People Before Profit blog

Bacardi and the defense of Cuban sovereignty

Mon, 29 Feb 2016 11:21:00 +0000

The policy shift that the Cuban and U. S. governments initiated on Dec. 17, 2014 to ease the web of rules and sanctions preventing normal relations between two close neighbors certainly was an historic occasion. Fifty-five years of U.S. siege to isolate the island has posed a challenge for the Cuban government and people. Fundamental differences mainly in terms of a sovereign, independent state's right to self-determination are at stake.

Imperialist policies, state-directed terrorism, and the self-interest of multi-national corporations conspire against that right. But Cuba's struggle in defense of its sovereignty continues. U. S. dealings with the Bacardi Company, which sells Havana Club rum in the United States, is a case in point.

In January 2016, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office weighed in on determining ownership rights of the brand's trademark and decided against Bacardi. The United States was acknowledging that only the Arechabala family, not Bacardi, had been producing Havana Club in Cuba, beginning in 1934.

When Cuba's revolutionary government nationalized their company, the Arechabala family stopped rum production and exited Cuba. Its Havana Club trademark rights lapsed in that process. Later the Cuban government asserted its rights to the trademark, and in 1976 resumed production and worldwide sales. It did so as a joint venture with the Pernod Ricard company of France, more precisely with Pernod Ricard's affiliate Cubaexport. The U. S. economic blockade prevents Cubaexport from marketing Havana Club in the United States.

Another shoe was waiting to drop. Prior to the victory of the Cuban Revolution, the Bacardi Company also produced rum in Cuba. Its facilities in Cuba were also nationalized and Bacardi's owners decamped. Now Bacardi, founded in Cuba, is the world's largest privately owned - spirits manufacturer, with 30 distilleries located in many countries.

Bacardi asserts a claim on the Havana Club trademark on the strength of the Arechabala family having handed over trademark rights and the recipe. In 1994 Bacardi applied for U. S. recognition of its ownership of the Havana Club trademark. And with approval from the Arechabala family, it began marketing Havana Club rum in the United States, the rum actually being produced in Puerto Rico.

In 2006 Cuba sought U.S. recognition of Cubaexport's claim on trade mark rights for Havana Club. A legal battle ensued that ended in 2012 with a Supreme Court ruling in Bacardi's favor. Yet Cubaexport persisted, and in January the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office ruled in favor of Cuba. Bacardi, of course, is not giving up its fight.

There's more to the Havana Club story; the prime source is "Bacardi: The Hidden War" (Pluto Press, 2002). According to Hernando Calvo Ospina, the book's author, "Bacardi-Martini's (formerly Bacardi) efforts fundamentally have been aimed at wresting the Havana Club brand from its owners who had registered the brand name in five countries. [And yet f]our years prior to the Revolution's triumph, the Arechabala family did not re-register the brand name in Spain or the Dominican Republic ... and the name passed into what is known as the public domain."

Crucially, Calvo Ospina portrays Bacardi as manipulating U. S. legislative policies against Cuba for the sake of corporate profit. Within the context of intensified sanctions under the U. S. blockade against Cuba, Bacardi joined forces with the ultra-right wing Cuban American National Foundation to pursue a strategy aimed at obstructing any U. S. rapprochement with Cuba. Bacardi lavished political favor upon anti-Castro candidates of both major U. S. political parties, and the company's lawyers helped shape the Helms-Burton Law of 1996. Bacardi also funded lobbyists to assure its passage.

That legislation reinforced old ties between Batista henchmen, rightwing extremists, and radical ideologues who had waged war against Cuba for years in violation of international norms. The Helms-Burton Law codified into law what had been administrative regulations and the blockade gained new visibility as an issue within U. S. domestic politics.

And former owners of Cuban factories, land and industry- in this case the Bacardi Company -acquired an instrument enabling them to sue for compensation for property that had been legally nationalized in Cuba, even though the U.S. government had turned down the Cuban government's offer to provide compensation.

Florida politicians of both parties who talk about "protections" for intellectual property rights, the Havana Club trademark, for example, have in effect been employing code language for extending the blockade. Meanwhile the Bacardi-Martini Company profits from its 50 percent market share of rum sales in the United States. Its appropriation of a trade mark belonging in part to the Cuban government violates Cuba sovereignty, which the Cuban people haven't yet surrendered.

Bacardi is a multi-national entity, not a U. S. corporation. Its headquarters are in Bermuda, a tax-free haven for corporate profits. The hold that a "stateless" company exerts on U. S. politicians exemplifies the contradictions cluttering the history of U. S.-Cuba relations. As one way to resolve some of them, it would seem appropriate now to enable Cuba to use U. S. dollars for its commercial transactions and now to extend U.S. financial credit to Cuba for two-way trade with the United States.

Photo: Andrew Harnik/AP

India’s right-wing government targets student activist

Mon, 29 Feb 2016 10:25:00 +0000

The president of the Students' Union at the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi, Kanhaiya Kumar, was arrested on charges of "sedition" and "criminal conspiracy" on February 12. Coming just before several Indian state elections are due to be held, the case is playing out within the context of bigger national political divisions.

Kumar, who is also a member of the All-India Students' Federation, an organization affiliated with the Communist Party of India (CPI), has contended that his only "crime" was to defeat the candidate of the right-wing ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the contest for the JNU student presidency.

The charge against him stems from an assembly that took place three days earlier at the JNU campus protesting the 2013 execution of convicted terrorist and Muslim Kashmiri separatist, Mohammad Afzal Guru. The police contend that Kumar was the organizer of the demonstration at which "anti-Indian" slogans were raised.

When he was brought before the courts in police custody, a group of lawyers loyal to Indian Prime Minister Naendra Modi's BJP physically assaulted Kumar. Immediately after being beaten up, he stood before the court and declared, "Send me to jail if there is evidence against me. If not there should be no media trial against me."

"I am an Indian," he continued, "My patriotism and respect for secular values was well known."

Kumar contends that he was not an organizer of or participant in the February 9 event held in a park within JNU by a small group of students, at which the provocative statements urging the separation of the Kashmir region from India were allegedly heard. He told the court that he was only at the scene that day in an attempt to prevent a clash between event participants and other students from the right-wing All-Indian Student Council, an ally of the BJP.

It is believed the event was actually organized by a small group of Kashmiri students, perhaps affiliated to the Jammu and Kashmir People's Democratic Party (PDP), which previously ruled the state. Initially, none of them were arrested; only Karma was targeted by police. When asked by the judge why no one else affiliated to the demonstration was taken into custody, officers replied no one else could be identified and all had disappeared. Under public scrutiny, police have since reversed course and announced the arrest of two more suspects.

Karma's affiliation to the Students' Federation and the CPI leaves the charge of supporting a religious-based separatism with little credence. All the secular political parties in India have united in protesting the communalist policies of the BJP. Both of the country's communist parties (the CPI that Karma is connected to, as well as the Communist Party of India-Marxist, or CPI-M) are known as strong opponents of the religiously-divisive politics practiced by the ruling party, which is based on Hindutva, or Hindu chauvinism. Modi's BJP, for instance, has been stirring up violent conflict between Hindu and Muslim segments of India's population for several years.

