Palestinians Flee As Islamic State Rebels Seize Most of Damascus Refugee Camp

The United Nations says around 18,000 civilians, including a large number of children, are trapped in Yarmouk, a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria's capital.

By Zeina Karam, Associated Press
APRIL 4, 2015

Islamic State Takes 90 Percent of Damascus Refugee Camp

On Saturday a monitoring group said, Islamic State has taken control of 90 percent of a Palestinian refugee camp called Yarmouk on the Damascus outskirts where 18,000 civilians have suffered years of bombing, army siege and militia control. Islamic State, the most powerful insurgent group in Syria, is now only a few kilometers from President Bashar al-Assad's seat of power. The United Nations has said it is extremely concerned about the safety and protection of Syrians and Palestinians in the camp.

BEIRUT — Civilians trapped in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria's capital fled to safer areas Saturday amid intense shelling and clashes between Palestinian armed factions and Islamic militants who took over most of the camp, Syrian activists said.

A Damascus-based Palestinian official, Khaled Abdul-Majid, said the militants controlled about half of the Yarmouk camp, located on the southern edge of the Syrian capital.

Islamic State militants stormed the camp on Wednesday, marking the extremist group's deepest foray yet into the capital. Palestinian officials and Syrian activists said they were working with rivals from the al-Qaida affiliate in Syria, the Nusra Front. The two groups have fought bloody battles against each other in other parts of Syria, but appear to be cooperating in the attack on Yarmouk.

The Islamic State group's presence in Yarmouk gives it an important foothold only a few kilometers away from President Bashar Assad's seat of power. It also gives the group a potential sanctuary where U.S.-led coalition forces were unlikely to strike because of the camp's proximity to Damascus.

The United Nations says around 18,000 civilians, including a large number of children, are trapped in Yarmouk. The camp has been under government siege for nearly two years, leading to starvation and illnesses caused by lack of medical aid. The camp has also witnessed several rounds of ferocious and deadly fighting between government forces and militants.

Most of the camp's estimated 160,000 inhabitants fled in late 2012 as clashes erupted between pro- and anti-Assad Palestinian gunmen— many to overcrowded and destitute Palestinian refugee camps in neighboring Lebanon. Only the poorest remained behind.

U.N. aid workers have been sending food parcels into the camp in an effort to alleviate the extreme suffering inside.

After militants advanced into northeastern districts of the camp overnight Saturday, many residents fled the fighting to safer districts in the south, activists said. Islamic State militants took up sniper positions on rooftops, they added.

An activist based in an area just south of Damascus, Hatem al-Dimashqi, said Saturday that rebel groups have launched a counteroffensive aimed at ousting the militants from the camp. He said a number of factions based inside the camp and in surrounding areas, including Yalda, Babila and Beit Saham, formed a joint operations command to coordinate their military action.

Al-Dimashqi, speaking from the edge of Yalda, said mosques in those areas were blaring calls for blood donations as hospitals received wounded civilians from Yarmouk.

He and the Palestinian official, Abdul-Majid, said IS militants beheaded five people, some of them from the anti-Assad group known as Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis which has fought them in the camp.

The coalition has been striking at Islamic State militants and infrastructure in north and eastern Syria, where the group has its strongholds.

In addition to the ground clashes, Syrian forces were shelling the camp. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported Syrian government airstrikes on Yarmouk, but said there was no immediate word on casualties.

The Syrian National Coalition opposition group accused the government, which has blockaded the camp from three sides, of allowing militants access into the camp. It called for urgent intervention by the U.N. and Arab League to provide humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians.

Kenyans Blame Corrupt Government for Escalating Al-Shabaab Violence

Abigail Higgins
Garissa, Kenya  11:13 AM ET    

Many Kenyans have lost faith in their government's ability to keep them safe

When al-Shabaab militants stormed University College of Garissa early on Thursday morning no one knew that by the end of the day 148 would be dead, constituting Kenya’s deadliest terrorist attack in 17 years.

What most Kenyans did know is that they had lost faith in their government’s ability to keep Kenya safe from al-Shabaab’s increasingly deadly presence. Since 2011, it is estimated that more than 300 people have been killed by terrorist attacks in Kenya.

“This is an issue of security and the government. It’s not an issue that is starting now—it’s been an issue that has been going on for a while. The security matter should be taken seriously and they’ve completely neglected the issue,” said Hussein Malaam, a student at University College of Garrisa who was awoken early on the morning of the attacks by a phone call from a friend warning him not to go to school. That was when Malaam started to hear gun shots coming from the nearby university.

The gunmen first fired indiscriminately into the campus before zeroing in on students in their dormitories, most of whom were fast asleep when the attack started. By mid-morning, students had been evacuated from three of four of the student hostels. At the last hostel, gunmen reportedly separated Muslim students out for freedom, taking non-Muslim students hostage or executing them on the spot.

“The people were trapped here for 13 hours—where was the government? They failed to protect their people,” said Farhiya Haji, a high school student from a nearby village who had walked two hours the day after the attack to see what was happening for herself at the gates of the university. “We don’t feel safe here and the government isn’t doing anything to protect us.”

By Saturday, most surviving students had been bused to Nairobi to be reunited with their families. Those critically injured had been airlifted to the capital city in the preceding days. Around mid-morning, emergency response teams received word that several surviving students had been found in the university. They had climbed the rafters to hide in the ceiling, waiting there for days as security teams cleared the university of remaining students.

The four terrorists were killed and their bodies were brought to the morgue at Garissa Hospital on Saturday where local and international forensics teams performed autopsies. The bodies, bloating and rotting in Northeastern Kenya’s sweltering sun, were then displayed at Garissa Primary school for the community, searching for a sense of justice or certainty, to see.

Kenya’s security situation has continued to deteriorate since the 2013 attack on Nairobi’s Westgate Mall, where 67 people were killed. Late last year, al-Shabaab militants carried out two attacks in Mandera, also in Northern Kenya. In the first attack 28 people were killed and in the second, 36. Both times gunmen identified Muslims and freed them while shooting or decapitating non-Muslims.

“Its not that al-Shabaab is so good at what they’re doing—the government just does such a terrible job that they make them look good. Al-Shabaab is probably at its weakest point since 2006,” said Abdullahi B. Halakhe, a Nairobi-based East Africa researcher with Amnesty International.

The university is located just off Kismayo Road, the main drag that cuts through Garissa and stretches about 90 miles to the Somali border; a border whose porous nature is blamed for a great deal of the insecurity in Kenya. “It’s very clear that the Kenya police is probably the most corrupt institution in this country, folks crossing the border have to pay less than $200 and they can cross over,” said Halakhe, referring to the ease with which anyone, including al-Shabaab, can enter Kenya.

“Entrenched corruption in the security system allows al-Shabaab to move freely in and out of Kenya and carry out such attacks with ease,” said prominent Kenyan activist Boniface Mwangi in a statement online.

Kenya ranks as one of the most corrupt countries in the world, landing 145th out of 174 on Transparency International’s Global Corruption Perception Index. The Kenyan police rank as the most corrupt institution in Kenya.

Earlier in the week, Kenya’s Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission published a report detailing allegations of corruption against 175 government officials. In a potentially positive step, President Uhuru Kenyatta made a speech in response to the report pressuring the public officials named to step down pending investigations. Five ministers have done so.

“The biggest problem in this country that needs to be tackled is corruption. Corruption is the biggest contribution to insecurity in this country. Its an impediment to everything—without it we could be a very rich nation,” said Hassan Sheikh Ali, the former leader of Garissa University.

In addition to concerns about corruption, many have accused the Kenyan government of not taking credible security threats seriously. “There was no doubt that Northeastern Kenya has become insecure,” said Rashid Abdi, an Independent Horn of Africa analyst. “I think there was enough intelligence that education institutions and basically any facilities with non-Muslims in Northeastern Kenya were at risk; I’m surprised that that college wasn’t sufficiently protected.”

Universities across Kenya had issued security warnings in the weeks preceding the attacks including on March 25 when the Chief Security Officer of the University of Nairobi issued a Terror Threat Alert that stated “Intelligence reports indicate that the al-Shabaab terror group is planning retaliatory attacks on vital installations in Nairobi including a major University.”

Britain and Australia also issued fresh travel advisories earlier in the week, warning citizens of Kenya’s increasing insecurity. President Kenyatta fired back, stating that Kenya was as safe as anywhere else. “The travel advisories being issued by our friends are not genuine. I have not heard of any travel advisory issued to those visiting Paris, which recently experienced a terror attack,” he said.

