Sunday 28 May 2017

Trump’s Budget Expands War on the Backs of America’s Poor

by 



It is fitting that while President Trump is traveling the world, sealing a weapons deal with Saudi Arabia, he would drop his own kind of bomb on the American people: his budget proposal for the coming fiscal year, titled, of course, “The New Foundation for American Greatness.”
“This Budget’s defining ambition is to unleash the dreams of the American people,” Trump writes in his 62-page plan, released today.
Trump’s dream for America is a nightmare for the working class.
The budget proposes deep cuts to government support for the poor, including slashing over $800 billion from Medicaid, $192 billion from food assistance, $272 billion from welfare programs, $72 billion from disability benefits, and ending programs that provide financial support for poor college students.
While cutting government assistance for working class Americans, the budget notably beefs up annual military spending by 10%, to the tune of $639 billion.
The US defense budget is already roughly the size of the next eleven largest national military budgets combined.
Trump’s budget aims to go bigger, laying the groundwork “for a larger, more capable, and more lethal joint force [and] warfighting readiness.”
Such readiness involves 56,400 more troops across the armed forces and 84 new fighter plans.
Trump wants additional funding to make sure that the US military “remains the world’s preeminent fighting force” so that “we can continue to ensure peace through strength.”
While slashing cuts for the poor and expanding military spending, the budget also proposes $2.6 billion for building the notorious wall on the US-Mexico border, and widely increasing the number of border patrol agents and immigration enforcement officials.
Support for massive US military spending is a bi-partisan tradition in American politics, as the War Resisters League (WRL), a longstanding US anti-war organization, points out in their annual analysis of the US military budget.
“When it comes to military spending, it really doesn’t matter who’s in office. The President and Congress are always willing to give the Pentagon more money,” the WRL states in their most recent report. Each year, taxpayers turn over billions “for wars that breed more wars, weapons systems that even the Pentagon doesn’t want, drones that kill hundreds of innocent children, and bases and troops in countries they’ve never heard of.”
“It’s your money,” the WRL report explains. “Is this how you want it spent?”
We know how Trump wants to spend it: by funding global war and building a racist wall.
“We have it in our power to set free the dreams of our people,” Trump writes in his budget. “Let us begin.”
Let us begin by rejecting Trump’s budget and saying no more war on the backs of the poor.
Benjamin Dangl has worked as a journalist throughout Latin America, covering social movements and politics in the region for over a decade. He is the author of the books Dancing with Dynamite: Social Movements and States in Latin America, and The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia. Dangl is currently a doctoral candidate in Latin American History at McGill University, and edits UpsideDownWorld.org, a website on activism and politics in Latin America, and TowardFreedom.com, a progressive perspective on world events. Twitter: https://twitter.com/bendangl Email: BenDangl(at)gmail(dot)com
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/05/25/trumps-budget-expands-war-on-the-backs-of-americas-poor/

The Islamization of Kashmir's separatist movement

Reports about a separatist leader joining al Qaeda have raised fears the Kashmiri movement is being "hijacked" by Islamists. Expert Agnieszka Kuszewska tells DW that Indian policies are partly to blame for this trend.

DW: Recently, Zakir Musa, an influential Kashmiri leader, distanced himself from the separatist movement and aligned himself with al Qaeda. Some experts fear that the decades-old anti-India movement is increasingly moving toward Islamization. Do you agree with this analysis?
Agnieszka Kuszewska: Zakir Musa is no longer associated with the Hizb-ul-Mujahedin separatist group. The organization admitted that Musa's statement about "chopping off the heads of Hurriyat leaders" is unacceptable and reflects his personal views.
Musa said he wanted to "impose Shariah in Kashmir," and that it should be done by force and not through consensus. The possibility of radicalization and the potential emergence of the so-called "Kashmiri Taliban" should not be neglected. However, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party's "muscular policy" in Kashmir is aggravating the situation. Some factions of the Kashmiri movement are likely to become more radicalized if India continues with its strong-hand policy in the valley.

