(Asia Times) Ex-Bangladesh leader faces charges of murder, torture and crimes against humanity that can't credibly be tried without her courtroom presence
by Raisul Islam Sourav
September 6, 2024
Former Bangladeshi prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, fled to India in early August after a mass uprising forced her to step down. Her resignation followed weeks of unrest in which nearly 650 people were killed and many more injured.
Since then, at least 94 criminal cases have been lodged against Hasina and her cabinet members, followers and aides. The charges against them range from murder, torture, enforced disappearance and abduction, to crimes against humanity and genocide.
Courts do have the authority to hold a trial in Hasina’s absence. But this is unlikely to be fruitful as there will be questions regarding fairness, due process and the motive behind the trial. At the same time, implementing the court’s orders would be tough should Hasina not be present.
So, from the moment she escaped Bangladesh, there have been calls to extradite her to stand trial for the crimes that took place under her leadership. But it’s far from certain whether India would hand her over should Bangladesh seek her extradition.
Bangladesh can, in theory, request the return of Hasina from India. New Delhi and Dhaka signed an extradition treaty in 2013, which was subsequently amended in 2016 to simplify the process.
Both countries were eager for such a treaty. Two of the convicts involved in the 1975 assassination of Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who was also the first president of Bangladesh, were at the time hiding in India. Hasina’s government wanted to extradite the men to Bangladesh for execution.
Some countries, like Canada, refuse to extradite fugitives if there is a possibility that they will be executed. However, as India also retains the death penalty, extradition was granted irrespective of whether the convicts would face execution on their return. The two men were handed over to Bangladesh in 2020
India, on the other hand, sought the handover of Anup Chetia, the general secretary of the banned United Liberation Front of Assam militant organization. Chetia, who had spent 18 years in prison in Dhaka, was returned to India in 2015.
According to the treaty, only crimes punishable by a minimum of one year in prison can be extraditable offenses. The offense must be punishable in both countries. The accusations against Hasina are prosecutable in India, and the punishments for her alleged crimes are also substantial, so she can be extradited on these grounds.
Article 10 of the treaty makes it even easier for the requesting country. It states that an arrest warrant issued from a court of law will be sufficient for the extradition without furnishing concrete proof of evidence against the offender. That said, no arrest warrant has been issued for Hasina at the time of writing.
However, the treaty itself also contains several provisions that could enable India to refuse an appeal for Hasina’s extradition. It could, for example, decline to return her on the grounds that the offenses are political in nature.
It is generally accepted that extradition will be refused for political or military offenses. This is justified by the need for states to remain detached from political conflict elsewhere, while also protecting the right of a state to grant asylum to political refugees.
The treaty does stipulate that an attempt to commit murder, manslaughter, kidnap, false imprisonment or incitement to murder shall not be regarded as a political offense. And the charges brought against Hasina so far mostly fall under these categories.
But, even then, the treaty says a request can be denied if Indian courts determine that the accusation was not made in good faith or in the interests of justice. Courts may deny extradition if they believe Hasina would face political persecution, unfair trial or inhumane treatment upon her return to Bangladesh.
This will not be easy for Bangladesh to disprove. Some of the ministers from Hasina’s government who have been arrested over recent weeks were physically assaulted by apparent bystanders when being taken to court and reportedly did not get the opportunity to be represented by a lawyer.
Several murder cases have also been said to be registered out of anger and resentment. Some people, including cricketer and ousted lawmaker, Shakib Al Hasan, have been charged as instigators or abettors when it is unclear whether the actual culprits have been indicted or not.
As a result, there are plenty of concerns over Hasina’s security and the fairness of any trial should she be returned to Bangladesh.
If Hasina’s safety is not guaranteed, then there is a chance she will be granted political asylum in India or elsewhere. Asylum would render the discussion of her extradition pointless as people with refugee status cannot be extradited. Hasina has successfully obtained political asylum from India before, following the assassination of her father.
But her stay in India this time around has become complex. The interim government in Bangladesh has revoked diplomatic passports, including Hasina’s.
She is now reportedly trying to seek asylum in one of the UK, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia or Finland. However, her son, Sajeeb Wazed Joy, has told the press that Hasina has not yet sought asylum anywhere and will "certainly go back" to Bangladesh when elections are declared.
The treaty itself cannot guarantee extradition in all cases. In practice, it merely provides a legal framework for mutual cooperation. The ultimate decision may rely more on diplomatic negotiations and the political will of both governments than it will legal arguments.
Raisul Islam Sourav is PhD Candidate in legal analytics, University of Galway
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
09/08/2024 00:00 ||
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Text taken from a V Kontakte post by Irina Belokolos.
