Agri insurance as viable fallback for drought 

By Sajitha Prematunge-June 6, 2018, 10:43 pm

Developing nations are considered more susceptible to the effects of extreme weather events as economic constrains make it difficult for them to deal with the damages caused by such events. They are also technologically less advanced and therefore lack access to adaptive technology. Being a natural resource dependent production process, agriculture is the most vulnerable to such events as floods and droughts. Consequently, agricultural activities of developing nations are particularly vulnerable.

In fact, 66 percent of Sri Lankan cropland is rain-fed, making them most vulnerable to drought. Paddy, tea, spices and vegetable cultivation are affected by drought and delayed monsoonal rains. Extreme weather events heighten poverty levels in the rural agriculture sector, which will further impede adaptation measures making them increasingly vulnerable to extreme weather events, which in turn further reduces agricultural productivity, further increasing poverty. This is a vicious cycle. Consequently adaptation is vital for the protection of those engaged in agriculture as well as for food security in general.

Ironically the workshop, on the development of an algorithm for drought-related crop insurance products, organised by the SLAAS section F Social Sciences, held recently was rained in. The issues raised, nonetheless, were significant. Meteorological and agricultural drought incidence, available technologies and methods for drought assessment and their strength and limitations, risk management strategies, prospective insurance products and tenability of index based insurance were among the topics discussed.

The workshop was organised in partnership with the Gamani Corea Foundation, World Food Programme, National Insurance Trust Fund and Institute of Policy Studies. The objective was to bring the concerned groups together to develop an implementable and sustainable risk management programme by introducing innovative crop insurance products. Agencies working in related subject areas were invited for thematic presentations and group activities.

Prof. Sarath Amarasinghe (President), Kumudu Seneviratne (Vice President), Dr. Prasad Neelawala (Secretary), Kapila Premarane (Rapporteur), Dr. Chandana Jayawardena, Danesh Wisumperuma, Achini Weerawardena, Dr. Wasanthi Wickramasinghe, Dr. W. Bohingamuwa and Geethika Priyadarshnie took part in the discussions.

Armed with extensive experience in food information systems, drought-related issues and working with farmers, the workshop was deftly coordinated by Dr. Wasanthi Wickramasinghe, a Senior Research Fellow at Gamini Corea Foundation as well as a Committee Member of Section F, SLAAS. "Farmers are the poorest segment of society. This is why it's so important to deal with their problems," said Wickramasinghe.

Concurring with Wasanthi Wickramasinghe, Institute of Policy Studies, Research Economist, Kanchana Wickramasinghe pointed out that natural disaster incidence has increased as of late and dry zone, paddy farmers are particularly vulnerable. In her thematic presentation on risk management strategies and innovations, Kanchana pointed out that climate change related disasters, rainfall uncertainties and fluctuation in water availability are among the top uncertainties identified in a study conducted among 750 dry zone farmers. "Minor irrigation activities mostly depend on rainfall. Cultivation is destroyed before and post harvest due to disasters," said Kanchana.

Paddy specifically depends on water for most of its lifecycle. Smallholder farmers are especially at risk as income generated through agriculture is their only source of sustenance. According to an exploratory study on adapting to climate change in coastal areas of Sri Lanka by Shanila Athulathmudali, et al, nearly 70 per cent of the paddy cultivated is in the dry zone which has an average annual rainfall of less than 1750 mm. Consequently, adaptive measures are vital when climate goes haywire.

Research such as Agricultural adaptation to climate change: insights from a farming community in Sri Lanka by Esham Mohamed and Chris Garforth have identified different types of adaptation. Introducing improved crop varieties, micro irrigation and crop diversification are among the major adaptation strategies. Water management adaptive systems include; increased use of supplementary irrigation, water conservation, rain water harvesting and using ground water.

However, insurance is the last strategy that a farmer would think of when dealing with natural disasters. Introducing insurance schemes to protect the farmers from extreme weather related risks has proven difficult due to lack of enthusiasm of farmers themselves. Crop insurance lacks wide acceptance among farmers in Sri Lanka, according to Mohamed and Garforth.

"Farmers' major risk management strategy is borrowing from informal sources as credit and pawning jewellery. They borrow, cultivate and repay. This is a vicious cycle of debt," explained Kanchana. She cited lack of awareness of insurance, previous bad experience by fellow farmers with insurance companies and lack of trust as reasons for not getting insured. "They are also under the impression that insurance is of no use for small-scale farmers." Kanchana also pointed out that insurance companies have not approached such farmers.

Kanchana emphasised that, with the right kind of policy, the 'debt' in the cycle can be replaced by insurance. However, success of such a scheme depends on an increase in farmer's income, tangible benefits, increased access to services and food security in bad year. Farmers’ decisions to adopt such adaptation measures as agricultural insurance depend on their constraints and applicability of adaptation methods at farm level. Understanding this is vital to developing any adaptation strategy.

National Insurance Trust Fund, Chief Executive Officer, Sanath C de Silva pointed out that tackling information and data, lack of knowledge in farmers regarding insurance, difficulty in developing agricultural risk modelling are major challenges in introducing agricultural insurance to Sri Lankan farmers.

