79 Years After Hiroshima & Nagasaki: A Grim Reminder of Nuclear Annihilation

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Nuclear Disarmament

Erico Platt looks at the disarmament exhibition that she staged, “Three Quarters of a Century After Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Hibakusha—Brave Survivors Working for a Nuclear-Free World.” Credit: UNODA/Diane Barnes

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 1 2024 (IPS) – The upcoming 79th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which took place on August 6 and 9, 1945, remains a grim reminder of the destructive consequences of nuclear weapons.

The US bombings killed an estimated 90,000 to 210,000, with roughly half of the deaths occurring on the first day in Hiroshima.

But despite an intense global campaign for nuclear disarmament, the world has witnessed an increase in the number of nuclear powers from five—the US, UK, France, China and Russia—to nine, including India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel.

Is the continued worldwide anti-nuclear campaign an exercise in futility? And will the rising trend continue—with countries such as Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and South Korea—as potential nuclear powers of the future?

South Africa is the only country that has voluntarily given up nuclear weapons after developing them. In the 1980s, South Africa produced six nuclear weapons, but dismantled them between 1989 and 1993. A number of factors may have influenced South Africa’s decision, including national security, international relations, and a desire to avoid becoming a pariah state.

But there is an equally valid argument that there have been no nuclear wars—only threats—largely because of the success of the world-wide anti-nuclear campaign, the role of the United Nations and the collective action by most of the 193 member states in adopting several anti-nuclear treaties.

According to the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA), the United Nations has sought to eliminate weapons  of mass destruction (WMDs) ever since the establishment of the world body. The first resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1946 established a commission to deal with problems related to the discovery of atomic energy, among others.

The commission was to make proposals for, inter alia, the control of atomic energy to the extent necessary to ensure its use only for peaceful purposes.

Several multilateral treaties have since been established with the aim of preventing nuclear proliferation and testing, while promoting progress in nuclear disarmament.

These include the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), the Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water, also known as the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), which was signed in 1996 but has yet to enter into force, and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

Jackie Cabasso, Executive Director, Western States Legal Foundation in Oakland, California, which monitors and analyzes US nuclear weapons programs and policies, told IPS: “As we approach the 79th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world is facing a greater danger of nuclear war than at any time since 1945.”

“The terrifying doctrine of “nuclear deterrence,” which should long ago have been delegitimized and relegated to the dustbin of history and replaced with multilateral, non-militarized common security, has metastasized into a pathological ideology brandished by nuclear-armed states and their allies to justify the perpetual possession and threatened use—including first use—of nuclear weapons,” she pointed out.

“It is more important than ever that we heed the warnings of the aging hibakusha (A-bomb survivors): What happened to us must never be allowed to happen to anyone again; nuclear weapons and human beings cannot co-exist; no more Hiroshimas, no more Nagasakis!”

This demands an irreversible process of nuclear disarmament. But to the contrary, all nuclear armed states are qualitatively and, in some cases, quantitatively upgrading their nuclear arsenals and a new multipolar arms race is underway, she noted.

“To achieve the elimination of nuclear weapons and a global society that is more fair, peaceful, and ecologically sustainable, we will need to move from the irrational fear-based ideology of deterrence to the rational fear of an eventual nuclear weapon use, whether by accident, miscalculation, or design.”

“We will also need to stimulate a rational hope that security can be redefined in humanitarian and ecologically sustainable terms that will lead to the elimination of nuclear weapons and dramatic demilitarization, freeing up tremendous resources desperately needed to address universal human needs and protect the environment.”

In this time of multiple global crises, “our work for the elimination of nuclear weapons must take place in a much broader framework, taking into account the interface between nuclear and conventional weapons and militarism in general, the humanitarian and long-term environmental consequences of nuclear war, and the fundamental incompatibility of nuclear weapons with democracy, the rule of law, and human wellbeing,” declared Cabasso.

Dr. M.V. Ramana, Professor and Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security School of Public Policy and Global Affairs and Graduate Program Director, MPPGA at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, told IPS, “The glass is half-full or half-empty depending on how one looks at it.”

“The fact that we have avoided nuclear war since 1945 is also partly due to the persistence of the anti-nuclear movement. Historians like Lawrence Wittner have pointed to the many instances when governments have chosen nuclear restraint instead of unrestrained expansion.”

While South Africa is the only country that dismantled its entire nuclear weapons program, many countries—Sweden, for example—have chosen not to develop nuclear weapons even though they had the technical capacity to do so. They did so in part because of strong public opposition to nuclear weapons, which in turn is due to social movements supporting nuclear disarmament, he pointed out.

Thus, organizing for nuclear disarmament is not futile. Especially as we move into another era of conflicts between major powers, such movements will be critical to our survival, declared Ramana.

According to the UN, a group of elderly hibakusha, called Nihon Hidankyo, have dedicated their lives to achieving a non-proliferation treaty, which they hope will ultimately lead to a total ban on nuclear weapons.

“On an overcrowded train on the Hakushima line, I fainted for a while, holding in my arms my eldest daughter of one year and six months. I regained my senses at her cries and found no one else was on the train,” a 34-year-old woman testifies in the booklet. She was located just two kilometres from the Hiroshima epicenter.

