.By Subrata Ghoshroy,,

There are perhaps two things that most Americans remember from the ill-fated invasion of Iraq in 2003: President George Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech on the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, and the testimony of Colin Powell, the Secretary of State, at the UN Security Council about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. Powell based his testimony on U.S. intelligence reports that were described as a “slam dunk” by the CIA Director George Tennet, who sat behind him as he showed dramatic pictures, among others, of purported portable biological weapons laboratories in Iraq. They were later found to be totally false. Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction left. The media apparently drank the same proverbial kool-aid and loudly beat the war drums. The U.S.-led invasion under false pretenses cost hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, and the lives of nearly five thousand Americans. It also made a big dent on the U.S. credibility around the world. Fifteen years and more than a trillion-dollar later, Iraq is a highly unstable and dangerous place ravaged by daily bloody sectarian battles.

Fast forward a decade, and we arrive in Syria via Libya, where a violent regime change also went awry. The western-led ouster of Libya’s dictator Col. Muammar Gaddafi, and his subsequent murder in the hands of the Libyan insurgents, left the nation in chaos and leaderless. Jihadists, who flocked to Libya to fight a moderately secular Gaddafi, rendered the country a failed state that became a recruiting and training ground for the insurgents in Syria.

Soon, another ill-conceived adventure of violent regime change got underway in Syria after protests took place against the dictatorial regime of Bashar Al Assad. However, the appetite for a direct intervention with boots on the ground as in Iraq had abated. Yet, the appetite for regime changes was still strong.  The strategy of a proxy war by arming Assad’s opponents seemed plausible and clearly more palatable.

In all the regime change cases, Iraq, Libya, and Syria; the story line is the same: there is a dictator who oppressed his own people with varying degrees of brutality. The people want freedom. Assad is a brutal` dictator like Saddam with weapons of mass destruction, and he is using chemical weapons against his own people. He must go.

As the protests grew around Syria with a little help from the western powers and their intelligence operators, the government cracked down using force. Violence escalated as the opposition began receiving arms and money from the western-allied Sunni regimes; Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. They along with Turkey wanted to topple Assad, who is a secular Alawite, which is a sect of the Shia. There were also at least a couple thousand U.S. Special Forces who entered Syria in a clandestine manner to help the opposition fighters. Soon, the opposition ranks swelled with foreign jihadi fighters, including the Islamic State. Many of them were battle hardened in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya.

The Syrian army was losing both men and territory despite the help it received from the Iranian militias and the Lebanese Hezbollah, who entered on the side of Assad. As the proxy war intensified, and Assad looked desperate, the calls for a quick blow to knock him out became louder as President Obama did not want another long drawn out foreign entanglement. Assad’s chemical weapons gave the interventionists a perfect platform around which to rally the public opinion in order to force the hand of a reluctant President. So, it is easy to see why western public opinion could be easily mobilized against the dictators and also how it could be manipulated, as it was with the false narrative of WMD in Iraq.

Syria was one of the few countries in the world that had not joined the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). It was no secret that it had an arsenal of chemical weapons containing nerve agents like Sarin and VX. It primarily acquired the weapons as a deterrent against Israel, which is widely believed to have nuclear weapons and may also have chemical weapons. No one knows because it does not belong to the CWC. There was no prior history of Assad using chemical weapons on his own people.

But beginning in early 2013, large number of media stories began to appear about the government’s use of the chemical weapons. UN appointed a commission to look into the allegations. The government also made allegations that the insurgents were using them. The UN Commission immediately came under pressure from the western powers. The subsequent role of the UN inspectors was also less than honorable.  The international human rights organizations like the Human Rights Watch also played an important role in rousing the public opinion against the “heinous Assad regime,” as the refrain went. So did the White Helmets, the so-called civil defense organization that played a nefarious role in staging the attacks. (Watch here Vanessa Beeley’s seminal work on the White Helmets).

For the sake of brevity, my focus here refers mainly to three issues: the media, the UN, and the death toll. For a details on the role of the NGO’s and the UN, please see the analysis “Serious Questions about the Integrity of the UN Report“.

I hope to illustrate my points with an examination of three major incidents that allegedly took place over a period of nearly five years, from 2013 to 2018, during which the Syrian civil war greatly intensified before winding down recently. Russian military intervention in 2015 helped turn the tide in favor of Assad.

The incidents were in chronological order: 21 August 2013 in Ghouta, a Damascus suburb; 4 April 2017 in Khan Sheikhun in Idlib province; and, 7 April 2018 in Douma, a town in the Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta, not far from the supposed initial attack. There were several common threads running through all three.

Above: Image added by The Indicter [Editors note]

In general, the media hype about the chemical weapons was based on flimsy evidence at best. The media published stories with little effort to corroborate them. Often disclaimers such as “the facts could not be independently verified” were buried in the story, which mostly went unnoticed except for a few astute readers. In a transparent effort to demonize Assad in the same way as Saddam or Gaddafi, the media mostly ignored the deaths of Syrian soldiers and downplayed the brutalities of the insurgent Jihadist, who routinely beheaded captured Syrian soldiers. While the media rightly highlighted the growing civilian casualties and the plight of the hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the battle zone, it blamed the government alone for both.

With the partiality of the media readily apparent, the UN investigations were also tainted by political pressure from powerful western powers. For example, in Ghouta in 2013, they made relatively cursory inspections. According to their own report, their visit was controlled by the opposition fighters, who determined where they could go and what forensic and environmental samples they could collect. Although the team reports cautioned against potential tampering of evidence, it was in fine print, and it, however, did not keep the inspectors from concluding that sarin was used and was likely delivered by rockets, which was a thinly veiled pointer to the government as the perpetrator because they are the ones who could launch rockets .

The inspectors did not visit Khan Sheikhoun at all. There, the opposition fighters, or their supporters collected the samples and sent them to an anonymous “third country” for testing by the inspection team, which was in clear violation of the protocol, which required  that a strict chain of custody be maintained. Despite such deficiency, the UN went beyond its mandate and actually attributed responsibility for the attack on the Syrian government.

In Douma, by contrast, the UN carried out a much more thorough on-site investigation lasting over ten days. The Russian military was in control of Duma during the team’s visit. It appears from the interim report  that the Russians did not put any restrictions on the inspectors movements. The interim report on Douma was just released. It said no sarin was found. But, the story had become worthless for the mainstream media.

Another striking feature in the reported incidents was the lack of accurate information on the casualties, especially the death toll. While no one can expect an accurate death count in the expected chaos that might follow, but one would reasonably expect to see large number of funerals and hospital morgues full of victims. In the first attack on 21 August 2013 in Ghouta, and arguably the largest of the three in terms of casualties, there was a mystery surrounding the figures. An unclassified US intelligence assessment, dated 30 August 2013, claimed that 1429 people had died in the attack, including 426 children. The report cautioned that the figures were preliminary and that they would “evolve” as more information was obtained. No such evolution took place and there was no independent verification either, although Ghouta remained in the hands of the opposition for nearly five more years until the Syrian military recaptured it with Russian help in April 2018. Presumably, CIA had ample opportunity to verify the death toll. More about the death tolls later.

The western governments and the mainstream media uniformly held Assad responsible for the attacks even though the insurgents were also known to possess chemical weapons.

Assad had little incentive to use chemical weapons, especially after it joined the CWC because it was under intense international scrutiny. The western powers had established a “red line.” It surely did not want to face more bombing. The Western powers were also holding Russia responsible for Syrian actions because Russia acted as the guarantor of the Syrian disarmament. Assad could not afford to create trouble for his principal benefactor. On the other hand, the insurgents had every incentive to stage a false flag attack and blame the government. Jihadist fighters as we know well do not have any respect for the law and reportedly used chemical weapons in their battle with the Kurdish fighters in Iraq. They were desperate to bring about a western military intervention.

The demands to punish Assad grew ever louder. After the first incident only a last minute deal mediated by Russia that on the one hand forced Syria to give up its chemical weapons and, on the other, US to call off its threat to bomb.  In the other two instances, US-led western powers demanded UN inspection, but without waiting for the team to investigate, bombed Syria by launching cruise missiles at targets in Damascus and elsewhere.

In Ghouta, the attack reportedly took place at a time when the UN inspectors were in Damascus to investigate earlier complaints made by the government about the use of chemical weapons by the insurgents. The inspections were literally hijacked by this major event as the UN Office of Disarmament Affairs scrambled to make arrangements for the team to enter an area controlled by the insurgents.

Anyone, with a slightly skeptical mind would have questioned why the government would make such an obvious mistake. But there was little such skepticism in the media coverage. The social media blitz, with “eyewitness” reports of the victims, was quickly joined by the wider media which started repeating the preliminary death toll published by the US government.

It is perhaps worthwhile at this juncture to obtain a better perspective on the death toll by revisiting the horrific chemical attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja by Saddam’s forces on March 16, 1988, which killed between 3000 and 5000 civilians.

If true, the tragic death toll in Ghouta of 1429 civilians would have been the second largest in a chemical attack after WWI. The survivors in Halabja fled the town and the dead were buried in a couple mass graves. A memorial for the Halabja victims was constructed after Saddam’s ouster containing some 3200 gravestones for those amongst the fallen that could be identified. The Iranians, who controlled Halabja at the time, ferried in Iranian and foreign journalists a few days after the attack to document the crime. Neither the Western powers involved in Syria, nor the media apparently made any such efforts in Ghouta.

We do not know how many people died. The UN report published on 16 December 2013 did not even give a range for the casualties. Why did the UN inspectors not visit any morgue to judge for themselves the scale of the calamity? (Watch the press conference at the UN headquarters, here).

In the second incident in Khan Sheikhoun a similar scenario played out. It seems two completely different media events took place there in the early morning hours on 4 April 2018. Videos started to appear on social media about a chemical attack with victims showing respiratory distress, fixed pupils, and vomiting, all in a single hospital. A second set of videos then appeared about an alleged crater on a road, where a rocket containing a nerve agent had reportedly landed. Curiously, there was no footage of the explosion that created the crater, although there were videos of two other explosions nearby shortly before the alleged chemical attack. Footage captured by a drone camera showed the area surrounding the crater as totally calm with a few people milling around.

Man collecting supposedly “contaminated soil” from the crater.

Another picture of the crater. Not apparent if it is the same crater. This one seems to be on a divided road.

Another picture of the crater. Notice signs of tampering — the new danger sign, and the metal tube pointing in a different direction.

The crater video went viral on social media and was picked up by the mainstream media.  For starters, the crater itself appeared to be created by a utility crew using a jackhammer rather than a rocket because it did not have a discernible impact point with fractured asphalt surrounding it. Upon closer examination of the video, several discrepancies became apparent. One was the clear tampering of the crater. For example, the main evidence of a chemical attack was a metal tube found in the crater, which was supposedly a part of a rocket body or an artillery shell that carried the chemical. It was clear from the videos that it was simply placed there and moved around as several people photographed it. There were people standing around, apparently unharmed, without wearing any protective gear only hours after an alleged sarin attack, which is a near impossibility.

In regards to the death toll, the reported number of victims ranged from 40 to 90, but there once again were no pictures of funerals although one of the few western journalists, who entered Khan Sheikhoun a day or two after the alleged attack, reported seeing “death everywhere,” but published little evidence to support his words. (See “Syria chemical weapons attack toll rises to 70 as Russian narrative is dismissed“, by Kareem Shaheen, The Guardian, April 5, 2017).

One has only to look at the photographs of the Halabja massacre that are readily available on the web to see what an attack with sarin and VX looks like. They reminded me of the photos of the atom bomb victims in Hiroshima. (See the excellent Human Rights Watch report, Genocide in Iraq, July 1993)

A year later on 7 April 2018, there was reportedly an attack again with a nerve agent and/or chlorine, which followed a similar script. The only difference was that it took place in a more limited area – a building. Like before, pictures of victims suffering from respiratory difficulties, and being hosed down with water, filled the social media. Douma is located in eastern Ghouta. Media reported 30-40 deaths. It was under the control of the insurgents for the past five years, but was about to fall to the government forces. There were loud demands for the UN inspection team to be allowed in after it flew in from its headquarters in The Hague, the Netherlands. While the UN team waited for arrangements to be made for their safety, a few western journalists visited Douma after the insurgents were driven out. The journalists reported that there was no evidence of a chemical attack having taken place. The stories died quickly.

An interim report by the UN inspectors was released on 6 July 2018. Significantly, it found no evidence of sarin. The final report is expected in the next few months. It will most certainly reaffirm the interim report’s finding, thus absolving Assad of using chemical weapons. It is likely that the report would be quietly shelved.

Yet many questions remain:

What was the scale of the attacks?

Who were the perpetrators?

How many people died in each instance?

Where are the dead bodies buried?

They demand an answer for the future of the Middle East and the world. In the absence of corroborating evidence, especially photographs of funerals and graves, and documents from morgues, it is not unreasonable perhaps to argue that the events were staged. Such a conclusion is particularly reinforced by the UN finding on Douma.

Above: Image added by The Indicter [Editors note]

Since the conflict has wound down significantly in the last few months, it appears that the western project of regime change is on hold. The stories about Assad’s use of chemical weapons have run their course. The media has moved on to Iran’s WMD and regime change in Tehran.

But the western project of regime change in Syria is not over yet. It has just been put on hold. More than two thousand US Special Forces remain in the country illegally. Thousands of jihadist are holed up in Idlib. As the Syrian army tries to recapture this important city, we may yet again hear about chemical weapons. The western leaders may once again bomb Syria, even escalating it drastically.

The earlier bombings had virtually no impact on either the course of the war or Syria’s military capabilities, perhaps by design. It may not be the same again. That may bring U.S. and Russia, two nuclear superpowers with hundreds of megaton bombs, perilously close to a confrontation that could have unimaginable consequences.

__

The author

Subrata Ghoshroy is a research affiliate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s

Program in Science, Technology, and Society. Before that, he was for many years a senior engineer in the field of high-energy lasers. He was also a professional staff member of the House National Security Committee and later a senior analyst with the Government Accountability Office.

The above analysis, a special contribution of MIT Research Associate to The Indicter Magagazine, appeared also at Medium.

]]> 5216 https://theindicter.com/what-the-opcw-did-and-didnt-find-in-douma/ Tue, 14 Aug 2018 21:16:12 +0000 http://theindicter.com/?p=5173 Reconsidering the Science and the Open Source Evidence

By Adam Larson.

1. Introduction. Why The Lack of Sarin is a Problem

This article considers in detail what was and wasn’t found by the OPCW (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) in their investigation of the Douma chemical incident of April 7. Douma is a Damascus suburb, then under Islamist opposition control but on the verge of surrender, when activists reported a helicopter attack with two chemical “barrel bombs” containing chlorine gas and perhaps something deadlier. A reported 43 civilians or more were reportedly killed, and for supposedly obvious reasons, the ruling Islamists finalized their surrender the next day.

An OPCW Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) was swiftly formed and assembled in Syria by April 14, when the U.S. and allies launched missile strikes nearby. But the FFM had to wait another week before they were able to first access the attack sites on April 21. This delay was blamed on Damascus and their allies in Moscow, who were accused of buying time to scrub the crime scenes of clues. But in fact the UN’s security agency UNDSS (Department of Safety and Security) was behind the small initial delay, and it was reasonable, considering the unknowns in an area ruled for six years by hard-line Islamists, and only formally liberated for a few days. The April 17 attack on the UNDSS advance security team by unidentified militants, wounding a Syrian officer, shows that the concerns the UNDSS shared with the Syrians and Russians were valid. In fact, this bad result to the rushed first try is what caused the ensuing four-day delay to re-plan the mission. [1]

With the release of the OPCW’s interim report on July 6, we now have some information from those visits that might contain clues of any meddling. This report will be cited heavily in the following article. [2]

From this report, we learn that in the environmental and biological samples so far tested, a variety of chlorine-related compounds appear. There is some room to question what each and all of these truly proves, but it seems likely the OPCW has confirmed a chlorine release at each of the two alleged attack sites, or will in time. But the important development is how tests come up negative for  organophosphorus (OP) nerve agents – like sarin – or their breakdown products.

• The results of the analysis of the prioritised samples submitted to OPCW designated laboratories were received by the FFM team on 22 May 2018. No organophosphorus nerve agents or their degradation products were detected, either in the environmental samples or in plasma samples from the alleged casualties. … Work by the team to establish the significance of these results is ongoing.

The report explains how 31 samples – those deemed most important or fragile – were selected for a first round of chemical analysis. By the report’s annex 3, these are 11 biological (blood and plasma) samples and 20 environmental samples (items, wipes, scrapings and scoopings from various noted spots and objects). The latter showed chlorine-related compounds, unexplained explosives residue, and other things of no clear consequence. But over and over it says for all 31 samples “No chemicals relevant to CWC have been found” or “No nerve agent related chemicals detected.”

That’s a big problem for the opposition’s claims, because chlorine alone can hardly explain 35 people dropping dead on site, as seen in Douma. Sarin or similar very well could, if it even makes sense to deploy it along with chlorine, or in fact premixed with it (since there was no separate sarin device identified, just a crude gas cylinder at each attack site). Such mysteries seem to be resolved.

But if chlorine alone was used, the victims would mainly cough and walk away, and probably would have all survived. Anyone who died would probably do so hours later, long after walking away. MediaLens ran a good analysis, noting: “It is worth reiterating again – as media responses to the OPCW’s latest report, conspicuously, have not – that chlorine was not a sufficiently deadly agent to cause either the claimed level of carnage or the claimed level of Western moral outrage.” [3] The death toll seems to be real and chemically-induced, but it’s poorly explained so far, and this is extremely important.

Activists reported symptoms of nerve agent exposure like convulsions or paralysis, constricted pupils, and secondary contamination. But none of that is proven by any visual or scientific evidence. The apparently sudden death of so many did highly suggested it should be an OP nerve agent, but that appearance could be false.

In fact unnamed U.S. government officials claimed they also had blood samples showing that. As NBC News reported on April 12: “The U.S. now has blood and urine samples from last Saturday’s deadly attack …The samples suggested the presence of both chlorine gas and an unnamed nerve agent, two officials said.” It’s unlikely tests could detect chlorine exposure (see below), so they can’t likely show this plus anything else. “The officials said they were “confident” in the intelligence, though not 100 percent sure.” [4]

With this assessment aired, on April 14 president Trump ordered the launch of missiles at Assad’s alleged nerve agent factories, primarily one at Barzeh that was recently cleared by the OPCW as in compliance. [5] Soon U.S. officials were specifying sarin was the agent, but not citing blood or urine tests – just “information” suggesting it (DoS briefing, 4-17 [6]), and deduction from reported symptoms (DoD report, 4-18 [7]). Was the talk of samples just a prediction? If so, that “confidence” was poorly placed.

2. Incomplete Site Search

 There is at least one important point to consider, as it’s likely to come up. The OPCW report mentions how during their visit to location 2 (the crucial site with 35 bodies found inside), Syrian authorities “did not provide the access requested by the FFM team to some apartments within the building, which were closed at the time. The Syrian Arab Republic representatives stated that they did not have the authority to force entry into the locked apartments.” (point 8.10)

In fact their access at location 2 may have been quite incomplete. By implication, all spots not listed here wound up off-limits: “8.11 The FFM had full access to other areas of interest within the same building, namely the balcony where the cylinder had allegedly impacted, the apartment directly below this, and the basement of the same apartment block.” All listed samples are from levels 3 (balcony), level 2 (apartment beneath that) and level -1 (the basement). None are from the floors in between (levels 0 and 1 as they’d say, or floors 1 and 2 as we do here).

Two samples were collected at level 0, but these were two pieces of concrete found in the street outside the building. Inside on the ground floor, and on the level above, is where all but 7 of the 35 bodies were found on the night of the attack. Chlorine supposedly made people drop dead pretty suddenly in those spots. Did it mix with something here? That doesn’t seem likely, but perhaps no clues at all were gathered to help shed light on the mystery.

It is noteworthy that rescuers and media activists had full access on the night of the attack, apparently even unscrewing the ground floor front door from its hinges, setting it aside just around the corner from the bulk of the bodies in the washroom. When the OPCW’s FFM came through, the door was back on and apparently all locked up. We may not have the full story here.

Considering the gravity of the situation, with chemical “inspectors” flying into a war zone and Syrian officers getting wounded trying to get them to the site, with acts of war already carried out based on someone’s impression of this crime, and with the mileage made of any possible sign of obfuscation from Damascus … it might have been wiser to force some doors anyway, to leave as little as possible to speculate over. Valid or not, this limited search will be reason enough for some to write-off the whole investigation. It could be concluded the scrubbed up sarin traces were piled and swept under a rug in one of these rooms. And they’ve probably been moved since, now hidden Raiders of the Lost Ark style along with Iraq’s vanished WMDs.

But then, inconvenient scientific findings can be ignored with no reason at all. And as we’ll see, there’s no reason to suspect a cleanup or any delay explains these bad results.

3. No Sarin Traces Rally Means No Sarin

Not everyone acknowledges it, but the evidence is broken. Some people would easily decide the Russians or Syrians broke it, by removing the traces of the necessary poison, or at least keeping investigators away long enough that it decayed beyond detection.

One CW expert didn’t think that was likely when he spoke to the Guardian for an April 17 report: “Jerry Smith, who helped supervise the OPCW-led withdrawal of much of Syria’s sarin stockpile in 2013 … said it was likely that residual samples of nerve agent would remain for at least another week, even after an attempted clean-up.” [8] Read literally, that would be at least until April 24 – 17 days after the incident. Investigators arrived April 21 at location 2, and on the 25th at location 4 (with the cylinder on a bed). By Smith’s assessment, they would be likely to turn up such clues then, if they ever existed. But as far as we know, he’s no expert in regime-blaming, where different standards of science seem to apply.

In contrast, British CRBN expert Hamish de Bretton-Gordon is a stalwart regime-blamer, and told Josie Ensor at the Telegraph in July, after the OPCW report, “He believes a nerve agent was likely used alongside chlorine … but that the material had badly degraded in the two weeks it took inspectors to get to the site.” He thinks a lack of “timely access from the (Syrian) government” allowed the sarin, and even its breakdown products, to diminish to invisibility. [9]

So experts disagree; all sarin traces are either likely to vanish from the site within 14 days, or likely to persist for at least 17 days. It’s hard to find information on delayed environmental samples, but it seems likely both of these estimates are short, one out of caution and one out political expediency. It may well turn up for a month or more, probably breaking down slower than it would inside the human body, to which we now turn.

No one has accused Russia and Syria of holding up the OPCW’s investigators so they could finish removing sarin traces from the blood of the victims. That would be absurd. But somehow, there are no traces left there either. As mentioned, the labs found “no organophosphorus nerve agents or their degradation products” in samples from the area, “or in plasma samples from the alleged casualties.”

The definition of “casualties” isn’t clear except that, as the report explains, none of those actually killed is included. As happened with the Ghouta attack in 2013 with an alleged 1,429 killed, none of the dead was sampled – at least not reliably enough for their standards – prior to burial in mass graves. [10] Perhaps they alone also show (showed) signs of sarin? We’re left wondering. So those tested in Douma could be people who claim to have been in one of the gassed buildings, or to have encountered the gas in the streets, or elsewhere. We’re not sure even what’s alleged about their exposure except that, allegedly, it’s to the gas Assad dropped that day.

A table A 3.2 lists the 11 samples selected for the first analysis. Nine were taken on April 21, with two taken on the 18th. Lab DL02 was only given the later nine to test, and “no relevant chemicals [were] found.” Lab DL03 looked at all 11 and offered a more specific blanket list of what wasn’t found: any of 3 major signs of nerve agent exposure to G type agents (including sarin, or GB as NATO calls it) and V-type agents (like VX).

This all says nothing for or against chlorine exposure, which doesn’t leave traces that can be tested for. A US Centers for Disease Control document says “there are no medical tests to determine whether you have been exposed specifically to chlorine.” [11] Physicians for Human Rights has a PDF that explains “diagnosis of acute chlorine gas toxicity is primarily clinical, based on respiratory difficulties and irritation,” or on advanced tests to look for related damage, which can be caused by very many things. Otherwise, the environment can be tested for release by air monitoring or testing the soil (or general environment). [12]

The blood and plasma tests do clearly rule out sarin or anything similar, at least in the cases of those alleged casualties. Hamish de Bretton-Gordon thinks the clues had all degraded, but he meant at the sites. In biological samples, it’s not likely to fade that much in 11 of 11 prioritized samples, collected between 11 and 15 days after the incident, considering a precedent from five years earlier.

There were several chemical weapon attacks against Syrian soldiers in the days after the infamous August 21, 2013 Ghouta attack, and in the same basic area (Damascus Suburbs). Two of these are basically verified by the OPCW as sarin attacks: 8-24-2013 in Jobar, and 8-25-2013 in Ashrafiah Sahnaya (near Daraya). [13] In fact, the Jobar attack was just meters from the apparent firing area for the Ghouta attack’s disputed “volcano” rockets. The area was rebel-held, just then being contested and hence the attack by cornered Islamists. The image here shows the approximate, estimated firing spot for the volcanoes compared to the 8-24 incident location, per the UN report that includes these cases (p. 62).  [14]

That UN report explained now no one died in either incident, but some soldiers were seriously affected. Plasma samples were taken by the Syrian Government on the day of each attack, and at least four from Jobar and five from the other attack tested positive for Sarin signatures. Those nine samples were re-tested by UN-OPCW investigators on September 26 and 28, about a month later (the cause of the delay is unclear or debatable, but the OPCW and everyone was pretty busy in the days surrounding these incidents). The samples were DNA matched to the same soldiers, analyzed in OPCW certified labs, and found mostly to be negative. But one sample from the August 24 incident, likely the most severely exposed, still tested positive for sarin signatures. [15] That’s enough to suggest they all did at one time, but the signs had faded by then.

So 3-4 weeks seems like a rough but fair limit for detection in most cases, while a truly severe, near-fatal case might register even longer than this soldier did at about 33 days.

The exact method of testing will be an important variable, and methods have been improving in the last years. In fact, the table of Douma samples above shows that lab DL03 ran tests for peptide/nerve agent adducts, specifically nonapeptide. A December, 2012 paper explains a new type of testing looks at “OP-adducted enzymes” involving peptides, with half-lives that are “generally much longer than the half-lives of the parent OP compound or its metabolites, providing a longer window for detection ” than previous tests. [16] It’s not clear if this is what was used in 2013, or better than that. But already detection up to at least 33 days is recorded, and capabilities won’t reduce over time.

Just 11 and 15 days after the Douma incident in 2018, traces existed in zero out of 11 samples.

And finally, the OPCW should have mentioned it if there was any serious chance the time delay caused the false negative in blood or plasma samples, or meant there may have once been sarin at the sites. They don’t mention this. Implicitly, all samples were gathered within what they consider the time frame of detection.

In contrast to this, and to the 2013 attacks on soldiers, UN-OPCW investigators were then quite busy  studying the August 21 attack, including a portion in Moadamiya, southwest of Damascus (near Daraya, and Ashrafiah Sahnaya). Just a couple of days after the incident, they found no reliable sign of sarin in the Moadamiya environment, but an almost total positive for people allegedly exposed there. [17] It’s trivially easy to plant real sarin in the environment or even in selected volunteers, considering the very sensitive tests the OPCW uses, apparently with no consideration for quantities detected. [18] In Moadamiya, perhaps the plotters succeeded in dosing their stand-in victims with token doses, but had some logistical problem lacing the site.

The same could have happened in Douma, especially under the losing conditions, perhaps with depleted supplies and disrupted communications. But this would be a double-fail, where no sarin was planted in the people or the environs, maybe because they ran out, or just couldn’t get either done in time, or for some other reason. That is, if it was ever supposed to be a nerve agent attack, as it seemed to so many observers.

In conclusion: any sarin used is most likely to have persisted until sampling time, but none was found. The clear conclusion: none of those people was ever exposed to it, and none was released at either attack site. The crime scene was found just as nonsensical as the Islamist left it; some non-lethal chlorine was released, 35 people with non-red eyes dropped dead in piles, Assad was blamed, and some “confidence” was misplaced.

4. A Sampling of Evidence Manipulation: Unexplained Fire, Missing Valve

And there are some other strange things about these crime scenes that could stretch this article to five times its size, or be skipped entirely, or considered by way of one fascinating sample. Let’s consider two related clues in adequate detail, with some OPCW findings to go along with them, and leave some serious questions raised as to who actually manipulated what evidence prior to the FFM’s visits.

We start with  the sizable fire someone set beneath the gas cylinder at location 2 above all those bodies. This is a real mystery few have noticed. A New York Times video report of June 25, claiming to be based on the most detailed investigation to date, didn’t seem aware of it. This report even tried to explain the apparent soot from that fire on the underside of the gas cylinder as some kind of “dark substance” caused by chlorine contacting the metal. [19] However, that would be an orange rust, the usual kind seen after chlorine attacks, as Bellingcat’s people should know. In fact, this is seen on the bare steel parts of the same cylinder. This black stuff is on the paint, apparently rinses back off it in the rain, and looks like soot.

The open-source investigators at Bellingcat are cited as helping with that Times report, and didn’t bring this fire evidence to bear. In fact Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins seemed uninformed, questioning on July 7 how this fire could explain the black any better than chlorine, asking to see the burnt hole to show a connection. Eventually, I gave him a chance to see the combined image below explaining it. [20] Perhaps I should have added a reminder to complete the picture: heat and smoke rise, coat the ceiling, and look for an escape to higher places yet. There was a smaller vent in the corner, and there was this much larger hole, mostly covered with that gas cylinder. And this is probably why its underside exactly above that hole turned the same black as these burned walls we now turn to.

We can see two cleaned spots along the left edge of the black area as seen below. Did the Russians or Syrians try washing this off and stop early? Or was it the locals or militants who decided it would take too long? For this bit of work, neither is probably to blame. The OPCW interim report lists samples 21 and 22 as wipes taken “from the burnt wall in the room located under the cylinder” on level 2 . Entry 21 was taken with water, and 22 with DCM (Dichloromethane – a standard solvent). These samples are not tested yet, or testing results were not published in the July report. It will likely show what kind of accelerator was used to start the fire, at least.

So no one cleaned that up or tried, but someone might eventually regret this evidence. That fire was lit on top of the concrete rubble and dust, apparently on purpose, and sometime before the first video around 10pm on April 7. This is best explained by some visuals in my June 29 response to the mentioned New York Times video report. [21] If one accepts that rubble is from the cylinder’s impact around 7:30 that same night – as most do – it would be very strange for someone to sit in that gas cloud to light a fire there as a first order of business. There’s also a pulled curtain, a packaged blanket, perhaps, and a coat dragged on top of that rubble and dust, perhaps as fuel for the fire, not knowing how much was needed for … that unclear purpose.

As seen at 10pm, the fire is done and its soot is deposited around the upper walls and ceiling, and presumably on the cylinder as well. But there we can’t see it, because now it’s releasing its gas slowly, causing auto-refrigeration and the frosted underside in that same area; the part with the lowest elevation. [22] This is still contested by some, but it perfectly explains the ghostly white glow of this shape, that does line up very well with the gas cylinder relative to the hole (which appears as black all around that in this inexact but useful comparison graphic).

One compelling possibility is the fire was set beneath the staged cylinder to melt the fusible plug of soft metal in its valve assembly. Set just above the screw-in point (see annotated image), this safety feature provides a little-known but fairly safe and easy way to release the gas inside in case of a fire, rather than having the cylinder explode. The purpose would be just for some “realism” in a staged chemical attack scene. The smell doesn’t help with video, and no gas is visible (perhaps too thin to appear, or already dissipated by 10pm). But the frost comes through, and it seems chlorinated compounds resulted. Mission accomplished?

It’s noteworthy the valve assembly of this cylinder, or at least its visible outer portion, is missing the whole time. It could be broken in half on impact (along the red line above), or unscrewed manually, completely removed, and hidden from view. Its twin found on the other cylinder didn’t vanish (see below, left), but most others we’ve seen over the years do, at least by video time if not on impact. In such a case, if the cylinder itself didn’t rupture, the gas would pour uncontrollably out of the broken stem.

It’s plausible that happened in this case, despite the less-than-usual damage seen with both cylinders. Below right is the first known view of the gas cylinder after the attack, during a time of complete Islamist control, midday on April 8. Compare that to the intact valve on the cylinder on the bed, at left. From a side view, it’s impossible to say if it’s broken off or unscrewed. Those oddly-placed slats of metal prevent a good view of the valve area from below in every view. It’s possible they were placed there just to block our view of this point of evidence.

However, the OPCW’s samples 3 and 4 are swabs taken on the 21st from “inside the cylinder orifice (level 3),” meaning this one. This suggests the valve was removed by then anyway, and they wiped from the exposed threads. Chlorine traces were found, but very faint; a dry swab revealed nothing, and one with water yielded “chloride” (an incomplete answer) and dichloracetic acid, which is caused when chlorine mixes with water. That’s natural, as the valve was in place during gas release, and only a trace amount came in contact later, probably as it was unscrewed, removed, and never again seen.

It’s impossible so far to be sure when this key piece of evidence was removed from the scene, other than before the OPCW’s FFM had their look. But if the culprits were trying to hide the extra hole melted in the side of the valve, they were covering for serious evidence manipulations carried out when the Islamist were still in control.

5. Conclusion: Considering the Who, the Help See the How

Alongside the physical evidence are circumstantial clues familiar to researchers of such events: the lack of a rational motive for the government to carry out such an attack, the all-seeing fighting-age male miracle survivors who labor to explain their alleged share of the dead, the illogical provided narrative(s) that fail to fully explain the evidence, and so on. These consistently give reason to doubt the opposition version of events and to wonder – if there was a real crime – just what it was and who was truly behind it.

We also have, even more so than usual, a rather strong candidate for the true villains. The reader should understand that Douma had been, since mid-2012, controlled by the hard-line faction Jaish Al-Islam (Army of Islam). It was founded there in Douma in late 2011, first under the name Liwal al-Islam, by Zahran Alloush, the son of a salafist cleric exiled in Saudi Arabia. With Saudi backing, this force grew to dominate all the East Ghouta area around the capitol by mid-2013. Zahran was killed in late 2015, but others carried on, and his brother Mohamed Alloush, Jaish al-Islam’s political leader, was for some time the chief negotiator in the Saudi-backed opposition bloc at the Geneva talks.

Despite some branding as “moderate” Islamists, the group’s ideals are bound to reflect somewhat those of its founder. As Joshua Landis explained back in 2013, Zahran Alloush sought an anti-democratic Islamist state, “cleansed … forever if Allah wills it” of the “filth” of Alawites, Shi’ites, and anyone of Persian descent. [21] There was never a guarantee the list would stop there.

Jaish Al-Islam once kidnapped hundreds of religious minority civilians in Adra, in December 2013, after massacring hundreds of other civilians and defending soldiers, in often horrifying manner. [22] Later on, JaI openly paraded some of their Adra captives in cages before placing them as human shields on rooftops. Less publicly, these and other prisoners were kept in squalid jails and cellars, were poorly fed and sometimes tortured, and many were executed. Many were forced to labor on projects including the now-famous tunnel system beneath East Ghouta, just to earn their meager food rations. [23]

The number of prisoners Jaish al-Islam held at the end – criminals, infidels, soldiers, and rival militants combined – is disputed. They reportedly made prisoner swaps with the government on claims of a few thousand, but then only admitted about 500, and released about 200, mainly women and children from among the famous Adra captives. [24] They may have been bluffing about the rest, but the bluff had to at least be believable, and in fact thousands may be unaccounted for.

Any number of these might have been used over the years for managed massacres to falsely blame the government or, later, Russian forces. One well-illustrated example of such a thing is the August, 2015 “Douma market attack.” 120 were listed as killed: no girls, 3 women, 5 boys, 2 “FSA” fighters, and 110 civilian men. That suggests gender segregation, as with prisoners. The visual record proves they were largely or entirely killed, by unclear means, prior to the attack. For that, it seems four rockets were fired from the surface, app. 800 meters to the south, hitting 3 markets and an intersection between in a perfect arc. A fighter jet attack was blamed for killing these random shoppers, due to their continued support for Jaish al-Islam. [25]

To the extent the massive 2013 Ghouta chemical massacre may be an opposition false-flag, it would almost surely be done by the same group (then called Liwa al-Islam), happening mainly in areas they controlled. Someone flying their flag filmed themselves firing the blamed “volcano” rockets at night, wearing gas masks, and declaring it was the attack’s date, August 21. [26] The group claimed they were framed, and the video is a bit obvious and has strange provenance issues. But there are many less direct clues suggesting they really were behind it. They controlled the apparent rocket firing spot in Jobar, near which SAA soldiers were gassed with sarin on August 24 (as discussed above).

They’re also the only party in the Syrian conflict to seemingly admit to using chemical weapons – apparently chlorine – against Kurdish fighters and civilians in Aleppo (they had branches across the country by then). Jaish al-Islam responded to the credible charges by quickly announcing a rogue commander had used “prohibited” weapons and would be punished. Then later they claimed this didn’t refer to the CW charges, which it’s suggested they never did address. [27]

As it happens, that Aleppo incident was on April 7, 2016 – exactly two years before this event in their home base of Douma. By then the sectarian, civilian-hostage-holding, seemingly CW-using and deceitful Army of Islam were defeated in all East Ghouta and even in Douma. As they prepared to surrender and relocate to Idlib, they could not bring more than small personal weapons. They certainly couldn’t bring any chemical weapons, and no hostages. So on or around April 7 would be their last chance to use those last two holdings together to get Assad blamed for gassing Douma civilians – if they wanted to do such a thing.

Update from the author, Aug 16, 2018:

With these insights, one can grasp how that fire and valve evidence, and other strange clues might come together to suggest they took that last chance. The widely noted illogical impact damage is just the tip of a small and growing iceberg of carefully adduced clues suggesting the crime scenes were staged. There are in fact compelling clues the 35 seen fatalities were deliberately gassed in one spot, then moved and arranged here for more shocking war porn to get “Assad” in trouble.

Consider, as the mentioned NYT report noted, one of the tunnels JaI had built opens just around the corner from the house these bodies were found in (see cropped and annotated screen-shot from that).  [30] The video only mentions a hospital linked to this tunnel, but it surely links to others that connect to a variety of Jaish Al-Islam and allied facilities. It could be blocked from unauthorized people, and that could enable a few dozen bodies to be moved from the gassing site to the planting site, unseen by the public.

The Douma-based opposition group Violations Documentation Center (VDC) had its founder Razan Zaitouneh abducted and vanished, along with her husband and 2 other activists, in December, 2013. Jaish Al-Islam is widely suspected in that. [28] So the VDC is no fan of the ruling Islamists, nor of those liberating Douma from their control. They reported April 9 on the Russian military police visit to the famous attack site, wondering if they tampered with anything as they kept locals away. But they note “Simultaneously, Jaish Al-Islam also made it difficult to hold independent investigation and documentation of the site yesterday [April 8] and tried to bar witnesses from documenting and photographing any evidence.” [29]

A review of the available photos and videos from the night of attack and the next day suggests only a very limited pool of people were allowed to document the scene and to publish the results. Such a controlled scene would help if one were manipulating the evidence. The many clues of just that run past the arbitrary limits of this article, but are explained in some detail at the original posting it’s based on [31], other posts at the Monitor on Massacre Marketing blogsite, and to be expanded and refined in future posts, and perhaps another article at The Indicter.

But in closing, consider this documented “rescue” by a first responder with the “White Helmets” or “Syrian Civil Defense.” Most likely affiliated with those controlling the scene, he arrived early enough to pick up this baby girl from her original location in the kitchen. He poses for a photo holding her body just a few steps away, wearing no gloves. Then he sets her down at his feet, atop some other bodies and leaves. She’s seen on top of that pile until carried outside with the rest of the bodies late the next morning, under the conditions described by the VDC.

That might be a telling glimpse of what so much other evidence suggests; these people were never meant for things like rescue, or Human Rights. They were only meant to die, to be seen, and to “prove” another alleged crime of what some call the “Alawite regime.”