Author is Elena Evdokimenko.
[VK] Caught in a cart, I can't help but share) It's good that I'm alone here. I laughed like a mustang in the prairie. But no one came running to see if I hit my head))
Since I was often sick as a child, my grandmother (my mother's mother) decided to move from the Moscow region to us in Riga for a few months.
Is this charming tale from the old days before the Berlin Wall fell? Because nowadays Latvia is no longer part of Russia.
Prolly. Russian humor... It's different...
Together with her, the cat Barsik was to become a resident of Riga, because there was nowhere to leave the animal for such a long time.
We are crazy. We do not know that cats cannot just be carried on a train.
- They will drop off your Barsik in Sebezh at the border and he will go into the forest to feed wolves, - blurted out a neighbor in the compartment. She said it and fell asleep. And two people, an old man and a young one, remained sitting as if rooted to the spot. Russian writer Pushkin once related a vignette where an individual was ordered to leave her canary in a cage off the train. The Tsar's regulations considered any animal, even in a cage to be livestock. Commenters on the original post said that current modern Russsian rail regulations require a veteranary certificate and the passenger must buy an extra passage for the pet.
We drank tea half the night, goggled at the darkness outside the window and thought about where to hide the cat ...
Barsik was mute. He couldn’t meow, much less scream, and that inspired us.
Grandma tried to stuff the cat into the bag of her hated neighbor while she was sleeping.
“Let him pee on her Orenburg downy shawl at the same time,” Maria Dmitrievna said, closing the zipper. But she changed her mind right away, since bags were sometimes searched. And even if they found him in other people’s things, we would still lose the cat.
I already imagined the scandal, how I would take a pose, loudly shout: “If that’s the case, goodbye!” and go crying on the night platform. But then God’s grace descended on grandma in the form of a brilliant idea. It was decided to give the cat valerian to drink so that he would become gloomy, and stuff him into her leggings, covering him with a robe on top.
That night Barsik got it. The fool savored the valerian, rubbed his face down on the floor, lay on his back and spread his paws in different directions. Granny turned him over, poked his face into the bowl and threatened that if he didn’t drink the dose right away, then in an hour the Sebezh wolves would scatter his bells along the railroad. However, it was difficult to scare the tipsy Barsik.
When the cat’s nervous system finally got slammed and he went limp, the terrible thing was ahead – to disappear into the depths of Granny’s tights. This didn’t work out. The cat didn’t hold on in the stomach area and slid down, creating the appearance that Granny had shit in her pants.
Yes, that would be a problem…
“No, that won’t do, Len, give him here,” Maria Dmitrievna opened her blouse, grabbed Barsik by the scruff of the neck, pushed him under her bra, fixing the cat’s head between her breasts. Barsik twitched in his sleep, but Granny gave him a slap on the ass so he wouldn’t forget.
“If they find me, I’ll say I put it on my heart to ward off the evil eye,” Granny said, closed the zipper all the way to her chin and sat down by the window.
“Are you carrying drugs, weapons, illegal substances?” the border guard asked.
“If only you knew, Uncle, what we’re carrying on Granny’s body to ward off the evil eye...” I thought, shaking my head.
We passed both borders safely. In the morning, we put the drunk cat in a bag and went home. I’d never seen Barsik so happy. Apparently, he didn’t remember about the leggings.
[ZeroHedge] At the start of the year, many months after we first pointed out that the biggest untold story of the US labor market was the "great replacement" of native born workers with foreign-born workers (most of whom we subsequently learned were undocumented immigrants, i.e., illegal aliens), we asked how is it, that the ongoing replacement (because that's what it is) of US workers is "not the biggest political talking point right now" considering that "since October 2019, native-born US workers have lost 1.4 million jobs; over the same period foreign-born workers have gained 3 million jobs"
Eight months later, we are delighted to see that our relentless efforts to bring attention to this critical topic finally worked, and the continued replacement of native-born workers with immigrants and illegal aliens was finally the biggest political and media talking point, as demonstrated by such articles as "How Immigration Remade the U.S. Labor Force" by the WSJ and "Without Immigrants, US Working-Age Population Would Shrink" from Bloomberg, both of which are an extension of the latest and greatest narrative, first spawned by Fed chair Powell, and then picked up by Goldman, which came down to the following: you can have (record) illegal immigration, or you can have even more (breakneck) inflation. So don't be angry, and just accept the roving gangs of Venezuelan murderers in your neighborhood, if you know what's good for you and if you want to keep prices low (the same prices which are only high because the government decided to inject $20 trillion in fiscal stimmies in the past 4 years).
Which brings us to today's jobs report... where the native vs foreign-born debate just exploded!
