ARTICLES OF THE DAY

April 13, 2021

SCOTT RITTER, RUSSIA TODAY ............................................................................................................................... 2

ROBERT BRIDGE, RUSSIA TODAY............................................................................................................................ 5

ARIFA NOOR, DAWN .............................................................................................................................................. 7

JAWED NAQVI, DAWN ........................................................................................................................................... 9

MUHAMMAD HAMID ZAMAN, EXPRESS TRIBUNE ............................................................................................... 11

DAVID SACKS AND MAX YOELI, CFR ..................................................................................................................... 12

JOSHUA KURLANTZICK, WORLD POLITICS REVIEW ............................................................................................... 14

C. RAJA MOHAN, THE INDIAN EXPRESS ................................................................................................................ 16

LEONID RAGOZIN, ALJAZEERA.............................................................................................................................. 18

FARZANA HANIFFA, ALJAZEERA ........................................................................................................................... 21


By sabotaging Iran’s nuclear program, Israel sabotaged world peace
Scott Ritter, Russia Today
entagon chief Austin’s
P
visit to Israel serves as a
stark reminder that
regardless of stated US policy
goals, Israel almost always gets
its way.
After a week of fruitful
discussions between the parties
to the Joint Comprehensive
Program of Action – the
JCPOA, better known as the
Iranian nuclear agreement –
and the United States (who,
since May 2018, was no longer
a party, and as such sat in as an
observer), it looked as if the US
and Iran had agreed to a
mutually accepted outcome: the
lifting of all nuclear-related
sanctions imposed by the US in
exchange for Iran returning to
full compliance with its
obligations under the terms of
the JCPOA. The devil was in
the details, however. And by
week’s end there was no
agreed-upon formula regarding
the sequence of events
concerning the actions needed
to be taken by both parties to
fulfil their respective
requirements. There was not
even a timeframe.
While the diplomats worked to
come up with a solution
acceptable to all parties, on
Saturday Iran celebrated what it
calls “National Nuclear
Technology Day”, marking
eleven years of mastering the
nuclear fuel cycle. Iran’s
2
President,Hassan Rouhani, should the US come back into
visited the Natanz uranium compliance with its obligations
enrichment facility, where he under the agreement.
inaugurated a cascade of 164
Tehran’s moves were intended
IR-6 centrifuges for producing
to send a signal to US
enriched uranium, as well as
negotiators that time was not on
two test cascades containing 30
their side. According to the
IR-5 and 30 IR-6S centrifuges,
International Atomic Energy
respectively. Rouhani also
Agency, Iran was operating
oversaw the initiation of tests of
5,060 first-generation IR-1
its latest-generation IR-9
centrifuges and 348 second-
centrifuges, and participated in
generation IR-2 centrifuges at
a ceremony marking the
Natanz. The IR-2 centrifuge is
opening of a new underground
roughly four times as efficient
centrifuge assembly facility
as the older IR-1, while the
intended to replace one which
newly installed IR-6
had been destroyed in July 2020
centrifuges are ten times more
by an explosion that has been
efficient.
attributed to Israel.
Left unconstrained, Iran would
All the actions undertaken at
be able to blow past the so-
the Natanz uranium enrichment
called “one year breakout
facility were technical
window” which drives the
violations of the JCPOA.
entire logic of the JCPOA
However, Iran maintains that its
restrictions to begin with –
actions are consistent with
namely the time it would take
Article 26 of the agreement,
for Iran, once it ceased
which states that if the US
complying with the restrictions
imposes new nuclear-related
imposed by the deal, to acquire
sanctions on Iran, that act
enough fissile material to
would constitute “grounds (for
produce a single nuclear
Iran) to cease performing its
weapon.
commitments under this
JCPOA in whole or in part.” Iran’s “National Nuclear
Technology Day'' activities
Saturday’s events were but the
coincided with the visit by US
latest in a series of measures
Secretary of Defense Lloyd
undertaken by Iran to stop
Austin to Israel, where Iran’s
complying with the restrictions
nuclear program and the
imposed under the terms of the
ongoing negotiations regarding
JCPOA, all of which –
the JCPOA topped the list of
according to Iran – would be
issues to be discussed.
“immediately reversible”

In remarks delivered alongside
Austin on Sunday, Israel’s
Defense Minister, Benny
Gantz, declared that the US-
Israeli relationship “is built on
trust, which has developed over
decades of cooperation”, noting
that Israel will work closely
with “American allies, to
ensure that any new agreement
with Iran will secure the vital
interests of the world and the
United States, prevent a
dangerous arms race in our
region and protect the State of
Israel.”
For his part, Secretary Austin
reiterated the long-standing US
position that Israel was a
“major strategic partner” whose
relationship with the US “is
central to regional stability and
security in the Middle East”,
concluding that the US
“commitment to Israel is
enduring and it is ironclad.”
Even as these two officials were
giving voice to their mutual
assurances of trust and fidelity,
Israel was allegedly plotting
behind the backs of their
erstwhile American allies,
carrying out a covert attack on
Iran’s Natanz facility.
While the Israeli government
has not officially taken credit
for the attack, the Israeli media,
citing official government
sources, has reported that the
Israeli intelligence service,
Mossad, was behind a
cyberattack which produced a
large explosion that destroyed
the internal power system that
supplied power to the Natanz
facility, causing a ceiling to
collapse on one of the main
control rooms responsible for
the monitoring and operation of
Iran’s centrifuges. No one was
reported killed or injured as a
direct result of the attack, and
there were no reports of any
radiation leaks or other
environmental damage.
The attack reportedly destroyed
a large number of IR-1
centrifuges, along with
numerous “advanced”
centrifuges, most likely the IR-
2 and IR-6 models. Iranian
sources estimated that the
Iranian enrichment program
would be set back by up to nine
months as a result of the
damage.
According to Iranian media
sources close to the country’s
security establishment, a
perpetrator “who caused the
shutdown of electricity” has
been identified, and Iranian
authorities have ascertained
how and why the explosion
occurred and measures have
been taken to “restore the
facility to full capacity.”
Herein lies the rub – Iran has
indicated that it will replace the
destroyed IR-1 centrifuges with
“advanced” designs which are
incompatible with its
obligations under the JCPOA.
It has also indicated that it will
be moving its advanced
enrichment capability out of
Natanz and into the hardened
underground facility at Fordow.
Such measures reflect a more
permanent posture and are
antithetical to Iran’s previous
assurances that every measure
3
it would take under Article 26
would be immediately
reversible once the US rejoined
the JCPOA. This is most likely
the outcome desired by Israel –
creating the conditions under
which Iran would be acting out
in a manner inconsistent with
its obligations under the deal,
and making it difficult, if not
impossible, to abide by its
previous commitment that
every action it took under
Article 26 would be
“immediately reversible.”
Israel’s alleged attack on
Natanz is reprehensible on any
number of levels. Had it taken
place one day earlier, it could
have killed a large number of
senior technicians, nuclear
scientists and politicians who
were at the site celebrating
“National Nuclear Technology
Day”. Even if Israel
deliberately timed its attack to
avoid such a scenario, the fact
that Israel had the capacity to
carry out such an attack is
sobering.
If any other nation in the world
attacked a functioning uranium
enrichment facility operating
under IAEA safeguards, it
would be rightly condemned,
and harsh measures taken in
retaliation. Israel, however,
operates under the umbrella of
diplomatic immunity provided
by the US. As such, Israel is
untouchable, no matter how
egregious its actions – even
when, as is the case here, they
infringe on the diplomatic and
national security imperatives
and priorities of the US.

In a sign that the attack on
Natanz facility may not have
succeeded in sabotaging the
US-Iranian negotiations on the
JCPOA, both the US and Iran
have indicated that talks in
Vienna will resume this week.
Writer is a former US Marine
Corps intelligence officer and
author of 'SCORPION KING:
America's Suicidal Embrace of
Nuclear Weapons from FDR to
Trump.' He served in the Soviet
Union as an inspector
4
implementing the INF Treaty,
in General Schwarzkopf’s staff
during the Gulf War, and from
1991-1998 as a UN weapons
inspector.

