakistan och Jemen… – Om Obama vore hederlig skulle han ha bett om ursäkt för Bushs politik. Då skulle han ha dragit tillbaka trupperna från Afghanistan, slutat stödja demokratins fiender och pressat grannländerna att stoppa stödet till krigsherrarna och talibanerna. Då skulle han ha stött de demokrater, de underjordiska aktivister, som finns i Afghanistan. Men ovanstående ligger inte Obamas intresse. Målet med angreppet på Afghanistan var, menar Malalai Joya, att genom ockupation och upprättandet av militärbaser ta kontroll över regionen och dess naturresurser. – Det är lika tydligt som att Irak ockuperades på grund av dess olja. • Försvararna av kriget och störtandet av talibanregimen anger införandet av demokrati och värnandet av kvinnors rättigheter som viktiga argument. Vad säger du om det? – En nation kan aldrig skänka ett annat land befrielse. Demokrati kan aldrig skapas genom ockupation och krig, genom klusterbomber och vit fosfor. Se vad de gjorde i min hemprovins Farah i maj förra året. 150 civila dödades, de flesta kvinnor och barn. I Kunduzprovinsen bombade tyska trupper ihjäl 200 personer. Vi vill inte ha en militär intervention, vi vill ha hjälp med utbildning, sjukvård och återuppbyggnad av landet. Apropå kvinnornas situation menar Malalai Joya att den bild som sprids av medierna i väst inte är sann. Det pågår ett propagandakrig för att motivera fortsatt truppnärvaro. I detta krig spelar talet om kvinnornas befrielse från de förtryckande talibanerna en central roll. – Vi har 25 procent kvinnor i parlamentet, vilket vi inte hade förr. Men de flesta av dessa kvinnor spelar en symbolisk roll och är uppvisningsobjekt som ska lura folken i väst. I de stora städerna har ett litet antal kvinnor fått tillgång till jobb och skola, det är sant. Men på landsbygden där flertalet afghaner lever är förhållandena värre än någonsin. Som exempel nämner hon att antalet våldtäkter, syraattacker och självmord har nått historiskt höga nivåer, liksom utbredningen av våld i hemmen. – På en del håll satsas miljontals dollar på att bygga skolor, fortsätter Malalai Joya. Det är som en tv-show, som sänds för att visa väst att ockupationen gör nytta. Men när flickorna ska gå till den nybyggda skolan kidnappas och våldtas de eller får syra i ansiktena. I media påstås att talibanerna ligger bakom alla dessa brott. Det är inte sant. Även de krigsherrar som sitter vid makten gör sådant. Precis som en annan ockupations-kritisk röst, Revolutionära afghanska kvinnoförbundet (RAWA), anser Malalai Joya att det största problemet just nu är avsaknaden av säkerhet. Något som inte fört med sig säkerhet, inte ens i Kabul, är närvaron av tusentals utländska soldater. • Kan det inte bli ännu värre om alla länder tar hem sina trupper? Sveriges försvarsminister Sten Tolgfors hävdade i en debattartikel i juli förra året att då ”skulle Afghanistan snabbt falla tillbaka i inbördeskrig, förtryck och diktatur”. – Idag står afghaner inför tre fiender, krigsherrarna, talibanerna och ockupationstrupperna, under ledning av USA och Nato. Att kämpa mot två fiender är lättare än att kämpa mot tre. – Om ockupations-trupperna lämnade Afg-hanistan skulle vårt folk åtminstone slippa dödas av bomber från skyn. Vi vet själva hur vi ska bekämpa krigsherrar och talibaner, för de har inget stöd i folkets hjärtan. • Det finns de som säger sig vara motståndare till kriget och ockupationen, men samtidigt menar att väst måste stanna för att förhindra inbördeskrig. – Jag undrar varför de som säger så tiger om att det pågår ett krig och inbördeskrig sedan åtta år. Det kommer att fortsätta så länge de utländska trupperna stannar kvar. Ett vanligt argument för den militära närvaron är att det inte bara handlar om Afghanistan. I nämnda debattinlägg skrev försvarsminister Tolgfors att ”…Sverige är också i Afghanistan för att det påverkar Sveriges egen säkerhet. Det går inte att låta ett land falla samman och låta det tas över av terrorister”. När Malalai Joya får citatet översatt till engelska suckar hon, ber mig läsa det igen innan hon påminner om att både talibanerna och al-Qaida skapats av USA. Sedan frågar hon sig varför inte Sverige fördömer USA:s och den afghanska regeringens pågående försök att förhandla med och köpa sig fred med talibanerna. Då skulle ju de av Tolgfors fruktade terroristerna komma tillbaka till makten. Malalai Joya erkänner att det finns en fråga där utvecklingen i Afghanistan faktiskt utgör ett hot mot svenska folket. – När talibanerna hade makten lyckades de så gott som utrota opiumproduktionen. 2001 var den bara 185 ton. Idag med närvaron av tusentals utländska soldater har produktionen ökat med 4400 procent. Det hotar inte bara det afghanska folket. När heroinet når gatorna i Stockholm, New York och andra städer förstörs framtiden för ungdomar världen över. • Vilken roll spelar den afghanska regimen i knarkhandeln? – Presidentens bror Ahmed Wali Karzai är en ökänd droghandlare i Kandahar i södra Afghanistan. New York Times hade en artikel om det i oktober förra året. I den avslöjades också att han stod på amerikanska CIA:s avlöningslista. Men president Karzai har aldrig ingripit mot brodern. Hon ger fler exempel på ledande personer i regimen som är ökända knarkhandlare och säger: – Drogmaffian är som cancer i vårt lands kropp, och det är denna cancer som USA, Sverige, Italien och fyrtiotalet andra länder backar upp med sina trupper. Vårt samtal går över till att handla om Sverige och det starka motståndet mot den svenska truppnärvaron i Afghanistan. De politiska krafter som tar ställning mot ockupationen är dock få. Ett undantag är Kommunistiska Partiet som allt sedan den första svenske soldaten satte sin fot på afghansk mark har krävt att trupperna ska hem. Vänsterpartiet röstade för trupp-insatsen i december 2001 för att sedan ändra sig och kräva ett tillbakadragande. Det