People Before Profit blog

Skater Boitano comes out, will represent U.S. at Olympics

Fri, 20 Dec 2013 13:31:00 +0000

(AP) - Olympic figure skating champion Brian Boitano came out Thursday, two days after he was named to the U.S. delegation for Sochi along with openly gay athletes Billie Jean King and Caitlin Cahow.

The 1988 gold medalist had always kept his personal life private, saying in a statement that "being gay is just one part of who I am." But President Barack Obama's decision to include openly gay athletes in the delegation for the opening and closing ceremonies - and not send high-ranking officials - was widely seen as a message to Russia about its treatment of gays and lesbians.

"First and foremost I am an American athlete and I am proud to live in a country that encourages diversity, openness and tolerance," Boitano said in his statement. "As an athlete, I hope we can remain focused on the Olympic spirit which celebrates achievement in sport by peoples of all nations."

Russia has come under fierce criticism for passing national laws banning "gay propaganda," and some suggested the United States should boycott the Sochi Olympics in protest. Obama rejected that idea earlier this year, saying a stronger statement could be made by "gay and lesbian athletes bringing home the gold or silver or bronze."

But his choices for the U.S. delegation left little doubt about Obama's disapproval of the new Russian law.

For the first time since 2000, the U.S. will not send a president, former president, first lady or vice president to the Olympics. This year's group is led by former Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, and others in the delegation include U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, deputy Secretary of State William Burns and presidential adviser Rob Nabors.

Of the five athletes in the delegation, three - Boitano, King and Cahow - are openly gay. Cahow said Boitano's decision to keep his sexual orientation private until now was his to make, just as it was her choice to acknowledge hers publicly.

"I completely respect that," Cahow told The Associated Press after learning of Boitano's statement. "I think each individual has a right to define who they are. That's what autonomy is all about.

"I think he and I would agree that our goal is to someday live in a world where these classifications aren't important."

Boitano and King will attend the opening ceremony. Cahow, a two-time medalist in women's hockey, will attend the closing ceremony with Olympic speed skating champions Bonnie Blair and Eric Heiden.

"I have been fortunate to represent the United States of America in three different Olympics, and now I am honored to be part of the presidential delegation to the Olympics in Sochi," Boitano, who is in Europe, said in his statement. "It has been my experience from competing around the world and in Russia that Olympic athletes can come together in friendship, peace and mutual respect regardless of their individual country's practices."

Earlier this month, IOC President Thomas Bach said Russia would set up public protest zones in Sochi for "people who want to express their opinion or want to demonstrate for or against something."

Meanwhile, the IOC approved a letter going out to athletes reminding them to refrain from protests or political gestures during the Sochi Games - reiterating Rule 50 of the Olympic charter, which forbids demonstrations on Olympic grounds. Cahow said that's unlikely to succeed, however.

The 2006 bronze and '10 silver medalist has been active with a group called Principle 6, a reference to the section IOC mission statement that compels it "to act against any form of discrimination affecting the Olympic Movement."

"I think politics and the Olympics are always going to be intertwined. It's impossible not to," Cahow told the AP. "It's a remarkable opportunity for people to invest in and get swept away in the events. I'm hoping the Sochi Games will be no exception."

Bach previously said he'd received assurances from Russian President Vladimir Putin that gays will not be discriminated against in Sochi. But the Russian law has raised questions about what could happen to athletes who wear pins or badges or carry flags supporting gay rights.

Photo: Brian Boitano jumps during his routine at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Detroit. Jan. 5, 1994. AP Photo/File

South Africa, then and now

Fri, 20 Dec 2013 12:12:00 +0000

In all the words emitted on the occasion of the passing of Nelson Mandela, one thread questions whether anything significant was accomplished with the end of apartheid. The fact that there is still poverty, inequality and a high crime rate is pointed out, along with the obvious fact that South Africa has not achieved socialism. The Slovenian Marxist, Slavoj Zizek, concludes that Mandela must have ended up "a bitter old man" because of not achieving these things.

I want to make a rough accounting of what is different about the South Africa of today, and the South Africa I lived in until I was nine and a half years old and whose affairs I have followed closely ever since.

Racism, inequality and exploitation were not suddenly installed with the elections of 1948 when the National Party of Dr. Daniel Malan defeated the United Party of Field Marshall Jan Smuts, and introduced the word "apartheid" as its slogan.

Many of the racist, exploitative practices had already existed since South Africa got effective independence in 1910. And before that, the little Boer Republics, and the British colonial regime were not either just or democratic in their treatment of the Black majority. White domination and brutal inequality go back 300 years to the first European settlement.

At first, this oppression had the purpose of depriving indigenous Africans of land and of exploiting them as an agricultural work force, while breaking the independent African states, which might serve as foci for resistance. When diamonds and gold were discovered in the late 19^th century, the name of the game became converting the agricultural Black population into cheap labor for mines owned by major international corporations.

The apartheid regime systematized and intensified the existing situation of repression and exploitation. National Party politicians took advantage of the red-baiting atmosphere of the Cold War to attribute any call for fair treatment as being part of the "communist onslaught." They frightened the white population with the bogeyman of the "swart gevaar," the so-called black menace, and fear of invasion from the rest of Africa. They went after the Indian community with malicious ferocity. White "liberals" caved in with very few exceptions. Almost the only whites who stood up to all of these attacks were those in the multi-racial Communist Party.

Life in South Africa became hell for the Black population. Vicious police were let loose on anybody who talked back.

The population's movement and access to jobs and services was severely curtailed and everybody had to carry a pass when traveling outside tribal reserves; to be caught without it meant jail and often slave-like labor on farms.

Family life was disrupted; many depended on work in the mines to survive, but could not legally establish permanent residence nearby.

The culmination of folly was the creation of the "Bantustans." These were imaginary countries. Every black South African was declared to be a citizen of one of these artificially created "nations."

The whole setup was nothing but window dressing to cover the fact that in reality, Blacks in South Africa had no political rights. The puppet Bantustan leaders were despised by the black population as a whole.

Violence increased and spread beyond South Africa's borders.

As armed resistance to apartheid grew stronger, the South African regime undertook terror raids into neighboring countries, killing not only South African refugees but also citizens of other countries. Terrorism against exiled opponents, including the use of letter and parcel bombs, claimed valuable lives.

Finally, South Africa's effort to hang onto Southwest Africa (now Namibia) led to a shooting war in which South African troops were defeated by Angolan and Cuban troops and Namibian guerrillas in 1987 and 1988, at the siege of Cuito Cuanavale in Angola.

At this point the economy was in a terrible state (because of boycotts but also because the apartheid model did not work economically), the country was isolated, and the more sensible white politicians understood that they had to negotiate.

Today, what remains of the old apartheid state?

Gone are all the apartheid laws, the bannings and prohibitions, the special powers to arrest people and hold them without trial. Gone is censorship.

Gone are the "whites only" signs in parks, beaches and other public venues. Legal residential segregation has been abolished.

The Bantustans have vanished into thin air from which they were created. Elections are free. Schools have been improved and are no longer legally segregated.

Far more Blacks have university educations, advanced degrees and professional careers than they did under apartheid.

The apartheid cabinets were all white, today's South African cabinet is mostly black, but with Indian, mixed race, Afrikaner, English speaking white and Jewish members also. h

South Africa is no longer a politically isolated pariah state and a menace to its neighbors, but a respected member of the world community and part, with China, India, Russia and Brazil, of the BRICS group of emerging powers. Its government no longer sends parcel bombs over its borders to murder people who criticize its policies. All major language communities have access to its airwaves. South Africa stands out on the continent for its progressive policies on gays and lesbians. There are no political prisoners. The death penalty and corporal punishment have been abolished. Women's rights are advanced. Culture and sport flourish.

The South African Communist Party works openly, speaks out through its own and other media, and is a respected part of the body politic. There are several communists in President Zuma's cabinet. This is no big deal in South Africa.

The end of apartheid came at the moment when the Soviet Union and the European socialist states, which had done so much to help Cuba and Vietnam defeat imperialism and achieve socialism, were also collapsing. In this context, South Africa had no choice but to try to survive in the new situation, and prioritized dismantling the institutions of apartheid over a radical push for socialism. This is why South Africa is not socialist today, and why the well known ills of capitalism, such as poverty, inequality and crime are still huge problems.

But this too will be overcome, as apartheid was overcome.

Photo: This Bill of Rights, plastered on the wall of the remains of the old prison in Durban, symbolizes the differences between the old and new South Africa. bistandsaktuelt/cc

Obama-Castro handshake has meaning

Fri, 20 Dec 2013 11:21:00 +0000

Attending a memorial for former South African President Nelson Mandela, President Obama shook hands with Cuban President Raul Castro. Secretary of State John Kerry defended Obama by saying, "He didn't choose who's there." Yet the encounter was surely revealing about the past, and maybe about the future.

The event reverberated with history, much of it unknown or downplayed in the United States. Speaking in Cuba in 1991, Nelson Mandela testified to that nation's contributions to South Africa's freedom struggle. They were evident in the recognition granted President Castro at Mandela's memorial.

"What other country can point to a record of greater selflessness than Cuba has displayed in its relations with Africa?" Mandela asked in 1991. "Your presence and the reinforcement of your forces in the battle of Cuito Cuanavale were of truly historic significance," he told his Cuban listeners. "The crushing defeat of the racist army at Cuito Cuanavale was a victory for the whole of Africa. [It] broke the myth of the invincibility of the white oppressors [and] inspired struggling people inside South Africa ... The defeat ... made it possible for me to be here today! ...Cuito Cuanavale has been a turning point in the struggle to free the continent and our country from the scourge of apartheid!"

Cuban and Angolan troops on March 23, 1988, defeated South African invaders at the battle of Cuito Cuanavale in Angola. They had repelled earlier invasions directed at undoing Angolan independence. Between 1975 and 1990, 300,000 volunteer Cuban troops fought in Southern Africa; 2,000 of them died.

Organizers of Mandela's memorial selected President Raul Castro as the speaker who would close the international homage to Mandela. They had placed five other foreign speakers together on the dais, including President Obama. Cuban analyst Iroel Sánchez suggests they placed Castro "in such a way that an encounter [with Obama] was inevitable."

Most media coverage of the ceremonies overlooked other inconvenient truths. The United States and its NATO allies "were the most firm economic, military, and political supporters of the apartheid regime in South Africa." Mandela remained on the U.S. terrorism watch list until 2008. A CIA agent probably supplied the tip leading to Mandela's arrest in 1962. Official U.S. adulation of Mandela's memory is thus on shaky ground, notwithstanding the four past and present U.S. presidents on hand at the observances.

Reacting to the handshake, Florida Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen interrupted Secretary of State Kerry's congressional testimony on Iran. "[W]hen the leader of the free world shakes the bloody hand of a ruthless dictator like Raul Castro, it becomes a propaganda coup for the tyrant," she said, adding, "Raul Castro uses that hand to sign the orders to repress and jail democracy advocates." Republican Sen. John McCain claimed a precedent: "Neville Chamberlain shook hands with Hitler."

