INSAF Bulletin [34]   February 1, 2005
	Postal Address: Box 272, Westmount Stn., QC, Canada H3Z 2T2 (Tel. 514 346-9477)
	(e-mail: insaf@insaf.net; View the old bulletins)

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                   Editors : Daya Varma (Montreal) & Vinod Mubayi (New York)   Produced by : South Asia center - CERAS
    Editorial Board : Yumna Siddiqi (Middlebury)

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Op-Eds

	The Tsunami’s Aftermath - Vinod Mubayi and Daya Varma
	Communist legislator killed: Can India tolerate political murder? - Daya Varma
	Godhra Fire - Truth Finally Emerges - Vinod Mubayi
	Amnesty castigates Gujarat government for anti-Muslim pogrom - Tarek Fatah
	CPI (Maoists) declare truce with CPI (ML) - Verghese K. George
	Pakistan: Violence against women - Shahnawaz Khan
	Fundamentalists on a rampage in Bangladesh
	A Three Kings' January 6th 2005 Year of the Rooster Offering - Part 1 - Andre Gunder Frank

	News Briefs
	Asghar Ali Engineer awarded honorary doctorate
	Republic Day functions cancelled due to temple stampede
	Dalit victims of Tsunami denied relief
	Grand opening of World Social Forum in Porto Alegre
	Tens of thousands protest the inauguration of Bush
	Election is no endorsement for occupation of Iraq
	Iraq today, Vietnam 37 years ago- same story

	Obituary
	Mahendra Singh (1954-2005)

Op-Eds

	The Tsunami’s Aftermath
	Vinod Mubayi and Daya Varma

The December 26, 2004 tsunami receded leaving a trail of devastation behind. Over 220,000 people perished, thousands remain missing and tens of thousands of survivors need shelter, medical care, and rehabilitation. Indonesia’s Aceh province on the island of Sumatra was the worst hit with over 150,000 deaths and many still missing and presumed dead. Being so close to the epicenter of the undersea quake, the residents of Aceh had no chance of taking protective action. The residents of India’s Andaman and Nicobar islands were in a similar situation being only a few hundred miles from the epicenter.

Sri Lanka was the second most affected in terms of deaths followed by India. Although there was enough time for Sri Lankans and people on the south-eastern coast of India to take protective action, the absence of any functioning warning network precluded any such steps from being put into action. Long standing experience with natural and manmade disasters has shown that it is only a functional and tested emergency response network that has a real potential to save lives. Thailand was less affected in terms of lives lost but the fact that it was mostly European tourists who were swept away by the waves in Phuket and the surrounding islands gave it perhaps the most publicity in the western press.

The aftermath of the tsunami, however, also revealed something more than the natural devastation caused by the waves. The ugly scars of the Indonesian military’s repression of the Aceh movement were revealed soon after the initial shock. The fact, however, that the two sides are now engaged in negotiations is a welcome development. Sri Lanka is another example where a civil war has been raging for a long time and conflict has been going on despite the formal ceasefire between the LTTE and the government forces for the last couple of years. The shock of the tsunami has temporarily halted the conflict and, one hopes, brought the warring parties especially the LTTE to their senses.

India refused outside assistance and creditably shouldered the task of relief and rehabilitation from its own resources. The Indian Navy and Coast Guard also provided much needed assistance to Sri Lanka in the immediate aftermath of the disaster. However, the press and some NGOs reported that the attitude and policies of the Indian bureaucracy that impose restrictions on outsiders prevented timely relief from reaching victims on Car Nicobar and some neighboring islands. The press also reported stories of discrimination against Dalits in some areas of Tamil Nadu by higher caste fishermen communities in obtaining access to relief camps, shelter, toilets, and food supplies. Local government officials were reported to have acquiesced in these acts that are not only illegal but also offend basic norms of human decency. These instances must be investigated and the those guilty of violations of human rights punished.

This disaster also evoked unprecedented sympathy and support from people across the globe. The response was far more than any one had imagined. The Canadian government, that initially committed a paltry $4 million, had to raise its contribution to over $450 million in recognition of the outpouring of contributions from the public. Similarly, many other governments competed with each other in contributing towards relief. Many countries held a national mourning to honor the victims. School children organized special events to raise funds and some gave all the money they had saved over years. Most trade unions donated money and material. Many organizations sent their volunteers to provide relief. All left parties in India, the Communist Party of India (CPI), CPI (Marxist), CPI (Marxist-Leninist), Socialist Unity Center of India (SUCI) and hundreds of NGOs did and are doing what they could to provide relief.

This unprecedented peoples’ solidarity may have been facilitated by pictorial displays of the effects of Tsunami and sympathetic reporting that shows the other, more sympathetic, face of the globalization phenomenon. Nonetheless it shows that people the world over are quite willing to come to each other’s aid. The division, the violence and rivalries are the product of imperialist polices and policies of ruling elite in different countries.

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	Communist legislator killed: Can India tolerate political murder?
	Daya Varma

Mahendra Singh, a sitting member of the Jharkhand Assembly, was gunned down by armed assailants on 16 January during an election meeting at Durgi Dhavaiya near Saria in Giridih district of Jharkhand. He was seeking reelection for the fourth successive term from Bagodar Assembly constituency as a candidate of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) of which he was a central Committee member.

