Posts from — March 2013

Behind the Scenes at the UN Arms Trade Treaty Conference
By Alberto Estevez – 27 March, 2013 – Amnesty International

This post is part of a special series on the Arms Trade Treaty. From March 18-28, world leaders from more than 150 countries are gathering for the UN Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) in New York. An Amnesty International delegation with representatives from every world region is participating and will be pressing leaders to agree to a strong treaty that upholds international human rights law.

By Alberto Estévez, Advocacy Coordinator on the Arms Trade Treaty, International Secretariat of Amnesty International

It’s crunch time for human rights.

On Friday evening, the second draft of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) was made public in the midst of the UN Final Conference on the ATT. The negotiations continued Monday and Tuesday and the final text will be made public sometime today.

The key issue for Amnesty International is whether the Treaty will have a preventive approach to prohibit an arms transfer when the State authorizing it knows that they will be used to commit atrocities. In legal jargon, this means whether it will prevent human rights violations constituting crimes under international law, i.e., extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances and torture. This is what we in Amnesty International call the “Golden Rule.”

When I became an Amnesty member 26 years ago, above all I wrote letters – first handwritten, then on a typewriter and, years later, a computer – Urgent Actions to governments around the world about cases of extrajudicial executions, torture and disappearances.

At some point I wondered whether it would be better to prevent rather than cure the abuses I was writing about, in other words, how I could ensure that as time went by, I would need to write fewer letters and, at the same time, help save lives. That is how I learned about Amnesty’s position on military, security and police transfers, agreed in the 1980s in the organization’s International Council Meetings. In short, this policy is the “Golden Rule,” which will be the litmus test for the ATT.

Last Thursday in the negotiations room at the UN in New York, Finland submitted a proposal reflecting the Golden Rule in international human rights law. The UK supported this formulation. Spain and Liechtenstein made similar proposals on Friday morning, making clear their commitment to this principle. On the other hand, others like Norway, Japan and Costa Rica made proposals solely focused on the prohibition of transfers linked to violations of International Humanitarian Law during armed conflicts. We will continue to work to convince these and other States so that to put human rights first. In the meantime, the USA is waiting, listening and leaving itself open to discuss how to improve the text on the table, but with some limits. Other states, including some powerful ones, oppose the Golden Rule.

Amnesty International wants the treaty to include at least two basic principles:

a) No state will authorize arms transfers where such a transfer would aid or assist in the commission of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes or a consistent pattern of violations of international human rights law constituting crimes under international law – such as extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances and torture;

b) No state will authorize arms transfers where there is a real danger, or substantial risk, that those arms would be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international human rights law or international humanitarian law.

We will also continue to lobby states to carry out rigorous risk assessments as part of their national export control systems, to control munitions, parts and components, and to control arms brokering and transport activities. The ATT should also include strong implementation mechanisms and comprehensive and regular public reporting by all States, to allow scrutiny of whether governments are carrying out their international arms transfers responsibly.

We will keep fighting as “keepers of the flame,” until the final draft text is made public because, as Amnesty International founder Peter Benenson said:

“The candle burns not for us but for all those whom we failed to rescue from prison, who were shot on the way to prison, who were tortured, who were kidnapped, who ‘disappeared’. That is what the candle is for.”

Bahraini man dies of inhaling tear gas fired by regime forces
27 March, 2013 – Shia Post

A 35-year-old Bahraini man has died due to inhaling tear gas fired by the Saudi-backed regime forces during a demonstration in the northeastern island of Sitra.

Reports say Jafar Jassem Ali al-Taweal lost his life when Bahraini forces fired toxic gas to disperse protesters during an anti-regime demonstration in Sitra on Monday.

Scores of Bahrainis, including children, have died due to asphyxia after inhaling poisonous tear gas fired by police.

Last year, Amnesty International warned about the Manama regime’s misuse of tear gas against protesters and called for an investigation into the tear gas-related deaths.

On February 15, Aminah al-Sayyed Mahdi, 35, also died a month after inhaling toxic tear gas in an anti-Al Khalifa protest in the village of Abu Saiba.

Also in January, Qasim Habib Ja’far, an eight-year-old child, and another Bahraini man, Haj Habib Ibrahim Abdullah, died the same way when regime forces fired toxic gas to disperse protesters near the capital, Manama.

Bahrainis have been staging demonstrations since mid-February 2011, demanding political reform and a constitutional monarchy, a demand that later changed to an outright call for the ouster of the ruling Al Khalifa family following its brutal crackdown on popular protests.

The Manama regime has arrested many rights activists, doctors and nurses since the uprising began.

Bahrainis say they will continue holding anti-regime demonstrations until their demand for the establishment of a democratically-elected government and an end to rights violations is met. …more

Rockefellers, Crown Cocaine & Haitian Slavery
By Dean Henderson – 26 March, 2013 – Veterans Today

With 2,100 people dead from cholera since the devastating January 2010 Haitian earthquake and another 650,000 expected to contract the disease within the next six months, the last thing Haiti needed was another rigged election. But the nation’s role as wage floor for multinational corporations, combined with its geographic importance to the CIA-orchestrated Columbian cocaine trade, made the November 28th 2010 election fraud which provoked fiery protests all too predictable.

The shortest route from Columbia’s San Andres Island to Miami passes through the island of Haiti, where Bank of Nova Scotia subsidiary Scotia bank dominates finance. The Zionist Bronfman family-controlled Bank of Nova Scotia is the leading gold dealer in the cocaine-infested Caribbean Silver Triangle. It owned the 200 tons of gold recovered beneath the rubble of the World Trade Center in late 2001. Gold is the currency of choice in the British Crown-controlled global narcotics trade.

From the 1970′s until 1986 Haiti was ruled by Jean-Claude (Papa Doc) and son Baby Doc Duvalier. The dictators were propped up by the US, which sent them over $400 million. What didn’t end up in Duvalier pockets was used by US corporations to set up factories to take advantage of super-cheap Haitian labor. Haiti was the centerpiece of the Caribbean Basin Initiative, launched by David Rockefeller’s International Basic Economy Corporation, which aimed to create a low-wage manufacturing platform in the Caribbean for its multinational corporate tentacles.

Real wages in Haiti declined 56% from 1983-1991 after the Caribbean Basin Initiative kicked in. Haitian exports boomed with companies like Rawlings sending sweat shop manufactured baseballs to the US. Dallas oilman and Intercontinental Hotels owner Clint Murchison operated meat packing plants in Haiti, which he entrusted to the watchful eye of the later-assassinated CIA agent and Lee Harvey Oswald handler George de Mohrenschildt. The devastated US textile industry has been largely outsourced to Haiti. Nowhere in the world is labor cheaper.

