Tamil Lunatic Fringe Anti-Muslim Racism – Observations On Muslim-Tamil Relations – I

By Izeth Hussain 

Izeth Hussain

I must make some preliminary clarifications before getting to the proper subject of this article. Some of the contents of this article are autobiographical, which might give some readers the impression that I am egotistically trying to draw attention to myself. Actually I have no alternative to drawing material from my own experience of Tamil lunatic fringe anti-Muslim racism because comparable material is not available elsewhere. My articles are published simultaneously in the Island and in the Colombo Telegraph where there is plenty of space for responses. I have been responding to my Tamil racist critics for several months in order to gather adequate material for an article on Muslim-Tamil relations, and this is it.

I have hesitated much before embarking on this article. Everyone knows about the Sinhalese-Tamil ethnic problem and the Sinhalese-Muslim ethnic problem, but what is this new-fangled nonsense about a Muslim-Tamil problem? We all know, of course, about the mosque massacres in the Eastern Province and the genocidal eviction of Muslims from Jaffna, but all that was in the past. Surely, it might be thought, in the post-war phase after 2009 there can’t be much more than minor matters to be resolved between the Muslims and the Tamils. So, for writing an article on Muslim-Tamil relations as a problem I might be projected as a person mischievously stirring up trouble, as a disturber of the peace.

It should be recognized, however, that there is a problem to the extent that there is a need for Muslim-Tamil ethnic reconciliation for the horrors committed in the past. This is a problem that has been ignored up to now even though K.M. de Silva wrote as follows in his 2012 book Sri Lanka and the defeat of the LTTE with reference to the genocidal eviction of Muslims from Jaffna: “Thus, reconciliation is not a matter solely of reconciliation between the Government and the Tamils or the Sinhalese majority and the Tamils. It needs to include reconciliation between the Tamils and the Muslims, as recompense to the Muslims for the only act of ethnic cleansing during the long struggle between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan state”.

I must at this point divagate briefly from my main narrative to make a clarification. Around 2000 a Tamil journalist named Eelaventhan declared at a meeting at the ICES that the eviction of Muslims from Jaffna had been preceded by Muslim Home Guards getting together with the STF and driving out Tamils from around sixteen villages in the Eastern Province. I asked him for the details so that I could write an article about it, but they were not forthcoming. On two more recent occasions also I made the same request of Tamils who made the same charge, but I have received nothing so far. According to my Muslim contacts the charge is a highly exaggerated one. Nothing was done by Muslims in the Eastern Province that could even remotely justify – on the principle of proportionality – the eviction of 80,000 Muslims from Jaffna. All that can be said in the absence of hard facts is that the process of reconciliation cannot even begin unless both sides acknowledge their wrong-doings.

However, what is required at the moment is not action towards Muslim-Tamil ethnic reconciliation but action to prevent the coming about of a full-fledged Muslim-Tamil ethnic problem. At present the problem is at an incipient inchoate stage. Would writing about it make it worse? Could ignoring it or playing it down make it fade away? My belief is quite to the contrary: we should shout about it and do everything possible to scotch it at the incipient stage as otherwise the Muslim-Tamil ethnic problem will almost certainly acquire monstrous proportions. Let me provide an illustration of what happens when an ethnic problem is ignored and continues to be ignored for decades. In 1993 the Western Australia University published a paper by me – along with others by Sri Lankans – on The Sri Lankan Muslims – The Problem of a Submerged Minority. The Preface to the collection of papers contained the following about mine: “The paper draws attention to the relative deprivation of the Muslim community in various spheres of life which, if unattended, has the potentiality of becoming another fissiparous issue in troubled Sri Lankan politics. Hussain’s paper is illustrative of the importance of perceptions of discrimination in complicating ethnic issues, and he correctly signals the necessity for effective State apparatuses to guarantee fair and equal treatment for all Sri Lankans”.

From 1975 to 2002 there were practically every year anti-Muslim ructions, some of which were of a very serious order. I wrote about them, but nobody else did as far as I can recall, and as for the Governments of that period they failed, or rather refused, to take any effective measures to curb anti-Muslim action. Probably they secretly enjoyed it all because all our Governments have included in their ranks pukkah racists. However the fact that the ructions stopped after 2002 might be taken as substantiating the thesis that the most effective way of dealing with ethnic problems would be to ignore them. But some years later there was the Grease Yaka harassment of Muslim females and the abduction for ransom of Muslim businessmen. Then, suddenly, there was the State-backed anti-Muslim campaign of the BBS and other extremist groups. Sri Lanka found itself with yet another ethnic problem, which attracted serious international concern. My view, expressed as far back as 1993, that the Muslim ethnic problem “if unattended” could become serious was proved to be right.

There are structural reasons why Muslim-Tamil tensions can aggravate into a major ethnic problem. All over the world ethnic minorities are becoming more restive. I believe that the underlying reason is that with the spread of mass education and economic development, the aspirations to upward mobility and political consciousness have also been increasing, so that minorities that were hitherto content with the subaltern positions assigned to them by dominant majorities now want equality. It is a process that can bring minorities into rivalry and conflict with majorities. It is also a process that can bring minorities into rivalry and conflict with each other. That is why I believe that Muslim -Tamil tensions can aggravate into a full-fledged ethnic problem unless preemptive action is taken.

