Assad Regime Cuts Welfare to Fund Military Campaign against Rebels and Civilians
By Kathryn Maureen Ryan
Impunity Watch, Managing Editor
DAMASCUS, Syria – In response to increasing economic instability the regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has scaled back on subsidies given to citizens for goods ranging from water to heating oil, necessary for surviving the cold Syrian winter, over the past six month. The Syrian people already suffer extreme economic hardship due to the county’s high unemployment rate, hovering at around 50%, crippling inflation and massive infrastructure damage and damage to industry suffered as a result of the country’s long civil war which is entering its fourth year. As Syria approaches the long winter months power outages and food shortages have worried across the country. Despite the continues splintering of rebel groups and Syria as well as the efforts by the United States and coalition airstrikes to halt the spread of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in the region the Assad regimes feels the need to divert funding from Syria’s vulnerable poor populations in order to support its continued war efforts.
Other economic problems such as falling tax revenues, a collapse in the currency and rising bills for imports have also pushed the regime deeper into “survival mode,” said Riad Kahwaji, an analyst and chief executive of the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis. Although the government’s budget figures are not made public, analysts say Damascus has had to shift priorities to pay for the war effort.
In response to its economic woes, which have hindered the regime’s ability to continue its brutal campaign against rebels and populations deemed to be sympathetic to rebel groups the Assad regime has slashed spending on social welfare, including cutting subsidies for water and electricity over the summer. Last month, the government began to cut funding for diesel and heating oil.
In a rare interview published by Paris Match, a French language magazine, on Thursday Syrian President Bashar al-Assad vowed that he would remain in power, despite calls from the rebels on the ground in Syria as well as much of the international community for him to step down. He also asserted that the Syrian Civil war will be long and difficult because his army could not be everywhere at once, apparently an attempt to justify increased spending on the war effort at the expense of government welfare programs.
“The Syrian army cannot be everywhere at once. Where it is not present, terrorists take the opportunity to cross borders and infiltrate in one area or another,” said the French language magazine in comments apparently quoting the Syrian president. “It is not about a war between two armies, where one occupies a territory and the other another one. It is another type of war. We are dealing with terrorist groups that infiltrate a town or village. So this war will be long and difficult,” it continued. The text was also published by Syrian state media on Thursday.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights the Syrian Civil War, which has created millions of refugees and internally displaced persons, has taken the lives of more than 200,000 people in its four year history. “We have documented the killing of 202,354 people since March 2011,” Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman said.
For more information please see:
Newsweek – Assad Says Syrian War Will Be “Long and Difficult” In Rare Interview – 4 December 2014
Foreign Policy – Assad Airstrikes Aren’t Helping Me; Hollande you’re As Popular as ISIS –
Al Arabiya – Syria Death Toll Now Exceeds 200,000: Monitor – 2 December 2014
The Washington Post – Syria’s Assad Regime Cuts Subsidies, Focuses Ailing Economy on War Effort – 29 November 2014
Illegal Gold Mining Destroying Peruvian Rainforests
By Kathryn Maureen Ryan
Impunity Watch, Managing Editor
LIMA, Peru – Large shafts of Peru’s Amazonian rainforests are disappearing every day, turned from once pristine virgin rainforest ecosystems, home to countless animal and plant species, have been turned into fragmented forests and mercury poisoned wastelands. This devastating deforestation trend is driven by illegal gold mining operations in Peru, a practice dependent on the use of toxins like mercury, a neurotoxin used to bind gold found in natural deposits. The ruined wastelands scar the southeastern region of Madre de Dios, a region high in biodiversity whose unique natural environment attacks scientists interested in studying the area for its future pharmaceutical and scientific potential as well as eco-tourists whose visits help support the region’s economy. The practice of illegal mining is devastating to the local indigenous community, who live in voluntary isolation deep within the Amazonian forests.
Over the past decade, mining has denuded 230 square miles (595 square kilometers) of forest in the Madre de Dios region, poisoning the critical watershed. A study released last year, led by the Carnegie Institution for Science, found that 76.5 percent of people in the region had mercury levels above acceptable limits. Illegal mining is the second largest cause of deforestation in Peru, behind clear-cutting for agricultural development, Environmental Minister Manuel Pulgar-Vidal said. “It is terrible for the nearly irremediable wounds it causes to the forest,” he said.
