Right activists slammed Justice Minister Dr. Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe‘s outrageous comment on homosexuality and urged him to step down.
On Friday Wijeyadasa described homosexuality as a mental illness.
Wijeyadasa
Speaking at the opening ceremony of new district court complex in Tissamaharama, Wijeyadasa said: “They impose conditions on us when granting the GSP+ concession. When we were exporting fish to the EU they imposed the conditions and we complied with them. Now, to grant the GSP+ they ask more. They have several conditions which we agreed and some which we have not agreed. We were also asked to legalise homosexuality in the country. The European asked us to include it in the closes of the fundamental rights of the constitution. We clearly told them although they have a culture of indecency Sri Lankans are not people of such mental illnesses.”
“This comment is proof that we have a justice minister who is so small-minded that he withholds justice to his own fellow citizens on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity. I strongly think homophobic Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe should resign.” trans rights activist, blogger and international politics academic Dr Chamindra Weerawardhana told Colombo Telegraph.
Dr Chamindra Weerawardhana said:”‘Justice’ is an extremely crucial ministerial portfolio, and a mammoth responsibility falls on the shoulders of the Minister of Justice, to stand for the fundamental rights of ALL citizens. Here, we see an extremely pathetic case, where the minister of justice, himself a President’s Counsel and a PhD holder, being extremely discriminatory towards Sri Lankan citizens on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation! This is absolutely abominable, and should be summarily condemned. Sometime back, some news sites (such as a London-based one) used to praise this minister, highlighting how he had conversations with the British queen during a visit to London. In this terribly shameless comment we can clearly see that Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe’s allegiance is with the British Crown – as he seems to care more for Victorian values and laws the British forcibly imposed upon us, than the inalienable fundamental rights of our own fellow Sri Lankan citizens.”
“At yet another level, the way in which this guy talks about the European Union should be publicised internationally and summarily condemned. Despite considerable progress, there’s still a long way to go in terms of LGBTIQ rights in the EU. Some elements of EU foreign policy often encourage coercive pinkwashing tactics. Despite all that, after a time when relations between Colombo and the EU institutions were strained, the present government in Colombo, especially given its international contacts, has a key role to play in reviving Sri Lanka’s relationship with the European institutions, and working on a win-win, cooperative and constructive relationship. Making utterly ridiculous and staggeringly ignorant soundbite-oriented comments of this nature, even in the far end of provincial Sri Lanka, is simply not on, and undermines foreign policy. Most importantly, this comment is proof that we have a justice minister who is so small-minded that he withholds justice to his own fellow citizens on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity. I strongly think homophobic Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe should resign.” Weerawardhana noted.
“How can a politician with no expertise in Mental Health declare that Homosexuality is a mental disorder?” another right activist Dinesh Perera questioned.
Commenting on Facebook Dinesh Perera said: “He may not have done his research but here, I did some for him. If there is a criminal in all of this, it is the politician and not the person who simply seeks to love the person he/she is naturally attracted to. In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association members voted to remove homosexuality from the list of mental disorders. APA further describes this as : “Lesbian, gay and bisexual orientations are not disorders. Research has found no inherent association between any of these sexual orientations and psychopathology. Both heterosexual behavior and homosexual behavior are normal aspects of human sexuality. Both have been documented in many different cultures and historical eras. Despite the persistence of stereotypes that portray lesbian, gay and bisexual people as disturbed, several decades of research and clinical experience have led all mainstream medical and mental health organizations in the USA to conclude that these orientations represent normal forms of human experience. Lesbian, gay and bisexual relationships are normal forms of human bonding.”
“The World Health Organization (WHO) removed homosexuality from its International Classification of Diseases with the publication of ICD-10 in 1992. In a review of published studies comparing homosexual and heterosexual samples on psychological tests, Gonsiorek (1982) found that, although some differences have been observed in test results between homosexuals and heterosexuals, both groups consistently score within the normal range. Gonsiorek concluded that “Homosexuality in and of itself is unrelated to psychological disturbance or maladjustment. Homosexuals as a group are not more psychologically disturbed on account of their homosexuality” (Gonsiorek, 1982, p. 74; see also reviews by Gonsiorek, 1991; Hart, Roback, Tittler, Weitz, Walston & McKee, 1978; Riess, 1980).” Perera said.
A group of UNP MPs has proposed to the president that Ravi Karunanayake should be immediately removed from his finance minister position as he is accused of serious misuses of financial and state properties, in order to negate accusations leveled against the ‘Yahapaalana’ government.
