People Before Profit blog

Despite our differences, U.S. and Cuba have stake in cooperation

Fri, 19 Dec 2014 17:19:00 +0000

The following is the Dec. 17 speech from Cuba President Raul Castro on the return of the remaining Cuban Five prisoners and the monumental changes in U.S.-Cuba relations announced by U.S. President Barack Obama at the same time President Castro gave his speech. A video of the three Cuban heroes returning home is included below.

Fellow countrymen,

Since my election as president of the State Council and Council of Ministers I have reiterated in many occasions our willingness to hold a respectful dialogue with the United States on the basis of sovereign equality, in order to deal reciprocally with a wide variety of topics without detriment to the national independence and self-determination of our people.

This stance was conveyed to the U.S. government both publicly and privately by Comrade Fidel on several occasions during our long standing struggle, stating the willingness to discuss and solve our differences without renouncing any of our principles.

The heroic Cuban people, in the wake of serious dangers, aggressions, adversities and sacrifices has proven to be faithful and will continue to be faithful to our ideals of independence and social justice. Strongly united throughout these 56 years of Revolution, we have kept our unswerving loyalty to those who died in defense of our principles since the beginning of our independence wars in 1868.

Today, despite the difficulties, we have embarked on the task of updating our economic model in order to build a prosperous and sustainable socialism.

As a result of a dialogue at the highest level, which included a phone conversation I had yesterday with President Obama, we have been able to make headway in the solution of some topics of mutual interest for both nations.

As Fidel promised on June 2001,when he said: "They shall return!" Gerardo, Ramon, and Antonio have arrived today to our homeland.

The enormous joy of their families and of all our people, who have relentlessly fought for this goal, is shared by hundreds of solidarity committees and groups, governments, parliaments, organizations, institutions, and personalities, who for the last 16 years have made tireless efforts demanding their release. We convey our deepest gratitude and commitment to all of them. (Speech continues after video.)

President Obama's decision deserves the respect and acknowledgement of our people.

I wish to thank and acknowledge the support of the Vatican, most particularly the support of Pope Francisco in the efforts for improving relations between Cuba and the United States. I also want to thank the government of Canada for facilitating the high-level dialogue between the two countries.

In turn, we have decided to release and send back to the United States a spy of Cuban origin who was working for that nation.

On the other hand, and for humanitarian reasons, today we have also sent the American citizen Alan Gross back to his country.

Unilaterally, as has always been our practice, and in strict compliance with the provisions of our legal system, the concerned prisoners have received legal benefits, including the release of those persons that the government of the United States had conveyed their interest in.

We have also agreed to renew diplomatic relations.

This in no way means that the heart of the matter has been solved. The economic, commercial, and financial blockade, which causes enormous human and economic damages to our country, must cease.

Though the blockade has been codified into law, the president of the United States has the executive authority to modify its implementation.

We propose to the government of the United States the adoption of mutual steps to improve the bilateral atmosphere and advance towards normalization of relations between our two countries, based on the principles of International Law and the United Nations Charter.

Cuba reiterates its willingness to cooperate in multilateral bodies, such as the United Nations.

While acknowledging our profound differences, particularly on issues related to national sovereignty, democracy, human rights and foreign policy, I reaffirm our willingness to dialogue on all these issues.

I call upon the government of the United States to remove the obstacles hindering or restricting ties between peoples, families, and citizens of both countries, particularly restrictions on travelling, direct post services, and telecommunications.

The progress made in our exchanges proves that it is possible to find solutions to many problems.

As we have reiterated, we must learn the art of coexisting with our differences in a civilized manner.

We will continue talking about these important issues at a later date

Thank you.

Photo: President Raul Castro delivers a speech to the Cuban nation on the return of the Cuban heroes and the reset in U.S.-Cuba relations (via Granma)

The present and future of Jerusalem: a peace activist’s view

Fri, 19 Dec 2014 15:21:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES - Since the 1967 war between Israel and the surrounding Arab states, when Israel captured parts of Jerusalem that had been under Jordanian control, the mantra for many Israeli politicians has been "Jerusalem, the united and undivided eternal capital of Israel."

But these days, says an Israeli-American attorney who specializes in the history and fate of the ancient and modern city, this mantra is rarely uttered, except perhaps by some passionate Zionists abroad who haven't heard the news from the Holy Land: Jerusalem is not united; it is divided. "It's a scarred and bleeding city," says Daniel Seidemann.

Seidemann addressed a crowd of 300 at Valley Beth Shalom, a prominent Conservative synagogue here, in a December 4 talk entitled "Getting Real about Jerusalem," sponsored by the pro-two-state-solution organization Americans for Peace Now. Rabbi Ed Feinstein led the Q&A that followed. Thoughtful discussion of Israel-related issues has become problematic at many Jewish gatherings in the U.S. as Israel's reputation descends ever lower in world favor. A kind of circle-the-wagons fanaticism has become the order of the day for many. But now there are signs that this siege mentality is beginning to lift.

Founder and director of an Israeli NGO called Terrestrial Jerusalem, which promotes an Israeli-Palestinian permanent status agreement, Seidemann, a secular Jew, calls attention to the facts on the ground in Jerusalem, his adopted city.

Jerusalem is now home to over 500,000 Israeli Jews, the largest population by far in its 3,000-year history. But some 38 percent of the city's population resides in East Jerusalem, which was seized by Israel in 1967, and these 300,000 people are Palestinian. Their status is ambiguous. They are covered by Israel's social welfare policies, and get high-quality Israeli medical care. But they are not Israeli citizens, do not carry Israeli passports, and cannot vote in national elections. They could vote in municipal elections, but less than 1 percent of them do - last year exactly 1,101 East Jerusalemites actually cast votes. Most do not identify as Israelis and don't care to.

Nor are they Palestinian citizens taking part in elections and civic life in the West Bank, which they are not permitted to enter. Where once there was relatively easy passage between East and West Jerusalem, this is rare now. Jews and Palestinians attend different schools, speak different languages, walk different streets. It is far from the fantasy of "united and undivided." The old catchphrase is "collapsing under the weight of it own fictions," Seidemann says.

Jerusalem today is in flames, a tinderbox of unmet needs, hopes smashed, futures denied. The Israeli police are arresting thousands of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, a majority of them under the age of 18, mostly for throwing stones, the only weapons they have, at Israeli military forces.

Why now?

Seidemann points to a number of factors giving rise to the new despair. Last July the Palestinian teenager Mohammed Abu Khdeir was brutally murdered on the streets of Jerusalem by a gang of ultra-Orthodox vigilantes. Young people see no justice being done in that case. If a Palestinian is detained and suspected of a terrorist act, his family home will be destroyed by the Israeli government, despite the fact that his relatives may have had no inkling of the crime committed. But the government will certainly not destroy the homes of Orthodox Jews who also commit crimes. This is only one example of unequal treatment before the law.

Young people are also reacting to last summer's attack on Gaza, which killed over 2,000 Palestinians. Trapped in the tiny Gaza enclave, the 1.8 million Palestinians there have little recourse now except to appeal for compassionate aid from foreign governments. If the Gazans are unable to act effectively in resistance to the Israeli occupation, anger and frustration pop up elsewhere. Jerusalem is the new hot spot.

Isolation in East Jerusalem is an important factor. Residents there can barely leave their part of the city. They are frightened to enter the western part of the city, and they cannot enter the West Bank. So Palestinian young people there feel trapped, and abandoned by history. Their very future is doubtful. The one thing parents are supposed to be able to provide - a future - is outside of their power. An air of discouragement hovers over the city, Seidemann says.

Jewish messianism is also a factor. In the drive to "unite" Jerusalem, some Jewish settlers have appropriated apartments and whole buildings and neighborhoods of Palestinian East Jerusalem and claimed them as Jewish land, with the protection of the Israeli military and police. Palestinian claims of ownership and occupancy mean nothing to Israeli law. In the meantime, if a Palestinian family in East Jerusalem wants to build a new home, or even an addition to their existing home, authorities routinely deny them permits, and will not hesitate to destroy the home if the family proceeds anyway.

Finally, there is the issue of the Temple Mount, a holy site for Muslims and only in recent times a locus of Jewish attention. Whereas once there reigned a tolerant, if not affable, relationship between the Muslim supervisors of the great mosque that stands atop it and visitors from Israel or around the world, today a faction of "pyromaniacs" in Israeli society, and in the government itself, will provocatively march onto the grounds of the mosque and loudly proclaim Jewish prayers. Such incitement is intended to spark a reaction, and sometimes does, with the expected violent consequences.