Fleeing to her relatives in Hesaka, at age 24, another woman remembers that “people, with the skin dangling down, were stumbling along. They fell down with a thud and died one after another,” adding, “still now I often have nightmares about this, and people say, ‘it’s neurosis’.”

One man who entered Hiroshima after the bomb recalled in the exhibition “that dreadful scene—I cannot forget even after many decades.”

At a disarmament exhibition in UN Headquarters in New York, a visitor reads text about a young boy bringing his little brother to a cremation site in Nagasaki, Japan. Credit: UNODA/Erico Platt

At a disarmament exhibition in UN Headquarters in New York, a visitor reads text about a young boy bringing his little brother to a cremation site in Nagasaki, Japan. Credit: UNODA/Erico Platt

A woman who was 25 years old at the time said, “When I went outside, it was dark as night. Then it got brighter and brighter, and I could see burnt people crying and running about in utter confusion. It was hell…I found my neighbor trapped under a fallen concrete wall… Only half of his face was showing. He was burned alive”.

The steadfast conviction of the Hidankyo remains: “Nuclear weapons are absolute evil that cannot coexist with humans. There is no choice but to abolish them.”

Addressing the UN Security Council last March, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that with geopolitical tensions escalating the risk of nuclear warfare to its highest point in decades, reducing and abolishing nuclear weapons is the only viable path to saving humanity.

“There is one path—and one path only—that will vanquish this senseless and suicidal shadow once and for all.  We need disarmament now,” he said, urging nuclear-weapon States to re-engage to prevent any use of a nuclear weapon, re-affirm moratoria on nuclear testing and “urgently agree that none of them will be the first to use nuclear weapons.”

He called for reductions in the number of nuclear weapons led by the holders of the largest arsenals—the United States and the Russian Federation—to “find a way back to the negotiating table” to fully implement the New Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, or START Treaty, and agree on its successor.

“When each country pursues its own security without regard for others, we create global insecurity that threatens us all,” he observed.  Almost eight decades after the incineration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear weapons still represent a clear danger to global peace and security, growing in power, range and stealth.”

“States possessing them are absent from the negotiating table, and some statements have raised the prospect of unleashing nuclear hell—threats that we must all denounce with clarity and force,” he said.  Moreover, emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and cyber and outer space domains have created new risks.”

From Pope Francis, who calls the possession of nuclear arms “immoral”, to the hibakusha, the brave survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to Hollywood, where Oppenheimer brought the harsh reality of nuclear doomsday to vivid life for millions around the world, people are calling for an end to the nuclear madness.  “Humanity cannot survive a sequel to Oppenheimer,” he warned.

When Nagasaki marked the 78th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of the city last year, the mayor Shiro Suzuki, urged world powers to abolish nuclear weapons, saying nuclear deterrence also increases risks of nuclear war, according to an Associated Press (AP) report.

He called on the Group of Seven (G7) industrial powers to adopt a separate document on nuclear disarmament that called for using nuclear weapons as deterrence.

“Now is the time to show courage and make the decision to break free from dependence on nuclear deterrence,” Suzuki said in his peace declaration. “As long as states are dependent on nuclear deterrence, we cannot realize a world without nuclear weapons.”

Russia’s nuclear threat has encouraged other nuclear states to accelerate their dependence on nuclear weapons or enhance capabilities, further increasing the risk of nuclear war, and that Russia is not the only one representing the risk of nuclear deterrence, Suzuki said.

Suzuki, whose parents were hibakusha, or survivors of the Nagasaki attack, said knowing the reality of the atomic bombings is the starting point for achieving a world without nuclear weapons. He said the survivors’ testimonies are a true deterrent against nuclear weapons use, the AP report said.

This article is brought to you by IPS Noram, in collaboration with INPS Japan and Soka Gakkai International, in consultative status with UN ECOSOC.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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Sportwashing Allegations at Africa’s Top Football Tournament

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Africa, Climate Action, Climate Change, Development & Aid, Editors’ Choice, Energy, Environment, Featured, Freedom of Expression, Green Economy, Headlines, Human Rights, Humanitarian Emergencies, Sustainable Development Goals, TerraViva United Nations

Climate Change

Opponents of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline protested American International Group's continued support of the project. The protest was in New York in July. Credit: 350.org

Opponents of the East African Crude Oil pipeline protested American International Group’s continued support of the project. The protest was in New York in July. Credit: 350.org

ABUJA, Jul 30 2024 (IPS) – Following the recent Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) tournament in Ivory Coast, a continent-wide campaign has emerged on social media challenging the tournament’s main sponsor, TotalEnergies, over its involvement in the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP).

EACOP, a massive 1,443-kilometer crude oil export pipeline, is designed to transport oil from Western Uganda’s oilfields to the port of Tanga in Tanzania. TotalEnergies, a major stakeholder in the project, will extract oil from the Tilenga field and export it to the Global North.