Political sources say the MPs’ proposal came at a special meeting they had with the president after the cabinet meeting on January 17. The president has convened the meeting to discuss how to counter opposition accusations against the government and to have a strong propaganda mechanism. Participating were nearly 20 MPs, both from the UNP and the SLFP. Of them, around 10 were from the UNP, including Eran Wickramaratne, Rajitha Senaratne, Asok Abeysinghe, Nalin Bandara, Ajith Mannapperuma and Chatura Senaratne.
Sources also say the president stressed at the meeting their active involvement was needed to prevent the government from being accused falsely due to the weaknesses in the existing propaganda mechanism and the society from being given wrong as well as blown-up versions of minor issues. Responding, the MPs said they were in difficulties due to the unclear stand of the government over the Central Bank bond issue and the accusations against several leading ministers. If that could be clarified, they said, they would not find it difficult to save the government from the accusations. The UNP MPs have noted that the serious financial misappropriation accusations against Karunanayake could lead to both the UNP and the SLFP facing many crises in the future. They said that if the president intervened to remove him from his subjects and to give him some other position, they would fully support it, as it would reverse the accusations now being leveled against the government.
In reply, the president said as per the 19th amendment and the agreement he has signed with the UNP, the prime minister has the responsibility of taking decisions with regard to the subjects of the ministers, and that if he made the required recommendation, he was prepared to act on it. He asked the UNP MPs to submit their proposal to the PM as well. He added that SLFP MPs too, have complained to him about the financial misappropriations and abuse of powers by the minister in question. Accordingly, a complaint is expected to be lodged with the PM against Karunanayake.
Once cultivated, traditional paddy that is grown organically will establish its own markets based on the consumer demand
For the longest time the word “sustainable agriculture” was a catch phrase only. It was discussed in national agenda and strategies, political forums and even among United Nations development goals.
Dry spell affects more than a million people, with authorities warning of more water shortages.
By Minelle Fernandez-
Sri Lanka is suffering its worst drought in four decades, according to officials, with more than a million people experiencing acute water shortages.
The lack of rain last year has lowered water levels in rivers in parts of the country. With less water available to drain the sea salt, supplies have been contaminated, especially in the town of Kalutara, south of the capital, Colombo.
In the village of Kaluganga, more than 200,000 people are affected, as they lack access to clean drinking water.
With rain not expected for another two to three months, the government is warning of worsening shortages.
Reservoirs in the country are running low and some are now down to a fifth of their capacity.
"This drought is affecting both the agricultural and the hydro-power generation," Lalith Chandrapala, director general of the meteorological department, told Al Jazeera.
"It is one of the worst droughts since the 1970s."
Farmers have been badly hit by the dry spell as they have managed to plant only a third of the usual 800,000 hectares of paddy fields - the lowest in 30 years.
There are disturbing signs that up to half of the crops will fail and the next planting season is also in jeopardy.
"All our paddy was destroyed," said Rabanda, a farmer. "We don't have a way to survive and now we don't even have water to drink."
A task force has been set up by the government to deal with food shortages and rising prices as a result of the drought.
A petition calling for the repeal of laws that perpetuate discrimination against the LGBTIQ community has generated over 1000 signatures in a single day. The petition is being circulated in response to reports that a clause aiming to decriminalise homosexuality was dropped from the Draft National Human Rights Action Plan. We publish below the text of the petition in full:
As the Yahapalanaya Government that committed to protect and promote the human rights, it is imperative that it takes all measures to prevent discrimination, harassment, violence and other violations against all of its citizens, including those who identify as as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Queer (LGBTIQ). Recent media reports indicate that key measures to reform and remove laws impacting LGBTIQ persons, particularly Section 365 and 365A of the Penal Code which criminalises same sex activity and continues to be used to harass and persecute LBTIQ persons, were taken out of the National Human Rights Action Plan (NHRAP) 2017‐2021. We the undersigned strongly condemn and wish to express our outrage and concern that this Government is seeking to perpetuate violence and discrimination against individuals who identify as LGBTIQ, instead of taking legislative and policy actions to address systemic violence and discrimination dating from the colonial era. The Yahapalanaya Government announced that it would commit to universal human rights standards and comply with its international human rights obligations in addition to enforcing and reforming national frameworks, including as per the current Constitution of Sri Lanka which guarantees the fundamental rights of all its citizens. The NHRAP is one mechanism through which the Government identifies legislative reforms and policy actions necessary to fulfill its constitutional obligations to “respect, secure and advance” human rights enshrined under Article 4(d) of the Constitution.
