As noted in Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin 050 (7 April 2010) entitled, "Sudan on the Brink" , one of the Government of Sudan's (GoS's) favourite weapons of war during the 21 year-long jihad (1983-Jan 2005) was engineered famine.
The present famine in Akobo, Southern Sudan, should be viewed in this light. Not that the GoS has bombed or ravagage Akobo recently, but that the regime in Khartoum is quite content to let the periphery starve, and Southern Sudanese civilians are starving when they shouldn't be.
Here area couple of reports, containing some very disturbing pictures, on the current humanitarian situation in Akobo, Southern Sudan.
Emaciated Children Signal Crisis In Southern Sudan
by The Associated Press AKOBO, Sudan April 8, 2010,
YouTube video report:
Skeletal children sign of crisis in Sudanese town.
Associated Press, 8 April 2010
According to reports, however, Khartoum has not only been exporting food, but boasting to the African Union that it has the capacity to become Africa's breadbasket.
In his 26 August 2009 article entitled, "Khartoum's Strategic Assault on Southern Self-Determination Referendum", Sudan expert Eric Reeves noted that the humanitarian situation in the South was deteriorating rapidly. Reeves quoted Lise Grande, the Deputy Resident Humanitarian Coordinator in Southern Sudan, as saying that South Sudan was facing the "perfect humanitarian storm".
As Reeves explained: "The first rains and crop plantings have failed; more than 200,000 people have been violently displaced; and insecurity makes delivery of food to areas such as Akobo almost impossible except by air.
"And yet the Khartoum regime, nominally the 'government of Sudan,' will not lift a hand to offer assistance, just as it has continuously failed to assist the distressed populations of other marginalized regions of the country. It is far too infrequently remarked that despite its now considerable oil wealth, despite massive foreign investment in and around Khartoum, and despite very significant agricultural export capacity, there is no movement of national wealth or even food assistance from the centre to the desperately needy periphery.
"Indeed, at the very time the international community is struggling to provide food assistance to some six million people throughout Sudan, the regime is engaged in a lucrative agricultural export business and selling large tracts of arable lands to foreign countries. Precisely a year ago, New York Times correspondent Jeffrey Gettleman filed from Ed Damer (north of Khartoum) a remarkable dispatch [entitled Darfur Withers as Sudan Sells Food (9 Aug 2008)] highlighting just how perverse national agricultural policy is under the NIF/NCP regime. Noting that Sudan 'receives a billion pounds of free food from international [aid] donors, [even as it] is growing and selling vast quantities of its own crops to other countries,' Gettleman asks, 'why is a country that exports so many of its own crops receiving more free food than anywhere else in the world. . .'"
Reeves also quoted NIF/NCP President al-Bashir, who boasted to the June 2009 African Union summit in Libya that Sudan, through its agricultural wealth, "is in a position to make a big contribution to achieving the food security in Africa." "We prepared a strategy for agricultural revival for 2008-2011 that is aligned with the goals and principles of comprehensive agricultural development in Africa." (As reported in the Sudan Tribune, 1 July 2009)
As Reeves noted: "Al-Bashir is prepared to share Sudan's agricultural wealth with other African nations, but not with the people of his own country. Again, the unsurpassable callousness of such a policy has not been challenged by the international community that is providing so much food aid to Sudan.
"A regime that exports food while so many of its own citizens lack food and face malnutrition and starvation can survive only through tyranny. Present agricultural policy, which benefits only this regime, is but one of many reasons that the NIF/NCP can never prevail in free and fair elections."
Friday, April 9, 2010
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Sudan's elections: already totally compromised.
From Sunday 11 through to Tuesday 13 April, the volitile, ethnic-religious fault-line state of Sudan will hold general elections as mandated by the January 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement.
For a brief background, see: Sudan on the Brink
Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin | RLPB 050 | Wed 07 April 2010
The 11-13 April elections will not, however, herald the emergence of democracy. Rather, Sudan's already thoroughly compromised elections will merely demonstrate the regime's uncompromising determination and ability to maintain its grip on power and to continue its repressive Arab-Islamic domination of Sudan's vast and varied peoples. For instead of implementing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), the ruling National Congress Party (NCP, formerly the National Islamic Front (NIF)) has spent the past five years frustrating and stalling the peace process -- including by means of destabilisation through conflict -- and corrupting the electoral process at every level.
CENSUS CORRUPTED
The preparatory census, taken over a mere two weeks in 2008, is totally compromised. While the census results have been widely rejected as fraudulent, the National Elections Commission (NEC), which is dominated by former NCP/NIF officials, not only accepted the results but used the rigged census results to calculate power-sharing: i.e. to draw up electoral districts, apportion seats in the national and state legislative assemblies, and organise voter registration. It will use the same rigged results to calculate wealth-sharing between the North and South.