References:

[1] http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2018/07/swept-under-rug-part-1.html

[2] NOTE BY THE TECHNICAL SECRETARIAT: INTERIM REPORT OF THE OPCW FACT-FINDING MISSION IN SYRIA REGARDING THE INCIDENT OF ALLEGED USE OF TOXIC CHEMICALS AS A WEAPON IN DOUMA, SYRIAN ARAB REPUBLIC, ON 7 APRIL 2018. S/1645/2018, 6 July 2018.  https://www.opcw.org/fileadmin/OPCW/S_series/2018/en/s-1645-2018_e_.pdf

[3] http://medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2018/874-no-nerve-agents-found-the-opcw-interim-report-on-douma.html

[4] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/mideast/u-s-has-blood-samples-show-nerve-agent-syria-gas-n865431

[5] Samples from a Nov. 2017 visit came back clear in February – OPCW report   https://www.opcw.org/fileadmin/OPCW/EC/87/en/ec87dg21_e_.pdf

[6] https://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2018/04/280553.htm

[7] https://www.defense.gov/portals/1/features/2018/0418_syria/img/United-States-Assessment-of-the-Assad-Regime’s-Chemical-Weapons-Use.pdf

[8] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/17/syria-crisis-medics-intimidated-over-douma-gas-attack

[9] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/07/23/british-chemical-weapons-experts-prepare-syrias-doctors-doomsday/

[10] in the 2013 Ghouta attack, the UN-OPCW consciously chose to ignore the bodies and rely instead on the alleged survivors. UN disarmament chief Angela Kane, who accompanied the OPCW’s “inspectors” to Damascus, explained “there were so many victims who are still alive that there was really no need to exhume bodies.” Her bizarre and completely incorrect reasoning: “a dead body can’t tell how the person dies … a living person can tell you that.” https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-ghouta-massacres-sarin-myth.html

Again in Douma, 2018, so far the pivotal people are left out of the science part of things. But this time, the OPCW understand the value of having a look if possible. Interim report:

“7.8 The possibility of exhuming bodies from mass graves to collect biomedical samples and examining bodies reportedly exposed to toxic chemicals from the alleged attack on 7 April 2018 was considered by the Secretariat. The intention to do so was communicated to the Syrian Arab Republic in note verbale NV/ODG/214827/18, and preliminary preparations were undertaken by the Secretariat for this eventuality.”

The bodies of all chemical victims (“some 50” to the reported total of 43) were said, by alleged CW program defector Zaher Sakat, to be buried in a secret location in or near Douma. This is reportedly a singular mass grave, as the Islamists usually do for useful massacre victims with really busy families, I guess. The OPCW was reportedly informed of the location, but the regime apparently didn’t know it. It’s reported to be “near the zoo,” perhaps as distraction. Mohammed Alloush, the Jaish al-Islam leader, “claimed on Tuesday night that Assad forces are digging up graves in a search for the bodies of victims, hoping to remove them before the OPCW inspectors can test for chemical exposure.” As the interim report suggests, they still hadn’t tested them by early July.

http://eaworldview.com/2018/04/syria-daily-assad-regime-stalls-lies-about-inspectors-visit-to-chemical-attack-sites-near-damascus/

[11] https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/ToxProfiles/tp172-c1.pdf

[12] https://s3.amazonaws.com/PHR_other/PHR_Chlorine_Fact_Sheet_04-15.pdf

[13] see incident listings here in the verified half (chronological) http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2017/11/sarin-and-foul-irritants-events-list.html

[14] firing area: http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2017/07/impact-site-number-4.html – UN report, p. 62 https://unoda-web.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/report.pdf

[15] https://unoda-web.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/report.pdf around p. 62

[16] Marsillach J, Costa LG, Furlong CE. PROTEIN ADDUCTS AS BIOMAKERS OF

EXPOSURE TO ORGANOPHOSPHORUS COMPOUNDS. Toxicology. 2013;307:46-54.

doi:10.1016/j.tox.2012.12.007. http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3747771

[17] http://whoghouta.blogspot.com/2013/09/what-happened-in-moadamiyah.html

[18] https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2017/10/sarin-faking-in-syria.html

[19] One Building, One Bomb: How Assad Gassed His Own People

By Malachy Browne, Christoph Koettl, Anjali Singkvi, Natalie Reneau, Barbara Marcolini, Yousur Al-Hlou and Drew Jordan. New York Times June 25, 2018.  https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/25/world/middleeast/syria-chemical-attack-douma.html  timestamp 8:11– a metals expert is cited, but he should have described it as similar to orange iron-oxide rust, not black. Further, the black substance appears on top of the yellow paint, not the metal itself. They did not consult a paint and coatings expert.

[20] https://twitter.com/kraaiiii/status/1015509951089987584 (and responses)

[21] https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2018/06/nyt-one-really-stupid-attempt-to.html June 29 with later edits

[22] Auto-refrigeration: I don’t claim to understand the process in detail, but in effect, as I gather, the gas is compressed inside to a liquid, and it drips out that way, instantly evaporting to gas form from the drips. in the process of coming out, somehow it makes the liquid and the metal touching it quite cold, pulling moisture from the air that forms a frost of the part of the cylinder still containing liquid. That will be the bottom portion, depending on slope, etc.  NYT video (see [19]) explains it somewhat around 7:45

[23] https://www.joshualandis.com/blog/zahran-alloush/

[22] http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Adra_massacre

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adra_massacre

[23] I had a number of sources gathered, but lost the list and couldn’t re-locate them in time. These stories are around. Some of it is included and linked in this article: http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2016/04/jaish-al-islam-protecting-syrian-people.html

[24] https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/revealed-thousands-missing-syrians-not-jaish-al-islam-1492653856

[25] http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2015/08/douma-market-attack-masterlist.html http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Douma_Market_Attack,_August_2015

[26] http://whoghouta.blogspot.com/2013/09/liwa-al-islam-videos-improved-quality.html

[27] http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Talk:Alleged_Chemical_Attack,_April_7,_2016

[28] https://vdc-sy.net/russian-military-police-inspects-chemical-attack-site/

[29] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razan_Zaitouneh

[30] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/25/world/middleeast/syria-chemical-attack-douma.html  timestamp 2:02.

[31] http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2018/08/swept-under-rug-part-2.html

Note: This article originally appeared in a different form at Monitor on Massacre Marketing as Swept Under the Rug, The Plot to Delay the OPCW Douma Probe and Manipulate the Evidence, part 2: Scrub Marks?

__

The author

Adam Larson is an independent investigator in Spokane, Washington, United States. He studied history at Eastern Washington University. He has since 2011, on a volunteer basis, studied events in Libya, Syria, and Ukraine following Western-backed regime-change operations, often under the screen name Caustic Logic. Using open sources, with an emphasis on video analysis, Mr. Larson and research associates have often deconstructed or disproved alleged “regime” crimes from shooting protesters to sectarian massacres. He’s the co-founder of Citizen’s Investigation into War crimes in Libya (and Syria, Ukraine, and beyond – CIWCL-SUB – website), a core member of the wiki-format research site A Closer Look On Syria, and runs the site Monitor on Massacre Marketing. He can be contacted at adam@ciwclibya.org/

By Adam Larson

.

Editor’s Note: This is the third part of the series in The Indicter, which comprises the following sections:

Part 1. Introduction to Questioning the Massacre Stories

Part 2: Men in Black at Kha Maung Seik: A Massacre BY Rohingya?

Part 3: Other Massacre Stories that Fall Apart (and conclusion)

Part 3: Other Massacre Stories that Fall Apart (and conclusion)

Parts 1 and 2 of this article examined two alleged massacres in Myanmar that have been substantiated with bodies. At Inn Din, the government admits its forces and allied locals were to blame for shooting and hacking to death ten Rohingya men. And yet activists have floated contradictory claims over how they were killed and who buried them, apparently fabricated just to conceal that the massacred men were fighters. At Kha Maung Seik, we have copious evidence for a large massacre by ARSA forces against Hindu civilians, with no visible follow-up from “human rights” groups, except to dismiss it as an unfounded government allegation. They seem too busy pushing on the Inn Din admission to prove more regime crimes and demand accountability.

With two genuine episodes of killing pinned one on each side, it’s not so clear the government is the only problem, and it’s not even a draw or a tie. The apparent nature of each slaughter is quite different: 10 apparent fighters, captured after an attack they initiated vs. nearly 100 civilians of all ages and genders seized from their homes. The nature of the response is likewise imbalanced: the government admits the crime and vows to punish the killers, while ARSA and their propagandists apparently make up stories blaming the other side.

But the allegations extend further, and the division of blame for the rest must be considered case-by-case. In all other alleged regime-Rakhine massacres, so far it’s not even clear if there really was one, yet the allegation deserve careful consideration (not blind acceptance).

This includes two other prominent incidents: Maung Nu with about 90 killed (addressed in sections 3.1 and 3.2), and Tula Toli with “several hundred” to 1,800 killed (see 3.3). But as with the stories we’ve considered, the activist allegations break down in several ways. We’ll also consider a prelude massacre attached to Tula Toli (3.4), the sizeable Chut Pyin massacre and a couple other smaller ones, and a last-minute addition, in brief (3.5), and then a review and conclusion ends this long 3-part article.

3.1. Maung Nu: Date and Story Change

Maung Nu is the proper name for a village locally called Monu Para, situated 9km north of Buthidaung. There was apparently little or no notice at the time of a massacre here. It was only first mentioned, prominently, in a September 16 Washington Post article. At that time, “nearly a dozen” (probably 11) witnesses told reporter Annie Gowen of the events there over several days. There was an attack with some killings and homes burnt early on August 25, starting around 8 am, just hours after ARSA had attacked a nearby army base. The details are very unclear, but it seems like this is the closest there is to a massacre date, when one witness said “we were all watching what the military did. They slaughtered them one by one. And the blood flowed in the streets.” [1]

Gowen heard from boat captain Mohamed Zubair, who says he had his boat seized by the army and loaded with bodies on the 26^th. The soldiers warned him “you will also be killed,” and then he fainted upon seeing corpses “including those of two 13-year-old boys.” Since he fainted, he can’t be sure, but Zubair “believes the corpses were dumped in the river.” Then, this story runs, there were several days of tension as the army remained nearby, but with no noted killings. On August 27, for example, nothing is noted except a mother reunited with her son, who fled to the woods after being wounded on the 25^th. The remaining citizens finally decided to flee on August 30, before there could be another massacre. [2]

Then the story changed. On October 4, Human Rights Watch issued a report based on 14 alleged survivors they interviewed – seemingly different from those who spoke to the Post. These all agree some fighters were killed on the 25^th in the clashes, with bodies hauled away on Mr. Zubair’s boat and dumped in the river. Zubair is the only witness known to inform both the Post and HRW, with the same story, but taking a different context in each version. Initially, the bodies on his boat were pretty much the massacre victims, but to HRW, this is just a grisly prelude to a sudden and total slaughter of around 100 people on August 27. Just a handful of survivors ran away then, with no tense days after. HRW did not decide on a specific death toll, but note “some witnesses said a hundred or more” bodies were collected by soldiers, who loaded them “into military trucks and took them away.” [3]

An expansive AP report by Todd Pitman in December came back with 37 survivors (including some and maybe all of HRW’s 14) agreeing on the same story: “At least 82 Rohingya are believed to have been murdered on August 27,” the report states, based on a handwritten list with this many names, “most of them men and boys from Maung Nu and Hpaung Taw Pyin, who family members say were killed.” [4]

If we take the later version as true, then we have to wonder what happened with the first version. It defies logic that “nearly a dozen” witnesses cited for that could forget or fail to mention the August 27 massacre if it truly happened. Even worse would be 37 or more witnesses simply being wrong about those dramatic events. One of these sets must be wrong, and … how does a whole set of people get to be wrong? This could be someone’s plan B tripping publicly over someone’s plan A, when simply telling the truth doesn’t require a plan.

This plan B is quite a dramatic story. As soldiers arrived shooting on the morning of the 27^th, villagers crowded into the homes of two prominent businessmen, either on their own for safety, or because they were ordered to, or both. The shooting initially killed one young boy by accident, breaking his head into pieces, before the soldiers burst in. They dragged out the men and older boys, until a senior officer called in 87 of them detained in the courtyard. He got the order called in along his chain of command, and so they shot, hacked, and variously murdered the men all day long. As AP’s Pitman heard it, “soldiers hammered four-inch nails into the temples of three men on the ground with the butts of their rifles. Four other men were decapitated, including a prominent gray-bearded mullah.” The report also notes “about 20 or 25 of the women – mostly attractive and young – were taken away. They were never seen again.” [5]

HRW’s version is similar but milder in tone. The men were killed about the same, but there’s no mention of women abducted. Instead, they heard the women were concentrated in one house, where soldiers robbed them, stripped and groped many, but generally didn’t rape them. They were able to flee after the soldiers left. [6]

It seems the design was to kill all the village’s men, but it was a poor design. Several managed to hide (behind fuel drums, in the rafters, or unspecified), to run away (with or without getting shot), or to play dead (if not intentionally). One miracle survivor is the owner of one of those houses people were herded into. Badruduza Hussein (or Badru Duza to AP), 52, is a wealthy businessman and a former village chief, who saw his brother (the owner of the other massacre house) brutally killed, but had all his own family survive. He says he hid in a bin of rice, but only after seeing everything he needed to from an upstairs window. That was well after everyone else was dragged out and being butchered, back when he wasn’t hidden in the rice yet.  [7]

Mohammadul Hassan, 18, told HRW he was tied up and shot twice in the back along with his brothers. They died and he seemed dead, but had just lost consciousness. When he woke up and stood, soldiers shot him again, in the chest, but he ran away to safety anyway. [8] The same witness gave an improved version to AP’s Pitman in December; after the third shot he passed out again, and didn’t wake up until after the soldiers were gone. [9] He shows the wounds to prove his claims. Now, one is more likely to survive three gunshots to the torso if the shots come from a distance, maybe in the dark, during a gun battle one voluntarily entered. But Mohamedul disavows that option – in two different stories he’s told, one or both of which must be untrue.

Two other men, aged 18 and 32 and both named Mohamed, claim to have suffered bullet grazes – each one to the elbow – as they fled the Maung Nu massacre. [10] From this it’s worth wondering if these are fighters re-using their battle wounds, and if the listed dead are just re-named fighters who were shot worse and died in the same clashes.

(side-note: for some reason this Maung Nu massacre story doesn’t seem to implicate Rakhine Buddhists in particular, like the other cases do. AP, HRW, and WP reports all sound as if soldiers did this without the help of villainous neighbors. The central villain instead is an army officer called “Baju” or “Bajo” who could speak Rohingya and was seen being personally involved at every stage of the killings and coverup. We can be sure at least this is someone the ARSA types do not like.)

3.2) Maung Nu: Entanglement with Massacre of Hindus

Both Human Rights Watch and Pitman’s AP article report that the bodies from the Maung Nu massacre were loaded into trucks and driven off, at least in part. Shafir Rahman, 50 told the Associated Press he “saw soldiers wrapping the corpses into orange and blue tarps and hauling them away with push-carts.”  He said “I don’t know where they took (the bodies),” but they were gone, leaving just blood behind. [11] Others have mentioned seeing bodies dumped nearby; Mustafa, 22, told HRW he saw “a pit with [the bodies of] 10 to 15 children, all under 12 years old. … hacked to death,” and not yet covered with dirt. But he also saw bodies being taken away on carts, and in fact “I recognized one of the carts was mine.” So this point isn’t entirely clear, but others agree on at least some body removal, telling ‘Human Rights Watch’ (HRW)  the soldiers used green tarps, and the cleanup work took hours.  [12]

In other cases we hear the soldiers and Rakhine militiamen just leave the victims where they fell, bury them in nearby “pits,” burn them on-site, or perhaps dump them in the river. But here, it’s said they were loaded up and driven away, which opens possibilities. This could help explain the lack of bodies for the Maung Nu massacre, which might prove permanent. And if it were set up right, these could be claimed as some other batch ARSA and its propagandists would like a different explanation for. Notably, the switch between the first and second version apparently happened after the September 16 Washington Post article (or rather after the associated interviews) and maybe before HRW did its interviews, prior to October 3. It might matter that this is about the time that news broke about the mass graves of Hindus discovered near Kha Maung Seik.

As of September 24 and 25, Rohingya propagandists faced a problem the size of 93 Hindu civilians believed killed, and half of the bodies were found. This problem existed since the 18 kidnapped women and children were freed and started talking about the massacre they saw. That was in the days before Annie Gowen got her scoop for the Washington Post. Nine days after that ran, the stakes were raised with some of the proof located, and less than two weeks after that, HRW released its report that helped the Maung Nu massacre solidify with a set day, when witnesses would claim some 82-90 or more people had been killed there.

The AP report in December helped expand on this, repeating the body removal aspect, and in between – especially in early October – a lot of theories about Kha Maung Seik were aired, as discussed in section 2.4.  By September 27 Kaladan Press heard doubts refugees had about those “Hindu” bodies, doubts they linked to other massacres to the south lacking in such evidence. [13] Activist Maung Zarni likewise did not believe the government’s claims, “not at all,” and noted to the Dakha Tribune “thousands have been killed, where are their bodies, their mass graves?” [14] Around October 2, a supposed ARSA  commander was sure authorities were “posing Muslim bodies as Hindu bodies.” [15]

These people are suggesting some of those bodies were taken north and laundered as Hindus. None suggests a particular incident, but Maung Nu has the right details, like the similar and unusually mobile death toll. The two cases even have complementary date issues. Maung Nu sort-of happened on Aug. 25 and definitely on the 27^th, while the first version of the Kha Maung Seik massacre – blaming the army –  has been reported as happening on the morning of Aug. 25, 26, and 27. Both stand out for this dance around each other on the calendar, mostly it seems trying to avoid being on the same day.

Perhaps most acutely, we have a vivid if uncertain visual link. Shafir Rahman says he saw the bodies from Maung Nu wrapped in blue and orange tarps before they were vanished. It pops out that in this government handout photo of the first 28 bodies found near Kha Maung Seik, we see blue and orange tarps laid to the side, most likely used to cover the bodies. Tarps of all colors being common, this could be a coincidence, but a link is possible in a few different ways. Rahman only claimed this after these photos were published, and perhaps for that reason; maybe he or someone informing him saw this clue in the one place and decided to brand it as being seen in the other. That would suggest another massacre tale that evolves with the evidence, and looks for ways like this to “prove” itself.

Recall also how by October 12 refugee “Shofi Ullah” was “sure that the Myanmar government’s dirty trick will get exposed soon.” [16] That was about a week after HRW debuted the Maung Nu August 27 massacre story. Especially after the later AP article, it all seems well set up to expose the game, and yet nothing visible has emerged to clarify what they were all hinting at, or sensing nearby. It might be relevant that the author weighed in at this time with a first-ever article on Myanmar. Just from seeing the December 20 AP piece and a few other articles, it seemed worth floating that the Maung Nu massacre was a lie, concocted to conceal the killings at Kha Maung Seik. This theory was first published, perhaps anywhere, at the blog Monitor on Massacre Marketing on December 22. [17] It’s impossible to say if this or anything else disrupted an existing plan. But either way, that initial hunch seems well borne out upon further study. It remains a matter of speculation, but it is quite possible this whole massacre story was written – and then re-written – for just that twisted purpose.

3.3. Tula Toli: General Evidence Problems

Tula Toli is the local Rohingya name for a village formally known as Min Gyi, where far and away the largest massacre of Rohingya allegedly unfolded on August 30. By reports, perhaps 2,000 innocents were herded together on the beach by the army and armed Rakhine villagers, and most of them killed with no resistance. Total estimates range from “several hundred” to 1,800 civilians killed, including at least 200 women and 300 children. [18]

A “handful” of survivors spoke up saying about 18 or 20 escaped, but then some 70-80 alleged survivors spoke to the media, with various problematic patterns suggested, like one witness (Nour Kabir, 50) seemingly described in other sources as the dead husband of another witness. [19] Another trouble spot is Mohamed Ayas, 16, who told HRW he swam across the river to survive, and “was wounded while running toward the river.” [20] It’s likely this is the same Mohamed Ayes who’s also an ARSA fighter swearing, in section 2.4, they don’t go around in black ski masks massacring non-Muslims. [21] He’d say that’s someone else, or his being a fighter is unrelated to his getting shot in a massacre of innocents.

The details given by these plentiful witnesses are broadly consistent on on how everyone was killed. That’s either from real events they all saw, or from well-known talking points. As they’ve told it to various sources, the men were first butchered in the hundreds in a mix of shooting and slicing. They offered no resistance but to plead and pray, as dozens of their women and children were made to stand in the water nearby. The unprotected women were then dragged off in groups to empty huts with their children. Soldiers killed the children, raped the women, beat or chopped them them to death, and then set the huts on fire. Other children were hacked to death and tossed in the river, activists inform us, and the men’s bodies were burned in sand pits along the beach.

At least ten women located so far, and perhaps 12 or even 14, claim to have each been the sole survivor from their rape hut (at least ten huts total implied, and an 11^th by a boy who survived the hut while his mother and everyone else died). [22] Human Rights Watch alone “interviewed nine women and girls” raped by soldiers in “nearby houses.” [23] These were all set on fire, it seems, but the soldiers walked away or stopped paying attention quickly, and none of the 10+ who escaped was shot while fleeing. Each hut had 5-6 or maybe 7 women plus their children, several sources agree. Yet at least two of these women claim to have had one of their children, and not someone else’s, also appear dead  but survive and escape with them. [24]

These 55-70 or more women were culled from a group of “about 30” made to stand in deep water, according to the expert on that who saw it all, “Zahid”. He told the Dakha Tribune only four women survived, and almost like their manager he knew where they were all “in Kutupalong MSF clinic with burns and other injuries.” [25]

However inconsistent or unreal, this rape and burning could only happen after the men sworn to protect them had been killed. Consider this in the light of a 2012 video shared by researcher Rick Heizman, said to show security forces trying to open a road that Muslim Rohingya villagers had blocked with a giant tree branch. [26] Looking at these Bengalis seething with animosity, attacking the soldiers openly on video (but not with guns in this case), it’s hard to imagine how the Tula Toli scenario could have occurred. Let’s say security forces decided to try something so bizarre and brutal five years later, after the emergence of ARSA and its Eid al-Adha offensive would embolden them further. It’s hard to visualize hundreds of such men unable or unwilling to resist as they were massacred before their horrified wives and children, who were sure to be killed next.

It’s interesting that we’re left trying to visualize that, having roughly no visual evidence to work with – when there really should be more. At least four identified scenes (three videos and a photo) have been offered as support, and prove not everyone’s phone was seized, got wet in the swim across, or was just not used in the panic. Some could film, and did, but what they captured fails to show much of what witnesses report. [27]

They say masses of people were killed in plain sight on the beach, herded this way and that, with uniformed soldiers and Buddhist killers plainly visible at the other ends of those weapons. The alleged events ran for hours in broad daylight. “Omar Ali” told CNN “I watched as the government landed in helicopters in Tula Toli and distributed arms … They suddenly had everything; uniforms, knives, guns, everything.” [28] But no one recorded any of this that we can see.

In these four available scenes, which may be compiled from different days, we see the beach is always empty of bodies or massacre clues of any kind. Two scenes show distant smoke from at least a few fires, and one scene only shows bodies in the river, but with no smoke or other problems at Tula Toli. In that footage, at least three dead children are seen washing up on the opposite shore, one at least violently killed. It’s not clear whose children those are, but they appear relatively pale in complexion – possibly Rakhine instead of Rohingya. Besides the scene shown here, a BBC video shows the river babies, with a woman offering Rohingya names for them, saying they were 12 in number and all from one family. But these are only verbal claims. [29]

The alleged witnesses really want to convince us of these stories, and some video evidence would be very helpful. But they provided nothing convincing. That could be because there was no such event to film, or for some other reason.

3.4. Tula Toli Prelude: Who Lived Across the River?

Finally there’s a problem with the August 28 prelude. In reporting on the Tula Toli massacre, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have both noted events two days earlier, in the Rohingya village across the river to the east and northeast. Tula Toli survivors say they largely escaped across the river to here, after some had done the same in reverse two days earlier, when the army killed some people and lit up that village. Satellite images are clear this area along the river’s east bank was primarily razed by fire, like Tula Toli was. But as usual, this does little to prove who really burned it. For that, we have Rohingya alleged survivors.

Both titans of Human Rights agree this was a Rohingya town, as witnesses told them. But they disagree on its name. AI heard the village was named “Wet Kyein,” sounding Burmese, with any local name unclear. They didn’t seem to hear about it in nearly the detail HRW did. [30] HRW heard it was called “Dual Toli,” which sounds Rohingya. And it didn’t have both names; they also heard that Wet Kyein was the name of a Rakhine (Buddhist) village, in a different spot across the river, just southwest of Tula Toli (see graphic). Here, houses were not burned, and  HRW used this to prove how the flames only targeted Rohingya areas and spared Rakhine ones, like Wet Kyein. [31]

Several maps available on the Internet support AI’s placement. None yet supports HRW’s, and no other source yet found mentions a “Dual Toli,” aside from another media report apparently from the same witness claim. At one point the open-source mapping site Wikimapia had this southwest spot labeled Wet Kyein, but that was changed to Min Gyi just after AI’s findings were released in September, by a user who also moved Wet Kyein to the spot AI gave. That was shortly before the HRW report came out, but perhaps after some of the research, like citing Wikimapia for the village placement (this works fine when it does).  [32]

In more authoritative maps, Wet Kyein is attached variously to: a village across the river, placed here or further south – a hill (daung) to the east – a whole small area (ward?) containing these – maybe another village to the east. All of this is entirely across from Tula Toli, spanning east of the river bend (see graphic). Useful but imprecise government maps raised some last-minute questions, suggesting the village and whole ward might be even further east, not even touching the river. And they might give the contested village right across the way as “Min Gyi (Ku Lar),” which might render locally as Kula (not Dual), with no “Toli.” If so, both AI and HRW were wrong. But other evidence says this is Wet Kyein is right by the river and also on the highway. Since satellite views trump imprecise maps, AI may be right. [33] Their report also noted “Myanmar authorities have alleged that … on 26 August ARSA destroyed a deserted police outpost in Wet Kyein, across the river from Min Gyi.” [34].

So Wet Kyein’s location isn’t certain, but is central to the following points. Either way, it’s quite clear at this point that HRW was given incorrect information here.

But like HRW, the government says Rakhine lived in Wet Kyein, or at least in the area of town attacked by ARSA militants on August 28. A  statement posted on Facebook by Myanmar’s military leadership reports “At 9.25 am today, extremist Bengali terrorists set 30 houses from Upper Pyuma (Na Ta La) Village and 30 more houses from Wetkyein (Mro) Village on fire.” [35]  NaTaLa may be a Rohingya local name for that village, but Mro is a subgroup of the Rhakine ethnicity. Recall from section 1.1 ARSA’s leader Ata Ullah urged his followers to burn Buddhist homes on this day. [36]

Furthermore, the military update stated “around 11.20 am, Bengalis in Sakapinyin and Kyetkyein villages in Region 4 torched their houses and ran away.” [37] (Kyet Kyein is south of Wet Kyein, on the same east shore, and Sankarpinyin is a bit south of that.) [38] Then At noon, around 50 extremist Bengali terrorists from Kyetkyein Village went to the south of Wetkyein Pagoda” or Buddhist temple. [39] It seems unknown if they did anything there, but they had just burned their own homes before setting out. (note: there was no WhatsApp order for this. If there was a Rohingya plan to burn their own villages, it was communicated in a quieter way, which only makes sense.)

The HRW report noted this government statement, but confused the 50 Bengalis moving at noon with those  burning homes in the morning. Based on that and their seemingly incorrect map tips, the report smugly rebuts Naypyidaw: “subsequent Human Rights Watch satellite analysis showed that Wet Kyein was untouched by arson.” [40] Instead, as they heard it:

“On the morning of August 28, Burmese security forces headed toward the hamlet of Dual Toli, located across the river from Tula Toli. … a village leader asked about 100 young Rohingya men from the village to gather at the entrance of the village to try and persuade the army not to attack them. … as the soldiers approached they immediately began firing on the men, fatally shooting Mohammed Salim… The panicked villagers fled the village after the shooting, crossing the river by boat and by swimming to Tula Toli, which they thought would be safe.” [41]

This and the military statement are clearly two different stories, but both involve morning violence in a town someone calls Wet Kyein. Logically, it’s most likely both refer to the same place, and therefore it is right across the river, and the same place HRW’s witnesses were talking about under a different name. Evidence suggests this is or was a mixed town with Rakhine and Rohingya inhabitants. [42] Some portion was burned on the 28th, perhaps in a raid by ARSA. The fighting group might have been about 60-90 strong, leaning to the high end (that rounds down to 50 “Bengali terrorists” from people who perhaps didn’t spot them all, or rounds up to “about 100” unarmed young locals with sticks.)

While no reports have been noted, other crimes like murder and kidnappings are possible. For all we know the dead children shown on video could have been Mro villagers killed in Wet Kyein and just dropped in the shallows for the video footage. If just 30 homes were torched on the 28^th, the town must have been burned more fully later on, especially the Rohingya homes. These were being torched all over, and this is probably no exception, especially if leveling it all would help cover up the Mro parts being burned first. They did go; no one was able to point  to the spared Rakhine part of this village. They got the name wrong, but Human Rights Watch noted that entire town was just as “completely destroyed by arson” as Tula Toli was.

And by the way, by some definitions, Tula Toli was also a mixed town. As Frontier Myanmar reported “Min Gyi had once been a mixed village. While the exact demographics of Min Gyi before the exodus are unclear, one villager in Bangladesh told Frontier that it had been home to about 300 families, of which 60 had been Rakhine and the rest Muslim.” [43] Where exactly these Rakhine lived is somewhat unclear, but perhaps its the southwest part of Min Gyi HRW misnamed.

If this were an ARSA attack on Wet Kyein, then the stories blaming the army would be made up to launder that, and luckily for us they did it in two different ways so the deception is fairly obvious. To AI in October, they used the village’s real name but described it as all-Rohingya and attacked by the army. To HRW in December, they carefully moved that name, and re-named the village burned by the army on the 28th. That could be another case of  someone’s plan B tripping publicly over someone’s plan A, in which both come up suspect. And such tricks would suggest that whatever happened in Wet Kyein and/or in Min Gyi/Tula Toli might be a fairly big deal they want to have spun the right way. We can only hope the death toll they’ve given is grossly exaggerated.

3.5. Chut Pyin And The Rest

Chut Pyin: The list of most prominent massacres againhst Rohingya looks much less impressive after this review.  The three biggest ones are Tula Toli and Maung Nu, with their discussed problems, and Chut Pyin, not yet considered. Further south near Inn  Din, this episode allegedly happened on August 27, with no noted date contradictions. It was perhaps the second largest mass-killing after Tula Toli, with estimates of at least 135 and likely over 200 people killed. This now gets some rushed review for this article.

The first reports were not immediate, but run on August 31 and September1. Fortify Rights, a pro-Rohingya group, reported men and boys were herded into a hut and burned alive, and children as young as six were beheaded in a “killing spree” that  ran five hours, from 2-7 PM. “After the Myanmar authorities and local armed-residents left the village, Rohingya survivors returned to the village to assess damage, at great personal risk, and to count the dead. Survivors estimated the death toll to be more than 200.”   [44]

ABC News (Australia) heard from Chris Lewa, director of something called The Arakan Project, who cited “quite credible” reports of  “about 130 people including women and children” killed  by security forces “together with Rakhine villagers.” A prepared list gave 135 names, as a verified (by them) minimum. [45]

ABC was provided with videos from ARSA, or someone who uses the same kind of subtitles. These are said to show “Chut Pyin village burning” and “mounds of freshly dug earth” (video frame shown here). “This is where the dead bodies from Chut Pyin village were buried.” ABC quotes the unnamed narrator. “They buried 10-20 bodies, putting two to three bodies in each pit.” These were reportedly dug at Ah Htet Nan Yar, south of Chut Pyin, “with more bodies burned  by security forces.” [46] The graves, with sticks jutting out, appear to not be excavated, so it’s not clear how they know how many bodies there are, except by the surface area, or maybe the number of sticks. The remaining 115-190+ fatalities are unexplained – perhaps burned away to nothing, buried elsewhere,  removed, or made up in the first place.

Amnesty International’s report covers this case, hearing from 17 witnesses they found “highly consistent.” It’s another mixed area, with two halves of the village: Rakhine homes in the northeast, Rohingya in the southwest, at least as described. Satellite images show the whole northern part is un-burnt and the southern part is a pile of ash. The witnesses describe a sort of military occupation of the area for a month before the killings, with soldiers looking for “bad people” and imposing harsh rules, threatening death to violators. AI thinks an attack by ARSA on local security forces was “repulsed” on August 26, and as usual the village had nothing to do with that. But still, at 8 or 9 am on August 27, soldiers beat a Rohingya man and stole some livetock in Chut Pyin.  [47]

Then, the report states, “around 2 p.m.” far more soldiers camped nearby, uniformed border guard police, and “local vigilantes” together surrounded the Rohingya area. They violently entered from the north-east and moved south, killing and torching as they went. Somi, 53, said “they came in very suddenly. They didn’t say anything. And they just opened fire and set fire to houses… they opened fire as we ran. I saw it with my own eyes.” Some men claim they hid in one or another of the ponds in the area, but Somi claims he escaped up a hill. He came back down to a horror scene the next morning, with the dead and wounded callously left scattered where they fell. They carried some survivors, including a baby “who was on the ground by his mother’s breast,” but “then the military saw us [from their post nearby] and opened fire. We had to run away. We couldn’t take more [wounded].” All in all, AI heard, “at least scores” were killed.   [48]

A few bullet points help illustrate how Amnesty International adds little or nothing to the naked claims of the Rohingya activists and alleged witnesses:

• Abdul Karim, 19, was shot in the lower leg and had it amputated due to infection. Like other shot fighting-age men we’ve heard from, he says this happened in the massacre of innocents, not during any clashes he took part in. AI chose to accept these claims, but they could be false anyway.
• A teenage girl was shot in the leg, and a forensic expert agrees that’s what her wounds suggest. But he couldn’t prove the story that it was soldiers shooting, and can’t be sure what it means that a friendly “neighbor” – likely an adult male Muslim who would deny being an ARSA militant – scooped her up right after someone had shot her feet out from under her.
• Shara Jahan, 40, says she stayed behind as most ran from their home, “yelling” for their younger children. They never responded and died, and she barely fled, suffering burns over her whole body when the roof caved in. A medical expert agrees on the burns, which are evident anyway, but it’s not actually proven who caused the fire or even if it was inside a house.
• AI declared “the killings described in this section all violate the right to life,” as enshrined in Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Indeed they would. But it’s not proven the killings were real, were by the government, nor against non-militant Rohingya. [49]

The supposed confession of two ARSA fighters who were arrested, among several published by researcher and pro-government activist Rick Heizman, casts some doubt on this. Of course it’s possibly coerced and untrue, but they say ARSA attacked Chut Pyin’s police station the night of August 27 as locals were made to flee, and then  burned the village before the last people left around 5 am on the 28^th. One also says “our villagers in Nilin Baw and Auk Nan Ya village did the same.” Neither mentions any massacre committed by either side at this time, but perhaps there was one tasked to other people not yet arrested.  [50] That’s not the same date AI reports, citing government sources but with some guesswork involved. This may refer to two separate incidents or could be a contradiction, and requires more study.

Chein Kar Li and Koe Tan Kauk: Three smaller massacres identified by Amnesty International in October were at Inn Din (covered, see 1.2), and at Chein Kar Li and Koe Tan Kauk, two neighbouring villages just south of there. These are considered together in the report, like stunted twins that can’t be apart. They were also featured first, sporting unusually good footage of the villages burning, shot from an overlooking hill. As AI reports it, at least 29 were killed in Chein Kar Li on August 25, and “around 37” in Koe Tan Kauk on Aug. 27 or 28 (meaning AI heard both dates, which may be a problem). Both again are in ethnically-mixed areas where local Buddhists might be victims as easily as perpetrators. Most or all might be fighters. Both cases feature people who say they escaped up a hill after seeing someone either shot dead or left behind in a house that was burned, later came down to verify the death, and then fled. [51] That’s very similar to the Inn  Din story, except for the part about burying the bodies.

In both cases and at Chut Pyin, witnesses reported “the soldiers who attacked their village wore dark green military uniforms with a patch on one arm that looked like a flower and star, which would fit a commonly given description of the Western Command patch. They also identified the BGP by the distinct camouflage blue uniforms they wear.”  [52] This is presented as if they could only know these uniforms if they’d seen them during a massacre, rather than knowing it in general or having it memorized along with a list of other massacre talking points.

Gu Dar Pyin (last-minute addition): Finally, just before publication, another massacre allegation emerged at Gu Dar Pyin, about 16 km south of Buthidaung. [53] A February 1 Associated Press report by Foster Klug relates it as a new story. Mohammad Younus, 25, says he was shot twice in the massacre, not in a battle, and witnessed events from a hiding spot. After the main killing, Klug writes, “Buddhist villagers” helped finish it off, “using knives to cut the throats of the injured, survivors said, and pitching the young and the elderly into fires.” Some think as many as 400 were killed here in the attack on August 27, but they’ve only collected 75 names. [54]

Bodies were left scattered everywhere, but also buried away in mass graves locals noticed only slowly, as rains floated corpses to the surface. Mohammad Karim, 26, finally captured footage on September 9, in three videos shown to the AP “time-stamped between 10:12 a.m. and 10:14 a.m., when he said soldiers chased him away.” Such data can be wrong in a number of ways, and the location most likely can’t be verified, but five “previously unreported” mass graves were now “confirmed” by AP using 24+ witness interviews and “time-stamped cellphone videos.”  [55]

The footage is only shown in non-gory snippets in the AP video report, but five clips are shown by Rohingya activist Ro Nay San Lwin on Facebook. Between them, at least 6 mostly-skeletal bodies and some parts of others are shown. [56] The closest to a “mass grave” they can show includes four bodies that, by clothing and arrangement, were already shown on August 31. Rohingya Blogger shared “gruesome scenes of Rohingya civilians massacred by Myanmar troops.” They heard that was four or five days earlier, on August 26 and 27, at ‘Guta Pyin’ (GuDarPyin) in Buthidaung. “Exact figures of Rohingya civilians massacred by the Myanmar military in the village are yet to be counted.” [57] Here the bodies are fully intact, buried from the waist down mainly, laid so their faces are exposed. All four are adult men in civilian clothes, one of them seemingly beheaded, surrounded by some blue-black fluid with an oily surface. This fluid later dries into a bluish stain on the ground.

This case is unusual in having the soldiers bring acid with them, and use that in a bizarre plan to burn away faces, as Klug’s AP report heard; “blue-green puddles of acid sludge” are noted around the bodies in the video, But it doesn’t seem very corrosive in the August 31 video – skin touching it doesn’t melt. It’s true the bodies were reduced to bone within just nine days, but  it seems parts above the surface were more skeletonized than those fully submerged. So this is most likely predating – wild or feral animals ate their exposed flesh as food, while the “acid sludge” actually preserved much of their remains. Heavy rains then likely washed the scene, clearing the last flesh and some soil.

The acid claim raises red flags. That would mean the victims couldn’t be recognized, as a person or as a member of a race with distinct features. In the early video, the victims’ faces do not appear burned with acid, but instead smeared with mud, especially over the eyes. The eyes are the best way to identify if someone is Rakhine or Rohingya/Bengali. From this double suggestion of hidden faces, it seems worth wondering if these are laundered victims of an ARSA massacre.

But on the other hand, one of those seen on August 31 had a face hidden under a black mask like ARSA fighters wear. There can be no doubt of this; the distinct eye and mouth holes are visible in the silky material,  He was already mentioned in section 2.2 as an apparent militant. The mask doesn’t prove this, but it’s consistent. In the later footage, his mask has been removed (something small and black tossed aside nearby) and his shirt has been pulled up. Since then, his chest and face were chewed down to bone, and half of of his shattered head was dragged away.

