Hamas bends over backwards yet EU retains snub

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza City in July.
 Ashraf AmraAPA images

Ali Abunimah- 19 September 2017

Far-reaching compromises by Hamas have been met in recent months with a firm wall of intransigence, both from Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas and from the so-called international community – especially the European Union.

Yet with few other options, the political and resistance organization persists in revising long held positions in the slim hope that its flexibility will be reciprocated.

On Monday, recently elected Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh phoned Abbas to “assure him of the positive atmosphere prevailing in the Palestinian political arena since the movement announced on Sunday the dissolution of the administrative committee” in Gaza

In a repeat of countless failed “reconciliations,” Haniyeh once again declared his movement’s readiness to go ahead with long delayed legislative and presidential elections in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Hamas had formed the administrative committee earlier this year as a de facto government for Gaza, the coastal territory that has been under a devastating Israeli blockade for a decade. Hamas charged that the PA-run “national consensus government” was not doing its job.

Dissolving the administrative committee has been one of Abbas’ demands in his ongoing campaign to wrest control of Gaza back from Hamas, which soundly defeated his Fatah faction in the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections.

Whose coup?

Abbas and his international backers consider Hamas’ rule in Gaza to be illegitimate, accusing it of a coup.

There was a coup attempt, however it was not by Hamas, but against it.

Following its 2006 election victory, Hamas was never allowed to fully exercise its mandate. Israel and its allies, principally the United States, worked to undermine the Hamas-led PA government in order to restore power exclusively to Abbas.

After months of street fighting in Gaza, Hamas and Fatah formed a “national unity government” headed by Haniyeh. The US then enlisted Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan to rout Hamas militarily in Gaza. This plot ultimately failed, and Dahlan’s US-backed militias were run out of the territory.

Hamas, cornered and besieged in Gaza, fought alongside other resistance factions three times in the last decade to defend the territory against massive Israeli military assaults. Meanwhile, working with Israel and enjoying international support, Abbas consolidated his grip in the West Bank, cementing a political and territorial division among Palestinians.

In a sign of its desperation earlier this year, Hamas even made a rapprochement with Dahlan – an alliance of convenience, since Dahlan and Abbas have fallen out and are now deadly rivals.

Abbas makes Gaza suffer

Meanwhile, Abbas, colluding with Israel, has tightened the screws on the people of Gaza in an effort to bring Hamas to its knees.

Abbas has cut medicines and delayed medical travel permits to Palestinians in Gaza, precipitating the deaths of children. He urged Israel to slash electricity supplies to the territory, deepening an already devastating humanitarian crisis. And he imposed drastic pay cuts on thousands of civil servants.

Following the dissolution of the administrative committee, Hamas said it was now Abbas’ turn to “urgently cancel all the punitive measures and decisions taken against our people in Gaza.”

But the curt official PA statement about the phone call from Haniyeh to Abbas announced no such moves.

Like Haniyeh however, Abbas did thank Egypt for its efforts to broker yet another reconciliation between their two movements.

Fundamental contradiction

People in Gaza fervently hope that a reconciliation could relieve the suffocating siege. Egypt, which is closely allied with Israel, controls the Rafah crossing, the only access to the outside world for most of Gaza’s two million people.

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Since Abdulfattah al-Sisi took power in a military coup in Cairo in 2013, the crossing has been closed with rare exceptions, a hostage to the intra-Palestinian division.

Yet there is little reason to believe that this reconciliation will prove any more successful than previous efforts.

None of those agreements have dealt with a fundamental, structural contradiction: Abbas and his PA are committed to collaboration with the Israeli occupation, under the banner of “security coordination,” while Hamas has fought three wars with Israel since 2008.

The PA prime minister who will now supposedly run Gaza from Ramallah, Rami Hamdallah, appears for friendly photo ops with senior officers of the Israeli occupation army.

Meanwhile, Hamas’ military wing is undoubtedly preparing to defend Gaza against the next Israeli invasion.

Under such circumstances, “unity” is impossible; it can only be achieved if one side definitively abandons collaboration, or the other definitively surrenders to the occupation and hands in its resistance weapons. Neither outcome is likely.

It is also meaningless to talk about free elections in a context where Abbas is imposing a police state in which even well-known activists and journalists are jailed for merely criticizing him on Facebook.

European intransigence

If Hamas’ concessions on the internal front have so far met with a stone wall from Abbas, its international outreach has come up against just as much intransigence from the European Union, which fashions itself as an honest broker for peace.

In May, Hamas launched a new policy document formalizing its support for a two-state solution along the 1967 lines, repudiating anti-Jewish statements in its founding charter and emphasizing that armed resistance is a means to an end that can be set aside in favor of politics.

The document contains contradictions, and ironically Hamas signed up to the two-state solution as it became clear that such an outcome will not come about.

But I argued that it followed in the footsteps of the Irish nationalist party Sinn Féin, and the Irish Republican Army, which made similarly difficult concessions. Together with reciprocal moves by the British government and other parties, this enabled the historic 1998 Belfast Agreement that mostly ended three decades of violence in Ireland’s north.

Failing to learn

Sincere peace seekers would study this lesson – especially the EU, which has invested more than a billion dollars in supporting the Irish peace process.

Ana Gomes, a member of the European Parliament from Portugal, raised the historic changes in Hamas’ position with EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini.

