CounterVortex

Europe

France: far-right parties invoke ‘civil war’

French police have arrested more than 3,000 protesters in unrest that has spread since the fatal police shooting of 17-year-old delivery worker Nahel Merzouk, the son of North African immigrants, during a traffic stop in the Paris suburb of Nanterre. The Ministry of the Interior has mobilized some 45,000 police troops and gendarmes, as fierce clashes with police have spread across the country. The French far right is meanwhile baiting President Emmanuel Macron for what they portray as a weak response to the uprising. Marine Le Pen issued an inflammatory video statement warning of “anarchy” and calling for a state of emergency to be declared. Marion Maréchal, Le Pen’s niece and a former National Front parliamentarian, has called for armed vigilantism and repeatedly invoked “civil war.” (Photo via Crimethinc)

South Asia

Manipur tribal leaders reject ‘dialogue’

The Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum in India’s northeast state of Manipur announced that it has rejected “any offer of dialogue” with the state’s Chief Minister N. Biren Singh. The ITLF said the chief minister’s stated intention of reaching out to stakeholders following a meeting with India’s Home Minister Amit Shah “comes too late after the loss of so many innocent lives and properties and the untold hardships faced by the Kuki-Zo tribals; there is no point in talking about peace without a political solution.” Singh, of India’s ruling Hindu-nationalist BJP, is accused of inaction or outright collaboration in attacks during weeks of violence between the Hindu Meitei community and the mostly Christian and animist Kuki and Naga peoples. (Photo: Kuki-Zo warriors march in Lamka (Churachandpur), via Twitter)

Planet Watch

Podcast: free Puerto Rico, free Russia

In Episode 180 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg compares two demonstrations outside the UN on the same day—one in support of Puerto Rican independence, timed for the meeting of the Special Committee on Decolonization, and one in support of Russian anti-war dissidents, LGBTQ people and indigenous peoples, now all facing harsh repression. The police state tactics seen in Putin’s consolidating dictatorship mirror many of those US colonialism has used in Puerto Rico. And Russia’s indigenous peoples have been denied self-determination as surely as the Puerto Ricans. Yet the presence of “tankies“—pseudo-leftists in the camp of Russian imperialism—at the independentista rally illustrates how those who support freedom in Puerto Rico and in Russia have been pitted against each other. Yet another example of how a global divide-and-rule racket is the essence of the state system. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo: CounterVortex)

Syria

Russia, Israel both still bombing Syria

At least 13 people, nine of them civilians, were killed in Russian air-strikes within the so-called “de-escalation zone” in northern Syria’s Idlib province, with some of the strikes hitting a crowded vegetable market. The area targeted in the raid, already suffering a severe displacement crisis, is controlled by the Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Islamist faction. Meanwhile, sporadic Israeli air-strikes on regime-held Syrian territory also continue—with apparent tacit approval from Russia, as long as they target the Iranian military presence in the country. (Photo: @SyriaCivilDef)

Africa

Thousands killed in new Darfur ‘genocide’

Clashes, artillery fire and air-strikes rock Sudan’s capital, as the conflict between rival factions that has displaced 2.5 million people and caused a humanitarian crisis enters its 11th week. But with world media focusing on the fighting in Khartoum, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is raising the alarm about a dramatic escalation in western Darfur region, where members of the Masalit ethnic group are targeted by Arab militias aligned with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Authorities from the autonomous Sultanate of Dar Masalit report that more than 5,000 have been killed in such attacks in and around West Darfur state capital El Geneina over the past weeks. The Sultanate describes the continuing attacks as “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide.” (Photo of displaced Masalit children: Radio Dabanga)

South Asia

Podcast: from Manipur to the West Bank

In Episode 179 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg compares the military and settler attacks on Palestinian towns in the West Bank with the eruption of ethnic violence in Northeast India’s state of Manipur—and uncovers the unlikely connection between the two. The Kuki indigenous people now targeted in Manipur includes a sub-group, the Bnei Menashe, who claim descent from one of the Lost Tribes of Israel, and practice an ancient form of Judaism. Israeli NGOs are raising the alarm about the violence in Manipur, but also exploiting it, luring Bnei Menashe to emigrate to Israel—with some settled on the West Bank, serving as demographic cannon fodder for the Zionist project. The Kuki and Palestinians, both land-rooted peoples usurped of their traditional territory, are pitted against each other—despite the convergence of their enemies in a Hindutva-Zionist alliance. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo: E-PAO)

