COLOMBIA VIDEO: Biofuel Terrorism
“Land and Territory—The Key to Peace in Colombia”
CPTnet – 14 February 2011
Christian Peacemaker Teams Colombia invites you to watch the video, “Land and Territory: The Key to Peace in Colombia,” produced by The Grassroots Communities and Peace Initiatives Network, which covers the story of three communities and their struggle for land in Colombia. As the title indicates, land, along with legal title, must be returned to these communities and all displaced communities in order for peace and justice to emerge in Colombia. One cannot talk about the Colombian conflict without discussing the takeover of land by multinational companies, both through legal means and through armed paramilitary violence. CPT Colombia is accompanying the communities of El Garzal and Las Pavas, featured in the video, as they struggle to remain on their land and protect their communities.
The “greening” of a shady business – Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil
World Rainforest Movement | Grain | October 2010
Oil palm plantations have spread rapidly around the globe in recent decades, with profound implications for local communities and the environment. A“Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil” (RSPO) was formed to promote sustainable production practices. But is this possible? Or does the RSPO merely amount to the greenwashing of an inherently destructive industry? The World Rainforest Movement produced an analysis.1
Over the past few decades, oil palm plantations have rapidly spread throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America, where millions of hectares have already been planted and millions more are planned for the next few years. These plantations are causing increasingly serious problems for local peoples and their environment, including social conflict and human rights violations. In spite of this, a number of interests – national and international – continue actively to promote this crop, against a background of growing opposition at the local level. It is within this context that a voluntary certification scheme has emerged – the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) – with the aim of assuring consumers that the palm oil they consume – in foodstuffs, soap, cosmetics or fuel – has been produced in a sustainable manner.2
To pretend that a product obtained from large-scale monocultures of mostly alien palm trees can be certified as “sustainable”3 is – to say the least – a misleading statement, especially for oil palm plantations, with their history of tropical deforestation and widespread human rights abuses.4 This, however, is precisely what the RSPO is doing.
The first shipment of palm oil certified as “sustainable” arrived in the Netherlands in November 2008, under enormous controversy. Greenpeace pointed out that “United Plantations, the company producing the sustainable palm oil, is cutting down trees from vulnerable peat forests in Kalimantan, Indonesia.” It added that this company “does not comply with local Indonesian laws that protect the environment” and that it is “entangled in land conflicts with the local population.” It was not a good start for RSPO’s credibility.5
| Corporations’ firm grasp
The power balance between corporations and NGOs is clearly shown in the RSPO’s current Executive Board (February 2010), where the majority of its members represent corporations or associations of corporations: President: Jan Kees Vis – Unilever Only two environmental/nature conservation NGOs (WWF and Conservation International) and two social/development NGOs (Oxfam and Sawit Watch) are represented on the board. The other 12 members represent oil palm growers (4), palm oil processors and/or traders (2), consumer goods manufacturers (2), retailers (2), banks/investors (2). Additionally, its ordinary and affiliate members include some very well-known corporations typically associated with social and environmental damage – Cargill, Cognis, International Finance Corporation, British Petroleum, Bunge, Syngenta and Bayer, among others. |
The RSPO has been a long, time-consuming and expensive process, involving industry, commerce and some social and conservation NGOs.6 The question is: why did the private sector get involved in it? The answer is given very clearly in an “Overview of RSPO” included in a press release on 24 November 2008:
As a result of all the above-mentioned issues [tropical deforestation, social conflicts over land rights, food versus fuel] some environmental and social NGOs are actively campaigning against palm oil. There is a risk that the adverse publicity might lead the European Union to stop buying palm oil for biodiesel blending or remove tax support for palm biodiesel until palm oil meets the minimum sustainability criteria. Consumer outcry for sustainably produced palm oil in their food, soaps, detergents and cosmetics is also growing louder and must not be ignored.7
When the RSPO process started, the oil palm industry had already managed to achieve a bad reputation as a result of its direct involvement in human rights violations and environmental destruction. Documentation of these include Eric Wakker’s 1999 publication, Forest Fires and the Expansion of Indonesia’s Oil Palm Plantations, and one year later, Wakker and others produced the book Funding Forest Destruction.8
In 2001, having documented the impacts of oil plantations over several years, WRM published its first book on the subject (The Bitter Fruit of Oil Palm), which included three case-studies in countries that were major players in Asia (Indonesia), Latin America (Ecuador) and Africa (Cameroon), accompanied by a number of articles describing struggles in those and other countries against oil palm plantations. Apart from the environmental impacts of these plantations, the book documented a large number of human rights violations linked to oil palm expansion.9
The fact that both issues – forest destruction and human rights violations – had been well documented led large corporations linked to the palm oil chain (from plantations to retailers) to think strategically about the negative effects that growing opposition and negative publicity might have on their businesses in the future. What they felt they needed was a mechanism that could certify that the activity – from the production of oil palm fruit to the industrialisation of palm oil – could meet “minimum sustainability criteria” and garner sufficient credibility with importing country governments and consumers.