While there was some civil society participation in the drafting of the NHRAP, the process was undertaken in a rushed manner, leaving little space for public participation. Unofficial accounts attest that the final draft presented to the cabinet was over 300 plus pages and included substantive measures to address critical failings and gaps with regards to human rights, including provisions for the repeal of Section 365 and 365A of the Penal Code. Several media reports quoted Cabinet Spokesperson and Minister of Health, Dr. Rajitha Senaratne indicating that the Cabinet of Ministers had amended the NHRAP draft rejecting proposed measures to protect people from discrimination based on their sexual orientation and gender identity, and to repeal Sections 365 and 365A. Some media claimed that it was done citing the need to protect national culture. It was also reported that other provisions in the draft NHRAP pertaining to vagrancy, marital rape among others had been dropped.
We express deep concern that the Government has chosen to continue archaic and discriminatory legal provisions and practices that perpetuate harassment, abuse, injustice and discrimination against its own citizens instead of over‐turning colonial era laws based on Victorian values that are alien to this country. These laws pertaining to criminialisation of same sex activity were imposed on Sri Lanka during British rule and similar provisions in British law have since been repealed in other countries. Furthermore there is no evidence to indicate that homosexual conduct was criminalised prior to colonial rule in Sri Lanka. It is therefore shameful and untenable that the current government continues to mislead the public by citing colonial values as representative of Sri Lankan culture in order to validate violence, abuse, ill‐treatment and discrimination.
In the context in Sri Lanka the ‘silencing’ of LGBTIQ communities extends to the law wherein which a vulnerable community is deemed not‐existent and the protections and rights afforded to other segments of society have been continually denied. While the LGBTIQ community is defined by their citizenship and not by this one legal provision it does impact the day‐to‐day lives of LGBTIQ people all over the country across class, race and economics. Even while the State has argued that it has not prosecuted anyone under the provision of 365 and 365A, these laws in effect criminalise sexual acts between consenting adults and has specific and multiple impacts on the LGBTIQ community.
The LGBTIQ community have, for many years faced and reported incidents of rape, physical, verbal and emotional abuse and discrimination at the hands of private actors and state officials. The law has provided a framework for stigmatisation and discrimination against LGBTIQ individuals and perpetuates a culture of impunity wherein citizens of this country are unable to access the full protection of the law or speak out against the violence. This has led to depression, anxiety, stress, isolation, denial and even suicide, preventing people from enjoying to the full their rights to bodily integrity, sexual autonomy, equality and non discrimination as citizens of Sri Lanka. There have been negligible remedies for these injustices from law enforcement or other sources of redress due to the criminalisation of relationships between consenting adults. These discriminatory laws also serve to prevent reporting of these crimes, and thereby further perpetuate the practice of abuse.
Furthermore, Sections 365 and 365A violate a number of constitutionally guaranteed human rights: by legally entrenching arbitrary notions of “natural” and “unnatural” sexual intercourse, and criminalising private sexual acts as “grossly indecent”, the provisions violate the Freedom of Thought and Conscience guaranteed under Article 10 of the Constitution, and Freedom of Expression, guaranteed Article 14(1)(a). By prohibiting sexual acts committed by consenting adults acting in private, the State interferes with private relationships that no one has the right to interfere with, violating their Freedom of Association under Article 14(1)(c). By making large groups of people vulnerable to police abuse, employment discrimination, refusal of healthcare, etc., the provisions violate guarantees of equal protection and non‐discrimination under Article 12 of the Constitution.
In the context of post‐war recovery and conflict transformation the Government established two consultation processes ‐ the Public Representations Committee on Constitutional Reform and the Consultation Task Force on Reconciliation Mechanisms to ascertain the public’s views on required legal and policy changes. Both reports specifically reference submissions received on sexual orientation and gender identities, which speak to issues of discrimination and harassment and propose constitutional, legal and institutional safeguards and measures. Both these processes were nationally owned, and sought the opinions of Sri Lankans with regard to the changes they would like to see to overcome challenges they face on a day‐to‐day basis.
As such, we as individuals self‐identifying as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, and Queer (LGBTIQ), as family members and friends of LGBTIQ people, and as individuals/communities coming forward in support of a community of Sri Lankans, call upon the Government of Sri Lanka, His Excellency President Maithripala Sirisena, His Excellency the Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe to meet national and international obligations towards the citizens of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka by:
Ensuring that efforts are made to address discrimination and violence against LGBTIQ persons through the National Human Rights Action Plan 2017 – 2021, and related review processes.
Repealing Section 365A of the Penal Code
Repealing the Vagrant’s Ordinance
Eliminating discrimination against people on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identities though constitutional reform
Last year was a busy one for Guatemala’s criminal justice system.
