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RSN: William Boardman | Yemen's Blood Is on US Hands, and Still the US Lies About the War
William Boardman, Reader Supported News
Boardman writes:
ix years ago, on March 26, 2015, the US green-lighted and provided logistical support for the Saudi bombing of Yemen that continues on a daily basis. The US/Saudi war, which includes as allies the several members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, is an undeclared war, illegal under international law, and an endless crime against humanity. The US and the Saudis have dropped cluster bombs on Yemen since 2009. Yemen has no air force and no significant air defenses. Two years ago, even the US Congress voted to end US involvement in the war, but President Trump vetoed the resolution.
In 1937 the Nazis, in support of Franco in Spain, bombed the defenseless northern Spanish town of Guernica, massacring hundreds of civilians gathered in the town on market day. Pablo Picasso’s painting Guernica, a shriek of protest against the slaughter, is one of the world’s best known anti-war works of art. Yemen has had more than 2000 days of Guernicas at the hands of the US and Saudis, but no Picasso.
On February 4, 2021, President Biden got a whole lot of good press when he announced that the US would be “stepping up our diplomacy to end the war in Yemen.” Biden also promised that the US would be “ending all American support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen.” Biden gave no specific details. The six-year bombing continues. The six-year naval blockade of Yemen continues. The humanitarian crisis continues, with the threat of famine looming. In effect, Biden has participated in war crimes since January 20, with no policy in sight to end the killing.
On March 1, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken acknowledged that:
The humanitarian crisis taking place in Yemen is the largest and most urgent in the world. Twenty million people, including millions of children, desperately need help. The United States is committed to doing our part, both to provide aid and to help address the obstacles standing in the way of humanitarian access.
That sounds a whole lot better than it is. Blinken did not acknowledge the US role in the air war on Yemen. Blinken did not acknowledge the US role in the naval blockade preventing food and fuel from reaching those 20 million Yemenis. Those obstacles to humanitarian access remain unchanged. The US has the power to remove either one unilaterally, just as it unilaterally chose to impose them. Blinken called on “all parties” to allow unhindered import and distribution of food and fuel, as if the US played no role in blocking both.
Blinken wasn’t done inventing a reality to fit US policy. He pledged support for “the well-being of the Yemeni people” but singled out the Houthis for pressure, even though the Houthis represent a large proportion of the Yemeni people. He called on the Houthis “to cease their cross-border attacks,” even though those attacks are a response to the US/Saudi undeclared war. And then he offered an analysis that would be hilarious if it weren’t so grotesque:
… the Saudis and the Republic of Yemen Government are committed and eager to find a solution to the conflict. We call on the Houthis to match this commitment. A necessary first step is to stop their offensive against Marib, a city where a million internally displaced people live, and to join the Saudis and the government in Yemen in making constructive moves toward peace.
The Saudis are so eager to find a solution to the conflict that they maintain their air war and naval blockade, effectively waging war by starvation – a crime against humanity. The “Republic of Yemen Government” is a fiction and a joke. Yemeni president Mansour Hadi, who is 75, was vice president of Yemen from 1994 to 2011, under the late authoritarian president Ali Abdullah Saleh. When Arab Spring protests erupted against Saleh, he stepped aside in favor of Hadi, who was “elected” president in 2012 with no opposition – a “democratic” result imposed by an international cabal. When you read media referring to his “internationally recognized government,” that’s the fiction they’re hiding. Hadi’s term as president ended in 2014, the international cabal extended it for a year, and that’s pretty much the extent of his legitimacy. That and US/Saudi firepower. By any rational calculation, Hadi is not a legitimate president. He also has no legitimate alternative. No wonder Hadi doesn’t feel safe in Yemen and remains in exile in Riyadh. The population in southern Yemen under the “government’s” control has recently attacked the government palace in Aden in protest against the government’s failure to provide sustenance and stability. A recent bomb attack aimed at a Hadi government minister reflects the reality that southern Yemen has long had a separatist movement quite independent of the Houthis in the north, in effect a second civil war. The most constructive move the Hadi government could make toward peace is to abdicate.
