People Before Profit blog

Mexican government may have tampered with evidence: new forensics report on the Ayotzinapa 43

Wed, 27 Apr 2016 16:05:00 +0000

An international team of forensics experts which has been looking into the September 2014 disappearance of 43 students at a rural teacher training college has finished its work. In its final report, it not only blasted the government of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto for interfering with its work, but also raised serious new questions about the involvement of federal authorities in the disappearance of the students.

The students were part of a group from the Raul Isidro Burgos Normal School in Ayotzinapa, near the small city of Iguala in Mexico's strife-torn Southern state of Guerrero. They had gone to Iguala to raise money for their school, and commandeered several buses to take them back to their school. Such actions are a common practice in Mexico, where they are seen as a protest tactic and not as robbery or terrorism.

However, the students were not allowed to leave Iguala, but were stopped by local police, who opened fire on the buses, killing students, bystanders who were stuck in the traffic jam caused by the police blockade, and people who arrived for a press conference to protest the killing. Forty three students were taken away in official vehicles, and have not been seen since.

For a year and a half, while protests involving hundreds of thousands of people have taken place throughout Mexico behind the slogan "they were taken away alive, we want them back alive", the Mexican government has stalled and maneuvered to evade responsibility for the action. Mexico's Attorney General at the time, Jesus Murillo Karam (who has since resigned) stuck to a story that corrupt local police in Iguala had kidnapped the students and taken them to a town dump outside the neighboring community of Cocula, where they were killed, their bodies burned and the remains thrown into a nearby river.

From the start, the families of the students, mostly poor indigenous farmers, and much of public opinion in Mexico has been skeptical, to say the least, about this version of events, which appears to be designed to deflect all responsibility from the federal government to the local officials in Iguala, who are accused to be in league with a drug-dealing gang, United Warriors, who wanted the students killed.

Summary of story: http://fusion.net/story/295298/final-report-on-ayotzinapa-killings-suggests-cover-up-and-forced-confessions/

The full report of the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (Grupo Interdisciplinario de Expertos Independientes, or GIEI) is 604 pages long. But the members of the group consider it incomplete because of lack of cooperation from the Mexican government.

The panel of five experts, which include the well-known former attorney general of Guatemala, Claudia Paz y Paz, who was instrumental in bringing charges against that country's former dictator, General Efrain Rios Montt, and other experts from Spain, Chile and Colombia, was working under the auspices of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and supposedly had the full authorization and cooperation of the Mexican government. But this cooperation broke down toward the end, according to GIEI members, when it became clear that the investigation's result was going to contradict the government's version, or what former attorney general Murillo Karam had referred to as the "historical truth" about the incident in Iguala.

Among the discrepancies:

*The GIEI concluded that there is no real evidence that the students' bodies were burned in the dump at Cucula, a conclusion which others have reached also. Disposal by burning of so many human bodies would have required a large amount of fuel and would have created a huge plume of smoke and other things that were not found to have occurred.

*Mexican authorities so mishandled the evidence at the Cocula site that it could easily have been manipulated to reinforce the government's story. Such is alleged by Alvaro Delgado in the Mexican online magazine Proceso, who accused a close advisor of President Peña Nieto, Tomas Zeron de Lucio, an official of the ministry of justice, of personal involvement in tampering with the evidence at Cocula. The GIEI suggests that his physical presence at the Cocula dump may be a cause for suspicion of this.

*A key part of the government's claim of only local involvement in the crime consisted of confessions from corrupt police officers and members of the United Warriors gang. But GIEI found very strong evidence that some of these confessions, in the cases of at least 17 arrested persons, had been extracted by torture. Not only did accused persons tell the GIEI this, but there was evidence of injuries to their bodies which backed up the story.

The GIEI members also complained that a smear campaign had been unleashed against them in sectors of the Mexican press and media that support President Peña Nieto's party, the PRI (Revolutionary Institutional Party). The team was accused of overcharging for its services, and Ms. Paz y Paz was red-baited.

Argentine and Austrian experts have also looked into the Ayotzinapa case and have not been able to confirm the government's version.

One possibility is that one of the buses which the students had unwittingly commandeered was being used to transport drugs from Guerrero to the United States, so the people involved with the drug dealing were desperate to get it back under their control. Evidence for that, according to GIEI, is the apparent disappearance of the driver of that bus and his substitution by another individual put forward by the authorities.

But if, as the report indicates, federal authorities did engage in a cover-up, this may have served other political goals as well. The group of teacher training colleges, called Rural Normal Schools, of which the Ayotzinapa school is a part, were set up in the 1920s and supported by left-wing President Lazaro Cardenas' administration in the 1930s, to close the educational gap of poor rural communities in Mexico's heartland. They have, since then, been hotbeds of radical politics, and currently in Guerrero there are conflicts between the government and a radical dissident faction of the teachers' union. The Rural Normal Schools are part of the resistance to supposed "educational reforms" that Peña Nieto's government is promoting. Historically, the PRI does not respond well to that kind of resistance.

Photo: Amnesty.org

SCOTUS decision on DACA, DAPA immigration programs expected soon

Mon, 25 Apr 2016 16:30:00 +0000

On Monday, April 18, the U.S. Supreme Court finally heard oral arguments on United States v. Texas, the case involving President Obama's executive orders protecting non-criminal undocumented immigrants from deportation. Two issues are in contention with the Obama policies: the expansion of the already-existing Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and the creation of the new Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA).

Implementation of the expanded DACA and DAPA programs could not be carried out after twenty-six mostly Republican state attorneys general filed suit in federal court. They alleged that the federal executive had no right to extend such protections to the undocumented because it would force state governments to pay extra costs for such immigrants. A conservative federal district court judge in Texas, Andrew Hanan, ordered the suspension of the implementation of the executive orders on February 18, 2015. The Obama Administration has appealed, and this is the case that the Supreme Court has now taken up.

It is already boosting voter registration in Latino communities and promises to be an important factor in the November elections.

DACA and DAPA: Bringing millions out of the shadows

The original DACA program, announced by Obama in 2012, defers deportation of people who were brought into the United States without papers when they were minor children and allows them to get work permits. An expanded DACA and the new DAPA program were announced by Obama on November 20, 2014. The expanded DACA eliminates the original's age eligibility cutoff date of 31, allowing more people brought here as minor children to apply. DAPA defers deportation for the parents of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents in this country. Applicants for this program are required to have been in this country continuously since January 1, 2010.

The joint beneficial impact of original DACA, expanded DACA, and DAPA would be to permit at least five million people to live and work in this country for three years (renewable) without fear of deportation. They would be eligible to receive Social Security numbers and be allowed to travel outside the United States under certain circumstances - an important need for immigrants with families in their countries of origin.

Not all undocumented immigrants would be covered by the programs, but as there are between 10.5 and 11 million undocumented people in the country, DACA and DAPA might halve the number who are currently forced to "live in the shadows."

Many undocumented workers live in mixed households which include permanent legal residents and U.S. citizens. Thus the constant fear of arrest and deportation affects several times more people than are actually in the United States without papers. Undocumented people have to worry about being stopped by a police officer for a broken tail light, or simply for "driving while Latino," and other offenses. In such situations, the undocumented and their families face the possibility of being turned over to immigration authorities.

This, in turn, could set off a cascade of consequences: the splitting of the family; the loss of the breadwinner through deportation; the resulting foreclosure because the breadwinner is no longer there to make payments on the house; eviction from the apartment and being forced to move into much worse living conditions; disruption of the children's school and social life; and many other bad things.

The fear of deportation also leads undocumented workers to feel forced to accept sub-minimum wages and dangerous conditions at work, which negatively affects not only the undocumented but all other workers as well. So President Obama, whose administration had been previously criticized for carrying out large numbers of deportations, has been widely praised for DACA and DAPA in Latino and immigrant communities in the United States.

GOP blocks implementation

As mentioned, implementation of the programs were blocked by the lawsuit of twenty-six mostly GOP state attorneys general who sought to stop Obama's extensions (but not the original DACA). The argument of the attorneys general, supported by the Republican-dominated U.S. House of Representatives and anti-immigrant groups, is that in Texas the state government subsidizes drivers' licenses and therefore would be fiscally affected by having to administer the granting of licenses to persons who benefit from an expanded DACA and DAPA.

The legal importance of this is that the claim Texas would incur such a cost could be seen as giving the state "standing" in court, and thus, the right to sue. Not just anybody can drag a case into court for any reason; one has to prove that they have a real interest in the case to be decided.

Ignored is the fact that studies show that when undocumented immigrants get the legal ability to work, their incomes go up and so do the taxes they pay at all levels. So in all probability, Texas and the other states would actually benefit financially from the expanded DACA and DAPA programs. The federal government, however, chose to argue that the state of Texas had decided on its own responsibility to subsidize drivers' license costs, and could cease to do so if it chose.

Beyond the issue of "standing" of the original plaintiffs, there is the substantive question of whether the federal executive has the right to use executive orders to protect whole classes of people against deportation, and to give them permission to work in this country. The government points out that many other presidents, including Republican ones, have done this without anybody objecting.

For example, after the Cuban Revolution of January 1, 1959, regular immigration laws were suspended for many thousands of Cubans who came to the U.S. claiming to be fleeing Fidel Castro's government, and these people were subsequently given legal permanent residence. There are several other examples. Besides, the Obama Administration argues, there is no possibility that the government could track down, arrest, and deport 11 million people. It simply does no have the resources and mechanisms to do so.

What to expect

Things looked bleak for the Obama Administration's case, in spite of the fact that large numbers of law professors and other experts said it was solid, simply because of the degree to which partisan politics have invaded the Supreme Court's deliberations this election season. It was thought by people following the case that Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan would probably support the government's position and let the implementation of extended DACA and DAPA proceed. But it seemed certain that Justices Scalia, Alito, and Thomas would rule in favor of the state attorneys general. That meant that everything would hinge on the attitudes of Justice Kennedy and Chief Justice Roberts. Kennedy has sometimes been a swing vote, and Roberts, though generally right-wing, has on occasion supported administration claims of authority on other issues - including the legality of Obamacare - which has led some Tea Party enthusiasts to regard him as a traitor to the right.

Since that case also had to do with the extent of the executive branch's discretionary powers, it was thought that perhaps Roberts would turn out to be willing to side with the government on DACA-DAPA as well.

With the death of Scalia, however, chances for an Obama Administration victory appeared to improve. The worst case scenario now appeared to be a 4-4 split on the Court, which would leave the original order by the federal judge in Texas standing. It would not settle the case permanently, however, setting no precedent. The blocking of President Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland to replace Scalia on the Court would mean that immigrants and their families would continue to be stuck in their present situation until at least after the November elections, and maybe beyond.

However, this past week's back and forth among the eight remaining justices, the Obama Administration (represented by U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verilli), and the legal representatives of the state attorneys general were somewhat discouraging to supporters of expanded immigrants' rights. Both Roberts and Kennedy seemed to question the government's positions, with Roberts suggesting that if Texas were to stop subsidizing drivers' licenses, the U.S. would sue the state for violation of the immigrants' civil rights. Kennedy, for his part, appeared to be confused about the authority of the federal government to give people temporary legal permission to be in the country. But then again, it is possible that Kennedy and Roberts were just doing "due diligence" in exploring all sides of the case.

Experts on Supreme Court procedures are saying that a conclusion was probably reached on Friday April 22. If that is indeed the case, the documents of the case are being prepared by the justices and their staffs. The decision could be announced as early as mid May, but perhaps not until late June. Meanwhile, tens of millions of immigrants and their family members continue the agonizing wait.

Latino voters mobilizing for November

But the rigid position taken by the Republican politicians on this case is helping to motivate Latino voters to register in possibly record numbers for the November elections. Both of the leading Republican presidential candidates, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, have said they will undertake mass deportations of undocumented immigrants if they are elected.

Trump has threatened to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border to keep Mexicans out and to "make Mexico pay for it." Questioned as to how he could force Mexico to pay, Trump says he will seize the money that undocumented immigrants scrape together to send to their impoverished relatives in Mexico. These "remittances" amount to some $22 billion every year (though not all of it comes from undocumented immigrants), so this would severely shock the Mexican economy (which Trump forgets is a major U.S. trading partner). Further, Trump and Cruz both claim they will end birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to undocumented immigrants, which is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Kasich says he would be in favor of giving legal status to some undocumented immigrants, but he would bar eventual U.S. citizenship.

Both the remaining Democratic Party presidential candidates, Senator Bernie Sanders and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have taken pro-immigrant positions. They not only support expanded DACA and DAPA, but also comprehensive immigration reform including full legalization of non-criminal undocumented immigrants with a path to citizenship. They have both committed to expanding the two Obama Administration programs, DACA and DAPA, to cover many more people, including the parents of people in the DACA program.

U.S. v. Texas promises to be an important factor in the run-up to the November vote then, no matter how the Supreme Court decides the case.

Photo: AP

Cuban Communist Party to make changes, protect gains

Mon, 25 Apr 2016 15:37:00 +0000

Cuba's Communist Party held its 7th Party Congress in Havana April 16-19. In attendance were 993 delegates and 280 guests. The dates marked the 55 year anniversary of Fidel Castro's declaration of the socialist nature of Cuba's revolution and, within days, of Cuba's military defeat of U. S. - sponsored invaders at the Bay of Pigs.

Presenting a 12,000 - word "Central Report" to open the Congress, President Raul Castro indicated that, "The development of the national economy, together with the struggle for peace and ideological resolve, constitute the main missions of the Party. The economy continues to be the key unresolved task and political-ideological work is a permanent issue intimately linked with the economic battle."

Delegates took on the task of reviewing and revising hundreds of guidelines authorized by the 6th Congress in 2011 for improving the efficiency and productivity of Cuba's economy. In his report, Castro discussed implementation of the guidelines and analyzed challenges to the survival of Cuba's socialist revolution stemming from the U. S. led, crisis-ridden, and worldwide capitalist system.

He pointed to Party lapses in supervision, implementation, foresight, and problem recognition holding back Cuba's economic and political reforms. Many young Communists, he claimed, are short on historical and theoretical awareness and are distracted by consumerist longings. He identified problems: wages and pensions were still too low, some of the new non-state businesses were evading taxes, domestic food production hadn't increased enough to bring down food imports, and Cuba's dual currency system remained and was impeding economic growth.