January 2016 saw the arrests of 18 former military officers for their alleged part in the country’s dirty war of the 1980s. In February last year, two ex-soldiers were convicted in an unprecedented wartime sexual slavery case from the same era.
Such legal proceedings represent further openings in the judicial system following the 2013 trial and conviction of former head of state General Efraín Ríos Montt for genocide and crimes against humanity. Although the Guatemalan Constitutional Court very quickly annulled the trial (finally restarted in March after fitful stops and starts, but currently stalled again), a global precedent has been set for holding national leaders accountable in the country where their crimes took place.
And in November, a Guatemalan judge allowed a separate case against Ríos Montt to proceed. The case relates to the 1982 massacre in the village of Dos Erres.
Ríos Montt was president from 1982 to 1983, a period marked by intense state violence against the indigenous Mayan peoples. The violence included the destruction of entire villages, resulting in mass displacement.
Mayans were repeatedly targeted during the period of repression that lasted from 1954 – when the US engineered a military coup – to 1996. More than 200,000 people were killed in Guatemala during that period, 83 percent of whom were Mayans.
The crimes committed by the Guatemalan state were carried out with foreign – particularly US – assistance. One key party to these crimes has so far eluded any mention inside the courts: Israel.
Proxy for US
From the 1980s to today, Israel’s extensive military role in Guatemala remains an open secret that is well-documented but receives scant criticism.
Discussing the military coup which installed him as president in 1982, Ríos Montt told an ABC News reporter that his regime takeover went so smoothly “because many of our soldiers were trained by Israelis.” In Israel, the press reported that 300 Israeli advisers were on the ground training Ríos Montt’s soldiers.
One Israeli adviser in Guatemala at the time, Lieutenant Colonel Amatzia Shuali, said: “I don’t care what the Gentiles do with the arms. The main thing is that the Jews profit,” as recounted in Dangerous Liaison by Andrew and Leslie Cockburn.
Some years earlier, when Congressional restrictions under the Carter administration limited US military aid to Guatemala due to human rights violations, Israeli economic and military technology leaders saw a golden opportunity to enter the market.
Yaakov Meridor, then an Israeli minister of economy, indicated in the early 1980s that Israel wished to be a proxy for the US in countries where it had decided not to openly sell weapons. Meridor said: “We will say to the Americans: Don’t compete with us in Taiwan; don’t compete with us in South Africa; don’t compete with us in the Caribbean or in other places where you cannot sell arms directly. Let us do it … Israel will be your intermediary.”
The CBS Evening News with Dan Rather program attempted to explain the source of Israel’s global expertise by noting in 1983 that the advanced weaponry and methods Israel peddled in Guatemala had been successfully “tried and tested on the West Bank and Gaza, designed simply to beat the guerrilla.”
Israel’s selling points for its weapons relied not only on their use in the occupied West Bank and Gaza but also in the wider region. Journalist George Black reported that Guatemalan military circles admired the Israeli army’s performance during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Their overseas admiration was so unabashed that rightists in Guatemala “spoke openly of the ‘Palestinianization’ of the nation’s rebellious Mayan Indians,” according to Black.
Military cooperation between Israel and Guatemala has been traced back to the 1960s. By the time of Ríos Montt’s rule, Israel had become Guatemala’s main provider of weapons, military training, surveillance technology and other vital assistance in the state’s war on urban leftists and rural indigenous Mayans.
In turn, many Guatemalans suffered the results of this special relationship and have connected Israel to their national tragedy.
Man of integrity?
One of the most haunting massacres committed during this period was the destruction of the El Petén district village named Dos Erres. Ríos Montt’s Israeli-trained soldiers burned Dos Erres to the ground. First, however, its inhabitants were shot. Those who survived the initial attack on the village had their skulls smashed with sledgehammers. The bodies of the dead were stuffed down the village well.
During a court-ordered exhumation in the village, investigators working for the 1999 UN Truth Commission cited the following in their forensics report: “All the ballistic evidence recovered corresponded to bullet fragments from firearms and pods of Galil rifles, made in Israel.”
Then US President Ronald Reagan – whose administration would later be implicated in the “Iran-Contra” scandal for running guns to Iran through Israel, in part to fund a paramilitary force aiming to topple Nicaragua’s Marxist government – visited Ríos Montt just days before the massacre.
Reagan praised Ríos Montt as “a man of great personal integrity” who “wants to improve the quality of life for all Guatemalans and to promote social justice.” Reagan also assured the Guatemalan president that “the United States is committed to support his efforts to restore democracy and to address the root causes of this violent insurgency.” At one point in their conversation, Reagan is reported to have embraced Ríos Montt and told the Guatemalan president he was getting “a bum rap” on human rights.