Next stop, the apocalypse? The bumbling Biden administration’s
claim to fame may be jumpstarting World War III
Robert Bridge, Russia Today
ince Biden’s
S
inauspicious rise to
power, the world has
become littered with hotspots
from Ukraine to China where a
major conflict could erupt at
any time. Is the US deep state
desperate to make up for four
warless years?
Coincidence or otherwise, the
world feels like a much more
dangerous place since Joe
Biden formally entered the
White House on January 20.
Now that the ‘Make America
Great Again’ bumper sticker
has been removed from the US
juggernaut, early indicators
point to a global joyride riddled
with dangerous standoffs and
even full-blown hostilities that
could spark the mother of all
conflagrations. One of the most
dangerous stops along this
highway to possible oblivion is
playing out right now on
Russia’s doorstep.
For the average consumer of
Western media junk food, the
simmering standoff between
Ukraine and Russia has been
reduced to snack-size bites,
popularly sold to unsuspecting
consumers as ‘Russian
aggression’. Toss away the
greasy bag, however, and the
more discerning shopper will
discover that Moscow has in
fact steadfastly supported the
conditions for peace in
Donbass, where a civil war has
been raging for seven years
between pro-Russian forces
and Kiev. Meanwhile, it is
Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelensky who has
abandoned the Minsk Protocol,
the 2014 peace treaty, while
signing a decree on March 24
that practically places Ukraine
on a war footing with Russia.
And those aren’t the only
inconvenient truths the Western
media would rather its audience
not know about.
On April 6, just days after
Zelensky had a lengthy
telephone conversation with
US President Joe Biden, in
which the US leader pledged
America’s “unwavering
support,” Zelensky placed a call
to NATO Secretary General
Jens Stoltenberg, in which he
expressed Kiev’s desire to
become a card-carrying
member of the US-led military
block. Just a coincidence, right?
“NATO is the only way to end
the war in Donbass,” Zelensky
said, which may have been the
funniest one-liner the former
actor-comedian has ever
uttered in his career.
What Zelensky fails to
understand is that Kiev is being
played as a pawn in the
perennial ‘Great Game’
between the US and Russia.
5
The current battle is not over
geographical conquest, but
rather for access to Europe’s
lucrative energy sector.
Washington refuses to sit by
idly as Moscow and Berlin put
the final touches on the Nord
Stream 2 gas pipeline, which, if
fulfilled, will see natural gas
supplies flowing from Russia to
Germany – without the highly
unpredictable Ukrainian
middleman – across the Baltic
Sea.
Washington’s determination to
play spoiler was made clear last
month when US Secretary of
State Antony Blinken said on
the sidelines of a meeting with
NATO’s Stoltenberg that the
pipeline “is in contradiction to
the EU’s own security goals.”
Interesting how Washington
understands the EU’s “security
goals” even better than Brussels
does. And lest Germany failed
to take the hint, Blinken warned
Berlin of “possible sanctions”
should the project go to the
joyous ribbon-cutting phase. In
other words, ‘free markets’
were only designed primarily
with US corporations in mind;
all other contenders, especially
Russia, need not apply.
Not only would Nord Stream 2
preclude the necessity of
expensive US liquefied natural
gas (LNG) from being imported
by the EU, it would turn

Brussels and Moscow into
Washington’s worst nightmare,
that is, bona-fide partners with
a real incentive to remain on
good terms. Such a geopolitical
turn of events has all the
potential to eventually render
NATO obsolete. Thus, we find
Zelensky doing the dirty and
extremely dangerous work of
Washington, militarizing the
Donbass while making
aggressive overtures to
Moscow.
The strategy is obvious – the
Western media will dutifully
set the stage for a potential war
between ‘peaceful’ Ukraine
and ‘aggressive’ Russia, a false
narrative that may prove
damaging enough to cancel
Nord Stream 2, while also
keeping military spending
among NATO subjects at an
all-time high. What the intrigue
reveals is Washington’s
willingness to risk the outbreak
of a major conflict, possibly
even a world war, in order to
maintain its economic and
political hegemony over
European capitals.
Russia, however, is not the only
military superpower that the
United States has decided to
antagonize. Last month, in the
Biden administration’s first
high-level meeting with
Chinese officials, Secretary of
State Blinken, with no lack of
irony, accused Beijing of
“threatening the rules-based
order that maintains global
stability.”
Blinken was referring to
China’s long and tumultuous
relationship with Taiwan,
which Beijing considers to be
an integral part of the mainland.
However one may view that
standoff, it was a stunningly
incompetent display of US
diplomacy, not least of all
because relations between
Washington and Moscow are at
their worst in decades. Does
Washington really need two
nuclear-armed adversaries at
the same time? It seems that
somebody in the Biden
administration needs to brush
up on their Sun Tzu.
One obvious problem with
America lecturing other
countries with regards to their
internal affairs is the
breathtaking hypocrisy. The
offended Chinese diplomats did
not hesitate to remind their
American counterparts about
Black Lives Matter protests, for
example, and illicit US military
incursions abroad. In fact, less
than three weeks after Biden’s
locked-down inauguration,
where the soldiers
outnumbered guests by a
margin unfashionable for a
democratic pageant, the USS
McCain, a guided-missile
destroyer, ventured through the
Taiwan Strait on a freedom-
loving mission, and despite
China’s claims on the territory.
Almost like clockwork, the
reckless move on the part of the
Biden administration forced a
reaction on the part of Beijing,
which began sailing naval
vessels near the Philippines.
Although the Pacific
archipelago nation has been a
longtime US ally, its
allegiances have fallen into
doubt under President Rodrigo
6
Duterte, who relies on China
and Russia for its military
equipment instead of the United
States. Still, Washington
largely ignores Duterte’s
demonstrations, deferring to its
own imperial interests.
“An armed attack against the
Philippines’ armed forces,
public vessels or aircraft in the
Pacific, including in the South
China Sea, will trigger our
obligations under the US-
Philippines Mutual Defense
Treaty,” State Department
spokesman Ned Price told
reporters.
That comment reflects how
easily these extremely
dangerous global standoffs
could spiral out of control.
Is the world truly a safer place
with the US, the self-
proclaimed ‘indispensable
nation’, meddling in the affairs
of foreign states like a super
cop? When it is considered how
much meddling is being done
on behalf of its own strategic
advantage, the argument does
not hold much water. More
worrying is what Washington’s
reaction will be when a Chinese
or Russian destroyer shows up
in the Caribbean Sea one sunny
morning, amid calls to defend
the cause of some declared
victim group either inside
America or beyond. That’s
when American hypocrisy will
have really come full circle.
Robert Bridge is an American
writer and journalist. He is the
author of 'Midnight in the
American Empire,'.
 The virus’s latest attack
S
OON after the
vaccination drive was
opened for elderly
citizens, I asked a few
colleagues if they were
planning to take their parents
for a shot anytime soon. Except
for one notable exception,
whose parents didn’t fall in the
right age category, the rest said
that their parents (and a
grandparent or two) were not
willing. I was taken aback to
say the least — after all, most of
these colleagues had spent the
past year working in or around
a news studio where they had
heard constant and incessant
discussion about the pandemic,
as we interviewed doctors and
health experts in Pakistan and
around the world. They were all
aware of the virus and the risks
it brought and yet some in their
families thought otherwise.
None of them expressed any
discomfort with the idea of
vaccination but the parents
were reluctant — and they
didn’t know how to convince
them otherwise. If this is a
situation in a news channel’s
office, one can only imagine
what the rest are thinking.
No wonder that the vaccination
drive is the biggest challenge at
the moment, especially as the
new variant — or is it variants?
— sweeps across Pakistan.
Indeed, it’s not just Pakistan but
the entire region, which had
escaped the kind of havoc
witnessed in, for example,
Europe, or the US since the
beginning of the pandemic. But
Arifa noor, Dawn
this time around, South Asia
hasn’t been lucky. Consider the
figures provided by World in
Data, on April 7; the positivity
ratio in Bangladesh, Iran,
Pakistan and India is 22.6 per
cent, 19.4pc, 9.6pc and 9.1pc
respectively.
For perspective, consider the
positivity rate in the earlier
wave. Bangladesh didn’t see
similar numbers till August
2020. And India till July. And
by then, Pakistan was already
on its way down after having
experienced the highest rate in
the region (its upsurge as well
as the decline was the steepest
of the four countries). But this
time around, the upswing in the
rate for Bangladesh, India and
Pakistan seems to be roughly
similar — beginning towards
the end of February. However,
the rate is far higher in
Bangladesh and Iran while
India and Pakistan are behind.
The rapid rise this time around
is being attributed to the new,
more infectious variant as well
as fatigue which is making it
hard for people to continue
using precautionary measures.
Government officials
acknowledge this during
interviews as well as at media
briefings organised by the
NCOC. In addition, local
administrations are also facing
similar fatigue cracking down
on citizens.
This has been a constant across
the world — as infections rose
in the third wave, governments
found it hard to convince
people to adhere to social
distancing. In Pakistan for
example, much has been said
about the absence of masks in
public places and the big
gatherings for weddings which
have played a role in the spread.
India has been covered more
extensively in the international
press in the current wave. A
story in the Financial Times
says, “...it took just six weeks
for the daily new infections to
surge by a magnitude that took
three months last year”. Like
Pakistan, big weddings have
played a role and so has
electioneering, say news
reports.
The vaccination efforts, so far,
have not been enough to affect
the spread — even though
vaccination numbers in India
and Bangladesh are higher than
Pakistan’s, this has had no
impact, it seems, on the spike.
However, unlike India,
Pakistan’s decision-making
through a single platform of
NCOC does help; in the former,
the state governments and the
federal sometimes appear to be
at odds. According to the NYT,
federal officials have blamed
state governments for
mismanagement. But another
lockdown like the one last year
has been ruled out.
Pakistan too seems averse to a
national-level lockdown; in an
NCOC briefing last week, it
was said that the restrictions