I will now conclude this first part of my article by mentioning some of the most important factors that have led to unsatisfactory Muslim-Tamil relations, unsatisfactory in some ways up to now but not in every way. It all goes way back to Ponnambalam Ramanathan’s thesis in the late nineteenth century that the Sri Lankan Muslims are really Tamils. It caused deep offense at that time and has continued to rankle right down the decades. The Tamil affirmation of a linguistic commonality in the form of the “Tamil-speaking peoples” also tends to be rejected because it is seen as implying a denial of separate Muslim ethnic identity. The next factor was Ramanathan’s book on the 1915 anti- Muslim riots which was deeply sympathetic to the Sinhalese side. He indicted only the segment of the Muslims known as the Coast Moors but he was misinterpreted as indicting the whole of the Muslims because of deep prejudice. After Independence the Muslims backed the Sinhalese in every feat of racist idiocy against the Tamils, and were seen as profiting by that. There were the mosque massacres and the eviction of Muslims from the North which can continue to prejudice Muslim-Tamil relations as long as the problems of those refugees are not solved.

After the War Muslim-Tamil relations have clearly entered a new phase. The Tamils have lost their numerical preponderance in the Eastern Province. This has been due to heavy loss of Tamil humanity during the war and emigration, but the Tamils seem to prefer to believe that it is due to the Muslim population going on leaping upwards. The Tamils have been facing a continuing socio-economic decline over the decades, and they could fear that the Muslims will gain an ascendancy over them. A struggle for Muslim ascendancy – or rather for what Muslims see as their rightful place – is going on in the Eastern Province, in which Muslim fundamentalists can come to play a fateful role.

As I cannot go into details about what is going on in the Eastern Province I will conclude with an anecdote that could speak volumes. Around the year 2000, I attended a meeting at the ICES at which several EP Muslims were present. After the meeting was over they recounted an incident in which several Muslims had been killed by the LTTE, which however refused to deliver the corpses for Muslim burial. When the corpses were eventually returned it was found that every one of them had its penis stuck in the mouth. At that point one of the Muslims recounting that horror shouted, “We will not put up with their nonsense forever. We will fight”. That is my case for vigilance in the Eastern Province, and if necessary pre-emptive action now.

*To be continued

Protect this Historic Nuclear Deal

By Ameen Izzadeen

Finally a win-win situation for Iran and the P5+1, said reports last Thursday from the Swiss holiday city of Lausanne after a decade of haggling and eight days of painstaking bargaining during the last round of talks which went beyond the March 31 deadline. Reading the fine print of the four-page document, one wonders why such a deal could not have been reached years ago. The answer is that on the one hand, the United States had not realised the strategic importance of Iran, and, on the other, Israel and Saudi Arabia

had resorted to covert moves aimed at scuttling any deal.  Many were the occasions when the P5+1 and Iran were close to a deal, but due to reasons now understood to be political, the negotiators came back to square one on the snakes-and-ladders board.

Throughout, Iran, a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, has been saying it has no intention to build nuclear weapons. Even the intelligence outfits of the United States and Israel have said there is no evidence to indicate that Iran is building a bomb. But the West kept on adding pressure on Iran and shifted the goalposts when Iran fulfilled its obligations while Saudi Arabia and Israel called for military action and tougher sanctions which they thought would weaken Teheran’s economy and trigger a regime change when the hungry people become angry.  They also believed that economic sanctions would kill Iran’s ambitions to emerge as the most powerful country in the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia and Israel became more alarmed after Iran’s involvement in the 2006 Lebanon war. Iran-made weapons supplied to Hezbollah took Israel by surprise. Israel’s death toll was 122 soldiers and 44 civilians – a high casualty figure in Israel’s reckoning. Israel accepted a ceasefire and withdrew from South Lebanon, prompting Hezbollah to claim a moral victory. Iran was economically strong then owing to the high oil prices. It granted more than one billion US dollars towards the rebuilding of the war-ravaged South Lebanon and became popular on the Arab street. 

Ever since, weakening Iran’s economy became a top priority for Saudi Arabia and Israel.  This they achieved by projecting Iran as a terrorist state and promoting economic sanctions. Not stopping at that, Saudi Arabia resorted to other desperate measures as Iran’s influence grew in the Middle East, especially in Iraq and Syria. Its decision to bomb Houthi rebel positions in Yemen was probably one such measure. Another measure it took brought down drastically the world oil prices. Iran which depends on oil exports suffered heavily. 

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (left) shaking hands with Ali Akbar Salehi, Head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization (R) as they attend a ceremony marking National Atomic Energy Day in Tehran yesterday.

But the US looked at Iran from a different angle. Washington knew that military action against Iran would only lead to a region wide war, sending oil prices soaring and the world’s economy into recession.  The Barack Obama administration has apparently realised that a deal with Iran is in the best interest of the United States. Washington believes that the nuclear agreement could avert Iran’s bid to join an informal alliance with China and Russia -- an alliance that could deal a blow to the US’s pivot to Asia policy aimed at containing China. Moreover, the US sees that it shares many goals with Iran, especially with regard to Iraq and Afghanistan.  The common goals range from defeating ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) and preventing the Taliban from capturing power in Afghanistan to finding solutions to the Syrian crisis, the conflict in Yemen and the unrest in Bahrain, home to the US’ Fifth Fleet.

So, much to the chagrin of Israel and Saudi Arabia, Washington pushed for a win-win deal at the Lausanne talks between Iran and six world powers -- the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany.