Politicians have been murdered in the past not only in India but in other countries as well. But this was more than the murder of one politician. It was a political murder to eliminate democratic opposition to corrupt rule by violent means. The murder of the lone representative of CPI(ML) in Jharkhand Assembly may well be a version on a smaller-scale of the political murder of Lumumba of Congo and Allende of Chile.

Democracy and elections cease to have meaning when fearless opponents are physically eliminated because they cannot be defeated by democratic means.

Jharkhand is ruled by a government belonging to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). The murder of Mahendra Singh provides another proof of the fascistic agenda of Sangh Parivar which leads the NDA. One expects and hopes that the left in the Progressive Democratic Alliance government in New Delhi as well as other democratic constituents of the government will take up this issue not just as another murder of a political activist but as an attack on the democratic process itself.

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	Godhra Fire - Truth Finally Emerges
	Vinod Mubayi

The fire in the railway coach of the Sabarmati Express at Godhra station on the early morning of February 27, 2002 led to India’s worst communal pogrom in the months that followed. Thousands of minority Muslims were mercilessly butchered, burnt, raped, and rendered homeless all over Gujarat in the violence indulged in by the Bajrang Dal, Vishwa Hindu Parishad, and other organizations belonging to the Sangh Parivar aided and abetted by many elements of the police in the BJP-ruled state. This violence was justified by Chief Minister Modi on the notorious “action-reaction” theory as a response by Hindus to the burning of the railway coach by a Muslim mob (or Muslim/Islamic terrorists depending on which politician was being interviewed) that resulted in the deaths of 58 “kar-sevaks’ returning from Ayodhya. Every official account and newspaper story used to begin its report on the Gujarat violence by reciting “When a Muslim mob burnt a railway coach resulting in the deaths of 58 Hindus…” Even the foreign press that took an otherwise balanced view of the episode and squarely blamed the Modi government for the killings of innocent Muslims swallowed the story of the “Muslim mob” as the one responsible for the arson.

The first indication that the official story might be akin to the notorious Reichstag fire hoax perpetrated by the Nazis in the 1930s came when a report from the government’s Forensic Laboratory several months after the incident cast doubt on the official version that a flammable liquid thrown by miscreants from outside the coach at the Signal Falia crossing was the cause of the fire. This finding was not followed up by the Railways, who were then under the rule of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government at the center. In fact, the Gujarat government arrested over 200 people, all Muslims, under the Prevention of Terrorism Act and many of them continue to languish in jail as the police stick to their version of terrorism as the cause of the incident.

Now the committee led by Calcutta High Court Justice U.C. Banerjee has issued a report documenting that the fire was “accidental” caused by a cooking stove carried by the kar-sevaks inside the train. The committee was appointed by the new Congress-led UPA government after the elections last year. On the basis of all the evidence the Justice Banerjee committee concluded that it was “impossible” to set fire to the train from outside corroborating the earlier findings of the Central Forensic Laboratory. The committee’s findings were buttressed by a report of experts from the Delhi-based Hazard Centre that carried out a detailed technical analysis of the pattern of the fire and its spread.

The findings of the Banerjee committee raise a number of very serious issues that must be addressed by the Central government. Considering that the “reaction” to the Godhra railway coach fire began within a few hours of the news of the kar-sevaks’ deaths, that weapons for committing the widespread atrocities that followed had been stockpiled earlier, and that the criminal mobs of Sangh Parivar activists were ready to carry out the mayhem, was there in fact a criminal conspiracy hatched not by Muslim terrorists but by Hindu terrorists aided by elements in political power in the state? Why did the railway administration, especially the Western Railways, not carry out an inquiry as it is statutorily bound to do but instead pre-judge the issue by accepting the Gujarat government’s concocted theory ascribing the fire to the actions of a mob? Why were railway regulations that forbid carrying flammable material, such as the kerosene in cooking stoves, inside railway carriages not enforced on the Sabarmati express passengers? These and other related questions must be answered and responsibility assigned.

Communal riots sometimes amounting to virtual pogroms (as in Gujarat and in the killings of thousands of innocent Sikhs by Congress-instigated mobs following the assassination of Mrs. Indira Gandhi in 1984) have occurred with a sickening frequency all over the country for the last 40 some years. Committees of inquiry drag on for years, eyewitnesses die or are coerced into changing their evidence and nobody is or has been held accountable for the killings, rapes, and lootings. The report on the Godhra fire now offers a possibility of changing this dismal pattern. All responsibility for investigation of the events and prosecution of the perpetrators must be removed from the current government of the state whose entire administration beginning with the Chief Minister is deeply implicated in the violence. The Supreme Court of India in ordering the prosecution of events such as the Best Bakery massacre already characterized the state’s rulers as modern-day Neros who stood watching as the state was burning. Thus there are ample grounds for the Center to consider appointing a special prosecutor and court to undertake a comprehensive investigation of the entire course of events starting with the fire in coach S-7 of the Sabarmati express, try the accused, pass judgment and punish the guilty in accordance with the law.