And it seems we may have another Inn Din situation. A military Information Committee statement on Facebook, February 2, refers to the AP report and a government investigation. Using automatic translation, this seems to mention 19 radical ARSA terrorists killed and “buried properly.” There’s mention of “5/2017, Section 50 (i) in the fight against terrorism” and that “There is no human rights violations by the government” [58] A Burmese speaker on Twitter summarizes “on Aug 28, 500 #Militants #ARSA attacked security forces. Security retaliated, killed 19 attackers, buried them in graves in Gu Dar Pyin” [59] It’s not clear if killed means executed or killed in action, but it seems they claim the latter. As The Irrawaddy reported it:

“According to the government’s statement, 19 ARSA militants were killed in fighting after about 500 militants attacked security officials with firearms, knives, slingshots, and darts. Officials buried the bodies of the dead militants systematically and opened a criminal case under counter-terrorism Article 50 (i) at Nyaung Chaung police station.

The statement did not elaborate on whether security forces buried the ARSA casualties in the Gutar Pyin graveyard or in other locations.” [60]

So it’s not clear if the improperly buried bodies we see on these videos are the same ones they refer to. But that mask suggests they were fighters, and they seem executed, with one even beheaded. If this is another Inn Din, it seems to be uglier yet.  Activists and witnesses will cry foul, swearing at least 75 and maybe 400 civilians were killed, not just 19 men. But only six or so bodies are proven, and the government already gives 19 slots (which may or may not allow for these). For the moment, they aren’t expanding on the 10 they admit were illegally killed at Inn Din. But this might change eventually to 29 killed Rohingyas, all fighters, admitted to in their alleged ethnic cleansing campaign.

As we await more information that’s sure to be challenged, the true story of the bodies at Gu Dar Pyin remains unclear and deserves further analysis. For one thing, credible and neutral professionals should look at the full video record and render a meaningful opinion on that aspect.

Concluding Thoughts on Doubt, “Fake News,” and Justice

Back in 2015, BBC Trending acknowledged several photographs used to show the plight of the Rohingya were fakes, recycled from various disasters around the world. They closed by warning against letting this distract from, as activist Jamil Hanan put it, the “tragic scenes of the Rohingya that are genuine.” Luckily these are “the most tragic images” anyway, so Hanan assured us “there is simply no need for anyone to fabricate anything,” [61] Yet someone else thought the most tragic photo was the one of Buddhist monks ripping up Rohingya babies like an earthquake in China would do, and felt such a need to show it they couldn’t wait for a real photo of it.

Verbal claims have painted very similar pictures time and again, before and since then. These can’t be proven to be made-up or recycled with a simple reverse image search, and as it happens, we’re continually encouraged to rely on them, with roughly the same acceptance we would afford to genuine visual proof.

But the encouragement isn’t quite total. Another useful bit of limited hangout emerges now at the New York Times: “The Rohingya Suffer Real Horrors. So Why Are Some of Their Stories Untrue?” Reporter Hannah Beech makes a laudable effort, considering, at questioning some of the claims lodged by refugees that, “in some cases, are too compelling, like a perfect storm of suffering.” Indeed, this is one of the clues to watch for. In some cases, Beech followed that skepticism, instead of filtering it out like most would, and found it was warranted. A 9-year-old boy presented to her told and drew how soldiers killed his parents, as well as his grandparents. He then admitted his grandparent died of natural causes, and some probing suggested Beech was either misled about his parents’ killings or the town it happened in. “Obviously, something bad had happened to him,” she notes, “but to this day, no one has figured out his real story.” [62]

Another story may be figured out, but it was awkward. Four refugee sisters aged 2-12 gave dramatic accounts full of “quotes that pull at heartstrings. Little of it was true.” They claimed their father was in prison and their mother killed in the recent burning of their village, so they were now under the care of an uncle, Soyud Hossain. But it turns out Soyud was their father, an Islamist with three wives. Two were in the Bangladesh camps, and he secretly married a 12-year-old in Myanmar, who mothered these 4 girls. (He calls that nothing to his father’s 6 wives and 42 children.) Somehow, the girls found their dad here, but their mother is not present, perhaps killed like they say. [63]

Even this story isn’t the certain truth, but Beech spoke with “Sajida,” Soyud’s in-camp wife (he had the girls say he was in “prison”). After learning about wife #3 and the girls, Sajida (probably not her real name) said “My husband is a bad man … I am tired of all his lies.” The next time Beech spoke with Mr. Hossain, he said “I beat her when you left,” and promised to do it again. Mr. Hossain’s sister-in-law Beech spoke to was also reportedly battered by her husband, much to the journalists’ regret. [64]

So why are some stories untrue? Beech speculated various causes; children have a hard time separating things they’ve heard from things they experienced. Deceptive polygamists might cover their tracks. But it could be because the whole thing is untrue, a jumbled complex of lies spun by brutal and deceptive Islamists, in order to fool foreign infidels into supporting their jihad. She doesn’t think so, accepting the less-examined bulk as “genuine horrors – murder, rape and mass burning of villages – that have been inflicted upon the Rohingya by Myanmar’s security forces.”  [65] (She doesn’t mention it here, but they give equal credit to genocidal Buddhist vigilantes working on the lines of the monk U Wirathu, the “Burmese Bin Laden” as Beech has claimed he calls himself.) [66] She thinks a few fake stories detract from the true picture, but upon analysis, it seems likely a whole bunch of fake stories are in just what the supposed truth is made of.

Even as we might acknowledge serious doubts, and even with that unusual look behind the scenes, it will be hard for many to question these refugee camp witnesses. The public has been trained to accept them as the only source of reliable information. There are very many of them agreeing on the same basic picture. And some bear scars no one would volunteer for.

A good example is Mumtaz Begum, 30* who says she survived a Tula Toli massacre rape hut along with her daughter (Razia, 7) and no one else, afer both played dead. That might sound unlikely, considering she has no known wounds to have seemingly died from before the fire. But afterwards, she was burned all down the right side, and Razia suffered serious slices to the scalp, apparently from being hit at least twice in the head with a sword or bladed weapon. Mumtaz (burns but no wounds) and Razia (wounds but no burns) were featured in a news story along with other women and children showing such marks, mostly Tula Toli survivors telling the same story. [67] These two are shown widely, including in a BBC News night video (frames shown). [68]

* Begum is apparently not a family name (way too common, and attached to no males). It’s a term applied to certain women who are nobles, or have earned resect from age or being seriously wounded. [69] Over half the women cited as massacre survivors in Myanmar are called Begum, so apparently giving no family name. The oldest Hossain girl Hannah Beech heard from was called Januka Begum, aged 12. [70] It looks like a family name but is It’s unclear why others are not called Begum, but perhaps just because they gave their family name. Begum and a family name are never seen together here.

We know the Tula Toli massacre story is long on verbal claims and lacking in other evidence. The overabundance of rape hut survivors in particular was noted (see section 3.3). Besides being one of these ten or more dubious witnesses, Mumtaz also has a shifting account. Usually she was made to stand in the water after her husband was killed, then taken to the hut with her children. But she also gives a version to CNN where she was somehow “discarded and left for dead … on top of a mound of charred, entangled bodies,” before she woke up and then “was dragged to a village house and raped by soldiers.” By that she seemed dead not once but twice, again with no wounds shown. [71]

So there’s reason to suspect her stories are false, but then how did she get burned and Razia hacked? The only other party to consider is ARSA. But how could Mumtaz sit there and spout Rohingya propaganda to help them out if they were the ones who did it? Wouldn’t she be mad at them?

Here we should recall the eight Hindu women who once told the same kind of story blaming the army and Rakhine Buddhists. As they now say, that’s because they and their children had their lives threatened by the captors, who had already murdered the rest of their families. If these had shown any such wounds to support their claims (they didn’t) we would have to acknowledge it was probably done by their captors, sharpening the threats to say the right thing. In that light, people like Mumtaz and Razia should really be checked on to find out if they’re camping with the Muslims of their own free will.

Most of those presented to speak are fairly dark-skinned and speak Rohingya, not the lighter, more Asiatic-looking and Burmese-speaking Rakhines, the primary enemies of the ARSA militants. If these people are captured enemies, it’s another group closer to home – either Hindu like those eight women, or Muslims, but ones seen as supporting the government or just in the way of the big Arakan project. It would be, technically, Rohingya-on-Rohingya violence, kidnapping, and coercion. Mumtaz and others wear specific wrist bangles and clothing, for example, that might contain overlooked clues a regional expert could spot.

Most others we’ve heard from will surely be there by choice; they’ll all be doing it at gunpoint on some level, but if the crisis is fake, they’ll be the ones faking it. If any of these has a scalp wound to show, they might even volunteer for that. A blade just pressed in non-violently might cause bleeding and a scar, but little trauma. We’ve seen several of the many cases of fighting age men (and older boys) with bullet wounds, who claim they survived these massacres. It’s likely these are ARSA fighters taken off the field and now attacking their religious enemies with allegations instead. Many others, especially older men, said they hid behind a tree or something, saw everything and lived unharmed to tell us about it. Such a guy might also be a religious leader or financier in the ARSA network (Badruduza Hussein is a good example to wonder about – see 3.1). Older women who list the dead and weep might be the wives and sisters of those older men. Others like Shara might have been accidentally trapped inside a home that ARSA set on fire, but the victim was saved and helped, and maybe offered a small cash settlement – if they also agreed to some storytelling.

As Hannah Beech noted “a fresh bullet wound in a child’s body is proof that something terrible happened.” [72] Men with guns and propaganda needs realize this.

This is all speculative, but why not speculate? Between voluntary and coerced lies, it’s possible that close to zero truth has emerged from all these people. The best way to consider eyewitness evidence is to neither accept nor dismiss it blindly, but to consider it critically, acknowledging its limitations and the dangerous potential for getting things wrong – or even setting the story upside down. Perhaps the analysis in this article is too critical, but at the best, there’s little reason to be so sure about the refugee camp narrative. This is especially so now that we can see important parts of it must be untrue, while the rest is just unproven.

For the most part, the claims lodged can’t be verified or proven wrong. Sometimes that’s because we don’t hear enough “harrowing accounts” and “testimony” to compare them and determine the patterns of likely deception. This can already be done with Inn Din, Maung Nu, Tula Toli, Wet Kyein, and the first version of Kha Maung Seik, at least. In a case like Chut Pyin, perhaps a false story with no obvious seams was actually floated; not every lie can be proven as such. The fact that  this many weak spots can be found with the opposition’s leading massacre claims, and so easily,  suggests a serious problem with their whole narrative. This in turn casts at least a starting doubt on every story, no matter how consistently it’s been presented.

We’ve seen altered dates, altered locales, dubious claims of extreme government massacres and implausible government cover-ups lacking in credible evidence, fighters laundered as innocent Muslims, victims of the Muslims laundered as victims of the Buddhists … The efforts at writing the specific stories to flesh out their “repression of innocent Muslims” narrative are almost comical.

But it’s clearly a black sort of humor, with a dark side in which women and children have been slaughtered, and other horrible things have happened. How many of the thousands reported really died remains unclear, as well as who they really were and how they would have died. But to some degree at least, grave violations of Human Rights have occurred.

Passions are and should be high, but they also should be restrained. And so we see reminders to avoid “fake news that fuels hate.” Annie Gowen writes “for Buddhists in Myanmar, even a quick scroll through Facebook’s news feed provides fuel for hatred and nationalistic fervor,” referring to claims that Buddhists are not killing Rohingya, that it’s in fact the opposite – victim-blaming, Gowen would say. [73] She doesn’t seem concerned what effect the regular news like she writes might have on Muslim extremists. True or not, these tales like Tula Toli are likely to rile people up and cause problems like revenge killings of innocent Buddhists. Any story of a horrible crime becoming known is liable to do this, true or flase. It’s a real problem.

Gowen and those of like mind might caution against unjust acts of revenge, and emphasize the role of truth; the claims against Rohingya are fake, whereas those lodged by them are real.

Gowen was able to cite one example of what seems to be Hindu refugees helping stage a single photograph presented as a Rohingya woman burning a village. But that photo was shown to journalists on a government-arranged field visit, who had just met with the same distinct woman wearing the same clothes, and were able to go back and get instant confirmation. That fakery is so obvious it seems we might be missing something, and it’s not entirely clear what’s really shown in the photo (this might requires more study). [74] But this doesn’t seem to be representative, and no one can cite a second example this clear.

The other side has the myriad deceptions explained in this article besides, for example, UK-based “scholar” Maung Zarni recycling a photo of soldiers putting out a fire in 2016 as them setting one in 2017. [75].

Rohingya claims to accept include … maybe not that one, but they do include the story of the Maung Nu Massacre on August 25 that was handed to the foe of “fake news” Annie Gowen. That incident was later revised to be more dramatic and memorable, and on the 27^th, which was also reported as true (see section 3.1). They can’t all decide on the date of an incident or even remember it, yet all their different versions are accepted as real news, different but parallel truths worth publishing in the interests of justice. They don’t even notice as these stories collide with and run over each other, leaving no survivors.

The unusual but thorough analysis reflected in this article strongly suggests all the major events reported are fictional, or even inverted versions of true crimes. This would be consistent with a fake crisis scenario, as considered in section 1.1.  The ARSA network mobilizes everyone possible to fight, run, and burn, so they can blame it on the government and demand a new Arakan state be built outside their authority. Dead bodies help too, and there were some people around they could stand to see disappear. They would be banking in the blood of their own victims as well as that of their fallen comrades, in an epic and systematic case of “playing politics with the dead” as HRW’s Ganguly put it, so far out of this context.

Whoever committed the clear and hideous killings and kidnappings at Kha Maung Seik, for example, are a menace that needs to be identified and neutralized. That just might be the deceptive jihadists Myanmar’s authorities claim to be up against. It may be no one but this cancerous element – and its often hard-to-define support network – that the state is trying to “clear” their territory of. Some governments are allowed to do things like this with no hassles, if the problem exists there in the first place. Perhaps in Myanmar, as with Syria and others before, every move to solve the Islamist problem iswill be demonized, as it’s allowed to fester there under a strangely uniform ignorance regime. Things like Daesh (the Islamic State movement) emerge from this.

The world’s “Human Rights” defenders and reporters of “news” seem to do the heavy lifting of making the refugee camp narrative seem like reality after all. Governments are one thing, but how could so many credible and independent voices all agree unless it was real? That stands as a good question we’re not going to answer right here; it shouldn’t stand in the way of seeing that they are wrong, if that’s really how it is.

Whatever the reasons, this is a sorry state of affairs that deserves more attention. No crisis, not even the Rohingya one, can be truly and justly solved without a diagnosis based solidly in reality. Those who work to avoid and limit the debate or shut down alternate views must be challenged on this or worked around, so the truth can perhaps be grasped clearly enough. Most of the specific points raised in this article have been posed in challenges to those responsible for reporting the false claims, but none has answered yet. [76] There will be more to come after this article is available to point to, and so it now concludes.

—

References

1, 2. ‘Blood flowed in the streets’: Refugees from one Rohingya hamlet recount days of horror By Annie Gowen, Washington Post, September 16, 2017 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/blood-flowed-in-the-streets-refugees-from-one-rohingya-village-recount-days-of-horror/2017/09/15/34059ecc-9735-11e7-af6a-6555caaeb8dc_story.html

3. https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/10/03/burma-military-massacres-dozens-rohingya-village

4, 5. https://www.voanews.com/a/rohingya-survivors-myanmar-amy-slaughtered-men-children/4175020.html

6. see 3
7. ACLOS: first entry: Badrudduza Hussein, 52 http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Maung_Nu_Massacre#Alleged_Witnesses
8. see 3
9. see 4
10. ACLOS: Mohammad Nasir, 32 and Mohamed Yaha, 18 http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Maung_Nu_Massacre#Alleged_Witnesses
11. see 4
12. see 3
13. “Refugees question Burmese government’s report of mass Hindu graves.” Kaladan News, 27 September 2017 http://www.kaladanpress.org/index.php/news/413-news-2017/september-2017/5149-refugees-question-burmese-government’s-report-of-mass-hindu-graves.html
14. “India, Myanmar, and the convenient discovery of Hindu mass graves” By Fazlur Rahman Raju. Dhaka Tribune. Published at 01:50 PM October 01, 2017 http://www.dhakatribune.com/world/south-asia/2017/10/01/india-myanmar-convenient-hindu-graves/
15. “Who really attacked the Rohingya Hindus in Myanmar’s Rakhine state? The answer is shrouded in fog of claims and counter-claims.” By Mahadi Al Hasnat. Scroll.in. October 2, 2017. 07:30 pm https://scroll.in/article/852527/who-really-attacked-the-rohingya-hindus-in-myanmars-rakhine-state
16. “Mystery surrounds deaths of Hindu villagers in Myanmar mass graves: Government accused of ‘dirty tricks’ as Hindus who fled to Bangladesh say army was behind massacre, only to blame Rohingya militants once back in Myanmar” By Shaikh Azizur Rahman, The Guardian. October 12, 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/oct/12/myanmar-mass-graves-mystery-surrounds-deaths-of-hindu-villagers-dirty-tricks-rohingya
17. 15. Is the Maung Nu Massacre a Laundered Islamist Atrocity? (rough, incomplete) http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2017/12/is-maung-nu-massacre-recycled-islamist.html
18. General reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tula_Toli_massacre – http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Tula_Toli_Massacre – http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2018/01/tula-toli-massacre-masterlist.html
19. http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2018/01/tula-toli-massacre-alleged-witnesses.html – HRW heard Khotija, 42: “lost her entire family in the massacre. Her elderly father, Abu Shama, and husband, Nur Kobir, 50, died with the men on the beach.” BBC spoke to Noor Kawbir, who appears possibly 50.
20. “Massacre by the River Burmese Army Crimes against Humanity in Tula Toli.” Human Rights Watch, December 19, 2017 https://www.hrw.org/report/2017/12/19/massacre-river/burmese-army-crimes-against-humanity-tula-toli
21. https://twitter.com/CL4Syr/status/957485023526973442
22. http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2018/01/tula-toli-massacre-alleged-witnesses.html see near bottom “Add Jan. 4: Did Half the rape Hut Women survive?”
23. see 20
24. Mumtaz Begum and Dildar Begum, each with a surviving daughter around 7 or 8 – see also 22.
25. “Zahid” see Dhaka Tribune http://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2017/09/09/no-rohingya-left-tulatoli/
26. https://twitter.com/rick135b7/status/951130513455988736
27. http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2018/01/tula-toli-massacre-visual-record.html
28. http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/18/asia/ethnic-cleansing-rakhine-rohingya/index.html
29. BBC video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRp0o0fzB2I
30. ““MY WORLD IS FINISHED”: ROHINGYA TARGETED IN CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY IN MYANMAR.” Amnesty International. 18 October 2017, Index number: ASA 16/7288/2017 https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa16/7288/2017/en/ pp. 21-22
31. see 20
32. http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2017/12/tula-toli-massacre-where-is-wet-kyein.html
33. https://twitter.com/PlanBurma/status/958159763048603648 – MIMU map has 2 Wet Kyein villages marked, both further east, and gives the contested village as Min Gyi (Ku Lar), as opposed to Min Gyi (Tu Lar Tu Li) across the river. http://themimu.info/sites/themimu.info/files/documents/Tsp_Map_VL_Maungdaw_-_Rakhine_MIMU154v04_03May2016_A1.pdf – however it may be more like AI placed it https://twitter.com/CL4Syr/status/958332150926819328
34. see 30
35. Post by Defense Chief, Aug. 28, 7:01 PM (California time) https://www.facebook.com/Cincds/posts/1439927706128090 (partial): “At 9.25 am today, extremist Bengali terrorists set 30 houses from Upper Pyuma (Na Ta La) Village and 30 more houses from Wetkyein (Mro) Village on fire. … Around 11.20 am, Bengalis in Sakapinyin and Kyetkyein villages in Region 4 torched their houses and ran away. …At noon, around 50 extremist Bengali terrorists from Kyetkyein Village went to the south of Wetkyein Pagoda”
36. “Myanmar’s Rohingya Crisis Enters a Dangerous New Phase” International Crisis Group. Report #292 / Asia 7 December 2017 https://www.crisisgroup.org/asia/south-east-asia/myanmar/292-myanmars-rohingya-crisis-enters-dangerous-new-phase

37, see 20

38. http://themimu.info/sites/themimu.info/files/documents/Tsp_Map_VL_Maungdaw_-_Rakhine_MIMU154v04_03May2016_A1.pdf
39. see 20

40, 41. see 20

42. see 32
43. https://frontiermyanmar.net/en/the-destruction-of-tula-toli
44. http://www.fortifyrights.org/publication-20170901.html

45, 46. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-01/reports-of-women-and-children-among-dead-in-myanmar-massacre/8862164

47, 48, 49.  ““MY WORLD IS FINISHED”: ROHINGYA TARGETED IN CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY IN MYANMAR.” Amnesty International. 18 October 2017, Index number: ASA 16/7288/2017  https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa16/7288/2017/en/  pp. 10-13

50. https://twitter.com/rick135b7/status/945215024053682176 – https://twitter.com/rick135b7/status/945213210650583040

51, 52. ““MY WORLD IS FINISHED”: ROHINGYA TARGETED IN CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY IN MYANMAR.” Amnesty International. 18 October 2017, Index number: ASA 16/7288/2017  https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa16/7288/2017/en/ pp. 18-19

53. mapping explained here: https://twitter.com/CL4Syr/status/959050979030155264

54, 55. “AP Exclusive: AP confirms 5 unreported Myanmar mass graves” By Foster Klug, Associated Press, BALUKHALI REFUGEE CAMP, Bangladesh – Feb 1, 2018, 5:24 AM ET http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/ap-confirms-previously-unreported-myanmar-mass-graves-52755289 – Version with video: http://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/AP-confirms-5-previously-unreported-Myanmar-mass-12541732.php

56. https://www.facebook.com/nslwin/posts/2036170453066187
57. “Updates: Into Seventh Day of Military Offensives on Rohingya Population in Northern Arakan’ RB News, August 31, 2017. http://www.rohingyablogger.com/2017/08/updates-into-seventh-day-of-military.html video alone on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mdskar/status/903138244044374016
58. Information Committee added 4 new photos. February 2 at 5:17am · https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=869272283245879&id=639456206227489
59. https://twitter.com/MayWongCNA/status/959431148244934656
60. No Mass Graves Found During Official Inspection of Gutar Pyin, Government Says” By Moe Myint, The Irrawaddy, 3 February 2018. https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/no-mass-graves-found-official-inspection-gutar-pyin-government-says.html
61. http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-32979147

62, 63, 64, 65. “The Rohingya Suffer Real Horrors. So Why Are Some of Their Stories Untrue?” By Hannah Beech, New York Times, FEB. 1, 2018 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/01/world/asia/rohingya-myanmar-camps.html

66. See criticism by Rick Heizman https://twitter.com/rick135b7
67. http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/rohingya-rape-survivors-harrowing-stories-abuse-hands-myanmar-military-1650450

68.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRp0o0fzB2I

69. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begum
70. see 61
71. CNN www.cnn.com/2017/11/12/asia/myanmar-rohingya-tula-toli-massacre-testimony/index.html
72. see 61
73. https://www.therecord.com/news-story/7987097-fake-news-on-facebook-fans-the-flames-of-hate-against-the-rohingya-in-myanmar/
74. https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2017/09/11/burmese-attempt-to-show-rohingya-torched-their-own-homes-unveiled-as-fake-news.html
75. https://twitter.com/sattlwinmoe/status/914797026503565312
76. http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2018/01/a-challenge-to-media-on-myanmar-fake.html

__

The author

Adam Larson is an independent investigator in Spokane, Washington, United States. He studied history at Eastern Washington University. He has since 2011, on a volunteer basis, studied events in Libya, Syria, and Ukraine following Western-backed regime-change operations, often under the screen name Caustic Logic. Using open sources, with an emphasis on video analysis, Mr. Larson and research associates have often deconstructed or disproved alleged “regime” crimes from shooting protesters to sectarian massacres. He’s the co-founder of Citizen’s Investigation into War crimes in Libya (and Syria, Ukraine, and beyond – CIWCL-SUB – website), a core member of the wiki-format research site A Closer Look On Syria, and runs the site Monitor on Massacre Marketing. He can be contacted at adam@ciwclibya.org/

Editor’s Note: This is the second part of the series in The Indicter, which comprises the following sections:

Part 1. Introduction to Questioning the Massacre Stories

Part 2: Men in Black at Kha Maung Seik: A Massacre BY Rohingya?

Part 3: Other Massacre Stories that Fall Apart (and conclusion)

Part 2: Men in Black at Kha Maung Seik: A Massacre BY Rohingya?

Besides Inn Din, there is at least one other massacre where bodies have been found as proof. This is near Kha Maung Seik, locally known as Fakira or Fawira Bazar, in the far north of Rakhine state. This was a mixed area, predominantly Rohingya Muslim, but including villages and areas where Rakhine Buddhists and others lived.

Here it wasn’t ten apparent fighters that were killed, but about 45 civilians, including women, babies, and elderly alike. The bodies were found over two days in three pits,  badly decomposed, some with throats sliced or with heads or limbs cut off. Another 48 bodies were expected to be found eventually, for a total of about 93 presumably slain citizens of the Hindu, not Muslim faith.  [1]

2.1. Version 1: Buddhists Killing Muslims and Hindus

The best evidence suggests the victims were taken captive and massacred by men in black, on the morning of August 25 by most accounts. That’s just a few hours after ARSA launched its attacks on army posts all over, perhaps eliminating security in this area.Yet this first story of a massacre at Kha Maung Seik blamed government forces. A Reuters report published September 6 gives this as when “the military brought some Rakhine Buddhists with them and torched the village,” as one witness said, targeting Muslims. Some were shot but most of the 10,000 Rohingya who lived there fled and “there’s not a single person left.”  [2]

In that version, they were “forced out of their village … on Aug. 25.” But sometimes those telling this story give a different date. Rohingya news source Kaladan Press later reported from the Muslim camp at Kutupalong that refugees “say that Burmese security forces began attacks on Kha Maung Seik on August 26.” A 64-year-old  man said they “shelled our village in the middle of the night (on August 26). My wife and two young children are now missing.” And again, “Burmese security forces began attacking on August 26,” so by definition nothing at all happened on August 25, when ARSA may have  just taken over. [3]

Or as Dhaka Tribune reported, nothing happened on the 26^th either, and “the morning of August 27 started as any other for Anika Dhar, 18,” when armed men burst into her home, tying up her and her husband Milon, and looting their valuables. They did the same in other homes and then, Anika told the Tribune, they “marched us with more than a hundred of our neighbours to a secluded spot …They  had dug holes in the ground. They shot and stabbed people and dumped the bodies into the holes.” Over one hundred people were killed that day, according to Anika.” [4] But this too is a rare, if interesting, aberration: the same woman and others agree elsewhere the killings were on the 25^th.

Whatever the day, Hindus were targeted along with Muslims in this narrative. The general story didn’t get much clearer, but a dramatic core of it was relayed by a group of Muslims and Hindus who escaped, and had just arrived to live together at the Kutupalong camp, one of whom is Anika/Anica Dhar.

In a video posted August 29, eight very attentive Hindu women and older girls speak briefly on the recent events (frames shown). They speak in the local Rohingya dialect shared by everyone of Bengali origin in the area, Muslim, Hindu or otherwise (and it has English subtitles). Here they don’t specify a date, but the essence is that Muslims never harmed them. In fact they helped the women escape when ethnic Rakhines killed their husbands – for refusing to help them kill Muslims. They apparently were doing some last-minute recruiting that went wrong. [5]

The September 6 Reuters report heard from part of this group – interviewed in late August – who “saw eight Hindu men killed by Buddhist Rakhines after they refused to attack Muslims.” That’s one man lost per woman. In some cases it’s a father, but for Anika Bala, 15, “they asked my husband to join them to kill Rohingya but he refused, so they killed him.” The report adds “Six months pregnant, she said Muslims helped her get to Bangladesh.” [6] Anica Dahr said that, after a massacre two days later, she managed to escape in the chaos, with the help of “friendly people” and, as she explains “I joined the Muslims and escaped with them.” That report hears her story as its own singular one, but did hear “at least eight Hindu women refugees, who fled to Bangladesh from Rakhine in the last few weeks, said armed men killed their husbands in front of them.” [7]

These women will be central players in the following sections. It’s not usually clarified here, but these eight are in fact the only adult survivors from a group of about 110 civilians taken from the villages of Ye Baw Kya and Taung Ywar. (Some small children are also seen with them, as it turns out ten total, but they aren’t remarked on much.) Muslim refugees refer to one of these villages in telling Kaladan Press “they saw the Hindu residents of Yebawkya fleeing together with them.” [8]

There are a few videos where the women give this basic story, all filmed in the camp and mostly over a couple of days in late August. It’s notable that they tend to be unusually young and attractive (reportedly aged 15-25 or perhaps up to 28 – of age in their culture). They profess Hindu beliefs, but lack traditional makeup and bangles. They aren’t in Burqas, but don’t look fully Hindu. Only once in these early videos and reports does Rekha Dhar, 25, mention how she and the other survivors had converted to Islam, as part of the deal by which they were rescued by a “Muslim family.” [9] One woman in the August 29 video knows to call the area they left “Arakan” instead of Myanmar or Burma. [10]

2.2. Mystery Men in Black: Who Are the “Kala Party”?

These women never explain how they knew the killers were Rakhines, and in some accounts, they’re strangely unclear about that detail. Rekha Dhar described them wearing black outfits with even “faces covered so we could not identify them.” [11] Anika Dhar told Dhaka Tribune of “a group of men wearing black uniforms … armed to the teeth with guns and long knives” but with no mention of what made them seem so Buddhist. [12]

Several other Hindu refugees report being imprisoned in their homes by the dark attackers, not allowed out even for water for at least five days, and then somehow they wound up in camps in Bangladesh. Their story is different from the eight kidnapped women, and not as clear. But there’s a similar lack of clarity about who was behind it. “Nalanjan,” age 50, mentioned men dressed in black with  no insignia. He says he didn’t recognize them, so he couldn’t be sure if they were Muslims or not, but they killed Muslims as well as Hindus. The proportions aren’t clear, and the killed Muslims might have been a few “government collaborators” for all we know. But Nalanjan has been cited by Shafiur Rahman to suggest it was government forces or Rakhines under the hoods, so Rahman would suggest they mainly killed Muslims. [13]

Another Hindu refugee cited by Shaikh Azizur Rahman (no known relation) is named Shib Kumar, whose parents and an aunt were killed by the black-clad men. She  likewise said “I could not recognize those men who killed Hindus as well as Muslims. We the Hindus and Muslims fled together.” [14] All these people and the eight women tend to agree on the unclear identity of the killers, their killing of Hindus and Muslims, and the joint flight of those groups. These sound almost like memorized talking points, but it’s not clear how most Hindus could be threatened or coerced even here in the camps.

The black attire  is more credible, partly because it’s not any known military uniform. Rather it’s a style of dress we can see on video of ARSA fighters preparing for their jihad, reportedly on August 20 – five days before these people were attacked. They don’t have uniforms, just mostly-black civilian clothes – as if there’s no dress code except “try for black” and “wear a ski mask or hood, leaving only your eyes visible.” Several dozen of them stand in formation with sticks and swords, chanting things like (per the subtitles) “we will give lives and take lives for Arakan” and “Allahu Akbar (God is the greatest).” A few men with guns partol them, perhaps looking for weaker spirits. [15]

Fortify Rights took reports of “Rohingya militants” wearing “civilian clothing or all-black “uniforms” – black pants and black short-sleeve and long-sleeve shirts.” A Rohingya man from Kha Maung Seik said that some of these hassled his group of refugees, though covered faces aren’t mentioned here.  [16] But ARSA fighter Mohammad Ayes denied these are signs of their group, arguing to Mahadi Hasnat that they have no “dress code” favoring black, and wouldn’t wear masks. “Whoever uses masks, it means they want to hide their identities and commit atrocities,” he said. “It is a conspiracy against the Rohingya Muslims,” to make them look bad. [17] But how would this make them look bad, if that’s not how they look?

But men who, by Ayes’ definition “want to hide their identities and commit atrocities” are seen in that video that doesn’t appear to be staged. Others with faces hidden, sometimes in black, are seen on either side of ARSA’s supreme commaner Ata Ullah on almost every video, as any image search will show. In other scenes, he and his men aren’t masked, but all dressed in black, out in the field, maybe after a night-time or early-morning raid. It seems likely they’d implement a special dress code for their 2017 early-morning offensive – like all masks, mostly black. A decaying Rohingya man found half-buried in “Ghuta Pyin” (Chut Pyin?) on August 31 has his face covered with and swelling up around a black ski mask. That’s an apparent militant dead for about a week, likely half-buried by his comrades as they retreated under fire. [18]

So this August 25/26/27 regime/Rakhine massacre would be perhaps the cleverest one yet reported, complete with ARSA costumes. And it was hatched to frame them just hours into the crackdown, as the best accounts suggest, and despite some apparent efforts to confuse that. In most other cases even days later, the killers are said to make no effort at concealment. They come in army uniforms and whatever Buddhist monks usually wear when slaughtering people, [19] or even to have uniforms delivered halfway through the operation by helicopter, to make sure everyone’s allegiance is clear. [20]

And the trick didn’t work on everyone; Mahadi Hasnat wrote on how the truth of the incident was “shrouded” in a “fog of claims and counter-claims.” He heard the mysterious killers were called “Kala Party” (Black Party) by one set or another of witnesses. One woman is said to describe them as part of “the army’s persecution.” She said they “confined us to our houses for five consecutive days. We managed to escape the confinement with a Muslim neighbour’s help.” But other Hindu refugees said “they believed these people were Rohingya Muslims.” A young Hindu woman whose husband was killed  by them on August 25 calls them “Muslim terrorists.” A photo of another young widow, Anika Dhar, is included (credited to Dhaka Tribune, Sept. 19). Considering the above, there’s little fog evident in the photo caption stating “her husband Milon was shot dead by the Myanmar army on August 27.” [21]

Bangladeshi bdnews24.com  heard from at least 10 Hindu refugees also speaking of the “’Kala Party’.” One who requested anonymity told them “the Burmese usually don’t know the Rohingya language. Though the attackers covered their face with dark clothes, they seemed to be Rohingyas.” [22]

2.3. Women Freed, Second Story Told, Bodies Found

Mohammad Nurul Islam reported on this story on August 30 for New Age. From interviews in the Kutupalong camp, he heard “eight Hindu women … are living with the Muslims” there after their husbands and fathers “laid down their lives for Muslims in Myanmar.” This was reported to him with approval by “Rohingya leader Mohammad Noor.” [23]

While Nour seemed fine with the arrangement, others weren’t. As the reporters at the state run Global New Light of Myanmar heard, people within the camp noticed a problem with the Kha Maung Seik refugees, as one girl – Raj Kumari, 15 – was being arranged to mary a Muslim man who worked there. They found several of the young widows had already been wedded to the Muslim men living with them. A Hindu religious leader “contacted a member of the BGB (police) and immediately went to the camp. There, the eight Hindu women and children were found. The Muslim terrorists had fled,” perhaps a sign of guilty conscience. This happened right away, on or before August 30. The Hindus were briefly removed from the camp and then put back, but in their own area with a Hindu guard. [24]

The earliest known media report on the girls and their second story was on September 5. The Irriwady reported how an 8-year-old girl from the area was luckily away on the 25^th,, working in another village. Her family had been killed, except an older sister, who was among the eight kidnapped women and had already made contact with home. They already heard from others that “more than 80 members of their communities in Rakhine State had been killed by unidentified armed men … reportedly … Muslim militants.”  [25]

By September 16 at the latest, two apparent sisters from that group were still in a camp, but  looking more Hindu, and giving a very different and horrifying story on video. They’re quite sure now the killers were genuine Islamists with ARSA, shouting Allahu Akbar behind their ski masks as they attacked. They massacred the girls’ families and husbands, and called the bloodletting their way of celebrating the feast of Eid al-Adha (feast of sacrifice), something they said they had been wanting to do for three years. [25]

Most Muslims wouldn’t mark Eid al-Adha in 2017 until September 1 or 2, but the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was marking an extended celebration that began on August 24. So this is a plausible thing to say on the 25^th, and it seems their offensive was timed to happen during this important religious event. [27]

As those girls spoke, others like Anika Dhar were still apparently giving fresh interviews relating the first version into mid September; as cited, Dhaka Tribune has her blaming the army on the 19^th. But once the survivors returned to Myanmar around the end of September, they gave a fuller account run on October 5 by Global New Light of Myanmar (GNLM – state run). As they related  it:

“[A] group of about 500 Muslims terrorists led by a foreigner in black clothing and Noru Lauk from Khamaungseik Village – attacked their village of Ye Baw Kya claiming this “is our territory. … we will murder Buddhists and all of you who worship the statues made of bricks and stones.” [28]

“About 500” might be an exaggeration, but it was a sizeable force. The attackers robbed them of money and valuables and took their phones, tied their hands and divided the men from the women and children. At mid-morning they were marched out, most likely judging by the map, south and then west, headed towards Bawtala Village and the Bangladesh border (see map, provisional from various sources). After marching a while they got “near” Bawtala, where the women “said they saw two pits, with a third pit being dug.” (A government map gives the red circled area as the mass grave location, about 3km north of Bawtala, but that might be incorrect; the location remains uncertain.) [29]

“The terrorists then killed all the Hindu men,” GNLM continues, “slashing their throats, cutting them into pieces and throwing them into the mass graves.” The slaughter the women saw ran from around noon to 6 pm. A three-year-old boy named Phawlar said he “saw his father’s throat slit with knife before he was killed.” Some women and children were taken further away and presumed killed there.  [30]

According to the women via GNLM, it was the Rohingya co-leader “Norulauk” who made the central tactical error here – leaving them alive to tell the tale. They recall him saying “Those girls are beautiful. We must force them into Islam.” This was done and so the women, aged 15-25, could be taken as “wives” and raped under that cover. Their ten young children were also spared in this arrangement. GNLM reports how they all camped for a while in the area, perhaps a honeymoon to some, before they illegally crossed into Bangladesh through a forced gap in the border fence on the morning of the 28^th. [31] A government-provided map shows the crossing, with about 15 km direct distance from the Hindu villages to Kutupalong. [32]

The militants now in the camp had the women speaking to foreign media, including English-language ones, the same afternoon, GNLM heard. [33] Maybe the militants figured since the women lived to tell the tale, they should pick the most useful one to have them tell.

Once freed, it was the women’s recall of the forced march that led to the mass graves so far discovered. Tips phoned back to Myanmar led to 28 bodies found on September 24 (said to be 20 women, and eight men and children, but divided 12 in one pit, 16 in the other). Another pit with the remains of 17 men was found the following day, raising the total to 45. Another 48 villagers were presumed dead, but apparently buried somewhere else the women didn’t see. [34]

The mass graves or pits can all be seen in various photos collected and analyzed by the author. [35] All three are  remarkably small in area, or narrow – one body wide at most. To hold 12, 16, and 17 corpses each, as reported, they must be very deep, almost like well shafts. The bodies piled in vertically, perhaps three bodies across across and several layers deep. The first two pits found are shown here (black circles) relative to the bodies pulled from them (red boxes).  Furthermore, the way each of the pits is tucked into the edge of the brush suggests the idea was for them to stay hidden; they might even have been covered with false brush. If it weren’t for the survivors’ tips, they might have never been found. Considering that, it’s likely the remaining 48 bodies exist, and yet will never be located.