These responses differ from the silence greeting President Clinton's handshake with President Fidel Castro at the United Nations in 2000. Maybe they reflect legislators' anxieties over Obama administration inclinations to relax anti-Cuban hostilities. Their extreme venom suggests speculation about possible warming of relations may be true. If so, the handshake could end up having been a signpost to the future. "What happened in Soweto [at the memorial]," opines Iroel Sánchez, "is one drop in a glass that is more and more full and is pushing in the direction of change."

At a Miami fundraiser on November 8, President Obama told wealthy Cuban Americans that, "[We] have to continue to update our policies ... So the notion that the same policies that we put in place in 1961 would somehow still be as effective as they are today in the age of the Internet and Google and world travel doesn't make sense.

And pressure mounts for his administration to negotiate with Cuba on a crucial issue. Four years ago Cuba jailed USAID contractor Alan Gross because he illegally provided opposition groups with sophisticated communication equipment. Gross' wife and her allies want the Obama administration to negotiate his release. That would surely involve discussion of an exchange for the four remaining Cuban Five anti-terrorists lodged in U.S. jails.

Interviewed on Dec. 15 by CNN, Secretary of State Kerry spoke of "back-door negotiations" in which "I have personally been involved" along with "my undersecretary of political affairs." "The White House has been involved."

In any event, "most foreign orators at Nelson Mandela's funeral represented big powers," according to Sánchez. Cuba, "the moral power the United States has been unable to break" was different. "Its foreign policy founded on principles is one reason why Washington has undertaken to defeat the revolution of Fidel and Raul Castro."

Photo: In this image from TV, President Barack Obama shakes hands with Cuban President Raul Castro at the FNB Stadium in Soweto, South Africa, at the memorial service for former South African President Nelson Mandela, Dec. 10, 2013. The handshake between the leaders of the two Cold War enemies came during a ceremony that's focused on Mandela's legacy of reconciliation. Hundreds of foreign dignitaries and world heads of states gathered with thousands of South African people to celebrate the life, and mark the death, of Nelson Mandela, who has became a global symbol of reconciliation. AP/SABC Pool

Top 14 quotes from Pope Francis, "2013 Person of the Year"

Fri, 20 Dec 2013 10:45:00 +0000

To say Pope Francis has jolted the world with his proclamations on capitalism, poverty, homosexuality and abortion may be understated. These and other pronouncements, made to shake up a Catholic Church hierarchy seen as more obsessed with enforcing orthodoxy than ministering to people's material and spiritual needs, landed him on the cover of TIME magazine and the gay rights magazine The Advocate, as their "2013 Person of the Year." TIME dubbed Francis, "The People's Pope."

Elected in March after his predecessor stepped down, Francis wasted no time in setting a new course for the church that has recently been rocked by child sex abuse crimes and cover-up scandals, its grotesque view of women and sexuality, stagnant or declining membership, and an increasingly harsh tone, more appropriate for the Middle Ages than the 21st century. Going back some 30 years, with the election of the Cold War pope, John Paul II, the church gained a reputation of being more interested in damning souls than saving lives.

The new pope from Argentina - a first "New World" pontiff - seems determined to end all that, if not in doctrine, then in practice, by re-orienting the church to a New Testament prime directive: love, peace and charity in a modern day global context. Which, for this pope, appears to mean tackling the evils of economic inequality and environmental destruction, and listening to its followers' voices in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and those of the exploited and discarded in the "rich" countries. The pope says such work should be done with joy - and modesty - and is modeling it for others, by choosing to live in the more humble guest house instead of the papal palace, driving a 1984 Renault beater around the Vatican grounds and suspending the infamous Bishop of Bling.

Francis is not without controversy. Jorge Bergoglio, his name before becoming pope, was accused of collaborating with Argentina's right-wing military dictatorship. Bergoglio, as head of the country's Jesuits, ordered two priests to end their ministry in the slums of Buenos Aires. The priests refused. They were arrested and tortured, but released after five months, supposedly after Bergoglio intervened to demand their release. However, one of the priests, Orlando Yorio, who died in 2000, accused Bergoglio of giving them up to the junta. The other, Francisco Jalics, released a statement after Bergoglio became Francis, saying the former head of the Jesuits had "never given up" the priests to the military. Francis said he was never a "right-winger." "It was my authoritarian way of making decisions that created problems," he said.

Disclaimer: I am not Catholic, but I grew up in the culture. I am an atheist, and according to what I have read, this pope is OK with that. Believers and nonbelievers can have more in common than not, if we work towards "goodness." In that spirit and during this holiday season, here is a list of 14 quotes that, in my opinion, capture the "revolutionary hope" of Christmas and help believers and nonbelievers in the quest towards a better world.

Prioritizing the Catholic social doctrine of serving the poor and feeding the hungry, Pope Francis said, in a June 14 address to the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, that the Catholic and Episcopal churches share this mission:

1) "Among our tasks as witnesses to the love of Christ is that of giving a voice to the cry of the poor, so that they are not abandoned to the laws of an economy that seems at times to treat people as mere consumers."

The pope expressed concern for immigrants July 7 in a homily on Italy's Lampedusa island, three months later, a rickety boat full of immigrants from Ghana, Somalia and Eritrea, sank off the coast of Lampedusa, killing more than 100 men, women and children:

2) "These our brothers and sisters seek to leave difficult situations in order to find a little serenity and peace, they seek a better place for themselves and for their families - but they found death. How many times to those who seek this not find understanding, do not find welcome, do not find solidarity!"

Returning to the Vatican from Brazil, Francis spoke with journalists on the papal airplane, July 29, and made world headlines when he said:

3) "If a person is gay and seeks the Lord and has good will, well who am I to judge them?"

Again, in September, the pope made global news when he said the church has been too "obsessed" with issues of abortion, contraception and gay marriage. The following quotes come from the English translation of his wide-ranging and lengthy interview, published Sept. 30 in the Jesuit journal, America:

4) "We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods ... The church's pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently ... We have to find a new balance ..."

5) "Those who today always look for disciplinarian solutions, those who long for an exaggerated doctrinal 'security,' those who stubbornly try to recover a past that no longer exists - they have a static and inward-directed view of things."

6) "Women are asking deep questions that must be addressed. The church cannot be herself without the woman and her role. The woman is essential for the church. Mary, a woman, is more important than the bishops."

(Yet Francis also said the door is closed on women becoming ordained.)

Pope Francis made the following comments during a dialog with Eugenio Scalfari, founder of the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, translated to English, Oct. 1. The dialog covered many topics, from politics to Marxism to the pope's favorite saints. La Repubblica is considered a progressive-left newspaper, and Scalfari is a well-known atheist.

7) "I also had a teacher for whom I had a lot of respect and developed a friendship and who was a fervent communist. She often read Communist Party texts to me and gave them to me to read. So I also got to know that very materialistic conception. I remember that she also gave me the statement from the American Communists in defense of the Rosenbergs, who had been sentenced to death. The woman I'm talking about was later arrested, tortured and killed by the dictatorship then ruling in Argentina. Her materialism had no hold over me. But learning about it through a courageous and honest person was helpful. I realized a few things, an aspect of the social, which I then found in the social doctrine of the Church."

8) "The real trouble is that those most affected by [an excessive love for oneself] - which is actually a kind of mental disorder - are people who have a lot of power. Often bosses are narcissists."

9) "I think so-called unrestrained [economic] liberalism only makes the strong stronger and the weak weaker and excludes the most excluded. We need great freedom, no discrimination, no demagoguery and a lot of love. We need rules of conduct and also, if necessary, direct intervention from the state to correct the more intolerable inequalities."

On Nov. 25, the pope again made headlines with his Apostolic Exhortation, which included a sharp condemnation of the capitalist economy.

10) "How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?"

11) "The thirst for power and possessions knows no limits. In this system, which tends to devour everything which stands in the way of increased profits, whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of a deified market, which become the only rule."

12) "No to a financial system, which rules rather than serves. Behind this attitude lurks a rejection of ethics and a rejection of God."

13) "We are far from the so called 'end of history,' since the conditions for a sustainable and peaceful development have not yet been adequately articulated and realized."

Reacting to right-wingers who criticized him by labeling him "Marxist," Pope Francis said in an interview with Italian daily La Stampa, Dec. 15 that Marxism is wrong, but:

14) "I have met many Marxists in my life who are good people, so I do not feel offended."

Photo: Pope Francis greets people in Varginha, Brazil, July 27. (Agencia Brazil/CC)

Mexican lawmakers OK privatization of nation’s oil industry

Thu, 19 Dec 2013 14:42:00 +0000

MEXICO CITY - Despite furious public opposition, the Mexican Senate, Chamber of Deputies and state assemblies this past week approved energy reform legislation that will allow foreign multinational corporations to participate in the oil industry for the first time since 1938. The Senate on Thursday announced that the energy reforms are now permanent.

The measure, spearheaded by right-wing President Enrique Pena Nieto and reviewed and modified by senators from the right-wing National Action Party (PAN) and the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI), will allow foreign multinational corporations to explore, drill and sell Mexican oil and gas. In 1938, Mexican President Lazaro Cardenas, after foreign oil companies refused to settle fairly with striking oil workers, nationalized the oil industry, which was then controlled by foreign oil companies that monopolized the sector and siphoned profits out of the country. Since 1938 Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX) has been the state company in charge of extracting, refining and selling Mexican crude oil and gas. Oil profits have been used by Mexican governments to finance education, health and other public services and build the country's infrastructure.

The legislation passed the Senate on Dec. 11 with 95 votes in favor and 28 against, after a long rancorous debate that lasted until midnight. Opposing the legislation were senators from the center-left Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) and Labor Party (PT). The bill includes changes to articles 25, 27 and 28 of the Mexican constitution. Articles 25 and 27 reserve the right of the state to guide economic development through planning that promotes general well being. Article 28, among other things, says that the country´s natural resources, sky, water and subsoil belong to the people, and excludes foreign companies from exploiting or investing in the country's oil and energy industries.

On Dec. 12, the legislation was sent to the Chamber of Deputies where it passed by 353 votes in favor and 134 against. Since then the reform legislation has been sent to state legislative assemblies for approval as any changes to the Constitution require the support of at least 17 out of 31 states. So far, 26 states have supported the legislation.

Supporters of the energy reform bill contend that it will strengthen the oil sector through greater private investment, increased oil production, cheaper energy and more jobs. But critics charge the legislation amounts to privatization of the oil industry and delivery of oil profits to foreign multinational corporations. It also opens the door to privatization of the electricity sector. PEMEX will have to compete with powerful multinational corporations for the right to explore and drill for oil. The public treasury, which is dependent on oil revenues for at least 30% of its revenues, will take a big hit as oil profits will have to be shared with foreign oil companies, critics charge. This will result in cutbacks and austerity measures and increased taxes in the future. Foreign companies will bring their own employees to the country rather than hire Mexicans, the critics note.