"Hatred," Seidemann says, "has been personalized, popularized, and has spread." If young people resist because, as they say, "our lives are unbearable," it is Israel's policy to make them more unbearable. "The system they live in," Seidemann explains, "holds them in contempt."

Until fairly recently, most of Israel was oblivious to the growing frustration in the city. Incidents went unreported or covered up, arrests were not publicized, newspapers were asked by officials to keep quiet, for fear that tourism would be affected. Seidemann reserves especially caustic comment for the Israelis who calmly go about their daily lives in cafés and shopping malls, ignoring the urban disaster occurring just yards away in the "other" part of town.

A Palestinian embassy in Jerusalem?

Jerusalem is the de facto capital of Israel, with all major government functions located there. But not a single foreign government has its embassy in the city. They are all in Tel Aviv, because the status of Jerusalem is still considered contested. No American president has yielded to the Israelis on this point, despite the steady pressure from certain elements in Congress to defy international law and move our embassy to Jerusalem.

Now Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's governing coalition has recently fallen apart, and new elections will be held in the spring of 2015. Bibi, as he is known, is a divisive force who seizes any opportunity to diminish the prospects for peace and to expand Jewish settlement in Palestinian land. But he has managed to sow such fear and distrust that Israeli voters may yet return another right-wing government to power, perhaps Bibi himself leading a new coalition. Yet there may be hope for another kind of result.

Seidemann, who describes himself as a Zionist, is neither a pessimist nor an optimist. He sees the end of the conflict in a two-state solution, but he does not predict that Jews and Palestinians will soon be living in sweet harmony. A complete divorce is necessary before any reconciliation is possible, in his view. Two states are, he says, "the best way of getting rid of one another." Israelis, he asserts, are not so eager to exercise control over another people: It's just that after almost 50 years of the occupation, for some Israelis it seems more scary and dangerous to let go than to hold on.

What's needed, he says, are an appropriate land swap and a firm, defined border. The land swap, based on the internationally recognized Green Line border that separated Israel from Palestinian land before 1967, would allow many Jewish settlements in areas adjacent to the border to remain where they are, while granting the Palestinians an equal amount of land of comparable value. Every serious peace proposal since Oslo more than 20 years ago has been based on this principle. If that is achieved, for Seidemann, the Jewish national movement will in fact achieve a crowning success in the worldwide recognition of West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. That would include a Palestinian embassy there as well, representing the new state of Palestine, with its own capital in East Jerusalem.

Photo: Daniel Seidemann addresses a crowd of 300 at Valley Beth Shalom, a prominent Conservative synagogue in Los Angeles, Dec. 4, on a topic entitled, "Getting Real About Jerusalem" (David Pine).

Pakistan declares three-day mourning for school terror victims

Fri, 19 Dec 2014 10:43:00 +0000

Pakistan's government declared a three-day mourning period today in homage to the 148 people murdered by Taliban terrorists on Dec. 16.

Some critically wounded adults - members of the school staff - died overnight, and authorities raised the overall death toll to 148, with the number of students killed remaining at 132.

Another 121 students and three staff members were wounded in the assault.

The body of head teacher Tahira Qazi was retrieved overnight from the debris. She had been inside her office when the militants forced their way into the administration building. She was killed when the attackers threw a grenade inside through a vent.

Several funerals were held overnight, but most victims were buried Dec. 17.

The Taliban said that the attack had been revenge for a military offensive against their safe havens in Northern Waziristan, along the border with Afghanistan, which began in June.

The attack drew swift condemnation from around the world, with even Taliban militants in neighbouring Afghanistan decrying the killing spree as "un-Islamic."

Teenage Nobel Peace laureate Malala Yousafzai - who survived a Taliban assassination attempt before moving to Britain - said that she was "heartbroken" by the bloodshed.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif pledged to step up the campaign that has targeted the Taliban strongholds.

"We must not forget these scenes," he said at a top-level meeting in Peshawar.

"The way they left bullet holes in the bodies of innocent kids, the way they tore apart their faces with bullets."

Indian schools observed two minutes of silence for the Peshawar victims at the urging of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who called the attack "a senseless act of unspeakable brutality."

Reposted from Morning Star

Photo: Local residents place candles around portraits of the victims killed in the Dec. 16 Taliban attack on a school in Peshawar, at a ceremony in Islamabad, Pakistan, Dec. 18. The Taliban massacre left a scene of heart-wrenching devastation, pools of blood and young lives snuffed out as the nation mourned and mass funerals for the victims got underway. | Anjum Naveed/AP

Unity worth the effort at world Communist meeting

Mon, 15 Dec 2014 17:58:00 +0000

The 16th Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties took place from Nov. 13-16 in the city of Guayaquil, Ecuador, and was hosted with elegant patience by the Communist Party of Ecuador. Eighty-five representatives from 53 parties and 44 countries met to discuss a draft declaration, hear of developments within each country and party and consider a plan of united action. Though no joint declaration could be reached, the meeting did issue a press release and adopt a joint plan of action.

No declaration could be agreed upon because of fundamental differences that center around concepts of the path to socialism. The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) was adamant in their disagreement with concepts such as transitional, alternative and intermediate steps or stages to socialism.

Though the KKE agrees with working in alliances, they disagree with working in alliances for the purposes of winning any form of government other than one that is socialist. Their analysis is that neoliberalism, the more restrictive form, and social democracy, the more expansive form, are both forms of management tools for capitalism, and workers are and remain exploited under both. They disagree with attaching any significance to multi-polarity, meaning the emergence of the BRICS union of nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) or ALBA, which is a union of the countries of the Bolivarian Movement (for example Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador) along with countries of the Caribbean, and Cuba.

Though the opinion of the KKE is not embraced by most, there is an effort to ratchet down the tension. There is a conscious effort on the part of the majority to preserve unity especially for the purposes of anti-imperialism, the fight for world peace, and the struggle to support Cuba. It was said by prior participants that the tension was much better processed at this 16^th meeting. Even though a joint declaration could not be produced, maybe more important, a joint plan of action was reached.

The points of the joint plan of action indicate just a few of the struggles which make the fight for unity where unity can be won in the world communist movement worth the effort. Even though it was not always obvious, a review of the full scope of the meeting made it crystal clear that in this moment in time, given the significance of the fight for peace and against imperialist aggression, whatever degree of unity, especially unity in action, which can be won is well worth realizing.

The joint plan of action includes several items. First, there is the call for parties around the world to honor May Day by participating in working class struggles.

Second, all parties are called to denounce the plans of imperialism to win world hegemony, to highlight the importance of the fight for peace, and to take action against NATO imposed military bases, military invasions, militarism, and the Trident Juncture 2015 NATO exercises. Trident Juncture 15 will be the largest exercises, involving more than 16,000 ground troops, NATO has conducted in 20 years and will be held in October and November of 2015 throughout Portugal and Spain.

Third, all parties are called to struggle against imperialist war in the Middle East and to condemn the intervention of imperialism in the Ukraine and Africa. There was clear opposition to criminal terrorist activity while recognizing the role of imperialism in their propagation.

Fourth, all parties are called to remember the 70th anniversary of the defeat of fascism by recognizing the role of communists including the former Soviet Union. Parties are also called to thwart the rewriting of history relative to fascism.

Fifth, all parties are called to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Vietnam's victory over US imperialism. Vietnam is presently on a path of industrialization and democratization utilizing a socialist oriented market economy to help foster recovery from decades of colonialism, imperialist war, and intervention.

Sixth, all parties are called to denounce anti-communism and to demonstrate solidarity with victims, particularly those in the Ukraine. In the Ukraine, amidst a context of national turmoil instigated by imperialism, the Communist Party has been banned and members are being persecuted.

Eighth, all parties are called to promote solidarity with the struggles in Latin America for national sovereignty and against imperialist intervention and aggression. Winning a demilitarized and democratized foreign policy in the USA would go a long way toward stopping the U.S. from interfering in the sovereign right of Latin American countries to decide their own futures.

Of paramount importance to us in the USA is the ninth plank calling on parties to strengthen their support for Cuba. For too long, over 50 years, the U.S. has imposed an inhumane embargo on Cuba which means Cuba has suffered severe economic hardship because the U.S. did not like its choice of the socialist path. Now, more than ever, is the time to mount a massive campaign to lift the embargo since almost all of the countries in the world, except the US and Israel, and even businesses here in the USA agree the embargo should be ended. Too, all parties are called to increase efforts to win the release of the last three of the Cuban 5. The Cuban 5 were imprisoned here in the US for working to protect Cuba from terrorist assault by fanatic elements.