The student wings of the two communist parties have dominated JNU's student union for decades. The university is named after the first prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, a beacon of India's freedom struggle, who founded the concept of "Mixed Economy Socialism." He introduced it as India's national policy in 1957. With the continued inability of BJP candidates to win the campus elections, it is believed that the legal case against Kumar is an escalation of the right-wing's effort to dislodge leftist student leaders.

To achieve their goal, they have resorted to using the contentious issue of Kashmir in the charges against Kumar. Since the founding of India and Pakistan, the Kashmir, which is divided between the two countries, has been a flash point of violent conflict. The BJP has pursued policies and employed rhetoric targeting the Muslim population, as well as secularists and the left, provoking further violence.

The trumped-up case against Kumar is not going unchallenged though. Secular lawyers' groups and social media workers staged a demonstration in Delhi protesting the physical assault on him in the court by BJP lawyers. The Indian National Congress Party, which ruled India for more than 50 years, has condemned the high-handedness of the police and the home minister who is responsible for law and order. The CPI and other left groups have also been protesting these attacks.

Kumar's next appearance before the court will be at a plea bail hearing scheduled for February 29.

Nitish Kumar, chief minister of Bihar state, which has more than a hundred million inhabitants, has challenged Prime Minister Modi to give his definition of "anti-nationalism" which makes up part of the charges against the student leader. "One week has passed since Kanhaiya was arrested and no government agency has succeeded in producing any evidence against Kanhaiya." The chief minister also asked, "Is it not a fact that the government has no evidence against him?"

He further raised the issue of how figures such as Mahatma's Gandhi's assassin, Nathu Ram Godse, have been glorified at events attended by government ministers, yet no action is taken against them. Godse was an activist in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) organization, which PM Modi has also belonged to, when he carried out the murder in 1948.

The Bihar leader also pointed to the political hypocrisy involved. "If talking of and [expressing a] slogan against the hanging of Afzal Guru, convicted of the terrorist attack on parliament, is a crime, and this meeting was called for that, and if slogans were shouted for separation of Kashmir were raised in there, and there are anti-national acts, then why is BJP keen to form an alliance with PDP party of Kashmir? Leaders of PDP have openly opposed the hanging of Afzal Guru."

That is why the charges against Kanhaiya Kumar must be understood against the backdrop of the elections to be held in several Indian states in the next few months. These include West Bengal and Kerala, the two states where CPI and CPI-M are offering a challenge to the parties in power. Secular unity is being forged in opposition to the ruling BJP, which is finding itself isolated and faces a rout, as its misrule has failed to improve its standing with the public.

The communist parties and other secular forces are isolating the BJP for its religious fanaticism and other right-wing policies. In the Kashmiri PDP, the BJP finds a Muslim religious fanatic ally for its own Hindu fanaticism. As mentioned, it is believed that it was precisely the student wing of that allied party which took advantage of the situation in the university to raise Kashmiri separatist slogans. Yet, in line with the political priorities of the BJP, none of the PDP-affiliated students was arrested. Instead, only the communist president of the student union was targeted.

The Indian people will answer Modi and the BJP's divisive policies at the state elections in the coming months.

Photo: AP

Colombian professor, jailed for his ideas, begins hunger strike

Wed, 24 Feb 2016 15:09:00 +0000

Miguel Ángel Beltrán, a sociology professor at Colombia's National University, is being held in maximum security at La Picota prison in Bogota. He began a hunger strike on Feb. 15. Beltrán studied armed conflict and social division in Colombia. His ideas displeased Colombia's rulers, and he's been imprisoned intermittently since 2009.

Why the hunger strike? He was doing it, he explained, out of solidarity with fellow political prisoners, hunger strikers among them, who've been protesting anti-human conditions in Colombia's prisons. He indicated also that he was defending critical thinking, his own cause.

Beltrán recalled that the government of President Juan Manuel Santos had recently promised to ease conditions for Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) prisoners of war and to arrange for evaluating their personal situations in order to prepare them for civilian life in a Colombia at peace. Beltrán also cited demonstrations three months earlier by political prisoners in 20 prisons who were demanding the release of prisoners who were very sick, elderly, or handicapped.

He denounced government inaction, adding, "I join with these men and women that today are on hunger strikes [protesting] overcrowding, no sunlight, scanty meals ... and sub-optimal medical services." He noted his own "commitment to defending critical thinking, to have it articulate theory along with transformative practice."

Left-leaning historian Renán Vega Cantor is a supporter of Beltrán and in a recent interview explained what "critical thinking" may have to do with Beltrán's imprisonment. According to Vega Cantor, the Colombian intelligence service during the previous presidency of Alvaro Uribe "maintained a list of activist intellectuals to be assassinated and did kill several of them. It was in that context that persecution of Miguel Ángel Beltrán was initiated ... because he simply had a different point of analysis as to the Colombian conflict."

He said Beltrán's analysis was about the "politics of criminalization of critical thinking and of attitudes opposed to the misnamed politics of "democratic security" under the Uribe government." For Vega Cantor, "Miguel Ángel exemplifies the dignity inherent in critical thinking, with convictions solid like steel, that bend neither to every kind of threat nor to false promises."

Beltrán was carrying out post-doctoral studies in Mexico when on May 22, 2009, police there arrested him. Disregarding a bi-national extradition treaty, they transferred him illegally to Colombia. Charged with the crime of rebellion, Beltrán would be in prison for 25 months before a judge issued a verdict in his case. Identifying him as "Jaime Cienfuegos," Colombian officials claimed Beltrán was a member of the FARC international commission. For President Uribe, he was the "most dangerous FARC terrorist."

Prosecutors supposedly had found incriminating evidence in computers belonging to Raul Reyes, a FARC leader. The Colombian military had taken possession of the computers after its March 1, 2008, bombardment (with U. S. assistance) of a FARC campsite in Ecuador that killed Reyes and others. Later on, the Supreme Court questioned the state's handling of the computer files and disqualified alleged evidence from that source in prosecutions. The files were being used as a tool for hobbling political opponents, Beltrán among them.

On July 27, 2011, a judge acquitted Beltrán, and he was released. In the judge's ruling she cited the earlier Supreme Court rejection of the evidence.

In 2013 Colombian Attorney General Alejandro Ordoñez ordered Beltrán fired from his academic post at the National University. Professors and students there protested, and Beltrán was able to return to teaching in early 2014. Ordoñez soon confirmed his order, decreeing also that Beltrán would be unable to teach at a public university for 13 years. The rector of the university, "functioning as a peon of the establishment" according to Vega Cantor, fired Beltrán.

In December 2014, the Superior Tribunal of Bogota overruled Beltran's acquittal and sentenced him to eight years in prison. Beltrán returned to prison in December 2015 and has been there since then. At Picota prison he shares space with common criminals and paramilitaries.