(non-pharmaceutical
interventions, as they are called
in the NCOC) are having an
effect. However, better results
in terms of hospitalisations and
deaths will not be evident for a
couple of weeks.
Hospitalisations, according to
NCOC numbers, are higher
than the first wave but there are
fewer stories in the press and
anecdotally of patients not
being able to find beds. This is
partly due to the capacity of the
health system, which, says the
government, increased
throughout 2020. But the
numbers are nonetheless
putting pressure on the health
system in the more affected
parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
And even at the time of writing,
there were reports that a
lockdown in Lahore was being
considered.
8
But alongside the limited stopped export of the vaccine as
restrictions, the government is its own cases went up. It is now
counting on the expansion of expected around May but what
the vaccination drive to provide if the numbers in India continue
the real break in the spread of to rise? Would the export of the
the virus. However, here the vaccine be stopped again?
problem is twofold — the first
Along with the challenges of
challenge is the reluctance of
the vaccination drive, there is
the people and the second is the
another one looming large.
availability of the vaccine. With
Ramazan is about to begin and
most of the Western supplies
it will be followed by Eid. Last
tied up by wealthier
year, the shopping frenzy in the
governments, there is a limited
last days of Ramazan led to the
supply of vaccine, mostly
spate of infections we term the
Chinese and Russian, which
first peak. The positivity rate
can be bought. According to
then was the highest Pakistan
NCOC chairman Asad Umar,
has witnessed so far — how
the issue is not the payment but
will the government deal with it
the availability. A major
this year? Perhaps, the
setback in this regard has been
precautions we take and the
the delay in the stocks promised
restrictions the government
by Covax, a global initiative
imposes over the coming weeks
aimed at equitable access to the
will determine what the days
vaccine, to be provided in
leading up to Eid will look like.
March. The Indian government

Like the Cheshire cat’s grin
A
JOURNALIST friend
has written a whole
new book to caution
that a cultural revolution is
underway in India led by
Hindutva. Let’s reserve
comment and ponder an
alternative perspective instead
about the country under Prime
Minister Narendra Modi’s
watch. Consider the compelling
possibility that the cultural
frenzy supposedly coursing
through India’s rippling sinews
since Modi’s ascent as a saffron
mascot is really a well-
orchestrated myth quite likely
spun by powerful but very
threatened political and
business interests. Facts on the
ground reveal Mr Modi’s
exaggerated sense of political
invincibility propagated by his
cohorts and accepted by him
without demur.
Sleight of hand should not be
equated with an earthshaking
moment like Mao’s Cultural
Revolution. A truer imagery for
what may be afoot in India can
be more readily seen in an
unremarkable phase in the last
days of ancient Rome. Emperor
Commodus for the first time in
Rome’s history went into the
Coliseum as a gladiator. The
idea was to win the people’s
support after mishandling the
economy, which had set off
exploding bread riots.
9
Jawed Naqvi, Dawn
The people fell for the illusion party. In 1984, the Congress
and believed the emperor was won an unparalleled 404 seats
going to stake his life for the and the party got more than
glory of Rome. And while 50pc votes in 17 states. Was
Commodus won a series of there a cultural revolution or an
bloody combats plunging the ideological wave underway led
sword through his opponents’ by the Congress? And then it
hearts, which sent the crowds fizzled out.
into delirium, his ploy went
Comparisons have been made,
unnoticed. His opponents
including by well-meaning
comprised pliant slaves who
analysts, between Indians today
were quietly forced to fight
and the German people in the
with a blunt wooden sword that
1930s who became Nazi
could no more than scratch the
supporters overnight. India has
skin of the emperor dressed as a
not come to that pass, not yet,
gladiator. Wearing a lion’s head
and is not likely to in the
instead of a crown as he entered
foreseeable future. History will
the stadium, Commodus
bear this out. Did Hitler ever
likened himself to the
praise the gypsies in Romania
legendary Hercules, which
or speak Hebrew in Poland?
involved erecting many gold
No, he didn’t whereas Mr Modi
statues of him in that image. In
did in a manner of speaking. To
India’s case the blunt sword is
canvass support in the state
the opiated and delusional
polls now underway, he
opposition.
underplayed and occasionally
Blunt facts challenge the feared erased from his midst his
cultural upheaval. The 2019 preferred revivalist ideology.
elections threw up after a long
Had there been a Hindutva
time a single party that secured
wave would Mr Modi be
more than 50 per cent votes.
seeking the blessings of modern
The BJP did that in 13 states
India’s ace anti-bigotry public
and union territories. However,
intellectual Rabindranath
in 1971, the Congress got more
Tagore in West Bengal? Modi
than 50pc votes in 12 states
and the BJP did this, often to
under Indira Gandhi by
the pointed exclusion of the
winning 352 of the Lok Sabha’s
founder of the BJP in its avatar
518 seats. And she didn’t need
as Bharatiya Jan Sangh,
to send air force bombers across
Shyama Prasad Mukherjee.
the borders to win. In 1980,
Then again, the prime minister
Mrs. Gandhi won 353 seats out
of Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan
of 542 with 13 states giving
fame was found struggling with
more than 50pc votes to the