"The government should facilitate information regulation, training and awareness," said de Silva. In his thematic presentation on current Implementation of crop insurance schemes in Sri Lanka and Prospective Insurance Products, de Silva pointed out that farmers do not have the individual capacity to withstand exposure to catastrophic weather events. Moreover, the agriculture industry is inherently vulnerable, in that it requires a large labour force and the cost of production is high while per acre yield is low. "Our objective is to rid farmers of the habit of borrowing from the informal sector, for which the farmers incur exorbitant interest," said de Silva.

Group discussions on methodological consensus on drought assessment technologies to characterise agricultural drought, opportunities and challenges of using existing knowledge in risk management in agriculture and exploration of prospective Insurance Products and a panel discussion on factors related to the development of an algorithm, underlying factors, such as availability of alternative risk management strategies were also held during the workshop.

I was MI6’s spy inside Al Qaeda

Jonathan Rugman-5 Jun 2018Foreign Affairs Correspondent

“Betrayal of the treacherous is loyalty in the eyes of God. I betrayed a bunch of criminals, it’s as simple as that” – the words of one of MI6’s most important spies in the war on terror, Aimen Dean.

He worked with Al Qaeda’s master bombmaker in a training camp in Afghanistan in the nineties.

But after witnessing what he described as wanton acts of cruelty and blood lust, he says he became disillusioned and became a crucial asset for British intelligence.

Aimen Dean, with Paul Cruikshank and Tim Lister, tells his story in full in the book ‘Nine Lives: My time as MI6’s top spy inside al-Qaeda’.

'They came to kill him': Palestinians mourn latest victim of Israeli occupation

Funeral procession for Ezzaddin Abd El Hafeezh Tamimi, 21, shot and killed by Israeli forces in occupied West Bank

The funeral procession for Ezzaddin Abd El Hafeezh Tamimi (MEE/Tessa Fox)

Tessa Fox-Wednesday 6 June 2018

Nabi Saleh, occupied West Bank - Dozens of men - young and old - from the Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh lined the entrance of the morgue at Ramallah Hospital.

All were waiting to catch a glimpse of 21-year-old Ezzaddin Abd El Hafeezh Tamimi, who was shot and killed by Israeli forces on Wednesday morning, during an Israeli military raid on Nabi Saleh, northeast of Ramallah in the West Bank.

They certainly came to kill him

- Ala Barghouthi, friend of Abd El Hafeezh Tamimi

Israeli activist Jonathan Pollack told Middle East Eye that video footage taken at the time of Tamimi's death shows that there was no stone throwing at the time.

Only three young boys were out in the field - a spot where Israeli forces regularly shoot teargas, even live ammunition, at protesters, witnesses said.

“In the video you saw a soldier heading down the street, positioning himself behind a tree and shooting two live rounds. These are the shots that killed Abd El Hafeezh,” Pollack explained.

Shot from behind

Abd El Hafeezh was hit with live fire at the nape of his neck. The bullet made a clean exit. 

The soldier was about 45 metres from the young man, villagers estimated.

“Any claim of self-defence by the soldier or any threat to his life is completely nullified both by the video and the distance,” Pollack said.

Ala Barghouthi, 21, was a close friend of Tamimi. “They certainly came to kill him,” Barghouthi told Middle East Eye.

The Israeli forces on the scene denied Tamimi immediate medical attention.

Even after death, Israeli forces continue to harass residents of Nabi Saleh (MEE/Tessa Fox)

“He was shot directly in the neck and then they left him on the ground for ten minutes after he was shot. He would have died anyway,” Barghouthi said, referring to the length of time it took to take Abd El Hafeezh to hospital.  

Nabi Saleh has become a symbol of Palestinian resistance since the start of weekly protests in 2010 against the illegal Israeli settlement of Halamish nearby.

The settlement was built on Palestinian land and its settlers also took over Nabi Saleh’s water spring.

With weekly protests, Nabi Saleh has maintained an active media presence, documenting the actions of soldiers in their village.

Death every day

Residents of Nabi Saleh have grown accustomed to killings, arrests and harassment by Israeli forces.

Last February, eleven people from the village were detained. Pollack said soldiers came looking for Abd El Hafeezh; when they couldn’t find him, they arrested his father and older brother and took them to be interrogated by the Shin Bet – Israel’s intelligence service.

“They weren’t questioned at all; they were just threatened. They were told they either give in Abd El Hafeezh or the Shin Bet will continue to raid their house and arrest his mother,” Pollack explained.

The killing, arrest and harassment of the residents of Nabi Saleh has become normal life for them (MEE/Tessa Fox)

“They even explicitly threatened to kill Abd El Hafeezh, [before] releasing them.”

Back at the morgue in Ramallah Hospital, Tamimi's body lay on a slab draped with the Palestinian flag. Young boys began handing out posters with the dead man's photo before his body was carried to a awaiting ambulance, which led a march through the streets of Ramallah.

“Those who shout, never die,” the men chanted. “Rest now martyr, we will continue the struggle.”