Tenth, all parties are called to recognize the anniversaries of the World Federation of Trade Unions (70^th), the World Peace Council (65^th), the Women's International Democratic Federation (70^th), and the World Federation of Democratic Youth (70^th) in 2015.

Lastly, the working group of the World Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties agreed to reflect on the socialist experience in recognition of the 100th anniversary of the 1917 October revolution.

In the fight for unity within the world communist movement, there is no effort to homogenize the approach of communist and workers' parties in their individual countries. The need to respond to national peculiarities is fully recognized by most. The paramount importance of the struggle for world peace and against imperialist aggression makes, in this moment, the effort to maintain unity within the communist movement a worthy endeavor.

Photo: Dee Myles and Rossana Cambron represented the Communist Party USA at the 16^th Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties, Nov. 13-16 in Ecuador. (via CPUSA)

Subversion contractors an obstacle to U.S.-Cuba ties

Thu, 11 Dec 2014 12:53:00 +0000

"Some years ago, when he was a senator, Secretary of State John Kerry expressed fear that the State Department was turning over funds to USAID [intended] for freedom and democracy promotion in Cuba that were going somewhere else," writes Cuban journalist Iroel Sánchez. "On removing the lid from that pot, fetid vapors rose up, the same that businesses, 'industry,' and sustenance for adventurers, parasites, and Mafiosi always give off."

In one of its recent editorials calling for a new U.S. approach to Cuba, the New York Times agreed: "The funds have been a magnet for charlatans, swindlers and good intentions gone awry." The Times cited the $244 million the U.S. has spent in the last 18 years to instigate "democratic reforms" in Cuba.

Analyst Tracey Eaton tracks such U.S. "democracy promotion" projects, which in reality are aimed at subverting Cuba's government. He monitors the flow of money. Data he presented recently testify to the commitment and extensive resources the U.S. government dedicates to this effort. Continuation of such funding would cast a long shadow on any new U.S. policies toward Cuba.

As a bureaucracy with personnel, material rewards, and levels of responsibility, the U.S. subversion apparatus directed at Cuba is formidable and must foster considerable loyalty among participants. Other anti-Cuban projects may not have as much hold on practitioners - fine-tuning blockade regulations, for example.

According to Eaton, "Over the past 15 years, dozens of organizations have received U.S. funds for democracy programs in Cuba." USAID beneficiaries include, among others: "Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba - $3.4 million from September 2011 to September 2014..., International Republican Institute - $3.7 million from August 2008 to June 30 2012..., International Relief and Development - $3.5 million from September 2011 to September 2014..., and Creative Associates - $7 million from August 2008 to June 2012."

The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) is a U.S. agency that, supervising the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, exerts control over Radio and TV Martí in Miami. BBG, which broadcasts U.S.-approved news and views to Cuba, operated on a $27 million budget in 2014.

Beginning in 2011, BBG paid Washington Software in Maryland $4,398,409 to send emails and text messages to Cuba - $1.2 million in 2014 alone. Eaton reported recently that the BBG paid $69,259,200 over 21 years to writers, performers and artists throughout the world to pass material reflecting U.S. propaganda and biases on to Cuba. Individuals and companies receiving such largesse have carried out 17,868 "transactions" with Cuba since 1983. Some 27 percent of the outlay went to undisclosed foreign recipients; Eaton listed 1400 others by name.

One is former CIA agent Dan Gabriel's company, Applied Memetics. That enterprise consumed almost a million dollars in two years as it expanded social media in Cuba. It introduced a "new model of journalism that is based around a global story - in this case, the struggle for human rights and democracy around the world."

Alan Gross was a USAID agent who has now spent five years in a Cuban jail. On five trips to Cuba posing as a tourist, Gross delivered high technology communications equipment to anti-government agitators. In doing so, he violated Cuban laws, and was arrested, convicted and given a 15-year sentence. Many in the United States envision an exchange of Gross for the three "Cuban Five" prisoners still in U.S. jails. These are Cubans who were caught by the U.S. while monitoring the actions of possibly violent anti-Castro groups in South Florida, and given outrageously long sentences after a joke of a trial. Cuban government leaders have promoted the idea, and the New York Times held up such an exchange as a crucial first step toward improved U.S.-Cuban relations.

Alan Gross was part of the U.S. internal subversion system in Cuba, a bit player, to be sure. He had covert action expertise and operated under a veneer of noble intentions. Getting rid of the apparatus which provided cover for Gross and others has yet to be figured into contemplated changes, particularly those President Obama would need to implement. Can Cuba trust the U.S. government while the subversion system Eaton describes remains in place? And more immediately, can a U.S. president dismantle the existing bureaucracy in charge of such projects?

A constituency of place holders will surely resist moves to close down their operations and so deprive them of the financial rewards, praise and power they are used to. Their continued activities are a serious obstacle to improving U.S.-Cuban relations, including a prisoner exchange.

There's no indication a U.S. president can push this sector into retreating. The backing he or she can count on would come from Cuba solidarity activists with little organizational support from the larger community and from a few sympathetic but still reticent congresspersons.

High expectations for change are justified, but any popular mobilization toward that end logically must take this reality into consideration. The focus so far has been on pushing President Obama toward changes he is legally authorized to carry out. The missing link, however, may be popular pressure put on the U.S. Congress in any possible way.

Photo: Tourists ride in a classic American car on the Malecon in Havana, Cuba in Oct. 2014. Franklin Reyes/AP

Repression fails to stem mass outrage in Mexico

Thu, 11 Dec 2014 11:20:00 +0000

Police repression has failed to stop a wave of protests sweeping Mexico demanding the return of 43 kidnapped students in the state of Guerrero and the resignation of President Enrique Peña Nieto.

On Sept. 26, 43 indigenous students from a teacher training college in Iguala, Guerrero, disappeared. They were collecting funds so they could join a demonstration in Mexico City to remember the hundreds of protesting students killed by the Mexican army in 1968. Federal officials stated that local police, on the orders of a mayor affiliated to the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), arrested the students and then handed them over to gunmen from the local drug cartel who then killed them and burned their bodies. Three members of the drug cartel "confessed" that the mayor ordered the students killed.

Initially, federal officials claimed to have located a mass grave containing the ashes of the 43 students, but could not prove they belonged to the students. While federal and state police and local residents continue to uncover numerous mass graves in the search for the students, so far the remains of only one disappeared student has been confirmed.

On Dec. 6, federal officials, with the help of an Argentinean forensic team, announced that a DNA test confirmed that bone fragments found near a garbage dump in Guerrero belonged to Alexander Mora Venancio, 19, one of the missing students. A sample was sent to a university laboratory in Innsbruck, Austria, which confirmed the identification.

The disappearance of the indigenous student teachers, called "normalistas" (students at a normal school), has triggered public outrage and massive ongoing demonstrations across the country, attended by millions. Demonstrators, tired of widespread poverty, violence, and corruption, are demanding that the federal government find the disappeared students and that Peña Nieto resign.

The right-wing Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) government of Peña Nieto, which came to power through massive vote-buying and ballot box rigging in 2012, lacks widespread legitimacy across Mexico. Millions still believe that Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who ran twice for the center-left PRD and officially lost by a narrow margin, is their real president.

Authorities are using harsh methods to deal with demonstrators. Mexican student activist Varinia Emiliana, 19, who has been taking part in demonstrations in the Federal District (DF), that includes Mexico City, said in an email interview that national, state and local police are attacking protest marches on a regular basis with tear gas, clubs and live ammunition. They are also using agents provocateurs to create a pretext to break up demonstrations and arrest protesters. She blamed PRD governor of the Federal District, Miguel Angel Mancera, for ordering attacks against demonstrators. At the Nov. 20 demonstration, attended by tens of thousands in the Zócalo (the vast city square in front of the National Palace and cathedral in downtown Mexico City), she saw district police, who are under Mancera's command, begin violently dispersing protestors at 8 pm.

"In each march that I have gone to, there have been agents provocateurs, persons sent by the Peña government to provoke demonstrators pretending that they are civilians and on the side of demonstrators." Varinia Emiliana said that protestors at the Nov. 8 demonstration in Mexico City were able to use their cell phones to make videos of an undercover police agent encouraging protestors to set the doors of the National Palace on fire and then afterwards giving orders to the police to begin arrests. Organizers now take security measures to prevent provocateurs from infiltrating demonstrations. Public pressure has also forced the resignation of the head of the Granaderos, the riot police.