English while addressing the
crowds in Tamil Nadu. He also
attempted salutations in Bangla
in rallies against Mamata
Banerjee. Ergo: no Hindi here.
Given the magic of the
multicultural and multilingual
country that India is, it’s hardly
surprising that Hindutva
ideologues are reduced to
faffing about a mythical past
that looks hard to connect to the
present leave alone to the
future. Indira Gandhi set up the
vaccines’ facility that are
helping the country and others,
not Baba Ramdev.
Moreover, in a country
witnessing a Hindutva wave,
would the BJP need the smash-
and-grab seizure of opposition-
run state governments through
inducements to MLAs? If
venality of politics passes for
popularity, it is just that, not to
be confused with social change,
leave alone a cultural
revolution. If anything, does the
constant need to conjure street
violence — verbally and
physically — with chilling
videos that are then circulated
to terrorise the TV-addicted
middle classes, indicate mass
support or state support for
street crime? There’s a
significant difference between
the two.
Add to the mix an unalloyed
reliance on near-total
monopoly on media to purvey a
ruler’s monologues. In most
democracies, the media is
constructed around social and
political fault lines. Media
rivalries make for a debate, not
necessarily reflecting the
plurality of an entire canvas,
but there’s a debate
nevertheless.
In Modi’s India what passes for
dominant media, and an
extremely handy media at that,
is revealed in the pusillanimity
of journalists who play to the
machinations of wilful rulers.
This is not the first time the
media has let down India’s
10
democracy. BJP leader L.K.
Advani records in his memoirs
that Indira Gandhi asked the
media to bend, and they
crawled. That habit has
evidently stayed. False praise or
flattery cannot be coterminous
with popularity.
Perhaps the most
overwhelming evidence that
Hindutva is shackled by its
overreach in larger India comes
from the realm of the beef
debate. It’s easy to lynch Pehlu
Khan and others in the
government’s cow-saving spree
in north Indian states. Is there
popular support for this
brutality? No. What then
explains the obvious reluctance
to impose a beef ban in BJP-
ruled Tripura, Goa, Assam and
other north-eastern states? Try
pursuing it in the south, and the
roaring cultural revolution will
hang in the air momentarily like
the Cheshire cat’s grin, before
fading into oblivion.

Killing our own children
Muhammad Hamid Zaman, Express Tribune
T
here is no great river of
progress springing from
Ratodero. In fact, as far
as health of young innocent
children is concerned, it is a sea
of evil. The party claiming the
banner of progress and equality
— that has been in power in
Sindh for nearly a generation —
is complicit and guilty in killing
the children of Ratodero. There
is no accountability, plan, or
vision to tackle an HIV
outbreak that is spinning out of
control. Instead of remorse, and
a resolve to change, what we
hear is denial, blaming others
and deflection. Maybe this is
what progress in the 21st
century looks like.
The HIV outbreak — which is
likely to lead to thousands of
preventable deaths of innocent
young children in the district
that has produced the
successive leaders of the party
in power in Sindh — was in the
news yet again. This time, in a
long read by a physician-writer
and professor at Columbia
University, Dr Helen Ouyang.
It is hard not to cry or scream in
anger while reading the story
that was published in The New
York Times on March 31, 2021,
(titled, “The City Losing Its
Children to HIV”). The writing
is sharp, the imagery vivid and
the message clear: we are
killing our own children. But
before the nationalists jump to a
conclusion about an
international conspiracy
maligning the great
progressives of Sindh, let it be
known that several local
journalists, in print and on TV,
have been talking about the
story for at least two years. The
result is the same — screaming
and shouting from some local
health officials, denial from
others, and hollow and empty
promises from the top
leadership.
Shame on all of them.
The spread of the disease
among children is through
malpractice which, in this
particular case, happens to be
through reusing injection
needles. There is no technical
complexity here, no new
science to be discovered.
Needles are not expensive, and
there is absolutely no reason for
them to be reused, except if the
doctors, nurses and health staff
are simply not qualified to be in
the sacred profession, and those
in charge of cracking down on
the malpractice not concerned
about the lives of poor children.
Shame on all of them.
As we slowly try to inch our
way out of Covid, our best bet
is through vaccination. There is
no question that the vaccination
rollout in the country has been
painfully slow, chaotic and the
direction remains murky. But
given what happens in our
11
cities, (even those famed for
giving us the most progressive
leaders!), a continued threat
looms large. What is to say that
a community that is unable to
protect its weakest from reused
needles in HIV treatment will
do any better for Covid? What
is to say that a few months or
years from now, we will not be
losing our people and our future
to medical malpractices and
malice towards the poor that
continue to proliferate in the
heartland? And that takes me to
my final point: while health
may be a provincial matter,
decency is not. What is
stopping the Governor of Sindh
to say that this is unacceptable?
What is stopping more
members of the provincial and
National Assembly to say how
we can let this happen to our
own and that we need to have
an inquiry and a commission to
fix this right now? What is
stopping the powerful talk-
show hosts and talking heads to
keep this issue in the news, and
pressure the provincial health
authorities to change course?
What is stopping all of us to
demand that this can no longer
be the norm, and that children
in Larkana and in every village,
and small town and large city
cannot be killed by our
corruption and negligence?
And if we do not have the will
or the time to do it — shame on
all of us.
China’s Belt and Road Initiative Should Be on the World Bank and
IMF’s Agenda
David Sacks and Max Yoeli, CFR
T
he Spring Meetings of
the World Bank Group
and International
Monetary Fund (IMF) convene
virtually this week against the
backdrop of a historic health
crisis and an uneven economic
recovery. The COVID-19
pandemic precipitated the most
serious economic downturn
since the Great Depression,
causing the global economy to
contract by 3.5 percent last
year. While some countries are
beginning to bounce back,
emerging market and
developing economies face a
longer recovery, as many lack
access to vaccines and the fiscal
space to deploy significant
economic stimulus.
As the World Bank and IMF
seek to put the world economy
on a more stable footing and
promote sustainable growth,
there is one issue they cannot
ignore: China’s Belt and Road
Initiative (BRI). China’s
massive global infrastructure
program has increased debt
levels to a worrying extent in
many developing countries,
threatening to hinder their
economic recovery. The
Bretton Woods institutions
need to confront this issue
head-on, rather than sweeping it
under the rug.
BRI meets significant
development needs, by funding
and building physical and
digital infrastructure projects
around the world. That is the
good news. The bad news, as as fears grow that the country
our recent Council on Foreign will be unable to repay China
Relations Independent Task for its disastrously unprofitable
Force points out, is that BRI $4.7 billion railway.
also contributes to economic
The COVID-19 pandemic
instability. China’s lending
struck when many BRI partners
practices have increased
were at their most vulnerable:
indebtedness to alarming levels
projects had not yet begun to
in some BRI partner nations.
pay for themselves, and
Because they enjoy state
countries started facing debt
backing, China’s state-owned
payments alongside increased
commercial and policy banks
healthcare and social
can relax lending criteria and
expenditures, even as state
finance projects that nobody
revenues plummeted. As a
else will, even as they generally
result, many countries have
lend on commercial rather than
found it difficult to repay their
concessional terms. As a result,
BRI loans, increasing the risk
China has funded many large
of debt crises. Should these
projects that cannot pay for
materialize, ailing countries
themselves, leading host
will be forced to make painful
countries to become
tradeoffs. Meanwhile, debt
overextended and economically
distress boosts China’s
fragile.
geopolitical leverage over
Even before COVID-19, the partner nations, especially
World Bank estimated that given Beijing’s practice of
nearly one-third of BRI using foreign assets as loan
countries were at high risk of collateral. While it is unlikely
debt distress. Although BRI is China will seize infrastructure,
just one factor behind such debt that very possibility may lead
pressure, there is no doubt that countries to defer to China on
its megaprojects have deepened political or strategic issues, to
the macroeconomic plight of the detriment of the United
many nations. In Pakistan, the States.
$62 billion China-Pakistan
BRI borrower nations clearly
Economic Corridor helped
need relief, and many have
precipitate a balance of
sought it directly (see the chart
payments crisis, necessitating a
above). Before COVID-19,
$6 billion IMF bailout. Sri
Malaysia and Myanmar
Lanka, unable to make debt
renegotiated unsustainable
payments to its Chinese
deals, and countries from
creditors, handed over control
Serbia to Thailand delayed,
of a port for 99 years. Kenya
shrunk, or cancelled BRI
offers another cautionary tale,
projects. Since the pandemic

