People Before Profit blog

Imperialism behind coup in Georgia Imperialism behind coup in Georgia

Fri, 19 Dec 2003 06:16:00 +0000

Since the invasion and occupation of Iraq, it has become fashionable to characterize U.S. foreign policy as imperialist. Apologists have shamelessly embraced the description, while critics are appalled at what they see as a departure from previously idealistic, human rights-based foreign policies.

The Iraqi adventure is indeed imperialist, but it is ill-informed or misleading to suggest that the U.S. – and other capitalist countries – guide their international activities with anything other than an imperial creed. We see imperial tentacles everywhere that U.S. corporate interests can be furthered. Unfailingly, economic and political domination is masked with high-sounding slogans like Woodrow Wilson’s “world safe for democracy” or Bush’s “war on terror.” From Nicaragua to Angola, from Yugoslavia to Cambodia, from Poland to Venezuela, the U.S. ruling class makes every effort to impose regimes friendly to monopoly capital.

The Nov. 23 coup in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia marks the latest imperialist venture. It is difficult to find any sympathy for the deposed government of Eduard Shevardnadze. To anyone following the betrayal of the Soviet Union, no one did more to dismantle socialism than the former Soviet foreign minister. In return, the capitalist countries did everything to install and maintain Shevardnadze as president of the Republic of Georgia.

Having ruled Georgia since 1992 with a careful regard for pleasing the U.S., Shevardnadze appeared to reign securely despite economic decline and corruption. But when he began to explore better relations with the Russian Republic, the U.S. marked “paid” to this servant of capitalism. As the Wall Street Journal so brazenly and arrogantly put it, there are “promising oil fields” in the Caspian and a “crucial corridor” for the gas and oil of Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan at stake.

In a smug, but remarkably candid, article in the Nov. 24 issue of the Wall Street Journal, author Hugh Pope exposed the forces behind the coup. With financing from the “liberal” George Soros’s Open Society Institute and the U.S. government’s infamous Agency for International Development, a nongovernment organization (NGO) was created. Called the Liberty Institute, this Trojan horse served as a cover for organizing opposition to the government and for furthering Western interests.

With the help of the American Bar Association, the Liberty Institute devised tests for the Georgian judiciary that effectively vetted Soviet-era judges. In addition, leaders of this NGO pressed to “reform” the police, the educational system, and elections, seeking to further undermine any remnants of the Soviet system which might prove a barrier to corporate rule.

The opportunity to depose Shevardnadze arose after the Nov. 2 parliamentary election. Amid charges of electoral fraud generated by U.S. and NGO exit polls, the opposition sprung into action. Since February, they had been studying the tactics employed to depose Milosevic in the former Yugoslavia.

Thousands of students were trained by Serbian activists who had been imported by the opposition. When the elections were challenged, the Georgian students were activated, becoming – as the Wall Street Journal so aptly stated – the “foot soldiers of the opposition politicians.”

Faced with a physically threatening throng, Shevardnadze withdrew to take counsel with his U.S. sponsors. But the puppeteer severed the strings to the puppet. The Bush administration, through Secretary of State Colin Powell, urged him to “do the right thing for Georgia.” The message was heeded and the coup was accomplished.

And the lessons? We – working-class people in the U.S. under constant attack by corporate political and economic power – should not be trapped by an endless and unproductive attempt to identify “the good guys.” Instead, we should oppose the hand of imperialism.

The author can be reached pww@pww.org.

Big losses for India's Congress Party

Fri, 19 Dec 2003 05:41:00 +0000

NEW DELHI – Provincial elections held recently in three states – Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Chattisgarh – went heavily in favor of right-wing, Hindu nationalist forces and their political arm, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The results represent a severe setback for the Indian National Congress. Of the four provincial elections held on Dec. 1, the Congress Party retained control only in Delhi.

Wrong economic policies, infighting, corruption charges and of course anti-incumbency factors troubled the Congress Party and its allies.

BJP leaders put forward a hardcore “hindutva,” or Hindu nationalist, line, and were able to gather all Hindu communalist elements under one umbrella. The anti-Muslim platform of the BJP has been a force in Indian politics for more than a decade.