On January 25, 2016, Beltrán participated in a "cassation" process before the Supreme Judicial Court. "Cassation" refers to a last-resort appeal before a high court seeking review of previous legal interpretations rather than the facts of a case. Beltrán delivered his statement to the court by means of a video presentation recorded in prison. It's useful here for elucidating what "critical thinking" means to Beltrán.

Beltrán begins by emphasizing the "importance of freedom of thought as a fundamental component of knowledge and academic activity." He continues: "Freedom of thought has served the acquisition of knowledge in the face of interference from the political, economic, cultural, and religious powers."

Beltrán notes that he "has rigorously debated [his conclusions regarding] armed social conflict in Colombia in national and international settings, defending the thesis that armed social conflict has objective causes and is rooted in social inequality, injustice, and in social and political exclusion."

He explains that, "During the [presidential] term of Alvaro Uribe, it was prohibited to speak of armed social conflict, or it was only possible if one referred to the conflict in terms of a terrorist threat."

Beltrán regards peace being negotiated now in Havana "as a positive sign that it may soon be possible to think differently, to sustain [alternative] opinions." And, "my students are looking for signs that values proclaimed in my classes like honesty, tolerance, pluralism, and rigorous academic analysis are a really legitimate part of academic work."

Miguel Ángel Beltrán included an "anti-dedication" in his latest book, written in prison. It reads: "To Attorney General Alejandro Ordóñez; to Prosecutor Ricardo Bejarano, and to Judge Jorge Enrique Vallejo - Because with your incessant persecution you have strengthened me in my determination to defend critical thinking."

Photo: Miguel Ángel Beltrán, Agencia Prensa Rural

Irish voters to grade austerity

Tue, 23 Feb 2016 12:05:00 +0000

What looked like a smooth path to electoral victory for the Irish government has suddenly turned rocky, and the Fine Gael-Labour coalition is scrambling to keep its majority in the 166-seat Dail. A series of missteps by Fine Gael's Taoiseach [prime minister] Enda Kenney, and a sharply critical report of the 2008 Irish "bailout," has introduced an element of volatility into the February 26 vote that may end in a victory by an interesting, if fragile, coalition of leftists and independents.

The center-right Fine Gael and center-left Labour Party currently hold 99 seats, but few observers see them maintaining their majority. Fine Gael has dropped from 30 percent several months ago to 26 percent today, and Labour is only polling at 9 percent. That will not translate into enough seats to control the Dail, and putting together a ruling coalition will be tricky, particularly when polls indicate that the independent bloc has picked up 3 percent and is now the number one vote getter. In general, the independents are left or left-leaning.

The country is in the middle of an economic "boom," but that is a relative term. Ireland is still reeling from years of European Central Bank (ECB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) imposed austerity that doubled the rate of childhood poverty and saddled working people with onerous taxes, painful rate hikes and high unemployment. Wages have fallen 15 percent. Since 2008, almost 500,000 Irish-the majority of them young and educated-have emigrated from the country in search of jobs.

The government's trouble began in December, when torrential rains swamped parts of the country and Kenny's slow response to the disaster angered rural voters. Flood victims blamed the government for failing to invest in flood control, an infrastructure improvement that fell victim to the austerity regime.

Then the Fine Gael-Labour coalition was hit with a double whammy: a report by in-house auditors for the European Union and an Irish parliamentary study of the collapse of Irish banks from 2008 to 2010. The EU study found that the European Central Bank (ECB) had pressured the Irish government not to impose losses on "senior bondholders" and, instead, put the burden on taxpayers. According to the parliamentary study, the ECB threatened to withdraw emergency support for Irish banks - thus crashing the economy - if wealthy bondholders were forced to take losses. All of this came as news to most of the Irish.

The center-right Fianna Fail Party was in power when the great crash came in 2008, a crash that had nothing to do with government spending or debt, but was instead, the result of real estate speculation by banks and financial institutions. Irish land values jumped 800 percent, which should have warned the banks that a bubble was inflating. But the bondholders, speculators and banks did nothing because they were making enormous amounts of money. When the bubble popped, Irish taxpayers were forced to pick up the $67 billion tab.

Fianna Fail was crushed in the 2011 election, losing two-thirds of their deputies, and Fine Gael-Labour took over.

Part of the government's problem is that for the past five years it has been saying that it had no choice but to enforce the savage austerity regime of the ECB, but it is now trying to take credit for the recent improvement of the economy.

The coalition's mantra has been "stay the course," good times are ahead. The term the government is using is "fiscal space," or the estimated amount of money that will be available for investment if Ireland continued its economic recovery. According to Fine Gael that figure would be $12 billion between 2017 and 2021.

First, no one understood "fiscal space," a term used by the IMF. Even Deputy Prime Minister Joan Burton, a Labour Party leader, called it "a new kind of 'F' word" and said voters hadn't a clue what it meant. Asked to define it, Kenny said the Irish voters wouldn't understand it, a statement that managed to insult everyone. The government subsequently knocked the figure down to $10 billion, and the opposition said it was more like $8 billion.

And while Fine Gael is taking credit for the economy, critics are pointing out that it wasn't austerity, but a fall in world oil prices and a decline in the value of the euro that favors Ireland's export industry, that got the economy going.

Finally Kenny muffed a question about whether Fine Gael might consider a coalition with Fianna Fail because the Labour Party was dropping in the polls and might not hold its 33 seats. This enraged Labour, and Kenny had to mend fences and pledge that Fine Gael would never go into a government with Fianna Fail.

In short, the government is looking inept, and it is taking fire for its shift from "we had no choice in applying the austerity" to "we take all the credit for the current situation." Fintan O'Toole, the sharp-tongued columnist for the Irish Times and author of "Ship Of Fools," chronicling the financial greed that led to the 2008 meltdown, wrote of the government, "If you had no power, you can claim no credit; if you did have power, you have to account for how unjustly you used it."

Behind the cover of "It's not our fault," the government cut funds for caregivers, threw people off of National Health, cut support for the disabled and education, and did nothing about rising homelessness. As O'Toole points out, the improvements in the economy were because of oil prices, low interest rates and the falling euro, all "entirely outside the control of the Irish government."

In any case, the country is still deeply in debt and, while the jobless rate is no longer 15 percent, it is still just below 10 percent.

The Dail is a motley affair, with a host of small parties and a bloc of independents. Currently, the governing coalition of 99 seats consists of Fine Gael's 66 and Labour's 33. The center-right Fianna Fail (that inched up slightly in recent polls) has 21, and the leftist Sinn Fein has 14. The latter dropped three points in the poll from 20 percent to 17 percent. Other left parties include the Social Democrats, the Anti-Austerity Party, and there is a mix of mainly leftists in the independent bloc. The centrist Greens are showing some growth, as is the small rightist Renva Party.

Right now various stripes of the left hold 41 seats, a figure that is likely to go up in the coming elections. To control the Dail requires 80 seats, but if the independents do well, Sinn Fein holds its own, and Labour jumps ship, an anti-austerity coalition is possible.

