People Before Profit blog

Kurdish struggle a key factor in Syria and beyond

Fri, 30 Aug 2013 14:08:00 +0000

For almost a century, the Kurds-one of the world's largest ethnic groups without its own state-have been deceived and double-crossed, their language and culture suppressed, their villages burned and bombed, and their people scattered. But because of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Syrian civil war, and Turkish politics, they have been suddenly transformed from pawn to major player in a pivotal part of the Middle East.

The Kurds-who speak a language distantly related to Farsi, the dominant language of Iran-straddle the borders of north eastern Syria, northern Iraq, and western Iran, and constitute a local majority in parts of eastern and southern Turkey. At between 25 to 30 million strong, they have long yearned to establish their own state. Now, with their traditional foes weakened by invasion, civil war, and political discord, the Kurds are suddenly in the catbird's seat.

But in the Middle East that can be a very tricky place to dwell.

The Kurds' current ascent began when the U.S. established a no-fly zone over northern Iraq following the 1991 Gulf War. When the Americans invaded and overthrew Saddam Hussein in 2003, Iraqi Kurds saw their opportunity: they seized three oil rich northern provinces, set up a parliament, established a capital at Erbil, and mobilized their formidable militia, the Peshmerga. Over the past decade, the Kurdish region has gone from one of the poorest regions in Iraq to one of the most affluent, fueled in the main by energy sales to Turkey and Iran.

It is an astounding turn of fate.

Twenty-nine years ago the Turkish government was burning Kurdish villages and scattering refugees throughout the region. Some 45,000 people-mostly Kurds- lost their lives in that long-running conflict. Today, Turkey is negotiating with its traditional nemesis, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), and trying to cut a peace deal that would deliver Kurdish support to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's push to amend Turkey's constitution and give him another decade in power.

In 1988, Saddam Hussein dropped poison gas on the Kurdish town of Halabja, killing between 3,000 and 5,000 people. Today, the Iraqi government of Nouri al-Maliki may be outraged by the Kurds' seizure of oil assets, but the Baghdad regime is so preoccupied by a sectarian-led bombing campaign against Shiite communities that it is in no position to do more than protest. Last November, the Maliki government backed away from a potential showdown with the Peshmerga in the northern town of Tuz Khurmatu.

Fifty years ago the Syrian government stripped citizenship rights from 20 percent of its Kurdish minority-Kurds make up about 10 percent of that country's population-creating between 300,000 to 500,000 stateless people. Today, Syria's Kurdish regions are largely independent because the Damascus regime, locked in a life and death struggle with foreign and domestic insurgents, has abandoned the northern and eastern parts of the country.

Only in Iran are Kurds in much the same situation they were a decade ago, but with the Teheran government's energy focused on its worsening economic situation and avoiding a confrontation with the U.S. over its nuclear program, that, too, could change.

In short, are the Kurds' stars finally coming into alignment?

Maybe and maybe not. If the invasion, politics, and civil war have created opportunities for the Kurds, they are fragile, relying on the transitory needs or current disarray of their traditional foes, the central governments of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran.

Turkey is a case in point.

Endogen needs the votes of Kurdish parliamentarians to put a new constitution up for a referendum in time for the 2014 elections. Ending the conflict with the Kurds could also boost Turkey's application for European Union membership and burnish Ankara's regional leadership credentials. The latter have been tarnished by a number of Erdogan missteps, including his unpopular support for the Syrian insurgents and his increasingly authoritarian internal policies.

Most Kurds would like to end the fighting as well, but that will require concessions by the Endogen government on the issues of parliamentary representation and the right educate Kurds in their own language.

But Endogen has balked at these two demands, and the Kurds are growing impatient. PKK leader Cemil Bayik recently warned that "September 1 is the deadline" for a deal and a failure to reach an agreement by then "will be understood that the aim [of the Turkish government] is not a solution." Given the long history of animosity, it would not take much to unravel peace talks between the two parties.

Syria's Kurds have threaded a hazardous path between their desire for autonomy-some would like full independence-and not taking sides in the current civil war. Indeed, the fighting going on in northern and eastern Syria is not between the insurgents and the Assad government, but Kurds represented by the Kurdish Democratic Union and the combined forces of the extremist al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, both of which are affiliated with al-Qaeda.

Most of Syria's oil reserves are in the Kurdish region and control of them would provide a financial base for whatever side emerges victorious.

The Assad regime may have abandoned the north, but Damascus recently has made headway against the insurgency, gains greatly aided by infighting among its opponents. So far the war is a stalemate, but it might not stay that way forever. Even Syrians opposed to the Assad government are tired of the fighting, and most have no love for the sectarian groups that have increasingly taken over the war against the Damascus regime. In short, the current autonomy of Syria's Kurds may be a fleeting thing.

Of course, it is possible that the Syrian Kurds might cut a deal with Assad: help drive the insurgents out of the area-maybe in alliance with the Iraqi Kurds-in exchange for greater autonomy. That would enrage both the Turks and the Maliki government, but it is not clear either could do much about it.

Erdogen's support for the Syrian insurgents is widely unpopular in Turkey, and any direct intervention by the Turks to block autonomy for Syria's Kurds would put Ankara in the middle of a civil war. With an election looming next year, that is not a move Erdogan wants to make. As for Iraq, thanks to the U.S.'s dismantling of Saddam Hussein's army, Baghdad doesn't have the capabilities to take on the Peshmerga at this point.

What will finally emerge is hard to predict, except that a return to the past seems unlikely. Iraq's Kurds can only be dislodged by a major invasion from Turkey in cooperation with the Baghdad government. Given that Kurdish oil and gas are increasingly important to the Turkish economy, and that any invasion would be costly, why would Ankara do that?

And cooperation between Baghdad and Ankara has been soured by Turkey's willingness to ignore Baghdad's protests over its exploitation of Kurdish-controlled (but Iraqi owned) oil and Turkish support for the Sunni extremists trying to overthrow Assad. Those same extremists are massacring Shite supporters of the Maliki government in Basra, Baghdad and Karbala.

Turkey's Kurds-between 20 and 25 million, the largest Kurdish concentration in the world-are on a knife's edge. There is little doubt that the average Turkish Kurd wants the long-running conflict to end, as do the Turks as well. But Endogen is dragging his feet on the key peace issues, and the PKK may decide it is time to pick up the gun again and return to the old Kurdish adage: trust only the mountains.

The solution to all this is not all that difficult.

For Turkey, granting Kurdish language rights and cultural autonomy, and reducing the minimum percentage of votes to serve in the Turkish parliament from its current 10 percent, would probably do the job.

For Syria, the formula for peace would be much the same, with the added move of restoring citizenship to almost half a million now stateless Kurds. But that is only likely to happen after a ceasefire and a political settlement of the civil war.

The Iraqi government will have to bite the bullet, recognize that an autonomous Kurdish area is a reality, and work out a deal to share oil and gas revenue.

As long as Iran is faced with an attack by the U.S. and/or Israel, that country's Kurds will be out in the cold. The U.S. and its allies should keep in mind that sanctions and threats of war make a peaceful resolution of long-standing grievances by Iran's minorities, which also include Azeris, Baluchs, and Arabs, impossible. If the U.S. is truly concerned about minorities in Iran it should find a way to negotiate with the Teheran government over Teheran's nuclear program.

But the Iranian government, too, would do well to seriously engage with its Kurdish population. Autonomy for the Kurds is out of the bag and not about to go back in, regardless of what the final outcome in Syria and Turkey are. Sooner or later, Iran will have to confront the same issue that governments in Damascus, Ankara and Baghdad now face: recognition and autonomy, or war and instability.

This article was reposted from Dispatches from the Edge.

Photo: A 2006 photo of Kurdish refugees in Aleppo, Syria (WikiMedia/CC).