Critics also allege that PAN and PRI governments, to create a pretext for privatization and foreign investment, have deliberately weakened PEMEX - the fifth largest oil producer and exporter in the world. The government argues that the state oil company does not have adequate resource to develop Mexico's oil fields and therefore foreign investment is required. However, critics point out that the federal government taxes PEMEX at a rate of 90%, reducing the company's ability to invest in the oil sector.

The oil sector will also now come under NAFTA, where it will be subject to rules that supersede national laws. The Mexican government will not be able to give preference to national firms for supply contracts and will be vulnerable to lawsuits from foreign companies, under notorious Chapter 11, for alleged loss of profits.

PAN Senator Javier Corral, the lone senator from his party who voted against the reform bill in the Senate, complained that "none of the platforms of the presidential candidates (from last years elections), including PAN, mentioned the privatization of oil. They do not consider the country´s energy sector. They cover their eyes [PAN and PRI] so they do not see that transnational corporations are the most predatorial."

Former center-left presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, leader of the Movement for National Renovation (MORENA), charged that the energy reform legislation does nothing to build new refineries, create a national petrochemical industry or stop the export of Mexican crude to the U.S. where it is refined and then sold back to Mexico.

Leading up to the bitter Senate and Chamber of Deputies votes, tens of thousands of members and supporters of MORENA, PRD, PT, and other smaller socialist parties and the trade union movement staged protest marches in downtown Mexico City, facing off with thousands of heavily armed police. On Dec. 1, MORENA held a rally in the Zocalo, Mexico City's main square, that was attended by several hundred thousand.

Thousands of protesters surrounded the Senate and Chamber of Deputies buildings and tried to prevent PRI, PAN and Green Party representatives from entering and voting. Deputies and senators either had to be brought in by heavily armored buses or conceal themselves as cleaners and maintenance staff to pass through protest lines.

In the Chamber of Deputies, deputies from the center-left PRD and PT, who were heavily outnumbered, tried to prevent passage of the energy bill through guerilla tactics. First, they stole the draft bill before it could read. Then they sealed the chamber´s doors to prevent PAN, PRI AND Green Party deputies from entering and voting. One PRD deputy, as a protest, undressed as he spoke out against the bill at the speaker's podium.

MORENA, PRD and PT supporters have staged protests in state legislatures to prevent votes in favor of the energy legislation.

Many Mexicans consider oil a sacred resource that belongs to the nation and are opposed to the PAN-PRI energy reform legislation. PRI and PAN also lack widespread legitimacy among the population because of their history of vote-rigging, vote-buying and fraud to prevent the PRD from winning at the ballot box.

Since the 1980s, one Mexican president after another, from Carlos Salinas to Vincente Fox and Fellipe Calderon, have tried to open up the Mexican energy sector to foreign investment but have had to back down because of public opposition. Current PRI President Enrique Pena Nieto, elected in July 2012, has succeeded where all other Mexican presidents have failed, by ignoring public opinion.

Opposition forces vow to continue the fight against efforts to privatize the oil industry. MORENA will be posting the pictures and names of all senators, deputies and local legislators who voted for the energy reform legislation in markets and plazas across Mexico. The PRD has submitted a petition with over a million names asking for a referendum on the issue, which is allowed under Mexican law.

Photo: This Mexican PEMEX worker's helmet reads: "PEMEX, not for sale." sari dennise CC 2.0

Sewage overruns Gaza

Thu, 19 Dec 2013 14:11:00 +0000

For over a month the streets of the largest Palestinian city, Gaza, have been overrun with sewage and now are being covered with icy flood waters. The cause is the shutdown of a major power plant, due to lack of fuel caused by the ongoing blockade by the Israeli army against the Gaza Strip. It is a grim example of how Gaza, and other municipalities throughout the Palestinian territories, have their functioning impeded because of the blockade along with the continued occupation of the Palestinian West Bank. The problem for Gaza is also compounded by the renewed blockade and closure of border crossings by the new Egyptian military junta. Therefore Amnesty International has called the blockade and other restrictions what they are, human rights violations.

Conditions such as these only increase the security risk for Israeli coastal towns, as this type of devastation provides, depending on how one sees things, a possible motive for paramilitary organizations to launch guerrilla and rocket attacks against nearby Israeli areas. On the Palestinian side, raw sewage and flooding as well as power outages present extreme health risks. Bacterial infections can spread from exposure to raw sewage. The British Health and Safety Executive, an independent work safety watchdog group, presents a list of these, which include:

* gastroenteritis, characterised by cramping stomach pains, diarrhoea and vomiting;

* Weil's disease, a flu-like illness with persistent and severe headache, transmitted by rat urine. Damage to liver, kidneys and blood may occur and the condition can be fatal;

* hepatitis, characterised by inflammation of the liver, and jaundice;

* occupational asthma, resulting in attacks of breathlessness, chest tightness and wheezing, and produced by the inhalation of living or dead organisms;

* infection of skin or eyes; and/or

* rarely, allergic alveolitis (inflammation of the lung) with fever, breathlessness, dry cough, and aching muscles and joints.

Bacterial microorganisms enter the body most commonly by hand-to-mouth contact during eating, drinking and smoking, or by wiping the face with contaminated hands or gloves, or by licking splashes from the skin. They also are spread by skin contact, through cuts, scratches, or penetrating wounds. Certain organisms can enter the body through the surfaces of the eyes, nose and mouth. The infection also is spread by breathing in the bacteria, as either dust, aerosol or mist, says the BHSE.

This story has been the subject of a complete blackout by the capitalist media. The suffering people of Gaza living in ghetto-like conditions deserve to have their story told and their rights respected before blind emotion breaks reason and a possible third intifada grows out of despair.

Photo: A Palestinian child wades through flooded wastewater on his way back from school in Gaza City, Nov. 14, 2013. AP/Adel Hana

Unhappy International Migrants Day

Thu, 19 Dec 2013 13:22:00 +0000

Dec. 18 was International Migrants Day, an occasion established by the United Nations in conjunction with the approval, on that date in 1990, of the International Convention on the Protection of all Migrant Workers and Their Families.

How has this important anniversary been celebrated?

A video shows abusive treatment of migrants arriving on the Italian island of Lampedusa. Migrants, who arrive by the thousands in Lampedusa fleeing war and insecurity in Africa and also recently in Syria, are shown being stripped naked and hosed down by authorities. This year hundreds of migrants and refugees drowned in the Mediterranean when rickety boats in which they are traveling have foundered or capsized.

The European Union jumped on Italy, denouncing the abuse of the Lampedusa migrants. This righteous indignation would be more credible if it were not for the fact that none of the larger and wealthier states have signed the International Convention on Migrant Workers. Not France, not Britain, not Germany, not Italy and not the United States.

But Mexico is a signatory, yet horrible crimes against migrants are committed there on a daily basis, in recent years against Central American migrants traveling the length of Mexico to get to the United States.

A new report by the Latin America Working Group in Washington documents what is happening to citizens of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras who make this journey. First-hand testimony shows how these migrants are preyed upon by both criminal gangs and corrupt police and immigration officials as they ride on freight trains headed from southern Mexico to the U.S.-Mexico border.

The situation is deteriorating very quickly, because drug cartels such as the Zetas have now begun muscling in on the former low-level, cottage industry of "coyotes" who have, for generations, guided migrants over the dangerous border. Coyotes are being killed or forced to work for the cartels, who in turn kidnap thousands of migrants and force them to hand over the phone numbers of their relatives, including people in the United States. These relatives are extorted for thousands of dollars with the threat that if they don't pay up, their loved ones will be killed. Migrants talked about being sold to the cartels by corrupt police who were supposed to rescue them, about rapes, beatings, murders, torture and human trafficking for forced prostitution and slave labor. The precarious situation of immigrants in Mexico without papers makes this possible.

Migrants are helped by a courageous network of migrant shelters, many set up by Roman Catholic clergy, who are themselves subjected to more and more abuse by gangsters and corrupt police. In 2011, the Mexican Congress passed legislation designed to protect migrants, but the president at the time, Felipe Calderon, did not enforce it. Whether the current president, Enrique Peña Nieto, will do so remains to be seen. But conditions of both poverty and violence are so dire in Central America that the migrants keep coming.

There are many protests about this situation in Mexico, including a caravan of women who traveled all over Mexico to publicize the disappearance of Central American migrants, and published a statement on Dec. 19. It reads in part:

"We Central American mothers demand justice from the government of Mexico:
That they account for the whereabouts of our "disappeared" sons and relatives.
That Mexico commit to implement the treaties and conventions it has signed.
Suppression of visas to cross Mexican territory. [so that Central American migrants will not be harassed by Mexican immigration authorities].
Recompense for the emotional damage caused to the families, with an indemnity for each deceased migrant who has been found.
With this, we say that Mexico at present has been turned into a holocaust for migrants."

And what about the United States of America? Congress has shut down for the year 2013, without doing a single thing about the immigration crisis. And although the Obama administration has granted special relief to some categories of undocumented workers, the vast majority have received none. More and more labor, religious and political leaders - now including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. - are now demanding that the administration suspend most deportations until a legislative solution can be found.

Unless and until there is a safe and legal mechanism for migrants to travel, work and rejoin their families in the United States, they will continue to be brutally oppressed by gangsters and corrupt authorities. That is another reason to push for immigration reform with legalization for all.

Clearly, people in Central America should not have to leave home and family in order to survive. Immigrant rights advocates say it is vital to press our government to change its foreign and international trade policies to allow poorer countries to breathe (no more NAFTAs), and to stop abetting crooked elections like the one just finished in Honduras, which bring to power corporate-friendly governments that starve and repress their own people.

Photo: Central American migrants ride the rails in Oaxaca, in southern Mexico. Peter Haden/Wikimedia Commons

Germany's Left party becomes the official opposition

Wed, 18 Dec 2013 14:20:00 +0000

Left-wing Die Linke party MP Gregor Gysi took over as leader of the opposition when Germany's two largest parties united in a "grand" coalition.

The ostensibly left-of-centre Social Democratic Party (SDP) ditched its principles in favour of throwing its support behind conservative leader Angela Merkel, shooing the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader into a third term as chancellor.

She was elected by parliament's lower house by a record majority of 462 votes to 150, with nine abstentions.

Given that the SDP and CDU have 504 seats, it is clear that 42 MPs on the government benches did not vote for her.

The CDU had previously governed in coalition with the Free Democrats - an almost-permanent fixture in federal governments of whatever main party for several decades - but they fell short of the 5 per cent hurdle to enter parliament in September's vote.

Die Linke had been prepared to consider a coalition with the SDP and the Greens, but SDP leader Sigmar Gabriel kicked this idea into touch unceremoniously.

Mr Gabriel claimed that Die Linke's refusal to vote for Afghan war apologist Joachim Gauck as president in 2010 showed it remained an extremist party.

His position was supported by a majority of SDP members in a ballot.

But many SDP members recall the disastrous result for the party that the 2005-9 "grand" coalition delivered.

Its vote plummeted in 2009, while Die Linke rose to 11.9 per cent, giving it 76 seats.