Environmentalists argue that the project threatens the livelihoods of tens of thousands of people and the region’s fragile ecosystems. The Ugandan and Tanzanian governments have dismissed these concerns, asserting that the pipeline is essential for bolstering their economies.

Many of these campaigners, particularly environmentalists, have faced harassment and arrest.

One of them, Stephen Kwikiriza, an employee of Uganda’s Environment Governance Institute (EGI), a non-profit organization, was reportedly abducted and beaten by the Ugandan armed forces in Kampala on June 4, 2024.

After being questioned, he was abandoned hundreds of miles from the capital, highlighting the latest episode in the crackdown on environmentalists in Uganda.

TotalEnergies, through their press officer, François Sinecan, emphatically denied that the company had anything to do with the harassment of environmentalists, or was involved in legitimizing the company through sponsorship.

Sportswashing

Critics argue that TotalEnergies is exploiting Uganda and Tanzania for their oil, even as it faces numerous legal battles due to its role in the climate crisis and refusal to take responsibility.

They worry that TotalEnergies is using AFCON, the continent’s biggest football tournament, and its global viewership to enhance its image while profiting from climate-wrecking fossil fuel extraction across Africa.

“AFCON is one of the ways they [TotalEnergies] are using to legitimize their existence. They have to use the sports arena. They seem to say, ‘Look at what we are doing in Africa, and in your communities, it is to your benefit.’ Every time you look at the logo of TotalEnergies, you might be convinced that this is a big corporation that should invest [in Africa], when in actuality, they are destroying our existence,” Nkurunziza Alphonse, the Ugandan Coordinator of the Students Against EACOP Uganda, told IPS.

Alphonse was arrested in October 2022 when he led a group of students to the EU embassy in Kampala to deliver a petition against EACOP. But he is not the only student to be arrested and harassed in recent times.

On December 15 last year, Bwete Abdul Aziiz, a co-founder of the Justice Movement Uganda and a student at Kyambogo University in Kampala, rallied 50 students, including members of the movement, to protest and deliver a petition to the Ugandan parliament against the EACOP.

However, the students did not reach their destination as the police dispersed the protest and arrested Abdul Aziiz, along with three other students who are members of the movement.

“Before we were taken to the Central Police Station in Kampala, where we spent four days, we were held in an enclosed space for about an hour where the police threatened us to stop fighting the government. I was kicked in the ribs by a police officer, and other colleagues were slapped,” Abdul Aziiz told IPS.

However, Sinecan, TotalEnergies press officer, denied claims of sportwashing and involvement in the arrests of climate activists.

“Africa is part of the DNA of TotalEnergies, which has been present on the continent for ninety years and has never ceased to develop its activities and strengthen its local roots. The company employs 10,000 men and women in more than 40 African countries, working across the entire energy production and distribution chain. Every day, nearly 4 million customers visit the 4,700 service stations in the TotalEnergies network in Africa,” Sinecan told IPS.

He added that TotalEnergies  “will not tolerate any threat or attack against those who peacefully defend and promote human rights.”

“TotalEnergies has a history of engaging directly with all members of civil society, including NGOs involved in human rights issues. To this end, the company’s commitments include quarterly meetings, stakeholder dialogue, bilateral meetings, webinars on keynote topics identified by NGOs and responses to questions and concerns raised by all project stakeholders,” said Sinecan.

However, activists that IPS spoke to do not agree.

Bhekhumuzi Bhebhe, Campaigns Lead at Power Shift Africa, in a statement sent to IPS said, “Investing millions in sportswashing while undercompensating displaced households exposes a profound deceit by the French multinational. It also highlights the glaring disconnect between corporate sponsorship and genuine social responsibility.”

But the French oil giant denied claims of undercompensating displaced households, telling IPS that “as with all other aspects of the project, TotalEnergies stringently complies with local regulations and international standards (IFC).”

Football and Climate Change

The 2023 AFCON was postponed to 2024 due to adverse weather conditions, leading critics to argue that the tournament underscored the impacts of the climate crisis, for which TotalEnergies and other oil majors are largely responsible.

Richard Heede of the Climate Accountability Project has described EACOP as a mid-sized carbon bomb. The pipeline is projected to become operational by 2025 and once completed, it is expected to contribute approximately 34 million tons of carbon emissions annually for around 25 years.

Baraka Lenga, Greenfaith Tanzania coordinator, considers this a climate disaster.

“For capitalists and businessmen, EACOP implies making billions of dollars. TotalEnergies does not care about human rights but about money. In Tanzania, over 70 percent of citizens depend on agriculture, yet instead of being concerned about the negative impacts of EACOP, TotalEnergies is focused on profit,” Lenga said.

Alagoa Morris, an environmental expert and human rights activist in Nigeria, told IPS that African governments allow oil giants to exploit communities in the continent to maintain support from the Global North, where the majority of these oil firms are based. He says this has also led to numerous oil spills in the continent.

Last year, the Nigerian government confirmed the loss of 3,000 barrels of crude oil in TotalEnergies’ spill in the oil-rich Niger-Delta region, which is already one of the most polluted areas on the planet due to frequent oil spills.