| No World Bank money for palm oil
Rettet den Regenwald* The World Bank has invested US$2 billion in palm oil cultivation and use since 1965, at least half of it in Indonesia and Malaysia. Palm oil companies such as Wilmar International were regularly granted loans and development funds by the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group. Over the last 45 years, oil palm plantations have grown eightfold worldwide – 23-fold in Indonesia, according to the World Bank. The World Bank has financed 15 palm oil projects in Indonesia and boasts about the “successful establishment of 100,000 hectares of oil palm plantations”. * Rettet den Regenwald (“Save the rainforest”) is a German-based NGO. For more information, see: http://www.rainforest-rescue.org/index.php |
The “solution”: voluntary certification
The chosen mechanism –the RSPO – was to a large extent modelled on the previous WWF-led process of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). As in the FSC, the RSPO came up with a set of Principles and Criteria resulting from a negotiation process involving a broad range of “stakeholders”; compliance with those standards would be assessed by third-party certification. Both mechanisms also assure consumers that their certified products are sustainably produced: the RSPO through its own name, “Sustainable Palm Oil”, and the FSC through its stated commitment that “products carrying the FSC label are independently certified to assure consumers that they come from forests that are managed to meet the social, economic and ecological needs of present and future generations”.10
The fundamental problem here, however, is that large-scale monoculture tree plantations cannot be socially and ecologically “sustainable”. In the case of FSC, WRM has produced ample documented evidence proving that large-scale monoculture tree plantations are uncertifiable due to their social and environmental impacts.11 The same is true for large-scale monoculture oil palm plantations. The only forms of palm oil production that are ecologically sustainable is that of local communities using natural palm stands in West Africa – where oil palm is a native species.12
However, most of the oil traded internationally – even from West Africa – comes from large-scale monoculture oil palm plantations with profound social and environmental impacts. As with plantations of other trees – such as eucalyptus and pines – the problem is not the species planted but the form and scale in which they are cultivated.
To avoid confusion, it is important to note that industrial production13 of palm oil fruit is carried out in three main forms: 1) large, corporate-owned plantations; 2) smallholder farmers’ land; 3) a combination of both – the “nucleus estate-outgrowers” model. However, in all three cases the result is the same: a large area of contiguous land is occupied by monoculture oil palm plantations.
The impact of such plantations on plant and animal biodiversity is enormous, because they destroy the habitat – usually forest ecosystems – of a large number of species. This impact is magnified by the heavy use of agrotoxins, ranging from herbicides to insecticides, that result in the elimination of yet more animal and plant species. The chemicals pollute local water resources, which are also affected by the extensive drainage systems put in place for the plantations. Monoculture plantations, moreover, provoke erosion, because land formerly covered by forest is cleared prior to plantation, leaving the soil exposed to heavy tropical rains.
The consequences of plantations for local communities are often severe, particularly in corporate-owned plantations that appropriate large areas of land which had hitherto been in the hands of indigenous or peasant populations and had provided for their livelihoods. The dispossession generates resistance from local people, who are then confronted by repression from state forces and the oil palm companies themselves. The violation of land rights is thus typically followed by other human rights violations, including even the right to life.
