asiapacificresearch--2020-12-17--The Life and Death of a Servant of God

The Life and Death of a Servant of God

Swirls of creamy pearl and lavender , sunset streaks across sky blue , and the pulsing shades of floral bloom flow through the Facebook page of Mary Rose Sancelan .
The pastel hues carry psalms of gratitude and faith , and a few cries for deliverance .
A deep faith in God and her brethren on earth rooted Dr. Mary Rose Sancelan to Guihulngan , a city hemmed in by mountains and a narrow strait on the northern flank of Negros island in the central Philippines .
“ The Lord will guard us as a shepherd guards His flock !
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of pink and yellow — shy lemon and salmon , bold coral and the warmth of sunlight as it starts to welcome dusk .
“ What heals us in this crisis is the humanity in each person .
We shall overcome.
” Both messages popped up on July 24 this year as Salcelan , who sometimes served as lone state doctor to 100,000 residents of a poor city , raced to contain the first local cases of COVID-19 .
As city health officer , Sancelan was head of the local Inter-Agency Task Force @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which manages the government ’ s response to the pandemic .
Days earlier , her words were more forceful : “ You saved my life O Lord , I shall not die !
” And , “ from the Heaven , the LORD looks down on the earth !
!
!
” The second passage popped from shades of pink and purple and blue , all mixed in the shapes of desert dunes .
The pandemic severely tested but did not threaten Sancelan ’ s faith .
Nor did another threat that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s life .
Sancelan defeated or , at least , temporarily pushed back COVID-19 after months of perseverance .
The second threat — which vowed death to communists and inexplicably tagged a doctor swamped with public duties as spokesman for the regional guerrilla front of Asia ’ s longest-running agency — snuffed out the life of a people ’ s servant and that of her husband .
Two men riding shotgun killed the medical professional and husband , Edwin , also a government worker , shortly before they reached their home at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 15 .
The attack came a few hours after the release of the International Criminal Court ’ s Office of the Prosecutor of a document that touched , among other cases worldwide , extra-judicial killings linked to President Rodrigo Duterte ’ s drug war .
The report found “ reasonable basis ” to believe Duterte ’ s campaign may have led to crimes against humanity .
The couple ’ s blood soaked the earth of Guihulngan as newscasts began reporting the government ’ s jeers in response to the ICC preliminary findings .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ office of Duterte .
You can ’ t touch us , said aides of the man who took out the country from the ICC to evade accountability for killings that have long surpassed the toll of the two-decade Marcos dictatorship .
“ I thought it was a welcome news among us peace-loving Filipinos , ” said Bishop Gerardo Alminaza , whose San Carlos diocese covers Guihulngan .
“ Suddenly , a few hours after , assassins murdered Dr. Mary Rose Sancelan and her husband Edwin .
It was brutal , marked by a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dr. Sacelan to her constituents.
” Image on the right : Dr Mary Rose Sancelan and her husband , Edwin .
( Photo courtesy of Karapatan ) At a forum hosted by the Philippine Ecumenical Peace Platform , the bishop warned that red-tagging could brutalize a circle wider than its actual target .
“ A medical doctor in the city health office found her name in the list .
Fear for her life prevented her to provide health services to 33 barangays ( villages ) in that city , ” said the bishop @ @ @ @ @ @ @ servicing Guihulngan .
My workload is very heavy , mostly not just consultations because I also have administrative tasks , ” said Sancelan , who would later get badly-needed help with a second city health officer .
The doctor ’ s calm mien , her soft , liltling tone and accent , made her next words a sudden cold slap .
“ I was accused of being JB Regalado , a commander or local head of the CPP-NPA , ” the doctor said .
Regalado is the nom de guerre of the spokesman @ @ @ @ @ @ @ oversees the Central Visayas operations of the New People ’ s Army .
Sancelan had more than enough reason to worry in September 2019 .
Bishop Alminaza ’ s diocese had already witnessed a bloodbath among sugar workers , rights defenders , church workers , retired government professionals , even lawyers .
Some would die in police-military raids .
Officers trotted out the usual “ nanlaban ” ( they fought back ) excuse so familiar in the thousands of deaths linked to Duterte ’ s “ war on drugs.
” The victims ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for their lives , insisting they were executed .
On the same list that featured Sancelan were the names of Anthony Trinidad and Heidie Malalay Flores .
Trinidad , a lawyer , and Flores , a teacher , had been slain after the red-tagging posters spread across the poblacion , or city center , and rural villages .
A month before Bishop Alminaza brought Salcelan ’ s case to Manila ’ s attention , the city police chief spoke before a Senate inquiry into the spate of killings of civilians , believed to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that killed four intelligence agents .
The police officer said five of 15 names on the hitlist of an anti-communist vigilante group called Kawsa Guihulnganon Batok Kumunista ( KAGUBAK ) had been killed .
Trinidad , number 14 on the list , was felled in a daylight ambush in the city center .
Flores was 11th on the list .
Rights defenders said you could track the killings with the appearance of the red-tagging posters .
Image below : Slain human rights activist Zara Alvarez was also a victim of red-tagging before she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Negros .
( Photo by Mark Saludes ) The slurs thrown at Salcelan seemed farcical .
As a daughter of another woman government doctor , I knew their work hours went beyond nine to five , beyond a five-day workweek .
The desperate poor would knock on their homes at odd hours , bringing gasping children , adults felled by sudden weakness , people wracked with coughs , sometimes a neighbor wounded in a drunken brawl .
Weekends often meant a trek to isolated rural hamlets where people could leave an entire @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sancelan ’ s Facebook page showed many such missions , with men and women , the old and the young lining up for treatment .
In many photos , she was the lone doctor .
In some , she had volunteers to help .
Even without COVID-19 , she could not have found the time nor the energy , even if she shared the rebel ’ s views , to be their spokesman .
But Salcelan couldn ’ t ignore the threat .
Her face was pasted on those posters .
And while @ @ @ @ @ @ @ already killed a doctor in Guihulngan a year earlier .
Like Sancelan , who was a scholar of Franciscan clergy , Dr. Avelex Salinas Amor , a visiting doctor from Canlaon City , had stuck to his youthful dream of being a doctor to the barrios despite offers of work abroad and in the cities .
His killers have not been caught .
Then National Police chief Oscar Albayalde , who would later be forced into early retirement by allegations of his links to a cop network that extorted from suspected drug lords @ @ @ @ @ @ @ anti-communist vigilante groups .
Other police and military officers shrugged off charges , saying they could not be responsible for the work of vigilantes .
It was a refrain familiar to groups monitoring Duterte ’ s war on drugs , where “ vigilante ” killings was thrice the number of the 8,000 “ official ” operational count .
A crime scene investigator takes the fingerprints of a shooting victim in Manila on Aug. 24 , 2020 , amid a lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic .
( Photo by Vincent Go ) Pre-COVID @ @ @ @ @ @ @ responsibilities with a trademark wide smile that twinkled even behind heavy black plastic glasses .
“ Behind every cloud of sadness is a bigger light of joy !
Thanks Lord for giving me joy in performing my favorite job and that ’ s sewing people up !
Lacerated wounds on the base of the left index finger and parietal area of the head !
” From any other person , it would sound a bit off , stopping short of gallows humor .
But to people who knew “ Doc ” it represented @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dependent on the corn and coconuts of a poor soil and waters that barely offered enough catch for daily sustenance .
For a few weeks , Sancelan withdrew to deal with the trauma of being red tagged .
Kin and friends urged her to flee to safer ground .
But the doctor battled through fear and decided to stay put as a people ’ s servant .
Aside from her COVID-19 duties , she was also nutrition action officer .
That is service with the weight of half of Mount Canlaon , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Negros island .
The oriental side , which Guihulngan belongs to , has a poverty incidence of 45 percent , double that of the 21.6 percent national average .
Following the murders , the COVID-19 task force issued a statement lamenting “ the loss of courageous and dedicated frontliner who was instrumental in placing under control the previous spike of COVID-19 cases in the city last November.
” Sancelan had battled back a new spike of COVID-19 cases in October , which coincided with rising infection rates across the province of Negros Oriental @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( at ) of this painful fate befalling our fellow public servants , ” said the task force statement , which warned of a “ void ” in the service .
The task force did not exaggerate the challenges Sancelan faced as medical professional .
There is only one public doctor per 31,000 Filipinos and the national health scales have always been lopsided , with most professionals and resources serving the national capital .
Two-thirds of of private and public hospital beds are in the island of Luzon , which includes the National @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cites “ regional and socioeconomic disparities in the availability and accessibility of resources.
” There are 23 hospital beds for 10,000 people in the capital while the rest of Luzon , Visayas and Mindanao have only 8.2 , 7.8 and 8.3 beds , respectively .
The Council for Health and Development , a national organization of community based health programs in the Philippines , expressed rage that “ impunity knows no bound even at a time when the whole nation is gripped by the pandemic.
” The killers deprived the people of Guihulngan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ most difficult time , the group warned .
Image on the right : Bishop Gerardo Alminaza of San Carlos speaks before environmental activists at the 6th General Assembly of the Philippine Misereor Partnership Inc. on Feb 26 .
( Photo supplied via Licas News ) Sancelan , Bishop Alminaza said , was a Christian who lived Jesus Christ ’ s most important message : to love your neighbor as you love God .
“ This is too much .
This is totally unacceptable to allow it to happen to public servants who were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ interest especially during this pandemic , ” said the bishop soon after news of the murders broke out .
“ Dr .
Sancelan was branded , vilified , red-tagged , and now , executed , by the ruthless pawns of the enablers of ‘ systematic killings ’ in this country , ” added Bishop Alminaza .
“ Her only crime , much like the soon-to-be born-infant Jesus in a manger , was her unselfish service to the poor people of Guihulngan—both as a ‘ barrio doctor ’ and as ‘ defender of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Military officers , a year after the Senate hearing that featured the Guihulngan killings , have taken the place of anonymous groups in leading the attacks against perceived enemies of the state .
They have over the last two years named clergy and religious workers , indigenous leaders , legislators , medical workers , journalists , leaders of mass organizations , human rights workers , youth activists , feminists , even global aid charities and UN experts .
There has been no rhyme nor reason , and even less evidence .
The military @ @ @ @ @ @ @ communists and terrorists because we say they are .
Over four years , some 20,000 have fallen in a drug war that operated on exactly that same worldview .
Duterte has now said he will carve a bloody swathe through the body politic , with blanket screaming “ the crime of one is the crime of all ” covering all dissenters .
In the face of the rising threat to the most basic of human rights , Bishop Alminaza , himself a frequent target of red-tagging , reminded government officials and the faithful @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : “ It is a grave omission to remain silent and passive and allow perpetrators to get away.
” “ Join me in prayer in the face of unstoppable murders in our diocese .
Join me in hope that these killings will soon end .
But join me , too , in condemning , in the strongest possible terms , the senseless murder of helpless civilians and dedicated servants of government.
” Note to readers : please click the share buttons above or below .
Forward this article to your email lists .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ forums .
etc .
Featured image : Protesters call for an end to the spate of drug-related killings in the country during a march in the Philippine capital Manila .
( Photo by Jire Carreon )