As we discussed earlier, superficially the August payrolls report was a mixed bag. On one hand, it was disappointing in that the payrolls print came in softer than expected, but was a big bounce from sharply downward revised June and July prints. On the other hand, the unemployment rate did drop from the Sahm Rule's recession trigger level of 4.3% to 4.2%, and effectively eliminated the clear cut case for a 50bps rate cut, especially since the Household survey was not only far stronger than the Establishment survey, but indicated the biggest increase in employment since March.
That, at least, was the quantitative view. And while that was mixed, there was no confusion in the picture painted by the qualtitative aspect of the jobs report. Here, everything was a disaster.
Starting at the top, while the number of employed workers did rise by 168K, looking closer at the composition of this increase is disastrous: that's because it consisted of an increase of 527K part-time jobs, offset by a 438K plunge in full-time jobs.
This means that since last June, the US has added just over 2 million part-time jobs, and lost over 1.5 million full-time jobs.
this has been occurring since the baby boomers began retiring in significant numbers about 2015 or so
the loss of full time and gain of part time is not fully understood but it is probably due, at least in part, to flexible work place, to full timers becoming contractors and to expansion of gig work, e.g. instacart, uber, etc.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
09/08/2024 17:32 Comments ||
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#2
Good point, Lord Garth. Mr. Wife would be counted among those who switched from full time to part time work six years ago. In his case he retired, then found his photography hobby and business mentoring/consulting work could have become new full-time careers, were he willing. But he wants all his projects to be serious play now, leaving the serious work for those he is dealing with on each project.
[IsraelTimes] Breaking away from mainstream US Jewry, Joel Pollak opposes the separation of church and state while dismissing concerns that his recommendations would spur ‘Christian nationalism’
Conservative Jew, conservative Republican, TEA party candidate, Breitbarter, believer in Donald Trump. An interesting, thoughtful gentleman.
The document recommends encouraging church attendance, White House Bible study sessions, shutting out legal immigrants colonists, restrictions on child sacrifice abortion, and Dire Revenge on Donald Trump ...His ancestors didn't own any slaves... ’s tormentors.
But it’s not part of Project 2025, the massive Heritage Foundation compilation of proposals for Trump’s next presidency that liberal critics have said is a blueprint for Christian nationalism.
Instead, "The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days" is the work of a Jewish author, Joel Pollak, who believes that a second Trump presidency would make American Jews safer by restoring purpose to a splintered society.
One notable Jewish-inflected proposal, establishing August 21 as "Religious Liberty Day," would mark George Washington’s famous 1790 letter promising American Jews they would live under a government that "gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance."
"We’re losing the common threads that bind us together," Pollak told The Jewish Telegraphic Agency. "There’s no consciousness at all of any kind of higher power."
Pollak has since 2016 been one of the most articulate spokesmen making the Jewish case for the Republican Party’s right flank, heralding a breakaway from a Jewish conservatism that for decades was more identified with moderate Republicans like the late John Maverick McCain ... late Senator-for-Life from Arizona, former presidential candidate and even more former foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution. As an ordinary citizen he greased the infamous hookers peeing on the Obamabed in Moscow dossier in an attempt to smear President Trump... In 2010, as a Tea Party candidate, Pollak challenged Rep. Jan Schakowsky ...the hereditary Democratic Representative-for-Life from Illinois 9th Congressional District. She is married to Robert Creamer, a Chicago check kiting artist who did time in a federal pen. Creamer was implicated in the bird dogging plot to stir up violence at Donald Trump rallies. Creamer is the co-founder of Democracy Partners, which contracts directly with the DNC to provide dirty election tricks. Creamer visited the White House 342 times between 2009 and 2016. Schakowsky plausibly denies knowing a thing about it and calls it a manufactured and non-existent scandal... , the long-serving Jewish Democrat in a reliably Democrat Chicago, aka The Windy City or Mobtown ...home of Al Capone, the Chicago Black Sox, a succession of Daleys, Barak Obama, and Rahm Emmanuel... -area seat.
His campaign in the heavily Jewish district where he grew up focused on what he depicted as her weak support for Israel, and he brought in his former Harvard Law professor, Alan Dershowitz, to campaign for him. Schakowsky won handily, but the experience got under her skin: Five years later she thanked J Street for helping her defeat a "Jewish Orthodox Tea Party Republican," and then apologized for the gratuitous reference to Pollard’s religious denomination.
After his defeat, he joined Breitbart News, the preeminent voice of a more hardline right-wing vanguard, working alongside other Jews including Ben Shapiro. Trump’s emergence as the Republican nominee in 2016 and his election made Pollak a go-to Jewish defender of Trump and the far-reaching changes he brought to conservatism.