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	Amnesty castigates Gujarat government for anti-Muslim pogrom
	Tarek Fatah

Amnesty International has published a very detailed report about the 2002 massacre of Muslims in the Indian state of Gujarat. This follows the recent Indian Judicial Commission's finding that the incident that sparked the massacre of Muslims, the burning of the train carrying Hindu pilgrims, was an accident and could NOT have been committed by Muslims at a train station.

In a stinging indictment, The Amnesty International report says "India has not fulfilled its obligations to protect fundamental rights guaranteed in its constitution or in international treaties to which it is a party nor under international criminal law."

The AI report says: "Muslim girls' and women's sense of shame was deliberately outraged by stripping them in front of relatives and the mob. In Fatehpur, young girls were paraded naked and subjected to verbal sexual taunts, humiliation and threats of sexual violence. When an ambulance finally rescued them, they had nothing to cover themselves with. In all the cases in which groups of people were killed, several women underwent this ordeal. In an attack in the Gulberg Society in Ahmedabad on 28 February 2002, at least 10-12 women were raped and over 30 killed."

"While some Muslim survivors reported that rapists had shouted that they intended to impregnate them with "little Hindus", the target of particular rage were pregnant women. Several eye-witnesses testified before human rights groups that a young woman, Kausar Bano of Naroda Patiya, Ahmedabad, who was nine months pregnant, was gang-raped and had her womb cut open with a sword; her foetus was ripped out, hacked to pieces and flung on the fire. The mother's body was thrown on the fire as well. Police in Vadodara were reported by several witnesses to have hit the bodies of pregnant women with rifles shouting "kill them before they are born".

In some cases known to Amnesty International police stood by when human rights defenders were threatened by mobs while doing their protection work or even led them into danger. A human rights defender (name, location and date withheld) told Amnesty International that his group was called one evening to a village, where in previous days houses belonging to Muslims had been destroyed in several waves of attacks. "We received a phone call at 9.30pm that their houses were being attacked and they needed immediate help.

"We made a call to the police … but given that we had found in the recent past that police were taking their side, we decided to go ourselves … We took a car to the village. When we reached the area we saw the police who tried to direct us down the wrong street. They said we should go to a particular street but when we got there we saw a large mob of Hindus standing there with stones in their hands. The police told them that these are the human rights people. In a desperate attempt to try and save our lives, we started asking where the houses of the Muslims were as though we were on the offensive and on the side of the Hindus.

When we rushed to the houses of the Muslims, we found police inside the houses beating men and women and swearing at them. When the police saw us they said we were 'troublemakers' and pointed a gun at me. One police officer said, 'you do your business and we will do our business'. We tried to call the Collector [the district administrator] on our mobiles. We were not sure our lives would be saved. … After an hour we got the message that three houses had been set on fire. We went outside to see but people were standing outside ready to attack us with fire. Since the terrace of the house [in which we were] had tiles, we stared collecting them in case we needed to defend ourselves. Some people with guns started shooting at the property. Finally someone spoke to the Collector on the phone and said that he would be accountable to … [our organization] and the whole of the human rights community if anything happened to us. One activist was able to go to the Collector's house and forced him to come with him. He came at 1.30am (having made our initial call at 9.30pm). When the Collector arrived, the same police who were standing on the side of the Hindus were now transporting us to safety. When we came out of the house, [name] was beaten in front of us. He was crying because he had been beaten so badly. The [named] police officer kept taunting him saying that 'you called these people'." Read and reflect. (Source: Amnesty International http://tinyurl.com/6sofs. Sent by: Zafar Iqbal.)

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	CPI (Maoists) declare truce with CPI (ML)
	Verghese K. George (Jan 9, 2005)

The Communist Party of India (Maoists) (CPI-Maoists) have decided to end all hostilities with CPI(ML), a decision which may see the end of one of the most violent episodes in Bihar’s Naxalite insurgency.

‘‘From now, we will not attack the cadre of ML and there will be an official declaration to this effect very soon. This decision has been taken after long deliberations, and we have concluded that it is against the interests of the class that we are fighting for,’’ a senior leader of the party’s central committee said. He, however, refused to commit support to the ML in the elections. ‘‘As far as the elections we go, we are clear that it must be boycotted.’’

The leader added that police and paramilitary forces deployed in the state for the elections will come under attack. ‘‘We will target them to resist the government’s oppressive measures and to seize their arms. Offensive against government forces will increase in the coming days,’’ he said.

This revelation comes within three days of six policemen - including the SP of Munger district - being killed in a Naxalite mine blast. The leader said the killing of the SP was not targeted but the party considered it a huge success.

Blaming RJD chief Laloo Prasad Yadav for the ban of a rally organised by the outfit on December 5, the leader said he ‘‘would pay the price for having done that’’.

Laloo had explained it was the Centre’s decision to ban the rally and the state had no role in it. Rejecting this explanation, the CC member said: “Nothing could have happened without Laloo’s knowledge...he will face the consequences”.

‘‘Laloo’s continuance in power is against our interests since both he and us are sharing the same social base. He (Laloo) is trying to bribe our cadre and activists through government contracts and projects,’’ the Naxal leader added.