Swirls of creamy pearl and lavender, sunset streaks across sky blue, and the pulsing shades of floral bloom flow through the Facebook page of Mary Rose Sancelan. The pastel hues carry psalms of gratitude and faith, and a few cries for deliverance.
A deep faith in God and her brethren on earth rooted Dr. Mary Rose Sancelan to Guihulngan, a city hemmed in by mountains and a narrow strait on the northern flank of Negros island in the central Philippines.
“The Lord will guard us as a shepherd guards His flock!” stands out against a soft background of pink and yellow — shy lemon and salmon, bold coral and the warmth of sunlight as it starts to welcome dusk.
“What heals us in this crisis is the humanity in each person. We shall overcome.”
Both messages popped up on July 24 this year as Salcelan, who sometimes served as lone state doctor to 100,000 residents of a poor city, raced to contain the first local cases of COVID-19.
As city health officer, Sancelan was head of the local Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF), which manages the government’s response to the pandemic.
Days earlier, her words were more forceful: “You saved my life O Lord, I shall not die!” And, “from the Heaven, the LORD looks down on the earth!!!” The second passage popped from shades of pink and purple and blue, all mixed in the shapes of desert dunes.
The pandemic severely tested but did not threaten Sancelan’s faith. Nor did another threat that cast a big shadow over the doctor’s life.
Sancelan defeated or, at least, temporarily pushed back COVID-19 after months of perseverance.
The second threat — which vowed death to communists and inexplicably tagged a doctor swamped with public duties as spokesman for the regional guerrilla front of Asia’s longest-running agency — snuffed out the life of a people’s servant and that of her husband.
Two men riding shotgun killed the medical professional and husband, Edwin, also a government worker, shortly before they reached their home at the end of work day on December 15.
The attack came a few hours after the release of the International Criminal Court’s Office of the Prosecutor of a document that touched, among other cases worldwide, extra-judicial killings linked to President Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war.
The report found “reasonable basis” to believe Duterte’s campaign may have led to crimes against humanity.
The couple’s blood soaked the earth of Guihulngan as newscasts began reporting the government’s jeers in response to the ICC preliminary findings.
A waste of time, said the office of Duterte.
You can’t touch us, said aides of the man who took out the country from the ICC to evade accountability for killings that have long surpassed the toll of the two-decade Marcos dictatorship.
“I thought it was a welcome news among us peace-loving Filipinos,” said Bishop Gerardo Alminaza, whose San Carlos diocese covers Guihulngan.
“Suddenly, a few hours after, assassins murdered Dr. Mary Rose Sancelan and her husband Edwin. It was brutal, marked by a desire to end the pro-people service of Dr. Sacelan to her constituents.”
Image on the right: Dr Mary Rose Sancelan and her husband, Edwin. (Photo courtesy of Karapatan)
Shadow of death
Bishop Alminaza brought Sancelan’s dilemma public in September last year.
At a forum hosted by the Philippine Ecumenical Peace Platform, the bishop warned that red-tagging could brutalize a circle wider than its actual target.
“A medical doctor in the city health office found her name in the list. Fear for her life prevented her to provide health services to 33 barangays (villages) in that city,” said the bishop.
Sancelan then spoke on video.
“I am the only doctor servicing Guihulngan. My workload is very heavy, mostly not just consultations because I also have administrative tasks,” said Sancelan, who would later get badly-needed help with a second city health officer.
The doctor’s calm mien, her soft, liltling tone and accent, made her next words a sudden cold slap.
“I was accused of being JB Regalado, a commander or local head of the CPP-NPA,” the doctor said. Regalado is the nom de guerre of the spokesman of the Leonardo Panaligan Command, which oversees the Central Visayas operations of the New People’s Army.
Sancelan had more than enough reason to worry in September 2019.
Bishop Alminaza’s diocese had already witnessed a bloodbath among sugar workers, rights defenders, church workers, retired government professionals, even lawyers.
Some would die in police-military raids. Officers trotted out the usual “nanlaban” (they fought back) excuse so familiar in the thousands of deaths linked to Duterte’s “war on drugs.” The victims’ kin would later testify hearing them beg for their lives, insisting they were executed.
On the same list that featured Sancelan were the names of Anthony Trinidad and Heidie Malalay Flores. Trinidad, a lawyer, and Flores, a teacher, had been slain after the red-tagging posters spread across the poblacion, or city center, and rural villages.
A month before Bishop Alminaza brought Salcelan’s case to Manila’s attention, the city police chief spoke before a Senate inquiry into the spate of killings of civilians, believed to be state reprisals for a rebel ambush that killed four intelligence agents.
The police officer said five of 15 names on the hitlist of an anti-communist vigilante group called Kawsa Guihulnganon Batok Kumunista (KAGUBAK) had been killed.
Trinidad, number 14 on the list, was felled in a daylight ambush in the city center. Flores was 11th on the list.
Proxy killers
Rights defenders said you could track the killings with the appearance of the red-tagging posters.
Image below: Slain human rights activist Zara Alvarez was also a victim of red-tagging before she was killed in August in the province of Negros. (Photo by Mark Saludes)
The slurs thrown at Salcelan seemed farcical.
As a daughter of another woman government doctor, I knew their work hours went beyond nine to five, beyond a five-day workweek. The desperate poor would knock on their homes at odd hours, bringing gasping children, adults felled by sudden weakness, people wracked with coughs, sometimes a neighbor wounded in a drunken brawl.
Weekends often meant a trek to isolated rural hamlets where people could leave an entire life without seeing a medical professional. Sancelan’s Facebook page showed many such missions, with men and women, the old and the young lining up for treatment.
In many photos, she was the lone doctor. In some, she had volunteers to help. Even without COVID-19, she could not have found the time nor the energy, even if she shared the rebel’s views, to be their spokesman.
But Salcelan couldn’t ignore the threat. Her face was pasted on those posters.
And while the allegation seemed ridiculous, gunmen had already killed a doctor in Guihulngan a year earlier.
Like Sancelan, who was a scholar of Franciscan clergy, Dr. Avelex Salinas Amor, a visiting doctor from Canlaon City, had stuck to his youthful dream of being a doctor to the barrios despite offers of work abroad and in the cities. His killers have not been caught.
Then National Police chief Oscar Albayalde, who would later be forced into early retirement by allegations of his links to a cop network that extorted from suspected drug lords, said he had no knowledge of anti-communist vigilante groups.
Other police and military officers shrugged off charges, saying they could not be responsible for the work of vigilantes. It was a refrain familiar to groups monitoring Duterte’s war on drugs, where “vigilante” killings was thrice the number of the 8,000 “official” operational count.
A crime scene investigator takes the fingerprints of a shooting victim in Manila on Aug. 24, 2020, amid a lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. (Photo by Vincent Go)
Keeping faith
Pre-COVID, Sancelan bore the burdens of her responsibilities with a trademark wide smile that twinkled even behind heavy black plastic glasses.
“Behind every cloud of sadness is a bigger light of joy!
Thanks Lord for giving me joy in performing my favorite job and that’s sewing people up!
Lacerated wounds on the base of the left index finger and parietal area of the head!”
From any other person, it would sound a bit off, stopping short of gallows humor. But to people who knew “Doc” it represented the droll humor of a hardscrabble community dependent on the corn and coconuts of a poor soil and waters that barely offered enough catch for daily sustenance.
For a few weeks, Sancelan withdrew to deal with the trauma of being red tagged. Kin and friends urged her to flee to safer ground.
But the doctor battled through fear and decided to stay put as a people’s servant.
Aside from her COVID-19 duties, she was also nutrition action officer. That is service with the weight of half of Mount Canlaon, the sacred volcano that straddles the spine of Negros island. The oriental side, which Guihulngan belongs to, has a poverty incidence of 45 percent, double that of the 21.6 percent national average.
Following the murders, the COVID-19 task force issued a statement lamenting “the loss of courageous and dedicated frontliner who was instrumental in placing under control the previous spike of COVID-19 cases in the city last November.”
Sancelan had battled back a new spike of COVID-19 cases in October, which coincided with rising infection rates across the province of Negros Oriental.
“We are confused and shocked (at) of this painful fate befalling our fellow public servants,” said the task force statement, which warned of a “void” in the service.
Guihulngan needed Sancelan like a person needs air.
The task force did not exaggerate the challenges Sancelan faced as medical professional.
There is only one public doctor per 31,000 Filipinos and the national health scales have always been lopsided, with most professionals and resources serving the national capital. Two-thirds of of private and public hospital beds are in the island of Luzon, which includes the National Capital Region.
The World Health Organization cites “regional and socioeconomic disparities in the availability and accessibility of resources.” There are 23 hospital beds for 10,000 people in the capital while the rest of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao have only 8.2, 7.8 and 8.3 beds, respectively.
The Council for Health and Development, a national organization of community based health programs in the Philippines, expressed rage that “impunity knows no bound even at a time when the whole nation is gripped by the pandemic.”
The killers deprived the people of Guihulngan much needed health services especially in this most difficult time, the group warned.
Image on the right: Bishop Gerardo Alminaza of San Carlos speaks before environmental activists at the 6th General Assembly of the Philippine Misereor Partnership Inc. on Feb 26. (Photo supplied via Licas News)
Serving god, serving the people
Sancelan, Bishop Alminaza said, was a Christian who lived Jesus Christ’s most important message: to love your neighbor as you love God.
“This is too much. This is totally unacceptable to allow it to happen to public servants who were working so hard to serve the public interest especially during this pandemic,” said the bishop soon after news of the murders broke out.
“Dr. Sancelan was branded, vilified, red-tagged, and now, executed, by the ruthless pawns of the enablers of ‘systematic killings’ in this country,” added Bishop Alminaza.
“Her only crime, much like the soon-to-be born-infant Jesus in a manger, was her unselfish service to the poor people of Guihulngan—both as a ‘barrio doctor’ and as ‘defender of the poor,’” he added.
Military officers, a year after the Senate hearing that featured the Guihulngan killings, have taken the place of anonymous groups in leading the attacks against perceived enemies of the state.
They have over the last two years named clergy and religious workers, indigenous leaders, legislators, medical workers, journalists, leaders of mass organizations, human rights workers, youth activists, feminists, even global aid charities and UN experts.
There has been no rhyme nor reason, and even less evidence. The military and Duterte reassured Filipinos: they are communists and terrorists because we say they are.
Over four years, some 20,000 have fallen in a drug war that operated on exactly that same worldview. Duterte has now said he will carve a bloody swathe through the body politic, with blanket screaming “the crime of one is the crime of all” covering all dissenters.
In the face of the rising threat to the most basic of human rights, Bishop Alminaza, himself a frequent target of red-tagging, reminded government officials and the faithful in Asia’s largest Catholic majority: “It is a grave omission to remain silent and passive and allow perpetrators to get away.”
“Join me in prayer in the face of unstoppable murders in our diocese. Join me in hope that these killings will soon end. But join me, too, in condemning, in the strongest possible terms, the senseless murder of helpless civilians and dedicated servants of government.”
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Featured image: Protesters call for an end to the spate of drug-related killings in the country during a march in the Philippine capital Manila. (Photo by Jire Carreon)