No way through

But the march couldn't make it to the village. The Israeli army informed the Palestinian District Coordination Office that they wouldn’t allow the funeral procession to go through the main street of Nabi Saleh.

Prominent Nabi Saleh activist, Manal Tamimi, wrote on her Facebook page: “As if it’s not enough that they killed Ezz[addin], [they also want] to break us. But they still don’t understand that nobody can give orders to the Tamimis.”

Filled with mourners, cars attempting to get to Nabi Saleh from Ramallah for the funeral were stopped by Israeli soldiers, who blocked the road.

They only allowed the ambulance with Tamimi's body to proceed, and pushed and threatening those who tried to cross, before firing sound bombs at them.

Only after an hour had elapsed did the soldiers start to let cars trickle through, before driving off to station themselves at the foot of the village.

Ezzaddin Abd El Hafeezh Tamimi was finally laid to rest in Nabi Saleh’s cemetery.

Religious extremism is at the heart of US support for Israel

Christian Zionist pastors Robert Jeffress and John Hagee led prayers at the opening ceremony of the US embassy to Israel in Jerusalem last month. (White House/YouTube)

Asa Winstanley- 6 June 2018

One of the most important elements of the Israel lobby in the United States is right-wing Evangelical backing – or Christian Zionism.

The fanatically anti-Palestinian group Christians United For Israel, CUFI, claims to have more than 4 million members. It was founded in 2006 by a Texas mega-church televangelist, Pastor John Hagee. It now has smaller branches in the UK and Canada.

Hagee has a profitable line in supposedly prophetic books which promote extremist apocalyptic visions about the “end times.”

With attention-grabbing titles like Four Blood Moons, the books have a sci-fi or fantasy quality to them. Indeed, they are of course mostly fictional, even if their author would claim otherwise.

His upcoming book explicitly appeals to the lucrative fantasy blockbuster audience, titled as it is: Earth’s Last Empire: The Final Game of Thrones.

He also cashes in on the modern “prosperity gospel” trend among those Evangelicals who purport to show how Biblical prophecies and principles can lead to actual, literal wealth for his readers and congregants, in titles like “Decisions that Produce Wealth” and “The Power to Get Wealth.”

Hagee, then, is a modern-day snake oil salesman. As such, he is an appropriate fit for the state of Israel.

Hagee’s CUFI plays an important role in rallying Evangelical support for Israel in the US. It also claims that one of its aims is to fight anti-Semitism across the world.

Anti-Semitic creed

But in fact Hagee’s doctrine is one of the most fanatically anti-Semitic religious creeds in the world today.
Leading Palestinian intellectual Joseph Massad has made a convincing argument that Zionism’s origins actually lay in evangelical Protestant millenarianism rather than in any Jewish tradition.

At its heart is an anti-Semitic theology which aims to rid Europe of its Jewish communities and “gather” them in Palestine in anticipation of the End Times. There – so this eschatology has it – when the Messiah, Jesus, returns, the majority will convert to Christianity before the final judgement of God. The rest will be doomed to hell.

Christian Zionism sought to bring about this “return” to the “Land of Israel” in very practical terms. In reality, most Jews opposed Zionism as a fringe movement, and never sought to live in Palestine. European Jewish communities are just that – Europeans mostly descended from converts to Judaism.

The dangerous and racist mythology which drives groups like CUFI is therefore a useful tool of the Israel lobby in the eyes of cynical Israeli politicians and their Zionist supporters in the West.

Because despite its empty claims to be fighting anti-Semitism, CUFI’s theology is very much based in anti-Semitic ideas. Hagee himself infamously preached that Hitler was “a hunter” sent by God to drive Jews “back” to Palestine so that the divine plan to “return” the Jews to the Land of Israel could be played out.

Such demented ideology is a major driver of anti-Semitic hatred against Jews.

But it causes little problem for Israel and its supporters. While the re-emergence of Hagee’s Hitler sermon during the 2008 presidential race embarrassed John McCain into renouncing Hagee’s endorsement, the pastor continues to be courted and indulged by both Israeli and US politicians.

Racist logic

At the opening of the new US embassy in Jerusalem in May, Hagee gave the closing benediction, praying in front of a who’s-who of Israeli and American politicians.

The crowd included Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli opposition leader Isaac Herzog (of the so-called “Labor” party), Trump’s son-in-law and advisor Jared Kushner, former US presidential candidate Ted Cruz, and former senator Joe Lieberman.

During his prayer, Hagee claimed that Jerusalem is “the eternal capital of the Jewish people”. This description – a common claim by such Zionist fanatics – is worth thinking about: while superficially philosemitic, it is, in effect, anti-Semitic.

As the Palestinian intellectual Omar Bargouhti – the co-founder of the BDS movement – puts it: neo-Nazis claim that Jews are sub-human while Zionists claim that Jews are super-human – both agree that Jews are, somehow, not human.

The philosemitism of Christian Zionism is actually a subtle form of anti-Semitism.

