SACW | Mar. 15-25, 2009 / Colombo's war / BDR / UNHCHR / Smitu Kothari / Hindutva / Darwin / Sudan / Pope vs condoms

Harsh Kapoor aiindex at gmail.com
Tue Mar 24 21:10:22 CDT 2009


South Asia Citizens Wire | March 15-25, 2009 | Dispatch No. 2613 -  
Year 11 running
From: www.sacw.net

[This issue of the dispatch is dedicated to remembering Smitu  
Kothari, the noted activist and engaged scholar who stood by people's  
movements. Smitu died in New Delhi on the 23rd of March 2009, Smitu  
will be sorely missed by independent progressives and widely  
remembered across the wide array of social movements for  
environmental justice, peace, human rights and democratisation in  
India and in South Asian circles. We just lost a very dear friend --HK ]

[1]  Dire times in Sri Lanka's war zone (Conor Foley)
    + Human Rights and Humanitarian Issues in Northern Sri Lanka  
(Centre for Policy Alternatives)
[2] Afghanistan: Talking To The Taliban - Did anyone ask Afghan  
women? (Patricia Lalonde)
[3] The BDR rebellion in Bangladesh: prevailing uncertainties  
(Rahnuma Ahmed)
[4] Nepal: Pillay's job (Kanak Mani Dixit)
[5] Pakistan:  Judges’ restoration a good first step: HRCP
    + Touting Religion, Grabbing Land (Patrick French)
[6] India: NBA salutes the life-long contribution of Smitu Kothari to  
people’s movements
[7] India: Ways of Hindutva (K.N. Panikkar)
    - From Kandhamal to Karavali: The Ugly Face of Sangh Parivar (A  
report by 9 human rights organisations)
    - Hindutvas ideological testing ground in South (Parvathi Menon)
    - A stench that is all too familiar (Siddharth Varadarajan)
    - Why ‘Hate Speech’? (Ram Puniyani)
    - Act firmly, swiftly to bar hate speech (Editorial, The Asian Age)
    - Venomous communalism (Editorial, The Hindu)
    - Generals of Saffron (Vijay Prashad)
    - Hindu extremists wreck plans for statue of "Christian" Charlie  
Chaplin (Rhys Blakely)
[8] Book Review: In Other Rooms, Other Wonders (Review by William  
Dalrymple)
[9] Miscellanea:
    (i) Beware Human Rights Fundamentalism! (Mahmood Mamdani)
    (ii) Darwin In Turkey: An interview with Cigdem Atakuman (Spiegel  
Online)
   (iii) Radio Interview: Rebbeca Holders, spokesperson for the NGO  
Treatment Action Campaign (Anustup Roy)
      + Online Petition by Avaaz: The Pope vs condoms
[10] Announcements:
     (i) Traumatised Tribals of Orissa Cant Vote: Will meet the Press  
(25 March 2009, New Delhi)
     (ii) The Nationalist Hindu Militias - Talk by Christophe  
Jaffrelot (New York, 25 March 2009)


_____


[1] Sri Lanka:

DIRE TIMES IN SRI LANKA'S WAR ZONE
by Conor Foley
http://tinyurl.com/cku2n3

HUMAN RIGHTS AND HUMANITARIAN ISSUES IN NORTHERN SRI LANKA
by The Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA), 21 March 2009
http://www.sacw.net/article759.html

_____


[2] Afghanistan:

International Herald Tribune
March 18, 2009

TALKING TO THE TALIBAN
Did anyone ask Afghan women?

by Patricia Lalonde

I have just returned from Afghanistan and I am struck by the news:  
There’s talk about negotiations with the moderate Taliban. President  
Barack Obama announced it this week, and the message has been relayed  
by European leaders.

Let us first be clear: Either we’re talking about those Taliban whose  
moderation means 10 lashes instead of 100 for women who show their  
ankles, and maybe we can negotiate them down to five, or we’re  
talking about rebels who are victims of current misery in their  
country and find themselves loosely affiliated with the Taliban. If  
the latter is the case, let’s not call them Taliban.

The Afghan women I know cannot conceive of a ‘‘moderate’’ Taliban,  
not to mention negotiations with them. The Taliban are the Taliban,  
Islamists who advocate a fundamentalist and extremist ideology in  
which the role of the woman is to be muzzled and illiterate.

Many of these women already fought a battle against that role when  
the Taliban were in power. They won that battle.

Democracy is working for them. Girls go to school. Women comprise 25  
percent of the Afghan Parliament and they are doing a remarkable job.  
They are learning “politics’’: a recent budget vote on funds  
earmarked for women in various ministries met with opposition from  
the male deputies, whereby the women rose and left the chamber. The  
women got the budget they wanted.

The will of the Afghan people is to move toward modernity, even at  
the risk of their lives. Consider the girls in Kandahar who were  
attacked with acid. They continue to go to school, encouraged by  
their principal. Girls’ schools have been burned down...and rebuilt.  
Women from the south who are prey to Taliban terror are not looking  
to negotiate with the Taliban. They know what will happen to their  
rights if they do.

For women in Kabul and the Afghan north, where I traveled, this idea  
of negotiating with the Taliban would be unbearable. They are looking  
for more schools, better teachers, books, pens and paper, computers.  
Private universities are multiplying, welcoming ever more students  
avid for learning and professional training so that they can find  
jobs and work for their country.

Shella Ata, a woman deputy from Kabul, has recently decided to run  
for president. Others will follow. She leads the fight for child drug  
victims, a phenomenon spreading in Kabul and elsewhere in Afghanistan  
for which she says nothing is being done.

Fauzia Koofi, vice president of the Parliament, lives alone with her  
two children. Her husband was killed by the Taliban. Every day, she  
risks her life to go to work. You can’t talk to her about negotiating  
with the Taliban.

We are sending the wrong message to Afghan women. To claim that  
negotiating with moderate Taliban is about making their country more  
secure for them is something they cannot grasp.

Security will return to Afghanistan when the Afghan people believe  
they can choose their own leaders, when corruption ceases, when  
Afghan police have a decent salary, when a constitutional change  
permits local representatives to be elected locally and not imposed  
by Kabul, when they see an improvement in their daily lives.

This is how Afghan women see security. And this is the only way that  
insurgents who are not Taliban, but who have taken up arms in protest  
against the current government and the unfilled promises of foreign  
forces, can resume playing a normal role in their own country.

Negotiating with the Taliban would be the biggest defeat for the  
goals for which we went to war in Afghanistan in the first place.

Patricia Lalonde is the chairwoman of Mobilization for Elected Women  
in Afghanistan (MEWA). Translated from the French by Constance Borde.

_____


[3] Bangladesh:

New Internationalist
March 17, 2009

THE BDR REBELLION IN BANGLADESH: PREVAILING UNCERTAINTIES
Rahnuma Ahmed reports on the fallout from February's rebellion by  
Bangladeshi soldiers, and explains why the present remains so perilous.

A subaltern uprising

That is how private TV channels had reported it, and how it had  
generally been perceived on 25 February when BDR (Bangladesh Rifles)  
soldiers – border security forces, additionally entrusted with anti- 
smuggling operations – rebelled at the Pilkhana headquarters in Dhaka  
city.

Discontentment had been the issue. Over food rations (three months,  
as compared with twelve for the army), denial of UN peacekeeping  
mission services, low pay (the average BDR guard earns about 70  
dollars a month), non-payment of promised daily allowances for extra  
duties rendered, corruption in the officer ranks. What appeared to  
have rankled most was army control, since the BDR administration and  
nearly all its officers are from the army. In the words of one  
mutineer, ‘we are not against the nation, or the Government. We want  
that the BDR should belong to the BDR.’