“The EU has an interest in supporting pragmatic evolution within Hamas rather than vindicating the hardliners who argue that progress can only be achieved through armed struggle,” Gomes wrote. “What is the EU’s response to Hamas’s document and the opportunity for progress that it presents?”

Gomes asked if the EU would “take any reciprocal steps, such as relaxing its no-contact policy and opening up a channel for dialogue with pragmatic elements within Hamas.”

The response from Mogherini was a firm no: “The EU does not see a case for a change in policy towards Hamas nor considers it appropriate to draw a distinction between its military and civilian wings.”

For the EU, as for Israel, the only kind of Palestinian leadership that is acceptable is one that has not only totally capitulated to Israel, but which – like Abbas – actively partners with Israel in oppressing the Palestinian people.

Delusional “realism”

What is all the more ironic about the EU’s rejectionist stance towards Hamas is that the bloc is desperate for allies in the quest for a two-state solution at the very moment when the US is ditching it.

Mogherini is currently in New York for the UN General Assembly, where she insisted that, “there is no realistic alternative to the two-state solution.”

She claimed that this position is borne out of a “realism” that comes from EU work on the issue for decades. It more likely stems from an enduring delusion that doing the same things that have failed for decades will somehow start to work now.

“We have not seen conditions or agreement possible on a one-state solution, not a state-minus solution, not a three-state solution or whatever else,” Mogherini added.

This is a remarkably disingenuous statement since the EU and the rest of the so-called international community have never been willing to seriously consider decolonial alternatives to ethnic and territorial partition, including a democratic one-state solution.

“Third Nakba”

Yet with such a firm a commitment to two states, one would think Mogherini would be willing to talk to Hamas, whose position is arguably closer to the EU’s than is Israel’s. Instead, top EU officials continue to pander to those most opposed to the two-state solution: Israel’s leaders.

EU “enlargement” commissioner Johannes Hahn, also in New York, tweeted that he had met Israel’s deputy foreign minister Tzachi Hanegbi on Monday and “discussed how to preserve viability” of the two-state-solution.

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As for Hanegbi, he recently threatened Palestinians with a “third Nakba” – a reference to Israel’s previous bouts of mass ethnic cleansing in 1948 and 1967.

He’s only one in a parade of top Israeli officials to make genocidal statements that the EU has failed or refused to condemn.

The EU continues to reward Israel as it builds its settlements in the occupied West Bank at a rapid pace, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announces openly they will never be removed.

Formaldehyde

Back in 2004, a senior Israeli official announced that Israel’s plan to “disengage” from Gaza, naively hailed by the international peace process industry as a major breakthrough, really had another purpose.

“The disengagement is actually formaldehyde,” then prime ministerial adviser Dov Weisglass said. “It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians.”

Formaldehyde, a chemical used by morticians to stop the deceased from decaying, has indeed turned out to be the most effective and appropriate way to “preserve” the vaunted two-state solution.

U.S. Weighs Options on Detainees in Iran

Families of Americans held in Iran appeal to White House to talk to Tehran.

• BY DAN DE LUCE-SEPTEMBER 19, 2017

The Donald Trump administration faces a pivotal decision in coming weeks on how far it is willing to push to secure the release of several Americans imprisoned in Iran.

The White House is mulling options that include punitive measures to pressure Iran over the detained Americans and discussions through an interlocutor for a possible prisoner swap, two sources familiar with the administration’s deliberations told Foreign Policy.

The sources declined to say which foreign government could act as a possible mediator or whether Iran nationals imprisoned in the United States or other countries could be part of a potential prisoner exchange.

The Trump administration did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Winning the release of some or all of the Americans held in Iran could help defuse tensions between the two countries, which have escalated since President Donald Trump entered office in January.

Trump, who faces a deadline next month on whether to certify to Congress that Iran is in compliance with the nuclear agreement, has threatened to withdraw from the deal or to take a much tougher line.

A key test will come Wednesday evening, when U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will meet his Iranian counterpart, Javad Zarif, for the first time along with foreign ministers from other major powers that signed the nuclear agreement with Tehran. The meeting will be hosted by European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and will include diplomats from Britain, China, France, Germany, and Russia.

Wednesday’s discussions will focus on the fate of the 2015 nuclear deal, and it’s unclear if Tillerson will raise the issue of the imprisoned Americans with Zarif. But families of Americans held in Iran are appealing to the administration to enter into talks to resolve the fate of their loved ones.

Brett McGurk, a senior State Department official who oversees the civilian side of the fight against the Islamic State, played a vital role in a prisoner swap with Iran in 2016 and would likely be asked to draw on his contacts in Tehran if the administration chose to explore any discussions. The prisoner exchange last year came under sharp criticism from Republicans in Congress, who accused Obama of rewarding Iran for hostage-taking.

“It is time for the regime to free all Americans and citizens of other nations that they have unjustly detained,” Trump said of Iran in a speech Tuesday before the United Nations General Assembly.

Trump did not mention the most prominent detention case involving Iranian-Americans: Siamak Namazi, 45, a business consultant, who has been held for nearly two years, and his 81-year-old father, a former UNICEF official, who has been behind bars since February 2016.

Trump’s speech must be followed by “urgent action,” said Jared Genser, a lawyer for the Namazis.

Trump’s speech must be followed by “urgent action,” said Jared Genser, a lawyer for the Namazis.
“We would urge the Trump administration to sit down as rapidly as possible directly with the Iranian government to discuss the possibility of a prisoner swap,” Genser told FP.