The obvious implication of Netanyahu’s baseless claim to be not just the prime minister of Israel but the “representative of the entire Jewish people” and of Hagee’s claim that Jerusalem is the “eternal” capital not just of Israel but of “the Jewish people” is that “the Jews” do not really belong to the many various countries in which they were actually born and brought up, but “really belong” – on some sort of mystical, metaphysical level – in Israel and Israel alone.

The long term aim is to drive Jews out of their ancestral homelands and into Palestine where they are compelled into the role of settlers in the apartheid colony of Israel. It is a racist, anti-Semitic logic.

This is something that Zionism has had a degree of success in achieving over the last 70 years. But the project has been a failure in that most Jews do not live in Israel, and show little interest in ever doing so – especially American Jews.

Fiery pits of hell

Another extremist American pastor to attend the embassy opening ceremony was Robert Jeffress. The Evangelical gave a prayer in front of the assembled politicians and embassy staff in which he described Jerusalem as “the city that you [God] named as the capital of Israel 3,000 years ago.”

He went into full-throated political-religion mode, gushing over Trump, and thanking God “every day that you have given us a president who boldly stands on the right side of history, but more importantly stands on the right side of you, oh God, when it comes to Israel.”

But Jeffress is also an extremist anti-Semite Christian Zionist.

As reported by the New York Times, he once said during an interview on a Christian TV channel that Jews, Muslims and Mormons are all going to hell.

“Islam is wrong. It is a heresy from the pit of hell,” he said. “Mormonism is wrong. It is a heresy from the pit of hell.” He continued: “Judaism – you can’t be saved being a Jew. You know who said that, by the way? The three greatest Jews in the New Testament: Peter, Paul and Jesus Christ. They all said Judaism won’t do it. It’s faith in Jesus Christ.”

In a 2008 sermon, he was more direct: “Not only do religions like Mormonism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism – not only do they lead people away from the true God, they lead people to an eternity of separation from God in hell … Hell is going to be filled with good religious people who have rejected the truth of Christ.”

Israeli politicians like Netanyahu are no doubt aware of the hateful ideology of such allies. But as long as these allies are committed to political support for the state of Israel and defending its crimes, they do not care.

On the surface, this should make little sense. After all, in the fever dreams of Hagee and Jeffress, would Netanyahu – a Jew – not end up in the fiery pits of hell should he refuse to convert to faith in Jesus during the last days of judgement?

A settler-colonial movement

It makes more sense when you consider another historical fact: Zionism is not a movement for Jewish self defence, it is a movement for settler-colonialism.

If the global Zionist movement deems it useful to promote anti-Semitic conspiracy theories (as Israeli intelligence services admit to having deliberately done) and hateful, anti-Jewish Christian theologies, then so be it, goes their thinking.

After all, the goal of Israel is to bring Jews to the land of Palestine and turn them into settlers – human fodder that can be used to displace the indigenous people. Zionism has never had as one of its real goals the protection of Jewish communities outside of Israel.

If anything, the opposite is true. Israeli leaders constantly sensationalize threats to Jewish life in Europe, to encourage migration to Israel. Many Iraqi Jews claim that attacks on their community were actually a plot by Israeli agents to drive them out of the country and head for Israel. Before the rise of Zionism, and the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948, Jewish citizens of Iraq lived in relative prosperity and harmony with their fellow citizens of other religions.

Despite the warm words of Christian Zionists about Jews being “God’s chosen people,” there is no escaping the feeling that behind this veneer of philosemitism, there is a distinctly anti-Semitic core at work.

In the final analysis, the effect of Christian Zionism is anti-Semitic – it is bad for Jewish communities as well as bad for the indigenous people of Palestine.

How to defeat Trump lies

The problem for Europe is how to remain faithful to its emancipatory legacy, which is now threatened by the conservative-populist onslaught?

by Slavoj Zizek- Jun 6, 2018

( June 6, 2018, London, Sri Lanka Guardian ) There may well be two sides to Donald Trump. The “peaceful” and the “belligerent,” depending on his moods. And we might just have seen both of them in quick succession.

Just after announcing the meeting with Kim Jong-un, Trump decided to withdraw from the Iran agreement, thereby bringing instability and the threat of war (not only) to the Middle East.

But, of course, there is only one Trump, who was doing exactly the same thing in both cases. In the case of North Korea, he began with exerting extreme pressure, including economic sanctions and military threats, and he is doing the same to Iran, in the hope that, if it worked the first time, it will work now also.

Will it though? What if the US government is well aware that the pressure on Iran will not work? What if, together with Israel and Saudi Arabia, they are preparing for war with Iran?

It is difficult to speculate about the consequences of such a military conflict. We should rather focus on the limitation of Trump’s entire approach: Will Trump get his comeuppance? Because Neither Russia nor China can do this – they are caught in the same game as Trump and they basically all speak the same language of “America (Russia, China…) first.”

Last hope

Only the European Union can deliver a hammer blow, and the new situation offers the bloc a unique chance to assert itself as a sovereign power block and to act as if the pact with Iran is still valid. Seizing this opportunity, the French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said that Trump’s proposals to corral the EU into joining US foreign policy on Iran should be counteracted by a stronger, independent European foreign policy. “We have to work among ourselves in Europe to defend our European economic sovereignty. Do we want to be a vassal that obeys and jumps to attention?”