In the end it may be a hung parliament, with no bloc of parties able to cobble together an effective government. Kenny may double-cross Labour and join with Fianna Fail. But whoever takes over, the policies of austerity have been deeply discredited during this election and anyone who tries to "stay the course" is in for stormy weather.

This article originally appeared at Conn Hallinan's blog Dispatches From the Edge.

Photo: Voters leave a polling station in Malahide, County Dublin, Ireland. | Peter Morrison/AP

New trade agreements: Potential for great harm or transnational unity

Mon, 22 Feb 2016 15:20:00 +0000

On February 4, the United States and 11 other countries in the "Pacific Rim" signed the controversial Transpacific Partnership (TPP), which encompasses 40 percent of the world economy. The other countries are Canada, Mexico, Chile, Japan, Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand, Brunei, Singapore and Peru.

Pointedly excluded is China.

Meanwhile, a parallel treaty is being negotiated between the United States and the European Union: The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). The European Union is also negotiating another such treaty with Canada, the CETA - Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement. Coming down the road is the Trade in Services Agreement, or TISA. All of these treaties are being negotiated in secret without input from the people, or even their elected legislative representatives. Much of what we know about them comes from leaks (including Wikileaks).

If all of these treaties are implemented, they will encompass most of the world's economy. And this is not good news for workers, minorities, indigenous people, small farmers, consumers and the planet.

There are many things wrong with the TPP, the TTIP, CETA and TISA-too many to cover in one article. But an overarching concern is that under these agreements, transnational corporations will have the power to override national laws, legislatures, governments and courts.

The "Investor-State Dispute Settlement" mechanisms contained in these treaties, and in others already in force, will empower corporate-dominated tribunals, not accountable to either the governments or the people, to negate national laws and judicial decisions and thus imperil labor, environmental and regulatory protections that the corporations fear will limit their future profits.

This is already starting to happen under existing "free trade" agreements.

In El Salvador protests led to the cancellation of a Canadian gold mining project which threatened to harm the water supply of small farmers. The Canadian company, Pacific Rim, sued El Salvador under the terms of the Central America-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement, and an Investor-State Dispute Settlement tribunal assessed a penalty of $315 million. A number of poor countries have received the same treatment under existing "free" trade agreements.

Under the TPP, TTIP, CETA and TISA, this sort of situation will be multiplied many times. Among other pressures caused by these agreements, the threat of such penalties is likely to increase the motivation for repressive regimes to use police violence to suppress the people's protests against transnational corporations that are engaging in abusive or destructive practices.

Even such a well off country as Australia finds itself in the same bind. An Australian law on cigarette packaging, designed to protect the country's citizens from lung cancer and emphysema, was successfully challenged by Philip Morris through an Investor-State Dispute Settlement action. In another case, Canadian courts had ruled against the pharmaceuticals transnational Eli Lilly on a question of product effectiveness, and the corporation used an Investor-State Dispute Settlement action to challenge the court order, to force the Canadian government to change its consumer protection laws and to get compensation to the tune of of $500 million. These and many other examples demonstrate the degree to which corporations under this kind of international treaty are given virtual veto power over the parliaments and courts of sovereign states.

The TPP has been the target of protests by indigenous people in the United States, Canada, Latin America and beyond. Indigenous peoples have in many cases found themselves on the front lines of resistance to the most abusive extractive projects that threaten the environment and the people's livelihoods. In the summer of 2013 the Nez Percé tribe of Idaho mounted successful protests to prevent the passage of heavy equipment through their reservation on the way to the Alberta Oil Sands operations in Canada. Members of the Nez Percé nation blocked a key highway over which a company was trying to transport the equipment. Tribal members were arrested, but a U.S. judge eventually ruled that the tribe was in the right and ordered the company to cease and desist. In their struggle, the Nez Percé were supported by other U.S. and Canadian indigenous communities, environmentalists and even the U.S. Forest Service.

In that and other cases, indigenous groups were able to withstand corporate assaults because of their own determination and courage, but also because of the sovereignty granted to them by treaties with the U.S. government over 250 years. In other affected countries there are similar legal protections for indigenous communities. With the TTP in force, what would happen to that sovereignty and those legal protections? Would some corporate lawyers in a Corporate-State Dispute Settlement tribunal be able to put an end to the ability of Native American communities to defend themselves and the environment? Under international and national laws, indigenous people have the right to "free, prior, informed consent" about projects to be carried out on their lands. Would this laudable principle survive a corporate full court press under the TTP or the TTIP?

The special United Nations Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous people, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, notes that poorer countries generally lose in these cases in part because the corporations have the money to mount very sophisticated legal campaigns. Tauli-Corpuz thinks indigenous groups may have to resort to Convention 169 of the United Nations International Labor Organization in these cases. This agreement, the Indigenous and Tribal People's Convention of 1989, fixes these rights in international law. Unfortunately, to date Convention 169 has not been signed by the United States, Canada, Britain, Germany, France, South Korea, Japan or other major industrialized countries which house the home offices of the most abusive transnational corporations.

For this reason and others, most progressive governments in Latin America are dead set against the TPP. The right wing governments of Mexico and Peru are enthusiastically pro TPP but face strong opposition from the grassroots.

Beyond Latin America, criticisms of the TPP come from the opposition and are directed at their own governments as well as the United States and the corporations. In Japan, farmers are particularly worried that under the TPP massive agricultural imports will wipe out their livelihoods, and have organized militant protests.

The European Parliament and the individual governments of the European Union are still on board with the other monster treaty, the TTIP. But there are very strong protests movements against it by the labor unions, environmental groups and the left. In Germany, an organization of judges has strongly protested the idea that corporate controlled tribunals would, under the terms of the TTIP, be able to completely bypass countries' court systems and thus undermine the national sovereignty of Germany and other countries . Environmental groups are also alarmed and aim to fight against the TTIP. There will soon be a small electoral test: The left wing Workers' Party in Ireland says it is going to make opposition to the TTIP a major plank in its program for the national elections coming up on February 26. This is a small scale political party but we will see if other Irish parties with higher electoral profiles can be persuaded or shamed into taking the same stance.

In the United States, opposition to the TPP comes from organized labor and environmental activists as well as indigenous groups. Democratic Party candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, and Republican candidates Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have come out against the TTP. But the Obama administration, which managed to get fast-track authority for the deal, continues to promote it.

Not much is being said here in the United States about the TTIP which has raised such protests in Europe. Yet it is part of the same corporate power grab, and affects us too. It is instructive to note that European labor fears that under the TTIP, weaker labor standards in the U.S. will drag European labor standards down. European opponents of the TTIP fear that U.S. private corporations will buy up publically controlled health care systems and other public services.

So we are all in the same boat. Worldwide opposition to the TTP, the TTIP and the other proposed treaties is united in its goals. What is needed now is actual unity of workers, small farmers, indigenous people and environmentalists in all the countries affected. To achieve this requires recognition that the enemy is transnational monopoly capital, not workers in other countries. We have to leave behind the divisive notion that "foreign workers want to take our jobs" and understand who the corporate, ruling class enemy really is.