Marib City, the capital of Marib Governorate, is roughly 100 miles northeast of Yemen’s capital in Sanaa. Marib City was established after the 1984 discovery of oil deposits in the region. Covering 6,720 square miles in central Yemen, the Marib Governorate is somewhat smaller than New Jersey. Marib contains much of Yemen’s oil, gas, and electric resources. Marib is the last governorate under the control of the Hadi government, but it has been under increasing attack by the Houthis since early 2020. Before that, Marib was relatively remote from the fighting in Yemen, providing refuge for a million or more Yemenis fleeing the fighting elsewhere. Marib City had a population of about 40,000 when the civil war broke out in 2014. Now the city has an estimated 1.5 million people.
The Houthi offensive against Marib has intensified since January 2021. Their offensive has continued in spite of having no air support. For the US Secretary of State to call for the Houthis to stop their offensive is an indication that it’s going their way. By March 8, Houthi forces had breached the northern gates of Marib City. Hadi government forces are supported by the Saudi coalition and local tribes, as well as elements of Al Qaeda and ISIS. (Al Qaeda also fights independently against occupying forces of the United Arab Emirates along the Gulf of Aden coastline.)
Famine has arrived in pockets of Yemen.
Saudi ships blocking fuel aren’t helping.
This was CNN’s headline on March 11, for a story reporting with reasonable accuracy on the very real, years-old humanitarian crisis that the US/Saudi war has brought on the region’s poorest country. CNN quotes a “food insecurity” analysis by the world electronics trade association IPC that predicts that more than 16 million Yemenis (of a total population of about 30 million) are “likely to experience high levels of acute food insecurity” in the first half of 2021. “Out of these, an estimated 11 million people will likely be in Crisis, 5 million in Emergency, and the number of those in Catastrophe will likely increase to 47,000.”
Yemen is an atrocity from almost any perspective. Three US presidents – Obama, Trump, and now Biden – have lied about Yemen while taking the US into an endless nexus of war crimes and crimes against humanity. And for what? To support a Yemeni government that is a fraud? To support a Saudi ally that thought it could win a quick, dirty air war at little or no cost? This abomination, pun intended, never should have happened. So why did it? The formulaic answer in much of the media is usually some variation on this propagandistic patter from Reuters:
A Saudi Arabia-led military coalition intervened in Yemen in 2015 after the Iran-allied Houthi group ousted the country’s government from the capital Sanaa.
This essentially false version of reality in Yemen appears in news media across a wide spectrum, from Al Jazeera to ABC News to this version by CNN:
Saudi Arabia has been targeting Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen since 2015, with the support of the US and other Western allies. It had hoped to stem the Houthis’ spread of power and influence in the country by backing the internationally-recognized government under President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi.
The core falsehood in most versions is “the Iran-allied” or “Iran-backed” Houthis. The grain of truth in that characterization is far outweighed by the history on the ground. The Houthis live in Yemen. They are the only combatant force that lives in Yemen, other than elements of the Hadi government and assorted insurrectionists. Yemen is in the midst of a civil war that has flared over decades. The war that is destroying Yemen is waged entirely by outside countries, primarily the US and the Saudi coalition.
The Houthis, who are mostly Shia Muslims, have lived in northwest Yemen for generations and centuries. They fought a civil war against President Saleh and lost. They have long been an oppressed minority in Yemen. When the Hadi government perpetuated the oppression of the Houthis, they rebelled once again. This time, challenging an unpopular and divided government, they were more successful. In 2014 they captured Sanaa, Yemen’s capital, and captured Hadi himself. Then they released him and he fled first to Aden, then to Saudi Arabia, where he is a puppet figurehead.
Before it could become clear what kind of governance the Houthis would provide for their part of Yemen, the US and the Saudi coalition attacked the country. Their publicly stated motivation has always included the imaginary threat from Iran. But the Houthis have a long and independent history that does not rely on Iran for its coherence and force. Iranian support for the Houthis in 2014 was never shown to be significant. The US/Saudi war had had the perverse effect of incentivizing Iranian support for the Houthis, but there’s no evidence that support comes anywhere close to the strength of the US and Saudi coalition forces directed at the Houthis. The US and the Saudi coalition are waging an aggressive war against a country that did none of them any harm. Iran is providing support for an ally unjustly under siege.
The war in Yemen has been brutal on all sides, according to reports by more or less neutral observers. But only the US and the Saudi coalition are invaders, only they are committing international war crimes. The Houthis, as well as all the other sides fighting in Yemen, have also committed war crimes, but on a far lesser scale. Yemeni forces are not the ones waging war by starvation and disease.
