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Chechen commander in Ukraine drawn into Russian intrigue
23 hours ago
By NICHOLAS WALLER
Source:Yahoo News
LYSYCHANSK, Ukraine (AP) — From a dimly lit room at his base in eastern Ukraine, the commander of a battalion of Chechens fighting Russia-backed rebels looked shaken as TV broadcast news of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov's slaying. Adam Osmayev hailed Nemtsov as a "true hero" both for condemning Russia's war against separatists in Chechnya and for decrying Russian intervention in the current conflict in Ukraine.
"Watch them try to tie Ukraine to this (murder) in some way," Osmayev added.
He was half-joking. But two weeks later, Kremlin-friendly Russian newspapers published reports based on unidentified sources in the security services that accused the Ukrainian government and also Osmayev himself of ordering the Feb. 27 murder of Nemtsov in central Moscow in an attempt to destabilize Russia.
Osmayev denies involvement and no evidence has been presented linking him to the hit on Nemtsov, who was a relentless critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Attempts to implicate the British-educated Chechen commander appear to be part of efforts aimed at deflecting attention from anyone close to Putin, including his security services and the powerful leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov.
Within days of Nemtsov's assassination, investigators arrested five Chechens, including a senior officer in Kadyrov's police force, and charged them with carrying out the killing. All five have denied the charges.
The arrests heralded a crisis in relations between the Kremlin and Kadyrov, who rules Chechnya like a personal fiefdom. With generous subsidies from Moscow, he has rebuilt the region after two separatist wars and has relied on his feared security forces to track down and kill foes. His men have steadily expanded their sway beyond Chechnya to control lucrative businesses in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia.
Leaders of federal law enforcement agencies have watched Kadyrov's growing power with dismay and have made no secret of their desire to curb him. Some observers speculated that the killing might have been ordered by Kadyrov's enemies in the federal government — an attempt to prompt Putin to fire or at least punish the Chechen leader.
If such a plan existed, it underestimated Putin's reliance on Kadyrov. The relative stability in Chechnya is seen as one of Putin's main achievements, and he sees the burly red-haired Chechen strongman as key to maintaining the status quo.
Putin quickly sent a signal that he intended to stand by Kadyrov by awarding him the Order of Honor for distinguished public service, a day after Kadyrov spoke out in defense of the arrested Chechens.
The arrests were a rare case in which federal law enforcement agents managed to nab a member of Kadyrov's security force, but the investigation then seemed to fizzle.
Russian media, citing investigators, have pointed to a possible link between the suspected triggerman, Zaur Dadaev, and his commander, Ruslan Geremeyev, a senior officer in the Chechen police force. But Geremeyev is in Chechnya and off limits to federal investigators.
Russian newspapers have floated a variety of theories about the killing that have muddied the waters — a possible attempt to defuse tensions with Kadyrov.
Some reports claimed that investigators believe Dadaev and his suspected accomplices could have acted on their own, even though most observers agree that a senior officer in Kadyrov's security force would not have acted without sanction from his superiors.
Dadaev, in turn, has rescinded his initial testimony, saying he was beaten and pressured to confess.
The reports pointing to Osmayev, a Kadyrov foe, were seen as part of these efforts to deflect attention.
"State-controlled media have put forward a theory that is politically satisfying for Russia's security forces, the Kremlin, Kadyrov and all of their rival groups — namely, that Chechen Adam Osmayev ordered Nemtsov's murder," political analyst Georgy Bovt wrote in a commentary published in The Moscow Times.
Osmayev, 33, has a troubled history with both Kadyrov and Putin.
After graduating from Wycliffe College, a prestigious private school in Britain, and attending the University of Buckingham, he returned to his native Chechnya shortly after the second war there ended in 2000. He worked alongside his father, who had been appointed the head of Chechnya's state oil company.
Chechnya at that time was led by Kadyrov's father. After his assassination in 2004, power passed to his son, Ramzan, and his relationship with the Osmayevs quickly deteriorated in a dispute over lucrative energy contracts. The Osmayevs fled to Ukraine.
In February 2012, Adam Osmayev was arrested at Russia's behest and charged with planning an assassination attempt against Putin. Ukraine at the time had a pro-Kremlin government. Osmayev spent three years in detention until being released in November 2014 by Ukraine's new Western-leaning government.
Shortly after his release, he joined a battalion formed by prominent Chechen commander Isa Munayev to fight against Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. When Munayev was killed on Feb. 1, Osmayav took over the command.
His battalion includes several dozen Chechens, many with combat experience gained in the separatist wars in their homeland against Russian army troops. They regularly get calls from Ukrainian army units asking them to carry out reconnaissance missions or diversionary raids behind rebel lines.