When I see the "Welcome Taliban" graffiti in Srinagar, two things come to my mind: 1) Some young Kashmiris and militant groups show their support to these groups merely because they want to protest against grave rights abuses in the valley; 2) It may also be framed by the security establishment, which is notorious for enforced encounters and other human rights violations.The rise of Islamic radicalism in the region, fostered by the Afghan War in the 1980s, had a direct impact on the Kashmir conflict. The anti-India movement became more Islamized in the 1990s with the influx of militants trained in Pakistan. Based on my interpretation of the available data and analysis of facts, I would say that the Kashmiri people do not support pan-Islamic, extremist outfits, and the majority of them are against the implementation of Shariah. Transnational terror groups do not enjoy big support in Kashmir.
The new Kashmiri movement, driven mostly by angry youth, appears to be against both India and Pakistan. But how is it different from the pre-1990s movement that didn't pin hopes on Pakistan?
It is different because the geostrategic dynamics have changed in the past three decades. It is also different because the younger generation has experienced years of insurgency and has different memories, traumas, and experiences than the previous generations. The Kashmiri youngsters are tired, angry, and they desperately want solutions.
With continuing rights abuses by the security forces, the resistance attracts more and more people. The youth is prepared to risk their lives. The protesters now do not hide themselves; they record all abuses and share them with the world through social media. Burhan Wani, who was killed by the security forces in July last year, had perfected this new trend.
On May 23, the Indian army claimed it had targeted Pakistani military posts along the Kashmiri border to stop Pakistan from infiltrating armed militants into India-administered Kashmir. To what extent is Pakistan directly involved in providing weapons and military training to Kashmiri insurgents?
The infiltration does exist to some extent but it is not as high as it was in the 1990s. The Line of Control (LoC) is now strictly monitored, which makes it more difficult for the militants to cross over.
As I said before, the anti-India movement in Kashmir is not only militant, it is also indigenously civilian. However, there are elements in Pakistan that are still actively involved in supporting jihad in India-held Kashmir. Hafiz Saeed, the leader of the Islamist Jamatud Dawa organization, is portrayed as a hero of the Kashmiri resistance by some groups. A significant portion of Pakistani society supports Saeed and he is free to deliver speeches.
As Pakistan's international and regional isolation is growing, global powers pay more attention to India's narrative on Kashmir. Does it negatively affect the Kashmiri movement?
It is difficult to conceal what is going on in the valley. When renowned human rights activist Khurram Parvez was illegally banned from travelling to Geneva to attend the 33rd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council last year, there was an international outcry against his detention. Such retaliatory measures simply do not pay off.
On the other hand, I doubt that global powers would like to engage themselves directly in the Kashmir dispute apart from urging India and Pakistan to "resolve the conflict peacefully."
To what extent has India lost or is losing grip on Kashmir?
On April 9, an unarmed Kashmiri man was tied to a military jeep and was used as a "human shield" by the security forces to protect themselves from protesters. This image was truly disturbing: he was paraded in front of the people, humiliated and traumatized. The officer behind this incident was recently commended by the Indian army for his "counter-insurgency operations." What message does it give to the Kashmiri people? I would say that by resorting to violence, the authorities are turning the civilians against them and losing the grip on Kashmir.
In democratic countries, the civilian leadership determines the security policies. For decades New Delhi has proudly claimed that this is one of the features that distinguish it from Islamabad where the military pulls the strings. Now, it seems that this difference is diminishing.
There has been unrest in Kashmir since July last year. What, in your opinion, should be done to put an end to it?
The initiatives aimed at de-escalating violence in India-administered Kashmir should be multi-faceted and long-term. The security forces should be held accountable for their human rights violations so that the Kashmiri people would regain trust in state institutions. The rise of religiously-motivated nationalism is also a worrying phenomenon, especially in religiously and ethnically diverse parts of Kashmir. It is vital to address this trend.
Agnieszka Kuszewska is an associate professor of political science at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Warsaw. She is a member of the European Association for South Asian Studies and a board member of the Polish Association of International Relations.
The interview was conducted by Shamil Shams.
http://www.dw.com/en/the-islamization-of-kashmirs-separatist-movement/a-38991777

Five Years Later, US Admits Lies About Deadly Honduran Shooting

Published on
by

by

 Honduran police participate in an operation in San Isidro's neighborhood in Tegucigalpa, capital of Honduras, in Oct. 4, 2012. (Xinhua/Rafael Ochoa)
 Honduran police participate in an operation in San Isidro's neighborhood in Tegucigalpa, capital of Honduras, in Oct. 4, 2012. (Xinhua/Rafael Ochoa)
A Justice and State Department review reveals that top Drug Enforcement Administration officials lied repeatedly to Justice and to Congress about deadly shootings in Honduras in May 2012—including an incident off the Mosquito Coast in which a boat was fired on, killing four passengers, among them a 14-year-old boy. DEA officials long maintained, and media reported, that those killed were drug dealers who had fired first.

