People Before Profit blog

Honduras election raises questions on turnout, international recognition

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:20:00 +0000

Regarding the controversial elections in Honduras on Sunday, November 29, all are agreed on one thing: National Party presidential candidate Pepe Lobo got the most votes, probably around 56 percent. However, hopes that the Honduras crisis, which began when the elected president, Manuel Zelaya, was overthrown by a right-wing coup on June 28, would be "solved" by the election seem premature.

That Lobo got the most votes, far more than the Liberal Party candidate, is probably due to the fact that the Liberal Party to which both Zelaya and coup leader Roberto Micheletti belong, went into the election deeply divided and discredited in the eyes of the voters because of the instability and economic damage caused by the coup.

But the question of turnout is vitally important, because supporters of President Zelaya and most of the resistance to the coup had called for an election boycott if Zelaya and constitutional normality were not restored in time for the election. One left-wing presidential candidate, Carlos Reyes, withdrew his candidacy, as did the left-leaning Liberal Party candidate for vice president, the incumbent mayor of San Pedro Sula, and several dozen candidates for Congress and local offices, after the collapse of an October 30 agreement that it had been hoped would solve the crisis. However another left-wing presidential candidate, Cesar Ham of the Democratic Unification Party, decided to stay in the race, giving the reason that his party's surveys indicated that it would pick up congressional seats. (We have not yet seen results for Mr. Ham, nor figures on the number of blank ballots cast as a protest).

The Micheletti coup regime threatened to prosecute anyone who advocated an electoral boycott, and there were reports of military and police raiding homes of people who were suspected of being pro-boycott. On Election Day, police and military suppressed a rally in Honduras' second largest city, San Pedro Sula, with reports of one death plus injuries and arrests. There were also reports that employees of government agencies and private businesses were being told that they would be fired if they did not vote.

:The government election agency quickly announced a very high turnout of 61.3%. But President Zelaya, in refuge in the Brazilian embassy in the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, announced a turnout of as low as 21%. Zelaya based his projection on reports from members of the anti-coup resistance who were monitoring the vote. To add to the confusion, the coup government's electoral agency gave the 61.3 percent figure "only tentatively", due to a "breakdown" in the computer system that did not allow the data to be "verified". But another agency contracted by the government to do exit polls showed the turnout to be 47.6 percent. Various reports indicate that the turnout was much lower in poor urban neighborhoods where Zelaya and the left have most of their support. Turnout in Honduras is usually low, about 50%.

The election campaign began, by law, on September 1. For all three months of the campaign, the Micheletti regime installed by the coup was in power, repressing pro-Zelaya mobilizations and periodically shutting down the opposition press and media. The usual groups that send observers to controversial elections (The Organization of American States, the European Union, the United Nations and the non-profit Carter Center) all refused, saying that the basic conditions for a fair election were not present.

However, the International Republican Institute (an agency of the G.O.P., which has been enthusiastically backing the coup), plus a contingent of "monitors" organized by ultra-right Cuban exile U.S. Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, joined observers from the National Democratic Institute in going down to do "election monitoring". Their reports are not in yet, but it is to be doubted that they will contain surprises.

The Colombian government quickly recognized the results of the election as clean and fair, and it is likely that other right-wing governments in the area, such as those of Peru, Panama and Costa Rica, will do so also. The Obama administration has not given a definitive statement but seems to be trending that way. On the other hand, the governments of Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela and other left-wing governments in the area have made it clear that they do not recognize the results, and are angry with the Obama administration for waffling on its original support for Zelaya's restoration.

President Zelaya's term ends on January 27 and it is improbable that he will be restored to power as a lame duck. But he is still besieged in the Brazilian embassy, and there may now be increased danger of a violent move to get at him.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/codepinkalert/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

World socialists gather in Caracas

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 10:18:00 +0000

If nothing else, the "First International Meeting of Parties of the Left" in Caracas last week was ambitious. Heeding the call by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for a fifth socialist international, participants set in motion planning for a founding session next April in Caracas.

They were called upon to respond, also, to new threats from U.S. imperialism. Colombian Senator Piedad Cordoba, a Liberal Party member, ended the meeting by urging support for protests worldwide Dec. 12-17 against new U.S. bases in Colombia.

A working group was established to prepare for the April meeting, particularly for ideological discussion. That gathering is timed to the 200th anniversary that month of a rebel government taking power in Caracas. Now it's the socialists' turn to organize a "solidarity based" society, declared Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan foreign minister.

Last week's meeting took place over three days at the state-owned Hotel Alba, formerly the Caracas Hilton, dedicated now to "socialist tourism." Some 120 participants were on hand representing 50 parties and groups from 39 countries. The United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) hosted the gathering.

A "Commitment of Caracas" coming out of the gathering set forth six overall goals. They included calls for action against the U.S. bases, reversing the coup in Honduras, shaping a "culture of peace," dissemination of revolutionary consciousness, building a worldwide vehicle for cooperative action, and solidarity with all those in struggle.

The document contained three "Special Declarations." One demanded an end to the U.S. anti-Cuban blockade and release of the Cuban Five, and another, mobilization for a "world vigil" on Nov. 29, election day under the "Honduran dictatorship." The third declaration called for convening of the fifth socialist international (The First International was the one that Marx and Engels participated in, the second was the grouping of Socialist parties prior to the First World War, the third was the Communist International (COMINTERN) established after the Russian Revolution, and the "Fourth International" brought together followers of Leon Trotsky).

President Chavez called the conference outcome "ratification that Bolivarian Venezuela is not alone," especially with mounting U. S. and European media hostility, U. S. bases in Colombia, and Colombian paramilitary forays crossing into Venezuela. Piedad Cordoba urged upon the meeting "absolute backing" for Venezuela's Bolivarian revolution so that Chavez not be "cornered." She held up his role in the transition to socialism as crucial.

"I assume the responsibility before the world," said Chavez introducing his proposal for a fifth international. In contrast with the European orientation of previous internationals, he explained, this one would have roots in Latin America, incubator of present-day socialism. Chavez cautioned that as the fifth international confronts both imperialism and capitalism, it must steer clear of errors that undid 20th century versions of socialism. Welcoming ideological debate, he argued that "socialism of the 21st century'' will be determined by the history and needs of individual nations.

The Venezuelan Communist Party (PCV) joined other Communist parties present in withholding approval for a new socialist international on grounds that world Communist parties are already acting in concert through yearly meetings of communist and workers' parties organized from Greece. On its Popular Tribune web site, the PCV backed common struggle against "terror and the looming military threat," specifically a "broad, continental anti-imperialist front," a project that non-socialists would also join.

A fifth international, however, is another matter. The PCV took exception to the ideological scatter of the left parties represented in Caracas and involvement even of right-wing parties, notably the Institutional Revolutionary Party of Mexico and Argentina's Justicialist Party, which includes Peronists of every kind.

Some non-Communist left formations - for example, Germany's Die Linke, France's Parti de Gauche, the Alternative Democratic Pole of Colombia (which includes the Colombian Communist Party and others), and the Brazilian Workers Party - were favorably disposed, but postponed approval. The French, Cuban, Greek, Portuguese, Chinese and Vietnamese Communist parties were represented, also the FMLN of El Salvador, Nicaragua's Sandinistas, and Bolivian President Evo Morales' party, Movement toward Socialism.

The complete Commitment of Caracas is published on venezuelanalysis.com. Its far-reaching goals are epitomized by characterization of the "structural crisis of capital [as an] economic crisis, an ecological crisis, a food crisis, and an energy crisis." This onslaught represents "a mortal threat to humanity and mother earth," the document says. The remedy is "construction of an ecologically sustainable society as a fundamental axis of our struggle for a better world."

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/shankbone/ / CC BY 2.0

Letter on Honduras urges U.S. to stand firm vs. coup

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 12:36:00 +0000

The following is an open letter sent by peace and social activist Tom Hayden to Labor Secretary Hilda Solis on the situation in Honduras.

Nov. 2, 2009

Hilda L. Solis

Secretary of Labor

United States of America

Washington DC

Dear Secretary Solis,

The peace, justice and labor communities no doubt are very pleased at your appointment to the commission monitoring the power-sharing arrangements and presidential elections this month in Honduras.

As one who recently interviewed President Manuel Zelaya for The Nation and has visited Honduras before, I wish to communicate a few observations.

The first is that the golpistas are unlikely to accept the latest agreement voluntarily. According to the interpretation of pro-Micheletti Wall Street Journal columnist Mary Anastasia O"Grady, it is "quite likely" that President Zelaya will be refused both the presidency and amnesty by the Honduran parliament and Supreme Court. When he steps out of the Brazilian embassy, she adds, it is "fully expected" that he will be detained. Even despite such refusals and his detention, she emphasizes, the coup government expects to receive hemispheric recognition of the elections.

It is inconceivable [to myself] that the U.S. government and the OAS would lend themselves to such a dangerous debacle. But the coup regime seems determined to preserve through high-stakes diplomacy what they think they achieved through force on June 28.

The U.S. message should be that no presidential elections will be recognized as legitimate without the return of President Zelaya to serve what remains of his term and without recognition of the new reality of a vast social movement of Hondurans demanding a real voice in the future of their country.