Appeals to White House: Don't bomb Syria

Thu, 29 Aug 2013 15:49:00 +0000

In a letter dated Aug. 28, 18 human rights, peace and religious organizations appealed to President Obama to reject military intervention in Syria. They urged the president to "intensify diplomatic efforts to stop the bloodshed." One of the organizations, Credo Action, has issued an online petition that says in part "President Obama: With civilians being butchered and refugees suffering immensely, it is horrifying to watch the brutal civil war in Syria unfold. But U.S. military intervention is far more likely to make matters worse, not better. The U.S. should not bomb Syria."

Below is the text of the letter. You can sign the Credo petition by clicking here.

Dear President Obama,

We, the undersigned organizations, are writing to express our grave concerns with your reported plans to intervene militarily in Syria. While we unequivocally condemn any use of chemical weapons along with continued indiscriminate killing of civilians and other violations of international humanitarian law, military strikes are not the answer. Rather than bringing an end to the violence that has already cost more than 100,000 lives, they threaten to widen the vicious civil war in Syria and undermine prospects to de-escalate the conflict and eventually reach a negotiated settlement.

In the course of more than 2 years of war, much of Syria has been destroyed and nearly 2 million people - half of them children - have been forced to flee to neighboring countries. We thank you for the generous humanitarian assistance the US has provided to support the nearly one in three Syrians - 8 million people - in need of aid. But such assistance is not enough.

As the U.S. government itself has recognized, there is no solution to the crisis other than a political one. Instead of pursuing military strikes and arming parties to the conflict, we urge your administration to intensify diplomatic efforts to stop the bloodshed, before Syria is destroyed and the region further destabilized.

Sincerely,

American Friends Service Committee

CREDO Action

Democrats.com

Fellowship of Reconciliation

Friends Committee on National Legislation

Historians Against the War

Just Foreign Policy

Oxfam America

Peace Action

Peace Education Fund

Presbyterian Church, USA

Progressive Democrats of America

RootsAction.org

Shomer Shalom Network for Jewish Nonviolence

United Methodist Church, General Board of Church and Society

USAction

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

Women's Action for New Directions

Photo: WikiMedia

"The Beast" claims six fatalities in Mexico train disaster

Tue, 27 Aug 2013 12:57:00 +0000

The death count is up to six in yesterday's train derailment in Southern Mexico, with dozens injured and possibly more bodies buried under overturned freight cars.

The accident was caused by the undermining of the track bed by heavy rain, or perhaps by somebody stealing the rails, but the ultimate responsibility lies with U.S. and Mexican government policies of trade, economic development, imperial political interference and immigration.

At 3:00 AM, eight cars of a twelve-car freight train tipped off the tracks and landed on their sides in a lush tropical region of Mexico's southeastern state of Tabasco, just south of the border with Veracruz. The train was one of several Mexican and Central American immigrants call "la Bestia" -- "the beast." It goes from Southern Mexico northward to Mexico's Northern border with the United States.

This particular train's official cargo was scrap metal, but it also carried a typical human cargo of immigrants traveling the whole length of Mexico from south to north in hopes of being able to cross over into the United States. As is so often the case, the several hundred immigrants aboard were not mostly Mexicans but rather Central Americans, principally Hondurans and Guatemalans.

These undocumented immigrants typically ride on top of the trains, or between the freight cars. Sometimes they strap themselves on, for fear that if they doze off, they could fall under the wheels and be killed or maimed for life. This may have contributed to the deaths, as people could not untie themselves in time to jump clear of the overturning cars.

Survivors say that just before the accident, they had been attacked by criminal elements, who regularly board "la Bestia" to rob the migrants. Sometimes people are killed for their money or kidnapped and held for ransom. There is organized Mexican support for the migrants via mostly church sponsored shelters, and sympathetic villagers sometimes toss food up to the travelers.

The death toll among such migrants in Mexico is extremely high, with thousands killed or "disappeared". When they get to the border between the United States and Mexico, even more die crossing the scorching hot desert, or drowning in the Rio Grande, which the Mexicans call the "Rio Bravo".

Yet hundreds of thousands try this every year. One reason is that the situation in their homelands is so terrible as to make the risk seem worthwhile.

Another reason is that many of the migrants have been deported from the United States before, but have family - spouses and minor children - in the United States who are left destitute, so the migrants are trying to get back to be with their families and help to support them.

In Honduras, the United States connived in legitimizing the overthrow of leftist President Manuel Zelaya in June of 2009, and with the dubious election of right-wing President Porfirio Lobo later that year. Hondurans have continued to protest and resist. Many activists from unions and peasant, Afro-indigenous, Native American, youth and gay-lesbian rights organizations have been murdered, and Honduras now has the highest murder rate in the Western Hemisphere, on top of being extremely poor. Guatemala is also poor and violent, and currently is suffering from a blight that has hit its main export crop, coffee, leaving many out of work. These two countries plus El Salvador are on the direct route of drug smuggling from South America to the United States, and Mexican drug cartels have set up operations within them.

In response to this, what have been the policies of the United States and Mexico? The United States has emphasized repressive mechanisms of keeping poor immigrants out. In Mexico, the left achieved the passage, in 2011, of legislation protecting the rights of immigrants in the country, but the Mexican government has not implemented it. So la Bestia keeps running, migrants keep on riding it and dying, and criminals and corrupt police keep on preying on these migrants, as well as threatening Mexican social justice activists who try to help the migrants.

Ruben Figueroa of the Mesoamerican Migrant Movement sharply denounced the Mexican government after yesterday's accident, saying it "has not taken seriously the risks which the migrants incur." He warned that already there is a buildup of migrant further southward on the line, waiting for "la Bestia" to start running again so that they can board it.

Photo: Mexico train surfing migrants (CC)

Prospects good for communists, social democrats in Czech snap election

Mon, 26 Aug 2013 15:25:00 +0000

On August 20, the government of the Czech Republic's caretaker Prime Minister, Jiri Rusnok, fell when a majority of the lower house of Parliament voted to dissolve itself.

This means that there will be a snap election, scheduled for October 25 and 26. Polling suggests that the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, which had been pushing for new elections for a while, and the Social Democratic Party will make significant advances, with the possibility of a Social Democratic government supported by the communists on an issue by issue basis.

The previous government of Prime Minister Petr Nečas, a coalition of three right-wing parties (Nečas' own Civic Democratic Party, TOP 09 headed by the former foreign minister, Prince Karl zu Schwarzenberg, and the Public Affairs Party, headed by Radek John) self destructed in June, after the revelation of massive corruption scandals which involved important figures in two of the three parties and close relatives and friends of the prime minister.

A close aid and lover of Nečas is formally accused, also, of abuse of power because of a scheme to use public resources to spy on the Prime Minister's wife.

The Public Affairs Party, which touts itself as being anti-corruption, itself embarrassed itself and the coalition when a prominent party member, Minister of Transport Vit Barta was accused of corruption in 2011.

After this year's corruption scandal, the left-center president, Miloš Zeman, then appointed Rusnok, a former Social Democrat and an economist, as caretaker prime minister. However, scandals about corruption are not the Czech Republic's only problem.

The economy is in the doldrums, with high unemployment, especially in heavy industry, inflation and social problems, including increased bigoted attacks against the Roma (Gypsy) population which is used by the far right as a scapegoat for the country's economic and social woes.

So when the vote in the caretaker government happened on August 20, 140 members of parliament of the 174 present (the total number is 200) voted to bring the government down by dissolving itself. President Zeman immediately scheduled the new elections.

The Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia got 11.27 percent of the vote in the 2010 elections to the Chamber of Deputies, which translated into 26 of the Chamber's 200 seats. The Czech Social Democratic Party got 22.08 percent of the vote and 56 seats in that election, but it proved impossible to put together a left-center government, in part because the Social Democrats were reluctant to coalesce with the communists, with whom they disagree on issues such as NATO membership (Social Democrats are for it, Communists against).