Israel’s hardline Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the agreement claiming that the deal would legitimise Iran’s nuclear programme, bolster Iran’s economy, and increase Iran’s aggression and terror throughout the Middle East and beyond.

But President Obama, for whom Netanyahu is more a problem than an ally, has given hardly any ear to his grievances. Instead, Obama has welcomed the deal describing it as an historic understanding that would make the world safer.

There is still more time for Israel and Saudi Arabia to scuttle the agreement which is to be formally signed only on June 30.  If the final agreement is signed, it will indicate a significant shift in US-Iran relations. Though the leaders of the two countries resort to rhetoric for public consumption, there have been many positive signs to indicate that ties between the two countries have been improving since the election of President Hassan Rouhani in Iran in 2013, with telephone calls at president-to-president level and meetings at official level.

The agreement has been shaped in such a way that it can be sold to the sceptics in the United States, especially the Republicans. Giving room for further fine-tuning if the Obama administration faces difficulty in obtaining the support of Congress for the deal, the first paragraph of the agreement says, “Important implementation details are still subject to negotiation, and nothing is agreed upon until everything is agreed upon.”

Polls show that a third of the Republicans support the deal while about 40 per cent say they are undecided. This gives an indication that the deal may find passage in the Republican-controlled Congress despite pressure from Israel. But can it be sold to the hardliners in Iran?

Under the agreement, Iran is required to open the doors of all its nuclear facilities for inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agncy while it will curtail its capacity to enrich uranium and slash its existing stockpile. Iran has agreed to operate only 5,060 of its 19,000 centrifuges for the next ten years. These moves will delay a bomb-making effort by one year, if Iran ever wishes to do so.

In return, the sanctions that have halved Iran’s oil exports and kept Iran out of the international banking system would be suspended but resumed if Iran fails to honour its pledges.

In Teheran, the people came out in their thousands to celebrate the deal with Iran’s foreign minister Javad Zarif receiving a hero’s welcome at the Mehrabad airport when he returned from Lausanne.

President Rouhani yesterday noted that the deal was a triumph for Iran because the US had now realised that Iran would not surrender to bullying, sanctions and threats while spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said there was “no guarantee” of a final deal with world powers.

Rhetoric apart, the biggest challenge to both Iran and the United States is to protect the hard-fought deal from those planning to sabotage it.

US-EU Nuclear Deal with Iran Exposes Western Hypocrisy

By Latheef Farook  

The United States and  its European countries have finally managed to force Iran to agree to a nuclear deal by using sanctions and other ruthless means crippling Iran’s economy and causing sufferings to its people. However this is not the end as key issues need to be resolved before a final agreement by June 30. However no such immoral methods were used to force Israel which is reported to be, not developing, but having around 400 nuclear bombs threatening the entire region?

This is the traditional double standard of US and Europe in treating Israel and Muslim countries with different yard sticks. Israel, a country established illegally on robbed Palestinian, remains above law since its creation in 1948 while Muslim countries should abide by their dictates like divine command or face crippling economic sanctions .

Ever since Iran’s nuclear program came to light Israel was alarmed as its nuclear supremacy in the region was challenged. Thus Israel  and it US led European allies began using pressure tactics on Iran to prevent its nuclear program.

On 21 September 2011 Iran announced its second uranium enrichment facility stating that the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA was informed as early as 2004 of this. It is being built into the side of a mountain at the holy city of Qom making it less vulnerable to destruction, even with the latest bunker-busting U.S. bombs, to ensure nuclear activities continue uninterrupted in the event of a military strike.

Then President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said  his country was ready to let the IAEA inspectors inspect the new facilities and time and again then  IAEA chief Mohamed El Baradei said  Iran was 'on the wrong side of the law’ and he had seen "no credible evidence"  of developing nuclear weapons”.                                                                                         

In the midst came Iran’s test firing of medium- and long-range missiles. Reacting swiftly as if Iran has declared war on the West, President Barack Obama, along with then British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and then French President Nicolas Sarkozy, accused Iran of building a secret nuclear fuel plant. French President Sarkozy warned that Europe and the United States would tighten sanctions against Iran unless it halted its nuclear program.

"The U.S. has more than 12,000 nuclear weapons, Russia has about the same, Britain and France had several hundreds. Israel ,having one of the most sophisticated nuclear arsenals in the world, refused to sign the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty, NPT, which seeks to limit the spread of such weapons of mass destruction.

However, there was hardly a reference to Israel’s secret nuclear weapons. Instead President Obama assured Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu that Israel would not be pressured into accounting for its nuclear arsenal or signing the NPT.Thus allowing Israel to keep a nuclear arsenal without opening it to international inspections.

According to reports President Obama also guaranteed that the White House would continue its almost five and half decade-old secret deal with the Zionist state. Israel maintains a policy of deliberate ambiguity and the tacit agreement prolonged the nuclear understanding reached between President Richard Nixon and Prime Minister Golda Meir in 1969.

Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan condemned Western countries' focus on Iran's nuclear program and stressed that the world should deal with Israel's nuclear weapons that used "phosphorous bombs" against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

 What is the reason for this double standard? Why are world leaders so reluctant to open Israel's nuclear arsenal up to discussion, whereas Iran's ambiguous ambitions are occupying the floor in the UN? The answer lies in Israel's successful public diplomacy tactics. 