After this grisly find, Myanmar’s authorities lifted the ban on media, for the occasion at least. They flew in reporters to see the first 28 bodies and hear the story from locals. AFP reported September 27 on what they heard, but gave more prominence to ARSA’s denial. [36] Reuters filed an equivocal report  describing Hindu refugees as “caught in the middle,” with some “complaining of violence against them by soldiers or Buddhist vigilantes” and others of “being attacked by the insurgents on suspicion of being government spies,” but not just on account of being infidels. [37]

Reuters also published some photos, including the one here, [38] and also ran a follow-up story from reporter Soe Zeya Tun that noted the earlier conflicting story they had run. Tun fleshed out the women’s’ new story by interviewing three of the eight women (apparently still in Bangladesh) “who individually recounted closely matching stories.” Bina Bala, 22, said “We watched as they tied each person, hands behind their back and also legs … They cut all their throats and pushed them into a hole,” A “hospital superintendent …who examined the bodies” confirmed that’s how they appeared, and was cited by GNLM as saying “the evidence points to a massacre by the ARSA terrorists.” [39]

Interestingly, Tun notes, the women “were later able to identify some of the masked men as Rohingya Muslims, although the women said the men spoke several languages they could not identify, besides the dialect spoken by both Muslims and Hindus in the area.” Bina at least added said they were only spared after agreeing to convert to Islam. [40]

2.4. How Their Second Story was Sidelined

So the women were now on record with two drastically different stories. Naturally, this raised suspicions that deception was afoot. Shaikh Azizur Rahman wrote in The Guardian on October 12: “Rohingya refugee Shofi Ullah accused the Myanmar military of “playing a game” with the Hindu bodies.”  He cites a case where Hindus helped sow a false story… of Muslims sowing false stories. (This seems to be the case, but it’s a strange case, and limited to the staging of a single photo – nothing comparable to this. [41]) So “Shofi Ullah” reasoned “they are using some Hindu women to cover up the misdeeds of the security forces and the Buddhist militia. We are sure that the Myanmar government’s dirty trick will get exposed soon.”  [42]

Rahman seems to agree with that, claiming the women’s story changed “when they were subsequently returned to Myanmar,” and likely pressed to lie. But they were telling this story inside the Kutupalong camp in Bagladesh before that, he thinks even before they blamed Rakhines (for 2 story changes, but with versions 1 and 3 being the same). So they said this in the camp, maybe before and surely after they were free of their Muslim friends, and still not in the regime’s clutches. So if there was any pressure to blame Rohingya, the mechanism for it is far from clear. [43]

They’re suspected of lying, but the women have a clear and consistent answer to the controversy: the first or middle version – blaming Buddhists and the army – was coerced. As Reuters heard it, “Muslims who brought them to Bangladesh had ordered them to say it was Buddhist vigilantes who had done the killing.” [44]  GNLM heard the same and added “They were threatened that their children’s throats would be slashed unless they said as they were told.” [45]

HRW’s Meenakshi Ganguly left out the women, and the other Hindu locals speaking and weeping at the “stage-managed tour,” as she wrote on September 27 that “no one has been able to independently verify the Burmese government’s most recent allegations.” Their claims of a massacre by ARSA amounted to “playing politics with the dead.” Ganguly did call for justice if a credible investigation finds ARSA militants guilty, but she reasons that this is unlikely to happen, and doesn’t call for one. [46]

Ganguly then compared this dubious story to “refugees in Bangladesh” sharing “horrific accounts of soldiers conducting summary executions, burning people alive, and rampant sexual violence.” These are also unverified, but HRW has issued two detailed reports and several statements and press releases about them. They’ve called for investigations, conducted their own in the meantime, and presented the results as they demanded accountability. While other refugees there corroborate and are the source for the “government’s most recent allegations,” and HRW would be just as capable of reporting on that, they somehow missed every chance to do so, and have failed to address their horrific accounts except with this hit piece. [47]

Exiled opposition activist Maung Zarni considered the womens’ story part of a disinformation campaign “to expand the circle of enemies against the Rohingya” to hopefully include India. He too ignored the women and all other witnesses, apparently seeing them as irrelevant appendages of the regime. “The information [about the corpses] has come from the Burmese military and government and not an independent source,” he told the Dakha Tribune [48] Zarni’s idea of an independent source would usually be a refugee speaking Rohingya in a Bangladeshi camp. Ironically, it seems some of those first called the mass grave location in to the authorities.

Mahadi Al Hasnat cites ARSA fighter Mohammad Ayes, who joined up just before the offensive: “The army is playing a game. The Buddhists and government agents attacked the Hindu villages so that they can justify the military crackdown targeted on Muslim eradication.” He seems sure that Hindus were killed, but not by them, and alleged that these Hindus “were blaming Muslims to express their loyalty towards the government.” [49]

But another ARSA member who claimed to be a commander told Hasnat the victims were probably Muslims. “Now they are showing those bodies and forcing the Hindu people to cry in front of the bodies and say that those corpses were their relatives … to destroy the evidence they are posing Muslim bodies as Hindu bodies.” [50]

Rohingya news agency Kaladan, as noted above, heard a different date of August 26, helping weaken the case against ARSA and challenge the emerging narrative. As it happens, this was run on on September 27, as the bodies were found. And deeper deception was suspected; that report noted “Rohingya refugees from northern Maungdaw are now wondering about the identities of the bodies allegedly found in the mass graves. There have been reports of killings of hundreds of Rohingya civilians by Burmese security forces in Tula Toli” (see part 3, section 3.3) and other areas to the south “in late August.” [51] This possibility will be considered again in relation to another specific massacre story HRW helped sow that might be the alternate story for the bodies found near Kha Maung Seik (see part 3, section 3.2).

Some of these cite ARSA’s denial of all charges as if it were evidence of some value, as if they would admit to this if they had done it. As their official Twitter account put it September 27: “Burmese Govt has to Stop ‘Victim Blaming’, Allow Investigations into Atrocities; ARSA Denies of Targeting Civilians.” A fuller statement attached denies specific crimes alleged in the Hindu villages on August 25. Someone posted in support a snippet of the August 29 video of the captive Hindu women. [52]

But this is illogical. ARSA is the most likely to dress in black and hack-up non-Muslims while shouting Allahu Akbar. That’s especially so if they overran security in the area just hours before this, as they likely did. And only the Hindu women’s’ second and final story gives a good reason for their survival, and their spouting the Islamist-flavored first story from inside the Muslim camp, after converting to Islam.

It’s also noteworthy that the villages these kidnappings happened in are among areas mapped as Rohingya villages burned in the government’s campaign. [53] Hindu Rohingya residents report ARSA was responsible for the part of the burning they witnessed. For example, an older woman says her home and property were all burned by Arakan party (ARSA). [54]

After hearing different versions, Hasnat’s report captioned a photo of Anika Dhar with the following fact: “Her husband Milon was shot dead by the Myanmar army on August 27.” [55] Anything remains possible, but the reasons are overwhelming to believe  ARSA and/or Islamist allies of theirs are behind this massacre. And if so, how many other killings and burning were by them? How many other stories lodged in their favor are false like the one they coerced from these women?

References

1. general reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kha_Maung_Seik_massacre – http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2018/01/kha-maung-seik-massacre-data-dump.html
2. “Rohingya say their village is lost to Myanmar’s spiraling conflict” by Reuters Staff September 6, 2017 / 10:25 PM https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-village/rohingya-say-their-village-is-lost-to-myanmars-spiraling-conflict-idUSKCN1BI0GI
3. “Refugees question Burmese government’s report of mass Hindu graves.” Kaladan News, 27 September 2017 www.kaladanpress.org/index.php/news/413-news-2017/september-2017/5149-refugees-question-burmese-government’s-report-of-mass-hindu-graves.html
4. www.dhakatribune.com/world/south-asia/2017/09/19/rohingya-hindu-horror-myanmar-military/
5. “Hindu Families’s Statement against pro-axis Rakhines and Govt.” Rohingya VisionTV Published on Aug 29, 2017 (California time, so by mid-day of theb 30th in the area) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1AyY_9v78E
6. see 2
8. 5. see 3
9. See 4
10. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1xrk89bjIw 1:50
11. see 4, 2:47
12. see 6
13. see 4
14. “Myanmar’s Men in Black Kill #Rohingya Muslims and Hindus” tweets by Shafiur Rahman https://twitter.com/shafiur/status/912498127344562176 – https://twitter.com/shafiur/status/912425300914356224
15. “Mystery surrounds deaths of Hindu villagers in Myanmar mass graves: Government accused of ‘dirty tricks’ as Hindus who fled to Bangladesh say army was behind massacre, only to blame Rohingya militants once back in Myanmar” By Shaikh Azizur Rahman, The Guardian. October 12, 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/oct/12/myanmar-mass-graves-mystery-surrounds-deaths-of-hindu-villagers-dirty-tricks-rohingya
16. https://twitter.com/rick135b7/status/941940395348434944
17. http://www.fortifyrights.org/publication-20170901.html
18. “Who really attacked the Rohingya Hindus in Myanmar’s Rakhine state? The answer is shrouded in fog of claims and counter-claims.” By Mahadi Al Hasnat. Scroll.in. October 2, 2017. 07:30 pm https://scroll.in/article/852527/who-really-attacked-the-rohingya-hindus-in-myanmars-rakhine-state
19. Bing image search https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=arsa%20ata%20ullah&qs=n&form=QBIRMH&sp=-1&pq=undefined&sc=0-14&sk=&cvid=16509F73F233428E87B52F046CDC78EB – decaying militant – video included here: http://www.rohingyablogger.com/2017/08/updates-into-seventh-day-of-military.html
20. http://www.smh.com.au/interactive/2017/Rohingya-crisis-lives-in-limbo/
21. http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/18/asia/ethnic-cleansing-rakhine-rohingya/index.html
22. see 17.
23. https://bdnews24.com/bangladesh/2017/09/24/hindu-refugees-blame-rohingya-militants-for-attacking-them-in-myanmar
24. http://www.newagebd.net/article/23064/hindus-lay-down-lives-for-muslims-in-myanmar “Hindus lay down lives for Muslims in Myanmar” By Mohammad Nurul Islam in Cox’s Bazar. New Age, Published: 00:05, Aug 30,2017 Updated: 02:01, Aug 30,2017
25. “This area is our territory”: ARSA extremist terrorists: Hindu women return from Bangladesh, recall horrific massacre” Posted by Global New Light of Myanmar October 05, 2017 http://www.globalnewlightofmyanmar.com/area-territory-arsa-extremist-terrorists/
26. https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/dozens-hindus-killed-maungdaw-relatives.html
27. Sep 16 video – pic: girls in camp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jB8K0pVAe8
28. “Saudi Arabia, the destination for all pilgrims, is already amidst of a 16-day public holiday which began August 24 and will continue until September 9. ” https://www.yahoo.com/news/hajj-2017-eid-al-adha-110429688.html

28, 29, 30, 31. see 24

32 October 4 tweet: https://twitter.com/inewsagency/status/915607357853392897

33. see 24
34. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kha_Maung_Seik_massacre
35. 3 analysis images: https://twitter.com/CL4Syr/status/956134397312344064 – first two pits, 9/24 https://twitter.com/KhinMaungHtay18/status/911952735162920960 – pit 3, 9/25 https://twitter.com/phoe_my/status/912336331027521537
36. “Rohingya crisis: Hindus recount massacre in Myanmar as mass graves unearthed in Rakhine.” By: AFP | Cox’s Bazar | Published: September 27, 2017 4:15 pm http://indianexpress.com/article/world/rohingya-crisis-hindus-recount-massacre-in-myanmar-as-mass-graves-unearthed-in-rakhine-state-4863922/
37. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya/myanmar-finds-more-bodies-in-mass-grave-u-n-seeks-rapid-aid-increase-idUSKCN1C01GT
38. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4561396/mass-grave-burma-myanmar-hindu-muslim-conflict/

39, 40. “Slaughtered Hindus a testament to brutality of Myanmar’s conflict” By Soe Zeya Tun, Reuters. September 27, 2017 5:43 AM https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-hindus/slaughtered-hindus-a-testament-to-brutality-of-myanmars-conflict-idUSKCN1C21M6

41. https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2017/09/11/burmese-attempt-to-show-rohingya-torched-their-own-homes-unveiled-as-fake-news.html

42, 43. see 14

44. see 39
45. see 24

46, 47. “Burma is Playing Politics with the Dead: Alleged Atrocities Need International Inquiry”  By Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia Director, Human Rights Watch. September 27, 2017 7:19AM EDT https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/09/27/burma-playing-politics-dead

48. “India, Myanmar, and the convenient discovery of Hindu mass graves” By Fazlur Rahman Raju. Dhaka Tribune. Published at 01:50 PM October 01, 2017 http://www.dhakatribune.com/world/south-asia/2017/10/01/india-myanmar-convenient-hindu-graves/ Thursday January 18, 2018 04:56 PM

49, 50. See 17

51. see 3
52. https://twitter.com/ARSA_Official/status/913061262958911494
53. comparison (using a rough mapping) https://twitter.com/CL4Syr/status/951807813038194688 – from graphic by Reuters – http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/MYANMAR-ROHINGYA/010060630DW/index.html –
54. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNAScc1P8A8
55. see 17

__

The author

Adam Larson is an independent investigator in Spokane, Washington, United States. He studied history at Eastern Washington University. He has since 2011, on a volunteer basis, studied events in Libya, Syria, and Ukraine following Western-backed regime-change operations, often under the screen name Caustic Logic. Using open sources, with an emphasis on video analysis, Mr. Larson and research associates have often deconstructed or disproved alleged “regime” crimes from shooting protesters to sectarian massacres. He’s the co-founder of Citizen’s Investigation into War crimes in Libya (and Syria, Ukraine, and beyond – CIWCL-SUB – website), a core member of the wiki-format research site A Closer Look On Syria, and runs the site Monitor on Massacre Marketing. He can be contacted at adam@ciwclibya.org.

Editor’s Note: This series comprises the following sections, which will be published successively:

Part 1. Introduction to Questioning the Massacre Stories

Part 2: Men in Black at Kha Maung Seik: A Massacre BY Rohingya?

Part 3: Other Massacre Stories that Fall Apart (and conclusion)

 .

Part 1 Introduction to Questioning the Massacre Stories

1.1. Could Naypyidaw Be Right About the Crisis?

Myanmar’s Rohingya crisis gripped the world’s conscience like never before in late 2017, as the largest-yet exodus of Muslim refugees poured from northern Rakhine state into Bangladesh. An estimated 600,000 or more made the trek, most crossing in a dramatic rush from late August through September. They were fleeing villages leveled by fire and, the refugees said, leaving behind thousands of loved ones who were murdered in the government’s campaign against them. They remain there now, months later.

Repatriation discussion are underway, but many fear it’s a plan to return them for the slaughter. Suffering appalling conditions in the crowded camps, still most displaced Rohingya we hear from swear they don’t want to return to Myanmar (also known as Burma) as long as they’ll be at the mercy of the nation’s government. At least two Rohingya leaders have been shot or stabbed to death inside the camps in January. It seems extremists opposing repatriation killed these men because they were working on that, and/or putting the killers’ names on some “list” they didn’t want to be on. [1]

So even as attention fades, the crisis continues, and the underlying issues remain unsettled. In fact the true issues might remain unknown.

What we do know is hundreds of villages have burned down, as carefully mapped from space, running all down the northern Rakhine coast. We know over half a million people have fled. And we know this latest and largest crisis started early on August 25, with unprecedented attacks by the  opposition forces of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) on 30 security posts at once across the area. Killing several soldiers and policemen, this unexpectedly bold move  obviously sparked a government response – a “clearance operation.” As we hear it, it’s one of collective punishment against Myanmar’s Muslim community. Considering them foreign “Bengalis,” the authorities decided to suddenly and blatantly “clear” them out of Myanmar altogether, into squalid camps over the border or, when possible, into freshly-dug holes in the dirt.

A lively debate has emerged as to whether this is just ethnic cleansing or if it classes as genocide. As the allegations push Myanmar back towards the “rogue regime” category, sanctions have been placed and all forms of friendly interaction are under review.  Honors extended to hoped reformer Aung San Suu Kyi, including a Nobel Peace Prize, have been revoked or threatened for her refusal to stop the carnage or even to acknowledge it. So far a humanitarian military intervention to give the Rohingya their own nation, like a south Asian Kosovo, is not proposed, but certainly the idea has gained a big boost.

But what we don’t know about the crisis could fill volumes. There has been virtually no debate about the accuracy of the information all this concern is based on, and such a lack of skepticism has the potential to blind the world community to the true situation.

The government in Myanmar’s capitol Naypyidaw denies the refugee camp narrative entirely. With a straight face but to loud guffaws, Suu Kyi and the rest continue to deny any ethnic cleansing; they aren’t trying to chase anyone away, not burning any homes, and not bayoneting any babies. They essentially claim the Rohingya are staging a fake crisis, compelling as many as possible to rush the border, burning their own villages along the way so there’s no going back, and sowing a false narrative tying those together as parts of the government’s repression.  Their motive, apparently, is to win world sympathy and support for a separate nation of Arakan, possibly an Islamic state. The Rohingya murdering some of their own over repatriation might be part of the contingent holding out for Arakan or bust.

That narrative will seem implausible to many on the face of it. But with an issue so serious and an alleged motive so strong, it might be worth looking past the surface appearance.

Among the things most don’t know are some details from before the August 25 offensive, as related in a December report of the International Crisis Group (ICG). On May 4 “the accidental detonation of an IED during an ARSA explosives training course” killed 7 militants. In June two Rakhine Buddhists were shot dead when they stumbled upon ARSA fighters with more bomb-making material. Others escaped and alerted authorities, but the militants fled with their materials. In August there was a small open clash, another deadly IED accident, and 8 Rakhine villagers executed in a murky incident. Then, as the report explains:

“ARSA initiated the attacks via a WhatsApp audio message delivered shortly after 8pm on 24 August. It instructed cell leaders to mobilise all male villagers over the age of fifteen, assemble in pre-planned locations with whatever sharp objects were available and attack designated targets. … Many untrained villagers were provided with IEDs for use in the attacks.” [2]

To manage that huge offensive on some 30 security posts at once, the hitherto small ARSA movement would try to be unexpectedly strong. The August 24 mobilization order cited above was to all men above 14. Even if just half of them heeded it, that could be a massive new recruitment at the last moment, bucking all prior estimates of the group’s strength.

They might also have teamed up with other groups to boost their power, but this isn’t proven. CNN heard from expert Phill Hynes, estimating that, last he heard, “up to 150 foreign fighters were involved in the ARSA movement”. [3] That’s not a very large number, but a moderate portion of a small movement. ARSA denies foreign help and publicly rejects offers by Al Qaeda, Islamic State and others to send fighters. [4] But this may be simple branding for the “Faith Movement” born in radical Islamist  tradition, with members from as far afield as Uzbekistan, [5] and working with Pakistani fighters at least; ICG reports that a Pakistani explosives expert and 2 other “foreigners” were among the 7 killed in the May 4 IED mishap. [6] Some observers suggest Pakistani and Saudi intelligence links behind ARSA, or at least recruitment links to these countries, based on their supreme leader “Ata Ullah” having roots in both places. [7]

In fact it’s possible ARSA may be so strenuous in their denials because foreign Islamists were already working inside Myanmar. A huge offensive like in August would be the time to use them. Some details in part 2 of this article support foreigners were involved, with one allegedly co-heading a force reported  as at least 300 fighters strong attacking the Hindu villages of the Kha Maung Seik area.

So the network behind ARSA expanded and put its new weight behind some plan on August 25, with some reason and some motive. And the proposed motive  – Arakan, as the “Rohingya salvation” – is pretty compelling.  The claims from Naypyidaw make a bit of sense in that light. Also consider how it seems the ARSA offensive “backfired” massively by triggering the genocide campaign. But if creating that image was the whole idea, then the offensive succeeded quite well, sowing a believable reason for the government to do whatever comes next. So we might wonder if Ata Ullah really miscalculated or if Naypyidaw is at least partly right about the crisis.

Authorities also accuse the “Bengali terrorists” of killing security forces and civilians of other faiths or politics. Such violence would be counter-productive if they were caught, complicating their picture. So it’s worth wondering why they might plunge ahead.

• They would attack army bases and police stations mainly as provocation for the crackdown their story needed, but also maybe because they needed to seize more weapons, or to disrupt security so they could freely engage in some criminal activity. We know they attacked these places, but it’s not certain why.
• Maybe they would attack civilians to rob some people, to have more burned areas to be seen from space and describe as Rohingya, to get some bodies to describe as Rohingya to prove their massacre claims, or to secure some non-Muslim refugees to press into parroting their narrative (evidence for each of these motives appears throughout the parts of this article).

We, the global public, don’t know or agree on such attacks happening. But these are examples to show how there might be adequate reason for both lines of action alleged – basically oppressing others while faking repression against themselves.

After the offensive began, the ICG report explains at least three non-Muslim (Buddhist) villages were attacked and burned. Two of these came after and one before “Ata Ullah issued WhatsApp audio messages instructing his followers to burn down Rakhine Buddhist villages with Molotov cocktails” in revenge, on August 28 – a reversal of prior public statements. Two Hindu villages were also reported burned, but stood as unconfirmed by ICG. [8] Part 2 explains how likely one of those Hindu village attacks was. Other such incidents are possible, but may have gone ignored or even laundered as attacks on Rohingya, especially regarding non-Muslim areas in mixed villages, as opposed to strictly non-Muslim villages (see part 3, section 3.4 for a specific possibility).

Conversely, many Rohingya villages didn’t burn and weren’t emptied, and despite the mass exodus, a majority of Rakhine state’s Muslim still live there. CNN credits estimates of 60% of their villages as not empty, with most of those still full (some witnessed a partial flight). This may include the many villages with mixed populations, but not likely better-secured towns and cities, like Sittwe and Maungdaw, where nearly all the Rohingya likely stayed put. [9] That means most of their towns and homes were spared from the “ethnic cleansing.” Or perhaps it’s truer to say most Rohingya refused the calls to participate in the crisis performance.

Let’s consider this in the latter sense. That would mean in such places few citizens if any ran off to the border to play refugee.  Few if any were murdered, and any fires they set were contained. The village chief will have urged calm, may have reported some troublemakers, and will likely be called a government collaborator. He might even be killed by ARSA types for treason against their Arakan jihad.

Just such a story unfolded in Du Nyaung Pin Gyee outside Maungdaw, at least as reported by The Irrawaddy, a pro-government newspaper. By this, some locals did leave but most chose not to, and they were never attacked by anyone. Village headsman Shaw Feik Amen had urged calm and unity, which held through the immediate crisis and all autumn. But some locals in Du Nyaung Pin Gyee told reporters they “had been warned by an unidentified group – believed to be ARSA members or supporters – to leave the village or they would be killed in the next round of attacks.” Headsman Amen held out until the night of December 5, when witnesses say armed men, probably Muslims from the same village, broke into his home and murdered him. A school teacher said Amen was killed on suspicion of “collaborating with the government.” Swords were involved. [10]

(note: The executions of local Muslims accused of working with or supporting the government – including by beheading – are not new, and were reported at least a year earlier, in December 2016. [11] Those are associated with that year’s Rohingya crisis, likewise sparked by deadly attacks on security posts that ARSA launched in October, to announce its formation out of the previous “Faith Movement.” [12])

So the crisis might be optional; areas where Islamists held sway would tend to be “wiped out,” while places where moderation prevails would remain calm, but sometimes at a high cost.

Besides the torched tracts and waves of refugees, bloody massacre stories fraught with cruelty would really help paint the desired picture. Such stories – which don’t need to be true – have been used to great effect in the past. Wherever Sunni Islamists have come into conflict with any type of government or grouping of infidels – Shi’ite or Alawite, secular, nationalist, weak Sunni, atheist, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, it doesn’t matter – apparently satanic hatred is hurled through these disposable enemies against the blameless Sunnis, often at just the right moment to rile them up for jihad, win them support from the world community, or whatever else works best.

As it happens, the Rohingya refugees report several such crimes committed across Rakhine state by Myanmar’s military, usually with the assistance of local Rakhine Buddhist vigilantes. In the leading story  analyzed in section 3.2, alleged witnesses say several hundred to as many as 1,800 innocent Muslim civilians were killed in the village of Tula Toli alone on August 30. [13] As told, some 2,000 innocent locals were herded to the beach by soldiers and armed Rakhine Buddhist villagers. First, hundreds of men were gunned down and slaughtered with swords before their horrified wives and children. Those women were then taken into huts, and forced to watch their children murdered. Then the killers gang-raped them, beat or hacked them to death, and set the huts on fire. [14] They even say Buddhist monks were directly involved. [15] One woman herself swears she counted at least 300 children and 200 women killed, before she played dead and fled one of those burning huts. [16]

According to the news, we completely believe this kind of story.

There are some genuine issues to address – a larger context of Rohingya/Bengali history, racism, disputed violence, and a long back-and-forth over the causes. But with the current escalation we’ve already passed another set of questions without really considering them. Are we really where these refugees say, with this arguably ridiculous savagery hurled at them by yet another repressive regime?  Is their word really a clear enough basis to decide how to resolve the crisis? Let’s consider this question as we turn to the specifics of some crimes attributed to the government’s denied ethnic cleansing campaign.

1.2. Inn Din Precedents: a Massacre Admitted, False Stories Anyway

As They told a different story from the people in the camps, and supposedly refused access to reporters and journalists, a government cover-up was evident to many from the start. A case in point is the December 12 arrest of two  journalists (Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, Burmese citizens working for Reuters) and some policemen who were giving them unauthorized information. For violating state secret laws, they all faced sentences as long as 14 years as prison. [17] Whatever they were looking into, it would seem like something the government wanted hushed-up.

An unusual government announcement of Dec. 18 noted unidentified “people being killed and buried” in a cemetery at Inn Din, on the coast a little north of Sittwe. (see map). [18] A New York Times report of December 19 says the detained journalists had obtained photos from here, and along with them, “five ethnic Rakine locals were arrested for supplying the photos” – that should be the policemen. [19] What seems to be a photo of one of the photos was shown Dec. 20 on Twitter by a pro-Rohingya activist. It shows 10 fighting-age Men bound and kneeling, as other armed men stand behind them with labels added but unreadable. [20]

How or if that all fit together was unclear and remains debatable, but we may now have the true story. At the risk of setting a precedent, the military now admits its forces engaged in unlawful killings in Inn Din – but not on orders. According to a January 10 statement of the army chief of staff’s Facebook page, hot-headed soldiers and/or Rakhine locals decided on their own to execute 10 ARSA fighters (“Bengali terrorists”) they had captured after a foiled attack on August 31. Upset over attacks and the recent murder of a Rakhine man, and dealing with an extreme situation they perhaps weren’t trained to deal with, or because they were genocidal racists, depending … they executed the captives on September 2, and then buried their bodies in a Buddhist cemetery near Inn Din.  [21]

Radio Free Asia reported on the statement in more detail, giving some alleged background. On August 25 the ARSA men kidnapped and killed a Rakhine farmer named Maung Ni, and later broadcast messaged from their mosque loudspeakers “about slashing the throats of Myanmar soldiers and occupying the region.”  200 ARSA fighters attacked security forces on the 31^st, but they were chased away except the ten they managed to capture.  “Although the soldiers should have handed over the 10 men to police,” the report rightly notes, they took them to the cemetery, and brought in villagers including Maung Ni’s sons. The condemned men “were ordered to get into a pit in a ravine between two hillocks. An ethnic Rakhine villager cut them with a sword and four soldiers shot them, the statement said.” [22]

So it’s fairly well established that in one instance at least Rakhines and/or security forces did execute ten Rohingya men, and even did it in a brutal and grisly manner. Some see this as a crack in facade of the government’s denail, if not a precedent for more admissions. Mubassir.com quoted Amnesty International’s regional director for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, James Gomez,  calling this “grisly admission” just “the tip of the iceberg” of “atrocities were committed amid the ethnic cleansing campaign.” Gomez called for an independent investigation. [23]

But it could also be seen as a sign of genuine transparency. Note that after the killings, it seems likely the Rakhine police tried to admit to it through the media, but were stopped by the government with the December 12 arrests. But then the government went ahead and told the world the truth – or at least a story that doesn’t blame the Rohingya for everything. It vows to punish the criminals who broke their rules of engagement with those killings, and they likely will. Aung San Suu Kyi called the admission and moves to prosecute the killers “a positive indication that we are taking the steps to be responsible.” [24] They also might now free the journalists who were jailed, it seems, for trying to report what they now admit, though this hasn’t happened yet.

But alleged witnesses insist Naypyidaw lies, having repeatedly sworn those killed at Inn Din were not fighters but innocent civilians. Repetition across sources might sound convincing, but they’ve argued this with clashing stories that shift over time. [25]

First Amnesty International heard in October that men, primarily if not totally, were shot randomly as they ran from their burning homes. The bodies were left behind, buried individually by family in some kind of cemetery. [26] Then as photos of bound captives emerged in December, survivors said the ten men were arrested while camping on the beach, killed and buried in secret, presumably by their killers.  [27] Now we hear the men were “slaughtered” after showing up for a “meeting” the army and Buddhists had asked for, and were  dumped in a single grave in the Buddhist cemetery, as we understand the locale – not a place Rohingya Muslims would be likely to bury their kin, as told to AI. [28]

This chain of contradictions is something AI’s regional director James Gomez might want to look into – an evolving story that adapts to shifting public knowledge is a sign of repeated falsification. This same impression easily emerges in some other cases considered in parts 2 and 3. Furthermore, all these stories still leave the victims of the Inn Din massacre sounding just as likely to be fighters as they appear in that photo – mostly aged 20-35, with incomplete names, and all this apparent falsehood concealing something about them.

The government’s version has no such story contradictions, and seems the most likely explanation yet offered. But it’s not likely to be a precedent for more admissions. There may be another smaller massacre or even two of this sort they’ll acknowledge, but so far only this one has bodies found, Rakhines apparently trying to admit to it and providing photos, and a story we now hear that has a certain plausibility.  This may be the entire “iceberg” rather than the tip of it.

Other alleged massacres are of a vastly different character and scale, with scores or hundreds of civilians, even babies, killed with utmost cruelty and for no reasons. So these are also lacking in evidence like bodies found. These Myanmar will probably continue to deny, and perhaps they would be right to do so. The claims are quite extreme. Perhaps thousands of men, women and children, the elderly and feeble, anyone they could get their hands on, was killed with guns and swords and the horrors described above. The character of the accusations alone  should raise some red flags that these incidents are possibly exaggerated, or worse. But despite the lack of questions, we already have some answers.

• Several points have been identified, at least as clearly as with Inn Din, where it’s hard to deny at least some of the lodged stories must be untrue. In fact the attempts at spinning events are often comically inept.
• Enough evidence has arisen to say ARSA implicated in genocidal massacres even more clearly than the armed forces of Myanmar or any Buddhist mob is. In fact, one of the most prominent alleged massacres against Rohingya might be fabricated to conceal ARSA’s killing of some 93 Hindu civilians.

While the truth can’t be fully known yet, the narrative coming from Naypyidaw remains disturbingly possible, and however crazy it sounded on the first pass, the reality just might be upside-down from what we’ve been led to believe.

References

1. https://coconuts.co/yangon/news/two-rohingya-leaders-killed-bangladesh-refugee-camp/
2. “Myanmar’s Rohingya Crisis Enters a Dangerous New Phase” International Crisis Group. Report #292 / Asia 7 December 2017 https://www.crisisgroup.org/asia/south-east-asia/myanmar/292-myanmars-rohingya-crisis-enters-dangerous-new-phase
3. http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/10/asia/myanmar-rohingya-militants-arsa-intl/index.html
   “Ambush could mark new phase for Rohingya insurgency” By Katie Hunt, CNN, Video by Rebecca Wright, Updated 1:21 AM ET, Thu January 11, 2018
4. “ARSA group denies links with al-Qaeda, ISIL and others” by Faisal Edroos, Al-Jazeera (English), 14 Sept 2017 http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/09/arsa-group-denies-links-al-qaeda-isil-170914094048024.html
5. http://www.atimes.com/article/truth-behind-myanmars-rohingya-insurgency/ “The truth behind Myanmar’s Rohingya insurgency: While the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army claims to be fighting an ethno-nationalist struggle, its leaders and extremist group links point towards a wider regional agenda” By Bertil Lintner. Yangon. Asia Times. September 20, 2017 4:46 PM (UTC+8)
6. see 2.
7. http://shankhnaad.net/home/national-security/item/510-rohingya-conspiracy-saudi-pakistan
8. See 2
9. “Myanmar government: Almost 40% of Rohingya villages are now empty” By Jamie Tarabay, CNN. Updated 10:17 AM ET, Thu September 14, 2017. http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/14/asia/myanmar-rohingya-empty-villages/index.html (implied: 60% are not empty: a few others were partly empty, and most others still full)
10. https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/muslim-village-head-killed-rakhines-maungdaw-district.html December 5, 2017
11. www.rfa.org/english/news/myanmar/third-muslim-man-found-dead-in-myanmars-maungdaw-12292016154551.html Third Muslim Man Found Dead in Myanmar’s Maungdaw Radio Free Asia. 2016-12-29
12. See 2.
13. 9. http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Tula_Toli_Massacre#Death_Toll
14. “Massacre by the River Burmese Army Crimes against Humanity in Tula Toli.” Human Rights Watch, December 19, 2017 https://www.hrw.org/report/2017/12/19/massacre-river/burmese-army-crimes-against-humanity-tula-toli
15. 2 witnesses claiming monks were involved: http://www.smh.com.au/interactive/2017/Rohingya-crisis-lives-in-limbo/
16. http://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2017/09/09/no-rohingya-left-tulatoli/
17. http://www.dw.com/en/two-reuters-journalists-arrested-in-myanmar/a-41779486
18. https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-myanmar-rohingya-grave/myanmar-military-says-investigating-mass-grave-in-rakhine-state-idUKKBN1EC1ZI?rpc=401&
19. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/19/world/asia/myanmar-reuters-grave.html
20. https://twitter.com/nslwin/status/94341781908087603220. www.rfa.org/english/news/myanmar/myanmar-military-releases-details-about-killing-of-Rohingya-villagers-01112018160206.html
21. www.rfa.org/english/news/myanmar/myanmar-military-releases-details-about-killing-of-Rohingya-villagers-01112018160206.html
22. https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2018/01/10/Myanmar-admits-to-killing-10-Rohingya-found-in-mass-grave/1481515632974/
23. www.mubassir.com/english/world/12-01-2018/news34850.html#.WmDEYkxFxjo
24. AFP. Jan. 12 https://nz.news.yahoo.com/myanmar-army-apos-admission-killings-053406784.html
25. http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2018/01/an-admission-at-inn-din-precedent-for.html
26. ““MY WORLD IS FINISHED”: ROHINGYA TARGETED IN CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY IN MYANMAR.” Amnesty International. 18 October 2017, Index number: ASA 16/7288/2017 https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa16/7288/2017/en/ pp. 18-19
27. Villagers assure the dead in Inn Din graves are Rohingyas. Rohingya Blogger, December 19, 2017 www.rohingyablogger.com/2017/12/villagers-assure-dead-in-inn-din-graves.html
28. “Survivors say victims of Inn Din village killings civilians, not fighters” By Sam Jaham | AFP via Frontier Myanmar https://frontiermyanmar.net/en/survivors-say-victims-of-inn-din-village-killings-civilians-not-fighters

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The author

Adam Larson is an independent investigator in Spokane, Washington, United States. He studied history at Eastern Washington University. He has since 2011, on a volunteer basis, studied events in Libya, Syria, and Ukraine following Western-backed regime-change operations, often under the screen name Caustic Logic. Using open sources, with an emphasis on video analysis, Mr. Larson and research associates have often deconstructed or disproved alleged “regime” crimes from shooting protesters to sectarian massacres. He’s the co-founder of Citizen’s Investigation into War crimes in Libya (and Syria, Ukraine, and beyond – CIWCL-SUB – website), a core member of the wiki-format research site A Closer Look On Syria, and runs the site Monitor on Massacre Marketing. He can be contacted at adam@ciwclibya.org.

Member of the Editorial Board, and Associate Editor of The Indicter Magazine.

Rogue U.S. officials conspired with their powerful patrons to assassinate President John F. Kennedy in 1963 primarily because of his opposition to a CIA-led U.S. military overthrow of Cuba’s Communist government.

That was a dominant — albeit not universal — theme by speakers at “The National Security State and JFK” conference on June 3 in a Northern Virginia community that is heavily populated by intelligence, military and other federal workers and retirees.

The forum remains timely for many reasons, including reported Trump plans to renew reprisals against Cuba this week on human rights grounds.

Also, several columns published in recent days by Trump supporters from across the political spectrum, as well as some from within the intelligence community, argue that a Deep State that had targeted both Kennedy and President Nixon over their foreign policies now seeks through its successors to end Trump’s presidency prematurely.

Regarding the forum:

“The legend constructed around the assassination was clearly a pretext for a Cuban invasion,” military historian Douglas Horne told the audience after he retraced many covert steps by intelligence and military leaders to plan invasions of Cuba that Kennedy repeatedly rebuffed. “Although Kennedy’s assassination did not trigger an invasion of Cuba it may have been intended to.”

Among others endorsing Horne’s view on the 11-speaker program was Jacob Hornberger, an attorney, Horne’s publisher (including of JFK’s War with the National Security Establishment: Why Kennedy Was Assassinated), and also the organizer of the conference as president of the Future of Freedom Foundation, which advocates libertarian policies.

“Ever since researchers and commentators began questioning the conclusions of the Warren Report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy,” Hornberger wrote in the foreword to JFK’s War, “the response has been: Why would the U.S. national-security establishment — that is, the military and the CIA — kill Kennedy?”

The answer, continued Hornberger (shown in a file photo), “is because Kennedy’s ideas about foreign-policy collided with those of the U.S. national-security establishment during the height of the Cold War.”

As an alternative to conventional wisdom in the mainstream media, some commentators argue that the Kennedy, Nixon and Trump efforts to achieve better relations with the Soviet Union/Russia prompted reprisals from a largely unaccountable U.S. Deep State. Historian and former diplomat Peter Dale Scott decades ago began popularizing the term as describing unaccountable government officials, some of whom are CIA loyalists operating under official cover, and their powerful private sector patrons from the fields of banking, munitions, and other global sectors.

Such warnings come in recent columns from Hornberger, (Will They Succeed in Removing Trump from Office?), conservatives Patrick Buchanan, Philip Giraldi and Paul Craig Roberts (JFK at 100), and career intelligence professionals Ray McGovern and William Binney (Trumped-up claims against Trump). The latter two have been involved during recent years in privacy protection and anti-militarism advocacy. Their columns, excerpted also in an appendix, underscore the intense current interest in these topics.

In other words, continued examination of the Kennedy death provides vital perspective about similar patterns affecting current events and commentary, including those regarding Trump foreign policy regarding Cuba and Russia and extending to investigations of the Trump administration by Congress and Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Last weekend was the anniversary of Kennedy’s famed “peace speech” on June 10 in 1963 at American University. Film maker Oliver Stone, a speaker at the conference shown in our adjoining photo, emphasized the continuing importance of that Kennedy speech by describing it with a photo in The Concise Untold History of the United States, which sought to cover highlights in the nation’s entire history in a 306-page book that Stone co-authored with history professor Peter Kuznick.

Readers here know that our coverage has included a so-far 39-part “Readers Guide to the JFK Assassination,” excerpted below. It shows highlights from the more than 2,500 books addressing that topic in whole or part. The guide also documents a continuing pattern whereby major news media (aside from rare exceptions like C-SPAN), courts, academics and other “watchdog” institutions studiously avoid expert discussions on the Kennedy assassination while also occasionally hyping crackpot theories that confuse the public.

Such biased treatments support widespread and legitimate public suspicions that news coverage is skewed on other contemporary topics. This editor’s many memberships in legal, journalism and other civic organizations include mainstream groups as well as volunteer board service for The Indicter, a Europe-based human rights web magazine, and for Citizens Against Political Assassinations (CAPA). Both The Indicter and CAPA examine allegations of high-profile assassinations and cover-ups by legal and media organizations.

The analysis below summarizes the speakers at the all-day national security conference, which included film maker Oliver Stone, shown in our photo above left. The all-day event was filmed and will be shown on the website of the sponsoring foundation. Thus, the public can assess the relevant evidence and apply its lessons to current issues.

Above: U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, hands President Lyndon B. Johnson a copy of the Warren Commission’s 1964 report on the assassination. Convened also were commission members, including future president Gerald Ford at Warren’s left and former CIA Director Allen Dulles at Johnson’s right. Commission Chief Counsel Lee Rankin is second from left.

The Big Picture

The event included as faculty (aside from Horne and Hornberger) the academics / authors Jeffrey Sachs, Michael Glennon, Stephen Kinzer, Michael Swanson, Peter Janney, Jefferson Morley, speaking in that order. The afternoon program ended with lectures by former Texas Republican congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul, author James DiEugenio and the film maker Stone. The latter engaged in a dialog with DiEugenio, Hornberger and then audience members. The locale was the Washington Dulles Airport Marriott, located in Dulles (named for the former Eisenhower Secretary of State John Foster Dulles) a few miles from CIA headquarters at Langley.