oroväckande är att V, som en del av det rödgröna regeringsalternativet, tystnat i frågan. Kravet Sverige ut ur Afghanistan finns inte med i valplattformen. • Har du något du vill säga till de svenska politikerna inför höstens val? – Jag vill säga så här: Vi önskar ett tillbakadragande av ockupations-trupperna. Ju förr desto bättre. Om de inte lämnar Afghanistan kommer folkets motstånd att öka. Vi har en stolt historia, vi har aldrig accepterat utländsk ockupation och vi kommer att lära dem en läxa, precis som vi tidigare lärt britterna och ryssarna en läxa. Vi förväntar oss inte något gott från väst, bara sluta bomba, sluta döda vårt folk, sluta stödja krigsherrarna med dollar och vapen, sluta förhandla med talibanerna. – Till alla goda politiker i Sverige är mitt budskap att goda människors tystnad är värre än onda människors handlingar. De som vill göra en insats för det afghanska folket, som vill vara ärliga inför svenska folket, måste höja sina röster mot ockupationen. Om de är ärliga måste de agera självständigt istället för att vara verktyg åt USA. Patrik Paulov Proletären nr 15, 2010 Bakgrund  Malalai Joya Flyktingen som återvände hem • Malalai Joya föddes 1978 i Farahprovinsen. Året därpå invaderade sovjetiska trupper Afghanistan. 1982 flydde hennes familj landet såsom miljoner andra afghaner gjorde under ockupationen. De hamnade först i flyktingläger i Iran, senare i Pakistan. • Hon återvände till Afghanistan 1998. Då hade de sista sovjetiska trupperna sedan länge lämnat landet och talibanerna tagit över. Under denna tid arbetade hon som lärare i underjordiska flickskolor. Folkvald politiker som blev avstängd • I december 2003, två år efter att den USA-ledda invasionen av Afghanistan, var hon en av 502 delegater i den Loya jirga som skulle ta fram en ny konstitution. Hon förfärades över att krigsherrar satt på ledande poster i församlingen. I ett inlägg förklarade hon att de snarare borde ställas inför rätta. Därefter fick hon inte tala mer i Loya Jirgan. • I parlamentsvalet i oktober 2005 fick Malalai Joya 7813 röster (7,3 procent) i Farahprovinsen, vilket gjorde henne till den kandidat i provinsen som fick näst flest röster. Som nyvald ledamot insåg hon snart att också parlamentet dominerades av kriminella krigsherrar och deras allierade, vilka ”vunnit” sina platser med hjälp av våld eller pengar. • Trots att hon redan då utsatts för mordförsök och hotats till livet fortsatta hon att kritisera Afg-hanistans nya makthavare, men också den utländska militära närvaron. I maj 2007 hade hennes motståndare fått nog och hon suspenderades från parlamentet. Orsaken var att hon i en tv-intervju sagt att det vore orättvist att jämföra de kriminella krigsherrarna i parlamentet med djuren i ett stall eller ett zoo, eftersom djuren faktiskt gör nytta. Politisk comeback? • Malalai Joya fortsätter sitt arbete för ett fritt, demokratiskt och sekulärt Afghanistan. I hemlandet tvingas hon dock leva på hemlig plats och ständigt ha livvakt. Nyligen meddelade hon att hon önskar kandidera i valet i september. Den avgörande makten över vem som blir vald, menar hon, har dock inte väljarna utan de som räknas rösterna. Malalai Joya apropå… …propagandan ”I en BBC-undersökning påstods det att 77 procent tycker att Karzai är en bra president. Om detta är sant, varför var det då nödvändigt med massivt valfusk?” …klassklyftor ”För de som har pengar finns privatskolor och till och med privata universitet i Afghanistan. Privatiseringarna utgör en ny fiende till folket då de vidgar klyftan mellan fattiga och rika. …korruption ”Bistånd ska gå till utbildning, sjukvård och återuppbygnad, inte Karzais korrupta marionettregim.” …döda ockupanter ”Jag sänder mina kondoleanser till de föräldrar i väst som förlorat sina söner och döttrar i det så kallade kriget mot terrorismen. Mitt budskap till dem är att omvandla sorgen till styrka. Höj rösterna mot era regeringars felaktiga politik.” …våldet ”USA har intresse av att behålla en orolig situation. Det är en ursäkt för att stanna.” Fakta: CIA försöker manipulera opinionen i Europa • Amerikanska underrättelsetjänsten CIA oroas över att västeuropéernas ”likgiltighet” inför den Nato-ledda Isaf-insatsen i Afghanistan skulle kunna slå över i en aktiv opinion för att ta hem trupperna. Därför planerar USA:s spionorganisation motgärder. Avslöjandet görs av websidan Wikileaks, som publicerar en hemligstämplad CIA-rapport från 11 mars i år. • Som utgångspunkt för det instabila läget pekar CIA på Holland, vars regering sprack i februari på grund av oenighet om Afghanistaninsatsen. Socialdemokraterna kräver nämligen att de holländska trupperna ska tas hem innan årets slut. För USA vore det rena skräckscenariot om det skulle sprida sig till länder med stora truppinsatser i Afghanistan, som Frankrike eller Tyskland. • I CIA-rapporten analyseras vilka frågor som kan övertyga fransmän och tyskar om insatsens förträfflighet. Bland annat nämns vikten av att sprida bilden av att Nato hjälper civila afghaner, som är glada över truppnärvaron, samt av att lyfta fram hoten om flyktingströmmar och risk för terrorism i Europa om talibanerna tillåts segra. • Kvinnofrågan får särskild uppmärksamhet: ”Afghanska kvinnor kan fungera som ideala budbärare för att humanisera Isafs roll i kampen mot talibanerna, tack vare kvinnors förmåga att tala personligt och trovärdigt om sina erfarenheter under talibanerna, sina förhoppningar om framtiden, och sin rädsla för att talibanerna ska segra…möjligheter för afghanska kvinnor att genom media dela sina historier med franska, tyska och andra europeiska kvinnor kan bidra till att övervinna en genomgripande skepsis mot Isaf-insatsen bland kvinnor i Västeuropa.” • Det är inte afghanska kvinnor i allmänhet som kommer att få tala i medierna om CIA får styra. Malalai Joya lär inte tillhöra de utvalda. [ Tillbaka ]