Ultimately, the Houthis are the home team, along with other Yemeni factions. The Houthis have nowhere else to go. The only military solution to the Houthis is extermination, genocide, the very course the US and Saudis have been on for years, with the winking hypocrisy of most of the world.
In April 2015, with the Saudis’ saturation bombing already in its third week, the United Nations Security Council unanimously (14-0) passed Resolution 2216, which “Demands End to Yemen Violence.” The Resolution begins with an obscene misrepresentation of reality:
Imposing sanctions on individuals it said were undermining the stability of Yemen, the Security Council today demanded that all parties in the embattled country, in particular the Houthis, immediately and unconditionally end violence and refrain from further unilateral actions that threatened the political transition.
That is the official lie that has publicly defined the war on Yemen since 2015. The UN sees no terror bombing by foreign countries. The UN sees no invasion by foreign troops. The UN sees no terrorist groups in a country that has had little stability for decades. The UN cites only the Houthis for their sins, as if it were somehow the Houthis’ fault that, having no air force and no air defenses, they weren’t getting out of the way of the cluster bombs dropped on their weddings and their funerals.
William Boardman has over 40 years' experience in theatre, radio, TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont judiciary and a stint with Captain Kangaroo. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. A collection of his essays, EXCEPTIONAL: American Exceptionalism Takes Its Toll, published September 2019, is available from Yorkland Publishing of Toronto or Amazon.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein. (photo: Getty)
Feinstein Says Senate Should Analyze Filibuster Reform, Giving Big Boost to Effort
Daniel Politi, Slate
Politi writes:
en. Dianne Feinstein has long been seen as one of the big supporters of the filibuster. Now she’s making clear her mind could change, providing a big boost to Democrats who want to do away with the procedure that effectively requires most legislation to receive 60 votes in order to pass the Senate. Feinstein, who has served in the Senate for nearly three decades, said late Friday that the shootings in Atlanta this week are pushing her to change her mind and she could be open to changing the way the filibuster works if senators can’t come together in a bipartisan manner on gun-control legislation and voting rights.
“If that proves impossible and Republicans continue to abuse the filibuster by requiring cloture votes, I’m open to changing the way the Senate filibuster rules are used,” the California Democrat said in a statement. “I don’t want to turn away from Senate traditions, but I also don’t believe one party should be able to prevent votes on important bills by abusing the filibuster.”
Friday night news from DiFi: “Ideally the Senate can reach bipartisan agreement....But if that proves impossible and Republicans continue to abuse the filibuster by requiring cloture votes, I’m open to changing the way the Senate filibuster rules are used.” pic.twitter.com/MOrjzVwVC7
— Emily Cochrane (@ESCochrane) March 20, 2021
In the statement, Feinstein pointed out that President Joe Biden also expressed support for the change this week. Biden, who served in the Senate for 36 years, suggested he could endorse what is knowns as a “talking filibuster,” which essentially requires a senator to keep talking in order to maintain the filibuster. “I don’t think that you have to eliminate the filibuster. You have to do it what it used to be when I first got to the Senate back in the old days,” Biden said in an interview with ABC News. “You had to stand up and command the floor. And you had to keep talking.”
EXCLUSIVE: @GStephanopoulos: "You're for bringing back the talking filibuster?"
Pres. Biden: "I am. That's what it was supposed to be...Democracy's having a hard time functioning." https://t.co/yAWX6oXaSP pic.twitter.com/CUr6JXRIDD
— ABC News (@ABC) March 17, 2021
Feinstein had previously said she wasn’t too eager to change the filibuster rules because she’s worried about what could happen if Republicans regain control of the Senate. She was hardly the only holdout among Democrats to changing the rules, but even some who have talked about the importance of the Filibuster seem willing to at least talk about reform. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, for example, recently said he was willing to discuss requiring a talking filibuster.
With Feinstein and Manchin both expressing potential support for at least some kind of reform, the main holdout among Democrats is now Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. Synema hasn’t just opposed filibuster reform, she’s also said she would consider strengthening the filibuster. Considering the Senate’s 50-50 split, Democrats would likely need the support of all members of their party to push through any reforms.