Baby Doc Duvalier fell after a popular revolt in 1986 and retired on the French Riviera, alongside other US tin cup dictators. That year the CIA created the Haitian National Intelligence Service (SIN). The acronym, which it shares with Peruvian intelligence, is likely a tongue-in-cheek M16 Freemason joke. SIN was created under the guise of fighting drug trafficking, but its officials simply took over the Columbian coke transshipment trade from Duvalier’s cronies- the Tonton Macoutes. Haitian gangs took over the drug trade in many US cities.

Despite a US Congressional ban on aid to Haiti, SIN received $1 million/year from the CIA, while the Company set about training and equipping the new Haitian military. The CIA was trying to put a lid on the leftist revolution which swept Baby Doc from power- the Lavalas Family Movement. SIN set about on a reign of terror against the Haitian left, taking over where Duvalier’s Tonton Macoutes left off. In 1989 the head of SIN Colonel Ernesto Prudhomme led a brutal interrogation of progressive Port-au-Prince Mayor Evans Paul. Former SIN chief Colonel Leopold Clerjeune was also present. Mayor Paul came away with five broken ribs and serious internal injuries.

A US Embassy official said of SIN, “It was a military organization that distributed drugs in Haiti. SIN never produced drug intelligence. The Agency gave them money under counter-narcotics and they used their training to do other things in the political arena.” …more

Shia Saudi cleric Sheikh Nimr charged with instigating unrest
26 March, 2013 – PressTV

A court in Saudi Arabia has charged prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr with “instigating unrest” and “seeking foreign meddling” in the kingdom.

Sheikh Nimr appeared in court on Tuesday, nearly eight months after he was arrested for criticizing the ruling Al Saud family and demanding the release of political prisoners, AFP news agency quoted a witness as saying.

The prosecutor also accused the cleric of supporting uprising in Bahrain, where Saudi troops are assisting the ruling Al Khalifa family in its brutal crackdown on demonstrations.

The court panel adjourned the hearing until a lawyer is appointed.

Sheikh Nimr was shot and arrested by regime forces in Awamiyah in July 2012 after he demanded the “release of all those detained in anti-regime protests, and all prisoners of conscience.

His family members said he was badly tortured in jail. Nimr’s sister has recently said through her Twitter account that prison authorities are denying her brother medical care.

Saudis have staged several demonstrations in the Eastern Province to demand the release of Sheikh Nimr since he was arrested.

Saudi activists say there are more than 30,000 political prisoners, mostly prisoners of conscience, in jails across the Kingdom.

According to the activists, most of the detained political thinkers are being held by the government without trial or legitimate charges and that they were arrested for merely looking suspicious.

Some of the detainees are reported to be held without trial for more than 16 years. Attempting to incite the public against the government and the allegiance to foreign entities are usually the ready-made charges against political dissidents. …more

Malaysia Invaded – 100′s of Terrorists Land on Beaches, Western Media Mute
Tony Cartalucci – 25 March, 2013 – Liberty Roundtable

(LD) – Hundreds of heavily armed terrorists have crossed from the Philippines and landed in the eastern Malaysian state of Sabah. Dozens are already dead, and the Malaysian military has brought in aircraft and armor to confront the audacious, bizarre invasion, scattering militants into the jungles of Borneo island. A seemingly headline news event, the invasion has been downplayed and spun by the Western media, many calling militant Al Qaeda-linked terrorists, an “armed Filipino clan.”

The West’s woeful, irresponsible coverage of a burgeoning region-wide destabilization, fits in nicely with its coverage of US-Saudi funded/armed terrorism around the world, including in Syria where US-funded terrorists of the so-called “Free Syrian Army” have just taken dozens of UN peacekeepers hostage in the Golan Heights – just days after the US announced it would fund the terrorists further, to the tune of $60 million and the West’s Arab partners have just granted the terrorist faction Syria’s seat at the “Arab League.”

Terrorists are US-Saudi Funded Extremists – Part of Engineered Destabilization.

While the West pleads ignorance over the identity of the militants held up in the jungles of Malaysia’s Sabah state, the militant organizations themselves have declared thousands more in reinforcements are being arranged in the Philippines to join and exasperate the conflict. The Free Malaysia Today newspaper reported in its article, “10,000 Tausugs to sail to Sabah,” that :

Thousands of Tausug from Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi have sailed to Sabah to reinforce members of the so-called royal army of the sultanate of Sulu who are fighting it out with Malaysian security forces, a Moro National Liberation Front official said Tuesday.

The Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) of course, is one of several of Al Qaeda’s franchises in Southeast Asia, and spun off the notorious terrorist organization, Abu Sayyaf, a US State Department-listed foreign terrorist organization with direct ties to Al Qaeda.

The Philippines’ terrorist organizations, located amongst the country’s southern islands have long held ties to Al Qaeda and receive funding and support from Saudi Arabia. AFP reported in their 2010 article, “WikiLeaks: US suspected Saudi ambassador to the Philippines of terror link,” that:

The United States suspected a Saudi Arabian ambassador to the Philippines of potential involvement in funding terrorists, according to US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks this week.

The report would also state:

Francis Townsend cited Waly’s intervention to secure the release of two members of an Islamic charity detained in the Philippines, the cable showed.

The group was suspected of funnelling funds to Al-Qaeda-linked groups based in the southern Philippines.

It continued stating:

The February 24, 2007, US embassy cable named the charity suspected of terror financing in the Philippines as IIRO, which stands for the International Islamic Relief Organisation.

Intelligence agencies have said IIRO was set up by Muhammad Jamal Khalifa, a brother-in-law of Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.

The report concluded by stating:

Overall, the WikiLeaks cables singled out Saudi Arabia as the key source of funding for radical Islamist groups including Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hamas.

Saudi Arabia is of course is the chief financier of Al Qaeda, and is currently leading efforts to fund, arm, and fill the ranks of Al Qaeda’s franchises from Mali and Libya, to Syria and Iraq. A multitude of reports from across the West have identified Saudi Arabia as the lynch pin in Al Qaeda’s global terror campaign, including the US Army West Point Combating Terrorism Center.

Its reports “Al-Qa’ida’s Foreign Fighters in Iraq” and “Bombers, Bank Accounts and Bleedout: al-Qa’ida’s Road In and Out of Iraq,” identify a vast terrorist network maintained by the Saudis that recruits, arms, and funds terrorists from across the Muslim World, and can funnel a mercenary army into any desired nation. At the time, the desired nation was Iraq. In 2011, it was Libya. Today it is Syria. The same network that US soldiers fought in Iraq is verifiably in use today, in support of US regime-change operations in Syria. …more

Summary:Bahrain, British Imperialism
12 October 2012 – Bahrain Center for Studies in London

The Bahrain Centre for Studies in London (BCSL) has issue a paper under the title of: “Bahrain, and British Imperialism”by the British journalist Chris Bambery.