A JULIAN REALity Check: If You Currently Blame One or More Radical Feminists for Your Problems, Please Respond to theseTen Statements. Every one, honestly and truthfully.

 [image is from here]

Heterosexual men organised and maintain control of every social institution you live in, and nothing they have created was done do to make radical feminists happy or content. In 99.9999% of cases, these het men don't know radical feminists, they don't or won't listen to radical feminists, they willfully ignore the activism of radical feminists, and refuse to comprehend the intellectual written work of radical feminists. Being oppressed means people impact your life who you didn't invite into it. If you even know about  any form of radical feminism, it's because you welcomed that knowledge into your life.

1. Given that variations of white and het male supremacist ideology and institutions have been imposed on you since day one, and on your parents before that, and on their parents before that, tell me, how many radical feminists were living then to regulate their society's standards and practices that are still in effect?

2. Het men determine the lives of human beings more than any other demographic, globally. In most of the West, white men determine the options from which citizens choose, with varying amounts of agency, the ones that make sense to them, or choose how to survive and endure the conditions in which people live and die. Consider all the decisions you have made in your life. What percent of those were controlled or forced upon you by radical feminists?

3. Radical feminists are so small in number relative to the general population, in any culture and country, that for you to blame THEM, is likely a way for you to displace your hostility that ought to be directly squarely at institutions anti- and non-feminist het men created and control. Which radical feminist has harmed you the most? Which non-feminist or anti-feminist has harmed you the most in your life, to date? Describe the harm to me, in each case.

4. If you think people like Andrea Dworkin control your sexuality, your sexual values, and your sexual practices more than corporate pimps and rapists-about-town, you are clueless about how sexuality is constructed in white and or het patriarchal societies. If you don't live in a white male and or het male supremacist society, and if you don't live in a culture impacted for centuries or in a society invaded and colonised by the ruling class members of white and/or het male supremacist societies, please let me know what society you live in.

5. What official, Federal or National laws govern, control, regulate, or direct your behaviors, and find out how many of them were crafted and made law by radical feminists. How many laws of those that impact your life were created by radical feminists? And if there are some laws that were drafted and passed into law by radical feminists, tell me how they harm you, specifically and how that harm is greater, by any measure, than the harm done to you by the profiteering pimps and ruling patriarchy-protectors who govern societies globally.

6. If you feel any anger or rage or hostility at all towards radical or revolutionary feminists or womanists, you are one damn privileged person, because the most oppressed people are being oppressed and killed by the actions of wealthy white het men, who regulate the International Monetary Fund, The World Bank, Governments, Militaries, Police Forces, Insurance companies, Food Distribution systems, Water Distribution systems, and Medical Care Establishments, Educational Institutions, as well as who and what is taxed, at what rates. The people who do all this are among the world's wealthiest people. Radical feminists are not among that population, and please provide proof if you disagree with this.

