In the debate regarding an increased involvement of Germany’s Bundeswehr, Defense Minister Kramp-Karrenbauer has proposed a first potential destination.

According to Kramp-Karrenbauer, the Bundeswehr’s current status allows for new missions abroad at this stage. “We would be able today to take on additional foreign assignments,” she said on Monday during a visit to an Airborne Brigade. However, realistically the Bundeswehr would need to 2031 carry ten percent of NATO’s military burden, a goal Kramp-Karrenbauer expressed in previews weeks. To accomplish this goal, she has pledged that Germany will gradually increase its defense budget in the meantime. By 2031, Germany should then have reached the agreed-upon two percent of its GDP on military spending.

Kramp-Karrenbauer’s plan now is based on France’s desire to “broaden the fight against terrorism” in West African Mali. The actual counterterrorism operation there was “currently conducted solely by France”, while the Bundeswehr, who is also present, has only been training domestic military personal.  Nonetheless, the situation there was “also with regard to the local armed forces, the Malian forces and others, not an easy one,” Kramp-Karrenbauer stated. In order to extend the Bundeswehr’s mandate in the region, she will seek the Bundestag’s approval (as under German law Germany’s army can only be deployed if parliament votes in favor of it).

While Kramp-Karrenbauer says there has not been a direct request by the French, she was nonetheless cognizant that “we must be prepared for our ally and our partners to respond to such concerns faster.”

Regarding the criticism of the Parliamentary Commissioner of the Armed Forces Hans-Peter Bartels, according to which the army was lacking equipment and staff for major military tasks she responded: “We know that we have to do more, but we are on the way.”

The Airborne Brigade AKK paid a visit consists a total of around 4,100 soldiers, in which all the Bundeswehr paratroopers are united, was “proof that we are in a position to conduct such missions”. The paratroopers were a “very special group” who had been utilized in the past to react quickly, for example, in evacuations “where it is important to react swiftly.”

Kramp-Karrenbauer’s did not stop her tour there. Three other facilities followed and it a Defense Minister, who talks to the soldiers and lays out a new vision that is not only a refreshing sight but desperately needed. Mali marks a good starting point for this paradigm shift.

It has been seven years since Tuareg rebels and Islamist terrorist groups in north and central Mali attempted to topple the government. Back then France sent combat troops and prevented the jihadists from completely taking over the West African country. Subsequently, the UN stationed a 15,000-strong peacekeeping force in northern and central Mali. Its task is to supervise a peace treaty between the Tuareg and the government. The approximately 800 German soldiers in Gao are part of this UN operation.

However, seven years after the start of the UN deployment, the situation in Mali has not improved – on the contrary: the country is becoming increasingly unsafe, the casualty figures are rising with 204 peacekeepers killed out of the 15000.

Nonetheless, continue to stabilize the country is important as the terrorist threat needs to be contained without spreading over into the neighboring countries.

Germany could play a vital role here in the future if AKK can transform Germany’s Zeitgeist regarding its military.

L'articolo More Military in Mali as German Defense Minister Pledges Increased Involvement proviene da InsideOver.

In 2017, after the terrorist attacks in the Catalan cities of Barcelona and Cambrils, between 17 and 18 of August, there were many who suspected that something was wrong.

Ferran Requejo, political scientist and professor of philosophy at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, said in an interview to the Catalan newspaper El Món, that the Spanish security services did not share information previous to the attack with the Catalan police. That there was a barrier imposed by the Spanish security services between international organisations such as Interpol and Europol and the Mossos d’Esquadra, the Catalan autonomous police.

Belgian authorities got wind of the attacks, and notified the Spanish authorities – who then failed to disclose the information to their Catalan counterparts.

The information was confirmed by the then head of the Mossos, Major Josep Lluís Trapero – who will be tried by Spanish justice for the charge of sedition for refusing to take part in the violence perpetrated by the Spanish police during the referendum for the independence of the region held in October of the same year.

There were many who suspected that the Spanish government was deliberately leaving the Catalan government in the dark, or even that they would have let the attacks take place as a way to harm the pro-independence movement – showing unequivocally that an independent Catalonia would not be able to protect itself from terrorist attacks. For Requejo, “in case they acted, they failed due to lack of information.”