She said that the police continue to arrest and detain students. "This government wants to terrorize the population, but with much injustice, corruption, murders, disappearances, etc.... It cannot cover this up."

Many activists across Mexico are using cell phones to make videos of police attacks and then putting them on YouTube and Facebook.

Varinia Emiliana said police are also abducting key student organizers and leaders. One student leader from her university was grabbed by the police as he was heading home. But people nearby with cell phones took videos of the kidnapping along with the car license plate, allowing them to track down the student and free him.

Alejandro Jiménez, a lawyer for the Mexican Institute for Human Rights in Mexico City, complained that government security forces are criminalizing and brutalizing protestors. He was part of the legal team defending the 11 students arrested by security forces who violently broke up the large peaceful Nov. 20 demonstration in the Zócalo. Police finally released the 11 students on Nov. 30. Jiménez said the police, while focusing on young people, also attacked adults and children. "It is worrisome that they (police) detained them (the 11), and took them to the back of the National Palace, where they were mistreated by military personnel."

One of the female prisoners was tied down, stripped of her clothes, and then photographed. Furthermore, police accused the 11 of being tied to organized crime. "In Mexico, they must change this type of situation because the presumption of innocence is a right, and the government just should not make rhetoric and speeches about this," Jiménez stated.

Deputies from the PRI, National Action and Green Parties in the National Assembly just approved reforms to articles 11 and 73 of the Constitution that will give federal, state and local governments the right to ban and restrict demonstrations, using the pretext of guaranteeing universal mobility. Opposition deputies from the PRD, Workers Party and the Citizen Movement condemned the changes, saying they will criminalize protesters and restrict freedom of expression and the right to demonstrate.

Despite government repression and intimidation, protestors are adamant that they will continue demonstrating until the normalistas are returned and Peña Nieto resigns. "Vivos se los llevaron, vivos los queremos" (Alive they took them, alive we want them) has become the universal slogan uniting protesters across the country.

Photo: Demonstrators in Mexico protest the disappearance of 43 kidnapped students. Marco Ugarte/AP

Buried in the back garden: families priced out of decent burials

Wed, 10 Dec 2014 15:47:00 +0000

LONDON -- Families have been forced to bury loved ones in their back gardens amid an upsurge in "paupers' funerals" caused by rising costs and grant cuts, a Labour MP warned yesterday.

Emma Lewell-Buck told Parliament that people are holding "do-it-yourself funerals" because of an 80 per cent rise in fees over the past decade.

The average cost of a dignified send-off has soared from £1,920 [$3000] to £3,551 [$5600] - and government grants called "funeral payments" now cover less than a third of the bill.

The South Shields MP said one constituent sought help when she fell behind on repayments for a payday loan that she took out to cover the cost of her brother's headstone.

"Sadly her story is not an isolated one," said Ms Lewell-Buck.

"As well as rising debts, we are also seeing people turn to alternatives to the traditional funeral.

"Some people are holding do-it-yourself funerals, and even burying relatives in their back garden."

A fifth of families bereaved each year - 110,000 of 500,000 - struggle with funeral debts, according to the Royal London Funeral Index.

The Down to Earth funeral poverty campaign group said yesterday that 30,000 applicants are turned down for government support each year.

James, a former Down to Earth client, explained how he was initially turned down for a grant when his wife lost her battle with cancer.

"I had been left with four school-age children and, because I'd been my wife's main care giver and had to give up work, our savings were almost all gone," he said.

"I appealed and eventually after six months I was awarded £1,650 [$2600] to help clear the debt I've been left with.

"I've still been left with a hefty debt which I'm paying off at £12.50 [$20] a week."

Ms. Lewell-Buck's Funeral Services Bill calls for the government to establish standards for a "simple funeral" which all directors must offer.

It also calls on the government to carry out a national review of funeral affordability.

The MP asked for the 10-minute rule Bill to have a second reading on January 23. It is unlikely to be passed without government support.

A Department for Work and Pensions spokesman said its average funeral payment is £1,225 [$1900], which has risen by more than 30 per cent over the past decade. The amount paid for funeral directors' fees is capped at £700 [$1000].

Awards for funeral payments are dependent upon individual circumstances but are available to those on low income and recipients of universal credit, income support, employment and support allowance, jobseeker's allowance, pension credit, child and working tax credits or housing benefit.

"They cover the cost of a simple, respectful funeral and include the full costs of a burial and purchasing a plot or a cremation," he said

Reposted from Morning Star

Photo: Emma Lewell-Buck MP

Human Rights Day spurs Iranians' call to end repression

Wed, 10 Dec 2014 13:51:00 +0000

"All human beings are born with equal and inalienable rights and fundamental freedoms." - Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Each year, on Dec. 10 the world remembers the day in 1948 when all nations came together in Paris to sign the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The power and relevance of the recognition in the Declaration - that all human beings have fundamental rights and freedoms - is undiminished today. The UN General Assembly proclaimed Dec. 10 as Human Rights Day in 1950, to bring to the attention 'of the peoples of the world' the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as the common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations.

This year's slogan, Human Rights 365, encompasses the idea that every day is Human Rights Day. It celebrates the fundamental proposition in the Universal Declaration that each one of us is at all times is entitled to the full range of human rights, that human rights belong equally to each of us and bind us together as a global community with the same ideals and values.

Over the past decades, many initiatives have been taken to defend and protect human rights and to stop violations of these rights. This year the Convention against Torture reached its 30th year, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child is 25 years old. In 2015, the very first of the international agreements giving effect to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination marks its half century. Twenty-one years ago, in December 1993, in a renewed effort in the protection and promotion of human rights recommended at the World Conference on Human Rights held in Vienna earlier that year, the United Nations General Assembly created the mandate of High Commissioner for Human Rights for the promotion and protection of all human rights.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is based on the simple truth that all people have the same basic rights everywhere and at all times. We all have human rights in theory; however, in practice some individuals and groups are not able to enjoy their full human rights.

The aim of the Declaration is to prevent abuse and discrimination of all kinds. Discrimination means making differentiation between people, restricting or broadening their rights because they belong to a particular race or ethnic group, manifest a certain religion, or support particular ideas. Discrimination can be and must be avoided first of all at the state and government level.

Human rights in Iran

The track record of the Islamic Republic of Iran has been under close scrutiny for decades, as violations of human rights have continued despite the efforts of human rights activists in Iran and internationally, including CODIR's campaigns.

In a recent interview with Al Arabiya, Shirin Ebadi, Iranian lawyer, rights activist and Nobel laureate, said that the situation in Iran "has not progressed at all" since President Hassan Rouhani took office about a year and a half ago. She said that Rouhani has not been able to deliver on his promises to address key human rights issues in the country.

Last October, Iran executed a 26-year-old woman, Reyhaneh Jabbari, for allegedly murdering her rapist, in defiance of international pressure to spare her life. The United Nations reported that around 411 people have been executed in Iran since the beginning of 2014.

While it is believed that human rights are universal, Shirin Ebadi maintains that "the government of Iran always claims that the issue of human rights in Iran is a domestic issue and not an international matter and it's not up to other countries to talk about it." Iran has not let any U.N. rapporteurs into the country for nine years, said Ebadi, citing the example of Ahmed Shaheed, the U.N.'s human rights rapporteur on Iran, who was repeatedly denied an entry visa to the country last month.

Following Rouhani's inauguration, authorities in September of last year released at least a dozen human rights activists and political opposition figures but scores of others, jailed for their affiliation with banned opposition parties, labour unions and student groups remain in prison. The judiciary continues to target independent and unregistered trade unions. Opposition figures Mir Hossein Mousavi, Zahra Rahnavard, and Mehdi Karroubi have been under house arrest for more than 4 years, along with hundreds of political prisoners. Dozens of human rights defenders, including prominent lawyers such as Mohammad Seifzadeh and Abdolfattah Soltani, remain in prison on politically motivated charges. Nasrin Sotoudeh, winner of the 2012 Sakharov Prize, who was released in September 2013 just before Rouhani's trip to New York to attend the UN General Assembly, was banned in October 2014 from practising as a lawyer for three years.

Nasrin Sotoudeh

On November 24, 2014, Iran's Supreme Court upheld a criminal court ruling sentencing Soheil Arabi to be hanged. The court transferred his file to the judiciary's implementation unit, opening the way for his execution. A Tehran criminal court had convicted him in August of sabb al-nabbi, or "insulting the prophet," referring to the Prophet Muhammad, which carries the death penalty.