Read more

Sounds nice – but does Europe have enough strength and unity to do it? Will the new East European, post-Communist axis (stretching from the Baltic States to Croatia) follow the EU resistance to the US, or will it bow to the US and thus provide yet more proof that the quick expansion of the EU to the east was a mistake?

What further complicates things is that Europe is caught in its own populist revolt, triggered by the fact that people trust less and less the Brussels technocracy, regarding it as a center of power with no democratic legitimacy.

The result of the last Italian elections is that, for the first time in a developed Western European country, Euroskeptic populists came to power. Plus, the withdrawal from the Iran agreement is just the middle one of the three anti-European acts of the US: the move of the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem vehemently opposed by the EU, plus the opening shot in the trade war with three of its biggest trading partners by deciding to begin levying tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum from the EU, Canada and Mexico.

Other view

Although most of us sympathize with the European reaction, we should not forget the (as a rule ignored) background of the US decision. To understand it, let’s turn to another topic which may appear to be totally different: the current uproar in the US over the abrupt cancellation of ABC’s hit TV show ‘Roseanne’ because of a racist tweet by the show’s star Roseanne Barr.

In her column “With Roseanne Barr gone, will the US working-class be erased from TV?” Joan Williams argues that the Left should finally start to listen to the white working class. She perspicuously notices how a key fact of this affair passed unnoticed: the cancellation “deprived American television of one of the only sympathetic depictions of white working-class life in the past half century – in other words, since television began.”

Read more

Williams unambiguously supports the exclusion of Barr on account of her racist tweets – but she adds: “All that said, race is not the only social hierarchy. Disrespectful images of the working-class whites are part and parcel of the cultural disrespect that paved the path for a demagogue like Trump.” The sad plight of the working-class whites is the clearest indication of the disappearance of the American dream.

“Virtually all Americans born in the 1940s earned more than their parents; today, it’s less than half. The rust belt revolt that brought both Brexit and Trump reflects rotting factories, dying towns, and a half century of empty promises. Those left behind are very, very angry; Trump is their middle finger. The more he outrages coastal elites, the more his followers gloat they got our goat. Finally, they are being noticed.”

And it is crucial to read Trump’s tariff war against the closest allies of the US against this background: in his populist version of class warfare, Trump’s goal is (also) to protect the American working class (and are metal workers not one of the emblematic figures of the traditional working class?) from “unfair” European competition, and thereby save American jobs. This is why all the protests of public officials and economists in EU, Canada and Mexico, as well as the countermeasures proposed by them, miss the target: they follow the WTO logic of free international trade, while only a new Left addressing the concerns of all those left behind can really counter Trump.

At some deep and often obfuscated level, the US neocons perceive the European Union as the enemy. This perception, kept under control in the public political discourse, explodes in its underground obscene double, the extreme Right Christian fundamentalist political vision with its obsessive fear of the new world order (with conspiracy theories such as how Obama is in secret collusion with the United Nations, international forces will intervene in the US and put all true American patriots in concentration camps etc.)

Conflicting ideas

One way to resolve this dilemma is the hardline Christian fundamentalist one, articulated in the works of Tim laHaye et consortes: to unambiguously subordinate the second opposition to the first one. The title of one of la Haye’s novels points in this direction: ‘The Europa Conspiracy.’ So, the true enemies of the US are not Muslim terrorists, they are merely puppets secretly manipulated by the European secularists, the true forces of the anti-Christ, who want to weaken the US and establish a new world order under the domination of the United Nations. And, in a way, they are right in this perception: Europe is not just another geopolitical power bloc, but a global vision which is ultimately incompatible with nation-states.

This brings us back to Trump and Putin: one openly supported Brexit, and the other is believed in the West to have desired it. Both figures belong to the conservative-nationalist line of “America/Russia first,” which should perceive a united Europe as its biggest enemy (even if Putin publicly says the opposite and many Russians resent their exclusion from the European project, rather than the notion itself) – and they are both right.

The problem for Europe is how to remain faithful to its emancipatory legacy, which is now threatened by the conservative-populist onslaught? In his ‘Notes Towards a Definition of Culture,’ the great conservative T.S. Eliot remarked that there are moments when the only choice is the one between heresy and non-belief, when the only way to keep a religion alive is to perform a sectarian split from its main corpse. This is what has to be done today: the only way to really defeat Trump and to redeem what is worth saving in liberal democracy is to perform a sectarian split from liberal democracy’s main corpse

Slavoj Žižek is a cultural philosopher. He’s a senior researcher at the Institute for Sociology and Philosophy at the University of Ljubljana, Global Distinguished Professor of German at New York University, and international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities of the University of London.

It’s Time for a Coup in Venezuela

Only nationalists in the military can restore a legitimate constitutional democracy.