Palestine

Defiant Israel to expand West Bank settlements

Israel’s right-wing nationalist government announced new plans to approve the construction of thousands of new buildings in the occupied West Bank, despite pressure from both the USand EU to halt settlement expansion. Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has just been granted authority over approval of West Bank settlement construction in a cabinet decision, tweeted in explicitly annexationist language: “The construction boom in Judea and Samaria and all over our country continues.” The Palestinian Foreign Ministry called for US and international action to press the Israeli government to backtrack on the decision. (Photo of settlement outside Za’atara: Ralf Roletschek via Wikimedia Commons)

South Asia

Podcast: the struggle in Northeast India

In Episode 178 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg notes the new eruption of ethnic violence in Northeast India’s state of Manipur, which was the scene of far deadlier inter-communal clashes last month. The spark was the current bid by the Meitei people to become a “scheduled tribe,” granting them access to resource-rich forestlands. This is opposed by the Kuki and Naga peoples, whose tribes are already “scheduled”—but are nonetheless being targeted for eviction from Manipur’s forestlands under the guise of a crackdown on opium cultivation. The Kuki and Naga leadership perceive a land-grab for their ancestral forest territory by the Meitei—the dominant group in Manipur, who already control the best agricultural land in the state’s central Imphal Valley. The Kuki (including their Jewish sub-group, the Bnei Menashe) and Naga have long waged insurgencies seeking territorial autonomy, or even independence from India. And both their traditional territories extend across the border into Burma (where the Kuki are known as the Chin), pointing to potential convergence of the armed conflicts either side of the international line. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo of Naga festival: Yves Picq via Wikimedia Commons)

Mexico

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)

East Asia

Hong Kong: bid to ban protest anthem backfires

The Hong Kong Department of Justice applied to the Special Administrative Region’s High Court for an injunction to prohibit any performance or online dissemination of the song “Glory to Hong Kong,” anthem of the 2019 protest movement. The government asserts that the song contains secessionist lyrics that breach multiple laws in Hong Kong and China, including the National Security Law. However, thousands of Hong Kong citizens responded to the government’s move by gathering in public to sing the song, in defiance of an ongoing ban on protests. It also shot to the top of the iTunes charts. After days of this, a judge postponed deciding on the petition, finding it potentially overbroad and asking the government to be more specific on the breadth of its request. (Image: Campaign for Hong Kong via Twtter)

Europe

Kakhovka: ‘ecocide’ as war crime in Ukraine

In Episode 177 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg examines the unfolding Kakhovka dam disaster in Ukraine, an evident design by Russia to forestall a Ukrainian counter-offensive into the occupied southeast of the country. Massive flooding has been unleashed downstream, imperiling some of the world’s most important farmland. Upstream, coolant water to the Zaporizhzhia power plant is threatened, escalating Russia’s “reckless nuclear gamble” at the facility. It is true that the disaster gravely impacts much Russian-held territory, including the Crimea Peninsula. However, despite Moscow’s official denials of responsibility, Russia’s online internal propaganda organs are bragging about it. The Wagner Group mercenary outfit calls the disaster “beautiful” and boasts that the destruction of dams on the Dnipro River is a “trump card” against Ukraine. The cataclysm on the Dnipro provides a grim test case as the International Criminal Court moves to adopt “ecocide” as a recognized international crime. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Map: PCL)

The Amazon

Brazil: anti-indigenous laws advance in congress

The Brazilian Congress has approved two measures that undermine indigenous land rights and clash with the environmental policy of the new President Luiz Inácio da Silva. First, the Lower House voted in favor of a bill that limits the demarcation of indigenous territories to lands that native peoples can prove they physically occupied when Brazil’s current constitution was enacted in 1988. Advocates for indigenous peoples say this marco temporal or “time limit trick” could wipe out scores of legitimate land claims by groups who had already been evicted from their traditional territories before 1988. Then, both houses approved a bill that transfers responsibility for demarcation from the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples to the Ministry of Justice & Public Security. The changes still need the approval of President “Lula” da Silva—although he may face a veto override by Congress. (Photo via Mongabay)