Al-Shabaab has consistently attributed its attacks on Kenyan soil to Kenya’s 2011 invasion of Somalia. Titled Operation Linda Nchi, the invasion was allegedly in response to the kidnapping of Westerners in Northeastern Kenya. “Since October 2011 Kenya has been the most insecure that we have seen in decades. If going into Somalia was to secure Kenya then they have failed,” said Halakhe. “The elephant in the room [is] what is Kenya’s plan as far as Somalia is concerned?” added Halakhe. “What does the exit plan look like, is it two years, is it three years?”

President Kenyatta responded to the attacks by saying, “I also assure the Nation that my Government has undertaken appropriate deployment to the affected area, and is fully seized of the situation… This is a moment for everyone throughout the country to be vigilant as we continue to confront and defeat our enemies.”

He also directed the Inspector-General of Police to fast-track the enrollment of 10,000 police recruits, saying, “We have suffered unnecessarily due to shortage of security personnel. Kenya badly needs additional officers, and I will not keep the nation waiting.”

Even this move, however, has come under criticism as the initial reason for the delayed enrollment of the 10,000 recruits was concerns over irregularities and corruption during the recruitment process.

“The selection process is flawed, favoring brawn to brains as thousands of unemployed graduates languish. The working conditions are terrible and the primary motivation for many recruits joining the police force is the bribery paradise they work in,” said Mwangi, the activist. “The fact that it took the police over 10 hours to contain four gunmen calls into question their standards of training as well.”

For the hundreds of surviving students at the University of Garissa, and for the families of those killed, the results of these politics are all too real. “I spent the day at the hospital and the morgue trying to find my missing friends,” said Malaam. “I went to the mortuary and I became so scared. Especially when I saw someone I knew. You feel so bad when you see a friend of yours who has been killed.”

New Dynamics at South African Higher Education Institutions: Why is SASCO Limping?

READERS' FORUM: CHINA DODOVU
ANC Today, April 2-9, 2015

Comrade China Dodovu is a member of the ANC in the North West Province

In the past few weeks, two major events of historic significance have taken place in our institutions of higher learning, creating a feeling of nostalgia about the relentless struggles waged by the students to transform our universities from ivory towers to peoples' campuses.

Firstly, the heroic and stupendous "Rhodes Must Fall Campaign" unleashed by the University of Cape Town (UCT) students for the removal of the statue of arch-colonialist, Cecil John Rhodes has exposed the levels of hostility, animosity and disjuncture between white and black students at our universities on how they view our historic past, our current conjecture and the future of our higher education system.

Secondly, the humiliating defeat of the ANC-aligned student formation, South African Student Congress (SASCO) at the hands of the newly formed Economic Freedom Fighters Student Command (EFFSC) at the Vaal University of Technology (VUT) has not only heralded a new epoch and dynamic in the student body politic for the contestation of power but equally has profound and far-reaching implications for transformation of in post-school institutions.

Before the dawn of the new constitutional dispensation in 1994, various student formations were established at tertiary institutions invariably to unite students around educational, political, social, and cultural issues which affected them and to ostensibly promote the students' role as vanguards in the struggle for liberation.

As the student formations waged epic battles to fight academic repression, exclusions and expulsions, the ongoing skirmishes between the students and the campus authorities who mobilized the police and the army to deal with the revolts compounded the tertiary education problems which reached crisis proportions.

In 1924 the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS) was formed by students from English and Afrikaans-speaking universities as an umbrella student organization to exclusively promote the interests of white students and to serve as a forum where differences could be thrashed out.

After embracing black students in 1930s, NUSAS started to voice its opposition to segregation in tertiary education and gradually underwent a shift in its political views where in the 1980s it opposed apartheid measures in general, embarked in protest actions, adopted radical political positions, devoted its time to establishing democracy and embraced the Freedom Charter as a correct ideology to take South Africa forward.

The manner in which black and white students view issues like at UCT in the past weeks is not a new phenomenon for the university students in South Africa. In 1969, the majority of black affiliated universities led by Steve Biko, Aubrey Mokoena and Barney Pitjane among others, left NUSAS to form their own body, the South African Students Organization (SASO). They were irritated and displeased by the NUSAS' liberal views and its political modus operandi at the time.

The formation of SASO radicalized the students who became a dynamo of military and activism at universities at the height of repression. Like the recent developments at UCT, SASO felt that the blacks' students conditions and concerns and their interpretations where totally different from the whites students.

The formation of the South African Students Congress (SASCO) in 1991 which came as a result of the merger South African National Students Congress (SANSCO) and NUSAS, didn't only consolidate an all-round struggle for transformation of education at tertiary level but also added a new impetus to a new education system towards in a democratic country.

At UCT whites students think black students are insane and behave like infants at a nursery school. In their view, Rhodes must be embraced because he contributed immensely and immeasurably by donating the land where UCT is built and in his honour, the Rhodes scholarships are provided to underprivileged students.

To black students, the Rhodes statue belongs to the colonial museum because he epitomizes land robbery, mineral resources deprivation and forced black cheap labour. They attribute their woes today like financial exclusions, institutional racism and academic marginalization to him and seeing his statue everyday in their campus, compounds their problems because it entrenches white supremacy.

The sole heroic act of Chumani Maxwele, a student who poured the human excrement on the statue and sparked the students revolt which galvanized their actions to remove it, reminisce the courageous act by Abram Onkgopotse Tiro, a student leader at Turfloop University in the early 1970s for his scathing critique of the Bantu Education system during the graduation ceremony. His heroic act, in the presence of the Minister of Bantu Education became an act of vigour, vitality and inspiration to SASO to spare neither energy nor effort in dismantling the dehumanizing system of Bantu education.

Like Tiro who hated Bantu education system with all his being which is a direct legacy of Rhodes, to Maxwele his statue symbolizes colonial and apartheid oppression and pouring it with faeces is a stark reminder that most black people particularly in ghettos and squatter settlements continue to live in places of lower environmental quality and suffer severely from inadequate shelter, lack of proper infrastructure and services, poor sanitation and polluted water.

On the other hand, the embarrassing way in which SASCO-led Progressive Youth Alliance (PYA), a conglomerate of ANC youth structures, is monumental. The way SASCO is disfigured and badly bruised at VUT sends a cogent message that leaves no other interpretation that in the light of its weakness and paralysis, the students need alternative. It shows that the students are completely dissatisfied with the pace of transformation and the response to it by the ANC-inclined SASCO. Therefore they are resolute to determine their own destiny.

The outcomes of the VUT SRC is a microcosm of a bigger challenge SASCO is facing. It must be noted that since 2013, the signs are emerging that tertiary institutions are becoming a contested terrain of struggle between SASCO and the EFFSC, with SASCO losing some serious ground.

By resoundingly trouncing SASCO at VUT, the students were unequivocally expressing a statement that some thing is wrong perhaps including in the political landscape of our country. The election results has fell like a ton of bricks to SASCO and for a moment, pulverizing it into tatters and dizzying it to evaporate into oblivion.

The glaring lessons and implications from the VUT episode is the proliferation of this trend to other institutions of higher learning with heightening tensions among student organizations and bleak prospects for the transformation agenda.

Undoubtedly, since its inception as a single non-racial student body in 1991, SASCO has played a pivotal role in the establishment of a single and non-racially coordinated system of education in a democratic South Africa. It also made important strides in the merger of various departments of education and institutions which existed prior to the new dispensation.

Rooted on the core principles of democracy, non-racialism, non-sexism, African leadership and working class leadership, SASCO has led students' confrontational struggles against financial exclusions; the inequalities between historically black and historically white institutions of learning; and the admission policies, curriculum and qualifications at tertiary level.

The present challenges facing the moribund SASCO are self-inflicting. Part of the problem is that SASCO gradually departed from its core objective of being a vanguard of students at institutions of higher learning to entangling itself in power struggles both internally and in the ANC and its Youth League.

Within its ranks, SASCO detoured and off-ramped from one of its primary role of building a cadre to confront its challenges. In most instances, its leaders consume their energies in internal leadership battles rather than dedicating their time and effort in seeking solutions to resolving students' problems such as academic exclusions and funding. During the recent UCT developments, SASCO was conspicuous by its absence and the students struggles had to be led by the "middle ground" and ultra leftists.