Leaving aside other social and environmental impacts, it is a well-known fact that most of the plantations owned by companies involved in the RSPO process have been established at the expense of tropical forests. In spite of that, the fruit harvested from those same plantations will be industrialised and sold as “sustainable” palm oil. This is made possible by one of the RSPO’s criteria (7.3), which states that certification will check that “New plantings since November 2005 have not replaced primary forest”. This of course means that all deforestation prior to that date will not be taken into account, and that plantations where such deforestation occurred will still receive the RSPO seal of approval. Given that oil palms can be harvested for up to 30 years, this implies that much of the palm oil traded with the RSPO “sustainable” seal in the next 10–20 years will be harvested from plantations that have “replaced primary forest”.
The scenario most likely to result from the RSPO process is that in the future there will be two production sectors supplying different markets. On the one hand there will be a group of companies with certification that will attempt to a greater or lesser extent to comply with the principles and criteria adopted by the RSPO, while on the other hand there will be a second group of uncertified companies that will continue with “business as usual”. The first will cater for markets like the European Union, where consumers – and governments – demand compliance with certain social and environmental standards, while the second will supply all the other, less demanding markets.
To complicate matters further, what is being certified is not the overall performance of an oil palm company, but specific plantation areas. This means that it is possible that one company will have some of its operations certified under RSPO principles and criteria while it carries out other operations that violate those same principles. This would be a likely scenario in plantations owned by one company in different regions within a country, as well as in different countries.
The final result will be that the cultivation of oil palm will continue to expand, and the accumulated impacts of both “sustainable” and other plantations will continue to have serious impacts on people and their environment. The RSPO will have fulfilled its main objective: growth (as stated in the RSPO website: “Promoting the Growth and Use of Sustainable Palm Oil”).
Global oilpalm area, 1980–2009 from 4.3m to 14.7m hectares
Source: FAOSTAT
Sustainable, improved or greenwashed?
The problem with the RSPO is that it conveys the message that palm oil can be certified as “sustainable”. Confronted with that claim, the only possible response from anyone who knows about the impact of large-scale oil palm monoculture is that RSPO certification is a fraud.
Most people would of course agree that a company that complies with some of the more progressive social and environmental criteria included in the RSPO’s principles and criteria will have improved its performance. Even when the wording of almost every criterion allows for some “flexibility” in its interpretation, some criteria are at least a step forward as compared with currently prevailing practices. For instance, criterion 6.5 establishes that “Pay and conditions for employees and for employees of contractors always meet at least legal or industry minimum standards and are sufficient to provide decent living wages.” It is not much to require “minimum standard” wages, and it is difficult to define what the phrase “decent living wages” means, but it is obviously better than nothing.
Some social organisations, particularly in Indonesia have seen this process as an opportunity for helping to open up political space for indigenous peoples and affected communities. It is clear to them that the RSPO cannot solve the fundamental problems of land tenure and community rights, but it has been successfully used by some communities to assert their rights, and to force member companies to respect the rights of communities affected by their oil palm operations. As some companies attempt to apply the RSPO standard, this is helping to show that companies and the industry overall will not be able to respect indigenous peoples’ and communities’ rights unless there is legal reform.
The bigger question, however, is not whether the RSPO contributes to improving current practices –which it probably will in some cases – but whether it can be a useful means for addressing the industry’s most severe impacts on forests, local peoples, soils, water, biodiversity and climate. And the answer is: no.
With forests, the RSPO legalises past, present and future destruction of all types of forest, with the exception of “primary forests” and “rare, threatened or endangered species and high conservation value habitats”. As for the rights of local people, the criteria do not provide sufficient safeguards against the further expansion of oil palm plantations over their territories, which will deprive them of their lands and means of livelihoods and adversely affect their health. When it comes to soils, water and biodiversity, the RSPO will serve only to disguise the inevitable impacts of oil palm plantation management on these three crucial resources, while forest destruction will add further CO2 emissions to the atmosphere.
Widespread civil society opposition
In contrast to the Forest Stewardship Council – and probably as a result of experience with it – few civil society organisations have joined the RSPO process, and many are actively opposing it.