Presented now as a shocking revelation unearthed by government digging, the findings are no surprise to regional experts like University of California/Santa Cruz historian Dana Frank—nor should they be to the press. When CounterSpin (5/25/12) spoke to Frank in May of 2012, she had this to say:
This is a great opportunity to talk about critical thinking about the US media, because this story would never have been broken if it wasn’t for a couple reporters. I saw in the Honduran papers the day after it happened [5/12/12]; it was reported in the Honduran papers as, “DEA agents and Honduran troops killed drug traffickers and had a successful raid.” And over that next weekend, the indigenous people of the region put out a statement, saying, “Wait a minute, we were killed by the military here, and we were shot on from above and we are not drug dealers.”

And that went nowhere, because, frankly, if you follow Honduras closely, those kind of statements [come] from people being killed all the time by Honduran troops and police, and so you have to wait and see who’s even going to confirm that, because no one will believe you.

And then what happened was on Tuesday morning [5/15/12], one Honduran paper reported that the mayor and the congressman from that region, in the Mosquitia, said that the people that had been killed by the troops were civilians, and that they had been killed by the DEA as well as Honduran troops. Thank goodness that was picked up by Bloomberg News, in a piece that didn’t move that far, and AP picked up that story and moved with it, and we really want to celebrate Bloomberg for doing it and AP for doing it.

And then they started talking to the DEA and the State Department, and then of course the spin machine kicked in. The State Department said in its briefing that, yes, they did acknowledge that DEA agents were on board the helicopters, there were two helicopters at least, and they acknowledged that the helicopters are owned by the State Department, and also that there were Guatemalan military on board, which is also interesting. But at the same time, the State Department spin started to be—implying that these people were in fact drug traffickers; there was some remark about, well, local authorities are often drug traffickers, sort of impugning the mayor who had said it, and saying that, well, they had been shot at first.

And, you know, I can tell you as a historian that we don’t want to believe a word that the State Department is saying here. There’s just way too much of a history of lying about things. Of course, we can believe them when they admit to bad things, but I think we have a lot to learn about what was going on in this incident.
So the point isn’t so much now it can be told, as now it can be admitted.
Janine Jackson
Janine Jackson is FAIR's program director and and producer/co-host of FAIR's syndicated radio show CounterSpin. She contributes frequently to FAIR's magazine, Extra! and co-edited The FAIR Reader: An Extra! Review of Press and Politics in the '90s (Westview Press).
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/05/28/five-years-later-us-admits-lies-about-deadly-honduran-shooting

< Older Blame David Cameron for Manchester Bombing!


undefined

Whenever you see the mainstream media in the United States take time out from trashing President Donald Trump to give him neutral or even grudgingly favorable coverage, be on your guard. It’s a sure sign he’s taken a step away from his campaign pledge to drain the Washington swamp and instead has done something to please the swamp critters.

A smug New York Times, the virulent enemy of Trump and of the deplorable people who elected him, clucked its patronizing approval of his speech to the leaders of over 50 Muslim-majority countries – pointedly excluding Iran and Syria – as a repudiation of his earlier views:
President Trump on Sunday pivoted away from his strident assessment of Islam as a religion of hatred as he sought to redefine US leadership in the Mideast and rally the Muslim world to join him in a renewed campaign against extremism...

The president’s overall tone in Saudi Arabia was a far cry from his incendiary language on the campaign trail last year, when he said that ‘Islam hates us’ and called for a ‘total and complete shutdown’ of Muslims entering the United States.