While its leaders are basking in its past glory, absorbed and coopted within the state machinery and the ministerial appointments to boards, councils and Setas, its members suffer from political poverty and lack the most elementary revolutionary discipline and commitment to serve the students and to protect their own interests.

With the re-establishment of the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) structures after its disbandment, the current and previous SASCO leaders lined themselves for nominations like predators at the smell of blood, leading to the collapse of the National Congress because in the process, structures were not properly and duly established.

They gave disproportionate attention to leadership contestation and spent little time worrying about issues like building strong ANCYL structures, cadre development, youth unemployment, education and health. Serious political discussions were seen as waste of time and were replaced by nomination process which punted two or three organized groups within with completely different lists.

Instead of finding ways to bring healthy and constructive discourse back into SASCO, its leaders always fall back to paranoia, seek to blame counterrevolutionary forces inside and outside as the cause of their own troubles. Allegations which are also thrown into the election pot include the mobilization of state resources to internal squabbles and the promises of government contract and strategic deployment.

Lately, the only time you see SASCO's presence is when it makes pronouncements about the ANC leadership preferences at national, provincial and regional level. In the process it is alleged that they even use underhand tactics and creating a bad culture of leaks and which-hunt, as well as engaging in public platforms to condemn the unwanted leaders and to glorify the wanted ones.

Pardon me for being nostalgic. I am feeling this way because to this day, I can give a full testimony to the events of the 1991 historic inaugural conference of SASCO at the Rhodes University in Grahamstown held under the theme: " Towards a Single Non-racial Student Organisation".

I remember vividly how the late Mike Koyana of UWC and Steve Silver of Wits, both Presidents of SANSCO and NUSAS respectively, captured the political significance of the merger. I fully remember how the late KK Papiyane, our Political Commissar, succinctly summarized the heated debates around the merger. And indeed how the conference after electing Robinson Ramaite as its first President, declared that as a vanguard student movement, SASCO will as a point of departure, shape the students unity for the battles ahead.

If SASCO has to get out of the political quagmire it is facing and return to its former glory, it must get out of its ivory towers of pontificating and provide leadership to the students. SASCO must be truthful to itself and to the students it is leading and never conceal or or hide its current state of affairs and the challenges it is facing.

Its leaders must not bury their heads in the sand but acknowledge these challenges. They must speak from the heart and take some of the blame. For me it is simple really (and for lack of better words), they should get out of their high horses and start to revive, organize and mobilize the students in the institutions of higher learning and take a lead in campaigns such as at UCT. If they don't listen they deserve no sympathy.

It is my considered view that the PYA must review a decision to establish ANCYL structures on campuses. That situation has created unnecessary tensions, conflict and competition between the two organizations instead of complementing each other as alliance partners.

SASCO must realize that over the last few years, the emergence of antagonistic forces have shifted and changed the balance of forces at institutions of higher learning rapidly and drastically. This new conditions requires to adapt and make decisive interventions to propel the struggle for radical transformation and build bridges between black and white students

Inevitably, the new conditions require SASCO to exercise maximum vigilance against the new forces which seek to subvert and divert transformation at tertiary institutions. These forces will hijack the students' problems for their own nefarious and counterrevolutionary agenda where their ultimate objective is to undermine the state and to indeed infiltrate, disorganize, weaken and destroy the liberation movement through both clandestine and radically sounding but empty propositions.

Therefore the primary role of SASCO remains to mobilize and unite students for fundamental change and transformation. This task is important to the future of SASCO, to the trajectory of the student struggle and the future post-school education system of our country, constituting an integrated whole in making SASCO once more, a formidable organization.

Iran to Abide By Its Promises If P5+1 Group Fulfills Its Obligations: Rouhani

Fri Apr 3, 2015 2:12PM
presstv.ir

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani says the Islamic Republic will observe its obligations as per the recent joint statement agreed upon with the P5+1 countries in Switzerland, provided that the other side abides by its obligations as well.

“The world should know that we are not deceptive and are not liars and any promises we give will be within the framework of our national interests and we will live up to our promises provided that the opposite side abides by its promises as well,” Rouhani said in a televised address to the Iranian nation in the capital, Tehran, on Friday.

He added that if some day the P5+1 countries decided to choose a new path, the way would be open to the Iranian nation to make a proportionate decision as well.

The Iranian president said the nuclear negotiations are the first step toward “constructive interaction” with the world.

“We will have interaction will all those countries that want to respect the Iranian nation and work with the people of Iran within the framework of mutual interests,” he pointed out.

The Iranian chief executive also noted, “There is no doubt that cooperation and interaction will benefit all.”

He said Iran seeks to improve relations with friendly countries while seeking an end to possible tensions with other states.

Rouhani added that Iran presently needs economic prosperity, employment for youth and higher non-oil exports and called on all economic activists to take action for the country to achieve these goals.

Based on the general agreement reached in Lausanne last night, “the P5+1 accepted that Iran should be able to conduct [uranium] enrichment within its own territory,” he said.

Rouhani added that the West claimed that enrichment activities in Iran pose a threat to the Middle East region and the entire world “but now everyone has accepted that enrichment in Iran is not a threat to anyone.”

“I explicitly announce that enrichment and all our nuclear technology only aims to develop Iran. Enrichment and [nuclear] technology will not be against any countries in the region and across the world,” the Iranian president said.

He noted that Arak heavy water reactor would be equipped with state-of-the-art technology and Fordow enrichment site would remain open forever.

Over 1,000 centrifuges would be installed at Fordow where nuclear and physical activities would be conducted, he said.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's Ruling ZANU-PF Expels Former Vice President

03/04/2015 | 11:270
Irish News

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF has expelled former vice president Joice Mujuru, completing the purging from national politics of a woman who only a year ago was seen as frontrunner to succeed the 91-year-old leader.

Mujuru lost her positions in the party and government in December and had become an ordinary ZANU-PF member.

ZANU-PF spokesman Simon Khaya Moyo said in a statement that the ruling party's top decision-making organ politburo had on Thursday agreed to dismiss Mujuru.

The party cited at least 10 reasons for dismissing Mujuru, which include plotting to remove Mugabe from office, alleged corruption and bringing the party into disrepute, charges which she has previously denied.

"The politburo felt that she lacked the quality of strong moral principles, honesty and decency and therefore ceases to be a member of ZANU-PF," Moyo said.

Mujuru, the 59-year-old former guerrilla leader known as "Spill Blood" during the liberation war and a permanent face in Mugabe's previous governments since independence in 1980, was not immediately available to comment on her dismissal.

Mugabe, who has not indicated a preferred political heir, replaced Mujuru with Emmerson Mnangagwa, one of his most trusted lieutenants who has served at his side through five decades of prison, guerrilla war and post-liberation government.

Yemen: Moscow Responds to Oil Blackmail

02.04.2015 17:27
pravda.ru

Moscow had patience to tolerate blackmail in Syria and the massacre of Ukraine until the United States and Saudi Arabia crossed the red line by lowering oil prices. Russia had to prepare a response. A gambit in Yemen was played together with Teheran for the purpose of causing damage to the Wahhabi state. After all, the Saudis are used to sponsoring wars, but they do not like to die in them.

The US claims that in Yemen, American troops are fighting against al-Qaeda and ISIS. The goal of the operation, according to White House spokesman Josh Earnest, is to support the central government, create the potential of local fighters and use own technological and military resources to put pressure on extremists.

But, firstly, the "central government" of Yemen in the person of President Hadi fled to Aden and has no control over the situation. Secondly, "local fighters" of Yemen are the rebellious Huthis (Zaidi), Al-Qaeda gunmen and regional separatists. Thirdly, the "own resources" of the United States - 125 CIA and Pentagon advisers were evacuated from Yemen after the war broke out in the country. Therefore, in order to maintain control over the important strategic area, ​the United States had no other choice but to push Saudi Arabia for action.

On March 25, the coalition of ten countries, under the leadership of Saudi Arabia, started bombing Yemen for the control over the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait.

The situation in Yemen "is a major defeat" for the United States and Saudi Arabia, Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst for the Middle East, told AFP. According to him, the USA has no choice but to support the forces that have been left in the country after President Hadi, and try to obtain all the necessary help from Saudi Arabia and Oman. At the same time, Riedel added, if there are forces that fight against Al-Qaeda in the region, they are the Huthis. The expert could not expand on this contradiction.