In your role as our Secretary of Labor, I believe you are uniquely qualified to help in the transition to a fair and more democratic Honduras. Decades of deep U.S. engagement have only left Honduras as one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere. When I was last there, I toured overflowing prisons and juvenile facilities where young people were packed 30 to a cell with only a pop bottle in which to urinate. At the American embassy, I was told that the rule of law was only a "work in progress." There was virtually no social safety net, and thousands of young people roamed the streets, easy prey for vigilantes and mano dura advocates. One of the principle reasons that the elites moved to overthrow President Zelaya was his agenda of empowering and improving the lives of the poor, by such measures as a living wage - the same issue that you championed in California when we served in the Legislature. He pointed out in our interview that his enemies in Honduras share the same reactionary, often violent, outlook on social justice as do President Obama's political enemies in this country.

From past collaborations on ending sweatshop labor, I know that you are aware of numerous U.S. garment manufacturers who subcontract for exploited labor in Honduras. I believe the US should adopt a new policy of lifting the hopes of the poor by enacting enforceable "sweatfree" provisions, including a living wage, on garments and other products now flowing from sweatshops to US consumers.

Two places to begin are Nike subcontractors like Hugger de Honduras and Vision Tex who have violated wage and hour laws in Honduras, leaving workers out on the streets, and Jerzees de Honduras owned by Russell/Fruit of the Loom, which recently closed a factory to crush a union. Jerzees has been the focus of a campus boycott here in the U.S.

The Honduran crisis is the focal point for new relationships between the U.S. and the continent to our south, a continent from which countless Americans like yourself have come with dreams of opportunity and memories of savage injustice. As Secretary of Labor, I pray that you will serve as a new bridge of hope between our continents.

Sincerely,

TOM HAYDEN

Director

Peace and Justice Resource Center

Culver City California

World Notes: Cuba, Western Sahara, Afghanistan, Philippines, South Africa, Haiti

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:39:00 +0000

Cuba: Children a privileged class

In televised comments on the 20th anniversary of the UN adoption of a Convention on the Rights of the Child, UNICEF official José Juan Ortiz indicated that of nine million children dying each year from preventable causes, none are Cuban. Nor are Cuban children among 126 million children forced to work. Ortiz praised a political will implemented over decades by public health, education, and food industry officials, as well as the Federation of Cuban Women. Additional factors explaining Cuba's excellent child welfare statistics include breast feeding, early childhood education, and immunizations, according to Cubadebate. "Cuba, a country under blockade, invests its modest resources to save children," said Ortiz, while "the most powerful nations use $14 billion to save banks." Only the United States and Somalia have rejected the Convention, signed by 192 nations.

Morocco/Western Sahara: Freedom fighter deported

Aminatou Haidar, known as the "Saharawi Gandhi" for her leadership in resisting Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara, began a hunger strike Nov. 16, after Moroccan authorities deported her to the Canary Islands. Returning from receiving an award in the United States, she found herself blocked from entering Western Sahara, because she designated Western Sahara, not Morocco, as her homeland. Supporters throughout Spain and internationally have protested Spanish complicity evident in her entry into the Canary Islands without a passport, which Morocco has confiscated. Without it she can not leave the Canary Islands. For 18 years, Morocco has refused to implement a UN - ordered referendum on independence for Western Sahara. Europa Press reported a solidarity hunger strike on the part of 300 Western Saharan women.

Afghanistan: British troops shift gears

New counter-insurgency guidelines contained in an Army field manual released last week call for commanders to pay off Afghans to induce them not to join the Taliban. Payments would exceed the daily $10 paid new recruits by the Taliban. Portraying the manual as a "strategic rethink," Major-General Paul Newton noted, "The best weapons ... don't shoot; use bags of gold in the short term to change the security dynamics. But you don't just chuck gold at them; this has to be done wisely," he advised. The night before Prime Minister Gordon Brown, speaking at the annual Lord Mayor's banquet in London, seemed to be setting out an exit strategy, according to timesonline.co.uk. He indicated British troops could be handing over districts to Afghan authorities during 2010.

Philippines: Opposition mounts against foreign mine

Indigenous people, joined by two Catholic Priests, launched a hunger strike in Manila last week to protest a Norwegian company's plans for open - pit nickel mining operations on 25,000 acres on Mindoro Island. Camped outside the offices of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, 27 protesters pointed to the bypassing of authorization processes, anticipated infringement on indigenous people's ancestral domains, scanty royalties and taxes paid by Intex Corporation to the government, and threats to environmental integrity. Fr. Roberto Reyes, quoted by Asia-pacific-solidarity.net, stated, "I go on hunger strike with the Mangyans and the people of Mindoro who hunger for justice and freedom from exploitation and oppression of foreign multinational corporations and their counterparts in the present regime".

South Africa: COSATU defends abused migrant workers

In a recurrence of migrant persecution last year, residents of the De Doorn region of Western Cape early this month launched attacks on mostly Zimbabwean undocumented migrants working on nearby farms. With their shacks destroyed, victims found refuge in a rugby stadium. Labor Minister Membathisi Mdladlana accused farmers of violating immigration laws to secure cheap labor. Africa Unite, a migrant advocacy organization, weighed in by suggesting that many South Africans, confronting persistent poverty and joblessness, transfer anger to foreign migrants. As reported on iafrica.com, Mike Louw of the COSATU labor federation last week affirmed that job entitlement, "is a human rights issue, a humanitarian issue that needs to be dealt with," not a matter of nationality.

Haiti: Elections three months off, Lavalas prepares

The Provisional Electoral Council, reconstituted in October, has set parliamentary elections for Feb. 28, 2010. Haitinanalysis.com Kim Ives attributes unusual haste in organizing the elections to President René Préval's determination to fit in two parliamentary sessions before leaving office in 2011. Two are needed for instituting sought- after constitutional changes. Political party leaders, leery of bureaucratic obstacles, denounced the rushed schedule. Participation of the Lavalas Party remains uncertain. CEP exclusion of the party backing exiled former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide - removed in a U.S. engineered coup five years ago - triggered a nationwide boycott of Senate elections earlier this year. Lavalas has repaired a factional divide. The United Nations will provide $18 million toward election funding.

Professor says award should go to Mexico’s electrical union

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:10:00 +0000

Professor John Womack, an expert on Mexican labor history, has given up a prestigious prize, asking that it instead be awarded to the embattled Mexican Electrical Workers' Union.

The prize is called the 1808 Medal, is awarded by the government of Mexico's Federal District, which included Mexico City. It is given annually in honor of heroes of Mexico's independence struggle against Spain. Recently retired Womack, who is the Robert Woods Bliss Professor of Latin American History and Economics at Harvard and the author of a noted book on Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata is the 1808 recipient, along with another historian Eric Van Young.

The "1808" refers to the date on which a government autonomous from Spain was set up in Mexico City, two years before the official declaration of independence. It is given to benefactors of the Mexican nation, whether Mexicans or foreigners.

Womack sent a remarkable letter to the awards committee, which was read out to the audience by Mexican historian Alicia Hernandez Chavez.

The letter read in part:

"I accept the honor of the prize, the 1808 Medal, which the committee has awarded me. I accept the distinction, not because I think my work deserves a prize, but because of the love I feel for this great city, the greatest and most tremendous that I know.

"I recall the year 1973. An organization, to which I owe a special debt, opened its historical archives to support my research on the workers' movement: I refer to the Mexican Electricians' Union, the SME.

"I always have in mind its essential characteristic: The SME [has been] the most strategic, honorable and responsible union in the country, always acting as the force and symbol of the collective of Mexico City and the great metropolitan area of the country.

"[It is] Very special because, from 1915 [when the SME was founded] to the present year, 2009, it has maintained itself autonomous from the commitments tying other organizations to economic and political forces of power".

Womack's letter goes on to mention events in the SME history, for example the events of 1914-1915 when the Liberation Army of the South, headed by revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata, and the SME cooperated to keep a high level of order in Mexico City when the Zapatista troops took over the region.

The context of Womack's gesture is one of a ferocious attack on the union by the corrupt and reactionary government of Mexican President Felipe Calderon. After refusing to recognize the results of an SME leadership election, on October 12, 2009, Calderon mobilized police and pounced on facilities of the public utility "Central Light and Power" where workers were represented by SME, and declared the utility dissolved and the union nonexistent. Many believe that this action, directed at a union which refused to accept neoliberal policies to which the Calderon administration is wedded, was a prelude to the privatization of the electrical industry, as well as a blow against left-wing opposition to the government.

The union and its allies has been fighting back hard, mounting legal and constitutional challenges and mobilizing tens of thousands of its own members (about 62,000 including many retirees) and allies in mass protest marches in Mexico City and other places. It was this gallant fight, as well as SME's long history of struggle, which Womack intended to honor by passing on the 1808 medal.

In his letter, Womack denounced the "obscurantist" methods of the Calderon government and pointed to the wider goal for which the SME and others are fighting: "The citizens, not only of Mexico but also of the entire world, demand efficient and more just governments, not wasteful ones; we demand transparency in parastatal enterprises and those with mixed public and private capital".