7. How many of your past or present employers, bosses, supervisors, and those of your friends and family members who work for money are radical feminists compared to non-radical feminist women or men?

8. If you believe radical feminists "hate men", ask yourself how you feel about all the men who hate men, and please note: there are at least 10,000 times as many men who hate men as there are women who do. There are over one million times as many men who hate women as there are women who hate men. Most women who dislike and disrespect men are not radical feminists. And the men who hate men and who hate women have measurable power in societies that radical feminists don't. How many men do you know who have shown gross disrespect at several or many women? How many women do you know who have shown gross, assaultive disrespect at several or many men?

9. If you fight for the rights primarily of white men or het men, consider that your worldview and perceptions are grossly distorted by the amount of privilege you have that enables you to believe this is an appropriate and humane way to live your life. What is your definition or what are examples of "structural oppression" and "oppressive social institutions"?

10. If you believe radical feminists are the source of any problems you experience institutionally and systemically, do some research into who created and maintain those systems and institutions and get back to me on that. Who has committed state-sponsored or gross collective crimes against humanity, such as genocide, torture of political prisoners, destruction of land and human and non-human animal life, sadistic ritual sexual abuse, trafficking in human beings, sexual slavery, and rape? What are their names? Ask yourself: throughout your lifetime, how many murders have you known of, total. Please write down that figure. Now ask yourself, who committed those murders, including murders by police officers and military personnel? Tell me the percentage of murders committed by radical feminists compared to the percent committed by non-feminists, non-womanists, and anti-feminists.

Arundhati Roy on Obama’s Wars, India and Why Democracy Is “The Biggest Scam in the World”

All that follows is from *here* at NPR.

 

We speak with acclaimed Indian writer and activist Arundhati Roy on President Obama, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, India and Kashmir and much more. Roy also talks about her journey deep into the forests of central India to report on the Maoist insurgency. [includes rush transcript]

Guest:

Arundhati Roy, award-winning Indian writer and renowned global justice activist. Her latest book is Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers. Her most recent article is published in the Indian magazine Outlook called Walking with the Comrades

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• Pakistan’s Wealth Divide and Rising Militancy
• “Obama Has Kept the Machine Set on Kill”–Journalist and Activist Allan Nairn Reviews Obama’s First Year in Office
• Indian Environmentalist Vandana Shiva: “It Is Time for the US to Stop Seeing Itself as a Donor and Recognizing Itself as a Polluter, a Polluter who Must Pay”

Rush Transcript

 

ANJALI KAMAT: We spend the rest of the hour with acclaimed Indian writer and activist Arundhati Roy on the dark underbelly of India, a country that prides itself on being known as the world’s largest democracy.

Earlier this month, when Forbes published its annual list of the world’s billionaires, the Indian press reported with some delight that two of their countrymen had made it to the coveted list of the ten richest individuals in the world.

Meanwhile, thousands of Indian paramilitary troops and police are fighting a war against some of its poorest inhabitants living deep in the country’s so-called tribal belt. Indian officials say more than a third of the country, mostly mineral-rich forest land, is partially or completely under the control of Maoist rebels, also known as Naxalites. India’s prime minister has called the Maoists the country’s “gravest internal security threat.” According to official figures, nearly 6,000 people have died in the past seven years of fighting, more than half of them civilians. The government’s new paramilitary offensive against the Maoists has been dubbed Operation Green Hunt.

Well, earlier this month, the leader of the Maoist insurgency, Koteswar Rao, or Kishenji, invited the Booker Prize-winning novelist Arundhati Roy to mediate in peace talks with the government. Soon after, India’s Home Secretary, G.K. Pillai, criticized Roy and others who have publicly called state violence against Maoists, quote, “genocidal.”

G.K. PILLAI: If the Maoists are murderers, please call the Maoists murderers. Why is it that if Maoists murders in West Midnapore last year from June to December 159 innocent civilians, I don’t see any criticism of that? I can call it—159, if government have done it, a lot of people would have gone and said it’s genocide. Why is that not genocide by the Maoists?

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Arundhati Roy recently had a rare journalistic encounter with the armed guerrillas in the forests of central India. She spent a few weeks traveling with the insurgency deep in India’s Maoist heartland and wrote about their struggle in a 20,000-word essay published this weekend in the Indian magazine Outlook. It’s called “Walking with the Comrades.”

We’re joined now here in New York by the world-renowned author and global justice activist. She won the Lannan Foundation Cultural Freedom Prize in 2002 and is the author of a number of books, including the Booker Prize-winning novel The God of Small Things. Her latest collection of essays, published by Haymarket, is Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers.

Arundhati Roy, welcome to Democracy Now!