The Supreme Court unlawfully added the charge of "sowing corruption on Earth" to Arabi's case. In addition to carrying a possible death sentence, the charge also forecloses the possibility of amnesty, said Arabi's lawyer.

According to independent reports, at least 647 cases of execution have been reported in Iran in 2014, of which 229 cases were announced by the Iranian government. In 2014 alone, eight individuals, believed to be under 18 years of age at the time of their alleged crimes, were reportedly executed. According to the report of the special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran (A/69/356), four cultural rights activists from the Arab minority community, were executed in 2014. In June of this year, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay expressed concerns about the large number of executions in Iran since the beginning of the year, calling on the Iranian authorities to halt, in particular, the imminent execution of a juvenile offender, Razieh Ebrahimi. Ebrahimi was convicted of killing her husband when she was 17 years old. She was married to him at the age of 14, gave birth to a child when she was 15 and maintained that she was subjected to domestic violence.

As reported by Reporters without Borders, as of July 2014, at least 65 journalists, bloggers, and social media activists were in prison on various charges related to their speeches or writings. They include 10 women, of whom three are foreign nationals, making Iran the world's leading jailer of female journalists and netizens. Iran is one of the world's most repressive countries as regards freedom of information. It is ranked 173^rd of 180 countries in the 2014 World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters without Borders. In a statement in July 2014, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) stated that according to statistics from IFJ affiliate, the Association of Iranian Journalists (AoIJ), there were 27 journalists imprisoned in Iran - making it one of the worst jailers of journalists in the world.

In May 2014, police arrested four young men and three women after a video showing them dancing to the popular song "Happy" went viral on YouTube. Authorities released them to face trial on charges that included engaging in "illicit relations."

Ms. Ghoncheh Ghavami, a dual Iranian-British national, was arrested on June 30, 2014 after protesting a ban on women attending volleyball matches. The male-only policy for spectators at volleyball matches dates back to 2012, when the Sports and Youth Affairs Ministry extended the existing policy on soccer matches to cover volleyball. Iranian officials claim that mixed attendance at sports events is un-Islamic and threatens public order.

Iranian women face discrimination in many areas including personal status matters related to marriage, divorce, inheritance, and child custody. A woman needs her male guardian's approval for marriage regardless of her age and cannot generally pass on her nationality to her foreign-born spouse or their children. A woman may not obtain a passport or travel outside the country without the written permission of a male guardian. Child marriage, though not the norm, continues in Iran, where the law provides that girls can marry at the age of 13 and boys at the age of 15; and below such ages with the permission of a judge. In October, the Guardianship Council ratified the Law on Protection of Children and Adolescents with No Guardian (adoption) after they amended a provision, despite opposition, to allow adoptive parents to marry children in their care if a judge deems it to be in the latter's best interest.

The government denies freedom of religion to adherents of the Baha'i faith, Iran's largest non-Muslim religious minority, and discriminates against them. Government targeting of Sufis, particularly members of the Nematollahi Gonabadi sect, continues unabated.

Restrictions on cultural and political activities of ethnic Azeri, Kurdish, Arab, Turkmen and Baluch minorities persist. Schooling and education in native languages of these ethnicities is still prohibited.

The authorities have imprisoned at least 27 labour rights activists, a number of whom reportedly require urgent medical attention, including Sharokh Zamani, Reza Shahabi, Moahmmad Jarrahi, Hassan Tafah, Rasool Bodaghi, Karim Marouf Aziz, Arjang Davoodi and Mashallah Haeri. Mr. Zamani, a trade unionist and a member of the Committee to Pursue the Establishment of Labour Unions and co-founder of the Painters' and Decorators' Union, was arrested in June 2011 and sentenced to 11 years in prison for "acting against national security by establishing or membership of groups opposed to the system" and "spreading propaganda against the system". He was further punished for his activism in March 2014 and transferred to another prison.

Violations of labour-related rights, e.g. Articles 20, 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which continue in Iran, include the failure to adjust workers' wages corresponding to the inflation rate; high rates of fatal accidents at work and unsafe practices at workplaces; low rates of female representation in the labour market, with women constituting only 16 percent of the labour force; high rates of unemployment among women (close to 21 percent) and particularly among women from ethnic minorities. Rights to organise, assemble and join trade unions are among the ongoing restrictions on the rights of workers to organize. Unions and unionists in Iran, as a part of the general social popular movement in Iran, are slowly but surely taking steps to protect their rights and to secure a decent living for the working people of Iran. This is no easy task and deserves strong international solidarity both on the organisational and state level and in popular peer‐to‐peer level.

The Committee for the Defence of the Iranian People's Rights, CODIR, continues to campaign to abolish the brutal violation of human rights and all limitations to true democracy in Iran. We reflect the voice of the Iranian people in their struggle for true democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of media, freedom to organise, protecting the rights of minorities, and the right of people to elect and be elected at all levels of government.

On this Dec. 10, Human Rights Day, CODIR express its solidarity with the struggle of the people of Iran for their human rights. In today's globalised world, the effect on nations' lives is also globalised more than ever before in human history. The collective power of individuals and groups can have a significant impact on the lives of other nations. CODIR urges all human rights activists and organisations to stand by the people of Iran in this struggle against their oppressors.

Photo: Reyhaneh Jabbari, age 26, shown here in court, was executed by the Iranian government last October for murdering her rapist, in defiance of international pressure to spare her life. Save Reyhaneh Jabbari From Execution In Iran Facebook page

Cuban 5 prisoner and Ebola-fighting doctor give each other strength

Tue, 09 Dec 2014 14:01:00 +0000

The following is correspondence between a U.S.-held Cuban political prisoner Gerardo Hernández and Cuban doctor, Rotceh Ríos Molina, who is currently part of the team of medical professionals fighting the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone. Hernández and Ríos are considered heroes in Cuba, and as such Cuban journalist Marlene Caboverde Caballero thought to initiate a correspondence between the two. Caboverde and Dr. Ríos come from the same town in western Cuba, called Jaruco.

Hernández is one of the three members of the "Cuban Five" still imprisoned in the United States. He is serving two life sentences in the federal prison in Victorville, Calif., after a trial in Miami that many people worldwide have condemned as biased. There is a campaign in the United States as well as internationally to get the U.S. government to free Gerardo and the other two prisoners, Antonio Guerrero and Ramón Labañino, perhaps as a humanitarian exchange for Alan Gross, a U.S. government contractor imprisoned in Cuba. Meanwhile, Cuba is gaining worldwide praise for having sent more than 250 volunteer doctors and nurses, as part of the Henry Reeve Brigade, to Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia in West Africa to risk their lives fighting the extremely virulent Ebola epidemic which has taken thousands of African lives so far.

Message of Gerardo Hernández Nordelo, one of the Cuban Five, to Rotceh Ríos Molina, internal medicine specialist from Jaruco, Cuba.

Our admiration for the Cubans who are fighting against Ebola

November 24, 2014

Dear Brother Rotceh,

I was able to read the note you wrote to Marlene. I appreciate your words, and am very pleased to have this opportunity to send you a salutation. Ever since I came upon the news of Cuban medical brigades leaving for West Africa to fight the Ebola epidemic, we have tried to keep ourselves informed about the extraordinary work our countrymen have been doing.

Now we are paying special attention to Doctor Félix Báez and the state of his health. His course fortunately seems to be satisfactory. I don't think I can find a more direct way to try to send Félix our best wishes for his quick and total recovery, so I take advantage of these lines.

On not a few occasions throughout these years, we the Five have been asked about what inspires us to resist unjust imprisonment for so long, so far from Cuba and from our families. Even before the present Ebola crisis presented itself, we were always speaking of the attitude of Cuban doctors and other Cuban internationalists as an important source of encouragement, pride, and inspiration for ourselves.

Now with that extraordinary lesson of heroism that you are providing the world, we feel even more pride, and words would not suffice to express how much you strengthen us with your example. You today are our heroes! To all the comrades who are part of the Cuban medical brigades in West Africa, we express to you our immense admiration, and we ask that you take great care of yourselves. I know that someday when you've won that battle for the good of humanity, and when justice has been secured for the Five, we will have the opportunity to embrace each other in the homeland.

All success, brothers!

Hasta la victoria siempre!