The Congress dedicated two days to discussion of documents relating to issues grouped under four headings. Doing so, delegates joined one of four "Commissions" formed to shape a "proposal" to be submitted for approval by the Congress. The areas for discussion were: (1) the "Project of Conceptualizing the Cuban Social and Economic Model of Socialist Development," (2) the "National Plan of Social and Economic Development until 2030 ..." (3) the "Results of Implementation of the Social and Economic Guidelines," approved by the 6^th Congress, and (4) a report on fulfillment of recommendations put forth by the first party conference in 2012 for improving party work.

In the past, the party's rank and file and Cuba's general population had discussed agenda items for upcoming party congresses beforehand. That didn't happen this time and criticism from within the party and beyond circulated widely.

In justification, party officials claimed that the guidelines to be discussed at this congress had been formulated and approved at the earlier one. And President Castro emphasized that since then the first two proposals - the most provocative ones - had been discussed by thousands of party leaders, academic experts, and other specialists. And they had been revised repeatedly.

Crucially, Castro indicated that discussion on those two points among "members of the Party and Young Communist League, representatives of mass organizations and broad sectors of Cuban society" would be continuing after the 7^th Congress had ended. The Central Committee sought authorization from the Congress for altering the guidelines later on based on future deliberations.

As the Congress closed, 274 guidelines remained for future consideration, down from 313 after the 6^th Congress. That reduced number even reflected 50 new guidelines, some actually new and others the result of revisions and consolidation. In fact, only 21 percent of the guidelines approved at the 6th Congress have been fully implemented. Slow progress was attributed to delays in fixing administrative and legal regulations to accommodate innovations and to what Castro called "outdated mentalities."

The third commission, which dealt with implementation of the guidelines and workings of the economy, learned that the Cuban economy over five years had grown at an average annual rate of 2.8 percent, which "doesn't respond to the dynamic for development that the country needs," opined Economic Minister Marino Murillo.

The fourth commission, focusing on changes in the work of the party, confronted a drop in party membership from 800,000 in 2011 to 671,344 members in 2015. With an eye toward the aging of current party leaders, speakers stressed recruitment and preparation of potential new leaders.

The delegates, voting secretly, chose 142 members for a new Central Committee - 55 of them being new - who in turn selected 17 members of the Political Bureau, including five new members. The average age of Central Committee members is now 54.5 years; 44.8 percent of them are women and 35.9 percent are African - descended. Henceforth, new Central Committee members must be under 60 years of age, and party leaders less than 70 years old. In a change requiring constitutional modification, government and party officers will be serving no more than two five - year terms.

In his report Castro called for overcoming racial barriers in selecting leaders and for "promotion of our combative females ... to decision-making positions nationwide." Women represent "66.8% of the best technically and professionally qualified workforce of the country" and are "generally, are more mature and better managers than men."

Speaking briefly on the last day of the Congress, former President Fidel Castro first noted dire threats to human survival and then declared that, "ideas of the Cuban communists will remain as proof that on this planet, [people] working with fervor and dignity can produce the material and cultural wealth that humans need."

Photo: Participants at the 7th Congress of the Cuban Communist Party. | Radio Rebelde

Socialism plus markets: Vietnam’s chosen path

Mon, 25 Apr 2016 14:35:00 +0000

Three decades ago, Vietnam embarked on what it calls a "renewal" process that brought rapid development after years of war, famine, and poverty. The ideological and economic approach of combining their socialist goals with a market system has seen many gains, but also brought new dangers. During a recent visit to Vietnam, People's World sat down with Bui The Giang, the Director General for Western Europe and North America Affairs for the Communist Party of Vietnam's Commission of External Relations. In the course of this in-depth talk, Giang discussed Vietnam's journey towards economic prosperity, its commitment to sticking to a socialist trajectory, and efforts to preserve the legacy of revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh.

Giang: I'm the Director General for the Western Europe and North America Affairs Department for the Commission of External Relations of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam. And of course, I'm a communist. Nice to see you.

Robinson: Thank you. OK, I'm going to jump right into it. One of the main questions we have is about the socialist-oriented market economy. It's been mentioned before [in relation to Vietnam]. Can you give us a little overview? Because when people hear "market economy," they think "capitalism" and "exploitation." But now there's a word in front of it - socialist. Does that change it? How does Vietnam conceive of the "socialist-oriented market economy"? What's the path?

Giang: Let me start with 30 years ago. At that point in time, we launched what is called "Comprehensive Renewal," with a focus on economic renewal. What does it mean to us? Before the launch of renewal in 1986, the country was in really bad shape. Why? Because the country just came out of a succession of wars. There was the French War, which lasted from 1858 to 1954; 94 years under French domination, ending with the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. Then, what you call the Vietnam War, we call the American War in Vietnam, which ended in 1975. Following that, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia started to launch an aggressive border war against us. They claimed that six provinces in Vietnam used to belong to Cambodia, and they launched the war to recover them. This Southwestern Border War started before the end of the American War in Vietnam, and it lasted until late 1978/early 1979. Then the patriotic forces of Cambodia, led by the current prime minister Hun Sen, joined with us in fighting and overthrowing the Khmer Rouge. And you might also recall that in February 1979 the Chinese started their border war with us after Deng Xiaoping announced during a visit to the U.S. that China would "teach Vietnam a lesson."

So, all in all, four successive wars in the last 100 years. The country was totally devastated. In total ruin. Not just economically, but also socially. The whole social infrastructure. There was almost no hamlet or city in Vietnam without a bomb, without a mine. The country was in extremely bad shape. And because of so many years of war, the international relations of the country then were very limited - with the Chinese fighting us, the Khmer Rouge fighting us, and ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) forces were all pro-American. And the Western world, led by the U.S., had imposed an embargo on Vietnam since 1964 that was only lifted in 1994. So internationally speaking, Vietnam was very much isolated. The Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc were also at the start of their crisis. Remember, 1986 was only five years before the collapse of the Soviet Union.

That was the year when we launched renewal. Internationally, we were isolated. Domestically, we were destroyed. The country was in bad shape. A hungry belly has no ears. So policies by the party were not listened to by the population. By international standards in 1986, the poverty rate of Vietnam was at 73 percent. Our population then was only 40 million, but six million of them were suffering from famine already. The inflation rate was 774 percent. So all in all, the country was in comprehensive crisis and collapse.

At that time, our leadership - the party leadership of the Sixth National Congress - decided to launch a renewal of the whole country. But first of all, economic renewal. When we launched renewal economically, we meant to allow gradually for the private sector - first domestic, and increasingly afterwards the foreign private sector - to get involved in the economic restoration and development of the country.

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Before renewal we were so wishful in our thinking, and our policy making, that we considered Vietnam then was already a socialist country. No private sector was allowed in whatever form or activity in the economy. And that caused a lot of problems. Just imagine, the country in such bad shape. The country was so poor and the need to recover the country from the war consequences was imperative. The country's resources were very meager. So if we continued to do that [not allowing the private sector], the country would collapse again. So granting permission for the private sector to take part in the economic development of the country was a very important decision.

That is what is part of what you call market economy - private sector participation in the economy. But the socialist orientation refers to the [Communist] Party's leadership. [Up] until this point in time, the Communist Party of Vietnam remains the only political party in power in my country.

Second, the state sector has remained the leading sector of the economy, [so as] to avoid any deviation economically, ideologically, [or] politically from the socialist orientation. That's why we call it socialist orientation. But by socialist orientation, we also mean that we are not yet a socialist country. It's only the future. It's only the orientation of the economy. So that's why we say socialist-oriented economy.

Robinson: What achievements have been accomplished since making that decision about going that route when it comes to the economy?

Giang: Well, the achievements are also comprehensive. Economically, as I said, starting at that point in time, when I mentioned the earlier inflation rate and the poverty rate [in 1986]... Now the inflation rate, last year in 2015, was only about four percent. The poverty rate was [in 1986] was 73 percent, now it is down to about six percent. This is extremely important when you take into account several facts. The size of the population has more than doubled since that time. As I said earlier, in the mid-80s, the country was about 40 million in population and now it is at more than 90 [million]... We gave a lot of land to accommodate the housing needs of that doubled population. We had to give land for infrastructure. Roads are many more and much larger today. Industrial parks, export processing zones, and so forth.

So the size of arable land was reduced quite considerably. The quality of the soil has also declined. In order to feed the population, we increased from one crop a year per piece of land to two and even three crops a year. [We used] a lot of chemical fertilizers. The turnover of the crops and the use of chemical fertilizers reduced the quality of soil. And yet we have moved from a net importer of food - of about one million tons a year - to now, for the last ten years, we have been among the world's leading exporters of rice. [Vietnam is] the second largest exporter of rice and second or third largest exporter and producers of coffee. Cashew nuts, rubber, black pepper - all those agriculture-based products. Meaning what? Economic renewal and re-orientation of the economy has brought about considerable progress and development economically.

Politically, I believe Vietnam today is among the largest attractions for foreign investors. Why? First of all, we have remained very stable politically. While in other [developing] countries, coups d'état and political chaos can be found. If you take into account, for example, terrorism - we don't suffer from that in my country and therefore, politically, it is good. We've been consistent in our policies: foreign policy, political policy, and economic policy. The environment is quite attractive, conducive, to foreign investors. I believe these are among our most important achievements.

Another [foreign policy] achievement... I mentioned earlier about Vietnam being isolated in the international community at the time we launched renewal. Today, we have diplomatic relations with 185 countries in the world. For the first time in our history, we are now having normal diplomatic relations with all five permanent members of the Security Council of the United Nations. To make it clearer, among the five permanent members of the Security Council, we have strategic partnerships with four, and a comprehensive partnership with one. That shows how we are becoming a friend, a reliable partner, of the international community. We also have to add another aspect, along with being a good partner of the international community, we have made contributions to the international community as well. For example, joining the peacekeeping forces of the United Nations. At the same time, experiences in our process of renewal have been shared with many developing countries in Africa, Latin America, and certain countries in South Asia. They have come to us for experience, and we are more than happy to share with them.

Robinson: So we have the achievements. Have there been challenges that are still being dealt with? What are those challenges exactly?

Giang: We don't call them challenges. We call them, in a more serious manner, dangers. The first danger is lagging behind other countries. We understand that this is the age of information and high technology. In order to catch up with them against [the kind of background we had as a country] 30 years ago, we need to move faster. Otherwise, we'll be further behind other countries. That's the first danger.

The second danger is the danger of corruption. Just imagine [for example], today I'm very poor. Tomorrow, suddenly I become very powerful. I would not wish to see myself poor, right? And therefore, the temptation for corruption is there and visible.

Actually in our system, we have dealt with many public officials, including party members, who have committed what we call corruption crimes. We have laws on corruption...anti-corruption. Those who have committed those crimes have been brought to trial. That's the second danger.

The third danger is... confronting what we call 'peaceful evolution' by hostile forces. Today there are five countries that are supposedly socialist countries: China, Cuba, Laos, the People's Democratic Republic of Korea (DPRK), and Vietnam. The socialist system, as a world political system, is no longer [in existence] after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. I believe anticommunists are not happy to see socialist countries moving forward. Therefore, there have been, every now and then, attempts to overthrow the socialist leadership of my country. Time and again, there have been attempts to spoil politically - through economic means - the leaders, cadre, and public officials of our political system. This has become so serious that our party has named this danger a national enemy, a national problem. Therefore, one of those key issues and key tasks for the party to deal with for the time to come is to deal with this 'peaceful evolution.' To prevent it from happening. These are the three dangers.

Robinson: You were talking about the socialist-oriented market and needing it to develop further. So does that mean that it's not the end result, and that the true goal is to eventually get to socialism?

Giang: When we say socialist-oriented market economy, we really mean that it's just for the transition period to socialism. Socialism/communism has always been the end goal of our revolution. But in order to achieve that goal, we need a roadmap. We need a transition period. As I said, we are not yet a communist society. We have to live together, accept the co-existence of non-socialist sectors in the economy and the society. The point is we have to maintain the leadership of the Communist Party to ensure the direction to socialism and communism.

Robinson: What's the involvement of the people in moving towards this future? Also, is there a special role of the Communist Party of Vietnam in this?

Giang: Let me start with the first half of your question about the people's involvement. I remember once hosting a group of White House fellows from your country. The first question came from a lady, and she was quite blunt asking me: "Mr. Director General, when do you expect that the Communist Party will be no longer in power?" My answer was: "It's up to our population. It is up to our people." The existence of the only party in our country is up to the choice of the population, of the people. If they want to change it, they can do it. Believe me, Vietnamese people are very strong. In our history, it is the system they have chosen. In order for this system to be maintained and continue to develop, people's participation is the only solution. Let me give you one example of the most recent national congress of our party, the 12th National Congress. Before the national congress was convened, the draft documents - particularly the political report and the socio-economic strategy - were published for the people to make comments on. 2.6 million comments were made by the population. We had to set up what we called a drafting council in order to collect and try to digest, and then incorporate those best comments into those documents to be considered and approved by the National Congress of our party. Once those documents are adopted by the party congress they will be the national documents, not just the party documents. That is the typical example of the involvement of the population in the policymaking progress in this country. The same thing applies in other sectors as well.

Now, about the role of the Communist Party... In our country, in our political system, we often mention three components: Party leadership, states' governance, and peoples' ownership. So I believe, as the advanced section of the population, the Communist Party is considered as the leader. We provide the orientation for the country's development. But, mind you, those decisions are made with the people's participation. The National Congress' political document [mentioned before] could be seen as a good example.

Second, in order for the whole system to operate well, we have to have good governance by the state. How the body exercises its leadership, how the state can exercise its governance functions, and how to ensure the ownership by the people in the whole process remains a question, because we have never had any precedent.

We need to grow and invent our own models of development...our own choices for development. And over time, we have to look back to review and learn from experiences - both good and bad - so that we continue our development as oriented by the Party Congress and in line with the choice we have made - that is, socialism and communism.