The SDP leader's reward for his decision to put the interests of bankers before Germany's workers is the vice-chancellorship, playing Nick Clegg to Ms Merkel's David Cameron.

The only concession wrung from the CDU by the SDP is a national minimum wage.

However, there will be no change in Berlin's iron-fisted insistence on imposing savage cuts in living standards for EU member states caught up in the debt crisis caused by the banks.

This is confirmed by the continued presence of CDU Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, who has done the banks' dirty work for them.

This article was reposted from Morning Star.

Photo: Truch drivers on Germany's main thoroughfares carried banners declaring support for Die Linke, now the main opposition party in Germany. Flickr (CC)

Central African Republic: More bloody fruits of colonialism

Tue, 17 Dec 2013 12:53:00 +0000

Over the past week, France has sent 1,600 soldiers to the Central African Republic as an advance guard for African troops who, helped logistically by the United States, are assigned to restore order.

The current disturbances in the Central African Republic (population 4.5 million) are the result of the overthrow earlier this year of President Francois Bozizé by a group of rebels called the Seleka. The Seleka sent Bozizé fleeing and installed their own man, Michel Djotodia, as president, but when he tried to govern the country, his own former Seleka comrades turned on him and went on a rampage causing much death and destruction. Most of the Seleka are Muslims in a country where a majority professes Christianity and indigenous African religions (only 15 percent of the population is Muslim). Christian militias then turned on Muslim residents with violent attacks, creating a situation that French authorities said was verging on "genocide".

It's the same old story. The Central African Republic is one of the richest countries in Africa and one of the poorest in the world. It has diamonds, uranium, gold, oil, forestry products and fertile soil. But at the same time, its per capita gross domestic product stands at about $800 per year by the "Purchasing Power Parity" method. Infrastructure and services are a mess. The country is highly dependent on aid from non-governmental organizations and on Foreign Direct Investment, neither of which have contributed to the country's balanced development. Vast wealth is extracted but not enough comes in to maintain stability and growth.

What is now the Central African Republic was colonized by the French in the late 19^th Century, in the context of Franco-British rivalry over control of the headwaters of the White Nile. It was organized into a French colony under the name of Ubangi-Shari. The French colonialists admired the economic and administrative practices of the neighboring Congo Free State, the personal project of the genocidal King Leopold II of the Belgians, and emulated the pattern of contracting out concessions to private companies, as well as the extensive use of forced labor for government projects. French colonial control of Ubangi-Shari was, in other words, a brutally exploitative affair.

The colony got its independence under the name of Central African Republic in 1960, but heavy-handed French interference in its governance has continued ever since. In 1965, President David Dacko, himself deferential to French interests, was overthrown in a military coup by French-trained soldier, Jean-Bedel Bokassa, who proclaimed himself emperor, later turning out to be a brutal despot. The French overthrew Bokassa and restored Dacko to power, but there were several more coups. The man overthrown by the Seleka rebels earlier this year, Francois Bozizé, also close to French interests, had himself overthrown the legally elected President, Ange-Felix Patassé, in 2003, though he was later chosen again by voters in 2011.

The situation of the Central African Republic resembles those of a half dozen other countries in Central and West Africa, which, while legally independent, are subject to a high level of control and interference by the former colonial power.

In the case of the Central African Republic, France's investment is comparatively small (Belgium's is much higher, followed by that of China) but geopolitical considerations are also great; the country's neighbors are much more crucial states including Chad, Sudan, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Congo Republic (the former French colony) and Cameroon. The region in which the Central African Republic is located is supremely important for the production and export of many items needed for modern industrial production and especially high technology. This should bring wealth, prosperity and development to the area, but instead it brings plunder and chaos.

What's the way out? The present state of neo-colonial dependency has brought poverty and a weak state that cannot defend itself from either internal rebels, outside infiltrators or its own predatory politicians and officials. The same is true of Mali, another destabilized country subject to French intervention, and other places.

Photo: French troops take position in the Miskine neighbourhood of Bangui, Central African Republic, Dec. 13. Jerome Delay/AP

What to expect in Latin America in 2014

Mon, 16 Dec 2013 15:45:00 +0000

This year in Latin America began with the tragedy of the death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the man whose vision and decisiveness did so much to break the century old pattern of U.S. domination of most of the hemisphere. It is ending with the tremendous victory, on Sunday December 15, of socialist Michelle Bachelet in the runoff election for president of Chile. Bachelet beat right-wing candidate Evelyn Matthei by a stunning 62 percent to 38 percent. She is expected to govern more from the left this time around, with the support of the Communist Party and the presence in the legislature of fresh new faces on the left.

The Bolivarian dynamic, the movement of regional integration within Latin America and the Caribbean and progressive distancing of the nations of the area from U.S. corporate and government domination, marches on.

What can we expect in 2014?

In Mexico, President Enrique Peña Nieto of the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI) will continue his neo-liberal policies of free trade, privatization and austerity. He just won a vote in both houses of Congress to go forward with a program of bringing more and more private, corporate interests into the running (and profiting from) Mexico's huge petroleum industry. This will reduce the degree to which petroleum sales underwrite government social programs. Peña proposes raising taxes on the population to make up the difference. There will be protests about this, about the implementation of the government's educational reform, and other things. Meanwhile the expansion of narcotics trafficking and the ordeal of immigrants from Mexico, or passing through Mexico from Central America, and running the gauntlet of attacks by bandits and corrupt officials and police, will continue.

In Guatemala, the fate of former dictator Efrain Rios Montt is hanging in the air. He had been found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity earlier this year, crimes in which the U.S. government, especially under Ronald Reagan, was fully complicit. However, a higher court, basing itself on technicalities, threw the verdict out. Theoretically, Rios Montt should face trial again, but there are powerful forces, in Guatemala and here, which will try to prevent this.

In Honduras, right-wing candidate Juan Orlando Hernandez just "won" a joke of an election against the left-leaning LIBRE Party's Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, wife of the overthrown former President Manuel Zelaya. The United States has signed off on the results, but they will still be protested. LIBRE has established itself as the second most powerful electoral force in the country, and protests and struggle will continue on many fronts.

Now come presidential elections in El Salvador on February 2, to replace the center-left president, Mauricio Funes. The latest polls show the candidate of the left-wing Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation (FMLN), Salvador Sanchez Ceran ahead in the first round, but there will be a runoff on March 9 probably against the right-wing ARENA Party's candidate Norman Quijano. The issue of personal security is causing confusion and bolstering the right. The invasion by Mexican drug cartels is the cause of the increased violence, and cannot be solved one country at a time. The U.S. Ambassador has been vocally partisan.

In Venezuela the left-wing president, Nicolas Maduro must continue to deal with problems of inflation, scarcity of some consumer goods as well as security issues. Corporate media in the United States continue to demonize the Venezuelan government, ignoring its triumphs like the reduction of poverty by 50 percent.

In Colombia, the peace process between the government of President Manuel Santos and the FARC will continue, but there will be major efforts to disrupt it coming from ultra-rightist elements around ex-president Alvaro Uribe. Legislative elections are on March 9 and the presidential election on May 25 (with a runoff on June 15). The fight to free political prisoners continues.

There is a presidential election in Brazil in October. Although it is probable that center-left President Dilma Rousseff will be reelected, her popularity suffered somewhat from protests in several cities earlier this year.

On the island of Hispaniola, growing hostility between the Dominican Republic and Haiti is a cause for worry. The immediate issue is the mistreatment of Haitian immigrants and their descendants in the Dominican Republic; the wider context is the extreme poverty of both countries and their inability to break away from foreign domination. There are legislative elections in the Dominican Republic in May.

There will also be elections in Uruguay in October and November, in Bolivia in December, and in Panama in May. In the first two, the left-center governments will probably be re-elected. In Panama, we will see how the leftist "Broad Front for Democracy" does. Juan Carlos Navarro of the centrist PRD (Popular Democratic Party) leads in poles.

Chiquita loses legal battle to keep documents secret

Mon, 16 Dec 2013 14:41:00 +0000

Chiquita Brands International, Inc. has lost a case in U.S. District Court in which it attempted to block the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from releasing documents relating to its payments to a Colombian terrorist group.

These documents have been sought from the SEC by the National Security Archive under the Freedom of Information Act.

As Michael Evans of the National Security Archive explains, the documents being sought will hopefully reveal, as some other Chiquita documents in the past, that Chiquita's claims that it paid the United Self Defense Forces (AUC) paramilitaries merely because it was being extorted to do so are not true.

As Evans explains, Chiquita has long maintained that the payments were the result of extortion, and the sentencing memo states that the company had never received "any actual security services or actual security equipment in exchange for the payments."

Nevertheless, Chiquita records produced by the U.S. Department of Justice in response to similar Archive FOIA requests reveal that the company did, in fact, receive some security services in return for its payments. "Money for info on guerrilla groups," read one Chiquita memo, written in March 2000. "Can't get the same level of support from the military."

In a 1994 memo, the general manager of Chiquita operations in Turbó admitted that guerrillas were "used to supply security personnel at the various farms." Company lawyers were understandably concerned.

Evans hopes that more such revelations will be discovered in the yet unreleased documents the National Security Archive is seeking.

Quite possibly, the documents might also show that Chiquita continued to funnel payments to the AUC through a closely-related corporate entity for a longer period than hitherto believed. Indeed, this is the conclusion reached by a recent report by Colombia's Interchurch Justice and Peace Commission (IJCP).

In this report, the IJCP focuses on a company known as Banacol which succeeded Banadex, the former subsidiary of Chiquita which pled guilty to paying paramilitary death squads $1.7 million between 1997 and 2004, and supplying them with 3,000 AK-47s.

As IJCP pointedly relates, Banacol is not just the successor to the Colombian fruit business of the Chiquita subsidiary, but also to its business of propping up the death squads. And indeed, this was all by design. As IJCP's report explains:

Chiquita put forward a 'sales' operation of the questionable Banadex to the transnational Banacol Marketing Corporation at a far below market price (fire sale). Banadex, a subsidiary of Chiquita that has worked in Colombia since 1989, was transferred to Banacol (Banacol Marking Corp. SA based in Panama), in the year 2004, just when the United States Justice Department gave notice of its investigations.

IJCP further explains that Chiquita, which claimed to abandon its Colombian operations after the terrorist-payment scandal, entered into an agreement with Banacol through which Banacol would continue "to sell Chiquita pineapples and bananas at a particularly advantageous price for an initial period of eight years."

The IJCP, citing the Colombian Attorney General, explains that Banacol "continued paying millions between 2004 and 2007 to the security cooperatives that are facades for the self-defense groups" (aka, paramilitary death squads). IJCP states, "That is to say, it continued backing the trail of violence of its predecessor."

Citing former AUC paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso, IJCP explains that other companies, including Dole and Del Monte, also financed the paramilitary groups that continue to plague the Colombian countryside.