asiapacificresearch--2020-12-18--Winds of Democracy in the Philippines

Winds of Democracy in the Philippines

What struggles to build a democratic society truly fulfill the aspirations of the people ?
IBON will briefly share our experience in the Philippine context and look forward to discussions to enrich this from different perspectives .
The winds of democracy are blowing strong here .
We can start by affirming the essential character of the Philippine state .
It remains as it has always been – political and economic elites inextricably intertwined and using the powers of government to advance their narrow interests .
But it may be useful to look at some major developments over the last four @ @ @ @ @ @ @ help clarify authoritarian trends seen today and also point to areas needing particular attention .
The 1980s saw hype about the “ end of history ” and the supposed triumph of Western liberal democracy with its distinct blend of free markets and private property , civil liberties and human rights , and supposed political freedoms .
( Even then , giant China was of course a conveniently disregarded outlier . )
Since then , there has been an increase in pluralist electoral democracies enshrining the popular vote for choosing leaders – as in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Marcos dictatorship in 1986 .
( Even Russia started choosing its president by popular vote in 1991 . )
There has also been a huge expansion in mass media and then the internet which , it was argued , strengthened liberal democracies by democratizing information .
In economic systems , free market policies of neoliberal globalization were promised to unleash economic potential , develop backward economies , and bring prosperity to all .
In reality , we ’ re all familiar with how neoliberal globalization has resulted in greater exploitation , greater destruction @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and greater wealth and economic power in the hands of a few .
Hundreds of millions or even billions of people exploited , abused and left behind made the rumble underfoot grow stronger as economic crises erupted and deepened .
Elites however twisted this dissatisfaction , went on an all-out disinformation offensive in mass media and the internet , and manipulated elections to rise to power as today ’ s populist authoritarianisms – the Philippines ’ own Pres .
Duterte is a case in point .
In too many places around the world @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and have risen to the top of falsely democratic political systems .
They mostly keep the forms of liberal democratic institutions in place – free elections , the branches of government , mass media , even civil society .
But these are wielded self-interestedly , subverted in practice , and any portions particularly inconvenient are carved out .
But they are fundamentally authoritarians and we see everywhere the growing use of state violence , against any and all opposition , to protect elite economic interests and to retain political power .
These processes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ elsewhere .
In our specific circumstances , how do we build a democratic society ?
People , most of all Image on the right is from The STAR/Miguel de Guzman , Fil The most critical foundation remains people ’ s organizations with a vision of a democratic society .
The Philippines is fortunate to have a long-standing core of this in the mass movement built up over decades .
These include the country ’ s largest organizations of politicized peasants , formal and informal workers , youth and students , women , indigenous @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more .
The mass movement combines concrete struggles on immediate concerns with constant education work on systemic issues .
Concrete struggles and constant education are both essential to build solid core constituencies for genuinely transformative change for the better .
These organizations are at the forefront of challenging anti-people social and economic policies and countering neoliberal globalization .
They are also an army that reaches out not just to their direct constituencies and networks but also communicates to the widest number of people through mass media , social media , and other internet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ formations and alliances on urgent issues to more immediately reach out to and mobilize the wider public .
For instance , the steady assault of the regime on accustomed liberal democratic institutions creates wide opportunity for this .
The attacks on senators , congressional representatives , the Supreme Court chief justice , the Ombudsman , the Commission on Human Rights ( CHR ) , major broadcast and internet media outfits , civil society , activists and others have stirred wide outrage .
This scattered dissent needs to be brought together .
At the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have enough strength and flexibility to also directly engage in traditional elite-dominated governance through elected parliamentarians such as via the party-list system in Congress .
Progressive party-list groups have always been among the frontrunners in Congressional elections and already form a solid pro-people bloc in the House of Representatives .
While fully part of the traditional institutionalized political system , progressive parliamentarians remain solidly grounded in people ’ s organizations and are relentless in challenging the boundaries of the country ’ s so-called democracy .
As real representatives of and from the people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are consistently biased for the people .
They seek to deliver concrete benefits while consistently seeking to weaken the economic power and fight the political abuses of self-serving elites .
Through their visible public service , they enable the general public to see that more democratic economic and political policies are possible .
But they are also the beachhead of democracy in the authoritarian Duterte government for launching attacks from within .
They are valuable for reaching out to other progressives and potential allies within the government , and for organizing efforts to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of reactionary politics .
The superstructures of power are defended not just by sheer violence but by the hegemony of self-serving and reactionary knowledge .
We of course give special attention to the invisible power of ideas , values and beliefs in reproducing capitalism and today ’ s worsening authoritarianism .
Among the most important ways to challenge this is with solid research from the perspective of and upholding the aspirations of the people for social justice , equity , and a decent life for all .
The struggle of ideas is one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ struggle .
Solid research and tenacious advocacy are vital to overcome the dominance of ruling class ideas and values .
More and more people must unlearn that oppression is just to be accepted and that the only improvement in our material conditions is what ruling elites will allow .
Solid research is vital to support the campaigns of people ’ s organizations and of progressives in government .
For instance , research on economic issues reveals what changes decades of imperialist globalization have wrought as well as confirms what remains the same .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ if not transformed into a political force so these need to be formed with or by the mass movement and then taken up by it .
Solid research is vital to credibly challenge anti-people policies and to articulate our new ideas and visions for a more just and democratic society .
We challenge capitalism not just because it is exploitative and oppressive but also because it isn ’ t immutable , can be replaced , and should be replaced .
We look to the socialist alternative not just because we imagine it as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also because it is possible and can already start to be built .
Research makes our critique potent and also makes our alternative real .
Research is about ideas and we are today facing a deluge .
What does it take to be dynamic in the digital age with its endless tsunami of trivialities and information ?
It isn ’ t enough that our analysis is correct and that we are credible – to communicate today we have to be real-time , interactive , and nimble with text , photos , graphics , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ while we will continue to distribute our research , we also have to be ever more accessible not just conceptually but also literally .
More than ever , people constantly seek information with a mere click of their finger or a swipe of their thumb .
Finally , we all know the value of seeing that oppressive structures can be changed and that what is accepted as ‘ normal ’ can be replaced .
In the Philippines , the most radical flank and most direct challenge to the oppressive status quo are the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the countryside .
In many rural areas across the country , communities are undertaking examples of how local political and economic democracy can be interlinked to benefit the majority people and not a few elites .
These are areas where landlords , agri-business , and mining corporations do not dominate and where people ’ s organizations have taken control of their communities and their lives .
They push the envelope of our democratic struggles .
On a historical scale , there ’ s no doubt that the world is changing for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ creativity , energy and bravery committed to that for it to be otherwise .
Perhaps in fits and starts , or with setbacks big and small – but , still , we ’ re inexorably moving forward on the back of millions of steps and struggles every day around the world .