Readers interested in further discussion of the "socialist-oriented market economy" concept can check out the following articles from People's World and Political Affairs:

Vietnam's Socialist-Oriented Market Economy, by Erwin Marquit

Socialism and the Path to Socialism: Vietnam's Perspective, by Nguyen Phu Trong

Unfinished Business: Socialist Market Economy, by Al Sargis

The Leninist Heritage of the Socialist Market Economy, by C.J. Atkins

Tasks of Working Class Governments Under the Socialist-Oriented Market Economy, by David S. Pena

Photo: PW

Vietnam making inroads with Doi Moi and tourism

Fri, 22 Apr 2016 14:19:00 +0000

How has the Vietnam government confronted the issues of inflation, low productivity, economic mismanagement, the increased income gap and decreased foreign aid from other countries? The answer is Doi Moi.

The Vietnamese government under the current leadership introduced Doi Moi, a new policy of economic reforms. This set of economic reforms, initiated in 1986 , in part opens up the country to foreign trade and investment. It legalized and encouraged private entrepreneurship in a range of enterprises; dismantles agricultural collectives and returns the land to families to farm; and deals with interest rates and currency. There is much more to Doi Moi as the major economic reform policy for Vietnam.

These decisions regarding reforms haven't been made overnight. In fact the Vietnam government as early as 1980 recognized the difficult economic situation it faced. In response, the government introduced modest market-oriented reforms, mostly in agriculture. Vietnam has since become an agricultural powerhouse. Today it is the world's second largest exporter of rice, and one of the world's leading exporters of coffee, pepper, rubber, and other agricultural commodities.

Following a period of strategic planning, today the Vietnamese government is moving forward under Doi Moi with a set of decisively free-market reforms with a "socialist orientation."

Vietnam Tourism

In addition to this important economic reform, Vietnam has moved forward with increased tourism under the direction of the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism.

One excellent example of this cultural activity in Vietnam's is the famous Water Puppetry show that our U.S. delegation had to opportunity to see while in Hanoi.

The women puppeteers are highly skilled and talented. They wear traditional white Ao Dai Vietnamese clothing while playing a folk music composition opening the Traditional Water Puppetry Show. A group of these eminent artists are part of the Thang Long Puppet Theatre.

The evening began with a woman playing a Dan Bau, a Vietnamese monochord, a traditional one-string musical instrument.. It created a very soothing and relaxing sound that was used to introduce the Water Puppetry show. Water Puppetry dates back to the 11th century.

The water puppetry performance includes 17 acts, including; Thang Long festival drumming, Dragon's dance, Buffalo-boy playing a flute, catching frogs, chasing the fox, unicorn's dance and four sacred animals' dance.

The highlight was a performance depicting Le Loi, a national hero and leader of the resistance against foreign invasion in the 15th century. The legend is that Le Loi was granted a sword by deities. After his victory over the invaders Le Loi was fishing on a lake in Hanoi, a golden tortoise god appeared to claim back the sword. Le Loi understood that the sword was only meant to be kept for a short time. The sword was given back and the golden tortoise descended into the lake.

This lake is now called Ho Guom (Sword Lake). It is located in the center of Hanoi.

Other performers included singers telling the stories, and musicians playing traditional instruments: the four-string lute, drum cymbals, two sided drum known as trong con (the rice drum), flutes, and gongs. These are all used to help tell the stories acted out by the puppets surrounded by water.

This is just is one type of cultural activity that the Vietnam Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST) helps to promotes. Our delegation understood that the Ministry of Culture, Sport and Tourism is responsible for the state's management of culture, family, sports, and tourism and for the management of public services in these fields under Vietnamese law.

Tourism is an important component of Vietnam's economy. Last year, nearly 8 million tourists visited the country. The country has diverse natural resources, beautiful landscapes, cultural historical relics, and domestic tourist markets. Vietnamese tourism is continuing to grow; recent areas of growth include hotels, restaurants and tourist sites. One area that MCST hopes to expand on is bringing the foreign film industry further into Vietnam. There have been a few movie companies filming in Vietnam, but the government hopes to attract more filming.

The U.S. delegation had the opportunity to visit Halong Bay in the Gulf of Tonkin. This is one of world's most beautiful locations, covered with over 1,600 islands where limestone mountain towers seem to touch the soft blue sky and isolated beaches remain pristine as the ocean slowly washes up on the sand. This entire area is recognized as a world heritage area by UNESCO.

Photo: Halong Bay, Vietnam. John Bachtell PW. Our tour also took us into one of the many caves which have hollowed out the rock formations, complete with stalactites and stalagmites. Our delegation was graciously hosted by the Communist Party of Vietnam. Facebook.

The Vietnam War and Agent Orange are millennials’ problem too

Wed, 20 Apr 2016 11:26:00 +0000

The Vietnam war, also known as the Second Indochina War, took place in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos from November 1 1955 to April 30 1975. If you were born in the 1980s, or later, your understanding of the Vietnam War may be relegated to your school history books, a classic film like Apocalypse Now, or simply something you hear those who grew up in the 1950s-1970s refer to with complex emotions. If you're what is considered a millennial, like myself, Vietnam can be seen as a country the United States went to war with, lost to (although your United States history book may not frame it this way), and seemingly no longer has relations or ties with.

Nothing could be further from the truth. For just as the pasts of Vietnam and the United States are greatly intertwined, so is the present moment for both countries, and undoubtedly their future for a variety of reasons.

One thing that binds the two countries is the haunting legacy and continued ramifications of the effects of Agent Orange. The effect this tragedy has had on the people of Vietnam, and also the people of the United States, is not something that is over and done with. Rather, it should be seen as an ongoing struggle, as activists fight for full recognition of its atrocities, and for the United States to acknowledge its true responsibility in the matter. It is a fight that many young people should know about, but unfortunately do not. After a 10 day trip to Vietnam, and a meeting with the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange, it was made clear to this millennial that more people of my generation need to be made aware of this haunting history and the continuing struggle. (story continues after video)

The History of the War

The war was fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while South Vietnam was supported by the United States, Philippines, and other countries that did not agree with North Vietnam's communist leanings.

The North Vietnamese were led by the Vietnamese communist revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh. Ho Chi Minh was the president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) from 1945-1969. Ho Chi Minh was on the forefront in the fight for Vietnam's independence from colonial powers such as France and Japanese occupiers since 1919.

North Vietnam was fighting for a reunification of South and North Vietnam. The United States by 1954 was providing funding to the French in their attempt to put Vietnam back under French colonial rule. Once the French were defeated the United States undermined the mass elections to be held in Vietnam for fear that it would result in the rule of the Ho Chi Minh led Vietnam Communists Party under a unified government. From 1956 to 1960 the United States put in place and funded a Southern Vietnam dictator, Ngo Dinh Diem.

The United States became involved in the war between the different sides of Vietnam primarily from fear of what was then called the Domino Theory. It is a theory that if one country is taken over by communism the nearby nations will be taken over one after another as well. The United States government feared that if Vietnam was allowed to be unified under the Vietnamese communist party it would not only influence other countries, but result in hostilities of those countries towards the United States. This could result in the hinderance on United States trade and other global business endeavors.

The Introduction of Agent Orange: Operation Ranch Hand

The war began in 1955 but in 1961 the United States, then under the presidency of John F. Kennedy, authorized the start of Operation Ranch Hand. This was part of the U.S military's herbicidal warfare program. Agent Orange was the primary chemical used in this operation. It was a powerful mixture of chemical defoliants to eliminate forest cover for North Vietnamese troops, as well as crops that might be used to feed them. The U.S. program of defoliation sprayed more than 19 million gallons of herbicides over 4.5 million acres of land in Vietnam from 1961 to 1972. During this process, crops and water sources used by the non-combatant peasant population of South Vietnam were also affected.

By 1969 it became widely known that the 2,4,5-T component of Agent Orange was contaminated with dioxin. Dioxin is a highly toxic chemical that can cause reproductive and developmental problems, damage the immune system, interfere with hormones and also cause cancer.

In April 1970, the U.S. government restricted use of 2,4,5-T, and therefore Agent Orange, in both Vietnam and the U.S. Under Operation "Pacer IVY" in 1970 the remaining barrels of Agent Orange were re-barreled and removed. 8.6 million liters of Agent Orange were destroyed by an incinerator ship in September 1977, in "Operation Pacer Ho."

Yet, while the U.S. government was able to pack up and incinerate the unused liters of Agent Orange the damage was already done. The continuing effects and ramifications of Operation Ranch Hand are still greatly felt today.

The fight for justice- A fourth generation at risk

According to the Vietnamese government, 4 million of its citizens were exposed to Agent Orange, and as many as 3 million have suffered illnesses or defects (including cleft palate, mental disabilities, hernias, cancers, etc) because of it- including the children of people who were exposed. The Vietnamese Red Cross has estimated that as many as one million people in Vietnam now have disabilities or other health problems associated with Agent Orange based on local studies.

The ramifications of Agent Orange are not just felt in Vietnam. According to the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, 2.4 million U.S. military personnel are believed to have been exposed to the chemical. In 1979 a class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of the 2.4 million veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange during their service in Vietnam. In 1985, in an out-of-court settlement, seven large chemical companies that manufactured Agent Orange agreed to pay $180 million in compensation to the veterans or their next of kin. This amount grew to $330 million, yet the fund was closed in 1997 after having given payment to only 52,000 American veterans and their families. The payments the families and veterans received being an average of only $3800.

And the effects are not only harming those that were alive during the time of the war. According to Nguyen Van Rinh, the president of the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange, a fourth generation of young people, since the war, are being affected by the deadly toxin, as they still inhabit areas where the chemical was sprayed. "Victims of Agent Orange go as young as 3-5 years of age," Nguyen explained to People's World. "Many are in poverty and deal with many birth difficulties."

Nguyen Van Rinh's organization is part of an ongoing lawsuit against 37 U.S. companies (Dow Chemical and Monsanto Corporation were the primary manufacturers of Agent Orange) that participated in Operation Ranch Hand. The lawsuit was first filed in a New York federal court. The judge threw out the lawsuit claiming there was no legal basis for the victims' claims. Nguyen says that his association represents the more than three million Vietnamese victims. He explained that while the court refuses to acknowledge the lawsuit, (first filed in 2004), their association and other supporters will remain persistent. Nguyen cites the unfulfilled Paris Peace Accords, signed by then president Richard Nixon, in which President Nixon agreed to pay Vietnam $3.25 billion for reconstruction aid. "It has been forty years since the agreement was signed by Nixon and the United States has yet to comply," Nguyen Van Rinh stated.

Here in the United States, the Victims of Agent Orange Relief Act of 2015 was introduced into Congress this past June, and is awaiting enactment. If enacted it would provide "medical, rehabilitative and social service compensation to the Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange, remediation of dioxin-contaminated "hot spots" and medical services for the children of U. S. Vietnam veterans and Vietnamese-Americans who have been born with the same diseases and deformities." Yet, it should be noted, two similar bills were introduced in Congress in both 2011 and 2013, and neither were enacted.

A road forward- a need to join the fight

Although the grassroots organization the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange runs various community programs throughout the country to support the victims of Agent Orange, it should not have to hold the full weight of the burden that this haunting legacy of chemical warfare has left behind. Nor should the U.S. veterans and their families, still feeling the ramifications of their exposure to dioxin while serving in Vietnam, be left to deal with the health consequences alone. The U.S. government, Dow Chemical , Monsanto Corporation, and the other 35 companies that made Agent Orange need to be held fully accountable for the damage their actions have inflicted.

Money alone won't reverse the human and ecological casualties Agent Orange has dealt, but financial reparations would be a step in dealing with a dark part of history. Agent Orange's impact is not only a footnote in high school textbooks, but a very real legacy that will not only affect millennials but the generation after us. We need to pressure Congress to finally enact the Victims of Agent Orange Relief Act of 2015, to fully compensate the U.S. veterans of the war, and make good on its initial agreement with Vietnam in the Paris Peace Accords of 1975. Not only this, but we need to fight for the United States to stop whitewashing the history of this war, Agent Orange, and the victims- both past, present, and possibly future as science has yet to determine how far the effects of this toxin can go. In an age of ever advancing technology and communications it is our duty to spread the word about these campaigns and struggles.

As Nguyen Van Rinh pointed out in our meeting, "It is very important that the young people know about the affects of Agent Orange, both in Vietnam and in the United States. For half of a century the Vietnamese people have been suffering from Agent Orange [created] by U.S. imperialism. This devastation is not in the past."

You can get involved by making a call to Congress to put the pressure on for the Victims of Agent Orange Relief Act of 2015-2016 to be enacted. Visit here for more details.

Photo: Nguyen Thi Kieu Nhung sits inside her family home next to the Danang airbase in Danang, Vietnam on May 21, 2007. | David Guttenfelder/AP

Tensions remain high in the South China Sea

Tue, 19 Apr 2016 12:15:00 +0000

A collection of islands that China has occupied off the Vietnam coast has created great tension between the two countries. The islands in dispute include the Paracels and Spratlys. These are islands over which Vietnam, among other states in the area, claims sovereignty rights. The South China Sea dispute involves the interest of Vietnam, particularly with regard to freedom of navigation, international laws and the bilateral relations with other regional governments-most significantly, China.

The South China Sea encompasses several hundred small islands, atolls, rocks and shoals. Most of the islands have no population. China has laid claim to much of this area in the South China Sea. However regional powers including Brunei, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam also claim territorial rights in the same area. As a result of this territorial dispute, the China-Vietnam relationship has entered a period of conflict and Vietnam remains nervous over expectations of the peaceful resolution of the dispute.

China is unilaterally staking its claim to the islands by moving military gear into the area. It has been dredging the sea bottom and has built a 10,000 foot runway on one of the islands that it developed. China claims "indisputable sovereignty" over the territory.

It should be understood that this is considered one of the most vital shipping lanes in the world. The South China Sea is also critically important to both global trade and to China's continuing development. China's argument is that it has no intention to militarize the region. It claims it has no reason to disrupt one of its own crucial arteries of trade. This remains to be seen.

In addition, the response of the United States has increased this tension. According to the Times, the Stennis Carrier Strike Group is patrolling in the South China Sea. One carrier has conducted flight operations, training and is working with the military forces of regional allies like the Philippines. The U.S.' interference only makes the issue more complex.

A show of force with expanded naval exercises only raises tensions and increases the danger of military escalation.

The Stennis Strike Group is accompanied by the guided missile cruisers, USS Antietam and USS Mobile Bay, as well as the guided missile destroyers USS Stockdale and USS Chung-Hoon.