Baquer Namazi has lost 30 pounds while in prison, and his health deteriorated further over the past week, the lawyer said. After initially refusing the advice of a cardiologist, the Iranian authorities allowed Namazi to be taken to a hospital to undergo surgery Sunday for the installation of a pacemaker.

He was due to be returned to prison on Wednesday, Genser said.

While the White House has shown little interest in forging a dialogue with Tehran, it could try to negotiate the release of Americans through a country like Oman, which helped broker talks that led to the nuclear accord, said Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

In the meantime, the regime in Tehran was risking triggering a serious crisis if it allowed an elderly Iranian-American to languish indefinitely in prison. “There has been little cost to them. But if Baquer Namazi, an 81-year-old U.S. citizen with a weak heart, dies in an Iranian prison, it will be terrible for both Trump and Iran,” he said.

Seeking to avoid antagonizing Tehran, some families have chosen not to speak out publicly about their loved ones’ plight in Iran. But the wife of Xiyue Wang, a naturalized American citizen from China who has been detained for more than a year, shifted course in the past few days and started to speak to reporters about her husband’s imprisonment.

In an interview with FP, Hua Qu said she wanted to see the United States discuss her husband’s detention with Iran’s leadership.

“I hope that the U.S. government, that U.S. officials can directly engage Iran and discuss how best to resolve this situation,” she said.

Qu, 35, said that the U.N. General Assembly meeting this week in New York, along with the pending deadline next month for Trump to declare his stance on the nuclear deal, offered a “prime opportunity” for negotiations.

But she said she has been bitterly disappointed before.

“My hopes have been shattered time and time again in the past year. I really don’t know how to read into the upcoming political openings in this situation,” she told FP. “It’s really difficult for me to say I am optimistic or not. I just try to manage my expectations — not to overestimate.”

Her 37-year-old husband is a graduate student at Princeton University who was arrested in August 2016 while he was carrying out research for his history dissertation at archives in Iran. Both the Obama and Trump administrations had chosen to keep the case quiet as the family hoped Wang would be released on humanitarian grounds.

But Tehran’s judiciary announced in July that Wang had been sentenced to a 10-year term for alleged “espionage,” and the graduate student lost his appeal in August.

Qu, who moved to the United States from China, said Beijing has offered to help with her husband’s case.

“China would like to assist and they have shown sympathies with us, and I have been in regular communication with the Chinese MFA [ministry of foreign affairs],” she said.

Qu insisted her husband was merely an academic “nerd” who had done nothing nefarious and was only researching documents from Iran’s Qajar dynasty in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

“None of the documents that he received are confidential information. There is no indication they are confidential information,” she said. “In Iran, it is not a secret place that you cannot go to. It’s just libraries, archives.”

Qu said the uncertainty had taken a toll on her husband’s physical and mental health and on their young son.

She said that “this has been too long for my husband, and for my small family and for my son. When he left for Iran, my son was two years old, and now he is four years old. So it’s extremely difficult for us.”

Apart from the Namazis and Wang, an Iranian-American named Karan Vafadari, an art gallery owner and a member of Iran’s Zoroastrian religious minority, is imprisoned in Iran, along with his wife.

In addition, Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent, disappeared on Iran’s Kish Island in March 2007.

Though it’s unclear if Levinson is still alive, the administration continues to work on his return.
“The Iranians hold the key to that case,” an administration source said.

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian contributed to this article.

Photo credit: LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP/Getty Images

When Aircraft Manufacturers Clash

How to solve the dispute between the aircraft manufacturers in the determination of whether subsidies have in fact passed between the governmental authority and manufacturer concerned!

by Dr. Ruwantissa Abeyratne-Sep 20, 2017

( September 20, 2017, Montreal, Sri Lanka Guardian) The current spat between Boeing – a manufacturer of aircraft in the United States, and Bombardier – an aircraft manufacturer in Canada, brings to bear a dispute in the aviation industry that has been surfacing from time to time and involves the contentious word “subsidies”.  Boeing’s complaint to the U.S. International Trade Commission against the Canadian manufacturer is based on the former’s allegation that the latter is using subsidies granted to it by the Canadian government to sell its aircraft to American carriers at prices below cost and using such subsidies to build a larger version of the C-Series plane that would directly compete with Boeing’s own flagship narrow body 737 aircraft.

In its complaint – which runs into 109-pages – Boeing claimed that Canadian subsidies, unless checked, would enable Bombardier to build a full-fleet of single-aisle planes, carrying overtones of the strategy employed some years ago by Airbus Industrie – a French aerospace company —  to the detriment of Boeing.  In response, Bombardier stated that Boeing was attempting to forge a halt to Bombardier’s innovative technology which was a misguided attempt at shutting down healthy competition in the aviation industry. Unlike the Boeing-Airbus subsidies dispute which was brought before the dispute settlement tribunal of the World Trade Organization by both the United States and Europe, Boeing’s complaint does not involve the two countries – at least not yet – and is being considered within a local jurisdiction.  However, Boeing has claimed that Bombardier’s acts are diametrically at variance with accepted norms of international trade law, which would inevitably bring to bear a discussion of the principles concerned.

This essay is neither a discussion of the merits and demerits of Boeing’s claim nor is it in defense of Bombardier’s position.  It is merely a discussion of the principles that are involved in a subsidies dispute. The fundamental principle underlying State aid is that it disrupts normal competitive forces of the market if the State subsidizes certain firms and products to the detriment of others. Unsubsidized corporate entities could run out of business trying to compete with those receiving State aid, thus losing their right to compete fairly and equally.