Recommended reading:
Likewise, some three million Darfuris have also been disenfranchised due to displacement and insecurity, thus reducing their representation. In fact, in Darfur, whole parts of states -- specifically southern regions under rebel control -- have been left out of any constituency. For example, in its comprehensive report of 30 March 2010 entitled "Rigged Elections in Darfur and the Consequences of a Probable NCP Victory in Sudan" , International Crisis Group reports that: "The rebel-held Jebel Marra massif in Southern Darfur, with an estimated population of 1 million but only 35,000 according to the 2008 census, has no seats."
Despite the displacement, the population of Darfur has exploded with a reported 322 percent increase in nomadic Arabs! Investigators report that Darfuri towns ethnically cleansed by government-sponsored Arab janjaweed militias have been resettled with nomadic Arabs from neighbouring Chad and Niger and Mali who have been issued with Sudanese ID papers and registered to vote -- for the NCP.
Reeves stresses in his August 2009 report that it is "important that these results stand clearly revealed as fraudulent: otherwise the NIF/NCP will use these putatively 'national' elections to legitimize their continuing rule, and to de-legitimize both the SPLM and the Darfur rebels, as well as northern political opposition groups. . ." Reeves continues: ''it is hugely important that the NIF/NCP fraudulence be exposed because the rigging could result in the NIF/NCP gaining sufficient legislative power to re-write the CPA, or the terms of the SSDR."
Indeed, as noted by defense analyst Dr J. Peter Pham Ph.D., in a column entitled "Sudan's Elections and the Country's End Game" (6 April 2010) , the rigging of the census has already had a catastrophic impact. "As a result of this maneuver [rigging of the census], the ten states of South Sudan together have been allocated only one-fourth of the number of National Assembly seats awarded to the fifteen northern states. The shift is significant because South Sudan would no longer be able to block major legislation, much less changes to the country's constitution -- the former requires a two-thirds majority of parliament, while the latter three-quarters of the vote". (This is exactly what Reeves, in his June 2009 report, described as "a worst case scenario".)
See also: Elections, Making Sense of Sudan:
Sudan’s Census and the National Assembly Elections
posted by Marc Gustafson, 19 Dec 2009
BALLOTS
The International Crisis Group's comprehensive report comments on the recent discovery "that the NEC had diverted the tender for printing presidential ballots from a Slovenian printing house (for $800,000) to the government-controlled Sudanese Currency Printing Company (for $4 million). The NEC justified its decision to favour a Sudan-based firm on the fact that if a run-off vote is required there would only be 21 days to complete the printing and that the Sudanese Currency Printing House was accustomed to operating in secrecy, so the risk of fraud would be reduced."
Further to this, as Reuters reports, the ballots, which are already amongst the most complicated in the world, have been printed only in Arabic, when South Sudan is mostly English-speaking.
And as Pham notes, there can be no political legitimacy without electoral credibility.
NCP DIVIDES OPPOSITION (AGAIN). TOO EASY!
Several opposition parties had united in an SPLM-led coalition under the name, National Consensus (or the Juba Alliance), with the SPLM's candidate for the Presidential poll, Yasser Arman, viewed as the only serious contender to al-Bashir. Arman is a northern Arab Muslim, former Communist, and long-time supporter and high ranking member of the SPLM.
It now appears, however, that the NCP/NIF regime in Khartoum has struck a deal with the SPLM that will guarantee al-Bashir the Presidency in exchange for his guarantee that the referendum on Southern self determination will go ahead.
See: SPLM: Between the NCP and the National Consensus (30 March 2010)
For on Wednesday 31 March, Yasser Arman pulled out of the presidential race citing rigging, and insecurity in Darfur. Arman's pull out from the presidential race will almost certainly guarantee al-Bashir a first round win. Had Arman contested, he might have forced al-Bashir into a second round run-off, which al-Bashir might not have been able to win.
According to the Sudan Tribune (31 March) : "The Sudanese opposition reacted with anger and surprise after the ex-Southern rebel group decided to pull its presidential candidate leaving them feeling betrayed as speculations raged on a secret deal with the ruling party.
"'This is a betrayal by the SPLM of its agreement with the opposition forces,' said Kamal Omer from the opposition Popular Congress Party (PCP) to Reuters, adding the party would not be boycotting the polls.
"Sideeg Yousuf from the Communist Party said he was surprised by the unilateral announcement, which he called 'rushed'. 'The SPLM and all the political forces agreed that they would make their position in consensus at a meeting tomorrow [Thursday]," he told Reuters. But he added he hoped the parties would still all meet.
"Fouad Hikmat, from the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank, said the SPLM had struck a deal with the NCP to allow Bashir to win the presidency. 'The SPLM have decided to not [fully] boycott the elections because they don't want to jeopardize the referendum -- that is very important to them.'"
According to Reuters: "People in South Sudan said they were disappointed the SPLM would not field a contender against Bashir, but that the referendum was more important to them.