In November 2016, however, judge Claudette Dominguez accepted the Guatemalan attorney general’s request to prosecute Ríos Montt as intellectual author of the Dos Erres massacre, pressing him with charges of aggravated homicide, crimes against humanity and genocide.
Among the 18 arrested this year was Benedicto Lucas García, former army chief of staff under his brother Romeo Lucas García’s military presidency. Benedicto, who was seen by some of his soldiers as an innovator of torture techniques for use on children, described “the Israeli soldier [as] a model and an example to us.”
In 1981, Benedicto headed the inauguration ceremony of an Israeli-designed and financed electronics school in Guatemala. Its purpose was to train the Guatemalan military on using so-called counterinsurgency technologies. Benedicto lauded the school’s establishment as a “positive step” in advancing the Guatemalan regime to world-class military efficiency “thanks to [Israel’s] advice and transfer of electronic technology.”
In its inaugural year alone, the school enabled the regime’s secret police, known as the G-2, to raid some 30 safe houses of the Revolutionary Organization of People in Arms (ORPA).
The G-2 coordinated the assassination, “disappearance” and torture of opponents to the Guatemalan government.
While Guatemalan governments frequently changed hands – through both coups and elections – during the 1980s, Israel remained Guatemala’s main source of weapons and military advice.
Belligerence at the border
The Israeli military-security complex casts a long, intercontinental shadow over Guatemalans who are still fleeing the consequences of the dirty war.
In some areas along the US-Mexico border, such as in Texas, the numbers of migrants hailing today from Central America (but only from the countries combusted by US intervention – Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras) – has begun to outpace the number coming from Mexico.
According to information provided to this author by the Pima County Medical Examiner’s office in Arizona, many Guatemalans who have perished while crossing these desert borderlands originated from among the indigenous Mayan areas hit hardest by the 1980s genocide: El Quiché, Huehuetenango, Chimaltenango.
Southern Arizona has also seen a spike in undocumented Guatemalan migration. US firms and institutions have been collaborating with Israeli security companies to up-armor Southern Arizona’s border zone.
The Israeli weapons firm Elbit won a major government contract to provide 52 surveillance towers in Southern Arizona’s desert borderlands, beginning with the pilot program of seven towers
currently placed among the hills and valleys surrounding Nogales, a border town split by the wall.
More towers are slated to surround the Tohono O’odham Nation, the second largest Native American reservation in the US. Already the number of federal forces occupying permanent positions on Tohono O’odham lands is the largest in US history.
Alan Bersin, a senior figure in the US Department of Homeland Security, described Guatemala’s border with Chiapas, Mexico, as “now our southern border” in 2012. That “southern border” was heavily militarized during Barack Obama’s eight years as US president.
We can safely expect that militarization to continue during Donald Trump’s presidency. Trump’s anti-migrant rhetoric during the presidential election campaign suggests it is likely to be intensified.
During the dirty war, tens of thousands of Guatemalans fled over this border into Southern Mexico. Today, Israel assists the Mexican authorities in Chiapas with “counterinsurgency” activities largely targeting the indigenous Maya community.
Though media reporting on Guatemala’s connection with Israel has dissipated, Israel’s enterprising efforts in the country have never diminished. Today, Israel’s presence in Guatemala is especially pronounced in the private security industry which proliferated in the years following the so-called Guatemalan peace process of the mid-1990s.
Ohad Steinhart, an Israeli, relocated to Guatemala at this opportune moment, originally working as a weapons instructor. Roughly two years after his 1994 move to Guatemala, he founded his own security firm, Decision Ejecutiva.
Steinhart’s modest 300-employee company is small compared with the colossal Golan Group, Israel’s largest and oldest private security conglomerate in Guatemala.
Founded by ex-Israeli special forces officers, the Golan Group has also trained Department of Homeland Security immigration agents along the US-Mexico border. The Golan Group has employed thousands of agents in Guatemala, some of whom have been involved in repressing environmental and land rights protests against mining operations by Canadian firms. The company was named in a 2014 lawsuit by six Guatemalan farmers and a student who were all shot at close range by security agents during a protest the previous year.
Guatemala’s use of Israeli military trainers and advisers, just as in the 1980s, continues. Israeli advisers have, in recent years, been assisting the current “remilitarization” of Guatemala. Journalist Dawn Paley has reported that Israeli military trainers have shown up once again at an active military base in Coban, which is the site of mass graves from the 1980s. The remains of several hundred people have so far been uncovered there.