In October 2008, a large number of national and international organisations responded to the first Latin American meeting of the RSPO with an “International Declaration Against the ‘Greenwashing’ of Palm Oil by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil”.14 The choice of Colombia as the site of the meeting only confirmed the concerns of those organisations. The Colombian military and paramilitary forces have routinely used murder, torture, rape and “disappearances” in evicting whole communities to make way for oil palm plantations.
The declaration called the RSPO “a tool for the expansion of the palm oil business” and “another attempt at camouflaging and denying the true situation, providing ‘a green-wash’ to make a model of production that is intrinsically destructive and socially and environmentally unsustainable, appear to be ‘responsible’.” It gave several reasons for rejecting the RSPO, including:
- that the principles and criteria proposed by RSPO to define sustainability include large-scale plantations;
- that the RSPO is designed to legitimate the continuous expansion of the palm oil industry;
- that any model that includes the conversion of natural habitats into large-scale monoculture plantations cannot, by definition, be sustainable;
- that the RSPO is interested in economic growth and opening up markets for palm oil, not social and environmental sustainability;
- that the RSPO is dominated by industry and does not genuinely consult affected communities;
- that the participation of NGOs in RSPO, such as the WWF, only legitimates an unacceptable process;
- that the RSPO allows companies to certify individual plantations, eluding overall assessment of their whole production.
A year later, just before the RSPO’s 2009 general assembly in Malaysia, an open letter was sent to RSPO and WWF by a number of organisations under the heading “Oil palm monocultures will never be sustainable”.15 The letter stated:
We are deeply concerned that RSPO certification is being used to legitimise an expansion in the demand for palm oil and thus in oil palm plantations, and it serves to greenwash the disastrous social and environmental impacts of the palm oil industry. The RSPO standards do not exclude clear cutting of many natural forests, the destruction of other important ecosystems, nor plantings on peat. The RSPO certifies plantations which impact on the livelihoods of local communities and their environments. The problems are exacerbated by the in-built conflict of interest in the system under which a company wanting to be certified commissions another company to carry out the assessment.
The need to step up the struggle
Regardless of the good intentions of the NGO representatives participating in the RSPO process, or even those of participants from other sectors, it is obvious that the majority of the members and affiliate members of the RSPO do not question the expansion of oil palm monocultures. On the contrary, they are actively seeking to boost both production and consumption in traditional markets (food, soaps, detergents and cosmetics) and in the emerging market of agrofuels. While it is true that many aspects of the production process can be improved, it is equally true that the model as a whole – even with these improvements – continues to be unsustainable.
The RSPO process did not emerge out of the blue, but was in fact an industry response to the many local resistance struggles and national and international campaigns waged to denounce the current situation. Therefore, rather than supporting or opposing the RSPO process, what is most important now is to step up these struggles and campaigns to curb the further advance of this essentially destructive industrial model. The key challenge today is not to improve large-scale monoculture oil palm plantations, but rather to halt their expansion.
1 – This article is an edited version of a briefing by the WRM. The full briefing, which was published in March 2010, can be downloaded from: http://www.wrm.org.uy/publications/briefings/RSPO.pdf
2 – The website of RSPO is: www.rspo.org
3 – Although the concept of sustainability is open to many interpretations, most people would probably agree with the following definition from Wikipedia: “Sustainability is the capacity to endure. In ecology the word describes how biological systems remain diverse and productive over time. For humans it is the potential for long-term maintenance of well-being, which in turn depends on the well-being of the natural world and the responsible use of natural resources.”
4 – See section on oil palm plantations on the WRM’s website at http://www.wrm.org.uy/plantations/palm.html
5 – http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/241082,greenpeace-first-sustainable-palm-oil-shipment-not-sustainable.html
6 – The RSPO was established in 2004 and the process for starting certification was completed in August 2008
7 – http://www.rspo.org/resource_centre/Press%20Release%20-%20Post%20RT6_1.pdf
8 – Eric Wakker et al., Funding Forest Destruction. The Involvement of Dutch Banks in the Financing of Oil Palm Plantations in Indonesia, Amsterdam, Bogor, Castricum: AIDEnvironment, Telapak and Contrast Advies, 2000.