It just so happens that the United States has demonstrated its absolute incapability in foreign policy. Many analysts say that the Americans deliberately create controlled chaos in the world. Is it really the case? The chaos has been going out of control. Below is a remark voiced by Saud Al-Faisal, the Foreign Affairs Minister of Saudi Arabia, during a meeting of the Arab League in Egypt on Sunday.

The remark was a response to President Putin's letter to the leaders of Arab States. In the letter, the Russian president calls to resolve the conflict "by peaceful means, without external interference." "Putin talks about the problems in the Middle East as if Russia has no influence on these issues," the Saudi minister said irritatingly. According to him, the Russian authorities talk about the tragedies in Syria, while they act as a part of those tragedies by arming the Syrian regime to fight against its own people."

From the point of view of the Saudis, in the Middle East, they have to deal with the coalition of Russia, Iran and Syria. What if Yemen is part of a plan to repel the attack of Saudi Arabia and the United States in the game to lower the price of oil? It turned out that the Huthis can block the Bab-el-Mandeb at any moment. In this case, tankers from Saudi Arabia will not be able to go through the Suez Canal to Europe and America. When Iran promised to do it two years ago, an uproar occurred, and now it is logical to assume that Iran decided to do it more carefully - through the hands of the Huthis.

As a result, the price of oil will go up dramatically. Of course, this is sacrifice, because Yemen is facing a full-scale intervention. Yet, Yemen is fighting for justice - to bring Zaidi imams back to power (an ancient dynasty in northern Yemen).

"For centuries, all Yemeni imams (kings) were Zaidi imams. They were the people, who were entitled to power, which is very important in Islamic countries. They were very proud of practicing their own form of Islam. The fact that they are now in power is like restoration of historical justice," Sergei Plekhanov, the author of many books about the Arab world, said in an interview with the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper.

Yemen is the only country in the world, where arms trade is legal. Every man has a Kalashnikov, and patriotism remains on a very high level. The Saudis have a weak army, but they can have help from Egypt and Pakistan that depend on the funding from Saudi Arabia. The prime ministers of both Egypt and Pakistan have declared their readiness to join the ground operation. However, Egypt has bad memories of Yemen. Fifty years ago, Egypt lost 26,000 soldiers in the ill-fated military intervention in Yemen. In addition, Pakistan may receive another highly unstable border.

"Arabs do not like Saudis. They are afraid of Saudi Arabia, because they depend on it. There's a lot of money in Saudi Arabia, but no one likes those who own that money. The Sunni coalition may fall apart quickly. A part of the army has already sided with the Huthis," says Sergei Plekhanov.

Saudi Arabia will have to face higher justice. This is a Wahhabi state that funds all wars in the Middle East, trains jihadists, organizes speculative futures trading in oil and its peg to the US dollar.

Russia and Yemen have something to talk about. The two countries can recall the cooperation in the middle of the last century, when the Soviet Union accounted for more than 50 percent of foreign loans received by South Yemen.

Lyuba Lulko

Pravda.Ru

Russia Convenes United Nations Security Council Meeting to Discuss Pauses in Air Strikes in Yemen

April 04, 2:14 UTC+3

The meeting will be held behind closed doors. From Russia it will be attended by the Deputy permanent representative of the Russian Federation Vladimir Safronkov

UNITED NATIONS, April 3 /TASS/. Russia is convening a UN Security Council meeting on Saturday to discuss the introduction of humanitarian pauses by the Arab coalition which is delivering air strikes at Yemen’s territory, a spokesperson for Russia’s Permanent Mission to UN, Alexei Zaitsev, told TASS on Friday.

"Russia is convening the UN Security Council for consultations to discuss the introduction of regular mandatory humanitarian pauses by the Saudi-led coalition forces that are delivering air strikes at Yemen’s territory," Zaitsev said.

He added the UN Security Council is scheduled to meet at 11:00 /New York time /18:00 Moscow time/ behind the closed doors. Vladimir Safronkov, Russia’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, will represent Russia at the consultations.

Earlier this week, Russia faced difficulties in evacuating its citizens from Yemen’s capital Sana’a.

The Saudi-led coalition turned away one of the Russia planes which had arrived to pick up the Russian citizens despite a preliminary reached agreement. The plane was allowed to land only hours later.

Russia has sent another two planes to evacuate Russian nationals from the conflict-stricken Yemen via Cairo, well-informed sources at Cairo airport told TASS on Friday.

"One plane has already landed in Egypt and is expected to fly to Yemen to evacuate Russian nationals at 07:00 (Cairo time) or 08:00 (Moscow time) on Saturday morning. The second Russian plane is to land in Cairo at 20:30 (21:30 Moscow time). It is still unknown when it is going to leave for Yemen. But it will take to the sky shortly after the first aircraft," the sources said.

More than 160 Russian nationals, predominantly women and children, were evacuated from Yemen via Cairo a day earlier on Thursday. Citizens of other countries who wished to flee the war-torn country were also taken on board. Another Russian plane with over 150 passengers was re-directed to Djibouti to pick up 32 Russians who had been evacuated from Yemen before. Seven of them were employees of the closed Russian General Consulate in Aden, Yemen’s second major city.

Since August 2014, Yemen has been hit by a severe political and security crisis. In late January, the armed groups of Ansar Allah (Houthi rebels) forced the president and the government to announce resignation.

The rebels later took control of the country’s capital and several northern provinces. They also announced the adoption of the so-called constitutional declaration.

Overnight to March 26, Saudi Arabia launched a military operation in the neighboring country and delivered air strikes at several Houthi positions.

Pro-government forces regained control of the Aden airport last week, while Yemeni President Abd Rabbah Mansur Hadi fled the country to Saudi Arabia.

On Thursday, UN Under-Secretary-General Valerie Amos said that 59 people died and about 1,700 were wounded in the first two weeks of the conflict. Tens of thousands of people were forced to flee their homes because of the military hostilities. Part of them left for Djibouti and Somalia. Amos urged all the parties in conflict to respect international humanitarian law, guarantee the security of civilians and provide an opportunity to deliver relief aid to the Yemeni population.

Russia Calls United Nations Security Council Session on Yemen Crisis Amid Saudi-led Airstrikes

Russian Federation UN representative Vitaly Churking.

April 04, 2015 00:12
Rt.com

As fighting in Yemen intensifies Russia has called up an emergency UN Security Council session to put on pause Saudi-led coalition airstrikes for humanitarian purposes in an effort to quell the violence that is impacting civilians.

Russia insists it is necessary for the international community to discuss the establishment of regular and mandatory “humanitarian pauses” in the ongoing coalition air strikes on Yemen, Russian UN mission’s spokesman Aleksey Zaytsev told Sputnik.

An extraordinary meeting is scheduled for Saturday, at 3pm GMT at the UN headquarters in NYC.

A coalition of Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia, has been engaging Houthi militias from the air for over a week now, after the Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi was forced to flee the country and asked for an international intervention to reinstate his rule.

Moscow is calling for a diplomatic solution to the conflict emphasizing that foreign military intervention would only lead to more civilian deaths. On Friday, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov met with the newly appointed Saudi ambassador, conveying the “necessity of a ceasefire” to create favorable conditions for a peaceful national dialogue.

Russia has already taken steps to evacuate all of its personnel from its Yemeni consulate, which was damaged in the conflict. It has also taken an active role evacuating Russian nationals and other civilians from the country.

On Thursday Russia proposed amendments to a UN Security Council draft resolution on Yemen. The world security body “should speak in a principled manner for ending any violence…in the Yemen crisis,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, adding that a draft resolution on the crisis has already been submitted to the UNSC.

Echoing Lavrov’s words, Foreign Ministry spokesman Aleksandr Lukashevich also called on immediate cessation of hostilities, adding that Russia will continue active diplomatic efforts in dealing with all Yemeni factions and Middle Eastern partners in order to restart political process. Lukashevich also called on the UN special envoy to Yemen, Jamal Benomar, to play a bigger role in the settlement of the crisis.

Meanwhile on the ground on Friday, after coalition bombardment campaign Houthi militias left the presidential palace in Aden, after occupying it a day earlier. “The Houthi militia and their allies withdrew before dawn from the Al-Maashiq palace,” said the official in Aden.