He, however, said CPI (Maoist) will not issue a statement asking people to defeat RJD - in Andhra Pradesh, the party had asked the people to defeat Chandrababu Naidu. ‘‘We don’t think it is required. People have seen through Laloo. He has run his course,’’ he said, adding: ‘‘Even if he manages to come to power, we will harass him no end.’’

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	Pakistan: Violence against women
	Shahnawaz Khan (Daily Times; January 5, 2005)

LAHORE: Violence against women is rampant in Pakistan, said Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid (LHRLA), a non-government organisation (NGO). They added that from January 2004, around 3,282 cases of physical abuse and 1,020 cases of sexual abuse against women were registered throughout the country.

The LHRLA, with the UNICEF’s coordination, disclosed in its research that out of a reported 4,302 cases of violence against women, there were 1,458 cases of murder, 728 cases of rape including gang rape, 708 cases of injury, 552 cases of severe torture, 436 cases of beating, 309 cases of attempted rape, 34 cases of sexual harassment, 29 cases of stripping, 15 cases of acid burns, 31 cases of rape and murder and 2 cases of forced abortion.

A research report informed that 311 cases of violence against women were reported in January, 293 in February, 301 in March, 320 in April, 393 in May, 525 in June, 418 in July, 504 in August, 369 in September, 271 in October, 326 in November and 271 cases in the last month of 2004.

Data analysis revealed that 1,458 women were brutally murdered during the last year and out of the acknowledged cases 93 were reported in January, 75 in February, 81 in March, 96 in April, 162 in May, 189 in June, 135 in July, 149 in August, 137 in September, 113 in October, 119 in November and 109 in December 2004.

The research further disclosed that last year, 1,020 women were sexually violated and the quantum of sexual abuse cases was 85 cases per month. In January, 87 cases of sexual violence were reported, in February, 90, in March, 82, in April, 70, in May, 98, in June, 112, in July, 82, in August, 129, in September, 94, in October, 46, in November, 78 and in December, 52 cases of sexual violence were reported.

The data showed that most women abuse cases were reported in Punjab (2,947), This was followed by Sindh (915), NWFP (347) and Balochistan (93).

The research pointed out that in 2,525 cases, women were abused in their own homes while in 601 cases, they were taken to the abusers house. Other places of abuse were hospitals, schools, parks, public places, shops, work places and police stations. The research also stated that the marital statuses of victims were: 2,532 were married, 574 were unmarried, 46 were divorced and 115 were widowed. The marital status of 1,035 women was not registered.

Research also informed that in 686 cases the abusers were husbands, in 356 cases in-laws, in 50 cases fathers, in 69 cases sons, in 31 cases uncles, in 590 case acquaintances, in 112 cases brothers, in 16 cases nephews, in 37 cases ex-husbands, in 110 cases neighbours, in 226 cases dacoits, in 31 cases landlords and in 28 cases the abusers were policemen.

The research revealed an interesting fact, that out of the 4,302 cases of violence against women, police had only registered FIRs in 3,226 cases. (Supplied by Abdul Hamid (Bashani) Khan)

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Fundamentalists on a rampage in Bangladesh

Professor Muhammad Yunus of the Department of Economics at Rajshahi University in Bangladesh was assassinated on December 24, 2004. The former finance minister Shah AMS Kibria and four other Awami League (AL) activists were killed in a grenade attack on an AL rally at Boidder Bazar in Habiganj on January 29 and 70 others were injured in the grisly attack, similar to the August 21 carnage on Sheikh Hasina's rally in the capital last year that had claimed 23 lives and left several hundred wounded.

Professor Yunus was knifed and hammered to death as he returned from his morning walk in Rajshahi city in a manner that parallels the assassination of Professor Humayun Azad of Dhaka University in February, 2004. The culprits in both cases, though still unidentified, appear to be "fundamentalist and communalist forces", that have been blamed by the Bangladesh Economic Association for the killing of Prof. Yunus. Both professors were critical of religious extremism, and Jamaat-e-Islami, an extremist group, has been named by several commentators as responsible for their assassination.

Since its return to democracy in 1991 after 15 years of military rule Bangladesh has been ravaged by attacks on academics and journalists. Humayun Kabir, editor of the Bangla-language daily Janmabhumi was killed with a bomb in Khulna city on June 2004, for exposing organized crime, which he did with greater intensity after his fellow journalist Manik Shaha was killed in the same way for his investigative reports on crime. These were two of the six murders of journalists in Khulna since 2000. Many journalists and academics have been beaten up. Scores of journalists and academics in Bangladesh have received death threats for being "enemies of Islam." Prof. Muntasir Mamun, well known for writing against Islamic fundamentalism has received such a threat. Prof. Munshi Mojibul Haque of Islamic History department at Rajshahi University has received a death threat from an associate of an Islamic extremist organization unless he gave money to buy an AK 47 rifle. Several professors at Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi, Jahangir Nagar, and Shah Jalal universities have been threatened by known and obscure Islamist groups.