Mexico City regional Governor Marcelo Ebrard, who has supported the SME's struggle, expressed appreciation of Womack's gesture, and blasted Calderon's attack on the union.

Copenhagen or bust?

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:12:00 +0000

Much sheer speculation has been written about the upcoming Copenhagen climate negotiations, and we will see much more over the next few weeks. What is this conference about, and what are the real issues at stake for the future of the world?

The conference in Copenhagen was set to negotiate a follow-up treaty to the Kyoto Accords, set to expire in 2012, a treaty that the Senate and the Bush administration refused to ratify or cooperate with. While China has recently passed the US as the largest emitter of global warming gases, the US is still far, far ahead of all other countries in per capita emissions, making US efforts a crucial aspect of whatever efforts the world makes.

The Kyoto Accords set aspirational guidelines for countries to shoot for as they worked to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. A large majority of the world's countries ratified the Accords, and some made serious efforts to meet them, but few countries managed to do so. The European Union set up a carbon trading scheme, and several European countries have made large-scale investments in alternative renewable energy. Other countries only approached their targets due to decreased economic activity, primarily Russia.

An international treaty with mandatory limits on carbon emissions has become more urgent. The climate is heating more rapidly than earlier predictions, and the current consequences of worldwide climate change are accumulating and intensifying. As well, shifting to a new energy economy is a massive undertaking, and current plans require an immediate boost if the world is to keep emissions to a manageable level, since this effort will take many decades. In the meantime, carbon dioxide emissions are still increasing.

Major contributors to carbon emissions include transportation using fossil fuels, coal-burning electric plants, deforestation including the burning of forests, unnecessary heat loss from both residential and office buildings, industrial agricultural processes, and increased emissions from the cattle industry which has been growing rapidly. Controlling emissions will mean efforts in all these areasnThe main issues leading up to Copenhagen are:

• Mandatory emission limits for developed countries;
• Emission goals for developing countries;
• A fund from the developed countries to compensate developing countries for technological development, for efforts to mitigate the effects of global warming, and for stopping or slowing deforestation (The UN environmental program proposes a minimum of $10 billion);
• Whether or not the US will actively participate, since cap-and-trade legislation will not be passed by the Senate before the Copenhagen Conference, and the Senate refused to ratify the Kyoto Accords;
• Whether the conference will result in a treaty, as originally projected, or will only agree to a "politically binding" agreement to negotiate a treaty in the next two years.

There is increasing pressure for President Obama to attend the Copenhagen Conference, especially since he will be nearby in Norway to accept the Nobel Peace Prize. Other world leaders are attending, including Sarkozy of France, Lula of Brasil, and possibly Brown of England. However, there is some reluctance on the part of the administration, since the conference is not likely to result in a completely successful treaty.

On his recent trip to Asia, Obama signed important agreements with China on carbon research and technology development. China, which has until now been almost as much of an obstacle to an international treaty as the US, is now in the forefront of investment in sustainable energy, in production of solar panels, in conservation efforts. The Chinese stimulus was almost 40% devoted to emissions control, conservation, smart electric grid development, and alternative energy investment, compared to about 12% of the US stimulus.

One argument used in recent years by conservative opponents of any climate change efforts has been that the US shouldn't agree to any limits until and unless China and India agreed to mandatory emissions limits first. Now that China is outpacing the US in many ways, this is a harder argument to make, even though China still opposes mandatory limits on developing countries, which have a much lower per capita emission rate, which are more in need of economic development, and which have contributed much less to the emissions which have already accumulated in the atmosphere.

Other countries are also in advance of the US in particular fields. Germany leads the world in electricity from wind power. Brazil leads in the production of alternative biofuels (from sugar cane and sugar cane scrap instead of from corn). The Netherlands, the most threatened developed country due to it exposure to rising sea levels, leads in adaptation efforts, abandoning unsustainable reclaimed land, improving dikes and water control.

Opponents of US climate change action are primarily, though not only, conservative Republicans. They use every argument to prevent or delay any US action, even the inadequate steps proposed in the two major bills before Congress. The Waxman-Markey Bill passed the House months ago. A similar bill in the Senate, whose prime sponsors are Barbra Boxer and John Kerry, will be debated more seriously starting next year, after the battle over health care reform is completed. The conservatives deny climate change is real, they deny that it is cause by human activity, they claim it will be too expensive, that it will hurt the U.S. economy too much, that various industries should get a pass from any mandatory limits, and so on. James Inhofe, Republican senator from Oklahoma, intends to set up a sideshow in Copenhagen for climate change deniers.

The exact details of whatever the conference comes up with are less important than that the world is seen to be taking real steps, placing more pressure on the US to act. The longer the US waits to start seriously tackling climate change and carbon emissions, the more difficult and expensive the transition will be, and the more harmful will be the results of the current impacts of climate change.

On December 11th and 12th, the climate change campaign 350.org is planning candlelight vigils around the country, at the offices of Congresspeople and at other symbolic sites. The same groups sponsored the over 5,000 October actions around the world to demand that the world work to reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million from the current 380 (the pre-industrial level was about 270 ppm). Go to their website to join an action or to initiate one.

India farmers stop price freeze on sugar cane

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 14:15:00 +0000

NEW DELHI- Over 12,000 sugarcane farmers demonstrated in New Delhi on Thursday (Nov. 19) to demand higher prices for their crop. They were protesting government announced plans to freeze sugar cane prices.

Central Delhi came to a standstill in the afternoon when the farmers, mostly from North India took to the streets demanding that sugar cane prices be allowed to rise. The farmers arrived in long caravans of buses, many with sugar cane bundles tied to the buses radio antennas. In a militant but festive mood the farmers rallied near the Parliament building to hear speeches - then many formed into spontaneous groups to march throughout the capital waving sugar cane stalks and shouting their demands.

The Indian Parliament was in session and later in the afternoon it was announced by the government that the farmers concerns were heard and that the price freeze would be reconsidered. Jubilant farmers danced in the streets and laughed and joked with Delhi residents before boarding their buses to return home.

Workers, left parties meet on global economic crisis

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:04:00 +0000

NEW DELHI -- There could not be an agenda more significant for the communist and workers parties' 11th international meeting than global capitalism's deep and ongoing economic crisis.

More than 25 parties from more than 20 nations are meeting to discuss and deliberate for three days starting Nov. 20 here in the capital of India. The Communist Party USA presented a paper on the crisis and political fallout.

Because this crisis began in the most developed capitalist country and profoundly rattled the U.S. ecomomy more than that of any other country, interest in the American Communist perspective is high.

For Marxists and leftists of the world the financial crisis did not land suddenly. It was brewing for decades. It is a traditional crisis of overproduction of commodities like cars and other products, overlaid by new trends in the economy, including financialization, which has heightened speculation and bubbles that bear no relation to commodity production. It is a crisis of the depletion of purchasing power of working people, middle class and academics caused by the largest accumulation of capital in the smallest number of hands -- ever.

Along with the economic crisis, estimates of each country's political landscape will be discussed. In the United States, looking at the balance of forces since the 2008 elections and the main problems confronting the ability of the country's labor and people's movements to grow and unite and deepen their reach for a people's economic agenda was presented.

Scott Marshall, a vice chair of the CPUSA, is leading the American delegation and spoke in the opening session along with the other delegations from the Americas: Cuba, Brazil, Argentina and Mexico.

Rome Food Summit is a flop

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:26:00 +0000

There was little good news for the world's billion hungry people at the UN World Food Organization (FAO) Summit held November 16 - 18 in Rome. FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf told reporters afterwards that, "There are declarations, promises, and indications for action, but no action." "We were expecting much more," said Oxfam International spokesperson Gwain Kripke.

Diouf apparently was not. Opening the Summit in the midst of a hunger strike, he knew that among leaders of wealthy G-8 nations, only Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi would be attending. His office was only blocks away.

The Summit turned down a UN recommendation that rich northern nations set aside $44 billion annually for agricultural aid, directed primarily at small farmers. Nor did the Summit agree to a goal of removing world hunger by 2025. Observers now see U.N. Millennium Development Goal of halving the world's hungry by 2015 as a distant dream.

Jacques Diouf drew attention to the $365 billion rich nations annually award their own industrialized farmers, the worldwide total of $1,340 billion in annual military expenditures, and trillions of dollars allocated for economic stimulation.

The Summit produced a bland declaration calling for coordination, improved distribution of resources, direct aid for vulnerable populations, and "rural sustainability," all suggestive of a "Baroque [and] bureaucratic" mindset," according to the Mexican daily La Jornada. Addressing the Summit, Pope Benedict 16th condemned egotism and food speculation.

Among the representatives of 93 nations and multiple NGO's on hand were Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and President Fernando Lugo of Paraguay. Speaking to reporters, Lula noted that "For some countries, hunger is invisible." Lugo drew attention to the paradox of multinational agricultural corporations increasing production and profits, while hunger rises. He castigated the United States and European Union "where amassers of money have profited, distorting markets and affecting thousands of family businesses in the South, now collapsed."

Heading Cuba's delegation, Agricultural Minister Ulises Rosales del Toro, blamed developed nations for food shortages despite ample world food production, because "they imposed trade liberalization among clearly unequal actors."