Israel has the backing of the strongest lobbying groups in the US and the European capitals. It has the advantage of using the media to create a favorable image of itself and an abhorrent image of Iran and other “enemies” of Israel. It has the advantage of the “Holocaust shame” of the Western world. It has the pretext of being able to claim “existential threat.”

Apart from the Holocaust, none of these advantages was natural-born advantages of being Jewish and the sole home of the Jewish people in the world. Even the “Holocaust shame” of the Christian West is a product of years of propaganda.

A satellite image of Israel's Negev Nuclear Research Center at Dimona

Iran, as one of the original signatories of the NPT, has been a consistent advocate of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East. In contrast, Israel has never agreed to an IAEA inspection, and its nuclear weapons plant at Dimona remains an open secret.    Israel dismissed UN resolutions calling on it to sign the NPT, just as it dismissed the   UN report charging it with crimes against humanity in Gaza. Israel maintains a world record for violations of international law, it gets away with this because the powers that be grants it immunity. 

Western media, an integral part of the Western war machine, manufacture lies to mislead the world. They did the same thing to justify their designs on Iran, the only country in the region that refused to bow down to the dictates of the unholy Anglo-American –Israeli trinity unlike their counterparts in the Middle East.

The media screamed with head lines such as “Showdown looms with Iran over secret nuclear plant”. “The clock ticking”, “Good versus evil”, “Iran’s secret plan for summer offensive to force US out of Iraq”, “Iranian plan to wage war on, and defeat, US forces in Iraq” by September of that year – a demonstrable falsehood for which there has been no retraction.

The weapons Industry remains an integral part of the US, UK, France and Israel. They need wars, destructions and massacre of innocent people to ensure their weapons industries flourish. Politicians implement the evil designs of the weapons industry and the so-called Western free media whose freedom ends when it comes to holocaust and criticizing Jewish crime, manufacture lies to mislead the world to justify wars.

The  name of the game remains the same-  toe the line or face destruction- whoever be at the helm- be it George Bush, Tony Blair, Barack Obama, Gordon Brown, Jacques Chirac, Ehud Olmert or   Benjamin Netanyahu  .The goal is to control the “strategic prize” of the gas and oilfields of the Caspian Sea, central Asia, the Gulf and Iran – in other words, Eurasia.  Innocent people all over the world pay the price with their flesh, bloods, lives and their natural resources. Ends

Islam and tribalism

BY IRFAN HUSAIN. WHAT do Afghanistan, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Mali, northern Nigeria, Pakistan’s tribal areas and Yemen have in common? They all have Muslim populations, are socially backward, mistreat women, and have a profound distrust of reason and modern education. Above all, they are tribal societies that use Islam to rationalise and uphold archaic tribal values and laws. Unsurprisingly, most of them are caught up in violent conflicts fuelled in equal parts by tribal loyalties, faith and ignorance. Shia-Sunni rivalry is one fault line dividing the Muslim world. The second one is the tension between those aspiring to democracy, and the autocrats who oppress and misrule them. But the third fault line derives from history and social development. Across the world, nations that had nautical trade links tended to be more receptive to new ideas as ships brought not just goods, but books and travellers from distant lands. By contrast, societies that evolved far from the sea tended to be more inward-looking; tra­ding caravans covered shorter routes in general, and brought goods from similar regions. And while Yemen traded extensively for centuries, the dominant north of the country remained largely insulated from the southern coast. The trajectories that Muslim societies took after their conversion to Islam obviously differed, but two broad categories soon emerged. Countries that had already achieved a level of civilisation in their pre-Islamic period retained their culture, combining it with their new Muslim identity. Extremist Muslim groups have given Islam a bad name worldwide..

Persia, Cairo, Baghdad and Damascus were all centres of ancient civilisations and retai­ned their sophistication. And after the Tur­kish occupation of Constantinople, the conquerors acquired features of Byzantine cul­ture. In India, between the Sultanate period and the fall of the Mughal Empire, Delhi, Lucknow and Hyderabad were synonymous with refinement and gracious living. Perhaps Islamic civilisation reached its apogee in Muslim Spain in Grenada, Cordoba and Seville. But Riyadh? Jeddah? Mogadishu? For centuries, Muslim nations in the hinterland played little part in world affairs, and contributed nothing to human advancement. In fact, this absence of creativity has remained unchanged. What has changed, however, is their role in contemporary affairs. In the case of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, the emergence of oil as an essential source of energy a century or so ago has transformed their fortunes, and made them major global players. But this stroke of luck has done little to change their tribal attitudes or autocratic outlook.

The oil embargo of 1973 caused a sudden spike in oil prices, and gave Saudi Arabia a huge cash injection that permitted it to finance the export of its literal, austere Wahabi version of Islam around the world. It has focused on madressahs in the poorest Muslim countries where children are made to memorise religious texts, but are taught little else.

Wahabi influence and money has thus transformed the social and religious landscape across much of the Muslim world. This vision has fuelled extremism by excluding other, less-rigid interpretations of Islam, deeming followers of different sects non-believers. The normal trajectory from tribalism to liberal democracy passes via feudalism and industrialisation. But as the tribal societies mentioned here have very little agriculture, the feudal phase simply did not emerge. And although oil has transformed some of them into wealthy urbanised states, this change has not been accompanied by a change in social attitudes. Thus, while rich Saudis may drive expensive cars and live in lavish homes, most of them remain Bedouins at heart.