It was the second day of the annual BDR week. Three thousand BDR  
soldiers, along with their commanding officers, had come to Pilkhana  
for the occasion, joining the three thousand plus stationed there.  
The 33-hour-long mutiny broke out at a meeting in the Darbar Hall of  
the BDR compound, which stretches over 3 square kilometres, and is  
located in the city centre. How many actively took part is anybody’s  
guess. The police have since filed charges of rebellion, killings,  
arson and looting of armories against more than a thousand BDR  
soldiers. The army, police and RAB (élite force) have launched  
Operation Rebel Hunt to capture rebel soldiers, missing firearms and  
ammunition. Two hundred and thirty six BDR soldiers have been  
arrested so far, including the suspected ringleader, deputy assistant  
director Syed Tawhidul Alam.

The horror and brutality

As bodies of army officers dumped in sewage canals far away surfaced;  
as mass graves in the HQ compound were unearthed; as the decomposed  
bodies of the director general, and others – mostly senior army  
officers – were discovered; as mutilated bodies were found,  
bayoneted, eyes gouged out, some burned: the subaltern uprising story  
receded into the background. Wives of two army officers and a  
domestic maid had also been killed. Allegations of rape surfaced. As  
horror at the brutality encompassed the nation (more than 74 were  
killed, including three civilians killed by random bullets, and seven  
soldiers; according to the latest updates, 2-3 officers are still  
missing, while 4 bodies remain unidentified), army officers publicly  
contested Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s decision to resolve the  
rebellion through political rather than military means. She should  
not have sat for negotiations with the mutineers, nor sent Government  
ministers and her party leaders to talk to the rebels, nor declared a  
general amnesty (later clarified to exclude the killers). Instead,  
the army should have been allowed to ‘crush’ the rebellion. It would  
have been over in a matter of minutes. Lives of precious army  
officers would have been saved.

As horror at the brutality encompassed the nation, army officers  
publicly contested Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s decision to resolve  
the rebellion through political rather than military means.

Calmer, more reasoned voices argued, mainly in the blogosphere, since  
the national media (print, TV) was also under attack for having  
highlighted the BDR soldiers’ grievances, that a military operation  
would probably have resulted in more deaths, of hostage officers and  
their family members, and also of civilians, living in adjacent  
densely-populated neighbourhoods. That anti-aircraft guns could  
hardly have been used to flush out rebels hiding among innocent  
people living in residential quarters and office buildings. That  
terrorists and hostage-takers could have been attacked, but only  
after all other means had failed. That news of an army operation  
could have led to a nationwide escalation since the rebellion had  
spread to other parts of the country. That it was undoubtedly a  
massive intelligence failure. That even though the army had borne the  
brunt of the BDR carnage, parliamentary discussions and public debate  
on corruption in the army should go ahead.

Contesting authority

Rumours of an army take-over circulated wildly (not surprisingly,  
given that it has occurred three times in the nation’s 38 year old  
history). Grief-stricken and enraged members of the army were  
repeatedly urged to show restraint, even after the army chief General  
Moeen U Ahmed had declared that the army would be ‘loyal to  
democracy’, and would remain ‘subservient to the (elected)  
government’. Civilian authority was contested, at times outrageously,  
via widely-circulating e-mails purportedly from officers of the army,  
and leaked audio recordings of the Prime Minister’s closed-door  
meeting with aggrieved army officers in Dhaka cantonment. The US  
ambassador extended support to the newly-elected democratic  
government, adding later that the US Government would also assist  
Bangladesh in combating terrorism. As the immediate crisis was  
overcome, Sheikh Hasina’s display of leadership in having resolved it  
peacefully was lauded by other foreign dignitaries and leaders. And  
within the nation, the army was repeatedly congratulated for having  
exercised restraint. Even though, as a Bangladeshi blogger pointed  
out, this was precisely what the military should be doing, i.e.,  
supporting the civilian government, and working under its leadership.

The Government has instituted a high-powered probe into the mutiny,  
assisted by FBI and Scotland Yard investigators. The army has  
launched an independent probe. However, there is nationwide  
apprehension that the truth may not be revealed

The Government has instituted a high-powered probe into the mutiny,  
assisted by FBI and Scotland Yard investigators. The army has  
launched an independent probe. However, there is nationwide  
apprehension that the truth may not be revealed, that the reports may  
not be made public, and that judicial processes may falter. Calls for  
the formation of an all-party parliamentary inquiry committee have  
not been heeded by the Government. Mud-slinging has erupted between  
the political party leaders, by the Prime Minister herself, and her  
ministers, equally matched by the ex-Prime Minister and the current  
leader of the opposition Khaleda Zia, and other BNP (Bangladesh  
Nationalist Party) leaders. Meanwhile, the Government has done away  
with disparities in food subsidies that had existed between the  
officers and the lower ranks of the police force. Concerns are being  
voiced in human rights and political activist circles over a  
demonization of the BDR as a whole, even though individual soldiers  
had risked their own lives to save several army officers during the  
hostage crisis.

Tensions and turbulence

Several feminist activists think that questions need to be raised  
about military training per se, that rape, looting and utter  
disregard for human values seem to accompany the actions of armed  
forces the world over. Others feel this is not the time to raise  
these questions, or bring up the decades-long allegations of  
indigenous peoples in the militarily-occupied Chittagong Hill Tracts.  
The present, they say, is too perilous. That the worst may not be  
over is signalled by the Government's recent decision to cancel the  
Independence Day parade, on 26 March.

That the rebellion was pre-planned and could well have de-stabilized  
the Government and the nation by igniting a series of cascading  
‘tensions and turbulence’ is no longer doubted

The subaltern uprising story has paled away as threats to the  
nation’s territorial sovereignty have become clearer. Were foreign  
forces involved? Did they capitalize on long-standing and simmering  
grievances among BDR subalterns, those who are regarded as ‘the  
nation’s first line of defence’? The Indian media has pointed its  
fingers at the ISI (Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence), at  
Pakistan’s reluctance for 1971 war criminals to be tried by Sheikh  
Hasina's Government. Counter-theories have emerged, arguing that RAW  
(Research and Intelligence Wing, India’s foreign intelligence  
agency), and thereby the Indian Government, stand to gain most from  
turning Bangladesh into a vassal state.

That the rebellion was pre-planned and could well have de-stabilized  
the Government and the nation by igniting a series of cascading  
‘tensions and turbulence’ is no longer doubted. But it is also true  
that recent revelations by a government minister about JMB (Jamaatul  
Mujahideen Bangladesh, a banned Islamist organization) links are not  
only pre-mature but also unwise.

Earlier, Sheikh Hasina had expressed her support for the US war on  
terror, and pledged to work for the formation of a joint anti- 
terrorism taskforce by SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional  
Cooperation) countries. Whether the rebellion will facilitate  
Bangladesh in joining the US-led ‘war on terror club’ remains to be  
seen. If it does, it will not help to build a strong national army  
free of political aspirations. Nor will it aid the people in their  
ongoing struggles for greater democratization of state and society.  
Clearly, it will not be in Bangladesh’s national interest.

_____


[4] Nepal:

Nepali Times, 18 March 2009

PILLAY'S JOB
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay has  
large shoes to fill, that of her predecessor Louise Arbour who played  
a crucial role in supporting human rights in Nepal.

by Kanak Mani Dixit

18 MARCH 2009

Pillay's job is actually tougher, because there is no black-and- 
white, good-vs-evil situation in Nepal today, where the Maoists are  
trying to find their feet in above-ground politics.