began, however, newly urgent
requests for debt assistance
have found only limited
success. China rarely cancels
debt, instead opting to increase
loan maturity, reschedule
payments, and extend new
credit.
China’s lending practices make
it difficult for borrower nations
to obtain—or even seek—
relief. Beijing regularly insists
on confidentiality clauses that
prevent borrowers from
disclosing the terms of debt,
and sometimes its very
existence. Chinese lending
contracts often prohibit
collective restructuring
processes, including through
the Paris Club. And China also
inserts expansive cross-default,
stabilization, and other contract
clauses that allow it to demand
immediate repayment should a
host country take an action
deemed contrary to Chinese
interests.
The Spring Meetings offer an
opportunity to shine a light on
China’s problematic lending
practices and its inadequate
response to rising debt across
BRI nations, which risk
undermining the nascent global
economic recovery. The World
Bank and IMF should press
China to publish data on its
overseas lending and advocate
for improved transparency in
BRI projects, which would help
ensure more reliable
macroeconomic oversight. The
World Bank should also begin
the process of returning the
focus of its lending activities to
infrastructure to ensure that
countries with legitimate
financing needs have a high-
standards alternative to BRI.
The United States could
encourage this shift by
advocating for recapitalization
of the World Bank and other
multilateral development
banks.
Following the Spring Meetings,
the United States should work
with like-minded countries in
the IMF to make clear that the
Fund will not bail out nations
that take on unsustainable debt
through BRI. At the same time,
the United States should
support coordinated efforts to
provide some relief to nations
that have become
overextended. This should
include extending through the
end of the year the G20’s Debt
Service Suspension Initiative,
which currently permits
seventy-three eligible countries
to suspend debt-service
payments through June 2021.
The United States should also
13
marshal multilateral pressure
on China to treat BRI-related
claims as official debt, subject
to generous restructuring terms.
Finally, the United States and
its partners should implore
China, the world’s largest
official creditor, to join the
Paris Club so that during the
next crisis it cannot pursue
opaque bilateral consultations.
The Spring Meetings should
address BRI’s pitfalls and
advance policies to help put
BRI countries on the path
toward recovery and
sustainable growth. The United
States should work with its
partners under the auspices of
the World Bank and IMF to
offer an alternative to BRI and
press China to improve its
lending practices—to protect
against macroeconomic
instability, promote higher
standards of development
cooperation, and boost the
nascent economic recovery.
Jennifer Hillman and David
Sacks are codirectors of the
CFR-sponsored Independent
Task Force on a U.S. Response
to China’s Belt and Road
Initiative, which is co-chaired
by Jacob J. Lew and Gary
Roughead.

Post-Coup Myanmar Could Become a Failed State
Joshua Kurlantzick, World Politics Review
n the days after Myanmar’s
I
military staged a coup on
Feb. 1, it likely hoped to
consolidate power with
minimal bloodshed. Having
overthrown the elected
government led by Aung San
Suu Kyi, the Tatmadaw, as the
armed forces are known in
Myanmar, set out to create a
managed democracy like
neighboring Thailand’s, with
an electoral system that
guarantees victory for military-
aligned parties and their allies.
The coup leader, Gen. Min
Aung Hlaing, probably hoped
that neighboring states and
possibly even the world’s
leading democracies would
eventually recognize
Myanmar’s new government.
Indeed, as protests erupted
across the country in the coup’s
immediate aftermath, security
forces responded at first with
crowd control efforts rather
than the widespread use of
lethal force. The junta even
tried to gain the support of
some of Myanmar’s ethnic
armed groups, many of which
had signed cease-fire
agreements with Suu Kyi’s
government.
But over the past two months,
the growing anger and
resilience of the protesters have
made clear that the
demonstrations are not going to
stop. In response, the
Tatmadaw has stepped up its
repression, killing at least 700
people, including dozens of
children. Some 2,700 people
have reportedly been arrested.
While the anti-coup resistance
movement remains largely
peaceful, the military’s
brutality has caused some
demonstrators to shift tactics,
trading in their slogans and
placards for makeshift weapons
like slingshots, air guns and
even Molotov cocktails. As for
the armed ethnic groups that the
junta had hoped to woo, many
of them have declared past
cease-fires null and void
because of the coup, and some
are launching new offensives.
There appears to be no clear
endpoint or offramp to the
violence, which is causing
public services and other state
functions to collapse in parts of
the country. Much of Myanmar,
particularly its ethnic minority-
dominated borderlands, was
already difficult to govern due
to decades of civil strife. As I
wrote in an article for the
journal Current History in
2011, Myanmar had the
potential to become a failed
state even then. Ten years later,
that prospect could easily
become reality, even in major
cities like Yangon and
Mandalay. A civil war across
the country also seems
increasingly likely, one that
could spark a massive
humanitarian emergency and a
new refugee crisis. If not
contained, such a conflict could
destabilize other parts of
mainland Southeast Asia and
14
even neighboring India and
China.
The Tatmadaw apparently
failed to anticipate the
resilience of the anti-coup
protesters, the resistance of
ethnic armies, or the fact that it
would get little cover from
other countries, save China and
Russia. Yet for all its
weaknesses, the Tatmadaw
enjoys high levels of unity and
institutional cohesion. Soldiers
are indoctrinated from an early
age through an intense
propaganda effort, and internal
incentives prevent large-scale
defections. At this point, the
junta is unlikely to yield to
protesters’ demands that Suu
Kyi’s government be
reinstated; apparently, it would
rather preside over a failed state
than give way to a solution that
allows for better governance
but dilutes the military’s power.
One Western diplomat told The
Irrawaddy, an independent
news outlet based in Thailand,
that the situation resembles the
civil war in Syria. Like that
country’s dictator, Bashar al-
Assad, Min Aung Hlaing and
his fellow generals are “open to
destroying the country to
protect themselves,” the
diplomat said.
There are troubling signs of
escalating conflict in
Myanmar’s outer-lying
provinces. Two of the most
powerful armed groups, the
Kachin Independence Army
and the Karen National Union,