“African governments are complicit in the exploitation of the continent’s oil resources because the wealth generated from oil is then used to fuel the lust for power and wealth of a few individuals, perpetuating a cycle of corruption and environmental degradation,” Morris said.

Renewable Energies?

To do away with fossil fuels by mid-century, world leaders during cop28 held at UAE last year, pledged to keep investing in renewable energies. However, with a projected population of about 2.5 billion in 2050, many African leaders doubt that renewable energy can adequately substitute for energy obtained from fossil fuels required to produce power for a rapidly growing population in Africa.

Seyifunmi Adebote, an environmental policy expert in Nigeria, believes Africa must embrace renewable energy but according to him, “many countries on the continent lack the infrastructure to transition to renewable energy in the short run.”

Despite accusations of investing in fossil fuels, TotalEnergies told IPS that it has “dedicated USD 5 billion to renewable and low-carbon energies and will dedicate another USD 5 billion in 2024. This is the second year in a row that TotalEnergies has invested more in low-carbon energies than in new hydrocarbon projects.

“Since 2020, we have been resolutely committed to our transition strategy, which is based on two pillars: gas and electricity. Gas and low-carbon electricity are at the heart of tomorrow’s energy system. Gas is an essential transitional energy to support the rise of intermittent renewable energies and replace coal in power generation. In electricity, we are already one of the world’s biggest solar and wind power developers, which should put us in the top 5 worldwide in this sector by 2030.”

Victory In Sight

The fate of EACOP is uncertain after several financial institutions, including previous supporters of TotalEnergies, announced they would no longer back the project due to global environmental protests.

European lawmakers have also condemned and called for its delay.

For the Ugandan-based Alphonse, this marks a significant victory in the fight against EACOP, as the lack of financiers could lead to the project being suspended.

“This is the time African countries should move away from fossil fuels. Oil is destroying our continent,” he said.

IPS UN Bureau Report

IPS UN Bureau, IPS UN Bureau Report,

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Kenya’s Protests: More than a Question of Tax

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Opinion

Credit: Kabir Dhanji/AFPvia Getty Images

LONDON, Jul 23 2024 (IPS) – Kenya’s President William Ruto has withdrawn the tax-increasing Finance Bill that sparked mass protests. He has sacked his cabinet and the head of the police has resigned. But the anger many feel hasn’t gone away, and protests continue.

The protests have brought Kenya’s Gen Z onto the political stage, with young people – over 65 per cent of the population – at the forefront. Since the protests began, they’ve made full use of social media to share views, explain the impact of proposed changes, organise protests and raise funds to help those injured or arrested.

These protests have been different to those in the past, much more organic than previous opposition-organised demonstrations. The movement has brought people together across the ethnic lines politicians have so often exploited in the past.

People have protested even in the knowledge that security force violence is guaranteed. At least 50 people have died so far. As protests have continued, people have increasingly demanded accountability for the killings and the many other acts of state violence.

Out-of-touch elite

The Finance Bill would have imposed a levy on a range of everyday essentials such as bread, and taxes on internet use, mobile phones and money transfer services. Women would have been further hit by an increase in tax on menstrual products. For many, this was simply too much to bear in a context of high youth unemployment and rising costs.

The tax increases were among conditions demanded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in return for a US$3.9 billion package, along with the IMF’s usual prescription of spending cuts and privatisation that generally hit the poorest people hardest.

Ruto has continued to blame his predecessor, Uhuru Kenyatta, for lavish spending on grand projects. But Ruto was Kenyatta’s vice president, and only broke with his long-time ally after he wasn’t chosen as his party’s next presidential candidate.

To protesters, Ruto is as out of touch as the presidents before him. Opponents accuse him of trying to boost his presence on the world stage, including by offering to have Kenya lead an international policing mission to violence-torn Haiti, rather than addressing domestic problems. They see him as too willing to meet the demands of US-dominated financial institutions such as the IMF rather than stand up for Kenyans.

Problems such as corruption and patronage have run through multiple governments. Politicians are accused of enjoying lavish lifestyles insulated from people’s everyday problems. Kenya’s members of parliament are proportionally the second-highest paid in the world, earning 76 times average per capita GDP. Even so, corruption allegations are rife.

Ruto’s administration attempted to create another layer of government jobs a court ruled the move unconstitutional. He created new staffed offices for the first lady, deputy first lady and prime ministerial spouse, a decision dropped due to the protests. The proposed budget was filled with such examples of the government planning to spend more on itself.

Broken promises and state violence

For many, the sense of betrayal is heightened because when Ruto won an unexpected and narrow election victory in 2022, it was on a platform of being the champion of struggling people, promising to tackle the high cost of living. But costs kept increasing, and Ruto quickly reneged on promises to stop electricity price rises. He axed subsidies on energy, fuel and maize flour. The government’s 2023 Finance Act included a raft of new taxes and levies.

These measures sparked opposition-organised protests, and the reaction was state violence that left six people dead. The pattern is consistent. Kenyan security forces seem to know no response to protest other than violence.