There is no doubt that China is challenging the hegemony that the U.S. has enjoyed in the East Asian Seas since World War II. In response, the U.S. has encouraged countries in the region, including Vietnam, to conduct regular freedom-of-navigation operations near the islands claimed by China, ostensibly to make it clear that they don't accept China's territorial claims.

These competing claims of sovereignty make the South China Sea dispute potentially explosive.

China claims it supports the right to "freedom of navigation," but also affirms that Beijing does not accept any sovereignty infringements. Vietnam believes that China's construction of an airfield on one of the atolls that Beijing turned into an island in 2014, however, is a direct violation of its sovereignty rights.

Unfortunately, the American public has little knowledge of the events taking place in this part of the world, as the South China Sea disputes have received inadequate coverage in much of the media. But with economic interests at stake, and both China and U.S. asserting the right to protect exclusive zones, the chance of a military confrontation increases with each passing day.

Photo: Map of the South China Sea. By U.S. Central Intelligence Agency - Asia Maps - Perry-Castañeda Map Collection: South China Sea (Islands) 1988, Public Domain.

Brazil Chamber of Deputies votes to impeach Rousseff, but struggle isn’t over

Mon, 18 Apr 2016 16:02:00 +0000

Late Sunday evening, the much anticipated vote in the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies (the lower house of the national Congress), on the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff, took place in a raucous atmosphere of shouting, pushing and posturing. Deputies got up to vote one by one, and each was allowed ten seconds to give the reason for her or his vote in favor of, or against, impeachment. In the end the impeachment motion passed by 367 votes in favor, 127 against, seven abstentions and two not voting. This represented well over the two thirds (342) of the 513 members of the Chamber which was needed to proceed with impeachment.

Earlier, a Chamber of Deputies Impeachment Committee voted 38 to 27 to recommend impeachment to the full chamber. At the time, it was pointed out that almost all of the 38 who voted "yes" are under investigation for corruption themselves. Most of the accusations come out of a massive scandal called "Lava Jato", or Car Wash, in which various private companies paid kickbacks to politicians and officials to be able to get subcontracts for work with Petrobras, the country's massive state oil company, which is developing huge new offshore oil resources. Members of Rousseff's own Workers' Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores or PT) are among the accused, but so are a people of other political backgrounds.

These massive corruption scandals are going on in Brazil in the context of a serious economic downturn. But President Rousseff is not being impeached for corruption nor is she accused of it; indeed, she is one of the few major politicians in Brazil who can boast of that. Instead, she is being impeached for supposedly violating her fiduciary responsibilities by using state bank funds to cover national budgetary deficits in 2014 and 2015. Others have done this without serious consequences before, so the motives for pushing impeachment now are suspect.

Many on the left see the whole "impeachment" maneuver as a de facto political coup d'etat which has the dual purposes of reversing progressive measures of the current government and protecting some very corrupt people from prosecution in the Lava Jato case and other acts of public corruption.

Should the Senate remove President Rousseff from power, her place will be taken by the current vice president, Michel Temer, who is seen by many as one of the two main architects of the coup, the other being the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Eduardo Cunha. Both of these gentlemen are from the PMDB, the Brazilian Movement for Democracy Party, which was formerly allied with the government but now has broken with it. (The PMDB is the largest of several Brazilian political parties which can not be categorized ideologically; rather, they are clientalist outfits which maintain themselves by distributing jobs and contracts to their followers, in the fashion of the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI) in Mexico or the old Cook County Democratic machine that ruled the U.S. city of Chicago for many years.) The two Workers' Party presidents, Lula and Dilma Rousseff, found it necessary to form an alliance with this party so as to have enough votes in Congress to get their laws passed.

But both Cunha and Temer are facing serious allegations of their own. Cunha, a figure of the right personally, is an Evangelical Christian accused of using a mega church he controls to launder bribe money related to the Petrobras scandal, and his name figures prominently in the "Panama Papers" affair. Temer, for his part, is accused of being complicit in the supposed financial crimes of which Rousseff is accused, for which reason some argue that he, too, should be impeached. There are also rumblings about a possible connection of Temer to corruption.

The leader of the Communist Party of Brazil's delegation in the Chamber of Deputies, Daniel Almeida, wrote in his party's online newspaper Vermelho: a Esquerda Bem Informada) ("Red: The Well Informed Left") about the "surreal" events of Sunday night, in which "an honest president, who is not the target of accusations of corruption, has her mandate threatened by a conspiracy of corrupt people led by the president of the Chamber, Alvaro Cunha (PMDB,, RJ), accused in Operation Car Wash (Lava Jato). ....The conspiracy became clear in the debates through the day. Nobody mentioned any more the report presented in the Impeachment Committee by Jovair Abrantes (PTB-GO), because the opposition knows that there are no facts which justify prosecution of a president elected by 54 million votes" . Other observers noted that as each pro-impeachment deputy got up to give his or her allowed ten second comment, "one could count on the fingers of one hand" the number who actually mentioned the legal basis for the impeachment; most of the rest made general comments about corruption, of which Rousseff is not accused.

Many other people, including some who do not necessarily approve of Rousseff, criticized the demagogic show that accompanied the vote in the Chamber. Martise Matos, a Professor of Political Science and coordinator of Women's Studies at the University of Minas Gerais, was quoted by the Jornal do Brasil as saying "I find it appalling, in a republican country, which has principles of laicism [or secular control] of the state, to raise religious and family arguments." The governments of Lula da Silva and Rousseff have taken progressive positions on many social issues, which has raised the anger of the right wing and certain Evangelical and traditional Roman Catholic Christian sectors, but this was not at all part of the argument presented by the Impeachment Committee. That so many right wing deputies raised the issue reveals what the real agenda of the impeachment faction really includes. In Brazil as in the United States, the president cannot be impeached for carrying out policies that certain people don't like, only for specified crimes. Yet the impression lingers that Rousseff was on trial because of other people's corrupt behavior, because of the economic slump, and because of her and Lula's progressive social policies that have been beneficial to working, class, poor and minority people, including especially Afro-Brazilians who have been helped by affirmative action programs in higher education and other matters.

Both Cunha and Temer support austerity and privatization as the solution to Brazil's economic problems. This stance, which threatens to undo the vast improvements in the lives of working people achieved by Rousseff and her predecessor as president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (Lula), will put them into a direct confrontation with the mobilized base of the PT, the left and the labor unions. An even bigger and more bruising struggle is ahead. But the first step is for the Brazilian Senate to take up the impeachment motion. On Monday, the decision of the Chamber of Deputies was to be formally delivered to the president of the Senate, Renan Calheiros, who is from the PMBD, the same party as Cunha and Temer (at this point the reader will not be surprised that Calheiros also faces serious accusations of corruption). Calheiros will name a 21 person Senate impeachment committee. If this committee approves an impeachment motion, it will be presented to the full 81 person Senate for an up or down vote; if the vote is in favor of impeachment Rousseff will have to step down for 180 days and be replaced by Mr. Temer during that time. To permanently remove Rousseff from office, the Senate will have to vote by a two thirds majority. If this is not achieved, Rousseff will return to finish the term to which she was re-elected in 2014 If she loses the vote in the Senate, Rousseff's only recourse will be to the Supreme Tribunal, the country's supreme court.

A lot can happen in the meanwhile. Opponents of impeachment, including labor unions, the Landless People's Movement (MST) and the left continue to organize against it. They are also receiving statements of support from concerned people abroad, including the AFL-CIO in the United States. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka issued and unprecedented, strongly worded statement on the Brazilian Crisis, saying that the federation "vehemently rejects the effort to invalidate the progressive policies designed to build inclusive democracy in Brazil".

But at the same time, damage is being done to the economy and Brazilian society is increasingly polarized.

Photo: Dilma Rousseff | Eraldo Peres/AP

Venezuela’s socialist government, besieged, finds worldwide support

Mon, 18 Apr 2016 14:39:00 +0000

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his socialist administration are dealing with serious inflation, difficulties in importing vital goods, black market control of dollars, falling oil prices, and worsening economic recession. All these problems have causes and effects that are intertwined. And worse: Maduro's political opposition and that of his predecessor, President Hugo Chavez, have sapped the economy through malicious manipulation.

However, the Maduro government had some good news on April 11 as Venezuela's Supreme Court declared the opposition-controlled National Assembly's March 29 amnesty law to be unconstitutional. The law would have exonerated dozens of people convicted of violent agitation, sabotage, and rebellion since 1999, the year President Chavez took office.

The Court held that the law denied justice sought by victims and would have granted impunity for people already pardoned for criminal, anti-government actions who went on to commit new crimes, or might have done so. The prominent opposition figure Leopoldo López, now serving a 13-year sentence, would have gone free under the law. He was convicted of organizing anti-Maduro protests in 2014 that led to 43 deaths. López was among those who resumed such activities after having received a pardon from President Chavez in December 2007 for their role in the failed anti-government military coup of 2002.

Yet the Court's decision hardly eases the extreme vulnerability of President Maduro's government. He won Venezuela's presidency in April 2013 by a thin margin, in sharp contrast to the string of more than 15 sweeping electoral victories of all kinds marking the tenure of President Chavez, who died March 5, 2013. Organizers of violent nationwide protests in 2014 advertised Maduro's ouster as their purpose. In December, 2015, right wing opposition forces gained a majority in National Assembly elections for the first time since 1998.

An epidemic of murders of leftists and police officers tasked with containing violent right-wing demonstrations descended on Venezuela in March. Victims included a mayor, a legislator, and two police officers.

Commemorations on April 11-12 of the failed 2002 coup against President Chavez took note of U.S. support for the plotters. Since then, the U.S. government has delivered millions of dollars to real or potential opponents of Venezuela's socialist governments.

In that same vein, President Obama March 10 extended an executive order of the previous year declaring that Venezuela threatens the national security of the United States. The presidential action provides the U.S. government with a legal cover for imposing legal sanctions against the oil-rich country.

Venezuela's government under Chavez worked toward fulfilling the dream of regional unity espoused by Cuban national hero José Martí and South American liberator Simón Bolívar. U. S. governments have viewed the project with suspicion. The U.S. justification for the recent executive order, however, is the claim that the Caracas government tolerates violence and persecutes political opponents.

The Washington Post editorial board opined April 13 that "Venezuela is desperately in need of political intervention by its neighbors." The Post lamented that, "the region's leaders are distracted" - perhaps by Brazil for example. And rather than attending to business, "the Obama administration is preoccupied with its outreach to Cuba."

Right wing forces in Spain led by former President José María Aznar and current President Mariano Rajoy, have consistently joined the United States in threatening the left-leaning Chavez and Maduro governments. "Change won't be complete in Latin America without liberty in Venezuela," declared Rajoy on March 29.

Venezuela, of course, has friends. Both Latin American and Caribbean multinational alliances and social movements worldwide denounced the U.S. declarations against Venezuela in 2015 and again this year. "We can't conceive of one of the CELAC members being a threat to the most powerful country in the world. We consider [the declaration] to be interference," declared the Community of Latin American and Caribbean Nations (CELAC).

The "Network of Intellectuals, Artists and Social Movements in the Defense of Humanity" meeting in Caracas April 11 expressed support for the Maduro government, while observing that, the region is experiencing an "offensive conservative re-colonization by the United States and local oligarchies."

On April 19, 2016 (and the same day the year before), supporters of Venezuela's right to set its own course will mark a "Global Day of Action in Solidarity with Venezuela." As a prelude to the Global Day, the Communist Party of Venezuela, with support from the World Peace Council's Executive Committee, issued a declaration. It expressed "full and active solidarity to the Venezuelan People, the government of the constitutional President Nicolas Maduro Moros," and demanded "the repeal of the new, infamous and interventionist decree signed by President Barack Hussein Obama."

So far, social organizations, political networks, and political parties from throughout the world - including more than 40 communist parties, the Communist Party USA among them - have endorsed the declaration. The issue date for the declaration commemorates Venezuela's fight to achieve independence from Spanish colonial domination, which began on another April 19, in 1810.

Photo: Nicolas Maduro. | AP

Vietnam cares for its veterans

Mon, 18 Apr 2016 12:19:00 +0000

Just as in the U.S., most people living in Vietnam today were born after 1975. That year marked the end of the devastating two-decade war that ravaged that land and its population. But the people and government of today's modernized nation of Vietnam maintain a strong commitment across generations to caring for the war's survivors.

According to Pham Minh Huan, Vice Minister of Vietnam's Ministry of Labor - Invalids (Disabled) and Social Affairs (MOLISA), the country spends 25 percent of its national budget providing pensions and social services to the nine million people who are veterans or are the children, wives, husbands and parents of those killed or injured in combat during the country's long war for national liberation. The nine million comprises nearly ten percent of the country's 95 million population.

There are hundreds of thousands of injured and disabled veterans who require various levels of nursing care and medical services. The 25 percent budget line also includes assistance to victims of Agent Orange, who number more than three million. Pham spoke last week to a visiting delegation from the Communist Party USA. (story continues after video)

Agent Orange's cruel legacy

Twelve million gallons of Agent Orange, Monsanto Corporation's brand name for a toxic brew that contains the deadly chemical agent dioxin, was saturation sprayed by the U.S. military over the length and breadth of Vietnam over a period of twenty years. It resulted in deaths, cancer, and severe birth defects to civilians living in its path, as well as veterans and their descendants. Vietnam's Red Cross reports 150,000 children with birth defects due to Agent Orange. In addition to Vietnam's victims, hundreds of thousands of American vets were also exposed and their children, growing up on the other side of the globe, were subsequently affected. No figures are available on the numbers of U.S-born children affected.

"Our country has made the decision to assign a major part of our total revenue to people who devoted their lives to the country." Pham explains. His department, the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA), has responsibility for dealing with the horrific human costs of the war. That means that MOLISA also has taken on the heartbreaking but necessary process of finding and identifying the remains of war victims. This is a painstaking task that has not been completed to this day, even 40 years after the cessation of armed hostilities. Over a million men and women soldiers lost their lives and hundreds of thousands are still missing after the 30-year battle against American forces.

