Zionism – Features

* By Iqbal Jassat

Kashmir is undergoing a fresh impetus in resistance to Indian occupation. Following a controversial transfer of land to a Hindu shrine trust, a renewed revolt by Kashmiris has once again catapulted their freedom struggle into the living rooms of a worldwide television audience.

This new spotlight on Kashmir has resulted in many questions. Foremost seems to be the puzzling paradox of India: a country freed from the yoke of British colonialism yet itself remaining in occupation of another. It is remarkable that six decades into the post-colonial era, the formerly colonized would employ medieval repressive tactics to enforce their own version of colonial practices. Successive Indian governments have retained many characteristics of the old and current British imperial policy to subjugate Kashmir without any regard for International Conventions. Besides merely disregarding its obligations as a member-state of the United Nations, India has deliberately frustrated numerous “crisis solving” efforts, thus contributing to what analysts term as “diplomatic failure”.  

Such failure would naturally leave Occupied Kashmir at the mercy of India. And records of brutality documented by human rights organizations reveal that India’s military control of the territory has been anything but “merciful”.

This does not suggest that Kashmiri territory under Pakistani control – known as Azad Kashmir – has been free. These inhabitants’ freedom hinges on the political expediency of the current leaders in Islamabad, as indeed their fortunes have been tied to all the former military dictators – whether in civilian dress or not – in the past six decades. Azad Kashmir remains subject to the political designs fabricated in Pakistan and heavily influenced as studies indicate, by foreign Western advisors.

The dispute over Kashmir derives from the defective geopolitical process of Partition in 1947, which saw the old British Empire split up into India and Pakistan. It is symbolic of the type of legacy of Britain’s imperial achievements in India as indeed in other conflicts such as Israel/Palestine, to bequeath perpetual strife. In his book ‘Incomplete Partition – The Genesis of the Kashmir Dispute 1947-1948’, Alastair Lamb admits as much: “The British Indian Empire was just that, an empire like other empires, an assemblage of diverse territories and peoples joined together through British military might, diplomacy and duplicity over many years and then maintained in being by means of the continued forcible application of British control over non-British peoples.”   

India’s repressive policies against insurgents in Kashmir received a boost following 9/11. According to award-winning journalist Phil Rees, any hesitation over the use of ‘terrorism’ by the Indian establishment disappeared after 2001. Whereas throughout the 1990s, the Hindu nationalist government was seeking Western sympathy and support for its conflict in Kashmir, after 9/11 it was expedient to jump headlong onto the ‘war on terror’ bandwagon. Thus it served Indian interests to define the Kashmiri freedom struggle as “terrorist” and to lump its fighters with Osama bin Laden.

In this misty haze new myths have been created to hide the fact that Kashmir is a victim as Rees asserts, of the disputed division of British India during the transfer of colonial power in 1947. He explains that a border was created on religious lines and states with a Muslim majority formed the newly created Pakistan alongside a predominantly Hindu India. “When India and Pakistan became independent, it was generally assumed that Jammu and Kashmir, with its 80 per cent Muslim population, would accede to Pakistan, but Kashmir was one of 565 princely states whose rulers had given their loyalty to Britain but preserved their royal titles. The partition plan, negotiated by the last viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, excluded these princely states, which were granted independence [albeit without the power to express it]. Of the 565 princely states, 552 agreed to become part of India but the remainder posed problems: Hyderabad and Junagadh had Muslim rulers but Hindu majorities and were surrounded by Indian territory. Indian troops occupied the states and overthrew the Muslim rulers. In Kashmir a Hindu nobleman, Sir Hari Singh, was the maharaja, or governor. Two months after the independence of India and Pakistan, he was still unable to make up his mind.”

The strategic geographical location of Kashmir bordering Afghanistan and China remains an important consideration for the Indian authorities. The irony though is that amongst the two regions in China bordering Kashmir, Tibet’s political crisis is articulated regularly in the Western media while Xinjiang’s story is largely unknown. China, like India, views the Muslim majority region of Xinjiang’s struggle for greater autonomy as “terrorist”. A glance at the map of Kashmir will explain that its pivotal position will remain a factor influencing India and allies such as Britain and America not to grant Kashmir its overdue independence.

UN Resolutions or not; previous agreements on plebiscite or not; India’s empire is determined to ignore with contempt any or all its international obligations.

* Iqbal Jassat
Chairman: Media Review Network

(Media Review Network is an advocacy group based in Pretoria (Tshwane), South Africa)

Read More »Kashmir and the Indian empire

Egyptian police has blocked the relief convoy that left Cairo Wednesday morning with humanitarian and medical aid to the Gaza Strip, and assaulted two of the convoy activists, Ikhwanweb reporter said. Opposition leaders who went with the convoy have expressed their concern to Ikhwanweb that the convoy will return to Cairo after having no other option. 

The convoy is part of a national campaign to break the siege on Gaza with the collaboration of a variety of national Egyptian trends, including the Muslim Brotherhood.