have attacked military outposts
in recent weeks. And the
Arakan Army, a hard-line
Buddhist militia that is active in
western Rakhine state,
condemned the coup in a
statement last month, adding
that “the oppressed ethnic
people as a whole will continue
to fight for their freedom from
oppression.”
By some estimates, the ethnic
armies have a total of 75,000
soldiers under their
command—fewer than the
Tatmadaw’s roughly 350,000,
but still a sizable number. The
volatile situation could also
spark renewed fighting
between rival armed groups,
causing even greater chaos in
the countryside. For example,
the biggest ethnic army, the
30,000-strong United Wa State
Army—which controls
territory in the northeast and is
also allegedly one of the biggest
drug trafficking organizations
in the world—might use the
power vacuum to try and
consolidate or expand the
territory it controls.
As some protesters in cities and
towns begin to adopt more
violent tactics, there is also the
prospect of urban armed
resistance or even guerilla
warfare. Some protesters have
met with members of the ethnic
militias to learn their tactics.
This is likely to prompt an even
more heavy-handed response
from the military, which
recently conducted airstrikes
against the Karen National
Union. And in some residential
areas, security forces are
carrying out nighttime raids,
going door-to-door to round up
suspected demonstrators and
subjecting them to beatings,
detentions or, in some cases,
summary executions. With a
steady supply of weaponry and
materiel from Russia and its
own factories, the Tatmadaw is
in no danger of running out of
supplies.
For now, though, neither the
military nor the protesters nor
the ethnic militias seem capable
of gaining a major advantage.
Instead, Myanmar seems
poised for an increasingly
bloody stalemate, though with
fighting stretching across the
country. The junta has largely
shut down the internet, but
reports of urban battles are
emerging. Frontier Myanmar,
one of the last remaining
independent news outlets in the
country, recently reported that
one police officer who had
apparently joined the resistance
used hand grenades to kill five
other members of the security
forces. In another incident, a
protester detonated a landmine
in an apparent effort to harm a
group of soldiers, who then shot
at protesters in retaliation.
Frontier Myanmar reported that
these were just some of the
multiple violent encounters that
are increasingly common
between security forces and
protesters across the country.
A prolonged period of civil
unrest in Myanmar will
certainly affect its neighbors.
15
With the economy devastated,
the financial system collapsing
and food prices rising, an
untold number of people will
fall into poverty and hunger;
COVID-19 is likely spreading
as well. As the violence
persists, refugees are going to
pour across Myanmar’s borders
in larger numbers, causing
significant challenges for
receiving states like Thailand,
Bangladesh, India and parts of
China. Bangladesh, in
particular, already hosts
hundreds of thousands of ethnic
Rohingya refugees who have
fled persecution. Many of these
countries have no desire to take
people in from Myanmar, but
they will likely have little
choice. If not carefully
managed, new camps for
refugees and displaced people
could breed anger and despair,
providing new recruits to
trafficking organizations and
armed groups.
So far, the international
community has responded to
the situation mainly by trying to
pressure Myanmar’s military
leaders through economic
sanctions. But these measures
have apparently not had an
impact thus far. Instead, the
lack of foreign investment
means the junta will likely turn
to illicit revenue-generating
activities, like narcotics and
human trafficking. It remains
unlikely that nearby states will
intervene directly to prop up
one actor or another, turning
Myanmar into a proxy war like
the ones that were common in
mainland Southeast Asia
during the Cold War. Still, if
instability rises in Myanmar,
regional powers may feel the
need to intervene more
assertively. All of this means
that the situation in Myanmar
could easily get much worse
before it gets better.

India and the great power triangle of Russia, China and US
C. Raja Mohan, The Indian Express
T
he recent visit of
Russian foreign minister
Sergei Lavrov to Delhi
and Islamabad is among
multiple signs of India’s
changing relations with the
great powers. The others
include the dramatic rise of
China and Beijing’s new
assertiveness. At the same time,
Delhi’s growing strategic
partnerships with the US and
Europe have begun to end
India’s prolonged alienation
from the West. Meanwhile,
New Delhi’s own relative
weight in the international
system continues to increase
and give greater breadth and
depth to India’s foreign policy.
Change is the only permanent
feature of the world and Delhi
has no reason to be sentimental
about the past. Consider, for
example, the shifts in the
triangular relations between
Russia, China and America. If
you like to pick nits, you could
argue with Lavrov’s claim in
Delhi last week about relations
between Moscow and Beijing
being in their best-ever phase
today. They were probably
even better in the 1950s when
Russia and China were
ideological soulmates united by
expansive economic and
security cooperation.
The leaders of the two nations
— Joseph Stalin and Mao
Zedong — signed a formal
treaty of alliance in 1950.
Russia not only invested
massively in the economic
modernisation of China, but
also gave it technology that
made it easier for Beijing to
become a nuclear weapon
power.
However, by the 1960s, the two
communist states were at each
other’s throats, arguing about
ideology and a lot else.
Dispelling the illusions that
communist states don’t fight
with each other, the armies of
Russia and China fought each
other on their frontier in 1969.
The Sino-Soviet split had
consequences way beyond their
bilateral relations. None of
them more important than the
efforts by both Moscow and
Beijing to woo Washington.
The break-up between Russia
and China also opened space
for Delhi against Beijing after
the 1962 war in the Himalayas.
As Sino-Russian relations
worsened in the 1960s along
with the deterioration of India’s
relations with China, Delhi and
Moscow found common
interest in balancing Beijing.
That did not last too long
though.
Under intense American
pressure on Russia in the 1980s,
Moscow sought to normalise
ties with Beijing. After the
collapse of the Soviet Union,
Moscow’s first instinct was to
16
become a part of the political
West. But disappointed with the
Western response, Russia
turned to build a stronger
partnership with China.
Stepping back to the 1960s and
1970s, China strongly objected
to Delhi’s partnership with
Moscow (much in the manner
that Beijing complains about
India’s relations with America
today). In a pithy but vulgar
summary of Delhi-Moscow
ties, Mao Zedong described
them as the Russian bear
mounting the Indian cow.
Although the Indo-Russian
strategic liaison endured, it was
never without its share of
problems that Delhi had to cope
with.
Russia, which today resents
India’s growing strategic
warmth with the US, has its
own long history of
collaboration with Washington.
Moscow and Washington were
allies in defeating Hitler’s
Germany and in constructing
the post-War Yalta system on
which the current world order
rests. The alliance between
Washington and Moscow,
however, quickly degenerated
into a Cold War by the late
1940s.
But by the turn of the 1960s,
Russia was seeking peaceful
coexistence with America.
Together, Moscow and
Washington laid the

foundations for nuclear arms
control and sought to develop a
new framework for shared
global leadership.
Delhi was happy to welcome
Russia’s repeated veto in the
United Nations Security
Council against Anglo-
American interventions on the
Kashmir question. But it was
anxious about the dangers of a
potential US-Russian global
condominium. This is not very
different from Delhi’s worries
these days about America and
China setting up a G-2 over
Asia and the world.
Delhi was especially concerned
about the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty
system, with all its constraints
on India’s atomic options, that
Moscow and Washington
constructed in the late 1960s.
Many other global and regional
issues, including Russian
interventions in Hungary,
Czechoslovakia and
Afghanistan, created political
difficulties for India. Delhi
never relished Moscow’s ideas
on “Asian collective security”.
China was even more visceral
in its denunciation of the US-
Soviet detente in the 1960s and
1970s. But Mao’s answer was
not in staying away from both,
but in leaning towards America.
Although he fought a costly
Korean War with the US in the
early 1950s, Mao had no
difficulty cosying up to
Washington in 1971 to counter
the perceived threat from
Russia. He was merely
following the old Chinese
dictum of “aligning with the far
to balance the near”. His
successor, Deng Xiaoping,
refused to extend the 1950
security treaty with Russia that
expired in 1980.
Deng turned, instead, towards
building a solid economic
partnership with the US and the
West that helped accelerate
China’s rise as a great power.
Today, the Chinese economy is
nine times larger than that of
Russia. If Moscow was the big
brother in the 1950s, Beijing is
the senior partner today. It is a
reminder that power balances
will inevitably change over
time.
Despite all their venting on
India joining an “Asian Nato”,
China and Russia have not
stopped seeking special
bilateral relationships of their
own with America. The
problem is not about principle,
but the difficulty of finding
acceptable terms of
accommodation with
Washington. Delhi has no
reason to rule out important
changes in the way the US,
Russia and China relate to each
other in the near and medium-
term.
The twists and turns in the
triangular dynamic between
America, Russia and China
noted above should remind us
that Moscow and Beijing are
17
not going to be “best friends
forever”. Nor will America’s
ties with China and Russia
remain permanently frozen.
Delhi has successfully
managed the past flux in the
great power politics; it is even
better positioned today to deal
with potential changes among
the great powers, thanks to the
size of the Indian economy — it
is the sixth-largest in the world
— and a more broad-based
foreign policy.
In the last few years, India has
finally overcome its historic
hesitations in partnering with
the US. Delhi has also
intensified its efforts to woo
European powers, especially
France. Prime Minister Boris
Johnson’s visit to Delhi later
this month promises a fresh
start in India’s difficult
postcolonial ties with Britain.
India is also expanding its ties
with Asian middle powers like
Japan, Korea and Australia.
The current troubles with China
seem to be an unfortunate
exception to the upswing in
India’s bilateral ties with global
actors. What about Russia?
Despite the current differences
over Afghanistan and the Indo-
Pacific, Delhi and Moscow
have no reason to throw away
their mutually beneficial
bilateral partnership. To be
sure, their relations with third
parties like China and America
are evolving. But none of that
change is impossible for Delhi
to manage.