GATT and Havana Charter

One of the corollaries to iniquitous State aid is the loss of employment for those in an unsubsidized environment. At first impression, principles on the law of subsidies as entrenched in international economic law are seemingly composed of a patchwork of provisions emerging from various agreements and amendments. However, a deeper examination reveals that State subsidies are governed under a central theme which discourages unfair trade practices. Subsidies, which are government grants or bounties, are an integral part of international trade and entitle a government, by a selective process, to assist trading services and entities to the betterment of society. At the negotiating process when General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was formed, subsidies were considered less of a trade obstacle than tariffs and quantitative restrictions.

This was brought to bear in the 1948 Havana Charter of the International Trade Organization (ITO) which only contained a general ban on subsidies in its Article 26. The GATT of 1947, which replaced the ITO, did not prohibit subsidies. It merely required that members reported to other members any subsidy which directly or indirectly affected exports by increasing exports or reduced imports into its territory. This was specific to Article XVI:3 GATT 1947 which provided that if a contracting party (to the GATT) were to grant directly or indirectly any form of subsidy which operated to increase the export, the party concerned need only advise other parties of its action. However, in 1955, when GATT 1947 was reviewed, Article XVI was amended to prohibit export subsidies of non-primary products and to avoid the use of subsidies on the export of primary products. Under the World Trade Organization (WTO) system (which replaced GATT), the Uruguay Round Subsidies Agreement, in Article 3 prohibits export subsidies to non-agricultural products. Regarding internal subsidies, Article XVI:1 obligates members under the GATT 1947 system not to cause by means of any subsidy internally serious prejudice to competition.

US v. AMR Corp

The United States competition law has as its genesis the Sherman Act of 1890 followed by the Clayton Act of 1914 (which was later amended in 1936). Such established legislation has been interpreted judicially to require two criteria: pricing must be below average variable costs and there must be proof of recoupment of losses incurred during the alleged period of predatory pricing. In the 2001 case of US v. AMR Corp the court held that an air carrier, which matches prices and increases output when faced with competition from low cost carriers, is not guilty of monopolization of the market.

If the issue were to escalate into a dispute between the States concerned before the WTO, it could be brought under the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures of the WTO (SCM) which is enforced through the WTO dispute settlement system. The Agreement deals with two subjects closely related to each other. The first is concerned with issues of multilateral disciplines regulating the provision of subsidies and the second provides rules for the use of countervailing measures to offset injury caused by subsidized imports. Of these, the first will be applicable to the dispute between the two aircraft manufacturers in the determination of whether subsidies have in fact passed between the governmental authority and manufacturer concerned. The second would apply in determining what countervailing measures must be taken by the WTO Dispute Settlement Body.

Of primary concern would be Part 1 of the Agreement which specifies that the SCM would apply exclusively to subsidies that are specifically given to an enterprise or a group of enterprises or industries. The SCM goes on to define a subsidy as a provision which is composed of three fundamental elements: it has to be a financial contribution; it has to be made by a government or any public body within the territory of a WTO member; and it has to confer a benefit on the recipient. It must be noted that according to the SCM, subsidies, as defined, must be specific. In other words, the subsidy must be specifically provided to an enterprise or industry or group of enterprises or industries, resulting in the distortion of the allocation of resources within the economy. The SCM recognizes four types of specificity: enterprise specificity, where a government identifies and provides a subsidy to a business entity; industry specificity, where a government targets a particular industrial sector; regional specificity, where a government targets business entity in a region or part of its territory; and prohibited subsidies, where a government subsidizes export goods or goods using domestic resources and inputs. Of these, clearly, the Boeing/Bombardier dispute would be considered under the enterprise specificity. The next step would be to slot the dispute into one of two categories: prohibited category, and actionable category. The prohibited category is composed of two sub categories, the first being contingent upon export performance and the second being applicable to the use of domestic over imported goods. These two categories are prohibited because they are directly calculated to adversely affect trade, impacting the interests of other members. Actionable subsidies, on the other hand, are not prohibited, but nonetheless subject to challenge either through a multilateral dispute settlement system or through the imposition of countervailing actions. If adjudicated by the Dispute Settlement Body, the Boeing/Bombardier dispute would clearly become an actionable issue under the latter category, on the basic assumption that the issue at stake is injury to a domestic industry.

The author is former Senior Legal Officer at the International Civil Aviation Organization.   Dr. Abeyratne has written numerous books on competition law, among which are Competition and Investment in Air Transport, and Aviation and International Cooperation.

Malaysia’s Taib family to face Canadian court over money laundering case

Taib Mahmud (second from right) meets constituents with his second wife, Ragad Taib (R) in Sarawak, Malaysia. Source: Twitter

By Max Walden | 20th September 2017

A CANADIAN business linked to billionaire Malaysian politician Abdul Taib Mahmud will face court in Toronto over alleged money laundering.

The Swiss anti-corruption NGO Bruno Manser Fund (BMF) is suing three Canadian banks and an auditing firm to disclose financial information regarding the CAD250 million (US$203 million) real estate firm Sakto Corporation owned by Sarawak Governor Taib Mahmud’s daughter Jamilah Taib Murray.

A judge at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice has ruled that the case – initially sealed – will be heard in public.