MOLISA also is responsible for implementing legislation that ensures preferential treatment for vets. "The law requires that they must have at least an above average standard of living," Pham says. Families of the war dead are entitled to a monthly allowance and they are also eligible for medical and rehabilitation services. Their children get preferential admission to the nation's universities, and they are also entitled to periodic vacation weeks at rest facilities.

The agency runs a program that encourages disabled veterans to set up their own businesses. The government offers them support, for example, by giving them priority treatment in accessing space to set up their businesses or land to farm.

"They have disabilities but are not disabled," says Pham, meaning that they are still able to do some work. He notes that the disabled vets, having already done so much for their country, still want to contribute to society.

A veteran's message

"War is a crime against humanity," says Le Huu Duong , 58, who works as a chef in Hanoi. Le should know. He was only 17, the son of peasants, when he volunteered to fight for his country's liberation. Le doesn't glorify war, but he honors his fallen comrades: "For us to be able to live in a peaceful country today is partly owed to the lives of my comrades," he says as his friendly face darkens, perhaps with difficult memories.

"Now with peace and a free country we all of us have families and we live a happy life," he says.. Le is married with two grown sons. He remembers his rural roots. Every two or three years he and a group of his wartime comrades get together to visit and deliver what help they can to victims of Agent Orange in a village in Quang Tri Province.

After our interview ends, Le pauses for a moment, then adds, "Me and my nation, we know how to close the path and look forward to the future. But in the name of a soldier, I want to send a message to the U.S. government: they should take the highest responsibility for the consequences of the war in Vietnam, like the issue of Agent Orange victims."

Different nations, different priorities

"We never forget the contribution to our country these people made," Le explained, pointing out that the nation honors them in August of each year with a special ceremony.

Apparently they are not forgotten the other 364 days of the year - Vietnam spends $2 billion annually - over 1% of its GDP - on helping veterans and families. If the U.S. made the same level of commitment to its vets, it would be spending $180 billion, or $20,000 for each of the 9 million veterans who currently use the Veterans Administration system in the United States. Per capita spending in the VA varies widely state to state (and even county to county), but the national average is just over $6,000 per veteran.

And unlike in the United States, where veteran homelessness is a highly visible problem, Vietnam also directly provides its veterans with housing. "The government insures a home to every veteran, either rebuilding their old one or assigning them a new one," says Pham.

Veteran Le is taken aback by a reporter's question: is 25 percent of the national budget too much for a nation just emerging from poverty to spend taking care of an aging generation injured in a battle that is now history? "I think it is the will of Vietnamese people," he answers earnestly. "The policy of the government is appropriate and proper. It reflects our tradition to pay tribute and be thankful. "

Photo: Le Huu Duong. Roberta Wood | PW

Vietnam places a high value on education

Fri, 15 Apr 2016 11:43:00 +0000

HO CHI MINH CITY, VIETNAM -- The sounds of laughter could be heard throughout the halls and into the classrooms. Children were playing with a soccer ball in the outside school court. This joyous sound of laughter was not a distraction to the students in the classrooms. In fact the children seemed content to know that their classmates were actively participating in the scheduled recreation time.

Students during this recreation time could participate in playing outside, participate in exercise-Tai Chi style or participate in dancing Zumba style, with all activities occurring outside in the school courtyard. Inside students could get instructions in an art class or watch a teacher play guitar in her music class. All under the inspirational eyes of Ho Chi Minh. Every classroom had a statue or portrait of Ho Chi Minh.

At the Hoa Binh primary school located in the center of Ho Chi Minh City teachers greeted our delegation dressed in traditional Vietnam dresses. School children invited us to participate in a group sing-along. The children playing outside waved and greeted us with smiles saying in English "Hello. How are you?"

The headmaster of the school greeted us and gave us a tour of the school describing the classrooms and the course students take during the year. Students everywhere seemed excited that we came to visit their school.

The Vietnamese people respect education and place a high value on learning. Lessons were learned from the colonial exploitation by the French who excluded the Vietnamese from educational opportunities. Only the so-call French elite were allowed to participate in educational activities. During the Vietnam War many schools were destroyed or damaged, and classes were forced to be cancelled. This experience motivated the Vietnamese people to make education a priority. The Vietnamese people have made tremendous advancements in its educational system.

"The education system is divided into five levels: pre-primary, primary, intermediate, secondary and higher education," said the headmaster of Hoa Binh school. "Vietnam has a relatively high standard of education. As you can see our children here normally start primary education at age six. Education at this level lasts for 5 years and is compulsory for all children."

Today, primary education is compulsory and tuition "free." According to the General Department of Statistics of Vietnam, the national literacy rate in Vietnam has reached 97.3 percent for those aged 15-50. Technology also figures into learning at an early age. Nearly all 6-year olds and 43.7 percent of laborers have basic knowledge of computers.

Some shortcomings do exist in the educational system. There is limited training of teachers, inadequate instructional methods and inconsistent management. However, educators say these are obstacles that will be overcome in time.

University of Medicine and Pharmacy

The University of Saigon was established in 1947. Following the Reunification the country, the University of Medicine and Pharmacy was founded in 1976 in Ho Chi Minh City. In 1998, the university was expanded to train auxiliary medical staff, and in 1999 the Faculty of Public Health was founded. In 2000, the University opened its own medical center with 250 beds.

Dr. Tran Diep Tuan, President and Associate Professor of Pediatrics, provided excellent information regarding the University. At a formal meeting with faculty and students Tran Diep Tuan said "Our university is a leading teaching institution in health sciences. We have the mission of educating and training healthcare professionals, who are able to provide healthcare to people towards [the goals of] effectiveness and equity."

Everyone at the meeting spoke English. The students, faculty and the President all insisted that the meeting be held in English. Dr. Tuan and the staff made clear with great pride that the University throughout the years of its existence has been recognized as one of the leading institutions in medical education in Vietnam. Dr. Tuan also told us that "faculty members have been awarded many medals and certifications of merit to recognize their continuous endeavors to improve the quality of medical education."

The University has over 10,000 students. It is by far the largest medical teaching institution in Vietnam, this according to President Tran Diep Tuan.

It's clear that the people of Vietnam have invested a lot in their educational system. They believe that education will ensure a positive future for the country. Vietnam has a population of over 80 million people with 70 percent under the age of 35 years; one can understand why Vietnam places a high premium on education.

Photo: Children line up in the courtyard at the Hoa Binh Primary School in Ho Chi Minh City. The school's principal stands to the right. | John Bachtell/PW

Colombian prisoner David Ravelo speaks to North Americans

Thu, 14 Apr 2016 15:31:00 +0000

This article first appeared at www.mltoday.com.

Prisoner David Ravelo recently presented two historical reports - excerpts are below - that, centering on Barrancabermeja, offer a local and intensely personal perspective on struggle in Colombia for rights and survival. The two victims Ravelo writes about were his comrades. For him, they were also heroes, along with others in his native city. Ravelo himself is a hero, we think.

For North Americans largely unaware of the U. S. hand in Colombia's political chaos and humanitarian crisis, Ravelo provides a crash course. He testifies to ramifications in Barrancabermeja of U. S. interventionist policies toward Colombia.

Anti-communist objectives informed U. S. backing for a "national security state" in Colombia. Since 1964, the U. S. government has provided financial, material, and personnel support for the Colombian government's war against the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). U. S. military experts at the time counseled Colombia's government to insert paramilitary capabilities into its counterinsurgency program. Colombia's U. S. - backed military and police forces went on to collaborate with paramilitaries.

Colombia's brand of counterinsurgency has extended to civilian society. Ravelo's first-hand reporting documents the resulting murder and mayhem that descended on Barrancabermeja. He builds the case for U. S. complicity.

In his recollections, historian Ravelo becomes a reporter as he provides background information bearing on pressing news today. Violent repression is on the rise now in Colombia, and on that account Colombia's current peace process is stumbling. FARC negotiators are balking at their insurgency being subjected to violent attacks in a time of peace, as happened back in the era Ravelo is writing about. What he records reflects their worst fears.

Barrancabermeja's history encapsulates Colombia's long record of social revolution, militarization, violent repression, and lost promises. Located on Colombia's huge Magdalena River, Barrancabermeja hardly existed until 1921 when the Standard Oil affiliate Tropical Oil Company established its refinery there. Leslie Gil, revealingly enough, titled his new book "A Century of Violence in a Red City."

There, labor leader Raul Eduardo Mahecha founded the oil workers' union known as the Syndicated Worker Union (USO), now Colombia's "most militant and powerful" union, according to Gil. "Class conflict in Barrancabermeja was pervasive, raw, and violent," Gil says.

The Patriotic Union (UP) looms large for Ravelo. The FARC and the Colombian government in 1984 agreed that the guerrillas would give up arms and enter electoral politics. Together with communists and other leftists, they formed the UP electoral coalition which ran candidates for local and national offices. Then murders began; over decades, thousands of UP activists died throughout Colombia.

Cesar Martínez Blanco

Ravelo titles the first of his reports "Ten months that shook Barrancabermeja." Excerpts follow:

Cesar Martínez Blanco arrived in Barrancabermeja at the end of the 1950s. He became a Communist Party militant when he was young. He worked as a barber... his activities were centered in the commercial sector next to the Libertadores Theater. ... Most days from six in the morning on he toured the districts of Barrancabermeja on foot. This won him love and affection from the people of Barrancabermeja who on several occasions elected him to the city council ... He was my teacher in the art of political organization.

At 7 PM April 22, 1987, Cesar Martínez Blanco, member of the Patriotic Union (UP) leadership [and two others] were gathered in a store in La Campana district ... They had just left a meeting ... Suddenly someone threw a grenade. It exploded leaving the three leaders and others gravely wounded.

Immediately the wounded were transferred to the San Rafael Hospital. We congregated outside and were told that they had amputated Cesar Martínez' legs. ... Perplexed and grieving, we decided to take over the strategic location known as As de Copas. The action would begin at 10 PM and we made arrangements with Diego Rodríguez ... to bring Patriotic Union militants from the northeast districts there in his bus.

By 10 PM, As de Copas was totally packed with people. [Soon] the barricade was organized. ... The following day at eight AM, As de Copas was boiling over. People were there from every corner of the city, as were union, communal, and civic leaders ... Ismael Jaimes and the present writer were invited to speak with Mayor Juan de Dios Alfonso García.

[The mayor indicated] he couldn't do anything. Judicial power - deaf, dumb, and blind - didn't function. We knew the public force had inspired the bloody deeds. There came the moment when we asked ourselves whose hands we were in. There was one option: to utilize social protest as a legal means for being able to publicize the grave humanitarian crisis through which we were passing.

When we returned to As de Copas, we discovered the Army had attacked the demonstrators, destroyed the barricade ... Highway 28 became the scene of a pitched battle between the Army and demonstrators ... We held a meeting at the headquarters of the National USO with USO leaders and leaders of the People's Coordinating Center. We agreed to organize the civic strike [and] called for a big march at 4 PM to go from the refinery entrance to the As de Copas.

The mobilization was well attended...On reaching Highway 28, the march was attacked by the Army and again there was a pitched battle ... The civic strike for the right to life went on for two more days ... We learned that the public security forces that criminally attacked Cesar Martínez and the others had forced a woman living in the El Centro section to flee the city. And, more serious, the child Sandra Rondón Pinto was murdered May 4, 1987 next to her home in La Campana district. She had just attended morning mass. She supposedly had witnessed the criminal attack.

Manuel Gustavo Chacón Sarmiento

Ravelo's second report, excerpted, appears next. Its title is the victim's name.

We have a majestic photo showing an open stage with a huge background of sky covered by white clouds. They reflect the clarity of the thinking of the petroleum workers [in Barrancabermeja.]. Up there is Manuel Gustavo Chacón with his flute in full voice. These were days of epic deeds in the 1980s for the right to life ... Manuel Gustavo was writing his poems and reciting them in the streets of Barrancabermeja, especially during civic work stoppages there. He did so at every barricade ... It was common to see him going through the streets of the oil city with his wife and three children ... [A]s an oil worker, he became a leader of USO ... His presence at the union earned USO much support from the population."

That day, January 15, 1988, Manuel Gustavo was walking through the street under the brilliant Barrancabermeja sun. At 10:30 in the morning he was in front of the little plaza by the old Telecom. There they shot him in the back from a small truck belonging to the National Army. There were 36 bullet holes. They used assault weapons from the Colombian state and ended his life.

People rose up spontaneously, having barely learned the tragic news. They packed the streets of Barrancabermeja. The People's Coordinating Center, an organization that brought labor, religious, civic, social, and communal groups together, reacted to the community's cry and called for a civic strike for the right to life. The present writer, representing the workers' union at the Cooperative University of Colombia, was the Center's leader.

The strike lasted four days and paralyzed production. USO decided to close down the refinery in Barrancabermeja to show the Colombia government its repudiation of the unpardonable crime. After the massive mobilizations ... were over, and the shutdown of the city was lifted, paramilitary groups - their initials were M. A. S. - put out a pamphlet threatening death tor the protest organizers, among them, Fernando Acuña, Hernando Hernández, Wilson Ferrer, Eva Marín, and David Ravelo.

Francisco Pérez, a non-commissioned army officer, was sentenced to 16 years in prison. Other participating members of the public force enjoy total impunity.

Who is David Ravelo?

Ravelo entered Barrancabermeja's city council in the 1980s as a member of the Patriotic Union (UP). He organized Barrancabermeja's "Peace Council, "Social Forum," the Workers' Space for Human Rights, and the regional section of the MOVICE human rights organization. He founded and directed the CREDHOS human rights organization. In 2009, the Barrancabermeja Catholic Diocese honored Ravelo with its San Pedro Claver award for defending human rights over 35 years. A member of the Colombian Communist Party, he joined its Central Committee in 1991.

The state jailed him on false charges in 1993 - 1995. He and his family received death threats for many years. They accelerated as Ravelo led local resistance to mounting paramilitary attacks. On May 16, 1998, paramilitaries colluding with the Army and police killed 33 people; on February 28, 1999, eight more.

Ravelo's denunciations helped put the lead perpetrator, paramilitary chieftain Mario Jaime Mejía, in prison. In 2007 Ravelo circulated a video showing ex-President Uribe socializing with Barrancabermeja paramilitaries in 2001. Taking revenge, officials reduced Mario Jaime Mejía's sentence from 40 to eight years in return for false testimony against Ravelo. He was supposed to have arranged for the 1991 murder of a city official.