As with the human rights community of Nepal, therefore, the role of  
OHCHR is to calibrate its challenge to state establishment that is  
now run by the Maoists in a way that the ex-rebels are assisted in  
their transformation without giving an inch when it comes to  
accountability and an end to impunity.

The challenge in Nepal is the fact that there is a country-wide  
lawlessness amidst a multitude of demands that come up from  
historically marginalised communities, even while a constitution has  
to be written where the many demands of developing a inclusive  
society have to be incorporated. But just as the fundamental  
principles of democracy shouldn't be neglected in the writing of the  
statute, so must the globally recognised standards of human rights be  
held sacrosanct.

The natural tendency for Nepal's Maoists has been to suggest that  
human rights standards are relative, and that all is fair in the  
fight for rights. Another method is to try to cloud the issue by  
suggesting that those who fight for political and civil rights are  
elitists who seek to divert attention from the real issues, which  
have to do with economic and social rights.

There should be no need emphasise that the enjoyment of economic and  
social rights itself requires complete adherence to universal  
fundamental freedoms. There can be no right to food and good health  
and social security without the right to life, freedom of press, rule  
of law and an end to impunity. Today, the job of the rights defender  
is more challenging than before because this is a transitional period  
where we seek to bring those who respect human rights the least, are  
sought to be converted to believers in the law.

The job of OHCHR in Nepal is made complex by the fact the National  
Human Rights Commission itself is trying to find its feet, hampered  
as it is by the lack of human rights orientation of some of its  
commissioners, which includes a Maoist activist. There has also been  
a distressing lack of coordination thus far between the High  
Commissioner's office and the NHRC. At the same time, the Nepal  
office of OHCHR has its term expiring in September 2009, and we fear  
that perhaps the office will be too timid with the powers that be for  
fear of being not renewed.

That attitude would be unfortunate, for OHCHR is the kind of  
institution which should remain in Nepal to defend the citizens of  
Nepal at a time of need, by right, and not because of the goodwill  
shown by the Maoists in government. Now, more than ever, we need  
international oversight over an elected government that still thinks  
it needs to intimidate people with the threat of violence to rule.


_____


[5] Pakistan:


Human Rights Commission of Pakistan

JUDGES’ RESTORATION A GOOD FIRST STEP: HRCP

Press Release, March 16, 2009

Lahore: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has welcomed  
the restoration of judiciary as a first step towards strengthening  
democracy and rule of law and said the people of Pakistan have sent a  
clear message that they will not settle for a sham democratic process.

A statement issued by the Commission on Monday said: “The HRCP  
welcomes the restoration of superior court judges and congratulates  
lawyers, the civil society, political parties – including the  
Pakistan People’s Party – and above all the people of Pakistan, who  
again demonstrated their ability for a worthy cause whenever they  
found one. We wish Monday morning’s decision had been taken earlier.  
Still the announcement revealed the difference of approach between a  
military regime and a civilian democracy. This is a clear message  
from the people to leaders of all political parties that they will  
not settle for a sham democracy.

However, this is merely the first step. Real challenges now begin and  
the people expect that they will get not only an independent  
judiciary but also justice. This will not come about automatically  
but will require some doing. The people also expect that the  
restoration of judges will ensure the rule of law and independence of  
judiciary and also that the parliament will make earnest efforts to  
save the judiciary from the harmful effects of politicization.

The HRCP has all along been concerned about the lack of independence  
of the Election Commission and of a satisfactory mechanism for the  
appointment, tenure and terms of service of members of the superior  
judiciary. An independent Election Commission is crucial for the  
democratic system to go forward in a smooth and non-contentious  
manner. Similarly, mechanisms for appointments and accountability of  
judges must enjoy the confidence of the legal fraternity and the  
people. The people expect speedy progress on federation-making,  
guarantees of provincial autonomy and priority to economic concerns  
of the people, specially their need for relief from unemployment and  
poverty. In addition, just as people from all schools of thought had  
come together for the cause of the judiciary and democracy, the  
people expect all political parties to get together to promote  
democratic governance and improve the level of social justice in the  
country.”

Asma Jahangir Chairperson

o o o

The New York Times
March 16, 2009

TOUTING RELIGION, GRABBING LAND

by Patrick French

THE demonstrations across Pakistan last week that forced President  
Asif Ali Zardari to reinstate the nation’s former chief justice,  
following the attack by militants on the Sri Lankan cricket team in  
Lahore, were simply the latest phase in the broad destabilization of  
the country.

This was hardly to have been anticipated 18 months ago, when I flew  
to Islamabad with Nawaz Sharif, the former prime minister. At that  
time, the prospects were good: Mr. Sharif had made an agreement with  
his main rival, Benazir Bhutto, to return the country to democracy.  
“I am not afraid,” Mr. Sharif told me. “I am going home after seven  
years. My primary concern is to put an end to the curse of  
dictatorship and give some relief to the people of Pakistan.”

After we landed in Islamabad, I had dinner with the family of my  
brother-in-law, Sana Ullah. Sana’s family comes from the Swat Valley,  
a religiously conservative and beautiful region in the north known as  
the Switzerland of Pakistan. It is, or was, a prosperous holiday  
destination, attracting tourists from places like Japan because of  
its ancient Buddhist heritage, and it was where Pakistani film makers  
would go to shoot movies in a romantic mountain setting.

But the stories I heard that evening were full of foreboding. The  
Swat Barbers’ Federation had just forbidden “English-style haircuts”  
and the shaving of beards. Strange visitors — possibly Uzbeks — were  
engaged in military training in the forests. A teenage boy told me,  
almost in passing, that his female cousin’s school had been blown up.

Today the political situation is very different: Ms. Bhutto was  
killed in a suicide attack in December 2007, Mr. Sharif has been  
banned from public office, and Swat has become a killing field.

The region has been handed over to the Pakistani Taliban in a foolish  
bargain made on behalf of Mr. Zardari’s government. Like most violent  
revolutionary movements, the Taliban use social injustice and a half- 
understood philosophy as an excuse to grab land and power. Houses and  
property have been taken over, and the Taliban have announced that  
people should pay 40 percent of their rent to their landlords and 60  
percent to “jihad.”

In the district capital, Mingora, decapitated corpses were dangled  
from lampposts with notices pinned to them stating the “un-Islamic”  
action that merited death. At least 185 schools, most for girls, have  
been closed. Government officials, journalists and security troops  
have had their throats slit. Little wonder that most of my brother-in- 
law’s family has fled, along with 400,000 others.

What many Westerners fail to understand is that the Swat Valley is  
not one of Pakistan’s wild border areas. It is only 100 miles from  
Islamabad. In the words of Shaheen Sardar Ali, a cousin of Sana’s who  
is a law professor at Warwick University in England and was the first  
female cabinet minister in the government of North-West Frontier  
Province, “Swat is not somewhere you could ever see as being a  
breeding ground for extremism.” She remembers going to school  
unveiled as a child in the 1960s and studying alongside boys. But  
today, any girl who goes to school is risking her life.

Shariah law has been imposed, allowing elderly clerics to dictate the  
daily lives of the Swati people. President Zardari’s foreign  
minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, describes this as “a local solution  
to a local problem,” but the deal with the Taliban represents the  
most serious blow to the country’s territorial integrity since the  
civil war of 1971, when the land that became Bangladesh was given up.  
When territory is surrendered in this way, it is very difficult for  
the state to recover it. The central premise behind the war on  
terrorism was that extremist groups should not be allowed sanctuaries  
from which to threaten the rest of the world. In that context, the  
loss of Swat offers the Taliban and other extremist groups a template  
for the future.