Note to readers : please click the share buttons above or below .
Forward this article to your email lists .
Crosspost on your blog site , internet forums .
etc .
Sonny Africa is the executive director of IBON Foundation @

What struggles to build a democratic society truly fulfill the aspirations of the people? IBON will briefly share our experience in the Philippine context and look forward to discussions to enrich this from different perspectives. The winds of democracy are blowing strong here.
We can start by affirming the essential character of the Philippine state. It remains as it has always been – political and economic elites inextricably intertwined and using the powers of government to advance their narrow interests. But it may be useful to look at some major developments over the last four decades of neoliberal globalization. This may help clarify authoritarian trends seen today and also point to areas needing particular attention.
Globalization and democracy
The 1980s saw hype about the “end of history” and the supposed triumph of Western liberal democracy with its distinct blend of free markets and private property, civil liberties and human rights, and supposed political freedoms. (Even then, giant China was of course a conveniently disregarded outlier.) Since then, there has been an increase in pluralist electoral democracies enshrining the popular vote for choosing leaders – as in the Philippines upon the fall of the Marcos dictatorship in 1986. (Even Russia started choosing its president by popular vote in 1991.) There has also been a huge expansion in mass media and then the internet which, it was argued, strengthened liberal democracies by democratizing information.
In economic systems, free market policies of neoliberal globalization were promised to unleash economic potential, develop backward economies, and bring prosperity to all. In reality, we’re all familiar with how neoliberal globalization has resulted in greater exploitation, greater destruction of natural resources and the environment, and greater wealth and economic power in the hands of a few. Hundreds of millions or even billions of people exploited, abused and left behind made the rumble underfoot grow stronger as economic crises erupted and deepened.
Elites however twisted this dissatisfaction, went on an all-out disinformation offensive in mass media and the internet, and manipulated elections to rise to power as today’s populist authoritarianisms – the Philippines’ own Pres. Duterte is a case in point. In too many places around the world, demagogues of different degrees are elected and have risen to the top of falsely democratic political systems.
They mostly keep the forms of liberal democratic institutions in place – free elections, the branches of government, mass media, even civil society. But these are wielded self-interestedly, subverted in practice, and any portions particularly inconvenient are carved out. But they are fundamentally authoritarians and we see everywhere the growing use of state violence, against any and all opposition, to protect elite economic interests and to retain political power.
These processes have played out in the Philippines as elsewhere. In our specific circumstances, how do we build a democratic society?
People, most of all
Image on the right is from The STAR/Miguel de Guzman, Fil
The most critical foundation remains people’s organizations with a vision of a democratic society. The Philippines is fortunate to have a long-standing core of this in the mass movement built up over decades. These include the country’s largest organizations of politicized peasants, formal and informal workers, youth and students, women, indigenous people, teachers and academics, and more.
The mass movement combines concrete struggles on immediate concerns with constant education work on systemic issues. Concrete struggles and constant education are both essential to build solid core constituencies for genuinely transformative change for the better.
These organizations are at the forefront of challenging anti-people social and economic policies and countering neoliberal globalization. They are also an army that reaches out not just to their direct constituencies and networks but also communicates to the widest number of people through mass media, social media, and other internet platforms.
They are supplemented by tactical formations and alliances on urgent issues to more immediately reach out to and mobilize the wider public. For instance, the steady assault of the regime on accustomed liberal democratic institutions creates wide opportunity for this. The attacks on senators, congressional representatives, the Supreme Court chief justice, the Ombudsman, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), major broadcast and internet media outfits, civil society, activists and others have stirred wide outrage. This scattered dissent needs to be brought together.
Progressives in government
At the same time, people’s organizations have enough strength and flexibility to also directly engage in traditional elite-dominated governance through elected parliamentarians such as via the party-list system in Congress. Progressive party-list groups have always been among the frontrunners in Congressional elections and already form a solid pro-people bloc in the House of Representatives.
While fully part of the traditional institutionalized political system, progressive parliamentarians remain solidly grounded in people’s organizations and are relentless in challenging the boundaries of the country’s so-called democracy. As real representatives of and from the people, their legislative measures and political work are consistently biased for the people. They seek to deliver concrete benefits while consistently seeking to weaken the economic power and fight the political abuses of self-serving elites.
Through their visible public service, they enable the general public to see that more democratic economic and political policies are possible. But they are also the beachhead of democracy in the authoritarian Duterte government for launching attacks from within. They are valuable for reaching out to other progressives and potential allies within the government, and for organizing efforts to push for democratic changes in the centers of reactionary politics.
Research matters
The superstructures of power are defended not just by sheer violence but by the hegemony of self-serving and reactionary knowledge. We of course give special attention to the invisible power of ideas, values and beliefs in reproducing capitalism and today’s worsening authoritarianism. Among the most important ways to challenge this is with solid research from the perspective of and upholding the aspirations of the people for social justice, equity, and a decent life for all.
The struggle of ideas is one of the most urgent realms of political struggle. Solid research and tenacious advocacy are vital to overcome the dominance of ruling class ideas and values. More and more people must unlearn that oppression is just to be accepted and that the only improvement in our material conditions is what ruling elites will allow.
Solid research is vital to support the campaigns of people’s organizations and of progressives in government. For instance, research on economic issues reveals what changes decades of imperialist globalization have wrought as well as confirms what remains the same. And we know that ideas are meaningless if not transformed into a political force so these need to be formed with or by the mass movement and then taken up by it.
Solid research is vital to credibly challenge anti-people policies and to articulate our new ideas and visions for a more just and democratic society. We challenge capitalism not just because it is exploitative and oppressive but also because it isn’t immutable, can be replaced, and should be replaced. We look to the socialist alternative not just because we imagine it as just, humane and liberating, but also because it is possible and can already start to be built. Research makes our critique potent and also makes our alternative real.
Research is about ideas and we are today facing a deluge. What does it take to be dynamic in the digital age with its endless tsunami of trivialities and information? It isn’t enough that our analysis is correct and that we are credible – to communicate today we have to be real-time, interactive, and nimble with text, photos, graphics, audio, video and animation. And while we will continue to distribute our research, we also have to be ever more accessible not just conceptually but also literally. More than ever, people constantly seek information with a mere click of their finger or a swipe of their thumb.
Democracy in progress
Finally, we all know the value of seeing that oppressive structures can be changed and that what is accepted as ‘normal’ can be replaced. In the Philippines, the most radical flank and most direct challenge to the oppressive status quo are the scattered but growing sites of democratic governance in the countryside. In many rural areas across the country, communities are undertaking examples of how local political and economic democracy can be interlinked to benefit the majority people and not a few elites. These are areas where landlords, agri-business, and mining corporations do not dominate and where people’s organizations have taken control of their communities and their lives. They push the envelope of our democratic struggles.
On a historical scale, there’s no doubt that the world is changing for the better. There’s too much creativity, energy and bravery committed to that for it to be otherwise. Perhaps in fits and starts, or with setbacks big and small – but, still, we’re inexorably moving forward on the back of millions of steps and struggles every day around the world.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Sonny Africa is the executive director of IBON Foundation.