BMF released an investigation earlier this year which claimed that the Taib family had “secretly channelled” US$23.6 million into Sakto over the first ten years of its operations, after being incorporated in the Canadian province of Ottawa in 1983.

SEE ALSO: Malaysia’s Taib family owns $160m Canadian real estate empire – report

It claims that Canadian public prosecutors have failed to investigate and charge Sakto for money laundering, and thus is suing the Royal Bank of Canada, Toronto-Dominion Bank, Manulife Financial Corporation and Deloitte & Touche to release the company’s financial records.

The BMF report entitled Safe Haven Canada alleges that Sakto was established with the proceeds of corruption, noting that Jamilah Taib established the multimillion-dollar business aged only 23.

Jamilah Taib Murray presents a cheque for $21,000 to Ottawa Food Bank. Source: Twitter @jtaibmurray

The investigation states that “it remains totally unclear where Laila Taib [Taib Mahmud’s late wife] who had no independent income could have legally earned her share of the CAD20 million dollars that were lent to Sakto.”

Sakto Corporation told Asian Correspondent in March that the allegations by BMF were “false, malicious and sensationalised.”

“The organisation’s rehashed and repackaged allegations have been found to be lacking and never substantiated by a government or authoritative body,” it said.

Taib Mahmud ruled resource-rich Malaysian state of Sarawak as Chief Minister between 1981 and 2014, making him the second-longest serving parliamentarian in Malaysian history. Sarawakians call Taib Pak Uban or “white-haired uncle” or Pek Moh (white hair), and he has been referred to as the “last white rajah.”

During the period of his rule, Taib’s family became extremely wealthy and by 2011 had amassed assets in 14 Malaysian companies worth some US$1.4 billion. Today, it owns stakes in 400 companies in 25 countries and offshore jurisdictions.

For decades, the now-Governor of Sarawak and his family have been accused of corruption. Watchdogs claim the state’s political elites and their cronies have systemically siphoned off timber revenue to enrich their own personal fortunes.

Deforested tropical rain forest in Borneo to be used for a oil palm plantation. Photo taken near Kuching in Sarawak, Malaysia, 16 May 2015. Source: Rich Carey/Shutterstock

SEE ALSO: Canadian firm of Malaysia’s Taib family denies ‘false, sensationalised’ corruption allegations

The Sakto case follows a string of probes by BMF into the Taib family, including a report from 2015, which alleged the Taib-owned Australian company Sitehost – owner of Adelaide’s AUD50million (US$38 million) Hilton Hotel – had been used to launder tens of millions of dollars.

According to the NGO’s executive director Lukas Straumann, “the Taib family are extremely powerful, extremely rich, and they are extremely corrupt.”

“Sakto Corporation is a reputable, local Canadian Company whose officers, directors and shareholders are Canadian,” said the company in an email to Asian Correspondent.

“The company is led by a local family known for being community supporters and philanthropists.”

Selling out the Rohingyas

By Sumit Ganguly-2017-09-18

In the past several weeks, much attention has been devoted to the abject plight of the minority, predominantly Muslim, Rohingya community in Myanmar's Rakhine state. They have long been mistreated in the country and are denied citizenship rights despite a claim to have inhabited the Rakhine region since the sixteenth century; their situation has recently taken a particularly adverse turn.

On 25 August, it was reported that an emergent Rohingya guerrilla group had launched an attack on some Myanmarese Army units.

The military retaliated with considerable force and massacred substantial numbers of villagers at Tula Toli near the Bangladeshi border. In its wake, thousands of the hapless villagers trekked to nearby Bangladesh swelling an already turgid refugee population.

The harshness with which the Burmese military has responded to the guerrilla attack has generated understandable condemnation in the global community. Some groups have even tried to strip the Burmese leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, of her Nobel Prize. A fellow Nobel Laureate, Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, has sharply criticized her deafening silence about the situation of the Rohingyas. Another Nobel Laureate, Malala Yousufzai, has also criticized her silence. The focus on the global community's response to these most tragic developments in Myanmar is entirely warranted and appropriate. Lost in much of the reportage on these events, however, are the reactions of two key regional countries, Bangladesh and India. Bangladesh, which has grudgingly sheltered Rohingya refugees for years, has allowed more of them to enter the country, albeit with much reluctance.

The conditions that prevail in the Bangladeshi refugee camps can only be described as being downright squalid. Yet, such dire conditions do not deter the wretched Rohingyas from fleeing the depredations of the Myanmar Army. Of course, Bangladesh has little or no incentive and has limited resources to improve the existing state of the camps. Making them more liveable is likely to make them a magnet for further refugee inflows.

Furthermore, despite much economic progress over the past few decades, it remains a desperately poor country and can ill-afford to provide succour to increasing numbers of refugees even if they happen to be fellow Muslims. Even if substantial inflows of international assistance were available to Bangladesh, it is most unlikely that its regime would alleviate the milieu of these camps for fear that the refugees would seek more permanent residence in the country.

Bangladesh's response

Bangladesh's response to the emergent refugee crisis, while less than laudable, is at least somewhat understandable. What then has been India's reaction to the unfolding crisis? The country has a long and storied tradition of not merely accepting refugees, but actually providing them solace.

For example, in the wake of the Khampa Rebellion in Tibet in 1959, it provided comfort to thousands of Tibetans. It has also sheltered the Dalai Lama, the spiritual and temporal leader of the global Tibetan community, for decades since his flight to India.