"'Perhaps it was a deal between the SPLM and the NCP to protect the referendum,' civil servant Manong Thot said in the southern capital, Juba.
"Doctor Victor Jal said it was the right move. 'This election is not going to be free and fair -- the NCP is going to rig it, everyone knows this,' he said. 'What is important for us is just the referendum.'"
It absolutely beggars belief that the SPLM would value the word of the NCP/NIF regime over the solidarity of its allies. Once again, the NCP/NIF regime has managed to divide its opposition.
Here are two excellent news clips from Al-Jazeera that cover most of the points raised above:
Meanwhile, optimists (particularly in the US administration) are still chattering away about progress in democracy and the need to prepare Sudan for a "soft landing" after the Southern self-determination referendum.
If there is a referendum (and remember, the NCP has rigged the elections specifically with the aim of controlling 75 percent of seats in the National Assembly so it can amend the constitution and re-write the terms of the CPA) then you can guarantee there will not be any "soft landing". Khartoum is never going to just let the oil-rich South secede.
In November 2009, Sudan expert Eric Reeves wrote a third report on the elections entitled (ominously) "Sudan: Election Crisis Reveals a Country Lurching Toward War." This too is recommended reading.
Reeves' introductory paragraph provides a summary of his thesis: "There is growing awareness that national elections scheduled for April 2010 will fail on many counts, with unpredictable consequences for the Khartoum regime's ambitions to retain its stranglehold on Sudanese national wealth and power. In turn, the prospect of an aborted or compromised Southern self-determination referendum (January 2011) looms ever closer, with the potential to trigger unfathomable destruction."
In my mind there is little doubt that Sudan is indeed "lurching towards war". I believe that this has been more or less the case ever since the untimely death of long-time SPLM leader Dr John Garan in the months after the signing of the CPA. As the South's most passionate advocate of the New Sudan vision (united, secular, democratic), Dr Garang was probably the only Southern leader capable of making that vision a reality. (For a more comprehensive report on this issue see my religious liberty news & analysis posting of 3 October 2007 entitled "Southern Sudan: On the path to war".)
For a brief background, see: Sudan on the Brink
Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin | RLPB 050 | Wed 07 April 2010
The 11-13 April elections will not, however, herald the emergence of democracy. Rather, Sudan's already thoroughly compromised elections will merely demonstrate the regime's uncompromising determination and ability to maintain its grip on power and to continue its repressive Arab-Islamic domination of Sudan's vast and varied peoples. For instead of implementing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), the ruling National Congress Party (NCP, formerly the National Islamic Front (NIF)) has spent the past five years frustrating and stalling the peace process -- including by means of destabilisation through conflict -- and corrupting the electoral process at every level.
CENSUS CORRUPTED
The preparatory census, taken over a mere two weeks in 2008, is totally compromised. While the census results have been widely rejected as fraudulent, the National Elections Commission (NEC), which is dominated by former NCP/NIF officials, not only accepted the results but used the rigged census results to calculate power-sharing: i.e. to draw up electoral districts, apportion seats in the national and state legislative assemblies, and organise voter registration. It will use the same rigged results to calculate wealth-sharing between the North and South.
Recommended reading:
- Against the Gathering Storm: Securing Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement
Chatham House Report by Edward Thomas, January 2009 - Sudan Elections and Southern Self-Determination: At Growing Risk.
By Eric Reeves, 28 June 2009 - Khartoum's strategic assault on Southern self-determination referendum.
By Eric Reeves, 26 August 2009
Likewise, some three million Darfuris have also been disenfranchised due to displacement and insecurity, thus reducing their representation. In fact, in Darfur, whole parts of states -- specifically southern regions under rebel control -- have been left out of any constituency. For example, in its comprehensive report of 30 March 2010 entitled "Rigged Elections in Darfur and the Consequences of a Probable NCP Victory in Sudan" , International Crisis Group reports that: "The rebel-held Jebel Marra massif in Southern Darfur, with an estimated population of 1 million but only 35,000 according to the 2008 census, has no seats."
Despite the displacement, the population of Darfur has exploded with a reported 322 percent increase in nomadic Arabs! Investigators report that Darfuri towns ethnically cleansed by government-sponsored Arab janjaweed militias have been resettled with nomadic Arabs from neighbouring Chad and Niger and Mali who have been issued with Sudanese ID papers and registered to vote -- for the NCP.
Reeves stresses in his August 2009 report that it is "important that these results stand clearly revealed as fraudulent: otherwise the NIF/NCP will use these putatively 'national' elections to legitimize their continuing rule, and to de-legitimize both the SPLM and the Darfur rebels, as well as northern political opposition groups. . ." Reeves continues: ''it is hugely important that the NIF/NCP fraudulence be exposed because the rigging could result in the NIF/NCP gaining sufficient legislative power to re-write the CPA, or the terms of the SSDR."