Representative of peasant organizations and social movements gathered November 13-17 in Rome for an alternative forum on behalf of "Food Sovereignty for the Peoples, Now." Reporting on its deliberations, Nettie Weibe, spokesperson for the international peasant group La Via Campesina told Inter Press Service that, "Food production is absolutely necessary to food security, and it is farmers who produce food and put it into the market." "Corporate, industrial [food] production" has replaced "the farmer part of it," she explained, adding that "Small- scale farmers must regain control of land." On its web site La Via Campesina denounced the Summit: "There were no concrete measures taken to eradicate hunger....or to stop the expansion of agrofuels."

According to globalreasearch.ca, the "global farmland grab" was the Summit "elephant in the room." Investors are colluding with governments to take control of tens of millions of hectares of prime farmland in Asia, Africa and Latin America." Governments have found "a new strategy to feed their own people without relying on international trade [and] private investors see agricultural land ... as a new source of guaranteed returns."

Heading the U.S. delegation to the FAO Summit, acting USAID Administrator Alonzo Fulgham reiterated U.S. intentions to double international aid for sustainable agriculture. That pledge was instrumental, according to Reuters, in persuading the G-8 nations recently to deliver $22 billion over three years for food aid. Washington, however, requires that funding be channeled through the World Bank with donor nations designating the recipients. Critics back a reformed FAO Committee on World Food Security that bases allocation of aid money on "one country, one vote."

Hunger in the United States apparently was not on the table in Rome. As the FAO Summit was opening, the U.S. Department of Agriculture released data showing that 14.6 percent of U. S. households in 2008 "had difficulty putting enough food on the table at times." The 49 million victims of food insecurity - up from 36.2 million in 2007 - included 16.7 million children.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/glasgows/ / CC BY 2.0

Can Germany's SPD lion add bite to its roar

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:29:00 +0000

It recalled ancient Greek tragedies. The Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), founded in the 19th Century, is the country's oldest party, and now its saddest one. On September 27th it suffered its worst election defeat since 1897, losing six million former voters and ending up with only 23 percent of the vote. It had been in government office for eleven years, as boss with the Greens under Gerhard Schroeder and as junior partner under Angela Merkel since 2005. Now it must share the less glorious opposition seats in the Bundestag with the Greens, as rivals, and the frequently despised and feared Left party. What a disastrous comedown for a once proud party!

What caused this loss and how does the SPD plan to stem the hemorrhage of members and voters? The first question is easy to answer. It betrayed its traditional base, the working people and the underprivileged. Cutting deep gashes in a once exemplary health system, pushing the retirement age up to 67, passing Draconian measures against the millions who lose their jobs, raising consumer taxes while cutting taxes on the wealthy and spending billions on weapon systems and armed expeditions to the Mediterranean, the Horn of Africa and Afghanistan, it either initiated such measures as government leader or continued them as Merkel's junior partner. Any timid doubts by its rickety left wing were dispatched with Schroeder's fabled "Basta" - "Enough of that" - and threats to withdraw needed support in the next elections. The habit of many SPD cabinet ministers, including Schroeder, to get top positions in big companies when they left office, added additional color to the picture. Even a political imbecile could predict the backlash, if not its magnitude. In September it was the voters' turn to say "Basta"!

How could the catastrophe be overcome? A recent congress in Dresden aimed at a new road plan. There were dozens of critical speeches about past sins and calls for a complete overhaul and return to the militancy of some nearly forgotten past. Indeed, it was a tradition to make strong demands when out of office. Again, it was proclaimed that it was not such a bad party after all and had a new program to win German hearts and minds as a party of the left! Or was it, after all, the center-left?

Among philosophers, "Buridan's ass" refers to an undecided donkey standing halfway between two equal bales of hay and starving to death. If the SPD verged leftward it approached the positions of The Left, the very party it had ridiculed, denounced and, whenever possible, ostracized. But keeping in the right lane (known as moderate) meant losing even more members and voters to the young party, which had already overtaken it in four out of five East German states, now in Berlin as well, if only by a few noses, and was beginning to challenge it in the western states as well. But if it were to become a genuine opposition party, more or less leftish, it must further adopt - or plagiarize - the positions of The Left, without seeming to approach it too closely or losing its identity as a supporter of the "social market economy". It feared being exposed to nasty red-baiting from the governing Christian Democrats and pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) as an ally of The Left. Then, too, it could not ignore the hundreds of thousands of Euros from golden sponsors like Daimler, BMW, Porsche or the Deutsche Bank.

The congress in Dresden seemed to indicate that its new leaders, many of them carryovers from the past, will continue to act like a toothless old lion, making loud roaring noises, but not all too loud. For example, when worried grass roots voices demanded that the SPD reverse its policy of postponing retirement pensions from 65 to 67, a key issue in unemployment-plagued Germany, the party's new Secretary General, Andrea Nahles, who still has the progressive-looking smile she once adopted when she was really on the left in the party, but little else than the smile, warned that "a quick change toward switching from 67 back to 65 would be completely unconvincing" and added vaguely, "We must develop a policy which hinders poverty in old age." To switch feline metaphors, it did not seem likely that this leopard could change its spots.

Meanwhile the new government of Angela Merkel and Guido Westerwelle, the clever FDP boss, vice-chancellor and foreign minister, was busy hatching out plans for its attacks on welfare. There was some debate on the issue of taxes - how soon and how much the wealthy should get away with, how best and how soon health care could be cut, whether the retirement age could be raised even further - and other such goodies. On most issues it appeared that the FDP is even further to the right than the Christian Democrats. It also appears that the worst is yet to come - after the crucial May elections in North-Rhine-Westphalia, the state with the biggest population and worst rust belt in western Germany. Merkel's party needs to keep control there, the SPD must not lose even more bitterly in what was once its main fortress and The Left must try to establish itself in the industrial heart of Germany.

After the elections the government will most likely wield its axe in earnest. To oppose it, and despite all former animosities, some kind of unity between the three opposition parties, the SPD, the Greens and The Left, would seem more urgent than ever. Only in Berlin and now in Brandenburg, surrounding Berlin, have the SPD leaders been willing to form a coalition with The Left. This question will continue to occupy the minds of politicians in both parties, and there are not a few on the Left, who fear that in such coalitions, with the SPD as senior partner, it would be the SPD which, like Dracula, could gain new strength by tapping the blood of an all too compromise-happy left.

Oskar Lafontaine played a key part in bringing together the older left in Eastern Germany and militant leftwing forces in Western Germany to form The Left and help it win an unprecedented 11.9 percent vote in September, largely because of new additions from West Germany, most dramatically in Saarland, his home state. He warned urgently, not against any possible coalition compromises, but against dangerous, unprincipled compromises, and was an unruffled, knowledgeable voice in the Bundestag and in rare talk show opportunities. There was amazement when he quit his leadership job in the caucus of The Left in the Bundestag. Now we know: he was hit by cancer and will be operated upon today. His future depends on the medical results.

Above and beyond personality issues, however so important they can be, will the economic situation and government attacks on the welfare of most Germans be enough to achieve some kind of unity in opposition, not only with political parties but with student, ecology, gay, anti-globalization and above all the labor movements? The question is crucial for everyone, but above all for the battered SPD. Some say that its 23 percent vote marked rock bottom and now look to an upturn. Others fear an even deeper abyss.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/redvers/ / CC BY 2.0

Urgent need to change U.S. Colombia policy

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:55:00 +0000

Colombia keeps on bleeding. In 1948, the assassination of the charismatic populist leader, Jorge Eliécer Gaitan led to rioting in Bogotá and generalized war provoked by wealthy landowners and the government that over ten years took 300,000 peasant lives.

Left-wing rural insurgencies have continued to our own time. In a 1980's peace initiative, Communists, trade unionists and guerillas came together in the Patriotic Union to contest elections. However, the ruling elites and drug cartels unleashed violence which killed 5,000 Patriotic Union activists, including electoral candidates.

President Alvaro Uribe leads a government strong on military repression serving big bankers, mega landowners, multi-national corporations, and elite families. The victims are workers, peasants, and indigenous and Afro-Colombian peoples. Fighting has displaced four million rural inhabitants. Sixty percent of Colombians are poor. Thirteen percent of children under five suffer from acute malnutrition. Four percent of landowners own two thirds of the land. The UN Human Development Index identifies Colombia as the 6th most unequal country on the planet.

Up to 3,000 trade unionists have been assassinated since 1986, 450 of them during Uribe's presidency. This has led the AFL-CIO to oppose a proposed free trade agreement between the U.S. and Colombia. U.S. corporations, including Coca Cola and Chiquita Brands, are accused by Colombian labor of involvement in anti-union violence. Labor leaders, such as Lily Obando of the FENSUAGRO union are judicially persecuted.

The National Indigenous Organization of Colombia says that 2,351 indigenous people have been murdered since 1974, 1,060 during Uribe's presidency. A scandal erupted recently over reports that the military had murdered 1,700 politically uninvolved young men so that the soldiers could take credit for "guerilla casualties".

Violent drug cartels would not have arisen without U.S. buyers. The United States, under "Plan Colombia", has subsidized the Colombian military and police to the tune of $6 billion over 8 years. Thousands of Colombian officers have been trained by the U.S. Department of Defense at the "School of the Americas" in Georgia. Colombia uses U.S. surveillance personnel and equipment to track drugs and FARC guerillas. By demanding extradition of arrested right wing death squad figures, the United States blocked investigations in Colombia of murders and human rights abuses.