More recently, in 1971, it opened its borders to nearly ten million Bengalis who fled East Pakistan following a military crackdown during the crisis that led to the creation of Bangladesh. Why then has the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) regime adopted a mostly uncaring stance? The reasons stem from the imperatives of both regional and domestic politics.

Narendra Modi

In his visit to Myanmar last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at least in the public domain, scrupulously avoided bringing up the issue of the Rohingyas. Worse still, he concurred with Suu Kyi that Myanmar was confronted with and needed to address a "terrorist problem." According to reliable Indian newspaper sources, he was able, however, to persuade her that it was necessary to provide substantial economic assistance to the strife-torn region. Whether or not such aid ever materializes and reaches the unfortunate population remains an open question.

What explains Modi's reticence to criticize the country's role in precipitating this humanitarian crisis? In considerable part, it stems from a careful calculation of India's perceived national security interests. Given that the country has long faced and continues to confront a range of insurgencies in its north-eastern region abutting Myanmar, it needs to elicit Suu Kyi's cooperation to prevent them from using bases and sanctuaries in her country.

People's Republic of China

Additionally, it can also be traced to India's interest in limiting the influence of the People's Republic of China (PRC). In earlier decades, Myanmar's fledgling democracy movement was battling a vicious military dictatorship, and India had been at the forefront of supporting it. However, after watching the PRC make steady inroads into Myanmar in the early 1990s, India started to move away from its unstinted support for democratic reforms. Modi's muted reaction to the ongoing crisis amounts to a logical culmination of that strategy.

Deporting refugees

Beyond regional concerns, what are the domestic determinants of this policy? The BJP regime, as is well known, has little or no regard for India's vast Muslim minority. In fact, elements within the party are known for their active hostility toward India's Muslim citizenry. Consequently, it should come as little surprise that the regime has no particular regard for the Rohingyas who have sought refuge within India. With complete disregard for customary international law, which calls on states not to deport refugees to countries where they face a reasonable prospect of persecution, Kiren Rijiju, the Junior Minister for Home Affairs, has threatened to deport the Rohingyas to Myanmar. Without adducing any evidence, he has argued that the refugees pose a potential terrorist threat and thereby should be deported. It is uncertain that the stinging rebukes that he has received from both Indian civil society as well as human rights groups will lead to a suspension of this stated policy.

At a juncture when multiple global crises command the attention of national leaders, there is a strong likelihood that the stance of the two most important regional actors— Bangladesh and India—to this humanitarian crisis will be mostly overlooked. Under those circumstances, the predicament of the Rohingyas will simply be written off as yet another footnote to the many humanitarian tragedies of the new century.

(Sumit Ganguly is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia and holds the Rabindranath Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations at Indiana University, Bloomington.)
(FPRI)

Why I Won’t Vote Unless Things Change

As long as the Democratic Party keeps allowing wealthy oligarchs to remain at the driver’s seat, it won’t matter what brand new figurehead they churn out of their assembly line.

By James Kotroczo, September 16, 2017

Since November 8, 2016, Democrats have lost a series of special elections for the same reasons they lost the general election.

Without change, the Democratic Party is doomed to fail because Baby Boomers will turn out in droves to support the status quo or even the status quo ante (“make America great again”), while Millennials will simply stay home in disgust.

It is no secret that my generation did not show much enthusiasm during the last presidential election. Despite the fact that Millennials are currently tied with Baby Boomers as the largest generation cohort in the United States, our impact during the 2016 presidential election was minimal at best.

Less than half of us (including me) even bothered to show up at the voting booth on Election Day, while roughly 70% of Baby Boomers did, as they overwhelmingly voted for Trump.

Passion for Sanders

But why was that? No, it wasn’t because of complacency or lack of interest on our part. During the Democratic Primaries, Millennials on my own campus, as well as all over the country, displayed an immense passion for Bernie Sanders.

This trend certainly showed in the Primaries results in which Sanders earned more votes from Millennials than Clinton and Trump combined.

To us, Sanders represented a different type of politician. Unlike so many others that came before him, he actually lived by his teachings.

Sanders seemed to truly have the general population’s best interest in mind. He spoke like a man who actually understood the problems of the lower and middle classes instead of someone just reciting rehearsed lines.

No Wall Street dollars

But above all, when it came to campaign finance reform, he backed up his stance by not accepting a single dollar from neither Wall Street nor any Super PACs. The very same opulent entities that have been subverting our elections for quite some time.

However, Sanders did not win the nomination. To us, he was never given a real chance thanks to the Democratic Party establishment.

Instead, they backed Clinton because of her massive fundraising record and her connections within the party.

As the primaries transitioned into the general elections, this anger and frustration with the establishment stuck. In our minds, Clinton was unarguably the better candidate, but that wasn’t enough to make her appealing to us.

Clinton’s flip-flopping

Clinton had a fairly lengthy history of flip-flopping on her policies in order to adapt to whatever was politically or socially in vogue. Nothing about her seemed genuine.

She was all about self-promotion and not much about caring. She tried to snatch our vote in the general elections by wrapping herself in the populist flag, opposing the “too big to fail” banks and promoting campaign finance reform.

These positions were in stark contrast to her actions as she had raised a total of over $400 million among all her campaigns for Senate and President between 1999 and 2016.

In the last election alone, she raised over $64 million with three of her top individual donors being Goldman Sachs, Citibank, and JP Morgan. As you can imagine, her ridiculous populist persona came off as more comical than sincere.