Indeed, as noted by defense analyst Dr J. Peter Pham Ph.D., in a column entitled "Sudan's Elections and the Country's End Game" (6 April 2010) , the rigging of the census has already had a catastrophic impact. "As a result of this maneuver [rigging of the census], the ten states of South Sudan together have been allocated only one-fourth of the number of National Assembly seats awarded to the fifteen northern states. The shift is significant because South Sudan would no longer be able to block major legislation, much less changes to the country's constitution -- the former requires a two-thirds majority of parliament, while the latter three-quarters of the vote". (This is exactly what Reeves, in his June 2009 report, described as "a worst case scenario".)
See also: Elections, Making Sense of Sudan:
Sudan’s Census and the National Assembly Elections
posted by Marc Gustafson, 19 Dec 2009
BALLOTS
The International Crisis Group's comprehensive report comments on the recent discovery "that the NEC had diverted the tender for printing presidential ballots from a Slovenian printing house (for $800,000) to the government-controlled Sudanese Currency Printing Company (for $4 million). The NEC justified its decision to favour a Sudan-based firm on the fact that if a run-off vote is required there would only be 21 days to complete the printing and that the Sudanese Currency Printing House was accustomed to operating in secrecy, so the risk of fraud would be reduced."
Further to this, as Reuters reports, the ballots, which are already amongst the most complicated in the world, have been printed only in Arabic, when South Sudan is mostly English-speaking.
And as Pham notes, there can be no political legitimacy without electoral credibility.
NCP DIVIDES OPPOSITION (AGAIN). TOO EASY!
Several opposition parties had united in an SPLM-led coalition under the name, National Consensus (or the Juba Alliance), with the SPLM's candidate for the Presidential poll, Yasser Arman, viewed as the only serious contender to al-Bashir. Arman is a northern Arab Muslim, former Communist, and long-time supporter and high ranking member of the SPLM.
It now appears, however, that the NCP/NIF regime in Khartoum has struck a deal with the SPLM that will guarantee al-Bashir the Presidency in exchange for his guarantee that the referendum on Southern self determination will go ahead.
See: SPLM: Between the NCP and the National Consensus (30 March 2010)
For on Wednesday 31 March, Yasser Arman pulled out of the presidential race citing rigging, and insecurity in Darfur. Arman's pull out from the presidential race will almost certainly guarantee al-Bashir a first round win. Had Arman contested, he might have forced al-Bashir into a second round run-off, which al-Bashir might not have been able to win.
According to the Sudan Tribune (31 March) : "The Sudanese opposition reacted with anger and surprise after the ex-Southern rebel group decided to pull its presidential candidate leaving them feeling betrayed as speculations raged on a secret deal with the ruling party.
"'This is a betrayal by the SPLM of its agreement with the opposition forces,' said Kamal Omer from the opposition Popular Congress Party (PCP) to Reuters, adding the party would not be boycotting the polls.
"Sideeg Yousuf from the Communist Party said he was surprised by the unilateral announcement, which he called 'rushed'. 'The SPLM and all the political forces agreed that they would make their position in consensus at a meeting tomorrow [Thursday]," he told Reuters. But he added he hoped the parties would still all meet.
"Fouad Hikmat, from the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank, said the SPLM had struck a deal with the NCP to allow Bashir to win the presidency. 'The SPLM have decided to not [fully] boycott the elections because they don't want to jeopardize the referendum -- that is very important to them.'"
According to Reuters: "People in South Sudan said they were disappointed the SPLM would not field a contender against Bashir, but that the referendum was more important to them.
"'Perhaps it was a deal between the SPLM and the NCP to protect the referendum,' civil servant Manong Thot said in the southern capital, Juba.
"Doctor Victor Jal said it was the right move. 'This election is not going to be free and fair -- the NCP is going to rig it, everyone knows this,' he said. 'What is important for us is just the referendum.'"
It absolutely beggars belief that the SPLM would value the word of the NCP/NIF regime over the solidarity of its allies. Once again, the NCP/NIF regime has managed to divide its opposition.
Here are two excellent news clips from Al-Jazeera that cover most of the points raised above:
- Boycott clouds Sudan election
From: AlJazeeraEnglish | 31 March 2010 - Sudan poll boycott threatens peace
From: AlJazeeraEnglish | 06 April 2010
Meanwhile, optimists (particularly in the US administration) are still chattering away about progress in democracy and the need to prepare Sudan for a "soft landing" after the Southern self-determination referendum.
If there is a referendum (and remember, the NCP has rigged the elections specifically with the aim of controlling 75 percent of seats in the National Assembly so it can amend the constitution and re-write the terms of the CPA) then you can guarantee there will not be any "soft landing". Khartoum is never going to just let the oil-rich South secede.