On 25 June, the worst day of violence in the 2024 protests, security forces fired live ammunition at protesters, killing several, including some reportedly targeted by police snipers perched atop buildings. They’ve also used rubber bullets, teargas and water cannon, including against media and medical personnel. Protest leaders and social media influencers have been targeted for abduction and arrest.

On 25 June, some protesters briefly attempted to storm parliament and started fires, but there have been accusations that politicians have paid people to infiltrate the protest movement and instigate acts of violence to try to justify security force brutality. Media providing live coverage of protests have reported receiving threats from the authorities telling them to shut down and internet access has been disrupted. Influencers have had their accounts suspended.

Although Ruto eventually pledged to take action where there is video evidence of police violence, he’s also been criticised for saying little about protest deaths and previously praised police actions. He accused ‘organised criminals’ of hijacking the protests and called the attempt to storm parliament ‘treasonous’.

Politicians have repeatedly smeared civil society organisations, claiming they’re being used by foreign powers to fund protests. Ruto, without any evidence, has accused the US-based Ford Foundation of helping finance unrest.

Demands for change

Over a month on, protests demanding Ruto’s resignation continue. It’s not just about the economy, and it’s not just about Ruto. It’s about the rejection of a whole political class and its way of governing. Trust in the institutions of government is very low.

Dialogue has been promised, but many feel it will be superficial. The government’s response to the protests should be to listen and consult deeply – and then change. People have shown they have power. They’ve shown that a system where they elect a political elite every few years to make decisions for them isn’t enough. They’ve shown they want something better.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

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Biden Administration Faces Rebellion Within its Own Ranks over Gaza War

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Opinion

Schools-turned-shelters run by the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA, have suffered serious damage in strikes in the last week. July 2024. Credit: United Nations

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 19 2024 (IPS) – The Biden administration, which has come under heavy fire for its unyielding pro-Israeli stand on the nine-month-old war in Gaza, is facing a rebellion within its own bureaucratic ranks—12 and counting.

The 12 government officials, who recently resigned, have accused the US of providing diplomatic cover for the continuous flow of arms to Israel ensuring “our undeniable complicity in the killings and forced starvation of a besieged Palestinian population in Gaza.”

This is not only morally reprehensible and in clear violation of international humanitarian law and US laws, but it has also put a target on America’s back,” they continue, arguing that it has put the lives of service members and diplomats at risk.

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir, a retired professor of international relations, most recently at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University (NYU), and who taught courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies, told IPS: “I share the overall view of the 12 US government officials who have resigned in protest against the Biden administration’s policy in connection with the Israel-Hamas war”.

They wrote in their joint statement, titled Service in Dissent, that “America’s diplomatic cover for, and continuous flow of arms to Israel has ensured our undeniable complicity in the killings and forced starvation of a besieged Palestinian population in Gaza. This is not only morally reprehensible and in clear violation of international humanitarian law and US laws, but it has also put a target on America’s back.”

https://jointstatement.tiiny.site/

“I have supported Israel’s right to defend itself as well as the Biden administration’s support of Israel’s war efforts, standing by the US’s iron-clad commitment to Israel’s security by providing it with all necessary military aid and political cover.

“I have stated time and again that Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack and Israel’s unparalleled retaliation have reinforced my own view, which I share with many others, that there will be no resolution to the 76-year-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict short of a two-state solution.

I still hold to the position that it will be impossible to return to the status quo that prevailed before October 7, as a new paradigm was created that offered the inimitable opportunity to recommence the peace negotiations that could lead to a two-state solution,” said Dr Ben-Meir.

Meanwhile there have also been negative reactions in European capitals. Last February, the New York Times ran a story headlined “US and European officials release a Letter Protesting Israeli Policies.”

According to the Times report, more than 500 officials in the US, Britain and the European Union (EU) released a “public letter of dissent” against their (respective) government’s support of Israel in its war in Gaza.”

In an oped piece published on the IPS wire July 18, Mouin Rabbani, Co-Editor of Jadaliyya and Non-Resident Fellow with the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies (CHS), says the Letter of Dissent makes indisputably clear that US policy towards the present crisis has been an absolute failure at virtually every level.

https://www.ipsnews.net/2024/07/us-policy-towards-gaza-crisis-absolute-failure-virtually-every-level/

Not only has it failed to achieve any of its objectives and further consolidate Western hegemony in the Middle East, but it has made the US government directly and actively complicit in the genocide currently before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, he said.

As the signatories note, the US is “wilfully” violating not only international laws that are binding upon Washington, but is similarly and knowingly violating US domestic law in its fanatic determination to see Israel’s mass atrocities through to the bitter end, said Rabbani, who is also a Non-Resident Fellow at Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN).

“Tellingly, and quite accurately, they also point out that the Biden administration’s determination to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his ultra-rightist, annexationist government has led to the suppression of basic constitutional freedoms within the United States,” he declared.

Meanwhile, in an address to the UN Security Council on July 17, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that recent developments are driving a stake through the heart of any prospect for a two-State solution.