The results of this support - beginning in the mid-1990's when these banana companies began bankrolling the death squads, and continuing until the present time - have been horrifying. As IJCP details:

Paramilitaries, with the complicity and lack of action by the [U.S.-backed] 17th Brigade and Uraba Police, assassinate, disappear, torture and displace local inhabitants, while claiming to fight the guerilla. Businessmen associated with these criminal structures appropriate the territories that traditionally belong to the Afro-descendant communities; authorities at the service of the businessmen try to legalize this fraudulent land-grab; and the national government supports more than 95 percent of the illegal investment. This leads to oil palm agribusiness being implemented on the ruins of the communities' homes, cemeteries and communal areas.

It provides the foundation for large-scale cattle ranching and transnational plantain, banana, pineapple and cassava production, which are all increasing at the hands of the paramilitaries. These violent structures see the opportunity to expand the agricultural production onto the high quality soil, which will gradually replace the depleted soils of Antioquian Uraba. The paramilitaries also see the opportunity in these territories due to their demonstrated reserves of gold, copper, molybdenum and other minerals and for the opportunities to construct infrastructure for exportation.

The documents which the SEC will hopefully produce after Chiquita's recent court loss will probably reveal even more about the nature, extent and duration of Chiquita's support for right-wing death squads in Colombia. It is little wonder, then, that Chiquita has been fighting so hard to keep these documents from public view.

Daniel Kovalik teaches international human rights at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

Photo: A Colombian worker picks bananas for Chiquita. AP

Mandela and communism

Fri, 13 Dec 2013 15:27:00 +0000

The world celebrates the life of Nelson Mandela and reveres him for one thing more than any other - his determination in the face of every provocation to establish a democratic "rainbow nation" where all people, white and black, were equal citizens. Because of his amazing feat of reconciliation with his former jailers and the brutal oppressors of his people, South Africa avoided a terrible civil war and is a beacon of hope for the entire world. But how did Mandela achieve this, how did he overcome the temptation and strong pressure to exact revenge? The answer is given in a remarkable article in the Dec. 8 New York Times by the highly respected journalist, Bill Keller. Entitled "Nelson Mandela, Communist," it analyzes the long and close alliance of the African National Congress with the South African Communist Party.

"Perhaps the most important and lasting personal effect of the South African Communist Party on Mandela," Keller writes, "was that it made him or helped make him a committed nonracialist. The ANC in its formative years admitted only blacks. For a long time the Communist Party was the only partner in the movement that included whites, Indians and mixed race members. That relationship was one of the main reasons Mandela cited for his rejection of black nationalism and his insistence that multiracialism remain at the heart of the ANC ethic."

The article also points out that after the overthrow of apartheid, when the ANC held a parliamentary majority, it was the SACP that "was the most ardent advocate of sharing power with the white regime" and resisted those who demanded immediate nationalization of the mines and other industries and other measures of retribution contained in the South African Freedom Charter.

Quoting British historian Stephen Ellis, the article states," Today, the ANC officially claims still to be at the first stage ... of a two-stage revolution. This is a theory obtained directly from Soviet thinking." The official line in the our mass media is that while the U.S. sided with the apartheid regime for Cold War reasons, Mandela is now acceptable and can be honored because he allegedly changed while in prison and moved away from revolutionary forces in the ANC. The truth is the exact opposite. When the apartheid regime offered to release him if he would renounce violence and break ties with the SACP, Mandela, recognizing that this would shatter the ANC, displayed extraordinary moral courage and refused. As Mandela himself insisted, he never stopped being a revolutionary. It's just that revolutionary theory is far more subtle and sophisticated than the media is willing to recognize. When it comes to communism, the media prefers crude stereotypes.
All revolutions go through stages, including the revolution that established capitalism in our country. The first anti-colonial stage was led by George Washington, but the completion, the second stage, required elimination of slavery, and was led by Abraham Lincoln. Many of the northern leaders of the first stage, including Franklin, Paine and John Adams, opposed slavery, but the necessary political coalition - broadly based and black and white - to abolish slavery would not materialize for another 70 years.

Today we in the U.S. face the challenge of defeating right-wing extremism. There are some who would like to skip this stage and put attacking President Obama and the Democrats on an equal footing. This tactic is both divisive and counter-productive. If labor and its allies do not yet have the strength to defeat the extremist section of corporate power how can they hope to defeat corporate power altogether? The extremists are growing more isolated and the progressive forces are gaining strength but the support of the Democratic parts of the ruling class is still very much needed. The newly formed Wall Street-based "Third Way" group could be an effort to split the Obama coalition. To prevent this and win at this stage we need to emulate the steadfastness and political maturity shown by Mandela and the South African Communist Party.

Photo: Newly elected President Nelson Mandela delivers his victory speech against a backdrop of the new South African flag, at a hotel in downtown Johannesburg, May 2, 1994. AP/David Brauchli

Venezuela municipal elections bolster Maduro’s leftist policies

Fri, 13 Dec 2013 15:00:00 +0000

Venezuelans went to the polls to elect mayors and municipal councils on Dec. 8. The raucous right-wing opposition, led by Miranda State Governor Enrique Capriles Radonski and his Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) party, had claimed that this election was going to be a note of no confidence on the left-wing policies of President Nicolas Maduro. However, this boast proved to be vain as the voters gave Maduro's United Socialist Party of Venezuela and its allies a solid victory.

After the premature death due to cancer of President Hugo Chavez on March 5 this year came a hard-fought presidential election on April 14, which Maduro won but by a considerably smaller margin than anticipated. Capriles Radonski, his opponent in that election, refused to recognize the results and tense street confrontations followed. The United States also refused to recognize Maduro's win, leading to a worsening of U.S.-Venezuela relations.

Through the balance of the year, the corporate-controlled press in Venezuela, the United States and worldwide has focused on Venezuela's social and economic problems: A high crime rate (though not as high as U.S. allied Honduras), inflation and an annoying scarcity of some consumer goods. In spite of the fact that on other measures, such as growth in gross domestic product and balance of trade, Venezuela has been doing well, the publicizing of the areas of difficulty has led to claims that the Venezuelan economy is near collapse and that voters would, on Dec. 8, sweep allied local governments allied with Maduro's party out of power.

Critics of Chavez' policies, which Maduro is continuing, generally fail to note that the policies they deplore have cut Venezuela's poverty rate in half and provided educational and health care services to millions who lacked these things before.

In the run-up to the election, President Maduro got authorization from the Venezuelan Congress to act decisively (an enabling law that has been used often by previous Venezuelan presidents), and then went after speculators who he claims, with reason, have been feeding inflation and hoarding consumer goods. Specifically, Maduro accused wholesale merchants of charging huge markups on imported goods. The government obliged merchants to significantly lower the prices of certain kinds of merchandise. There were howls of protest from the business community and the opposition, but the general public seems to have approved of the measures.

On election day, there was a 59 percent turnout. Maduro's PSUV candidates got 49.2 percent of the vote, Capriles' MUD candidates and other rightists got 42.72 percent. The rest was spread among smaller parties, some of which are in fact allied with the Chavista governmet. For example the Venezuelan Communist Party, which supports Maduro nationally but also runs some of its own candidates locally, got 1.6 percent of the vote, totaling 165,000 votes overall.

This translated, as of early last week, into 196 municipal governments for Maduro's party, 54 for the MUD, 8 for other parties and the rest too close to call at that point. President Maduro now says that with allies, the government got 54 percent, and the PSUV got a total of 210 municipalities out of the 335 in the country.

Capriles Radonski claimed that the relatively low voter turnout should be interpreted as a rejection of the government's policies. In other words: "sour grapes." The opposition also tries to comfort itself by the fact that it won in some major cities, including retaining Barinas, the birthplace of Hugo Chavez. But Maduro responded that his PSUV had won 71 percent of the municipalities in Miranda state, whose governor is none other than Enrique Capriles Radonski.

The next election in Venezuela is a national legislative one, in 2015. Maduro made clear that this means full speed ahead for his radical program both internally and internationally. He has now introduced new policies to improve job security and encourage savings.

Right wing playing role in Ukraine protests

Wed, 11 Dec 2013 15:06:00 +0000

For more than two weeks, Ukraine (population 46 million) and its capital, Kiev have been the site of large-scale demonstrations against the government of President Victor Yanukovych.

A little background:

Before the Russian Revolution, Ukraine was fought over among the Russian, Polish-Lithuanian and Ottoman Turkish empires. By the 19th century, most of it was part of the empire of the czars. It was, and is, economically important because of its vast grain production and also its subsoil resources. It became an important republic in the Soviet Union, under which Ukraine also developed significant heavy industry.

Under Soviet rule, Ukraine initially thrived. However, in the 1930s, the attempt by Stalin's government at forced collectivization, and the suppression of Ukrainian cultural figures during the purges, caused much death and suffering.

Ukraine has always had to deal with a division between its more conservative West and its East, which has strong ties to Russia. The German invasion during the Second World War led some in the western Ukraine to collaborate with the Nazis who were slaughtering Jews, Roma and communists. As the war drew to the close, a right wing independence movement was led by Ukrainian nationalist Stepan Bandera. Bandera's movement was anti-Russian, anti-communist, anti-Semitic and anti-Polish, and carried out terrorist acts until it was crushed.

Nevertheless, Bandera today is honored with statues and other monuments in some places in the Ukraine.

Ukraine became an Independent republic in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed. This was followed by a sharp economic decline, which has only partly been corrected. The Communist Party is still fairly strong, and the eastern part of the country, with its many ethnic Russians, still tends to look eastward and emphasize relations with Russia. Ukraine's leaders have attempted a balancing act between Russian and Western European influences, with internal reverberations.

The current problems began when Yanukovych suspended negotiations for an association with the European Union (EU). Western politicians and media put out the word that Russia had pressured Ukraine to distance itself from the EU, but the deal being offered to the Ukraine had serious drawbacks to a country with a per capita gross domestic product of only $7,442. The deal would entail accepting neoliberal policies of "free" trade and austerity that have brought about massive suffering and protests in EU countries such as Portugal, Spain and Greece, and has also led to German economic dominance. Existing trade relations with Russia, which provides most of Ukraine's oil and natural gas, might have been disrupted. There was also fear that the EU association might bring Ukraine into NATO, which Russia could not tolerate.

In the protests against the suspension of the negotiations with the EU, it is mostly right-wing and anti-Russian groups who are the prime movers, as well as major business leaders.

One major influence is the Svoboda (Freedom) Party headed by Oleh Tyahnybok, a parliamentarian from the western city of Lviv, which is a hotbed of right-wing nationalist activity. Svoboda is a rising far-right outfit, similar to Hungary's Jobbik and France's National Front. Tyahnbok is a Bandera admirer given to using crude anti-Semitic language. Ironically, like most of the ultra-right that has been rising in Europe, Tyahnybok is rabidly nationalistic and anti-European Union; his main reason pushing the demonstrations has been anti-Russianism.

Another influential politician in the mix is champion heavyweight boxer Vitaly Klitschko, a leader of the appropriately nicknamed "Punch" Party (Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform). Klitschko favors the entry of Ukraine both into the European Union and into NATO. Other than that, his program involves cleaning up political corruption.