Proud Boys during a rally. (photo: Evelyn Hockstein/WP)
Capitol Attack: More Than 60 Proud Boys Used Encrypted Channel to Plan, Indictment Says
Lois Beckett, Guardian UK
Beckett writes:
he neo-fascist Proud Boys deployed a large contingent in Washington on 6 January, the day of the US Capitol attack, with more than 60 “participating in” an encrypted messaging channel called “Boots on the Ground”, a federal indictment says.
The indictment, which includes conspiracy charges against four men described as leaders of the far-right group, presents fresh evidence of how officials believe members planned and carried out a coordinated attempt to stop Congress certifying Joe Biden’s electoral victory over Donald Trump.
At least 19 leaders, members or associates of the Proud Boys have been charged in federal court with offenses related to the 6 January riot, which resulted in five deaths. More than 300 people have been charged in total. Trump was impeached for the inciting the insurrection but was acquitted after only seven Republican senators broke ranks to vote to convict him.
The indictment unsealed on Friday also suggests that the Proud Boys, whom Trump told to “stand back and stand by” during a presidential debate last year, were discussing what they would do after he left the White House.
“We need to start planning and we are starting planning for a Biden presidency,” one alleged leader wrote after the Capitol invasion, according to the indictment.
Just two days before the Capitol attack, the Proud Boys’ leader, Enrique Tarrio, was arrested in Washington, charged with vandalizing a Black Lives Matter banner at a historic Black church, and ordered to stay out of the District of Columbia.
The Proud Boys reacted with alarm, one alleged leader warning that communications could be “compromised”, telling members they could be “looking at Gang charges” and suggesting they “stop everything immediately”, according to the indictment.
But they regrouped, creating fresh encrypted channels to communicate and advising members to meet at the Washington Monument at 10am on 6 January, according to the indictment. One alleged leader told members on 5 January to “avoid getting into any shit tonight. Tomorrow’s the day.” Proud Boys were repeatedly warned not to wear their typical black and yellow colors. “Cops are the primary threat,” one channel was warned on the night before the attack.
On 6 January, the Proud Boys marched to the Capitol before Trump finished addressing thousands of supporters near the White House.
About two hours later, just before Congress convened a joint session to certify the election results, a group of Proud Boys followed a crowd who breached barriers at a pedestrian entrance to the Capitol grounds, the indictment says. Several Proud Boys entered the Capitol after the mob smashed windows and forced open doors.
A Wall Street Journal investigation of video footage found Proud Boys members were “key instigators”, at the “forefront” in many pivotal moments.
The messages in the indictment show the Proud Boys using military language before and during the attack, one asking if leaders should hold a “commander’s briefing” before gathering at the Washington Monument.
At 3.38pm, Charles Donohoe, an alleged leader of a chapter in North Carolina, announced on the Boots on the Ground channel that he and others were “regrouping with a second force” as some rioters began to leave the Capitol, according to the indictment.
Ethan Nordean and Joseph Biggs, two of the four defendants charged, were arrested several weeks ago on separate but related charges. A day before the riots, Biggs posted on the Boots on the Ground channel that the group had a “plan”, according to the new indictment, which also charges Donohoe and Zachary Rehl, described as leader of a chapter in Pennsylvania.
“This was not simply a march,” the assistant US attorney Jason McCullough said in a recent hearing for Nordean’s case. “This was an incredible attack on our institutions of government.”
All four defendants are charged with conspiring to impede certification of the electoral college vote. Other charges include obstruction of an official proceeding, obstruction of law enforcement during civil disorder and disorderly conduct.
The defendants carried out their conspiracy in part by obtaining paramilitary gear and supplies, including tactical vests, protective equipment and radio equipment, according to the indictment.
Prosecutors have said the Proud Boys arranged to communicate using Baofeng radios, Chinese-made devices that can be programmed for use on hundreds of frequencies, making it difficult for outsiders to eavesdrop.
A lawyer for Biggs declined to comment. Attorneys for the other three men didn’t immediately respond to messages.
In Nordean’s case, a federal judge accused prosecutors of backtracking on claims that he instructed Proud Boys members to split up into smaller groups and directed a “strategic plan” to breach the Capitol.
“That’s a far cry from what I heard at the hearing today,” the US district judge Beryl Howell said on 3 March.
Howell concluded that Nordean was extensively involved in “pre-planning” for the events of 6 January and that he and other Proud Boys “were clearly prepared for a violent confrontation”. However, she said evidence that Nordean directed other Proud Boys members to break into the building was “weak to say the least” and ordered him freed from jail before trial.