Early public opinion surveys suggest that in the October election, both the Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party could make considerable gains, as they are polling now at 32 percent and 15.5 percent respectively.

This time, the leader of the Social Democrats, Bohuslav Sobotka, says he will talk to the communists to see if an arrangement can be made whereby rather than being in a formal coalition, they could support a Social Democrat led government on an issue by issue, bill by bill basis.

In addition, the Czech Green Party, which got only 2.44 percent of the vote and no seats in 2010, has been moving toward the left precisely on the issue of whether to work with the communists or not.

It is of course too early to tell, but the stars seem to be aligning for a likely victory for a Social Democratic government supported by Communists, Greens and others after the October elections.

For the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, there must be feelings of vindication and satisfaction even before the new vote. In recent years, the conservative coalition has expended much energy on efforts to suppress the communists and prevent their party and its youth league from participating in elections. The result: The communists are doing even better than before, and their persecutors have been kicked out of government.

Photo: Jiri Rusnok. AP

Suez Steel owner refuses to reopen plant, adding to Egypt’s woes

Thu, 22 Aug 2013 15:57:00 +0000

SUEZ, Egypt (PAI) - The owner of Suez Steel, the factory in Egypt where the army arrested and briefly detained two union leaders, is refusing to reopen the plant unless the workers he forced to strike there three weeks ago unconditionally return to their jobs, an international union rep on the scene reports.

The army's arrests and action there on Aug. 12, which produced a melee that injured two workers and led to protests from other Egyptian unions and organizations, was a precursor to the August 15 army crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood.

Ahmed Kamel, Middle East and North African representative for IndustriALL, an international union federation that includes U.S. unions, told Press Associates Union News Service, via email, that Suez Steel's owner instead returned to his home in Beirut, Lebanon. Meantime, the Egyptian Labour Ministry, headed by former union federation president Kamal Abu Aita, paid the strikers out of a ministry emergency fund.

Striking workers will return to the plant, which employs 2,200 people full-time and another 2,000 day workers, if the owner meets three conditions, Kamel added: Reinstating 12 workers the owner arbitrarily fired after he forced the strike to begin, paying delayed wages, and "cancellation of all legal procedures from both sides." At the employer's demand, police filed arrest reports against the 12.

Kamel, who is actively participating in mediation discussions Aita is hosting, added, "Given the political and security situation in Egypt, both workers and government showed some flexibility." Kamel received the workers' conditions in a subsequent meeting with the unionists, members of the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions. EIFTU succeeded a former union at the plant, Kamel said.

The army crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood on August 15 has since left more than 900 Brotherhood supporters and more than 40 police dead. Three days before, the army arrested Suez Steel union leaders Amr Yusif (Yousef) and Abdel-Raouf Abdel-Khaleq (Ra'uf).

"Security forces forcibly dispersed a sit-in on factory premises by strikers...with a level of violence used that caused strong criticism of their actions," IndustriALL said.

"As a result of the discussion, the detained workers" - Suez Steel union leaders Yusif and Ra'uf - "were released and the minister of labour decided to pay a month salary to workers from the Workers Emergency Fund," Kamel wrote. "Unfortunately, the Lebanese employer did not show any flexibility and insisted that workers must start work before any negotiations.

"When I talked to him couple of days ago he said he traveled to Beirut and closed the factory. Workers confirmed such news as he circulated a note on the closure of the factory. I am urging the minister of labor to pressure him to implement the minimum of the workers' demands and then we (can) continue the discussion of the rest of the demands in September while work is running in the company," Kamel added.

"Workers' leaders argue that they cannot ask their colleagues to start work without having a written agreement and payment of the delayed wages," IndustriALL added. "Now I am in the office of the minister of labor to continue discussion and hopefully will get the employer to sign the agreement," Kamel emailed.

The arrests and the prior sit-in at Suez show the uncomfortable position of Egypt's independent unions in the continuing turmoil there.

Independent Egyptian unions and their members were among the leaders in the overthrow of 30-year dictator Hosni Mubarak in January 2011 - a role that earned them praise and awards from the AFL-CIO, which has yet to comment on the crackdown.

But even as unions pressed for stronger worker rights and - among other things - a maximum wage imposed on company owners, the unions faced crackdowns, first from the army-run government that replaced Mubarak, then from Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood government and now from the interim army-controlled civilian government.

The Suez Steel workers' struggle has lasted more than a year. The firm rejected the union's contract proposals about career structure, health care benefits, incentives, and use of company profits. The profits were the sticking point. Suez Steel's chairman claimed the firm was losing money, but the union found the firm donated approximately $430,000 (three million Egyptian pounds) to the government for "national reconstruction."

Midwestern states call for an end to the U.S. blockade of Cuba

Mon, 19 Aug 2013 17:25:00 +0000

On July 14, 2013, the Council of State Governments Midwest unanimously passed a resolution to remove trade, financial and travel restrictions to Cuba. Included in the council are Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

At their Midwestern Legislative Conference, it was argued that Cuba relies on imports for 75 percent of its food and that the Midwestern states could benefit from greater trade with Cuba: if trade restrictions are removed, each of these 11 Midwestern states could average between $60 million to $150 million annually in additional trade.

This would mean more jobs in these states, thus helping the U.S. economy. At the same time, agricultural products to Cuba would be good for the Cuban government as they try to fulfill the most basic human needs of food, medical attention, education, housing and peace. This certainly seems a far better endeavor than the export of weapons.

Because U.S. trade, financial and travel restrictions against Cuba hinder the export of the Midwest's agricultural and food products, the body voted unanimously that the Midwestern Legislative Conference support efforts to remove trade, financial and travel restrictions to Cuba; it further resolved, that the resolution be submitted to appropriate state and federal officials.

With organized efforts other states and city councils can call for the end of the U.S. embargo against Cuba and thus allow other sectors of our economy to do business with a market of 12 million people.

Lifting the travel ban completely would also allow for some fine vacationing in one of the most beautiful spots in the world. Millions of tourists from other countries already vacation in Cuba to enjoy the natural beauty of the area and the Cuban attention to ecologically sensitive tourist initiatives.

Photo: In this May 20, 2013 photo, sea gulls walk along the beach where tourists sunbathe in Cayo Coco, in Ciego de Avila, Cuba. Cuba has had a coastal protection law since 2000 that prohibits construction on top of sand and mandates a buffer zone from dunes. Franklin Reyes/AP

Mali elections go smoothly, but problems remain

Mon, 19 Aug 2013 16:32:00 +0000

In a runoff presidential election on August 12, former Prime Minister Ibrahim Boubacar Keita easily beat engineer Soumaila Cisse. Keita, of the Rally for Mali party, got 78 percent of the runoff vote, to about 22 percent for Cisse, of the Union for the Republic and Democracy. The turnout was about 46 percent of registered voters. Mr. Cisse readily conceded Keita's victory, in spite of complaints of irregularities in the election.

Many felt that insisting on an early presidential election while the country was still very unsettled because of a rebellion, starting in January of 2012, by Tuareg separatists in the North of the Country, the subsequent takeover of much of the north, including the towns of Timbuktu, Kidal and Gao in the North, by Islamist forces, some with Al Qaeda links, a military coup d'état in March of 2012, a French and allied African intervention earlier this year. However, the election went ahead and things appear to be fairly calm in its wake. Keita will now replace interim President Dioncounda Traoré.

In the first round of the presidential election on July 28, Keita got 39.23 percent and Cisse 19.44 percent. To the surprise of some, Dramane Dembélé, whose Alliance for Democracy in Mali is said to be the largest political party in the country, only got 9.59 percent. No fewer than 27 other candidates shared the rest of the presidential vote. The most visible candidate on the left, Sheikh Oumar Mariko of the Marxist Partí Sadi, got 2.40 percent.