So armed, Colombian prosecutors arrested and jailed Ravelo September 14, 2010. His conviction and 18-year sentence were announced 26 months later. Judicial appeals failed. They'd been based on a law excluding criminals from Colombia's judicial branch. Indeed, Ravelo's prosecutor had been fired from the police force in 1991, having forcibly "disappeared" a youth.

In prison Ravelo has gained further exposure to the Colombian security state, bolstered by the United States. U. S. Plan Colombia featured an annex entitled "Program for Improvement of Colombian Prisons;" it provided funds for new prisons. U. S. consultants pushed Colombia to adopt a U. S. - inspired "prison - industrial model." Now almost 10,000 political prisoners, Ravelo among them, are lodged in overcrowded prisons. Reports of contaminated food in prisons, water shortages, dangerous lack of medical care, and physical abuse are legion.

The author translated.

Photo: Manuel Gustavo Chacón Sarmiento.

French right-wing party in hot water over Panama Papers

Wed, 13 Apr 2016 16:32:00 +0000

On April 4, the neo-fascist Front National party of France, released a blistering critique of the state of global capitalism (although I doubt they'd characterize it as such).

"The control-free movement of men, goods and capital, coupled with high finance's stranglehold on all levels of the economy, can only produce global fraudulent and money-laundering systems," read the statement. Not wrong, though history shows that their right-wing solution amounts to little more than the anti-immigrant scapegoating we've seen from the American right.

What spurred the comment was the now infamous "Panama Papers": a data leak from Mossack-Fonseca, a Panamanian law firm that specializes in concealing the money of the rich from government scrutiny.

And then Tuesday rolled around.

Thanks to the reporting of Le Monde we now know that two "allies" of Front National's leader Marine Le Pen, have been named in the Papers. What's worse, those two allies, Frédéric Chatillon and Nicolas Crochet, were previously charged with fraud and illegal financing of the party.

Le Monde reports that money from Chatillon's public relations company changed hands four separate times using intermediaries in the British Virgin Islands and Singapore.

Not surprisingly, the FN has released a statement condemning anyone who would raise an eyebrow at the association going as far as to say, "We will not tolerate [allegations which] damage the honor and reputation of its leaders, its members and its constituents, and accordingly will not hesitate to take legal action against all those who [defame us]."

The socialist-led government of Francois Hollande has placed Panama back on France's "black list of uncooperative tax jurisdictions" after a national outcry following news of the leak, a move that subjects companies and individuals doing business in those jurisdictions to harsher financial scrutiny. Panama, however, has not taken this move lightly, threatening diplomatic action in the near future.

Despite this move, French citizens have continued to rally against big banks implicated in the papers. The Star reports that as many as 40 people blocked the entrance to Société Générale, a bank implicated in the Panama Papers, last Thursday with signs that read "fiscal fraud, social crime."

Photo: Marine Le Pen

Left shut out in Peru presidential runoff; only right-wing candidates remain

Wed, 13 Apr 2016 14:32:00 +0000

Peruvian voters will be heading back to the polls June 5 to cast their ballots in a presidential runoff after no candidate won a majority in general elections held April 10. Their unenviable task will be to choose from among two right-wingers, as the candidate of the leftist Broad Front, Verónika Mendoza, came in third during the first round of voting and will not advance to the runoff.

The April vote was held under conditions of instability and confusion. Just before polling, it had appeared that Mendoza might be facing off against right-winger Keiko Fujimori of the Popular Force Party. But in the end, another right-winger, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski of Peruvians for Change, beat out Mendoza by a small margin.

The number of candidates who originally filed for the presidential election was an amazing 14, of whom 10 made it through to election day. The process of qualifying and disqualifying candidates was extremely rough, and was denounced as arbitrary by the Secretary General of the Organization of American States, Luis Almagro.

Most notably, two candidates who appeared at one point to have considerable support, Julio Guzmán of the All for Peru party was disqualified by election authorities who took issue with the way his party had nominated him. Another, César Acuña, was kicked off the ballot because of accusations of vote buying, even though Keiko Fujimori was accused of exactly the same thing and was not disqualified.

The dictator's daughter

Fujimori is the daughter of former dictator, Alberto Fujimori, who is still imprisoned for crimes against humanity and acts of corruption that took place when he was president from 1990 to 1992 and again from 1995 to 2000. His 25-year jail sentence was partly based on evidence that death squads organized by his government had massacred civilians in two specific incidents during his first term, at Barrios Altos and La Cantuta.

Most of the crimes committed by Fujimori and his cronies were against poor and indigenous communities, under the pretext of suppressing the violent Maoist "Shining Path" (Sendero Luminoso) guerrilla group. The Ayacucho region of Southern Peru, where most people are native speakers of Quechua, the language of the ancient Incas, was the focus of most of Shining Path's attacks and thus also suffered the brunt of the Fujimori-era repression.

A strong minority of Peruvians have good memories, though, of the Fujimori regime, which they perceive as having crushed the terrorist danger and stabilized the economy. They make up a significant share of the voting base his daughter relies on today.

However, other Peruvians - some believe the majority - think of Keiko Fujimori as a potential fascist dictator herself, and are inclined not to believe her claims that, if elected president, she will rule differently and will not even release her father from jail.

Runoff locks out the left

Toward the end of the campaign, it became clear that Fujimori would win the most votes but not the 50 percent that would have allowed her to avoid a runoff. So the big question became who would face her in the final contest.

Polls showed a close race for the number two position between Kuczynski, who had been prime minister from 2005 to 2006 (Peru has both a president and a prime minister), and the Broad Front's Mendoza, who is a member of the Peruvian Congress for the Cuzco area.

Her party, the Broad Front, or Frente Amplio in Spanish, represents a coming together of several different socialist and leftist groups, including both of Peru's existing communist parties (Partido Comunista Peruano and Partido Comunista del Peru-Patria Roja), and other organizations. Its platform calls for the democratization of all aspects of the Peruvian economy and society.

Two former presidents of Peru who were trying to re-win the presidency, Alejandro Toledo (2001 to 2006) of Possible Peru, and Alan García (1985 to 1990 and 2006 to 2011) of the Popular Alliance, found themselves far behind in polling and did not make it to the runoff.

With the exception of Mendoza, all the candidates could be considered right-wing or right-center.

As the campaign progressed, Mendoza's numbers began to rise. The right tried to combat this by red-baiting her with vague references to the Shining Path (with which Mendoza has no connection), and by questioning her loyalty to Peru because her mother was born in France. The right also tried to appeal to conservative Catholics and Evangelicals by attacking Menedoza's progressive views human sexuality.

Just as the campaign neared its end, the scandal of the Panama Papers suddenly became a possible factor in Mendoza's favor. Of the three top candidates (Fujimori, Kuczynski, and Mendoza), she was the only one whose name had not cropped up in that vast data trove.

Mendoza's rise was not quite big enough, however, to put her into the runoff against Fujimori. Semi-final electoral tallies show that Fujimori received 5,767,797 votes, or 39.74 percent, while Kuczynski got 3,054,281 or 21.04 percent. Mendoza won 2,727,874 votes, or 18.79 percent.

The geographical, economic, and ethnic spread of the vote was revealing. Mendoza's leftist campaign performed very well in most of Southern Peru, especially in the Ayacucho, Apurímac, Cuzco, Huancavelica, Puno, Moquegua, and Tacna regions. Cuzco is Mendoza's hometown which she has represented in Congress, so the wide margin there is no surprise.

Ayacucho is the area that was hardest hit by the Sendero Luminoso violence and by the government repression that ensued. Most of these regions have a high concentration of native speakers of indigenous languages, in comparison with the rest of the country which is 86 percent Spanish speaking, and most of them are relatively poor. This shows that, as in other countries in the region, the left's message of social justice still resonates among important sectors of the population.

A contest of the right

So the runoff will be between two right-wingers: Fujimori, with her "law and order" stance and the baggage of her father's sinister regime, and Kuczynski, who is seen as one of the candidates closest to international monopoly capital and a promoter of neoliberal economic policies of free trade, privatization, and deregulation.

If Fujimori emerges victorious, she will enjoy the support of the biggest bloc in Congress, as her party took 68 of the 130 seats. But if it is Kuczynski, he will only be able to count on the 20 seats won by his Peruvians for Change party - the same number won by the Broad Front.

No matter which of the two wins the runoff, election represents a major gain for the ultra-right compared to the results of 2011. Then, left-wing candidate Ollanta Humala and his alliance won both the presidency and the highest number of Congressional seats. Due to constitutional term limits, he was unable to run for re-election. However, Humala quickly disappointed his supporters by imposing the same neo-liberal policies that he had criticized as a candidate.

The good news is that Mendoza's showing is better than that of any openly socialist candidate in recent presidential elections.

With the left shut out, the only possible outcome this time is a right-wing administration. Forced to pick their poison, the Peruvian people face foreboding times ahead.

Photo: Rodrigo Abd/AP

Former Cuban Five prisoners teach about solidarity and Cuba

Tue, 12 Apr 2016 14:15:00 +0000

Gerardo Hernández was late in returning a call. This time he did reach Carlos Alberto Cremata in Cuba. He's the director of La Colmenita, a well-traveled children's theater group. Carlos Alberto in April 2012 had called Gerardo in prison in California to relay a message from the children, who were viewing Niagara Falls. "Gerardo, you'll be coming home soon," they said. This was no small prediction in view of Gerardo's two life sentences.

Carlos Alberto's father, Carlos Cremata Trujillo, worked for Cubana Airlines and was a spare time actor. He died in the 1976 terrorist attack off Barbados that brought down a fully-loaded Cubana airliner. CIA employee and current U.S. resident Luis Posada planned the sabotage.

When arrested in Florida in 1998, Hernández and four other Cuban agents were working precisely to prevent such terrorist attacks. The Cuban Five, as they became known, went free on December 17, 2014. Now they are touring in order to express thanks for worldwide solidarity on their behalf and to talk about what the Cuban Revolution means today in a crisis-filled world.

While Hernández was in Canada, his other Cuban Five comrades were also traveling; Ramón Labañino was in Uruguay and Argentina; and Antonio Guerrero was in Venezuela. Hernández gave presentations in Montreal, Niagara Falls, Fort Erie, Ottawa, Toronto, and Vancouver. The United Steelworkers Union (USW) sponsored his Canadian tour; he attended their national convention in Montreal.

Hernández told 200 listeners in Toronto that, "Ideas from abroad try to make capitalism before the 1959 revolution look like a paradise of sea and beaches, [but] this is not true. It was a system that killed and tortured its own people." He recalled former U.S. insistence that negotiations with Cuba were impossible. Nevertheless, he noted, negotiations took place, and "Cuba hasn't renounced one single principle ... This is a huge victory for our leaders and people."

Ramón Labañino attended a regional solidarity conference in Buenos Aires on April 9. Referring to political changes in Latin America, he noted that "We live in a complicated time. There is a strong attack against popular and progressive projects coming from soft blows." He called for unity "of the various left forces and social and people's movements in standing against that rightwing offensive supported by the North American government[sic]."

Labañino earlier had met with Argentinian intellectuals and artists, among them Stella Calloni, Vicente Batista, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Adolfo Pérez Esquivel. He was there to express appreciation and to join in solidarity, he declared. Pérez Esquivel's letters to Obama calling for freedom for the Five were recalled.

He also remarked that, "true Nobel Peace Prize winners would never abandon us." Indeed, "We knew that the Revolution does not abandon its sons, because Fidel turned back the Granma [boat] to pick up a comrade who had fallen into the open ocean. And we knew the Granma would return for us, and today we are free."

Ramon Labañino's wife Elizabeth Palmeiro, accompanying him in Argentina, told members of Argentina's Communist Party about her husband's distress at being separated from his daughters. "But with the support of the people and leaders of Cuba and their backing we could get up each day and keep on moving ahead," she declared.

In Uruguay, Ramon Labañino and Elizabeth Palmeiro visited with former Uruguayan President Jose Mujica in his home and attended other meetings. Now a senator, Mujica had repeatedly called upon the U. S. government to release the Cuban Five.

Meanwhile, Antonio Guerrero was in Venezuela attending the International Meeting of the "Artists' and Intellectuals' Network in Defense of Humanity." On April 9 he warned against new communication systems operated "by the empire" and mass media that "destroy history and destroy young people's power of analysis." He called for "maintaining peace [and] stability [and protecting] the Bolivarian revolution, a peaceful revolution."

Fernando González and René González, other former Cuban Five prisoners, are also reaching out to the worldwide movement that supported them as prisoners (and that backs Cuba now). Fernando serves as vice president of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples. And since being released form prison in 2011, René has traveled the world on behalf of Cuba and peace.

In view of such efforts, attentive prison authorities might have observed that the Cuban Five, imprisoned, converted confinement into schools. With words, poetry, art, and their example, the Five in prison were teaching solidarity to the world. Prison experience became fodder for these Cuban revolutionaries now to be carrying their teaching to the far corners of the world.

Photo: Gerardo Hernández makes a phone call from Canada in 2016. | Courtesy of Cubadebate.cu.

Zuma impeachment rebuffed, but calls for removal intensify

Tue, 12 Apr 2016 13:56:00 +0000

Events commemorating the 23rd anniversary of the assassination of Chris Hani, the African National Congress (ANC) and South African Communist Party (SACP) leader, were held throughout South Africa over the weekend.

A red hot topic at the Hani memorials was the recent Constitutional Court ruling requiring President Jacob Zuma to pay back monies improperly spent on renovating a cattle barn, swimming pool and visitor's center at his residence in KwaZulu Natal. The Court also censured Zuma over his failure to abide by a ruling of the country's Public Protector (ombudsman), Thuli Madonsela, which had already ordered him to repay.

The Constitutional Court (the highest court in South Africa) found that both the president and South Africa's Parliament had violated the country's constitution: Zuma by ignoring Madosela's order and Parliament by attempting to absolve him of the responsibility.

The high bench's unanimous decision was the latest in a series of dramatic occurrences that have thrown the 20-year old democracy into turmoil. A few months ago, South Africa's economy was roiled by the summary and seeming inexplicable dismissal of the country's respected finance minister, Nhlanhla Nene, and his replacement with a novice from the ANC's parliamentary delegation.