Gerardo Hernández Nordelo

Victorville Federal Prison, California

Reply from Dr. Rotceh Ríos Molina to Hernández via journalist Marlene Caboverde.

With your example we'll be able to finish this mission

November 25, 2014

Dear Marle,

Many, but many, thanks. The example of this giant of the Cuban Revolution and his words give us encouragement to keep focused on the mission of saving and bettering lives in these remote places, so beaten down by those greatest of scourges - hunger, immense poverty, illiteracy, and exploitation of man by man. He encourages us as we go about constantly stalking sicknesses, from the simplest and most common of them to the one that has us here today far from our homes.

With his example we will not only be capable of successfully accomplishing this, but also be always firm in doing what's necessary to make our way to the front. I would want, if it happens my reply reaches him, that he knows it came not just from me, but from all of those here who, like myself, were emotionally affected on reading his lines; we even shouted out revolutionary slogans. We acclaimed for a fact our eventual triumphant return to the homeland.

For the Revolution!

Dr. Rotceh Ríos Molina, internal medicine specialist.

Source: http://www.cubadebate.cu/especiales/2014/11/26/un-puente-desde-sierra-leona-hasta-victorville-intercambian-mensajes-gerardo-y-medico-cubano/#.VHu-6mfwu1t

Translated by W. T. Whitney

Phtoto: Dr.Rotceh Rios Molina, in Sierra Leone, and Gerardo Hernández Nordelo, incarcerated in the U.S.

Caribbean states, Uruguayan president demand end of Cuba blockade

Mon, 08 Dec 2014 12:17:00 +0000

The Caribbean Community, known as CARICOM, has once more called for an end to the U.S. blockade of Cuba.

CARICOM is a group of 15 states in the Caribbean area which cooperate on trade, services, investment, crime fighting and other matters. The full member states are Antigua, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, the Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Suriname, St. Kitts, and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago. Monserrat, though a British dependency, is also a full member of CARICOM. Some other small countries lacking full independence are associate members. A number of other countries have observer status including Venezuela and the U.S. dependency of Puerto Rico.

The Dominican Republic has applied for CARICOM membership, but the processing of the application has been suspended because of a Dominican court decision stripping thousands of people of Hatian descent of their citizenship.

On Monday, Dec. 8, the Fifth CARICOM-Cuba summit took place in Havana, Cuba, with Cuban President Raul Castro Ruz presiding. Such summits have been held every three years since 2002. Cuba is not a member of CARICOM. But with its 11 million people, Cubs is the largest country in the Caribbean by far. So by holding the meeting in Havana, the CARICOM member states signal their respect for the socialist island, their desire to integrate Cuba fully into the regional economy, and their very strong opposition to U.S. anti-Cuba policy.

The CARICOM Chair, Prime Minister Gaston Browne of Antigua and Barbuda, said on Sunday that the Obama administration should end the "senseless" U.S. embargo of Cuba which began shortly after the Cuban Revolution of 1959, and has caused billions of dollars in damages to the Cuban economy. Because U.S. policy penalizes foreign companies which trade with Cuba and not just U.S. ones, the Cubans call U.S. restrictions "the Blockade" and not just an embargo.

In related news, six prisoners from the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, arrived in Uruguay on Sunday. The Uruguayan President, Jose Mujica, had agreed to take them off the U.S. government's hands. President Obama has declared his intention to eventually close the prison at Guantanamo, where many observers say human rights abuses have been rife, but a problem has been finding countries to take prisoners cleared for release.

News reports in the corporate controlled press here have, for the most part, failed to mention that president Mujica had asked that, as a goodwill response, the United States free the remaining three of the "Cuban Five" prisoners being held in the United States. This could be done by a commutation of sentences or a presidential pardon, but so far there has been no response. The Cuban government has made clear that if these three prisoners were released, it would, on a humanitarian basis, free U.S. contractor Alan Gross,, who is serving a 15 year jail sentence in Cuba for having secretly introduced specialized electronic equipment designed to evade Cuban government monitoring.

Mujica had also called on the United States to free the remaining members of the "Cuban Five" who have been serving long prison sentences in the United States after being arrested for placing right wing Cuban exile groups under surveillance, and also to free Puerto Rican independence activist Oscar Lopez Rivera.

Photo: AP

Reds and Greens triumphant in Germany

Mon, 08 Dec 2014 10:33:00 +0000

BERLIN - Yes, "red-red-green" squeezed through to victory - by one single wavering vote.

Political parties in the USA have animal symbols, donkey and elephant. In Germany they have colors: the Christian-Democrats (CDU), due to clerical ties, are black, the Greens of course green, the Social Democrats (SPD) traditionally red. When the redder LINKE (Left) party came along critics said the SPD should switch to "pink". But it didn't, so the new government in the eastern state of Thuringia is a "red-red-green coalition" - the very first in Germany with the LINKE on top! A true sensation!

Were the SPD and Greens really willing to be junior partners with those scorned LINKE pariahs? They were, but in an almost exactly split legislature every vote was needed to beat possible maneuvers by the CDU, now very bitter at getting pushed out after ruling Thuringia since 1990. In the first (anonymous) vote count, one deputy broke ranks; if this happened again it might throw the whole coalition plan into question. But whoever it was fell into line in a second vote and the LINKE leader, Bodo Ramelow, 58, a West German union leader who had moved east, received 46 Yes votes (out of a total of 90) and thus became premier. On taking the oath of office, although a practicing Lutheran, he chose to omit the "so help me God" conclusion. A new cabinet was sworn in, with four LINKE ministers, three from the SPD and two from the Greens (despite their meager election results). Three of the LINKE and one each from the other parties were women.

This first-time coalition led to anger, rage, almost hysteria among some politicians, journalists and assorted anti-communists in other states. The head of Angela Merkel's sister party in Bavaria called it "a day of shame for unified Germany...Twenty-five years after the fall of the wall our motto must once again be: together prevent a leftist republic!" A notoriously right-wing professor, Hubertus Knabe, said: "This is not a good day for Germany and especially not for victims of the SED dictatorship (the eastern part of the LINKE is the reformed descendant of that one-time ruling SED party in East Germany, VG). It is a great disappointment for many one-time victims that not a single deputy of the SPD or the Greens had the courage to prevent this coalition."

But most SPD and Green leaders on a national level stressed volubly that this coalition was strictly local, maybe OK in one state but in no way involving any repeat on the national level after the 2017 elections, with LINKE positions on foreign policy, state security and such matters being so impossible. Only a few in the two parties dared oppose total taboos in advance, but not only they read polls showing that a Green-SPD alliance could hardly gain the needed majority without the LINKE.

There are hopes, less openly-stated, that this new experiment in Thuringia will push the LINKE towards modifying or even abandoning its troublesome, "radical" positions. Indeed Ramelow, in his first speech as premier, avoided talk of clear differences and instead stressed most vigorously a total rejection of that bad dictatorial GDR past and his wish to get along with everybody. His announced goals - offering one pre-school year in kindergarten free of charge, hiring more teachers, cutting the number of counties and helping the jobless ruffled few feathers, especially since the SPD and Greens had exacted a restrictive coalition pledge that the budget be balanced, with no deficits.

The LINKE membership in Thuringia, happy at having their man at the top for the first time, had approved the new coalition in advance per referendum by 94 percent. Indeed, many in the party rejoiced at this key breakthrough. Gregor Gysi, a leading figure in the LINKE from the start, said: "If Thuringia is now governed well the tidings will spread to all of Germany."

Matthias Höhn, another top leader, like Ramelow from the "reformer wing", said: "How important this is can be seen in the nervousness and confusion in the Christian parties simply at the prospect of a red-red-green policy change now becoming reality in one German state."

But other members and leaders were dismayed by the agreed-on description of the GDR as an "Unrechtsstaat", an "unjust state", a term now proclaimed and taught almost universally and demanded by the SPD and Greens as a condition for joining up. In the GDR, it was recalled, elections were not free, the judiciary was politically controlled and government rule was dictatorial.

Few really challenged these judgments, but their emphasis and their intent were questioned. Katja Kipping, party co-president, said that the new coalition "would make Thuringia a great deal more socially-conscious, more democratic and more ecologically green" but added that the term "Unrechtsstaat" would be difficult to understand for many who had lived in the GDR "because they see in this description a degradation of their efforts in Germany, after fascism, to build up a different - a socialist - country... That is what makes this discussion so difficult."