This would be no bad thing had it not been for the fact that this adherence to a literalist belief system, and the conviction that anybody not sharing these views is somehow inferior, has major implications for the world. It is no coincidence that the majority of the 9/11 bombers were Saudis.

While we find the self-styled Islamic State’s violence repugnant, we tend to forget that it mimics the Saudi penalties of beheading and flogging, as well as the repressive attitude towards women. Harsh geography combined with tribal laws often produces a cruel penal system as we have seen across the societies we have examined briefly here. The Taliban, Boko Haram, IS and Al Qaeda are not that far from Riyadh in the way they punish those deemed as having transgressed the rules. Through mindless terrorism, extremist Muslim groups today have given Islam a bad name across the world. Foreigners are unlikely to analyse the fault lines dividing the Muslim world in an effort to understand what lies behind the insanity gripping so many Muslims. And yet, by lumping the entire Islamic world into one monolithic whole, they overlook the underlying tensions and divisions. To this day, the West has refused to acknowledge the Saudi role in the export of the toxic ideas that have inspired two generations of terrorists. Until we can learn to distinguish between these different strands of Islam, we will not understand why and how our faith has been hijacked.

Unsettling Questions Regarding The Mumbai Terror Attacks Of 2008

By Elias Davidsson

Countercurrents.org

The traumatic attacks in Mumbai in 26 November 2008 were described as India’s 9/11. The operation was unprecedented: ten young men battled hundreds of highly trained commandos for three days in a conflict that resembled David and Goliath. The huge media coverage created the impression that all the relevant facts about this event had been reported, but this impression is false.

Was anti-terror official Hemant Karkare deliberately killed on 26/11? Most probably. But what are we to make of the attacks on the Leopold café, the Taj, the Oberoi/Trident and the Jewish center at Nariman House, all unrelated to his demise?

Even those who suspect that Indian nationalists facilitated the assassination of Hemant Karkare continue to believe that the attacks on the other Mumbai targets were executed by Pakistani terrorists. According to this line of reasoning, Hindu nationalists joined with Pakistani terrorists to coordinate a double attack. Or one of these groups somehow obtained the exact details of the other group’s plans, including their date, time and location, and piggy-backed on them, praying that there would be no last-minute changes, delays or problems. Miracles do happen, they say.

As someone who does not believe in miracles, I have some pieces of information. This was all reported at the time, but has since been condemned to the memory hole. Each piece of information cracks the official legend of 26/11. Cumulatively, they shatter it.

1. The number of attackers

As the smoke of 26/11 dissipated, Indian authorities insisted that exactly ten young men had fought more than one thousand Marcos commandos, NSG commandos, police and security personnel for three days.

Yet, initially, the media reported that more than 20 attackers were involved. Vilasrao Deshmukh, for example, who was at the time the Maharashtra state chief, told Indian media on 27 November 2008 that 20 to 25 terrorists had entered Mumbai, and that many of them had escaped. He was not the only source for such figures. The New York Times reported on the 28 November 2008 that ‘the number of attackers have ranged from 20 to 40, with the number depending to a considerable extent on the number of boats involved.’ On the same day, USA Today reported, citing the Associated Press, that ‘more than 30 terrorists entered [Mumbai] by ship.’ Ha’aretz reported on 27 November 2008, that ‘nine members who were arrested...60 to 70 terrorists, some of whom came to Mumbai by boat, carried out the current attacks.’ Alex Neill, head of the Royal United Services Institute's Asia security programme, estimated that ‘up to 100 terrorists would have been involved in the planning and execution of the attack' and said 'it was surprising they had managed to keep it a secret.’

Who provided the media with these figures, on what basis, and for what purpose? Why has no journalist attempted to reconcile these initial figures with the ultimate tally of ten? Rakesh Maria, at the time the Mumbai Joint Commissioner of Police, had a ready answer: ‘This confusion is more or less a creation of the media.’

As the Mumbai authorities persisted in asserting that there had been only ten attackers, the New York Times wondered: ‘[P]erhaps the most troubling question to emerge for the Indian authorities was how, if official estimates are accurate, just 10 gunmen could have caused so much carnage and repelled Indian security forces for more than three days in three different buildings.’ But the paper of record did not follow up on this ‘troubling question.’ Was it a no-go zone?

2. Were nine attackers arrested?

According to the official account, only one of ten attackers, later known as Kasab, remained alive. The other nine were reportedly killed in combat. But this was not what officials had initially said.

At first, the media reported that several ‘terrorists’ had been captured alive. P.D. Ghadge, a police officer at Mumbai's central control room, told the media on the first day of the attacks that ‘We have shot dead four terrorists and managed to arrest nine suspected terrorists.’ On 27 November, both Home Minister Shivraj Patil and Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister R R Patil declared that at least nine terrorists were captured alive. Early on 27 November, the BBC quoted the Mumbai police: ‘four suspected terrorists have been killed and nine arrested.’ On 28 November, the third day of the attacks, the BBC cited R R Patil, again to the effect that ‘nine gunmen have been arrested.’ Meanwhile, The Hindu cited Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh: ‘nine persons had been detained.’

As late as on 29 November, the Indian Express cited the Director General of Maharashtra Police, A N Roy, who said: ‘All I can tell you at this stage is that nine suspects are with us and that some of them were picked up from around the operational areas. Once we finish questioning them, many facts will emerge. The whole story will shortly unfold.’