asiapacificresearch--2020-12-18--America, Nepal and the Royal Coup

America, Nepal and the Royal Coup

On 15 December 1960 ( पुस १ ) exactly 60 years ago , King Mahendra ordered the jailing of Prime Minister BP Koirala and other political figures , many of whom the Nepali people had put in power 18 months earlier in Nepal ’ s first-ever election .
Ending a decade of democratic experimentation , Mahendra decided to rule the country directly .
After his death in 1972 his son Birendra took power .
Many of today ’ s top political leaders cut their political teeth in years of underground opposition to the monarchy .
The U S government at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coup was accomplished ‘ with great secrecy and superb organisation ’ .
After 1960 , the US slowly shifted its approach in Nepal , embracing the monarchy and moving away from democratic reform .
Ten years earlier , the globalisation of the Cold War had forced the US to pay more attention to South Asia .
After China turned Communist in 1949 and war broke out on the Korean peninsula in 1950 , Asian nations , particularly those near China , became hot spots for Cold War competition between the Soviet Union and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ US led capitalist democracies on the other .
During the 1950s , believing economic progress and expanded political freedoms would inoculate Nepal against communist influence , the U S offered aid programs and supported democratic reforms .
As part of this vision , Washington promoted health and agriculture programs but also , in part to counter populist Communist Chinese programs , pushed for economic leveling programs such as land reform .
In the late 1950s , the US grew increasingly concerned as China and the Soviet Union expanded activities in Nepal .
A @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nepal had become ‘ a particularly vulnerable target ’ .
But the US believed that Nepal ’ s 1959 election had strengthened the country .
Nepal , the National Security document noted , ‘ currently enjoys greater internal stability than heretofore , following the introduction of popularly-based parliamentary government ’ .
The US also thought highly of B P Koirala .
A 1960 memo explained , ‘ Koirala is intelligent , forceful , respected by his party , and popular with his people.
’ He was ‘ basically pro-Western and anti-Communist ’ and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , showing ‘ grave concern ’ about it .

On 15 December 1960 (पुस १) exactly 60 years ago, King Mahendra ordered the jailing of Prime Minister BP Koirala and other political figures, many of whom the Nepali people had put in power 18 months earlier in Nepal’s first-ever election.
Ending a decade of democratic experimentation, Mahendra decided to rule the country directly. After his death in 1972 his son Birendra took power. Many of today’s top political leaders cut their political teeth in years of underground opposition to the monarchy.
The U S government at the time noted that Mahendra’s coup was accomplished ‘with great secrecy and superb organisation’. After 1960, the US slowly shifted its approach in Nepal, embracing the monarchy and moving away from democratic reform.
Ten years earlier, the globalisation of the Cold War had forced the US to pay more attention to South Asia. After China turned Communist in 1949 and war broke out on the Korean peninsula in 1950, Asian nations, particularly those near China, became hot spots for Cold War competition between the Soviet Union and China on one hand, and the US led capitalist democracies on the other.
During the 1950s, believing economic progress and expanded political freedoms would inoculate Nepal against communist influence, the U S offered aid programs and supported democratic reforms. As part of this vision, Washington promoted health and agriculture programs but also, in part to counter populist Communist Chinese programs, pushed for economic leveling programs such as land reform.
In the late 1950s, the US grew increasingly concerned as China and the Soviet Union expanded activities in Nepal. A November 1960 National Security document warned that Nepal had become ‘a particularly vulnerable target’.
But the US believed that Nepal’s 1959 election had strengthened the country. Nepal, the National Security document noted, ‘currently enjoys greater internal stability than heretofore, following the introduction of popularly-based parliamentary government’.
The US also thought highly of B P Koirala. A 1960 memo explained, ‘Koirala is intelligent, forceful, respected by his party, and popular with his people.’ He was ‘basically pro-Western and anti-Communist’ and didn’t underestimate the communist threat, showing ‘grave concern’ about it.
The US had a less positive view of Mahendra. He was seen as anti-communist and as a ‘stabilising and unifying force’ but seemed less forceful, and less consequential. An internal memo discounted him as ‘a conscientious man of simple tastes and austere habits … rather naive politically and not particularly forceful as a ruler … awkward socially, and indecisive’. It noted he had advanced some reforms but that ‘he is firmly convinced that a strong monarchy is necessary to insure stability’. The last lines of an April 1960 US memo raised the possibility of a royal takeover in Nepal, saying the king was not ‘irrevocably committed’ to representative government. But it discounted the possibility: ‘Such a drastic step is not anticipated.’ A week after the coup, on 20 December, 1960, CIA Director Allen Dulles told the National Security Council that the King’s ‘strange coup’ owed to two reasons: Koirala was ‘too progressive’ and had too ‘close relations’ with India. He warned of a more ‘archaic form of government’.
US Ambassador Henry Stebbins met with Mahendra on 21 December, 1960 and cabled Washington to say that the King professed a strong belief in democracy, which he claimed he himself had brought to Nepal. He said he dismissed the Koirala government and imprisoned its leaders because they were guilty of corruption and of aiding and abetting Communism. In a letter to US President Dwight Eisenhower a couple days later, he also blamed poor administration. Read full article here. * Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc. Featured image: Charge d’ Affaires L. Douglas welcomes BP Koirala to the US Embassy inaguration in 1959. (Source: Nepali Times)


asiapacificresearch--2020-12-18--Health and Wealth in India – Farmers’ Lives Matter