Proud Boys members describe themselves as “western chauvinists” and have engaged in street fights with antifascist activists. The Vice Media co-founder Gavin McInnes, who founded the Proud Boys in 2016, sued the Southern Poverty Law Center for labeling it a hate group.
On Friday, Howell ordered the group member Christopher Worrell detained in federal custody pending trial on riot-related charges. Prosecutors say Worrell traveled to Washington and coordinated with Proud Boys leading up to the siege.
“Wearing tactical gear and armed with a canister of pepper spray gel marketed as 67 times more powerful than hot sauce, Worrell advanced, shielded himself behind a wooden platform and other protestors and discharged the gel at the line of officers,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing.
His defense attorney John Pierce argued his client wasn’t aiming at officers and was only there in the crowd to exercise his free speech rights.
“He’s a veteran,” Pierce said. “He loves his country.”
President Joe Biden speaks in the East Room of the White House on March 18, 2021. (photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Biden Aides' Corporate Ties Should Surprise No One
Andrew Perez, Jacobin
Perez writes:
Newly released documents show Joe Biden's White House staffers recently working as consultants for Lyft, billionaire foundations, and an Israeli facial recognition firm. It's another reminder of the revolving door between big business and the state.
resident Joe Biden’s top White House staffers previously consulted for ride-hailing company Lyft, an Israeli facial recognition firm, and billionaires’ philanthropic foundations, according to new financial disclosure forms obtained by The Daily Poster.
While Biden’s cabinet officials have already detailed their extensive corporate consulting work and paid speaking gigs, the Biden administration is just now starting to release the financial disclosure forms filed by senior White House staff, launching a new web page on Friday where people can request the filings. The new disclosures provide more detail about links between top administration officials and corporations lobbying the Biden administration.
White House deputy chief of staff Jen O’Malley Dillon, a deputy campaign manager for President Barack Obama in 2012, listed more than a dozen clients she worked for at the communications consulting firm Precision Strategies, including Lyft and General Electric.
Lyft helped bankroll a successful ballot measure campaign in California last year allowing the company to continue classifying its drivers as independent contractors rather than employees. Lyft and other gig economy companies are hoping to export the policy nationwide.
O’Malley Dillon also consulted for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s philanthropic organization, known as the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and for Gates Ventures, the private office of billionaire Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates.
Her other clients included Arkansans for a Fair Wage, a committee that backed a 2018 ballot initiative to raise the minimum wage in Arkansas to $11, and the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki, who served as a White House communications director under Obama, wrote that she served as a consultant for Lyft, too. She also disclosed handling crisis communications for AnyVision, a facial recognition firm whose technology has reportedly been used by Israel to surveil Palestinians in the West Bank, according to NBC News.
Microsoft, which had invested in AnyVision, hired former Obama attorney general Eric Holder and his team at the law firm Covington & Burling to conduct an independent investigation into the reports. While their audit concluded that “AnyVision’s technology has not previously and does not currently power a mass surveillance program in the West Bank that has been alleged in media reports,” Microsoft said it would sell its stakes in AnyVision and other facial recognition companies.
Psaki is one of several Biden administration hires who worked at WestExec Advisors, a corporate consultancy cofounded by Biden’s secretary of state, Tony Blinken. She did not specifically name her clients at the firm.
She separately disclosed consulting for Jeff Anderson and Associates, a law firm that seeks justice for children who suffer sexual abuse, and the Zero Abuse Project, a charitable organization founded by Jeff Anderson whose mission is to protect children from abuse and sexual assault.
White House deputy chief of staff Bruce Reed, a longtime DC deficit hawk and former Bill Clinton aide, disclosed providing policy consulting services to the Walton Family Foundation, the charitable arm of the billionaire family that founded Walmart.
Reed also consulted for Manhattan West LLC. The New York Post reported in 2011 that billionaire Mike Bloomberg’s “longtime accountant set up Manhattan West LLC to pay some city employees over $100,000 each to work for his charity” when he was the mayor of New York. Reed reportedly advised Bloomberg on a potential presidential campaign in early 2019, before joining Biden’s 2020 campaign.
White House counselor Steve Ricchetti reported being paid $280,000 by his eponymous firm, Ricchetti Consulting Group. While Ricchetti did not list any clients, the New York Times reported last year that he had been working for telecom giant AT&T.