One thing we must also leave behind is the unfortunate tendency to bash China and Vietnam. Vietnam has opted to be part of the TPP, probably because, like all countries, they need trade and thus don't want to be on the outside looking in. That is their business. But in the discussions about the TPP we see exaggerated and often downright false statements about Vietnam's labor policy. In the case of China, which is pointedly being left out of the TPP negotiations, a similar warning is in order. Scott Marshall of the SOAR Executive Board, District Seven, USW (AFL-CIO) points out that unions and workers in countries like Vietnam and China are not the enemy; that "honor" belongs to the rapacious transnational corporations that want to use these treaties to hurt workers everywhere.

Photo: Popular Resistance.org

GOP’s double rejection: Obama heads to Havana, Pope calls Trump’s wall un-Christian

Fri, 19 Feb 2016 13:43:00 +0000

It hasn't been the best couple of days for the GOP. First up was the White House's announcement that President Obama would be on his way down to Havana next month for a meeting with Raul Castro. When Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio got the news, they flipped out.

And if this latest step in Obama's turnaround of U.S.-Cuba relations wasn't bad enough, the Republican presidential slate took another hit on Thursday. For a gang that is always eager to trot out their religious credentials in order to shuffle Evangelicals along to the polls, it had to be a disappointment when no less an authority than Pope Francis himself called their frontrunner Donald Trump un-Christian for his proposal to build an anti-immigrant wall along the border with Mexico.

Turning the page on blockade and isolation

Obama's announcement that he will be making the trip to Cuba is the latest in a series of moves aimed at normalizing a relationship that has been fraught with tension for more than a half-century. Since their historic handshake at the funeral of Nelson Mandela in South Africa in December 2013, Presidents Obama and Castro have been setting a brisk pace in turning the page on decades of tension between the two countries.

The past two years have seen the freeing of the remaining Cuban Five prisoners, the announcement that diplomatic relations would resume, the removal of Cuba from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, the opening of embassies in each other's capitals, and the continuing easing of travel restrictions.

While the trade blockade imposed since 1960 remains in place, and Republican lawmakers vow not to lift it, the arrival of Obama in Havana will stand as the most important marker so far in rebuilding links between the Cuban and American people. Campaigns are underway to pressure lawmakers to take the last big step in ending the unnecessary confrontation between the U.S. and Cuban governments.

In a last-ditch effort to put the brakes on Obama's trip, at the GOP South Carolina town hall, Marco Rubio resorted to tired old talking points, saying Obama shouldn't go because "it's not a free Cuba." The other Cuban-American in the race, Ted Cruz, repeated similarly worn-out rhetoric, claiming that if he is elected, he would never visit Cuba "as long as the Castros are in power."

With the Cold War long over though, public opinion in the U.S. now supports ending the embargo by a wide majority and both Democratic candidates, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, are on record calling for its removal. Try as they might, the GOP may be unable to reverse the process of the U.S.-Cuba thaw, as even a majority of Republican voters nationwide now also support lifting the blockade. Furthermore, a majority of the Cuban-American community, which has historically been the group most opposed to normalization, now also say the embargo is bad policy. Republicans seem to have few allies still onside.

The International Committee for Peace, Justice, and Dignity (formerly the International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5) has issued a joint call along with IFCO/Pastors for Peace, the Institute for Policy Studies, the National Network on Cuba, and other solidarity organizations for a series of public events aimed at ending the blockade. They will be coordinating "Days of Action Against the Blockade," to take place in Washington, D.C. from April 18-22, 2016. The main goal of the mobilization is to put the pressure on Congress to act.

Building bridges, not walls

Tag-teaming with Obama in slapping down the ultra-right this week was Pope Francis, who said that Donald Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric and his plan to build a wall along the border with Mexico were - despite the latter's recent professions of faith - un-Christian.

In a mid-air press conference aboard the papal plane as he was flying out of Mexico, the Pope told reporters that, "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian."

The Pope was clear that he was not telling American Catholics how they should be voting, but his stances against racism, income inequality, and in favor of labor rights have garnered him the admiration of religious voters in the past. He said he would not get involved in the U.S. election, but referring to Trump's ideas about sealing borders and registering Muslims, the pontiff remarked, "I say only that this man is not Christian if he has said things like that."

His statements carried even greater resonance coming, as they did, immediately following his delivery of a message condemning injustice on the banks of the Rio Grande at the U.S.-Mexico border before an audience of 200,000. Blessing a makeshift memorial to the thousands who have died trying to cross the river, the Pope said, "Being faced with so many legal vacuums, [migrants] get caught up in a web that ensnares and always destroys the poorest."

Trump, of course, fired back. Speaking before a packed crowd at a golf resort, the real estate mogul offered the weak response that Francis was a just a pawn of the Mexican government. His remarks flew in the face of reality, however, given the Pope's widely recognized record of speaking out for workers and the oppressed.

Engagement and compassion

Taken together, the actions of President Obama and Pope Francis amount to a resounding rejection of both the foreign and domestic policy agendas being put forward by Republican leaders in this election.

They are more than just a rebuke of the hatred and division being sown by the GOP's top candidates though, and the importance of the examples they are setting goes beyond November 2016.

They show the kind of progress that is possible when engagement is valued over confrontation and compassion takes precedence over fear.

Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

Respect for human rights is best weapon against terrorism

Thu, 18 Feb 2016 12:19:00 +0000

Rosa Moussaoui is the Tunis, Tunisia, special correspondent for L'Humanité.

Lawyer, former president of the Tunis Bar, Maître Abdessatar Ben Moussa heads the Tunisian League for the Defence of Human Rights, one of the member organisations of the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2015.

The Nobel Committee stated: "The Arab Spring originated in Tunisia in 2010-2011, but quickly spread to a number of countries in North Africa and the Middle East. In many of these countries, the struggle for democracy and fundamental rights has come to a standstill or suffered setbacks. Tunisia, however, has seen a democratic transition based on a vibrant civil society with demands for respect for basic human rights.

"The National Dialogue Quartet has comprised four key organizations in Tunisian civil society: the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT, Union Générale Tunisienne du Travail), the Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts (UTICA, Union Tunisienne de l'Industrie, du Commerce et de l'Artisanat), the Tunisian Human Rights League (LTDH, La Ligue Tunisienne pour la Défense des Droits de l'Homme), and the Tunisian Order of Lawyers (Ordre National des Avocats de Tunisie).

"The Quartet was formed in the summer of 2013 when the democratization process was in danger of collapsing as a result of political assassinations and widespread social unrest. It established an alternative, peaceful political process at a time when the country was on the brink of civil war. It was thus instrumental in enabling Tunisia, in the space of a few years, to establish a constitutional system of government guaranteeing fundamental rights for the entire population, irrespective of gender, political conviction or religious belief."