The deregulation of international capital flows has turned the planet into a free-for-all bonanza for the world ’ s richest capitalists .
Under the post-World-War Two Bretton Woods monetary regime , governments could to a large extent run their own macroeconomic policy without having to constantly seek market confidence or worry about capital flight .
However , the deregulation of global capital movement has increased levels of dependency of nation states on capital markets and the elite interests who control them .
The dominant narrative calls this ‘ globalisation ’ , a euphemism for a predatory neoliberal capitalism based on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , overaccumulation and market saturation and a need to constantly seek out and exploit new , untapped ( foreign ) markets to maintain profitability .
In India , we can see the implications very clearly .
Instead of pursuing a path of democratic development , India has chosen ( or has been coerced ) to submit to the regime of foreign finance , awaiting signals on how much it can spend , giving up any pretence of economic sovereignty and leaving the space open for private capital to move in on and capture @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has indeed been flung open , making it ripe for takeover .
The country has borrowed more money from the World Bank than any other country in that institution ’ s history .
Back in the 1990s , the World Bank directed India to implement market reforms that would result in the displacement of 400 million people from the countryside .
Moreover , the World Bank ’ s ‘ Enabling the Business of Agriculture ’ directives entail opening up markets to Western agribusiness and their fertilisers , pesticides , weedicides and patented seeds @ @ @ @ @ @ @ transnational corporate global supply chains .
The aim is to let powerful corporations take control under the guise of ‘ market reforms ’ .
The very transnational corporations that receive massive taxpayer subsidies , manipulate markets , write trade agreements and institute a regime of intellectual property rights , thereby indicating that the ‘ free ’ market only exists in the warped delusions of those who churn out clichés about ‘ price discovery ’ and the sanctity of ‘ the market ’ .
What could this mean for India ?
We only have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ keeps these companies in profit in the US : an industrialised system that relies on massive taxpayer subsidies and has destroyed many small-scale farmers ’ livelihoods .
The fact that US agriculture now employs a tiny fraction of the population serves as a stark reminder for what is in store for Indian farmers .
Agribusiness companies ’ taxpayer-subsidised business models are based on overproduction and dumping on the world market to depress prices and rob farmers elsewhere of the ability to cover the costs of production .
The result is huge returns and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be wholly commercialised with large-scale , mechanised ( monocrop ) enterprises replacing family-run farms that help sustain hundreds of millions of rural livelihoods while feeding the masses .
India ’ s agrarian base is being uprooted , the very foundation of the country , its ( food and non-food ) cultural traditions , communities and rural economy .
When agri-food corporations like Bayer ( and previously Monsanto ) or Reliance say they need to expand the use of GMOs under the guise of feeding a burgeoning population or to ‘ modernise ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ justify their real objective : displacing independent cultivators , food processors and ‘ mom and pop ’ retailers and capturing the entire sector to boost their bottom line .
Indian agriculture has witnessed gross underinvestment over the years , whereby it is now wrongly depicted as a basket case and underperforming and ripe for a sell off to those very interests who had a stake in its underinvestment .
Today , we hear much talk of ‘ foreign direct investment ’ and making India ‘ business friendly ’ , but behind the benign-sounding @ @ @ @ @ @ @ capitalism that is no less brutal for Indian farmers than early industrial capitalism was for English peasants whose access to their productive means was stolen and who were then compelled to work in factories .
The intention is for India ’ s displaced cultivators to be retrained to work as cheap labour in the West ’ s offshored plants , even though nowhere near the numbers of jobs necessary are being created and that under the World Economic Forum ’ s ‘ great reset ’ human labour is to be largely replaced by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a ‘ 4th Industrial Revolution ’ .
As independent cultivators are bankrupted , the aim is that land will eventually be amalgamated to facilitate large-scale industrial cultivation .
Those who remain in farming will be absorbed into corporate supply chains and squeezed as they work on contracts dictated by large agribusiness and chain retailers .
A 2016 UN report said that by 2030 , Delhi ’ s population will be 37 million .
One of the report ’ s principal authors , Felix Creutzig , said : The drive is to entrench industrial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ replace small-scale farming , the backbone of food production in India .
It could mean hundreds of millions of former rural dwellers without any work .
And given the trajectory the country seems to be on , it does not take much to imagine a countryside with vast swathes of chemically-drenched monocrop fields containing genetically modified plants and soils rapidly degrading to become a mere repository for a chemical cocktail of proprietary biocides .
Transnational corporate-backed front groups are also hard at work behind the scenes .
According to a September 2019 report @ @ @ @ @ @ @ A Shadowy Industry Group Shapes Food Policy Around the World ’ , the International Life Sciences Institute ( ILSI ) has been quietly infiltrating government health and nutrition bodies .
The article lays bare ILSI ’ s influence on the shaping of high-level food policy globally , not least in India .
ILSI helps to shape narratives and policies that sanction the roll out of processed foods containing high levels of fat , sugar and salt .
In India , ILSI ’ s expanding influence coincides with mounting rates of obesity , cardiovascular @ @ @ @ @ @ @ little more than a front group for its 400 corporate members that provide its $ 17 million budget , ILSI ’ s members include Coca-Cola , DuPont , PepsiCo , General Mills and Danone .
The report says ILSI has received more than $ 2 million from chemical companies , among them Monsanto .
In 2016 , a UN committee issued a ruling that glyphosate , the key ingredient in Monsanto ’ s weed killer Roundup , was “ probably not carcinogenic , ” contradicting an earlier report by the WHO ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by two ILSI officials .
From India to China , whether it has involved warning labels on unhealthy packaged food or shaping anti-obesity education campaigns that stress physical activity and divert attention from the role of food corporations , prominent figures with close ties to the corridors of power have been co-opted to influence policy in order to boost the interests of agri-food corporations .
Whether through IMF-World Bank structural adjustment programmes , as occurred in Africa , trade agreements like NAFTA and its impact on Mexico , the co-option of policy bodies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ global trade rules , the outcome has been similar across the world : poor and less diverse diets and illnesses , resulting from the displacement of traditional , indigenous agriculture by a corporatised model centred on unregulated global markets and transnational monopolies .
For all the discussion in India about loan waivers for farmers and raising their income levels – as valid as this is – the core problems affecting agriculture remain .
Recent developments will merely serve to accelerate what is happening .
For example , the Karnataka Land Reform Act will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ agricultural land , resulting in increased landlessness and urban migration .
Eventually , as a fully incorporated ‘ asset ’ of global capitalism , India could see private equity funds – pools of money that use pension funds , sovereign wealth funds , endowment funds and investments from governments , banks , insurance companies and high net worth individuals – being injected into the agriculture sector .
A recent article on the grain.org website notes how across the world this money is being used to lease or buy up farms on the cheap @ @ @ @ @ @ @ grain and soybean concerns .
This process of ‘ financialisation ’ is shifting power to remote board rooms occupied by people with no connection to farming and who are merely in it to make money .
These funds tend to invest for a 10-15 year period , resulting in handsome returns for investors but can leave a trail of long-term environmental and social devastation and serve to undermine local and regional food insecurity .
This financialisation of agriculture perpetuates a model of commercialised , globalised farming that serves the interests of the agrochemical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the world ’ s biggest companies , Cargill , which is involved in almost every aspect of global agribusiness .
Cargill trades in purchasing and distributing various agricultural commodities , raises livestock and produces animal feed as well as food ingredients for application in processed foods and industrial use .
Cargill also has a large financial services arm , which manages financial risks in the commodity markets for the company .
This includes Black River Asset Management , a hedge fund with about $ 10 billion of assets and liabilities .
A recent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and its 14 billionaire owners of profiting from the use of child labour , rain forest destruction , the devastation of ancestral lands , the spread of pesticide use and pollution , contaminated food , antibiotic resistance and general health and environmental degradation .
While this model of corporate agriculture is highly financially lucrative for rich investors and billionaire owners , is this the type of ‘ development ’ – are these the types of companies – that will benefit hundreds of millions involved in India ’ s agrifood sector or the country @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
As we witness the undermining of the Agricultural Produce Market Committees or mandis , part of an ongoing process to dismantle India ’ s public distribution system and price support mechanisms for farmers , it is little wonder that massive protests by farmers have been taking place in the country .
Recent legislation based on three important farm bills are aimed at imposing the shock therapy of neoliberalism on the sector , finally clearing the way to restructure the agri-food sector for the benefit of large commodity traders and other ( international @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the wall in a landscape of ‘ get big or get out ’ , mirroring the US model of food cultivation and retail .
This represents a final death knell for indigenous agriculture in India .
The legislation will mean that mandis – state-run market locations for farmers to sell their agricultural produce via auction to traders – can be bypassed , allowing farmers to sell to private players elsewhere ( physically and online ) , thereby undermining the regulatory role of the public sector .
In trade areas open to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ levied ( fees levied in mandis go to the states and , in principle , are used to enhance market infrastructure to help farmers ) .
This could incentivise the corporate sector operating outside of the mandis to ( initially at least ) offer better prices to farmers ; however , as the mandi system is run down completely , these corporations will monopolise trade , capture the sector and dictate prices to farmers .
Another outcome could see the largely unregulated storage of produce and speculation , opening the farming sector to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ players and jeopardising food security .
The government will no longer regulate and make key produce available to consumers at fair prices .
This policy ground has been ceded to market players – again under the pretence of ‘ letting the market decide ’ through ‘ price discovery ’ .
The legislation will enable transnational agri-food corporations like Cargill and Walmart and India ’ s billionaire capitalists Gautam Adani ( agribusiness conglomerate ) and Mukesh Ambini ( Reliance retail chain ) to decide on what is to be cultivated at what price , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cultivated within India and how it is to be produced and processed .
Industrial agriculture will be the norm with all the devastating health , social and environmental costs that the model brings with it .
Of course , many millions have already been displaced from the Indian countryside and have had to seek work in the cities .
And if the coronavirus-related lockdown has indicated anything , it is that many of these ‘ migrant workers ’ have failed to gain a secure foothold and were compelled to return ‘ home ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ defined by low pay and insecurity after 30 years of neoliberal ‘ reforms ’ .
Today , there is talk of farmerless farms being manned by driverless machines and monitored by drones with lab-based food becoming the norm .
One may speculate what this could mean : commodity crops from patented GM seeds doused with chemicals and cultivated for industrial ‘ biomatter ’ to be processed by biotech companies and constituted into something resembling food .
Post-COVID , the World Bank talks about helping countries get back on track in return for structural @ @ @ @ @ @ @ farmers to be displaced from their land in return for individual debt relief and universal basic income ?
The displacement of these farmers and the subsequent destruction of rural communities and their cultures was something the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation once called for and cynically termed “ land mobility ” .
It raises the question : what does the future hold for the hundreds of millions of others who will be victims of the dispossessive policies of an elite group of powerful interests ?