In November 2009, Sudan expert Eric Reeves wrote a third report on the elections entitled (ominously) "Sudan: Election Crisis Reveals a Country Lurching Toward War." This too is recommended reading.
Reeves' introductory paragraph provides a summary of his thesis: "There is growing awareness that national elections scheduled for April 2010 will fail on many counts, with unpredictable consequences for the Khartoum regime's ambitions to retain its stranglehold on Sudanese national wealth and power. In turn, the prospect of an aborted or compromised Southern self-determination referendum (January 2011) looms ever closer, with the potential to trigger unfathomable destruction."
In my mind there is little doubt that Sudan is indeed "lurching towards war". I believe that this has been more or less the case ever since the untimely death of long-time SPLM leader Dr John Garan in the months after the signing of the CPA. As the South's most passionate advocate of the New Sudan vision (united, secular, democratic), Dr Garang was probably the only Southern leader capable of making that vision a reality. (For a more comprehensive report on this issue see my religious liberty news & analysis posting of 3 October 2007 entitled "Southern Sudan: On the path to war".)
Monday, April 5, 2010
The Myth of the "Black Widow"
Reporting from Moscow after the 29 March Moscow train bombings, Tony Halpin described the female suicide bombers, known as Black Widows, as women who martyr themselves to avenge the deaths of their loved ones.
"These women are willing," wrote Halpin, "even eager, to become martyrs, driven by a desire for revenge on Russia after witnessing the deaths of children, husbands or other relatives in the two Chechen wars of the 1990s."
The above description of the "Black Widow" is being parroted in virtually all Western media. Unfortunately, it reveals a shameful ignorance of the phenomenon. Even worse, it is an embarrassing and troubling wholesale adoption of one of the terrorist's primary weapons of asymmetric warfare -- propaganda.
It would be easy but tiresome to dig through the cases, read through the profiles, and disprove the myth. Thankfully, several strategic analysts have already done the footwork and written quite exhaustive reports on the subject.
Terrorism analyst Yossef Bodansky has a chapter in his phenomenal book Chechen Jihad (HarperCollins 2007) devoted to "The Black Widows".
Bodansky writes concerning the jihad in Chechnya: "Conventional wisdom holds that this sudden and unprecedented upsurge in female terrorists [through 2003-2004] was the result of the horrific conditions created by the war in Chechnya. Having lost all, or virtually all, of their male relatives to the Russians, the logic went, these women had nothing left to live for; taking revenge against their tormentors was the only salve for their despair. Sympathetic European sociologists and psychologists studying the phenomenon concluded that the Widows were driven by despair born of extreme violence toward either the women or their families, and that their relative isolation left them feeling deprived of any perspective or alternative. According to this argument, the Islamists weren't responsible for motivating these young women into suicide -- only for providing them with an 'opportunity for sacrifice' and revenge."
"Yet," Bodansky continues, "this popular explanation is contradicted by the evidence in several ways."
As Bodansky notes, the first Chechen nationalist rebellion (1994-1996) produced more civilian casualties but no suicide bombers at all. The phenomenon of suicide bombers in Russia, including female suicide bombers, belongs exclusively to the second Chechen war (commencing 1999) which is an Islamic, not a nationalist, struggle.
Bodansky also notes that female suicide bombers defy stereotypes. Some have been poor while others have been middle class. Some have been raped and tortured by Russian soldiers while others have been raped and tortured by mujahedin. Some have been motivated by jihadist ideology while some have been simply depressed young women desperate for a way out.
According to Bodansky, in late 2002 Chechen commander Shamil Basayev commandeered a corps of Arab expert terrorists who had been trained in the Iraq war theatre to develop a training programme for would-be-martyrs in south-eastern Chechnya. In his book, Bodansky provides extensive detail of how networks have been run and how operations have been enacted.
Debra D. Zedalis makes the same observations in her 2004 report for the Strategic Studies Institute. Despite the exasperating political correctness of Zedalis's report -- entitled FEMALE SUICIDE BOMBERS -- it too notes that female suicide bombers (Palestinian and Chechen) defy simplistic definitions for some have been widows while others have never been married, and some were unemployed while others were professionals. She quotes Gregg Zoroya who says that there are "few differences between a man and a woman carrying out such a mission. It may be a surprise, but motivations are the same: they do believe, they are committed, they are patriotic, and this is combined with a religious duty."
Bodansky's profiling of three Chechen female suicide bombers reveals some tragic personal motivations.
(1) On 24 June 2003, Luiza Asmayeba (22) was wounded in a shootout with Russian police before she could detonate her device. Before she died she told the authorities that she had been repeatedly raped and impregnated by Chechen mujahedin and saw martyrdom as her only escape. An autopsy confirmed that Luiza was pregnant.
