Category: Rahnuma Ahmed

Controversy over Dr Yunus, political issues ignored

by rahnuma ahmed

I HAVE recently returned from Jhalokathi. I had gone there as part of a citizens’ group to lend support to seventeen year old Limon Hossain, shot and maimed by a RAB bullet. It was a case of mistaken identity but this simple truth is denied by the government, by the ruling party’s top-ranking leaders and high-ranking police and RAB officials, who viciously keep insisting that Limon is a ‘terrorist.’ All because the government’s elite anti-crime, anti-terror force, can do no wrong. Never, ever. A state of affairs that we, as citizens, contest.
After returning to Dhaka, I flipped through news reports of our visit. Many had characterised our group as being, one of ’eminent’ citizens. Very elitist. Others, of being composed of ‘human rights leaders and activists’, implying a total disregard for its political and ideological diversity since the group consisted of members, including I myself, keenly aware of the politics of human rights. Of, for instance, Nobel Peace Prize recipient Dr Yunus’ notion of credit as being a fundamental human right. Its absurdity, sharply pointed out by anthropologist Lamia Karim who asks, if credit is replaced with the word debt, how can debt, ?a relationship of power and inequality between the loan institution and the borrower? — be construed as a human right? Continue reading “Controversy over Dr Yunus, political issues ignored”

The government's Eid gifts for Limon

by rahnuma ahmed

Limon Hossain, a towering icon of youthful courage and fortitude.?? Daily Star

Everyone was happy this Eid, said the prime minister. Her administration had worked hard to ensure that there were no price hikes, no power cuts. That the roads were in good shape, that the law and order situation was under control.
Sheikh Hasina congratulated herself thus as she exchanged Eid greetings with ?”distinguished guests” and “people from all walks of life” at her official residence. Same press releases year after year, regardless of who’s in power. I remember them from my childhood, no change in wording. Continue reading “The government's Eid gifts for Limon”

PART I: FIFTY-NINTH ANNIVERSARY OF CIA-MI6 COUP

Remembering Mosaddeq

by?rahnuma ahmed

Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mosaddeq (1951-1953), popular and democratically-elected, overthrown in a coup orchestrated by the CIA and MI6 because he wanted to nationalise Iranian oil

The anniversary’s just around the corner, for the regime of Dr Mohammad Mosaddeq — popular and democratically-elected prime minister of Iran — was toppled by the CIA-MI6 on August 19, 1953. The military coup returned the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, to power. A brutal dictatorship, not acknowledged as such by the US, UK and other western powers because he had served their interests.
Media interest (both mainstream and alternative) in CIA involvement was revived with the publication of the CIA’s official history of the 1953 coup in The New York Times on April 16, 2000. Continue reading “PART I: FIFTY-NINTH ANNIVERSARY OF CIA-MI6 COUP”

Holocaust ignored, in unlikely places

by Rahnuma Ahmed

After the war, 118 German rocket scientists worked together at Fort Bliss, Texas. (U.S. Army Aviation And Missile Command)

You wouldn’t think that the American government’s public commitment to bringing the “Hitlerite Huns” to justice would be accompanied by a secret agenda of “sanitizing, using, and absolving” Nazis, would you? (Earlean M. McCarrick, “American Anti-Nazism: A Cold War Casualty,” 1989). Of rewarding some as well, I must, add.
For those who haven’t heard of Operation Paperclip, here are some facts, but before presenting those, read this excerpt to be reminded of the terrible atrocities of the Holocaust,
The roundup of Jews began at 3AM? The local police, bolstered by reinforcements from the neighboring town of Zembin, surrounded the ghetto? The killing went on throughout the day?Some of the guards raped the younger women before forcing them into the pits. Continue reading “Holocaust ignored, in unlikely places”

SEVENTH ANNIVERSARY: London Bombings & Tony Blair's 'Ludicrous Diversion'

by rahnuma ahmed

It was seven years ago this July 7th, but deep suspicions still remain.  That, the public have not been told as to what really occurred on that day when 56 people were killed and several hundred injured in four bombings, three on London underground trains before 9 am, and the fourth, an hour later, on a bus.
Initial media reports, as Tom Secker — British writer, researcher and filmmaker who specialises in terrorism, the security services and declassified history — points out, were “extremely confused.” Eight explosions had occurred on the underground, these were blamed on electrical power surges. Another three explosions were reported to have occurred, on buses. These initial reports later evolved “somehow” into a story of four explosions caused by suicide bombers (see Secker’s seven minute documentary released this July, “7/7 in 7 Minutes: Unanswered Questions“, available on YouTube).
Other skeptics point fingers at the government’s reluctance to conduct a public inquiry into the events. Strange, they say, given that disasters such as train accidents are investigated (as they should be), while the bombings, despite having been one of the “worst terrorist attacks” in Britain’s history, was not considered to be worthy of a public inquiry. Continue reading “SEVENTH ANNIVERSARY: London Bombings & Tony Blair's 'Ludicrous Diversion'”