Ricchetti’s brother, Jeff, is a lobbyist and has brought in several new clients since Biden’s victory, including Amazon, General Motors, and TC Energy, the company behind the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline, which Biden blocked on his first day in office.
Alejandro Mayorkas. (photo: WVIK)
DHS Secretary Says Border Is Closed
Mychael Schnell, The Hill
Schnell writes:
omeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Sunday urged migrants not to travel to the United States, as the Biden administration struggles with a surge of incomers, especially unaccompanied minors, at the southern border.
“The message is quite clear, do not come. The border is closed, the border is secure,” Mayorkas told host Martha Raddatz on ABC’s “This Week.”
“We are encouraging children not to come. Now is not the time to come. Do not come, the journey is dangerous. We are building safe, orderly and humane ways to address the needs of vulnerable children. Do not come,” Mayorkas added.
On Saturday, the U.S. government was housing approximately 15,500 unaccompanied migrant minors, CBS News reported, including 5,000 teenagers and children in Border Patrol facilities not equipped to handle them.
The Border Patrol facilities are also housing migrants for 136 hours on average, which exceeds the 72-hour limit, the network noted.
Mayorkas said on Sunday that the U.S. has seen large numbers of migration in the past, adding that the administration knows how to address the situation.
“We know how to address it. We have a plan, we are executing on our plan, and we will succeed. This is what we do,” Mayorkas said.
He noted, however, that “it takes time,” noting that controlling the situation at the border right now is particularly “challenging and difficult” because “the entire system under United States law that has been in place throughout administrations of both parties was dismantled in its entirety by the Trump administration.”
“So we are rebuilding the system as we address the needs of vulnerable children who arrive at our borders,” Mayorkas said.
In an interview broadcast Tuesday, President Biden also urged migrants not to make the journey to the U.S.
"I can say quite clearly don't come over," he told ABC News. "Don't leave your town or city or community."
Medical staff take part in an early morning protest against the military coup and crackdown by security forces on demonstrations in Mandalay on March 21, 2021. (photo: Stringer/ AFP)
ALSO SEE: Myanmar Protesters Defiant as
Two More Killed, Pressure on Junta Grows
Myanmar Doctors Kick Off Day of Protests With Dawn March
Al Jazeera
The rising death toll in Myanmar forces anti-coup protesters to turn to novel ways to show their opposition.
octors and healthcare workers in Myanmar’s Mandalay kicked off another day of anti-coup demonstrations, staging a peaceful march at dawn in a bid to minimise the risk of confrontation with security forces.
Video posted by the Mizzima news portal showed hundreds of people, many of them in white coats, marching on deserted streets on Sunday, just as the sky was beginning to brighten.
“Failure of the military regime, our cause our cause,” they chanted.
The rally came as the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a monitoring group, said at least 247 people have been killed during nationwide protests against the military’s power grab on February 1.
Virtually all the dead have been shooting victims and, in many cases, have been shot in the head.
The death toll rose later on Sunday when security forces opened fire on a group setting up a barricade in the central town of Monywa, killing at least one man and wounding several others, a doctor there told the Reuters news agency.
Amid the escalating violence, the people of Myanmar – determined to resist a return to military rule – have thought up novel ways to show their opposition.
In addition to the doctors’ dawn march, engineers in Mandalay held what has been dubbed a “no-human strike”, an increasingly popular tactic that involves lining up signboards in streets or other public areas as proxies for human protesters.
Meanwhile, protesters in nearly 20 locations across the country staged candle-lit protests on Saturday night and into Sunday, from the main city of Yangon to small communities in Kachin State in the north and the southernmost town of Kawthaung, according to a tally of social media posts.
Protesters in some places were joined by Buddhist monks holding candles while some people used candles to make the shape of the three-fingered protest salute.
The spokesman for the military government was not available for comment, but he has previously said security forces have used force only when necessary.
‘Foreign insults’
Western countries have repeatedly condemned the coup and the violence. Asian neighbours, who have for years avoided criticising each other, have also begun speaking out.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo, in some of the strongest comments yet by a regional leader, said on Friday the violence should stop immediately. He called for an urgent meeting of Southeast Asia’s regional grouping, of which Myanmar is a member.
Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin backed the call, saying he was appalled by the persistent use of lethal violence against civilians. Singapore has also expressed disapproval.
The military has shown no sign of being pressed into back-tracking on its coup, which derailed a slow transition to democracy in a country that was under strict military rule from a 1962 coup until the generals initiated reforms a decade ago.
Senior General Min Aung Hlaing justified the power grab claiming a November 8 election that returned elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s party to power was fraudulent – an accusation rejected by the electoral commission.
He has promised a new election but has not set a date.
On Saturday, the coup leader visited the Coco islands, one of Myanmar’s most strategically important outposts, 400 km (250 miles) south of Yangon, and reminded members of the armed force there that their main duty was to defend the country against external threats.
The islands are near some of the world’s most important shipping routes, in waters where China and India seek to project their power. Neither of the Asian giants has spoken out strongly against the coup and the violence.
The state-run Kyemon newspaper prominently featured a quote from independence hero Aung San, Suu Kyi’s father, who in 1947 said: “It is everyone’s duty to sacrifice their lives and defend and fight back against foreign countries’ insults.”
Aung San Suu Kyi, 75, faces accusations of bribery and other crimes that could see her banned from politics and jailed if convicted. Her lawyer says the charges are trumped up.
The resistance cause received support over the weekend from demonstrations in several places abroad, including Tokyo, Taipei in Taiwan and Times Square in New York City.
Youth Advocates for Climate Action Philippines activists protest outside of a bank office in Makati City on March 19, 2021. (photo: Fridays for Future)
Youth Climate Activists Are Back With New, Sharper Demands for Countries and Corporations
Lili Pike, Vox
Pike writes:
The Fridays for Future movement returned to spotlight a dangerous shortfall in climate action.
n Friday, Filipino youth activists stood outside a gleaming office tower with a giant, game show-style check. On it was the amount of financing the multinational bank Standard Chartered has provided to coal companies in the country since 2018, stamped red with the word “canceled.”
This protest outside the bank’s Manila offices was one of hundreds held in 68 countries on March 19, organized by Fridays for Future, the youth climate activism movement started by Greta Thunberg, an 18-year-old Swede. This time, kids, teens, and adults showed up on the streets and on screens to call out world powers’ “empty promises” to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
In recent months, the activists have persevered through quarantines and Zoom fatigue, and while Friday’s turnout didn’t come close to the 4 million who participated in the massive September 20, 2019 climate strike, the strong coordinated effort suggested they are still a force to be reckoned with.
In the last year, a spate of nations including China, Japan, and South Korea have set net-zero emissions targets — often for 2050 or beyond. Corporations, including Standard Chartered, have also made their own pledges. While some of these goals are aligned with the Paris agreement, they are only goals. Currently, global emissions are surging back after dropping last year due to the coronavirus pandemic, and many governments and institutions continue to plow money into fossil fuel projects.
Focusing on the insufficiency of these net-zero targets and pressuring specific international institutions are new tactics for the global youth climate movement, which has historically made broader demands for action.
“I don’t think Fridays for Future has ever done something that is very specific at a global level,” Jon Bonifacio, a 23-year-old activist with Youth Advocates for Climate Action Philippines, told Vox on Friday after a long day coordinating protests in the Philippines.
As part of their latest campaign, the activists are highlighting a new scientific framework for inspecting whether net-zero targets are “empty” or impactful. This could inform future protests to hold companies and countries accountable for their new targets.
“Scientists clearly state that what we need isn’t meaningless net-zero targets filled with loopholes — what we need are transparent, legally binding targets that take in account the aspects of justice and equity,” Nicki Becker, a youth climate activist with Jovenes Por El Clima in Argentina, said in a statement to the press.
Here’s what climate scientists say a robust net-zero target should look like — and how activists are pushing one bank to meet higher standards.
What activists and scientists want to see from net-zero pledges
A common refrain for youth climate activists when confronting politicians is “listen to the scientists.” This week the activists showed they’re using that advice to add heft and specificity to their own messaging.
On a Zoom press call on Thursday, a group of youth activists from around the world critiqued the state of net-zero targets. Genesis Whitlock, an activist with Climate Justice Antigua, raised concerns about the impact of developed countries using land from countries in the Global South to offset their emissions. “Will we aim to heal the wounds of natural resource exploitation or will we continue to extract [from] and marginalize Black and Indigenous communities?” she asked.