The mass graves at Coban serve as the legal basis for the January arrests of 14 former military officers.
This past June a Guatemalan judge ruled that the evidence is sufficient for eight of those arrested to stand trial. Future arrests and trials are likely to follow.
Scholars Milton H. Jamail and Margo Gutierrez documented the Israeli arms trade in Central America, notably in Guatemala, in their 1986 book It’s No Secret: Israel’s Military Involvement in Latin America. They worded the title that way because the bulk of the information in the book came from mainstream media sources.
For now, Israel’s well-documented role in Guatemala’s dirty wars passes largely without comment. But Guatemalans know better than most that the long road to accountability begins with acknowledgment.
Yet it is unclear how long it will be before we hear of Israeli officials being called to Guatemala to be tried for the shadowy part they played in the country’s darkest hours.
Gabriel Schivone is writing a book on US policy towards Guatemala.
AT least 36 people have been killed and 50 injured after nine coaches of a passenger train derailed.
By Nicole Stinson/
Emergencies services have responded to the scene and are attempting to recover people from the train wreckage.
The Hirakhand Express train derailed near Kuneri station around 30 km (18 miles) outside the town of Raigarh in India on Saturday night.
The train was enroute from Jagdalpur to Bhubaneswar derailed near Kuneri station, DEADLY: Dozens have died after a train derailed RESCUE: Emergency services try to recover people from the wreckage
Local superintendant of police, Ranga Rao said: "Most of the casualties and deaths are from the three sleeper-class compartments.
"Nine bogies [carriages] were derailed of which three have turned and fallen off the track."
Major carnage and delays have been caused on surrounding train lines.
It comes after at least 116 people were killed in a similar derailment in the region in Novemeber.
According to the Indian Railways sources, 87% rail accidents which occur in the country are blamed on poor maintenance, outdated equipment and human error.
Iraq's top brass, foreign allies to confer on strategy to conquer west Mosul, which is still under Islamic State control
Iraqi forces patrol Arabi neighbourhood north of Mosul after recapturing it from Islamic State group on Sunday during ongoing military operation (AFP)
Sunday 22 January 2017
Islamic State (IS) group blew up a landmark hotel in western Mosul on Friday in an apparent attempt to prevent advancing Iraqi forces from using it as a base in their offensive to capture the city, witnesses said on Sunday.
The Mosul Hotel, shaped as a stepped pyramid, appeared to be leaning to one side after the explosions, two witnesses said by phone. They requested anonymity, saying the militants killed those they caught communicating with the outside world.
The Mosul Hotel stands close to the Tigris River, which divides the city. Iraqi forces appear about to take full control of the east and to be preparing to attack the western bank.
A US-led coalition is providing air and ground support to the Iraqi forces in their campaign to take back Mosul from the hardline Sunni group.
The Iraqi army said on Sunday that all districts of Mosul east of the Tigris had been cleared of IS militants except one, al-Rashidiya in the north.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and top commanders in the Counter-Terrorism Service, which has spearheaded operations inside Mosul, had already declared the city's east "liberated" on Wednesday.
The Joint Operations Command coordinating the battle against IS in Iraq had said then that a few more days would be needed to clear the last pockets of holdout militants.
Iraq's top brass and its foreign allies were expected to confer in the coming days on the strategy to conquer the west bank of Mosul, which is still under full IS control.
The west side of Mosul is a little smaller but more densely populated and home to some of the militants' traditional bastions.
It contains the old city of Mosul, a maze of narrow streets crammed with shops, mosques and churches that will be impassable for larger military vehicles.
The area houses Al-Nuri mosque, where the IS group's Iraq-born supremo, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared a caliphate in June 2014 after his forces took the city.
State TV said the army had set up several bridges across the Tigris, south of Mosul, to facilitate the movement of troops in preparation for the offensive on the western side of the city.
Mosul's five bridges across the Tigris had already been partially damaged by US-led air strikes to slow the militants' movement, before IS blew up two of them.
WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 20: Protesters gather around a fire they built in the street as they make themselves heard following the inauguration of President Donald Trump on January 20, 2017 in Washington, DC. Earlier today Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States. Joe Raedle/Getty Images/AFP
by Rajan Philips
"All men are created equal," rang Thomas Jefferson’s opening line of the Declaration of Independence. But the reality was different in America as elsewhere. Even textually, women were excluded. Native Americans were extinguished, African Americans were enslaved, and the majority of the population were exploited. The American political experience, as opposed to the American dream, has been the long struggle to make America more inclusive and "a more perfect union" – its constitutional ideal. The struggle for inclusion, diversity and equality came in historical waves, with ebbs and flows, successes and setbacks. In the long arc of history - that saw the ending of slavery (Lincoln), the espousal of Progressivism (Theodore Roosevelt), the enabling of women’s vote in 1920 after 70 years of suffragist struggle, the execution of the Fair Deal (Franklin Roosevelt), the enactment of Civil Rights legislation (Johnson), and three decades (1953-1986) of landmark Supreme Court rulings - the 2008 election of Barak Hussein Obama as the country’s first African American President was a special, shining moment.