Rainforests serve as large scale natural carbon seeks, absorbing and holding atmospheric carbon dioxide, which make these ecosystem’s important natural mitigation tool for global climate change. Peru is home to the second-largest area of the Amazonian rainforest, after Brazil. According to the findings of new research conducted by the Carnegie Institute for Science (CIS) the Peruvian rainforests stores nearly seven billion metric tons of carbon stocks, mostly in its Amazon rainforest which is higher than The United States’ annual carbon emissions for 2013 which were calculated at 5.38 billion tons. However, according to Greg Asner, the project “found that nearly a billion metric tons of above-ground carbon stocks in Peru are at imminent risk of emission into the atmosphere due to land uses such as fossil fuel oil exploration, cattle ranching, oil palm plantations and gold mining.”
Deforestation and land conversion account for about 40 percent of Peru’s greenhouse gas emissions. The Peruvian government has vowed to halt deforestation by 2021, and Norwegian in September pledged $300 million toward that goal. However, Peru’s stewardship and conservation efforts have come under scrutiny by environmentalists as deforestation appears to be on the rise in the country. Despite the government’s crackdown on illegal minge smuggling has continued to proliferate in the country as smugglers move to bring illegal gold across the border into Bolivia for export to the United States.
The United Nations will host the 20th session of the Conference of the Parties e to the Kyoto Protocol to United Nations Convention on Climate Change will be held from December 1 to 12 December and is being hosted by the Government of Peru, in Lima.
For more information please see:
U.S. News and World Report – Scarred, poisoned wasteland highlights Peru’s challenges in halting deforestation – 2 December 2014
Reuters – FEATURE-Peru crackdown on illegal gold leads to new smuggling routes – 25 November 2014
The Guardian – Peru’s forests store more CO2 than US emits in a year, research shows – 7 November 2014
The United Nations Convention on Climate Change – Lima Climate Change Conference – December 2014 – December 2014
Controversy of Israeli “Jewish State” Bill
By Max Bartels
Impunity Watch Reporter, The Middle East
Jerusalem, Israel
Israel is in the midst of passing legislation known as the “Jewish State” bill, a bill that would effectively enshrine Jewish law in the Basic law (Constitution) of the nation. This is significant for several reasons; first, the basic premise of the law puts Jewish law and Jewish rights before democracy. Jewish law would become the basis of the Israeli legal system, while it affirms the personal rights of all citizens, but according to the law communal rights are reserved only for Jewish citizens. The Arab minority in Israel, which accounts for about 20% of the population, would have rights as individuals but not national rights. The Arab minority is afraid that they will be framed as second-class citizens in a nation that is meant for Jews. The proposed laws effect has caused a great deal of controversy and it has come at a time where Arab-Israeli relations are the most strained they’ve been in sometime.
There are many who believe that for the Arab population who hold Israeli citizenship nothing significant will change. According to many Arab advocacy groups, for the most part Arabs have never had equal rights to Jewish Israeli citizens. The Arab population has always faced discrimination; the only practical effect, they claim is that the bill will now make it legal. Israelis who support the bill are mainly comprised of Israel’s right wing Likud Party. Prime Minister Netanyahu is a member of the Likud party; the right wing has pushed him for a nationalist bill for sometime. Palestinian leaders and other Arab leaders still refuse to recognize the connection between the Jewish people and the land of Israel, the Prime Minister has stressed this in many speeches given in support of the bill. Advocates of the bill say it is the right of the Jewish people to pass legislation in their own country.
Protests have been wide spread by both Arabs and Jews who don’t support the bill. Most protesters believe the bill is fueling an already raging fire. The U.S. State Department has urged Israel to uphold democratic principles. The European Union has also spoke out against the passage of the Jewish State bill. Tensions will continue to rise as the wait for the vote on the bill continues.
The Prime Minister’s Cabinet approved the bill by a vote of 14-6. The bill now has to pass through the Israeli Knesset, which is the legislative body of the Israeli government. However, the vote has been delayed in the Knesset due to the Prime Minister calling for early elections and the dissolving of the parliament. The vote on the bill will be delayed until a new parliament is elected.