“The geography of the occupied West Bank is steadily being altered through Israeli administrative and legal steps. The seizure of large land parcels in strategic areas and changes to planning, land management and governance are expected to significantly accelerate settlement expansion”.

These changes, he pointed out, include the issuance of two military orders at the end of May. These orders transferred powers to, and appointed, a civilian deputy in Israel’s Civil Administration, which is alarming.

This move is another significant advance in the ongoing transfer of authority over many aspects of daily life in the occupied West Bank, and a further step towards extending Israeli sovereignty over this occupied territory.

If left unaddressed, these measures risk causing irreparable damage, he said.

“We must change course. All settlement activity must cease immediately. Israeli settlements are a flagrant violation of international law and a key obstacle to peace. The violence must end, and the perpetrators of the violence must be swiftly brought to justice.

Israel must ensure the safety and security of the Palestinian population, Guterres declared.

Elaborating further Dr Ben-Meir said: “Personally, I was in favor of crippling Hamas militarily. Still, I have also repeatedly stated that while Israel may be able to crush Hamas militarily, it will be unable to destroy it as a political movement that holds a specific ideology that calls for Israel’s destruction.

“However, I have never subscribed to the notion that Hamas will ever be in a position to extinguish Israel for many reasons, including the fact that Hamas leaders know only too well that Israel is a formidable military power whose existence is irrevocable. The war has made it clear that challenging Israel’s right to exist is tantamount to suicide”.

President Biden was the first global leader to affirm that, given the new developing circumstances, a two-state solution is a prerequisite to end this endemic conflict.

As the war continued to grind on and as the Palestinians’ death toll and destruction were mounting, and Prime Minister Netanyahu categorically refused to even mention any solution along the lines of an independent state, the whole idea of a two-state solution was dropped from Biden’s lexicon. But the flow of weapons to Israel, if anything, was increasing without any preconditions.

Moreover, the US vetoed two UNSC resolutions that called for a ceasefire while food, water, fuel, and medical supplies were dwindling, and the displacement of Palestinians by the hundreds of thousands continued unabated.

Meanwhile, Israel’s relentless bombing using American-made bombs, which were killing thousands in densely populated areas, made the US complicit in the horrific carnage. By now, more than 37,000 Palestinians have been killed, and more than half of Gaza lies in ruin, Dr Ben-Meir said.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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Rights Groups Demand Governments Protect Exiled Journalists, Dissidents

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Freedom of Expression

Irene Khan, Special Rapporteur for freedom of expression and opinion, briefs reporters at UN Headquarters. Credit: Manuel Elías/UN

Irene Khan, Special Rapporteur for freedom of expression and opinion, briefs reporters at UN Headquarters. Credit: Manuel Elías/UN

BRATISLAVA, Jul 19 2024 (IPS) – Rights groups have called for governments to do more to combat transnational repression as a series of recent reports show growing numbers of exiled journalists, political dissidents and rights defenders are being targeted by autocratic regimes in an attempt to silence them.

They say governments must do more to deal with the repression, which takes the form of online harassment, surveillance, enforced disappearances, physical attacks and sometimes even killings, to protect the safety of these people.

“We have seen an increase in transnational repression, tied into the rise in authoritarianism around the world in general. Generally, there is a growing awareness of this complex problem among host countries and a willingness to do something about it.

“But more work needs to be done in some areas and governments need to support exiled journalists and understand the vital importance of the work they do,” Fiona O’Brien, UK Bureau Director at Reporters Without Borders (RSF), told IPS.

The scale of the problem has been laid bare in a number of reports in recent months.

In February, rights group Freedom House released a report documenting scores of attacks, including assassinations, abductions and assaults, carried out by governments against people outside their borders in 2023.

Naming Russia, Cambodia, Myanmar, Turkmenistan and China as the biggest perpetrators, it also reported on the first known cases of transitional repression sanctioned by a number of governments, including the regimes of Cuba, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, El Salvador, Myanmar, Sierra Leone and Yemen.

The group said that 44 countries—more than a fifth of the world’s national governments—have attempted to silence dissidents, activists, political opponents and members of ethnic or religious minorities beyond their own borders in the last ten years, with 1,034 recorded direct, physical incidents of transnational repression.

Meanwhile, at the end of June, while presenting a report on transnational repression, the United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, Irene Khan, raised concerns not just about increasing incidents of transnational repression, but host countries’ responses to it.

“Too often, states are either unwilling for political reasons or unable for lack of capacity or resources to protect and support journalists in exile. Journalists should not be treated as political pawns but as human beings in distress who, at great cost to themselves, are contributing to the realization of our human right to information,” Khan said.

Following the report, scores of governments issued a joint statement condemning the repression and committing to coordinated action to help people being targeted and to hold accountable those behind any attacks. But it did not spell out any specific measures that should be implemented to do this.

Rights groups say that concrete steps must be taken by host governments to address the problem both in their own countries, and to confront those regimes perpetrating such acts.

Phil Lynch, Executive Director at the non-profit organisation International Service for Human Rights, said such action should involve host states not only providing comprehensive protection and support to those at risk of acts of transnational repression, but also measures, to undermine the capabilities of regimes to target people abroad.