The author indicates that the deep links between the ruling circles of Britain and Bahrain were demonstrated by the presence of King Hamad at Queen Elizabeth 11’s diamond jubilee celebration dinner held at Windsor Castle in the spring of 2012. Hamad’s visit went ahead despite the killings, torture, sackings and demolitions being administered to those demanding democracy and self-determination for the Bahraini people.

Britain was the key force in shaping modern Bahrain and in installing and defending the Al Khalifah ruling house. That and its continuing support for the regime mean it must accept a large responsibility for the kingdom’s current problems.

In 1967 Harold Wilson’s government in London announced they would withdraw all British forces east of Suez. The British were quitting HMS Juffair in Bahrain. Worried about Iranian and Iraqi ambitions to control the Gulf the US stepped in. In 1970 they reached agreement with the Sheik to take over HMS Juffair. The American negotiator reported:

“His Highness was very clear that Bahrain desired a continued US presence.”

The British author sees that the Al Khalifa’s were now under US ‘protection’ but the British continued to run the security forces through appointees.

The presence of a former Scotland Yard senior policeman, John Yates, as the current adviser to King Hamad upholds a tradition established by Belgrave and Henderson – it constitutes a living legacy of British imperialism. It is a tradition which should not be upheld in the 21st century by the Queen, Prime Minister David Cameron and the British banks and corporations who make a tidy penny in Bahrain. …source full report

Obama’s Syria policy in shambles as Assad opposition squabbles
Hannah Allam – McClatchy – 25 March, 2013

WASHINGTON The Obama administration’s Syria policy was unraveling Monday after weekend developments left the Syrian Opposition Coalition and its military command in turmoil, with the status of its leader uncertain and its newly selected prime minister rejected by the group’s military wing.

State Department officials said they still planned to work with the coalition, to which the United States has pledged $60 million, but analysts said the developments were one more sign that the Obama administration and its European allies had no workable Syria policy.

The opposition coalition, already in its second incarnation, has proved to be as beset by factionalism as its predecessor, the Syrian National Council, exacerbated this time by the meddling of foreign donors, analysts said. But, the analysts added, the United States has no other entity to back in a war that pits the regime of President Bashar Assad against a jihadist-dominated rebel movement.

“This is it. The U.S. can’t reboot it a third time. If they can’t make this work, they’ve got nothing,” said Joshua Landis, the director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma and the author of the blog Syria Comment.

Syrian Opposition Coalition leader Mouaz al Khatib announced his resignation Sunday, citing his frustration with unspecified foreign powers, which he accused of trading funding for control of the group. The coalition said it had refused the resignation, and Khatib later announced on his Facebook page that he’d lead a delegation representing Syria this week at the Arab League summit in Qatar, leaving his precise status uncertain.

State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said it was unclear whether Khatib had resigned and that events were still “playing out.”

“What’s important is that the Syrian opposition continues to work toward what they’ve laid out, which is a vision for a tolerant, inclusive Syria,” Ventrell said. “There may be different leadership that will come and go, there may be different folks who play different roles, but we are going to continue to focus on that important vision.”

The confusion over Khatib’s resignation was compounded by word over the weekend that the head of the Supreme Military Command, the semi-affiliated military wing of the coalition, refused to recognize newly chosen Prime Minister Ghassan Hitto, saying the premier had been improperly elected and pushed through by Qatar, one of the biggest backers of the opposition movement and its armed rebels.

Hitto, a longtime Texas resident who recently returned to the region to join the opposition, heads what was envisioned as an interim government that’s poised to take over once Assad falls. But his credibility is deeply in doubt now that Khatib appears to have resigned and Hitto’s military commanders reject his leadership. The rejection also casts a pall over American efforts to pass through the coalition millions in U.S. money destined for Syrians whom the fighting has forced from their homes; Hitto was in charge of the coalition’s nascent aid organization.

Opposition activists who were privy to details of the negotiations say Hitto’s nomination was backed by Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood, the conservative Islamist organization that’s fought the Assad regime for three decades and is at the forefront of the political opposition.

Qatar, a Muslim Brotherhood patron, supported Hitto over the objections of rival Persian Gulf nation Saudi Arabia. In retaliation, opposition activists say, Saudi Arabia, which is a key supplier of weapons to the rebels, pressured the Supreme Military Command’s leader, defected Gen. Salim Idriss, to reject Hitto, essentially putting negotiations back at square one.

“With a clear absence of the U.S., small players like the Qataris and Saudis will take over,” said a prominent Syrian opposition activist who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivities of the topic. “It’s bringing the government down, when the goal was to put an end to the chaos and vacuum.”

The setbacks over the weekend only underlined the lack of progress the Syrian political opposition has made after two years and millions of dollars in outside aid.

The lack of opposition cohesion raises the specter of a bloody free-for-all should Assad fall, perhaps plunging Syria into anarchy with no credible body poised to take charge.

“We have a leader who resigned, an interim prime minister whose election was conducted without transparency and the formal opposition has failed. I don’t know what happens if Assad falls,” said Rafif Jouejati, a spokeswoman for the Local Coordination Committees, a network of activists with more than 80 branches throughout Syria.

Jouejati, who’s consulted with the State Department on Syria policy, said key developments to watch were whether the coalition-linked rebel command would live up to its promise of accepting civilian leadership and whether cooperation could improve amid both sides complaining of being sidelined.

“The Syrian opposition needs to look at itself in the mirror and realize it’s been a colossal failure to the Syrian people,” Jouejati lamented. “It’s time for a complete overhaul.”

Landis predicted that the United States will try to restore some type of role for Khatib, who’d fallen out with the Muslim Brotherhood by calling for conditional talks with Assad, a track that the U.S. and Europe are quietly pursuing in hopes of preventing a total collapse of Syrian institutions but that Brotherhood activists reject after decades of heavy losses to the Assad dynasty. It’s in the U.S. government’s interest that the coalition doesn’t totally collapse, especially as a rebel group that the U.S. government has labeled an al Qaida-linked terrorist group, Jabhat al Nusra, gains ground throughout the country.

“It’s going to limp along because they need it,” Landis said. “They need a political organization that’s pro-West.”
…source

Syria opposition leader demands Patriot missiles, UN seat
26 March, 2013 – Al Akhbar

Syria’s opposition leader Moaz al-Khatib, taking Syria’s seat at an Arab summit for the first time on Tuesday, said the United States should use Patriot missiles to protect rebel-held areas from government warplanes.