He told The Times of Israel in 2017 that he was comfortable in his skin as an observant Jew on the Republican right. "There’s a comfort in a sense that I place who I am on the table and so people know where I am coming from, and it’s not a part of myself I have to introduce or explain," he said.
Now, Pollak is trying to use the following he has developed over time to shape what he hopes will be a second Trump presidency. He is bringing his ideas this week to the Republican Jewish Coalition confab in Las Vegas, where hundreds of Jewish Republicans will rally around retaking the White House.
One question facing Jewish Republicans is how much to focus on traditional concerns including Israel and how much to embrace a strain of Christian nationalism that is ascendant in their party. Pollak’s book does not make his Jewish identity central, but he applies considerable focus to Israel — and also to casting a Trump White House as a bully pulpit for the spread of religion in public life.
In 224 recommendations divided neatly into 32 clusters of seven, Pollak offers an agenda that comports with the right wing of the Republican Party and echoes a strain of conservative Jewish thinking that does not see expanded Christian expression as a threat. (That thinking featured large in the 2022 failed Ohio Senate campaign of Josh Mandel, a Jewish candidate who promoted "Judeo-Christian values.")
He would ban even legal migrants colonists from crossing the border with Mexico until changes are made to the immigration system. He would ban chain migration, the system of granting preference to relatives of legal US residents and citizens.
Pollak wants the Department of Justice to protect "birth crisis centers," the outlets that try to dissuade women from seeking child sacrifice abortions. He recommends a task force to promote childbearing and banning funding for military personnel seeking to travel to get an child sacrifice abortion. He also proposes ending "transgenderism" in the military.
Navigating between Trump’s endorsement of fertility treatments, including IVF, and those evangelical Christians who say the procedure involves destroying life, he says Trump should set up an ethics panel to "explore all of the difficult religious, scientific, and moral questions around IVF and make recommendations."
Pollak wants funding for religious literacy in public schools and vouchers for religious schools, and calls for launching civil rights investigations of universities that inhibit conservative speech. (Some of that jibes with the interests, or tactics, of subsets of American Jews: Vouchers would help defray costs for Jewish day schools, while federal civil rights complaints alleging antisemitism on campus have become a favored tool of American Jewish groups since October 7.)
And he proposes that White House functions should begin with a prayer, press briefings should begin with a moment of reflection and "the White House facility can hold daily Bible study events," ticketed for the public.
"The point will be to reinforce church attendance as a norm in American life and to bring faith back to the center," he writes. He adds, "These daily sessions will set an appropriate tone for the conduct of business in the White House and will encourage Bible study more generally throughout the country."
Pollak’s blueprint is one that would discomfit most American Jews, who according to polls overwhelmingly want a strong separation of church and state. And many of his proposals buck majority American Jewish opinion on issues such as child sacrifice abortion and immigration.
"I understand the historic concerns that American Jews have had about public prayer," Pollak told JTA. "People worry that there’s going to be imposition of Christian faith on Jews and others."
But he said he thought his audience was ready for his recommendations, saying, "I do think that we’re at a point in American society where most Jews can be comfortable with public prayer."
Amy Spitalnick, the CEO of the liberal-leaning Jewish Council for Public Affairs, said Pollak’s book is a recipe for what most American Jews would identify as Christian nationalism.
"It effectively reinforces the broader white Christian nationalist agenda that seeks to totally eliminate the line between church and state," she said. "It’s Project 2025, just with a Jewish lens."
Seth Mandel, a senior editor at Commentary, a conservative outlet, said Project 2025 came to mind when he heard about Pollak’s book. But he said fears of a Christian nationalist regime if Trump were elected are overstated.
"The first thing that popped into my head was that this sounds like what people are warning about Project 2025," Mandel said. "If Trump has any authoritarian instincts, they are generally not about forcing women into becoming a sort of religious baby-making covenant. It’s not where his campaign wants to go at all."
Mandel said he thought the public prayer elements of Pollak’s prescription would appeal little to Americans, much less American Jews, who are largely uncomfortable with the idea of presidents using the bully pulpit to preach. It’s what turned Americans off to Jimmy Malaise Carter
...only the second worst president ever. Maybe the third... , whose 1979 speech about a "crisis of the American spirit" and a lack of "faith in God" backfired and helped spur his electoral defeat, Mandel said.
"People really reacted negatively to the idea that there was going to be a preacher-in-chief, who is going to tell them how to cure what ails their soul," Mandel said. "There’s nothing wrong with Bible study, but Americans don’t really tend to want the president to lead their Bible study group."