Throughout his visit here, a less volatile president emerged, disciplined and on message in a way he is often not at home.
The centerpiece of the Saudi leg of Trump’s maiden foreign voyage as president was the joint U.S.-Saudi inauguration of a "Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology," to be located in Riyadh. The selection of venue and partner is nothing less than surreal. Where better to plant a center devoted to combating violent Islamic ideology than in the capital of the country where that very ideology is officially established by the state?

A "European Center for Combating Genocidal Ideology" just as well might have been set up in 1942 in Berlin. Or Zagreb. Just think how much work it would have had!

It’s possible there’s simply been a misunderstanding. Perhaps Trump’s Saudi hosts thought he meant a center for promoting extremist ideology. No doubt it will all be cleared up soon.

It hardly needs to be detailed what Trump and his advisers are well aware of: that in terms of promoting, not combating, jihad ideology, Saudi Arabia is the global epicenter. The Islamic State, al-Qaeda and its many offshoots and affiliates (such as the Imam Shamil Battalion, which claimed "credit" for the April 2017 St. Petersburg Metro bombing, which western media ignore on lists of terror attacks since the victims were only Russians, not real human beings), al-Shabaab, Boko Haram, the Taliban, Abu Sayyaf – all profess Wahhabist doctrines care of the so-called "Kingdom." Tens if not hundreds of thousands of little boys in madrassas around the world, including in areas of Syria and Iraq controlled by the Islamic State, study their homicidal catechism from Saudi official textbooks. Funding and weaponry to these groups would dry up without benefactors from Saudi Arabia and Gulf states.

For the umpteenth time, our Wahhabist "allies" have promised an American president they will get serious about cracking down on supposedly unauthorized terror-funding by private parties. For the umpteenth time, an American president pretends to believe them.


In an inversion of reality, Trump assigned the blame for global terrorism explicitly on Iran and Syria – and implicitly on Russia – which are fighting against al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. He also announced over $100 billion in arms sales to the Saudis to counter Iran in places like Yemen, where the Iranians have no presence and little influence but where the Saudis are committing genocide in collaboration with al-Qaeda.

Turning a blind eye to the real sponsors of jihad in order to destroy countries targeted by Riyadh’s Wahhabists doesn’t only mean inflicting atrocities on those countries – it comes back to bite us here at home too. Consider the recent Manchester bombing that killed 22 people and wounded scores of others. As pointed out by Daniel McAdams of the Ron Paul Institute, it would not have happened if the Saudis, American, and British governments had not turned Libya and Syria into jihadist playpens for the likes of mass murderer Salman Abedi:
According to the London Telegraph, Abedi, a son of Libyan immigrants living in a radicalized Muslim neighborhood in Manchester had returned to Libya several times after the overthrow of Muamar Gaddafi, most recently just weeks ago. After the US/UK and allied ‘liberation’ of Libya, all manner of previously outlawed and fiercely suppressed radical jihadist groups suddenly found they had free rein to operate in Libya. This is the Libya that Abedi returned to and where he likely prepared for his suicide attack on pop concert attendees. Before the US-led attack on Libya in 2011, there was no al-Qaeda, ISIS, or any other related terrorist organization operating (at least with impunity) on Libyan soil. 

Gaddafi himself warned Europe in January 2011 that if they overthrew his government the result would be radical Islamist attacks on Europe, but European governments paid no heed to the warnings. Post-Gaddafi Libya became an incubator of Islamist terrorists and terrorism, including prime recruiting ground for extremists to fight jihad in Syria against the also-secular Bashar Assad. 

In Salman Abedi we have the convergence of both these disastrous US/UK and allied interventions, however: it turns out that not only did Abedi make trips to Libya to radicalize and train for terror, but he also travelled to Syria to become one of the 'Syria rebels' fighting on the same side as the US and UK to overthrow the Assad government. Was he perhaps even trained in a CIA program? We don't know, but it certainly is possible.
Britons should hold David Cameron guilty of the innocent blood staining Manchester. No less guilty are Nicolas Sarkozy and Barack Obama. Likewise Hillary Clinton of "We came, we saw, he died" infamy, who reportedly was the driving force for America’s role, without which regime change in Libya would not have occurred. Let that self-anointed champion of women and girls answer for Manchester.

When on the Last Day the books are opened and all accounts settled, Salman Abedi will have to face the judgment he escaped in this life. But add to that reckoning before the Dread Judge the names of those who helped the Saudis and their confederates do their dirty work.