Several of the speakers refrained from speculating on why Kennedy was killed. Morley, for example, said his focus is on facts and discrepancies in official accounts, not theories of what happened. Sachs, a Columbia University professor and best-selling author, entitled his talk “JFK’s Quest for Peace.” He drew on his 2013 book To Move the World about Kennedy’s 1963 speech at American University.

Paul listened to most of the day’s presentations but he focused his lecture on libertarian themes of protecting American strength by free market economics and avoidance of military action overseas unless absolutely necessary.

Whether or not a speaker specifically addressed a causation motive for Kennedy’s killing, each segment contributed to the conference’s overall themes: that a covert, aggressive and unaccountable national security establishment was created during the Cold War and there must to be a better explanation for Kennedy’s death than the Warren Commission’s claim that Oswald was a lone nut who acted alone.

Speakers Share Their Findings

Several of the above-named speakers summarized their research along the following line:

That certain ultra-hawkish members of the CIA, uniformed military and their allies elsewhere in government and in the private sector developed covert plans that resulted in Kennedy’s assassination and long-running cover-up that extends for the most part to current times in order to maintain public confidence in government and conventional wisdom about its operations.

Those speakers drew on their own research and some cited also the works of the absent Dr. John M. Newman and the late Air Force Col. L. Fletcher Prouty, two authors with high levels of intelligence experience and bold conclusions typically omitted from standard histories.

Newman (shown in a photo by Noel St. John taken at a CAPA JFK research event at the National Press Club this spring) is a longtime professor whose 20 years of previous intelligence work included service as assistant to a Reagan-era National Security Agency director. He has authored breakthrough books challenging conventional wisdom on Kennedy’s presidency and death: JFK and Vietnam, Oswald and the CIA, and a two more recent ones, including Countdown to Darkness this year.

Among Newman’s findings is that the late David Atlee Phillips (shown at right), leader of the CIA’s work with Cuban exiles, had at least a dozen and arguably dozens more false identities in order to keep his work organizing assassinations, revolutions and propaganda hidden even from CIA colleagues except on a need-to-know basis.

Prouty, shown in a file photo below, died in 2001. He would have celebrated his own 100th birthday if he had lived past January. He had been a World War II pilot on many VIP and otherwise sensitive missions. He later held high-ranking liaison posts between the Department of Defense and CIA from 1955 and 1963, and coordinated black operations between the military and intelligence.

Prouty authored two iconic books worth describing in detail because they grew out of his rare experience that that brought him into personal contact with a number of the key officials on historic issues.

The Secret team: The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World (Prentice-Hall, 1973, republished by Skyhorse in 2008). It described how the CIA achieved pervasive and covert control over U.S. policy via a “Secret Team” of CIA loyalists placed in government and the private sector, including by Prouty.

According to Prouty’s account, this Secret Team (some of whose members Prouty helped place as part of his duties) worked covertly via the CIA, FBI, military, and elsewhere in the three branches of government and private sector on behalf of the nation’s “High Cabal” in ways unaccountable even to presidents, much less the public.

Prouty described the CIA’s core function as pervasive global covert operations, including paramilitary actions, assassination, propaganda and regime change, and not the more benign-sounding “intelligence” function envisioned by Congress and President Truman as they initiated a plan co-authored by Allen Dulles, the brother of John Foster Dulles.

Prouty’s second book, JFK: The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy, first published by Carol in 1996 and then by Skyhorse in 2011, documents his insider’s view as chief of special operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Kennedy years that the president was killed by an internal coup d’etat arising from the president’s increasing resistance to war pressures, primarily regarding Cuba and later extending to Vietnam.

Trained To Kill

Former Cuban exile leader Antonio Veciana, author of a recent memoir Trained To Kill, is one other non-participant in the June 3 forum worth noting before we summarize a chronology provided by these Warren Commission critics.

Veciana, leader of the anti-Castro assassination group Alpha 66 active in the 1960s active in planning anti-Castro bombings and assassinations, wrote in his memoir published this spring that he and other exiles hated Kennedy for not opposing Castro more forcefully and wanted him dead, much like they wanted Castro murdered.

Veciana, a former high-ranking accountant in pre-Castro Cuba who knew the future leader beginning in their university days, also wrote that he tried to kill Castro more than once in close coordination with the CIA. Veciana wrote also that he once met his CIA handler and friend, David Phillips, along with Oswald in a Dallas office building six weeks before the Kennedy assassination and Oswald’s arrest. [Note: Phillips denied to congressional investigators that he had met Veciana. Also, some researchers have questioned Veciana’s account, partly because he has withheld or changed details over time. Veciana’s defenders note, however, that he was seriously wounded by head shot from an unknown assailant in Miami in 1979 during a period when congressional investigators sought evidence, thereby underscoring at a minimum the risks of public disclosure.)

Veciana says that he believes he owes it to his adopted country, the United States, to provide a record of the past before he dies.

Cuba’s Central Role In Kennedy’s Assassination

With that background, we synthesize below a chronology cited by a number of the forum speakers. They point to a plot against Kennedy by participants in America’s so-called Deep State who were in a position to recruit operatives for assassinations and cover-ups.

Readers hear can see specifics of June 3 speakers’ comments via video recordings of the conference planned by C-SPAN and the Future of Freedom Foundation on their websites. Dates are to be announced.

The background with Cuba appears to be particularly timely. News reports this week such as Trump Expected To Restrict Trade, Travel With Cuba on National Public Radio predict that President Trump will announce on Friday in Miami a reversal of President Obama’s 2014 restoration of relations. In 2014, the New York Times reported Obama’s initiative in U.S. to Restore Full Relations With Cuba, Erasing a Last Trace of Cold War Hostility.

With that background, we proceed on the chronology distilled from the materials cited above:

Top military and intelligence officials devised a plan during the last months of Eisenhower administration to overthrow Castro (shown in a file photo at right) by secretly arming U.S.-assisted Cuban exiles for what became the Bay of Pigs invasion. (The name references a locale with that name.) The task force was led by Vice President Richard Nixon, who was regarded as a hawk on foreign affairs.

President Eisenhower, shown in the White House, had been commander of Allied Forces in Europe during World War II before his presidency. Eisenhower presided during the 1950s over a massive build-up of the CIA and its paramilitary covert operations under its Director Allen Dulles. But the Republican president had sought also to end his two terms with a summit meeting with the Soviet Union’s premier, another World War II general seeking to reduce Cold War tensions at the summit.

Shortly before it occurred, however, a secret high-altitude “U-2” spy plane flown by CIA pilot Gary Powers operating under military cover crashed in deep in the heart of the Soviet Union. That led to so many embarrassing deceitful comments by Eisenhower and his staff to cover up the spy flight that they effectively ruined the summit.

Prouty was among those suggesting that a Secret Team, aka Deep State militarists, may have intended that the Powers plane run short of its special hydrogen fuel component in mid-flight so that the overflight might be exposed and thereby disrupt the summit, thereby preserving America’s military superiority, which was useful for ongoing covert operations.

Eisenhower nonetheless left office with his now-famous Farewell Address in 1961 warning Americans against a U.S. “Military-Industrial Complex” that threatened the nation’s democracy. The photo at right shows him delivering that speech.

Prouty, the former pilot and top 1950s Pentagon liaison to the CIA, later suggested that the CIA’s Secret Team, aka Deep State militarists, may have intended that the Powers plane run short of a special hydrogen fuel component in mid-flight so that the intrusive overflight might be exposed, with the expected consequence that exposure would disrupt the summit and thwart mutual disarmament that would undercut the arms advantage that the United States enjoyed.

Whatever the case on that, Eisenhower left office with his now-famous Farewell Address in 1961 warning Americans against a U.S. “Military-Industrial Complex” that threatened the nation’s democracy.

Some in military and intelligence circles had supported Kennedy in the 1960 election over Nixon, despite the Republican’s hawkish credentials. Some hawks the young president, a war hero during World War II and regarded as a firm part of the bipartisan anti-Communist Congress, could be controlled even more than his canny opponent Nixon.

After Kennedy’s election he approved a number of hawkish policies. First, he grudgingly approved the Bay of Pigs invasion for March 1961, just two months after he took office, so long as U.S. involvement was hidden and otherwise limited. Kennedy firmly opposed direct, public involvement in such an invasion.

Yet some of Kennedy’s most important military and intelligence advisors falsely assumed the young president could be convinced during the crisis to change his mind and approve U.S. reinforcements that were needed to overthrow Castro.

Kennedy stood firm against deployment. As a result, Castro’s forces killed more than 100 of the invading force of some 1,600 exiles and captured the rest.

Kennedy publicly took responsibility for the Bay of Pigs disaster but became infuriated at some of his top military and intelligence advisors. He correctly suspected that some had intentionally mislead him about the likelihood of success of the invasion.

In late 1961, Kennedy forced the resignations of CIA Director Allen Dulles (shown in a file photo) and plus the latter’s top two deputies, Richard Bissell and Gen. Charles Cabell. Forcing them out was a momentous decision because they were intimately connected to the nation’s most powerful financial and government networks. To take two of many examples, Dulles had orchestrated the CIA’s clever rise to power after decades of global diplomacy, spycrafting and legal work, including a partnership at Sullivan & Cromwell, the favored law firm of the nation’s most powerful corporations. Ominously, Cabell’s brother Earle was mayor of Dallas.

The Bay of Pigs disaster enraged Cuban exiles and other Cold War hawks against Kennedy. Some, including Veciana, described Kennedy as a traitor and hoped for his death, just as they yearned for Castro’s.

During this period, Kennedy acted in many ways like a Cold Warrior, especially in public. He ramped up the 1950s U.S. role in Indochina to a level of 16,000 U.S. military “advisors” in Vietnam operating under CIA leadership disguised, according to Prouty, as regular military.

Separately, the president appointed his brother Robert Kennedy, the attorney general, to lead a covert U.S. plan using the CIA, Cuban exiles and others to assassinate Castro. Mafia leadership was intimately involved with plots to kill Castro, which fostered both covert relationships and deadly secrets.

Kennedy became furious with the hawks, particularly when he saw that advisors were refusing to take “no” for an answer on the question of a U.S. invasion of Cuba. By now, most of the story of the Cuban Missile Crisis is well-known whereby Kennedy negotiated removal of Soviet nuclear missiles. But some hawks at high levels resented what they regarded as a lost opportunity to invade Cuba.

That same year, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff under Chairman Lyman Lemnitzer (shown in a file photo) unanimously approved a mind-boggling plan called Operation Northwoods whereby U.S. forces would create murderous false flag attacks on U.S. private citizens and blame the carnage on Castro, thereby justifying an invasion. Details included an engineered ‘shootdown’ of a drone airliner, riots in Florida, and other murderous events.

Kennedy rejected the plan and forced Lemnitzer out of office. We now know about Operation Northwoods only because Oliver Stone’s 1991 movie JFK prompted congressional action to declassify vast numbers of Cold War documents via the Assassination Records Review Board.

We know also that Kennedy late in his presidency began issuing highly secret orders that curtailed CIA covert military, spy, assassination and regime change operations. The president also started a process to withdraw U.S forces from Vietnam after what he hoped would be his 1964 re-election. Some scholars report that he planned to drop Vice President Johnson from the 1964 re-election ticket.

Meanwhile, JFK was becoming increasingly hated by certain powerful forces, including Cuban exiles, segregationists, and organized crime leaders. Some such groups were violence prone and vocal.

But Kennedy also seemed to know that his most dangerous foes might be close to home. That’s why he loaned use of the White House for scenes in the 1964 movie Seven Days In May (based on a 1962 book) portraying a U.S. military coup against a U.S. president.

In 1963, hate mongers prepared for President Kennedy’s assassination by distributing the handbill at right in Dallas on the day he was killed. The Dallas Morning News ran a similar “welcome” that day.

Kennedy’s famous “peace speech” at American University in 1963 contained what has been widely interpreted as his recognition that his policies put his life in danger: “Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet,” Kennedy told graduates in what scholars regard as a sharp break with his Cold War rhetoric and a possible premonition of a deadly rebellion brewing against his presidency. “We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.”

High Drama

At the June 3 forum in Dulles, the inherent drama of the topics was underscored by Peter Janney, son of the late CIA executive Wistar Janney and the author of the investigative history Mary’s Mosaic: The CIA Conspiracy To Murder John F. Kennedy, Mary Pinchot Meyer and Their Vision for World Peace, which was republished in a third edition last fall.

Janney, a practicing psychologist, alleges on the basis of his decades of research that CIA officials went beyond arranged the president’s assassination an also murdered Kennedy’s friend and lover Meyer, a brilliant, well-born socialite whose ex-husband Cord Meyer had been a war hero recruited to lead the CIA’s U.S. and global propaganda operation. The motive? To prevent her from continuing to criticize the Warren Report in 1964.

Meyer died in an execution-style shooting on a Georgetown canal towpath during her regular morning walk. Dovey Roundtree, a brilliant young defense lawyer, won an unexpected acquittal of Ray Crump Jr., a low-wage African American found drunk near the crime scene.

Janney has spent decades identifying CIA, Washington Post and others involved in a high-level cover-ups regarding Meyer, whom Janney knew and admired as a youngster growing up next door to her and her then husband Cord Meyer (shown with her in the 1940s) before the Meyers’ 1957 divorce.

In recent years, retired Marine Corps Lt. Col. Roger Charles, a best-selling author in his own right who attended the June 3 gathering, has helped Janney investigate complex military and CIA records. The purpose was to identify and interview a now-retired university professor, identified by name in the book, whom they now accuse as being a covert CIA operative tasked in 1964 to help frame Crump at a patsy in the crime to allay suspicion from the real killers. They describe the future professor as having been rewarded with help to achieve an academic career even though the acquittal foiled the plan close the Meyer murder in the public mind.

Janney delivered an eloquent description of the Kennedy-Meyer murders and their relationship to peace. He described how his research led him to the conclusion that his father had been involved in a CIA plot to murder Mary Meyer, and that even ones so smart and well-connected as she and Kennedy could not protect themselves against self-righteous fellow Americans motivated by a narrow view of patriotism.

Summing Up

The momentous events and possibilities described at the forum do not easily lend themselves to a succinct conclusion aside from the reminder to each reader that the topics are worth further study by every concerned citizen, not just those interested in history.

An appendix of related columns is below. It includes, most immediately below, three factors supporting skepticism toward the Warren Report that are so widely accepted among expert critics as to be barely mentioned during the June program, although worth noting here for a general audience.

We noted above also that President Trump is expected to revert later this week to previous restrictions on Cuba in an effort to win support from hawkish members of the Cuban exile community, particularly in Florida. The public can safely predict also denunciations of Cuba’s human rights record but we should not expect any reference from the president or his supporters of the well-documented assassination plots and other carnage plotted by the United States that is described above.

Even more important, we noted also above a number of defenses for the Trump presidency that are being voiced by political and intelligence experts who assert Trump is being railroaded out of office by a Deep State for foreign policy reasons that seem similar to those that felled Kennedy and Nixon. Those assertions are too serious and complex to be treated here as an afterthought. Their claims (and their shortcomings) deserve thorough examination, building on the background provided above.

Three Major Criticisms of the Warren Report

Critics of the Warren Report area are heavily represented in the more than 2,500 books addressing the Kennedy assassination in whole or part. Such research has illuminated the following three criticisms of the report. These matters are so well-known to experts in the field that the June 3 conference speakers barely touched on them. But they should prove valuable to summarize here for general readers who rely on conventional news accounts, books and films that almost never examine these points in order to maintain public confidence in the Warren Report and otherwise to maintain public confidence in authorities:

First is that compelling witnesses and scientific evidence exists that Oswald could not have fired all shots by himself from behind the president. Many witnesses and forensic experts focus especially on a fatal shot, which they believe hit the president on his right temple from the direction of a picket fence on a grassy knoll and not from the building behind the president where Lee Harvey Oswald worked.

A second widely researched conclusion among many experts is that Oswald was most likely a low-level covert U.S. government asset when he undertook outwardly suspicious activities, probably on assignment or with other incentive to advance his undercover career. Oswald (shown in uniform) worked in Japan as a U.S. Marine technician with high-security clearance on the ultra-secret U-2 spy plane project. He traveled to the Soviet Union in 1959 as a supposed defector. But the U.S. government allowed his return in 1962 with his Russian-born wife. Oswald’s activities involved extensive, albeit scattered, contacts with U.S. military, State Department, CIA, and ex-FBI personnel. For example, Oswald worked for six months beginning in October 1962 at Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall, a graphic arts company that reputedly handled classified U-2 photographs, including from U-2 flights over Cuba. That was a remarkable job for a supposed Soviet defector and pro-Communist. Oswald began work at the company the same month as the Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought the world closer to nuclear war than ever in history. In sum, Oswald could well have been the “patsy” that he claimed to be before mobster Jack Ruby murdered him in a Dallas police station, keeping him quiet. It is possible that Oswald never fired a shot at Kennedy. At most, Oswald complicity in any plot is far more complicated than portrayed in official accounts.

Finally, many experts believe the Warren Commission and its staff were deterred from a full investigation because of sophisticated disinformation plot whereby commissioners, staff and top media executives, among others, were convinced that a full investigation might lead to complicity by the Soviet Union and/or Cuba in Kennedy’s murder. Therefore, authorities and media owners (many of them heavily influenced by the CIA in Cord Meyer-led Operation Mockingbird propaganda program) believed they were helping avoid potential nuclear war with the Soviet Union by accepting assurances that the world could remain at peace by blaming JFK’s death entirely on Oswald instead of global Communists.

That theory helps makes understandable such otherwise puzzling developments as reliance by the Commission and FBI on flawed evidence and the media’s reluctance to explore leads that would disprove the official version. As time passes, institutions protect their brand names by hoping the mess disappears without embarrassing disclosures.

In the 1960s, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison (shown in a file photo) tried to expose the facts by indicting New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw on murder conspiracy charges. But Shaw falsely denied his intelligence ties, and won a prompt jury acquittal by a prosecution hampered by the untimely death of many witnesses and a nationwide media smear campaign against Garrison. The prosecutor’s view of the case lives on via a 27-minute video he recorded in response to the NBC News attacks on him. It’s apparent also in Stone’s 1991 film JFK based on his story. Both the Garrison video and the JFK film have been amplified by then missing evidence, including some four million pages of declassified documents relevant to the assassination, with the final batch due for release by the National Archives on Oct. 26.

Justice Integrity Project Readers Guide To JFK Assassination

By Andrew Kreig, JIP Editor, CAPA Board member and Associate Editor and Board member of The Indicter

What follows are excerpt’s from our Project’s so-far 38-previous segments of a “Readers Guide” to the assassination begun in 2013 to underscore both the 50th anniversary of the death and its continuing relevance, particularly slanted media, government, and academic treatment of the death that serves as a Rosetta Stone to similar slanted coverage sensitive matters extending through the decades to today’s news.

The Justice Integrity Project is an active supporter of Citizens Against Political Assassinations (CAPA) and The Indicter, each of which investigates suspected political assassinations around the world. The Project’s most recent previous column on these topics for the Readers Guide was JFK Birthday Prompts Inspiration, Art, Advocacy, Snark on June 2, 2017, with this beginning. “The 100th birthday anniversary of President John F. Kennedy on May 29 prompted many memorials about the late president’s enduring popularity, the continuing controversies over his murder, and at least one prominent display of mockery of the late president by a big newspaper.”

In the Readers Guide below, a red asterisk (*) denotes major articles in the series. Other articles may be regarded as more routine or duplicative treatments sometimes covering specific events.

At right is a photo by this editor in Dallas showing Dealey Plaza. The Texas Book Depository Building where accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald worked is behind the row of trees. The car in the center lane is near the location of President Kennedy’s limo at the time of his fatal shooting. The “X” mark is repeatedly painted on the street by author and photographic expert Robert Grodin as reminder of the horrific crime that Dallas authorities seek to expunge by removing the X.

1. Project Launches JFK Assassination Readers’ Guide, Oct. 16, 2013.
2. Project Provides JFK Readers Guide To New Books, Videos, Oct. 26, 2013. This is a list of new books and films in 2013.
3. Disputes Erupt Over NY Times, New Yorker, Washington Post Reviews of JFK Murder, Nov. 7, 2013. *
4. Self-Censorship In JFK TV Treatments Duplicates Corporate Print Media’s Apathy, Cowardice, Nov. 7, 2013.
5. ‘Puppetry’ Hardback Launched Nov. 19 at DC Author Forum on ‘White House Mysteries & Media,’  Nov. 19, 2013.
6. Major Media Stick With Oswald ‘Lone Gunman’ JFK Theory, Nov. 27, 2013.
   
7. JFK Murder Scene Trapped Its Victim In Kill Zone, Nov. 30, 2013.
8. Project Lists JFK Assassination Reports, Archives, Videos, Events, Nov. 2, 2013. *
9. JFK Murder, The CIA, and 8 Things Every American Should Know, Dec. 9, 2013. *
10. JFK Murder Prompts Expert Reader Reactions, Dec. 19, 2013. Reactions to our Dec. 9 column.
11. Have Spy Agencies Co-Opted Presidents and the Press? Dec. 23, 2013. *
12. Don’t Be Fooled By ‘Conspiracy Theory’ Smears, May 26, 2014. *
13. Experts To Reveal Secrets of JFK Murder, Cover-up at Sept. 26-28 DC Forum , Sept. 5, 2014.
14. Washington Post Still Selling Warren Report 50 Years Later, Sept. 22, 2014. *
15. JFK Experts To Explode Myths, Sign Books In DC Sept. 26-28, Sept. 24, 2014.
16. Former Cuban Militant Leader Claims CIA Meeting With Oswald Before JFK Killing, Sept. 27, 2014. *
17. JFK Readers Guide: Assassination Books, Reports, Oct. 15, 2014. *
18. Former House JFK Murder Prober Alleges CIA ‘Lied,’ Seeks Hidden Records, Oct. 18, 2014. *
19. The JFK Murder ‘Cover-up’ Still Matters — As Does C-SPAN’s Coverage, Nov. 11, 2014. *
20. JFK, Nov. 22 and the Continuing Cover-Up, Nov. 24, 2014. *
21. JFK Assassination Readers Guide To 2013-14 Events, Nov. 28, 2014. *
22. CIA, Empowered by JFK Murder Cover-up, Blocks Senate Torture Report, Dec. 1, 2014. *
23. Nearly Too Late, Public Learns of Bill Moyers’ Conflicts Over PBS, LBJ, Jan. 2, 2014.
24. Why Bill O’Reilly’s Lie About JFK’s Murder Might Matter To You, March 17, 2015.
25. Free Videos Show Shocking Claims About CIA, JFK Murder Probes, June 29, 2015.
26. Pioneering Black Secret Service JFK Guard Abraham Bolden Warns Of Current Lessons, July 22, 2015.
27. Understanding Hollywood-Style Presidential Propaganda From JFK To Trump, Aug. 18, 2015.
28. Beware Of Wrong Conclusions From New CIA Disclosure On Oswald, Sept. 28, 2015.
29. The JFK Murder Cover-Up: Your Rosetta Stone To Today’s News, Nov. 29, 2015.
30. Austin Kiplinger, David Skorton: Two Civic Giants Going And Coming, Dec. 15, 2015.
31. Trump Alleges Rafael Cruz Tie To JFK Murder Suspect Oswald, May 3, 2016.
32. Revelations Confirm Proof Of JFK, RFK Murder Cover-ups, Nov. 25, 2016.
33. Top Experts To Assess JFK Murder Records, Revelations March 16, March 8, 2017.
34. Speaker Program For March 16 Forum On Secret JFK Records, March 8, 2017.
35. JFK Experts Advocate Compliance With Records Deadline, March 8, 2017.
36. At CAPA Forum, JFK Experts See Need, Momentum For Assassination Records Release, March 23, 2017.
37. Time Magazine, History Channel Ramp Up Oswald-JFK Fake News, April 26, 2017.
    
38. JFK Birthday Prompts Inspiration, Art, Advocacy, Snark, June 2, 2017.
39. Deep State Killed JFK For His Cuba Policy, Peace Advocacy, June 13, 2017.

Related News Coverage: JFK Commentary (Reverse Chronological Order)

Hidden History Museum, 54 years ago today, a President called for the end of the Cold War, Dave Ratcliff, June 10, 2017. On June 10, 1963, the 35th President of the United States addressed the graduating class at American University in Washington D.C. on the “the most important topic on earth: peace.” During his aborted term in office President Kennedy changed from the Cold Warrior of the 1960 election campaign to a man turning, to a peacemaker.

As Jim Douglass writes in The Assassinations of Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy in the Light of the Fourth Gospel, John F. Kennedy was raised from the death of wealth, power, and privilege. The son of a millionaire ambassador, he was born, raised, and educated to rule the system. When he was elected President, Kennedy’s heritage of power corresponded to his position as head of the greatest national security state in history. But Kennedy, like Lazarus, was raised from the death of that system. In spite of all odds, he became a peacemaker and, thus, a traitor to the system.

It was especially in the confrontations with the military during the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis that Kennedy was raised from death to life. He resisted, at great risk to himself, the deadly pressures of the military to escalate those Cold War battles. He was then inspired to go on to further peacemaking initiatives: the American University address, the test-ban treaty, the back-door opening to Cuba, and his decision to withdraw from Vietnam.

Why? Why did John Kennedy choose life in the midst of death and by continuing to choose life thus condemn himself to death? I have puzzled over that question while studying the various biographies of Kennedy.

May I suggest one source of grace for his resurrection as a peacemaker? In reading his story, one is struck by his devotion to his children. There is no mistaking the depth of love he had for Caroline and John, and the overwhelming pain he and Jacqueline experienced at the death of their son Patrick. (At right, President John F. Kennedy looking at his children John John and Caroline dancing in the Oval Office. Washington, December 1962. Photo by Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images.)

Robert Kennedy in his book Thirteen Days has described how his brother saw the Cuban Missile Crisis in terms of the future of his children and all children. (“The thought that disturbed him the most, and that made the prospect of war much more fearful than it would otherwise have been, was the specter of the death of the children of this country and all the world — the young people who had no role, who had no say, who knew nothing even of the confrontation, but whose lives would be snuffed out like everyone else’s. They would never have a chance to make a decision, to vote in an election, to run for office, to lead a revolution, to determine their own destinies.” Robert F. Kennedy, Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis, p. 106).

I believe John Kennedy was at least partially raised from the dead of the national security state by the life of his children. The heroic peacemaking of his final months, with his acceptance of its likely cost in his own death, was, I suspect, partly a result of the universal life he saw in and through them.

Concerning Jim Douglass’ landmark book, JFK and the Unspeakable — Why He Died and Why It Matters, Marty Schotz has observed: “What Jim did was to resurrect the JFK in each of us, and thus to set before us the task of carrying on the work he was doing. Jim was able to do this because he saw and was able to render JFK’s story as a gospel tale.”

More than a half century later, President Kennedy’s American University address remains an essential signpost pointing the way to the future we must go if the human project is to continue supporting the exquisite eons of Life exploring itself on Earth for the seventh generation yet unborn and beyond.

JFK Facts, June 10, 1963: A profile in courage with lethal consequences, Jefferson Morley, June 10, 2017. President Kennedy’s speech to the graduating class of American University in Washington DC 54 years ago today represented the high point of his efforts to wind down the Cold War. His vigorous style and clear mind never had a more important goal — or more powerful enemies.

PaulCraigRoberts.org, The American Catastrophe, Paul Craig Roberts (shown in a file photo), June 8, 2017. The conservative scholar Paul Craig Roberts was assistant Treasury secretary during the Reagan administration and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. Americans prefer to dismiss scientists, experts, and truth-tellers as “conspiracy theorists” than to accept that their government is guilty of false flag attacks. The gullible and naive population holds on to this absurd belief despite the complete documentation of Operation Gladio, Operation Northwoods, the Gulf of Tonkin fake incident, and so on. One of the most frustrating experiences is the American who says, “If there was a conspiracy, someone would have talked.” Yes, of course, they do talk, and it has no effect whatsoever.

For example, Israel’s attack 50 years ago today on the USS Liberty, which killed 35 American sailors and wounded 174, is still an official coverup despite the complete and total exposure of the attack by Admiral Tom Moorer, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Rear Admiral Merlin Staring, judge advocate general of the US Navy, James Akins, Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, General Ray Davis, assistant commandant of the US Marines, Captain Ward Boston, one of the US naval officers ordered to produce the cover up, by every surviving member of the USS Liberty’s crew, and by testimony of Israeli pilots involved in the attack on the USS Liberty (shown in a government photo the day after the attack). All of this talk had no effect on the official coverup, which remains the official word.

The same is true for the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy. The evidence is conclusive from eye witnesses, films, autopsies, and expert testimony that the assassinations of JFK and RFK were conspiracies.

Note: For details, see also: 1) the USS Liberty Memorial: “The USS Liberty incident was an attack on a United States Navy technical research ship, USS Liberty, by Israeli Air Force jet fighter aircraft and Israeli Navy motor torpedo boats, on 8 June 1967, during the Six-Day War”; and 2) Mondoweiss, Al Jazeera investigates the USS Liberty attack in ‘The Day Israel Attacked America,’ Colleen McGuire, Nov. 11, 2014: “The Day Israel Attacked America, a 50 minute video produced by Al Jezeera, offers proof that Israel deliberately intended to destroy the Liberty. The video broadcasts for the first time ever audio exchanges in Hebrew between the pilots and ground control. At least three times, starting at 5:15 a.m, ground control is told the ship is American. By 2:00 pm, ground control commands the pilot to attack the ship. An argument ensues when the pilot reminds his superiors the ship is American.”

C-SPAN, Steven Rothstein on JFK Centennial, May 29, 2017, C-Span host Steve Scully, May 29, 2017. John F. Kennedy Library Foundation Director Steven Rothstein talked about the centennial of former President John F. Kennedy’s birth and his impact on contemporary politics.

Washington Post, JFK, the forever-young president, 100 years on, E.J. Dionne Jr., May 29, 2017 (print edition). We cannot imagine John F. Kennedy on his 100th birthday. For all of us, he will always be a man in his 40s, exuding the vigor that became one of his trademark words, pronounced in his distinctively New England way.

He was a student of history whose rhetoric gloried in the future, challenge and change. He became an icon even though he was an iconoclast. He could be coldly realistic, but he preached idealism. He honored intellectuals but mistrusted abstract thinking and ideology. He promised greater affluence but preached against complacency.

He was a fervent Cold Warrior whose most important triumphs came in the name of peace. He avoided nuclear holocaust during the Cuban missile crisis and negotiated a partial nuclear test-ban treaty with the Soviet Union. He took office with a muscular promise that the United States would “pay any price, bear any burden” in the battle for freedom. But five months before his death, he became a prophet of what would be called detente, describing peace as “the necessary, rational end of rational men.”

C-SPAN, John F. Kennedy Centennial with historians Douglas Brinkley, Stephen Smith and David Ferriero, C-SPAN host Susan Swain, May 3, 2017. To mark the centennial of President John F. Kennedy’s birth, the National Archives hosted a conversation with his nephew, Stephen Kennedy Smith, and presidential historian Douglas Brinkley, who are the co-editors of the book JFK: A Vision for America. Archivist of the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration David Ferriero and C-SPAN host helped the guests reflect on the 35th president’s life and legacy, his administration’s “New Frontier” policies, and his conception of the American identity. President John F. Kennedy was born on May 29, 1917.

Related News Coverage: Trump Probes, Deep State, CIA, Covert Wars

(Arranged in reverse chronological order. Citation to show a range of views does not necessarily imply agreement)

Trump Defenders Allege Deep State Plot By FBI, Democrats

Future of Freeedom Foundation, Will They Succeed in Removing Trump from Office? Jacob G. Hornberger, June 13, 2017. If the Pentagon and the CIA stepped in, removed Trump from office, took control, and promised a new election within a reasonable period of time, my hunch is that there would be a lot of established types, especially within the mainstream press, who would be ecstatic. They would lament that a coup had become necessary but they would justify it as necessary to save the country from Trump. And they would emphasize that the national-security establishment was paving the way toward a transition to democracy.

Of course, what they would be ignoring in the process is that the national-security establishment would have destroyed democracy in order to save it. The Constitution provides two means by which to involuntarily remove a president from office: by defeating him in the next election and through impeachment. In order to be removed from office through impeachment, the president must be convicted by the Senate of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

There is no doubt that liberals, the mainstream press, and the Washington establishment want to see Trump removed from office long before 2020, perhaps even as early as this year. That’s what the special counsel is all about. His job isn’t to investigate whether a particular crime has been committed. His job is to go on a giant fishing expedition to see if Trump has committed any crimes.

The one that most of these people seem to be hoping for is “obstruction of justice.” They are hoping that when Trump purportedly asked former Attorney General James Comey to drop his investigation into the Russia brouhaha, that could be considered “obstruction of justice” which they could then call a “high crime or misdemeanor” on which they could base their impeachment proceeding.

LewRockwell.com, Are We Nearing Civil War? Patrick J. Buchanan (conservative commentator and former Nixon speechwriter, shown in a file photo), June 13, 2017. President Trump may be chief of state, head of government and commander in chief, but his administration is shot through with disloyalists plotting to bring him down. We are approaching something of a civil war where the capital city seeks the overthrow of the sovereign and its own restoration.

Last week, fired Director of the FBI James Comey, a successor to J. Edgar Hoover, admitted under oath that he used a cutout to leak to The New York Times an Oval Office conversation with the president. Goal: have the Times story trigger the appointment of a special prosecutor to bring down the president. Comey wanted a special prosecutor to target Trump, despite his knowledge, from his own FBI investigation, that Trump was innocent of the pervasive charge that he colluded with the Kremlin in the hacking of the DNC.

Comey’s deceit was designed to enlist the police powers of the state to bring down his president. And it worked. For the special counsel named, with broad powers to pursue Trump, is Comey’s friend and predecessor at the FBI, Robert Mueller. As Newt Gingrich said Sunday: “Look at who Mueller’s starting to hire. … (T)hese are people that … look to me like they’re … setting up to go after Trump … including people, by the way, who have been reprimanded for hiding from the defense information into major cases.…This is going to be a witch hunt.”

Operatives at State, disloyal to the president and hostile to the Russia policy on which he had been elected, collaborated with elements in Congress to sabotage any detente. They succeeded. The media, the beneficiaries of these leaks, are giving cover to those breaking the law. The real criminal “collusion” in Washington is between Big Media and the deep state, colluding to destroy a president they detest and to sink the policies they oppose.

Washington Post, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein says only he has the power to fire special counsel on Russia, Sari Horwitz and Matt Zapotosky​, June 13, 2017. Rosenstein testified that if the president ordered him to fire the special counsel handling the Russia investigation, he would only comply if the request was “lawful and appropriate.” Attorney General Jeff Sessions will testify later today.

Reporter Describes FBI Probe As Focused On Global Trump Financial Corruption

Wayne Madsen Report (WMR), As Mueller focused on Trump’s RICO crimes, special prosecutor became Trump’s latest target, Wayne Madsen (author and former Navy intelligence officer, shown in a file photo), June 13, 2017 (subscription required).

Other Commentaries

Future of Freedom Foundation, Why Should CIA Murderers Be Protected by Secrecy? Jacob G. Hornberger, June 9, 2017. Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen is upset with the Post for disclosing the identity of a CIA agent, Michael D’Andrea, who is a “covert operative running the CIA’s Iran operations.” In an article in the Post, he says that the information put D’Andrea’s life at risk.

Of course, we’ve all grown up under the notion that it vital to America that CIA agents remain secret and that their identities and names never be disclosed to the public. That’s because all of us have been born and raised under a national-security state system and are taught from the first grade on up never to question it. And we’re taught that our “free” society depends on the CIA and its secret murders, kidnappings, and other felonies committed around the world, including here in the United States.

What nonsense. When a free society depends on the commission of murders, kidnappings, and other felonies, something is clearly amiss. Perhaps that is why our American ancestors not only failed to delegate the power to kidnap and murder to federal officials in the Constitution but also expressly forbade it in the Bill of Rights, which forbids any U.S. official from depriving any person of life or liberty without due process of law.

The Saker, The Coup, Then and Now – The Enemies of Humanity Try to Give Trump the JFK Treatment, Anton Chaitkin, June 5, 2017. The Anglo-American oligarchy began a coup against President Donald Trump after his surprise 2016 election. They were in a panic to block his announced aims of partnership with Russia, the end of permanent war, the overturn of predatory Free Trade, and the return of Glass Steagall to break Wall Street’s power. The panic turned into a frenzy on the Russian angle, as it emerged that Trump had been working with strategic advisors who were prepared to return the United States to its traditional support for national sovereignty, and drop the regime-change insanity pursued by Presidents Bush and Obama.

We have seen this kind of  before, against the outstanding nationalist U.S. President of the second half of the 20th century, John F. Kennedy. We have lived in the shadow of that coup ever since. Perhaps throwing some new light on those events and, most importantly, what Kennedy himself understood about them, can help us see our way now to sanity and survival.

The Future of Freedom Foundation, Bring the Troops Home, Mr. President, Jacob G. Hornberger, June 5, 2017. Another terrorist attack in London, and more predictable responses from President Trump, British Prime Minister May, other public officials, and the mainstream press. We have to crack down on terrorism. The problem is with extremist Muslims. They hate us for our freedom and values. Don’t be afraid. Go about your daily lives as if nothing has happened.

And, of course, not one single word of the U.S. government’s interventionist foreign policy in the Middle East and Afghanistan, which has entailed killing Muslims and other for at least 25 years and which continues unabated to this day, a policy with which the British government has partnered and supported since its inception.

Why not even a peep about more terrorist retaliation from U.S. foreign interventionism?

Isn’t the answer obvious? If they mentioned that, that would cause people to ask a very basic question: Is the interventionism worth the death and destruction that comes as “blowback,” the term that the noted scholar Chalmers Johnson used to title his excellent and profound book: Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire?

That’s the last question that U.S. officials and British officials want Americans or British citizens to ask. They don’t want their citizens to be questioning or challenging the massive, ongoing death and destruction that the U.S. military and CIA have been wreaking and continue to wreak in that part of the world, with the full support of the British (and French and other) governments.

Dallas Morning News, Dallas’ darkest day: a Visual chronology of the JFK assassination, Michael Hogue, May 24, 2017. Eyewitness accounts.

PaulCraigRoberts.org, JFK at 100, Paul Craig Roberts (shown in a file photo), May 25, 2017. This Memorial Day, Monday, May 29, 2017, is the 100th birthday of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States. JFK was assassinated on November 22, 1963, as he approached the end of his third year in office. Researchers who spent years studying the evidence have concluded that President Kennedy was assassinated by a conspiracy between the CIA, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Secret Service. (See, for example, JFK and the Unspeakable by James W. Douglass.)

Kennedy entered office as a cold warrior, but he learned from his interaction with the CIA and Joint Chiefs that the military/security complex had an agenda that was self-interested and a danger to humanity. He began working to defuse tensions with the Soviet Union. His rejections of plans to invade Cuba, of the Northwoods project, of a preemptive nuclear attack on the Soviet Union, and his intention to withdraw from Vietnam after his reelection, together with some of his speeches signaling a new approach to foreign policy in the nuclear age, convinced the military/security complex that he was a threat to their interests. Cold War conservatives regarded him as naive about the Soviet Threat and a liability to US national security. These were the reasons for his assassination. These views were set in stone when Kennedy announced on June 10, 1963, negotiations with the Soviets toward a nuclear test ban treaty and a halt to US atmospheric nuclear tests.

Lance deHaven-Smith in his book, Conspiracy Theory in America, shows that the CIA introduced “conspiracy theory” into the political lexicon as a technique to discredit skepticism of the Warren Commission’s coverup report. He provides the CIA document that describes how the agency used its media friends to control the explanation.