In the interview, Pollak recognized that his plan would draw comparisons with Project 2025.
"I didn’t even look at the Heritage Foundation Project 2025," he said without being asked while promoting the new book at the Republican National Convention last month.
Pollak has no illusions that Trump would read his book or take his recommendations. It’s a recognition he makes clear in his book and reiterates in interviews, and which distinguishes him from the Project 2025 authors who played up their associations with Trump until he shut them down, furious at the negative publicity the project was garnering.
"I have never been invited to Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida estate, where he has surrounded himself with loyalists," Pollak writes in the introduction. "I would serve in his administration, but I was not offered a post in the last administration, and I have no reason to expect I will be offered one in the next. I am writing this book solely because I believe I can help."
Pollak making crystal clear that he does not have Trump’s approval is as savvy as it is honest. The Kamala Harris former senatrix from California, 2020 Dem presidential hopeful and ultimately Joe Biden's intended successor campaign is using Project 2025 and its 900-page manifesto to bludgeon Trump, linking him to its far-reaching and radical proposals to elevate the executive branch.
How adjacent to Trump the book is, or could be, is hard to say because Trump’s loyalties and favorites constantly shift. The book is published by War Room Books, an imprint started by Steve Bannon, the onetime Trump adviser who was for a time out of favor with the former president but now seems to be influential again.
Bannon’s podcast, "The War Room," is popular with advisers close to Trump, who lamented his absence after he went to jail on July 1. He was tossed in the calaboose Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages! for contempt of Congress for refusing to testify about the deadly January 6, 2021, Capitol riot that sought to overturn Trump’s electoral defeat. The last thing Bannon did before reporting to prison was write the foreword to Pollak’s book.
"Joel Pollak correctly notes that, in November, ’a victorious Trump will have completed the greatest political comeback in American history and will have the opportunity to make the kinds of big changes that come along once in a generation,’" Bannon writes, calling the book "an instant American classic."
In his conversations with JTA, Pollak emphasized his Israel agenda — which maps to the party’s platform — and offered more detail about some of his stances that would appear to be most at odds with mainstream American Jewish views.
On immigration, he emphasized that he believed there should be mechanisms for people to come to the country if they are "genuine victims of religious and political persecution," as many Jews were when they arrived at American shores. He also acknowledged the existence of an antisemitic version of "replacement theory" that posits that Jews are orchestrating the replacement of whites in Western countries with migrants colonists of color.
But he said that conspiracy theory was distinct from his worries, and broader Republican concerns, about migration. He accused the Anti-Defamation League and other groups of intentionally conflating the two ideas, "falsely accusing some conservatives of antisemitism for opposing migration."
Spitalnick said it was a distinction without a difference. "There are ways to talk about immigration policy without suggesting that there is a deliberate effort to replace the population or change the electorate or otherwise play into the very conspiracy theories and tropes that we know have directly fueled deadly violence," she said.
Regarding the White House bully pulpit for encouraging religious literacy and Bible study, he said, "The rules should prohibit proselytization, so that messages remain focused on spiritual lessons of a general and universal nature."
Pollak faults Trump for not being prepared in his first term, advancing his agenda piecemeal, which allowed groups opposed to his plans to go to the courts to stop him. Among them were Jewish organizations, including HIAS, the lead Jewish refugee aid group that led and joined a number of briefs against Trump’s immigration restrictions.
With a more aggressive approach, he argues, Trump could overwhelm the Red Guardsliberal groups who would oppose his administration. He recommends signing hundreds of executive orders on his first day in office. Almost all of the steps he urges can be accomplished without appealing to Congress.
"Ten executive orders on the first day is what Biden did and Trump did" on their first days, he told JTA. "I’m raising it an order of magnitude. I mean, if you add up the number of suggestions in the book, it’s over 200 things that Trump could do on the first day and it’s very, very hard to challenge all of those at once. How are you going to find 200 different federal courts?"
At his book party, Pollak, who said the book was spurred by his anger at Trump’s conviction on 34 New York State fraud felonies, said he was happy to have laid out his thoughts in a forward-looking manner.
"I’m tired of feeling negative and upset about what’s going on," he said.
(Zerohedge) Salt to taste but, unfortunately, not all that shocking anymore.
Two former leaders of major South Asian countries have reportedly accused the United States of covert regime change operations to topple their governments. One of the leaders, former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, languishes in prison, on a perverse conviction that proves Khan’s assertion.
The other leader, former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheik Hasina, fled to India following a violent coup in her country. Their grave accusations against the U.S., as reported in the world media, should be investigated by the UN, since if true, the U.S. actions would constitute a fundamental threat to world peace and to regional stability in South Asia. The two cases seem to be very similar. The very strong evidence of the U.S. role in toppling the government of Imran Khan raises the likelihood that something similar may have occurred in Bangladesh.