A former co-president, Gesine Lötzsch, wrote: "The term 'Unrechtsstaat' is not only a key word in criticizing the GDR, it also has implications for the future" since it implies an alleged lack of any alternative to policies of the Federal Republic. "Thus there are no alternatives to shipping weapons to crisis regions, privatizing roads and highways, salvaging banks, to injustice in pension plans and certainly no alternative to capitalism... The next generation must not even think about alternatives to capitalism. The GDR, defined in toto as an 'Unrechtsstaat', is shoved into close similarity with fascism."

In a similar vein, Wolfgang Gehrcke, deputy chair of the LINKE caucus in the Bundestag, said this term was "historically false, shaped by political motivation and scientifically invalid. The term 'Unrechtsstaat' is based on the 'totalitarianism ideology' equating Hitler fascism with the GDR... Branding the GDR as an 'Unrechtsstaat' denigrates the life-long efforts of so many citizens of that state...thus implying that all laws enacted in the GDR were unjust."

And in a widely-seen talk show Oskar Lafontaine, former co-chair (and once chair of the SPD), was even more vigorous: "This discussion about the Unrechtsstaat is aimed at distracting from monstrous injustices now taking place." He listed the killings by drones, the countless refugees drowned in the Mediterranean, and wars of intervention."

Yet the terminology was officially adopted, and cooperation was to be rejected with any organizations disagreeing with this position, and no responsibility given to any such individuals!

Some Greens - in Germany they stand in some matters to the right of Merkel - are gloating over their influence in this coalition, which may soon resemble an "Eiertanz" - a daring dance in between raw eggs. One single deputy can always bring it down if he objects to a Ramelow position.

In a way the victory recalled those of Obama in 2008 and 2012. They marked an amazing defeat of racists; this coalition is a blow to primitive anti-communism. Will it also lead to other similarities - and perhaps disappointments? No-one can tell. But in the often heated debate on state injustice, some thoughts turned from long past sins to alarming current news of sudden deaths in Ferguson and Staten Island - or bombings in the Ukraine. Injustice is such a complicated matter.

Photo: Bodo Ramelow. AP

Germany sees confrontations with police too

Thu, 04 Dec 2014 14:14:00 +0000

BERLIN - Confrontations with the police in Germany have not been quite as severe as some have been in Ferguson and other U.S. cities. But some have been dramatic enough.

Back in September, 2010 mass protests in Stuttgart against construction of a huge underground railroad station at the cost of a prized old building and a central park were hit hard by cops with truncheons and water cannons, resulting in hundreds of injuries and most of one man's eyesight. Yet last week the courts dropped all charges against the authorities; they had only borne "minor responsibility."

Some are bitter that Winfried Kretschmann, Germany's first and only Green premier (there in Baden-Wurttemberg), carefully avoided comment or involvement.

In Dresden, in February 2011, about 18,000 anti-Nazis were able to block a neo-Nazi parade. But later, after most people (like me) had left, some remaining anti-Nazis got into a fight with the police, who had been shielding the Nazis during the daytime. When it was discovered that the police had monitored the cell phone messages of the demonstrators that day.

Rev. Lothar König, 60, the huge, bearded pastor from Jena, once a dissident in the GDR, joined in the criticism of police tactics in an article in "Der Spiegel." A few days later 30 policemen raided his home and he was charged with joining the fighting - "breach of peace, attempted obstruction of justice and attempted coercion." He was charged with using a bullhorn from his van over which he allegedly called upon people to "stone the pigs."

After three years of bureaucracy, postponements and trial hearings it was revealed that the police had withheld 170 pages of testimony and 160 hours of video tape, all of which exonerated König, and the case had to be dropped.

There is no such happy ending as yet for another anti-Nazi participant that day, charged similarly though never having been even identified properly in the crowd. Unluckily, not a pastor, he was sentenced to 22 months without parole! The fight for a revision is still going on. No Nazis were ever sentenced.

Recently in another city, Cologne, some 4,800 tough-looking characters arrived in town, took over the big square at the main station and then set out on a march. It was a show of power, actually, by a far right wing of the soccer fans in town. They are the ones who shout racist slogans during games. On the march they were joined by more or less openly fascist groups, some local, or others like the National Democratic Party (NDP), a national organization.

What unified the groups in the march was their hatred for both Muslim monorities and the left. Common slogans were: "Germany for Germans - Foreigners get out!" and "National resistance is on the march!"

Despite clear Internet signals the police had underestimated their strength and were hopelessly outnumbered. During and after the march the fascists attacked journalists, passers-by, courageous anti-fascists who had gathered to oppose them and, while they were at it, the cops as well - more than 40 of whom were injured.

The HoGeSa, as they were called, had planned a second march on Nov. 15 in Hanover. The police tried to bar it this time but a district court ruled for the right to "freedom of assembly." So the police insisted at least on a set of rules: body searches for weapons, bottles and fireworks, no march through town, no alcohol.

For the expected 5,000 fascists and neo-Nazis they assembled 5,300 cops from eight states and roped off the square at the station. In the end only about 2,600 turned up - and up to 6,000 antifascists. The police worked as usual to keep them apart; most antifascists by far are against violence but there are frequently small groups, often with (illegally) covered faces and almost certainly including provocateurs (most likely also from the police), who throw things and give the media the desired headlines. But this time, and again in Berlin a week later, things stayed peaceful.

The role of the police is complicated. Neo-Nazis, with whom some at all police levels may secretly sympathize, must not be permitted to go too far, getting bad headlines abroad and a scolding from "respectable" party leaders. But the extreme rightists are useful. Building on race hatred and violence, they serve as a "reserve army" against possible leftward trends, and while the cops may rein in their worst visible excesses they also protect them against anti-fascists while the respectable politicians can denounce "extremists from the Left and the Right."

It's a tortuous, winding path. The dangers of things taking a bad turn in Germany are quite real. With an alliance of neo-Nazis and racist elements among the soccer fans, with a new party growing in strength due to its anti-foreigner stance (Alternative for Germany - AfD), and with unceasing attacks in the press against "violent Islamists and Salafists," any economic downturn, currently threatening, could push things in a rightwing direction.

Two other subjects are dividing Germans. One centers in the peacefully-forested, hilly state of Thuringia, known as Germany's green lung. It is an area full of famous old cities: Weimar, Erfurt, Jena and Bach's birthplace, Eisenach. The other involves battle-torn towns in the flat plains of the Ukraine.

The central government, shared by Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) with its junior partner, the Social Democrats (SPD), keeps stumbling over relations with Russia; my metaphor still applies: trying to find footing on an up and a down escalator at the same time. Foreign Minister Steinmeier, a Social Democrat, flies with his handsome white shock of hair and mostly gentle manners from Kiev to Wales, Moscow to Brussels, trying, it would seem, to cool tempers and arrive at compromises. Backed by several former SPD leaders, he has opposed tougher sanctions against Russia, urging diplomacy instead, even stating that he opposes NATO membership for the Ukraine.

But is this (and perhaps the police at the Nazi rallies) the old method of the "good cop" and the "bad cop"? Chancellor Merkel, after some teetering, sounds tougher and tougher. Despite her late-night, four-hour tete-á-tete with Putin at the G-20 meet in Australia she has been heading toward greater confrontation, most clearly on the Crimea question and, under determined U.S.urging, joined in righteous agreement on this with the present (though not the past) SPD leadership.

With the LINKE party (the Left) there are no doubts about its opposition to weapons for Ukraine - or troops anywhere. In a remarkable half-hour speech in the Bundestag by the brainy Left theoretician and deputy caucus chair Sahra Wagenknecht, a rare opportunity for the minority party, Angela Merkel was confronted, I think, as never before. The clear, factual critique dealt mostly with economic issues, with temp jobs cutting fair chances in a strike, with the freeze on infrastructure, with cuts in education, health and care of the elderly, always bowing to the banks. But also on foreign policy matters: referring to Merkel's blasts at Putin, she jabbed, "Though you warn against a conflagration you are one of those running around with a lighted matchstick!"

Merkel had to listen to the speech but displayed conspicuous disinterest or disdain by looking very bored, fiddling with objects on her desk or exchanging remarks with her SPD deputy Sigmar Gabriel.

Meanwhile, in hilly Thuringia, place cards waited on the Cabinet table for a new state government, the first in Germany to be headed by a premier of the LINKE party. The main question in the Thuringian capitol of Erfurt is whether the SPD and the Greens can withstand pressure not to accept a LINKE premier, even if he is a pious West German Christian, and not a "sinister left-over" from that East German GDR which, 25 years after its demise, is still hated and feared. The decision is due within a few days!