 Strategic Culture Foundation.
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/05/26/blame-david-cameron-for-manchester-bombing.html

THE GREAT WHITE FATHER COMES TO SAUDI ARABIA

The Great White Father came to Saudi Arabia last week to harangue some 50 Arab and African despots on the glories of Trumpism, democracy and the need to fight what the Americans call terrorism.
Having covered the Mideast for many decades, I cannot think of a more bizarre or comical spectacle. Here was Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s most repressive regimes, hosting the glad-handing US president who hates Islam and the Mideast with irrational passion.
I was amazed to learn that Trump’s speech to the Arab and African attendees had been written by pro-Israel ideologue Stephen Miller, a young senior White House staffer from California who is an extreme Zionist. How very bizarre.
Not only that, Trump’s daughter and son-in-law, who are also strongly pro-Israel, were with him. So too was the powerful commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, another ardent pro-Israel cabinet member with whom I spent a weekend last year. Billionaire Ross performed the traditional Saudi sword dance with skill and verve.
Listening to Trump and Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, blast Iran as the font of terrorism provided another big joke. Trump’s tirade against Tehran was delivered in Saudi Arabia, a feudal monarchy that holds no elections, cuts off the heads of some 80-90 people annually, and treats women like cattle. While claiming to be the leader of the Muslim world, the Saudi royal family funds mayhem and extreme Muslim obscurantism through the region. The current wave of primitive violence by some self-professed Muslims – ISIS being the leader – was originally funded and guided by the Saudis in a covert struggle to combat revolutionary Iran. I saw this happen in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Let’s recall 15 of the 18 men who attacked the US on 9/11 were Saudis.
Iran has the freest political system in the Mideast except for Israel). Iranian women have rights and political freedoms that are utterly unknown in Saudi Arabia. Iran just held a fair and open national election in which moderates won. Compare this to Saudi Arabia’s medieval Bedouin society. I was once arrested by the religious police in Jeddah just for walking down a street with an Egyptian lady.
Today, US and British equipped Saudi forces are laying waste to wretched Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest nation. As a result of a Saudi air, land and sea blockade, the UN now reports that famine has gripped large parts of Yemen. US and British technicians are keeping the Saudi air force flying; the US and Britain supply the bombs.
President Trump arrived with a bag of $110 billion worth of arms (some already approved by the Obama administration), and a promise of $350 billion worth in ten years. There was nothing new about this arms bazaar: for over a decade the Saudis have bought warehouses of US arms in exchange for keeping oil prices low and fronting for US interests in the Muslim world. Most of these arms remain in storage as the Saudis don’t know how to use them.
Many of America’s most important arms makers are located in politically important US states. The Saudis were so deeply in bed with the Republicans that their former ambassador to Washington, Prince Bandar, was known to one and all as ‘Bandar Bush.’ Saudi money and influence has flowed far and wide across the US political landscape. That’s how the Saudis get away with mass killing in Yemen, funding ISIS and ravaging Syria with hardly any peeps of protest from Congress.
By now, it’s perfectly clear that the long secret relationship between Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Emirates has finally come into the open. Israel and its rich Arab friends all hate Iran, they oppose Palestinian rights, and fear revolution in the Arab world.
The two most reactionary Arab states, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, are now close allies, though they compete over who will lead the Arab world. Neither despotic regime has any right to do so. Trump lauded the Egyptian dictator Abdel Fattah al-Sissi who overthrew Egypt’s first ever democratically elected government (with Saudi help), gunned down hundreds of protestors, jailed and tortured thousands. Suspects in Egypt are routinely subjected to savage beatings and anal rape.
As I tried to explain in my second book, ‘American Raj,’ the brutal, corrupt regimes we westerners have imposed on the Arab world and Africa are the main cause of what we call ‘terrorism.’ So too the wars we have waged in the region to impose our will and economic exploitation. It’s blowback, pure and simple. So-called terrorism is not at all about Islam as our politicians, led by Trump of Arabia, falsely claim.
But no shoes were thrown at Trump by his audience. They were too scared of their heads being cut off by our democratic ally.
Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2017
https://ericmargolis.com/2017/05/the-great-white-father-comes-to-saudi-arabia/