Hundreds of Chechens also are fighting on the separatist side. They first joined the rebels last summer in the early stages of the conflict, and with their combat gear and professional demeanor they stood out among what was then a ragtag local force. Kadyrov has described pro-Russia Chechens fighting in Ukraine as volunteers, the same explanation the Kremlin provides for the Russians among the separatist forces.
Osmayev said he has few doubts that the perpetrators of Nemtsov's killing have ties to Kadyrov, but that the security services now need a convenient scapegoat whose guilt would be easily acceptable to the Russian general public.
"The fact the FSB is . trying to somehow implicate me in Nemtsov's murder is utterly ridiculous," Osmayev said, "but not hard to believe now that I am involved in the situation here in Ukraine."
___
Lynn Berry and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report.
Sunday, April 12, 2015
Anti-Coup Alliance Denounces Political Executions
April 4,2015
Source: Ikhwanweb
Egypt's pro-democracy national coalition condemns the illegitimate coup's intensely politicized mass death sentences and hails the martyrs' children as the pride of the homeland.
The non-violent anti-coup revolutionary movement in Egypt is escalating steadily as the military coup regime persists in its bloody and brutal practices against the patriotic Egyptian people, including extra-judicial killings, political executions in the guise of judicial rulings (by orders from the Generals), and arbitrary arrests of protesters. However, mistaken are those who believe these criminal practices will intimidate or impact the determination of Egypt's heroes, the revolutionaries.
The thundering masses – from across the social and political spectrums of the Egyptian people – that turned out today in response to the Anti-Coup Pro-Legitimacy National Alliance's call carried a message to the whole world rejecting the execution of innocent people of this homeland, vowing that the Revolution will not kneel or be cowered, that retribution will be achieved soon, and that no criminal will escape punishment.
The military junta that executed the treasonous coup d'état in Egypt, trampling democratic legitimacy and popular will in Egypt by force of arms, bears full responsibility for damaging Egypt's national security, and especially for threatening the Sinai's security.
The National Alliance condemns the crimes committed by the traitor Al-Sisi against the people of Sinai, and denounces the clumsy terror operations directed against unarmed and innocent citizens – crimes with which the junta aims to evacuate the Sinai in favor of the Zionist enemy, taken by the traitor Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi as a close and intimate friend.
The Alliance solemnly salutes the revolutionaries' resilience, selfless devotion and determination to complete the journey of the January 25 Revolution despite the junta's brutal repression.
On the World Orphan Day, the Alliance hails the martyrs' children with this modest message: "You are the pride of the nation, the joy of this homeland, the hope of the Revolution, and Egypt's bright future. Retribution will be achieved soon. We are as committed as ever to the worthy pledge we made to your fathers, and to the path of the Revolution. We will not accept no compromises with your rights. We will reclaim for you your full rights, so you can enjoy freedom in the sovereign democratic homeland your fathers wanted and sacrificed their lives for".
Victory for the Revolution
Down with the rule of murderers
The Anti-Coup Pro-Democracy National Alliance
Thursday – April 3, 2015
The thundering masses – from across the social and political spectrums of the Egyptian people – that turned out today in response to the Anti-Coup Pro-Legitimacy National Alliance's call carried a message to the whole world rejecting the execution of innocent people of this homeland, vowing that the Revolution will not kneel or be cowered, that retribution will be achieved soon, and that no criminal will escape punishment.
The military junta that executed the treasonous coup d'état in Egypt, trampling democratic legitimacy and popular will in Egypt by force of arms, bears full responsibility for damaging Egypt's national security, and especially for threatening the Sinai's security.
The National Alliance condemns the crimes committed by the traitor Al-Sisi against the people of Sinai, and denounces the clumsy terror operations directed against unarmed and innocent citizens – crimes with which the junta aims to evacuate the Sinai in favor of the Zionist enemy, taken by the traitor Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi as a close and intimate friend.
The Alliance solemnly salutes the revolutionaries' resilience, selfless devotion and determination to complete the journey of the January 25 Revolution despite the junta's brutal repression.
On the World Orphan Day, the Alliance hails the martyrs' children with this modest message: "You are the pride of the nation, the joy of this homeland, the hope of the Revolution, and Egypt's bright future. Retribution will be achieved soon. We are as committed as ever to the worthy pledge we made to your fathers, and to the path of the Revolution. We will not accept no compromises with your rights. We will reclaim for you your full rights, so you can enjoy freedom in the sovereign democratic homeland your fathers wanted and sacrificed their lives for".