Members of the Venezuelan National Guard take part in a ceremony on May 15, ahead of the May 20 presidential election, in Caracas. (Luis Robayo/AFP/Getty Images) 

 

BY JOSÉ R. CÁRDENAS

 | JUNE 5, 2018, 5:22 PM

Now that Venezuelan autocrat Nicolás Maduro has engineered his re-election in what reasonable observers have decried as a sham vote, it’s impossible to say how long he will remain in office. But the United States and its allies should lay the groundwork for the remaining portions of the Venezuelan government not beholden to Maduro to take the choice out of his hands.

Nearly two decades of creeping authoritarianism and large-scale economic mismanagement have taken a staggering toll on Venezuelans. Moreover, with reports of low voter turnout in an otherwise stage-managed electoral process and rising military dissension, clearly the Maduro regime is “taking on water,” as Juan Cruz, the National Security Council’s senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs, said in May at a panel discussion hosted by the Council of the Americas.

 

But if time is running out, it’s less clear exactly for whom: the Maduro regime or those struggling for a restoration of democracy in that benighted country? After all, Cuba — which serves as Maduro’s ideological mentor — has demonstrated that a strategy of forcing out the discontented and subjugating the rest, while muddling along with a dysfunctional economy, can sustain an authoritarian regime for decades.

The question thus becomes, as the New York Times editorial board wrote, “how to get rid of Mr. Maduro before he completes the destruction of his country.”

First, we should recognize that dialogue or diplomacy cannot bring a resolution to the Venezuela crisis. By now, it’s evident that the Maduro regime has no intention of negotiating itself out of power and only sees such opportunities as maneuvers to buy time.

Second, we must admit that the only institution capable of instigating a real political transition in Venezuela is the Venezuelan military. As the Economist put it, “[Maduro’s] future will be decided by the armed forces, not directly by the people. If they withdraw support from his beleaguered regime, change will come soon. If not, hunger and repression will continue.”

Of course, no one wants to see a regression to a Latin American Dark Age, in which military coups are the norm, at the expense of civilian rule and democracy. But it is important to note that identifying the Venezuelan military as the only logical change agent is not to advocate for a coup. The fact is, a coup has already taken place — perpetrated by Maduro and his Cuban advisors against the country’s constitution. Only nationalists in the military can restore a legitimate constitutional democracy.

It may be that the senior officer corps has been replaced by regime cronies and those complicit in drug trafficking, but the armed forces are not monolithic. Many in the rank and file are suffering the same deprivations as the general population, even as corrupt generals are getting richer and richer. Something has to break.

That leaves the United States and democracy’s allies abroad to convince those uncorrupted elements of the Venezuelan military that they bear a unique responsibility to rescue their country from the abyss, uphold constitutional order, fulfill their oaths to defend the lives of every Venezuelan, and open a path to their country’s political, economic, and social reconstruction.

Certainly, expecting a faction of the military to depose the current regime and restore democracy entails risk — but it is a measure of the desperate straits in which Venezuela finds itself.

Ideally, Cuba could offer asylum to current regime leaders and other malefactors while the faction that took power could call new elections within a year. (Given that Latin American militaries traded in presidential palaces for the barracks years ago, it is unlikely that a military faction would seek to govern permanently; besides, it is not at all clear it would want to own the country’s economic predicament.)

The Trump administration is certainly doing its part to delegitimize the Maduro regime, sanctioning some 70 Venezuelan officials and issuing a series of executive orders tightening the economic screws on the Maduro regime. It has also been clear that many more such measures are in the pipeline. Next, it should move aggressively to sanction more Venezuelan officials throughout the government and military.

Violators of democratic norms and human rights, especially lower-echelon officials, may not feel the impact of denied U.S. visas or prohibitions against accessing the U.S. financial system. However, international sanctions are a powerful stigma and eliminate the anonymity behind which such individuals typically hide. Exposing their names and faces at home and internationally will force officials at all levels to consider the legal and reputational repercussions before continuing to participate in undemocratic actions or the use of violence against their fellow citizens.

The Trump administration should also create an interagency strategic communications task force on Venezuela, with the express purpose of targeting audiences inside Venezuela with evidence in U.S. possession of the depths of criminality and corruption in the regime’s ranks. Millions of Venezuelans once placed their good faith in the chavista project because they were told the country’s oil wealth would be shared more equitably. Today, they are ruled by nothing less than a criminal conspiracy more interested in protecting their ill-gotten offshore accounts than the welfare of the millions of Venezuelans it once promised to represent.

Regional governments must also get more active. To their credit, some have, but they need to do much more. They would do well to follow Panama’s lead in moving beyond rhetoric to ban commercial ties with Venezuelan individuals and companies the Panamanian government designated as “high risk” for money laundering and financing terrorism. In addition, they should ban high-ranking Venezuelan officials from traveling to their countries on government business or for shopping sprees or from sending their children abroad to be educated.

More aggressively disseminating evidence of the current regime’s betrayal of the Venezuelan people, combined with the threat of continually expanding sanctions against government officials who lend their efforts to the repression, is likely the best bet to catalyze positive developments within Venezuela.