He said host states must ensure they do not support or acquiesce in acts of transnational repression, such as through extradition or refoulement to states engaged in the persecution of human rights defenders; do not provide or export the tools or technologies of transnational repression, such as spyware and arms, to repressive states; must build awareness and law enforcement capabilities to respond to acts of transnational repression; and publicly denounce, investigate and pursue accountability for acts of transnational repression, including through sanctions and diplomatic repercussions.

“They should also prioritise human rights in foreign policy and relations both at bilateral and multilateral levels, adopting a principled and consistent approach to human rights in all situations, without selectivity and without discrimination,” he told IPS.

The lack of any serious consequences for regimes using transnational repression is helping perpetuate its widescale use, experts say.

“Governments don’t seem to be shying away from using transnational repression. This is likely because there has been very little accountability even in the most well-publicized cases, like the assassination of [Saudi dissident writer] Jamal Khashoggi. Since governments aren’t paying a price for targeting dissidents abroad, there’s little reason for them not to attempt it,” Yana Gorokhovskaia, Research Director, Strategy and Design, at Freedom House, told IPS.

But it is not just host country governments that could do more, experts say.

“Most of the harassment and attacks are online. Big tech have been totally absent from [efforts to fight transnational repression]. Governments have to hold big tech to account on this,” said O’Brien.

“Increasingly, acts of transnational repression occur online or are technology-facilitated. Technology providers have a duty to conduct due diligence to ensure their technologies and tools are not used, directly or indirectly, to restrict or violate human rights, including through acts of transnational repression. Governments should also legislate to mandate that human rights due diligence is undertaken by companies,” added Lynch.

It appears that some countries are becoming increasingly aware of the issue and willing to improve how they tackle it.

O’Brien said this following an RSF report on harassment of Iranian journalists in the UK released earlier this year. British authorities have “shown a lot of interest in how to tackle this problem better,”  while Freedom House has highlighted how President Joe Biden’s administration has made addressing the issue a priority across law enforcement and security agencies.

Gorokhovskaia also pointed out that over the last four years various countries have adopted policies to mitigate the threat posed by transnational repression, including improved training for police and security agencies and more outreach to communities that can be targeted.

“Countries have also become more aware of how international organizations, like Interpol, can be misused for transnational repression and taken steps to address this (by examining Interpol notices from certain perpetrator countries),” she said.

But research from other groups shows a much less reassuring picture.

A report from Human Rights Watch (HRW) said some host country governments were not only failing to ensure adequate protective measures for those at risk but were even actively facilitating transnational repression.

UN special rapporteur Khan also warned of host states becoming enablers “of transnational repression, for instance, by colluding in abductions instigated by the home state.”

Some alleged cases of such facilitation involve ostensibly stable, democratic, western states.

Abdulrahman Al-Khalidi, a political activist and a known dissident, arrived in Bulgaria in October 2021.

A campaigner for human rights and advocate for democratic reforms, he had fled his home country in the wake of mass arrests following the Arab Spring.

But since crossing into Bulgaria and claiming asylum, he has faced a complicated and, he says, at times incomprehensible legal battle over authorities’ continued refusal to grant him asylum and release him from detention at the migration centre despite court rulings in his favour.

He is facing deportation to Saudi Arabia, where, he told IPS, he will almost certainly be killed.

Al-Khalidi believes the Saudi secret service is behind the Bulgarian authorities’ blocking of his asylum. He says that during questioning by agency officials, he was told they were working with Saudi authorities on his case and that Saudi officials wanted him returned to Saudi Arabia. The Bulgarian state security agency has repeatedly said Al-Khalidi is a threat to national security, thereby blocking his asylum and release from detention.

Speaking to IPS in early July as he began a hunger strike while at a migrant detention centre near the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, where he has been held for the last three years, Al-Khalidi had a warning for governments hosting exiled dissidents and journalists.

“We live in a time full of international turmoil in which younger generations believe in anarchism more than they believe in democratic principles. This is very dangerous. The blame for this is fully borne by politicians who benefit from this and whose actions contradict the principles of the state, subsequently raising generations who lose their faith in both,” he said.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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Silenced: Women’s Many Layered Struggles for Climate Justice in Nepal

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Active Citizens, Asia-Pacific, Civil Society, Climate Change, Climate Change Justice, Editors’ Choice, Featured, Gender, Headlines, Human Rights, Sustainable Development Goals, TerraViva United Nations, Women & Climate Change, Women in Politics

Women & Climate Change

Silenced and sidelined, women politicians in Nepal fight for their voices to be heard, especially as they represent a population most impacted by climate change.

Women farmers in Helambu, Sindhupalchwok. Women, who are the primary growers, have to deal with changing patterns of snowfall and rain, which is affecting their agricultural activities. However, they feel like no one is listening to their concerns. Credit: Tanka Dhakal/IPS

Women farmers in Helambu, Sindhupalchwok. Women, who are the primary growers, have to deal with changing patterns of snowfall and rain, which is affecting their agricultural activities. However, they feel like no one is listening to their concerns. Credit: Tanka Dhakal/IPS

KATHMANDU, Jul 18 2024 (IPS) – A group aligned with the mayor of Chhayanath Rara Municipality in the Mugu district of Nepal’s Karnali Province physically attacked Aishwarya Malla for simply asking for a budgetary review of the local government.