But who is president-elect Keita? He was the prime minister of Mali from 1994 to 2000 and the president of the Malian parliament (National Assembly) from 2002 to 2007. Twice, he ran unsuccessfully for president, the last time in 2007, when he was beaten by Amadou Toumani Touré, the man the military overthrew last year.

Like many politicians and officials in "Francophone" African states - mostly former French colonies where French is the lingua franca-Keita was educated in France, as well as Mali and Senegal, and has strong links to the former colonial power, among other things, through his election in 1999 as vice president of the Socialist (Social Democratic) International, Keita shares a political bond with French President Francois Hollande whose Socialist Party also belongs to the International. The Socialist International of today is a very mixed bag of groups, mostly centrist rather than socialist, but including also some with real revolutionary credentials. Yet it is not expected that Keita will govern from a radical left-wing position.

A discordant note was sounded when it was revealed that concomitant with the elections, Malian army Captain Amadou Sanogo, whose coup in March last year opened the door to the Tuareg-Islamist seizure of the whole of the North of the country, is no longer a captain but has been bumped upward to Lieutenant General.

Elections or no elections, Mali's main problems remain the same: In addition to the separatist and jihadist tendencies in the North, Mali has among the lowest indicators of quality of life anywhere in the world or even in Africa. It has no seaports and little industry, and is dependent on export of raw materials, including gold, to the industrial world. It is financially and economically dependent on France, which has substantial control over the currency of Mali and other francophone West and Central African states.

If Keita plans to do anything about all of this, he is going to have to act boldly, in spite of the way he finds himself boxed after his electoral triumph by the divisiveness in his own country and the overweening French influence and control.

Photo: A woman completes her ballot behind a privacy screen as others wait in line to vote, at a polling station in Bamako, Mali, Aug. 11. Many voters trudged through red muddy roads in Mali's rainy capital to choose their next president. Thomas Martinez/AP

Egyptian unions in throes of democracy fight

Fri, 16 Aug 2013 17:14:00 +0000

SUEZ, Egypt (PAI) - The Egyptian army arrested and temporarily detained two Egyptian steel union leaders in Suez, Egypt, two days before its violent crackdown on supporters of ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, seven Egyptian unions and a human rights center reported.

Though Amr Yousef and Abdel-Raouf Abdel-Khaleq were released on August 13, two supporters of their union, which is on strike at Suez Steel, were injured in the melee around the arrests earlier that day, according to the unions. The strike started in late July.

On Aug. 15, the army smashed into two pro-Morsi encampments in Cairo. More than 638 people, including at least 40 soldiers, died. Egyptian unions have yet to post comments on the killings, but an independent Egyptian paper bitterly denounced the army and Vice President Mohammed el-Baradei resigned in protest.

The arrests and the prior sit-in at Suez show the uncomfortable position of Egypt's independent unions in the continuing turmoil there.

"After the toppling of Mubarak, (Army chief Hassan) Tantawi, and Morsi in successive revolutionary waves...neither current Commander in Chief Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, nor interim President Adly Mansour nor Prime Minister Hazem al-Beblawi seem to have learned the lesson," the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights said in a statement the English-language Egypt Independent newspaper posted. Co-signers included leftist groups, public transport, port, Cairo airport and textile unions.

El-Sisi and Mansour "continue to deceive the masses, neglecting the demand of social justice in the transitional phase, under the pretext of the war against terror," the statement continued. "The new Mansour-Sisi government is using the old methods against striking workers, who were in the forefront of the people's struggle...which overthrew Mubarak, then Tantawi, then Morsi, whose term witnessed the greatest wave of workers striking for their rights."

Other news sources noted there have been 3,800 workers' protests of various kinds since Mubarak's downfall, half of them from government workers.

The Suez Steel workers' struggle has lasted more than a year, though the strike is more recent, the statement said. The firm rejected the union's contract proposals about career structure, health care benefits, incentives and use of company profits.

The profits were the sticking point. Suez Steel's chairman claimed the firm was losing money, but the union found the firm donated approximately $430,000 (3 million Egyptian pounds) to the government for "national reconstruction."

The firm then fired 12 of the unionists and demanded all the workers return to their jobs before it would resume talks. But it also rejected all the contract demands, forcing the strike, the statement said.

The non-Islamist Strong Egypt Party defended the Suez Steel workers, too. "It is as if history is repeating itself," the party said. "We saw under the Muslim Brotherhood and Mohammed Morsi the security forces attacking the protesting workers of Portland Cement with dogs. Today, the Suez Steel workers, who have been on strike for more than 20 days to demand the return of their arbitrarily dismissed colleagues, are being attacked by the army, who arrested two people and injured two others."

Photo: Suez Canal Company workers began an open-ended strike in front of the company's headquarters in Ismailia City, Feb. 9, 2011. Workers wanted a pay rise and social equality. AP

Project to privatize Mexico's oil company advances

Fri, 16 Aug 2013 16:11:00 +0000

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, of the right-center Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI), has announced long awaited plans for allowing private industry to play a bigger role in the finances of the national oil company, PEMEX (Petroleos Mexicanos). This will soon take the form of legislation.

Mexicans in and out of government have, in recent years, been concerned that the once immense revenues from PEMEX have been dropping. Major shallow-water offshore oilfields give signs of being tapped out. In a decade production from the huge Cantarell oil field has dropped from 2.1 million barrels a day to 400,000. Meanwhile, exploration of deep-water resources, and also of shale beds and natural gas, are lagging. The government claims that only by bringing in foreign private capital can these new sources be developed.

Under the president's somewhat sketchy plan, announced Aug. 12:

* Articles 27 and 28 of the Constitution would be amended to permit shared risk and shared profit agreements with foreign companies. Foreign companies won't be allowed to own the oilfields and sell the products themselves; they will have to accept being paid in cash by the Mexican government.

* Foreign companies such as Shell, ExxonMobil and Chevron will be offered 25-year renewable shared risk-profit contracts.

* Private investment will be allowed in electrical generation, another hot potato in Mexico.

To say the move is controversial is putting it mildly. When revered President Lazaro Cardenas del Rio originally nationalized foreign oil companies In 1938, because they had been flouting Mexican labor law and defied a court order to desist, thousands of ordinary Mexicans contributed to a voluntary fund to pay the necessary compensation to the former British and American owners. Cardenas' wife, Amalia Solorzano, contributed her personal jewelry, and poor villagers sold livestock and gave the meager proceeds to the cause. Public opinion surveys show that a large majority of Mexicans today are against letting private concerns, especially foreign ones, get their hands on PEMEX.

Opponents of the government's plan, on the left, agree that PEMEX needs rejuvenation, but attribute this to corruption and failure of the government itself to invest its own money wisely in research and development, rather than a failure to bring in foreign private capital. They also question whether PEMEX is really going broke.

Last year's left-wing presidential candidate of the Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD), Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who has now left the PRD for a new formation, the National Renovation Movement (MORENA), claims that all the money and technical skills needed to revive the oil sector can be found in Mexico. MORENA has proposed an alternative plan whereby the development and renovation needed would be done entirely with Mexican resources. The MORENA plan would also turn PEMEX more in the direction of refining oil rather than just exporting crude for others to refine, and projects opening five new refineries.

Thirty percent of Mexico's national budget comes from profits of PEMEX. If these have to be shared with foreign private investors, other sources of government revenue will have to be found immediately. One idea being floated by the government is a value-added tax on over-the-counter medications, books and school tuition.

Mexicans also remember that the last time Article 27 of the constitution was meddled with, it was to allow the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to go forward, which proved a disaster for millions.

Peña Nieto's plan will probably pass, because his own party and the more right-wing National Action Party (PAN) of former presidents Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderon have the votes in both houses of the Mexican Congress.