With the support of the BJP’s right-wing central government, BJP leaders pumped in millions of rupees to buy votes. Multinational corporations from all over the world donated handsomely to the BJP alliance. The BJP’s large-scale vote buying was a new phenomena in these elections.

In Madhya Pradesh, India’s largest state, the BJP bagged 172 seats out of 320. The Congress Party got only 39 and others 19. The Congress Party has been in power in Madhya Pradesh for the last 10 years, and it followed economic policies dictated by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The result has been utter poverty. Unemployment in all sectors is at its peak. Industries have come to a standstill due to the lack of electricity.

The BJP’s election slogan, “No electricity, no roads, no votes,” tapped into public disenchantment with the Congress Party and its Chief Minister Dig Vijay Singh. As a result, Uma Bharti, a Hindu woman, was elected the new chief minister from the BJP. Bharti’s oratorical skills attracted a large following, and helped the BJP to capture a large segment of the Hindu masses and some indigenous communities.

In some remote villages in Madhya Pradesh, upper caste Hindu landlords did not allow their laborers to cast their votes.

The BJP also scored a victory in Rajasthan. In the 200-seat assembly, the BJP bagged 120 seats, while Congress got 56 and others 24. Ashok Ghelot, the strong-man of the Congress Party, was the incumbent chief minister. His wrongdoings and corruption gave BJP a strong basis for defeating him.

Mismanagement of the water supply during the drought in Rajasthan was one of the main campaign issues, and it worked against the Congress Party. Rural communities fielded their own candidates but that indirectly helped communalist forces. BJP was able to split the votes using these candidates and to take advantage of the divisions.

The BJP’s chief ministerial candidate, Vasundhara Raje, is from Gwalior Palace, a traditional local kingdom. Internal feuds in the province’s Congress Party also played an important role in its defeat at the polls.

Chattisgarh, a tribal majority state, also went in favor of the BJP. Out of 90 seats they bagged 50 and Congress 36. Here again, corruption was a major issue. The outgoing chief minister from the Congress Party, Ajit Jogi, had collaborated with his son in obtaining millions of rupees illegally. BJP election managers skillfully exploited this to their advantage.

In Chattisgarh both the Congress and BJP leaders are corrupt. “Who is less corrupt?” became the only question before the voters, and they decided to remove Jogi.

Only in the national capital, New Delhi, did the voters rebuff the BJP. They re-elected Sheila Dikshit from the Congress as chief minister. Congress got 47 seats out of 70 and BJP got only 20. The influence of left parties, major university campuses like Jawaharlal Nehru University, and well-informed citizens kept BJP at bay.

The BJP leadership is now eyeing its prospects on the national level. Prime Minister Atel Behari Vajpayee has asked all BJP MPs to go back to their own constituencies. The Congress Party, on the other hand, is in no hurry.

In states like Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura, the left parties are prepared to compete in new elections. These are the left’s traditional strongholds. But in other states, where the BJP and Congress are the main rivals, Congress may lose big unless they change their policies. The BJP will further inflame communalist tensions and threaten India’s secularism.

M.K.N. Moorthy is the publisher of a progressive Malayalam language publication in Kerala, India, and a freelance correspondent for the World. He can be reached at pww@pww.org.

International notes

Fri, 12 Dec 2003 05:17:00 +0000

Australia: Tied to U.S. coattails?

“The Howard Government is pouring billions of dollars into military spending as part of long-term preparations for ongoing conflict, recklessly tying Australia to Uncle Sam’s coattails in endless U.S. terror wars,” The Guardian, newspaper of the Australian Communist Party, said late last month. On Nov. 20, the paper said, Defense Minister Robert Hill was in Washington signing agreements for “seamless interoperability” between the U.S. and Australian military.

Under the recent Defense Capability Review, the way is open for Australia to join the U.S. missile defense program. This includes building three new warships fitted with the latest high-tech radar equipment, as well as a billion dollar purchase of U.S. tanks, Joint Strike Fighters and new multipurpose vessels that carry troops and helicopters.