Martí Estruch, director of communication of Diplocat, a consortium set up by the Catalan government devoted to promoting international awareness of Catalonia within the international community through public diplomacy tools, stated that “The state would rather put human lives at risk than the unity of Spain”.

The Spanish daily El País, which has a strong pro-Spain bias and is fiercely opposed to Catalonia’s separation, published an editorial on August 19, just two days after the attacks in Barcelona that killed 13 people. The report said “An attack of this magnitude has to be a knockdown that brings Catalan political forces back to reality – forces such as the Government, the Parliament, and the movements for independence which have made the secessionist chimera the sole focus of the Catalan political agenda in recent years. It is time to end this ‘democratic’ nonsense, the flagrant violation of laws, the games of deception, the political opportunism. It is time that our rulers, all our rulers, work for the benefit of the true and main interests of citizens.”

Today new evidence is emerging that perhaps there was some truth in the suspicions presented back in 2017.

According to an exhaustive investigation by Público newspaper, which brought together intelligence sources, confidential documents, and data extracted from the attack’s investigations, the Spanish secret service (Centro Nacional de Inteligencia or National Intelligence Centre – CNI) listened and had access to the terrorists’ cell phones. In addition, the intellectual mentor of the attacks, the Imam of the city of Ripoll, Abdelbaki Es Satty, was an informant for the CNI until the eve of the attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils, a fact that was confirmed by the then number two of the Spanish Ministry of Interior, José Antonio Nieto, in interrogation before Catalan deputies in July of this year.

Worse, Es Satty would have become an Imam with the help of the CNI and he became an informant not to be deported. He died in an accidental explosion the day before the attacks he had planned.

In other words, the autonomous police was prevented by the Spanish secret service from having access to information that might have helped them arrest Es Satty and the other terrorists before the attacks. And having not only information on the attacks, but also access to the terrorists’ cell phones, the Spanish secret service did nothing with the information.

The Spanish daily El Diario’s editor, Ignacio Escolar, however, believes that Público is in possession of  “several partial fragments of documents that we cannot contrast because, without knowing the source, they have nothing that allows us to prove their authenticity”.

Escolar states that the documents did not prove Público’s allegations and, aside from the documents, “the rest of the alleged facts that Público reports in its investigation rely exclusively on anonymous sources whose reliability we can neither contrast nor check”.

Despite Escolar’s statements, it’s striking that, in 2018, the Popular Party (PP), Ciudadanos (Citizens, C’s) and ruling Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE), refused to open an investigation on the CNI after a request made by Catalan parties Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) and Catalan European Democratic Party (PDeCAT).

To El País, it is all a “great conspiracy theory”.

History shows that Spanish politicians are indeed capable of sacrificing its own population as necessary means to maintain the country’s unity. The history of Francoism or the GAL (Anti-Terrorist Liberation Groups), a terrorist group that practiced state terrorism, during a period of Spanish history known as “Dirty War”, against the organisation ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna) and its surroundings, give strength to the theory presented by the newspaper Público.

The terrorist group GAL was active between 1983 and 1987, during the first years of the governments of Felipe González (PSOE) and it was proved that it was financed by senior officials of the Ministry of Interior of the socialist government.

For Robert Manrique Ripoll, advisor of the Unit for the Attention and Assessment of People Affected by Terrorism, “there is no doubt that, at least in vigilando, the State is responsible for a very serious intelligence failure”. El País newspaper, quoting David Torrents, an agent of the Mossos, specialized in jihadism, concedes that there might have been at least negligence on the part of the Spanish authorities.

A phrase by José Calvo Sotelo, member of the Congress of Deputies and finance minister during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera (1923-1930) is useful to explain the current political situation of Spain or its ethos: “Between a red Spain and a broken Spain, I prefer the first, which would be a passing phase, while the second remains broken in perpetuity.”

If the evidences presented by Público newspaper prove to be true, one could easily change “red” for “terrorised”.

L'articolo Did Police Negligence Help Terrorists in Barcelona? proviene da InsideOver.

When the audio clip of Ekramul Haque being shot dead on May 26th 2018 went viral online, it did two things.

First, it put on record the horrific reality of Bangladesh’s extra judicial killings.

The sounds of a wailing wife and children witnessing their husband and father being shot dead on the other end of the line, the repeat gunshots by a remorseless paramilitary unit and the groans of an innocent man begging for his life and telling his killers they’ve got the wrong guy. It’s a set of sounds that once played, simply cannot be unheard.