The election of Donald Trump as America’s 45th President, on the other hand, has been seen by many as a repudiation of Obama’s presidency and its legacy by the American electorate. The true picture is not so black and white. Obama is leaving office with an extraordinarily high favourable rating among the American people, while the new President is the least popular incoming president in modern history. As well, in the November election, Trump lost the popular vote by quite a margin to Hillary Clinton, who ran as Obama’s successor. In the nation’s capital, that Trump called the swamp and threatened to drain, only 4% voted for Trump. Trump’s victory came as a shock not just to others, but to Trump himself, his family and his campaign team.
While there is no question about the legitimacy of his victory, there is also no question that patently racist and misogynist individuals and groups in America are now boldly extracting legitimacy and visibility from Trump’s victory for their own agendas. At the same time, a good number of Trump’s white voters have their own legitimate complaints of being ignored and excluded by what they see as the elitist culture of inclusion, diversity and political correctness, while being left out in the economic lurch as a result of globalization.
It is not so much the victory of Donald Trump that has upset many people, as the style and tone of his campaign and his continuing avowal of his more controversial campaign slogans. The tone continued in his short inaugural address on Friday. The man could not switch from the campaign mode and rise to the inaugural occasion. The ceremony was grand as usual, but the speech was all anger and no joy. The message was petulant and dark. The country has been dragged through "carnage" for decades, he contended, implicating all his predecessors, four of whom were on stage as he spoke. "The American carnage stops right here and right now", Trump declared. The Messiah has arrived.
Take heed, rest of the world. From now on "it’s going to be America first." Its borders will be protected not only for security but also for prosperity. There will be two simple rules: "Buy American and Hire American." Under Trump, "America will start winning again, winning like never before." There will be a new alliance of "the civilized world against Radical Islamic Terrorism, which we will eradicate completely from the face of the Earth".
Trump and Obama’s Legacy
Is Trump’s election a revolution? Not at all, even though The Economist in its New Year special opined that "Revolution will be in the air in 2017" in the wake of Trump and Brexit victories in 2016, and listed, for historical embellishment, the string of revolutionary anniversaries coming up in 2017: the centenary of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia; 150 years since the publication of Marx’s Capital Volume I; 50 years after the death of Che Guvera; and, reaching farther into the past, the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s 95 theses and the start of the Protestant Reformation. It is hard to imagine that hundred years from now Trump could be remembered along with Lenin, Marx, Che and Luther. What matters is where will Trump and America be in four years? Where will that leave the world?
The truth is neither Trump nor anyone else in America quite know the answer. When he was a candidate, people either did not believe he would win or hoped that victory would make the man different. That was also President Obama’s hopeful prediction – the office will tone him down. The transition has shown no evidence of toning down. He continues to be tweeter-happy, driving everyone crazy with his 3:00 AM tweets (afternoon in China). The first billionaire businessman to directly become president, Trump has broken all traditions regarding declaration of assets and avoidance of conflicts of interest.
He brazenly declared at his first and only press conference after election, that only two months ago he learnt that the president is above any conflict of interest requirement (except he cannot receive "emoluments" from foreign governments under the constitution), and that he could "easily run his business and the government at the same time," but wouldn’t take advantage of it. His stock answer is that the American people knew what they were getting when they elected him.
The media, the pundits and the Republicans who hammered the Clintons about potential conflicts between the non-profit Clinton Foundation and a Hillary Clinton presidency, are now left speechless and helpless at the brazenness of a career businessman. The irony is that stringent conflict-of-interest rules apply to Trump’s billionaire cabinet picks, but they do not apply to the president. The Congress may pass new legislation to rein in at least future presidents, but Trump could veto them while in office. There is also speculation about security coverage for Trump’s business properties around the world. Do they come within the purview of presidential security?
In domestic policy Trump’s focus will be on jobs. He has declared that he would be the "biggest job creator that God created." He has more than a point in railing against trade agreements under which American manufacturers, perhaps more than in any other country, relocate plants to countries with lower wages and lesser environmental regulations but ship back their products to the American market. In the upshot, American workers lose jobs but consumers pay much less for their purchases. That has been the story of globalization, at least in America. Job losses and job creations have evened out, but consumers are paying less. Along with trade, automation and the turn to alternative energy sources have also led to old jobs being lost and new jobs created.