New NAFTA Must Put People and Planet First

The White House has sent formal notice to Congress that it is initiating the process to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). All evidence suggests that despite Trump’s claims to the contrary, this puts us on track to yet another corporate trade deal that will protect the profits of multinational corporations at the expense of workers and the environment around the world.
Even so, progressives now have a historic opportunity to rewrite the rules of global trade to put people and the planet first. Above all, we must end the corporate court system “free trade” relies on, which tilts the playing field in favor of multinational capital, and replace it will strong standards that protect workers and the environment, backed by enforcement mechanisms with real teeth.

How NAFTA Works

NAFTA and other “free trade” deals came into existence as part of an agenda to remake the world according to the interests of global capital. The result has been a system of corporate globalization that relies on high levels of inequality between countries and a global race to the bottom in wages, labor protections, corporate taxes, and environmental regulations.
In the United States, the results have included deindustrialization and wage stagnation. In Mexico, wages have dropped since NAFTA was enacted and have not recovered, while two million small farmers lost their livelihoods and their land as cheap U.S. corn flooded into the market.
The sense of economic desperation fostered by NAFTA is part of the stories of many undocumented Mexican immigrants in the U.S., just as it is part of the stories of many white Trump voters in the Rust Belt.

The ISDS

One of the most outrageous mechanisms in NAFTA and other trade deals is the Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), a corporate court system through which a corporation can sue a government for laws that allegedly harm that corporation’s profitability. These cases are decided by a tribunal of corporate lawyers.
Most recently, TransCanada Corporation demanded $15 billion in compensation from the U.S. government through ISDS following the historic victory of the movement to stop the Keystone XL pipeline. This is a violation of democracy and a systematic threat to the common good.
Past trade deals have also included language about the protection of labor rights and the environmental. But these are insufficient and lack real enforcement mechanisms. Through ISDS, governments can be forced to pay out tens of billions of dollars for refusing to allow a corporation to pollute in its territory. There is no equivalent system to hold corporations accountable for their misbehavior.

How to Make Free Trade Fair

Any renegotiation of NAFTA must include the abolition of ISDS. In its place, we must have a set of standards protecting workers, the environment, and the common good. These should include wage standards for all countries in the agreement, setting a precedent for a global minimum wage system, basic labor rights, corporate tax standards, and environmental standards including carbon emissions.
And it is not good enough for these standards to merely exist on paper. They must be backed up by real enforcement mechanisms, with the power of the ISDS but unafraid of corporate power, designed to allow governments and civil society groups to win significant penalties against multinational corporations which violate standards in any country.
Now is the time to transform the rules of the global economy. In response to a new wave of opposition to corporate globalization from both the left and the far right, especially around ISDS, global elites have realized that the system needs to change and have started to talk about reforms. Of course these proposals stem from their own interests, and are inadequate to address the real concerns of working people. Even so, this is a sign that decades of promises that “free trade” will improve the economy for everyone have stopped working.
The rejection of corporate globalization was a major factor behind Trump’s election victory. As I argued last November after Trump’s election scuttled the TPP, his nationalistic promises on trade would not have represented any form of progress, as they are inextricable from his xenophobia, and based on a misunderstanding of how the global economy works.
Trump now seems to be stepping back from many of his campaign promises on trade. But, in any case, he has helped catalyze a crisis in corporate globalization, and it is up to us to use that crisis to create the progressive change we need both in U.S. and internationally.
These progressive changes will make international trade and investment more just, and help end the global race to the bottom in wages, working conditions, corporate taxes, and environmental regulations. These measures will also reinvigorate the global economy, by increasing demand and stimulating job growth across borders, which will in turn decrease high-risk migration motivated by economic desperation and extreme poverty.
A campaign for international progressive standards will also highlight how working class people and progressives in all countries have shared interests, which creates a powerful political alternative to Trump’s nationalism in the form of international solidarity between working people and progressives across borders.
https://ourfuture.org/20170526/new-nafta-must-put-people-and-planet-first

