Diplomacy & Crisis News

Nowhere is safe in Yemen, the head of the UN Children’s Fund UNICEF said, after an attack in the city of Taiz claimed the lives of 12 civilians, including seven youngsters – the latest victims of the country’s more than four-year war. 

Une journée de grève générale est organisée par l'ensemble des syndicats français le 13 mai pour riposter au programme de régression sociale décidé par le gouvernement. Avec la hausse de la durée de cotisation de 37 ans et demi à 40 ans pour avoir droit à une retraite complète, la baisse du niveau des (...) / France, Économie, Finance, Mouvement de contestation, Protection sociale, Travail, Retraites - 2003/05 Animalité

The eight-year-long cultural phenomenon of HBO’s Game of Thrones culminated on May 18 with the fiery destruction of the Iron Throne and the death of the formerly beloved Queen Daenerys. The show’s final season has produced an explosion of commentary on what it all means. What is the appropriate basis for political authority? Can Daenerys be both a feminist hero and a war criminal? Does might make right? Should it, in a time of war?

Among the foreign-policy intelligentsia, and society broadly, interpreting Game of Thrones (and the book series by George R. R. Martin that the show is based on) has become a cottage industry. Every political analyst, historian, or theorist has his or her take on what lessons can be drawn from the story for real-world foreign policy. This enthusiasm tells us something about the show’s political implications: fans and writers argue over Game of Thrones precisely because there is power in interpreting a story to support one’s own arguments about what is right and who gets to choose.

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The town of Kitchanga, in the North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), hosts the highest concentration of internally displaced people in the country, and has been one of the regions most affected by clashes between local communities, made up of Tutsis and Hutus, especially in terms of accessing land. Today, however, thanks to a UN initiative, many disputes over land in Kitchanga are resolved through dialogue instead of violence, and families can cultivate, rent and make a profit from their land.

Le débat sur les retraites doit trancher cette question préalable : peut-on les payer ? D'énormes efforts de communication visent à convaincre qu'il faudrait choisir entre la manière la plus équitable et la moins douloureuse de répartir une baisse inéluctable. Rien n'est plus faux. Certes, on pourrait (...) / Finance, Protection sociale, Travail, Retraites - 2003/05 Animalité

In honor of the re-election of Modi, Shipan Kumer Basu, the President of the World Hindu Struggle Committee, declared: “Under your leadership, you will play an important role in protecting the oppressed minorities in Bangladesh, who are presently being slowly and gradually ethnically cleansed from their ancestral homeland.”

According to the BBC, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was just re-elected and thanked the people of India for giving him a “historic mandate” for the next five years, after he won a land-slide victory in the general election.  “We all want a new India,” he proclaimed.  “I bow down and say thank you.”  Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is projected to get about 300 out of the 543 seats in the Indian Parliament.

Following Modi’s victory, US President Donald Trump tweeted: “Congratulations to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his BJP Party on their big election victory.  Great things are in store for the US-India partnership with the return of PM Modi at the helm.  I look forward to continuing our important work together.”

In a public statement, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated: “Oh behalf of the government of Canada, I congratulate Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his re-election.  I look forward to continuing to work with him to improve the lives of Canadians and Indians alike through education, innovation, investing in trade, investment and fighting climate change.”  

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally called Modi and congratulated him.  The conversation was posted on his Facebook page: “Narendra my friend, congratulation.  What an enormous victory!  I hope that I can see you very soon, as soon as you form a government and as soon as we form a government.  There is much to discuss on so many things.  Thank you for your congratulations on my victory but there is one difference.  You don’t need a coalition.  I do.”

On Twitter, Netanyahu tweeted: “Heartfelt congratulations my friend Narendra Modi on your impressive victory in the elections.  The election results are more a validation of your leadership and the way in which you lead the largest democracy in the world.  Together, we will continue to strengthen the great friendship between us and between India and Israel, and bring it to new peaks.  Well done, my friend.”