The former finance minister Shah AMS Kibria and four other Awami League (AL) activists were killed in a grenade attack on an AL rally at Boidder Bazar in Habiganj yesterday evening. About 70 others were injured in the grisly attack, similar to the August 21 carnage on Sheikh Hasina's rally in the capital last year that had claimed 23 lives and left several hundred wounded. (Source: Vancouver-based SANSAD (South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy) and Boston-Based Alliance for a Secular and Democratic South Asia)

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	A Three Kings' January 6th 2005 Year of the Rooster Offering - Part 1
	Meet Uncle Sam - without clothes - parading around China and the world. Observed From the Top of the Great Wall through the Eyes of the Innocent Little Boy.
	Andre Gunder Frank [The article by Prof Frank is several pages long. It will be produced as a series. Ed.]

INTRODUCING UNCLE SAM - WITHOUT CLOTHES

Uncle Sam has just reneged and defaulted on up to forty percent of its trillions of dollars [$] foreign debt, and nobody has said a word except for a line in this week's Economist. In plain English that means that Uncle Sam runs a world-wide confidence racket with his self-made $ based on the confidence that he has elicited and received from others around the world, and he is a also a dead-beat in that he does not honor and return the money he has received. How much of our dollar stake we lost depends on how much we, the creditors, originally paid for it. He let, or rather through his deliberate political economic policies, drove his $ down by over 40 percent from one Euro at $ 80 cents at its highest to now 135 cents against the Euro, Yen, Yuan and other currencies. And $ is still declining, indeed apt to plummet altogether.

There was also a spate of competitive devaluations in the 1930s, and it was called the "Beggar Thy Neighbor Policy" of shifting the costs for the neighbor/s to bear. True, with the decline of $, so has the real value that foreigners pay decreased to service their debt to Uncle Sam. That works only if they can themselves earn a profit from an increase in value of other currencies against $. Otherwise, foreigners earn and pay in the same devalued $, plus the loss from devaluation between the time they received $ and had to repay it to Uncle Sam. China and other East Asians do earn in and have pegged their currencies to $, so they have already lost a substantial portion of their world's by far largest $ stake. And they, like all others, will also lose the rest.

For Uncle Sam's debt to the rest of the world already amounts to over one third of his annual national domestic production NDP, and it is still growing. That already makes his debt economically and politically never repayable, even if he wanted to, which obviously he does not. Uncle Sam's domestic debt, e.g. by consumers on credit cards and mortgages, is almost 100 percent of GDP and consumption, including that from China. Uncle Sam's federal debt is now $ 7.5 trillion [T], of which all but $1T was built up in the last three decades, the last $ 2T in the last eight years, and the last $1T in the last two years. Alas, that costs over $ 330B in interest, compared to $ 15B spent on NASA.

"Who Me, Worry?" Congress just raised the debt ceiling to $8.2 T. To help us visualize, only $ 1 T in tightly packed $ 1,000 dollar bills would match a building 40 stories high, so that $ 7.5T would be 300 stories or about three times the height of the Empire State Building. Nearly half of that is owed to foreigners. All Uncle Sam's debt, including private household debt of about $ 10T, plus corporate and financial debt, with their options, derivatives and the like, plus state and local government debt comes to an unimaginable $ 37 trillion, to help you 1,480 Empire State buildings high, and nearly four times Uncle Sam's NDP. Uncle Sam's issue last year of a mere record high $ 140B in high-yielding junk bonds must seem puny, even if they are so called because they are [only!] the first to be defaulted, after or along with consumer and mortgage debt and business belly ups. Only some of that debt and its coming default can be managed domestically, but with dangerous limitations for Uncle Sam as noted below. That is only one reason I want you to meet Uncle Sam, the dead-beat confidence man, who may remind you of the Meet Joe Black movie. For as we get to know Uncle Sam better below, we will find that he is also a Shylock and a corrupt one at that.

UNCLE SAM'S COLD WAR PROXY FOR THE NORTH-WEST vs. SOUTH WAR

Before we go on, lets first translate this jumble of numbers into plain English. It was already done back in 1948 by George Keenan, otherwise known as Mr. X the architect of Uncle Sam's Containment Policy:

We have about half the world's wealth ...but only 5 percent of its population.... In this situation ... our real job in the coming years is to devise a pattern of relationships which permit us to maintain this position of disparity....To do so we have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming, ... concentrate everywhere on our immediate national objectives...[and] deal in straight power concepts. The less we are hampered by idealistic slogans, the better [Department of State Policy Planning Study No. 23, 1948].

Of course, that statement was for Uncle Sam's private internal consumption only. For the rest of the world, including most Uncle Sammies, "idealistic slogans" will do better, so long as they don't hamper us, of course. For they manifest the world's grandest ever Ponzi Scheme Confidence Racket run around the world by Uncle Sam. How else "to maintain this disparity"? Naked power helps, but it is not enough. All the more so, given that since Mr. X wrote, the already then terribly UNfair world distribution of income has become about 3 times more unequal. For today, just consider this simple index: 265 MILLION Uncle Sammies consume more oil, 22 percent of the world's total, than over THREE BILLION Asians, who all put together get 20 percent - and want more, especially the Chinese. Of course the Uncle Sam also accounts for a similar proportionate share of the Good Earth. To help him do it, he also relies on the Pentagon, which to boot is itself probably the biggest and least observed single polluter of all.