There are no guarantees, of course, but that is no excuse for complacency. The worst option is to allow the consolidation of another repressive, authoritarian regime in the hemisphere, which would truly herald a return to a Dark Age in the Americas. That all the major governments in the region have recognized this — if fitfully at times — is an important development. But it’s time to take it to the next level. Diplomatic and economic isolation is a powerful tool, especially in the Americas, where countries are loath to appear out of step with one another. It is also a powerful tool to concentrate the minds of Venezuelan patriots, who are in a unique position to do something to rectify the situation.

India raises key rate for first time since 2014, retains 'neutral' stance

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Urjit Patel arrives to attend a news conference after a monetary policy review in Mumbai, June 6, 2018. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas

JUNE 6, 2018

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Growing inflation concerns prompted the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to raise its policy rate for the first time in over four years on Wednesday, but it surprised some economists by keeping its stance “neutral” instead of changing to “tighten”.

The central bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) lifted the repo rate by 25 basis points to 6.25 percent - the first rate change since a 25 basis point cut in August 2017.

The committee “felt that there was enough uncertainty for us to keep to the neutral stance and yet respond to the risks to (the) inflation target that have emerged in recent months,” RBI Governor Urjit Patel told reporters.

Inflation worries have risen due to a steep spike in global oil prices and a weakening rupee, plus a potential rise in consumer spending as India’s economy expanded at a robust 7.7 percent annual pace in the January-March quarter.

“With growth strengthening and core inflation picking up, we think today’s hike marks the start of a modest tightening cycle,” said Shilan Shah, the senior India economist at Capital Economics.

Following the rate decision, India’s 10-year benchmark bond yields rose to 7.93 percent - the highest levels since May 17 - from 7.83 percent before the policy statement. The rupee rose to 66.95 to the dollar from 67.05 prior to the announcement.

India’s main stock market index added to its gains on Wednesday, as shares of state-run lenders rose after the RBI extended a move to let them spread their bond trading losses, which should ease pressure on those laden with bad debt.

The index, up 0.6 percent before the RBI statement, ended 0.9 percent ahead.

HIGHER INFLATION SEEN

The RBI on Wednesday raised its inflation projection for the second-half of fiscal 2018-19, which ends in March 2019, to 4.7 percent from the 4.4 percent seen earlier.

“If the current trend of increasing inflation and oil prices continues, we expect another 25 bps hike somewhere during this fiscal year,” said Sudhakar Pattabiraman, head of research operations at research firm William O’Neil.

Wednesday’s rate increase, the first since January 2014, was predicted by 46 percent of respondents in a Reuters poll this week.

All six members on the policy panel voted for a rate hike.

The reverse repo rate was increased by 25 basis points to 6.00 percent.

India’s annual consumer inflation was 4.58 percent in April, the sixth straight month it topped the RBI’s medium-term 4 percent target.

The Indian central bank becomes the latest in Asia to increase rates recently, to battle inflationary pressures or support the domestic currency.


A security guard stands next to the logo of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) inside its headquarters in Mumbai, June 6, 2018. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas

In May, the Philippines and Indonesia lifted their benchmark rates for the first time since 2014. In March, China raised a key short-term rate following a Federal Reserve’s rate hike.

India’s rate increase comes one week before a Fed policy meeting that’s widely expected to raise U.S. interest rates.

Op-Ed: China’s growing power is a new challenge for civil society

Tibetan exiles attend a protest held to mark the 10th anniversary of a Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule, in New Delhi, India, March 14, 2018. Source: Reuters/Cathal McNaughton

By Andrew Firmin | 6th June 2018

IN one of the world’s most powerful countries, merely wanting to speak your own language can be risky.

After spending more than two years in detention, Tibetan activist Tashi Wangchuk was recently sentenced to five years in prison. His crime, in the eyes of China’s authorities: giving a video interview about the eradication of the Tibetan language in schools and public places.

That was enough for him to be abducted, denied access to his family, charged with inciting separatism and sentenced to years behind bars on May 22, 2018.

Also languishing in state detention is Yu Wensheng, a human rights lawyer who was snatched in January this year while walking his child to school and held without access to his family or an attorney. Charged with subversion, his offence was calling for constitutional reform and open presidential elections.

SEE ALSO: ‘China model’ threatens press freedom in Asia Pacific

These cases are just two among many that show how the Chinese state, as its global power rises, is ruthlessly repressing dissenting voices at home.

Last year saw a marked increase in the use of detention, show trials and forced confessions, with human rights lawyers notably targeted. New punishments were introduced in late 2017 for such broad offences as disrespecting China’s flag, national anthem and emblem.

This fresh crackdown came as President Xi Jinping moved to consolidate his position at the helm of China’s global power.

In March this year, presidential term limits were removed, effectively enabling Jinping to become president for life. The previous October, at the Chinese Communist Party’s Congress, Jinping packed the party’s key committee with his supporters, and had his political thought written into the country’s constitution.

(File) Chinese President Xi Jinping (front row, center) and fellow delegates raise their hands as they take a vote at the closing session of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, in Beijing, China October 24, 2017. Source: Reuters/Thomas Peter

In his triumphalist speech at the October congress, President Jinping heralded a ‘new era’ of Chinese power in which China would be a global economic and political leader. But it is a global power that rests on domestic repression.