Khatib said the United States should play a bigger role in helping end the two-year-old conflict in Syria, blaming President Bashar al-Assad’s government for what he called its refusal to solve the crisis.

“I have asked [US Secretary of State John] Kerry to extend the umbrella of the Patriot missiles to cover the Syrian north and he promised to study the subject,” Khatib said, referring to NATO Patriot missile batteries sent to Turkey last year to protect Turkish airspace.

“We are still waiting for a decision from NATO to protect people’s lives, not to fight but to protect lives,” he said.

In a fiery address, Khatib also demanded that he be allowed to represent Syria at the United Nations.

“We demand … the seat of Syria at the United Nations and at other international organisations,” Khatib said, addressing Arab leaders at the Doha summit.

Khatib, a Sunni cleric, took over Syria’s vacant chair at the Arab League summit in Doha after it had been empty since the Arab League suspended Syria’s membership in November 2011.

Qatar had lobbied other Arab League to promote Syria’s opposition National Coalition to fill the country’s spot.

Khatib had announced his resignation from his position as leader of the Syrian National Coalition Sunday, confusing the situation and throwing the fragmented opposition into disarray and denting its credibility.

Despite his resignation, which has not yet been accepted by the coalition, Khatib had said he would address the summit “in the name of the Syrian people,” and that his attendance “is not linked to the resignation which will be later discussed.”

Khatib had told Al Jazeera television that his main reason for quitting was frustration with world inaction. He also acknowledged that the coalition had been divided, referring to last week’s decision in Istanbul to appoint Islamist-leaning technocrat Ghassan Hitto as provisional prime minister.

Last year during the summit, Russia and Iran threw their backing behind a UN-sponsored peace plan in Syria, as Arab foreign ministers met in Baghdad to debate a draft resolution calling on Damascus to end the continuing violence.

The plan’s six-points had called for a ceasefire and withdrawal of government forces from cities and towns, but did not specify that Assad must step aside as a precondition for dialogue. …source

US training ‘secular’ Syrian rebels: Officials
The Associated Press – 26 March, 2013 – Hurriyet Daily

WASHINGTON – The United States is training secular Syrian fighters in Jordan in a bid to bolster forces battling President Bashar Assad’s regime and stem the influence of Islamist radicals among the country’s persistently splintered opposition, American and foreign officials said.

The training has been conducted for several months now in an unspecified location, concentrating largely on Sunnis and tribal Bedouins who formerly served as members of the Syrian army, officials told The Associated Press. The forces aren’t members of the leading rebel group, the Free Syrian Army, which Washington and others fear may be increasingly coming under the sway of extremist militia groups, including some linked to al-Qaida, they said.

The operation is being run by U.S. intelligence and is ongoing, officials said, but those in Washington stressed that the U.S. is providing only nonlethal aid at this point. Others such as Britain and France are involved, they said, though it’s unclear whether any Western governments are providing materiel or other direct military support after two years of civil war that according to the United Nations already has killed more than 70,000 people.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly about the program.

Officially, the Obama administration has been vague on the subject of what type of military training it may be providing, while insisting that it is doing all it can – short of providing weapons to the rebels or engaging in its own military intervention – to hasten the demise of the Assad family’s four-decade dictatorship.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Monday the U.S. has “provided some logistical nonlethal support that has also come in handy for the Syrian rebels who are, again, fighting a regime that is not hesitating to use the military might of that regime against its own people. …more

Hugo Chávez: 1954-Forever
22 March, 2013 – By Jordan Katz

Just inside the entrance to New York’s Church of St. Paul the Apostle, a line to sign a book of condolences for the late Hugo Chávez snaked around tables at the ecumenical service held just over a week after the former Venezuelan president’s death. Piled on the tables were t-shirts imprinted with the slogan, “Yo Soy Chávez.” Beneath the slogan in smaller print: “1954-Forever.”

Mourners from Venezuela and throughout the Americas filled the church on the night of March 13 to pay their respects and look toward the future. According to Venezuela’s recently appointed Minister of the People’s Power for Foreign Affairs, Elías Jaua, who spoke at the event, Venezuela’s future holds an expansion of the Chavista socialist program, and most importantly, a “radicaliz[ing] of participatory democracy.” Jaua expressed confidence that Chavez’s predecessor and Venezuela’s interim president, Nicolas Maduro, will win the election scheduled for April 14th.

Jaua’s words were met with cheers from an emotional and inspired audience, which included a host of progressive organizations. The Workers World Party, the Urban Justice Center, and leaders of several unions attended the memorial.

Among the slew of political activists who came out to show their support were some familiar faces. Actor Danny Glover sent a letter to be read in his absence and former Congressman Joseph Kennedy gave a speech, condemning those who spoke ill of Chávez and praising his redistribution of the country’s wealth. Citing Chávez’s reorganization of Venezuela’s previously ailing state oil program, PDVSA, he asked, “What possible benefit could that oil monster have been to the poor of Venezuela?”

The speakers glorified rather than analyzed Chávez, but individual audience members’ reactions were more critical. A Venezuelan national who attended the service and wishes to be named only as Max, said things in Venezuela are progressing little by little. “You have to give it time,” he said. “Chávez did quite a lot. He had his problems, but no one is perfect in this life. He achieved more than anyone else did, especially in education, which is what the people need…We’re not going to become like Cuba. To become like Cuba, where people can’t even leave their country, we’d have to move backward.”

Carmen Martinez, an occupational therapist originally from Venezuela, said her support for Chávez largely stems from what he did for the handicap community. “The president actually was the one who promoted the love for the handicap people there,” she said. “In the past, they didn’t have any wheelchairs. They really didn’t have any equipment there… and [Chávez] created a mission where he was able to provide not only the care, but also all the equipment that they lacked before.” She said she was deeply saddened and devastated by his death, but believes Nicolas Maduro is the right person to carry out the programs that Chávez put in place.

When asked about Maduro’s opposition, Henrique Capriles, Martinez said she doesn’t think that his campaign has been honest. “Because of the campaign, they were saying ‘Oh, well we promise every handicapped child a wheelchair.’ Well we had that… They forgot that we already have the mission,” she said. “So somebody who can lie on the TV just to try to make people happy, I don’t think I can trust.”