The activists also invited Joeri Rogelj, the director of research at the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London, to discuss how to improve these targets. He shared the new framework, which he and co-authors published in the journal Nature on March 16.
“Plans are hard to compare, and definitions loose. The details behind ‘net-zero’ labels differ enormously,” the authors wrote. To make the pledges more legible, the study outlines a checklist of information that target-setters should disclose across three categories: scope, adequacy and fairness, and a long-term road map.
Scope
Currently, the net-zero label masks large differences in actions, from what gases are actually being targeted to how much the plan relies on offsetting emissions. For instance, China has yet to clarify whether its proposed net-zero target just refers to carbon dioxide or all greenhouse gas emissions.
This lack of transparency raises serious issues — observers cannot evaluate whether a plan is in line with the science from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change showing that global carbon emissions must reach net-zero by 2050 to keep the world’s temperature from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.
So, as a starting point, the authors say pledges need to be clear about what gases they target, what activities they cover (whether they account for the carbon footprint of imported goods, for example), and when they plan to reach net-zero. The plan should also clarify how much they are relying on the “net” part of the net-zero target — in other words, does the plan rely on the massive deployment of carbon dioxide removal plants or other technologies to suck up emissions? The authors point out that some of these solutions are nascent or problematic.
Fairness
In net-zero targets, “ethical judgments are unavoidable, even if unvoiced,” the authors write. If a country sets a later date for net-zero targets, it assumes that other countries will pick up the slack and set earlier deadlines, for example. Similarly, by failing to include all greenhouse gases in their target, a country might let their methane-intensive agricultural sector off the hook, but those emissions will still be felt by the world.
“One really needs to consider whether one sector or one country that is in a better position doesn’t need to go faster or doesn’t need to go beyond net-zero,” Rogelj said during the press call.
The authors are not prescriptive about what constitutes fairness, but they suggest that all countries and other groups setting net-zero targets clearly describe the assumptions they’re making and the implications for other countries.
Road Map
Setting a net-zero target is not enough, the researchers argue. Rather, a clear timeline needs to be established to achieve that goal, along with a regular check-in process to ensure it is being met, otherwise countries might delay the hard work until it’s too late.
Through this checklist, Rogelj said he hopes to help activists and others boost accountability. “It really provides a recipe for activists to use and for them to talk to people in power.”
Putting Standard Chartered to the test
By highlighting the deficiencies in current net-zero targets through the #NoMoreEmptyPromises hashtag on social media, youth climate activists are pushing for the transparency the framework calls for.
On Friday, they chose to shine a light on the mismatch between Standard Chartered’s goals and actions, protesting at the bank’s offices in over 10 countries, according to a Fridays for Future press release. The activists decided to target the bank because it is a large fossil fuel financier and is headquartered in the UK, which will be hosting the upcoming UN climate negotiations in November.
The bank, which had nearly $800 billion in assets in 2020, set a target to reach net-zero by 2030 — but just for its buildings, not its investments. The bank has provided $2 billion in loans and nearly $8 billion through underwriting services to coal companies since the IPCC’s dire 1.5 Celsius special report was published in 2018, according to German NGO Urgewald.
Since 2018, the bank’s loans and underwriting have supported coal companies across many developing countries including in the Philippines, Indonesia, and India, Urgewald reports. Last year, the bank pledged to divest from any company with more than 10 percent of its revenue from coal by 2030, but activists want divestment now.
Filipino activist Jon Bonifacio reported that the protests targeting the bank on Friday were successful, with activists turning out across the country’s three major island groups for the first time. A bank representative came down to meet the protesters outside the Manila office and accepted their letter of demands to divest from fossil fuels.
“With the strikes that went on today and of course are still going on in different time zones, most of them are targeting Standard Chartered offices and that is something that they’ll probably definitely notice,” Bonifacio said on Friday.
He described the complexity of pulling off this campaign at a time when Covid-19 cases are once again rising in the Philippines. Bonifacio himself was scheduled to speak at the protest, but he had to quarantine when a family member learned they had been in contact with someone who contracted the virus.
Despite the challenges of organizing during the pandemic, he said that spending more time online has helped activists connect and shift their focus to the most affected countries and people.
“The movement will keep growing, the movement will keep diversifying,” he said. “We’ll be here as long as the climate crisis is there.”
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