The airstrike also reportedly destroyed Houthi “military equipment and missiles” on Myun island on Bab al-Mandab Strait. At the same time Saudi-led coalition airdropped weapons to President Hadi supporters in Aden, coalition spokesman General Ahmed Assiri said.

“We should not be in a rush,” he said as campaign entered its ninth day. “The campaign is achieving its goals, and you can see that every day.”

On Thursday, Saudi Arabia claimed that there that there were no “formal” troops on the ground in Yemen. However, the “issue of using ground troops is always something that is on the table,” Saudi Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir said at an event in Washington.

The UN estimates that over 500 people, many civilians, have been killed in Yemen over the past two weeks. Though the allied Air Force target mostly military facilities, weapon depots and infrastructure, their strikes still befell on civilians. Tens of thousands have fled the country after the outbreak of violence.

Yemen's Houthis Continue Advance in Aden

Sat Apr 4, 2015 1:34AM
presstv.ir

Ansarullah fighters of the Houthi movement have continued their advance in the southwestern Yemeni city of Aden despite the ongoing Saudi invasion of the country.

Latest reports coming out of Yemen show that the revolutionaries are now trying to take control of the Tawahi and Mualla districts early on Saturday.

Sources say the Ansarullah fighters along with army units are continuing to advance in the port city while fighting al-Qaeda terrorists and the loyalists to fugitive president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.

Some media reports previously said the Ansarullah had retreated from the presidential palace in the port city, which is located approximately 420 kilometers (260 miles) south of the capital Sana’a. The resistance movement has vehemently denied the reports.

The Houthi movement took control of the presidential palace in Aden on Thursday.

On Friday, the Saudi-led warplanes airdropped weapons and supplies for the militants, including al-Qaeda terrorists, who are battling the Ansarullah fighters in Aden.

Armed men inspected boxes attached to a parachute, air-dropped by the Saudi warplanes, in the Tawahi district of the Yemeni port city of Aden on April 3, 2015.

The jets airdropped a number of wooden boxes containing various firearms and ammunition in the region early on Friday. Some reports indicated that sophisticated communications equipment and advanced combat medical kits are also among the items.

Saudi Arabia’s air campaign against Yemen started on March 26 in a bid to restore power to Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh.

On March 25, the embattled president fled the southern city of Aden, where he had sought to set up a rival power base, to the Saudi capital, Riyadh, after Ansarullah revolutionaries advanced on Aden.

The Ansarullah fighters took control of the Yemeni capital in September 2014 and are currently moving southward. The revolutionaries said Hadi’s government was incapable of properly running the affairs of the country and containing the growing wave of corruption and terror.

Meanwhile, the United Nations says at least 519 people, including women and children, have so far lost their lives in two weeks of turmoil in the country.

UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Valerie Amos said in a statement on Thursday that 1,700 people have been also wounded during clashes between rival groups in Yemen as well as the Saudi-led airstrikes. The UN official added that 90 children were among the victims of the violence.

Saudi Air Campaign Fails to Halt Houthis Advance in Yemen

Jim Michaels, USA TODAY 4:47 p.m. EDT
April 3, 2015

WASHINGTON – A Saudi-led air campaign has failed to halt the advance of Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen, where growing violence is plunging the country deeper into chaos and further undermining the U.S.-backed government.

Houthi rebels continued to advance toward the port city of Aden, where forces loyal to President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi are attempting to make a stand. Friday, the Arab coalition dropped weapons and supplies for the first time to forces battling Houthis around Aden.

Michael Knights, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the Saudis have hit fixed military installations and weapons caches, but they lack the sophisticated intelligence and other capabilities that would allow them to react quickly to fast-moving and widely dispersed forces.

"A lot of what they're doing is of cosmetic effect," Knights said. "It's hard to imagine the coalition becoming effective enough unless the United States becomes much more involved."

U.S. help is limited largely to surveillance and planning support. American drones provide the general location of the Houthis and other forces but not specific targeting information.

The Pentagon has offered to provide aerial refueling capabilities to the coalition, which would allow pilots to remain in the air longer to track targets. U.S. tanker aircraft would not enter Yemen airspace.

Analysts say Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations improved pilot training over the past decade to match the billions of dollars they have spent on sophisticated American warplanes. Analysts credit the countries for being able to mobilize a complex coalition quickly and begin airstrikes.

"Arab countries are stepping up to take care of their own issues," said Charles Wald, a retired Air Force general. "This is something we ought to be applauding."

Initially, several hundred airstrikes a day disrupted the Houthis' advance. More recently, the rebels appear to have regrouped and continued their advances.

Knights said the air campaign is reminiscent of the 1990s-era NATO airstrikes in the Balkans. He said the Saudi coalition lacks precision strikes based on immediate intelligence.

The fighting is growing increasingly complex. The airstrikes on Houthi forces help a powerful al-Qaeda terror affiliate, a rival in Yemen. Al-Qaeda is a Sunni organization, and the Houthis are Shiites.

Thursday, al-Qaeda militants overran Mukalla, a major port city in southern Yemen, the Associated Press reported.

The Houthis are allied with military forces who remained loyal to Ali Abdullah Saleh, the president ousted from power after protests in 2011. As a result, the airstrikes have targeted military installations and army units that would be needed to help stabilize the country should fighting cease.

"At the end of the day, were going to have a force that might not be able to reunite," said Katherine Zimmerman, an analyst at the American Enterprise Institute. "Most units have been rendered combat-ineffective."

Ousted Leader's Suppporters Attack Houthis in Aden After Saudi Arms Drop

Supporters of the Houthi Movement rally in Yemen.

ADEN | BY MOHAMMAD MUKHASHAF

(Reuters) - Fighters loyal to Yemen's president pushed Houthi fighters back from central Aden on Friday after they were reinforced with weapons parachuted into their beleaguered section of the southern port city by Saudi-led warplanes.

The military setback for the Shi'ite Houthis came after days of advances in Aden, the last major foothold of fighters loyal to President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, despite a week-old Saudi campaign of air strikes to halt the Houthis and bolster Hadi.

Sunni Muslim power Saudi Arabia, alarmed by the Iranian-allied Houthis' march on Hadi's powerbase in Aden, launched its air campaign nine days ago along with regional backers.

The intervention marks Riyadh's most assertive move yet to counter what it sees as a spread of Shi'ite Iran's power in the region, a proxy struggle also playing out in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.

Aden residents said the Houthi fighters and their allies withdrew from the central Crater district as well as one of Hadi's presidential residences which they took 24 hours earlier.

A spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, Brigadier General Ahmed Asseri, said the logistical support airdropped at dawn on Friday had helped turn the tide for Hadi's fighters.

"They received the support and they were able to change the situation on the ground, driving the Houthi militias out of the palace and the areas that they had briefly taken control of," he told a news briefing in Riyadh.

The crates of light weapons, telecommunications equipment and rocket-propelled grenades were parachuted into Aden's Tawahi district, on the far end of the Aden peninsula which is still held by Hadi loyalists, fighters told Reuters.

The Houthis, fighting alongside soldiers loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, emerged as the strongest force in Yemen after they took over the capital Sanaa in September. After they turned on Aden last week, Hadi fled abroad and has watched from Riyadh while his remaining authority has eroded.

Turmoil in the Arabian Peninsula's poorest country comes after year of separatism, tribal conflict, sectarian violence and an insurgency by al Qaeda militants targeted by U.S. drones.

GROUND TROOPS OPTION

Local militia forces said they killed 10 Houthis during the fighting which pushed the Shi'ite movement out of Crater.

Two brothers working for the Red Crescent were shot dead while evacuating wounded to an ambulance, the aid group said. Militia forces blamed the Houthis and said the fighters also killed two patients when they shot at the ambulance taking casualties from Aden's peninsula to a hospital on the mainland.

The coalition, trying to reassert Hadi's standing before any political settlement, has said that sending ground troops into Yemen remains an option.

Officials have declined to say whether special forces have already deployed. Saudi ambassador to Washington Adel al-Jubeir said on Thursday the kingdom does not have "formal" troops on the ground in Aden.

Tribal sources in Yemen said on Friday that Saudi Arabia had started to remove parts of a fence along its border with the northwestern Yemeni provinces of Saada and Hajja.

This could be a prelude to an incursion by ground troops, but may also be part of more modest efforts to secure the frontier area, which on some stretches includes a buffer zone between the two countries.

Saudi Arabia's Ekbariya television said two border guards were killed in an attack after dusk on Friday near Dhahran. It gave no details.