This observation also marks a continuity across that other wall, the one that fell in Berlin in 1989. For it shows that Mr. X's Cold War Containment was not only or even primarily against the Russians, but also a Containment of the other 95 percent of the world and especially of the vast poor majority who suffers most from the disparity he observed. Indeed, he suggests that the East-West Cold War, that he was instrumental in starting already as Uncle Sam's ambassador in Moscow, was largely a proxy for the North- and especially Uncle Sam-South real war over that half, or both halves, of the world's wealth. So that should leave us less surprised at the failure of the mistakenly anticipated ''Peace Dividend" to materialize after that little wall fell down in 1989. The other, or the real, war continues and only takes other forms or rather labels, for 'human rights," "democracy," the "free market" and "free trade," "freedom" in general, indeed even ''civilization," all of the last several of which are echoes of the ''white man's burden" from the 19th century. Just add a few new againsts, first ''narco terrorism" by Bush Daddy vs. Noriega, and now just undefined "terrorism" by Bush Son vs. anybody and everybody "who is not with us." I forgot "weapons of mass destruction," the ones of which Uncle Sam has and uses the most, oh and weapons of mass deception that Uncle Sam uses like nobody's business. That is of course a sine qua non of any Confidence Racket, and he runs the world's grandest ever, as we will observe ad nauseum, starting right now.

UNCLE SAM LIVES HOLY OFF THE FAT OF THE WORLD'S LAND AND FROM CHINESE WORK

Uncle Sam is the world's most privileged for having the exclusive right to print the world's reserve currency at will at a cost of nothing but the paper and ink it is printed on. By so doing , he can also export to foreigners the inflation that his irresponsible printing of $ generates. For there are already at least three times as many $ floating around the world as at Uncle Sam's home. Additionally, his is also the only ''foreign'' debt that is mostly denominated in his own $ currency. Most foreigners' debt is also denominated in the same $, but they have to buy $ from Uncle Sam with their own currency and real goods.

So Uncle Sam simply pays the Chinese and others essentially with those $ that have no real worth beyond its paper and ink. So especially poor China gives away for nothing at all to Uncle Sam $ hundreds of billions [Bs] worth of real goods produced at home and consumed by rich Uncle Sam. Then China turns around and trades these same Uncle Sam paper $ bills in for other Uncle Sam paper $ called Treasury Certificate bonds, which are even more worthless, except that they pay a percent of interest. For as we already noted they will never be able to be cashed in and redeemed in full or even in part, and anyway they have already lost much of their value to Uncle Sam already. In an earlier essay, I argued that Uncle Sam's power rests on two pillars only, the paper $ and the Pentagon. Each supports the other, but the vulnerability of each is also an Achilles heel that threatens the viability of the other. Since then, Afghanistan and Iraq have shown much of the confidence in the Pentagon to have misplaced. That has helped reduce confidence and value also in $ in the dollar, which has in turn reduced Uncle Sam's ability to use that $ to finance his Pentagon foreign adventures. See my 2004 essay "Coup d' Etat and Paper Tiger in Washington, Fiery Dragon in the Pacific," which also conjures up the productive growth of China. [http://rrojasdatabank.info/agfrank/new_world_order.html#coup]

Additionally we must realize that Uncle Sam's numbers above and below are also all literally relative. So far the relations - in particular with China - still favor Uncle Sam, but they also help maintain an image that is deceptive. Consider the following: " ... a $2 toy leaving a Uncle Sam-owned factory in China is a $3 shipment arriving at San Diego. By the time a Uncle Sam consumer buys it for $10 at Wal-Mart, the Uncle Sam economy registers $10 in final sales, less $3 import cost, for a $7 addition to the Uncle Sam gross domestic product (GDP)." http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/a-list/2004w07/msg00083.htm [the original said US].

Moreover, ever clever Uncle Sam has arranged matters so as to earn 9 percent from his economic and financial holdings abroad, while foreigners earn only 3 percent real return on theirs, and only one percent on their Treasury Certificates, invested in Uncle Sam's God's Country. Note that this difference of 6 percent is already double what Uncle Sam pays out, and his total 9 percent take is triple the 3 percent he gives back. Therefore, although the reciprocal foreign holdings by each other with Uncle Sam and abroad are now about equal, Uncle Sam is still the BIG net interest/ed winner, just like any Shylock, but no other ever did so grand a business.

But Uncle Sam also earns quite well, thank you, from other holdings abroad, e.g. from service payments by mostly poor foreign debtors. The sums involved are not peanuts. For from his direct investments in foreign property alone, Uncle Sam profits now equal 50 percent, and including his receipts from other holdings abroad, now are a full 100 percent, of Uncle Sam's profits derived from all of his own domestic activities combined! These foreign receipts add more than 4 percent to Uncle Sam's NDP. That helps nicely to compensate for the failure of domestic profits yet to recover even their level in 1972. That is because Uncle Same has failed to make enough real good investments at home to boost productivity and profits thereon. That extra profit from foreigners also compensates for much of the Uncle Sam still rising trade deficit of $ 600+ B a year [last month it was at an $ 666 annual rate, it was announced today] from excess home consumption over what he himself produces. That has resulted in the trillions $ [three of them it is said] of his foreign debt. But Uncle Sam is playing his cards close to his chest and is understandably reluctant to make any official revelation of how high [more than the Empire State building in $ 1000 bills?] his foreign debt really is. Nonetheless, we may rest assured that his gross foreign debt is by far the world's largest and remains so also as net foreign debt even if we deduct foreigners' debts to him.