Nor will the union that represents the core of PEMEX's employees, the STPRM (Union of Petroleum Workers of the Republic of Mexico), oppose the move. The current secretary general of the union, Carlos Romero Deschamps, is a PRI operative more than a labor leader. Scandals about his living at a level far beyond what his union salary could allow have not shaken him, and in last year's general elections he was rewarded for his loyalty by being slated by the PRI for a safe Senate seat. Romero Deschamps has been the head of the union since 1989, when then-President Carlos Salinas de Gortari violently suppressed the union leadership of the day for having supported the left opposition in the 1988 presidential elections.

PEMEX is already riddled with sleazy subcontracting arrangements and other dubious practices. So large portions of the oil industry workforce are not covered by union contracts and have marginal existences as low paid temporary contractual workers. Opponents of privatization say what is needed is for PEMEX to be "renationalized."

Opponents of the government's proposal think it is the foot in the door for a giveaway of Mexico's natural resources, for sharp new austerity measures in the areas of the national budget heretofore subsidized by oil revenues, and for a reversal of Cardenas's triumph of 1938. They are calling for mass demonstrations on September 8.

Photo: Car fills up at a PEMEX gas station in Mexico (Wikimedia).

Puerto Rican phone workers join forces with OPEIU

Fri, 16 Aug 2013 14:01:00 +0000

SAN JUAN, P.R. (PAI)-Members of a union representing 2,000 Puerto Rican telephone workers voted by a 10-1 margin to merge into the Office and Professional Employees (OPEIU), the two unions announced on August 14.

"The 10 to 1 vote to affiliate demonstrates real confidence in OPEIU and its ability to strengthen the voice of these workers in collective bargaining," said OPEIU International President Michael Goodwin.

The Independent Union of Telephone Workers (UIET) joined OPEIU after its members' employer, the Claro Telephone Company, imposed onerous demands, Goodwin said.

The "terms and conditions eliminated the union security and dues check-off provisions," Goodwin continued. "OPEIU will now help UIET reach an agreement with the company that would include restoration of both provisions for all 2,000 employees."

The membership benefits OPEIU offered also attracted UIET, he added. OPEIU has pioneered in using member benefits, such as Union Privilege, as an organizing tool.

UIET will become OPEIU Local 1971 and "will continue to exist as an autonomous labor organization, administrating its own business, but will be assisted by OPEIU in building the organization through organizing, collective bargaining, and legislative and public relations support," they added in a statement.

Photo: Members of a telephone workers union in Puerto Rico give thumbs up after voting to merge into OPEIU. Courtesy the OPEIU via PAI Photo Service.

Berlin still hopes for an end to all war

Mon, 12 Aug 2013 16:08:00 +0000

BERLIN - The hot, seemingly untroubled vacation days in Germany have been disturbed by two abbreviations, NSU and NSA.

The former, known all too well since November 2011, stands for National Socialist Underground, the secret pro-Nazi cell which murdered ten men of Turkish or Greek background and a policewoman, blasted a Turkish-populated street with a bomb and robbed several banks.

The two main NSU killers died, perhaps suicides, in the closing scenes of this tragic series of events. Beate Zschäpe, the survivor who burnt down much of the building where the evidence was stored, has been on trial since May, together with four alleged accomplices. With eleven defense lawyers, 600 witnesses plus the families and lawyers of the murdered men, it is due to continue until the end of 2014.

At first, in the early dawn, crowds shoved and fought to get seats and journalists quarreled over accreditation. But despite the weather the long months have cooled things off. The four male defendants still hide their faces while Zschäpe, the main defendant, does the opposite, refusing to say even her name but displaying varying hairdos and ever new, fashionable clothes and looking around cockily, even arrogantly.

There was some stir when Semyia Simsek, only 14 when her father was murdered in 2000, now a young mother, took the witness stand on the 31^st day of proceedings. Looking straight at the responsible police officer she recalled how, after the shooting of her father (a respected, peaceable florist), the police had bugged the family telephone and car, and grilled them about one phony scenario after another: a "war" between Turkish florists, an ancient "blood feud," money-laundering, an invented love affair of her father's - anything but the true motive, hatred of foreigners and hopes of creating more hatred.

The widow's contention that hatred was the problem was ignored by police even after nine additional immigrants were killed. Cops, it was clear, were after foreigners or leftists, not immigrant-haters. Worse still: one slip after another indicated that many police, and the men in the FBI-like Constitutional Protection Office, were so closely linked to their enthusiastic secret agents in the ultra-right scene that defining lines between those rabid, violent parties or groups and the state authorities were very blurred. Much evidence of this had somehow disappeared, inexplicably shoved through government shredders.

A wide array of mysterious facts is still under investigation in the Bundestag. But after nineteen months of contradictions and months of routine trial scenes many people have lost the thread - or lost interest. And whether Zschäpe and her accomplices are convicted of murder, abetting murder, knowledge of intended manslaughter or some such variation will hardly get much media attention before 2014. Indeed, with both trial and investigation now taking summer breaks, NSU has been causing no losses in election poll ratings for Merkel and her candidates.

What about NSA? When Ed Snowden and Glenn Greenwald went and spilled the beans they spilled lots of German bohnen-salat (beans) as well. Ever since those revelations hit the headlines the German government has been tying itself into knots over the questions: "How many secrets?," "How long already?" and how illegal is it for the BND - the German CIA equivalent - to supply the NSA with "metadata" or let NSA gather all it wants itself.

Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich, sent by Merkel to Washington to make loud noises and righteously pound on the table, was described as "gently tapping the table from underneath." But when he returned, looking sillier than usual, he insisted that Attorney-General Holder, even Vice-President Biden, had personally assured him that "everything was for the best" and no "industrial espionage" was going on.

Merkel, hoping this new scandal would not hurt her election chances, said one day, "We must insist that German laws be respected" but the next day that close friends and allies would never ever damage each other and must always "work together" against common dangers.

The media, as ever, are trying to turn the race into a personal duel between Angela, always a sure-footed tactician, and the colorless and awkward Social Democrat, Peer Steinbrück. His only faint chance is that if Merkel's junior partners, the Free Democrats, miss the needed five percent and are left out, and if the Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens accept a coalition with the LINKE (Left), now standing at about 7 or 8 percent, they may have just enough Bundestag seats to win power.

But, as ever, Greens and SPD reject any such coalition with the "Schmuddelkinder" - grubby urchins from the wrong side of the street. The price might only be one lesser cabinet seat granted the LINKE (The Left Party). "But no, not with 'them'"! Never! We'd rather team up with right-wing Merkel & Co."

A major club used to beat the LINKE (which is descended from the Socialist Unity Party, the ruling party in the German Democeratic Republic or East Germany as it was called in the West), even after a quarter of a century after the collapse of the GDR, is its so-called "Stasi past." Within three years after the second world war former Nazis were welcomed into West German society. After 25 years former Communists, however, are still anathema.

But now the NSA scandal has added a strange irony to all the charges about the LINKE's so-called Stasi (the old GDR security agency) past. One journalist figured out that the files of that hated Stasi covered a full 0.019 square kilometers in shelf space. The space for electronic NSA files in Utah is expected to cover 17,000,000 square kilometers.

Another journalist said that present total coverage of E-Mail, phone, Google, even the comings and goings of virtually every citizen, makes the activity of the Stasi in the GDR look like Boy Scout efforts.

Of course, there are many differences. One is that the tough, if often clumsy, Stasi was hunting for right-wing supporters of western "free market" capitalism, which proved too strong for the GDR in the end. NSA's information gathering, while officially against terrorists, is potentially available to people who want to useit against any opposition from the Left.

But please, no comparisons! As Angela Merkel told the press clearly, she rejects any Stasi parallel: "These are two completely different things...The work of intelligence services in democratic states was and will always be indispensable for the security of citizens," she stressed. "A country that doesn't undertake intelligence work would be too vulnerable."