The deregulation of international capital flows has turned the planet into a free-for-all bonanza for the world’s richest capitalists. Under the post-World-War Two Bretton Woods monetary regime, governments could to a large extent run their own macroeconomic policy without having to constantly seek market confidence or worry about capital flight. However, the deregulation of global capital movement has increased levels of dependency of nation states on capital markets and the elite interests who control them.
Globalisation
The dominant narrative calls this ‘globalisation’, a euphemism for a predatory neoliberal capitalism based on endless profit growth, crises of overproduction, overaccumulation and market saturation and a need to constantly seek out and exploit new, untapped (foreign) markets to maintain profitability.
In India, we can see the implications very clearly. Instead of pursuing a path of democratic development, India has chosen (or has been coerced) to submit to the regime of foreign finance, awaiting signals on how much it can spend, giving up any pretence of economic sovereignty and leaving the space open for private capital to move in on and capture markets.
India’s agri-food sector has indeed been flung open, making it ripe for takeover. The country has borrowed more money from the World Bank than any other country in that institution’s history. Back in the 1990s, the World Bank directed India to implement market reforms that would result in the displacement of 400 million people from the countryside. Moreover, the World Bank’s ‘Enabling the Business of Agriculture’ directives entail opening up markets to Western agribusiness and their fertilisers, pesticides, weedicides and patented seeds and compel farmers to work to supply transnational corporate global supply chains.
The aim is to let powerful corporations take control under the guise of ‘market reforms’. The very transnational corporations that receive massive taxpayer subsidies, manipulate markets, write trade agreements and institute a regime of intellectual property rights, thereby indicating that the ‘free’ market only exists in the warped delusions of those who churn out clichés about ‘price discovery’ and the sanctity of ‘the market’.
What could this mean for India? We only have to look at the business model that keeps these companies in profit in the US: an industrialised system that relies on massive taxpayer subsidies and has destroyed many small-scale farmers’ livelihoods.
The fact that US agriculture now employs a tiny fraction of the population serves as a stark reminder for what is in store for Indian farmers. Agribusiness companies’ taxpayer-subsidised business models are based on overproduction and dumping on the world market to depress prices and rob farmers elsewhere of the ability to cover the costs of production. The result is huge returns and depressed farmer incomes.
Indian agriculture is to be wholly commercialised with large-scale, mechanised (monocrop) enterprises replacing family-run farms that help sustain hundreds of millions of rural livelihoods while feeding the masses.
India’s agrarian base is being uprooted, the very foundation of the country, its (food and non-food) cultural traditions, communities and rural economy. When agri-food corporations like Bayer (and previously Monsanto) or Reliance say they need to expand the use of GMOs under the guise of feeding a burgeoning population or to ‘modernise’ the sector, they are trying to justify their real objective: displacing independent cultivators, food processors and ‘mom and pop’ retailers and capturing the entire sector to boost their bottom line.
Indian agriculture has witnessed gross underinvestment over the years, whereby it is now wrongly depicted as a basket case and underperforming and ripe for a sell off to those very interests who had a stake in its underinvestment.
Today, we hear much talk of ‘foreign direct investment’ and making India ‘business friendly’, but behind the benign-sounding jargon lies the hard-nosed approach of modern-day capitalism that is no less brutal for Indian farmers than early industrial capitalism was for English peasants whose access to their productive means was stolen and who were then compelled to work in factories.
The intention is for India’s displaced cultivators to be retrained to work as cheap labour in the West’s offshored plants, even though nowhere near the numbers of jobs necessary are being created and that under the World Economic Forum’s ‘great reset’ human labour is to be largely replaced by artificial intelligence-driven technology under the guise of a ‘4th Industrial Revolution’.
As independent cultivators are bankrupted, the aim is that land will eventually be amalgamated to facilitate large-scale industrial cultivation. Those who remain in farming will be absorbed into corporate supply chains and squeezed as they work on contracts dictated by large agribusiness and chain retailers.
Cocktail of deception
A 2016 UN report said that by 2030, Delhi’s population will be 37 million.
One of the report’s principal authors, Felix Creutzig, said:
“The emerging mega-cities will rely increasingly on industrial-scale agricultural and supermarket chains, crowding out local food chains.”
The drive is to entrench industrial agriculture, commercialise the countryside and to replace small-scale farming, the backbone of food production in India. It could mean hundreds of millions of former rural dwellers without any work. And given the trajectory the country seems to be on, it does not take much to imagine a countryside with vast swathes of chemically-drenched monocrop fields containing genetically modified plants and soils rapidly degrading to become a mere repository for a chemical cocktail of proprietary biocides.
Transnational corporate-backed front groups are also hard at work behind the scenes. According to a September 2019 report in the New York Times, ‘A Shadowy Industry Group Shapes Food Policy Around the World’, the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) has been quietly infiltrating government health and nutrition bodies. The article lays bare ILSI’s influence on the shaping of high-level food policy globally, not least in India.
ILSI helps to shape narratives and policies that sanction the roll out of processed foods containing high levels of fat, sugar and salt. In India, ILSI’s expanding influence coincides with mounting rates of obesity, cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
Accused of being little more than a front group for its 400 corporate members that provide its $17 million budget, ILSI’s members include Coca-Cola, DuPont, PepsiCo, General Mills and Danone. The report says ILSI has received more than $2 million from chemical companies, among them Monsanto. In 2016, a UN committee issued a ruling that glyphosate, the key ingredient in Monsanto’s weed killer Roundup, was “probably not carcinogenic,” contradicting an earlier report by the WHO’s cancer agency. The committee was led by two ILSI officials.
From India to China, whether it has involved warning labels on unhealthy packaged food or shaping anti-obesity education campaigns that stress physical activity and divert attention from the role of food corporations, prominent figures with close ties to the corridors of power have been co-opted to influence policy in order to boost the interests of agri-food corporations.
Whether through IMF-World Bank structural adjustment programmes, as occurred in Africa, trade agreements like NAFTA and its impact on Mexico, the co-option of policy bodies at national and international levels or deregulated global trade rules, the outcome has been similar across the world: poor and less diverse diets and illnesses, resulting from the displacement of traditional, indigenous agriculture by a corporatised model centred on unregulated global markets and transnational monopolies.
For all the discussion in India about loan waivers for farmers and raising their income levels – as valid as this is – the core problems affecting agriculture remain.
Financialisation
Recent developments will merely serve to accelerate what is happening. For example, the Karnataka Land Reform Act will make it easier for business to purchase agricultural land, resulting in increased landlessness and urban migration.
Eventually, as a fully incorporated ‘asset’ of global capitalism, India could see private equity funds – pools of money that use pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, endowment funds and investments from governments, banks, insurance companies and high net worth individuals – being injected into the agriculture sector. A recent article on the grain.org website notes how across the world this money is being used to lease or buy up farms on the cheap and aggregate them into large-scale, US-style grain and soybean concerns.
This process of ‘financialisation’ is shifting power to remote board rooms occupied by people with no connection to farming and who are merely in it to make money. These funds tend to invest for a 10-15 year period, resulting in handsome returns for investors but can leave a trail of long-term environmental and social devastation and serve to undermine local and regional food insecurity.
This financialisation of agriculture perpetuates a model of commercialised, globalised farming that serves the interests of the agrochemical and seed giants, including one of the world’s biggest companies, Cargill, which is involved in almost every aspect of global agribusiness.
Cargill trades in purchasing and distributing various agricultural commodities, raises livestock and produces animal feed as well as food ingredients for application in processed foods and industrial use. Cargill also has a large financial services arm, which manages financial risks in the commodity markets for the company. This includes Black River Asset Management, a hedge fund with about $10 billion of assets and liabilities.
A recent article on the Unearthed website accused Cargill and its 14 billionaire owners of profiting from the use of child labour, rain forest destruction, the devastation of ancestral lands, the spread of pesticide use and pollution, contaminated food, antibiotic resistance and general health and environmental degradation.
While this model of corporate agriculture is highly financially lucrative for rich investors and billionaire owners, is this the type of ‘development’ – are these the types of companies – that will benefit hundreds of millions involved in India’s agrifood sector or the country’s 1.3-billion-plus consumers and their health?
Farm bills and post-COVID
As we witness the undermining of the Agricultural Produce Market Committees or mandis, part of an ongoing process to dismantle India’s public distribution system and price support mechanisms for farmers, it is little wonder that massive protests by farmers have been taking place in the country.
Recent legislation based on three important farm bills are aimed at imposing the shock therapy of neoliberalism on the sector, finally clearing the way to restructure the agri-food sector for the benefit of large commodity traders and other (international) corporations: smallholder farmers will go to the wall in a landscape of ‘get big or get out’, mirroring the US model of food cultivation and retail.
This represents a final death knell for indigenous agriculture in India. The legislation will mean that mandis – state-run market locations for farmers to sell their agricultural produce via auction to traders – can be bypassed, allowing farmers to sell to private players elsewhere (physically and online), thereby undermining the regulatory role of the public sector. In trade areas open to the private sector, no fees will be levied (fees levied in mandis go to the states and, in principle, are used to enhance market infrastructure to help farmers).
This could incentivise the corporate sector operating outside of the mandis to (initially at least) offer better prices to farmers; however, as the mandi system is run down completely, these corporations will monopolise trade, capture the sector and dictate prices to farmers.
Another outcome could see the largely unregulated storage of produce and speculation, opening the farming sector to a free-for-all profiteering payday for the big players and jeopardising food security. The government will no longer regulate and make key produce available to consumers at fair prices. This policy ground has been ceded to market players – again under the pretence of ‘letting the market decide’ through ‘price discovery’.
The legislation will enable transnational agri-food corporations like Cargill and Walmart and India’s billionaire capitalists Gautam Adani (agribusiness conglomerate) and Mukesh Ambini (Reliance retail chain) to decide on what is to be cultivated at what price, how much of it is to be cultivated within India and how it is to be produced and processed. Industrial agriculture will be the norm with all the devastating health, social and environmental costs that the model brings with it.
Of course, many millions have already been displaced from the Indian countryside and have had to seek work in the cities. And if the coronavirus-related lockdown has indicated anything, it is that many of these ‘migrant workers’ have failed to gain a secure foothold and were compelled to return ‘home’ to their villages. Their lives are defined by low pay and insecurity after 30 years of neoliberal ‘reforms’.
Today, there is talk of farmerless farms being manned by driverless machines and monitored by drones with lab-based food becoming the norm. One may speculate what this could mean: commodity crops from patented GM seeds doused with chemicals and cultivated for industrial ‘biomatter’ to be processed by biotech companies and constituted into something resembling food.
Post-COVID, the World Bank talks about helping countries get back on track in return for structural reforms. Are even more smallholder Indian farmers to be displaced from their land in return for individual debt relief and universal basic income? The displacement of these farmers and the subsequent destruction of rural communities and their cultures was something the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation once called for and cynically termed “land mobility”.
It raises the question: what does the future hold for the hundreds of millions of others who will be victims of the dispossessive policies of an elite group of powerful interests?