What is behind the growing tensions in Ukraine?
Leonid Ragozin, Aljazeera
O
ver the past few weeks,
Russia has been
amassing troops at the
Ukrainian border, triggering
alarm in Kyiv and European
Union capitals. Kremlin-
controlled TV channels have
been busy preparing the public
in Russia for a fresh outbreak of
war. Alarmingly jingoistic
statements are being made on
various talk shows, with hosts
and guests suggesting the
possibility of Russia seizing
new chunks of Ukrainian
territory or even advancing as
far as Kyiv.
Western observers have been
speculating that Russian
President Vladimir Putin is
trying to test US President Joe
Biden’s resolve or that he wants
to distract public attention in
Russia from the plight of the
first poisoned, then imprisoned
opposition leader Aleksey
Navalny. It is also not
inconceivable that he might be
entertaining the idea of
replicating the “Crimea effect”
by waging “a small victorious
war” on the eve of
parliamentary elections in
September. In 2014, the
annexation of Crimea resulted
in a huge surge in his personal
popularity.
But given Putin’s propensity to
stealthy and surprising moves,
the current deployment of
troops is way too demonstrative
to be a preparation of imminent
invasion. Their enhanced
visibility has made some
observers conclude that they
are meant as intimidation rather
than outright aggression.
From the Russian perspective,
however, the Kremlin is being
reactive, not proactive, in the
face of a newly emerging
threat. The amassing of troops
is the Kremlin’s heavy-handed
response to what it interprets as
a coordinated attempt by Biden
and Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelenskyy to upset
the fragile equilibrium which
underpinned a relative calm on
the front line in eastern
Ukraine.
A landmark event, which
preceded this escalation, was
the war in Nagorno-Karabakh
last fall, in which Russia’s
military ally, Armenia, was
soundly defeated by Azerbaijan
with the assistance of Turkey, a
NATO member. That war
demonstrated the limits of
Russia’s ability and willingness
to get dragged into another
serious conflict. It also
highlighted the vulnerabilities
of an army overly reliant on
Russian weapon supplies,
particularly against Turkish
drones.
The Atlantic Council, a
hawkish NATO-linked think
tank, which to a large extent
drives the Ukrainian discourse
18
in Washington, was quick to
suggest that the war in
Nagorno-Karabakh opened a
possibility of a military solution
in Donbas, while peace talks
were a road to nowhere.
Incidentally, both Karabakh
and Ukraine talks take place at
the same venue – Minsk,
Belarus.
The Minsk agreements were
imposed on Ukraine after it
suffered a series of defeats in
the war against Russia-backed
Donbas separatists in 2015. If
implemented in full, they
essentially ensure that Russia
retains a stake in Ukrainian
politics, allowing it to block the
country’s membership in
NATO – Moscow’s main
concern that drives its Ukraine
policy. Kyiv has long tried to
amend the agreements while
threatening to leave the Minsk
framework altogether, but
Moscow would not budge.
The arrival of Biden’s
administration coincided with
Zelenskyy adopting a new
assertive policy on Russia,
which could not help but alarm
the Kremlin.
First, his government closed
TV channels associated with
Viktor Medvedchuk, an
oligarch seen as Putin’s man in
Ukraine. The move primarily
served to undermine

Medvedchuk’s Opposition
Platform/For Life party. This
Russia-friendly force emerged
as Ukraine’s most popular party
at the end of 2020, not least
because of Zelensky’s failure to
bring peace and repeal the
ethnonationalist legislation
restricting the use of the
Russian language, a ticking
time bomb set up by his
predecessor, Petro Poroshenko,
in the last days of his
presidency.
Meanwhile, Ukraine renewed
its efforts to attain NATO
membership. Three days after
Biden entered the White House,
Zelenskyy gave an interview to
US media outlet Axios, in
which he made clear Ukraine’s
readiness to join the
transatlantic alliance under this
US administration. The
interview was followed by
foreign minister Dmytro
Kuleba publishing an op-ed on
the Atlantic Council’s website
titled: Why is Ukraine still not
in NATO?, which called for
launching a membership plan
for Ukraine.
On March 5, the same think-
tank presented a list of
recommendations to the Biden
administration, which included
granting Ukraine the status of a
“major non-NATO ally” and
threatening Russia with
activating a NATO
membership plan for Ukraine,
if Moscow fails to be more
cooperative on Donbas.
In the meantime, the ceasefire
in eastern Ukraine – Zelensky’s
main achievement on the peace
settlement front – essentially
collapsed. At the end of March,
Putin spoke to French and
German leaders, the co-
sponsors of the Minsk peace
talks, to communicate his
concern about the aggravating
situation. Ukraine was
demonstratively excluded from
the conversation. Soon after,
Russia began amassing troops
at the Ukrainian border.
In sharp contrast with his
habitually dovish approach,
Zelenskyy is not backing off.
On April 6, he told NATO
Secretary-General Jens
Stoltenberg that NATO was
“the only way to end the war in
Donbas” and that the
membership action plan would
be “a real signal for Russia”. A
real signal indeed: A few hours
later, Russian defence minister
Sergey Shoygu ordered a
combat readiness check for the
whole Russian army.
Ukraine’s NATO membership
is a clear red line not just for the
Kremlin, but for Russian
society as a whole. It would
place hostile troops just 500km
(310 miles) south of Moscow,
in addition to them already
being stationed 600km (373
miles) to the west of the
Russian capital, in Baltic
countries. This would not only
elicit a hostile response from
the Kremlin, but it would also
solidify Putin’s regime for
years to come and marginalise
the currently fledgeling anti-
Putin opposition.
Putin is known for skillfully
exploiting the unhealed trauma
of World War II to mobilise
19
support, including from people
who do not like his other
policies. America’s disregard
for that trauma and its never-
ending flirtation with radical
nationalism in Eastern Europe
makes it all too easy for the
Kremlin to sell NATO to
Russians as an existential
threat. Examples of that tone-
deafness are all too many. At a
policy conference earlier this
month, the former commander
of US armed forces in Europe,
Ben Hodges, made a wild claim
that “it were Ukrainians, not
Russians” who perished in
World War II. At the same
conference, a Ukrainian
politician promoted the idea of
Idel-Ural, a separatist project
for Russia’s Volga region
Hitler toyed with during the
war.
Diplomats representing all
parties involved are surely
working hard to prevent the
worst, but all of this does not
bode well for millions of
eastern Ukrainians trapped
between Putin’s dictatorship
and the American-backed
ethnonationalist project for
Ukraine – as promoted by
Atlantic Council pundits –
which defies social and cultural
reality in the post-Soviet
region.
A renewed conflict will
inevitably lead to renewed
polarisation in Ukraine. A
unifying figure who transcends
the country’s east-west
linguistic divide, Zelenskyy
might be Ukraine’s last chance
to save itself from partition and
the West’s last chance to
preserve Ukraine as a potential
 20

role model serving to inspire one, except war-mongering and Kyiv, would gain from
pro-democracy Russians. No hawks in Moscow, Washington another blood bath in Ukraine.