Photo: Police confront pro-fascist, masked demonstrators in Cologne, Germany in October.

Thirty years later, disaster haunts and angers Bhopal survivors

Wed, 03 Dec 2014 13:38:00 +0000

BHOPAL, India (AP) - Three decades after lethal gas swept through Bhopal, the central Indian city remains haunted by memories of the world's worst industrial disaster.

Hundreds of survivors of the gas leak that claimed thousands of lives took to the streets today, Dec. 3, to mark the 30th anniversary of the disaster, chanting slogans and carrying placards demanding harsher punishments for those responsible and more compensation for the victims.

On the morning of Dec. 3, 1984, a pesticide plant run by Union Carbide leaked about 40 tons of deadly methyl isocyanate gas into the air in Bhopal, quickly killing about 4,000 people. Lingering effects of the poison pushed the death toll to about 15,000 over the next few years, according to Indian government estimates.

In all, at least 500,000 people were affected, the government says. Thirty years later, activists say thousands of children are still being born with brain damage, missing palates and twisted limbs because of their parents' exposure to the gas or water contaminated by it.

"I still feel the pain even today. I still see those images," said Mohammed Ismail, a 57-year-old rickshaw driver whose daughter lost vision in both of her eyes after the gas leak. "On every gas anniversary, I feel it would have been better for me to die that night."

On the anniversary, the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal issued a press release pointing to the obstruction by the Union Carbide's parent company Dow Chemical along with the U.S. and India governments to hold the corporation accountable.

"Not only has the U.S. government blocked attempts to hold Dow Chemical accountable on U.S. soil, the Indian government has been complicit in the disaster from the very beginning. Recently, Dow Chemical failed to produce Union Carbide in Indian court to answer outstanding criminal charges," the media release said.

While the disaster's anniversary is a major annual event for survivors, it's largely ignored by most Indians and the government. On Wednesday, there was no comment from any senior Indian government official about the 30th anniversary.

American chemical company Union Carbide Corp. has said that the accident - which took place when water entered the sealed tank containing the highly reactive methyl isocyanate - was an act of sabotage by a disgruntled employee, never identified, and not lax safety standards or faulty plant design, as claimed by some activists.

Union Carbide was bought by Dow Chemical Co. in 2001. Dow says the legal case was resolved in 1989, when Union Carbide settled with the Indian government for $470 million, and that all responsibility for the factory now rests with the government of the state of Madhya Pradesh, of which Bhopal is the capital.

In an emailed statement Wednesday, Union Carbide said that U.S. courts had ruled that the plant was owned, operated and managed by Union Carbide India Limited. After its closure and the sale of UCIL stock by Union Carbide, the site became the responsibility of UCIL's successor company, Eveready Industries India Limited. In 1998, the Madhya Pradesh state government revoked Eveready's lease on the site and assumed all control for it, including remediation, the statement said.

It said that Union Carbide and the rest of rest of the chemical industry has worked to help prevent such an event by improving safety standards, community awareness and emergency preparedness, including protecting workers and communities by working with governmental bodies to assure that industry practices are implemented through regulations.

In Bhopal, which remains anguished by the disaster, most consider Union Carbide's settlement with the government an insult.

Even today, the suffering in Bhopal is palpable. Both survivors and activists say that thousands of children born to parents directly exposed to the gas leak or poisoned by contaminated water have been plagued by birth defects. Cancer rates in the city are inordinately high. Skin, vision and breathing disorders are endemic.

The survivors have blamed both their own government and Dow for their suffering.

India's government is blamed for negotiating what the survivors consider low compensation and then ignoring them. Dow, meanwhile, is heavily criticized because it now owns Union Carbide - the American company that had a majority stake in the pesticide plant that leaked the lethal gas.

Ram Pyari, 90, said the tragedy still haunts her.

"Everything was destroyed," she said Tuesday during an evening vigil. "And my sons and my daughter-in-law died, my leg was amputated. I have to drag myself. These killers did not heed anything. Why are they not brought to court? Why are they not hanged?"

In the poor neighborhoods behind the Union Carbide plant, where the worst of the tragedy unfolded, survivors and their relatives and supporters burned effigies of Warren Anderson, who headed Union Carbide Corp. at the time of the leak, and a banner emblazoned with the logo of Dow Chemical Co., which bought Union Carbide.

Angry protesters spit on the effigies and the banner, and some young boys urinated on them before they were set on fire.

Anderson died in September in a nursing home in Vero Beach, Florida. Just after the disaster, Anderson traveled to India, where he was arrested. He left the country while free on bail and never returned.

In 2011, the Indian government made a renewed push to extradite Anderson, then 90, from the United States, without success. Prosecutors wanted to try him on culpable-homicide charges.

Anderson remained a focus of much of the anger of those who survived the gas leak, a symbol of what they perceive as the lack of accountability of big multinational corporations.

Dow Chemical says it has no liability because it bought Union Carbide more than a decade after the cases had been settled.

Associated Press writer Muneeza Naqvi in New Delhi contributed to this report. Additional information from the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal was added by People's World co-editor Teresa Albano. To get more information on the campaign go to: http://www.bhopal.net/resources/campaign-resources/.

Photo: Women demand compensation and health care for survivors in the Bhopal community at the 28^th anniversary protest of the world's worst industrial disaster (Giles Clarke/CC/Flickr)

Left candidate clinches victory in Uruguay presidential runoff

Tue, 02 Dec 2014 12:47:00 +0000

On Sunday, November 30, there were presidential runoff elections in Uruguay. To nobody's surprise, the election was won handily by former President Tabaré Vazquez of the Broad Front (Frente Amplio). The margin was large: 56.63 percent for Vazquez, and 43.37 percent for the candidate of the right wing National Party, Luis Alberto Lacalle Pou. The Broad Front retains a slim majority in both houses of Congress.

Tabaré Vazquez, a physician who was president of Uruguay from 2005 to 2010, replaces incumbent President José Mojica, also of the Broad Front. Uruguayan law does not allow immediate reelection of sitting presidents.

In the first round of the elections, held October 26, Vazquez and his vice presidential running mate, Raul Sendic, got 49.45 percent of the vote, almost avoiding a runoff. Lacalle Pou got 31.94 percent in the first round, while Pedro Bordaberry, son of former dictator Juan Maria Bordaberry, got 13.33 percent and the rest of the votes were spread among two other candidates.

The Broad Front is an electoral and legislative alliance of some 12 political parties, including the Uruguayan Communist Party, the Uruguayan Socialist Party, the Liber Seregni Movement, the Popular Participation Movement and others on the left.

Foreign media commentary has concentrated on outgoing President Mujica's self-effacing personal style and his government's experiments in legalizing marijuana use, abortion and same-sex marriage. Also sometimes mentioned is Mujica's offer to President Obama to take some of the prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base off his hands. Seldom mentioned is the fact that this offer was accompanied by a plea by Mujica for the freedom of the "Cuban Five".

However, the Vazquez victory should be seen also as falling within the context of the Bolivarian dynamic, a multinational movement in South America, Central America and the Caribbean, which seeks to reduce nations' dependence on, and submission to, the United States, while at the same time increasing horizontal economic integration and sociopolitical solidarity for the countries south of the Rio Grande. Though there are those on the left who disparage this phenomenon as fools' gold, a diversion from true revolutionary struggle, most communist and Marxist groups in the region see it as the best thing that has happened within the socialist movement in many years.

Although Uruguay is very small and is not part of the most radical component of the Bolivarian movement, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of our America, which was initiated by Cuba and Venezuela and now includes also Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and a number of small Caribbean island states, it has, under Vazquez and Mujica, played a supportive role, alongside such countries as Chile, Argentina and Brazil.

Starting with the election of Michelle Bachelet as president of Chile (for the second time) a year ago, no sitting left wing government in Latin America has been defeated for reelection in a twelvemonth. The left has won presidential elections in El Salvador, Bolivia, Brazil and now Uruguay, while centrists have been elected in Panama and Costa Rica. An effort by the ultra-right headed by former President Alvaro Uribe to oust President Santos of Colombia was thwarted by voters, allowing peace talks with the FARC guerrillas, which Uribe said he would scuttle, to continue. .

There are many problems for the left region wide, but it would seem that the "pink tide" in Latin American politics continues to predominate. Whether our own U.S. government is yet willing to accept this is another matter.

Photo: Tabaré Vazquez, Carlos Lebrato, Frente Amplio Uruguay