Second, the tape has, for the first time, made the Bangladesh government set up a formal commission of inquiry into unlawful killing by law enforcement.

As per official numbers, in the barely two months from April and May 2018, 157 people have been gunned down by the police and paramilitary in what they refer to as ‘crossfire’. Scores more have been picked up for questioning, only to then disappear or be detained indefinitely without charge.

The Killing of Ekramul

“Ekram was called on his phone by the local police and asked to come in to discuss a case,” an aide of the police commissioner recounted. “He was a local leader who was familiar with the community. This wasn’t the first time he had been ask to aid with an investigation. Ekramul thought this would just be another routine discussion where the police and intelligence agency needed his help.”

The forty-six-year-old Ekramul was indeed a local leader – for the ruling Awami League party. He’d made his way through the party’s ranks first as a student leader and then a leader of the Jubo League (youth win of the Awami League). At the time of his killing, he was a sitting city councilor in the city’s mayoral office.

“Honestly even the police had no idea this is how it would end,” the aide said. “From what I’ve heard, the paramilitary were looking for a different person with the same first name. Ekram even told his captors this when he was taken into custody. But they thought he was lying. They’d come ready to kill.”

Though InsideOver could not independently verify the claim, the actual name of the hit list is said to have been Ekramul Hassan, not Ekramul Haque. But Haque’s captors passed this off as a clerical error and concluded the deceased was simply lying to protect his skin, and went ahead with the execution anyway.
The meeting with the commissioner, however, can be corroborated from the tape.

In the first clip, Ekramul’s wife is clearly heard saying: “Please put me through to the commissioner – I’m his wife talking – hello…is the commissioner there?”.

And Ekramul is heard telling his little daughter to go to bed as his work at the police station will take him longer than expected.

“Honestly, the police had nothing to do with this,” the aide explained. “The paramilitary and intelligence people just took charge of him the moment he stepped in. The commissioner didn’t even have a chance to talk. They drove him off and the rest we all know.”

Not just the local police, but also Bangladesh’s agency for narcotics control has distanced themselves from the killing of Ekramul.

Within hours of Ekramul’s family releasing the audio tape at a press conference and challenging the agencies to prove their claim that he was an armed and dangerous drug dealer, the Department of Narcotics Control issued a statement saying: “We did not have any file on Mr. Haque and we’re unaware of any record of his involvement in drug dealing.”

Even the General Secretary of the Awami League, Obaidul Quader, grudgingly admitted that: “One or two mistakes can occur during ongoing anti-narcotics investigations.”

“Ekramul’s brother Ashraful worked with me in our campaigns against addiction,” Rashed Didarul, an anti-drug campaigner in the town of Cox’s Bazar recounted. “At one point in his life he was an addict, but later recovered under my care and was actively support of Ekramul. He actually worked alongside me in the USAID backed deaddiction and anti-drug program. It is just absurd to claim that this family was involved in the Ya ba (Methamphetamine-caffeine) trade.”

The Crossfire Doctrine

In all of the hundred and fifty-seven cases, the three agencies – the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), the Bangladesh Police and the Detective Branch – have claimed the men were killed in crossfire.

The agencies conducted a raid, the agents were fired upon and the men who died, died due to this retaliatory fire done in self-defense. This has been the standard line of explanation for all of the encounters. But the evidence to back this claim up has at best been thin if not outright dubious.

They tried something similar in Ekram’s case, but have thus far failed to make a convincing case. There are multiple witnesses who saw him unarmed and come in entirely voluntarily. As for the tape, the RAB have said they’re probing its authenticity – making the implication that it was doctored in order to discredit the drug war. No follow up statements were issued thereafter.

“This is no war,” Nur Khan put it bluntly. “Let’s just call it what it is – extra judicial killings carried out in cold blood by government forces.”

Nur is a human rights activist who runs the Human Rights Support Society in Dhaka. He’s been documenting extra-judicial killings and providing legal and logistical support to those wrongfully targeted by the government.

In May 2014, Nur himself narrowly escaped abduction by the intelligence agency. He was seen as a troublemaker who was talking too much.