(2) Zulikhan Yelikhadzhiyeva (according to reports, an educated, cultured, modern girl) and her step brother Zhaga fell in love and ran away together. Zulikhan, however, was subsequently kidnapped by one of her half-brothers, a mujahed, who scolded her, telling her that her actions had brought shame on the family and condemned her to hell. He then convinced her that the only way she could restore the family's honour and secure her place in heaven with all the promised rewards and pleasures, was to become a martyr -- "a shakhida on the path of Allah" (according to a letter she wrote to Zhaga). Zulikhan blew herself up in the Wings concert attack of 5 July 2003.
(3) Zarema Muzhikhoyeva (23) surrendered to Russian police on 9 July 2003 after failing in her attempt to blow herself up in central Moscow. Her husband had been murdered in a business dispute. Her childless brother-in-law then took her daughter from her. After her relatives caught her trying to escape with her daughter, they beat her and said it would be better if she were dead. So Zarema went to meet Shamil Basayev (now deceased), who was at that time the commander of the Chechen mujahedin. He promised her, that if she were to become a martyr, he would give her family enough money to raise her daughter. And so Zarema offered herself as a suicide bomber.
Official sanction
This appalling exploitation of vulnerable, grieving and abused young women is sanctioned at the highest levels of Islam for the sake of mass murder. Zedalis's report for the Strategic Studies Institute provides excellent insight here.
According to Zedalis, Islamic leaders' attitudes have changed over time as women suicide bombers proved their worth as highly strategic tactical weapons. Zedalis notes that in early 2002, after Fatah started using female suicide bombers, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin (now deceased), who was at the time the spiritual leader of Hamas, categorically renounced the use of women as suicide bombers for reasons of modesty. However, in January 2004 after the first Hamas female suicide bomber struck, Sheikh Yassin supported the act saying it was a "significant evolution in our fight. The male fighters face many obstacles. Women are like the reserve army -- when there is a necessity, we use them."
Zedalis also notes: "Saudia Arabia originally refused to legitimize female suicide bombings as martyrdom; however, in August 2001, the High Islamic Council in Saudi Arabia issued a fatwa encouraging Palestinian women to become suicide bombers."
Also: "Lebanese Muslim cleric Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah declared, 'It is true that Islam has not asked women to carry out jihad (holy war), but it permits them to take part if the necessities dictate that women should carry out regular military operations or suicide operations."
Zedalis concludes that: "Terrorist organizations use women as weapons because they provide:
• Tactical advantage: stealthier attack, element of surprise, hesitancy to search women, female stereotype (e.g., nonviolent).
• Increased number of combatants.
• Increased publicity (greater publicity = larger number of recruits).
• Psychological effect." [Embarrassing the enemy as much as shocking the public.]
Zedalis quotes one commander in charge of training future suicide bombers as saying, "The body has become our most potent weapon. When we searched for new ways to resist the security complications facing us, we discovered that our women could be an advantage." And another who boastfully described the Palestinian female suicide bomber as the "Palestinian human precision bomb".
"Finally," writes Zedalis most ominously, "many organizations deliberately are targeting women for strategic purposes because female suicide bombers receive more media attention. Research has shown that 'public perceptions of the level of terrorism in the world appear to be determined not by the level of violence, but rather by the quality of the incidents, the location, and the degree of media coverage.' So the media provides both an advertising and recruitment tool for terrorist groups. Analysts noted that, when the first Palestinian female bombing occurred, the 'news was given great prominence . . . far more than any male suicide bomber would have received. Women who kill or threaten to kill are hot news. It is a reaction that knows no state or religious boundaries.'"
Furthermore, it is quite ridiculous and even sexist to insist that men kill for ideology while women only kill for love. Women kill for a whole lot of reasons, including ideology and reward, especially when the reward involves assurance of salvation with pleasures in heaven, material reward for family on earth, and fame and glory -- for suicide bombers are heroes in Palestinian society. Their faces adorn the streets, while sport grounds, schools and community centres are named in their honour.
(See also: Female Suicide Bombers: Dying for Equality?
Edited by Yoram Schweitzer. Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, August 2006)
Justice demands truth
The propaganda surrounding the Black Widow myth ensures that neither the jihadists nor their ideology are never held accountable. The myth clearly serves its purpose as a means of Islamist propaganda, encouraging us to direct our anger at Israel and Russia, when we should be directing abhorrence, disgust and indignation at the mujahedin who exploit and abuse these vulnerable young women, and the esteemed dictators of Islam who sanction such inhumanity.