Modi’s government has been a strategic partner for both the State of Israel and the United States of America.  Under Modi’s leadership, India is expected to clamp down increasing upon radical Islamist terror groups in Pakistan and against China’s growing dominance in Asia.  Both of these strategic policies promoted by Modi will make him an ideal friend for the United States of America.  Aside from the US, Israeli-Indian-relations have blossomed under Modi’s leadership to an unprecedented level.  Modi was the first Indian Prime Minister to ever visit Israel.  His re-election thus opens up many doors for a better trilateral relationship between Israel, the US and India.    

However, Modi’s re-election was not just welcomed in the West.  The Hindu community in Bangladesh also was very excited about his electoral victory.  In honor of the re-election of Modi, Shipan Kumer Basu, the President of the World Hindu Struggle Committee, declared: “I congratulate Narendra Modi, the honorable prime minister of India for being elected again on behalf of Mendi Safadi, the head of the Safadi Center for International Diplomacy, Research, Public Relations and Human Rights, and Bangladeshi dissident Aslam Chowdhury. I am feeling proud because you have been able to climb to power in India for a second time.”

“Under your leadership, you will play an important role in protecting the oppressed minorities in Bangladesh, who are presently being slowly and gradually ethnically cleansed from their ancestral homeland,” he noted. “I urge you to promote a free and fair election with international observers within Bangladesh so that ordinary Bangladeshis will have the opportunity to rise to greatness in the same manner that India has under your leadership.” 

Abishek Gupta, the President of the Indian Chapter of the World Hindu Struggle Committee, added: “For the first time in Indian politics, we have witnessed pro-incumbency.  This was due to the great work done by Modi over the past five years.  Modi has worked for the benefit of all age groups.  The Indian economy has become stronger, the army is more confident and India has really enhanced its prestige across the world.  Not only the BJP workers campaigned for Modi but so did the common man in India.  Nationalism, honesty and dedication won.  Congratulations to Modi from everyone in India.”  

The post Narendra Modi re-elected Indian Prime Minister: “An opportunity for Bangladesh’s minorities” appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Le nouveau numéro de Politique étrangère (n° 1/2019) vient de paraître :
2019-2029 – Quel monde dans 10 ans ?

Découvrez quotidiennement un extrait de l’un des articles de ce nouveau numéro.

Cette citation est extraite de l’article de Jared Cohen, « Quand la technologie façonne le monde… », publié dans le n° 1/2019 de Politique étrangère.

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Charles de Gaulle famously asked how one can govern a country with 246 kinds of fromage. Historians could just as easily ask how one can understand a country with even more kinds of lieux de mémoire. A term coined by the historian Pierre Nora, a memory site is a shape-shifter. It points to those ideas or individuals, movements or monuments, literary works or legal texts which take on and take off different meanings over the centuries. In their three-volume work Les Lieux de mémoire, Nora and his colleagues applied the concept to a dazzling array of such sites, ranging from Verdun to Versailles, the Tour de France to the Tour Eiffel, the civil code to the paintings at Lascaux.

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The EU is many things, but sexy isn’t one of them. Obsessed with procedure, reports, and committees, the bloc has always been a bogeyman for governments both inside and outside it, a symbol of constitutional overreach and Kafkaesque bureaucracy meant to frustrate earnest national politicians trying to help their citizens.

There’s something to those claims. The EU’s setup is unlike that of any other government. The compromises its designers made to balance power between European capitals and Brussels have led to a mishmash of the traditional legislative and executive branches, with power divided unevenly between the European Commission (which proposes legislation), the European Parliament (which amends and approves it), and the Council of the EU (which does the same). The Council of the EU is not to be confused with the European Council, made up of all the heads of state or government of EU member countries, or the Council of Europe, a human rights organization unaffiliated with the EU.

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Despite the 18,000faithful who gathered recently in Washington, D.C. to pledge their unwavering support to Israel, AIPAC finds itself in a Dickensian moment of history that could be described as ‘It was the winter of gloating; it was the spring of scrutiny’.

AIPAC’s guests of honor may vary in faith and political affiliation; they may vary in fame, clout, and the sizes of their wallets. But on certain characteristics they are all identical: their cultish faithfulness in the mentality of ‘what’s good for Israel is good for America,’ and in their adherence to disseminate the committee’s talking-points on foreign policy ad nauseam.

As usual the AIPA Cconference has attracted big names such as Vice President Pence, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and others to rub shoulders with many bigwig donors, pundits and ‘king-makers’.

