Watchdog report pins rights blame on state and Maoists

KOLKATA: A leading human rights watchdog organization has released a report that puts the blame of rights violations in Maoist conflict zones - including Jangalmahal - equally on the State and the rebels.
After conducting a year-long study of Maoist conflict zones in the country, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has reasons to believe that the Indian State is equally to blame for rights violations as the Maoists.

In a special report, HRW has focused on how residents of Maoist conflict zones have been forced to live between two sets of guns - one wielded by the state forces and the other by the rebels. The report emphasizes how human and civil rights activists have come under attack in this conflict.
Allegations of rights violations by central forces and police have constantly been doing the rounds in Jangalmahal since the eaconflict's rliest days.
Nearly three years ago, when TOI had written about how security forces paraded Rameswar Murmu, a mentally challenged tribal youth as a hardcore Maoist guerrilla at Duli village, senior police officers had said that it was Maoist ploy.
Similarly, allegations by six women from Sonamukhi village in Jhargram - that members of the security forces had sexually assaulted them - had been rubbished.
Are living between two sets of gun in conflict zones with a special emphasize on how human rights activists and civil rights activists were attacked in this conflict.
The report prepared by HRW quotes an observation by Supreme Court - "The situation in Chhattisgarh is undoubtedly deeply distressing to any reasonable person. What was doubly dismaying to us was the repeated insistence... that the only option for the State was to rule with an iron fist, establish a social order in which... anyone speaking for human rights of citizens [is] to be deemed as suspect, and a Maoist".
The report recommends that the State repeal the colonial-era sedition law and calls for all pending sedition cases to be dropped.
In the extensive study conducted on a period between July 2011 to March 2012 - mainly conducted in central and eastern India on the basis of fact-finding and interviewing grassroots-level civil rights and human activists - HRW found that hundreds of rights activists have been victims of illegal detention, arbitrary arrests, coercion and threats from state-operated police and paramilitary forces.
They interviewed persons like Soni Sori or Himansu Kumar - whose stories of state repression have already came to light. And at the same time several other human right activists were interviewed whose ordeal never reach to outer world. One of them was Rabindra Kumar Majhi of an NGO - Keonjhar Integrated Rural development and Training Insitute in Odhisa - was arrested by police in July 2008 as a Maoist was forced to confess that they were Maoists. On the basis of the fact findings, HRW recomended that the Indian government should instruct officials to not treat the critics of the government and covil society activists as supporters of insurgents, end the practice of filing politically motivated cases.
The report does not give a chit chit to the Maoists, by any means. It strongly condemns the rebels for the brutal killing of villagers, security personnel and even those who had tried to reach out to the remotest corners of the villages with developmental projects.
persons who had been trying to reach out with developmenal projects to the remotest part of the country for the poor people.
It also says that Maoists should end attacks on schools and hospitals and respect international human rights laws.
They also urged the Maoists to make a public commitment to respect the right of expression in the areas where they are dominating.
City-based rights activists welcomed the recommendations. Ranjit Sur, the assistant secretary of Association for Protection of Democratic Rights, pointed out how internationally famed scientist Partho Sarathi Ray had been put behind bars and was subject to "state repression" for protesting against the eviction of settlers in Nonadanga.
In similar bid anti-big dam activist Akhil Gogoi has been branded as Maoist by the Assam government.

Source: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-05-22/kolkata/39444560_1_rights-activists-human-rights-watch-rights-violations

Yemen arms smuggling threatens nation's stability

Yemeni coast guard helpless against weapon shipments flood; American patrol seizes Iranian ship laden with missiles, explosives destined for Shiite insurgents

SANA'A – Yemen is stepping up its coast guard patrols, seeking to interrupt what has become a full-fledged flood of illegal weapons that is seen as a threat to the nation’s security and stability.

According to sources in Yemen, most of the illegal arms originate in Turkey and Iran, underscoring the regional struggle for influence

The Yemeni defense ministry recently announced the seizure of trucks carrying Turkish-made guns in the southern province of Taiz after the shipment cleared the Mokha Port. It was the second time in a month and the sixth time in six months that Turkish-made weapons were seized. The ministry said an investigation into the source of the shipment was underway but gave no further details.