Pakistan’s slide toward anarchy is similar to the conditions in  
Afghanistan in the 1990s: it was easier then for the Afghan elite to  
pretend that the political situation was likely to improve than to  
face the truth and do something about it. The bickering factions in  
Kabul allowed the Taliban to take control of large areas of southern  
Afghanistan, refusing to see that this would only embolden the  
Islamists to march on the capital.

Similarly, millenarian Islamists are now seeking to destroy Pakistan  
as a nation-state, and realize that they have won a strategic victory  
in Swat. President Obama’s hope of weaning “moderate” elements in  
Afghanistan and Pakistan away from violence, as happened with Sunni  
militants in Iraq, is stymied by the fact the Pakistani Taliban know  
they are winning. Making a deal with them now is appeasement.

Worse, the Islamabad government has gained nothing from it. The  
Lahore shootings showed how fragile the security situation remains.  
Radical Sunni groups are more powerful than ever in the Punjab.

The Pakistani Army has been given billions of dollars by American  
taxpayers to defeat the Taliban, and it has failed. Some of the money  
even appears to have been diverted to the militants. The army has  
limited skill in counterinsurgency tactics or in winning hearts and  
minds; its main achievement over the last two decades has been in  
training militants to fight Indian troops in Kashmir.

“The people in Swat have no employment, no money, and they are  
terrified of the army,” Professor Ali told me. “Force is not an  
alternative, it’s too late.” Pakistan’s civilian law enforcement  
agencies need to be urgently reformed and strengthened.

The only way forward is for the government and those opposition  
politicians, such as Mr. Sharif, who still have popular support to  
unite with progressive elements inside the Army, and to recognize the  
real and immediate danger of the Islamist threat. If they do not,  
their country risks becoming a nuclear-armed Afghanistan.


_____



[6]  India: A Tribute to Smitu Kothari

Narmada Bachao Andolan
  62 M.G Marg, Badwani, Madhya Pradesh - 451551
  Telefax: 07290-222464; E-mail: nba.medha(AT)gmail.com
  Maitri Niwas, Tembewadi, Behind Kakawadi, Dhadgav, Dist. Nandurbar,
  Maharashtra - 425414 — Telefax: 02595-220620


NBA SALUTES THE LIFE-LONG CONTRIBUTION OF SMITU KOTHARI TO PEOPLE’S  
MOVEMENTS

Resolves to carry forward his vision for a just and pro-poor  
development Narmada Bachao Andolan joins other people’s movements in  
expressing its shock and grief at the most untimely demise of Smitu  
Kothari, one of the most active, progressive and consistent voices  
against the neo-liberal anti-poor agenda of privatization,  
globalization and liberalization in recent times. A widely respected  
scholar, visiting academic at the Cornell and Princeton Universities,  
author of several publications on contemporary socio-political and  
economic discourses and above all an indomitable activist, Smitu  
Kothari, 59 passed away today early morning at 6 a.m owing to a  
cardiac attack after having undergone a heart surgery yesterday at  
AIIMS in Delhi. The cremation will be held at Lodi Road electric  
Crematorium in South Delhi at 4pm on the 23rd March. The most  
unexpected stroke came when Smitu was at a meeting of the Delhi  
Solidarity Group and Himalaya Niti Abhiyan to discuss strategies for  
strengthening the people’s struggles in Himachal Pradesh against  
displacement, mining and environmental destruction on the 20th  
afternoon, from where he was rushed to the AIIMS and was discharged  
the same day as his ECG was found to be normal. However he was again  
hospitalized a day later due to arterial complications and succumbed  
during the post-operative care.

One of the founders of Lokayan ("Dialogue of the People"), and  
Intercultural Resources, two centres in Delhi promoting exchange  
between non-party political formations and concerned scholars and  
other citizens from India and the rest of the world, he was actively  
involved in ecological, cultural and human rights issues striving to  
collectively forge a national and global alternative that is socially  
just and ecologically sane and in this capacity has been vigorously  
pursuing multifarious academic and activist initiatives. Development  
induced displacement, people’s governance and social-environmental  
movements were some of his core concerns. He was also one of the  
striving spirits behind the Independent People’s Tribunal on the  
World Bank Group in India held in 2007.

Smitu has also been a long time vocal supporter of the struggle of  
the thousands of adivasis, farmers, labourers, fishworkers, potters  
and all the project-affected people in the Narmada valley and  
articulated their concerns at various fora both within India and  
across continents.

A truly loving person, Smitu continues to be a source of inspiration  
not just for people’s movements and struggles in India, but also to  
voices of dissent and alternatives across the globe. NBA expresses  
its heartfelt condolences to Smitu’s extended family of activists,  
supporters and all peace and justice loving people. We salute his  
decades of invaluable contribution to diverse people’s movements and  
resolves to take forward his message and commitment to come together  
and be united against all odds and strengthen our collective force  
for justice.

Medha Patkar, Ashish Mandloi, Kamla Yadav, Kailash Awasya


_____


[7] India:  Hindutva Expanding in Society

Frontline, March 28-April 10, 2009

WAYS OF HINDUTVA
by K.N. Panikkar

The violence in Gujarat and Orissa has generated disgust towards the  
Sangh Parivar, but Hindu communalism is seeking to refurbish its image.

AP

NO other phenomenon has affected life in the subcontinent so  
adversely as communalism. When this “monster” came on the stage as  
early as the beginning of the 18th century, as evidenced by a  
communal riot in Ahmedabad, no one perhaps had an inkling about the  
magnitude and character it might assume in future.

Although it took a long time for it to take centre stage, when it  
did, it had a devastating effect on Indian polity and society. Its  
inherent ability to divide people on the basis of religion and sow  
the seeds of mutual hatred led to the partition of the country. The  
people of India and Pakistan can ill afford to forget the human  
tragedy that Partition entailed. The pathos of Partition, which the  
Urdu writer Sadat Ali Manto so touchingly captured in Toba Tek Sing  
and Khol Do, or the masterly account in Bhishm Sahni’s Hindi novel,  
Tamas, tell us how devastating and brutal communalism can be.

The heart-rending experience of Partition, however, did not put an  
end to communalism. It only exacerbated it, at least in India, as the  
memories of inter-communal violence were invoked for political  
mobilisation. As a result, during the post-Independence period,  
communalism continued to plague social consciousness and colour  
political perspectives in the country. By the end of the 20th  
century, its influence had assumed such proportions that Hindu  
communal forces succeeded in wielding power at the Centre and in some  
States. This success heralded a new stage in the development of  
communalism and at the same time a tumultuous phase in the political  
history of the nation.

The access to power that the communal forces gained by the end of the  
20th century was important for a variety of reasons. Among them, the  
most significant was the two-fold agenda that the communal forces  
pursued in order to perpetuate the newly acquired political power.  
They realised that controlling the state institutions in itself was  
not sufficient if they were to consolidate power and exercise it for  
a long time to their political advantage. It would be necessary to  
transform the character of the administration itself.

The secular administrative practices, which the Indian state had  
followed since Independence, albeit with limitations, were out of  
sync with the new regime. The Sangh Parivar expected from the state  
institutions active involvement in the pursuit of its communal  
agenda. In other words, it wanted the administration to shed its  
secular character and serve as the communal arm of the state. In  
pursuit of this objective, the governments led by the Bharatiya  
Janata Party (BJP), both at the Centre and in the States, ensured  
that communal elements were extensively, if not exclusively,  
recruited into various branches of the administration.