U.S. government sources said on Thursday that, although Washington believes Saudi Arabia and its allies have deployed a military force along the border which is large enough to launch a full-scale invasion, there was no indication that Riyadh was planning such a move soon.

ARMY BASE

The U.N. relief coordinator Valerie Amos said 519 people have been killed in the fighting in the past two weeks and nearly 1,700 wounded, without specifying whether those figures included combatants.

The fighting has forced Washington to evacuate military personnel from Yemen, a main battlefield in its drone war against al Qaeda.

Suspected al Qaeda fighters stormed a military base in the port town of Mukalla, killing at least five soldiers and ransacking its ammunition store, residents said.

The attack came a day after the militants broke into Mukalla jail and freed scores of prisoners including a prominent local al Qaeda leader, identified by officials as Khaled Batarfi.

The Sunni Islamist al Qaeda fighters are ideologically fiercely opposed the Houthis, who are drawn from a Zaidi Shi'ite minority, but coalition spokesman Asseri said it was Houthi fighters who broke open the jail in an effort to sow chaos.

Al Qaeda and the Houthis "have the same objective, they are in the same trench against the Yemeni population", he said.

Former ruler Saleh is a member of the Zaidi sect who fought to crush the Houthis as president but has now allied himself with them. Street protests in 2011 linked to wider Arab uprisings forced him to step down in favor of Hadi.

In an interview with an Egyptian newspaper published on Friday, Saleh described the Saudi-led air strikes as unjustified aggression and called on Arab states such as Egypt, Algeria or Oman to "stop this senseless war against the rights of people".

(Additional reporting by Mohammed Ghobari and Ahmed Tolba in Cairo, Amena Bakr in Dubai, Mark Hosenball and Phil Stewart in Washington, Megha Rajagopalan and Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Alison Williams)

147 Students Killed in Cold-blooded Raid on Kenyan Campus

By AGGREY MUTAMBO
By ABDIMALIK HAJIR
Kenya Nation

One hundred and forty seven students were killed and 79 injured after Al-Shabaab terrorists shot their way into Garissa University College at dawn on Thursday and opened fire on them.

By nine last evening, the operation was declared officially over by the Internal Security CS Joseph Nkaissery. The attackers detonated suicide vests injuring some of the security forces. Of the 815 students in the college, 500 were rescued, according to the government and the rest — 166 — were not properly accounted for earlier. Some were presumed to have been taken hostage in a hostel on the campus.

The hostel housed 360 students, both male and female, according to the government, which also said it had killed four terrorists.

Daily Nation sources said the number of people killed was higher than the official tally, perhaps as high as double.

There was still shooting last night, even though the government had said the siege was over. No rescue workers were allowed into the campus by the military.

The government had said it was merely “mopping up” just in case any of the attackers were still on the campus.

One suspect, described as a terrorist by the government, was reportedly arrested while leaving the college.

In response to the attack, the government slapped a dawn to dusk curfew on four counties bordering Somalia — Mandera, Wajir, Garissa and Tana River — and ordered residents to remain indoors between 6.30pm and 6.30am.

In an attack similar to, but worse than the 2013 one at Nairobi’s Westgate shopping mall, five attackers gained entry into the university, a constituent college of Eldoret’s Moi University, after killing guards at the main gate.

They found some of the students inside lecture halls working on assignments while others were in the halls of residence.

Security services appeared to have some information that an attack on an institution of higher learning was in the offing and appear to have warned institutions to be careful.

The University of Nairobi, for example, on March 25, warned its students that it had received intelligence information that terrorists were planning an attack on a university and asked them to be vigilant.

Just like in the Westgate atrocity, the terrorists were armed with guns and grenades and gained entry by killing the officers at the gate and confronting others inside.

The college is located close to an army barracks.

And just like in Westgate, there was no quick resolution to the siege, with the Al-Shabaab believed to have taken some students hostage. Explosions and gunshots could be heard from inside the college late in the afternoon, eight hours after the attack began.

Ordinarily, Al-Shabaab do not take hostages. After storming their target, they kill as many of their defenceless victims as they can, then barricade themselves in a part of the building to draw the responding force into a fight and inflict more casualties and draw out the conflict so as to milk it for publicity.

Yesterday, it was reported that they had stationed snipers on rooftops to slow down the security forces deployed against them.

President Kenyatta spoke to the Nation in a televised broadcast and said the attackers had taken hostages, adding that full details would be provided by the Interior ministry.

“I am saddened to inform the nation that early today, terrorists attacked Garissa University College, killed and wounded several people and have taken others hostage. On behalf of my government, I extend condolences to the families of those who have perished in this attack. We continue to pray for the quick recovery of the injured, and the safe rescue of those held hostage,” said the President.

Earlier, Inspector-General of Police Joseph Boinnet said the terrorists had taken positions in the students’ hostels.

“The attackers forced their way into the university by shooting at the guards who were manning the main gate. The attackers shot indiscriminately once inside the compound. Police officers who were at the time guarding the university hostels heard the gunshots and responded swiftly and engaged the gunmen in a fierce shootout. However, the attackers retreated and gained entry into the hostels,” he said.

Mr Boinnet added: “The officers summoned for reinforcement immediately and a joint force composed of police and other security agencies arrived and are currently engaged in an elaborate process of flushing out the gunmen from the hostels.”

ONE TERRORIST ARRESTED

The IG and Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph Nkaissery landed in Garissa aboard a helicopter about three hours after the raid started. The CS said one of the terrorists was arrested as he attempted to flee from the college.

A spokesman for Al-Shabaab told AFP news agency that the group was behind the assault on the university and had taken non-Muslims hostage.

“When our men arrived, they released the Muslims. We are holding others hostage,” Al-Shabaab spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage told AFP, without giving numbers.

Witnesses said the terrorists announced their raid with loud explosions, possibly by throwing grenades, followed by continuous gunfire.

In Nairobi and Mombasa, there was increased police patrols on the streets and estates.

In Eastleigh and South “C” estates in Nairobi, as well as the city centre, there was an unusually high presence of officers.

The attack came just days after the United Kingdom issued travel advisories, warning its citizens against travelling to Kenya because of security threats.

It listed Garissa County, Eastleigh in Nairobi and the 60-kilometre stretch from the Somali border in northern Kenya, as areas that one would face security risks.

The government said the attack was masterminded by Mohamed Kuno, a Kenyan and a former teacher in Garissa.

It put a Sh20 million bounty on his head for any person who would give information that would help in his arrest.

The “mastermind” has been on the run since December last year, when he was identified as the Shabaab commander who oversaw the killings of 58 Kenyans in Mandera.

Kuno is a former teacher and principal at Madrassa Najah in Garissa and has three aliases — Sheikh Mahamad, Dulyadin and Gamadhere.

Mr Boinnet appealed for calm as his officers struggled to defeat the terrorists.

“I urge Kenyans to remain calm as our officers work to make sure that the attackers are ejected from the hostels and normalcy returns within the shortest time possible,” he said.

Prior to the attack, security agents had been placed on high alert, particularly in North Eastern, Coast and Nairobi.

During the week, social media was awash with unverified information that Al-Shabaab was planning major attacks during the Easter holiday.

The University of Nairobi and the United States International University-Africa had issued alerts to students, asking them to be vigilant and cautious.

Garissa University College Dean of Students Jacktone Kweya Opande said students called him and told him that they had been attacked.

“We managed to call the county security officials who mobilised other security personnel but before they arrived, students kept calling us to tell us that their comrades had been shot and that some of them had even died,” said Mr Opande.

Yesterday afternoon, special forces arrived with tanks and other armoured vehicles to try and put to an end the attack.

Mr Nkaissery had, for the better part of the day, been holed up in meetings at the Garissa Police headquarters with top security chiefs, including Inspector-General Boinnet.

When the Nation team arrived, seriously wounded students were being airlifted to Nairobi. At the Garissa airstrip, medical personnel attended to one woman who writhed in pain, both legs bandaged as they carried her to an aircraft. She was one of many in the same condition.

At the airstrip, Kenya Defence Forces soldiers gathered terrified survivors, mostly students, inside their military camp. No photographs were allowed.

Some only had bathroom sandals, vests and shorts on. They sat and chatted in quiet tones. Some were on phone, perhaps assuring relatives that they were safe.

According to the official version, the attack started at 5.30am, when a group of attackers estimated to be five or less ambushed two guards armed with clubs at the college’s main gate.