In early May, a Yemeni coast guard vessel situated along the strategic Bab el-Mandeb strait seized a boat carrying 20,000 Turkish-made pistols following a pitched gun battle with the ship’s crew. According to the defense ministry website, the ship’s captain was detained but his crew escaped capture.

Iran is also a player in the arms game. Earlier this year, Yemeni and American forces together seized an Iranian ship carrying sophisticated weapons that included surface-to-air missiles, explosives and rocket-propelled grenades. The arms appear to have been destined for Yemen's Houthis, a Shia insurgent group backed by Tehran. The shipment seized was similar to an arms cargo seized last year.

As the poorest Arab state with the second-highest rate of gun ownership after the United States, Yemen is an attractive market for weapons smugglers. Its population of 24 million owns an estimated 60 million firearms.

Among Yemen’s security challenges is the presence of what is considered to be the most dangerous franchise of the global al Qaeda terrorist organization. As well, experts assert that tribal leaders, government officials and intelligence officers are all involved in the business of gun smuggling.

Too little, too late

While Yemen ostensibly acts to halt the gun-smuggling, many believe it’s a case of “too little, too late.” So while Interior Ministry spokesman Mohammed Al-Mawri said naval patrols were increased along Yemen's coasts, stretching from the Arab Sea, Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, “to secure the country from arms infiltration,” analysts argue that the task was almost impossible.

Most seem to agree that the recent seizure of illegal weapons indicates some security vigilance, but the interdictions are also seen as evidence that arms smuggling is increasing and that many illegal arms are being successfully brought in.

“The authorities talk about the arms shipments they have seized, but nobody knows how many shipments managed to make it into the country,” Muaad Al-Maqtari, chairman of the Bab Al-Mandab Center for Studies, a think tank concerned with Yemen's maritime issues including weapons smuggling, told The Media Line. “We believe that the cargoes captured by the government are very little when compared to those that managed to get in,” he said.

After each weapons seizure the government says it will open investigations, but usually no details emerge, including from where the shipments originated or for whom the shipments are destined.

“Yemen has a coastline of about 2,200 kilometers (about 1,400 miles) on the Red and Arab seas and this makes the country a volatile area for arms smuggling. This long coastline works in the smugglers' favor as it makes their job easier,” Al-Maqtari said.

“In contrast, it makes the authorities' job of securing the coasts almost impossible. This is especially true in Yemen's case, given that the country's coast guard forces lack basic training and equipment…They don't even have enough working boats to patrol the territorial waters.”

Retired brigadier general and military analyst Mosheen Khasroof agreed with Al-Maqtari’s assessment that many illegal arms cargoes have probably made it into the country. He said he believes, “organized bodies are behind the recent persistent Turkish and Iranian arms smuggling into Yemen, discounting the notion that regular gun dealers are to blame.

“Yemen's national security is clearly targeted by these smuggled cargoes. If the smuggled weapons were like those widely distributed and owned by Yemenis, there would be no reason for grave concern. But these illegal shipments include pistols and rifles equipped with silencers and night vision scopes, as well as RPGs, etc,” he told The Media Line. “In short, these are assassination instruments aimed at stirring violence and destabilizing the country.”

“Obviously, there are domestic and foreign sides standing behind these smuggling operations. Those behind the smuggling are against the reconciliation, and aim to drag the country into violence,” political analyst Mohammed Shamsan told The Media Line. He was referring to the ongoing National Dialogue Conference, where 556 participants are debating Yemen's future.

“Yemen has to make wide-ranging diplomatic efforts and try to establish cooperation with its neighbors to put an end to arms smuggling,” according to Shamsan. “These efforts have to be coupled with serious talks with Iran and Turkey regarding these illegal arms. The government in cooperation with these countries has to find out exactly who shipments; whom they are destined for; are behind these arms and the purpose of sending them to Yemen,” concluded Shamsan, an opinion Khasroof shared.

While Teheran and Ankara have both repeatedly denied the charges emanating from Yemen, the Turkish government has hinted that some figures from the Turkish private sector are involved.

Earlier this year, Turkish ambassador to Yemen Fazli Corman said at a news conference in the capital Sana'a that the owner of a gun factory had been arrested in connection with weapons smuggling to Yemen. The illegal arms, though, keep coming in. 
Source: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4383145,00.html

English Defence League retaliates following Woolwich terror attack

London: Supporters of the English Defence League (EDL) have expressed their rage at Woolwich Police for its failure to solve the murder of a British soldier and the shooting of two of his suspected assailants.