Zimbabwe: SACP delegation visits

The South African Communist Party (SACP) said last week that a high-level delegation headed by General Secretary Blade Nzimande would visit Zimbabwe Dec. 8-12 to meet with the governing party, ZANU-PF, as well as the major opposition formation MDC, and organizations such as the Zimbabwean Congress of Trade Unions and faith-based movements.

The SACP said the visit had been fully discussed with its alliance partners, the African National Congress and Congress of South African Trade Unions, and with colleagues in government, and takes place “within a context of ongoing South African and Zimbabwean interaction and solidarity efforts.”

Objectives include enriching understanding of the strategic perspectives and concerns of Zimbabwe’s key political and social protagonists, focusing attention on the plight of the Zimbabwean working class, the urban and rural poor, discussing perspectives on fostering wide-ranging dialogue and negotiation within the country, and discussing with all the key forces how best to increase South Africa’s solidarity with Zimbabwe.

El Salvador: Workers’ rights abused

As U.S. trade negotiators prepared for this week’s talks on the proposed Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), the New York-based Human Rights Watch released a scathing report, “Deliberate Indifference: El Salvador’s Failure to Protect Workers’ Rights.”

The report cites specific cases in private and public enterprises, and in service and manufacturing industries, including delayed salary payments, failure to pay overtime, and even withholding workers’ social security.

Most common, the report said, is denying the right to organize. Employers routinely fire union members and leaders, suspend union activists, and bully workers to drop their union membership.

The Bush administration has rejected demands to exclude countries that don’t mandate, or don’t enforce, basic labor rights.

The Stop CAFTA Coalition, including the Campaign for Labor Rights, CISPES, Witness for Peace, and the Nicaragua Network, has called for local actions against CAFTA during the talks.

South Africa: Nobel prize proposed for AIDS fighters

South Africa’s Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and its founder, Adurrazack (Zackie) Achmat, have been nominated by the American Friends Service Committee for the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize, based on their work fighting HIV/AIDS.

The AFSC said it made the nomination “in the belief that the global AIDS epidemic constitutes a grave threat to peace and security, a threat now recognized by the global community.”

The organization said the efforts of Zackie Achmat and TAC have led to dramatic cuts in the cost of anti-AIDS drugs through voluntary price cuts by drug manufacturers and the acceptance of generics. TAC has also “contributed to an overhaul of global trading rules to give precedence to protection of public health over protection of intellectual property rights.”

Achmat was jailed repeatedly during the anti-apartheid struggle. He had founded the National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality, and served as director of the AIDS Law Project, before founding TAC in 1998.

International Notes are compiled by Marilyn Bechtel (cpusainternat@mindspring.com).

Cuba develops low-cost childrens vaccine

Fri, 05 Dec 2003 06:03:00 +0000

Cuban researchers have developed the first synthetic vaccine against the bacteria that causes pneumonia and meningitis, the main cause of almost half of the infections of children under five in the developing world. According to UNICEF, haemophilus influenzae type B kills one half million children each year.

The vaccine specifically protects against heaemophilus influenzae type B, a bacteria which cases upper respiratory illness, primarily affecting very young children. The disease is a leading cause of meningitis, an infection of the brain and spinal cord coverings that can cause brain damage, deafness or death.

The research on the new vaccine, already tested and put into production in Cuba, was presented to experts from around the world at a biotechnology conference in Havana in November. According to Reuters news service, the vaccine is the first made for humans with a chemically produced antigen. “It took us six years, but what could be more precious for society than to have healthy two-month-old babies,” said Dr. Vicente Verez, head of the University of Havana’s Synthetic Antigens Laboratory.

Verez added that poor nations that depend on pharmaceutical companies for the vaccine – costing $3 a dose – will now have a much less expensive alternative. Clinical trials conducted in Cuba showed a 99.7 percent success rate in developing the required antibodies.

Although almost eliminated in the U.S., meningitis remains a problem in developing countries where the cost of the current vaccine has prevented widespread immunization.

Cuba could not afford the conventional vaccine, which appeared a decade ago, so it turned to its own medical and biotechnology industry, one of the most advanced in the Third World. It has also developed a hepatitis B vaccine that is exported to more than 30 countries.

The author, a retired professor of medical anthropology, can be reached at pww@pww.org.