In the weeks before his speech, the authorities ensured there would be no dissent: an estimated 14 activists were detained and two were forcibly disappeared, while the mobile messaging service WhatsApp was blocked.

The authorities continued to prevent people sharing their views online: in November, Skype was removed from Chinese app stores, and ominously, three months later, the government was reported to be building a predictive policing programme that analyses huge amounts of online data to flag people deemed as potentially subversive.

SEE ALSO: Xi Jinping named most powerful person on earth

Little wonder then that despite its claims to global leadership, China lurks at the bottom of many of the key global indicators that shed light on the quality of life of Chinese citizens: China is ranked 176 out of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index and last on the Freedom of the Net rankings, while it is classed as having closed space for civil society, the worst category, by the CIVICUS Monitor, an online tool that tracks threats to civil society around the world.

Growing global power allows China’s government to resist pressure from international institutions. When Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo died in a Chinese jail last July, he became only the third winner in the prize’s 116-year history to die in captivity.

Prior to his death, the government was unmoved by a wave of international pleas to release Liu on medical grounds. He had been jailed for calling for an end to one-party rule. The last year also saw conditions worsened for international civil society organisations (CSOs) working in China. A new law was passed increasing government control of international CSOs’ funding sources and activities, and another expanding the government’s surveillance powers.

A police officer stands guard next to a chair prop, alluding to an empty chair at late Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel Peace Prize awarding ceremony in 2010, with an image of his wife Liu Xia, during a protest to urge for the release of Liu Xia, outside the Chinese liaison office in Hong Kong, China December 25, 2017. Source: Reuters/Tyrone Siu

With increasing confidence, the Chinese government extended its repression beyond mainland citizens. Hong Kong’s special status was belied by the continuing persecution of its pro-democracy activists and removal of pro-democracy politicians from its legislative assembly.

Last year, the Chinese government said that the 20-year-old Hong Kong handover agreement, supposed to guarantee key freedoms for the territory, was “no longer relevant.” Meanwhile, Taiwanese democracy activist Li Ming-che was jailed for the vaguely defined crime of subverting state power.

With great global power should come great responsibility, but despite some recent fine words about climate change, what these examples suggest is that globally China remains a negative force against human rights.

SEE ALSO: Liu Xiaobo’s death provides terrifying insight into China’s censorship machine

As a permanent member of the United Nations (UN) Security Council and a growing player in multilateral affairs, China has a responsibility to uphold human rights, one of the pillars of the UN Charter. Yet it has failed to play a positive role with regards to UN Security Council action on chemical attacks in Syria, emboldening Russian authorities’ veto efforts to block investigation of the atrocities in Syria.

At the UN Human Rights Council, the Chinese footprint has focused more on blocking rather than advancing progress on human rights. Last year, China argued for cuts in funding to human rights posts. It also stood silent in 2017 as its neighbour and close ally, the government of Burma, committed unspeakable atrocities against its Rohingya minority.

While it fails to use its global power responsibly, the government of China acts assertively in pursuit of its economic and political interests. Its investments in infrastructure across Africa and beyond are designed to lock countries into the Chinese model, of economic growth without people’s participation in decision-making: development that entrenches elite power rather than expands democracy and human rights.

Its growing global role also means that China offers a source of inspiration to other governments that seek to repress rights, and its allies can be seen to borrow its tactics.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen stand as they hold bilateral talks in Phnom Penh, Cambodia January 11, 2018. Source: Reuters/Samrang Pring

The Russian government detained numerous anti-corruption activists last year, while in China’s staunch ally Pakistan, almost 300 cases of enforced disappearances were reported between last August and October alone.

In Cambodia, the main opposition party was dissolved and its leader arrested on treason charges in the run-up to July 2018 elections, effectively making the country a one-party state, while in Vietnam, at least 25 online activists were estimated to have been detained in 2017.

China’s growing global power is therefore bad news not only for domestic activists like Tashi Wangchuk, Yu Wensheng and many others, but also for those experiencing repression in the many countries seeking to emulate the China model. But it needn’t be this way.

China’s global power would gain legitimacy and credibility if it was seen to use its economic relationships to leverage progress on key international agreements, such as the Sustainable Development Goals.

SEE ALSO: Sweden charges Chinese man for spying on Tibetan refugees 

Realistically, however, that could only happen if Chinese people had more freedom to hold their government to account by being able to exercise their civil and political rights.

Outside China, the response this suggests for those of us who stand for democracy and human rights is to internationalise our efforts and mobilise practical support for embattled activists. This is not easy. As the Civicus 2018 State of Civil Society Report notes, we often become preoccupied with fighting our own battles and struggling to make our voices heard, and fail to see the bigger picture.

But we cannot afford the corollary of growing Chinese power to be the denial of democracy and human rights. We need to encourage China to match its growing global power with growing responsibility, and stand alongside those who suffer when it fails to do so.

Andrew Firmin is Editor-in-Chief with global civil society alliance, Civicus.

** This is the personal opinion of the writer and does not reflect the views of Asian Correspondent