A third influential force is the All Ukrainian "Fatherland" Party of former Prime Minister Iulia Tymoshenko, who is currently serving a jail term for abuse of power. Ironically, the abuse charge against her alleged that she had been rather too pro-Russian in trade negotiations with the Russian natural gas company Gazprom. Her defenders say she merely acceded to reality in a situation, in 2009, in which Vladimir Putin had shut off fuel supplies to the Ukraine as a pressure tactic.

So the demonstrators in Kiev and elsewhere don't have one coherent program of demands, and the main thing that holds them together is anti-Russianism, and an admiration for the "civilized" West. To express this, on Sunday they knocked down a large statue of V.I. Lenin in downtown Kiev, and have threatened the headquarters of the Communist Party of the Ukraine, which is not part of the government.

The Communist Party of the Ukraine warns that a fascist coup might be in the works. Petro Semonyenko, first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, said in a statement that his party calls for a referendum on the European Union issue, but also sharply criticizes President Yanukovych for autocratic practices, for setting the stage for the current crisis by promoting European Union membership while also flirting with far-right, anti-Russian groups that have now turned against him.

At writing, protesters, backed by Western politicians, have rejected the offer of talks by the government, which they want removed. On Tuesday evening, there were clashes between protesters and police trying to clear a main square in Kiev.

Photo: Pro-European Union activists warm themselves around a bonfire as they gather in Independence Square in Kiev, Ukraine, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2013. Police in Ukraine on Wednesday pulled back as protesters claimed victory after an overnight face-off in which authorities removed some barricades and tents and scuffled with demonstrators occupying Kiev's main square.

Photo: AP/Sergei Chuzavkov

Everyday South Africans celebrate Mandela’s life

Mon, 09 Dec 2013 16:09:00 +0000

PRETORIA - The death of Nelson Mandela on December 5th at the age of 95 and after prolonged bouts of illness hardly came as a surprise to most South Africans. It was a gentle touchdown to a hard reality that years earlier had vexed many: what will happen when Madiba goes? What will we do?

Had he died suddenly while still president, or in dubious circumstances when he was obviously in robust health, the fears that still raw social tensions would erupt violently would seem grounded.

But Madiba's decline allowed for a sense of placid transition between him being here and no longer with us. Feelings of loss more readily mix with a sense of affirmation.

This is the mood at many of the township and village gatherings held over the last few days. Though the country faces massive challenges to end poverty, inequality and underdevelopment, it has come a long way on these counts, and Mandela is readily associated with the good that has happened.

This all contrasts with the wall-to-wall TV and radio tributes broadcast unrelentingly. They tend to offer a teary send-off for Mandela, steeped in muzak, the touchy-feely bromides of celebrities, and cursory historical accounts that gloss over Mandela's radical career.

But on the street, outside the Mandela homes in Soweto and Johannesburg, people gathered to sing freedom songs, and to dance (you can't do the one without the other). The same has been happening in other parts of the country, in townships and villages.

People packed the stadium in the far-flung Limpopo rural township of Malamulele in the north of the country on Sunday. The atmosphere was hardly sombre, and all the more poignant for its mix of mourning and celebration of a revolutionary life that helped win South Africa its freedom from apartheid.

It's not all raucous celebration. Many areas are quiet as daily life goes on, though less frenetically than usual. People are taking things in their stride.

In the once staunchly white working-class suburb of Pretoria North, just outside South Africa's administrative capital, the congregations of the Dutch Reformed Church held services and to commemorate Mandela's achievements. These began the day after the announcement of his death.

The Dutch Reformed Church was traditionally a bastion of apartheid values, renounced and denounced as the church reinvented itself. It was a reinvention made possible largely by Mandela's resolute strategy of reconciliation prior to and in the wake of the first democratic elections in 1994.

Pretoria North is now a shadow of its miserable past. It's a lower-middle and working class suburb where black and white people have socially integrated to a level that far exceeds wealthier areas.

There have been continuous services and vigils in other churches in the area and in the large nearby townships of Soshanguve, Winterfeldt and Mabopane. Most are charisma (holiness) churches, preaching born again Christianity, and here the up-tempo gospel songs and sermons have been celebrating Mandela.

In the next few days swarms of heads of state and other dignitaries will descend on South Africa to attend Mandela's state funeral, and the period of national mourning will shift into another gear.

But recent days have shown South Africa coming to terms with the loss of Mandela on its own terms, and in ways showing that most people here see South Africa as a better place because of what Mandela did and stood for.

Had the country's transformation failed - and the bourgeois commercial media in South Africa spend most of the time telling people that it has - it is hardly likely Mandela would be celebrated the way he is in poor or less well off areas here.

Perhaps this more than anything gives the lie to the musings of Slavoj Zizek that Mandela's legacy was one of "bitter defeat".

In fact a recent Gallup poll of South Africans showed that 91 percent felt that their families were better off than now than during apartheid.

Photo: Denis Farrell/AP

Low wage workers on the move in Germany too

Mon, 09 Dec 2013 14:25:00 +0000

BERLIN -- Let me invite you in. Looking around, there's no denying it, this is Burger King. It could be in Augusta, Maine, or Anaheim, California, and the fatty Whoppers taste the same. But it's not; most customers here speak German, some maybe Turkish (the biggest minority). For this is in Augsburg, one of Germany's three oldest cities, founded in 15 B.C.. It is in Bavaria so you pay not with dollars and cents but with Euros and cents. But here too, usually too much.

Fast food workers struggle in Germany

Just as in Anaheim or elsewhere in 88 different countries, Burger King personnel have their hands full -- no idling, always a smile for the customers even though, like elsewhere, they are bitterly underpaid. But in Augsburg there are a few differences. Thanks to a contract and some hard-won government laws they have been protected against arbitrary firings and guaranteed things like work regulations, medical care and paid pensions. And in Augsburg, as in 38 of Burger King's 700 German franchises, they also have a shop council to look after their rights and benefits. Not many -- but important!

Last May two well-heeled businessmen, one a Russian millionaire, bought up 91 franchises, the biggest single lot, mostly in the west and southwest and four of them in Augsburg. Competition with McDonald's, double in number, is rough and tough. But the two men, glancing across the Atlantic, had plans to make it pay. Within a week they announced that they would no longer keep to the contract; they would cut wages from a hungry 8.50 euro average down to a starvation average of 6.50 or 7.50, no longer pay for time spent donning their uniforms and would bar shop councils from their contractual right to join in making decisions on work and vacation schedules.

But unlike many colleagues, these Burger King workers had a big national union, which went to court and prevented this arbitrary dissolution of the contract.

The owners tried a new tack. Employees without shop councils are far weaker, so where they existed they must be broken, if possible by isolating elected members and leaders from the rest of the crew. They started firing them, using any phony charge they could dig up. In Augsburg they accused a council member of pocketing receipts: the video observation tape will prove otherwise, he insists, but he must go to court. They claimed that one councilman had taken days of sick leave thanks to a doctor who "willingly wrote anyone sick" when requested. This was proved a dud. A 63-year-old employee was fired for "idling" and charged 49,000 euro in back pay until it was shown that he had an agreement temporarily reducing his hours of slinging hamburgers because of shop steward duties. Another man was ousted for taking home a handful of six or seven tiny ketchup envelopes. Few if any charges were legitimate but, currently in fifteen cases, they tied up the local union with litigation (two council members were fired for testifying for a colleague at one such trial). It was all aimed at dividing and frightening employees, who were burning mad since the company held back on normal extra overtime and night work pay -- and often delayed paying wages altogether.

But a new fighting spirit is developing. There are no strikes as yet, but while some still serve Whoppers inside, others take turns outside, defy both rotten weather and rotten bosses with demonstrations, collecting signatures, protest postcards, and local support. Although the company has hired a leading union-buster lawyer to sue the union for alleged libel, it continues to fight for those fired while organizing for a possible big fight, which could hit not only Burger King but even affect McDonald's, where there are no shop councils at all, and perhaps the 9000 employees in Amazon plants in Germany, who have already been engaged in many mostly local, one-day strikes. Across the Danube in the neighboring state of Baden-Württemberg, 100,000 retail workers did strike and were able to win some key gains, and also 25,000 new union members in the bargain.

Forming a German "Grand Coalition"

These conflicts serve as a background for the big issue affecting everyone in Germany. Will the Social Democrats (SPD) join Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Bavarian sister party (CSU) and at last form a "Grand Coalition" government nearly three months after the elections?

In those many weeks and a final meeting lasting seventeen hours, the three parties worked out an agreement, 226 pages long, on all aspects of government policy. But in an unprecedented step, the Social Democrats, faced by plenty of skeptics, had decided on a referendum of all their 475,000 members. The votes will be counted by December 14^th; if a majority approves there should be a new government within three days, with Merkel at the helm, six ministers each for SPD and CDU and three for the CSU.

Will they approve it? At first, many loudly said NO! The coalition would mean abandoning many issues stressed by the SPD in its election campaign. One was the adoption of a minimum wage for Germany. Another was a rise in taxes for the wealthiest individuals and corporations to finance better, earlier pensions, education and, with roads and bridges rapidly decaying, infrastructure. The final compromise was worse than expected. One concession by the Merkel forces: a minimum wage of 8.50 euro would be adopted, but not until 2015, with vague exceptions lasting until 2017. Even 8.50 is low, too low to guarantee a barely humane pension. Another sop for the SPD: the postponement of pension age to 67, introduced by the SPD and the Greens when they ruled the roost, would remain in place, but those who had worked regularly for 45 years could retire at 62.

There would, however, be no tax increases on the wealthy, health costs would rise, for workers not employers, and with a balanced budget planned for 2015 no-one could say where funds for improvements would come from. Foreign policy aims like squeezing southern members of the European Union and building up special military forces were left unchanged, and a decision on military drones left suspiciously vague.

And yet by now most critical SPD voices, though unhappy, have been won over, partly with threats, but often due to fear of the alternatives. Attempts at a coalition of the CDU with the Greens foundered. A combination of SPD, the Greens and the LEFT party, which would have a very slim majority, is still taboo, leaving nothing but new elections, which could simply repeat the results of the September vote -- or be even worse for the SPD. So, say the SPD bosses, vote Yes!

Every party has an independent youth pendant. The Young Socialists usually stand to the left of their well-established elders and proved it again by rejecting SPD-boss Sigmar Gabriel's call to approve the coalition. Some even praised the idea of an SPD and Green coalition with the LEFT, despite the taboo. SPD boss Gabriel said the LEFT should first clear up the question of alleged anti-Semitism in its ranks -- a criticism based on opposition by many LEFT members to the policies of Israel and support of the Palestinian cause, including some deputies who took part in the flotilla to Gaza in 2010. Many booed him, and one young Socialist called out: "Go check on the racists in the Christian Democratic Union!" Gabriel twisted this into an invented charge that the whole CDU was racist and rebutted that -- but soon, in a huff, left the meeting, which voted against approving the coalition agreement.