asiapacificresearch--2020-12-18--Parliament’s Winter Session Cancelled, Shiv Sena Smells a Rat

Government does away with session citing Covid concerns , but Opposition parties see refusal to hold even a truncated session as means to avoid addressing pressing issues The Winter Session of the Parliament has been cancelled this year .
It will be merged with the Budget Session next year .
The matter came to light when Parliamentary Affairs Minister Prahlad Joshi responded to a letter by Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury .
Chowdhury had requested in a letter to Speaker Om Birla , a session to discuss the new farm laws .
But Joshi shot down the entire session blaming @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out of Covid-19 pandemic ” and “ the recent spurt in cases , particularly in Delhi ” .
Joshi said that the government was inclined to hold the session at the earliest suggesting January 2021 as the start of a combined session .
However , the Shiv Sena feels that this is just an elaborate ploy to avoid discussing important issues .
An editorial in the Shiv Sena mouthpiece Saamna said , “ What kind democratic practice is this ?
The country will remain alive only if voices from the opposition benches are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ traditions in Parliament inspire the country .
Prime Minister Narendra Modi must follow these traditions.
” It reminded how even Presidential elections were not cancelled in the US because of the pandemic , “ but we are not allowing even a four-day winter session of the Parliament ?
” The Saamna editorial chastised BJP members for taking to the streets “ for reopening of temples , but refusing to open the temple of democracy ” .
The decision to scrap the Winter Session altogether does appear to be odd in light of a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ raging on .
Note to readers : please click the share buttons above or below .
Forward this article to your email lists .
Crosspost on your blog site , internet forums .
etc .

Government does away with session citing Covid concerns, but Opposition parties see refusal to hold even a truncated session as means to avoid addressing pressing issues
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The Winter Session of the Parliament has been cancelled this year. It will be merged with the Budget Session next year. The matter came to light when Parliamentary Affairs Minister Prahlad Joshi responded to a letter by Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.
Chowdhury had requested in a letter to Speaker Om Birla, a session to discuss the new farm laws. But Joshi shot down the entire session blaming it on “the extraordinary situation arising out of Covid-19 pandemic” and “the recent spurt in cases, particularly in Delhi”.
Joshi said that the government was inclined to hold the session at the earliest suggesting January 2021 as the start of a combined session.
However, the Shiv Sena feels that this is just an elaborate ploy to avoid discussing important issues. An editorial in the Shiv Sena mouthpiece Saamna said, “What kind democratic practice is this? The country will remain alive only if voices from the opposition benches are strong in a democracy. The democratic traditions in Parliament inspire the country. Prime Minister Narendra Modi must follow these traditions.” It reminded how even Presidential elections were not cancelled in the US because of the pandemic, “but we are not allowing even a four-day winter session of the Parliament?”
The Saamna editorial chastised BJP members for taking to the streets “for reopening of temples, but refusing to open the temple of democracy”.
The decision to scrap the Winter Session altogether does appear to be odd in light of a session conducted in September despite the pandemic raging on.
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