“Let’s assume for argument’s sake that these people who’ve been killed were drug dealers,” Nur continued. “Does that make it right to shoot them dead without due process and access to legal recourse? Is that the law of the land? And this claim of crossfire is patently bogus. Even the RAB claims to have found just self-made guns and a few Ya ba pills on the bodies of these people. Let’s say the several witnesses who saw these being planted on dead bodies were all lying. Even then…even then…tell me, who in their right mind, armed with a shabby revolver engages in standoff with a team of military personnel armed with assault rifles?”

Extra Judicial Killings as State Policy

Even though the Bangla drug war has been likened to what Filipino president Duterte Rodrigo has been doing in his country, the crossfire doctrine isn’t necessarily taken from him. Bangladesh’s present government has been using extra-judicial killings as state policy since well before this drug war.

Ever since the attack at the Holey Artisan bakery in July 2016, extra-judicial killings have virtually replaced regular investigative and police work. Brute force has gone from being the last resort in law enforcement to becoming the weapon of choice in all matters from fighting Islamists to quelling student protests.

Soon after taking office in 2009, the incumbent government enacted the Anti-Terrorism Act with a claim that it would be used to quell Islamist tendencies. Despite widespread international criticism, the Act kept the definition of terrorist and terrorism vague and wide open. Bolstered by the successes of the War Crimes Tribunal that sentenced to death past Islamists who had collaborated with the Pakistani army in 1971, the terror act was amended in 2012 and sweeping powers were given to the State and the paramilitary to execute and detain suspects without trial.

In 2016, bypassing the legislature, the prime minister’s office signed executive orders that gave paramilitaries and special units of the civilian police large, unaudited budgets, and absolute autonomy of operations was additionally given. These measures essentially allowed the agencies to operate without any fear of judicial or executive oversight and to kill with impunity.

A host of human rights bodies like the HRW, as well as foreign embassies have raised concerns about the Bangladesh government’s trigger-happy ways. In April 2017, the UN’s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights expressly named the Bangladesh Police; Rapid Action Battalion, as being responsible for the extra judicial killings and enforced disappearances. The report says:

The Committee is concerned at the reported high rate of extrajudicial killings by police officers, soldiers and Rapid Action Battalion force members and at reports of enforced disappearances, as well as the excessive use of force by State actors. The Committee is also concerned that the lack of investigations and accountability of perpetrators leave families of victims without information and redress. It is further concerned that domestic law does not effectively criminalize enforced disappearances, and that the State party does not accept that enforced disappearances occur.

Political Fallout

2018 is the year of the general election in Bangladesh. The drug wars have stirred yet another violent complication in the already turbulent cauldron of Bangla politics.

“Yes, Ya ba addiction is a huge problem in this country and is serving to destroy the people’s future,” A. Hassan, the general secretary of the student union of the Bangladesh National Party –the principal opposition party, said in an interview. “And no, there can be no tolerance to the spread of this. But the question is what does zero tolerance mean? How should that zero tolerance be put into practice? Do you just go shooting people dead or do you actually create a framework of laws and launch awareness programs to wean addicts away?”

According to many observers—including members of parties who are in alliance with the Awami League—the incumbent government has hit a massive low in popularity. And the drug wars are in part a desperate attempt to be seen as assertive, in order to win over voters.

“The crossfires occuring in the name of the war on drugs are also a ruse to carry on with the political witch-hunt which this government has perfected,” Hassan continues. “The data is out there for everyone to see. Ya ba boomed in this country after the Awami League took power in 2009. And it’s an open secret that their leaders are the kingpins of the trade. But have you seen a single major dealer being shot dead? Akramul Haque was an exception and he too was at best a mid-level leader of the League. All the others killed have been just small fry—the mules who ferry Ya ba for minimum wage.”

In May this year, a secret report from the Department of Narcotics Control got leaked to the press. And it named Abdur Rahman Bodi – the Awami League’s member of parliament from Teknaf and longtime political strongman—along with his cousins and step-brothers as being the godfathers of the trade. They were the main gatekeepers of the stock coming in from Myanmar the report said.

In stark contrast with the alacrity with which the agencies have killed other people, the government dragged its feet in acting against Bodi or his family.

After trying to bury the story for a few weeks and threatening journalists who had reported the news of the leaked report, in early June, he fled to Saudi Arabia while his cousin and lieutenant Mong Mong Sen took shelter in Myanmar.

L'articolo Caught in the Crossfire proviene da InsideOver.