Day: June 15, 2024

Iran
PJAK

Fighting breaks out in Iranian Kurdistan

The military wing of the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK) issued a statement saying that armed clashes broke out between its forces and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Marivan region of Iran’s Kordistan province. The East Kurdistan Defense Units (YRK) wrote that the IRGC initiated artillery and mortar attacks against their positions. The statement came as PJAK Presidential Council member Siyamend Moini was in Brussels to deliver a speech before a conference at the European Parliament entitled “Weaving a Democratic Iran Together.” In his comments, Moini called for international support for the “reconstruction of a free, democratic, and secular Iran that consistently defends women’s rights, the rights of peoples and minorities, and environmental protection.” (Image: Middle East Forum via Wikimedia Commons)

Iran
Iran Protests

Podcast: neither Jewish State nor Islamic Republic II

With Israel’s criminal air-strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites releasing radioactive contamination, Bibi Netanyahu cynically invokes the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protest movement that shook Iran for months from September 2022. Of course nothing is less conducive to pro-democracy civil resistance in Iran than to have this cause associated with the foreign power that is bombing the country’s territory—and is itself oppressing the Palestinians with biblical justifications. In Episode 282 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg again advocates a neither/nor position that rejects the militaristic and reactionary regimes of both Zionism and political Islam, and looks to a secular order in the Middle East. (Photo: Ottawa protest in support of Iranian uprising, via Wikimedia Commons)

paramilitaries

CHIQUITA TO PAY FOR PARAMILITARY TERROR IN COLOMBIA

In 2007, Chiquita—one of the world’s largest banana producers—admitted that for years it had been knowingly paying a Colombian terrorist organization to protect its operations in the country. The consequence was predictably violent, resulting in thousands of murders, disappearances, and acts of torture. This week, nearly two decades later, a federal jury in South Florida ordered the company to pay upwards of $38 million in damages in the first of multiple waves of wrongful death and disappearance lawsuits. In an explainer for JURIST, Ingrid Burke Friedman explores the factors that drove the multinational to make these payments, the consequences, and the legal impact.

Continue ReadingCHIQUITA TO PAY FOR PARAMILITARY TERROR IN COLOMBIA 
Mexico
Moisés Gandhi

Protest paramilitary attacks on Zapatistas

An international mobilization was held, with small protests in cities across the world, in response to a call for support by the Zapatista rebel movement in Mexico’s southern state of Chiapas. According to the statement, the Zapatista base community of Moisés Gandhi is coming under renewed attack by the local paramilitary group ORCAO. In a May armed incursion at the community, a resident was struck by a bullet and gravely injured. Several families were displaced as ORCAO gunmen briefly occupied parts of the community. The statement charges: “Chiapas is on the verge of civil war, with paramilitaries and hired killers from various cartels fighting for the plaza [zone of territorial control]…with the active or passive complicity of the governments of [Chiapas governor] Rutilio Escandón Cadenas and [Mexican president] Andrés Manuel López Obrador.” (Photo: Chiapas Support Committee)

Africa
maasai

Tanzania: troops fire on Maasai herders

Tanzanian security forces fired on Maasai herders in a dispute over seizure of traditional grazing lands for a new game reserve. The trouble started when hundreds of troops of the Field Force Unit arrived at the village of Wasso, to demarcate a 1,500 square-kilometer area for the new reserve. Maasai gathered to protest, and were met with bullets. Some 30 were reportedly shot, and two killed. Afterwards, troops went house-to-house in Maasai villages, beating and arresting those they believed took part in the protests or distributed images of the violence on social media. Thousands of Maasai fled their homes into the bush following the raids. UAE-based Otterlo Business Company, which runs hunting excursions for the Emirates’ royal family, is reportedly to operate trophy-hunting concessions in the new reserve. (Photo: Survival International)

Europe
abcbelarus

Belarus: anarchist statement on Ukraine war

Anarchist Black Cross Belarus issues a statement calling for international solidarity with the struggle to defeat Vladimir Putin’s project of rebuilding the Russian Empire, and urging support for the armed anarchist units in Ukraine, and the anti-war protesters in Russia. The statement rejects Putin’s exploitation of NATO expansion as a justification for the war, and the “postmodern irony” of pointing to Western crimes to justify those of Russia. It sees the necessity of a “temporary alliance” between anarchists and the Ukrainian state until Russia is defeated. “A Russian victory in this war would be a complete disaster not only for Ukraine, but for all of Eastern Europe” and beyond. Whereas, the defeat of the Russian army could lead to the fall of Putin, and the “liberation of Belarus,” as well as Kazakhstan and other countries under dictatorships within Moscow’s political orbit.

The Andes
false positives

Colombia: ex-prez apologizes for ‘false positives’

Colombia’s ex-president Juan Manuel Santos, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for bringing an end to the country’s long internal war, publicly apologized for his role in the practice of “false positives“—extrajudicial executions by the armed forces, in which the victims were reported as guerillas slain in combat. The apology came in testimony before Colombia’s Truth Commission, created under the peace process that Santos himself initiated. Santos admitted that most of the “false positives” took place when he served as defense minister under the hardline president Álvaro Uribe, and that he initially turned a blind eye to the practice. (Photo: Contagio Radio)

The Amazon
bloc 58

Peru: indigenous opposition to Chinese gas project

A new coalition of Amazonian indigenous groups and environmentalists has come together in Peru to demand oversight and accountability in the development of a huge new hydrocarbon exploitation bloc in the rainforest. The China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) won exploitation rights in 2017 at Bloc 58, in the Upper Urubamba zone of Cuzco region, after explorations revealed some 3.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves, enough to increase Peru’s total gas reserves by nearly 28%. But Bloc 58 overlaps with the traditional territories of the Asháninka and Machiguenga indigenous peoples. The newly formed Amazon Indigenous Platform for Monitoring Chinese Investment in Peru is demanding that exploitation proceed at Bloc 58 only in compliance with the internationally recognized right to “prior and informed consent” of impacted indigenous peoples. (Photo via Andina)

South Asia
Kashmir

Himalayan border conflicts escalate

China has mobilized thousands of troops backed up by armored vehicles to a contested area along the border with India in the Himalayas, where troops last month hurled stones at each other across the unmarked boundary known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC). The area in question is in the Galwan River valley between Ladakh, in Indian-administered Kashmir, and Chinese-administered Aksai Chin. Top generals from both sides held talks in Moldo, on the Chinese side, but tensions remain high. India charges that Chinese forces are hindering patrols by its troops along the LAC in Ladakh and Sikkim, and refutes Beijing’s claim that Indian forces have crossed to the Chinese side. (Map via Wikipedia)

Palestine

UN General Assembly denounces Gaza repression

The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution calling for greater protection for the Palestinian people following weeks of the "Great March of Return" protests on the eastern borders of the Gaza Strip. The resolution also denounces any use of "excessive, disproportionate and indiscriminate" force by Israel against Palestinians. The Algerian-sponsored resolution was adopted by a vote of 120 in favor, eight against, with 45 abstentions. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that the vote is "a victory for Palestinian rights, justice and international law." While the UNGA—in which every member country has an equal vote —has historically stood in support of Palestinians, its resolutions are generally non-binding. A similar but binding measure in the UN Security Council days earlier was vetoed by the United States. (Photo: Ma'an News Agency)

The Andes

Venezuela: left-dissident party raided

Venezuelan investigative police raided the offices of the Trotskyist left-opposition organization Marea Socialista in Caracas on the orders of a local court.