 

Yet, it was the lack of ideas by Clinton that turned us off the most, combined with her establishment image, as well as the blatant effort by the DNC to put their finger on the scale for her. This discouraged and dispirited many Millennial voters in the general elections.

Tired of the lies

We’re tired of our political system. We’re tired of empty promises, phony populist agendas, bought-out elections, elitist pandering, subversive foreign policies, and the dismantling of our rights.

Most of us will not vote again, unless the framework for U.S. politics can be reformed. A democracy without the support from its largest voting base is not sustainable. So, Democrats should take notes from Sanders and the basis for his presidential campaign.

Democrats must not only present a positive agenda, but must also follow through with it. An agenda that is based on creating a brighter future for our youth rather than pandering to jingoistic paranoia.
It must contain ways to create opportunities for all of us to succeed according to our own capabilities.

Invest in the people

For starters, upgrading our education system would create a strong foundation for increasing the average income of lower and middle class Americans which has remained stagnant since the 1980’s.
Providing healthcare for all should also be a top priority, especially considering the fact that it’s affordable in virtually every civilized country.

If we want to catch up with the rest of the civilized world, we must put constraints on the powers of pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, private hospitals and doctors in order to care for all of our citizens.

Implementing more aggressive policies to protect our environment is also an absolute necessity. The urgency of this issue is lost on far too many people, politicians and average citizens alike.

But the fact of the matter is that we cannot allow the neglect of the past to echo throughout future generations. If we don’t address this problem now, everyone, not just Millennials, will have to cope with the disastrous aftermath.

Campaign finance reform needed

In order to accomplish all of that and more, campaign finance reform is needed now more than ever before. Much like the separation between church and state, there needs to be a separation between big money and the state.

As long as the Democratic Party keeps allowing wealthy oligarchs to remain at the driver’s seat, it won’t matter what brand new figurehead they churn out of their assembly line. If the Democratic Party expects to win back the confidence of Millennial voters, then it must make this a key plank of its platform.

The next time I vote, it will be for a candidate who actually deserves to be President — a candidate who champions the interests of the majority instead of a handful of affluent aristocrats.

A candidate more concerned about the future rather than the present, or worse, dragging us into the past. Hopefully, I won’t have to wait too long for such a person to run.

New health-care plan stumbles under opposition from governors

Senate Republicans are trying to revive the momentum to overhaul the Affordable Care Act with the Cassidy-Graham proposal. Here's a rundown of the plan, and the rush to pass it. (Video: Jenny Starrs/Photo: Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

By Sean Sullivan, Juliet Eilperin and Kelsey Snell September 19 at 8:26 PM

Senate Republicans and the White House pressed ahead Tuesday with their suddenly resurgent effort to undo former president Barack Obama’s signature health-care law, even as their attempt was dealt a setback when a bipartisan group of governors and several influential interest groups came out against the proposal.

Powerful health-care groups continued to rail against the bill, including AARP and the American Hospital Association, both of which urged a no vote. But it was unclear whether the opposition would ultimately derail the attempt, as key Republican senators including Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said they had yet to make up their minds.

The measure marks the last gasp of Republican attempts to dramatically gut Obama’s Affordable Care Act, which has added millions of people to the ranks of the insured through a combination of federally subsidized marketplaces and state-level expansions of Medicaid, leading to record lows in the number of those without health insurance. The Graham-Cassidy bill — named for Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) and Bill Cassidy (La.) — would convert funding for the ACA into block grants for the states and would cut Medicaid dramatically over time.

The bill — coming two months after a previous failed repeal effort in the Senate — is the subject of a last-ditch lobbying push by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and the Trump administration, led by Vice President Pence, ahead of a Sept. 30 deadline for Senate action.

In a letter to Senate leaders, the group of 10 governors argued against the Graham-Cassidy bill and wrote that they prefer the bipartisan push to stabilize the insurance marketplaces that Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) had been negotiating before talks stalled Tuesday evening.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) attacked the latest GOP health-care plan, the Cassidy-Graham proposal, on Sept. 19 as 10 governors came out against it. "Millions will lose coverage," Schumer said. (The Washington Post)

The governors who signed the letter are particularly notable, since some are from states represented by Republican senators who are weighing whether to back the bill. Among the signers were Alaska Gov. Bill Walker (I), who holds some sway over Murkowski, a potentially decisive vote who opposed a previous Republican effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

Nevertheless, Murkowski said Tuesday afternoon that she was still weighing her options and explained how her position on the bill might ultimately differ from her opposition to the repeal effort that failed dramatically in July.

“If it can be shown that Alaska is not going to be disadvantaged, you gain additional flexibility. Then I can go back to Alaskans, and I can say, ‘Okay, let’s walk through this together.’ That’s where it could be different,” she said.

But Murkowski, who has been in close contact with Walker, said she did not yet have the data to make such a determination. Alaska’s other Republican senator, Dan Sullivan, said he was still mulling whether to support the bill.

[Reminder: It’s very unusual to vote on a health-care bill before Congress knows what it will do]

On the other side, a group of 15 Republican governors announced their support for the Senate bill Tuesday evening. The list includes Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R), whose backing could help influence Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has frequently criticized the legislation for failing to fully repeal the ACA.

On Tuesday, Pence traveled from New York, where he was attending the annual United Nations General Assembly session, to Washington with Graham in a sign of the White House’s support for the proposal.