9 – In September 2006, WRM published a second book: Oil Palm: From Cosmetics to Biodiesel – Colonization Lives On.
10 – http://www.fsc.org/vision_mission.html
11 – See WRM web page section on certification: http://www.wrm.org.uy/actors/FSC/index.html
12 – Wild groves are harvested by subsistence farmers, who extract the oil by traditional methods. In West Africa, palm oil is a major food item and it is typically used for making foodstuffs, as its natural flavour has a distinguishable effect on dishes. Palm oil is also used to make palm wine and local medicines. The leaves may also be used to make thatches, which are used as roofing material in certain areas.
13 – Harvesting from wild groves or small scale plantations is not considered to be “industrial production”.
14 – See: http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/docs/17-11-2008-ENGLISH-RSPOInternational-Declaration.pdf
15 – http://www.wrm.org.uy/plantations/RSPO_letter.html
GOING FURTHER
WRM, “RSPO: The ‘greening’ of the dark palm oil business”, Montevideo, March 2010.
http://www.wrm.org.uy/publications/briefings/RSPO.pdf
“International Declaration Against the ‘Greenwashing’ of Palm Oil by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil” signed by 256 Organisations.
http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/docs/17-11-2008-ENGLISH-RSPOInternational-Declaration.pdf
“Oil palm monocultures will never be sustainable” Open letter to RSPA and WWF.
http://www.wrm.org.uy/plantations/RSPO_letter.html
“Sustainable monocultures no thanks!”, GRAIN, Against the grain, June 2006.
http://www.grain.org/articles_files/atg-6-en.pdf
The WRM website, with a special resource page on plantations: http://www.wrm.org.uy/
Forming a new government in West Bank unconstitutional
Palestine Information Center – 14/02/2011
GAZA — The Hamas Movement said that de facto president Mahmoud Abbas’s decision to mandate Salam Fayyad to form a new government in Ramallah city is unacceptable and unconstitutional, adding that the current government in the West Bank is already illegal.
“Any government can only be legitimate after it is referred to the legislative council and gain a vote of confidence, and this thing was not there in Fayyad’s government,” spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri underlined in a press statement to the Palestinian information center (PIC).
Spokesman Abu Zuhri affirmed that the intended formation of a new de facto government in Ramallah is proactive step aimed at preventing the West Bankers from taking to the streets to protest against the Palestinian authority (PA) and its policies especially after Al-Jazeera channel’s revelations.
The spokesman emphasized that the PA has to straighten its political deviation and stop its security crimes and cooperation with the Israeli occupation or else the Palestinian street will certainly move against it.
Palestinian Quarry Ordered to Close Due to Settler Action
By Circarre Parrhesia & David Steele – IMEMC & Agencies – February 14, 2011
A Palestinian quarry in Beit Fajjar, south of Bethlehem, is to close due to “enforcement activities” by the Israeli authorities.
Although Beit Fajjar is located deep in the West Bank, the area falls within zone C, and thus is under full control of the Israeli military. As a result, the quarry has been informed that it is mining on “State Land”.
An Israeli pressure group, the National Land Protection Trust, brought a case against the business to the Israeli High Court of Justice, which ruled against the company.
Shortly after this ruling, the Israeli military began ‘enforcement activities’, which “led to an almost complete cessation of quarrying in the unlicensed area”.
The authorities confiscated a large number of items in a series of raids last year. The National Land Protection Trust has vowed to prevent any attempts to license the quarry, due to the fact that nearby settlements had suffered from dust and noise.
Mining is one of the major economic contributors to the town, along with their agricultural industry, with over 20% of the West Bank’s mines found in Beit Fajjar alone.
On October 4 2010, a mosque in Beit Fajjar was set alight, by settlers, in the early hours of the morning. In addition to the arson, settlers left “price tag” graffiti near the entrance.
Following Visit, UNHCHR Criticises Israel for International Law Violations
By Tania Kepler for the Alternative Information Center | 13 February 2011
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, who just completed a six-day visit to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory, strongly criticized Israel for its treatment of Palestinians and violations of international law.