Sustaining Apartheid

After 7 decades of statehood, Israel remains unsustainable without billions of U.S. tax-payers’ money, without U.S.’ blind commitment to veto any resolution that attempts to hold Israel accountable for the routine human rights violations and transgressions against international laws- something that ironically would have justified ‘regime change’ if it were another country doing it.

Over the years, AIPAC has successfully marketed Israel as a “logical” cognitive dissonance. Though 2019 Global Firepower ranks Israel the 16th most powerful military in the world, it is presented in the US as a nation that is under existential threat. Though it is a wealthy, innovative, and advanced nation, it is presented as a nation that is worthy of perpetual unconditional funding from American tax-payers.

Looking Through the Stained Glass

Following Israel’s 70th anniversary, these 3 controversial AIPAC lobbied-issues came to fruition: termination of the Iran Nuclear Deal, transfer of US embassy to Jerusalem, and getting U.S. to recognize the Golan Heights as part of Israel; hence underscoring AIPAC’s exceptional clout in driving U.S. foreign policy. The only outstanding item in Israel’s wish-list is to declare the remanence of the Muslim Brotherhood—most of whom are in the dungeons of Egypt—a terrorist organization.  Surely these accomplishments could boost Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Donald Trump’s image- something they desperately need as specter of corruption charges looms.

That being said, despite the common perception, America, save President Carter, has never been an ‘honest broker’ in its effort to help negotiate peace between Israel and Palestine. And that duplicitous brokerage is now on steroids. Unlike previous U.S. envoys to the Middle East who diplomatically concealed their staunch support of above-all-laws Zionism, Trump’s son in law Jarad Kushner who is now piloting U.S.’ Middle East policy, seems to enjoy being closely affiliated with Netanyahu and the extreme elements of Israel’s politics.

The Missing In Action Media

AIPAC relies heavily on U.S. mainstream media for dissemination of Israel’s narrative and for perception management by omitting daily human rights violations that IDF commits against Palestinians, including children. So it should shock no one to see media groups that would assign reporters to file stories from dangerous war zones would never send reporters to educate American audiences on what happens at military check points or about the unbearable living conditions in Gaza.

Generally speaking, in democracies, media provides some of the most critical public services- information, scrutiny, and empowerment. Without them, the masses will remain ignorant or ill-informed, therefore easily exploitable socially, politically and economically, and those whom power is entrusted with will grow more authoritarian and abusive, with impunity.  

By the same token when media surrender their journalistic independence to the highest corporate or individual mogul bidders, they, in due course, grow dysfunctional and lose sight of their role to advance the public interest and keep power in check. In such condition, media become dangerous tools.

According to Gullup media trust survey, older Americans are more likely to trust the media than younger Americans are. In this latest survey, 53% of those aged 65 and older trust in the media, compared with just 33% of those under age 30,” And this demographic perceptional enlightenment is the biggest revolution against fictional narratives that cannot withstand the smell test. That revolution is not only active in social media; it has real presence in the United States Congress. And said presence is more profound than Adam Milstein, a major pro-Israel funder’s, Islamophobic claim that “The Muslim Brotherhood is now part of Congress” in reference to Muslim Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib or President Trump’s reckless posting of a propagandistic video implicating Rep. Omar as a terrorist sympathizer. Death threats against Omar have alarmingly increased since then.   

Imminent Clash With Congress

Donald Trump’s tweet has set thestage for U.S.’ formal recognition of the Golan Heights as part of Israel posted the day before the Special Counsel Rober Mueller turned in his final report on the Russia Investigation. Of course, this latest of  ‘Trumplomacy’ adventures has very little, if any, to do with U.S. national interest.

Trump’s violation of the international law that considers the Golan Heights as an occupied territory was meant to give another troubled leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who is AIPAC’s choice, a boost in the upcoming election. This blind loyalty to Israel’s grand objective in the Middle East would further alienate and shut out any opportunity to reconcile with the Muslim streetsthat are fed up with the despotic older guards such as Egypt’s President Abel Fattah el-Sisi and the more youthful perilous pawns such as Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. This reckless decision endorses the ‘might is right’ world view, reinspire irredentism and intensify the sporadic disorders already underway in many parts of the world and undermine U.S.’ geopolitical interest in the long term. Most of the credit goes to AIPAC.