“As a deputy mayor, I have the right to know where the budget is allocated, but the mayor’s team attacked me,” Malla said. “They did it only because I’m a woman, but they forget I’m also an elected representative with a responsibility to serve people, especially women and marginalized sections of our society.”

Malla has had an upward battle trying to get her voice heard.

Earlier in May, she requested just a few minutes to lay out her area’s issues related to climate change. She was in the nation’s capital, Kathmandu, where the International Dialogue on Climate Change was happening.

“If you want to know the ground reality, you have to give time to speak,” she said in her loud, passionate voice, but she didn’t get the chance. “We represent the women and lower sections of society, and nobody listens or wants to give us space.”

Aishwarya Malla (left), Deputy Mayor of Chhayanath Rara Municipality, and Shanti Malla Bhandari (right), Vice President of Guthichaur Rural Municipality. Credit: Tanka Dhakal/IPS

Aishwarya Malla (left), Deputy Mayor of Chhayanath Rara Municipality, and Shanti Malla Bhandari (right), Vice President of Guthichaur Rural Municipality. Credit: Tanka Dhakal/IPS

In Nepal, local governments have the responsibility to be the first and most accessible authority to serve people, and elected representatives run their constituencies.

In leadership positions (mayor and their deputies or presidents and their vice presidents), women’s representation as candidates is mandatory for political parties. However, only 25 local governments have women serving as either mayors or presidents. Out of 753 local governments, 557 have women as deputy mayors or vice presidents.

Largely, women leaders are forced to remain second in line of power. But as Malla says, women leaders are the ones whom people in need reach out to, but they struggle to find their space within the male-dominant local political sphere.

“This is affecting our efforts to find solutions and adaptive measures to the climate change impact in our community and the same is true of other issues too,” Malla said, expressing her frustrations.

Local Struggle on National Platform

During the International Expert Dialogue on Mountains, People, and Climate, organized by the government of Nepal on May 22–23, experts discussed the importance of locally led adaptation to tackle the impacts of climate change in the community. However, there was no representation from the local community.

Apsara Lamsal Lamichhane, vice president of Helambu Rural Municipality, Sindhupalchowk district, stood up and expressed her frustrations when the floor was opened for questions.

“We are the ones who are suffering from the dire impacts of climate change, and we are trying to find a way to adapt,” Lamichhane angrily said as her microphone was about to be cut off. “But the central government doesn’t even listen to us, and we don’t get a chance to present our ground reality on platforms like this.”

Apsara Lamsal Lamichhane, Vice President of Helambu Rural Municipality, Sindhupalchowk, during the International Expert Dialogue on Mountains, People, and Climate. Credit: Tanka Dhakal/IPS

Apsara Lamsal Lamichhane, Vice President of Helambu Rural Municipality, Sindhupalchowk, during the International Expert Dialogue on Mountains, People, and Climate. Credit: Tanka Dhakal/IPS

She comes from one of the most vulnerable areas, where locals are facing the direct impacts of disasters exacerbated by climate change.

Lamichhane, Malla and other women in deputy mayor or vice president posts share the same complaint: that the provincial and central governments don’t listen to their concerns, including the losses caused by climate change.

“At the local level, the Mayor or President tries to silence us. In national discussions like this, we are invited but not allowed to speak. It’s our reality,” says Shanti Kumari Malla Bhandari, vice president of Guthicahur Rural Municipality in Jumla.

The Same Story on the International Stage

Just as there are internal obstacles to getting even a few minutes to present the issues local communities on the frontlines are dealing with, experts and leaders at the national level complain that in international climate forums, their voices are suppressed, and they don’t get enough space to present the reality of the climate plight.

Former Foreign Minister Dr. Bimala Rai Paudyal acknowledges that there is much to do to foster smooth discussion internally and to create a listening environment.

“We are working in isolation; there is an inter-ministerial communication gap, and yes, local representatives have to struggle much to make their voices heard,” Paudyal, who advocates for women’s representation in climate change discussions, says.

“Women are not only frontline victims of the climate crisis but also the first responders. We need to give them space, and then we can make our case in international forums. But there is a long way to go.”

To have better negotiation power in global forums, internal discussions need to prioritize local voices, she says. If we listen to each other here, then we can raise our collective voice with much conviction in international forums like the Conference of the Parties (COP) and climate finance committees.

According to Raju Pandit Chhetri, who works on climate finance negotiation, for countries like Nepal that are dependent on donor countries and agencies, negotiating on the global stage is not easy.

“There is already a giver-receiver relationship, and our psyche may be hesitant to negotiate strongly on climate finance issues. I think that kind of mentality may also exist at the national level too,” climate finance expert Chhetri said. “We have to break that wall of hesitation both internally and on the global stage.”

Note: This feature is published with the support of Open Society Foundations.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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