Another frequent attack on the Linke because, of its partial GDR past, also took a slightly ironic turn. The world media linked doping in sport so closely with the GDR that the terms seemed almost synonymous. Now a group of experts from Berlin's Humboldt University has suddenly rocked an almost sacred boat and spilled more beans:

"...Since the early 1970's a systematic, organized and state-financed doping program existed in the German Federal Republic (West Germany)!" The report describes the breadth of doping during the Cold War and how research was conducted in West Germany. For decades the state used taxpayers' money for experiments with body-strengthening substances like anabolica, testosterone and estrogen.

This was not done as a reaction to state doping in the GDR, the report stated, but ran parallel to it. Various threads joined up within the Federal Institute for Sport Science (BISP), founded in 1970, which is still subordinate to the Interior Ministry. The study evidently includes the names of officials, trainers and athletes involved as well as politicians who knew about it. The abuses reached into many sports, including track and field and soccer, and the West German sport doctors did not refrain from doping minors. In 1988 they began experiments with Epo blood enrichment.

How's that? Not only the GDR? And what was that saying about the pot and the kettle? But caution is required here, for of course there was a big, big difference. Michael Vesper, director general of the Olympic Committee, insists almost tearfully, much like Angela and the NSA:

"What in my view is not correct is any equation of what happened here in West Germany with what was practiced in the GDR." But no worry, even this amazing exposé will have little if any electoral effect.

Of course, the main charge against the GDR, hence against working with the LINKE, is the Berlin Wall, though ever fewer people can be found today who were in any way involved. But as its anniversary approaches (it was built on August 13, 1961), we here, as every year, are already being reminded of how nasty it was. And this too is part of the election campaign.

I find less room for irony here; the Wall, undoubtedly tragic in many ways, meant hardship, broken families, sometimes death. Pot and kettle reproaches don't apply. And yet, if only because the commemoration may reach beyond the German media, a few items of history are appropriate.

In 1961 the Adenauer government claimed all of the GDR and also parts of Poland and the USSR lost by Germany after World War Two. Attempts to reclaim any of this territory would have led to war. Since West Berlin was right in the middle of the GDR and the world's two major armies, both in possession of atomic weapons, stood only a meter or so apart at Checkpoint Charlie, the situation was volatile and dangerous.

The GDR had adequate supplies of necessities at low prices but could not compete with availability, variety and changing fashions; it certainly labored under other disadvantages as well. West Germany, stuffed with consumer goods thanks to the Marshall Plan and its better position in general, played Lorelei and lured hundreds of thousands of the best-trained East Germans to move west in numbers dangerous to GDR stability. With its substance threatened, any spark could ignite a fire, even an explosion, possibly of atomic dimensions. The Wall was seen as the only possible salvation - and prevention - measure.

Noting this, Senator William Fulbright, often a "peace now" spokesman, said on July 30 on television: "I don't understand why the East Germans don't close their border, because I think they have a right to close it." Under pressure, he soon apologized, but when the Wall did go up two weeks later John F. Kennedy is quoted as saying (among others by Frederick Kempe in his book "Berlin 1961"): "It's not a very nice solution, but a wall is a hell of a lot better than a war."

I lived in Berlin at the time and could subscribe most warmly to this sentiment. I still do. Wall barriers are always malignant - whether in Berlin, Texas or Palestine - but any judgment of them must be viewed in context of time and circumstances. With NSU, NSA, doping and world peace, and as this summer proves again; we must continuously alter our ideas on so many issues. And keep hoping for an end to wars wherever they may be.

Photo: The author lived in Berlin when Soviet and U.S. tanks faced off against one another in the city streets in 1961. He says he shares then-President Kennedy's assessment in Frederick Kempe's book "Berlin 1961," that "the building of the Berlin wall was not a very nice solution, but a wall is a hell of a lot better than a war." AP Photo

Communist peasant organizers murdered in Mexico

Fri, 09 Aug 2013 13:46:00 +0000

On Monday, August 5, an important peasant leader in Mexico's southern state of Guerrero, Raymundo Velazquez Flores, was murdered along with two companions.

Velazquez had been an important leader of peasant struggles for justice since the early 1960s. At the time of his death he headed the Emiliano Zapata Revolutionary Agrarian League of the South (Liga Agraria Revolucionaria del Sur Emiliano Zapata or LARSEZ) and was also an important figure in the Communist Party of Mexico (PCM), one of several Marxist-Leninist groups in the country. He was, in addition, an announcer in the Mixtec indigenous language for the radio station "Voice of the Mountains" (Voz de la Montaña). In this case "Montaña" refers to the mountainous region of northeast Guerrero which borders on Oaxaca.

In addition, another PCM and LARSEZ activist, Samuel Vargas Ramirez, was found murdered, along with a third person whose full name has not been released. The three were traveling together from Cuernavaca in the state of Morelos toward the town of Coyuca de Benitez. It seems they were to stop off in Guerrero's capital, Chilpancingo, for a meeting, but were intercepted, tied up and murdered by shots to the head on the way, on a riverbank near Coyuca. They had been tortured. The act seems clearly political; had they been kidnapped by ordinary bandits or drug gangs, they would have been held for ransom.

Velazquez, who was 57 years old, came from the village of Tilapa, Guerrero, from a poor peasant family. Tilapa is located in the "Municipio" (approximately, county) of Malinaltepec, in Guerrero's Montaña region. After having moved to the more inland city of Iguala for a while, he returned to his native town and region and became involved, from the early 1980s, in various political and social activist organizations on the left, including peasant organizations and the old Mexican Communist Party (Partido Comunista Mexicano), which dissolved itself in the 1980s, many of its leading cadres ending up in the Revolutionary Democratic Party, PRD.

His efforts enraged the political and economic elites of that time, the more so because he managed to do them without subordinating himself or his organization to the official government-recognized peasant organization, the National Peasant Confederation (Confederación Nacional Campesina).

Demands coming out of the activities of Velazquez and his comrades took concrete form in the Declaration of Acapulco in 1995, which responded to the abuses of repressive governor Ruben Figueroa (PRI). The declaration called for Figueroa to be deposed and punished along with the people who carried out the Aguas Blancas massacre (see below), and for democratic and political reform with full participation of the people of Guerrero, as well as economic justice.

Guerrero is a poor state and home to many indigenous ethnic groups as well as a large proportion of the Afro-Mexican population. Peasants and workers are in almost constant conflict with landowners, mine operators (often foreign), "caciques" (rural political bosses who maintain power, often, by violence), and government authorities at the federal, state and local level. Armed struggle has broken out periodically, for example in Genaro Vazquez's rebellion in the late 1960s, another led by Lucio Cabañas in the beginning of the 1970s, and again after the Aguas Blancas massacre of June 28, 1995, when 17 farmers on their way to a protest were ambushed and murdered by police.

Very frequently, those in power try to play off different factions of the rural population so as to have an alibi when their own operatives murder activists and leaders. This may be the case in this latest atrocity, as there were internal conflicts between indigenous factions of the Tlapanec (Mp'aa speaking) ethnic group over a land dispute. A year ago, Velazquez had denounced Guerrero's governor, Angel Aguirre Rivero, for doing nothing to help solve the dispute. Aguirre Rivero comes out of the long ruling Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI), but jumped to the nominally leftist Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD) in the 2011 elections, because the PRI refused to slate him for governor. This kind of opportunism is currently shaking the PRD to its roots, with much of its left wing migrating to the new MORENA (National Renewal Movement) Party in the last year.