Before AIPAC came to the scene, the Jewish Zionist Council used to do heavy lifting when it comes to lobbying for Israel. Under the Kennedy administration, Attorney General Robert Kennedy launched an investigation that later found out that the Council has “compromised its position”thus ordering it to register as a “foreign agent”. The Council never registered. It was voluntarily dissolved, and, in late 1960s, AIPAC whose mission is “to strengthen, protect and promote the U.S.-Israel relationship in ways that enhance the security of the United States and Israel” assumed its functions. 

Due to the blurred line of U.S. national interest andAIPAC’s emboldened status under the current administration, it is a matter of time before the new generation in the House would demand hearings citing that 1962-63 investigation as a precedent.

Downward Indicators

This year’s de facto conference theme was ‘Let’s gang up of Ilhan, shall we?’ Led by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who told the conference “take it from this Benjamin, it’s not about the Benjamins,” it is about Israel’s shared values with the U.S., he added. This assertion might persuade anyone who is oblivious to or ignores the fact that United Kingdom is the closest to U.S. when it comes to shared values, history, fighting side-by-side in major wars, and strategic partnership that ensures each a robust support for the other. But, everyone knows no politician who knows a thing or two about international relations could claim that U.K. and America will be friends forever. Yet, “Israel and America are connected now and forever,” said Speaker Pelosi.

AIPAC has been having a rough time spinning any and all legitimate criticism of Israel’s ruthless oppression of the Palestinian people as an ill-intentioned anti-Semitic attack on all Jews, though many of the most antagonistic toward that apartheid-like system are thoughtful Jews, Jewish human rights and peace-promoting organizations.

The United Nations has recently issued a reportblaming Israeli army for cold-blood killings of 189 unarmed Palestinians that include 35 children and some journalists and first aid workers and maiming more than 9,000 during  last year’s ‘right to return’ protests in Gaza.  The report which was based on more than 300 interviews and more than 8,000 documents concludes that Israel may have committed crimes against humanity. With these kinds of crimes and Netanyahu’s Likud Party forming partnership with a zealot party that promotes forced removal of Palestinians had compelled many including 2020 presidential candidates such as Senator Bernie Sanders and Senator Kamala Harris to boycottattending the conference. President Trump did not waste time in condemning their decision to not pay their loyalty homage as an anti-Israel stance.

Meanwhile, the BDS movement continues to rapidly grow. Recently Brown Uniersity became the first Ivy League university to officially join the movement. Expect other universities to follow. 

Many holes are poked in AIPAC’s ‘carrot or stick’ groupthink power that had total monopoly on the Middle East narrative and the future of the Palestinian people. Just don’t tell those die hard AIPAC loyalists who were at the conference about it.

When groupthink rouses the masses into disorder it is a tragedy. And when groupthink rouses the political, economic, social, and the intellectual elite to surrender their autonomy to think critically and independently, it is a tragic comedy.  

The post AIPAC’s Weakening Grip On US Foreign Policy appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

https://www.quiz-maker.com/QZ6XXFX

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Robert Mueller III played lacrosse and majored in government at Princeton. He graduated in 1966 and soon thereafter volunteered for and was accepted into the Marine Corps. He won a Bronze Star for heroism in the Vietnam War and later attended law school at the University of Virginia. He has since spent nearly a half century in either private legal practice or law enforcement, including 12 years as director of the FBI. Mueller epitomizes the old WASP establishment.

Donald Trump graduated from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1968. He dodged the Vietnam War, reportedly by asking a podiatrist to dishonestly attest to the presence of bone spurs in Trump’s heels. Trump sought fame and fortune in the private sector, entering his father’s successful real estate business, which he took from New York City’s outer boroughs to the glitzier, riskier precincts of Manhattan and the casino capital of Atlantic City. He tried his hand at running an airline and a get-rich-quick university before finally finding his true calling: playing a fantasy version of himself on a reality television show. Trump is as American as apple pie.

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Le nouveau numéro de Politique étrangère (n° 1/2019) vient de paraître :
2019-2029 – Quel monde dans 10 ans ?