R.M. Five years after the fall of the Ben Ali dictatorship, after the 2014 ratification of a new constitution, do you consider that democratic transition has been achieved in Tunisia?

Me. Abdessatar Ben Moussa Absolutely not. It's a long process. Democracy is easy to destroy but is very difficult to construct. It is true that Tunisia now possesses a constitution which enshrines human rights, collective and individual liberties, a civil state based on alternation of power, equal rights for men and women. However we have a long way to go: we hoped for more, with, for example, the abolition of the death penalty. Democracy cannot rest on a constitution and the holding of free elections.

Legislation is still not yet aligned with the Constitution: draconian laws are still in force in Tunisia. Journalists are still tried and imprisoned according to ancient laws though they are in conflict with legal decree 115 of 2011, relating to the freedom of the press. Equally, though the Constitution provides for the presence of a lawyer during police detention, Criminal Procedure Rules have still not been amended. However it's a fundamental safeguard against the torture and mistreatment that persists in police stations, in National Guard bureaus and in overcrowded prisons. Torture is no longer orchestrated as it was under Ben Ali but it's a culture that persists for the extraction of confessions. We have not had a radical transformation of the police and prison systems.

One positive thing is that the Tunisian League for the Defence of Human Rights has signed a convention with the ministry of the justice that allows us to visit prisons without notice. We are working on a similar agreement with the interior ministry to allow us to visit police stations. That said, we remain concerned and vigilant over the state of liberties in Tunisia.

R.M. Do you fear the consequences of implementing the fight against terrorism in a Tunisia placed under a state of emergency?

Me. Abdessatar Ben Moussa Obviously! The police carry out investigations, searches, without any judicial control. Every day we see attacks on fundamental freedoms enshrined in the Constitution. We remain convinced that respect for human rights is the best weapon against terrorism. Youths denied the right to work are easy prey to terrorist groups who recruit in the slums and poor rural areas. For as long as social and economic problems remain unresolved, as long as youth unemployment remains high, measures solely based on security are doomed to failure.

R.M. The program of change from dictatorship to the establishment of a system of transitional justice, is this progressing? How far are you towards creating a truth commission to examine crimes committed by the dictatorship?

Me. Abdessatar Ben Moussa This transitional justice system should have been in place by 2011. After five years it appears to be a problem for us... I do not believe we can achieve transitional justice based on the South African model. There are still people who belong in prison holding positions in the machinery of power. It's true a Commission for Truth and Dignity has started work, however, it was assigned to people based on partisan persuasion, during a period when the majority in the National Constituent Assembly was held by the troika dominated by Ennahda.

R.M. Most Arab countries that underwent popular uprisings in 2011 have plunged into war, chaos or the return to dictatorship. How has Tunisia managed to keep on the path to democracy?

Me. Abdessatar Ben Moussa After the assassinations of Chokri Belaïd and Mohamed Brahmi in 2013, we were on the brink of civil war. Mobilisation of civil society and the opening up of national dialogue allowed us to evade a political struggle fraught with dangers. The trick that Tunisia employed was to find a congruent and organised civil society and an elite imbued with progressive values. I also stress the central role of emancipated and militant Tunisian women who engaged in each step of the constitutional debate to defend their gains and acquire new rights. The course of events in Egypt also bore weight: political parties, with Ennahdha at the helm, understood that confrontation would lead only to destruction. Finally, the political powers accepted the debate. Several factors played a positive role. However this scenario cannot be replicated elsewhere such as in Libya or Syria.

R.M. For you, what is the most significant change Tunisia has undergone in the past five years?

Me. Abdessatar Ben Moussa I don't hesitate in saying freedom of expression, freedom of the press. In Ben Ali's era, no journalist could enter the headquarters of the Tunisian League for the Defence of Human Rights. It is an inalterable acquisition.

Original French article: Abdessatar Ben Moussa : « Le respect des droits humains est la meilleure arme contre le terrorisme » by Rosa Moussaoui

Translated by Adrian Jordan

Reposted from L'Humanité in English.

Photo: Ben Moussa Abdessatar with the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet. Ons Abid.

Are Europe’s left victories a triumph or a trap?

Wed, 17 Feb 2016 12:21:00 +0000

Over the past year, left and center-left parties have taken control of two European countries and hold the balance of power in a third. Elections in Greece, Portugal and Spain saw right-wing parties take a beating and tens of millions of voters reject the economic austerity policies of the European Union (EU).

But what can these left parties accomplish? Can they really roll back regressive taxes and restore funding for education, health and social services? Can they bypass austerity programs to jump start economies weighted down by staggering jobless numbers? Or are they trapped in a game with loaded dice and marked cards?

And, for that matter, who is the left? Socialist and social democratic parties in France and Germany have not lifted a finger to support left-led anti-austerity campaigns in Greece, Spain, Ireland, or Portugal, and many of them helped institute - or went along with - neoliberal policies they now say they oppose. Established socialist parties all over Europe tend to campaign from the left, but govern from the center.

Last year's electoral earthquakes were triggered not by the traditional socialist parties - those parties did poorly in Greece, Spain and Portugal - but by activist left parties, like Syriza in Greece, Podemos in Spain, and the Left Bloc in Portugal.

With the exception of Ireland's Sinn Fein, all of these parties were either birthed by, or became prominent during, the financial meltdown of 2008 that plunged Europe into economic crisis. Podemos came directly out of the massive plaza demonstrations by the "Indignados" [the "Indignant Ones"] in Spain's major cities in 2011.

Syriza and the Left Bloc predated the 2011 uprising, but they were politically marginal until the EU instituted a draconian austerity program that generated massive unemployment, homelessness, poverty, and economic inequality.

Resistance to the austerity policies of the "Troika" - the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund - vaulted these left parties from the periphery to the center. Syriza became the largest party in Greece and assumed power in 2015. Podemos was the only left party that gained votes in the recent Spanish election, and it holds the balance of power in the formation of a new government. And the Left Bloc, along with the Communist/Green Alliance, has formed a coalition government with Portugal's Socialist Workers Party.

Headaches for the left

But with success has come headaches.

Syriza won the Greek elections on a platform of resisting the Troika's austerity policies, only to have to swallow more of them. In Portugal the Left Bloc and Communist/Green Alliance are unhappy with the Socialist Party's commitment to repay Portugal's quite unpayable debt. Podemos proposed a united front with the Socialist Party, only to find there are some in that organization who would rather bed down with Spain's right-wing Popular Party than break bread with Podemos.

Lessons learned?

It is still too early to draw any firm conclusions about what the 2015 earthquake accomplished - and Ireland's election has yet to happen - but there are some obvious lessons.

First, austerity is unpopular. As Italy's prime minister, Matteo Renzi, put it after the Spanish election, "Governments which apply rigid austerity measures are destined to lose their majorities."

Second, if you are a small economy taking the power of capital head on is likely to get you trampled. The Troika did not just force Syriza to institute more austerity, it made it more onerous, a not very subtle message to voters in Portugal and Spain. But people in both countries didn't buy it, in large part because after four years of misery their economies are still not back to where they were in 2008.