Baltimore Sun, Trumped-up claims against Trump, Ray McGovern and William Binney, May 17, 2017. The Washington establishment rejoiced last week over what seemed to be a windfall “gotcha” moment, as President Donald Trump said he had fired FBI Director James Comey over “this Russia thing, with Trump and Russia.” The president labeled it a “made-up story” and, by all appearances, he is mostly correct. A few days before his firing, Mr. Comey reportedly had asked for still more resources to hunt the Russian bear. Pundit piranhas swarmed to charge Mr. Trump with trying to thwart the investigation into how the Russians supposedly “interfered” to help him win the election.

On March 31, 2017, WikiLeaks released original CIA documents — ignored by mainstream media — showing that the agency had created a program allowing it to break into computers and servers and make it look like others did it by leaving telltale signs like Cyrillic markings, for example. The capabilities shown in what WikiLeaks calls the “Vault 7” trove of CIA documents required the creation of hundreds of millions of lines of source code. At $25 per line of code, that amounts to about $2.5 billion for each 100 million code lines. But the Deep State has that kind of money and would probably consider the expenditure a good return on investment for “proving” the Russians hacked.

President Trump has entered into a high-stakes gamble in confronting the Deep State and its media allies over the evidence-free accusations of his colluding with Russia. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, publicly warned him of the risk earlier this year. “You take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you,” Mr. Schumer told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Jan. 3.

If Mr. Trump continues to “take on” the Deep State, he will be fighting uphill, whether he’s in the right or not. It is far from certain he will prevail.

Ray McGovern (rrmcgovern@gmail.com) was a CIA analyst for 27 years; he briefed the president’s daily brief one-on-one to President Reagan’s most senior national security officials from 1981-85. William Binney (williambinney0802@comcast.net) worked for NSA for 36 years, retiring in 2001 as the technical director of world military and geopolitical analysis and reporting; he created many of the collection systems still used by NSA.

Unz Review, Are They Really Out to Get Trump? Sometimes paranoia is justified, Philip Giraldi, May 16, 2017. Philip Giraldi (shown at left) is a former CIA analyst. What exactly drove the firing at this time remains somewhat of a mystery though the media has been quick to link it directly to Trump’s reported anger at the seemingly endless investigation into his Administration’s possible ties to Russia, an investigation that nominally Comey headed as FBI Director.

Two well-informed observers of the situation have recently joined in the discussion, Robert Parry of Consortiumnews and former CIA senior analyst Ray McGovern of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.

McGovern (shown at left) has noted, as have I, that there is one individual who has been curiously absent from the list of former officials who have been called in to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee. That is ex-CIA Director John Brennan, who many have long considered an extreme Obama/Hillary Clinton loyalist long rumored to be at the center of the information damaging to Team Trump sent to Washington by friendly intelligence services, including the British.

Ray suggests that Brennan and also Comey may been at the center of a “Deep State” combined CIA-NSA-FBI cabal working to discredit the Trump candidacy and delegitimize his presidency.

Robert Parry (shown at right) asked in an article on May 10th whether we are seeing is “Watergate redux or ‘Deep State’ coup?” and then followed up with a second Piece “The ‘Soft Coup’ of Russia-gate” on the 13th. In other words, is this all a cover-up of wrongdoing by the White House akin to President Richard Nixon’s firing of Watergate independent special prosecutor Archibald Cox and the resignations of both the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General or is it something quite different, an undermining of an elected president who has not actually committed any “high crimes and misdemeanors” to force his removal from office.

Cuba: Full Relations Restored In 2014, Trump Planning Change Friday

New York Times, Trump’s Imminent Cuba Problem, Christopher Sabatini, June 15, 2017. Soon — maybe as early as Friday — President Donald Trump, with Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, is expected to announce a presidential initiative that will roll back the Obama-era efforts that loosened the 56-year-old United States embargo on Cuba. How far will the president go?

More important than the actual content of the executive changes, though, will be how the United States Congress, businesses and other interested groups react to Mr. Trump’s reversal of policies that, according to Pew Research Center, 75 percent of Americans support.

Key, too, will be the reaction of the Cuban government. For the past half-century, the gerontocratic Cuban regime has survived because the embargo has not just isolated the Cuban people from their closest neighbor of more than 300 million — including close to two million fellow Cubans — but also provided a convenient excuse for the regime’s economic failure.

National Public Radio, Trump Expected To Restrict Trade, Travel With Cuba, Geoff Bennett and Scott Horsley, June 12, 2017.President Trump is preparing to announce changes in U.S. policy toward Cuba, possibly tightening restrictions on travel and trade that were loosened under former President Barack Obama. Trump is expected to announce the changes in Miami on Friday.

The move was confirmed by a congressional source with direct knowledge of the situation. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., has been leading the push for a more restrictive policy, along with his fellow Cuban-American, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla. The changes could make it more difficult for Americans to visit the island and for U.S. companies to do business there. The Obama administration ended decades of economic and diplomatic isolation of Cuba, in hopes that renewed engagement would lead to reforms in the communist country. The White House declined to discuss the pending changes.

The administration is considering stepped up policing to discourage pleasure travel and limiting visitors to one trip per year. Williams says that would be especially hard on Cuban-Americans with relatives on the island. “Imagine, your mother is sick in Cuba,” Williams said. “You might have to decide between going to see her in the hospital bed before she dies or going to the funeral. And that is just tragic.”

Polls suggest a majority of Americans support greater engagement with Cuba. Last month, 55 senators sponsored legislation that would further relax travel restrictions. The opening has also led to modest changes in Cuba, with increased revenue for small-business owners and Internet hot spots in Havana.

Carlos Gutierrez, who served as commerce secretary under former President George W. Bush. “This decision will not play well anywhere, except for in those very cloistered spots in South Florida where Sen. Rubio and Mario Diaz-Balart have constituents.”

Shortly before Trump’s inauguration, Rubio said in a statement that he was heartened the new administration would reverse “the failed Cuba policy of the last two years.” When the Obama administration policy was first rolled out in late 2014, Rubio blasted the move. “Just as when President Eisenhower severed diplomatic relations with Cuba, the Castro family still controls the country, the economy and all levers of power. This administration’s attempts to loosen restrictions on travel in recent years have only served to benefit the regime,” he said in a statement. “But most importantly, the regime’s brutal treatment of the Cuban people has continued unabated. Dissidents are harassed, imprisoned and even killed.”

New York Times, U.S. to Restore Full Relations With Cuba, Erasing a Last Trace of Cold War Hostility, Peter Baker, Dec. 17, 2014. President Obama on Wednesday ordered the restoration of full diplomatic relations with Cuba and the opening of an embassy in Havana for the first time in more than a half-century as he vowed to “cut loose the shackles of the past” and sweep aside one of the last vestiges of the Cold War.

The surprise announcement came at the end of 18 months of secret talks that produced a prisoner swap negotiated with the help of Pope Francis and concluded by a telephone call between Mr. Obama and President Raúl Castro. The historic deal broke an enduring stalemate between two countries divided by just 90 miles of water but oceans of mistrust and hostility dating from the days of Theodore Roosevelt’s charge up San Juan Hill and the nuclear brinkmanship of the Cuban missile crisis.

“We will end an outdated approach that for decades has failed to advance our interests, and instead we will begin to normalize relations between our two countries,” Mr. Obama said in a nationally televised statement from the White House. The deal, he added, will “begin a new chapter among the nations of the Americas” and move beyond a “rigid policy that is rooted in events that took place before most of us were born.”

In doing so, Mr. Obama ventured into diplomatic territory where the last 10 presidents refused to go, and Republicans, along with a senior Democrat, quickly characterized the rapprochement with the Castro family as appeasement of the hemisphere’s leading dictatorship. Republican lawmakers who will take control of the Senate as well as the House next month made clear they would resist lifting the 54-year-old trade embargo. For good or ill, the move represented a dramatic turning point in relations with an island that for generations has captivated and vexed its giant northern neighbor. From the 18th century, when successive presidents coveted it, Cuba loomed large in the American imagination long before Fidel Castro stormed from the mountains and seized power in 1959.

Mr. Castro’s alliance with the Soviet Union made Cuba a geopolitical flash point in a global struggle of ideology and power. President Dwight D. Eisenhower imposed the first trade embargo in 1960 and broke off diplomatic relations in January 1961, just weeks before leaving office and seven months before Mr. Obama was born. Under President John F. Kennedy, the failed Bay of Pigs operation aimed at toppling Mr. Castro in April 1961 and the 13-day showdown over Soviet missiles installed in Cuba the following year cemented its status as a ground zero in the Cold War.

But the relationship remained frozen in time long after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, a thorn in the side of multiple presidents who waited for Mr. Castro’s demise and experienced false hope when he passed power to his brother, Raúl. Even as the United States built relations with Communist nations like China and Vietnam, Cuba remained one of just a few nations, along with Iran and North Korea, that had no formal ties with Washington.

Oliver Stone Wins Courage Award, Premieres Putin Interviews On ‘Showtime’

Consortium News, Oliver Stone Receives Gary Webb Award, Robert Parry, June 14, 2017. For his brave work in the field of documentaries, director Oliver Stone was the 2016 recipient of the Gary Webb Freedom of the Press Award, which he received from Robert Parry of Consortiumnews.com on June 3.

Robert Parry: Everyone knows Oliver Stone [shown below in a photo from a separate event on June 3] is a great screenwriter, director and producer. He’s done famous movies. But I also thought people should recognize that he has done very significant support for documentary projects. He has been involved in them, he has helped fund them. What he’s done, which is almost unique at this moment in American history, is he tries to deal with people who are often leaders of other countries that are under attack by the United States, or being harshly criticized. Some of these leaders are being demonized and they’re being turned into cardboard characters that can be easily denounced and dismissed.

And what Oliver Stone has done, like in his documentary about some of the leaders of South America [South of the Border], is to show this from their side, what they’re thinking, what makes them tick. And that is so important at a time when the United States can engage in horrible wars. We’ve seen the effects of demonizing leaders. And it’s not to say these leaders are great guys, no one’s suggesting that, but that when we demonize and make them not into human beings anymore, then it becomes very easy to go to war with them and their countries. We saw this happen with Saddam Hussein for instance, in Iraq, and to the horrible cost to the people of that region and to the American soldiers who had to execute this war.

So we’ve seen the consequences of not dealing honestly and fairly with people and not trying to explain to the public that these are multi-dimensional leaders. They are people that you may end up not liking, that you may disagree with, but you should at least know what drives them. Oliver Stone is really one of the very few people with the courage to say, “I’m going to do this, I’m going to present these people as real people, and we can factor that in to how the American people want to feel about this issue.”

Democracy Now! Oliver Stone Interviews Putin on U.S.-Russia Relations, 2016 Election, Snowden, NATO & Nuclear Arms, Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, June 14, 2017.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, at this pivotal moment in U.S.-Russia relations, we’re joined now by the Academy Award-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone, one of Hollywood’s best-known directors. His films have included Platoon, JFK, Wall Street, Born on the Fourth of July. Over the past two years, Stone conducted more than 20 hours of interviews with Russian President Vladimir Putin, covering issues from NATO to the nuclear arms race, the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and the 2016 U.S. election. Showtime is airing a four-part special this week called The Putin Interviews. This is an excerpt.

Member of the Editorial Board, and Associate Editor of The Indicter Magazine.

British authorities threatened WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with arrest on a bond-jumping charge last week after their Swedish counterparts gave up trying to investigate Assange on what appears to have been a dubious series of sex claims that have been pending against him for nearly seven years since his 2010 speaking trip to Stockholm.

The British effort, if pursued aggressively with threatened punishment beyond the norm, would further compound a travesty of justice that has already disgraced the Swedish and British legal systems.

The Swedes have wasted vast amounts of taxpayer money for the probe, as have the British in the latter’s around-the-clock surveillance of Assange for years cost millions of pounds. The evidence suggest that both nations have undertaken such extraordinary actions to thwart WikiLeaks and not to investigate claims arising out of consensual sex with two Swedish women who invited Assange to sleep with them separately before complaints arose.

Assange is shown in a graphic by the European human rights magazine The Indicter. Designated by a United Nations body 15 months ago as the victim of unlawful detention stemming from a political prosecution, Assange has lived since 2012 in Ecuador’s London embassy.

Ecuador granted Assange political asylum from Sweden’s demand, affirmed by Britain’s courts, for Assange’s extradition to face renewed questioning. Sweden has never charged the WikiLeaks founder with an offense but has instead insisted until recently that he must return to Sweden for questions about sexual activities, even though the initial prosecutor questioning him found no basis for charging him before her supervisors dismissed her from the case.

Assange has argued that Western intelligence, court and media operatives had orchestrated the entire sex smear as a pretext to arrange his extradition to the United States so he could be prosecuted on more serious charges arising from secret proceedings against WikiLeaks.

The transparency organization’s disclosures have embarrassed and infuriated top officials of several Western nations, most recently because of WikiLeaks disclosures that seriously embarrassed Democrats in the 2016 election campaign.

Right from the start in 2010, independent observers described the Swedish probe as highly irregular in ways that tainted authorities, their witnesses, and the merit of their claims.

Shameful Swedish Tactics

Last December, our update Assange Rape Defense Underscores Shameful Swedish, U.S. Tactics drew on the previous six years of reporting by varied U.S. and international media that portrayed Sweden’s proceedings as an attempted frame-up heavily tainted with extra-legal dimensions, including intelligence-connected personnel.

In that column and in our own investigative reports published by U.S. and Swedish media beginning in late 2010, we have emphasized that our defense of Assange centered on due process regarding the sex claims against him, and not legality or wisdom of the WikiLeaks’  wholesale release of sensitive documents. Those wider issues are ostensibly beyond the scope of the Swedish and British legal proceedings.

At the forefront of debunking the Swedish sex claims in recent years has been The Indicter, a European-based human rights publication founded by Dr. Marcello Ferrada de Noli, a retired Swedish medical school professor shown in a portrait. This editor serves on its board.

In January, The Indicter  published New Analysis of Swedish Police Report Confirms Julian Assange’s Version in Sweden’s case by Celia Farber, an author and investigative reporter.

She concluded that the crucial allegations against Assange, “as have appeared in the Swedish and international media,” were constructed by the police “and were not what the complainants really said or wished to achieve.”

Farber, unlike most writers intimidated either by political correctness, powerful government sources or both, dared explore the specifics of the sex claim allegations, as summarized immediately below.

Swedish Complainant Reported As Angry With Investigators

Most mainstream Western publications, including those in Sweden, have been protected the identities and claims of the two female complainants so much that readers cannot follow the allegations, much less assess their weight.

Thus the Washington Post report on May 19, Sweden drops Assange rape allegation, but Britain says WikiLeaks founder still faces arrest by reporter Karla Adam, described attorney Elisabeth Massi Fritz (shown in her Twitter photo) as saying Sweden’s decision to drop the case constituted “a scandal.” The report described the attorney as representing one of the complainants but failed to identify the client or either of the complainants.

By contrast, Farber’s work involves close analysis of the facts and builds such previous inquiries as that of best-selling feminist author Naomi Wolf (shown in a file photo below). Wolf from the outset in 2010 questioned why the identities of the complainants were being kept confidential, especially given the many usual features of the case. Wolf’s views are summarized in her columns:

The complainants were Anna Ardin and Sofia Wilén, shown below. The former worked for a group that organized the ill-fated speaking event for Assange in August 2010, which occurred just as several prominent authorities in the West were calling for Assange’s silencing by any means possible, including (as former White House advisor Karl Rove said on Fox News) by execution.

Wilén was an attendee at the conference who sought out Assange’s company. She, like Ardin, invited Assange to her home, had sex, participated in his company and then complained about his behavior to authorities.

Wilen’s story is particularly mysterious to researchers because it appears that she has totally disappeared from public view, beginning right after her allegations in 2010. In early 2014, the Swedish alternative publication Rixstep Industry Watch published, Where in the world is Sofia Wilén? The column’s headline continued: Who knows where she’s come from or where she’s gone to now?

It’s been over three years since anyone’s heard from or seen Sofia Wilén, the individual behind the embassy stalemate for Julian Assange. Sofia turned up on several occasions for interrogations with the police, always assisted by her attorney Claes Borgström, but it’s not known if she turned up in person or was merely interrogated by telephone as many of the other witnesses. Sofia recently changed attorneys, expressing dissatisfaction with Claes Borgström.

Furthermore, if Sweden had filed any charges they would not have been adjudicated in public or by a jury. These kinds of evidence and procedural matters are almost never reported by mainstream news accounts, which usually simplify the issues into what amounts to a smear: that Assange was accused of rape and other sexual misconduct by unidentified young women.

What’s Next

As reported by the Washington Post:

Last week, The Swedish Prosecution Authority said in a statement that Sweden’s director of public prosecution, Marianne Ny, “today decided to discontinue the investigation” into a rape claim against Assange.” The Post further reported that Assange has disputed the rape allegation and also argued that he risked being extradited by Sweden to the United States and tried for espionage.

Per Samuelson, Assange’s attorney, said in an emailed statement that Assange had “proved his innocence.” The case was closed, he wrote, “because an innocent man proved he was not guilty!”

But Swedish officials said the decision only drops the case and is not a ruling on Assange’s guilt or innocence. The attorney for Assange’s accuser said it was a “scandal” that the case was not tried in court. In explaining why Sweden was dropping the investigation, Ny (shown in an official photo) told a news conference in Stockholm that “all possibilities to advance the investigation have now been exhausted” and that the legal proceedings could continue only if Assange were present in Sweden.

Ny’s words appear to represent more obfuscation by either a zealot or a puppet, as indicated by the history of her nation’s oppressive tactics.

Her office’s authoritarian procedures and goals contradict Sweden’s conventional public image as a bastion of human rights and rule of law but not necessarily that of a nation that bends its legal procedures, as in the past, to the needs of its power structure and their international allies, most especially the United States.

As an example of those patterns, Swedish media were jolted last year by the revelation that Martin Fredriksson (shown in a file photo), a prominent leftist “journalist” who opposed WikiLeaks and Assange, was an operative of Sweden’s intelligence service.

The Indicter published details: Paid agent of Swedish security services implicated in second disinformation campaign against Assange, which began “In the first part of this series, The Indicter exposed that a former paid agent of Sweden’s Security Police had intervened with Amnesty Sweden (the Swedish section of Amnesty International), directly dictating its negative stance towards Julian Assange.”

Now Britain reportedly wants to prosecute Assange for seeking political asylum instead of reporting for extradition. In an honest system, that charge could be reasonably resolved, including with mutual agreement for jail time. In a dishonest system, it would be reasonable for a defendant to conclude that the system cannot be trusted to adjudicate a bond-jumping claim even in the face of United Nations determination of illegal detention and all the rest of these abuses.

Related News Coverage (Reverse chronology order by publication date)

Sweden Drops Claims Against WikiLeaks Founder; UK Charges Bail-Jumping

Washington Post, Sweden drops Assange rape allegation, but Britain says WikiLeaks founder still faces arrest, Karla Adam, May 19, 2017. Swedish prosecutors on Friday dropped their investigation into a rape allegation against Julian Assange, closing a nearly seven-year legal saga that led the WikiLeaks founder to seek sanctuary at the Ecuadoran Embassy in London. But British police said that Assange still faces arrest for jumping bail if he walks out of diplomatic protection, which he claims is needed to keep him from being extradited to the United States to face charges of disclosing confidential military and diplomatic documents.

The Swedish Prosecution Authority said in a statement that Sweden’s director of public prosecution, Marianne Ny, “today decided to discontinue the investigation” into a rape claim against Assange. Assange has disputed the rape allegation. He also argued that he risked being extradited by Sweden to the United States and tried for espionage.

He took refuge in the embassy in 2012. Assange’s lawyer, Per Samuelson, said in an emailed statement that Assange had “proved his innocence.” The case was closed, he wrote, “because an innocent man proved he was not guilty!”

But Swedish officials said the decision only drops the case and is not a ruling on Assange’s guilt or innocence. The attorney for Assange’s accuser said it was a “scandal” that the case was not tried in court. In explaining why Sweden was dropping the investigation, Ny told a news conference in Stockholm that “all possibilities to advance the investigation have now been exhausted” and that the legal proceedings could continue only if

The Indicter, New Analysis of Swedish Police Report Confirms Julian Assange’s Version in Sweden’s case, Celia Farber, Jan. 3, 2017. Author and investigative reporter Celia Farber concludes that the police reports  confirm Julian Assange’s testimony, as given to the prosecutor in her questioning conducted at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. It  has also been established that the crucial allegations against Mr Julian Assange, as have appeared in the Swedish and international media were constructed by the police and were not what the complainants really said or wished to achieve.

It has been discovered that it was the police, or the prosecutor’s office, which unlawfully and/or unethically leaked the “allegations” to the evening paper Expressen, which is clearly known for its declared NATO sympathies. Regrettably, but also predictably, this was an opportunity for Western mainstream media to create a scandal around the founder of WikiLeaks. Likewise, it was an occasion used by the MSM to insidiously attack the organization that had partly exposed the corruption of the governments they represent, and partly surpassed them in journalistic efficacy and objectivity.

But it was more than purely vendetta-time; it was a well-articulated campaign which started that day in August 2010 when – according to the Snowden documents– the US government asked the countries participating in the military occupation of Afghanistan under US command to prosecute Julian Assange. Sweden obeyed; others cooperated.

Nevertheless, the Afghan Logs and the Iraq Logs exposed by WikiLeaks remained published. The WikiLeaks founder did not surrender. The Assange case, already politically in its origins, turned into a spiral of increasing geopolitical dimensions.

Our position has always been that the above-described political aspect has always been present in the ‘Assange case’ and we could hardly be – in principle – interested in furthering a discussion on details pertaining the intimacy of Mr Assange or of other people around the constructed ‘legal case.’

Daily Mail, Ex-British ambassador who is now a WikiLeaks operative claims Russia did NOT provide Clinton emails; they were handed over to him at a D.C. park by an intermediary for ‘disgusted’ Democratic whistleblowers, Alana Goodman, Dec. 14, 2016. A Wikileaks envoy today claims he personally received Clinton campaign emails in Washington D.C. after they were leaked by ‘disgusted’ whisteblowers – and not hacked by Russia. Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan and a close associate of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, told Dailymail.com that he flew to Washington, D.C. for a clandestine hand-off with one of the email sources in September. [See Mr. Murray Goes to Washington,]

‘Neither of [the leaks] came from the Russians,’ said Murray (shown in a file photo) in an interview with Dailymail.com on Tuesday. ‘The source had legal access to the information. The documents came from inside leaks, not hacks.’

His account contradicts directly the version of how thousands of Democratic emails were published before the election being advanced by U.S. intelligence.

Murray is a controversial figure who was removed from his post as a British ambassador amid allegations of misconduct. He was cleared of those but left the diplomatic service in acrimony. His links to Wikileaks are well known and while his account is likely to be seen as both unprovable and possibly biased, it is also the first intervention by Wikileaks since reports surfaced last week that the CIA believed Russia hacked the Clinton emails to help hand the election to Donald Trump.

Murray’s claims about the origins of the Clinton campaign emails comes as U.S. intelligence officials are increasingly confident that Russian hackers infiltrated both the Democratic National Committee and the email account of top Clinton aide John Podesta. In Podesta’s case, his account appeared to have been compromised through a basic ‘phishing’ scheme, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.

U.S. intelligence officials have reportedly told members of Congress during classified briefings that they believe Russians passed the documents on to Wikileaks as part of an influence operation to swing the election in favor of Donald Trump.

Assange were present in Sweden.

Justice Integrity Project, Assange Rape Defense Underscores Shameful Swedish, U.S. Tactics, Andrew Kreig, Dec. 12, 2016. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange last week refuted the dubious rape prosecution Sweden began against him in August 2010. Assange’s written response on Dec. 7, with his first detailed defense, underscores the disgraceful procedures used by Sweden, the United States, and the United Kingdom, with the complicity of most mainstream media outlets because of their pattern of omitting evidence in biased news accounts.

With the zeal and arrogance of a police state, Sweden has repeatedly violated due process under a veneer of legal and human rights rhetoric. Sweden’s use of sexual misconduct claims to capture Assange stems from coordinated reprisal by the three nations for his WikiLeaks publication in 2010 that included some 250,000 classified U.S. diplomatic cables and “The Afghan Diaries,” a trove of 80,000 documents.

These materials exposed diplomatic hypocrisy (including regarding Sweden’s ostensible “neutrality”) suspected war crimes, and cover-up by Sweden and NATO members.

The Hill, WikiLeaks claims Obama hacking probe is investigating WikiLeaks, Katie Bo Williams, Dec. 9, 2016. Anti-secrecy platform WikiLeaks on Friday claimed President Obama’s probe into Russian interference in the U.S. election was an investigation into WikiLeaks itself. “CNN: Obama orders report into WikiLeaks timed for release just prior to Trump presidency,” the group tweeted, linking to a CNN report about the hacking review that does not mention WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks throughout the election published troves of hacked documents believed to have been stolen by Russia. It has vociferously denied any links to Moscow.

New York Times, WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange Denies Rape in Detailed Account of Encounter, Dan Bilefsky, Dec. 7, 2016. Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, offered his most detailed and public account on Wednesday of events that led to a rape accusation against him in Sweden, saying he was innocent and had engaged in “consensual and enjoyable sex” with the accuser.

Last month, questions prepared by Swedish prosecutors were posed to Mr. Assange at the Ecuadorean Embassy, where he has been living since 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden over the rape accusation. The questions were asked by an Ecuadorean prosecutor under an agreement made by the two countries in August.

But in a move that is likely to irk Swedish prosecutors, whom Mr. Assange has denounced for forcing him to remain confined in the embassy for the past six years, the WikiLeaks founder on Wednesday released the answers he gave during the interview. In the 19-page statement, which reads alternately like a legal defense brief and an emotional airing of personal grievances, he writes that he is “entirely innocent” and had engaged in “consensual and enjoyable” sex with the woman who accused him of rape.

WikiLeaks has courted controversy by publishing confidential and damaging information from the United States and other countries. During the American presidential election, WikiLeaks came under renewed scrutiny for distributing hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee, and Mr. Assange acknowledged that he was timing their release to do maximum harm to the White House prospects of Hillary Clinton.

Mr. Assange, 45, an Australian, has refused to go to Sweden to face the rape accusation for fear, he says, of being extradited to the United States and being jailed for life, even though the Swedish authorities have sought to allay such concerns. No formal charges have been filed against him.

Guardian, Julian Assange defies Swedish prosecutors by releasing rape statement, David Crouch, Dec. 7, 2016. WikiLeaks founder publishes answers he gave during questioning in Ecuador’s London embassy over rape allegationJulian Assange has thumbed his nose at Swedish investigators, who he says have robbed him of his freedom for six years, by releasing the answers he gave to them under questioning in Ecuador’s London embassy last month.

The decision to issue the statement, which contains for the first time a detailed account by the WikiLeaks founder of his encounter with a woman in August 2010 who made rape allegations against him, marks a fresh twist in a case in which Assange claims an early leak of information from the Swedish police has shaped opinion.

The Indicter, Controversy over WikiLeaks Podesta Emails Opens a Debate for Future Journalism, Nozomi Hayase, Nov. 3, 2016. In its 10th years of existence, WikiLeaks has been at the center of controversy. Ever since its global debut with the 2010 Apache helicopter gun-sight video depicting the killing of civilians in Baghdad, the whistleblowing site has consistently exposed the naked power of empire for the world to see. As a result, the organization has been subject to relentless retaliation. With banking blockades, a secret grand jury and constant character assassination of its founder Julian Assange, who remains arbitrarily detained in the Ecuadorian embassy, the U.S. government’s efforts to divert public attention from evidence of its own crimes have quickly escalated into a war on the First Amendment.

WikiLeaks’ publications influenced the outcome of a Kenyan election and played a role in instigating the Icelandic revolution. Now, by means of email leaks, they began informing U.S. voters of the real working of Corporate America’s tradition of lesser-evil politics.

After the DNC email leaks that led to the resignation of top DNC officials, WikiLeaks has intensified its activity. Since October 7, they began publishing emails from the private account of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair John Podesta. The archive contained transcripts of Clinton’s paid Goldman Sachs speeches that show her two faces and total disconnect from the middle class. It also revealed her private remarks dismissing climate activists. As usual, the leaks have been condemned by the status quo and Clinton loyalists. This time, a narrative that ‘Vladimir Putin was meddling in the election’ was used to discredit their publication, with the mainstream media creating an echo chamber of McCarthy-era style hysteria.

CraigMurray.org, Mr. Murray Goes to Washington, Craig Murray, Sept. 15, 2016. After a 16,000 person petition to the State Department and letter writing and lobbying including by Jeremy Corbyn, Roger Waters and Daniel Ellsberg, I have been granted a 10-year US visa. I will be going to Washington in a week to have the great honor to chair the presentation of the Sam Adams Award to John Kiriakou – the CIA agent who blew the whistle on waterboarding, and was jailed for it as part of the disgraceful Obama/Clinton War on Whistleblowers. I shall also be speaking at the World Beyond War conference at American University on the subject of peaceful conflict resolution.

The Indicter, Paid agent of Swedish security services implicated in second disinformation campaign against Assange, Marcello Ferrada de Noli (shown in a file photo), March 13, 2016. In the first part of this series, The Indicter exposed that a former paid agent of Sweden’s Security Police had intervened with Amnesty Sweden (the Swedish section of Amnesty International), directly dictating its negative stance towards Julian Assange.

In this article, I analyze whether Swedish government security agents, or ‘former agents,’ have been further involved in a disinformation campaign against the founder of WikiLeaks and its whistleblower publishing. An important source here is the activity of Researchgruppen (aka Research Group), the journalist-collective organization led by Martin Fredriksson, a former paid agent of the Swedish Security Police – or, as it’s better known by its Swedish acronym, SÄPO.

Researchgruppen is an organization founded by Martin Fredriksson (shown in a portrait via Wikimedia) and others in 2010 (while he was still a paid agent of SÄPO) that claims to target extreme right-wing or right-conservative parties, organizations that, however, all share a staunch opposition to the incorporation of Sweden into NATO. Researchgruppen has also received support and assignments from Expressen, one of the main Swedish evening newspapers, well-known for leading an earlier campaign against WikiLeaks and Assange.

The “My Special Interests” programs are podcasts in which the ex-SÄPO agent and guests – occasionally including other collaborators working as SÄPO agents, besides Fredriksson – share opinions on topics built around the political and geopolitical stances of Researchgruppen. Many of these stances are, in fact, very similar to the views held by prominent Swedish politicians who have been exposed by WikiLeaks as having provided information to U.S. intelligence services, such as in the case of former Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt.

A prominent characteristic of the podcasts is their harsh criticism of Julian Assange, combined with a fierce anti-Russian bias – particularly targeting Russia’s president Vladimir Putin. The podcasts – so far 22 programs have been produced – are each about one hour long.

The Indicter, Former paid agent of Swedish Security Police dictated Amnesty Sweden’s stance against Assange, Marcello Ferrada de Noli, (Chairman of Swedish Doctors for Human Rights), March 6, 2016. Svenska Dagbladet (SVD), one of Sweden’s leading newspapers, has now revealed that a well-known journalist and ‘left activist’ – who, among other things, exerted considerable influence with Amnesty International Sweden – was a paid agent of Sweden’s Security Police (SÄPO).

Svenska Dagbladet (SVD) (Swedish daily newspaper), When the real Salander sold out to Sapo, Sam Sundberg, March 2, 2016. (Translated by Google, with JIP editorial revisions). One of the more nationally famous left activists, Martin Fredriksson, released this day a bomb in social media. In a groovy Twitter, he reveals that he was for many years a paid Sapo informant during a time when he has been active in the Antifascist Action and Research Group.

Fredriksson (shown in a file photo) is best known as co-founder in the journalist community of the Research Group, which conducted an extensive digging job of the right-wing’s digital activities. In cooperation with the Expressen and Aftonbladet newspapers, he revealed the anonymous authors of racist sites Exposed, Free Times and Avpixlat and hateful writers on the web forum Flashback.

For a collaboration with Expressen, Fredriksson, along with five colleagues in the Research Group, has been awarded the guldspaden, one of Sweden’s greatest prizes for investigative journalism. He has also worked as a researcher for Robert Aschberg TV show “Insider.”

The Indicter, New Analysis of Swedish Police Report Confirms Julian Assange’s Version in Sweden’s case, Celia Farber, Jan. 3, 2017. Author and investigative reporter Celia Farber concludes that the police reports confirm Julian Assange’s testimony, as given to the prosecutor in her questioning conducted at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. It has also been established that the crucial allegations against Mr Julian Assange, as have appeared in the Swedish and international media, were constructed by the police and were not what the complainants really said or wished to achieve.

It has been discovered that it was the police, or the prosecutor’s office, which unlawfully and/or unethically leaked the “allegations” to the evening paper Expressen, which is clearly known for its declared NATO sympathies. Regrettably, but also predictably, this was an opportunity for Western mainstream media to create a scandal around the founder of WikiLeaks. Likewise, it was an occasion used by the MSM to insidiously attack the organization that had partly exposed the corruption of the governments they represent, and partly surpassed them in journalistic efficacy and objectivity.

But it was more than purely vendetta-time; it was a well-articulated campaign which started that day in August 2010 when – according to the Snowden documents– the US government asked the countries participating in the military occupation of Afghanistan under US command to prosecute Julian Assange. Sweden obeyed; others cooperated.

Nevertheless, the Afghan Logs and the Iraq Logs exposed by WikiLeaks remained published. The WikiLeaks founder did not surrender. The Assange case, already politically in its origins, turned into a spiral of increasing geopolitical dimensions.

Our position has always been that the above-described political aspect has always been present in the ‘Assange case’ and we could hardly be – in principle – interested in furthering a discussion on details pertaining the intimacy of Mr Assange or of other people around the constructed ‘legal case.’

2013 Background

Sydney Morning Herald, Assange prosecutor quits while accuser sacks lawyer, Philip Dorling, March 28, 2013. The top Swedish prosecutor pursuing sexual assault allegations against Julian Assange has abruptly left the case and one of Mr Assange’s accusers has sacked her lawyer.

The Swedish Prosecution Authority wants to extradite Mr Assange to have him questioned in Stockholm in relation to sexual assault allegations by two women. Fairfax Media has obtained Swedish court documents that reveal high-profile Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny has unexpectedly left the handling Mr Assange’s case, effective from Wednesday, and has been replaced by a more junior prosecutor, Ingrid Isgren. The reasons for the change have not yet been disclosed.

One of Mr Assange’s two accusers, political activist Anna Ardin, also applied to the Swedish courts on February 28 to replace her controversial lawyer Claes Borgstrom. Ms Ardin complained that she found Mr Borgstrom spent much more time talking to the media than to her, referred her inquiries to his secretary or assistant, and that she had lost faith in him as her legal representative.

As well as pursuing the prosecution of Mr Assange, Mr Borgstrom has been heavily criticised for his handling of another high-profile case involving an alleged mass murderer, with one prominent Swedish commentator describing him as doing “the worst defence counsel job in modern Swedish history.”

This article was originally published at

Editor’s note: Mr Adam Larsson’s contribution to this debate in The Indicter is an opinion article, whose content do not necessary represent neither the editorial position of The Indicter Magazine nor of SWEDHR.

Image above: SWEDHR collage depicting how CNN ‘sourced’ ‘news on Syrian gas attacks’ in fake life-saving video published simultaneously in You Tube by ‘White Helmets’ in Iblid and a ‘rebel’ organization originated in al-Qaeda, successively al-Nusra. Details in article here.

 PART I

For three years now, it’s been alleged and that Syrian government forces have systematically used helicopters to drop chlorine gas on civilians in rebel-held areas of the country. Amid repeated efforts to impose new sanctions on Syria over the widely accepted charges, another reminder was dropped on March 25: a direct chlorine attack on an underground hospital in Hama province was said to kill at least two, including a surgeon, Dr. Ali Darwish (photo at right). [1]

But a critical analysis of the evidence contradicts these allegations in myriad ways. Ongoing open-source research by myself and the community at A Closer Look On Syria has followed from the start. I’ve re-packaged the growing body of findings repeatedly for the OPCW, select diplomats, and the public. [2] Here is another attempt to provide a long but readable overview of that, in two parts. Some general problems and observations wrapping around two cases examined in detail, each of which has a family of six dying, suffices to raise the main points.

Together, the findings illustrate that, despite all the declarations of certainty, the Syrian government is almost certainly not dropping chlorine on its people. Instead, as outlandish as it may sound, it’s quite likely that Islamist opposition forces in Syria are behind all of these events. Surprisingly specific and hard-to-deny visual clues suggest rebels are murdering the victims themselves using different methods, and lodging false claims as cover, and to shift the blame. The evidence behind that is not secret, and plain enough for anyone to see. But, so far, the people in charge just haven’t looked closely enough, and no one in the media has pushed the issue. And so the true chlorine story, at least as we see it, remains unspoken and invisible to the masses, so far.

Some General Problems

Chlorine gas can harm and even kill because it forms corrosive acids on contact with water, causing severe damaging the soft tissues like eyes and lungs. Yet it has many legitimate purposes, is easily synthesized, and remains quite common. It could easily be obtained by opposition forces. In fact, by credible reports, they’ve used it against government forces and civilians, in little-noted attacks from late 2012 onward. [3]

At left is a photo said to show a firefighter called in for rescue work after a chlorine attack in the government-held part of Aleppo’s Old City, on August 2, 2016. It’s said this civil defense worker was one of 13 people who died in the attack, blamed on Harakat Noureddin al-Zenki. [4]

Note the victim’s swollen eyes pouring tears, blood coming from his mouth or nose, skin redness, and mild blue tint to the skin (this is called cyanoisis, and is caused by low blood oxygen). This is a fairly severe case, but some form of these signs should appear with chlorine victims, and so they matter in the case studies below. And it should be noted that Dr. Darwish, as shown above, doesn’t seem to display these signs. [5]

While that Aleppo attack reportedly used surface-fired rockets, the opposition clearly couldn’t be behind anything dropped from an aircraft, as alleged in the Hama hospital bombing, or the other widely-condemned cases blamed on government forces.

But it must be noted that three years on, as far as I’ve seen, there remains no clear visual proof any of these attacks really did involve helicopters. Some videos are clearly edited, or show scenes staged with colored smoke. In other cases, real chlorine is being released, but it may well be done by militants on the ground, to make the government look bad.

Allegedly, these chlorine bombs are almost always aimed at civilians and not rebel fighters, which is strategically illogical. On the other hand, these allegations do serve and have been used for regime-change demands; they violate the chemical weapons convention Damascus is now signatory to, and cross the “red line” set by U.S. president Obama. This leaves little reason for Damascus to launch such attacks, and of course goes towards motive for the opposition to fake them on the government’s behalf.

2015’s deadly chlorine attacks were mostly in Idlib province, after it was almost completely overrun by Islamist militants, supported by Turkey and led by Al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra. At least 13 attacks over exactly two months (March 16 to May 16) allegedly killed a total of 10 civilians, 6 of those in a dramatic first attack we’ll consider below. [6]

The OPCW has accepted the strange allegation that the “barrel bombs” used in these attacks held precursor chemicals rigged to mix upon impact and generate fresh chlorine right there. [7] But the violence of impact after such a long fall would almost surely scatter everything, disrupt the mixing, and produce very little gas, in return for a lot of strange engineering work.

A leaked illustration of the OPCW’s working theory for the 2015 chlorine barrel bombs [8]

This allegation seems aimed at explaining the unusual remnants rebels showed, and the initially mysterious pools of purple-red fluid at some attack sites. The fluid might actually be from on-site mixing of bulk volumes of the chemicals, probably poured by hand from large jugs (clearly not from a passing helicopter if so). These are produced, for example, by Tekkim chemicals of Turkey. This brand was used by Jihadists with a “Destructive Wind chemical brigade” to synthesize chlorine, apparently, for an infamous December, 2012 video. With this, the host killed two rabbits in a plexiglass cage, promising the same fate to Syria’s Alawites. [9]

Finally, it’s worth noting how opposition reports consistently claim that chlorine victims in Syria lose consciousness, faint, or become paralyzed almost instantly, then never move again, and breath too much to survive before they’re rescued.