Découvrez quotidiennement un extrait de l’un des articles de ce nouveau numéro.

Cette citation est extraite de l’article de Ravi Kanbur, « Pauvreté et inégalités à l’horizon 2030 », publié dans le n° 1/2019 de Politique étrangère.

Retrouvez le sommaire complet ici.

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Soviet/Russian Missile Development Catalogue – Designed to Shoot Down US and NATO aircraft and missiles going back as far as the 1950s.

A historical overview of the development of anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems comes from the belief that the United States and its allies might have attempted to repeat the terror of German forces on the Soviet people during the Second World War and launch a strike on Moscow and the Soviet Union. The Cold War development by the Soviets of various missile systems was seen as the best deterrent against a NATO strike. A coordinated ground radar, missile and fighter/interceptor concept was developed and put in action in Vietnam, where the SA-2 missiles and radars, called the S-75 by the Soviets, shot down many American strike aircraft. While the SA-2 was a fixed installation, the 1970s era SA-6 was mobile and determined the strategy for several conflicts in the Middle East.

Much of the idea behind defending a city or military target during the Cold War focused on not only shooting down aircraft, but other missiles as well. Concepts like the SA-4, SA-5 and the ABM Galosh and other systems focused on stopping warheads before they met their targets. While the Reagan Administration was keen on a Star Wars type system and using directed energy weapons, the anti-ballistic missile concept was more feasible at the time and came from a design heritage that went back as far as the 1950s development of the SA-1 missile. The SA-1 and other variants of missiles were given the responsibility of surrounding Moscow with a missile shield, one that was often the most advanced for its time and was used only for the most important heritage centres of the Soviet Union.

The advancement of the Anti-Ballistic Missile technology was further developed within tactical missiles at the end of the Cold War. The use of smaller and mobile systems like the SA-6 Kub and SA-8 Osa developed into systems like the SA-11 Buk and SA-15 TOR that could now target other missile systems and drones. While these systems often were used only by former Soviet states and their close allies, the latter years after the end of the Soviet Union saw Russia re-asserting itself in challenging Western policy approaches. After the more recent fall of Libya’s government and the legacy of failures in Iraq, Russia saw itself as a necessary counterbalance to the US and its allies and what was seen as a flawed Western policy. Russian hegemony in Syria allowed Cold War systems to be used actively in the fight to maintain Syria’s government in power. More advanced systems were purchased by Venezuela since 2003 that are likely more sophisticated than most of Syria’s systems save the most recent acquisitions of the S-300 missiles.

Recent US policy on Venezuela and Iran need to take into consideration the spread of the S-300 type systems in any coercive actions in those regions. With the likelihood of an air conflict being greater than an invasion by troops in Venezuela and Iran, Russian missile systems will determine the strategy in addressing US concerns in Venezuela and Iran. Mid-level S-300 missiles could counter most aircraft, cruise missiles, many ballistic missiles and possible some stealth aircraft. The tradition of having ground based missile systems to counter US air power is long and has been very successful over the Cold War years. The effectiveness of those systems will be a strong factor in developing future strategies in international relations.

The post Missile Shields Forging International Relations appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Le nouveau numéro de Politique étrangère (n° 1/2019) vient de paraître :
2019-2029 – Quel monde dans 10 ans ?

Découvrez quotidiennement un extrait de l’un des articles de ce nouveau numéro.

Cette citation est extraite de l’article de Jean-Claude Trichet, « L’avenir du système monétaire et financier international », publié dans le n° 1/2019 de Politique étrangère.

Retrouvez le sommaire complet ici.

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What Exactly Does It Stand For?

Foreign policy, a nation’s collective conduct, best attains its interests if it correlates means to ends. To make the correlation, even to know its ends, a nation needs to know its identity.

Attaining this knowledge raises great complexities. On May 8, a panel at the American Enterprise Institute on American nationalism wrestled with them, hard. Various views, all conservative, saw nationality residing, in varying proportions and senses, in the Constitution, in the Declaration of Independence, in some combination of British stock and the Declaration’s claims, or in the practice of patriotism.