The Troika can crush Greece - Portugal as well - but Spain is another matter. It is the 14th largest economy in the world and the fifth largest in the EU. And now Italy - the fourth largest economy in the EU - is growing increasingly restive with the tight budget policies of the EU that have kept the jobless rate high.

But can these anti-austerity coalitions force the Troika to back off?

A major part of the problem is the EU itself, and in particular, the eurozone, the 19 countries that use the euro as a common currency. The euro is controlled by the European Central Bank, which, in practice, means Germany. In an economic crisis most countries manipulate their currencies - the U.S., Britain, and China come to mind - as part of a strategy to pay down debt and re-start their economies. The members of the eurozone do not have that power.

Germany pursues policies that favor its industrial, export-driven economy, but that model is nothing like the economies of Greece, Portugal, Spain, or even Italy. Nor are any of those countries likely to reproduce the German model, because they do not have the resources (or history) to do so.

Complicating matters are political divisions among the Troika's left opponents. For instance, Syriza is under attack from its left flank for not exiting the eurozone. Former Syriza chief economic advisor Jannis Milios charges that Syriza has abandoned its activist roots and become simply a political party more interested in power than principles. There are similar tensions in Spain and Portugal.

No easy choices

But the choices of what to do are not obvious,

Withdrawing from the eurozone can be perilous. In Greece's case, the European Central Bank threatened to shut off the country's money supply, making it almost impossible for Athens to pay for food, medical and energy imports, or finance its own exports. In short, economic collapse and possible social chaos.

But following the policies of the Troika sentences countries to permanent debt, rising poverty rates, and a growing wealth gap. Portugal has one of the highest inequality rates in Europe, and Spain's national unemployment rate is 21 percent, and double that among the young. Greece's figures are far higher.

The left coalitions are far from powerless, however. Portugal's coalition government just introduced a budget that will lift the minimum wage, reverse public sector wage cuts, roll back many tax increases, halt privatization of education and transport, and put more money into schools and medical care. Which doesn't mean everything is smooth sailing. The coalition has already fallen out over a bank bailout, and it disagrees on the debt, but so far the parties are still working together. Jeremy Corbyn, the newly elected left leader of the British Labour Party, hails the Portugal alliance as the beginning of an "anti-austerity coalition" across the continent.

There are also interesting developments going on in Spain that address the tensions between street activism and political parties. Emily Achtenberg, a long-time housing expert from Boston and a reporter/analyst for NACLA, has studied Barcelona's "Platform of People Affected by Mortgages" (PAH). PAH came out of Spain's catastrophic housing crisis brought on by the financial meltdown of 2008. Some 650,000 homes are in foreclosure, and 400,000 families have been evicted.

With the help of Podemos, progressive activists won control of the big cities of Madrid, Barcelona, Cadiz, and Zaragoza. Ada Colau, the mayor of Barcelona, is a founder of PAH.

In Spain, homeowners are responsible for debts even after declaring bankruptcy, debts that can block them from renting an apartment, buying a home or purchasing a car.

At the same time, according to the 2013 census, 34 million homes and apartments - 14 percent of the country's housing stock - are vacant, most owned by banks. And since the city has become one of Europe's tourist magnets, "tens of thousands of once-affordable apartments are marketed to tourists through online platforms like Airbnb," says Achtenberg, exacerbating the situation. But PAH and its allies on the city council have slowed down the evictions, cracked down on unlicensed Airbnb owners, and leaned on the banks to free vacant homes and apartments.

PAH now has some 200 chapters all over the country and is planning to press the national parliament to end the "debt for life" law. While allied with Podemos, PAH has maintained its political independence, working both sides of the street: sit-ins and protests, and running for office.

"A perennial question," says Achtenberg, "is whether the impetus for progressive change comes from inside the institution, or from the streets. In Barcelona today, it seems that both strategies are needed, and are working." As Colau says, for progressive movements "both are indispensable. For real democracy to exist, there should always be an organized citizenry keeping an eye on government - no matter who is in charge."

Putting people in apartments and raising minimum wages does not overthrow capitalism, but many activists argue that such victories are essential for convincing people that change is possible and that the Troika is not all-powerful. They also play to the left's strong suit: building a humanistic society.

Finding that fine line between change and co-optation is not easy, and one formula does not fit all circumstances. Spain has more breathing room than Portugal and Greece simply because it is bigger. The Portuguese may find their path a bit easier simply because they have allies in the eurozone. As Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras says, "I think it is not so easy to change Europe when you are alone."

In the end the path may be like that old peace song: "If two and two and 50 make a million, we'll see that day come 'round."

This article originally appeared at Conn Hallinan's blog Dispatches From the Edge.

Photo: A Podemos rally in Coslada, Spain, January 2015. Wikimedia Commons

Bolivia’s socialist government seeks referendum approval; U.S. intervenes

Wed, 17 Feb 2016 10:22:00 +0000

The government of Bolivian President Evo Morales is seeking popular approval for a referendum that would, by modifying Bolivia's constitution, enable Morales and Vice-President Álvaro García Linera to stand for re-election twice rather than once. The vote takes place on February 21st.

Over ten years, Morales and his supporters have molded a socialist and anti-imperialist government whose future will be affected by the outcome. Morales is Bolivia's longest serving president and first indigenous one.

Defenders of the old order in Bolivia, U.S. officials among them, have mobilized to defeat the referendum. Success on their part would surely trigger concerns that Bolivia may be joining Venezuela, Argentina, and Brazil as nations where formerly bold progressive political movements are now beleaguered.

Former Cuban National Assembly head Ricardo Alarcon testified recently to the achievements of Bolivia's present government: "Never has so much been done, in such a short time, for the emancipation of a people subjugated for centuries."

The government has reduced poverty by 25 percent, extreme poverty by 50 percent. The minimum wage has increased 87.7 percent. The state's budget for healthcare rose from $195 to $600 million between 2005 and 2012. Death rates for babies and mothers giving birth are down. Nationalization of hydrocarbon extraction enabled funding for such changes.

The average annual economic growth rate over ten years has been 5.1 percent, the best in the region. Now internal economic demand is "the principal motor of economic growth." Inflation in Bolivia is the second lowest in South America.

And, according to Argentinian journalist Juan Manuel Karg, 40 percent of the population receives social security benefits - retirees, students, and mothers of young children. The government has refashioned 700 education centers and enrolled 955,000 people in literacy programs. In 1992 owners of large land holdings controlled almost 40 percent of all land. By 2015, however, the state had charge of 24.6 percent of land, and indigenous peoples, 23.9 percent. Owners of small and mid-sized holdings controlled 18.2 percent and 6.7 percent, respectively.

Karg adds that "Bolivia has become an influential voice in Latin America," especially in alliances dedicated to regional unity. Morales himself has gained worldwide attention as an advocate for sustainability and environmental protection. Additionally, most Bolivians are indigenous and the multi-national Bolivian state - as per Bolivia's 2009 Constitution - ensures indigenous representation in parliament, judicial autonomy for indigenous peoples, and a measure of self-government.