The institution is situated in a complex area of schooling — there is a school for the deaf, a learning centre for the mentally disabled, two high schools and a teacher’s training institute.

The terrorists are said to have been selecting from among the students those who could not prove they were Muslim. Some were shot dead, others got injured. The rest were pushed to some room at gunpoint.

One student claimed she jumped over the fence after she heard gunshots.

“The gunfire was intense. It was early morning and every student was still in bed. They must have known everyone would be inside,” said the student who identified herself as Lillian. She was still scared, often speaking between sobs and wore a sleeveless top, perhaps a night dress.

Several others claimed they escaped because they could recite a verse from the Koran or answer a question related to the teachings of Islam.

“They stood in the main path from the hostels, asking questions about Islam and the Prophet. It was scary because Islam doesn’t teach about killing those who don’t know about the teachings,” said another student, Hassan Abdi.

Most students could not escape because the exit door was sealed by the attackers who, survivors said, spoke broken Kiswahili.

By yesterday afternoon, the Nation team could hear intense gunfire and what sounded like explosions. Security personnel did not allow journalists near the gate of the college and reporters were equally turned away at the Garissa Hospital gate.

BUSLOAD OF PEOPLE

But a busload of people, probably students, once emerged from the college and went straight to the nearby military camp where survivors were being kept away from the prying eyes of the media.

Several other police trucks were seen delivering more people to the military camp, situated next to the airstrip. Some had small children.

The government later admitted the hospital had also been overwhelmed from taking in the injured. They would be ferried to Nairobi for further attention, said the Interior CS.

Mr Nkaissery told reporters in Garissa that bodies of the dead would be taken to Nairobi for “proper preservation”.

The government said the siege would end “as soon as possible”.

Red Alert: "Welcome, President Zuma: Let`s Build Socialism Now, It`s the Future!"

By Alex Mashilo

Welcome to the second, more radical phase of South Africa`s democratic transformation! On 1, 14 and 22 March 2015 President Jacob Zuma emphasised the necessity for socialism, and the superiority of socialist values over the ruthless system of capitalist exploitation. History will record this as having been the first time since our April 1994 Democratic Breakthrough that the President of the Republic and the ANC has explicitly supported socialism in any way.

Firstly, the SACP should welcome this at a time when we are confronted by forces which seek to create tensions and divert attention away from the gains of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) and any serious or concrete discussion on the strategic way forward. As a matter of fact, such individuals and groupings egged on by some sections of the press have no other programme but to drive a wedge to divide our liberation alliance.

Secondly, the SACP must engage with a number of opinions that the President has expressed.

For example, is the SACP`s strategic slogan `Socialism is the Future, Build it now!` a departure from the programme that Moses Kotane and JB Marks led in their capacity as Party leaders?

Moses Kotane joined the Communist Party in 1929, the year when the Executive Committee of the Communist International adopted a resolution which stated that "the Communist Party of South Africa must combine the fight against all anti-native laws with the general political slogan in the fight against British domination, the slogan of an independent native South African republic as a stage towards a workers` and peasants` republic, with full equal rights for all races, black, coloured and white". The resolution, which was later referred to as `The Native Republic Thesis` or `The Black Republic Thesis`, called for the Communist Party to work closely with the ANC and transform it into a revolutionary fighting nationalist organisation. Three different positions within the party emerged then.

The first position, supported by S.P. Bunting and T.W. Thibedi, reluctantly accepted the resolution, despite not understanding the necessity of the "independent native republic". This position believed in moving directly to a workers` and peasants` state - that is a socialist state.

The second position, driven by D. Wolton and L. Bach, accepted the resolution but completely misunderstood it. This position developed its own interpretation of the resolution as being a call not for a national democratic but for an immediate socialist revolution. Criticising Kotane in Umsebenzi (9 June 1933), Bach presented a dogmatic view which said the Communist Party "leads the fight for an Independent Native Republic, for the democratic dictatorship and Soviet Power, to the dictatorship of the proletariat and the building of socialism. According to Kotane, the proletariat is more national conscious than class conscious" (Quoted in A. Lerumo, 1971; Fifty Fighting Years)

The third position was the original position pioneered by J. La Guma in 1927. He saw the necessity of linking the Communist Party to the national liberation movement in the form of the ANC, and then moved for this position at the Communist International which then adopted the resolution calling for a Native Republic. This resolution in turn relayed to the Communist Party in South Africa which adopted it at its 1929 Congress. This became the position that Kotane pushed forward, later to be joined by Marks and others.

In fact in 1934 Kotane wrote his famous Cradock letter in which he criticised the the dogmatism - which had taken hold of the Party. He wrote that:

"the Party is beyond the realm of realities, we are simply theoretical and our theory is less connected with practice. If one investigates the general ideology of our Party members (especially the whites), if sincere, he will not fail to see that they subordinate South Africa in the interests of Europe, in fact, ideologically they are not S. Africans, they are foreigners who know nothing about and who are the least interested in the country in which they are living at present".

The answer to our question has been made obvious and needs no repetition.

But here we also need to reflect on the outcome of the Fifth SACP Congress. The reason for this is because the findings from an enquiry into continuously changing reality cannot be static - one and the same for all the times. This is the essential content of science! The Congress modified `The Native Republic Thesis` and accordingly adopted a new Party Programme, `The Road to South African Freedom`. Held in 1962, this watershed Congress re-elected Moses Kotane as General Secretary and elected JB Marks as National Chairperson.

The NDR, the national democratic state, and socialism - the way forward by the SACP

The Fifth Party Congress characterised South Africa as a colony of a special type in which the oppressors lived in the same territory as the oppressed, but this designed in the interests of imperialism when Britain "conceded" the so-called "independence" in 1910. This is what `The Road to South African Freedom` said is the way forward:

"This crisis can only be resolved by a revolutionary change in the social system which will overcome these conflicts by putting an end to the colonial oppression of the African and other non-White people. The immediate and imperative interests of all sections of the South African people demand the carrying out of such a change, a national democratic revolution which will overthrow the colonialist state of White supremacy and establish an independent state of National Democracy in South Africa. The main content of this revolution is the national liberation of the African people. Its fulfilment is, at the same time, in the deepest interests of the other non-White groups, for in achieving their liberty the African people will at the same time put an end to all forms of racial discrimination. It is in the interests of the White workers, middle class and professional groups to whom the establishment of genuine democracy and the elimination of fascism and monopoly rule offers the only prospect of a decent and stable future."

The Congress further said:

"The main aims and lines of the South African democratic revolution have been defined in the Freedom Charter, which has been endorsed by the African National Congress and the other partners in the national liberation alliance. The Freedom Charter is not a programme for socialism. It is a common programme for a free, democratic South Africa, agreed on by socialists and non-socialists."

The Communist Party pledged "its unqualified support for the Freedom Charter". For the Party, "the achievement of its aims will answer the pressing and immediate needs of the people and lay the indispensable basis for the advance" to socialism - a transitional phase to a communist future.

A social revolution does not start with the achievement of its goals, no matter declared from the onset. That is where as a process it culminates with the negation of the old order of things. Depending on the conditions dictating the form of the new phase, that is where it also ends with the beginning of the construction of new foundations before moving forward to the next phase of higher development and a new order of things.

The SACP was not wrong to say `Socialism is the future, Build it now!` The relationship between the NDR and socialism as developed under the leadership of Kotane and Marks - summing up the collective wisdom of the Party - is also very much in line with a fundamental principle elaborated by the founders of the Communist Party, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels when they said:

"The Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; but in the movement of the present, they also represent and take care of the future of that movement." (Manifesto of the Communist Party, 1848)

Accordingly, for the SACP the NDR represents the programme to answer the pressing immediate questions facing in overwhelming majority the working class. This simultaneously buttressed by the intensification of the struggle for socialism to `take care of the future of that movement`. These two pillars of the struggle were since that long time ago seen as mutually reinforcing side by side with each other rather than representing one stage after another.

What about the `Dictatorship of the Proletariat`?