Moreover, the doctors syndicate, from where the campaign was launched, is currently besieged by a heavy security blockade in what appears to be an intention by the government to crackdown on the campaign. 

The convoy (the first of two) consists of four buses, and was organized by the Labor Party  and the National Committee for Breaking Gaza Siege. It was stopped by security personnel on the entrance of the Suez Canal governorate of Al Ismailiyya.

Kefaya leader Dr. Yahia Gazzaz told Ikhwanweb that the convoy now has no other option but to return. The buses are heavily besieged by police, he said.

“Instead of assuming its duty in protecting citizens, Egyptian police has violently crackdown on our convoy, preventing our passengers from moving freely inside their homeland, and blocking any attempt to offer humanitarian and emotional aid to Gaza residents,” Gazzaz told Ikhwanweb.

Gazzaz also confirmed that police has assaulted two persons in the convoy and hit them violently without any obvious reason.

“This is absolutely a regime security apparatus, not a state security apparatus,” he said mockingly.

“The vehicles moved at 8.00 am, but we were stopped by heavy security blockade after we arrived at the entrance gate of Al Ismailiyya,” opposition leader Magdy Qorqor said in a phone call to the MB website.

“Police took the driving licenses of the drivers of the four buses and refused to return them, and then they gave us only three in an attempt to further delay our mission.”

Qorqor added that police officers asked them to submit a detailed list of the people on board, but he refused to do so, and the youth participating in the campaign went out of the buses and held a demonstration in protest.

Qorqor affirmed that the convoy does not intend to carry out any sort of violent protest.

(IkhwanWeb – Egypt)

Read More »Egypt security cracks down on relief convoy heading to Gaza cordons doctors syndicate

 By Tahir Sema

ANC Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe has been elected President of the Republic of South Africa.

A man well liked by South Africans, and even many of the ANC critics have given Motlanthe there support.

A biographical profile of Motlanthe as told by the ANC:
Kgalema Motlanthe was born on 19 July 1949 in Alexandra township, Johannesburg, to a working class family. Most of his childhood was spent in Alexandra and much of his adult life was spent in Meadowlands, Soweto.
 
In the 1970s, while working for the Johannesburg City Council, he was recruited into Umkhonto we Sizwe. He formed part of a unit tasked with recruiting comrades for military training.
 
The unit was later instructed to transform its function from recruitment to sabotage. While some members of the unit left the country, he and Stan Nkosi remained in the country to establish such a machinery. Their unit was also involved in smuggling MK cadres in and out of the country via Swaziland.
 
On 14 April 1976 they were arrested for furthering the aims of the ANC and were kept in detention for 11 months at John Vorster Square in central Johannesburg.
 
In 1977 he was found guilty of three charges under Terrorism Act and sentenced to an effective 10 years imprisonment on Robben Island.
 
After his release in 1987, he was tasked with strengthening the union movement.
 
Motlanthe worked for the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in charge of education. Among other things, he was involved in training workers to form shopsteward committees.
 
In 1992 he was elected NUM General Secretary.
 
He was instrumental in negotiating a deal for mineworkers under which their wage increases would be pegged to productivity at a time when the gold price was low, and the industry was closing marginal mines. This deal helped to avert massive retrenchments in the sector.
 
He was involved in the establishment of the Mineworkers Investment Company (MIC), which was wholly owned by the Mineworkers Investment Trust, with seed capital of R3 million. This has proven to be one of the best examples of effective economic empowerment in the country.
 
During his tenure, NUM established the JB Marks Education Trust, which provided bursaries to mineworkers and their dependants, and a resident trade union school called the Elijah Barayi Memorial Training Centre, located in Yeoville, Johannesburg. He was also involved in establishing the Mineworkers Development Agency, which focused on the developmental needs of ex-mineworkers, their dependants and communities.
 
While in NUM he served on the Miners’ International Federation, and was involved in exchange programmes with the United Mineworkers of Australia.
 
When the ANC was unbanned in 1990, he was put in charge of re-establishing the legal structures of the organisation in the PWV region and was elected its first chairperson. He often travelled around  the country with Walter Sisulu visiting violence flashpoints.
 
He was elected unopposed as the Secretary General of the African National Congress (ANC) in 1997 and was re-elected in 2002. Among other things, his responsibilities included the development of party-to-party relations in the region, across the countries of the South, and around the world.
 
In December 2007 he was elected ANC Deputy President at its 52nd National Conference in Polokwane.
 
In July 2008 he was appointed Minister in The Presidency of the Republic of South Africa.

Meanwhile Mugabe has been left “devastated” and “disturbed”.

The Herald newspaper reported today that Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe has called the resignation of President Thabo Mbeki "devastating".
He reportedly told journalists on the sidelines of a United Nations General Assembly in New York yesterday that "It’s devastating news that President Thabo Mbeki is no longer the president of South Africa, but that is the action of the South African people. Who are we to judge [them]? But it is very disturbing".

Read More »Kgalema motlanthe elected president of south Africa