“All state actions in support of the establishment and maintenance of the settlements, including incentives to create them and the establishment of infrastructure to support them, are illegal under international law,” Pillay said at a press conference on Jerusalem Friday (11/2) marking the end of her visit.
“I have been struck by the complacency with which the entirely-avoidable predicament of Palestinians affected by the wall and settlements is treated by Israeli authorities with whom I have discussed these issues,” Pillay said.
“They tend to be brushed aside as if they are minor matters. They are not. They are clear-cut violations of human rights on a very large scale,” she said.
During her visit Pillay called for a halt on all settlement-related activities in East Jerusalem, as well as home evictions, demolitions, displacements and the cancellation of residency permits on a discriminatory basis.
On Monday, 7 February, the Jerusalem Municipal Planning and Construction Committee approved a plan for 13 new housing units for Jewish settlers in the East Jerusalem neighborhood Sheikh Jarrah.
The settler housing units will be built in two buildings, and will require the demolition of several Palestinian residences, leaving even more Sheikh Jarrah families homeless.
“East Jerusalem is being steadily drained of its Palestinian inhabitants, in clear-cut defiance of Security Council resolutions,” Pillay remarked during her visit.
“It’s only when you hear the testimonies that you begin to understand the true horror of the policies which are stifling their social, cultural and economic prospects and crippling their morale,” she said.
French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero also spoke out against building plans in East Jerusalem.
“The plans violate international law,” Valero said after the announcement of the new Sheikh Jarrah complex. “The settlements must end, in the West Bank as well as east Jerusalem.”
A U.S. State Department official also denounced Israel’s continued construction in East Jerusalem, saying Israeli actions “in Sheikh Jarrah and previously in Beit Orot, work against efforts to resume direct negotiations and contradict the logic of a reasonable and necessary agreement between the parties on the status of Jerusalem.”
In closing her visit, Pillay said, “The politics of conflict, peace and security are constantly leading to the downgrading, or setting aside, of the importance of binding international human rights and humanitarian law,” which she described as “not negotiable.”
Israeli forces shoot 3 Gaza workers
Ma’an – 13/02/2011
GAZA CITY — Israeli forces shot and injured three Palestinian workers Saturday in the northern Gaza Strip, medics said.
A 19-year-old man was moderately injured, a Gaza medical spokesman said.
Earlier, Marhan Tanboura, 24, and Ashour Shukheidim, 29, were shot in the leg, medics said.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said soldiers fired at Palestinians who approached the border and did not heed orders to stop. Forces identified hitting two men in the lower body, she said.
The men were collecting rubble from evacuated settlements near the Gaza border to sell as cement aggregates, medics said.
Cement is in demand to rebuild thousands of homes destroyed in Israel’s last offensive on the coastal enclave. Under Israel’s siege policy, most construction materials are banned from the Gaza Strip.
Israel declared a buffer zone along the border zone inside Gaza, which reaches deep into the coastal enclave, and Israeli forces regularly shoot at Palestinians who enter the area. Defense for Children International has reported that teenagers have been shot as far as 800 meters from the border.
But, with unemployment standing at 45.4 percent in the Strip according to a UN estimate, workers continue to risk entering the exclusion zone.
Prices soar in Gaza as Rafah, tunnels close
IRIN | 7 February 2011
GAZA – More than a week of political unrest in Egypt has heightened the threat of a humanitarian crisis in neighbouring Gaza. Egyptian soldiers fled their posts on the northern border on 30 January, forcing the Rafah crossing – a critical valve for the 1.5 million Palestinians living in Gaza – to close.
Around 60 Palestinians, attempting to return home via Cairo when Gaza’s southern border closed, are still being held in the “deportation room” at Cairo airport. Among them are six children and several critically ill patients who are running out of medication.
“The children don’t know what’s happening. Sometimes they’re crying. It’s very, very cold here; it’s crowded and there is nowhere for us to wash,” one of those being detained, who asked not to be named, told IRIN on 30 January.
Israel destroyed Gaza’s airport during the second Intifada in 2002, and Gazans have few alternatives but to transit through Cairo airport, via Rafah. Since the militant group Hamas took control in 2007, Gazans need special security clearance to enter Egypt. Those with permits to travel abroad are taken directly to Cairo airport by bus where they are held until their flight departs. On the return leg they are held at the airport until they can be taken to the Rafah crossing.