The extent to which it succeeded in this endeavour is difficult to  
ascertain, but it is fairly apparent that a conscious policy to  
induct Sangh Parivar cadre was followed. A good example is the  
police. It is widely reported that the police force in States ruled  
by the BJP, such as Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, has been  
“saffronised” by inducting recruits from the Sangh Parivar. The  
consequences are by now well known. In the communal conflagration in  
Gujarat in 2002, the police not only refused to intervene to save the  
victims but actually abetted members of organisations such as the  
Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Bajrang Dal in their crimes.

Police partisanship has also been reported from Karnataka, Madhya  
Pradesh and other States in which the BJP is or was in power. Almost  
all state institutions underwent such a transformation under BJP  
rule. When the National Democratic Alliance was defeated in the last  
elections, it was hoped that the secular character of the  
administration would be retrieved. However, it did not happen. The  
lack of political will was not the only reason. The communal elements  
were so well entrenched in the administration that they could prevent  
the attempts to recover secular practices. This has led to a paradox:  
a government pledged to secularism, but an administration  
predominantly manned by communal elements. As a result, communal  
influence remained unabated in administration. Even the Army, it is  
reported, was not free from the communal influence. If so, it is  
possible that the example of Lieutenant Colonel S.K. Purohit, who is  
accused of being the brain behind the Malegaon bomb blast, may not be  
an isolated instance.

What distinguished BJP rule from the previous administrations was the  
manner in which the government was used to realise the political  
agenda of creating a Hindu state. The Sangh Parivar looked upon the  
government not from the perspective of what was immediately possible,  
but as an instrument to create a communal future. As such, its main  
interest was to construct a social and political consciousness that  
would usher in and sustain a Hindu nation. That was the purpose for  
which the institutions of the state, particularly the ideological  
apparatuses, were used extensively.

Almost every initiative in the fields of education and culture were  
undertaken with such an intention. In order to realise it, the  
ideological apparatuses of the state were placed under the control of  
communal activists, ideologues and fellow travellers. They rewrote  
the national agenda in communal terms. Their interventions in the  
educational, cultural and intellectual fields sought to privilege  
indigenous knowledge over others and thus create a Hindu nationalist  
fervour. In the process, they sought to redefine the nation as Hindu.
[. . .]
http://www.frontline.in/stories/20090410260702600.htm

o o o

FROM KANDHAMAL TO KARAVALI: THE UGLY FACE OF SANGH PARIVAR
A report by 9 human rights organisations
http://www.sacw.net/article764.html

HINDUTVAS IDEOLOGICAL TESTING GROUND IN SOUTH
by Parvathi Menon (The Hindu, March 16, 2009)
http://www.hindu.com/2009/03/16/stories/2009031656131000.htm

A STENCH THAT IS ALL TOO FAMILIAR
by Siddharth Varadarajan (The Hindu, March 24, 2009)
Varun Gandhi’s bigotry against Muslims is hardwired into the DNA of  
the BJP and the sangh parivar. That is why he is still his party’s  
candidate for the elections.
http://www.hindu.com/2009/03/24/stories/2009032458930800.htm

WHY ‘HATE SPEECH’?
by Ram Puniyani
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2009/03/varun-gandhis-hate-speech.html

ACT FIRMLY, SWIFTLY TO BAR HATE SPEECH (Editorial, The Asian Age)
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2009/03/act-firmly-on-hate-speech.html

VENOMOUS COMMUNALISM (Editorial, The Hindu)
Varun Gandhi’s hate speech during an election rally in Pilibhit,  
Uttar Pradesh, was couched in language so crude and so violent that  
it has made hardened communalists blush.
http://www.hindu.com/2009/03/20/stories/2009032055110800.htm

GENERALS OF SAFFRON
by Vijay Prashad (Economic and Political Weekly, March 14 - March 20,  
2009)
Neither are Sonal Shah’s associations with the Hindutva organisations  
in the United States as innocuous nor are her critics McCarthyites
http://epw.in/epw//uploads/articles/13284.pdf

HINDU EXTREMISTS WRECK PLANS FOR STATUE OF "CHRISTIAN" CHARLIE CHAPLIN
by Rhys Blakely
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2009/03/karnataka-film-maker-caves-in- 
after.html
_____


[8]  Book Review


IN OTHER ROOMS, OTHER WONDERS

Review by William Dalrymple

Published: March 7 2009 01:16 | Last updated: March 7 2009 01:16

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders
By Daniyal Mueenuddin
WW Norton & Co $23.95 224 pages

It was an Indian novel, The White Tiger, that won last year’s Booker  
Prize, and another piece of Indian fiction, Q&A, that was adapted  
into this year’s Oscar winner, Slumdog Millionaire. But 2009  
nevertheless looks set to be the year that Pakistan emerges from the  
literary shadow of its great neighbour. Just as Pakistan as a nation  
state seems to be disintegrating, Pakistan as a force in literature  
is gaining ever greater cohesion.

Until two or three years ago, Pakistan seemed to be a literary desert  
in both Urdu and English. Now, quite suddenly, it has produced a  
cluster of remarkable bright young novelists able to match anything  
coming out India: in fiction, Nadeem Aslam, Mohsin Hamid, Mohammed  
Hanif and Kamila Shamsie; and in non-fiction, Ahmed Rashid and Ayesha  
Siddiqa.

At the literature festival I helped direct in Jaipur this January, it  
was the Pakistani contingent that stole the show – despite attempts  
by Hindu fundamentalist parties to ban Pakistani books from Indian  
shelfspace. The writers spoke eloquently about the difficulty of  
writing in such a volatile environment – Aslam talked of “writing  
fast with a burning quill”. He and Hanif, author of A Case of  
Exploding Mangoes, compared their experiences to what the writers of  
Latin America faced in the 1970s: a repressive political environment  
that could not be escaped, and which had to be confronted on the page.

If there was one thing the new Pakistani fiction seemed to lack, it  
was a Midnight’s Children – a single text to which the word  
masterpiece could unquestionably be attached. Now that moment may  
have come in the shape of Daniyal Mueenuddin and his outstanding  
collection of short stories, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders. It is one  
of the most startlingly authentic works of fiction to come out of  
south Asia this decade, rooted in a rural landscape like the stories  
of RK Narayan, but far bleaker and blacker than anything in Narayan’s  
Malgudi tales. The trajectory of each story ends, almost inevitably,  
in a shell-burst of loss and tragedy.

Like Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, Other Rooms is a book that seems  
at first to come out of nowhere, owing nothing to the literature  
produced by the writer’s contemporaries or compatriots. But while  
Midnight’s Children in reality leapfrogged Europe to seek inspiration  
in the magic realist writing of Latin America, Other Rooms has made a  
stranger leap still. It looks for inspiration not in the writing of  
south Asia or indeed anywhere else in the modern world, but instead  
draws on the stylistic example of Turgenev and Chekhov, and the soul- 
searing bleakness of vision of Dostoevsky or Gogol – but with the  
action transposed from the Russian steppe to the Pakistani Punjab.