As senator, Barack Obama criticized the planned Free Trade Agreement with Colombia because of human rights abuses. Now the Pentagon will be operating seven new military bases in Colombia. Their purpose, outlined in official documents, is to go after drug traffickers, guerillas and, tellingly, "anti-US governments". An infusion of $46 million to the Palanquero airbase will enable flights covering most of South America. U.S. troops in Colombia will be immune from prosecution.

The region has erupted in furious anger. Leaders of neighboring countries on the outs with Colombia fear that with U.S. equipment, personnel, and tutelage at Colombian disposal, the stage is set for military attacks, especially against Venezuela. Colombian paramilitaries have already carried out violent forays inside Venezuela.

Within Colombia - also regionally and internationally - efforts are ongoing to find a peaceful solution to the civil war between the government and the FARC and ELN guerilla armies. Yet massive U.S. military aid to the Uribe government can only reassure its leaders as to favorable prospects for military victory and rejection of negotiations.

Gustavo Petro, presidential candidate of the left-center Alternative Democratic Pole in the 2010 elections, has written to U.S. President Barack Obama to ask that he withdraw the plans for the military bases. Claiming that the bases agreement violates Colombian law, Petro adds "...I ask you to unilaterally suspend the process of implementing the military bases. ..and we invite you, with the help of the international community, to take up other, lasting paths of understanding which will lead us to peace".

U.S. citizens and voters, too, should demand that the Obama administration to get behind the Colombian peace process rather than promoting military solutions. Not only should the plan for the new US bases be cancelled, current US military aid to Colombia should be stopped until the Uribe changes its bellicose behavior both to its own citizens and to its neighbors. We should let our wishes be known by the White House, the State and Defense departments, and Congress, before it is too late.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/americanprogress/ / CC BY-ND 2.0

Cyprus ruling party sees hope for peace

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:20:00 +0000

Recently AKEL (the Progressive Party of Working People, Cyprus's Communist Party) had a briefing from Cypriot President Dimitris Christofias, saying that peace was within sight.

Christofias reported on his efforts to resolve the so-called "Cyprus problem," the problem being the occupation of a third of the island nation by Turkey. This occupation followed a 1974 Turkish invasion that was itself precipitated by the attempt of extreme right-wing racist elements on Cyprus who, working with the Greek military dictatorship, staged a coup in an attempt to annex Cyprus to Greece.

AKEL, which holds the vast majority of seats in the Cypriot legislature, said that, in its assessment, President Christofias, who is also an AKEL member, is aiming at a just, viable and workable solution, one that takes into account the interests and rights of both the Turkish and Greek Cypriot communities. The leading role of the United Nations is both good and necessary, but a solution cannot simply be imposed from the outside.

Further, both the ruling party and the president responded favorably to the entrance of Cyprus into the European Union. AKEL says it will support Turkey's admission to the EU, on the single condition that Turkey agrees to comply with the principles endorsed by Europe and the UN with regards to Cyprus.

AKEL voiced support for Christofias, who is working with leaders of the Turkish Cypriot community to find a solution. Through the efforts of President Christofias serious negotiations have begun and the party's report hails the recent appointment of Leopold Maurer as an observer from the European Union.

But the negotiations are sensitive and difficult. During their first phase, the two sides reached agreement on some issues, but other important issues remain as yet unresolved. AKEL maintains that it will not abrogate fundamental principles just to achieve a solution. What AKEL supports is a bi-zonal, bi-communal, federal solution, in accordance with the position of the international community, specifically the EU and the UN. While certain extremist elements are working to undermine such a solution, AKEL estimates that anything other than these principles will ultimately lead to partition of the nation.

Because the negotiations are in a critical stage at this time the utmost unity of the forces advocating a peaceful resolution is vital. AKEL's leaders say that they will do whatever it can to help unity based on principles prevail.

Photo: http://www.kremlin.ru

World Notes: Brazil, Yemen, India, Canada, Uganda, Cuba

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 14:50:00 +0000

Brazil: Fighting for the 40-hour week

It was the largest demonstration in Brazilian labor history, , according to rebelion.org. Some 40,000 unionists organized by the Confederation of Brazilian Workers, affiliate of the World Federation of Trade Unions, marched Nov. 11 in Brasilia. Their purpose was to pressure the Brazilian Congress into approving a constitutional amendment reducing work hours from 44 per week to 40 hours without a wage cut. Praising labor unity, confederation President Wagner Gomes recalled employers' warning in 1988, "when we fought to cut the 48 hour work week to 40, 'Brazil could not survive.' they said." However, he noted, "Brazil did not break apart" even though a 44 hour limit was imposed. Union spokespersons say two million new jobs would result from introduction of a 40-hour work week.

Yemen: Government spurns Iranian overture

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki last week called upon the government of Yemen to join "collective efforts" to end war against Houthis rebels in the North backed by Saudi Arabia. A government spokesperson cited by Al-Jazeera condemned Iranian "interference in its internal affairs." The Asharq Alawsat newspaper agreed, alleging Iranian efforts to create "pockets of influence" throughout the region. The rebels have fought for autonomy for four years. With hostilities increasing on both sides and casualties mounting, Saudi Arabia carried out air attacks on Nov. 5. So far, almost 200,000 Yemenis have been displaced. Many who crossed into Saudi Arabia have been pushed back. Some 20,000 are confined to camps.

India: Call goes out to support Tetley workers

The Foodworkers' International Union reported last week that West Bengal tea workers had formed an action committee aimed at unionizing the Nowera Nuddy estate owned by Tata corporation, producer of Tetley Tea. The workers, mostly women, are demanding payment of wages withheld for three months. Owners closed down operations on Aug. 11 after employees protested abusive medical treatment rendered to one worker who was eight months pregnant and had collapsed. Two weeks later Tata agreed to reopen the plantation on condition that August wages averaging $1.35 a day not be paid and that eight activist workers be fired. Most of the 1,000 workers rejected the arrangements, leaving their families, say observers, close to starvation. To express solidarity, go to IUF.org.

Canada: Beat the boss, go global

Beginning in July, 3,500 nickel mining workers have been on strike at four Canadian operations belonging to the Brazilian-based Vale Inco corporation. Its profits last year were $13 billion. United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard received kudos on straightgoods.ca for having pioneered an international campaign that may be taking hold. Steelworker members have gone worldwide to mobilize support from Vale workers and allies in Brazil, Indonesia, Australia, and New Caledonia. Their presence last month at the New York and London stock exchanges forced cancelation of events aimed at celebrating optimistic third-quarter profit and production figures that union analysts established as spurious. Plans by the world's second largest mining conglomerate to cut wages and pension benefits triggered the strike.

Uganda: AIDS patients are victims, again

Geneva-based Doctors without Border issued a report early this month titled "Punishing success: Early Signs of a Retreat from Commitment to HIV/AIDS Care and Treatment." Although four million HIV-infected people worldwide presently benefit from antiretroviral therapy, funding agencies show signs of withdrawing from commitments. Facilities in Uganda and elsewhere supported by the U.S. PEPFAR program now deny treatment for new patients, according to Allafrica.com. Budgetary shortfalls in Washington are given as the cause, with "flat funding" anticipated for international AIDS care in 2011. Last year the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria removed $1.5 billion from previously approved programs. Dr Eric Goemaere, Doctors without Borders spokesperson in Southern Africa, diagnosed "international betrayal" leading to "medical apartheid."

Cuba: Retamar honors Marti

Heads of state, Pope John Paul II, and former President Fidel Castro had all spoke at the University of Havana's Great Hall, which seemed to add weight to the address there Nov. 10 delivered by poet Roberto Fernández Retamar. Inaugurating the 7th International conference on Marti Studies, the writer and Casa de las Americas president praised Jose Marti's contribution to Latin American unity and his inspiration of a "second Cuban revolution," led by Fidel Castro in 1953. Although Marti studied imperialism long before Lenin authored his classic on the subject, Marti, "born poor and died struggling," was no Marxist, asserted Retamar. Yet Marxism shaped by Marti thought is essential, he suggested, for building socialism of the 21st century. Retamar's speech is accessible at laventana.casa.cult.cu.

Photo: Havana's Jose Marti monument. http://www.flickr.com/photos/bitboy/ / CC BY 2.0

Honduran election sham

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 14:28:00 +0000

The de facto Honduran government of Roberto Micheletti, installed by a coup d'état which overthrew President Manuel Zelaya on June 28, appears to be resorting to some very strange electoral tactics.

National elections are scheduled for Nov. 29, and neither Zelaya nor Micheletti, both of whom belong to the Liberal Party, are candidates. Rather than the deeply divided liberals, opinion polls are showing Pepe Lobo, presidential candidate of the right-wing National Party, ahead.

But many Hondurans appear to be disgusted with the whole system. Polls also show that about half the eligible voters do not plan to vote. Although electoral participation in Honduras has been low before, this year's political uproar could have been expected to bring out large numbers of voters.