In the case of Pakistan, Donald Lu, Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia and Central Asia, met with Asad Majeed Khan, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the U.S., on March 7, 2022. Ambassador Khan immediately wrote back to his capital, conveying Lu’s warning that PM Khan threatened U.S.-Pakistan relations because of Khan’s "aggressively neutral position" regarding Russia and Ukraine.
The Ambassador’s March 7 note (technically a diplomatic cypher) quoted Assistant Secretary Lu as follows: "I think if the no-confidence vote against the Prime Minister succeeds, all will be forgiven in Washington because the Russia visit is being looked at as a decision by the Prime Minister. Otherwise, I think it will be tough going ahead." The very next day, members of the parliament took procedural steps to oust PM Khan.
On March 27, PM Khan brandished the cypher, and told his followers and the public that the U.S. was out to bring him down. On April 10, PM Khan was thrown out of office as the parliament acceded to the U.S. threat.
We know this in detail because of Ambassador Khan’s cypher, exposed by PM Khan and brilliantly documented by Ryan Grim of The Intercept, including the text of the cypher. Absurdly and tragically, PM Khan languishes in prison in part over espionage charges, linked to his revealing the cypher.
The U.S. appears to have played a similar role in the recent violent coup in Bangladesh. PM Hasina was ostensibly toppled by student unrest, and fled to India when the Bangladeshi military refused to prevent the protestors from storming the government offices. Yet there may well be much more to the story than meets the eye.
According to press reports in India, PM Hasina is claiming that the U.S. brought her down. Specifically, she says that the U.S. removed her from power because she refused to grant the U.S. military facilities in a region that is considered strategic for the U.S. in its "Indo-Pacific Strategy" to contain China. While these are second-hand accounts by the Indian media, they track closely several speeches and statements that Hasina has made over the past two years.
On May 17, 2024, the same Assistant Secretary Liu who played a lead role in toppling PM Khan, visited Dhaka to discuss the US Indo-Pacific Strategy among other topics. Days later, Sheikh Hasina reportedly summoned the leaders of the 14 parties of her alliance to make the startling claim that a "country of white-skinned people" was trying to bring her down, ostensibly telling the leaders that she refused to compromise her nation’s sovereignty. Like Imran Khan, PM Hasina had been pursuing a foreign policy of neutrality, including constructive relations not only with the U.S. but also with China and Russia, much to the deep consternation of the U.S. government.
To add credence to Hasina’s charges, Bangladesh had delayed signing two military agreements that the U.S. had pushed very hard since 2022, indeed by none other than the former Under-Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, the neocon hardliner with her own storied history of U.S. regime-change operations. One of the draft agreements, the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), would bind Bangladesh to closer military-to-military cooperation with Washington. The Government of PM Hasina was clearly not enthusiastic to sign it.
The U.S. is by far the world’s leading practitioner of regime-change operations, yet the U.S. flatly denies its role in covert regime change operations even when caught red-handed, as with Nuland’s infamous intercepted phone call in late January 2014 planning the U.S.-led regime change operation in Ukraine. It is useless to appeal to the U.S. Congress, and still less the executive branch, to investigate the claims by PM Khan and PM Hasina. Whatever the truth of the matter, they will deny and lie as necessary.
This is where the UN should step in. Covert regime change operations are blatantly illegal under international law (notably the Doctrine of Non-Intervention, as expressed for example in UN General Assembly Resolution 2625, 1970), and constitute perhaps the greatest threat to world peace, as they profoundly destabilize nations, and often lead to wars and other civil disorders. The UN should investigate and expose covert regime change operations, both in the interests of reversing them, and preventing them in the future. You're trying to tell us that the UN is less corrupt than the US?
The UN Security Council is of course specifically charged under Article 24 of the UN Charter with "primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security." When evidence arises that a government has been toppled through the intervention or complicity of a foreign government, the UN Security Council should investigate the claims.
In the cases of Pakistan and Bangladesh, the UN Security Council should seek the direct testimony of PM Khan and PM Hasina in order to evaluate the evidence that the U.S. played a role in the overthrow of the governments of these two leaders. Each, of course, should be protected by the UN for giving their testimony, so as to protect them from any retribution that could follow their honest presentation of the facts. Their testimony can be taken by video conference, if necessary, given the tragic ongoing incarceration of PM Khan.