This running claim raises the very low expected death toll, and has been passed on with little question. But it has no basis in science. In reality, victims should stay awake and move away from the gas, and should usually survive. It’s troubling the way victims reportedly lay still in their homes, waiting for the “White Helmets” to come save them. No one else has noted it yet, but it suggests these aren’t real events they’re reporting, but rather poorly-researched cover stories. [10]

These aren’t all the problems I could list, but perhaps the most important ones to set the stage. Now we turn to a particular case to see if this outside-the-box thinking can explain the specifics of one of these alleged attacks.

Sarmin, 2015, and a Family of Six Killed

While others among the alleged chlorine attack of 2015 raise question, the first-and-worst among them, on the evening of March 16, is important for three reasons: it’s the most highly promoted incident, with emotionally-charged images of babies dying – it has more evidence available than usual – that evidence is especially riddled with problems, and seams of what may be the true story. A book could be written about this incident.

It was on the eastern edge of Sarmin, Idlib province, that a family of six, and no one else, reportedly died in the year’s debut chlorine event. A grandmother, father, mother, and three young children aged about 1-3, their family name was given as al-Taleb. We can’t be sure that’s actually true, but for simplicity let’s call them Taleb and skip the scare quotes. The bizarre and perhaps murderous “life-saving procedures” used on the Taleb children has recently been analyzed and exposed as a fraud by Swedish Doctors for Human Rights here at The Indicter (see: White Helmets Video, Macabre Manipulation of Dead Children and Staged Chemical Weapons Attack to Justify a “No-Fly Zone” in Syria) A Closer Look On Syria’s research can expand on many other questions surrounding this case. [11]

Below is a scene from the damaged basement apartment where it’s claimed the Talebs met their fate. UN investigators accepted the claim that one of those unlikely barrel bombs happened to fall right through a narrow slot for a ventilation shaft, no more than 1.5 meters wide, “improbable as it sounds.” [12] Thus it hit their kitchen wall full force without exploding, knocking down the wall and somehow filling the whole apartment with gallons of red-purple fluid, and thus chlorine gas.

Twisted remnants of outer barrel, cylinder from something else, the Taleb kitchen, Coordinating Sarmin video

It’s not clear how the fluid would spread so widely, why the wrong kind of gas cylinder is also seen atop the rubble, or why the home and twisted barrel casing (but not that extra canister) seem damaged by an explosion. [13] So far, it seems no one, even the OPCW’s investigators, has made full sense of this scene.

At least two strong clues entered below suggest the Taleb family didn’t really live here anyway.

Black Flags and White Helmets

By the logo, that site video was filmed by “Coordinating Sarmin,” local activists affiliated with Al-Qaeda’s Syria franchise Jabhat al-Nusra (see the black flag atop “Sarmin” in gold, shared by JaN). [14] Other aftermath videos are filmed by the newly-minted “White Helmets,” or “Syrian Civil Defense,” Idlib branch. In fact, this incident seems to be the first prominent appearance of the White Helmets anywhere, their debut performance of sorts.

The White Helmets and Coordinating Sarmin each filmed one of the two emergency room videos of the children dying. This apparent team effort is also suggested by the new custom blankets used in the Sarmin field hospital: the “civil defense” logo done up in the gold-and-black colors of their jihadist partners. A further discussion about the associations of symbols/flags in the ‘rebel’ formations in Syria (from al-Qaeda to White Helmets) in Prof Marcello Ferrada de Noli’s article “White Helmets Movie: Updated Evidence From Swedish Doctors Confirm Fake ‘Lifesaving’ and Malpractices on Children“.

Left: Grandma Ayosh and blanket [15]. Right: Same with Sarah atop [16]

Chlorine Did Not Kill Those Babies

As recently noted in The Indicter, dubious “life-saving efforts” failed to save the children. [17] Speculations has been raised elsewhere on whether such procedures may even have killed them. For instance, a crucial injection for the infant, Mohamed, is apparently withheld and swapped for possibly fatal syringe rampage through the boy’s chest.

Further, Mohamed was seen earlier in the triage area, being given respiratory support. But later in the “emergency room,” he was given no useful assistance as he was left on his back, suffocating on his own fluids. [18] It almost seems the medical workers here wanted these children to die, so they could catch it on video, blame “Assad,” and demand protection.

Left: Mohamed Taleb with oxygen mask in triage [19] – right: suffocating in the “emergency room” [20]

While medical malpractice may have finally killed at least the boy, it’s important to consider the poisoning that preceded that and likely killed both girls. The back-story is supposed to make this quite clear, but we must note the children’s clinical signs suggest they were never in that gas-filled apartment. Mohamed as shown, and his older sisters Aysha and Sara, between them show no sign of being exposed to chlorine gas.

The Taleb children were said to soak in it for some 30 minutes, so they should have skin irritation and red, damaged eyes, should probably be conscious, with strained breathing and violent coughing. But they look roughly the opposite of how they should (compare Mohamed above to the firefighter shown at the start). They’re limp and totally unresponsive, with white, rheumy, vacant eyes, and abnormally pale skin. They don’t cough at all, and barely even breathe. In fact they appear dead, but at least the infant Mohamed is alive and breathing, so he’s comatose.

All this suggests the children may have suffered an overdose with a CNS depressant drug (opiates, barbiturates, etc.). [21] That would clearly be done by people on the ground, and not by a passing helicopter. It was apparently done outside the Sarmin field hospital, but perhaps drawing from its supplies anyway. [22] But whatever really killed them, we can see it was almost certainly not the chlorine gas alleged, and we’re left with a false claim covering for a mystery. These crucial details need to be reconsidered by credible experts.

There are More Different Stories Than There Should Be

Serious story discrepancies have emerged as well, suggesting poor coordination between fictitious accounts. The OPCW was told the parents escaped the gas-filled apartment along with Mohamed, and found help for the others passed out inside (with some confusion about the boy’s age). [23] Everyone else was told the Talebs were all found paralyzed but alive at the scene. [24]

The director of the Sarmin field hospital the children died in is Dr. Mohamed Tennari (alt: Tirani, “T.”), who’s also the local director of the interventionist Syrian-American Medical Society. As “Dr T, the director of Sarmin hospital,” he gave an early account to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) which supported his facility, perhaps even with the drugs used to kill the Taleb children. Therein, he claimed that the family (grandmother, parents, and three children) was unknown. He saw them “arriving at the hospital from a neighbouring village,” barely able to speak before they died. [25]

But everyone else says they lived at a known spot in Sarmin, and the given spot does match the video record. [26] Later, Dr. Tennari agreed and added that the father, his “friend” Waref al-Taleb, “ran an electronics repair shop in town,” [27] and even had “recently helped to fix my phone.” [28] Later he told Al-Jazeera Waref “was friendly, quiet, [a] good person,” who “had a nice family. He loved his family.” Tennari says his last visit to the repair shop in Sarmin was actually to fix an internet router, a month or two before the attack. “Taleb did not charge him for the fix,” Al-Jazeera reported, as a gesture between “the two Syrian friends.” [29]

Did he just forget about all that at first, as he imagined they were strangers from another town? Or was the first story closer to the truth?

Finally, the extensive video record shows Dr. Tennari was not present in the “emergency room” during the five filmed minutes when the children die. This might help explain why his later false description of heading the efforts there to save them was full of illogical claims. [30]

Dr. Tennari vs. 6 of the 7 staff seen in either ER video, none of which is him [31]

We’ll come back to the severely unreliable Dr. Tennari at the end of part 2. For now just note he may be illustrative of all such sources phoning in these chlorine attacks to their interventionist sponsors.

PART II

The Case For an Aleppo Chlorine Campaign

The 2016 series of helicopter chlorine attack reports were mostly in rebel-held eastern Aleppo. These started in mid-August but accelerated in November and December, as government forces re-conquered the entirety of Syria’s largest city. The complex 2015 style of bomb was replaced with smaller yellow gas cylinders like those used in the first attacks in 2014, shown distorted at most scenes.

As lamented by Human Rights Watch, at least eight confirmed attacks preceded the government re-conquest of each district, killing a confirmed nine civilians (with 16 reported), and no rebel fighters. Ole Solvang, their deputy director for “emergencies division” is quoted saying the attacks “were coordinated with the overall military strategy for retaking Aleppo, not the work of a few rogue elements.” [32] But apparently it didn’t involve gassing the rebels in charge. He later told Al-Jazeera how chlorine makes basement shelters unsafe for civilians or, as the reporter Dorian Geiger puts it, “Solvang suspects the regime strategically used chlorine to force a mass exodus of the city.” [33]

As my assessment of HRW’s report explains, there is still no proof helicopters were involved. The alleged goal of mass panic remains unclear, in both utility and in reality. There’s also no clear connection between these alleged attacks and the coming re-conquest by the army forces on the ground. In fact, their interactive map shows the interval between gas and boots, and it seems loose and varied, more like someone predicting government moves and usually guessing early. [34]

At least one faked scene is included, highlighted by HRW as shown below: “green smoke” rises from a blast after a bomb or missile lands. But chlorine is a heavier than-air gas and simply wouldn’t rise the way the video shows it doing. Chlorine is also a more pale, yellowish shade of green than this apparent special effects smoke. [35]

Seemingly genuine chlorine is seen creeping along the ground in at least one other case, on December 8. [36]. How many of these incidents involved real gas is unclear, but in context, it’s most likely rebels released both the genuine and fake kinds themselves, as evidence for their accusations.

Another Family of Six Killed

The fatalities reported with these late-2016 Aleppo attacks were unusually anonymous. Of 16 reported to HRW, two men were fully named, a family name only was given for six others killed early on November 20, and eight were totally unnamed: a 55-year-old woman and seven other unspecified people. [37] HRW left hose seven as unverified, but chances are they really did die, and details are just being withheld. Those identities might be hidden for a reason.

The family of six was named – to a Reuters reporter and to no one else – as al-Baytounji. [38] Most sources don’t name them, but agree they were killed in a midnight attack in the northeastern Sakhour district: a father, a mother (not shown) and four children (two boys and two girls, aged about 2-11, by visual guess).

Still from video provided to HRW of the Baytounji children. [39]

A CNN report mistakes the girl in red for the mother, but translates a local’s explanation from video:

“We were sleeping when a barrel bomb fell near our home,” a man explains on the video. “We went down and discovered it was chlorine gas. The victims weren’t activists or anything … but they were suffocating so much, they turned blue. It was a man, four kids, and his wife. The oldest boy was 10 years old. Why did this happen? May God curse you, Bashar (al-Assad).”

Another man shows coins to the videographer from the Aleppo Media Center, which appear tarnished. The man says he took the coins from the pockets of the dead. “The gas caused them to change color,” he says.[40]

Were the Baytounji Family Abducted Christians?

An internet search with the proper Arabic spelling of that family name ( بيتونجي ) found exactly one other instance anywhere in the world and in time (there must be more, but this is all I could find): in 1933, Mr. Ibrahim Hajjar al-Baytounji of Aleppo was asked for a “share” (donation) to build a new roof for St. George’s church, in the city’s Assyrian district. [41]

Thus he was presumably part of the Christian community, in Aleppo, and other Baytonjis in Aleppo might be Christians as well, even close to a century later. This may prove to be a false name or a confused lead, but it seems to deserve a more informed look to verify if these people match with any missing families, Christian or otherwise.

The witness told CNN they “went down” and found the family, suggesting they were living or sheltering in a basement apartment, like the Taleb family was. That makes some basic sense considering chlorine’s tendency to sink. Precedent says it’s a dubious claim, perhaps lodged for just that reason.

The video suggests after being awakened by the gas tank crashing through the roof, the victims had somehow gotten their clothes on (with change in the pockets, as claimed above). But they didn’t get their shoes on, before they illogically passed out somewhere short of the exit. These clues and some possible signs of bondage and abuse suggest they may have been held as hostages. (These don’t get pajamas to sleep in, and don’t even have to die when and where it’s reported) [42]

If the Baytounji family were hostages, who died shortly before the re-conquest of the Sakhour district, then it’s most likely they were executed by the fighters holding them. These would be liquidating all property they couldn’t take with them, besides killing witnesses to their crimes, before they surrendered and took the offered “green bus” to Idlib.

Just how they may have exterminated this family it is worth some attention, and that winds up raising the possibility of bondage closer to a certainty.

Chlorine Didn’t Kill This Family

Like the Taleb children, the Baytounji children – and their father, if not their unseen mother – suffered a questionable death that does not seem to be caused by chlorine. They weren’t shot or stabbed that we see, so it might seem “chemical” and thus acceptable. But the details matter.

They may have cyanosis, as reported, but this has many causes. They don’t seem to have eye damage, and their clothes don’t seem bleached. This probably isn’t chlorine, but it’s also quite different from what we saw in Sarmin, perhaps involving heat and smoke. The two older children especially (on the right above) have faces that seem baked, with dry, orange-tinted skin pulled tight, and a white, powdery residue around their mouths and eyes. [43] So far, what happened to them is a horrible mystery.

But the heavy dark rings around their eyes may tell a clearer story. All but one of the five seen victims seem to have this, but the father shows it most vividly (cropped view below). This is most likely periorbital ecchymosis, or “raccoon eyes,” Usually following a skull fracture that tears the inner lining, blood between the skull and the cranium pools through the eye sockets into the soft tissue there, swelling the area all around the eyes (“peri-orbital”), before it’s re-absorbed. What we see doesn’t appear appears swollen like in the early stages, but more like a splotchy, healing bruise, especially with the children. Most likely they were each hit in the back of the head, at least two days prior to the alleged chlorine attack. [44]

Rings around the eyes of the father, suggesting skull fracture [45]

In four of five seen victims, this can’t be any kind of accident; the family must have been violently attacked by people with weapons. Like an opiate overdose, this cannot come from any passing helicopter. It would have to be done by locals, who quite likely held the Baytounji family as prisoners. If this finding can be verified by forensic professionals and the alternatives be ruled out, we would have an even clearer case than with the Talebs – solid proof that Aleppo’s fading Islamists abducted and murdered this family and then simply lied about it.

A Big Picture Some Can’t Grasp

Hostages Down the Line?

This disturbing evidence of captivity with raises questions and underlines earlier observations. These five members of the Baytounji family are the only alleged chlorine victims from the late-2016 Aleppo campaign that rebels have provided visuals for. We can’t judge the other ten alleged deaths directly by this precedent. But we can’t yet judge them by anything else either, and the precedent is bad for the broader opposition narrative of 16 killed by Syria’s helicopter chlorine bombs. They might have all been yanked out of their dungeons at the right time to be gassed by whatever was handy.

In Sarmin, 2015, the way the Taleb children were perhaps overdosed on cue suggests they too may have been hostages, though signs of abuse are absent. An unusual number of people apparently related to the grandmother (with the rare name Qaaq) died in the area over the following weeks, suggesting family targeting for unknown reasons was involved. [46]

In the 2014 attacks in Hama and Idlib provinces, the attacks spared locals as well as fighters; the 16 reported fatalities were nearly all civilians listed as displaced from other towns, primarily women and children. [47] This strange coincidence could mean the victims were gender-segregated hostages.

And it’s worth noting all of these cases were within a few kilometers of the Alawite village of Ma’an, which was overrun by Jihadists shortly before the first chlorine report. Dozens were executed on February 9, and some 80 civilians were reportedly abducted – mostly women and children. [48] The chlorine reports started on April 11, and while none of the named towns are Ma’an, these records would be falsified to obscure that if it were true.

Map showing where IDPs were listed as from vs. killed in the 2014 incidents (Ma’an circled) [49]

So it may have been that way the whole time these attacks were being phoned in; ready-held hostages were just killed at the right time, without guns or blades so it could appear vaguely “chemical.” Much evidence says the earlier alleged sarin attacks of 2013 followed a similar basic method, with the infamous Ghouta attack of August 21 playing out on several hundred prisoners of Islamist groups in the Damascus area. [50]

In fact similar signs emerge with most categories of alleged regime crimes from 2011 forward, from “regime” snipers to “Shabiha” massacres to “barrel bombs,” claiming a solid majority of the civilians killed in the conflict. [51] All these suspicions could be wrong, or the truth might be mixed. But enough good reasons remain to hold this bleak possibility open as worth considering in each case. So far, it seems official investigations have never considered it for any cases.

Circular Reasoning in Official Investigations

The official investigations so far, like that of the UN and OPCW, are deeply flawed and may be incapable of reaching the truth of the matter, blinded as they are by an obvious institutional bias against the Syrian government. Consider February 2 report of the UN headquarters Commission of Inquiry (CoI), with the central error among many plainly on display:

Point 52 notes “allegations of improvised chlorine bombs dropped from helicopters.” No reason is given to believe or disbelieve the allegations. They decide attacks did happen, note there’s no evidence implicating Russian forces, and leap straight to this: “Given that the incidents reported were all the result of air-delivered bombs,” (an unsupported premise) “it is concluded that these attacks were carried out by Syrian air forces.” [52] In other words, because they chose to believe the opposition claims, they blamed the government. And while they don’t explain why they made that choice, it almost seems it was simply because they wanted to blame the government.

In case they need another reason, the CoI also notes “the use of chlorine by Syrian forces follows a pattern observed in 2014 and 2015.” [53] But analysis suggests these were based on the same kind of faith-based reasoning; it was said the killer gas came from a helicopter, and that was accepted without proof. [54] Now with this easy “finding” following on the others, it should be easier yet for them to repeat themselves again and pin the blame for another year’s worth of alleged drops in some 2018 report. Clearly, a process like this runs serious risk of becoming meaningless.

Power, Jerking “Tears” for “Justice,” Behind Closed Doors

Having reviewed, in part 1, the devastating evidence from Sarmin in 2015, let’s now reconsider a scene at United Nations using the video of that apparent terrorist crime. Prof Marcello Ferrada de Noli, chairman of Swedish Doctors for Human Rights (SWEDHR), describes this briefing as “theatre of the macabre.” [55] Not to make light of the gruesome reality captured in those videos, but it’s also theater of the absurd.

Human Rights Watch had just called for action by the UNSC over the unfounded chlorine claims on April 13, 2015. [56] In a supposed coincidence, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Samantha Power, called an unannounced closed-door session on April 16, to raise the chlorine charges again on the one-month anniversary of the killing of the Taleb family.

As AP reporter Matt Lee explained, the briefing was held “behind closed doors of the UN Censorship Alliance,” using the special “Arria formula” rules. There was no UN TV coverage, and it was “not be listed in the UN Journal or even on the blue electronic signs outside,” which advertised a meeting about “nutrition.” Lee pointed out that shady information operations have been sneaked into the UN using these rules before, suggesting this one was similar. [57]

For this presentation, ambassador Power had Dr. Mohamed Tennari tell his story again and show the same video footage so thoroughly analyzed recently. Afterwards, ambassador power talked to reporters gathered outside, saying this meeting moved everyone to tears, and underscored how the “long arm of justice” was “taking more time than any of us would wish right now.” In the BBC video she can be seen striking a firm pose, with eyes that are just toughening after the tears, as she channels the gravity of the demands of justice. [57]

Theatrics and presentation matter in achieving such an emotional reaction, but the only real evidence involved was that video. And as we now know, that video excludes the presenter and proves him unreliable, proves chlorine didn’t kill those babies, and suggests secret murder by the Islamists Dr. Tennari insists on covering for. This was the basis for ambassador Power’s triumphant blow to the “regime.” I alerted her to our early findings right away on Twitter, but apparently she didn’t notice, and maintained this pose. [58] It’s quite likely she already knew it was a fraud and just didn’t care.

Whatever was supposed to be so different about the Trump administration, it doesn’t seem to apply in this area. New ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley seems to feel that “to be concerned about chemical weapons use,” one must push further sanctions Syria, as she complained about a blocked resolution to that effect on February 28. [59]

True to form, HRW had just urged Russia not to block the resolution, calling on their slanted findings. [58] But Russia did block it, along with China and Bolivia. As the deputy Russian Ambassador to the UN explained, “the problem” was a politicized process, with findings based on “dubious information submitted by the armed opposition, international NGOs sympathetic to it, the media and so-called ‘Friends of Syria’.” [60]

That seems to be a correct assessment; so far, the trusted authorities have consistently failed to even begin the process of an honest investigation. Instead, it seems they have spent all their energy reverse-engineering politically expedient reasons to keep on punishing the enemy nation and, hence, the people of Syria.

But that’s still an incomplete picture. The dubious or untrue stories Syria is to be “held to account” over seem to conceal genuine crimes, the authors of which remain free and unindicted by the U.S.-led “world community.” In fact they would have been rewarded for their use of banned chemicals and banned methods, as the crimes are being systematically blamed on the shared enemy in Damascus, maintaining the moral basis of supporting the armed insurgency. And the supposed watchdogs at the UN and OPCW, naturally, seem hard-wired to not receive this big picture and acknowledge the immense crimes they may have been party to all this time. Until something in this picture changes, we’re locked on course for more of the same.

Notes and References

[1] http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2017/03/syria-chlorine-allegations-march-25.html

[2] submission to OPCW, Aug. 24, 2015, via follow-up article a year later: http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2016/08/terrible-flaws-in-opcws-syria-chlorine.html

letter to diplomats March 3, 2017 (PDF, 14 pages) http://ciwclibya.org/reports/achallengetochlorineclaims.html

[3] ACLOS: Dec 22, and Dec Seizures post (Daraya, December 22, 2012, 7 soldiers reported killed by apparent chlorine attack (ACLOS http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Alleged_Chemical_Attack,_December_22,_2012 ), coincidentally not long after Jabhat al-Nusra took over Syria’s only chlorine plant across the country on Dec. 6.

[4] http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Alleged_Chemical_Attack,_August_2,_2016#Fatalities

[5] see 1

[6] all CW incidents table: http://ciwclibya.org/images/Red_Flags_Across_the_Red_Line_final_3-3-17.pdf

[7] the precursors are potassium permanganate and hydrochloric acid – http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2016/738 page 80 – this claim was quite likely lodged by Bristish CW expert Hamish De Bretton-Gordon, whose role in the Syria CW saga is explored here:   http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Talk:British_involvement_in_Syria#British_MI6_operation

[8] http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/File:OPCW-20151029-Barrel-bomb-graph.jpg – http://www.the-trench.org/idlib-chlorine-attacks-2015/

[9] http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Tekkim_Chemical_Test_Video#The_Poison_Used

[10] http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2017/02/does-chlorine-make-you-pass-out.html

[11] http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Alleged_Chemical_Attack,_March_16,_2015 (most material still on talk page)

[12] Un CoI: “A ballistic expert analysis supports the statement of the witnesses, improbable as it sounds, that the device impacted through the ventilation shaft,” after falling from a helicopter. After rolling of a ramp right to the shaft, it might make perfect sense, but the “witnesses” didn’t claim that. http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2016/738

[13] http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Talk:Alleged_Chemical_Attack,_March_16,_2015#Attack_Site_Video and http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Talk:Alleged_Chemical_Attack,_March_16,_2015#Taleb_Home

[14] http://21stcenturywire.com/2017/03/20/white-helmets-are-dead-children-being-used-as-props-for-propaganda-videos/ and note تنسيقية سرمين = tansiqiat saramin = Coordinating Sarmin (youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/SarmeenFree )

[15] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N84aC1z0bjw By the Syrian Civil Defense in Idlib Governorate

[16] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6c6A1Qnbbw By Mohamed Fadel

[17] http://theindicter.com/white-helmets-movie-updated-evidence-from-swedish-doctors-confirm-fake-lifesaving-and-malpractices-on-children/

[18] http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Talk:Alleged_Chemical_Attack,_March_16,_2015#Clinic_Video_Analysis

[19] AJE, 23 March, 2017 http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/03/chlorine-gas-weapon-syria-civil-war-170314110043637.html

[20] see 16

[21] http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Talk:Alleged_Chemical_Attack,_March_16,_2015#Correlating_Symptoms – http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2015/04/what-killed-talebs.html

[22] http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Talk:Alleged_Chemical_Attack,_March_16,_2015#Victims_Before

[23] The OPCW reported in one spot how the parents and the youngest child escaped the house and got help for the others, before they all died from their varying exposure. http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2016/738 page 84) Elsewhere, the parents “and the oldest (male) child managed to escape to the open air” (emphasis mine) while “the interviewees confirmed that the grandmother and the two daughters,” who remained trapped for over 30 minutes, “were dead on arrival at the hospital.” ( http://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/s_2015_908.pdf )

[24] for example, Amnesty International: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/03/syria-war-crime-chlorine-gas-attack/

[25] http://www.msf.org.uk/article/syria-chlorine-attack-on-idlib-village

[26] http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2016/09/syria-chlorine-part-6a-site-correlation.html

[27] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/17/world/middleeast/un-security-council-sees-video-evidence-of-a-chemical-attack-in-syria.html?_r=0

[28] http://docs.house.gov/meetings/FA/FA00/20150617/103638/HHRG-114-FA00-Wstate-TennariM-20150617.pdf

[29] see 19

[30] http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2015/06/syria-chlorine-allegations-where-was-dr.html – (he says chlorine fumes coming off the stripped and washed children made his eyes burn and made a nurse faint – but chlorine is not known to cause secondary exposure, nor, as noted, to cause fainting even in primary exposure)

[31] Ibid.

Adam Larson is an open-source investigator in Spokane, Washington, United States. He studied history at Eastern Washington University. He has since 2011, on a volunteer basis, studied events in Libya, Syria, and Ukraine following Western-backed regime-change operations, often under the screen name Caustic Logic. Using open sources, with an emphasis on video analysis, Mr. Larson and research associates have often deconstructed or disproved alleged “regime” crimes from shooting protesters to sectarian massacres. He’s the co-founder of Citizen’s Investigation into War crimes in Libya (and Syria, Ukraine, and beyond – CIWCL-SUB – website), core member of the wiki-format research site A Closer Look On Syria, and runs the site Monitor on Massacre Marketing. He can be contacted at adam@ciwclibya.org.

[32] https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/02/13/syria-coordinated-chemical-attacks-aleppo

[33] http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/03/chlorine-gas-weapon-syria-civil-war-170314110043637.html

[34] http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2017/02/assessing-hrws-latest-chlorine-report.html

[35] ibid.

[36] ibid.

[37] see 32

[38] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-idUSKBN13F0HS

[39] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYykubHIDJU

[40] http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/20/middleeast/syria-aleppo-airstrikes/index.html

[41] Essay (Arabic): http://www.qenshrin.com/details.php?id=32742#.WKhRbX-rH-s – St. George’s Church on Wikimapia, near but not in present Assyrian district: http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=36.213526&lon=37.154531&z=18&m=b – Further analysis suggests the word Baytounji is used only in and around Syria (meaning concrete mason), so as a name it will be at least as local. http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Talk:Alleged_Chemical_Attacks_in_Aleppo,_November_and_December,_2016#Family_Name

[42] http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2017/02/syria-chlorine-allegations-baytounji.html

[43] Ibid.

[44] Ibid.

[45] https://syrianarchive.org/database/37666/

[46] http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Talk:Alleged_Chemical_Attack,_March_16,_2015#Qaaq

[47] http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2015/07/syria-chlorine-allegations-2014-attacks.html

[48] http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Maan_Massacre,_2014 – http://www.syrianews.cc/happened-maan-two-massacres/

[49] see 47

[50] http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2015/05/syria-ghouta-massacres-visual-evidence.html

[51] No single citation covers this pattern, but see for some good examples of fairly undeniable cases of a reported regime crime seemingly carried out on gender-segregated captives: The 2012 Khalidiya Massacre in Homs, and the 2016 Hayan missile massacre near Aleppo – http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Khalidiya_Massacre – http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Hayan_missile_massacre,_August_12,_2016

[52] A/HRC/34/64, of 2 February, 2017, point 52. https://admin.govexec.com/media/un_aleppo_march1.pdf

[53] Ibid.

[54] http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2016/08/terrible-flaws-in-opcws-syria-chlorine.html

[55] http://theindicter.com/swedish-doctors-for-human-rights-white-helmets-video-macabre-manipulation-of-dead-children-and-staged-chemical-weapons-attack-to-justify-a-no-fly-zone-in-syria/

[56] https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/04/13/syria-chemicals-used-idlib-attacks

[57] http://www.innercitypress.com/syria1misturaunca041615.html

[58] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-32346790 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/17/world/middleeast/un-security-council-sees-video-evidence-of-a-chemical-attack-in-syria.html?_r=0

[59] https://twitter.com/CL4Syr/status/589004961628889088

[60] https://usun.state.gov/remarks/7691

[61] Russia: Don’t Veto Sanctions for Syria Chemical Attacks. Human Rights Watch, February 27, 2017 https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/02/27/russia-dont-veto-sanctions-syria-chemical-attacks

[62] https://www.rt.com/news/378930-russia-china-un-veto-syria/

…

The author

Adam Larson is an independent investigator in Spokane, Washington, United States. He studied history at Eastern Washington University. He has since 2011, on a volunteer basis, studied events in Libya, Syria, and Ukraine following Western-backed regime-change operations, often under the screen name Caustic Logic. Using open sources, with an emphasis on video analysis, Mr. Larson and research associates have often deconstructed or disproved alleged “regime” crimes from shooting protesters to sectarian massacres. He’s the co-founder of Citizen’s Investigation into War crimes in Libya (and Syria, Ukraine, and beyond – CIWCL-SUB – website), a core member of the wiki-format research site A Closer Look On Syria, and runs the site Monitor on Massacre Marketing. He can be contacted at adam@ciwclibya.org.

Editor’s Note:

Author and investigative reporter Celia Farber has prepared for publication in The Indicter, an updated analysis of the Swedish Assange case. The in-depth analysis concludes that the police reports  confirm Julian Assange’s testimony, as given to the prosecutor in her questioning conducted at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. It  has also been established that the crucial allegations against Mr Julian Assange, as have appeared in the Swedish and international media, in fact were constructed by the police and were not what the complainants really said or wished to achieve.

It has been discovered that it was the police, or the prosecutor’s office, which unlawfully and/or unethically leaked the “allegations” to the evening paper “Expressen”, which is clearly known for its declared NATO sympathies. Regrettably, but also predictably, this was an opportunity for Western mainstream media to create a scandal around the founder of WikiLeaks. Likewise, it was an occasion used by the MSM to insidiously attack the organization that had partly exposed the corruption of the governments they represent, and partly surpassed them in journalistic efficacy and objectivity.

But it was more than purely vendetta-time; it was a well-articulated campaign which started that day in August 2010 when –according to the Snowden documents– the US government asked the countries participating in the military occupation of Afghanistan under US command to prosecute Julian Assange. Sweden obeyed; others cooperated.

Nevertheless, the Afghan Logs and the Iraq Logs exposed by WikiLeaks remained published. The WikiLeaks founder did not surrender. The Assange case, already politically in its origins, turned into a spiral of increasing geopolitical dimensions.

Our position has always been that the above-described political aspect has always been present in the ‘Assange case’ and we could hardly be  –in principle– interested in furthering a discussion on details pertaining the intimacy of Mr Assange or of other people around the constructed  ‘legal case’.

However, we regard this analysis of Ms Celia Farber –A Swedish-born and America-based journalist familiar with the intricacies of the Swedish culture and language– as important material, which we hope will help to end the overblown discussion on the ‘suspicions’ or ‘allegations’ against Mr Assange. These allegations have constituted  the essence of the artificial debate that the Swedish prosecutors periodically orchestrate, through press releases or erratic press conferences of the type “we have nothing new to communicate”.

We have also published – in the same spirit of clarification– the statement of Mr Julian Assange given to the Swedish prosecutor during the interview in London. In the context of this new analysis by Celia Farber, we also recommend the reading of “The answer given by Julian Assange to the Swedish prosecutor in the London questioning of 14-15 November 2016.”

As new evidence emerges on the ‘case’, it is important to remind the following aspects that have not been addressed, or sufficiently considered, by commentators.

a. Although it is known that it was the former Swedish Ombudsman for gender issues –the ‘radical feminist’ politician Claes Bordström– who asked prosecutor Marianne Ny that the investigation against Julian Assange be reopened, the issue remains whether it was the complainants that sought assistance from the law firm Bordström & Borgström for that specific purpose – or if it was instead a contact-initiative taken by Bordström & Borgström themselves after the case was dismissed by Chef Prosecutor Eva Finée. This issue has not been properly raised. 

Furthermore, the role played by the police officer Irmely Krans, who conducted the interview with the complainants, has not been fully investigated. Police officer Irmeli Krans is also an active member of the Social Democratic Party and a public admirer of Claes Bodström. In the zoomed picture at right, Krans is seen together with the Minister of Justice Thomas Bodström (see below).

b. “Bordström & Borgström” stand for the business partnership between the then-top politicians belonging to the Social Democratic Party: Beside the above-mentioned Claes Borgström who got the appointment Gender Ombudsman from the government, his partner Thomas Bodström is the former Minister of Justice of Sweden and allegedly the main Swedish official implicated in the CIA collaboration regarding the extraordinary renditions from Swedish territory.

c. Prosecutor Marianne Ny was already known for her stance towards changing the Swedish legislation for instance through establishing the ‘preventive’ arresting of men immediately after a complain has been received by the police.

d. Bordström, Borgström and Ny have formed part in a variety of governmental committees studying the further enhancing of the Swedish legislation on sexual offenses. They share a similar ‘radical feminist’ stance on issues later demonstrated being pertinent in the ‘Assange case’. We have already put forward that the ‘Assange case’ has been used as a symbol, particularly by the right-wing cohort in the “radical feminism” movement.  [12] Prosecutor Marianne Ny was still appointed as member of one of those governmental committees when the Assange case was reopened.

e. The complainant Anna Ardin was at that time political secretary in the same Social Democratic Party group in which Thomas Bodström was a senior politician. The political/religious group was publicly known as “The Brotherhood” [at that time referred with that name in this (LINK) Wikipedia article]. In this organization confluent social democrats identified by their religious faith.

The aspects above have not been considered in a correlation analysis, apart of the mentioning in articles earlier published in our Swedish-based The Professors’ Blog, and in sections of the book “Sweden vs. Assange. Human Rights Issues and Political Background“. An earlier version of Ms Farber’s piece appeared in “The New York Observer”.

Prof Marcello Ferrada de Noli, editor-in-chief

.

.

Author’s Note for The Indicter Magazine version:

The following article is an update for The Indicter Magazine of a previous publication in The New York Observer, drawing on additional materials.

The invasion of privacy contained in the text that follows in regrettable and unavoidable. It is strictly for the purpose of clarification about the events that took place in Stockholm in 2010, between Julian Assange and two women, and how the Swedish State came to bypass their wishes, as well as that of the original prosecutor, who dismissed the charges in the first days.

The international media has a perverse tradition of de-humanizing Mr. Assange, treating him as a symbolic object (at best.)

My intention is not to invade the sacred privacy of anybody, but rather, to dare go into the micro-details, so as to expose the absurdity and in some ways –with apologies to Sweden– the Swedishness of the tragic situation. I can cast light on this because my Swedish mother moved us to Sweden when I was a child, and I spent my formative years there.

To better reflect an awareness of the gravity of this situation, I have also eliminated some glib lines from the NY Observer original version.

Celia Farber

.

Paul Close, Crown Prosecution Service

I

Two Swedish women—Anna Ardin and Sofia Wilen—had consensual sex with Julian Assange in Stockholm, in their respective apartments, in the month of August, 2010.

In an investigation conducted by Swedish prosecutor, Marianne Ny, he found himself suspected (but not charged) of discrete items of sexual molestation and one count of “non-serious” rape. Swedish prosecutors had initially dropped all allegations against him, when Ny suddenly took over as lead prosecutor and revived them, which is just one of many inexplicable twists and turns in the gluey saga.

Nobody outside of Sweden, certainly, is likely to ever understand this disorienting morass.

What did he do?

Was Assange’s alleged behavior inside consensual sexual relations a criminal act? If so, what is the crime, exactly?   Swedes, certainly, defer to Assang’e guilt in conversation, when pressed, yet nobody knows what exactly happened. Or even remotely, what happened.

Some answers lie embedded in a 98-page report signed by Swedish authorities on August 26, 2010, the contents of which have been touched upon in various press reports—but never fully clarified. First, one must be familiar not only with the Swedish language, but also “Sweden,” which does not refer to the landmass east of Norway, and north of Denmark, so much as to a constructed society obsessed with the elimination of risk.

Sweden has both the most expansive sexual-offenses legislation (which extend all the way to marital bed nagging), as well as the highest number of reported rapes in the world.

The 98-page report reveals a bleak, post PC world, with fumbling intimacies and attempts at romance–mostly by Assange actually–that fizzle like dud matches. It’s a clash of North/South as well as East/West, more than most casual readers may realize. The women are “strong” but mirthless, lacking erotic savor faire, descending into cruel mockery here and there, hysteria elsewhere, while the male witnesses in this play–the two Swedish journalists– are mostly motivated by terror of saying something that could be construed as anti-feminist.

Another strange feature of the report is the time and deference it accords the details of the emotional arc of the two accusers. Often it reads more like a dime-store novel than a crime report:

“Julian looked at Sofia with a bemused expression. She got the feeling he did not feel that she, in her bright pink cashmere sweater, belonged among all these journalists dressed in grey.”

“His telephone rang and he had an appointment with Aftonbladet..at 12….Then he bicycled with her on the back of his bike to the train station. She paid for his ticket to Stockholm. Before they parted, he told her to keep her phone on. She asked if he would call her and he said he would.”

[This took place after the tryst that lies at the heart of the matter–their only night together. In other words, the morning after, Wilen wanted reassurance that Assange would call her.]

Matters are confused by many factors, including altered statements given by the two women, as they were assigned new attorneys, and as the case was played out in the Swedish press, which accused Assange, inexplicably, of “rape” in advance of due process. The meaning of the various drafts and the officers being taken off and put onto the case is unclear, but far from reassuring. The original report is said to have been entered into a police computer by somebody later taken off the case, and missing from available documents.

In the case of Ms. Ardin, she kept Assange as a houseguest for six nights after the incident, and even threw a crayfish party for him. In the case of Ms. Wilen, she and Mr. Assange, after a night of sex, joked about a possible pregnancy, and about his promise that if she got pregnant he would move to Sweden, pay off her student loans, and they “could name the baby Afghanistan.”

The morning after their tryst, Wilen woke before him, ate breakfast, went grocery shopping, served him breakfast in bed, disrobed, and had sex with him again. It is during this morning that Wilen, in an amended testimony, said she was asleep, or “half asleep” (depending on the date stamp of the report) when Assange had intercourse with her. Having sex with a person who is asleep may count as rape in Sweden, so this point is critical. How did she fall asleep after starting her day in this fashion?

From a documentary on the allegations and the bungled investigation, on Swedish television network, SVT:

“The rape charges are about one of the women. It emerges from the police interview that they had voluntary intercourse during the night. She is careful that he always use a condom, she explains. In the morning she wakes from intercourse with him again. She is worried about HIV and asks if he has a condom. He answers that no, he doesn’t. She feels it is too late to stop him. According to the police report, the intercourse takes place against her will and the event came to be called rape.”

What Assange could not have anticipated was how strongly Ms. Wilen felt, not about the nature of the sex they had had, but the fact that the unprotected sex has caused her to be exposed to semen for the first time in her life, which in turn led to a profound anxiety attack, fearing “HIV,” and leading to a conflict about when, and how, exactly, Assange would agree to take an “HIV test.”

The report this article relies upon, contains several testimonies—Ms. Ardin, Ms. Wilen, two Swedish male journalists, Ms. Wilen’s ex boyfriend, brother, and several friends and colleagues of the two women. Finally, Mr. Assange himself. It closes with grainy photographs of a broken condom, as well as a condom tip—and the forensic analysis of experts from “Staten’s Kriminaltekniska Laboratorium” (The State’s Criminal Technological Laboratory)—offering forensic results about the exact conditions along the broken edge of the condom. (Ruled not to have been broken by an “instrument,” but to have failed by natural means.)

The forensic literature on the broke condom includes contradictory evidence that a condom was manually torn at the lab, as well as one condom, submitted by Anna Ardin, with no trace of genomic DNA, which could explain all the stalling past the statute of limitations. Ardin could otherwise have been prosecuted for falsifying evidence. In any case, nobody disputes: There was sex, it was consensual, and everything that “went wrong” revolves around the condoms at hand.