Indonesian Borneo is finished: Pollution reaching epic proportions

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Three of his latest books are revolutionary novel “Aurora” and two bestselling works of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire” and “Fighting Against Western Imperialism”. View his other books here. Andre is making films for teleSUR and Al-Mayadeen. After having lived in Latin America, Africa and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website and his Twitter.
Indonesian Borneo is finished: Pollution reaching epic proportions
How destructive can man get, how ruthless, in his quest to secure maximum profit, even as he endangers the very survival of our planet?
The tropical forests of Kalimantan (known as Borneo in Malaysia), the third largest island in the world, have almost totally disappeared. Coalmines are savagely scarring the hills; the rivers are polluted, and countless species are endangered or extinct.
It is all a terrible sight, whether you see it from the air or when driving (or walking) through the devastation that is taking place on the ground. The soil is black; it is often saturated with chemicals. Dead stubs of trees are accusatively pointing towards the sky. Many wonderful creatures, big and small, who used to proudly inhabit this tropical paradise, are now hiding in the depth of what remains of one of the largest tropical jungles on earth
Engines are instantly roaring everywhere; huge equipment is continually cutting through something pure, or digging and finally transporting what has already been extracted, killed, or taken down mercilessly.
Ms. Mira Lubis, Senior Lecturer at Tanjungpura University, Pontianak in Western Kalimantan, summarizes the situation honestly but brutally:
“I think we, the people of Borneo, have lost our sovereignty over our own space and resources, under the pressure of global capitalism... Apparently, we just became poor despite all the wealth that we have.”
One morning I looked from my hotel window in the city of Samarinda (East Kalimantan), spotting an enormous coal barge. It was sitting right in front of me, stubbornly, under the bridge (one of only two bridges connecting two shores of this steamy city of 850,000). The barge was too big to move, as the current appeared to be too strong. One push boat and one tugboat were trying to move it against the torrent, in vain.
I went downstairs and encountered a frustrated Mr. Jailani, a shipping manager employed by a coal company.
“They were supposed to use a pilot boat, but there is none in sight,” he lamented. “This happens so often. Coal barges already hit this bridge on at least three occasions.”
Coalmines were exactly what I was looking for, but he dismissed my questions with a polite but firm answer:
“You can never make it to the mines. They are off-limits. Guards are everywhere, and you’d have to have special permit to enter the area. And there is not much to see, anyway. Our company was recently awarded a prize for environmental consciousness.”
I went to Sambutan, a mining town a 40-minute drive from Samarinda. At some point, continuous and depressing urban sprawl gave way to a fully devastated landscape. Some images were striking: a man, alone, with a metal bar, singlehandedly crumbling the entire side of a mountain, supposedly in order to sell stone for a local construction site.
Nearby, in a makeshift stall, a couple and a child were selling fruit. I asked them about the mountain and the man, and they replied with a certain amount of admiration:
“We are selling coconuts here for almost two years. For as long as we are here, he has been here as well. He is a real daredevil. What he is doing is so dangerous, but he never stumbles, never falls.”
Before Makroman town, we turn left, soon leaving the main road behind. Wherever one looks, the entire landscape is ruined: mountains mutilated beyond recognition, forests gone, and huge tracts of land “cleared.”
Despite what I already witnessed in all corners of Indonesia for years, I’m still not prepared for what soon opens in front of my eyes: the endless and horrifying sprawl of natural calamity: dozens of square kilometers of dust, noise, and mud.
I try to avoid 100-ton trucks which almost run my car off the path. They are transporting coal. I see filthy processing plants. I see old, rusty equipment scattered all around the area.
Suddenly I realize that I’m “there,” in the middle of the notorious ‘PT CEM’ (Cahaya Energi Mandiri), a giant Indonesian-South Korean coalmining joint venture.
I’m not supposed to be here, and to see all this with my own eyes. But I’m entering the mining area with a car equipped with local license plates. It is right before 1pm – the end of lunch hour. Checkpoints are unattended. I step on the gas, and dash in. Guards will soon return, but it will be too late to stop me. My rented car is already cutting through dirt and dust, progressing towards its goal.
PT CEM has operated in this area since 2008, and it counts on mining concessions covering approximately 1,600 hectares, in the area of Sungai Siring, Samarinda.