Despite controversy surrounding the constitutionality of Maduro’s taking over the presidency in the interim, he is the favored candidate. And considering Maduro’s recent declarations that the United States was behind Chávez’s illness, it doesn’t look like U.S.-Venezuelan relations will be softening in the near future. Whoever wins the election inherits some of the highest inflation rates in the world and an extremely high crime rate–Venezuela’s homicide rate is second only to Honduras. The best way to tackle those challenges is by constructing programs that have lasting positive impact, whether the president is Chavista or not. …more

School students and bank workers are among those protesting in Cyprus, after the country reached a painful bailout deal with European creditors. A 3,000-strong crowd of high school pupils marched to the presidential palace in Nicosia, while workers from the Bank of Cyprus staged an occupation of the headquarters in the capital. A banking restructure and a tax of 40% on bank savings over €100,000 are part of the painful measures designed to keep the country from going bankrupt

Gulf: rise in arrests and convictions of cyber critics
25 March, 2013 – ANSAmed

(ANSAmed) – DUBAI, MARCH 25 – In the cyber-savvy but socially conservative Persian Gulf, the duel between modernity and tradition, free speech and subservience to king and country is being played out on the social media platform, as shown by a rise in trials of activists, bloggers and tweeters on charges of blasphemy or sedition.

The latest conviction came yesterday in Kuwait, where blogger Rashid al-Hajiri was sentenced to two years in jail for offending the emir and encouraging people to join in illegal demonstrations. Two similar cases are pending in Kuwaiti courts, while a third ended with a fine. In June 2012, blogger Hamad al-Naqi, 26, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for blasphemy. While bloggers have been arrested from Bahrain to Oman to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait is the only country with a bill pending that calls for capital punishment for social media users convicted of offending Allah and the Prophet Mohamed.

In Saudi Arabia, Grand Mufti Abdul Aziz al-Shaiki has spoken out against social networks, without explicitly banning them. In December, the UAE arrested the country’s youngest activist, an 18-year-old blogger, after a presidential decree set jail time of up to three years for anyone convicted of using cyber media to deride or damage the country’s reputation, institutions or symbols.

In Bahrain, where a Sunni minority rules over a Shiite majority, the most glaring case of repression is the life sentence handed to activist and blogger Abdel Hadi al-Khawaja, thought to be among the promoters of the Bahraini Arab Spring uprisings. His daughter Zainab is also in prison, and both father and daughter went on thirst strike after they were denied visits from relatives, according to the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, which is chaired by Khawaja’s other daughter, Maryam.

Zainab is in danger of cardiac arrest, doctors said.

Oman has so far been the only country to buck the regional trend of repressing free cyber speech. While dozens of critical social media users have been arrested over the past months, the authorities have pardoned them all. …more

News blackout imposed on trial of 94 activists on national security charges
25 March, 2013 – Reporters without Borders

Reporters Without Borders roundly condemns the news blackout that the UAE’s authorities have imposed on the trial of 94 political activists and human rights defenders before the supreme court in Abu Dhabi on charges of endangering the country’s security.

The authorities have allowed the UAE media to attend the four hearings so far held but not the international media. International observers and relatives of the defendants have also been banned from fifth hearing, which is due to be held tomorrow.

In a related development, the netizen Abdulla Al-Hadidi was arrested on 22 March on trumped-up charges of attacking a security guard outside the court on 19 March and disseminating false information on Twitter. He is being held in Abu Dhabi’s Khaledyya district police station.

The second charge has been brought under a new cyber-crime law (Federal Legal Decree No. 5/2012), which was adopted at the end of 2012 and which is regarded as pretext for drastically curbing freedom of expression and information in the UAE.

The Emirates Centre for Human Rights said it believes that 41 relatives of the 94 defendants could also be arrested soon because of what they have allegedly posted on social networks about the trial.

Six human rights organizations including Reporters Without Borders issued a joint statement on 28 January condemning the crackdown on human rights defenders and political activists on the eve of the UAE’s Universal Periodic Review by the UN Human Rights Council. …source

America’s Other Dark Legacy In Iraq
By Joy Gordon – 25 March, 2013 –

When the United States, the United Kingdom, and the “coalition of the willing” attacked Iraq in March 2003, millions protested around the world. But the war of “shock and awe” was just the beginning. The subsequent occupation of Iraq by the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority bankrupted the country and left its infrastructure in shambles.

It’s not just a question of security. Although the breathtaking violence that attended Iraq’s descent into sectarian nightmare has been well documented in many retrospectives on the 10-year-old war, what’s often overlooked is that by far more mundane standards, the United States did a spectacularly poor job of governing Iraq.

It’s not that Iraq was flourishing before the occupation. From 1990 to 2003, the UN Security Council imposed economic sanctions on Iraq that were the harshest in the history of global governance. But along with the sanctions, at least, came an elaborate system of oversight and accountability that drew in the Security Council, nine UN agencies, and General Secretary himself.

The system was certainly imperfect, and the effects of the sanctions on the Iraqi people were devastating. But when the United States arrived, all semblance of international oversight vanished.

Under enormous pressure from Washington, in May 2003 the Security Council formally recognized the occupation of Iraq by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Resolution 1483. Among other things, this resolution gave the CPA complete control over all of Iraq’s assets.

At the same time, the Council removed all the forms of monitoring and accountability that had been in place: there would be no reports on the humanitarian situation by UN agencies, and there would be no committee of the Security Council charged with monitoring the occupation. There would be a limited audit of funds, after they were spent, but no one from the UN would directly oversee oil sales. And no humanitarian agencies would ensure that Iraqi funds were being spent in ways that benefitted the country.

Humanitarian concerns

In January 2003, the UN prepared a working plan anticipating the impact of a possible war. Even with only “medium impact” from the invasion, the UN expected that humanitarian conditions would be severely compromised.

Because the Iraqi population was so heavily reliant on the government’s food distribution system (a consequence of international sanctions), the UN anticipated that overthrowing the Iraqi regime would also undermine food security. And because the population already suffered from extensive malnutrition, this disruption would be quite lethal, putting 30 percent of Iraqi children under five at risk of death. The UN noted that if water and sewage treatment plants were damaged in the war, or if the electrical system could not operate, Iraqis would lose access to potable water, which would likely precipitate epidemics of water-borne diseases. And if electricity, transportation, and medical equipment were compromised, then the medical system would be unable to respond effectively to these epidemics. …more

In response to the criticisms made by western States and organizations against the Bahraini regime, a Bahraini government writer in a quasi-government daily paper called openly for the founding of al-Qaeda in Bahrain.

A suspicious call for an existence of al-Qaeda in Bahrain
25 March, 2013 – ABNA

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) – In response to the criticisms made by western States and organizations against the Bahraini regime, a Bahraini government writer in a quasi-government daily paper called openly for the founding of al-Qaeda in Bahrain.

The government writer made this threat in order to mix things up amidst the wide demands for democracy and respect of human rights, and as a direct threat to the western States and parties which demanded Bahrain to respect human rights.