Tunnels close
Israel’s blockade of the region means Gaza depends heavily on goods smuggled through tunnels from Egypt – particularly fuel, cooking gas and building materials – but the ongoing instability in Egypt has caused these tunnels to close, severing a vital supply line.
“The problem is getting fuel to the border inside Egypt. There are no military forces on the Egyptian side of the border, so smugglers are getting hijacked on the road from Cairo and all their stuff stolen. It’s very dangerous for them,” said taxi driver Farid Abdul El Rahman, who is running his car on the last of his Egyptian diesel.
“There is nothing coming through the tunnels now – I think the problem is only going to get worse,” he said. Petrol has now run out entirely and the only fuel available is the limited amount coming from Israel at treble the price.
A fuel shortage in Gaza would not only mean no cars, but also no electricity. The blockade and severe damage to power stations during the 2009 conflict resulted in a chronic power shortage with up to six hours of electricity cuts every day. Gaza’s homes and businesses rely on fuel-powered generators.
“I have to stock up like everyone else, as we have no idea when there will be petrol here again,” said a senior judge, who asked not to be named because of his position, queuing with hundreds of people at one of the few petrol stations in Gaza City that still had fuel.
Hospitals affected
The major hospitals have stockpiles of fuel to power their generators, but the biggest, Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, has less than a week’s supply in reserve. If the tunnels remain closed much longer, the situation will become critical.
Mohamed Abu Rahman, a senior nurse in the intensive care unit, said he was very concerned about the border closure. “This unit, especially, is entirely dependent on electricity. If there’s a power cut we have to operate the ventilators manually before the generator kicks in,” he told IRIN.
“There are power cuts here for four hours every day. It will be impossible to keep people alive without our generators – the monitors, the ventilators, everything – will be gone.”
For some the situation is life threatening. Gaza suffers acute shortages of crucial medical equipment and medicines, which means many people, often those with serious conditions like cancer, must be referred abroad for treatment.
Every month around 500 Gazan patients are referred to Egypt. Bassam Abu Hamad, a senior health consultant in Gaza, warned that closure of the Rafah crossing was putting lives at risk:
“People in need of radiotherapy, and advanced surgery in particular, are simply unable to get treatment,” he said. “While Rafah is closed, we will see increased loss of life here in Gaza.”
Price hikes
The prices of many consumer goods have rocketed since the tunnels closed. Cigarettes have gone up 25 percent, but the cost of vital building materials has doubled.
Much of Gaza is still in ruins after Israel’s last invasion in 2009, which left 60,000 buildings damaged and more than 4,000 destroyed.
Israel’s ban on importing cement, steel and gravel through its border posts means that any construction in Gaza has to rely on materials smuggled through the tunnels.
“Since the problems started in Egypt, the prices of cement and gravel have doubled – one ton of cement cost 520 new Israeli shekels [NIS – US$140] last week. Today, I bought a ton for 1,100 NIS [$296],” said Ashraf Al Aloul, a driver for an international NGO, one of thousands of Gazans in the process of building a home.
“Nobody here can afford to buy material at this price. I think all building work will stop while people wait to see what’s going on.”
Hebron settler calls Spanish FM anti-Semite
Ma’an – 08/02/2011
Spanish FM Trinidad Jimenez tours the Old City of Hebron, moments before she was verbally assaulted by settlers. [MaanImages]
HEBRON — A heated argument broke out between Hebron settlers and local Governor Kamil Hamid as the latter was escorting the visiting Spanish Foreign Minister through the occupied Old City.
As Minister Trinidad Jimenez left the historic Ibrahimi Mosque, also known as the Cave of Patriarchs, right-wing settler leader and activist Itamar Ben-Gvir shouted at the woman, calling her an anti-Semite and “Israel hater,” the Israeli daily news site Ynet quoted.
Speaking to Ma’an after the incident, Hamid confirmed the report, saying a group of setters had accosted the delegation and called Jimenez and “anti-Semite,” and told her to “go back to Spain.”
