US policy toward the occupation of Kashmir

BFF

Reposting this from September 1, 2016 when Obama was president about the US attitude toward the Indian occupation of Kashmir. There’s certainly more to the relationship between the US, Pakistan, & India than elaborated here but this was to show that the US is not neutral about the occupation nor even a potential ally of the Kashmiri freedom struggle.
It was written before the recent aggressive shift in US policy toward Pakistan which does not mean Trump’s policies are distinct from Obama’s policies. It does mean the US alliance with India makes the Kashmiri struggle an issue for American human rights & antiwar activists.

Many ask what US policy is toward India’s occupation of Kashmir because of the US economic, political, & military relationships with Pakistan & India, both the recipients of billions in US military aid. Pakistan is a key US ally not just in Afghanistan but the entire region; India plays a role in Afghanistan & is central to the US military buildup in the South Asia region as a buffer against China.

Comments by the US State Department when asked about Kashmir are carefully scripted gibberish. This is a recent statement: “As we have said many times, our policy on Kashmir is this: The pace, scope, & character of any discussions on Kashmir is for the two sides to determine, but we support any & all positive steps India & Pakistan can take to forge closer relations.” Not even no mention of the brutal Indian occupation, but no mention of Kashmiris. According to the US, it’s a dispute between Indian & Pakistan which Kashmiris are not party to.

Obama has met with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi seven times in the two years since Modi’s election & has commented about Kashmir on more than one occasion. For some unknown reason probably related to currying votes, in October 2008, two weeks before his election as president, Obama told Time magazine that “working with Pakistan & India to try to resolve the Kashmir crisis in a serious way” would be among the critical tasks of his administration. “It won’t be easy,” he said, “but it’s important.”

But by the time of his November 2010 news conference in New Delhi with then Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh, Obama had been chastened not just by India’s uproar about his campaign statement but by those who actually determine US foreign policy. He spouted the official line that “With respect to Kashmir, obviously this is a long-standing dispute between India & Pakistan” & the US would play no active role. Again at a November 2015 meeting in NYC between Obama & current prime minister Modi, Obama said ‘Kashmir is a bilateral issue to be resolved between India & Pakistan.’

There is no report that Kashmir was raised as an issue during Obama’s January 2015 state visit to India & Modi never mentioned Kashmir in his June 2016 address to the US Congress. For the US, Kashmir is of no consequence when Pakistan & India play such central roles in its military strategy. It’s the price Kashmiris, Palestinians, Afghans, Syrians, Iraqis, & for that matter Pakistanis & Indians play in the designs of US neoliberal capitalism.

The US has no right to intervene but in fact by militarily bankrolling India it is not neutral at all but supporting the occupation & arming India against Kashmiri self-determination. Human rights & antiwar activists around the world have a duty to protest the occupation & expose all the regimes who feign neutrality to Kashmiri justice.

In this photo from a state dinner in New Delhi, Obama toasts Modi, January 2015.

End the occupation. Self-determination for Kashmir.

(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Lik

Irtiza & her grandmother protest forcible disappearances in Kashmir

Irtiza and her grandmother Sept 1 2017

Eight-year-old Irtiza & her grandmother at the sit-in protest on the International Day of the Disappeared in Srinagar. Their uncle & son (in the photo Irtiza is holding) was abducted by the Indian army from the street outside his home on June 6th, 1990. Ever since, his mom has been making the rounds of police stations begging for information about her son.

Losing a beloved through disappearance has a powerful emotional dynamic & is a grief so wrenching it can never be resolved but only endured. That’s what makes these memorial protests so important. Forcible disappearances must be highlighted & opposed as a practice intended to threaten & demoralize those who resist occupation, war, genocide.

This is a very moving article about those who attended the protest on Wednesday:

http://freepresskashmir.com/2017/08/31/enforced-disappearances-one-more-eidi-less-eid-for-eight-year-old-irtiza/

(Photo from Free Press Kashmir)

Rollie Mukherjee holds art show & sale in Srinagar

Rollie's art show Sept 1 2017

“To Stories Rumoured in Branches”

This is the poster announcing Rollie Mukherjee’s art show & sale in Srinagar from September 4th to 10th. Rollie’s commitment to Kashmiri freedom expressed in her beautiful art has educated about the occupation & inspired thousands of people around the world, especially by her portrayal of Kashmiri women’s grief & resistance. A major portion of proceeds will be shared between orphans & the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP).

Trump poised to end DACA program

DACA protest Wash DC (AL Johnson:NPR)

Trump is poised to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program which Obama initiated by executive order in 2012. Trump campaigned on ending DACA & has to make a decision by September 5th. DACA is a program for undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children which requires them to register & reregister every two years with immigration authorities to get a work permit & driver’s license. It is not amnesty but entirely provisional with many restrictions & was never a legal commitment to permanent residence or citizenship. From the beginning, it was repeatedly challenged in the courts & it was only a matter of time before it would be reversed.