The required twenty percent of the members has already sent in ballots and it looks as if the voters will approve by next weekend so the Christmas package -- a new government -- will be ready for Saint Nick and his reindeer to deliver. But among angry mumbling at grass roots level could be heard a form of prediction. Someone had recalled the words of the great writer Bertolt Brecht (who, incidentally, was born in Augsburg). In attacking the aggressive rearmament of West Germany in the 1950's he utilized ancient history with the dire warning: "Great Carthage waged three wars; it was still powerful after the first one, still inhabitable after the second. It could no longer be found after the third one." The current word-switch is based on the fact that the SPD, after its first such "Grand Coalition" was somewhat weakened and after the second severely weakened ...

Memories of Nelson Mandela

In the midst of such debates and discussions came the news of Nelson Mandela's death. All the media joined in the mourning, of course, outdoing one another in praising the old leader, mostly painting a rosy picture of a great conciliator and western-style democrat, somehow smoothing over or ignoring his clear endorsement of armed struggle, his support for Cuba and the Palestinians, his lasting alliance with the Communists.

And what they also forgot: The East German Democratic Republic supported the African National Congress in countless ways, printing its vital exile newspaper Sechaba and providing training to many of its members and future leaders. Meanwhile, government and business interests in the Federal Republic, joining those in Britain, the USA and most western countries, backed the apartheid governments almost till the end. Despite all UN resolutions, Daimler, Krupp, the Deutsche Bank and others made over 4 billion euro in profits from dealing with South Africa. This included weaponry of many kinds used to intimidate and kill people and destroy the freedom movement. In those days they castigated the ANC, including Mandela, as Communist terrorists.

Their memories are short. They want to forget that sometimes nasty or dangerous past, bury the truth, and try to turn Mandela into a harmless angel of peace, just fitting for the Christmas spirit. Ho ho ho!

Map: Burger King world locations in red. Former locations (France, Finland) shown in orange. Locations where it is operated under a different name (Australia) shown in yellow. Wikimedia Commons.

Colombian peace a distant dream for David Ravelo and Credhos

Fri, 06 Dec 2013 14:06:00 +0000

Negotiations in Cuba between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) aimed at ending 50 years of war have continued now for a year. Agreements on agrarian rights and, recently, political participation boosted peace hopes. But chances for peace rest largely on what happens in cities and regions like Barrancabermeja.

The fate of political prisoner David Ravelo and violence directed against the human rights group Credhos point to difficulties ahead. Credhos (Regional Corporation for Defense of Human Rights) is the Barrancabermeja human rights group Ravelo founded and led. A solidarity delegation visited with Ravelo in Bogota's Picota prison in late 2012, and also called at Credhos headquarters in Barrancabermeja. The present writer joined that delegation and offers the following by way of follow-up.

By 1987 when Credhos was founded, paramilitaries were on the way to subjecting Barrancabermeja to a reign of terror. David Ravelo and Credhos resisted. According to Peace Brigades International, Credhos provides "promotion, defense, and protection of human rights, democracy, and international humanitarian law." It pursues "actions and scenarios for understanding, tolerance, living together, and civilized peace." Over time killers eliminated nine Credhos activists.

Credhos Secretary-General David Ravelo reported in 2010, "There are many murders and forced disappearances in Barrancabermeja and in the Magdalena region. Credhos accompanies victims' families who are seeking the truth and damages for harm that was done. We demand reparations on their behalf and justice that is their due."

Credhos' formation coincided with growing repression against the newly formed Patriotic Union (UP). That electoral coalition emerged from a government-FARC agreement that insurgents would give up arms and be able, with others, to build a left political movement. UP activist Ravelo gained a seat on the Barrancabermeja city council. Then amidst murders, arbitrary arrests, and disappearances, he went to jail in 1993 for two years on fabricated charges.

Some 20 years later, violence still prevailed in Barrancabermeja. Credhos reported that during the first two months of 2013, there were "five murders, three forced disappearances, two people wounded, and 20 death threats." Blame fell on paramilitaries intent upon "maintaining social and political control of the city's poor districts and thus sustain drug trafficking, a lucrative business through which they finance their criminal action." Credhos activists were being tracked and spied upon.

Ravelo was in prison again. Detained on Sept. 14, 2010, he learned in December 2012 that he would remain there for 18 years.

In April and early May assailants killed 10 individuals in the city. Rafael Rodríguez, secretary general of the USO oil workers union, narrowly escaped an attack. Abelardo Sánchez, the current Credhos secretary-general, is the target of repeated death threats and attacks. In November, both he and Credhos President Ivan Madero Vergel escaped from assaults.

The Santander Superior Court in October 2013 rejected David Ravelo's appeal. Responding, Credhos blamed a "lack of guarantees and weakened due process." Indeed, at Ravelo's trial in early 2012, the prosecution relied upon accusations from two jailed paramilitary chieftains once active in Barrancabermeja. They gained reduced sentences in return for testimony accusing Ravelo of complicity in the 1991 murder of a Barrancebermeja city official. Reportedly they bribed a corroborating witness. The judge refused to hear testimony from 30 defense witnesses.

Ravelo's appeal had centered on a crime committed by his prosecutor. As a police lieutenant in 1991, William Pacheco helped arrange for the forced disappearance of Guillermo Hurtado. Pacheco spent a year in a military prison. Colombian law bans criminals from serving as prosecutor. Pacheco submitted his resignation early in 2013, but remains on the job.

What with both judicial persecution of one its leaders and chaos and murder ongoing in Barrancabermeja, the Credhos story provides a cautionary lesson as to Colombia's difficult road ahead with the project of building peace with social justice. The Credhos view is that "at the highest levels of the Colombian state they want to weaken social protest." And, "there are hundreds of cases in which they have opened criminal investigations [of individuals] for daring to defend and promote human rights as a fundamental principle of a society dedicated to human development and defense of vulnerable communities." As to the Colombian state: "experience has shown us that [its] strategies are structural and systematic."

That insight is relevant for North Americans who would confront U.S. war-making. Colombia is the prime U.S. military ally in Latin America and, as such, is the recipient of military aid funds well known to trickle down to the benefit of paramilitaries and other lawless characters.

Photo: Colombia's flag. Kaushai Karkhanis CC 2.0

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela: 1918 - 2013

Thu, 05 Dec 2013 21:24:00 +0000

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born on July 18, 1918 in Mvezo, South Africa, into a branch of the royal family of the Tembu people. The name Rolihlahla means "stirring up trouble"; the name Nelson was given to him by a mission school teacher. In South Africa, Mandela was universally known by his clan name, Madiba.

Mandela spent an idyllic childhood first at his mother's ancestral household at Qunu, and later at the court of Chief Jongintaba Dalindyebo, his kinsman and regent for the Tembu king. Jongintaba assured Mandela's enrollment in Fort Hare University in the Eastern Cape. But when the young man caught wind of a political marriage Jongintaba was arranging for him, he fled to Johannesburg, where he briefly worked as a watchman. Later, he was signed on as aclerk in a white law firm.

In Johannesburg, Mandela made contact with leaders of South Africa's freedom movement including the African National Congress and the Communist Party. His law studies were frequently interrupted by growing involvement in the struggle against the racial injustice.

Mandela originally thought the Communist Party overemphasized class versus racial oppression. In 1944, he and Anton Lembede founded the African National Congress Youth League, which pushed its parent organization toward both a more militant and a more Africanist program. Subsequently, Mandela rose to top leadership in the ANC.

In the elections of 1948, the United Party of Prime Minister Jan Smuts was defeated by a fascist and racist coalition headed by Dr. Daniel Malan. Malan's National Party government took existing racism to a new extreme, introducing the apartheid (apartness) legal framework which eventually turned South Africa into a pariah state. Mandela and the African National Congress began to advocate strikes, direct action and civil disobedience, while at the same time Mandela rethought his willingness to work through multiracial united fronts and with communists.

In 1950, Parliament passed the Suppression of Communism Act, followed by the Public Safety Act in 1953. Police now had legal mechanisms to classify people as "statutory communists", jail them for their associations, and ban them from writing and speaking to the public. The Communist Party and the ANC were declared illegal. Mandela was arrested in 1952 and prosecuted for communism along with others. He was given a suspended sentence and a 6 month ban from political activity. He also opened a Johannesburg law firm specializing in social justice cases, in partnership with ANC leader Oliver Tambo in 1953.

In 1955, the ANC initiated the Congress of the People, a gathering of 3000 in Kliptown, near Johannesburg. It brought together the ANC, the South African Indian Congress, the Coloured People's Congress, the Congress of Democrats and the South African Congress of Trade Unions, and produced the Freedom Charter/ which laid out the vision of a multiracial and democratic South Africa and in which the first steps toward socialism could be discerned.

The government reacted by increasing repression. Mandela and many other leading ANC figures were arrested for "high treason". In 1961, all defendants were acquitted.

But tensions were heating up as the ANC and also the nationalist Pan African Congress (PAC) campaigned to end the law requiring all Africans to carry government passes which had to be presented to police on demand. In 1960, police fired on a PAC organized anti-pass demonstration at Sharpeville, killing 69 unarmed people. Mandela hastened to reorganize the ANC with a clandestine component to better resist repression. At this point Mandela, working closely with the Communist Party, formed an armed resistance group called Umkhonto we Sizwe, Spear of the Nation or MK. MK bombed a number of symbolic targets while trying to avoid civilian casualties. Mandela toured Africa rounding up support for the new phase of the struggle.

But Mandela was captured, many believe with CIA help, while traveling in 1962, and sentenced to five years imprisonment. Then in July 1963, police raided Liliesleaf Farm outside Johannesburg and not only rounded up a number of activists but also found documents on MK. The resulting "Rivonia" trial, for sabotage and conspiracy to overthrow the government by violence, led to life sentences for Mandela and others.

The longest part of the sentence was served doing hard labor on chilly, windswept Robben Island off the coast of Capetown. Conditions led to Mandela contracting a tuberculosis infection which left him with damaged lungs for the rest of his life. Mandela quickly established leadership over the heterogeneous group of political prisoners, organizing study groups and general, vocational and political education classes.

Meanwhile Mandela's family, back on the mainland, were undergoing great trials. He had divorced his first wife, Evelyn Ntoko Mase, in 1958, and married social worker Winnie Madikezela shortly thereafter.

The struggle in South Africa intensified, especially with the Soweto Rebellion of 1976. The "Free Mandela" campaign took off, stimulated by the journalism of Soweto journalist Percy Qoboza. More prisoners were sent to Robben Island, and Mandela took them under his wing also.

Eventually, the regime, pressured from inside and out, offered release to Mandela if he would renounce violence and split with his communist allies, but he refused these arrangements as dishonorable. Mandela was transferred from Robben Island to Pollsmoor Prison in Capetown, and in 1988, after a bout with tuberculosis, he was transferred again to Victor Verster prison near Paarl.

In 1989, the new president, F.W.de Klerk came to the conclusion that the apartheid system could not be sustained. In 1990, de Klerk released Mandela and other remaining prisoners, and legalized the ANC, the Communist Party and all other banned groups.