ARUNDHATI ROY: Thank you, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: Before we go into the very interesting journey you took, you arrive here on the seventh anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq. You were extremely outspoken on the war and have continued to be. I remember seeing you at Riverside Church with the great Howard Zinn, giving a speech against the war. What are your thoughts now, seven years in? And how it’s affected your continent, how it’s affected India?

ARUNDHATI ROY: Well, I think the—you know, the saddest thing is that when the American elections happened and you had all the rhetoric of, you know, change you can believe in, and even the most cynical of us watched Obama win the elections and did feel moved, you know, watching how happy people were, especially people who had lived through the civil rights movement and so on, and, you know, in fact what has happened is that he has come in and expanded the war. He won the Nobel Peace Prize and took an opportunity to justify the war. It was as though those tears of the black people who watched, you know, a black man come to power were now cut and paste into the eyes of the world’s elite watching him justify war.

And from where I come from, it’s almost—you know, you think that they probably don’t even understand what they’re doing, the American government. They don’t understand what kind of ground they stand on. When you say things like “We have to wipe out the Taliban,” what does that mean? The Taliban is not a fixed number of people. The Taliban is an ideology that has sprung out of a history that, you know, America created anyway.

Iraq, the war is going on. Afghanistan, obviously, is rising up in revolt. It’s spilled into Pakistan, and from Pakistan into Kashmir and into India. So we’re seeing this superpower, in a way, caught in quicksand with a conceptual inability to understand what it’s doing, how to get out or how to stay in. It’s going to take this country down with it, for sure, you know, and I think it’s a real pity that, in a way, at least George Bush was so almost obscene in his stupidity about it, whereas here it’s smoke and mirrors, and people find it more difficult to decipher what’s going on. But, in fact, the war has expanded.

ANJALI KAMAT: And Arundhati, how would you explain India’s role in the expanding US war in Afghanistan and Pakistan? This is a climate of very good relations between India and the United States.

ARUNDHATI ROY: Well, India’s role is—India’s role is one of, at the moment, trying to position itself, as it keeps saying, as the natural ally of Israel and the US. And India is trying very hard to maneuver itself into a position of influence in Afghanistan. And personally, I believe that the American government would be very happy to see Indian troops in Afghanistan. It cannot be done openly, because it would just explode, you know, so there are all kinds of ways in which they are trying to create a sphere of influence there. So the Indian government is deep into the great game, you know, there, and of course the result is, you know, attacks in Kashmir and in Mumbai, not directly related to Afghanistan, but of course there’s a whole history of this kind of maneuvering that’s going on.

AMY GOODMAN: For an American audience, and perhaps for an audience just outside of the region, if you could really talk to us about an area you’ve been focusing a great deal on, of course, and that is Kashmir. Most people here know it as a sweater. That’s what they think of when they hear “Kashmir.”

ARUNDHATI ROY: OK, mm-hmm.

AMY GOODMAN: So, starting there, if you can tell us what is going on there—even place it for us geographically.

ARUNDHATI ROY: OK. Well, Kashmir, as they say in India, you know, is the unfinished business in the partition of India and Pakistan. So, as usual, it was a gift of British colonialism. You know, they threw it at us as they walked—I mean, as they withdrew. So Kashmir used to be an independent kingdom with a Muslim majority ruled by a Hindu king. And during—at the time of partition in 1947, as there was—you know, as you know, almost a million people lost their lives, because this line that was drawn between India and Pakistan passed through villages and passed through communities, and as Hindus fled from Pakistan and Muslims fled from India, there was massacre on both sides.

And at that time, oddly enough, Kashmir was peaceful. But then, when all the independent princedoms in India and Pakistan were asked to actually accede either to India or Pakistan, but Kashmir, the king was undecided, and that indecision resulted in, you know, Pakistani troops and non-official combatants coming in. And the king fled to Jamu, and then he acceded to India. But he was—you know, there was already a movement for democracy within Kashmir at that time. Anyway, that’s the history.

But subsequently, there’s always been a struggle for independence or self-determination there, which in 1989 became an armed uprising and was put down militarily by India. And today, the simplest way of explaining the scale of what’s going on is that the US has 165,000 troops in Iraq, but the Indian government has 700,000 troops in the Kashmir valley—I mean, in Kashmir, security forces, you know, holding down a place with military might. And so, it’s a military occupation.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to break and then come back to your travels in Kashmir, Arundhati Roy, award-winning Indian writer, renowned global justice activist. Her new book is a book of essays; it’s called Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers. She’s here in the United States for just a little while. Stay with us.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: ”Hum Dekhen Ge” by Iqbal Bano. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Anjali Kamat. Our guest for the rest of the hour, Arundhati Roy, the award-winning Indian writer, renowned global justice activist. Her latest book, Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers.

You recognize that music, Anjali?

ANJALI KAMAT: Yes, “Hum Dekhen Ge” by Iqbal Bano. Arundhati Roy, your latest article in Outlook, “Walking with the Comrades,” you end the piece by talking about this song that so many people rose up in Pakistan listening to this song, and you place it in a completely different context. Start by talking about what’s happening in the forests of India. What is this war that India is waging against some of the poorest people, people known as tribals, indigenous people, Adivasis? Who are the Maoists? What’s happening there? And how did you get there?