America’s founding on classic Liberal principles actually poses a rather odd question. Washington Post columnist Megan McArdle, in a reflection on her encounter with Irish cultural preservationists, comes to muse whether Liberalism’s 

“cosmopolitan viewpoint … is itself exactly the sort of exclusivist project that its proponents supposedly reject. It can see only one right way to live your life, which is mobile, socialized to the values of the educated class and best adapted to the cities where most of its cosmopolitan proponents just happen to live.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/04/12/irish-cultural-pride-gives-this-cosmopolitan-second-thoughts/?wpisrc=nl_ideas&wpmm=1

McArdle is American, but also identifies as transnational. Her visit left her torn. Her politics make her one of the “people from nowhere,” and she fears that cultural pride leads to exclusion. But she also found an elemental satisfaction in back-country Ireland as she learned now her “bones took shape.” She, rather like the panel at AEI, now struggles with the relationship between organic identity and Liberalism.  America needs to work through this, as a nation.

Classic Liberal principles are British in origin, which has unexpected implications.  Britons can take the principles as organic heritage, much as McArdle’s Irish preservationists do the Irish language.  Liberalism could be taken as an Anglo ideology.  But Britons could also determine, should they choose, that other strains of their culture are more British. Locke and Hume, Adam Smith and Mill were not the only British philosophers. Burke, even Filmer, could theoretically gain a revival.  The Brexit movement can invoke mythic cultural roots.  

To quote Gordon Wood, in his “The Idea of America,” “to be an American is not to be someone … but to believe in something.”  The American nation declared itself in its divorce of its cultural motherland. The British signers of the Declaration of Independence renounced Britain in the name of a principle: of unalienable rights universally endowed and government only legitimized to secure those rights.  The “one people” separating from the other, “we” for whom the signers spoke, are defined in the Declaration by precisely this belief, and, on examination, nothing else.  Americans cannot renounce the Declaration’s abstract principles.

Yet “homo liberalus” looks more and more like a someone to be than a something to believe.   The Declaration’s creed does not prescribe any “ism,” not even “Liberalism.” It defers to each person to choose their own lights.  If my pursuit of happiness leads me to invest my identity in some tribe, even with illiberal internal tenets, the creed stands silent.  It leaves each of us to work things out for ourselves.  I might draw on my traditional church or ethnic heritage; I might invent my own.  So long as I respect the rights of others – and government does impose restraints to secure them – it falls to me.  

Even if I follow a traditional faith, it is not pre-ordained by birth, not received from the divine. The American can opt out.  This is choice. We may not all be self-creators or self-inventors, but we cannot avoid being self-choosers. But choice is the act of a mere mortal.  The Declaration’s deference to my choice imposes a burden even as it liberates.  My identity belongs to me alone, without support of church or king. It is mine as it rarely has been in human history – my homestead, maybe a village carved out with others who choose as I do, in a social wilderness.

If the nation’s founding creed defers to each of us in our choices, what, exactly, is an American?  Our abstract creed and the abstract flag symbolizing our State yield no automatic answers. Yes, it is “we” who hold our truths.  That also means it is each of us wrestling, like McArdle, to reconcile national principle and personal identity.  This wrestling befits a nation of immigrants – including even the involuntary — and includes the oppressed as they gain franchise. It also fits the founding tenets; in our liberty we all wrestle to define and pursue our happiness.  Which wrestlers can be citizens is a separate, though vexing question: shaping rules of inclusion will continue to absorb great energy.  But the principle puts enduring common ground under the debate. 

How should a nation founded on abstract principle conduct itself in the world?  Do our self-evident truths, and our national basis in them, contradict the legitimacy of nations based on race, religion, language, heritage, or soil?  Can America avoid ideological conflict with traditional regimes?  As with citizenship, politics will set the actual actions. The essential point for America is to ensure that debate, and hence the outcomes, refer first to America’s odd (exceptional?) national identity, resting on our abstract founding creed.

The post Base of American Identity, Complexities for American Conduct appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Le nouveau numéro de Politique étrangère (n° 1/2019) vient de paraître :
2019-2029 – Quel monde dans 10 ans ?

Découvrez quotidiennement un extrait de l’un des articles de ce nouveau numéro.