The U.S. might well exercise its veto in the UN Security Council to prevent such a investigation. In that case, the UN General Assembly can take up the matter, under UN Resolution A/RES/76/, which allows the UN General Assembly to consider an issue blocked by veto in the UN Security Council. The issues at stake could then be assessed by the entire membership of the UN. The veracity of the U.S. involvement in the recent regime changes in Pakistan and Bangladesh could then be objectively analyzed and judged on the evidence, rather than on mere assertions and denials.
The U.S. engaged in at least 64 covert regime change operations during 1947-1989, according to documented research by Lindsey O’Rourke, political science professor at Boston Collage, and several more that were overt (e.g. by U.S.-led war). It continues to engage in regime-change operations with shocking frequency to this day, toppling governments in all parts of the world. It is wishful thinking You got that right.
that the U.S. will abide by international law on its own, but it is not wishful thinking for the world community, long suffering from U.S. regime change operations, to demand their end at the United Nations.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
09/08/2024 00:00 ||
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#1
Seems they are awash in money. The smell of Lindsey Graham is all over this.
#2
Not to be overly critical, but have *any* of our regime change ops worked?
("worked" in the sense of converting a ratbag dictatorship or terrorist haven into a shining city on the hill? As opposed to created new grifting opportunities)
2024.07.10
[BenarNews] At an event organized last month by the Indonesian counter-terrorism agency (BNPT), Abu Rusydan and 15 other leaders of Jemaah Islamiyah announced their group’s dissolution.
JI, the Southeast Asian affiliate of al-Qaeda, had carried out a string of devastating attacks in the 2000s, including Indonesia’s deadliest-ever terror attack — the 2002 Bali bombings. But now it was "ready to actively contribute to Indonesia’s progress and dignity," Abu Rusydan declared as he read from a prepared statement during the event on June 30.
This is not the first time that a bully boy group has disbanded itself. The Provisional Irish Republican Army unilaterally broke up in 2005, throwing itself solely into legal activities through its political arm, Sinn Féin. In 2018, the Basque separatist organization ETA also unilaterally disbanded.
But Jemaah Islamiyah’s announcement surprised many people, and left others feeling skeptical.
There are three interrelated questions that need to be asked about the move by JI: How did we get here? Is this for real? And what does this mean for regional security?
HOW DID WE GET HERE?
Jemaah Islamiyah, which has its roots in the Darul Islam movement, was founded in Malaysia in 1993, when its two founders, Abdullah Sungkar and Abu Bakar Bashir ... Leader of the Indonesian Mujahedeen Council and proprietor of the al-Mukmin madrassah in Ngruki. The spriritual head of Jemaah Islamiya, which he denies exists. Bashir was jugged and then released in the wake of the 2002 Bali bombings, which he blamed on a conspiracy among the U.S., Israel, and Australia. In 2014, as leader of Jemaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), he pledged allegiance to ISIS. Currently in jug... , were on the run from Suharto’s New Order government in Indonesia.
While in Malaysia, they served as a way-station for several hundred gunnies who traveled to Pakistain to join the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan, putting them in direct contact with al-Qaeda.
In 1996, a charter (the PUPJI) created the group’s organizational structure and codified JI’s Salafi ideology. At the time, the group also reached an agreement with the Philippine armed separatist organization, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, to allow al-Qaeda to establish training camps in the southern Philippines.
In Indonesia, JI perpetrated terrorist attacks on Christian churches and established two paramilitary organizations to wage sectarian conflict in the Maluku Islands and Central Sulawesi province.
Following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, the al-Qaeda leadership called for diversionary attacks. One of these was the twin Bali bombings that killed 202 people a year later.
Between 2002 and 2007, JI perpetrated a major attack almost every year. But each attack left the organization weaker as counterterrorism forces became more adept and better resourced.
This led to an ideological split in the organization between proponents of the line of targeting the "far enemy," versus those who wanted to foment sectarian conflict in order to rebuild their depleted ranks.
The government legally banned JI in 2008, but allowed it to operate as an entity as long as it refrained from violence.
In 2010, more than 100 JI members were swept up, including Abu Bakar Bashir, breaking the organization’s back. JI’s last terrorist act took place that year.
Yet, from 2020-2023, Indonesian counter-terrorism efforts were as focused on JI as it was on the pro-Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... umbrella group, Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD). Security forces originally saw JI as an off-ramp for the more radical JAD, but attitudes hardened.
In 2019, when counterterrorism police arrested JI’s emir, Para Wijayanto, they were shocked by the group’s size and national reach. Its madrassas and charitable arms had grown, while its corporations and publishing arms had created a steady revenue stream. As many JI members were arrested in 2021 and 2022 as JAD suspects.
Indonesian counter-terrorism forces have applied a softer approach. Though seemingly campy, they’ve held mass rallies where former gunnies pledge allegiance to the republic.