The Media Centre in Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society denounced such a call that incites terrorism and destroys the country in order to serve suspicious interests and desires.

The Media Centre demands a national and international humanitarian prompt and firm stance to protect this country from destruction.

Democracy is the choice of all peoples including the people of Bahrain who have come very close to it after the nationwide demands movement proved readiness to reach its goal. …source

Is U.S. Trying To Gut Arms Trade Treaty?
Amnesty International – 25 March, 2013

The US is trying to strip the Arms Trade Treaty of critical human rights protections.

By Nate Smith, Arms Trade Treaty Negotiations Observer

Late on Friday, the latest draft of the Arms Trade Treaty was shared publicly. It’s not looking good.

Here’s what it boils down to: Will world leaders take the necessary steps now to prevent sending weapons to countries where they will likely be used for torture, summary executions, and other human rights abuses? Or will they allow business as usual and wait until even more staggering numbers of civilians have been killed until they finally decide to stop arms shipments to those who are targeting civilians?

The second option is called the “body bag” approach. The US government is among those who actually think this is a good idea. It wants to allow critical human rights protections to be kept out of the treaty. These would require countries to exercise some due diligence in making sure they aren’t transferring weapons to places where they know they’ll be used in extrajudicial executions, disappearances, or torture – a global “background check” for arms transfers. …more

Police occupy New York City neighborhood After shooting of Kimani Gray
By Sandy English; 25 March 2013 – WSWS

The New York City Police Department (NYPD) has stationed hundreds of police officers in the Brooklyn neighborhood of East Flatbush since protests erupted after the shooting of 16-year-old Kimani Gray on March 9.

Over the weekend, WSWS reporters in the area saw horse-mounted officers waiting alongside dozens of police motorcycles. Police were stationed at every corner of East Flatbush’s Church Avenue and nearby Nostrand Avenue, close to the location where the killing took place.

Mobile command centers with sophisticated surveillance equipment were stationed in the area, and convoys of squad cars and vans filled with police could be seen speeding along the streets. Groups of officers congregated in the side streets, and in adjoining neighborhoods metal police barricades were stacked on sidewalks.

While the police presence was heightened because of the funeral of Kimani Gray on Saturday and another protest march on Sunday, heavy police presence has been constant since March 10. At that time, protesters began a series of marches to the NYPD 67th Precinct building in the neighborhood. Youth confronted the police and ransacked a store that night. Police arrested nearly 50 people at a protest the next evening.

Protests began after two undercover officers from the Brooklyn South Anti-Crime Patrol shot Gray on March 9, a Saturday night, after he left a group of young men who were congregating in front of a private residence.

The police allege that Gray pulled a gun on the officers, and that the officers warned him and then fired. Witnesses have contradicted the NYPD version, and told the media that no weapon was visible. An official autopsy revealed that of the seven shots that hit Gray, three entered his body from behind.

Hundreds of mourners attended Gray’s funeral on Saturday while police officers stood nearby and were stationed on a roof across the street. Police also had a substantial presence at Sunday’s protest.

Carol Gray, Kimani’s mother, has called for an independent inquiry into the shooting of her son.

According to a report in the Daily News, one of the police officers who shot Gray, Sgt. Mourad Mourad, had at least three suits brought against him when he was a plainclothes officer on Staten Island. The other officer involved, Jovaniel Cordova, had two suits brought against him while he was stationed at Brooklyn’s 70th Precinct. All of the suits alleged civil rights violations surrounding false arrest and illegal stop-and-searches.

The police occupation of East Flatbush is an intensification of the decade-long stop-and-frisk policy. Initiated by Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2002, this policy directs officers to randomly stop passersby on the streets and in front of residences, question them and pat them down for drugs or weapons. As a rule, only the poorest neighborhoods in the city are affected. …more

Globalizing repression, from Hebron to Brooklyn
Joshua Stephens – 24 March, 2013 – NOW

BROOKLYN, NY – On March 12th, 25-year-old Mahmoud al-Titi was shot and killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank town of Hebron, where he was a journalism student and an organizer on behalf of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. His death marks just the most recent casualty of Israel’s use of live sporting ammunition against Palestinians, banned by the IDF since the Second Intifada. Some speculate it reflects an Israeli strategy to undermine unarmed resistance by forcing protestors to resort to violence, a terrain in which they would easily be dominated by the IDF. Similar to the fallout from the recent murder of Arafat Jaradat in an Israeli prison, al-Titi’s death was followed by an escalation in confrontations with soldiers. “Hebron is very hot, people are very angry; about this situation and about everything around them,” says Issa Amro, an organizer with the Hebron group Youth Against Settlements. “There are almost daily clashes.”

Three days prior to al-Titi’s murder, in the Brooklyn neighborhood of East Flatbush, undercover NYPD officers shot and killed sixteen year-old Kimani Gray, after seeing him allegedly adjust his waistband in a suspicious fashion, and claiming he’d pulled a gun when they approached him. At least one witness has publicly disputed the police story, and claims the officers continued to fire into Gray’s body once it had hit the sidewalk – behavior incommensurate with the police officer’s claim of self-defense. The borough has responded with fury, organizing nightly anti-police protests, and spreading news of the event on social media using the hash tag #BrooklynUprising. Aside from the protests, often in defiance of pleading local politicians, the neighborhood has seemingly turned on the police. “The anger has been impossible to contain,” says Chepe, an Occupy Wall Street organizer and Brooklyn resident. Seeing bottles rain down on violent cops from balconies and windows is nothing new, he says. “But this isn’t a matter of a few drops. It’s a downpour.”

In Brooklyn and the West Bank, the backlash against brutality has instigated a state response. Over the last week, according to Amro, Hebron has rather predictably been subject to increased Israeli military activity. “More restriction, more checkpoints, more house raids at night,” he says. Similarly, in East Flatbush, the NYPD recently declared a “Frozen Zone”: an official designation that bars all media access and authorizes the arrest of anyone who ignores or defies a police order – a rare measure implemented in the weeks following the 9/11 attacks.

While these vignettes suggest a certain correspondence, and even appear to share a timeline, a rather glaring error is committed in drawing equivalencies. As one Palestinian organizer pointed out, “Talking about police brutality under a state is different than talking about the acts of an occupying army.”

In addition to flattening the differences between the two scenarios, equating the two obscures rather stark larger trends. Legal acts dating back to the US Civil War bar the military from performing in a domestic law enforcement capacity, but the militarization of police the world over has been underway for some time, amidst discourses within which even public health matters are constructed as ‘wars’. In the paranoid post-9/11 era, war is no longer confined by space or time; war since 2001 has morphed into a permanent state of exception in which civil liberties and necessities of the democratic process are often radically curtailed. From unmanned drones, to spying operations, to the low-scale warfare unleashed on nonviolent demonstrators during the Occupy movement in the US, the exploded notion of warfare against diffuse enemies such as ‘terror’ have fundamentally altered the contours of not only war, but policing. As Chepe points out, “it’s important to understand that police precincts like the 67th [in East Flatbush] consider their beats to be war zones.”