Cette citation est extraite de l’article de Kishore Mahbubani, « 2029, la grande renaissance asiatique », publié dans le n° 1/2019 de Politique étrangère.

Retrouvez le sommaire complet ici.

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Palash Chandra Roy, a Hindu rights activist and leader, went to the bathroom, had petrol thrown on him and was set on fire.  He later on died of his injuries.   

According to the World Hindu Struggle Committee, Hindu human rights activist and leader Palash Chandra Roy was murdered while being imprisoned in Panchagargh.   His family claims that the murder was premeditated.   Roy was the son of Mira Rani, a former freedom fighter and a female vice chairman of the upzilla. 

In the past, Roy was a legal officer in the Kohinoor Chemical Company.  When his superiors started to demand that he perform immoral tasks, he refused to do so as an outspoken opponent of corruption.  As a consequence, he faced a gigantic lawsuit in Bangladesh in 2016 and was subsequently arrested.  After he was released on bail, there was talk about him being imprisoned again.  Due to this, he went on hunger strike in order to demand his rights. 

At one point, his hunger strike turned into a massive protest rally on the Sher-E-Bangla Highway, where he raised awareness about the corruption going on daily in the Kohinoor Chemical Company.  The protests attracted the attention of the Bangladeshi government.   Following this, Rajib Rana, an APS of Sheikh Hasina, filed a case at the Sadar Police Station, claiming that Roy spoke against the Prime Minister and the Bangladeshi government during the protests.   After that, Roy was re-arrested and his bail was rejected this time around.

According to the report, the statement by Roy that the Bangladeshi government felt deemed him worthy of imprisonment was as follows: “As a response to brutal torture, we will commit suicide as the children of freedom fighters in front of the Prime Minister.   What does today’s Prime Minister have to say about democracy?  If you were in front of me today, I want an apology!  You killed the democracy by pressing my throat.  I am not BNP and I am not Jamaat.  Why did you file a case against me?  I want a reply from Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.”  

Roy was supposed to appear in Dhaka in order to defend his case but instead he found himself unable to do so.  While in prison, he went to the bathroom and was sprayed with petrol by two strangers.   He was set on fire.  While the prison guards managed to rescue him alive, he later on died of his injuries while being treated inside of a local hospital.  All efforts to save his life failed.

In response to these developments, the Bimaloghu Roy Foundation, a local Bangladeshi human rights group, declared, “We seek the urgent attention of the international community regarding the grave situation in Bangladesh.   We seek to raise awareness about Palash Chandra Roy, who was an honest, upright and popular leader of the National Hindu Coalition in Bangladesh.  He has been exposing how religious minorities have been persecuted in the country.  It has come to our attention that Roy has been arrested due to the false allegation of making some remarks against the present prime minister and was brutally murdered by being set on fire in the bathroom.”

“Incidents of rape and murder, the defilement of Hindu gods and the looting of property belonging to religious minorities has been rising within Bangladesh,” they continued.  “This has created great apprehension and terror in the hearts of Bangladesh’s religious minorities, who no longer feel safe.  The aforementioned incidents are happening across Bangladesh.  This is a grave violation of the minorities in Bangladesh.”  

Shipan Kumer Basu, President of the World Hindu Struggle Committee, concurred with the statement issued by the Bimaloghu Roy Foundation.  He added that he hopes that the Americans and other members of the international community can intervene in order to assure that Roy’s family receives the justice that they deserve posthumously and that the Bangladeshi government be held accountable for the grave human rights abuses occurring on a daily basis within their country.   

The post Hindu human rights activist burned to death in prison toilette appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Russia and China may never forge a formal military alliance, but they could still work together in ways that cause major headaches for the United States.

Le nouveau numéro de Politique étrangère (n° 1/2019) vient de paraître :
2019-2029 – Quel monde dans 10 ans ?

Découvrez quotidiennement un extrait de l’un des articles de ce nouveau numéro.

Cette citation est extraite de l’article de Fawaz A. Gerges, « Le Moyen-Orient en 2029 », publié dans le n° 1/2019 de Politique étrangère.

Retrouvez le sommaire complet ici.

> > Suivez-nous sur Twitter : @Pol_Etrangere ! < <