Then nothing more was heard of these arrests. The same media that previously reported that up to nine attackers had been arrested insisted that only one ‘terrorist’ had been captured alive. This change of narrative was not accompanied by any explanation. Did public officials lie about the multiple arrests? Were they lied to? Were arrested terrorists executed in custody? These are disturbing questions that remain unanswered.

Whatever the ultimate truth, it is clear that the authorities lied to the public, either initially, or subsequently, or both. Knowing why they lied may help reveal the hidden truth behind 26/11.

3. Who were the alleged attackers?

The public has been led to believe that the Mumbai attackers were properly identified. But were they?

To find out, it was necessary to determine, firstly, whether the bodies of the persons under police custody belonged to those who were observed by witnesses at the sites of killings; and secondly, the identities of the dead – from where they came, their real names, their birth dates, etc.

According to pathologists, the nine bodies presented to witnesses were burned beyond recognition. Whatever the state of the bodies, a visual identification of mutilated bodies, weeks after the events, under the prying eyes of police officials, cannot be considered a reliable exercise.

Nor were the real identities of the persons, whose bodies were held by police, determined. Their real names, birth dates, nationality and their residence addresses remain unknown. No family member came forward to identify either the bodies or the ‘sole living terrorist’, Kasab. His identity was based on what he allegedly told police officials behind closed doors.

Even the circumstances under which the nine ‘attackers’ died were not established by investigators or the Special Court. Did these alleged militants die in a military clash in Kashmir? Were they executed after being captured? Why are the precise circumstances in which they died kept a state secret?

4. Did the ‘attackers’ come by sea?

A sub-story of the 26/11 legend is that the attackers arrived in Mumbai by sea. Did anyone witness their landing at the seashore?

Only one person, Bharat Tamore, testified at Kasab’s trial that he observed young men landing on the Mumbai seashore on the evening of 26 November 2008. Was his testimony credible?

Tamore said in court that at the time he was employed by the Taj Mahal Hotel. He said that on 26 November at about 9:15 pm, while he was walking to work at the Taj, located 15 minutes from his residence, he saw ‘a dinghy coming towards Badhwar Park.’ He said he saw 10 persons on the boat, wearing saffron-coloured life-saving jackets. He could see them because of the street light. According to him, they all were between 20-25 years old. Eight of the said ten persons removed their jackets and put them in the boat before getting out. Each had one haversack and one hand bag. Tamore said he saw two of the said ten persons quite closely while they were proceeding towards the main road. Since both of them were unknown in the locality, Tamore intercepted them. Both of them told him that they were students. He also saw the remaining six persons proceeding towards the main road. The two persons who were left out in the boat proceeded in the same boat towards Nariman Point. (Judgment, p. 264)

Tamore told the court that he returned home from the Taj at about 7.00 am next morning. At that time, he had seen about 3-4 policemen standing near Badhwar Park Railway Officers' colony: ‘The policemen were talking something about [an] inflatable boat. [Tamore] therefore narrated the incident witnessed by him to the said policemen’. (Judgment, p. 265) He also said he identified Kasab in an identification parade as the person who told him they were students. (Judgment, p. 266) Tamore admitted under cross-examination that he might have seen Kasab’s photograph on television before the identification parade was held. (Judgment, p. 267). The Supreme Court revealed that this identification parade was held on 28 December 2008, after Kasab’s photograph had been widely and repeatedly published (SC, p. 53). The High Court ‘[did] not attach much importance to this.’ (HC, p. 432)

The defence counsel challenged Tamore's account: it was high tide at the time, and therefore the dinghy Tamore claimed to have seen could not have reached the seashore. Tamore admitted that it was high tide at the time but did not explain how the dinghy reached the seashore (Judgment, p. 266).

When making his first report to the police, Tamore surprisingly did not mention anything regarding the incident at the Taj, where he allegedly spent the entire night (Judgment, p. 267). The court did not invite anyone to corroborate Tamore's narrative. No one, for example, confirmed that he was an employee of the Taj; that he spent the night confined in the basement of the hotel; that he did not see or hear any of the incident occurring in the hotel; that he exited the hotel shortly before 7:00 am; and that on his way home he met policemen at the shore discussing a boat. No one confirmed what he actually told the police and when he did so. These failures are particularly significant – and disturbing – because Tamore was the sole witness produced in court who claimed to have observed people landing on the Mumbai shore on the evening of 26 November 2008. These failures are compounded by the facts that he told media after the trial regarding his alleged ordeal at the Taj, facts that he apparently withheld from the court, unless he lied to the media. The court's failure to thoroughly examine Tamore's credibility can hardly be attributed to negligence or to difficulty in finding staff members of the Taj who could corroborate or invalidate his narrative. The court also did not ask the police officers with whom Tamore interacted to confirm his story. The court, obviously, did not wish anyone to challenge Tamore’s narrative.

Tamore’s name was widely publicised in the media shortly after the attacks as the key witness to the landing of the alleged terrorists at the seashore. India Today wrote on 29 November 2008, for example: ‘The six terrorists who got off at Machimar Nagar were first spotted by Bharat Tamore, a Koli (from the fishing community) who works as an assistant supervisor at the Taj.’ This report did not quote Tamore directly, and it was not revealed how India Today discovered Tamore.