ARUNDHATI ROY: Well, it’s been going on for a while, but basically, you know, I mean, there is a connection. If you look at Afghanistan, Waziristan, you know, the northeast states of India and this whole mineral belt that goes from West Bengal through Jharkhand through Orissa to Chhattisgarh, what’s called the Red Corridor in India, you know, it’s interesting that the entire thing is a tribal uprising. In Afghanistan, obviously, it’s taken the form of a radical Islamist uprising. And here, it’s a radical left uprising. But the attack is the same. It’s a corporate attack, you know, on these people. The resistance has taken different forms.

But in India, this thing known as the Red Corridor, if you look at a map of India, the tribal people, the forests, the minerals and the Maoists are all stacked on top of each other. You know, so—and in the last five years, the governments of these various states have signed MOUs with mining corporations worth billions of dollars.

ANJALI KAMAT: Memoranda of understanding.

ARUNDHATI ROY: Memorandums of understanding. So as we say, it’s equally an MOU-ist corridor as it is a Maoist corridor, you know? And it was interesting that a lot of these MOUs were signed in 2005. And at that time, it was just after this Congress government had come to power, and the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, announced that the Maoists are India’s “gravest internal security threat.” And it was very odd that he should have said that then, because the Maoists had actually just been decimated in the state of Andhra Pradesh. I think they had killed something like 1,600 of them. But the minute he said this, the shares in the mining companies went up, because obviously it was a signal that the government was prepared to do something about this, and then started this assault on them, which ended up as Operation Green Hunt, which is where now tens of thousands of paramilitary troops are moving in to these tribal areas.

But before Operation Green Hunt, they tried another thing, which was that they armed a sort of tribal militia and backed by police in a state like Chhattisgarh, where I was traveling recently, they just went into the forest. This militia burned village after village after village, like something like 640 villages were, more or less, emptied. And it was—the plan was what’s known as strategic hamletting, which the Americans tried in Vietnam, which was first devised by the British in Malaya, where you try and force people to move into police wayside camps so that you can control them, and the villages are emptied so that the forests are open for the corporates to go.

And what happened actually was that out of the—in this area, in Chhattisgarh, out of, say, 350,000 people, about 50,000 people moved into the camps. Some were forced, some went voluntarily. And the rest just went off the government radar. Many of them went to other states to work as migrant labor, but many of them just continued to hide in the forests, unable to come back to their homes, but not wanting to leave. But the fact is that in this entire area, the Maoists have been there for thirty years, you know, working with people and so on. So it’s a very—it’s not a resistance that has risen up against mining. It preceded that a long time—you know, by a long time. So it’s very entrenched. And Operation Green Hunt has been announced because this militia, called the Salwa Judum, failed, so now they are upping the ante, because these MOUs are waiting. And the mining corporations are not used to being made to wait. You know, so there’s a lot of money waiting.

And, I mean, what I want to say is that we are not using this word “genocidal war” lightly or rhetorically. But I traveled in that area, and what you see is the poorest people of this country, who have been outside the purview of the state. There’s no hospital. There’s no clinic. There’s no education. There’s nothing, you know? And now, there’s a kind of siege, where people can’t go out of their villages to the market to buy anything, because the markets are full of informers who are pointing out, you know, this person is with the resistance and so on. There’s no doctors. There’s no medical help. People are suffering from extreme hunger, malnutrition. So it’s not just killing. You know, it’s not just going out there and burning and killing, but it’s also laying siege to a very vulnerable population, cutting them off from their resources and putting them under grievous threat. And this is a democracy, you know, so how do you do—how do you clear the land for corporates in a democracy? You can’t actually go and murder people, but you create a situation in which they either have to leave or they starve to death.

ANJALI KAMAT: In your piece, you describe the people you traveled with, the armed guerrillas, as Gandhians with guns. Can you talk about what you mean by that and how—what you think of the violence perpetrated by the Maoists?

ARUNDHATI ROY: Well, you know, this is a very sharp debate in India about—I mean, you know, even the sort of mainstream left and the liberal intellectuals are very, very suspicious of Maoists. And everybody should be suspicious of Maoists, because, you know, they do—they have had a very—a very difficult past, and there are a lot of things that their ideologues say which do put a chill down your spine.

But when I went there, I have to say, I was shocked at what I saw, you know, because in the last thirty years I think something has radically changed among them. And the one thing is that in India, people try and make this difference. They say there’s the Maoists, and then there’s the tribals. Actually, the Maoists are tribals, you know, and the tribals themselves have had a history of resistance and rebellion that predates Mao by centuries, you know? And so, I think it’s just a name, in a way. It’s just a name. And yet, without that organization, the tribal people could not have put up this resistance. You know, so it is complicated.

But when I went in, I lived with them for, you know, and I walked with them for a long time, and it’s an army that is more Gandhian than any Gandhian, that leaves a lighter footprint than any climate change evangelist. You know, and as I said, even their sabotage techniques are Gandhian. You know, they waste nothing. They live on nothing. And to the outside world—first of all, the media has been lying about them for a long time. A lot of the incidents of violence did not happen, you know, which I figured out. A lot of them did happen, and there was a reason for why they happened.