A group of 100 men, some wearing balaclavas printed with 'EDL', threw bottles at the police and chanted anti-Muslim slogans for less than an hour, The Guardian reports.

EDL leader Tommy Robinson said Islam is not a religion of peace and it is high time that law enforcers and lawmakers listen and understand the reason behind the British public's anger.

Protesters gathered outside the Woolwich Arsenal station with flags bearing the cross of St. George despite the presence of hundreds of police including riot police around Woolwich. 
During the clashes, a 43-year-old man has been arrested for carrying a knife while walking into a mosque in Braintree, Essex.

The secretary of the mosque, Sikander Saleemy, said he felt that the man's behaviour suggested a 'revenge attack' and despite their condemnation of the Woolwich attack, he confessed that the Muslims are not connected in the appalling act of terror, adding that it is unfortunate that people will start accusing the Muslims even more after the attack.
Source: http://zeenews.india.com/news/world/english-defence-league-retaliates-following-woolwich-terror-attack_850341.html

Knights Templar Drug Cartel Burns Michoacan, Western State In Mexico

LA RUANA, Mexico — The farm state of Michoacan is burning. A drug cartel that takes its name from an ancient monastic order has set fire to lumber yards, packing plants and passenger buses in a medieval-like reign of terror.
The Knights Templar cartel is extorting protection payments from cattlemen, lime growers and businesses such as butchers, prompting some communities to fight back, taking up arms in vigilante patrols.
Lime picker Alejandro Ayala chose to seek help from the law instead. After the cartel forced him out of work by shutting down fruit warehouses, he and several dozen co-workers, escorted by Federal Police, met on April 10 with then-state Interior Secretary Jesus Reyna, now the acting governor of the state in western Mexico.
The 41-year-old father of two only wanted to get back to work, said his wife, Martha Elena Murguia Morales.
But, as often, the cartel responded before the government did.
On the way back, his convoy was ambushed, twice. Ayala and nine others were killed.
"I called him after the first one, and he said, `They shot at us, but I'm OK,'" Murguia Morales said. "Then I called him again, and he didn't answer."
Help finally arrived Sunday when thousands of soldiers rolled in to restore order. The government of President Enrique Pena Nieto says troops will stay in Michoacan until every citizen lives in peace. But the offensive, headed by Secretary of Defense Salvador Cienfuegos, looks a lot like failed operations launched previously by former President Felipe Calderon, who started his first assault on organized crime in Michoacan shortly after taking office in late 2006.
Calderon was trying to stop drug cartels from morphing into mafias controlling all segments of society. But that's exactly what has happened, as they maintain country roads, control the local economy and mete out justice for common crimes.
In the Tierra Caliente, a remote agricultural region, fire has been a favored weapon of the cartel. On the highway between Coalcoman and La Ruana, the ruins of three sawmills torched by the cartel still smoldered this week.
The owners reportedly had failed to pay protection fees of 120 pesos (about $10) for every cubic meter of wood they sold, the equivalent of about 10 cents for every two-by-four board.
The Knights Templar also demands that avocado growers pay 2,000 pesos (about $160) per hectare of trees. Avocado warehouses were set afire this month by armed men.
The heart of a conflict where a mafia openly rules and the government is largely absent is nowhere more evident than in the lime groves that cover the hot, hilly plains, miles and miles of trees with the fruit yellowing and falling into uncollected heaps on the ground.
Mexico is the world's largest producer of limes, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, more than 2 million tons in 2012. Much of its exports go to the United States, and Michoacan contributes a large share of that: nearly 475,000 tons of the fruit last year, half from the Tierra Caliente.
It sometimes seems like everything in Mexico, from tacos to potato chips to beer, gets a squeeze of lime.
By late last year, the cartel wasn't just extorting money from lime growers and packers. It had started charging per-box payments from lime pickers, who make only $10 to $15 per day laboring under the scorching sun.
With officials doing nothing to help, self-defense groups started to spring up in February to fight back. Heavily armed men in masks and baseball caps began manning barricades along highways and patrolling the countryside, sometimes openly battling the cartel. Last month
Then the cartel shut the warehouses, forbidding brokers to buy limes and cutting off work for the pickers who had revolted.