"Black Widows" -- or as they should be known: female suicide bombers -- are victims indeed, but not of Israeli or Russian aggression. They are victims of disgusting and inhumane Islamic deception and exploitation. If anything exposes the gulf between Islam and Biblical faith it is this! For the God of the Bible commands: "You shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child." (Exodus 22:22 ESV) AND "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world." (James 1:27 ESV)
God exhorts his people through his prophet Isaiah to "plead the widow's cause" (Isaiah 1:17 ESV), and so we must reject the myth of the Black Widow and hold the dictators of Islam and their minions accountable for their murderous terrorism and for their appalling abuse and exploitation of the vulnerable. Furthermore, it can be guaranteed that when the strategic, tactical and shock value of female suicide bombers wears off, children will be next. Indeed, vulnerable children are already being exploited and "sacrificed" for their propaganda value in both the Palestinian and Chechen theatres.
by Elizabeth Kendal
For background on the Chechen Jihad see:
Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin (RLPB 030) 11 Nov 2009
NORTH CAUCASUS (southern Russia): Church Struggles Amidst Terror
"These women are willing," wrote Halpin, "even eager, to become martyrs, driven by a desire for revenge on Russia after witnessing the deaths of children, husbands or other relatives in the two Chechen wars of the 1990s."
The above description of the "Black Widow" is being parroted in virtually all Western media. Unfortunately, it reveals a shameful ignorance of the phenomenon. Even worse, it is an embarrassing and troubling wholesale adoption of one of the terrorist's primary weapons of asymmetric warfare -- propaganda.
It would be easy but tiresome to dig through the cases, read through the profiles, and disprove the myth. Thankfully, several strategic analysts have already done the footwork and written quite exhaustive reports on the subject.
Terrorism analyst Yossef Bodansky has a chapter in his phenomenal book Chechen Jihad (HarperCollins 2007) devoted to "The Black Widows".
Bodansky writes concerning the jihad in Chechnya: "Conventional wisdom holds that this sudden and unprecedented upsurge in female terrorists [through 2003-2004] was the result of the horrific conditions created by the war in Chechnya. Having lost all, or virtually all, of their male relatives to the Russians, the logic went, these women had nothing left to live for; taking revenge against their tormentors was the only salve for their despair. Sympathetic European sociologists and psychologists studying the phenomenon concluded that the Widows were driven by despair born of extreme violence toward either the women or their families, and that their relative isolation left them feeling deprived of any perspective or alternative. According to this argument, the Islamists weren't responsible for motivating these young women into suicide -- only for providing them with an 'opportunity for sacrifice' and revenge."
"Yet," Bodansky continues, "this popular explanation is contradicted by the evidence in several ways."
As Bodansky notes, the first Chechen nationalist rebellion (1994-1996) produced more civilian casualties but no suicide bombers at all. The phenomenon of suicide bombers in Russia, including female suicide bombers, belongs exclusively to the second Chechen war (commencing 1999) which is an Islamic, not a nationalist, struggle.
Bodansky also notes that female suicide bombers defy stereotypes. Some have been poor while others have been middle class. Some have been raped and tortured by Russian soldiers while others have been raped and tortured by mujahedin. Some have been motivated by jihadist ideology while some have been simply depressed young women desperate for a way out.
According to Bodansky, in late 2002 Chechen commander Shamil Basayev commandeered a corps of Arab expert terrorists who had been trained in the Iraq war theatre to develop a training programme for would-be-martyrs in south-eastern Chechnya. In his book, Bodansky provides extensive detail of how networks have been run and how operations have been enacted.
Debra D. Zedalis makes the same observations in her 2004 report for the Strategic Studies Institute. Despite the exasperating political correctness of Zedalis's report -- entitled FEMALE SUICIDE BOMBERS -- it too notes that female suicide bombers (Palestinian and Chechen) defy simplistic definitions for some have been widows while others have never been married, and some were unemployed while others were professionals. She quotes Gregg Zoroya who says that there are "few differences between a man and a woman carrying out such a mission. It may be a surprise, but motivations are the same: they do believe, they are committed, they are patriotic, and this is combined with a religious duty."
Bodansky's profiling of three Chechen female suicide bombers reveals some tragic personal motivations.
(1) On 24 June 2003, Luiza Asmayeba (22) was wounded in a shootout with Russian police before she could detonate her device. Before she died she told the authorities that she had been repeatedly raped and impregnated by Chechen mujahedin and saw martyrdom as her only escape. An autopsy confirmed that Luiza was pregnant.
(2) Zulikhan Yelikhadzhiyeva (according to reports, an educated, cultured, modern girl) and her step brother Zhaga fell in love and ran away together. Zulikhan, however, was subsequently kidnapped by one of her half-brothers, a mujahed, who scolded her, telling her that her actions had brought shame on the family and condemned her to hell. He then convinced her that the only way she could restore the family's honour and secure her place in heaven with all the promised rewards and pleasures, was to become a martyr -- "a shakhida on the path of Allah" (according to a letter she wrote to Zhaga). Zulikhan blew herself up in the Wings concert attack of 5 July 2003.