The Communist Party of Mexico issued a statement denouncing the murders, pointing out that they are nothing new but part of a long series of such atrocities:

"The Communist Party of Mexico, via its Political Bureau, holds responsible the federal government of Enrique Peña Nieto, state governor Angel Aguirre Rivero of the PRD, and the municipal government of Ramiro Avila Morales for the murder of our comrades. As we know, in Guerrero there are no [legal] protections for the political actions of communists, revolutionaries and social [justice] fighters. This is a direct attack by all three levels of government against the Communist Party of Mexico....

"Our comrades, simple communists, without pretentions, always had in mind the idea of socialist revolution. Our prime commitment to their exemplary lives is to halt what the government is attempting: that LARSEZ and the PCM remain without heads, and that the revolutionary organizing process in the fighting state of Guerrero be interrupted. The struggle goes on and with their example, gets stronger."

Photo: Guerrero, a southern Mexican state, is the scene of the recent murders of Communist peasants.

Russian Communists must stand against LGBTQ persecution

Fri, 09 Aug 2013 11:25:00 +0000

My grandparents fled czarist Russia in the beginning of the 20th century when pogroms - government-inspired mob action against Jews - swept that country. The czar's laws made it virtually illegal to be a Jew. History teaches us that the pogroms had other victims too - the Russian people as a whole, who were suffering from war, hunger, and inequality. The pogroms diverted their rage and frustration from the real perpetrators of their suffering and directed it toward a socially isolated and blameless minority.

It was not until the Russian people, with its newborn Communist Party taking the lead, exposed the divisive role of anti-Semitism and pogroms that the working class was able to unite the country and achieve peace, land and bread.

The hateful new legislation passed in Russia in recent weeks - which for all intents and purposes outlaws gay people - lays the groundwork for 21st century pogroms against another isolated and blameless section of the population. Once again it is an attempt to divert the people's anger from the real perpetrators of poverty and inequality, Russia's new ruling class.

It's disturbing to learn that the Communist Party of the Russian Federation has lent its support to this disgraceful new law. All of the Russian CP members of parliament voted in favor of it! There can be no explanation of how this furthers the interests of Russia's working class or people, because of course, it doesn't.

We in the U.S. are sharply aware - from our own country's painful history - that state-sanctioned hate - such as Jim Crow laws as well as anti-gay legislation - not only encourages, but actually guarantees violence and terror, lynchings and hate crimes, while at the same time blocking unity of our working class and people. The wave of anti-gay violence and murder in Russia in the weeks since this law was passed is no accident. It is the law's result.

Like communist and workers' parties around the world, the Communist Party USA proudly includes members of the LGBTQ community among its leadership, membership young and old, and allies, co-workers, families and friends. We didn't come to this position as early as we should have. Although we never advocated anti-gay measures, for a long time the CPUSA did not understand the urgency of defending LGBTQ rights as a democratic issue. Today we are stronger, as is our country's labor movement, for recognizing the LGBTQ community as an important ally.

We have a saying, "An injury to one is an injury to all." Diminishing the rights of gays and lesbians diminishes rights for all Russians and creates an anti-democratic mood that allows for mob violence and restriction of rights including those of communists.

Just this week gruesome photographs posted by Russian Nazi gangs document their kidnapping, torture, and murder of suspected gays. Will Russian communists stand against this fascist ideology?

It would honor the legacy of 20 million Soviet citizens who sacrificed their lives to defeat Nazi fascism - another hateful anti-working class ideology - and it would honor the lessons of solidarity the early Russian Communist Party shared with the world if our comrades in Russia would correct their course and embrace the socialist and humanitarian ideal of democratic rights for all.

Roberta Wood is secretary treasurer of the Communist Party USA.

Photo: A gay activist is seized by police during a picket against homophobia on Russia Paratroopers Day, Aug. 2, 2013. Valya Egorshin CC 2.0

Who says a two-state solution is dead?

Thu, 08 Aug 2013 10:58:00 +0000

It is now fashionable to say that "the two-state solution is dead." Or "time for the two-state solution is running out." Why dead? How dead? It's one of those things that needs no proof. To say it is enough.

If pressed, though, the fake mourners of the two-state solution give a reason - there are just too many settlers in the West Bank and Jerusalem. They can't be removed. It's just impossible.

Is it?

Two examples are cited as evidence - the removal of the North Sinai settlements by Menachem Begin under the peace treaty with Egypt and the removal of the Gaza Strip settlements by Ariel Sharon.

How terrible they were! Remember the heart-rending scenes on TV, the weeping female soldiers carrying struggling settler girls away, the Auschwitz pyjamas with the yellow star worn by the settlers, the storming of the rooftops, the rabbis with their Torah scrolls weeping in unison in the synagogues.

All this for just a handful of settlements. What will happen if half a million people have to be removed?

Awful! Unthinkable! Nonsense.

Actually, the removal of the Gaza Strip settlers was nothing but a well-staged tragicomedy. Nobody was killed. Nobody was seriously injured. Nobody committed suicide, whatever their threats.

After playing their assigned roles, all the settlers left the stage.

Only a handful of soldiers and police officers refused to obey orders.

The bulk of the army carried out the instructions of the democratically elected government.

Will the same happen again? Not necessarily.

Removing West Bank settlers from the hilltops in the heart of biblical "Eretz Israel" is something else.

Let's look at it from close up.

The first stage of planning is to analyse the problem. Who are these settlers who have to be removed?

Well, first of all they are not a homogeneous, monolithic force.

When one speaks of "the settlers," one sees before one's mind's eye a mass of half-crazed, religious fanatics, expecting the messiah at any moment, ready to shoot anyone who comes to remove them from their strongholds.

This is pure imagination.

There are such settlers, of course. They are the hard core, the ones who appear on television. The ones who set fire to mosques in Palestinian villages, who attack Palestinian farmers in their fields, who fell olive trees.

They have long hair, including side locks, wear the obligatory fringed garment under or over their shirts, dance their odd dances, are so very, very different from ordinary Israelis.

Almost all of these are new-born Jews - known in Hebrew as "those who go back in remorse" - and are heartily despised by real orthodox Jews, who would not marry their daughters to them. But they are a tiny minority.

Much more important is the so-called "national-religious" core, the real leadership of the settlement enterprise.

They believe that God has given us this land, all of it, and many of them believe that God also ordered them to cleanse all the land between the sea and the river - the Mediterranean and the Jordan - of non-Jews.

Some of them believe, anyhow, that non-Jews are not full human beings, but something between humans and animals, as held by the Kabbala.

This group has enormous political power. It is they who dragged successive governments of all parties, into putting them where they are - sometimes unwillingly, sometimes more than willingly.

They are concentrated in the smaller settlements, dispersed all over the occupied territories.

They have infiltrated the army and the government apparatus and terrify the politicians.

Their party is the "Jewish Home" led by Naftali Bennett, the "brother" of Ya'ir Lapid, but they also have close ties with the up-and-coming young leadership of the Likud and Lieberman's crowd.

Any government interested in making peace will have to grapple with them. But they are a minority among the settlers.

The majority of the settlers are less vocal. They are mostly concentrated in the "settlement blocs" that are strung along the green line, extending a few kilometres inside the occupied territories.

They are called "quality of life settlers" because they went there to enjoy the clean air and the picturesque sight of Muslim minarets nearby, but mainly because they got their dream villas, with the Swiss red-tile roofs, for next to nothing. They could not dream of ever acquiring anything similar in Israel proper.

A category by itself are the orthodox. Their huge natural increase is crowding them out of their towns and neighbourhoods in Israel proper and they desperately need new housing, which the government is only too happy to provide - in the occupied territories.

They already have several towns there, one of which is Modi'in Illit, the border town which is located on the lands of Bil'in, the village fighting an epic battle to get them back.

The settlements in east Jerusalem are quite another story.

The hundreds of thousands of Israeli Jews now living in the new neighbourhoods there do not think of themselves as settlers at all. They have forgotten all about the green line.

Indeed, they are quite surprised when reminded of it. It may be just a few blocks away.