And what I actually wanted to ask people was, when you talk about nonviolent resistance—I myself have spoken about that. I myself have said that women will be the victims of an armed struggle. And when I went in, I found the opposite to be true. I found that 50 percent of the armed cadre were women. And a lot of the reason they joined was because for thirty years the Maoists had been working with women there. The women’s organization, which has 90,000 members, which is probably the biggest feminist organization in India, now all 90,000 of those women are surely Maoists, and the government has given itself the right to shoot on sight. So, are they going to shoot these 90,000 people?

AMY GOODMAN: Arundhati Roy, the leader of the Maoists has asked you to be the negotiator, the mediator between them and the Indian government. What is your response?

ARUNDHATI ROY: Look, I wouldn’t be a good mediator. You know, that’s not my—those are not my skills. I think that somebody should do it, but I don’t think that it should be me, because I just have no idea how to mediate, you know? And I don’t think that we should be jumping into things that we don’t know much about. And I certainly—I did say that. You know, I mean, it’s—I don’t know why they mentioned my name, but I think there are people in India who have those skills and who could do it, because it’s very, very urgent that this Operation Green Hunt be called off. Very, very urgent, you know, but it would be silly for someone like me to enter that, because I think I’m too impatient. I’m too much of a maverick. You know, I don’t have those skills.

AMY GOODMAN: I remember, back to Kashmir, when President Obama was running for president, Senator Obama, in an interview, talked about Kashmir, and he talked about it as a kind of flashpoint, said that we have to resolve the situation between India—between India and Pakistan around Kashmir so that Pakistan can focus on the militants. Can you talk about it as being a flashpoint and what you think needs to be done there?

ARUNDHATI ROY: Well, I think, you know, unfortunately, the thing about Kashmir is that India and Pakistan act as though Kashmir is a problem. But really for them both, Kashmir is a solution. You know, Kashmir is where they play their dirty games. And they don’t want to solve it, because whenever they have, you know, internal problems, they can always pull up—pull this bunny out of the hat. So it’s really—I really think that these two countries are not going to solve it, you know?

And what is happening is that there is a population of people who have been suffering untold misery for so many years, you know, and once again so many lies have been told about it. The Indian media is just—the falsification that it’s involved with about Kashmir is unbelievable. Like two years ago—or was it last year? Two years ago, there was a massive uprising in Kashmir. I happened to be there at the time. I’ve never seen anything like this. You know, there were millions of people on the street all the time. And—

AMY GOODMAN: And they were rising up for?

ARUNDHATI ROY: They were rising up for independence. You know, they were rising up for independence. And then, that uprising was—you know, when they rose up with arms, that was wrong. When they rose up without arms, that was wrong, too.

And the way it was defused was with an election. An election was called. And then everybody was shocked, because there was a huge turnout at the elections. And all the—you know, we have many election experts in India who spend all their time in television studios analyzing the swing and this and that, but nobody said that all the leaders of the resistance were arrested. Nobody asked, what does it mean to have elections when there are 700,000 soldiers supervising every five meters, all the time, all year round? They don’t have to push people on the end of a bayonet to the voting booth, you know? Nobody talked about the fact that there was a lockdown in every constituency. Nobody wondered what does it mean to people who are under that kind of occupation. The fact that they need somebody to go to, you know, when someone disappears—or, you know, they need some representative.

So now, once again, the violence has started. You know? It’s a permanent sort of cycle where, obviously in the interest of geopolitical jockeying, any sense of morality is missing. And of course it’s very fashionable to say that, you know, there isn’t any morality involved in international diplomacy, but suddenly, when it comes to Maoists killing, morality just comes riding down on your head. You know, so people use it when they want to.

ANJALI KAMAT: And Arundhati, in both India and the United States, as these wars expand, as the military occupations, as you delineated, in Kashmir, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, as they expand, what is your message to antiwar activists, to peace activists around the world, here and in India? What do you think people need to be doing?

ARUNDHATI ROY: See, I think I just want to say one thing more, which is that in Kashmir, you have, as I said, 700,000 soldiers who have been turned into an administrative police force. In India, where they don’t want to openly declare war against the Adivasis, you have a paramilitary police, which is being trained to be an army. So the police are turning into the army. The army is turning into the police. But to push through this growth rate, you know, you have basically this whole country is turning into a police state.

And I just want to say one thing about democracy. You know, in India, the elections—the elections were—they cost more than the American elections. Much more. This poor country costs much more. The most enthusiastic were the corporates. The members of parliament are—a majority of them are millionaires. If you look at the statistics, actually this big majority it has ten percent of the vote. The BBC had a campaign where they had posters of a dollar bill—$500 bill sort of molting into an Indian 500 rupee note with Ben Franklin on one end and Gandhi on the other. And it said, “Kya India ka vote bachayega duniya ka note?” meaning “Will the Indian vote save the market?” You know? So voters become consumers. It’s a kind of scam that’s going on.