The productivity hype of Clinton's ''new economy" 1990s was limited to computers and IT, and even that proved to be a sham when the dot com bubble burst. Also, not only the apparent increase in "profits" but also that of "productivity" was being boosted by shop-floor, office and sales floor worker speed-up and/or longer work-times at the bottom. WALMART obliges its non-union [it won't permit any] workers on threat of dismissal to "clock-out" and return to work at no pay. At the top productivity and profits were boosted by "creative accounting" hype by Enron, Worldcom, Arthur Anderson and others of their likes engaged in shams.

UNCLE SAM CANNOT SAVE HIMSELF: HE IS HOOKED ON CONSUMPTION AND OTHER DRUGS

Why any and all this? we may well ask. The simple answer is that Uncle Sam, who is increasingly hooked on consumption not to mention harder drugs, saves no more than 0.2 percent of his own income. The Fed's guru now you see him-now you don't Dr. of financial and media magic, Alan Greenspan, recently observed that this is so, because the richest 20 percent of Uncle Sammies, who are the only ones who do save, have reduced their savings to 2 percent. Yet, even these measly savings [other and poorer countries save and even invest 20, 30, 40 percent of their income] are more than counterbalanced by the 6 percent deficit spending of the Uncle Sam government, which does so largely on their behalf. That is what brings the average between the two together to those 0,2 percent. So Uncle Sam has a $ 400+ reported budget deficit, which is really $ 600+ B if we count ,as we should, the $ 200+ B Uncle Sam ''borrows'' from the temporary surplus in his own Federal Social Security fund that he is also bankrupting. But never mind, Uncle Sam President Bush just promised to privatize much if that and let people buy their own old age ''security'' in the ever insecure market.

Rich Uncle Sam, and primarily his highest off the hog earners and consumers as well as of course the Big Uncle in Washington himself, to live off the fat of the rest of the world's land. Apart from printing world money, Uncle Sam also does so with his "twin deficits," first his $ 600+B budget deficit and then the above mentioned related $600+B trade deficit, now at an $ 666B annual rate last month, as we saw. With them. Uncle Sam absorbs the savings of others who themselves are - often much - lower on the hog: Particularly their central banks place many of their reserves in world currency $ in the hands of Uncle Sam in Washington and some also in $ at home. Their private investors send $ to or buy $ assets in Wall Street, all with the confidence that they are putting their where-with-all in the world's most safe Uncle Sam haven [that of course is part of the above mentioned confidence racket]. From the central banks alone, we are looking at yearly sums of over $ 100B from Europe, over $ 100B from poor China, $ 140B from super-saver Japan, an amount of many $10sB by many others around the world. That also includes investors and banks from the poor Third World.

[To be continued.]

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News Briefs

Asghar Ali Engineer awarded honorary doctorate

Jamia Hamdard, Delhi conferred D.Litt (Honoris Causa) on Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer on 14th January 2005 in Delhi during their 7th convocation. This was a recognition of Engineer’s contribution to the cause of communal harmony. Over 2000 people participated in the ceremony with Arjun Singh, Minister of Human Resources development as the chief guest. (Source: Zafar Iqbal)

Republic Day functions cancelled due to temple stampede

Nearly 300 pilgrims perished on January 25 in a stampede near the Kalubai temple in Mandradevi, Satara district of Maharashtra on the occasion of Kalubai Jatra. Most of the victims were women and children. The stampede followed an explosion and fire from gas cylinders used by stall owners. The state Chief Minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh flew to the site and announced awards of Rs. 1 lakh (appr US$2000) to the families of the dead, Rs. 25,000 ($500) for the seriously injured and Rs. 10,000 ($200) to those with minor injuries. All official functions for the Republic Day were cancelled in Maharashtra as a mark of respect for the dead.

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Dalit victims of Tsunami denied relief

Thirty-two Dalit families of Meenavars (fishermen) have been thrown out of the Negapattam relief camps in Tamil Nadu and have been physically prevented from collecting their food and drinking water meant for all of them. The caste Hindus, who dominate in numbers as well as the administration, enjoy the fish that these hapless fishermen catch and sell, but would not risk contaminating their caste status by sharing their food, shelter and toilet with them. (Based on an editorial in Kashmir Times, Jan 10).

Grand opening of World Social Forum in Porto Alegre

Tens of thousands of people marched on January 26 in Porto Alegre, Brazil, to herald the opening of the 5th World Social Forum (WSF), which is to continue till January 31. The Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, the Brazilian president, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Argentine Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Nobel Laureate (Literature) Portuguese writer José Saramago, Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, as well as many eminent sociologists, theologians and ecologists joined over 100,000 participants of the WSF. Missing will be the equivalent of Mumbai Resistance 2004, which was organized last year in India by the People’s War Group and International League of People’s Struggle.