Like Turgenev in his Sketches from a Hunter’s Album, Mueenuddin  
creates a world peopled by wholly believable rural folk who cluster  
around the townhouses and estates of the landlord, KK Harooni  
(clearly modelled on Mueenuddin’s own father), all sketched with  
wonderful economy and lightness. We meet Rezak, who lives in a little  
hut on the edge of the estate, and who finds happiness with a young  
mute wife, who then mysteriously disappears, presumed abducted; the  
ingenious “Nawabdin Electrician” with his “signature ability, a  
technique for cheating the electric company by slowing down the  
revolutions of electric metres”, who is shot by a robber and nearly  
killed; Saleema the kitchen maid who falls in love with Rafik the  
butler and bears him a child, but who is abandoned when Harooni dies  
and Rafik returns to his wife. She ends her days begging at a road  
junction, cradling “the little boy in her arms, holding him up to the  
windows of cars ... one of the sparrows of Lahore”.

Mueenuddin’s Pakistan is visually beautiful – there are wonderful  
sketches of the rhythms of the landscape with its banyan trees and  
mango orchards. But it is brutal and savage too. Individuals can be  
generous and dutiful, but fate is rarely kind: men are killed, women  
are abducted or taken to the Karachi brothels, while the police beat  
the innocent and helpless, and the powerful trample on the poor.  
Emotions are left unspoken in this conservative society; apparently  
flexible barriers of class and wealth prove in the end cruelly  
insurmountable. Jaglani, the unscrupulous land agent, takes another  
man’s wife: “Please, Chaudrey Sahib, you and I grew up together in  
Dunyapur, we played together as children,” says the husband. “I beg  
you don’t take what’s mine. You have so much, and I so little.” “I  
have so much because I took what I wanted,” replies Jaglani. “Go away.”

If Other Rooms is unlike anything recently published in India, this  
is partly because of the very different trajectories the two  
countries have taken since 1947. Almost immediately after  
Independence, the Congress party broke the power of the Indian  
landowners, emasculating them with income tax and land ceiling acts  
that instantly shredded their estates. This legislation was never  
passed in Pakistan, which continued to be dominated by its old feudal  
elite, just as Tsarist Russia once was.

So while most successful Indian writers in English are the product of  
urban middle-class backgrounds and now tend to live in London or New  
York, there are no Indian Daniyal Mueenuddins who live like Tolstoy  
or Turgenev on their estates. Mueenuddin has lived on his own as a  
farmer for 20 years, hundreds of miles from the nearest urban centre,  
and can describe with real authenticity the rural world he daily  
inhabits.

It is true that the quality of a writer’s fiction should never be  
judged by his home address – Joyce after all wrote the Dublin of  
Ulysses from Trieste. Yet here the difference is striking. Compared  
to the thwarted, tragic grandeur of Mueenuddin’s women, Deeti, the  
opium farmer’s wife who is the heroine of Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of  
Poppies, seems paper-thin: Bihar as imagined from Brooklyn.

The critic Pankaj Mishra has attacked the “slickly exilic version of  
India” manufactured by diasporic English-language writers from India,  
describing them as a “cosmopolitan third world elite”, their fictions  
“suffused with nostalgia”. No one could make this charge of  
Mueenuddin. His stories have not just a fluency and perfection of  
shape; above all they have an authenticity of observation and  
dialogue rooted from long experience living among the people he is  
writing about. The result is a unique book, probably the best fiction  
ever written in English about Pakistan, and one of the best to come  
out of south Asia in a very long time.

William Dalrymple is author of “The Last Mughal’” (Bloomsbury). His  
new book, “Nine Lives: Searching for the Sacred in Modern India” is  
published by Bloomsbury in October

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009

_____


[9] MISCELLANEA:

(i) BEWARE HUMAN RIGHTS FUNDAMENTALISM!

by Mahmood Mamdani
(Mail and Guardian Online, March 20 2009)


When former South African president Thabo Mbeki makes the African  
case for a postponement of the International Criminal Court's (ICC)  
indictment of President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, what can he say with  
dignity and foresight?

To begin with, he should remind his audience that nowhere in the  
world have rights existed outside an enabling political context. No  
democracy enforces a fixed standard of rights regardless of the  
country's political context. Few can forget how the Bush  
administration diluted the Bill of Rights in the interest of pursuing  
Homeland Security. In the relation between law and politics, politics  
is always paramount. Precisely because the struggle for rights is a  
political struggle, enforcers of rights -- and not just its violators  
-- need to be held politically accountable lest they turn rights  
enforcement into a private vendetta.

Mbeki can then share with his audience the lessons Africans have  
learned in the struggle for peace and justice over the past several  
decades. Contrary to what many think, this lesson is not that there  
needs to be a trade-off between peace and justice. The real trade-off  
is between different forms of justice.This became evident with the  
settlement to end apartheid. That settlement was possible because the  
political leadership of the anti-apartheid struggle prioritised  
political justice over criminal justice. The rationale was simple:  
where there was no victor, one would need the cooperation of the very  
leaders who would otherwise be charged with war crimes to end the  
fighting and initiate political reforms. The essence of Kempton Park  
can be summed up in a single phrase: forgive but do not forget.  
Forgive all past crimes -- in plain words, immunity from prosecution  
-- provided both sides agree to change the rules to assure political  
justice for the living.

The South African lesson has guided African practice in other  
difficult situations. In Mozambique Renamo sits in Parliament instead  
of in jail or in the dock. In South Sudan, too, there would have been  
neither peace nor a reform of the political system without an  
agreement not to pursue criminal justice.Why not in Darfur?

Mbeki would also be well advised to keep in mind that in the court of  
public opinion -- unlike in a court of law -- the accused is  
considered guilty until proven innocent.

The public needs to be reminded that when the justices of the ICC  
granted the prosecutor's application for a warrant to arrest the  
president of Sudan, they were not issuing a verdict of guilty. The  
justices were not meant to assess the facts put before them by the  
prosecutor, but to ask a different question: if those facts were  
assumed to be true, would the president of Sudan have a case to  
answer? Unlike court, which took the facts for granted at the pre- 
trial stage, we need to ask: to what extent are these facts true?  
And, to the extent they are true, are they the whole truth?

The prosecutor's case
The prosecutor's application charged President al-Bashir with (a)  
polarising Darfuri tribes into two races (Arab and Zurga or Black),  
(b) waging a violent conflict (2003-2005) leading to the ethnic  
cleansing of Zurga ethnic groups from their traditional tribal lands,  
and (c) and planning the malnutrition, rape and torture of internally  
displaced persons (IDPs) so as to "slow death" in the camps -- a  
process that the prosecutor claimed went on from 2003 to the time the  
application was submitted in 2008.

The racialisation of identities in Darfur had its roots in the  
British colonial period. As early as the late 1920s, the British  
tried to organise two confederations in Darfur: one "Arab", the other  
"Zurga" or black. Racialised identities were incorporated in the  
census and provided the frame for government policy and  
administration. In spite of official policy, Arabs never constituted  
a single racial group. Contemporary scholarship has shown that the  
Arab tribes of Sudan were not migrants from the Middle East but  
indigenous groups that became Arabs starting in the 18th century.  
This is why there can be no single history of Arab tribes of Sudan.  
Little unites privileged sedentary tribes of riverine Sudan and  
impoverished nomads of Western Sudan. Unlike the Arabs of riverine  
north, who have tended to identify with power, the Arabs of Darfur  
are the most marginalised group in a marginalised province.

The largest of the Arab tribes in Darfur, the cattle nomads of the  
south, were never involved in the government-organised  
counterinsurgency. Those involved -- the camel nomads of the north  
and refugees from Chad -- were from among the poorest of the poor.  
The idea that the Arabs of Darfur were part of a single cohesive  
"Arab" bloc facing "black Africans" is a recent invention driven  
mainly by an external media, and now by the ICC. Its main effect has  
been to demonise "Arabs" and to obscure the real causes of the conflict.