On the left, some candidates, including Rodolfo Padilla, the incumbent mayor of San Pedro Sula, Honduras' second largest city, and independent left-wing presidential candidate Carlos Reyes, have announced they are withdrawing their candidacies in protest against conditions under which the elections are being conducted.

The demand of the left has been that before the elections, Zelaya and constitutional normality had to be restored. Otherwise, the elections would be carried out under repressive conditions, with anti-coup candidates and their supporters under danger of arrest or worse and left-leaning media semi-suppressed, while pro-coup candidates and media face no such restrictions.

An agreement patched together on Oct. 30, whereby Zelaya would be returned to the presidency as party of a "national unity" government, collapsed almost immediately, when allies of Micheletti in Congress refused to vote on the proposal to return Zelaya until possibly after the elections, and Micheletti unilaterally declared himself to be head of the "unity" government, excluding Zelaya.

In spite of the absurdity of trying to carry out a "fair" election under these circumstances, the United States has now declared that it will recognize whoever wins, implying also that economic sanctions will be cancelled.

Zelaya has accused Secretary of State Clinton of having sold out the Honduran people in exchange for Sen. Jim DeMint removing a block he had placed on the confirmation of two Obama nominees to the State Department. The U.S. declaration has removed the incentive for Micheletti and allies to make any concessions at all. Even if other countries in the region follow through with their threats not to recognize the results, Micheletti is well aware that 80% of Honduras' trade is with the U.S.

But a large abstention might still de-legitimize the election. So Micheletti appears to be approaching that threat with a two-track strategy: repression and provocations. Honduran law does not make voting mandatory but Micheletti's government has threatened to imprison anybody who agitates for an electoral boycott. Micheletti has claimed that the boycott is being organized by Nicaragua and Venezuela.

The coup regime is broadcasting dire warnings about "terrorist" attempts to stop the elections, and even the possibility of Nicaraguan and Venezuelan attacks.

Media also report that Honduran employers are threatening to fire workers who do not vote. On Nov. 14, the head of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, Enrique Ortez (who in his previous job as coup foreign minister had referred to President Obama as "that little Black cane-cutter") announced that the elections would be carried out with super tight security measures supervised by the army and police, who have been repressing pro-Zelaya agitation since the coup.

On Nov. 13, the coup regime claimed a bomb, delivered by air, had been set off near the warehouse where ballots for the election are being kept, the idea supposedly being to stop the election by destroying the ballots. But Arturo Cano, in the Mexico City daily La Jornada reports not only are there no signs or casualties or damage, nobody has found any remains of the supposed infernal device. This did not stop Ortez from blaming the non-bomb on the resistance or stop the international corporate press as reporting the incident as gospel truth.

What are Micheletti's people playing at? Perhaps if the boycott works, they can blame this on the imaginary terrorism campaign frightening people away. At the same time, the need to mobilize the army and police to "provide security" for the elections is obviously designed to suppress agitation for an electoral boycott, and to intimidate those people who want to vote for anti-coup candidates (not all have withdrawn).

Only two weeks remain to the election, and it's a fair bet there will be more provocations.

Photo: Flag of Honduras, Copyleft

World Notes: Australia, Kenya, Dominican Republic, France, Iraq, Jordan, Cuba

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:27:00 +0000

Iraq, Jordan: Water shortages weigh heavily

Southern Iraq is so short of drinking water, according to Azzaman News, that the government has prevailed upon Iran to supply fresh water via tanker ships. Water Resources Minister Abdullatif Rasheed last week inaugurated a massive dam crossing the Khassa River north of Kirkuk, heart of a region afflicted by severe drought. Last month, he urged French businesses to invest and help manage Iraqi water resources.

Speaking to the Al-Arab Alyawm newspaper last week in Jordan, University Professor Ghazi Al-Rabab'ah warned that water-short Israel would soon be waging wars over water, even against Egypt for access to Nile waters. He accused Israel of stealing water from Gaza, also from the Litani River in Lebanon, according to Palestine-info.co.uk.

Australia: Refugees protest conditions

Condemnation of Labor Party policies on refugees burst forth last week when 78 Sri Lankan migrants confined to the customs ship Oceanic Viking began fasting as they refused to disembark for transfer to a prison on Indonesia's Bintan Island. Indonesia never signed UN conventions protecting asylum seekers, and Australia pays Indonesia to detain its excluded, most of whom are from Sri Lanka, Iraq and Afghanistan. Presently 900 refugees are languishing on Indonesia's Christmas Island, reports the Australian Guardian paper. Critics say a much larger number of refugees arrive by plane - usually from less troubled areas - and live freely in Australia while immigration authorities process asylum claims. Spokespersons for the Australian Workers Union and Australian Council of Trade Union joined in denouncing "scapegoating of people."

Kenya: Good and bad news on malaria

Surveys presented at the Pan-African Malaria Conference last week in Nairobi showed that only three percent of infected African children are receiving effective anti-malarial treatment. Africans make up 90 percent of 900,000 malaria deaths annually. Untreated children under age five will die, said Dr. Desmond Chavasse, quoted by Inter Press Service. High costs block access to recommended combination therapy. Affordable drugs are generally ineffective against prevailing drug-resistant forms of malaria. A pilot subsidy program in Uganda and Tanzania, with treatment costing $0.25 rather than $11, put combination therapy into widespread use. Scientists reported that the world's first effective anti-malarial vaccine will be released soon. They caution that pervasive administrative and logistical glitches will curtail its use, unless they are remedied.

France: Unionization and wages down worldwide

The Paris-based Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development last week released data on trade union density showing generalized decline over four decades. Possible anomalies include low densities for France and South Korea - 7.8 and 10.0 percent respectively in 2007 - presumably not squaring with high levels of labor militancy there. Between 2000 and 2007, Australian unionization declined from 24.7 percent to 18.5 percent; British, from 29.6 to 28.0 percent; Canadian, from 30.4 to 29.5 percent; and U. S. unionization, from 12.8 to 11.6 percent. The International Labor Organization issued a press release last week on wages that read, "Growth in real average wages in the median country had declined from 1.0 percent in 2007 to -0.2 percent in 2008."

Dominican Republic: Corporation sued over toxic waste dump

A civil suit brought Nov. 4 before a U.S. court by 11 residents of Arroyo Barril, DR, some of them now dead, alleges major birth defects and illnesses at the hands of Virginia - based AES Corporation. At the behest of the Puerto Rican government, AES hired a contractor in 2003 to remove 100 million pounds of coal ash from a plant there to Arroyo Barril, a remote seaside village in the Dominican Republic. Coal ash contains arsenic, lead, cadmium, chromium, and nickel. A $6 million judgment against AES in 2006 by a Virginia court for illegal dumping benefitted the Dominican government, not the plaintiffs. Employing 25,000 people at power plants in 29 countries, AES took in $16 billion last year.

Cuba: People's debate on socialism under way

By last month, millions of Cubans were engaged in organized nationwide discussion on the future of Cuban socialism. President Raul Castro had set the process in motion last summer in preparation for the 6th Congress of the Cuban Communist Party, postponed this year until a future, as yet unassigned, date. Informal debate was ubiquitous. Most of the problems propelling discussion are economic, stemming from severe hurricane damage last year, the world economic crisis, high food costs, idle land, corruption and reduced exports. Observers cited by the report on directaction.org.au say opinion is building in support of initiatives introduced last year such as allowing for multiple jobs, removing caps on salaries and encouragement of private farming.

Photo: Farmer walks his bone-dry land just 20 miles south of Baghdad, Iraq. Hadi Mizban/AP

The fall of the wall — a view from Berlin

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:05:00 +0000

BERLIN - I hate to sound like the grouchy Grinch. Here in Berlin radio and TV are celebrating the Fall of the Wall 20 years ago so intensively there's hardly a moment for the weather report, which, unfortunately for all the planned events, turned out nasty and rainy. From my window I just watched the fireworks' brave attempts to spite the clouds and drizzle.

It is well-nigh impossible to be nasty about that strange event in 1989 when a seemingly random remark by an East German big shot opened the gates to a mass rush by East Berliners to West Berlin and, soon after, points further westward. There was general euphoria, bliss - the commonest word was "wahnsinn," insane, crazy, unbelievable. Then and now it seemed petty to entertain even the tiniest critical idea.

Without a doubt, the great event permitted happy reunions of many families and opened the way for East Germans to visit, no longer only Prague, Warsaw or Moscow, but also Paris, Washington and Munich, as well as West Berlin. It was truly a blissful occasion. TV has shown the film footage a thousand times but the crossing, embraces, the dancing on the wall are still moving, even to tears.

But as a socialist American, one of a handful who lived on the eastern side of the Wall, who tries to analyze history, I find it impossible to banish certain heretic recollections and doubts. For moments of mass euphoria, wonderful as they are for those involved, do not always explain history. And for me, too many issues and questions remain unexplained or simply unasked.

Why does no one recall that it was Eastern Germany, the German Democratic Republic, which pushed for reunification during the postwar years while Chancellor Adenauer brusquely rejected all proposals, even general elections. Only then, and after West Germany set up its own state, formed an army, joined NATO and insisted on regaining huge hunks of what was now Poland, were such attempts finally abandoned.