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said President Trump "is very excited about this state-centric health-care system" on Sept. 19. (The Washington Post)

“My message today is I want to make sure that members of the Senate know the president and our entire administration supports Graham-Cassidy,” Pence told reporters on the flight. “We think the American people need this.”

Graham added that President Trump called him at 10:30 p.m. Monday.

“He says, ‘If we can pull this off, it’ll be a real accomplishment for the country,’ ” he recalled.
Trump has played a limited role in building support among senators in recent days, but it is possible that his participation will increase as a potential vote nears. He has, however, been in touch with some governors, including a weekend call with Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R), according to aides.

Pence attended the weekly Senate Republican policy luncheon, where he said the current health-care system is collapsing and the bill fulfills key GOP promises to return control to states and rein in federal entitlement programs, according to several GOP senators.

Afterward, McConnell declined to ensure a vote on the bill but said his team is working to secure sufficient support.

“We’re in the process of discussing all of this. Everybody knows that the opportunity expires at the end of the month,” said McConnell, referring to the limited window Republicans have to take advantage of a procedural tactic to pass a broad health-care bill without any Democratic support.

Democrats say the ACA needs modest improvements by Congress but is working well overall, and they have railed against a process in which Republicans are pressing ahead with few hearings on legislation that would affect an industry that accounts for about a sixth of the U.S. economy.

The current bill would give states control over billions in federal health-care spending and enact deep cuts to Medicaid. The Medicaid cuts in particular are a major source of concern to the governors, both in terms of imposing a per capita limit on what states would receive and putting restrictions on how they could spend any federal aid on their expanded Medicaid populations.

Medicaid was expanded under the ACA to provide states with generous funding if they opted to cover adults earning up to 138 percent of the poverty level. Many Republican-led states decided against an expansion following a Supreme Court decision allowing them to opt out.

The fact that the bill also would restrict states’ abilities to tax health-care providers to fund their Medicaid programs posed a problem for several governors, as well.

In a sign of how alarmed state officials are about the prospect of funding cuts, Louisiana’s health secretary sent a letter to Cassidy on Monday saying that their state could see disproportionate cuts with significant impacts on people with preexisting or complex and costly conditions.

“This would be a detrimental step backwards for Louisiana,” wrote Rebekah Gee, who posted her letter on Twitter on Monday.

And although Walker has not played a visible role in the national health-care debate until now, certain aspects of the new bill pose an even bigger challenge for Alaska than previous proposals did. Health-care premiums are particularly expensive in the state, given its many remote areas. Premiums on the ACA market average roughly $1,000 a month for an individual, according to the most recent federal data.

Since federal tax credits over time would be equalized and based on the number of low-income people in a given state, that new calculation would eliminate the more generous subsidies Alaska enjoys.

Given the complex nature of the Graham-Cassidy proposal, it is difficult for state officials and health-care analysts to predict exactly how much money a given state would gain or lose if the legislation were enacted. But early estimates suggest that states with expanded Medicaid programs and active participation in the ACA markets could face major cuts.

An initial estimate for Colorado, according to state officials, suggests it could lose at least $700 million in annual federal funding by 2025. Since the state has roughly 450,000 people in its Medicaid expansion program and another 100,000 receiving premium tax credits on its health-care exchange, that could translate into hundreds of thousands of Coloradans losing coverage.

The governors who have been most outspoken in their criticism of the bill negotiated behind the scenes to bring as many state executives on board as possible, according to aides, tweaking the language of Tuesday’s letter over the past couple of days to get maximum support.

Others who signed the letter in opposition to Graham-Cassidy included John Kasich (R-Ohio) and Brian Sandoval (R-Nev.). Sandoval’s positioning puts him at odds with Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.), who has been touting the bill as another co-sponsor.

Pence said Trump told him to reach out to some Democrats, and he spoke to Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) over the weekend. But after reviewing the bill, Manchin said, he told Pence’s aides he could not support the legislation.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he’s confident no Democrat will vote for the legislation, because “it hurts people in every state.”

Democrats had been working furiously since Monday to advance talks between Alexander and Murray on a deal to immediately stabilize ACA insurance marketplaces with federal subsidies. The negotiations rapidly escalated after weeks of slow but consistent talks once it became clear that Senate GOP leaders were serious about holding a health-care vote before the end of the month, according to several Senate aides.

Alexander on Tuesday played down expectations of reaching an agreement this week, telling reporters the pair had reached an impasse.

“During the last month, we have worked hard and in good faith but have not found the necessary consensus among Republicans and Democrats to put a bill in the Senate leaders’ hands that could be enacted,” Alexander said in a statement.

Democrats denied that the talks had fallen apart, accusing Republicans of walking away despite making progress on areas of disagreement. Schumer spokesman Matt House said Democrats offered to accept a number of GOP requests, including waivers to give states more latitude in how they spend federal dollars and the creation of new low-cost plans under the ACA.

“This is not about substance,” House said in a statement. “The Republican leadership is so eager to pass Graham-Cassidy that they’re scuttling a balanced, bipartisan negotiation.”

Many Democrats, including Murray, said they hoped the talks could still be salvaged despite roadblocks from Republicans.

“I am disappointed that Republican leaders have decided to freeze this bipartisan approach,” Murray said in a statement. “But I am confident that we can reach a deal if we keep working together.”

Ed O’Keefe and Ashley Parker contributed to this report.