After Kasab's trial, Tamore and his wife were interviewed by Rediff. In this interview, new information came to light about his alleged experience at the Taj during the first night of the attack. Here is an excerpt from that article:

When Tamore reached his locker [at the Taj] and changed at about 9.30 pm on November 26, he heard some strange thumping overhead in the hotel's coffee shop, the Shamiana. Surprisingly, it continued. And got louder and stranger in sound. Then hordes of terrified employees, on the run, came pouring back into the staff area, where Tamore still was, and shared breathless descriptions of the ongoing attack and the terrorists. ‘They recounted that they were wearing jeans, and 'sack bags' (rucksacks) on their backs and carrying bags in their hands‘ Suddenly with cold foreboding Tamore knew exactly who they were.

He then said that his experience at the Taj was not limited to what others told him:

‘They herded about 100, 150 of us into an area near the bakery and told us to stay here. At the time we thought it was a temporary attack and we would get out after it was over. Who knew they would be there for three days?! We had no water, no food. And no way of telling people at home that we were still safe. We had all turned our phones off.’

Going by this account, Tamore not only saw terrorists at the Taj and heard them giving orders, but was kept with 100 or 150 other people without water and food. Yet, surprisingly, he did not report anything about this traumatic experience to the police or the court. Indeed, the court actually affirmed that he ‘had not seen anything of the incident’ at the Taj (Judgment, p. 265-6). Did Tamore lie to the journalists, did the media invent his account or did he withhold information from the court?

Rediff finally disclosed that ‘much of early 2009 was marked by recording [Tamore’s] testimony, working with the Mumbai police's crime branch to have his deposition ready.’ Tamore added: ‘There is a little Hanuman temple near my home. Every day when I passed it I would pray that god would give me the strength to see this through properly. That I would give the right information in court. And do the whole thing correctly. It was an attack on my home, my livelihood, my country. I had to testify.’ It certainly required substantial mental and emotional strength to ‘do the whole thing correctly’ and avoid contradicting himself. Let’s hope the police were happy with his performance after having coached him for ‘much of early 2009.’

According to media reports, three further persons had seen the ‘terrorists’ landing on the Mumbai seashore: Anita Uraiyar (aka Uddaiya), who claims to have been taken secretly to the United States for debriefing after 26/11; Prashant Dhanu(r), a fisherman who testified in court but did not claim to have seen any of the attackers; and Sumit Supadia, who claimed in media interviews to have seen the attackers land on the seashore, but was not asked to testify in court.

In sum, the story of the ‘ten’ attackers landing on the Mumbai seashore rests on the testimony of a single witness who was coached by police for his court performance and whose credibility is questionable.

To enhance the credibility of the sea-landing legend, CNN-IBN reported on 27 November 2008 that seven fishermen has been arrested on the first night of the attack as suspects, reporting that ‘police found a boat loaded with explosives near the Taj Mahal.’ Nothing further was heard of that boat, the explosives or of the detained fishermen.

(5) Were the individual killings investigated?

In a case of murder, criminal investigators must determine, as best they can, the circumstances under which the crime was perpetrated: who caused the victims’ injuries, when and where they were attacked, when they died and what type of injuries led to their death. The crime scene must also be documented in accordance with standardised rules.

While investigating the individual circumstances of more than 160 killings (the number of fatalities in the Mumbai events) was certainly a huge task, a great deal of significant information could easily have been assembled. There was no reason why the precise location of the bodies, when they were found, and who found them, could not be established. There was no reason why the exact circumstances in which the nine alleged attackers were killed could not be determined. There was no reason why investigators could not establish precise timelines of the unfolding of the individual episodes. There was no reason why it was impossible to determine the precise time at which the individual attacks started. These omissions had the effect of thwarting the reconstruction of the events. To compound these omissions, the authorities banned commandos, who participated in the operations, from testifying in court. Cumulatively, all these omissions indicated an intent to cover up the truth.

Surprisingly, the court found no witnesses for most of the killings – or perhaps it did not wish to find any.

Conclusion

The above account represents the tip of a deceptive iceberg regarding the mass-murder of 26/11. Some may find reopening this dossier uncomfortable. Yet both the victims and society as a whole are legally entitled to know the truth of this calamity. The Indian authorities have demonstrated a surprising reluctance to establish the truth by an independent commission of inquiry. Meanwhile, Indian governments have capitalised on 26/11 to increase military expenditure, establish a national infrastructure of mass surveillance and enhance their cooperation with the United States and Israel. India has become a national security state. Was 26/11 perpetrated to justify this development? This sinister question deserves to be examined.

(The present information was adapted from the author’s book The Betrayal of India, which is planned for publication at the end of 2015.)

Elias Davidsson is an Icelandic citizen, although he was born in Palestine in 1941 and his parents were German Jews who had to leave Nazi Germany due to the persecution of Jews. Davidsson has been a political activist for decades, beginning by opposing Iceland’s membership in NATO. He is a co-founder of the solidarity association Iceland-Palestine, and a veteran opponent of Zionism and imperialism. After publishing a ground-break book in 2013, “Hijacking America’s Mind on 9/11”, where he demonstrates the official account on 9/11 is a lie, now is finishing a comprehensive and critical study of 26/11 that may shatter many illusions.