All these categories - and the many sub-categories - must be dealt with separately. For each, there is a different solution.

Let's assume, for argument's sake, that in nine months John Kerry's dream will come true. There will be a signed peace agreement solving all problems, with an agreed timetable for implementation.

Let's further assume that this agreement is approved by a large majority in an Israeli referendum - and in a Palestinian one, too.

This would give our government the political and moral power to tackle the settlement problem.

For the Jerusalemites, Bill Clinton had a simple answer - leave them where they are.

Redraw the map of Jerusalem in such a way that "what is Jewish will become part of Israel, what is Arab will be part of Palestine."

Considering the immense difficulty of unscrambling the omelette there, this has its attractions, especially if full sovereignty over the Temple Mount and the Old City is restored to the Palestinians (and the Western Wall with the Jewish Quarter remains in Israel).

For the big settlement blocs, the solution is already more or less agreed - territorial swaps.

The settlements hard on the border will be annexed by Israel. Israeli territory of equal size will be turned over to Palestine.

This may not be quite as easy as it sounds. Annex the settlements only, or also the land around and between them? And what about Ariel, the "settlers' capital," which is located 20km inside the West Bank? A corridor? An enclave? And Ma'aleh Adumim, which, if annexed to Jewish Jerusalem, would almost cut the West Bank in two? Plenty to argue about.

The "quality of life" settlers must be bought out. It's a simple question of money.

Give any of them an equivalent or an even better apartment near Tel Aviv and most of them will jump at it.

Indeed, some polls have shown that quite a number of them would move even today, if such an offer were made.

There remain the hard-core settlers, the "ideological" ones, those who serve God by living on stolen land. What about them?

The simplest solution was that provided by Charles de Gaulle.

After signing the peace agreement that put an end to the occupation of Algeria after 100 years, he announced that the French army would leave the country on a certain date.

He told the more than a million settlers, many of them fourth or fifth generation - if you want to leave, leave. If you want to stay, stay.

The result was a last-minute frantic mass exodus of historic dimensions.

I can't imagine an Israeli leader bold enough to follow that prescription. Even Ariel Sharon, a brutal person without compassion, didn't dare to.

Of course the Israeli government could tell these settlers: "If you can make arrangements with the Palestinian government so you can stay there, as Palestinian citizens (or even as Israeli citizens), by all means do so. "

Some naive Israelis say: "Why not? There are a million and a half Arab citizens in Israel. Why can't there be some hundreds of thousands of Israeli Jews in Palestine?"

Unlikely. The Arabs in Israel live on their own land, where they have lived for centuries.

The settlers live on "expropriated" land, and they have justly earned the hatred of their neighbours.

I don't see how a Palestinian government could allow it.

There remains the hard core of the hard core. Those who will not budge without violence.

They will have to be removed forcibly by a strong government supported by the bulk of public opinion, expressed through the referendum.

A civil war? Not really. Nothing like the American civil war, nor like the present Syrian one. But still a hard, violent, brutal struggle, in which blood will be shed.

Do I look forward to it? Certainly not. Does it frighten me? Yes it does. Do I think it means we should give up the future of Israel, give up peace, give up the two-state solution, the only solution there is?

No!

This article was reposted Morning Star.

Goal is Israeli-Palestine pact in 9 months, Kerry says

Fri, 02 Aug 2013 14:56:00 +0000

"Our objective will be to achieve a final status agreement over the course of the next nine months," Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday after Israeli-Palestinian talks opened for the first time in three years. "We all understand the goal that we're working towards: two states living side by side in peace and security."

Kerry, together with Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and Palestinian Chief Negotiator Saeb Erekat, spoke at the State Department in Washington. Earlier that morning the three met with President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden at the White House.

The Israeli-Palestinian talks, which began Monday and continued Tuesday, included both meetings with the United States present and also meetings between the Israelis and Palestinians by themselves, Kerry said. (See full text of his remarks and brief comments by Dr. Erekat and Minister Livni here.) The Washington meetings dealt with procedures for the talks. Israeli and Palestinian negotiators will meet again within two weeks either in Israel or the West Bank, he said, to begin the actual negotiations.

Previous negotiations focused on supposedly easier issues, leaving the essential core issues for a future that never came. This time, however, the intention is to deal with those central issues from the start, Kerry said.

"The parties have agreed here today that all of the final status issues, all of the core issues, and all other issues are all on the table for negotiation," he said. "And they are on the table with one simple goal: a view to ending the conflict, ending the claims."

The final status issues that Kerry referred to include these: the final borders of the two states - Israel and Palestine; the status of Jerusalem, which includes globally revered holy sites of Judaism, Christianity and Islam; and the status of Palestinian refugees who in 1948 were driven from or left their homes in what is now Israel.

The United Nations adopted a plan and map for partitioning the Palestinian lands into two states - Israeli and Palestinian - in 1947, but the borders have been in conflict ever since.

An Arab-Israeli war in 1948 ended in a 1949 armistice in which the Palestinians, under Jordanian rule, lost 60 percent of the land allotted to them in the original partition plan, most of it to Israel, with Gaza going to Egypt. No peace treaty was ever concluded. The resulting borders remained in place until June 4, 1967, when Israel, in what is known as the Six-Day War, seized control of the Palestinian territory on the West Bank of the Jordan River, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza. Since then numerous UN resolutions have called for a return to the 1967 borders. However the Israeli military occupation has persisted.

Over the past few decades successive Israeli governments have promoted, enabled, and supported construction of a network of massive "settlements" - actually vast apartment complexes - across the West Bank, housing several hundred thousand Israeli "settlers" in occupied Palestinian territory in violation of international law. Any resolution of the border issue has to also address the dismantling of these massive settlements and relocation of their residents.

The rise of religious extremism both in Israel and among the Palestinians adds further difficulty to any peace process. In the United States, we hear much about Palestinian Islamic extremists - for example the shadowy groups who fire rockets from Gaza into Israel every time some slight possible peace move emerges. But a Jewish religious extremist assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 after he signed the Oslo Accords with the PLO, weak as those accords were. Ironically, current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was among those egging on the anti-Rabin, anti-peace fanatics in the lead-up to Rabin's murder.

Since then fanatical Jewish extremism has played an increasingly large role within Israel. Just last week, near Jerusalem, a group of ultra-Orthodox men stoned two buses and smashed windows with a hammer after authorities interfered with a fanatic's effort to get a woman passenger to move to the back of the bus.

It may be that a section of Israel's ruling establishment now sees that the situation has gotten out of hand. A powerful and highly disturbing new Israeli movie, "The Gatekeepers," interviews six former chiefs of Israel's security agency, Shin Bet, who themselves have been involved in some of the worst repression of Palestinians over the years. They all conclude that the occupation was a mistake, and that peace talks with the Palestinians and establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state are necessary.

However, after years of incomplete and failed negotiations, punctuated by two Palestinian mass uprisings and outbreaks of violence, both Israeli and Palestinian, Kerry's announcement of the start of the new talks has been met with widespread skepticism on all sides.

He addressed that directly in his remarks Tuesday. "While I understand the skepticism," he said, "I don't think we have time for it."

"We cannot pass along to another generation the responsibility of ending a conflict that is in our power to resolve in our time," Kerry said. "They should not be expected to bear that burden, and we should not leave it to them."

The content of the negotiations will be kept confidential, Kerry said. "I will be the only one, by agreement, authorized to comment publicly on the talks, in consultation, obviously, with the parties. That means that no one should consider any reports, articles, or other - or even rumors - reliable, unless they come directly from me, and I guarantee you they won't."

Photo: Secretary of State John Kerry, Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, and Palestinian Chief Negotiator Saeb Erekat address reporters on the Middle East Peace Process Talks at the Department of State in Washington, D.C., on July 30, 2013. State Department photo