Why is it never mentioned that the GDR, though certainly undergoing an economic crisis, was in less of a crisis than all of Germany today, and that until its very end it had no unemployment, no homelessness, free medical care, child care, education and a sufficiently stable standard of living?

Why is it forgotten that many of its travel restrictions had been considerably eased in the two previous years, so that not only pensioners, who were always able to visit West Germany, but 1 million to 2 million GDR citizens had been able to visit West Germany in 1987-1989. Young people wanted desperately to travel, it is true; but their chances of being able to were already improving.

Sadly, there was often a stuffy, intolerant atmosphere in the GDR, traceable to the limitations of its aged leadership, to bad traditions inherited (or in part imposed) by the USSR, but also to a kind of paranoia which was, however, not fully unrealistic in its fears of being swallowed by West Germany, which is just what finally happened. From the start geographically and historically Germany's weaker third, the GDR was always under powerful, merciless attack. This created endless problems for GDR leaders, which they were never able to solve satisfactorily. Nevertheless, most participants in the demonstrations and rebellions in the fateful autumn of 1989 wanted an improved GDR, not a dead one. Only after Chancellor Kohl, Willy Brandt and other West German leaders promised them not only freedom but all the consumer goods they had gazed at so enviously in TV shows, summarized most succinctly with the words West marks (the western currency) and bananas - rarely available in the GDR - were they lured by the seductive songs of the Lorelei beauties from the Rhine.

Many have done very well thanks to their status as federal German citizens. Certainly all consumer goods and travel possibilities are available while the leaden speeches and dull media articles are gone and forgotten, though replaced by endless platitudes and deadening commercials.

And for freedoms won there have been freedoms lost. In the GDR, according to one bon mot, you were wise not to criticize Honecker and other government or party big shots. But you could say whatever you wanted against your foreman, the manager, the factory director. Today, it was found, this was reversed. People were fired for rejecting unpaid overtime, for asking what a colleague earned, for simply being suspected of eating a company-owned roll or forgetting to turn in a 13 cent coupon. Beggars, the homeless, patrons of free food outlets, people with untreated tooth gaps - all unknown in GDR days - are now taken for granted. So are towns with closed factories and a population of pensioners, with most young people off somewhere far away hunting jobs.

Another factor was important to historians: the GDR had been founded with certain basic principles. Above all, as a bulwark against fascism, led for many years almost exclusively by anti-Nazis, replete with books, films, theater, even the names of streets, schools and youth clubs anti-fascist in nature. This was in extreme contrast with a West German establishment whose military brass and diplomatic corps, academia, police and courts and up to the peak of the government were riddled with former Nazis, not a few of them serious criminals. In 1961 when the Wall was built they were still to a remarkable degree in leadership. When the Wall came down in 1989 most old Nazis were retired or dead, but the giant concerns, trusts and banks which built up Hitler and made billions from his war - and hundred thousands of slave laborers - were for the most part still powerful. When the Wall went down they swarmed back to East Germany, and beyond - the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania. Their army and navy, built by war criminals, still led by militarists, was no longer blocked by the GDR and was maneuvering or fighting in parts of Africa, the Near east, Afghanistan. Two wars were waged since the Wall went down. And while the GDR had aided Allende, Vietnam, Algeria, Nicaragua, the ANC and SWAPO of southern Africa, the Federal Republic was always on the other side.

Yes, the euphoria of the common people who always suffer from the deeds of the big shots was understandable. But today in all Germany wealthy men in towering skyscrapers coolly decide the fates of tens of thousands: fire 3,000 here, 10,000 there, move this factory a thousand miles eastward, close that one. It is as if they were playing some gigantic Monopoly game. Nokia, Opel-GM, Siemens, pharma firms, weapons makers: to a great extent they rule the roost, more than ever with the newest German government, despite its sweet smiles about Freedom and the Wall.

But isn't there just a note of worry in their declamations? The latest crisis, by no means cured, is making some people think a bit more carefully. Some of them even spite the media and the pronouncements and vote for a party which calls for re-thinking, sometimes even for socialism. Not the same as in the GDR with its many weaknesses, but a state no longer ruled by the Monopoly men in their skyscrapers. Perhaps the ingenious domino ceremonies and slightly soggy fireworks in their insistence on "We are the greatest" reflect these very worries.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/boropjs/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Communist editor speaks of struggle and socialism

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:59:00 +0000

An interview with Carlos Lozano is no small matter. A top official of the Communist Party of Colombia (PCC) and director since 1991 of the PCC weekly "Voz, the People's Truth," Lozano talked with Ignacio Meneses, Oscar Penagos, Manuel Rodriguez, and this writer for two hours on October 23. Meneses had brought a U.S. labor delegation to Colombia. Penagos and Rodriguez are president and past president respectively of Colombia's telephone workers union Sinalteléfonos.

Presently Lozano is running for the Colombian Chamber of Representatives as candidate for the Alternative Democratic Pole (PDA), an electoral alliance formed by unions and social movements. It is Colombia's only left electoral political party. Lozano serves on its National Board. The lawyer, university professor, and author of five books has received multiple death threats and recently the French Legion of Honor, for advancing peace in Colombia.

Voz is "the voice of workers and all the people, always without losing a class outlook," Lozano once observed, adding that "internationalism" is its "unvarying standard." For 52 years, Voz has remained Colombia's only leftist newspaper with a mass audience.

Lozano took on leadership within the World Federation of Democratic Youth and studied in Eastern Europe during the Soviet era. We thought that his reflections on a Communist role in contemporary political struggle might be useful. Union leader and Lozano political ally Oscar Penagos arranged the interview.

What about a gap between Marxist - Leninist assumptions and current prescriptions that focus on alliances? How do notions such as class divide, agency of the working class, and vanguard leadership fit with focus on limited goals and collegiality within a united front? Does class matter? These were our questions.

The PDA election fight was on Lozano's mind. Voting for Congress takes place in March, 2010, and for president, two months later. Unexpectedly, the PDA "consulta" September 27 chose Gustavo Petro as presidential candidate over the PCC preference Carlos Gaviria, candidate in 2006. Lozano objects to Petro's tolerance of neo-liberal economic solutions, acceptance of the 1991 constitution which props up the Alvaro Uribe regime, and reluctance to take on U.S. imperialism. Petro is seen by Lozano as weak on land reform and a political response to leftist insurgency.

Nevertheless, the PCC supports Petro's candidacy for the sake of unity, required now to block an unconstitutional third term for Uribe. "If it's on the left, we have to be there," Lozano said. The PCC would fight within the PDA, however, for a program centering on agrarian reform, women's equality, social justice, and defense of national sovereignty and natural resources. The Party's Central Committee was meeting that afternoon further to define its program.

The Colombian people are up against a corrupt "mafia" and "lumpen bourgeoisie." Narco-traffickers and paramilitary influence control Congress. Yet Lozano hinted at a tactic of reaching out to Uribe supporters favoring a peaceful settlement to armed conflict.

PCC leaders are taking cues from Senator and party member Gloria Inez Ramirez and Liberal Party Senator Piedad Cordaba who say struggle now is less at the institutional level than in the streets. He called for the PDA and CP to join with social movements - a "revolutionary force." There is no room, he emphasized, for armed struggle.

Lozano demonstrates faithfulness to left unity, openness to new allies, and fight within the PDA for gains on social and human rights. He was silent on permanent solutions of a socialist nature.

Sounding caution rather than fear, he described the work of Voz as becoming "difficult" because of the "famous computers" of Raul Reyes. The government is investigating Lozano and others for ties to the FARC. Allegations are based on information supposedly taken from computers belonging to the FARC leader killed March 1, 2008 in Ecuador. Lozano's predecessor as Voz director, Manuel Cepeda Vargas, was murdered in 1994.

Lozano maintained that "socialism of the 21st century" entails Latin American integration manifested by ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance of Latin American Peoples), the Bank of the South, and sharing of oil resources. He accepts wide national variations and calls for nationalization of land and natural resources. The national bourgeoisie remain strong.

There would be no celebration of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Lozano insisted, but dogma is now off limits. His socialism is "scientific." Socialism is "under construction," the result of "social creation of everyday life."

Lozano handed out the booklet "Marxism, an Ideology under Construction," reflecting ideas he communicated in 2004 to interviewer Lilia Martelo. There, he attributes the failure of Soviet socialism to lack of democracy and disregard of people's material needs. He points to bureaucracy, corruption and conspiracy. He lauds Soviet achievements in social justice, education, and cultural enlightenment.

Socialism is a "great ambition, which will be the fruit of a collective effort to transform society." "More than a political vanguard" will be required to "lead the masses," he explains. "What is required in the new concept of a party is unity, the broadest possible unity of the forces of left, revolutionary, and democratic forces for advanced changes. Perhaps it's a collective vanguard."

Photo: W. T. Whitney

Honduran accord teeters on the brink of disaster

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:21:00 +0000

The latest news out of Honduras is very alarming. It would appear that the much ballyhood "accords" worked out last week between negotiating teams for President Manuel Zelaya and coup leader Roberto Micheletti are being used as yet another cynical delaying tactic by the latter, and as a cop-out stratagem by the Obama administration.