CONTINUES BELOW

Who, then, has been fighting whom in Darfur, and why? The short  
answer is that this has been a conflict over land, triggered by four  
different but related causes: the land system, environmental  
degradation, the spillover of the four decade-long civil war in Chad  
and the brutal counterinsurgency waged by the al-Bashir government in  
2003 and 2004.

     * The deep cause was the colonial system, which reorganised  
Darfur as a discriminatory patchwork of tribal homeland where settled  
peasant tribes were granted large homelands in which they were  
considered natives. In contrast, camel nomads with no settled  
villages found themselves without a homeland and so were not  
acknowledged as natives anywhere. When it came to granting access to  
land, participating in local administration and the resolution of  
local disputes, homeland administrations favoured so-called native  
over non-native tribes.

     * The second cause of the conflict was desertification. Studies  
from the United Nations Environment Programme show that the Sahara  
expanded by 100km in four decades, and that this process reached its  
high point in the mid-1980s, pushing all tribes of North Darfur to  
more fertile lands further south. The resulting land conflict was not  
between races, Arab and Zurga, but between tribes with homelands and  
those without. Contemporary observers such as the Darfuri  
anthropologist Sharif Harir traced the unprecedented brutality of the  
violence in the 1987-1989 war to the fact that sheer survival was at  
stake.

     * The third was the Cold War, with its two sides -- the  
tripartite alliance of Reaganite United States, France and Israel on  
the one hand, and Libya backed up by the Soviet Union on the other --  
arming different factions in neighbouring Chad. As successive armed  
groups took turns ruling Chad, opposition groups took shelter in  
Darfur, where they mobilised and armed. The easy availability of arms  
rapidly militarised the inter-tribal conflict in Darfur.Regional and  
international powers got involved in the Darfur conflict long before  
the Khartoum government did, but no one reading the prosecutor's  
application would be aware of this fact.

     * The final cause that aggravated the land conflict in Darfur  
was the brutal counterinsurgency unleashed by the al-Bashir regime in  
2003 to 2004 in response to an insurgency led by three major tribes  
in the region: the Fur, the Masalit and the Zaghawa.

Four wrong assumptions

The prosecutor's application makes four erroneous assumptions, all of  
them so he can pin the full blame of the violence on al-Bashir. This  
is how the prosecutor put it to journalists at The Hague: "What  
happened in Darfur is a consequence of al-Bashir's will."

The first error is to identify the duration of the conflict in Darfur  
with the presidency of al-Bashir. Yet, the conflict in Darfur began  
as a civil war in 1987, before al-Bashir and his group came to power,  
and long before the cycle of insurgency and counterinsurgency that  
began in 2003. The civil war has become entangled with the  
counterinsurgency, though they have separate causes. Whereas the  
insurgency was a rebel challenge to power in Khartoum, the civil war  
was triggered by the effects of drought and desertification, and  
intensified by two factors, one internal, the other external, one the  
failure to reform the system of tribal homelands and the other an  
effect of the ongoing civil war in Chad.

The second error is to assume that excess deaths in Darfur are the  
result of a single cause: violence. But the fact is that there have  
been two separate if interconnected causes: drought and  
desertification on the one hand, and direct violence on the other.  
World Health Organisation sources -- considered the most reliable  
source of mortality statistics by the US Government Accountability  
Office in its 2006 evaluation -- trace these deaths to two major  
causes:about 70% to 80% to drought-related diarrhoea and 20% to 30%  
to direct violence.

The third error is to assume a single author of violent deaths and  
rape. In his eagerness to make the prosecution's case, Moreno-Ocampo  
not only obscured the origins of the violence in Darfur, he also went  
on to portray life in the internally displaced persons camps in  
Darfur as a contemporary version of life in Nazi concentration camps  
in Europe, with al-Bashir cast in the role of the Führer. At the  
press conference announcing the case against the president of Sudan,  
the prosecutor said: "Al-Bashir organised the destitution, insecurity  
and harassment of the survivors. He did not need bullets. He used  
other weapons: rape, hunger and fear. As efficient, but silent."

To be sure, there were ongoing incidents of rape in Darfur, as there  
are indeed in most conflict situations where armed young men confront  
unarmed young women. This much was recognised by the US special envoy  
to Sudan, Andrew S Natsios, in his testimony before the Senate  
Foreign Relations Committee on April 11 2007: "The government has  
lost control of large parts of the province now. And some of the  
rapes, by the way, that are going on are by rebels raping women in  
their own tribes. We know in one of the refugee camps, it's now  
controlled by the rebels, formally. There have been terrible  
atrocities committed by the rebels against the people in the camps."

Rebels, like government soldiers and the paramilitary Janjaweed, have  
authored both rape and the killing of civilians. Take figures newly  
released by the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur  
(UNAMID) in Khartoum. UNAMID, which keeps a count of each individual  
death, including its circumstance, calculates the total number of  
conflict-related civilian deaths in the year 2008 at 1 520. Of these,  
600 are said to be the result of conflicts over grazing lands among  
Arab tribes. When it comes to the remaining 920, UNAMID says that  
more civilians were killed by rebel movements than by government- 
organised counterinsurgency forces.

The fourth erroneous assumption is that the situation has not changed  
in Darfur since the onset of the counterinsurgency in 2003. In Moreno- 
Ocampo's own words: "In April 2008, the United Nations estimated the  
total number of deaths since 2003 at 300 000." This estimate came  
from John Holmes, UN under-secretary general for humanitarian  
affairs. This is how Holmes put it in the first place: "A study in  
2006 suggested that 200 000 had lost their lives from the combined  
effect of the conflict. That figure must be much higher now, perhaps  
half as much again." There are two qualifications here, and Moreno- 
Ocampo glossed over both. The first was that these mortality figures  
were said to be the result of "a combined effect", referring to  
direct violence and drought. The second qualification was explained  
by Reuters: "United Nations cautioned reporters that the number was  
not a scientific estimate but a 'reasonable extrapolation'." The  
assumption underlying the extrapolation -- that the level of  
mortality has not changed in Darfur from 2003 on -- was contradicted  
by the UN's own technical staff in Sudan. As Julie Flint explained in  
the New York Times of July 6 2007 and the Independent (London) of  
July 31 2007, UN sources spoke of a sharp drop in mortality rates in  
Darfur from early 2005, so much so that these sources report  
mortality estimates had dipped to as low as below 200 per month,  
lower than the number that would constitute an emergency.

That the ICC has politicised the issue of justice is no reason to  
sidestep the question of accountability. The kernel of truth in the  
prosecutor's application concerns 2003-04, when Darfur was the site  
of mass deaths. This was mass murder, but not genocide. Its authors  
were several, not just the government of Sudan. There is no doubt  
that the perpetrators of violence should be held accountable, but  
when and how is a political decision that cannot belong to the ICC  
prosecutor. More than the innocence or guilt of the president of  
Sudan, it is the relationship between law and politics -- including  
the politicisation of the ICC -- that poses an issue of greater  
concern to Africa.

The debate has hitherto focused on the need to have the same rules  
for all war criminals, regardless of national origin or political  
orientation. Only then can the rules claim to be just, so that  
justice may act as deterrence. If, however, justice masquerades as  
selective punishment, only to those who dare transgress American  
power, critics have pointed out that the exercise will not be a  
deterrent to potential war criminals, but only to those who dare  
challenge American power.