The social consequences, however, are starkly out of balance because those who lose their jobs in manufacturing and traditional energy sectors are not the ones who are re-employed in the new jobs created in hi-tech, service, and sustainable energy sectors. Bill Clinton was perhaps the first politician to recognize this imbalance and warn factory workers that their jobs were not coming back. But he vowed that he would work through government programs to help retrain workers losing jobs for new employment in other sectors. The reality is that the government neglected them, at least in proportion to what was done to bail out Wall Street miscreants who, driven by greed, plunged America and the world into an unnecessary financial crisis.
In 2008, President Obama inherited an economy that was in tatters and he is leaving behind a fully restored economy for his successor. Obama also, despite Republican opposition, bailed out the major auto manufactures, saving thousands of jobs and boosting the economy. But that was not enough to redress workers who are still unemployed after losing their jobs due to factory closures. They had voted for Obama twice in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, but switched to Trump in protest in the November election, giving him the edge in these states and in the electoral-college vote tally.
Trump deployed his marketing genius in targeting these segments of voters with a cynically crafted political message that stoked their anger, fears and frustrations. The message was not only about jobs; it was also about America’s culture wars over the environment, immigration, women’s right to choose and sexual orientation. Hardly the model for morality, Trump cast himself as the new defender of the unborn foetus. He will face plenty of unforeseen problems in trying to expand the economy through protectionism and tax reductions, as he is finding out in fulfilling his promise to repeal and replace President Obama’s national health care plan. Dubbed ‘Obamacare’ by the Republicans, its major beneficiaries also include Trump voters who do not want to lose their health care benefits. But his main fights will be on the cultural terrain, and that is where he may have to contend with more than the shadow of his predecessor.
It is remarkable that already his major cabinet appointees have contradicted Trump on almost every one of his controversial campaign slogans. Notwithstanding Trump’s assertions to the contrary, incoming Secretaries have said that America must and will abide by the Paris Accord on Climate Change; climate change is not a Chinese hoax; there will be no ban on Muslims; and torture of prisoners will not be permitted as it is against the law. While he will fill the vacant Supreme Court position with a nominee acceptable to the Republican right, there is no guarantee that a fully constituted court will deliver judgements in conformance with presidential expectations. As President Truman has remarked, almost always the opposite happens. Given the contentious divisions in the country, the court may well choose to stay with previous court rulings on women’s rights and sexual orientation rather than breaking from them.
A Hillary Clinton victory may have seen Obama quietly and happily easing out of politics. The Trump win would seem to have given Obama a reason to speak out if, as he has indicated, America’s core values are at stake. He would, for example, step in if children of immigrants born in America are to be deported. He will have plenty of support for all the major American cities have vowed to fight any deportation attempt by the new Administration. The state of California that massively voted for Hillary Clinton, is publicly beefing up its legal team for potential legal fights against the Federal Government on immigration, the environment, health care, and women’s rights. A second area of concern for Obama is the suppression of voting rights of African Americans and immigrants. America’s problem, he said during his many farewell musings, is not illegal voting but the prevention of legal voters from exercising their right.
Even though his foreign policy has been criticized as weak and ineffective, the world, perhaps with the exception of Russia, will miss Obama more than it welcomes Trump. True to form, Trump has been threatening to upend practically everything the West has built as world order after the Second World War. He considers Russia an ally in the fight against Islam, and he would take on China, which the West has been cultivating as a counter to Russia. He has called into question the reason for NATO’s existence and has dismissed the dissolution of the European Union as irrelevant to the US. He has praised Vladimir Putin and insulted Angela Merkel. Trump’s positions are most hurtful at home to the Republicans, who have been the traditional bulwarks of anti-Russian bellicosity, free markets, free trade, and anti-public investments on infrastructure of any kind.
Even those who are critical of the Obama Presidency have said that they will miss the Obama first family in the White House – their conduct, comportment and compassion. Given his age, President Trump is entering the White House with perhaps the largest first family in history. He is officially validating an extended first family in a society where nuclear family is the norm. He has no qualms about overlapping boundaries between the Administration and the family and its businesses. His son-in-law will be the designated emissary to bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians. He will somehow broker peace even after the US Embassy is moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, as the President father-in-law has promised to do. Americans may deserve to be governed by the presidents they elect. But after two hundred years of its experience in unbroken constitutional democracy, others are bewildered at the choice America has made.