This was followed by revelations from a number of government officials that representatives of a prominent business family, the Guptas, close friends of President Zuma, had offered them Cabinet positions without the knowledge of government. This practice has been referred to by the South African Communist Party and others as "state capture," meaning the control of government portfolios by business interests.

In response public outrage has been widespread leading to calls for Zuma's resignation and other emergency measures.

Last week several prominent ANC members and generals of the ANC's former military wing, Umkhonto We Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), called for a special national ANC conference to address the crisis. Among the problems they pointed to are "the rise of factions and slates, the diminishing quality of ANC cadreship, the rise of antagonisms within the Alliance, the breakaway of unions from COSATU, the break-up of the ANC Youth League, the marginalization of committed ANC comrades, [and} the rise of vulgar and unsophisticated politics ..."

At a meeting of the South African Communist Party's leadership in response to the Constitutional Court's ruling, the collective observed, "Thursday's Concourt judgment and the evident popular acclamation it received from the widest array of South Africans should be a clear warning signal to the ANC, to our ANC-led alliance, and to the ANC-led government. Decisive action is now imperative ..."

Acknowledging President Zuma's televised public apology, the SACP continued, "President Zuma's apology and his undertaking to implement to the full the remedial actions proposed by the Public Protector, and now upheld as enforceable by the Concourt, are important beginnings.

The ANC parliamentary caucus (which includes, of course, SACP members who serve as ANC MPs), also needs to conduct serious and collective soul-searching. The Concourt judgment correctly found that Parliament had failed to exercise its constitutional responsibility in holding the executive to account."

Others went further: Ahmed Kathrada, an ANC and SACP veteran, Ro bben Islander and close comrade of Nelson Mandela in an open letter called for Zuma to resign arguing, "Now that the court has found that the President failed to uphold, defend and respect the Constitution as the supreme law, how should I relate to my President? If we are to continue to be guided by growing public opinion and the need to do the right thing, would he not seriously consider stepping down?"

Demands for Zuma to step down have also emerged from, among others, the South African Council of Churches, SACP anti-apartheid activist Denis Goldberg, former finance minister Trevor Manuel and most recently younger ANC members who grew up in exile who drafted their own open letter demanding a special ANC conference.

Former President Thabo Mbeki, remarking on the broader implications of the decision of the Constitutional Court and the South African constitution's values, said, "One of these 'foundational values' is obviously the prescript that all the obligations imposed by the Constitution must be fulfilled ... as a corollary to this, the ConCourt therefore made the determination that failure to observe these 'foundational values' might threaten the very 'survival of our democracy', and therefore constitute a counter-revolutionary act, where the revolution is understood as the establishment of our Constitutional Democracy."

Last week, a motion by the opposition Democratic Alliance to impeach President Zuma was easily overcome by the ANC delegation in Parliament who wield an over 60 percent majority.

Meanwhile, Gwede Mantashe, Secretary General of the ANC, called on members attending a Chris Hani memorial to defend the party and not the president himself. He cautioned against the extremes of either insisting Zuma stay or demanding that he go. "Society is beginning to reduce the confidence and trust in us... It's not about Zuma. It's about the ANC," Mantashe said.

Notwithstanding Mantashe's assessment, the South African revolution seems to be passing through a watershed moment. How the watershed is bridged, and what lies on the other side, remains uncertain. One thing is clear: given the ANC's political preponderance, it will be up to the party's leadership and membership to decide on Zuma's fate.

Local elections slated for early August will be an important measure of where the country's going and how the ANC stands within it. Until then, the world watches and hopes that unity and sobriety prevail.

Photo: South African president Jacob Zuma, answers question during parliament in Cape Town, South Africa, March. 17, in a tumultuous session of Parliament. Schalk van Zuydam | AP

At Tu Du Hospital, optimism remains high despite challenges

Tue, 12 Apr 2016 11:24:00 +0000

HO CHI MINH CITY -- All the children in the special ward at Tu Du Hospital call her grandmother. She is a petite, 80 year old former hospital administrator who now works with children at the hospital--all of whom are victims of Agent Orange. Her distinct grey hair and glowing smile brings comfort to those children who are patients in the Tu Du Hospital Peace Village.

The children living in the Peace Village, at least those children who can, come running to hug her. They all call her Grandmother although her formal name is Ms.Thay. Many children in this special ward have physical and mental disabilities. Still, "Grandmother" has a special bond with all the children in the Peace Village. Tu Du Hospital is the only hospital and the first in Vietnam's 32 provinces to have a Peace Village located in a hospital.

Since its establishment in 1966, Tu Du Hospital has received and raised 500 children who live with the results of birth defects and other injuries from chemical warfare in Vietnam.

The Peace Village

The Peace Village dioxin ward is designed for the sole purpose of providing specified medical services. The hospital performs various medical functions, vocational education for disabled children and children born with deformities-victims of the dioxin known as Agent Orange. The U.S. military used Agent Orange and other herbicides during the Vietnam war.

Dr. Phuong, Chief of Rehabilitation at Tu Du, is well aware of the challenges they face. "It is estimated that over 3 million people in Vietnam suffer from the affects of Agent Orange," he said. "It is passed from one generation to the next." The doctor went on: "Three generations, and now moving into the fourth, have had lasting affects of Agent Orange. It will take decades of ingenuity and a lot of money but we are always hopeful."

While touring the Peace Village with Dr. Phuong, I met Anh Duc. He was born a conjoined twin. It took several dozen highly trained doctors to successfully separate the twins, but Duc's brother Viet eventually died. Today Anh Duc is 34 years old, happily married with healthy young twins. He works with the children in the Peace Village.

Many children in the Peace Village suffer with severe disabilities. On the tour of the Peace Village I saw several children with severe disabilities, and I was provided with background information on a few of them. One child had an enlarged head and was bed ridden. Another child had no eyes. Still another child was missing both arms and legs. I saw children with both physical and mental disabilities. Currently Tu Du Hospital has more than 60 children being cared for in the Peace Village.

Dr. Phuong said "at least ten of the children with disabilities raised at the hospital have overcome shortcomings to integrate into the community, such as Nguyen Duc who is a staff member at Tu Du Hospital, and Nguyen Xuan Nghia who is a student of the University of Economics here in Ho Chi Minh City."

Nguyen Xuag, a staff member with the Commission for External Relations and a translator as well as I were both emotionally affected.

Yet the children are clearly loved; their world isn't all suffering. There was another child who came up to me wanting a hug and a kiss. Another child, wanting to show off his English, sang the song "Now I know my ABC's".

Modern but overcrowded

According to Dr. Le Quang Thanh, Director of Tu Du Hospital, the hospital currently has the bed capacity to hold 1,260 people. Yet hospital staff serve between 1,600 and 2,000 patients per day. The issue of overloading is a real concern for the hospital. Resources are limited given the demand for medical care, and overloading only heightens this problem.

The hospital would like to upgrade its equipment with the latest technology as well as to continue hospital building construction. These are expensive budget items but it remains their vision to upgrade and according to Director Thanh, they are moving in this direction.

The Director said that Tu Du Hospital is a leading center in Vietnam for obstetrics and gynecology. It has a staff of 2,175; 84.7 percent are female. Sixteen percent of the staff are doctors and 58.8 percent are midwives or technicians.

The work that staff does day in and day out is challenging. Their dedication and commitment are impressive. Their professional skills are high and they do the best with what they have. Tu Du Hospital is a modern metropolitan hospital.

In the future it is the hope of the hospital staff to have more international cooperation and conferences. There have been several medical exchanges with France and Australia, Singapore, and Japan. To date, there has not been an American exchange with American medical professionals. This is something the hospital medical staff desires.

Photo: Hospital staff. | Courtesy of David Trujillo/PW

Canada’s social democrats drop centrist leader, open debate on left-wing manifesto

Mon, 11 Apr 2016 14:49:00 +0000

Meeting in Alberta's capital city of Edmonton, in the heart of Canadian oil country, delegates to the federal convention of the New Democratic Party (NDP) voted Sunday to drop their leader Tom Mulcair, whom many blame for the social democrats' major loss in last October's election. Over the objections of Alberta NDP premier Rachel Notley, the convention also voted to open debate on the "Leap Manifesto," a leftist platform that, among other things, calls for a transition away from fossil fuels and a moratorium on new oil pipeline construction.

Election failure brings down Mulcair

In an unprecedented move, 52 percent of delegates opted to remove Mulcair and begin the search for a new party leader. The crushing loss of confidence in Mulcair was largely a response to the party's disastrous showing in the October 2015 federal election. Riding high in pre-election polling, the NDP was widely predicted to defeat Stephen Harper's Conservatives and form Canada's first social democratic government. Going into the contest, the NDP held Official Opposition status as the second-largest party, with 95 seats in Parliament. But by election night, the third-place Liberals had catapulted over both the NDP and the Conservatives to install Justin Trudeau as prime minister.

The NDP dropped to only 44 seats. Blame for the electoral disaster has been placed on Mulcair and party strategists' decision to emphasize balanced budgets and pledges to leave income taxes for the wealthy untouched. These positions - out of character for a nominally left-wing party - overshadowed other parts of the NDP platform, such as $15-a-day childcare, opposition to the TPP, and a $15 minimum wage for federal workers.

Mulcair's promises of fiscal discipline allowed the Trudeau Liberals to run to the left of the NDP and seize the mantle as the party of choice for a majority of anti-Harper voters. With the Canadian economy facing strong headwinds due to declines in world oil prices, Trudeau's openness to deficit stimulus spending appeared more in tune with the times than did the NDP's flirtations with austerity.

During the election, Mulcair appeared more comfortable playing the role of a cautious and moderate 1990s third way social democrat rather than a confident leftist. In a period when the popularity of unapologetic socialists like Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn is surging internationally, the image Mulcair presented seemed like something from another time.

One of the most prominent voices pushing Mulcair's ouster was Hassan Yussuff, president of country's largest union federation, the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC). Only days before the party convention, Yussuff told the press Mulcair did not deserve another term as leader, saying "we lost the opportunity to govern." The head of the United Steelworkers, Ken Neumann, however, spoke out in support of Mulcair, saying he was "confident that the labour movement is going to be behind Tom."

Though Mulcair lost the vote of confidence, he may stay on as party leader for as long as two years. Though there are names being suggested as successor - such as popular former MPs Peggy Nash and Megan Leslie, as well as current MPs Nathan Cullen and Niki Ashton - there is no clear favorite to take over the helm. The party's executive must now begin the process of conducting a leadership contest.

Environment-centered platform to be debated

The divided stance of labor leaders regarding Mulcair's future was not the only sign of a split party. Delegates also voted to open debate on a new left-wing platform called the Leap Manifesto, over the objections of Alberta party leader Rachel Notley. Her province's economy is highly dependent on the export of tarsands crude, a major source of carbon emissions and environmental damage. Facing multi-billion dollar deficits, the Notley government's future is tied to further investment in Alberta oil and a turnaround in world energy prices.

Along with its call to transition away from fossil fuels completely by 2050, the manifesto also prescribes new taxes on the financial sector, a guaranteed minimum income, an end to unequal free trade agreements, as well as a new focus on indigenous rights. Supporters of the document, such as author Naomi Klein, Charles Taylor, and others, believe that incremental change is no longer sufficient and argue that a qualitative "leap" in social and environmental policies is necessary.

Speaking out forcefully for a clear left perspective was former Ontario party leader and former UN ambassador, Stephen Lewis. In an address that challenged the progressive credentials of Trudeau's Liberals, he criticized the centrist party's continued shortcomings on national childcare, electoral reform, security and surveillance laws, and most recently, arms sales to the theocratic regime in Saudi Arabia.

Lewis said the NDP can again be the clear alternative to the Liberals and that members should launch a full debate on the Leap Manifesto. Quoting a former party leader, he told delegates:

"The modern democratic socialist should proclaim his or her aims loudly and passionately. The equality of men and women is the socialist watchword; the moral struggle against injustice and inequality is the socialist's duty; to be a strong and powerful voice for common men and women against the abuse and oppression of the privileged minority is the socialist's function; and to forge an ever finer and higher standard of values and a richer pattern of life and behavior is the socialist's dream."

The convention answered his call, voting by a clear majority to open a two-year debate on the manifesto at the local level. It will be considered again by the full party at the next policy convention in 2018.

With no clear successor to Mulcair emerging and the party platform in a state of flux, Canada's social democrats are entering a period of uncertainty. Though the forces pushing for a leftward shift seem to have the momentum, there is no predetermined outcome to this process of transition.

The only comfort the party might take is that the Conservatives find themselves in a similar state. The Trudeau Liberals' "Sunny Ways," meanwhile, continue to enjoy the support of a majority of Canadians.

Photo: Wikimedia (CC)

Right and left in German state elections

Mon, 11 Apr 2016 14:45:00 +0000

BERLIN - Following German state elections three weeks ago the politicians are still sorting things out and pasting new coalitions together. Most parties here have a color; black is for Merkel's Christian Democrats due to traditional clerical ties, so southwestern Baden-Wurttemberg will soon have a green-black government.

That's not totally new (nearby Hesse has one too) but it's the first time a cocky Green minister-president will be on top and the "blacks" not very happy junior partners. No other mix added up to the needed 50 percent of legislature seats. This marriage of two parties once seen as bitter foes hardly augurs well for any principles of the Greens, who once began as daring, tradition-breaking rebels.

Rhineland-Palatinate will get a ménage a trois. The Social Democrats (SPD), who nose-dived everywhere else, had a very popular leader here, and she saved the day for them. But to get 50 percent she needed not one but two smaller partners, the Greens and the right-wing Free Democrats (FDP). This party, almost considered dead after many losses, was perhaps inspired by biblical Easter-time Resurrection stories and returned from the grave, bloody but unbroken, to join up as third partner. Since its symbol color is yellow, the result was a "traffic light coalition" - red, yellow and green.

In East German Saxony-Anhalt a three-cornered shot-gun wedding was also required. It will be a true novelty, again led by its "black" CDU man, with the SPD again as junior partners (still called red, though with an embarrassed smile). But due to the latter's stark losses the five Green seats were also required for the 50 percent. This unprecedented black-red-green alliance also got a nick-name; someone noticed that the flag of Kenya had these colors so it was labeled "Kenya coalition," without asking anyone in that African nation for permission or endorsement!