From the above, including the theory of the national democratic state put forward in `The Road to South African Freedom` we have the answer to this question already. But we also have the answers to the question whether the SACP today has veered away from Moses Kotane and JB Marks with regard to that question. Some addition from Joe Slovo`s `Has Socialism Failed?` might, however, perhaps help elucidate further. This is what he said:

"The term `Dictatorship of the Proletariat` reflected the historical truth that in class-divided social formations state power is ultimately exercised by, and in the interests of, the class which owns and controls the means of production. It is in this sense that capitalist formations were described as a `dictatorship of the bourgeoisie` whose rule would be replaced by a `dictatorship of the proletariat` during the socialist transition period. In the latter case power would, however, be exercised in the interests of the overwhelming majority of the people and should lead to an ever-expanding genuine democracy - both political and economic."

Whether the phrase `Dictatorship of the Proletariat` was no longer employed in the vocabulary of most Communist Parties, including ours, in the light of the "ambiguities and distortions" which it opened, the associated abuses and exigencies which had as a result occurred in history and which "bore little resemblance" both to the concept`s originality and its democratic content, said Slovo, "does not, in all cases, imply a rejection of the historical validity of its essential content".

Indeed!

The current SACP programme, `The South African Road to Socialism`, is based on that same essential content and seeks to take it forward. At the heart of the programme, and as the main motive force to push the revolution to its logical conclusion, is the establishment of working class power and hegemony in all key sites of societal activity, the community, the workplace, the economy, the ideological terrain, etcetera, including the state.

From the above our answer is clear - there is no need for tautology, no need for ambiguities. Forward to the democratic control of all levers of societal power by the working class with the industrial proletariat at its core in order that socialism, a truly democratic society based on socialised ownership of the means of production and the wealth produced can be built!

Alex Mashilo is SACP Spokesperson, he writes in his personal capacity as a Professional Revolutionary.

"Prince Mashele interesting `independent` political analyst" - Maviyane

Letters

Dear Editor,

Prince Mashele is an interesting "independent" political analyst. Reportedly, he was involved in architecting the DA-AgangSA merger to which he played some consulting role and conducted a study which apparently said workers within COSATU want a separate party apart from the ANC-SACP-COSATU liberation alliance. This was in fact his well-known conclusion. He had been expressing it as "independent" political analyst a while before he conducted the "study". But sometimes back, in the pre-Polokwane period, Mashele had a short span at the Union Buildings plying some trade there, we have learned. After Polokwane he was like somebody "unleashed", angry at the leadership outcome of that watershed ANC 52nd Conference.

All of this and the result that followed tell us that most buttons that he touched caused fire with serious damage or things burned to ashes.

Why must he be believed, again?

In his article entitled "SACP buried with Slovo" (Sowetan 9th March 2015), Mashele flaunted his limited knowledge of Marxism-Leninism for the entertainment of people who, presumably, know even less than him.

The first question one has to ask is that if the SACP was buried with Slovo, why does Mashele have to spend so much time and energy attacking it?

This is not the first time.

Shortly after Polokwane he saw the death of the ANC and then of our society. All of a sudden he had now awakened both the ANC and our society from the dead but this time around he "buried the SACP with Joe Slovo". He says the SACP has no constituency and that the ANC has, which, he says, is the rest of society. All of these deaths and lives after deaths of course play themselves out in Mashele`s brain, idealism, not in reality.

After the death of Slovo, the SACP characterised the neoliberal project anchored on the economic policy of "Growth, Employment and Redistribution" (Gear) as the `The 1996 Class Project`. Under the leadership of Comrade Blade Nzimande as General Secretary the Party led consistent mobilisation which contributed to the changes that took place in Polokwane, this including progressive policy content. This intellectual capacity and mobilisation must have irked Mashele from the Union Buildings.

It is the SACP today which has deployed its intellectual capacity and identified the systemic problem lying in our country`s financial architecture as one of the key causes of lack of economic transformation. The SACP has mounted a campaign for the overhaul transformation of the financial sector and is at the helm of the campaign against bank fraud and illegal evictions. Our Sowetan columnist and "independent" analyst says this is nothing, "intellectually" speaking.

The SACP is actively pushing for structural economic transformation involving the implementation of a national democratic economy as the first step towards socialism. This is painful to an aspiring black liberal idealist wishing away the rapidly growing South African Communist Party.

The SACP lives. Which is why Mashele will continue to write and comment about it but destructively as he has chosen. He could perhaps do better to read SACP`s latest discussion paper `Going to the Root` and provide the way forward.

Patrick Maviyane
Berea, Johannesburg

SACP Expresses Its Message of Revolutionary Solidarity With the People of South America Against U.S Imperialism

1 April 2015

The South African Communist Party (SACP) expresses its profound and firmest solidarity with the people and the government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in the face of imperialist threats from the United States (U.S). As the SACP we will join the planned activities, particularly the International Day of Solidarity with Venezuela, on 19 April. The International Day of Solidarity was adopted by a broad spectrum of political parties meeting in Mexico City recently.

The U.S policy towards South America reached a new low recently when President Barack Obama invoked powers to declare the so-called "national emergency with respect to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and `foreign policy of the United States` posed by the situation in Venezuela". We believe that through this imperialist declaration the U.S is preparing grounds to launch a military attack on Venezuela and/or isolate it while supporting regime change through active interference backing right-wing groupings.

Similarly, sections of the population in Brazil have embarked on marches to demand the "foreign intervention of the U.S" to unseat democratically elected President Dilma Rousseff.

In Argentina, Chile and elsewhere on the continent, notwithstanding the huge challenges that confront the process of progressive transformation, such as slow economic growth, corruption allegations, etc., the United States` imperialist onslaught to regain lost right-wing ground in its declared "backyard" is visible throughout. This seeks to reverse progressive gains and reassert imperialist exploitation and domination.

U.S actions should be seen in the same vein as its sponsored 1970s Operation Condor - "a campaign of political repression and state terror involving intelligence operations and assassination of opponents, officially implemented in 1975 by the right-wing dictatorships of South America". According to declassified files, the United States has aided and facilitated Condor operations as a matter of secret but routine policy. Those right-wing dictatorships which it backed have since been dislodged by the wave of progressive governments and popular power.

The U.S has now blatantly rehabilitated its traditional imperial posture towards the global South of the Western Hemisphere and challenges the continent-wide Bolivarian cause of Latin America and the Caribbean, independence and sovereignty. It has effectively sent a go-ahead to the ultra-right opposition that has been behind much of the instability and violent clashes in Brazil and Venezuela during the last period to unleash the same on a rampant basis.

The threat posed by the U.S foreign policy in South America and the Caribbean region is but a part of the overall global strategy to intensify imperialist domination in the aftermath of the persisting system crises. This tyranny is actually unleased against all of the peoples of the world who rightly exercise their independence, national self-determination and sovereignty which in turn go against U.S. imperialist domination.

The U.S. is embarking on a dangerous path replaying Operation Condor on a global basis. Its foreign policy seeks to overthrow democracies through regime change and replace them with puppet governments.

Issued by the SACP

Contact:

Alex Mashilo - Spokesperson
Mobile: 082 9200 308
Office: 011 339 3621 or 2
Twitter: SACP1921
Facebook Page: South African Communist Party

SACP Statement on COSATU

31 March 2015, Johannesburg

The South African Communist Party (SACP) respects the primary position of the Congress of South African Trade Unions` (Cosatu`s) independence and bona fides, and believes that the federation has the capacity to overcome its own internal problems without any external interference. As the SACP we reiterate our call to the workers to build maximum unity and rally behind a single programme under the leadership of Cosatu.

The SACP notes with concern, however, that Cosatu has for a while now been faced with serious problems of maintaining unity, cohesion and discipline. The latest divisive developments facing the federation are undesirable, and cannot be a cause for celebration for any progressive or revolutionary organisation. The challenges facing Cosatu under the continuously changing conditions require hard work to build maximum unity anchored on intensifying connection to, and rooted in the day to day struggles of the workers.

As the SACP we will continue to work together with Cosatu both in solidarity and in alliance to strengthen our efforts in building maximum working class unity. In order for unity to succeed, workers need to combat competition among themselves and their unions and prioritise solidarity. Workers should recognise the dangers inherent in the development of the cult of personality and the undermining of the fundamental principles of internal democracy, collective leadership, discipline and self-discipline, constructive criticism and self-criticism.

It is also important for the working class to guard against the dangers of business unionism and ensure proper and transparent accountability on matters relating to finances of their trade unions.

Issued by the SACP

Contact:

Alex Mashilo - Spokesperson
Mobile: 082 9200 308
Office: 011 339 3621/2
Facebook Page: South African Communist Party
Twitter: SACP1921