In Indonesia, the images of natural disasters like this one are hardly ever publicized. Mining in Papua, Kalimantan, Sumatra, and elsewhere brings in billions of dollars annually, into both government coffers and into the deep pockets of corrupt individuals. This country, with the fourth-largest population on earth, is producing very little, but is extracting in an unbridled manner all that is still available above and below the ground. National mass media is fully subservient to both local and foreign business interests.
The native population is stuck with low-paying jobs and almost no benefits. The environment is “changing,” pollution is reaching epic proportions, but there is very little awareness, even among the poorest of the poor, of the dreadfulness of the situation.
On the way out from the mining site, three men (sub-contractors of PT CEM) are trying to fix their broken truck. “The pay here is very low. Our basic salary consists of US$115 per month, which is bellow official minimum wage. We have no health insurance, and no housing allowances.”
In nearby Makroman, Ms. Suwarti, a housewife married to a farmer, explains:
“We have two lots, each with 200 square meters, producing bananas and other crops, but the mining company wanted to use it. They offered compensation of only US$110. If we’d refuse, the company would still grab and use the land, but would give us no compensation. After all, coal that was extracted from our plot, they filled the pit but now nothing can grow there, anymore. The land is ruined. We were very angry, but what could small people like us do?”
It is like this all over the area, all over Kalimantan, all over the entire Indonesian archipelago.
Mr. Yhenda Permana, director of LNG-producing company PT Badak NGL, which is based in Kalimantan, says:
“I’m very sad to see destruction of Kalimantan. If we look from above, the island is already ‘bald,’ dotted with black toxic lakes. They burn the forest with, even with orangutans still living there. Local people do it, but who is behind them? Protected forests are also logged out and burned. Afterwards, in most of cases, palm oil is planted.”
One of the national forests I visited, symbolically named ‘Bukit Soeharto’ (Suharto’s Hill) is almost gone. I ask an old local lady, Ms. Halbi, who is selling basic goods at the side of the road, whether there is any respect for native protected forests on this island:
“We are allowed to grow some plants here. Even I do. Pepper and dragon fruit. It is not our land, but nobody does anything to stop us.”
Stubs and stubs, everywhere, ‘replacing’ magnificent trees, in what used to be one of the greatest areas, often described as “the lungs of the planet Earth.”
Ms. Windrati Kaliman, former lecturer at INSTIPER (Plantation Technology Institute) Yogyakarta, has her theory on the matter:
“Massive deforestation accelerated after ‘de-centralization.’ Now local governments are free to give permits for logging. Rainforest is being converted into palm oil plantations and mines. In theory, protected forests and parks cannot be used for logging, but in reality they are: In Kalimantan, but also in Aceh, Riau, and many other parts of the country.”
It is not only trees that are disappearing, and not only people who are living in increasing misery.
The legendary Borneo orangutan is almost extinct. And so are bears, countless species of birds, and insects.
In Samboja Orangutan Sanctuary & Rehabilitation Center, Mr. Andreas (a caretaker), can barely hide his outrage:
“You cannot imagine what is being done to these intelligent and fascinating apes. This one – we rescued him from a timber plant. Just for fun they had him chained under the generator, for years. As a result, he lost his hearing and suffers from brain damage. It is very common in Kalimantan to hunt for female orangutans, shave them and sell them for sex to desperate forestry workers. It is like rape, like horrible slavery. Remember, these apes have 97% same DNA as humans, and as humans, they have 4 types of blood.”
I travelled through several parts of Indonesian Kalimantan, around Samarinda and Balikpapan, as well as Pontianak. I testify that I saw those “black lakes and rivers,” as well as countless open pits, and palm oil plantations, almost everywhere. I flew over hundreds of kilometers of hellish wastelands. I listened to people suffering from cancer, from respiratory diseases, but above all, from hopelessness.
As Mr. Yhenda Permana concluded: “Can you imagine, this once stunningly beautiful island with deep native forests and thousands of living creatures, is now converted and ‘dedicated’ to only one crop: palm oil?”
The tragedy is not only devastating Kalimantan, but almost the whole of Indonesia. This is what has been happening to this country with a deep and ancient culture, and enormous natural beauty, ever since the 1965 US-sponsored coup, and re-introduction of savage capitalism, feudalism, and unrestrained corruption.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.