Receiving a rapturous reception from the people, Mandela set to work organizing an international campaign aimed at ending the entire apartheid system. In 1991, Mandela was elected president of the ANC in succession to Oliver Tambo.

But violence continued, with bloody confrontations in Kwazulu-Natal and elsewhere between ANC members and members of the Inkatha organization headed by Zulu leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi. Mandela's relations with de Klerk deteriorated, partly because a government sponsored "third force" was inciting the conflicts. Talks between the ANC and the government in 1991 and 1992 took on a sharply combative tone. In 1993, Mandela and de Klerk were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 1994, South Africa's first ever democratic, non-racial general election was held, with Mandela as the ANC presidential candidate. Mandela and the ANC triumphed with 62 percent of the vote.

Mandela served as president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. His main concerns were to destroy the institutions of apartheid and racial justice, to calm interracial tensions, and to improve the living standards of the mass of his people. In this, he scored notable successes in electrification, housing, labor rights and health care. Of special note is his Truth and Reconciliation Commission, chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and designed to create closure on the crimes of the apartheid period.

However, Mandela's liberation and election to the presidency came right after the collapse of Soviet and Eastern European socialism. He did not move toward the more radical goals enshrined in the Freedom Charter, such as the nationalization of the mines, the banks and monopolistic industries. Mandela and his advisors felt that international monopoly capital was in too strong a position worldwide for such things to be feasible, and rather turned to policies to attract foreign private investment. These political choices are the subject of controversies in South Africa to this day.

Mandela stepped down after his first term, and was succeeded by Thabo Mbeki. Mandela then devoted himself to both international and national peace and social justice efforts. He set up a number of charitable organizations, and spoke out publicly against injustices and violent acts such as the Iraq war. Mandela spoke openly about the death of his son Magkatho, from AIDS in 2005, in an attempt to win public solidarity for other sufferers.

Fatigued because of his 89 years and because of the health problems caused by his 27 years incarceration, one of Mandela's last public projects was "the Elders", a group of elder statespersons from all over the world who speak out on social justice issues, created in 2007.

Mandela had divorced Winnie Madikizela in 1992, and married Graça Machel, widow of Mozambican President Samora Machel, in 1998.

Mandela had four children by his first wife, Evelyn, of whom only his daughter Mazikawe survives. Another daughter died in infancy, a son, Thembekile, was killed in an auto crash in 1969, and another son, Magkatho, died of AIDS complications in 2005. He had two daughters by Winnie Mandela, Zindzi and Zenani. Magkatho's son Mandla has taken on what would have been Nelson Mandela's traditional chiefly role in the Mvezu Traditional Council.

Nelson Mandela wrote numerous books and articles, including Long Walk to Freedom (1994, Little, Brown and co.) and Conversations with Myself (with Richard Stengl, 2010 MacMillan).

Photo: Nelson Mandela AP

Honduras’ Libre Party says election was stolen

Thu, 05 Dec 2013 15:01:00 +0000

For months prior to the Honduran presidential elections of November 24, polls favored the left-wing Libre party candidate Xiomara Castro. One week later the Supreme Election Tribunal (TSE) had named right-wing National Party candidate Juan Hernandez as the winner and a large Libre Party march through Tegucigalpa was protesting election fraud. A day later, on December 2, the Libre Party demanded a vote recount.

By then, Libre Party adherents, the Anti-Corruption Party, and even the center-right Liberal Party had joined in charging fraud. What happened, some said, was an electoral coup to match the military coup that removed the progressive President Manuel Zelaya from power in 2009.

The National Front for Popular Resistance (FNRP) took shape amidst street demonstrations protesting Zelaya's ouster. The FNRP eventually formed the Liberty and Refoundation Party, known as Libre, whose just completed campaign advanced a social democratic and anti-imperialist program.

In the November contest presidential candidate Xiomara Castro - ex-president Zelaya's wife - gained 28.8 percent of the recent vote, far below the National Party's 36.8 percent result.

The Anti-Corruption Party's presidential candidate Salvador Nasralla secured 13.5 percent of the votes. The combined totals of that party and the Libre Party account for 42.3 percent of all votes. Second round voting is not part of Honduras' electoral system.

At a press conference on November 29, the Libre Party released its own vote tally. The party's election observers at the polls had received 14,593 out of 16,135 copies of sheets showing voting results. Comparison of that data with figures posted on the TSE website demonstrated 82,301 excess votes assigned to the National Party and 55,720 taken away from the Libre Party. Reportedly, "at least 2,805 sets of certified voting documents were neither transmitted to the political parties nor made public by the TSE."

While demanding a TSE vote recount, Libre Party lawyer Ricci Moncada charged "that on the night of November 24, the TSE removed from the system more than 20 percent of the voting documents sent for further examination due to bar code irregularities." Reporting to the press on November 29, Xiomara Castro declared Libre would not recognize the TSE results. She indicated the votes of 883,140 electors were invalid because of fraud.

Libre partisans described National Party promotion of voter abstention through offers of commercial discounts and cell phones, medical supplies and food. The votes of dead people were cast and live voters were blocked because records showed them to be dead.

The elections played out amidst repression and fear. Reportedly, an anti-terrorist law and militarization of the streets facilitated the imposition of electoral fraud. Assailants killed four Libre Party activists during the voting and subsequently. TSE president David Matamoros released a voting report accompanied by a text message warning that "soldiers and police are already ready in case of any protest."

Three weeks prior to the elections, U.S. ambassador Lisa Kubiske advised Hondurans, "to think hard about which candidate will create more jobs and an atmosphere in which the private sector feels confident about investing." Afterwards she expressed gratification for a "fiesta of electoral democracy."

European Union electoral observers judged the voting to be "transparent." Speaking to a reporter, however, dissenting observer Leo Gabriel of Austria suggested his fellow observers had been pressured. The EU wanted to project a favorable image of Honduras, he alleged, especially in the wake of new EU trade agreements with Central American nations. And, "I can attest to countless inconsistencies in the electoral process.... there was a huge mess at the voting stations, where the hidden alliance between the small parties and the National Party led to the buying and selling of votes." Spanish judge Baltazar Garzón, another international observer, declared, "We all unanimously established that there were clear indications of manipulation and electoral fraud."

News sources offered few indications as to the Libre Party's future direction. Responding to the likelihood of a stolen election, party leaders issued militant declarations of returning to street demonstrations. That rhetoric has quieted. One commentator complained that the leadership "assumes as valid the idea that dominant sectors manage protests." Within the party, that approach, if it exists, may not be universally accepted, and the possibility thus emerges of division within Libre Party ranks.

The theory is that Libre Party caution relates to support received from big business interests, notably from Adolfo Facussé, President of the National Association of Manufacturers. Facussé backed the coup against President Zelaya. His is a powerful, landowning family with far-reaching commercial enterprises.

The Libre Party broke the monopoly on political power the National and Liberal Parties had enjoyed for decades. It elected 39 deputies to the Congress. They and 13 deputies from the Anti-Corruption Party constitute a voting bloc larger than the National Party bench. And there is "a great discontent and a social wakening among youth, workers, and small farmers protesting daily against electoral fraud under the auspices of the FNRP."

Pressure to release U.S. contractor shifts to the White House

Thu, 05 Dec 2013 12:40:00 +0000

There may be a shift in the thinking of people who are working for the release of Alan Gross, a U.S. government subcontractor serving a 15-year jail sentence in Cuba for working to subvert the Cuban government on behalf of Washington. Though earlier pressure campaigns focused on the Cuban government, and involved demonstrations in front of the Cuban Interests Section (diplomatic mission) in Northwest Washington, Gross's wife, Judy, has now declared that the Obama administration holds the keys to her husband's release, and is calling for demonstrations at the White House.

Gross was working for Development Alternatives Inc., a Maryland based company that does edgy subcontracting work for U.S. Agency for International Development. His job was to go to Cuba, disguised as a tourist, and provide dissidents with very sophisticated computer and communications equipment that would be able to evade Cuban government surveillance. The government program for which he was working was operating under the aegis of the Helms-Burton Act, whose purpose is clearly and openly to replace the socialist government with one friendly to U.S. corporate interests, and Cuban law and national sovereignty be damned.

So in 2009, Alan Gross was arrested by Cuban authorities who put him on trial. The court gave him a 15-year jail sentence. Responding to this, Hillary Clinton, U.S. secretary of state at the time, claimed that Gross was only trying to help the Jewish community in Cuba to connect to the Internet and thus end their supposed "isolation" from fellow Jews around the world. It is not clear whom Clinton was trying to influence. Certainly it was not the Cuban court, which had Gross dead to rights, nor the Cuban Jewish community, most of whose leaders told the U.S. and international press that they didn't know Gross, did not feel isolated from Jews in other countries, and had no more difficulty than anyone else in Cuba in going online

Most likely, using the discredited cover story that Gross was helping the oppressed Jews of Cuba had the purpose of creating the impression that the Cuban government is anti-Semitic, a nasty calumny. In fact, for a foreigner from a hostile state to enter any country, including especially the United States under false pretenses and then work with dissidents to undermine that state's government will everywhere result in arrest and strict punitive sanctions.

At any rate, the Cuban leadership has hinted broadly that they would be amenable to a humanitarian exchange, whereby Gross would be released and allowed to return to his family, while the United States would extend a similar humanitarian reprieve to five Cuban government agents who, arrested in 1998, were serving hard time in U.S. federal prisons for monitoring terrorist inclined right-wing Cuban exile groups in Florida (one of the five, Rene Gonzalez, finished his term and is back in Cuba). Exchanges of arrested agents happen all the time, but the U.S. government kicked against this proposal, claiming, in the words of Hillary Clinton's successor as Secretary of State, John Kerry, that this would not be possible because the exchange would be asymmetrical. Why?

Because one of the five, Gerardo Hernandez, is serving two life terms for murder, an absurd conviction which would have been thrown out of court anywhere other than Miami with its hysterically anti-Castro press and media (who, by the way, seem to have been subsidized by the U.S. government at the time of the trial).

To the U.S., Gerardo is a murderer because as leader of the group of agents in Miami, he did not warn the Brothers to the Rescue organization that they might be shot down if they continued to violate Cuban airspace while illegally and dangerously buzzing Havana.

The response of the very active movement in solidarity with the Cuban 5 has been to point out that since the Cuban government is willing to talk about the issue and reach an agreement, and the U.S. government is not; it is really the U.S. government that is stopping Gross from regaining his freedom.

To this, the U.S. administration has no answer. Alan Gross' wife, Judy, is now going to speak at a demonstration on Tuesday, not in front of the Cuban diplomatic mission, but in front of the White House, for as she says, it is now only the U.S. government that can resolve her husband's dilemma.

Meanwhile, 66 U.S. Senators have signed a letter asking President Obama to do whatever he needs to achieve the freedom of Alan Gross. The implication is that if he negotiated a deal with the Cuban government, they would support it. A smaller group of 14 senators wrote another letter, demanding that Obama refuse to do a humanitarian exchange.

Photo: AP