Two important parties emerged empty-handed from this wheeler-dealing, for very different reasons.

The Alternative for Germany (AfD) recalls Trump or Cruz. Its main plank is hostility to refugees in Germany, to all non-Christian "Islamists" or any people of color who wear the wrong clothing or speak with an accent, not a German dialect. Two leaders, president Frauke Petry and vice-president Beatrix von Storch, weakly recanted their calls for police to shoot anyone crossing into Germany illegally, even women and, with Storch, children. When a BBC reporter interviewed Petry her fluent English was impressive (she had studied in England) but her awkward floundering about "preserving Germany for the Germans" ended with Trump-like whining about the unfriendly interviewer.

Her vice-president - the full name, Beatrix Amelie Ehrengard Eilika von Storch née Duchess of Oldenburg indicates her noble past - seems not too far from another past; her grandfather Baron von Krosigk was one of only two Hitler ministers to last the full twelve years. Aside from shots at the border she and her AfD favor a total Verbot of abortions and, except for abstinence, disapprove of family planning, even condoms, since "German" offspring are needed. And no same-sex couples. They favor a return of the giant estates divided among East German farmers in 1945 to their blue-blood owners and favor a go-ahead for coal, atomic energy and fracking and, since climate warnings are "nonsense," no new-fangled cutting of CO2 - but rather cutting taxes for the wealthy, cutting government aid for the jobless and needy and cutting out any and all "leftist liberal" ideas. It's like the GOP "auf Deutsch"!

Although tougher German and European measures have radically cut the numbers of refugees arriving in Europe, the AfD still thrives on fear and hatred of them. But, recalling the U.S., it also lives from distrust and anger at "those on the top," which means ruling parties like the CDU and SPD and extends to Angela Merkel's baby, the European Union, with its dubious, complicated foreign components and even its Euro currency. Such feelings are common all over Europe, as dramatically demonstrated by a majority of Dutch voters last week who voted not only against a deal with the shaky, shabby, shady Ukrainian government, but actually against the whole EU.

Leftist opposition and the ultra-right AfD danger

With Bernie in the U.S., Corbyn in Britain and various kinds of leftist opposition in Ireland, Spain and Portugal, resistance to billionaire-led governments has been growing, most dramatically last year in Greece until German "austerity" smashed it (though perhaps not permanently). Germany already has the LINKE party (The Left party), with 64 seats in the Bundestag (out of 630). It heads one state, Thuringia, and is junior partner in Brandenburg. But it has failed to fill that gap of anger, worry and distrust among working people which the AfD is capturing so menacingly, now up to a 14 percent poll rating while the LINKE, after missing the 5 percent needed to enter the legislatures in the two West German votes, slithered in eastern Saxony-Anhalt from a previous 23.7 percent, which had given it hopes of heading a second state coalition, down to a miserable 16.3 percent in March. With its national poll at a low of only 8 percent, down from 10-11 percent only a few months ago, it is threatening to lose much of its political significance.

Yet it is so desperately needed! It should be leading the fight to stop urban gentrification and enforce genuine lids on rental rates, with new, inexpensive housing for working people, also for the refugees. It should loudly oppose the gradual but increasingly painful costs of medical insurance and care. (Yes, that good side shown by Michael Moore's film is being eroded!) It is needed to fight for good schools for everyone, again including immigrants, and against the slide toward private schools. And it must always fight the turn from regular jobs to uncertain, part-time and low-paid work and loudly support the possible new strikes of kindergarten teachers and communal employees.

Above all, it must resist military expansion! Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen is demanding 130 billion Euros for the next fifteen years, a giant increase. Much of it would go for a ravenous menagerie of tanks: Lynx reconnaissance tanks, Badger pioneer tanks, Fox transport tanks, Weasel armored airborne assault vehicles, Leopard battle tanks and Puma personnel carriers at € 8.85 million a pop - manufactured in part by the same companies which made Tiger and Panther tanks for Hitler. Why does Germany need hundreds of rapacious predators - and planes, helicopters, drones? Are its borders threatened by anyone, near or far? Its military strength, officially banned in 1945, was to be slashed after 1990 with the end of the Cold War. But since swallowing the East German GDR it has steadily expanded, with troops now involved in sixteen areas, from Afghanistan to Mali. And as if such echoes of past eras were not worrisome enough, for over a year we must read articles in the press like these:

"The Pentagon has drafted plans to deploy U.S. troops and tanks full time along NATO's eastern border, in what would be the first such deployment since the end of the Cold War...."

"Only a few meters from the Russian border Estonia held a 'symbolic' military parade, accompanied by U.S. forces. 140 NATO tanks and armed vehicles took part..."

"Germany is sending its five Eurofighters stationed in Estonian Ämari aloft with all weaponry for patrol flights in the Baltic region... Their full arms equipment includes a loaded cannon, infra-red short-range missiles, an electronic defense system and radar-guided middle-range U.S. Amraam missiles...which can hit targets at a distance of 55 to 180 kilometers. Air Force chief Karl Müllner sees that as a necessary signal - to his own soldiers and to Russia... the heavy armament is important for the troop's morale..."

"The flight time to goals in St. Petersburg is only five minutes," writes the Estonian "Postimees," (Estonian daily newspaper.)

"The German TV channel ZDF (a public service broadcast) reported on the stationing of U.S. atomic weapons at its air force in Büchel in Rhineland-Palatinate. In case of war German pilots would fly these weapons to conflict areas as part of the NATO strategy of 'nuclear participation'."

Do no generals and no ministers recall what German weapons meant to Leningrad during the two and a half year siege from 1941 to 1945 - with the slow murder of over a million civilians?

Sahra Wagenknecht, co-chair of the LINKE caucus in the Bundestag, said: "Those highly dangerous war games increase the danger for all of Europe...Whoever sends armed German Eurofighters to Eastern Europe has clearly lost his mind."

Yes, the LINKE, almost alone, says the right things and takes proper positions on all these issues. That alone is a vital necessity. But I think if it wants to become effective and grow in importance it must find ways to get out among the people, to win them for smart, understandable, daring, even provocative actions, offering them a true alternative to the vicious slogans of the AfD and its fascist accompanists as well as to the guilty leaders of the old parties who are still steering Germany into ever more dangerous waters, at home and abroad.

Photo: Frauke Petry, chairwoman of the German ultra-right AfD. | Michael Sohn/AP

Panama Papers and Latin America: The elephant in the room

Mon, 11 Apr 2016 11:42:00 +0000

In the latest development in the Panama Papers drama, police in San Salvador, El Salvador on Friday raided the offices of the law firm of Mossack Fonseca, one of the main players in the scandal. Someone had noticed that the sign on the office had been taken down, leading authorities to conclude that the controversial firm was about to skip town, perhaps taking key records with it or destroying them.

According to a statement from the Salvadoran Ministry of Justice, it would appear that authorities were worried about a potential cover up of tax avoidance and money laundering by wealthy individuals in El Salvador and perhaps other countries. This may be; Mossack Fonseca certainly has a lot of Salvadoran clients.

However, there may be another reason for a high level of interest by the Salvadoran government, headed by leftist President Salvador Sánchez Cerén, in the massive trove of documents from the shadowy law firm.

The roots of Mossack Fonseca specifically, and of Panamanian shell companies in general, are intimately intertwined with the activities of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the Central American area and beyond. And for the left in Central America, "the agency" is enemy number one.

Since the CIA's founding in 1947, part of its budget has been a secret from the U.S. public and even Congress. This amount, estimated at more than $52 billion a year at present, is used for "covert action" which includes the sort of espionage all major countries engage in. But historically, it has also included many sinister and violent actions. One of its first operations in Latin America was the overthrow of a mildly left wing president, Jacobo Arbenz, in Guatemala in 1954. As documented by the authoritative National Security Archive, based at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., the CIA's plan contemplated not only the removal of the legally elected government of a sovereign nation by means of violence, but the murder of officials and government supporters.

In subsequent years, the CIA was involved in other efforts to overthrow national governments, especially the socialist government of Cuba, and various acts of terrorism and the trafficking of arms and drugs. This got "the Agency" into numerous scandals and controversies. One of the big ones was that of the BCCI, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. This bank was actually a criminal enterprise used by the CIA to pay its own operatives, no doubt out of its secret "black budget'. BCCI laundered drug money from Colombian narcotics cartels, in close coordination with the dictator of Panama at the time, Manuel Noriega, who was also, simultaneously, a valuable CIA asset.

The BCCI also was a principal money laundering agency in the Iran - Contra scandal, in which the Panamanian connection--the liaison between dictator Noriega and Lt. Colonel Oliver North-- was a key element. The profits from the scandal went to help finance the violent right wing "Contra" movement which was fighting a murderous war to overthrow the left wing Sandinista government in Nicaragua. When then Senator, and now Secretary of State John Kerry tried to carry out legislative investigations and hearings to uncover the scope and nature of the BCCI scandal, he got little cooperation from the CIA.

So Panama has been, for a long time, a hotbed of illicit and grey area activity which has involved the use of shell companies and sleazy lawyers and bankers, not only to hide money from tax authorities but also to launder drug profits and to channel CIA and other funds for various kinds of sabotage, destabilization and dirty tricks campaigns in the Central America region and worldwide.

But what about Mossack Fonseca specifically? This specific law firm, founded in 1986, must be understood in the context of the role of Panamanian banks and law firms in all of these things. The two original partners of Mossack Fonseca illustrate this. Jürgen Mossack is the son of a former German Nazi Waffen SS soldier who settled in Panama after the Second World War. He has had a close relationship with Panamanian officialdom, including the administration of the current president, Juan Carlos Varela of the right wing populist Panameñista Party. (Ironically, Varela's government is asking for the United States to extradite his immediate predecessor, Ricardo Martinelli, who is being investigated on charges of corruption and abuse of power).

Ramón Fonseca Mora, Mossack's partner in the firm, is even closer to power circles in Panama, having been the head of the Panameñista Party until the recent scandal.

So Mossack Fonseca is not a marginal entity in Panama but near the very centers of national power. And though the firm is not necessarily the only or main link-up of the CIA in Panama and Central America, it is certainly in the mix, and it is likely that more details of these involvements will come out as reports continue to be generated from the massive "Panama Papers" data trove.

Meanwhile, prominent names in Latin America that have surfaced in the Panama papers scandal belong largely to the political right. Perhaps in hottest of hot water is the new president of Argentina, Mauricio Macri, who already has been facing massive protests because of his harsh imposition of austerity policies which have cut sharply into the living standards of Argentine workers. It transpires that while Macri was mayor of the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires, the post from which he managed to project himself as the winning presidential candidate, he was President and a director of a Bahamas-based company, Fleg trading, and failed to include this information in legally mandated campaign finance declarations. Macri denies that he profited from this arrangement, but then why did he not declare it to Argentine authorities as required?

A second Latin American head of state who has trouble explaining what has come out about him in the Panama Papers is the Mexican president, Enrique Peña Nieto, from the right of center Revolutionary Institutional Party, or PRI. In Peña's case, this now a recurring nightmare, because he was already in trouble about his and his wife's relationship with a controversial contracting firm. The firm, Higa Group, is headed by a very close personal and political associate of the president, Juan Armando Hinojosa, who is revealed by the Panama Papers to have moved to conceal almost 100 million dollars into secret accounts a short while after a scandal had erupted about Higa having giving the president's wife, Angélica Rivera, a palatial house, evidently as a free gift or permanent loaner, in the context of three way negotiations among the government, Higa and a Chinese consortium whereby Higa was contracted to build a high speed railway between Mexico City and the city of Querétaro. This caused such a stink in 2014 that the Mexican government cancelled the contract, leading to a diplomatic incident with China. Any thinking person would be likely to conclude that there was some sort of kickback scheme going on, whose details were being concealed by Hinojosa Cantú by means of the familiar technique of using bogus shell companies.

Yet another person who finds himself in hot water over the Panama Papers is the speaker of the lower house of the Brazilian Congress, Eduardo Cunha. Last week it was revealed that he may have received kickbacks to the tune of over $5 million from a Portuguese construction consortium that wanted to bid for contracts with the state owned PETROBRAS, the oil giant which is at the center of the "Lava Jato" ("Jiffy Car Wash") scandal rocking South America's largest country. Cunha is a right wing evangelical Christian whose party, the Brazilian Movement for Democracy Party (PMDB) has just broken off an uneasy coalition partnership with President Dilma Rousseff's left-center Workers Party (PT); Cunha is leading the charge for impeachment of Rousseff, not because of the PETROBRAS matter, but because of budgetary adjustments she made, allegedly to plug a shortfall. The vice president of Brazil, Michel Temer, also from Cunha's PMDB, is also facing possible impeachment in another matter. If Rousseff were removed from power, Temer would normally take over the presidency.

On Sunday April 10, Peru held general elections. At least four of the presidential candidates are implicated in the Panama Papers scandal in one way or another, including the front-runner, Keiko Fujimori, daughter of the former dictator, Alberto Fujimori. She is considered the most "hard right" of the presidential candidates, and in polls she had been followed by Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, of the Peruvians for Change Party, who is closely aligned with transnational capitalist interests. As both Fujimori and Kuczynski are named in the Panama Papers, it was thought that their numbers would drop enough by election day so that the candidate of the leftist Broad Front, Verónika Mendoza (who is not mentioned in the Panama Papers), might end up in a June 5 run off against Keiko Fujimori. Since a majority of Peruvians tell pollsters that they don't want anything to do with the Fujimori family, it has been thought possible that this would be the first opening for the left in Peru in many election cycles.

However, at writing, the most likely runoff appears to be Fujimori versus Kuczynski.

Meanwhile, the drama of the Panama papers rolls on. There has been one high level casualty already: The Prime Minister of Iceland, Sigundur David Gunnlaugsson, has been forced to resign.

No doubt more names will be named, and investigations undertaken. We in the United States should not scratch our heads about why there is not more mention of U.S. names; the U.S. involvement - by the CIA - is the great elephant smack in the middle of the room.

Photo: A marquee on a building in Panama City, Panama, lists the Mossack Fonseca law firm, one of the leaders in setting up offshore bank accounts for the rich and powerful. | Arnulfo Franco/AP