I have suggested that the more important question is that of the  
larger political consequences of a fundamentalist pursuit of criminal  
justice by those determined to enforce criminal justice regardless of  
its political context or consequence. Take one example. If the ICC  
were to have the political will and courage to try war criminals in  
the US War on Terror, we can say with confidence that the American  
political system is strong enough to contain its political fallout.  
There is little chance of "red states" going to war against "blue  
states". But can one say with any confidence that the price of single- 
mindedly pursuing criminal justice in Sudan will not be a renewed  
civil war? Such a fundamentalist pursuit should be named vengeance,  
not justice.This is why we need to subordinate criminal  
accountability to a larger pursuit, that for political reform.

Mahmood Mamdani is Herbert Lehman Professor of Government Columbia  
University

o o o

(ii)  DARWIN IN TURKEY :
'Most Express Sympathy for the Censorship'
(03/17/2009)

The firing of a magazine editor in Turkey over her intention to put a  
story about Darwin's evolution theory on the cover has generated a  
flood of criticism. SPIEGEL ONLINE spoke with the editor about just  
how conservative Turkish society has become.

No issue divides Turks more than the country's alleged creeping  
Islamization. Early last week, the Scientific and Technological  
Research Council of Turkey (Tubitak) sparked an international  
controversy after it prevented the publication of a cover story about  
Charles Darwin's evolution theory in Bilim ve Teknik (Science and  
Technology), one of the country's leading science journals. The  
publication's editor-in-chief, 41-year-old Cigdem Atakuman, claims  
she was fired as a result of the incident.

Charles Darwin: a theory too hot for Turkey?

Charles Darwin: a theory too hot for Turkey?
Secular Turks are outraged and the world is watching. Did Tubitak,  
which publishes Bilim ve Teknik, censor a feature about the theory of  
evolution under pressure from the conservative Islamic-oriented AKP- 
led government because it couldn't be reconciled with Muslim  
religious beliefs?

A senior Tubitak official has blamed the editor for removing the  
story, according to Turkish daily Hürriyet, saying changes were made  
at the last minute and rushed. But Atakuman has denied the  
allegation, saying the deputy head of the council, Ömer Cebeci, told  
her the cover story was too controversial and that he no longer  
trusted her to responsibly perform her duties. The paper claims the  
incident has been reduced to a case of "one person's word against the  
other's."

In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, Atakuman defends her position  
and says she is worried about the future of bias-free science in her  
country.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Ms. Atakuman, is it true that you were fired?

Cigdem Atakuman: Yes, it's true. Up until now, there has been no  
official statement. But I was made to understand, verbally, that I  
have no future as the editor-in-chief of Bilim ve Teknik.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Who told you that?

Atakuman: Ömer Cebeci, the vice chairman of the council.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What reasoning did he provide?

Atakuman: The cover story about Darwin was a big mistake, an  
unforgivable error. In the current political climate in Turkey,  
something like that could be perceived as a provocation.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: In what political climate?

Atakuman: I believe Professor Cebeci was referring to the upcoming  
municipal elections in our country. He may also have meant other  
political developments that block prejudice-free science. But I think  
it was about the elections.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: And why? Is it because the governing party's rank and  
file doesn't like the idea of a major cover story about evolution?

Atakuman: I assume so. But I find it extremely difficult to  
comprehend. I've been working together with Professor Cebeci since  
December 2008. Before that I didn't know him -- I was neither  
familiar with his scientific background nor his views. I don't know  
what his understanding of science is.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Could it actually be the case that he is correct? Is  
the theory of evolution, in fact, a provocation in Turkey?

Atakuman: Take a look at the Web site of Nature, the world's most  
renowned science magazine. They are also reporting about censorship  
of the Darwin story and there are many reader commentaries from  
Turks. Most of them express their sympathies for the censorship of  
the Darwin story and for creationism.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Darwin isn't especially popular in Turkey. Only one  
in four believes in the theory of evolution. How do you explain that?

Atakuman: I see the causes in our system of education. Evolution  
isn't the only thing taught badly, if it is taught at all -- most  
things are badly taught.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Do you think that scientific neutrality is in danger  
as a result of this incident?

Atakuman: That's not really what I want to believe, but in recent  
days, I have had concerns about whether we will still be able to work  
free of ideology in the future. Since Professor Cebeci took office,  
we have experienced several problems -- the naming of members of the  
editorial board, for example.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is the issue of Darwin now being hushed up?

Atakuman: No, I believe there will be other publications. This whole  
affair has created awareness of Darwin. Many people now want to get  
informed. There will also be many events in Turkey commemorating  
Darwin's 200th birthday.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Do you know Harun Yahya, the famous Turkish creationist?

Atakuman: Not personally, but I know from my European colleagues that  
they have all received a big, heavy book from him entitled "The Atlas  
of Creation." I also have a copy.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: It must be frustrating that Harun Yahya has  
distributed millions of copies of his book, whereas your cover story  
will not be appearing in Turkey's most famous science magazine.

Atakuman: This creation atlas is an impressive work -- very  
colourful, full of pictures. But intellectually, it impresses me less  
-- as little as creationism does.

Interview conducted by Daniel Steinvorth.


o o o

RFI INTERVIEW: REBBECA HOLDERS, SPOKESPERSON FOR THE NGO TREATMENT  
ACTION CAMPAIGN
by Anustup Roy (18/03/2009)
http://telechargement.rfi.fr.edgesuite.net/rfi/anglais/audio/modules/ 
actuen/R111/Pope_Condom_For_Internet.mp3

ONLINE PETITION: THE POPE VS CONDOMS
Pope Benedict's statement last week that condoms may aggravate the  
AIDS epidemic could put millions of lives at risk. Sign the petition  
to the Pope to take care not to undermine proven AIDS prevention work!
http://www.avaaz.org/en/pope_benedict_petition/?cl=205560339&v=3055


______


[8] Announcements:

(i)
Traumatised Tribals of Orissa Cant Vote: Will meet the Press (25  
March 2009, New Delhi)
Citizens for Justice and Peace

Delegation of 20 tribals and indigenous peoples from the Kandhmahals  
region of Orissa badly traumatised by the communal violence  
accompanied by local activists are in the capital since March 23 and  
will meet the Election Commission on Wednesday March 25, 2009. The  
delegation is appealing to the Election Commission to address  
seriously the issue of disenfranchisement of over 22,000 indigenous  
peoples from this district and either consider postponement of  
elections in these areas or implement special measures to ensure  
their franchise for the displaced.

The delegation will meet the press at the Press Club of India on  
March 25 at 2 p.m.

Over the three day visit, the delegation has also met the National  
Human Rights Commission, the National Minorities Commission and the  
office of the United Nations Commmissioner for Human Rights. To  
address the critical issues of the state meetings with national  
political parties have also been organised.

On March 23 the petition file by victims and activists came up for  
hearing before the apex court and Chief Justice Balakrishnan posted  
it along with the Archbishops matter for hearing on April 6. The main  
prayer in the petition is for restraining the Orissa administration  
from forcible closure of relief camps and the stay on the functioning  
of the camp courts that in the situation where tribal Christians are  
unable to be pesent at the hearings are in effect rendering tribals  
landless. The entire visit has been supported by Citizens for Justice  
and Peace.

Teesta Setalvad, Secretary

o o o

(ii)

Talk at Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life (New York)

The Nationalist Hindu Militias

Wednesday, March 25, 12:30-2pm

International Affairs Building, Room 707

420 West 118th Street


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