Fukushima: Coverup, Lies and Japan's Nuke Dictatorship

by rahnuma ahmed

Demonstrators during a protest outside the Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO)?headquarters in Tokyo, on Aug. 2, 2011, against the nuclear accident at the?Fukushima Daiichi. (Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP/Getty Images)

I must write about Fukushima — I’ve been telling myself repeatedly for over a year.
The 9.0 magnitude earthquake struck Japan’s north-eastern coast on March 11, 2011. A tsunami followed soon after, sweeping away cars, ships and buildings, crushing coastal communities. An estimated 15,800 people died; a three thousand still missing.
The Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant was affected. How badly, and what this has meant for Japan, and, for the rest of the world, is still being debated. But not in the mainstream media any longer, activists allege. Continue reading “Fukushima: Coverup, Lies and Japan's Nuke Dictatorship”

Reclaiming Life in Times of Death

by rahnuma ahmed

Author Rahnuma Ahmed. 2012. ??Shahidul Alam/Majority World

In her public lecture “Reclaiming Life in Times of Death” Rahnuma Ahmed speaks about the urgent necessity to “think for ourselves” (Begum Rokeya), to reflect on Martin Luther King’s characterisation of life as being “something worth dying for” — in an age when the most powerful nation on earth pursues its so-called “war on terror” which has led to over a million deaths, and untold miseries and suffering. It is a war which has no limits, and after more than a decade, we should be able to question whether the “war” is for reasons publicly proclaimed by the US and its military allies. Unless we are able to think for ourselves, we are not — as King says, and Begum Rokeya, most likely would wholeheartedly support — “fit to be living.”
Download the PDF file
Date?? : Thursday, 12 July 2012
Time?? :?10:50 am to 12:20 pm
Venue : ULAB Auditorium, House 56, Road 4/A (Satmasjid Road), Dhaka
 

JULIAN ASSANGE: There can be no Western dissidents!

by rahnuma ahmed

ALL HELL broke loose when Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, entered the Ecuadorian embassy in London last week to seek refuge. Initially, there was chaos and confusion, but the underlying emotion was distinctly identifiable. One of anger. Of seething, boiling rage.

Julian Assange who, despite winning most reader votes in Time magazine's 2010 Person of the Year poll, was edged out by Mark Zuckerburg, the billionaire CEO of Facebook.

Since then, the Western media, part of the Western establishment (or, the war-monger’s club), has gone into overdrive to establish what Sami Ramadani calls the “logical”  mainstream argument, which is repeated ad infinitum until a general acceptance has been secured. All others who suggest or claim otherwise are boxed as the “fringe,” given airtime once every ten-days-or-so, a ritualistic overture necessary to keep alive the illusion of democracy in the capitalist neo-liberal West. Clever overtures, since these, simultaneously, fix counter-arguments as being based not in equally credible oppositional stances but as being “the” fringe. However, the fringe, thanks to the internet, are raising powerful questions about Assange and Western dissidence, which the establishment media, and other ruling western apparatuses including human rights organisations, are choosing to ignore. Imperiously so. Continue reading “JULIAN ASSANGE: There can be no Western dissidents!”

AMNESTY USA ON SYRIAN GOVERNMENT'S WAR CRIMES: The whole truth?

by rahnuma ahmed

I’d thought of writing about Monsanto this week — the US-based biotech giant which is being sued by five million Brazilian farmers for 7.7 billion dollars for its seed-patenting, rightly dubbed “GM genocide” — but the press statement from Amnesty International USA, which had slipped into my inbox caught my eye.
Headlined, “Urgent: From Syria’s Frontlines“, it spoke of an Amnesty report to be released this week which has uncovered “widespread new evidence of heinous war crimes committed by the Syrian government armed forces and militias.” Amnesty’s ?investigations of the Houla and Dara massacres, claims the release, provides “unequivocal evidence that the Syrian army is responsible for gross violations of human rights on a massive scale.”
Only Bashar al-Assad’s armed forces and militias? Only the Syrian army? No mention of atrocities committed by the rebel forces? Of the US secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s admission that al-Qaeda is supporting the armed insurrection in Syria? Which, as Paul Joseph Watson points out, is consistent with reports that these same terrorists had helped to overthrow Colonel Gaddafi in Libya and had been airlifted to Syria by NATO forces? That al-Qaeda’s leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has publicly lent support to Syrian rebel forces? (“Clinton: Al Qaeda, U.S., Helping Syrian Rebels,” Global Research, March 2, 2012). Continue reading “AMNESTY USA ON SYRIAN GOVERNMENT'S WAR CRIMES: The whole truth?”

Ecuadorian military base in New York? Rafael Correa's interview

by rahnuma ahmed

Ecuador's president Rafael Correa being interviewed by Julian Assange in the latter's television chat show The World Tomorrow (episode 6), for Russia Today TV, May 22, 2012.?

Instead of titling today’s column, “Ecuadorian military base in New York?” — I could easily have settled for something else. Because Rafael Correa, Ecuador’s charismatic president, spoke of many other equally important things in his recently given virtual interview to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, for Russia Today TV (generally known as RT). Continue reading “Ecuadorian military base in New York? Rafael Correa's interview”