For more information, please see:
Al Jazeera — “We are not Citizens with Equal Rights” — 3 December 2014
The Telegraph — What is the Jewish State Bill? — 27 November 2014
Eyewitness News — Hundreds Protest over “Jewish State Bill” — 2 December 2014
Thirty Years Later Victims of Worst Industrial Disaster in World History Still Wait For Justice
By Kathryn Maureen Ryan
Managing Editor, Impunity Watch
NEW DELHI, India – During the middle of the night on December 2-3 1984 large quantities of the deadly gas methyl isocyanate was accidentally released from a Union Carbide India Limited pesticide plant located in the city of Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. The ploom of gas spread over the city as About 30 metric tons of methyl isocyanate) escaped into the atmosphere in a span of about 45 to 60 minutes. Leaks had occurred in the plant before and the poor condition of the plant was known by its operators were aware that many of the plant’s safety systems were not working and its operation valves were in poor condition. The disaster would claim more than 25,000 lives and leave more than 40,000 people permanently disabled making the event the worst industrial disaster in world history. After the disaster the Union Carbide company, whose parent company is Huston based Down Chemical Company, abandoned the planed without cleaning any of the toxic waste it left behind. Today illnesses related to acute toxic poisoning are still reported in local hospitals.
On the wake of the thirtieth anniversary of the Bhopal industrial disaster Amnesty International Secretary General Salil Shetty called on the government of Narendra Modi led should raise issues pertaining to the Bhopal Gas tragedy with United States President Barack Obama during the President’s visit to India in January next year. “It is time to give victims and survivors the compensation they deserve. It is time to clean up the site and toxic wastes. And it is time to ensure justice and bring Dow Chemicals and Carbide to book,” he said.
A new film staring Indian American actor Kal Penn and directed by Ravi Kumar address the Bhopal disaster, exploring the events that led to the deadly release of toxic gas in 1984. The film “Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain,” opened in New York City last follows the story of Dilip, a former rickshaw driver who gets a job at the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal in the early 1980s. Dilip, played by Kal Penn, and his co-workers become increasingly concerned by the lack of concern for safety around them.
“The Bhopal tragedy is one of the world’s worst industrial disasters, period,” Penn said. “There was such a multitude of other factors at play: corruption within government, lax safety standards, lack of enforcement or oversight, intimidation, the need for jobs, and of course corporate legal loopholes.”
The film also depicts Warren Anderson, the American CEO of Union Carbide who was arrested as he headed to India after the accident, although he was eventually allowed to leave the country without facing a trial. Said his team reached out to Anderson while writing the script to get his side of the story, but were unable to speak to him. “F or three decades, Union Carbide has used USA as a safe haven from criminal charges to dodge culpable homicide. The Bhopal Chief Judicial Magistrate has called Union Carbide six times but because of their consistent no show, has called it an ‘absconder’,” Shetty said.
“We know that the safety standard in the West Virginia plant of Union Carbide was much higher than Bhopal. It is time to right these wrongs,” Shetty said. “On behalf of Amnesty International, I am here to say the victims and survivors of the worst industrial disaster of our times can’t be asked to wait any longer. 30 years ago about 20,000 people died, up to half a million affected. They can’t wait any longer,” he said.
After the disaster Dow Chemical and Union Carbide simply abandoned Bhopal and even worked to create an illusion that time has healed Bhopal’s wounds. Today the rusting pipelines and burst gas tanks remain at the site tangled with lush green shoots. Fishermen fish the toxic waters of the plant’s abandoned evaporation ponds, families graze their goats on long grass and children play in the shadow of the chemical plant where a fine coating of chemical powder from the chemical leak can still be seen. No real cleanup has occurred, and despite the continued exposure of local families to chemical poisoning, no one has been brought to justice for the worst industrial disaster in world history.
For more information please see:
Amnesty International – Thirty Years On From Bhopal Disaster: Still Fighting For Justice – 2 December 2014
Newsweek – 30 Years On, the World’s Worst Industrial Disaster Continues To Blight Bhopal – 2 December 2014
International Business Times – Bhopal Disaster 30th Anniversary: Facts about the World’s Worst Industrial Tragedy – 1 December 2014
NBC News – Kal Penn’s New Film Dives into Bhopal Disaster, 30 Years Later – 7 November 2014