(3) Zarema Muzhikhoyeva (23) surrendered to Russian police on 9 July 2003 after failing in her attempt to blow herself up in central Moscow. Her husband had been murdered in a business dispute. Her childless brother-in-law then took her daughter from her. After her relatives caught her trying to escape with her daughter, they beat her and said it would be better if she were dead. So Zarema went to meet Shamil Basayev (now deceased), who was at that time the commander of the Chechen mujahedin. He promised her, that if she were to become a martyr, he would give her family enough money to raise her daughter. And so Zarema offered herself as a suicide bomber.
Official sanction
This appalling exploitation of vulnerable, grieving and abused young women is sanctioned at the highest levels of Islam for the sake of mass murder. Zedalis's report for the Strategic Studies Institute provides excellent insight here.
According to Zedalis, Islamic leaders' attitudes have changed over time as women suicide bombers proved their worth as highly strategic tactical weapons. Zedalis notes that in early 2002, after Fatah started using female suicide bombers, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin (now deceased), who was at the time the spiritual leader of Hamas, categorically renounced the use of women as suicide bombers for reasons of modesty. However, in January 2004 after the first Hamas female suicide bomber struck, Sheikh Yassin supported the act saying it was a "significant evolution in our fight. The male fighters face many obstacles. Women are like the reserve army -- when there is a necessity, we use them."
Zedalis also notes: "Saudia Arabia originally refused to legitimize female suicide bombings as martyrdom; however, in August 2001, the High Islamic Council in Saudi Arabia issued a fatwa encouraging Palestinian women to become suicide bombers."
Also: "Lebanese Muslim cleric Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah declared, 'It is true that Islam has not asked women to carry out jihad (holy war), but it permits them to take part if the necessities dictate that women should carry out regular military operations or suicide operations."
Zedalis concludes that: "Terrorist organizations use women as weapons because they provide:
• Tactical advantage: stealthier attack, element of surprise, hesitancy to search women, female stereotype (e.g., nonviolent).
• Increased number of combatants.
• Increased publicity (greater publicity = larger number of recruits).
• Psychological effect." [Embarrassing the enemy as much as shocking the public.]
Zedalis quotes one commander in charge of training future suicide bombers as saying, "The body has become our most potent weapon. When we searched for new ways to resist the security complications facing us, we discovered that our women could be an advantage." And another who boastfully described the Palestinian female suicide bomber as the "Palestinian human precision bomb".
"Finally," writes Zedalis most ominously, "many organizations deliberately are targeting women for strategic purposes because female suicide bombers receive more media attention. Research has shown that 'public perceptions of the level of terrorism in the world appear to be determined not by the level of violence, but rather by the quality of the incidents, the location, and the degree of media coverage.' So the media provides both an advertising and recruitment tool for terrorist groups. Analysts noted that, when the first Palestinian female bombing occurred, the 'news was given great prominence . . . far more than any male suicide bomber would have received. Women who kill or threaten to kill are hot news. It is a reaction that knows no state or religious boundaries.'"
Furthermore, it is quite ridiculous and even sexist to insist that men kill for ideology while women only kill for love. Women kill for a whole lot of reasons, including ideology and reward, especially when the reward involves assurance of salvation with pleasures in heaven, material reward for family on earth, and fame and glory -- for suicide bombers are heroes in Palestinian society. Their faces adorn the streets, while sport grounds, schools and community centres are named in their honour.
(See also: Female Suicide Bombers: Dying for Equality?
Edited by Yoram Schweitzer. Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, August 2006)
Justice demands truth
The propaganda surrounding the Black Widow myth ensures that neither the jihadists nor their ideology are never held accountable. The myth clearly serves its purpose as a means of Islamist propaganda, encouraging us to direct our anger at Israel and Russia, when we should be directing abhorrence, disgust and indignation at the mujahedin who exploit and abuse these vulnerable young women, and the esteemed dictators of Islam who sanction such inhumanity.
"Black Widows" -- or as they should be known: female suicide bombers -- are victims indeed, but not of Israeli or Russian aggression. They are victims of disgusting and inhumane Islamic deception and exploitation. If anything exposes the gulf between Islam and Biblical faith it is this! For the God of the Bible commands: "You shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child." (Exodus 22:22 ESV) AND "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world." (James 1:27 ESV)
God exhorts his people through his prophet Isaiah to "plead the widow's cause" (Isaiah 1:17 ESV), and so we must reject the myth of the Black Widow and hold the dictators of Islam and their minions accountable for their murderous terrorism and for their appalling abuse and exploitation of the vulnerable. Furthermore, it can be guaranteed that when the strategic, tactical and shock value of female suicide bombers wears off, children will be next. Indeed, vulnerable children are already being exploited and "sacrificed" for their propaganda value in both the Palestinian and Chechen theatres.
by Elizabeth Kendal
For background on the Chechen Jihad see:
Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin (RLPB 030) 11 Nov 2009
NORTH CAUCASUS (southern Russia): Church Struggles Amidst Terror