International notes

Fri, 05 Dec 2003 05:23:00 +0000

Israel and Palestine: Majority favors two-state plan

A poll published Nov. 22 showed that 55.6 percent of Palestinians and 53 percent of Israelis support the principles of the unofficial peace plan called the Geneva Accord, drafted by former Israeli minister Yossi Beilin and former senior Palestinian Authority figure Yasser Abed Rabbo.

The survey, commissioned by the Washington-based Baker Institute, asked 1,241 Israelis and Palestinians what they thought about the peace plan’s provisions, without mentioning it by name.

The British newspaper The Independent observed that Israeli voters are losing faith in right-wing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s ability to fulfill his promise of “peace with security.” All Israeli voters have been mailed a copy of the Geneva Accord, and radio advertisements are promoting it.

Kenya: Union leaders against cuts

Union leaders, including the head of the Central Organization of Trade Unions, are warning the government against implementing World Bank and IMF conditions that destroy workers’ rights.

Speaking at the Tom Mboya Labor College in Kisumu on Nov. 28, top leaders of 13 unions said cutting government workers would push the country deep into poverty.

“If the government wants to be unpopular, then let it retrench civil servants, freeze employment, suspend salary increases and privatize strategic state enterprises,” COTU Secretary General Francis Atwoli told a workers rally in Mombasa over the weekend. He added that Kenya can sustain its economy without foreign aid, provided the government steps up the fight against corruption and the collection of tax revenue.

Venezuela: Alternative proposed to FTAA

Speaking in Caracas at last week’s opening of the fifth General Assembly of the Parliamentary Confederation of the Americas, Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez proposed “redesigning a path” to replace the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) agreement with a system aimed at maximizing prosperity in Latin American countries.

Calling FTAA a mechanism for “disintegration,” Chavez urged participants to design a new path “that takes us to an economic and social model to achieve full equality and contentment.” He called attention to the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of America (ALBA), an integration proposal that originated in Venezuela.

Chavez said the FTAA is part of a policy of neoliberalism and “free market” economics which is now seen as outdated and “no longer the future of the countries of the continent.”

United Kingdom: Rail workers to switch parties?

Three major Scottish branches of Britain’s largest rail workers union are seeking to switch allegiance from the Labor Party to the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP), the BBC reported last week.

Branch leaders of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) cited the SSP’s support for returning the railroads to public ownership, and for repealing antiunion laws.

Earlier this year, RMT general secretary Bob Crow observed that members were getting “fed up” with Prime Minister Tony Blair’s New Labor, and suggested the union could switch its support to the SSP.

At its annual conference last summer, the RMT voted to let local branches support parties other than Labor, and cut its contribution to the Labor Party significantly.

The RMT’s executive committee is expected to approve the Scottish branches’ decision, and other branches are reportedly considering the move.

Canada: Demand hearings on missile defense

The Canadian Peace Alliance is demanding the government hold immediate public hearings on Canada’s participation in the U.S. missile defense program, according to the Canadian newspaper People’s Voice.

Major antiwar coalitions in Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal and other Canadian cities have now organized anti-missile defense campaigns.

In May, Defense Minister John McCallum announced the federal government is negotiating Canadian involvement in the program. In June, 38 Liberal Party Members of Parliament joined the New Democratic Party and the Bloc Quebecois in voting against Canadian participation, saying it leaves the door open to weaponizing space.

Besides Britain, which said in January that it would join the missile defense system, no other country directly supports the project. (However, other forms of involvement exist; see below.)

Japan: New anti-missile venture with U.S.

Japan plans to co-produce the next generation of ship-to-air anti-missile missiles with the U.S., the daily newspaper Asahi Shimbun said last week. The newspaper said the joint production of the missiles is designed to maintain and promote Japan’s competitive lead in military technology. Japan has studied development of the missiles with the U.S. since 1999.

The Japanese Defense Agency aims to clear the way for their production within several years, but the joint production could require a review of Japan’s ban on weapons exports, Asahi Shimbun said. Japan banned export of weapons to any country in 1976, but in 1983 changed its policy to allow military technology exports to the U.S. alone.

International Notes are compiled by Marilyn Bechtel (cpusainternat@mindspring.com).