Straw-hatted fruit broker Carlos Torres Chavez watched on Tuesday as thousands of fresh green limes poured down the chutes from his plant's giant hoppers into a 37-ton truck for shipment to a processing mill. It was his first day open in two months, thanks to the arrival of the army.
Torres Chavez sells to mills that make lime oil. He usually gets yellow, overripe, second-rate fruit.
But because of the growers' desperation to make money, they were selling him fresh green limes for a peso per kilogram (8 cents per pound), a third of what the fruit is normally worth.
"This is a waste. These are good limes, they can be eaten. They shouldn't be going to the mill," said Domingo Mora, 54, as he picked up one of the limes sifting through the hoppers.
Mora's 24-year-old son, Daniel Mora Torres, was arrested in March along with 50 other young men from the La Ruana self-defense force and was sent to a prison in northern Mexico.
Authorities accused them of carrying banned assault rifles, and said some had links to a rival cartel, Jalisco Nueva Generation, which they deny. The federal government sees both the self-defense forces and the cartel as dangerous enemies.
Mora says his son is just a lime picker who couldn't work to feed his family after the Knights Templar banned the lime sales.
Meanwhile, in Mexico City, the federal government recently declared a lime emergency because prices had doubled to about 70 cents a pound (18 pesos per kilogram). For a fruit so central to Mexican cuisine, it was a crisis.
The government announced last week it would tackle the shortage by importing limes from Brazil. The government attributed the local scarcity to crop pests and "seasonal fluctuations" in production.
Sergio Ramirez, president of a lime trade group called Sistema Producto Limon, insisted there is no shortage and blamed the high prices on greedy fruit dealers and government bungling. His explanation doesn't play in the Tierra Caliente.
"Isn't it ironic, Mexico is going to import limes from Brazil, because there isn't enough supply?" asked a rancher wearing a baseball cap and leaning back into his chair at the headquarters of the local self-defense group in Tepalcatepec. "Here, the limes are falling to the ground, because the lords of the Knights Templar won't let them be sold."
The rancher, who like most of the vigilantes won't give his name for fear of reprisal, knows the price of living under the rule of the gang. They used to demand 800 to 1,000 pesos (up to $80) in protection money for each head of cattle he owned, about equal to any profit he would make from selling them.
The Mexican army was met with cheers when it arrived in La Ruana on Monday night. Federal Interior Secretary Miguel Osorio Chong promised that the offensive this time would have better coordination, cooperation and intelligence to be successful.
But federal forces up against a deeply rooted local mafia that, with at least a decade of state and local government tolerance, exerts almost governmental power.
The last time the federal government truly went after the cartel, then known as La Familia, was in 2010. Federal Police killed leader Nazario Moreno Gonzalez in a gunbattle and firefights followed for weeks in dozens of spots. La Familia's leadership fell apart, but one branch of the cartel evolved into the Knights Templar, which has consolidated control.
The cartel now operates relatively openly. A man resembling its leader, Servando "La Tuta" Gomez Martinez, recently appeared on YouTube, calling on the federal government to do its job and saying the vigilantes were men sent by rival cartels from outside of Michoacan.
He has regularly sent messages depicting the Knights Templar as home-grown Robin Hoods who take from the rich, give to the poor and defend the state against other gangs.
The cartel even built public, roadside chapels to its fallen leader, "St. Nazario," which some of the vigilantes destroyed.
And it can draw crowds of supporters, either by threat, persuasion or payment, in cities such as Apatzingan, where hundreds of people have rallied to condemn the self-defense squads.
Many of the vigilante squads disappeared this week with the arrival of the army, though they vow to take up arms again as soon as the soldiers leave. But the patrols continued in the town of Buenavista, where one self-defense guard, a square-jawed young lime picker in a straw hat, carried a 16-gauge shotgun at a checkpoint. He described the cartel this way:
"It's like a monster with a thousand arms, that wants to control everything, the way you live, the way you think," said the young patrolman. "You cut off one arm, it grows another."
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/22/knights-templar-drug-cartel-michoacan-mexico_n_3322373.html?utm_hp_ref=world

Maoists attack Chhattisgarh police camp

Sukma: The Maoists early Wednesday attacked two police camps in Chhattisgarh but there were no reports of casualty in the firing, police said.