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Tens of thousands protest the inauguration of Bush

Thousands took to the streets of Washington, DC to protest the inauguration of George W. Bush as the President of the USA. The International Action Center organized contingents from New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, Raleigh, and many other cities to participate in the demonstrations. A “Troops out of Iraq” march is planned for March 19 in Central Park, New York.

Election is no endorsement for occupation of Iraq

Unable to win through bombing and other means of causing civilian casualties and unable to find any evidence of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, the US is bent upon legitimizing its war through a so-called the first “democratic election” in 50 years. All the Western media is preaching the elections as a breakthrough in Iraqi politics. Although a significant percentage of electorate cast its votes, there is no reason to think that Iraqi’s endorse US occupation of their country. Their agenda remains to free Iraq of invaders.

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Iraq today, Vietnam 37 years ago- same story

(See a part of the article below which appeared in NY Times on September 4, 1967 and posted by Abha Sur)

"U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote: Officials Cite 83% Turnout Despite Vietcong Terror" by Peter Grose, Special to the New York Times (9/4/1967: p.2)

WASHINGTON, Sept. 3-- United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam's presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting. According to reports from Saigon, 83 per cent of the 5.85 million registered voters cast their ballots yesterday. Many of them risked reprisals threatened by the Vietcong. The size of the popular vote and the inability of the Vietcong to destroy the election machinery were the two salient facts in a preliminary assessment of the nation election based on the incomplete returns reaching here.

Pending more detailed reports, neither the State Department nor the White House would comment on the balloting or the victory of the military candidates, Lieut. Gen. Nguyen Van Thieu, who was running for president, and Premier Nguyen Cao Ky, the candidate for vice president.

A successful election has long been seen as the keystone in President Johnson's policy of encouraging the growth of constitutional processes in South Vietnam. The election was the culmination of a constitutional development that began in January, 1966, to which President Johnson gave his personal commitment when he met Premier Ky and General Thieu, the chief of state, in Honolulu in February.

The purpose of the voting was to give legitimacy to the Saigon Government, which has been founded only on coups and power plays since November, 1963, when President Ngo Dinh Diem was overthrown by a military junta.

Few members of that junta are still around, most having been ousted or exiled in subsequent shifts of power.

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Obituary

Mahendra Singh (1954-2005)

Mahendra Singh was born in 1954 at Khambra village of Giridih district (then in Bihar). He received a primary education in his native village. After that he did not receive any formal education but continued informal studies. He was deeply interested in literature since his student days.

Mahendra Singh represented Bagodar constituency for three consecutive terms in 1990, 1995 and 2000 as a member of the Communist party of India (Marxist-Leninist). He had just filed his nomination papers for the upcoming Jharkhand elections. Immensely popular and highly respected for his fearless exposure of the malpractices of the state government, Mahendra Singh was likely to win this time also. He had become an eyesore of the notorious Giridih district Superintendent of Police (SP) Deepak Verma against whom he had submitted several substantial reports to the government and the Election Commission.

Mahendra Singh had expressed apprehension on the floor of Jharkhand Assembly that there was a threat to his life. SP Deepak Verma acts as a lieutenant of Jharkhand Industry Minister Ravindra Rai and Chief Minister Arjun Munda. He is reported to have declared his intention to ensure that Mahendra does not reach to the Jharkhand Assembly this time. Mahendra Singhh was addressing a public rally when he was gunned down by assailants.

Mahendra Singh joined the Communist Party of India, Marxist-Leninist (CPI-ML) in 1978, became associated with the Bokaro unit of the Party and started mass work among rural poor in Bagodar block. Soon party organisation and the movement grew at a fast pace in that region. His relentless struggle on behalf of people's issues turned Giridih district into one of the strongest citadels of left movement in Jharkhand.

He was elected as National Secretary of the Indian People's Front in 1982. He played a leading role in almost every democratic movement in Jharkhand since the 80’s. He was also considered as one of the leading representatives of the Jharkhand movement. Almost every land struggle in Jharkhand region saw in him an inspiring leader who challenged all feudal and criminal forces. He always strived to unite all left and democratic forces as a strong anti-feudal-anti-communal-fascist pole in Jharkhand.

It was clear that the state saw him as a potent danger because he led the struggles of peasants, workers, oppressed nationalities and all types of democratic movements. He was implicated in several false cases and jailed many times. He was arrested in a false case of murder on 5 February 1985 and sentenced for life imprisonment by the sessions court. But in 1988 he was released by the Ranchi High Court with the comment: "He fights against the repression of weaker sections of the people, therefore he has falsely been implicated in the case."

He was also jailed in April 2002 under such ridiculous cases like violation of the election code of conduct in 1995, violation of Section 144 in Hazaribagh in 1996 and in Koderma in 1997. The latest case slapped on him relates to the road blockade in Kodambari on 2 April 2002.

Mahendra Singh was the President of one of the most dynamic and militant coal workers' union, CMWU, in Jharkhand for the last many years. He was also very popular among the steel workers of Bokaro and Tata Nagar.

In 1990 he was elected to the state assembly (MLA) from Bagodar. He remained CPI(ML) MLA for three continuous terms. He has written and published a book of poetry: "Keemat Chukati Zindagi". He is survived by his wife, three daughters and a son. (This obituary was released by CPI-ML)

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