Victory for the Revolution
Down with the rule of murderers
The Anti-Coup Pro-Democracy National Alliance
Thursday – April 3, 2015
Friday, April 10, 2015
Shia militias refuse to stop looting in Tikrit
06 April 2015
Source: Middle East Monitor
Source: Middle East Monitor
Iraqi security sources have said that the Shia militias in Tikrit have refused to stop mass looting and killings in the city recaptured from ISIS a couple of days ago, Jordan's Al-Sabeelnewspaper reported on Sunday. It was said earlier that Prime Minister Haidar Al-Abadi had sent his forces to the city to end the looting, killing and destruction of houses and shops.
However, claim the sources, these particular militias refused to leave the city along with the "Popular Crowd" militia, which withdrew from the city on Saturday and handed over responsibility for security to the federal police.
Several international media reports allege that the Shia militias have carried out mass executions and widespread looting and destruction of property in Tikrit since it was recaptured last week. As many as 76 people were summarily executed by the militias, it is claimed; their bodies were dragged through the streets.
According to the Wall Street Journal, one Tikrit resident, Waleed Omar, fled the city during the fighting earlier this month. "This looting issue is 100 per cent true," he said, "and it means new suffering for the people of Tikrit." ISIS displaced people in Tikrit after committing horrible crimes against them, he added, and now the militias are looting and burning their homes.
The head of the provincial council of Salahuddin province, Ahmed Al-Kareem, told reporters, "Tikrit is chaotic and things are out of control. The police forces and officials there are helpless to stop the militias."
Both Al-Kareem and the governor of Salahuddin left Tikrit, the provincial capital, on Friday night, in protest at the failure of the Iraqi government to curb looting and murder. "Houses and shops were burnt after they stole everything," Al-Kareem told Reuters. Pointing out that hundreds of buildings have been set on fire, he said: "Our city was burnt down in front of our eyes. We cannot control what is going on."
Meanwhile, Deputy Iraqi Prime Minister Salim Al-Jabbour said that the deterioration of the situation in Diyala province, north-east of Baghdad, ended after an agreement with the head of Al-Sadri militias, in addition to other parties to the political process. Before this agreement, Shia militias were also engaged there in mass looting, property destruction and killing after recapturing the area from ISIS.
Memories of land and the mind
05 April 2015
by: Samah Jabr
Source: Middle East Monitor
by: Samah Jabr
Source: Middle East Monitor
Land Day commemorates the events of 30 March, 1976 when Palestinians from the Galilee to the Negev organised a massive strike to protest against the Israeli confiscation of land, ostensibly for security and settlement purposes; many were subsequently arrested or killed. This became a central incident in the history of the struggle between the Palestinian people and the Israeli occupation. It became a day for Palestinians worldwide to honour those who have fallen in defence of our land, to assert our existence as Palestinians and to embrace our identity as such.
This year's Land Day was given little attention by the local media. Instead, the headlines focused on the release of the tax revenues that Israel has frozen over the last few months in retaliation for the admission of Palestine to membership of the International Criminal Court. Among 180,000 others, I was one of the public sector employees whose salaries had been cut by 40 per cent due to this spiteful move by Israel. The media has also expressed official Palestinian support for the Arab coalition attacking the Houthi rebels in Yemen. And, finally, the media reported that the Palestinian Authority has joined the world community in expressing concern about the environmental effect of climate change. National songs in poor taste, expressive of chauvinism rather than patriotism, were also broadcast as the media paid lip-service to Land Day.
Thus was the opportunity wasted to share a sense of common heritage with all Palestinians. The occasion was not utilised to promote national consciousness in the service of our current need to stop further land theft, rework our legacy of traumatic memories and enhance a steadfast Palestinian identity in the face of efforts to eliminate our existence. The local media instead diminishes our dreams, dwarfs our character and echoes in resonance with the void of our officialdom.
Historically most Palestinians were once farmers, devoted to the land that they owned or that had been worked by their families and communities by custom for centuries. The theft of Palestinian land involved not only displacement of such people, but also a more abstract loss of a homeland and national geography; a space where we had a specific historical and psychological existence, to which we were connected both by logic and by instinct. It is said that certain Palestinians, following the ethnic cleansing of 1948, would risk death to cross the green (armistice) line for the sole purpose of eating oranges grown on the land from which they had been expelled at gun point.
The loss of our land and subsequent stratification of varied groups of Palestinians according to their current residence and "identity" papers have combined to deal a severe blow to their connection and sense of belonging; it is an assault on the development of our personal and community identity, and a destruction of our close-knit social ties. With the loss of land, Palestinians feel ungrounded, shattered, restricted in our capacity to flourish and confined to narrow avenues of safety and survival.
In "L'Etre et le Néant" (Being and Nothingness), Jean Paul Sartre notes that "to have" (along with "to do and to be") are one of the three categories of human existence. A homeland is not tradable; it is an extended part of the self, interwoven with the climate and the landscape, the plants that grow wild, and the culture of our homeland. A homeland is a reference point around which an individual structures a significant portion of his or her reality and sense of collective identity, and in which he or she invests considerable emotional and psychological energy. However, some Palestinians assume responsibility, take the initiative of stewardship and are willing to make personal sacrifices to assert their existence as Palestinians and to work for liberation.