There are an estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in the US. According to one estimate, about 1.7 million might have been eligible for DACA but since 2012 only about 800,000 registered. Over 60,000 were denied as ineligible. Now it’s likely to be ended & the fate of those who registered, including those ruled ineligible, has become more precarious. Many spotted it as a scam, a deferred deportation program where you hand immigration your identity & location so they know just where to pick you up when DACA gets reversed. Many immigration counselors & activists advised clients not to register with DACA, not to place any trust in a program with the fatal flaw of disclosing your location without legal commitments.

The immigration rights movement will have to take to the streets again in massive numbers since Trump has made attacking immigrants the centerpiece of his tenure.
Immigration is a human right. Open the borders.

Photo is activists at a pro-DACA protest in Washington, DC.

(Photo by AL Johnson/NPR)

“Here’s a headline I’d love to see:
“Imbecile wreaks havoc on country, loses job”.”

–Jairus Banaji

(No one knows which country he’s referring to.)

After they became proficient at jumping the fence, it was apparent that the two Rhodesian Ridgebacks & the two bambinos who are part Pit Bull are beyond my rescue skills. The babies need to be trained not just in where to poop but in not gnawing off my body parts in shows of affection & I don’t know how to do that. They also need a yard that’s secure against escaping. Someone I know from animal rescue referred me to Yaqui Ranch Animal Rescue in a town not that far from here.

Yaqui said they were at capacity but would do everything they could to help me find loving homes for the four of them as well as for Sophie the Schnauzer smart enough to go to college & her sidekick Franky, the three-legged Chihuahua. They came by today to give the bambinos their second round of vaccinations, brought two months of dog food, took pictures of the six who they’ll be trying to get adopted, & asked only that I consider fostering for them when they need help. If you ever feel there’s no hope for the human race, volunteer at an animal shelter like Yaqui or notice the rescuers in Houston going out of their way to rescue people & pets. It makes your heart sing.

Solidarity protests with Rohingya in Bangladesh

Baangladesh protest for Rohingya *tweeted CJ Werleman)

The International State Crime Initiative (ISCI) at Queen Mary University in London released an important study in 2015 titled “Countdown to Annihilation: Genocide in Myanmar.” It’s a powerful report, unsparing in its condemnation of the Burmese military. It concluded “The Rohingya face the final stages of genocide,” meaning they are on the verge of mass extermination. They may have used that formulation as a call to arms for human rights activists but it is a regrettable one politically because it lends itself to pity more than active solidarity & gives a sense that building solidarity is pointless, that it’s too late.

It’s beyond dispute that the relationship of forces between the military & unarmed Rohingya in Arakan state is to the disadvantage of the Rohingya. But there are still about 1.3 million Rohingya living there. There’s no way to know for certain how many Rohingya are refugees in other countries since so many have died fleeing & no agency has accounted for their lives & deaths. Because they are stateless & have no rights, thousands are living as undocumented in several countries trying to elude deportation; an unknown number are detained in prisons in several countries; an unknown number are victims of human trafficking. It is estimated that about 1.3 million Rohingya are living as refugees but there’s no way to know for certain since the UNHCR doesn’t register the overwhelming number of them for humanitarian aid.

Rohingya activists, like Kashmiris, are using social media to educate about their struggle against genocide & for human, democratic, & civil rights as refugees as mandated under international law. Without minimizing the extreme violence Rohingya face in Arakan, we should not regard this as the verge of mass extermination or consider the “final solution” a fait accompli but as the beginnings of building phalanxes of international solidarity to stand with the Rohingya in their struggle in Arakan & as refugees.

Photo is a Bangladeshi protest in defense of Rohingya.

Report: http://statecrime.org/data/2015/10/ISCI-Rohingya-Report-PUBLISHED-VERSION.pdf

Rohingya fleeing genocide

Rohingya fleeing Aug 31 2017

It’s estimated that at least 18,000 Rohingya have fled genocide in Arakan state just in the past six days. Estimates are as high as 2,000 but there’s no way to know yet how many have died at the hands of Burmese soldiers, how many assaulted, tortured, raped. We do know that several people, including little kids, have drowned attempting to cross the Naf river into Bangladesh.

Stop the genocide in Arakan state. Full human, democratic, civil, & refugee rights to Rohingya Muslims.

(Photo of Rohingya fleeing from The Stateless @Thestateless1)

Wouldn’t you know the very same people promoting the punch-a-fascist-in-the-face political approach are those who ridiculed all the massive protests against Trump & his policies? Isn’t it a surprise they’re the same ones who mocked the Arab Spring uprisings as orchestrated by the CIA, call the uprising against Assad’s dictatorship all jihadi head-choppers, denounce protesters in Venezuela as all rightwing, & denounced protesters in Hong Kong & Brazil as orchestrated by fascists? To the person, those who mock massive action against injustice promote political thuggery instead because they regard liberals as more dangerous than fascists & white supremacists. Not a new phenomenon at all. But in every new incarnation just as detestable, elitist, & infantile politically. It is political power that will back fascists down, not macho bravado & thuggery.