The accords were that the Congress would vote on restoring Zelaya to the presidency, then a unity government would be formed, an international monitoring commission headed by Chilean President Ricardo Lagos and U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis would be set up to ensure compliance, after which the elections scheduled for November 29 would be recognized by all. Finally, sanctions would be dropped.

Zelaya evidently believes that he has the votes in Congress to be restored to the presidency.

However, none of this is happening except the formation of the monitoring commission. The pro-coup leadership of Congress is refusing to go into a special session to ratify the accords and act on the question of Zelaya's return, perhaps until after the November 29 election. Nor is there agreement on the composition of the government of unity.

Now there is worry that the Obama administration has made an agreement with the Republican Party to back off further support for Zelaya's return to office in exchange for the South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint withdrawing his objections to the confirmation in the Senate of Arturo Valenzuela as Assistant Secretary of State for Hemispheric Affairs and Thomas Shannon, who was one of the chief negotiators of the Honduras accords of last week, as ambassador to Brazil.

Today, Senator DeMint today put out a crowing press release taking credit for pushing the Obama administration into backing off on Honduras. And indeed, today also, Valenzuela and Shannon were confirmed.

Giving further credence is a statement by Shannon that the United States will now recognize the November 29 elections whether Zelaya is restored to power or not. Zelaya sharply questioned this, at which point the State Department issued an assurance that they still support Zelaya's restoration. But the threat not to recognize the election results is vital for pressuring the coup regime. Without this threat, plus sanctions, statements of support for Zelaya are just words.

Initially, most leaders of the resistance in Honduras were guardedly supportive of the agreement. That support is now evaporating fast. Berta Oliva, head of the Committee of the Relatives of the Disappeared and Detained in Honduras today called for a three month delay in the elections, because of the repression which has been going on since the campaign season started on September 1. For two months of the three allotted by Honduran law, right wing candidates for president, Congress and local offices have been out campaigning like mad, while at least two left-wing candidates for office have been killed and others are unable to campaign openly. The right wing press has been able to put out all sorts of lies (that the left is financed by the FARC, that pro-Zelaya demonstrators are actually Venezuelan, etc.), while the left media have been suppressed for weeks on end.

Even if constitutional normalcy were restored and the agreements implemented tomorrow, there would still be only three weeks and three days for opposition candidates to campaign. To delay restoration of normalcy any longer would completely vitiate any residual legitimacy of such elections.

The scene has been set for Micheletti, his co-conspirators in the Honduran oligarchy and military, and their allies in the U.S. Republican Party to triumph. If that happens, the reaction against the Obama administration in Latin America will be one of furious anger. Combined with concern about new U.S. military aid to the extreme right wing regime in Colombia, and the continuation of the U.S. blockade of Cuba, it will leave the administration's hemispheric policy in ruins.

We need to contact the White House and the State Department to demand that the U.S. return to the policy of refusing to recognize the elections in Honduras unless Zelaya and constitutional normalcy are restored immediately, and strengthen the sanctions instead of dropping them.

Colombian women workers strike for survival

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 01:30:00 +0000

Accompanied by her children and 25 fellow workers, strike leader Aidé Silva escorted our small U.S. labor delegation through an industrialized floriculture operation near Madrid, Colombia. Some 400 workers organized by the National Union of Flower Workers (Untraflores) began their strike on September 9. Only 35 strikers were on hand for the visit October 18, because, said Silva, it was Sunday.

Strikers were occupying the 100 - acre, plastic- enclosed Benilda Farm owned by the wealthy Mejia brothers of Cauca. Multinational corporations, notably Dole Food Company, own most of the 400 flower plantations near Bogota. Colombia exports 85 percent of its cut-flower production to the United States, which acquires 65 - 75 percent of all its flower imports from Colombia.

Colombian flower exporters, helped along by government subsidies and U.S. tariff exemptions, take in $1 billion annually. Colombia's export total to the United States came to $13.1 billion in 2008.

Three fourths of the Benilda strikers are women who have averaged 20 years of work there. In all, 200,000 Colombians work directly or indirectly in the flower industry. The lives of many are precarious because of poverty and displacement by paramilitaries and the army from land and homes elsewhere.

Aidé Silva and a handful of other women formed the Untraflores union in 2001 as an alternative to a company union - "the best thing we ever did," she said. Some 3000 of them work at Benilda and six nearby flower plantations. The Bendilda strikers complained of months with no wages and failure by the company to make mandated payments toward pensions, family subsidies, and health plans. The company also absconded with $800,000 in a worker savings plan, say the workers.

Extraordinary amounts of plastic piping and discarded spray equipment seen along long rows of roses and chrysanthemums betoken, said Silva, vanishing water reserves in the Bogota tableland and workers' toxic exposure to herbicides, fungicides, and fertilizers.

The U.S. delegation heard later from Aura Rodriguez, head of Cactus Corporation, source of legal advice and advocacy for flower workers. She reported on rampant sexual exploitation, including advances from male bosses, employment denial because of pregnancy, and sterilization forced upon nine workers in 2007.

Aidé Silva said that media portrayal of workers as "loose women" and worker anxieties about providing for needy children exert intimidating effects on organizing." Wages of unionized flower workers approach $200 monthly.

The strike came about when the Mejia brothers closed down Benilda, dismissing some workers and transferring others elsewhere. Aidé Silva views that action as a ploy for facilitating industry-wide reorganization into other business entities. Owners dodge legal protections for workers' rights by forming dummy corporations specializing in recruitment of contract and temporary workers ripe for exploitation.

Downsizing served as pretext for the re-shuffle. The flower industry has contracted due to the world economic crisis, monetary fluctuations, inflation, and rising fuel and, allegedly, labor costs. Over 20,000 flower workers have lost jobs recently.

Under Colombian law, Benilda Company must use money derived from property sales to pay off obligations toward worker pensions and health benefits. The strikers are occupying Benilda to maintain facilities and preserve resale value so that pensions and health care can be funded. The courage of workers, who have gone months without pay, in retrieving a thin lifeline, seemed palpable what with powerful forces impinging on their lives and an immense, but abandoned, plasticized work world at hand.

Colombian labor unions have provided support along with the local Catholic Diocese. Community residents, most of them flower workers and displaced people, have responded to pleas from strikers at their doors. Aidé Silva cherishes a donation from Cauca sugar cane cutters whom Untraflores assisted last year during their successful strike.

Aidé Silva views the Colombian cut flower industry as a case study demonstrating potential beneficiaries and victims should Colombia and the United States institute a trade regimen beholden to trans-national corporations. She urged her visitors to join the international campaign against flower industry abuses. They should, for example, honor International Flower Workers' Day on Valentine's Day, a prime occasion for demonstrations, boycotts, and education programs,

Bidding farewell, Silva said that unity between North American and Latin American workers was essential for an end to imperialism. More information is available at www.untraflores.org.

Photo: Aidé Silva, left, and her family. W.T. Whitney/PW

Asian natural disasters: A harbinger of things to come?

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 01:08:00 +0000

In a span of 5 weeks earthquakes, floods, mudslides, typhoons and tsunamis swept through 10 nations leaving thousands of people dead and rendering millions more homeless. The first of the natural disasters struck Manila and the surrounding area on September 26 causing massive floods and mudslides and forcing thousands to flee their homes.

Tropical storm Ketsana left hundreds dead and thousands displaced. On October 3 this happened again with Tsunami Parma. The combined impact of Ketsana and Parma left 929 people dead in the Philippines and hundreds of thousands homeless, many forced to live in flooded areas with contaminated water, replete with disease.

Last week tropical storm Mirinae increased that number by 20 in the Philippines to 949. Ketsana and Parma had had moved on in the region a few weeks ago and killed 163 in Vietnam, 16 in Laos and 11 in Cambodia. During the same time period torrential rains killed 247 in South India and left 2 million homeless. Floods and mudslides took the lives of 143 in Nepal (the Nepal issue, while occurring in the same period as the other disasters, is more directly related to the melting of the Himalayan ice and snow). The tsunami that struck the South Pacific after the 8.3 earthquake of September 29th left 183 people dead in Samoa, 34 in American Samoa and 9 dead in Tonga. One day later, September 30, a 7.6 earthquake hit West Sumatra Indonesia killing 1,117 and leaving 2 million homeless. Some of the more remote areas have yet to be reached by aid workers.

Aside from the personal tragedies of the hundreds of thousands who have lost loved ones, homes and livelihoods millions throughout the region who live, or lived in low lying areas have been and will increasingly be at the mercy of rising sea levels.

The low lying coastal regions of South India, Bangladesh, Burma, Cambodia and Vietnam as well as the numerous islands throughout the Pacific, Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea and parts of the African coast already have perennial flooding and with a rising sea level and greater frequency and intensity of typhoons and tsunamis more international preparations and cooperation is needed. The more and better prepared the more lives will be saved. The inevitability of this danger is without question. With the readily evident rise in sea level, melting on the north and south poles and melting seen on the Himalayas, Andes and Mount Kilimanjaro the evidence is irrefutable.

A partial list of organizations helping specifically with the needs and events mentioned here: redcross.org, care.org, unicef.org, oxfam.org, crs.org (Catholic Relief Services).

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/teamaskins/ / CC BY-SA 2.0