Having lost their homeland, many Palestinians have also lost their autonomy; we are ordered around at the point of a gun or by financial need. One man, showing me his land in Al-Walajeh, told me, "We have apricots and almonds around that wall. My father would have been killed trying to reach that land, but not me. Even under the best of conditions, farming this land would not generate what I can make if I work as a labourer for the Israelis." In the Jordan Valley, water is distributed in a way that forces Palestinians to leave their own land to work on the farmland occupied by Israeli settlements, which is more productive due to the water supply. This applies not only to land but to everything that is ours: it is possible for me to make ten times more income than I would get in the public sector in Palestine if I perform meaningless work for an NGO that sets its priorities to please a foreign donor.
Without land, we lack national sovereignty and our leadership is forced to craft its political positions with respect for regional polarisations, and we have often paid a heavy price for this. The war against Palestinians in Jordan and then in Lebanon; the predicament of Palestinians in the Gulf during the Gulf War; and the current impasse of the Palestinians in the Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria, are only a few of these consequences for us as pawns of regional political powers.
On 13 April, 1983, Rafael Eitan, the former chief of staff of the Israeli Army (and then a member of the Knesset) commented on the objectification of the Palestinians: "We declare openly that the Arabs [meaning Palestinians] have no right to settle on even one centimetre of Eretz Israel... Force is all they do or ever will understand. We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours." Because this objectification is so ingrained in the minds of the Israelis, we frighten and shock them when we reclaim our subjectivity. Recently, I was stopped at a checkpoint on my way to Jerusalem. Seeing food in my car, the soldier shouted, "You cannot pass, this is not lawful." He was dumbfounded when I replied calmly, "It is your presence here that is against international law, not me bringing food from my workplace to home." Then he called for reinforcements to express extreme hostility and aggression in reaction to my remarks.
Our minds are not only flesh and blood; they are also the sum of our thoughts, feelings and actions. They are influenced by the surrounding context. Oppressive social conditions cause psychological oppression; the expression of anger, protests and revolt may be the optimal reactions to military, economic and political control. We are trained to suppress our thoughts and feelings in the face of chronic coercion; to accept our subjugation; to conform numbly to power; and to swallow our anger and our pain. In the end, these things are transformed into a sense of humiliation and self-loathing; our awareness is disoriented and our very being is destroyed. We displace onto each other and onto ourselves these fragmented reactions. Our humiliation is expressed in inertia, lack of confidence and inability to harness the energy needed to work effectively for our liberation; or it is expressed in a false and empty chauvinism that lacks empathy towards opponents and victims alike. All of these reactions place obstacles on the path towards liberation.
We must understand the vicious cycle of devaluation. We must recognise the oppressor's tools and develop different tools for action, such as community empowerment, respect for ethical considerations and the soliciting of solidarity and support to achieve liberation. It is essential that we develop a vision to cut through the fog that surrounds us: The liberation of the self goes hand in hand with the liberation of the land. The work of memory is a path for healing and self-liberation. With this we will stand tall and never, as Rafael Eitan claimed, will we crawl on all fours, even if they pull every inch of land from under our feet.
Palestinian police deploy near Jerusalem for first time
18 hours ago
Source: Yahoo News
Source: Yahoo News
Ramallah (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - Palestinian police have for the first time been deployed in three areas of the West Bank near annexed east Jerusalem, Palestinian and Israeli sources said on Thursday.
"For the first time, members of the Palestinian police wearing uniform and carrying weapons have been deployed in Abu Dis, Al-Ram and Bido," Palestinian police spokesman Louay Erzikat told AFP, saying the deployment had begun on Wednesday.
"This deployment is intended to target criminals and is the result of coordination" with the Israeli authorities, he said.
The Israeli army confirmed that Major General Roni Numa, head of the military's Central Command, had agreed to let the Palestinians open police stations in all three areas.
"The purpose of these stations is to address criminal matters as well as to maintain public order for the Palestinian population in area B surrounding Jerusalem," a spokeswoman said.
Under Oslo II, the second phase of the 1993 Oslo peace accords, the West Bank was divided up into areas of civilian and security control, known as areas A, B and C.
Area A, which covers the eight major towns and cities in the West Bank, is under full Palestinian civil and security control, while Area B, which accounts for roughly 22 percent of the West Bank, is under Palestinian civil control but Israeli security control.
Area C, which covers more than 60 percent of the occupied West Bank, is where the vast majority of Israeli settlements are located and is under full Israeli control, both civilian and security.
Monday, April 6, 2015
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