The settlers, he added, “were under the protection of the Israeli police.”
Hamid condemned the assault, saying it was a shame for settlers to attack the representative of a nation that is behind the peace process. “It is a clear message to the EU,” he said.
Minister Jimenez said she was unsettled by the incident. “I do not hate anyone, I came to the Middle East to support the peace process and to provide more support for the awful humanitarian situation in Hebron,” she told Ma’an.
The Spanish government is ready to help the PA and the Palestinians she said, adding that her government was ready to recognize a Palestinian state.
In January, Ben-Givr initiated a swarming of a home the governor was visiting in the Tel Rumeida district of the city. A mob of settlers surrounded the home shouting “terrorist,” preventing his delegation from leaving the area for more than three hours.
Israeli police operating in the neighborhood reportedly interfered when a fight broke out between settlers and members of the governor’s delegation, but the governor complained when the police failed to evacuate the settlers from outside the home.
Angered at the failure of the police to remove the settlers, Governor Hamid said the officers “might as well go home and let the settlers take control,” adding that the mob clearly already had the upper hand on the soldiers.
US-led forces kill 2 Afghan civilians
Press TV – February 7, 2011
US-led forces have killed two Afghan civilians and seriously injured another one in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province, a foreign company announces.
The Central Asia Development Group (CADG) said Monday that the foreign forces killed two Afghan employees of the Singapore-based engineering firm last week.
CADG added that another Afghan civilian hired by the company was injured by “friendly fire” from US-led security forces on February 3.
“On February 3, 2011, a CADG vehicle, carrying four of CADG’s Afghan national staff were caught in kinetic activity between ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) forces and insurgent forces on Highway 1 near Spin Masjid Bazaar, near Gereshk in Helmand Province,” CADG spokesman Matthew Goldthwaite told AFP.
“As a result of this exchange, two of the passengers were killed, one passenger was seriously wounded (and) the fourth passenger was unharmed,” Goldthwaite added.
“CADG was informed that ISAF have accepted responsibility for this incident… We believe it’s friendly fire,” he went on to say. ISAF has not yet commented on the incident.
US-led coalition forces and NATO troops in Afghanistan have been frequently criticized for the increase in civilian casualties caused by their military operations in the war-torn country.
More than 2,400 civilians lost their lives in violence across Afghanistan in 2010, marking the deadliest year for ordinary Afghans, a human rights watchdog said last week.
Civilian casualties have long been a source of friction between the Afghan government and 150,000-strong US-led foreign forces.
The loss of civilian lives at the hand of foreign forces has dramatically heightened anti-American sentiments in Afghanistan, causing thousands of Afghans to protest against US-led military presence in the Asian country.
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Iran UN ambassador calls for destruction of all nuclear weapons
Iran’s ambassador to the UN Gholamali Khoshroo
Press TV – March 29, 2017
Iran’s ambassador to the UN Gholamali Khoshroo has called for the total eradication of nuclear weapons.
Khoshroo reiterated Iran’s call during a UN conference aimed at creating a nuclear weapons ban treaty in New York on Tuesday.
“Iran, as a victim of chemical weapons, strongly feels the danger posed by the existence of weapons of mass destruction and is determined to engage actively in international diplomatic efforts to save humanity from the menace of nuclear weapons,” he said.
Khoshroo stressed that Iran is committed to its Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) obligations, which include negotiations based on effective nuclear disarmament measures.
He added that several countries continue to ignore international calls and treaties for nuclear disarmament and even continue to increase their nuclear stockpiles. “They do not have political determination to abandon doctrines of nuclear deterrence and nuclear terror,” he went on to say.
Iran’s UN ambassador noted that boycotting the talks by many countries, including the US, shows that the world’s nuclear powers are by no means committed to the eradication of nuclear arms. Britain and France were also among the some 40 countries that did not join the talks.
“We note that prohibition of nuclear weapons must be accompanied by the elimination of such weapons. There can be no doubt that without complete abolition of nuclear weapons, there will be no absolute guarantee against the danger of nuclear war and the use of such weapons,” Khoshroo added.
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