Former gunnies have established madrassas for the children of incarcerated bully boys, so they are not raised in JI or JAD-run schools, breaking terrorist social networks.
They’ve gotten leaders, including the JAD Emir Aman Abdurrahman, who is on death row, and Umar Patek, to publicly renounce violence.
Meanwhile the conflict in Poso, which served as a rallying point for all bully boy groups in Indonesia, has been stamped out.
Internationally, there has been more cooperation amongst the regional security services. And while ungoverned space and institutional weakness remains in the southern Philippines, bully boy groups are no longer attracting JI and other foreign bully boys.
The Moro Islamic Liberation Front continues to implement the grinding of the peace processor and build up institutions that will help the autonomous Moslem region transition to self-governance. There has been an unprecedented sustained attack on the Abu Sayyaf ...also known as al-Harakat al-Islamiyya, an Islamist terror group based in Jolo, Basilan and Zamboanga. Since its inception in the early 1990s, the group has carried out bombings, kidnappings, murders, head choppings, and extortion in their uniquely Islamic attempt to set up an independent Moslem province in the Philippines. Abu Sayyaf forces probably number less than 300 cadres. The group is closely allied with remnants of Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiya and has loose ties with MILF and MNLF who sometimes provide cannon fodder... , which is now fighting for survival.
IS THIS FOR REAL?
While JI has not been in a position to engage in terrorism, until now, it has never renounced violence. Many in the organization were simply waiting for the right circumstance to resume operations.
It’s easy to be cynical about the group’s prepared statement, especially at an event stage-managed by the BNPT. Some of those who were on hand had been arrested and gone through government disengagement programs.
To young radicals, they’re sell-outs, and past their prime. The average age of the men who renounced violence was in the late 50s or older.
To what degree will younger members follow the leadership and pursue a legal-political alternative?
In many ways, this is more promising. JI’s campaign of militancy failed to bring about the establishment of an Islamic State governed by Sharia. Democratic politics have advanced their political agenda more effectively.
It’s not that Islamist parties do terribly well at the national level. Indeed, in Indonesia’s 2024 general election, they collectively represented about 20% of the electorate and won 101 of 580 seats. But they are important members of political coalitions, which tend to give them a disproportionate voice.
It’s at the local level where we see faith-based parties make their mark, especially in the passage of public policy and Sharia compliant codes, which the majority of provinces and districts now have.
Islamist parties are riddled with rivalries and have never formed a cohesive bloc.
Perhaps for that reason, JI saw an opening for a tactical shift. In May 2021, JI established the Indonesian People’s Dakwah Party (PDRI). Yet, counter-terrorism forces arrested its founder, Farid Ahmad Okbah, that November for being a senior member of JI. Two others were arrested.
The PDRI did not contest the 2024 elections. But it seems likely that with JI’s dissolution, the government will give former members more political space.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR REGIONAL SECURITY?
JI’s manpower and locus were largely-Indonesian based, but it remains a Southeast Asian organization.
Some affiliates gravitated elsewhere. Darul Islam Sabah, for example, went from facilitating JI and the movement of foreign gunnies in and out of the southern Philippines to working with the JAD and other groups.
There has always been more fluidity between Southeast Asian bully boy groups than those in the Middle East or South Asia. Abu Bakar Bashir defected from being pro-al Qaeda to being pro-Islamic State, with large numbers of acolytes, without consequence.
As such, many younger gunnies who are committed to using violence to achieve their political aims are likely to defect to other groups.
What those groups may be, though, is unclear. The JAD is decimated and leaderless, though to be fair, it was always far more horizontally structured. It has not executed a major terrorist attack since 2019.
At present there is no apparent charismatic leader for bully boySalafists ...Salafists are ostentatiously devout Moslems who figure the ostentation of their piety gives them the right to tell others how to do it and to kill those who don't listen to them... to coalesce around. And while one would expect external events, such as the war in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... , to serve as a catalyst, to date it has not.
JI still runs a network of madrassas, including some very large ones like al-Mukmin and Pesantren Hidayatullah in Balikpapan. These continue to be ideological incubators and hate factories.
It’s hard to see state educational personnel intervene and change their curriculum. But Indonesian security forces have not let up, despite the decline in organizational strength or the tempo of operations.
Terrorism will be a persistent but manageable threat in Indonesia. JI’s dissolution makes it more so, providing a legal-political alternative that is more moral, but also proven to be more effective.
Zachary Abuza is a professor at the National War College in Washington and an adjunct at Georgetown University. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of the U.S. Department of Defense, the National War College, Georgetown University or BenarNews.
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