Studying the case closely, you are never able to understand what exactly it is that is alleged about the condoms.  There is no evidence of a broken condom in the one instance, and no evidence of unsafe sex that was not agreed to in the latter. Yet it is after, in one case well after, the sex takes place, that “the trouble” begins to brew, stirred wildly by bolts of what appear to be both jealousy, clashing social codes, and above all, one woman’s clinical phobia of seminal fluid.

At the end of it all, it clear that Assange did not like condoms, (who does?) but also clear he did agree to use them in both instances. I am pretty sure all that “happened” here was one ejaculation that escaped its latex guardian somehow or other. Nobody got pregnant, nobody got an STD, nobody died. But this ejaculate has cost Julian Assange as well as the international community something so immense, one wonders why Sweden never becomes abashed.

After the incidents for which he is wanted for questioning took place, in mid-August 2010, Mr. Assange remained in Sweden for five weeks, until September 27, during which time Swedish prosecutors once dropped the case altogether, only to re-open it days later. Prosecutor Marianne Ny was quoted in the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter as having said: “Even if I’m wrong, I won’t give up.”

Mr. Assange was originally under arrest in absentia (but not charged) for four counts of sexual offense: one of unlawful coercion, two of molestation and one of a “minor case of rape”. In August of 2015, all counts expired due to the statute of limitations, except for the “minor case of rape” charge, which would remain intact until 2020, unless the prosecutor decides to close the investigation, and in this case most probably using a standard Swedish legal formulation, “the allegations cannot be sustained” [“Brott kan ej styrkas”].

He’s been given political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since June 19, 2012, on the assessment of the Ecuadorian government regarding Assange’s risk of being extradited to the US. Swedish authorities have requested his extradition to Sweden, and have refused during the intervening years to question him in London; His appeal to the U.K. Supreme court to avoid extradition was rejected in June of 2012, resulting in his seeking asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy.  Assange has stated that he fears Sweden will extradite him to the U.S. if he travels there, and Sweden has not promised not to do so.  Finally, in 2016, the Swedish prosecutor decided to take Assange’s testimony at the Ecuador Embassy in London. [Editor’s Note: Julian Assange’s testimony is found here].

II

August, 2010: Julian Assange arrives in Stockholm to give a talk. He doesn’t like hotels, because, as publisher of Wikileaks, he feels he is a target. (As is now known, many formidable threats have been leveled against him primarily in the U.S. ) Mr. Assange was actually on an extended visit to Stockholm, intending to secure residence and work permits to move there, and base his operations there.

It is decided that he will stay, for at least the first night or nights, at the small Stockholm apartment of Anna Ardin—the press secretary for the organization that invited him to speak, the Brotherhood of Social Democrats. After that the plan was for him to be moved to a “safe house” with two people from the Swedish Pirate Party. Ardin was asked repeatedly by Swedish colleagues if she preferred Assange to stay elsewhere, and said each time that it was not necessary.

Ms. Ardin is “abroad” (we don’t know where) yet arrives home one day earlier than expected because she had a lot to do in preparation for Mr. Assange’s talk, the title of which was “In War, Truth Is The First Casualty.”

It was Ms. Ardin who offered to have Mr. Assange stay in her apartment, to save the organization some money. The whole milieu has this kind of collegiate feel: mattresses on the floor, shifting plans, boozy nights, people coming and going—and of course, a crayfish party.

Mr. Assange’s first sexual encounter was with Anna Ardin—an ardent feminist, Social Democrat, Christian, animal rights activist, pro-lifer and scholar on Latin America. Ms. Ardin described herself online as somebody who, somewhat alarmingly, “burns for justice, solidarity and equality,” and she once wrote a paper on “The 7 Steps To Revenge,” against men who “dump you.”

Journalist Johann Wahlstrom comments in the police report that Mr. Assange was a “total magnet” for women, saying they “just glued themselves to him.” He describes Mr. Assange as gentlemanly, distracted and consumed with his political thoughts and discussions.

“Women,” Mr. Wahlstrom said, “so many of them, they did everything they could to wind up in bed with him.” When asked by the police interrogator what kvinnosyn (view of women) Mr. Assange had, Mr. Wahlstrom says, “I didn’t notice anything noteworthy about that…on the other hand, there was a bizarre view of men in Anna Ardin’s circle.”

Asked to elaborate, he goes on to give a halting, nervous monologue about what he’s talking about:

“I got…well, once again, like I said, I got strange vibes. It happens now and then especially in academic circles, that you run into…actually I don’t know quite how to express this…but it happens that you run into young women who have taken like a…they’ve fulfilled a journey in the name of feminism, and become chauvinists, like the worst kind of chauvinism among men, but on the feminist spectrum. These young women speak of men as sexual tools, and they say they’re not necessary for intellectual discussions…and that it’s only women who need one another. Maybe it’s more a matter of my generation, maybe you have never run into this. But I’ve encountered it often in academic circles. And I got this feeling among Anna’s friends.”

Here’s the story of their tryst, as it takes final shape after a series of police interviews, [and an editing process] behind closed doors.:

Ms. Ardin came home one day early, on Friday August 13, 2010, and she and Mr. Assange went out to dinner, then returned to her apartment, where he spent that night, and the next six.

The following morning, August 14, Swedish journalist Johann Wahlstrom arrives at Ms. Ardin’s apartment to fetch Mr. Assange and take him to the venue. Ms. Ardin answers the door, and inside the apartment, Mr. Wahlstrom notices a “thin, thin, thin” mattress on the floor, and—surprised that Ms. Ardin was there—tells himself that Mr. Assange “must have” slept on the mattress.

He takes Mr. Assange to the venue, Ms. Ardin follows later.

Ms. Ardin’s portion of the police report relays the events of the previous night like this:

They were drinking tea. Mr. Assange stroked Ms. Ardin’s leg, and she “initially” welcomed his advances. He suddenly became a little too aggressive—removing her clothes and in the process, snapping off her necklace. The sex that followed is described by Ms. Ardin as “uncomfortable,” as it had all progressed “too fast.”

She was the one to reach for a condom, and closed her legs to indicate she was serious about it. He asked her why she was doing that, and she replied that she wanted him to wear a condom. He stopped, put a condom on—she checked with her hand to make sure it was on properly—and the sex continued. Ms. Ardin describes her feeling at this point as “just wanting to get it over with.”

Ardin checked again to make sure the condom was on right, and was reassured that it was.  Here the matter becomes impossibly byzantine again, regarding the state of the condom, whether and how it broke, and whose fault that may have been. [Author’s Note: If you want to find fault with Mr. Assange for not being enthusiastic about that condom, you’ll have to find yourself another narrator.]

After this night, Ms. Ardin said that she declined having any more sex with Mr. Assange, who, she said, continued to make advances the next few nights. [Again: Ardin is repeatedly asked by male colleagues over the next week if she would like Mr. Assange to move to another dwelling and she repeatedly declines.]

Mr. Assange himself testifies that Ms. Ardin invited him to sleep in her bed, that she made the first overture, that they had sex “several” times, though they did not have full intercourse after August 13. They both reported that Ms. Ardin pointed to a wet spot on the sheets; that she said, “Is that you?” and that he replied, “No, it must be you.”

He remarked: “Maybe she was trying to point out how loving the sex had been.”

Mr. Assange stayed at Ms. Ardin’s apartment until the following Friday, and says, in the police report, that they continued to sleep in the same bed, had no further intercourse, but did have “sexual interactions.”

He is told, in the interrogation, that he stands accused of deliberately breaking the condom he and Ms. Ardin used, and he replies: “That’s not true.”

He is asked if he checked the condom before sex and replies: “I am not in the habit of checking before I put them on.” When asked who removed the condom he says he does not remember, but that it is “unusual for the woman to do so.” 

“Kajsa said the impression she got was that Anna felt it was unpleasant but not frightening or threatening.”

“Based on Anna’s story, when she called me, she said “we had sex” and that’s what happened, and she made no reference to any kind of assault… She did not want to go to the police. My sense is that she [Ardin] did not experience this as serious, but got pissed off.”

 —Donald Bostrom

 “She [Ardin] was joking about Julian, saying he’s a strange guy. Suddenly in the middle of the night he’s gone, and he’s sitting in the bathroom with his laptop. Um..she was joking very hard and rough, but in a funny way….and at the crayfish party [Ardin turned to Assange and said], “I woke up in the middle of the night and you were gone, I felt dumped.” That word made me jump a little. Um…why did she feel dumped if…you see in my mind they had no relations, but she said she felt dumped.”

 —Donald Bostrom

 “It’s…a baffling storm of women around him. I mean it happens in seconds. It’s remarkable.”

 “I can say that the overwhelming majority of women who come near him have just fallen headlong. They just fall.”

 —Donald Bostrom

 “He strikes me as a person who is very knowledgeable and brilliant. And he has a hard time finding his way if he is walking around town, because he is so deep in conversation….and he is very…I mean, simply put, he is kind.”

“A heartfelt friendship….She wanted to take care of Julian.”

—Johann Wahlstrom

Q: Did she ever express a desire for him to move out of her apartment?

A: I asked her every day, actually…she said no of course he can continue to stay with me.

 —Johann Wahlstrom

Friday August 13, Mr. Assange has sex with Ms. Ardin, and the next day gives his talk. Ms. Ardin tweets twice after the incident later characterized as an assault.

First on August 14, she tweets: “Julian wants to go to a crayfish party? Does anybody have a free spot tonight or tomorrow?”

At 2 a.m. on August 15, she tweets that she is sitting outside, hanging out with “some of the smartest people on the planet.”

When the police report is filed, the tweets disappear, but bloggers retain them.

***

A few weeks before Mr. Assange was scheduled to give this particular lecture in Stockholm, a 20-something Swedish woman named Sofia Wilen was watching a TV interview with him. She found him, “interesting, brave, and commendable.” For two weeks she followed news reports of Mr. Assange carefully, and read many articles and interviews. One evening as she “sat home Googling” his name, she discovered he was coming to Sweden to speak on the invitation of Socialdemokratiska Broderskapsrorelsen (The Brotherhood of Social Democrats).

She emailed their press secretary, Anna Ardin, offering to assist with tasks pertaining to the event, in exchange for a seat in the audience.  On the day of the event—August 14—Ms. Wilen arrived, and met both Ms. Ardin and Mr. Assange himself outside the building.

From the report:

“Julian looked at Sofia with a bemused expression. She got the feeling he did not feel that she, in her bright pink cashmere sweater, belonged among all these journalists dressed in grey.”

Ms. Wilen is immediately asked, by Ms. Ardin, to buy a cable for Mr. Assange. (The most famous hacker in the world did not bring a cable for his computer, to this particular talk. Later, we learn, he also did not bring a charger.)

Off she went. She taxied around Stockholm until she found a computer store that was open and had the right cable. She returned. Mr. Assange did not thank her for her effort. She noted this.

After the lecture, Mr. Assange was surrounded by swarms of journalists, and Ms. Wilen went out and “sat in the shade, waiting” for the interviews to be over. This took hours. She eventually overheard that Mr. Assange and his hosts were going to a restaurant. She then asked if she could come too, “since she had helped buy the cable.” Later, it comes to light that all those officially involved in Mr. Assange’s visit and presentation were confused as to who the “girl in the pink sweater” was, and where she came from. They all said she was “odd,” and they had a curious feeling about her.

A friend of Ms. Wilen’s told the police she got a text from her on the day of the lecture that read: “He looked at me.”

At the restaurant, Ms. Wilen wound up next to Mr. Assange. The police report notes: “He looked at her, now and then, throughout dinner.”

At one point, he was eating a traditional sandwich of knackebrod—Swedish hard bread—with cheese, and, having said not one word throughout the dinner, she asked him if he liked it. He reached over and “fed her.”

Then Mr. Assange started having cable problems again—he said he needed a charger. Ms. Wilen said she could get it for him, as she had gotten him the earlier cable. “Yes, you got my cable!” he said, holding her across her back.

“Sofia found this flattering, as it was apparent that he was flirting with her.”

After dinner, Mr. Assange, Ms. Wilen, and a third man (Johannes Wahlstrom) all went to buy a charger for Mr. Assange’s computer. Mr. Wahlstrom asked Mr. Assange, inexplicably if he wanted to “go with him to help move furniture at his parent’s house,” while Ms. Wilen invited him to the place where she worked—the Museum of Natural History. You could say Mr. Assange’s fate was sealed when he declined to move furniture, and instead went with Ms. Wilen. They went to the metro station where Ms. Wilen bought him a ticket, (107 Swedish kronor) as Mr. Assange said he had no cash and did not want to use a credit card in case he was being followed.

They went to the museum, and waited for a scheduled film to begin. Inside the movie theater, they made out “heavily.” Then they went outside where Mr. Assange fell asleep on the grass for 20 minutes. Ms. Wilen asked Mr. Assange if they would meet again, and he said yes, after the kraftskiva (crayfish party) he was to attend at the home of Ms. Ardin.

August 14 was a Saturday night. Mr. Assange said goodbye to Ms. Wilen, and went off to the crayfish party.

There is a scene from the party that is socio-politically revealing:

It is described by journalist Johann Wahlstrom, who tried, repeatedly, to warn Mr. Assange about his engagements with women, reminding him of how many politically vulnerable men have been done in by “honey traps” throughout history. He says Mr. Assange listened and agreed, and promised he was being cautious.

Describing the crayfish party, Mr. Wahlstrom says it was a warm and friendly evening, nothing “hostile,” except one moment that stood out in his memory. “There was a friend of Anna Ardin who sat rather far from me, and who made it clear she was a lesbian, and that she had rather major aggression against men in general. She said something along the lines of…well, she screamed across the table to Anna ‘next time let’s have a crayfish party without any men…’ I remembered the phrase.” Mr. Wahlstrom brought it up with Ms. Ardin, and rather than dismiss it, she said, ‘Yes, yes, it is good when women can come together by themselves and…be strong together…something like that.’ ”

According to a blog about Swedish sexual politics and rape law, Swedish men are culturally conditioned to be the more passive party in sexual and romantic exchanges. A Swedish man may ask a Swedish woman, after a date, “Why didn’t you ask for my number?”

***

On the night of August 14, Mr. Assange said goodbye to Ms. Wilen after their afternoon rendezvous and went to Ms. Ardin’s crayfish party.  He and Ms. Wilen were in touch via phone messages over the next few days with Ms. Wilen becoming increasingly frustrated that Mr. Assange is hard to reach or make firm plans with. Monday, August 16, the pair finally meet. They start making out again, in a park, and decide to go to her apartment. They have to take a commuter train, the dreaded pendeltåg from central Stockholm to her suburb of Enköping. And, once again, she has to pay for his train ticket (107 Swedish kronor).

By the time the slow commuter train delivered the pair to their destination, the bloom was off. “They took off their shoes and things between them didn’t feel warm anymore,” according to Ms. Wilen’s testimony.

“They made out in the bedroom but she wanted to brush her teeth. It was midnight, dark outside, and they stood brushing their teeth together which felt domestic and boring.”

They get naked and get into bed. For the next “several hours” Mr. Assange has a hard time getting an erection, rubs his penis against Ms. Wilen repeatedly and finally says he wants to go to sleep.

The report describes Ms. Wilen’s emotions in detail.

“She felt rebuffed and shocked. It came so suddenly. Such long foreplay and then…nothing. She asked what was wrong, she didn’t understand. He pulled the covers over himself, turned over and fell asleep. …She lay awake for a long time wondering what had happened, and texted her friends. He lay next to her snoring. She must have fallen asleep, as she later woke up and they were having sex.”

She had gotten a condom set earlier and put it near the bed. He agreed reluctantly to use a condom but muttered that he preferred her to latex. He no longer had problems with his erection. They fell asleep and when they woke up, they had sex again. Then he asked her for orange juice and water. She had to go to the store, and buy breakfast food. When she returned they had sex again. She noticed that the condom was not on properly, and they fell asleep again. When she woke, he was inside her. She asked: “Are you wearing anything?” He replied: “You.”

Wilen had supposedly never had sex without a condom in her whole life, and told Mr. Assange she was afraid of getting pregnant. He joked that if she had his baby he would pay off her student loans and that they could name the baby “Afghanistan.”

She brought up HIV, and he said he had been tested three months earlier. “She said sarcastic things to him in a joking tone.”

He had a meeting—she took him to the train station, and once again paid for his ticket.

Ms. Wilen experiences dread after Assange has left. She washes her sheets and calls in sick to work. “She wants to clean up and wash everything away. There was semen on the sheets, and she thought it was disgusting.”

“When she talked to her friends afterwards she understood she had been the victim of a crime. She went to Danderyd hospital, and from there to Sodersjukhuset (another hospital.) There she was examined and tested with a rape kit.”

There’s more to this: Wilen wanted to be reassured she would not become HIV positive. The second hospital offered PEP, or post exposure prophylaxis treatment with potent antiviral drugs, green-lighted faster in the event of a “rape.” The first hospital, Danderyd, did not offer this service. Wilen’s medical odyssey is inconsistent with rape, but consistent with fear of HIV.

On August 17, Mr. Wahlstrom texted Ms. Ardin asking where Mr. Assange was. She texted back: “He’s not here. He’s been planning to sleep with the cashmere girl every night but didn’t. Maybe he pulled it off last night.”

She later added, “cashmere, breasts, and idol-worship tipped the scales,” and that Ms. Wilen was “not mentally fast enough,” according to “J.”

Bloggers have pointed out that if Ms. Ardin felt Mr. Assange was a sexual criminal, and especially if she was such a feminist, why didn’t she warn poor Ms. Wilen?

***

“Touching the genitals of a woman that you are holding or who is asleep with your genitals can give up to four years in prison. Having sex with a woman that you are holding or who is asleep when you start can give two to six years in prison.”

From “The Swedish Rape Law” Erling Hellenas Blog

Sweden is said by some critics to be a bastion of feminist extremism, with ever expanding “rape” laws, which have caused Sweden’s reported rape rates to increase by 170 percent since 2004 when the laws were expanded. Sweden reports more rapes than any country in Europe.

The present laws state that sex with a person who “due to unconsciousness, sleep, inebriation, or other drug-affected states, sickness, bodily injury or psychological disturbance…finds themselves in a helpless state.”

“Seth said that the matter of diseases was central for Sofia, and before they had sex for the first time, they both got tested for (sexually transmitted) diseases and exchanged test results. During the two and a half years they were together, they did not have sex without a condom on any occasion. It was, for Sofia, unthinkable. Seth said this was their agreement. He said it was his understanding that Sofia had never had sex with anybody without using a condom.”

Witness: Seth Benson, ex-boyfriend of Sofia Wilen.

***

“So I got a phone call and Donald said, “Are you sitting down?” He said Julian has been accused of rape…by the young girl Sofia….and Anna was livid over what Sofia told her…and for various reasons she believed what Sofia said…and they were going to meet.

—Johan Wahlstrom

“I told him Anna said that Sofia had protested loud and clear and he got upset. ‘She did not,’ he said. And then he said that is a pure, pure, pure, pure lie.”

—Donald Bostrom

Ms. Wilen had become increasingly upset, and fearful she might have contracted HIV* from Mr. Assange. She repeatedly called him and said she wanted him to go get an HIV test. He said he would do so but not under these circumstances—under pressure. She then called Ms. Ardin, and told her what had happened between herself and Mr. Assange. Ms. Ardin became enraged, and took on a protective role toward Ms. Wilen. Ms. Ardin accompanied Ms. Wilen to the police station on August 20, playing a supporting role. Neither of them intended to press any criminal charges against Mr. Assange. They wanted to compel him to take an HIV test. Once they were at the police station and told their stories, the female police commissioner informed them that this all fell within “rape” law, and soon thereafter—that Mr. Assange was going to be arrested. Ms. Ardin and Ms. Wilen were upset when they heard this.

Swedish doctors had already given Ms. Wilen anti-HIV drugs to ward off a potential infection, which made her ill. On the Friday, Julian Assange called her and agreed to take an HIV test the next day. She may have wanted him to get it done sooner so she could be spared the extreme toxicity of the drug regimen.

The reason Ms. Wilen was upset was not that Mr. Assange forced the sex—it was that he managed to get her to have sex without an intact condom. A careful analysis by Swedish judicial writer Marten Schultz, writing in a magazine called NEO, clarified that as draconian as Swedish rape laws are, it is not rape, even in Sweden, to remove a condom, or even to break a condom during the act.

Only in the shadow of the 1980s HIV/AIDS mushroom cloud, could a broken condom be met with such hysteria, and morph into a criminal drama, involving several governments and millions of dollars.

If Mr. Assange, on the other hand, was HIV-positive, and did not disclose it, he could have spent many years in prison—the HIV criminalization laws being most harsh in Sweden, Switzerland and Austria.

Both women make it clear in the report that their negative feelings after their sexual adventures with Mr. Assange were entirely due to the broken condom item in one case, added the fear they shared about the HIV issue.

***

“Assange and rape, that has several million hits on the web. So it’s a gigantic smear campaign. But no, I don’t think he thinks the CIA is involved.”

—Donald Bostrom

There had been a murder case, Mr. Bostrom pointed out, in the press—a girl named Nancy, who was killed with a broken bottle. The murderer was caught and sent to prison. His face in the papers was always pixelated.

“But Julian who’s only under suspicion, not charged with a crime, his face is not pixilated.”

Lastly: Ms. Ardin lied, for the better part of that week, to Mr. Bostrom and Mr. Wahlstrom—insisting she had not had sex with Mr. Assange, and that he had not managed to get her into bed.

“Anna called me and said, ‘It’s not true what I said before, we have had sex, Julian and I.’ …and then she said that the other woman, Sofia, had called her and said Julian was there and had sex with her. Both of these encounters had been consensual.”

“…and she added, I was so proud, to get the coolest man in the world into bed, and to stay in my apartment.”

—Donald Bostrom

Footnote: A study completed in 1997, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, titled Heterosexual Transmission of HIV in Northern California: Results from a Ten Year Study followed 175 “discordant couples”—that means one of them was HIV antibody positive, the other negative. They had sex both protected and unprotected, every which way, for 10 years. The result was explosive in its contrast to media misinformation: Not one transmission: “We observed no sero-conversions after entry into the study.”

–Celia Farber

Runmaro, Sweden, Jan 2017

__

The author

Member of The Indicter editorial board.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange last week refuted the dubious prosecution Sweden began against him in August 2010.

Assange’s written response on Dec. 7, with his first detailed defense, underscores the disgraceful procedures used by Sweden, the United States, and the United Kingdom, with the complicity of mainstream media outlets that primarily published biased accounts.

With the zeal and arrogance of a police state, Sweden has repeatedly violated due process under a veneer of legal and human rights rhetoric.

Sweden’s use of sexual misconduct claims to capture Assange stems from coordinated reprisal by the three nations for his WikiLeaks publication in 2010 that included some 250,000 classified U.S. diplomatic cables and “The Afghan Diaries,” a trove of 80,000 documents.

These materials exposed diplomatic hypocrisy (including regarding Sweden’s ostensible “neutrality“) suspected war crimes, and cover-up by Sweden and NATO members.

Our defense here of Assange centers on all-important procedural fairness issues, not necessarily his personal behavior while he was in bed with the complainants. Nor is our defense an endorsement of WikiLeaks and the anti-secrecy platform’s wholesale release of sensitive documents, including those designed to hurt Hillary Clinton and Democrats in the recent U.S. elections.

Those are more complicated issues than the procedures Sweden used for fact-finding on the rape investigation, as we told RT America host Ed Schultz during a cable TV interview on Dec. 7.

I was invited to provide perspective on Assange’s first detailed, public response in legal proceedings to the rape allegation. The New York Times reported the basics earlier that day in WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange Denies Rape in Detailed Account of Encounter.

Our focus on due process includes the right to confront witnesses, including the two shown above, before an impartial tribunal in a public proceeding. That is a bedrock of truth-finding, freedom, law-and-order, and many other core human rights values ingrained for centuries in American and English law.

The end does not justify the means, in other words. If Sweden and allied nations want to capture and prosecute Assange for WikiLeaks they should comply with relevant law, and not engage in the legal charade that’s occurred for more than six years at vast expense, including to the reputations of the perpetrating nations.

Yet the discussion below — summarizing major developments since we first helped break stories in 2010 showing secret political and intelligence ties behind this witchhunt — contains plenty of material for those who enjoy spy thriller material drawn from real life, and not merely legal abstractions like “due process.”

It’s not coincidental that The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo hit novel and film series by the late Steig Larsson was set in Sweden’s hacking community, or that “James Bond” novel writer Ian Fleming in real life had been a top British intelligence official and later European news editor for the North American Newspaper Alliance, a British intelligence front that pretended to operate as a legitimate news organization

Earlier this year, as example from the Assange case, a prominent left-wing Swedish journalist who had been attacking Assange, Martin Fredriksson, was exposed as a secret asset of Säpo, Sweden’s CIA-affiliated intelligence service, as we reported here.

In 2010, we helped break on the Huffington Post the story headlined Rove Suspected In Swedish-U.S. Political Prosecution of WikiLeaks. It revealed that former Bush White House advisor Karl Rove served in 2010 as a key advisor to Sweden’s conservative governing party at a time when Rove was advocating on Fox News that authorities execute Assange even before any government had filed any formal charges against him.

As of today, Assange still has not been publicly charged with any crime anywhere in the world, although reports have surfaced that American prosecutors obtained a still-sealed indictment against him on espionage charges related to WikiLeaks.

As for disclosure to the public, Sweden merely says it wants Assange’s presence for further questioning about alleged sexual misconduct.

Assange has refused to travel to Sweden for further questions (beyond those he answered in 2010) because he fears Sweden would end the sex case charade soon after his arrival and then extradite him to the United States, where he might be imprisoned for life or even executed. Swedish authorities have pooh-poohed that threat but that country’s track record in such cases, including this, provides no assurance.

The Beginning: A Speaking Trip To Stockholm

In 2010, the Australian-born Assange was visiting Sweden on a trip featuring a talk in Stockholm. He held celebrity status because WikiLeaks disclosures that year of leaked documents challenged not just war-makers, their financiers, and diplomats but a larger power structure of media, parliaments, courts and other watchdog institutions that were failing to expose government secrets and hold wrongdoers accountable.

PayPal blocked WikiLeaks accounts, making Assange’s travel difficult. That rendered Assange vulnerable and more dependent than normal on the kindness of strangers during his trip to Sweden to try to set up servers that might be safe from NATO pressures. Sweden has maintained an official stance of neutrality during much of the Cold War but also has deep connections between its leading institutions and those of other Western nations.

On the trip, a politically active conference manager, “AA,” and then a seeming fan of Assange, “SW,” separately invited Assange to sleep in their beds on different nights of his stay.

“AA,” reputedly once employed at the Swedish embassy in Washington, DC, said at first that Assange could use her bed while she was away, but then returned home unexpectedly, and had sexual relations with him. That was according to accounts from authorities leaked to the public in 2010 and this week’s Assange description, which was reported by the New York Times on Dec. 7 in WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange Denies Rape in Detailed Account of Encounter. By Assange’s account, she boasted afterward on social media to friends of their relationship.

Assange identifies the two women by their initials “AA” and “SW.” This usage to protect privacy is similar to that used by nearly all mainstream publications, which decline to publish the names of accusers in sex-related allegations without their permission.

But we identify them here, using the same logic as best-selling feminist author Naomi Wolf, a longtime volunteer in support of rape victims. Six years ago, Wolf wrote commentaries that included her Julian Assange’s sex-crime accusers deserve to be named and J’Accuse. An additional complicating factor in this case is the potential roles of intelligence operatives that clouds the accusations and process in important ways described below.

Assange Defense Statement

Returning to the Assange statement this week:

“I went to Sweden on 11 August 2010,” Assange wrote near the beginning of his official statement. He wrote it at Ecuador’s London embassy, where he has been confined since July 2012 as a political asylum refugee under threat of extradition to Sweden.

“During my stay,” Assange continued, “I met a woman (hereinafter called ‘SW’). On the evening of 16 August, 2010 she invited me to her home. During the night and in the morning we had consensual sexual intercourse on several occasions.” He stated that she “made it very clear that she wanted to have sexual intercourse with me.” Assange said they parted amicably.

“I, therefore,” Assange wrote, “could not believe my eyes when five days later I saw a headline in a Swedish tabloid that I was suspected of a crime and arrested in my absence. I immediately made myself available to the Swedish authorities to clarify any questions that might exist, although I had no obligation to do so.”

Sweden Drops Probe In 2010, Then Ramps Up With New Prosecutor

“That same day (21 August 2010),” Assange’s statement continued, “the Chief Prosecutor of Stockholm, Eva Finné, dropped the arrest warrant against me and within days would close the preliminary investigation with the finding that no crime whatsoever had been committed against the woman “SW” (who is the subject of this procedure). I drew the conclusion that, other than the worldwide damage to my reputation caused by millions of web pages saying that I was “wanted for rape,” my life, in this respect, would return to normal.”

In this case, Swedish authorities had relied heavily at the outset on a private lawyer running for political office that fall, Claes Borgström, to assemble evidence and assist the women “AA” and “SW” in their statements to officials.

Swedish higher-ups promptly replaced Finné with Marianne Ny, who obtained an alert from Interpol for an international manhunt to find Assange for further questioning, and persuaded British authorities to hold Assange after he surrendered to UK authorities.

Ny (shown in an official photo) implausibly argued for more than five years until her retirement this year that Sweden could not question Assange in London.

Sweden, with the cooperation of the United Kingdom, has relentlessly pursued Assange since then through the courts and otherwise while never actually questioning him until proceedings last month through Ecuador’s officials.

Sweden has never actually filed criminal charges against Assange, surely a unique situation in which rape and sex trafficking hurt millions around the world each year. Beyond that lack of enforcement against clear-cut criminals, there exists a well-documented history that spy agencies from major nations, including Western democracies, have used prostitutes and other “honeytraps” since almost the beginning of recorded history to obtain intelligence from targets, or otherwise smear, blackmail and entrap the unwary.

Assange’s statement last week consisted of 120 numbered paragraphs that present his side of the story. Its publication infuriated Swedish authorities, who have used the past six years to smear Assange by leaking statements pre-indictment to portray Assange as a vicious sex criminal.

The complainants and their statements have several mysterious elements. A 2014 column Where in the world is Sofia Wilén? reported, for example, that she has been missing without a trace since shortly after the 2010 events.

Sweden’s Secret Courts

In terms of procedure, Sweden’s court system operates in secret for such trials and with no jury. Compared to American trials, the Swedish system provides minimal disclosure to the public about confrontations over evidence before judges reach a verdict.

Therefore, Assange (shown in a graphic by the Europe-based human rights publication The Indicter) would not necessarily have a chance to tell his side of the story in an effective public manner if he were ever brought to trial. That’s especially so because key elements of the Swedish and NATO power structure and media have a track record of smearing him viciously, as The Indicter, among others, has often reported.

In Britain, Assange was held first in solitary confinement, then under house arrest on bail, and since the summer of 2012 as a political asylum refugee in Ecuador’s embassy in London. He has been unable to leave the embassy because he fears that extradition to Sweden would mean his prompt rendition to the United States to face still-secret charges.

A vice president of Statfor, a private security firm well-connected to U.S. intelligence, reported to colleagues in 2011 that U.S. authorities had obtained a secret indictment against Assange, as reported by the late Rolling Stone correspondent Michael Hastings in WikiLeaks Stratfor Emails: A Secret Indictment Against Julian Assange?

Sweden and the United Kingdom have spent vast amounts of money in the prosecution and round-the-clock monitoring of Ecuador’s embassy until 2015 in order to seize Assange if he tries to sneak out of Ecuador’s embassy.

In contrast to the UK’s spending in hopes of delivering Assange to Sweden, British authorities had failed for years to investigate tips about what has become known as the Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal. While authorities dilly-dallied and cited lack of funds to investigate, an estimated 1,400 children were sexually abused and otherwise tortured in that town between 1997 and 2013, predominantly by gangs of British-Pakistani men.

Aside from allocation of resource issues, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) ruled in February of this year that Assange’s confinement and related treatment constituted unlawful detention under international law.

Sweden, the United States and United Kingdom remain unmoved while a vibrant protest movement has rallied around Assange. Protesters include fellow hackers targeting his persecutors and Swedish dissidents outraged at their country’s violation of human rights in apparent deference to U.S. and Swedish power structures.

WikiLeaks Strikes At Clinton, Democratic Party

In apparent response to the Clinton-Obama behind-the-scenes role with Sweden at the genesis of the prosecution, WikiLeaks unleashed late during this year’s U.S. presidential elections a torrent of hacked documents from the Democratic National Committee and elsewhere.

These created highly adverse news coverage for presidential nominee Hillary Clinton (shown in her official photo as Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013), her longtime friend and top campaign aide John Podesta, who has been pilloried for both minor embarrassments and what appears to be a hoked-up sex scandal called “pizzagate.”

WikiLeaks disclosures also forced the resignation in disgrace from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) of its chair, U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Shultz (FL) after WikiLeaks revelations showed that she and top DNC staffers tilted the primary process towards Clinton. The Wasserman-Schultz interim successor at the DCDNC was CNN political commentator Donna Brazile. But WikiLeaks disclosures that Brazile had leaked CNN debate questions to Clinton backers prompted CNN to oust Brazile from her lucrative CNN post.

The targeting of the Clinton campaign and its supporters by WikiLeaks doubtless stems from Clinton’s role as Secretary of State when she was part of the Obama’s all-out effort secretly to capture and indict Assange for WikiLeaks disclosures. An initial obstacle was the legal difficulty of extraditing Assange from the United Kingdom directly to the United States, which has more favorable extradition arrangements with Sweden.

Assange’s statement this week described many such U.S. initiatives to put him in prison like former U.S. Army Pfc. Chelsea Manning, who is now serving a 35 year sentence on spy charges after making hacked photos publicly available to demonstrate war cries. Manning remains in solitary confinement and under other harsh conditions.

Nearly all U.S. investigative measures against Assange remain secret. But author Guy J. Sims reported in his 2012 book Julian Assange in Sweden: What really happened  that Clinton senior advisor Alec Ross (shown in a file photo) dined with a Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt on Sept. 4, 2010, right after the time when Sweden’s prosecutor Finné was being replaced with Ny, who became an implacable enemy of Assange.

Bildt has denied reports in major Swedish newspapers and in documents hacked by WikiLeaks that he has been an asset of the CIA since the 1970s.

Bildt, shown in a photo with Bush Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, was Swedish foreign minister from 2006 to 2014 and previously served as both prime minister and leader of the Moderate Party (which, despite its name, is the nation’s most important conservative party).  It was the Moderate Party whose leader used Republican Karl Rove as an advisor in 2010, the same year that Rove advocated on Fox News that authorities execute Assange just as he was preparing to visit Sweden.

The hatred of leakers is thus bipartisan, but it was the Democrats and Hillary Clinton who have held the power of the U.S. government over Assange in recent years.

Pervasive NATO, CIA, Säpo Influences

The allegations that the United States controlled such a major Swedish leader as Bildt are just a small part of pervasive U.S. influence over such key Swedish institutions as its parliament, courts, media and military suggested by emerging evidence in the Assange case.

The pattern continues. One of our columns earlier this year was headlined Noted Swedish Journalist, Assange Critic Exposed As Säpo Agent, with a subtitle, “Secret police agency cash for a journalist.”

We reported further: A prize-winning Swedish journalist noted for his left-wing, pro-NATO and anti-WikiLeaks commentary was revealed early this year to have been a paid agent of Säpo, his nation’s security service. Martin Fredriksson, shown in a file photo and winner of a major investigative reporting prize in 2014 for his work exposing right-wing groups opposed to NATO, had been secretly paid for years by Säpo, the Swedish Security Service, according to news reports based on his own admissions.

In deep intrigue that resembles a spy novel, Fredriksson’s story undermines conventional wisdom on both sides of the Atlantic that journalists work independently from power centers, including government agencies.

That is also the complacent view of many Swedish citizens, writes retired Swedish medical school professor Marcello Ferrada de Noli. He leads the organization Swedish Doctors for Human Rights, and founded an online human rights magazine, The Indicter, that has been fiercely supportive of Assange.

The professor is shown with Assange and the latter’s then-attorney Jennifer Robinson in London during Assange’s long and unsuccessful fight before the British courts to prevent extradition to Sweden for further questioning on the sexual misconduct charges.

De Noli, himself a political torture victim in his native Chile, has criticized Sweden’s complacency in the face of legal outrages against Assange, as reported in The “Duck Pond” Theses: Explaining Swedish journalism and the anti-Assange smear campaign.

The Political ‘Rape Case’ Investigation

Following these perspectives showing the close cooperation of Swedish and other Western political, court and intelligence services in seeking to capture, we now return to the gross unfairness of rape case Sweden has been pursuing, leading to last week’s news regarding Assange’s written response to Sweden’s demand for additional details.

Part of this requires attention to the motivations and credibility of the complainants, insensitive and politically incorrect as it might seem to American audiences that have almost never read anything about those topics in the anti-Assange slant that overwhelmingly dominates the traditional news media.

WikiLeaks, by making its hacked or leaked disclosures available directly to the public via the Internet, directly threatens the traditional role of corporate controlled outlets in acting as information gatekeepers on what the public can learn about secret foreign affairs, military and intelligence-related material. New media were hardly better, as Assange noted a 2012 book that described his meeting with Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and the close interactions that such new media companies as Google have with government officials like Hillary Clinton whose secrets are undermined by WikiLeaks disclosures.

We now examine the stories of the two women. This is important since the impact of their testimony and any cross-examination would not be aired publicly at trial under Sweden’s procedures. There is special importance if such a serious charge as rape is used to keep Assange under confinement far longer than any typical defendant, and especially if the charge has been trumped up to get him to Sweden for rendition to the United States to face possible life imprisonment or execution under secret charges.

As noted above, best-selling author Naomi Wolf (shown in a file photo) took an eloquent and courageous stand on these points in late 2010 and early 2011 in columns published in liberal outlets that brought her considerable complaints from other feminists.

But events continue to vindicate her words.

Assange’s defense statement last week is just one of the reasons he remains in the news.

The WikiLeaks release of documents damaging to Democrats in the recent U.S. federal election campaign prompted Ecuador to cut off his Internet access at the embassy, as reported in Ecuador’s sly strategy behind its treatment of Julian Assange. Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa, Assange’s patron in the asylum invitationi, is prevented by term-limits from campaigning for re-election in next February’s voting. The successor government might not prove so willing to house Assange in the embassy’s tight quarters in London against the wishes of leading Western democracies.

 Even more dramatically, President-elect Trump’s administration is likely to be torn between factions. One is repulsed by the WikilLeaks culture of hacking and disclosure. The other includes those grateful for Assange’s help in helping embarrass and at times demonize Clinton (shown with President Obama in a 2013 White House photo) and other Democrats during the campaign. WikiLeaks disclosures included some that have been used by others to create such fake news as the “pizzagate” scandal falsely alleging that prominent Democrats used non-existent abandoned subway tunnels underneath a pizza restaurant to sexually abuse and otherwise torture children.

The traditional news media in the West for the most part seem poised to keeping treating WikiLeaks as a competitive threat and a villain. That’s particularly apparent because Assange’s election campaign leaks can be linked to trending news campaigns the fights against so-called “fake news” and against Russian propaganda, as reported in recent days. These include blockbuster leaks from the CIA, such as the Washington Post story Obama orders review of Russian hacking during elections.

Hostility from presidents, prosecutors, intelligence agencies, and the media are powerful reasons to be believe Assange will continue to need political asylum as protection from, initially, a Swedish court system and media shown to be remarkably autocratic and secretive.

But even an informed public, whether in the United States or Sweden, tends to have little influence over so many formidable institutions committed to imprisoning one person. Readers here may not be able to stop the crusade against Assange, or even want to stop it because his actions have offended many, whatever his actions involving the long-missing Wilén (who appears, based on still-limited knowledge, to be the complainant in the “rape” charge, not Arden).

One thing I hope we have achieved here it is to provide enough facts to show that the prosecution procedures in the sex case inquiry have been disgraceful. And if authorities on two continents could pursue such a reckless and unfair procedure in such a high-profile case without fear of exposure how many similar cases are unfolding in this way?

Your enhanced vigilance as readers in answering that kind of question in your own localities and elsewhere may prove to be one of the ultimate values in this re-examination of the Assange case, whatever his own fate.

This article was originally published in Justice Integrity Project.