So the first message I would have to peace activists is—I don’t know what that means, anyway. What does “peace” mean? You know, we may not need peace in this unjust society, because that’s a way of accepting injustice, you know? So what you need is people who are prepared to resist, but not just on a weekend, not peace but not just on the weekend. In countries like India, now just saying, “OK, we’ll march on Saturday, and maybe they’ll stop the war in Iraq.” But in countries like India, now people are really paying with their lives, with their freedom, with everything. I mean, it’s resistance with consequences now. You know, it cannot be—it cannot be something that has no consequences. You know? It may not have, but you’ve got to understand that in order to change something, you’ve got to take some risks now. You’ve got to come out and lay those dreams on the line now, because things have come to a very, very bad place there.

AMY GOODMAN: Arundhati Roy, we want to thank you very much for being with us. Her latest book is called Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers. I look forward to being with you and Noam Chomsky in Cambridge in a week.

Meet Susana Deranger joining the Bolivia Climate Conference

What follows was seen by me at Censored News. This is a cross post. Thanks to Brenda! Click on the title below this video to link back to Censored News.

Bolivia: Meet Susana Deranger, Athabasca Chipewyan

Meet Susana Deranger joining the Bolivia Climate Conference

"I am a member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation. I am the co-founder of a new group called Indigenous Women Without Borders. I have been an activist and involved in First Nation and human rights a great part of my life. I was in Copenhagen and will be doing a presentation on the Tar Sands in Bolivia since my First Nation is located on what we call ¨ground zero.¨ I live in Regina Saskatchewan , Canada and am a mother of four children and grandmother of 3. Finally, I have been working in the Peruvian Amazon for the last five years."

Susana's comments in Copenhagen:
“The United States is importing millions of barrels of oil from the Canadian Tar Sands, which is contributing to the genocide of the Dene and Cree nations of Northern Canada and to the destruction of Mother Earth” said Susana Deranger, a grandmother from Fort Chipewyan in Northern Alberta. “Last summer, there was a flock of ducks that landed on a tailings pond of Tar Sands dirty water, and they all died. This is the water that is poisoning our people. There are clusters of rare cancers that are concentrated in our communities and killing our people. Obama, we urge you: End Environmental Racism – Climate Justice now!” 

Posted by brendanorrell

The Adolph Award for April goes to Jeffrey Russell Hall of the neo-Nazi Group "Reclaim the Southwest"

The Adolph Award this month goes to a white presumably het man by the name of Jeffrey Russell Hall. He is a regional director of a Detroit-based White Nationalist Group of white illegal aliens of Turtle Island. The fascist/racist group of white immigrants taking away all our jobs and spending our good tax dollars calls themselves "Reclaim The Southwest" which is a better name for an American Indian group than for the fascist white settlers who need to get out of town, city, and country and go back to some originally Caucasian-peopled land where they are presumably from. They sure as honky hell aren't from this land! (Story below, from the AP, but found *here*.)

Blood spilled, emotions stirred at LA Neo-Nazi rally

By theGrio

7:40 PM on 04/17/2010

Read More: Hate, Immigration, Los Angeles, Nazi, Neo-Nazi, Rally, Violence

An unidentified man is confronted by an anti-Nazi crowd during a white supremacist rally at Los Angeles City Hall on Saturday April 17,2010. Hundreds of counter-protestors carrying anti-Nazi signs have gathered in downtown Los Angeles where a white supremacist group is rallying. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)
 
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A neo-Nazi white supremacist group rallied against illegal immigration in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday as hundreds of counter-protestors gathered to shout them down in a tense stand off that included thrown rocks and police in riot gear.

Police officers stood between the white supremacists and counter-demonstrators on the south lawn of Los Angeles' City Hall, where about 50 members of the National Socialist Movement waved American flags and swastika banners for about an hour.

The neo-Nazis shouted "sieg heil," but their words were mostly drowned out by chants of "racists go home" and "stop the Nazis" from the larger crowd of about 500 counter-protestors who held signs that read "Nazis: Get Out of Los Angeles" and "Racists Are Ignorant."

City Hall was selected for the Detroit-based group's "Reclaim The Southwest!" event because of Los Angeles' large population of immigrants -- some of whom are in the country illegally, regional director Jeffrey Russell Hall said.

The group was also responding to the recent flurry of street marches encouraging legislators to enact reform that includes amnesty for some illegal immigrants.

There was a brief flare-up of violence when a man removed his shirt revealing tattoos that featured Nazi lightning bolts, which some in the crowd deemed offensive.

Counter-protestor James Lafferty, executive director of the National Lawyers Guild, said he saw the tattooed man punched and kicked as a plainclothes officer dragged him behind police lines. Blood could be seen at the base of his neck, Lafferty said.

As the rally ended, counter-protestors hurled rocks, branches and other items over the police line toward the neo-Nazis.

No injuries were reported and it was unclear if any arrests were made, Police Officer Wendy Reyes said.
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press.