These trends are not ones lost on those looking to turn a profit. Israel and its private sector increasingly position themselves as exporters of surveillance and security technology, as well as technologies for crowd control and the management of civil disturbance – even to their sworn enemy, Iran. China, India, and Finland have all recently pursued acquiring Israeli surveillance and security tools as well.

Aside from providing a captive market for Israeli goods, the occupation is a major engine for the Israeli defense industry. The West Bank effectively serves as a proving ground for both tactics exported to official agencies, and the technologies best suited to those tactics. The correspondences between Hebron and East Flatbush are not a matter of mirroring or reducibility, but their strikingly similar timelines bring into focus key features at the intersection of militarization and neoliberal globalization. From Spain, to Greece, to Tunisia, to Egypt – and increasingly the United States and Canada – a pronounced shift in the management of nonviolent civil society movements has taken shape in recent years; one that casts democratic aspirations as a threat to security, and responds with overwhelming force. Perhaps more importantly, it’s a shift that puts Palestine and the methods of repression and justification refined on its population front and center – especially as they become key Israeli exports. …source

Bethan Tichborne to appeal against public order conviction for telling PM he had ‘blood on his hands’ during anti-cuts protest

Activist ‘shocked’ at conviction for yelling at David Cameron
Mark Townsend and Tracy McVeigh – guardian.co.uk – 16 March 2013

A woman has described her shock after being found guilty of a public order offence for telling David Cameron he had “blood on his hands”.

Bethan Tichborne, 28, said initially she assumed her court summons was a bureaucratic error after she was arrested for protesting against cuts to disability benefits. But she was told by a district judge that her comments must have hugely insulted the prime minister.

Cameron was switching on the Christmas lights in his Witney constituency in Oxfordshire, in December, when Tichborne tried to climb a barrier with her homemade placard. The one-woman protest, she claims, was against cuts leading to the deaths of people with disabilities. She believes her conviction at Oxford magistrates court last week was politically motivated.

District Judge Tim Pattinson told her: “It is difficult to think of a clearer example of disorderly behaviour than to climb or attempt to climb a barrier at a highly security-sensitive public occasion.”

Judge Pattinson praised Tichborne’s previous good character but said her comments that Cameron “had blood on his hands” could “hardly be more insulting to anyone, whether a politician or not”.

The 28-year-old was convicted of using threatening words or behaviour to cause harassment, alarm or distress.

Tichborne, a teaching assistant who works with disabled children, said that she now intends to appeal against the conviction. “My faith in the court system is a bit shaky but on the other hand I feel I’ve got to hold them to account.”

She added: “I am really quite shocked and quite sad … I had a placard that said Cameron has got blood on his hands and shouted disabled people are dying because of Cameron’s policies.

“The judge said stuff in his verdict that made it very clear it was political, like he couldn’t think of anything more insulting or offensive.”

She also alleged police beat her up moments after she tried to scale the barrier separating Cameron from the crowd. …more

Bypassing Saudi human rights in the name of oil and jobs
25 March, 2013 – Jon Snow – 4News

Charles and Camilla are safely home from Saudi Arabia and assorted Gulf states.

They were in Saudi at a somewhat bumpy moment. The royal couple never got closer than a thousand miles from the “public killing grounds”, as they are somewhat candidly described.

Had they got a lot closer, they might have seen the blood drying from the execution of seven alleged robbers.

I use the word “alleged” because the UN and various human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch’s Middle East section, have argued that the trials of the men – some of whom were juveniles – conducted under sharia law, were deeply flawed.

The suspects were charged with being part of a gang of thieves in the Saudi town of Abha. There was no evidence that any of the accused had killed or injured anyone.

Actually there may well have been rather less blood in the aftermath of the killings than usual. The death sentences were carried out, for the first time, by firing squad. The kingdom has run out of execution swordsmen, so it is no longer possible to disconnect the accused’s head from his or her body. It was a practice which led to a gushing of much blood from the severed neck.

In the same period, two of Saudi Arabia’s most prominent advocates of non violent reform – Mohammed Fahd al-Quatami and Abdullah al-Hamed – were jailed for 10 years apiece.

Charles and Camilla were not alone in bypassing human rights as a discussion point with their hosts. US Secretary of State John Kerry and America’s Attorney General Eric Holder were both in Saudi in recent days. They too decided not to raise human rights. I hate to use the phrase, but the per capita execution rate in Saudi is higher than in any other country on earth.

I have blogged before on the issue of Saudi-financed warfare. I have yet to be contradicted on the claim that there is not a British military boot in overt or covert action anywhere in the world, where the enemy is not in some way financed by Saudi interests.

Can it really be British jobs and a British thirst for oil that neutralise the reality that this just may be a state that it is perhaps unwise to retain as a ‘most favoured nation?’

Charles and Camilla were not alone in bypassing the matter. …source

British Ambassador asserts that those who perpetrate blasts are terrorists and he describes Human Rights Watch recent allegations as high-handed and arrogant
25 March, 2013 – BNA

Manama: March 25—(BNA)— The British Ambassador in the Kingdom of Bahrain, Mr. Iain Lindsay, described as terrorists those responsible for explosion acts in Bahrain and urged political and religious factions to denounce violence, asserting that there are clues that those who stand behind acts of violence receive Iran’s support and backing.

Ambassador Mr. Lindsay criticized Human Rights Watch Organization for its alleging that Bahrain has not achieved any progress in its promises of accomplishing reforms; and he described the Organization as high-handed and arrogant.

The UK Ambassador in an exclusive interview published by the Gulf Daily News (GDN) today said that the ongoing National Dialogue is the only way to end the political stalemate which dates to more than two years. However, he added that the United Kingdom is concerned towards the support provided by Iran to those involved in acts of violence. He also added that the British Government explicitly voiced its concernment towards increasing evidences of Iran’s shifting its position from exploiting Bahrain’s problems for propaganda purposes to its provision of support to persons who commit acts of violence.

Ambassador Mr. Iain Lindsay did not mention the details of such evidences or the type of support provided by Iran; however, he said that an investigation conducted by the Committee on Foreign Relations in the British Parliament regarding relations with Bahrain gleaned these evidences.