Protect this historic nuclear deal

By Ameen Izzadeen

by ameenizzadeen

Finally a win-win situation for Iran and the P5+1, said reports last Thursday from the Swiss holiday city of Lausanne after a decade of haggling and eight days of painstaking bargaining during the last round of talks which went beyond the March 31 deadline.

Reading the fine print of the four-page document, one wonders why such a deal could not have been reached years ago. The answer is that on the one hand, the United States had not realised the strategic importance of Iran, and, on the other, Israel and Saudi Arabia had resorted to covert moves aimed at scuttling any deal. Many were the occasions when the P5+1 and Iran were close to a deal, but due to reasons now understood to be political, the negotiators came back to square one on the snakes-and-ladders board.

Throughout, Iran, a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, has been saying it has no intention to build nuclear weapons. Even the intelligence outfits of the United States and Israel have said there is no evidence to indicate that Iran is building a bomb. But the West kept on adding pressure on Iran and shifted the goalposts when Iran fulfilled its obligations while Saudi Arabia and Israel called for military action and tougher sanctions which they thought would weaken Teheran’s economy and trigger a regime change when the hungry people become angry. They also believed that economic sanctions would kill Iran’s ambitions to emerge as the most powerful country in the Middle East.
Saudi Arabia and Israel became more alarmed after Iran’s involvement in the 2006 Lebanon war. Iran-made weapons supplied to Hezbollah took Israel by surprise. Israel’s death toll was 122 soldiers and 44 civilians – a high casualty figure in Israel’s reckoning. Israel accepted a ceasefire and withdrew from South Lebanon, prompting Hezbollah to claim a moral victory. Iran was economically strong then owing to the high oil prices. It granted more than one billion US dollars towards the rebuilding of the war-ravaged South Lebanon and became popular on the Arab street.

Ever since, weakening Iran’s economy became a top priority for Saudi Arabia and Israel. This they achieved by projecting Iran as a terrorist state and promoting economic sanctions. Not stopping at that, Saudi Arabia resorted to other desperate measures as Iran’s influence grew in the Middle East, especially in Iraq and Syria. Its decision to bomb Houthi rebel positions in Yemen was probably one such measure. Another measure it took brought down drastically the world oil prices. Iran which depends on oil exports suffered heavily.

But the US looked at Iran from a different angle. Washington knew that military action against Iran would only lead to a region wide war, sending oil prices soaring and the world’s economy into recession. The Barack Obama administration has apparently realised that a deal with Iran is in the best interest of the United States. Washington believes that the nuclear agreement could avert Iran’s bid to join an informal alliance with China and Russia — an alliance that could deal a blow to the US’s pivot to Asia policy aimed at containing China. Moreover, the US sees that it shares many goals with Iran, especially with regard to Iraq and Afghanistan. The common goals range from defeating ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) and preventing the Taliban from capturing power in Afghanistan to finding solutions to the Syrian crisis, the conflict in Yemen and the unrest in Bahrain, home to the US’ Fifth Fleet.

So, much to the chagrin of Israel and Saudi Arabia, Washington pushed for a win-win deal at the Lausanne talks between Iran and six world powers — the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany.

Israel’s hardline Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the agreement claiming that the deal would legitimise Iran’s nuclear programme, bolster Iran’s economy, and increase Iran’s aggression and terror throughout the Middle East and beyond.

But President Obama, for whom Netanyahu is more a problem than an ally, has given hardly any ear to his grievances. Instead, Obama has welcomed the deal describing it as an historic understanding that would make the world safer.

There is still more time for Israel and Saudi Arabia to scuttle the agreement which is to be formally signed only on June 30. If the final agreement is signed, it will indicate a significant shift in US-Iran relations. Though the leaders of the two countries resort to rhetoric for public consumption, there have been many positive signs to indicate that ties between the two countries have been improving since the election of President Hassan Rouhani in Iran in 2013, with telephone calls at president-to-president level and meetings at official level.

The agreement has been shaped in such a way that it can be sold to the skeptics in the United States, especially the Republicans. Giving room for further fine-tuning if the Obama administration faces difficulty in obtaining the support of Congress for the deal, the first paragraph of the agreement says, “Important implementation details are still subject to negotiation, and nothing is agreed upon until everything is agreed upon.”

Polls show that a third of the Republicans support the deal while about 40 per cent say they are undecided. This gives an indication that the deal may find passage in the Republican-controlled Congress despite pressure from Israel. But can it be sold to the hardliners in Iran?

Under the agreement, Iran is required to open the doors of all its nuclear facilities for inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency while it will curtail its capacity to enrich uranium and slash its existing stockpile. Iran has agreed to operate only 5,060 of its 19,000 centrifuges for the next ten years. These moves will delay a bomb-making effort by one year, if Iran ever wishes to do so.

In return, the sanctions that have halved Iran’s oil exports and kept Iran out of the international banking system would be suspended but resumed if Iran fails to honour its pledges.
In Teheran, the people came out in their thousands to celebrate the deal with Iran’s foreign minister Javad Zarif receiving a hero’s welcome at the Mehrabad airport when he returned from Lausanne.

President Rouhani yesterday noted that the deal was a triumph for Iran because the US had now realised that Iran would not surrender to bullying, sanctions and threats while spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said there was “no guarantee” of a final deal with world powers.

Rhetoric apart, the biggest challenge to both Iran and the United States is to protect the hard-fought deal from those planning to sabotage it.