What is behind the anti-Muslim measures in Sri Lanka?
Farzana Haniffa, Aljazeera
O
n March 13, Sarath
Weerasekara, Sri
Lanka’s minister of
public security, announced that
the government will ban
wearing of the burqa and close
more than 1,000 Islamic
schools in the country. The
minister was quoted as saying
that “the burqa” was a “sign of
religious extremism” and has a
“direct impact on national
security”.
The news was picked up
internationally and resulted in
several statements by human
rights organisations and the UN
special rapporteur on freedom
of religion or belief, Ahmed
Shaheed, as well as from
Pakistan’s ambassador to Sri
Lanka. Three days later the
government stepped back from
Weerasekera’s statement.
Cabinet spokesman Keheliya
Rambukwella announced that
the decision “requires time”
and a consultative process.
The burqa ban announcement
caused a stir among Muslims,
who saw it as yet another attack
on their community. In the past
few months, the government
has undertaken a number of
controversial measures under
the banner of fighting
extremism, which have
increasingly intimidated the
Muslim population and
disregarded rule of law
principles.
The anti-Muslim movement
Since it gained independence
from the British in 1948, Sri
Lanka has witnessed
tumultuous relations between
the Sinhala Buddhist majority,
which makes up about 70
percent of the population and
the Hindu and Christian Tamil
minority, which accounts for
roughly 12 percent. During the
war between the military forces
and the Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam (LTTE), other
minorities, like the Muslims,
who make up around nine
percent of the population, were
targeted less frequently by
ultra-nationalist Sinhalese
groups.
After the end of the civil war in
2009, an anti-Muslim
movement initiated by the
Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), with
the monk Galabod Aththe
Gnanasara at the helm, began to
emerge. The BBS is an activist
group led by Buddhist monks
which mobilised around what
they described as the threat
posed by the “social
separatism” of “extremist
Muslims”. Their definition of
extremism, however, seems to
encompass the majority of
Muslims’ everyday practices.
The BBS’s large public rallies
and their strident social media
campaigns normalised hate
speech and everyday low-
intensity harassment of
21
Muslims across the country.
Incitement by the BBS and the
cultivation of anti-Muslim
sentiment over the post-war
years also led to violent attacks
against small Muslim
communities in 2014, 2017 and
2018. The BBS also aligned
itself with similar groups in
Myanmar.
Following these incidents, the
local authorities did not take
serious action against BBS and
other similar groups and in
some cases blamed Muslims for
the violence.
In 2019, anti-Muslim hatred
escalated further after eight
suicide bombers pledging
allegiance to the Islamic State
detonated themselves at
churches, hotels and other
locations across the country on
Easter Sunday. There was
evidence of the failure to pursue
available intelligence by the
security establishment and
negligence on the part of the
political leadership. However,
the media coverage of the event
and government policy
discussion in the aftermath
primarily targeted the country’s
Muslim population.
Experts rarely referenced the
role of the anti-Muslim
movement in radicalising local
Muslims. In May, there were
violent retaliatory attacks
against Muslim communities in
the northwest.

The government response to the
attack was to embrace the anti-
Muslim language of the BBS
and initiate sweeping arrests of
suspected followers of the
group responsible for the
bombings.
Since then, several prominent
Muslims have also been
arbitrarily targeted by the
government, with little or no
evidence produced of their
wrongdoing. In April 2020, the
police arrested Hejaaz
Hisbullah, an activist lawyer,
on suspicion of aiding the
attackers. Then in May 2020,
Ahnaf Jazeem, a young Muslim
poet, was also detained under
the same pretext. Recently, the
former leader of the Jamati
Islami, Hajjul Akbar was
arrested and detained for a
second time, again without
charges being filed.
In the aftermath of the Easter
Sunday attacks, a parliamentary
sectoral oversight committee
on national security was set up
to put together proposals for
terrorism prevention measures.
It has made recommendations
in 14 areas, many of which curb
the religious rights of the
Muslim minority.
The burqa ban and the closing
of Islamic schools stem from
these recommendations, as do
several other measures recently
taken. In early March, the
government declared that all
Islamic books imported into the
country will need defence
ministry approval. Several days
later, it gazetted a set of
regulations ominously sub-
titled “Deradicalisation from
holding violent extremist
religious ideology” under the
Prevention of Terrorism Act.
The regulations give it powers
to arrest and forward persons to
a rehabilitation centre to be
“deradicalised” for one year on
suspicion without requiring any
additional process.
Apart from the above, the
government has sought other
ways to intimidate the
country’s Muslims. When the
COVID-19 pandemic spread to
Sri Lanka in the spring of 2020,
it imposed a mandatory
cremation policy for the
COVID-19 dead and refused to
allow Muslims to bury their
dead, in accordance with their
religion.
Muslims’ call for the burial
option on religious grounds was
written and talked about as
“tribal” and “backward” and as
reprehensible behaviour in the
middle of a public health
emergency. Despite
condemnations at home and
abroad and guidelines by the
World Health Organization
emphasising the safety of
burials, the government
maintained its position for
nearly a year. Burial was
permitted only recently under
international pressure.
Demonising Muslims as a
political strategy
Political elites in Sri Lanka
have consistently demonised
minorities and incited ethno-
religious animosity to win
elections. After the end of the
war in 2009, when victory over
the Tamil Tigers was glorified
by the government, enmity
22
against all other minorities and
especially the Muslims was
cultivated with renewed vigour.
The Rajapaksa family, which
has dominated the political
scene in Sri Lanka since 2005,
was complicit in this cultivation
until their electoral defeat in the
2015 elections. During their
political campaigning after
2015, the Rajapaksas’ new
party, the Sri Lanka Podujana
Peramuna (SLPP), took on a
Sinhala supremacist position,
accommodating activist monks
and anti-Muslim movement
stalwarts.
Rhetoric regarding Muslim
business prowess as
challenging the ascendence of
Sinhala entrepreneurs, Muslims
conspiring to upend the
majority status of Sinhalese or
constituting a terrorist threat
was widely used.
In October 2018, the
Rajapaksas suffered a
significant setback. Former
president and then MP Mahinda
Rajapaksa, in collusion with
President Maithripala Sirisena
staged a coup to take control of
the government. They were
defeated when the Supreme
Court threw out their claim to
legitimacy and the Rajapaksa
brand suffered some damage as
a result.
The 2019 bombings energised
the Rajapaksas’ familial
politics and helped them
overcome the momentary
unpopularity they were
struggling with. The
Rajapaksas attempted to
leverage the bombings to their
political advantage in the

immediate aftermath. They
accused the ruling regime of
concentrating on reconciliation
with minorities and neglecting
security. When several months
later, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the
brother of Mahinda Rajapaksa,
was nominated as the SLPP’s
presidential candidate, he
declared in his platform: “My
main task would be to ensure
that our motherland which is
once again under threat from
terrorist and extremist elements
is safe and protected.”
Using anti-minority and pro-
security rhetoric in his
campaign, Rajapaksa won the
presidential election by a high
percentage of Sinhala Buddhist
votes and appointed his brother,
Mahinda, the former president
as prime minister. Since then, at
every opportunity, the president
has reiterated his commitment
to this majority and outlined his
actions to combat Islamic
extremism, and the government
23
has pressed forward with anti- war crimes committed during
Muslim policies. the civil war. The motion went
through mainly because of the
In this context, the recent flurry
loss of support for the
of anti-Muslim government
government from some
activity, including the burqa
Muslim-majority countries,
ban, serve not only to mitigate
who abstained from voting. The
the fallout from the shift in
resolution included reference to
position on COVID-19 burials,
the government’s treatment of
but also to distract from the
Muslims in its COVID-19
Rajapaksa administration’s
response and the continued
ongoing failures. The cabinet is
marginalisation of minorities.
facing anger over a vast tax
scam, mounting opposition to The current government’s
its permission of deforestation, inability to mobilise its
and growing public anxiety constituency around anything
over the economic downturn. It other than ethno-religious
is likely that anti-Muslim animosity is a legacy of Sri
activities will increase if their Lanka’s post-independence
popularity continues to decline. politics that looks set to
continue in the long term. The
But the anti-Muslim policies of
UNHRC resolution was a
the government may be
welcome development.
backfiring. In March, it
However, the future outlook for
suffered a defeat at the UN
minorities in the country
Human Rights Council
remains bleak. Ten years after a
(UNHRC), which passed a
devastating war the Sri Lankan
resolution empowering the UN
polity shows little evidence of
High Commissioner for Human
having learnt from its past.
Rights to collect and preserve
information and evidence of