Mr. Ian Lindsay emphasized that “we condemn Iran’s meddling in Bahrain’s internal affairs and in the affairs of any other country; and, we firmly believe that Bahrain can make progress if it is given the chance and if Bahrainis are given the chance to solve their own problems by themselves.

The British Ambassador to the Kingdom of Bahrain accentuated that the National Consensus Dialogue (NCD) which has continued for more than one month now has the support of the international community. The Ambassador said that the dialogue is still in its early days and that the United Kingdom had had a similar experience when it sought to reach an agreement in Northern Ireland. We know from our experience in Britain and Northern Ireland that the process of dialogue could take a long time and may meet with good days or other bad days and that patience and persistence are a must, Mr. Iain Lindsay explained. …more

Iran ‘backing street violence in Bahrain’
25 March, 2013 – Robert Smith – Trade Arabia

Bahrain’s political, religious and community leaders are being urged to condemn violence on the streets, with the UK citing increasing evidence that those behind it were receiving support from Iran.

British Ambassador to Bahrain Iain Lindsay labelled those behind a spate of bombings as “terrorists” and called on all groups to denounce such acts in an exclusive interview with our sister publication, the Gulf Daily News.

He said the ongoing National Dialogue was the only way to end a political stalemate that stretches back more than two years, but added the UK was concerned about Iranian support for those engaged in acts of violence.

“The British government has said publicly that we are concerned by the fact that we see increasing evidence of Iran moving from exploiting Bahrain’s problems for propaganda purposes to providing support to people here who are bent on violence,” he said.

Lindsay declined to elaborate on the evidence or the type of support Iran was providing, but said an inquiry by the UK Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) into Britain’s relations with Bahrain had been made aware.

“We condemn Iran’s meddling here and indeed elsewhere and we firmly believe that Bahrain will make progress if Bahrain is given a chance and Bahrainis are given a chance themselves to resolve their problems,” he said.

A National Dialogue that brings together four key factions to find solutions to Bahrain’s current problems, which date back to anti-government protests in February 2011, has been underway for more than a month.

Critics have questioned the value of the process with participants struggling to even agree an agenda for the talks, but the ambassador said they should take comfort in the fact that the process had the support of the international community.

He added it was still “early days” and the UK had a similar experience as it sought to reach an agreement on Northern Ireland.

“We know from our own experience in the UK and Northern Ireland that this sort of process can take a long time,” he said. …more

Cabinet: Security of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia Are Inextricably Linked
24 MArch, 2013 – BNA

Manama, March 24 (BNA)—The Cabinet, Chaired today by His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, emphasized that the security of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia are inextricably linked due to the solid ties and common destiny binding both countries.

The ministerial council voiced Bahrain’s support to all measures taken by Saudi Arabia to maintain its security and stability, lauding the competence of the Saudi security bodies in uncovering the espionage network working for a foreign country.

The council also reiterated thanks and gratitude to Saudi Arabia for its political and economic support to Bahrain.
…source

The Dirt Done Iran by the House of Saud
21 March, 2013 – Finian Cunningham – Pacific Free Press

Saudi claims of “busting a spy ring” involving Iranian and Lebanese nationals this week smell of yet more dirty tricks by the creaky House of Saud.

But the repeated formula for attempting to smear Iran used by the Saudis and their Western and Israeli partners is in danger of becoming a parody.

Saudi authorities detained 18 individuals across the kingdom this week, who, it is claimed, were working for a “foreign state” in a plot to target vital installations.

“Sixteen Saudis, an Iranian and a Lebanese were arrested in coordinated and simultaneous operations in four regions of the kingdom,” including the capital Riyadh and the holy city of Mecca, the Saudi interior ministry said in a statement.

Wow. Do you feel the bombast in those words “coordinated and simultaneous operations”?

The suspects “gathered information on vital installations which they provided to the country” they had been working for, added the Saudi intelligence experts.

Iran was not mentioned specifically, but the inclusion of an as-yet unnamed Iranian national is something of a finger of accusation that tries to be subtle, but is, in fact, a clumsy attempt to fabricate.

The Lebanon connection can also be seen as a Saudi bid to implicate Hezbollah. That combination is a gauche effort to appear neat, from the Saudi point of view, to resonate with the hoary Western stereotype of Iran and its alleged sponsorship of international terrorism.

The purported busting of an alleged Iranian-led spy ring in Saudi Arabia makes for good headlines in the supine Western media. But between the headlines is the unmistakable stench of another dirty tricks operation, aimed at smearing Iran and covering up the reality of Saudi repression and state-sponsored terrorism across the Middle East.

Scarcely mentioned in the Western media coverage is that the arrests also involved Saudi nationals from among its Shia population in the country’s Eastern Province. This hard-pressed minority within Saudi Arabia has been holding peaceful protests for political freedoms for the best part of two years, closely aligned with their confessional brothers and sisters in nearby Bahrain. In both Bahrain and Saudi’s oil-rich Eastern Province, the House of Saud has sent its shock troops in to try to crush the movement for democracy with brutal, unremitting repression.

Since Saudi forces entered Bahrain in March 2011, up to 100 unarmed civilians have been killed and thousands more mutilated or imprisoned for daring to demand the right to democratic government. Likewise in Saudi Arabia, hundreds have been arrested and thrown into unknown dungeons by the same system of monarchial tyranny that the Western governments have backed to the hilt.

What better way to distract from this reality of crushing democracy than to cook up a tall story about a foreign spy ring – and an Iranian spy ring at that.

That relocates the problem from one of long-overdue political rights among the population of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia to one of foreign subversion. Irony upon irony, it also diverts from the fact that Saudi Arabia has over the same period been backing terrorists in Syria causing murder and mayhem for the criminal Western objective of regime change.

The latest claims by the Saudi authorities bear the usual hallmarks of a psyops smear. Details are all-too vacant and the allegations rely on innuendo and sensationalism. Observers familiar with Bahrain will recognize the tired old pattern of “foreign subversion”. Arrests, accusations, momentary headlines, bombastic claims of probes to “reveal the foreign plotters”… followed, always, by scant substance of anything. Political theatrics that have become ridiculous parody.

Recall the “sensational plot” that the Saudis and the Americans made media song and dance of when they accused Iran of trying to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington at the end of 2011.

Whatever happened to the follow-up substance to that risible ruse? Or the two hapless Iranians who allegedly were planning an all-out bombing blitz on Israeli properties in Kenya in May 2012?

Then there were similar claims by Israeli intelligence of Iranian international terror plots in Georgia, Thailand, India, Azerbaijan and Bulgaria, also last year.

Despite copious coverage in the Western media of these threadbare tales, none of these “sensational plots” have amounted to follow-up prosecutions, let alone proof of official Iranian involvement. …more