The rebels attacked Chhattisgarh Armed Forces (CAF) personnel in camps at Minpa and Burkapal in Sukma district and the intermittent firing lasted for an hour, police said.
Coming under fire from the Maoists, the CAF personnel retaliated till the attackers retreated into the forest. No casualty was reported, police said.
Source: http://zeenews.india.com/news/chhattisgarh/maoists-attack-chhattisgarh-police-camp_850273.html

Mexican farmers standing up to drug cartels refuse to disarm

COALCOMAN, Mexico - Farmers wearing bulletproof vests and toting assault rifles ride in pick-up trucks emblazoned with the word "self-defense" to protect this rural western Mexico town from the Knights Templar drug cartel.

The federal government deployed thousands of troops to the state of Michoacan this week, but in some towns like Coalcoman, population 10,000, vigilantes are wary of putting down their weapons until they feel safe again.

"We won't drop our guard until we see results," Antonio Rodriguez, a 37-year-old avocado grower and member of the community force, told AFP.

Authorities detained four members of a self-defense group in another town called Buenavista on Wednesday, angering about 200 residents, some wielding sticks, who surrounded some 20 soldiers to demand their release.
Interior Minister Miguel Angelo Osorio Chong said the soldiers were merely having a "dialogue" with the residents to resolve the dispute, but he insisted that the authorities will disarm and detain anyone with a weapon.

"The army is there. They asked for security and protection, and they have it. There is no justification to walk around armed," he told Radio Formula.

Last week, Coalcoman residents packed the main square to show their support to the 200-strong vigilante patrol, making it the latest Michoacan town to take up arms in recent months to fight off the extortion and violence perpetrated by gangsters.

AFP journalists saw civilians Wednesday carrying handguns, hunting rifles and even AR-15 semi-automatic rifles in the town, which lies in Tierra Caliente, a region known as a hotbed of cartel activity.

"We got tired of paying the quota," said Adriana, a 32-year-old woman working in a pharmacy.

The "quota" is extortion money the Knights Templar gang charges business owners, farmers, taxi drivers and even mayors.

"The one who didn't pay would be kidnapped and 'bang, bang,' they'd kill him," said Adriana, squeezing her finger as if pulling a trigger.

In recent months, the self-defense groups detained people they accused of working with the cartels and clashed with drug traffickers. The gangsters responded by besieging towns and preventing food deliveries.

Michoacan was the first state to see troops when then-president Felipe Calderon deployed soldiers and marines across the nation to crack down on cartels in 2006.

But gang violence surged throughout Mexico, leaving 70,000 deaths in its wake by the time Calderon left office in December.

The government of President Enrique Pena Nieto sent around 4,000 soldiers and marines this week to Michoacan along with 1,000 federal police to restore peace in the agricultural state.

Military surveillance planes fly over towns while soldiers man checkpoints in Tierra Caliente. But self-defense groups still staffed their own road blocks in some parts of the state.

"They should first disarm organized crime, then the people," said a young man wearing body armor and a white T-shirt inscribed with the words "self-defense group" in the back.

Late Tuesday, a vigilante patrol detained an alleged thief in Coalcoman, beat and paraded him in the town square with a bloody face in front of residents and dozens of federal police.

The road linking Coalcoman to the village of Buenavista is littered with the charred remains of buses and other vehicles that were used by the cartel to block the delivery of food, medicine and other goods.

At the entrance of Buenavista, a sign greets drivers with the words: "Welcome to the village of Buenavista, free of quotas and Knights Templar."

A checkpoint was installed on a white altar with a red cross that was built by the Knights Templar on the side of the road in honor of Nazario Moreno, alias "El Chayo," a drug lord who the government believes was killed in a clash in 2010.

His body was never found and the religion-inspired cartel reveres him like a saint. The words "Saint Nazario" are painted on the Buenavista altar, which is riddled with bullet marks.

Buenavista's vigilantes said the area became safer once they took up arms. They just want the authorities to get rid of the cartel.

The Knights Templar gang has accused the vigilantes of being backed by their enemies, the Jalisco Nueva Generacion cartel, which is linked to the Sinaloa syndicate led by Mexico's most wanted man, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

The self-defense militias deny any links to narco-traffickers, but the defense minister suggested Tuesday that some were getting support from dubious groups.
Source: http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2013/05/22/news/ab090ca2-df3c-43f9-9883-556e39ec374e.txt?viewmode=fullstory