But good news like this is hardly on the agenda of a right-wing opposition mobilized to defeat the upcoming referendum. Big landowners, manufacturers, and oil industry heads are backing the campaign. They are alleging governmental corruption and ties to narco-trafficking. Earlier during Morales' tenure, many of those forces resorted to violence and racism as they propelled a separatist project aimed at regaining control of Bolivia's productive eastern territories.

Buenos Aires academician Atilio Borón diagnoses a revived anti-Morales conspiracy. "Its epicenter is in Washington, D.C.," he says. His claim is that the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute, affiliates of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), are "financing opposition political activities." These U.S. agencies arrange for the "arrival of agents and advisors ready to instruct youths, women, and indigenous people on themes relating to democracy."

Borón reports that the U.S. embassy in La Paz released $200,000 toward turning back the referendum. Borón names U.S. agents and the right-wing Bolivian politicians they are involved with. In December 2015, the Bolivian government expelled U.S. Vice Consul Ari Avidar; as a CIA agent he allegedly was holding "clandestine meetings with leaders of social movements." A report in 2015 described a recent sting operation carried out by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) resulting in indictments against Bolivian military and police officials.

President Morales in 2008 expelled U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg and the DEA; he accused both of trying to undermine his government. According to Borón, "between 2003 and 2014 the NED dispensed $7.7 million to 20 institutions in Bolivia, always with political objectives." The sum included a half million dollars paid to Bolivia's National Press Association.

An International Committee of Latin American intellectuals, artists, and political writers recently announced its support for Morales in the upcoming referendum. In January the Congress of the Bolivian Workers' Central (COB), the country's largest labor organization, backed the "struggle to build a new socialist society," called for "an alliance of peasants and workers," and expressed support for the "constitutional modification."

The stakes are high. Ricardo Alarcón recalls Tupak Katari. Spanish colonialists tortured and killed the indigenous leader in 1781, but not before he proclaimed, "I will die but I will return and be millions." Alarcón suggests that "Evo and his people have converted that prophecy into a reality."

Photo: AP

Virtual war against Cuba and the fate of Ana Belen Montes

Fri, 12 Feb 2016 15:04:00 +0000

She is a political prisoner, but more; Ana Belen Montes could be considered a prisoner of war. I refer to the U.S. political and economic war against Cuba. She took sides in that war: specifically, she authored a Defense Department report in 1998 claiming that Cuba represented no military threat to the United States. Her report is supposed to have covered up Cuba's non-existent chemical and biological warfare capabilities.

Imprisoned as the result of her anti-U.S. government action, Belen Montes is a prisoner of conscience.

At her sentencing in 2002 she told the judge: "I obeyed my conscience rather than the law. ... I felt morally obligated to help the island defend itself from our efforts to impose our values and our political system on it." And: "What matters to me is that the Cuban Revolution exists ... What's necessary is that there always be a Cuban Revolution."

The FBI arrested Belen Montes two weeks after September 11, 2001. To avoid a death sentence for treason, this high - level analyst for the U.S. Defense Intelligence Service pled guilty to conspiring to commit espionage for Cuba. Belen Montes received no money. The former specialist in Cuban and Latin American affairs is serving a 25-year jail term.

The five Cuban anti-terrorist agents jailed in the United States between 1998 and 2014 - the Cuban Five - benefited from a U. S. and worldwide solidarity campaign, until now non-existent for Montes. That may be because the Cuban government stood up for its own citizens and because the Five gained favor for having monitored private terrorist groups and not the U. S. government primarily.

Now maybe Belen Montes' time has come. An international campaign on her behalf has been building, with committees taking shape in Latin America, Europe, Canada, and the United States. Three petitions, accessible here, here and here, are circulating; one asks for her release, two for humane treatment. Defenders charge that in prison in Texas, Belen Montes is isolated from the general prison population and prevented from receiving visitors, telephone calls and emails.

At the time of her trial the odds were slim that Belen Montes could avoid harsh punishment. Fear and vengeance prevailed in the United States following the September 11 terror attacks. Official rhetoric cast Cuba as an enemy.

Reporting on Cuban espionage activities in early 2003, the New York Times cited policy makers affirming that "Mr. Castro's Communist government remains a threat to American national security." State Department official Otto Reich was quoted as saying, "These activities and others prove that they are a hostile country." According to the Wall Street Journal in 2002, State Department reports indicated that, "Cuba has at least some bio-weapons technology and has expressed concern that Cuba could share the science with rogue states."

Even in 2014, a right wing website was accusing Belen Montes of being "one of the most damaging spies in US history." Allegedly, she was "shaping US foreign policy on Cuba." Specifically,

The prevailing notion of danger from Belen Montes is hardly favorable to chances the U. S. government will soon ease her prison conditions or pardon and release her. Likewise, continuing U. S. hostility toward Cuba is bad news for her.

U.S. aggression against Cuba persists despite the restoration recently of bi-national diplomatic relations. The U. S. economic blockade remains, counterrevolutionaries inside Cuba still enjoy U. S. support and money, Cuban land in Guantanamo is still occupied, and the Cuban Adjustment Act, a cold-war legacy, remains in force.

On that account, the burgeoning solidarity movement on her behalf seemingly has little choice but to join with the ongoing push to finish off anti-Cuban U. S. aggression, which, from the start, has been cruel and, under international law, illegal. The thought here is that what happens to Ana Belen Montes will play out within that context to the advantage of both struggles.

Harsh U.S. treatment of Belen Montes itself testifies to the persistence of U.S. all-but-war against Cuba. And the fight to normalize relations with Cuba fits within the larger category of generalized U. S. anti-imperialist struggle. So, logically, there are two struggles encompassing the campaign for Belen Montes' freedom and for decent treatment in prison.

When Belen Montes was arrested and prosecuted, her family's Puerto Rican origins may have given rise to suspicions she sympathized with Cuba and Puerto Rico's shared anti-colonial struggle. Maybe she does. But the Puerto Rican independence struggle, at least as represented by Puerto Rican political prisoner Oscar Lopez Rivera, has taken up her cause unequivocally.

Lopez Rivera recently issued a statement saying: "I think that every Puerto Rican who loves justice and freedom should be proud of Ana Belen. What she did was more than heroic." Thus it seems possible the campaign on behalf of Belen Montes can escape isolation. Instead it could take on the colorings of two larger campaigns that are really the same: one to normalize U. S. relations with Cuba and the other to resist imperial overreach.

Photo: Belen Montes. | Wordpress

In Germany, too, the right wing scapegoats immigrants

Fri, 12 Feb 2016 11:11:00 +0000

"Shoot them down!" That's one answer to the problem of refugees and immigrants flooding into Germany, clearer even than any Trump-wall. It was offered by Frauke Petry, head of Alternative for Germany (AfD), the fast-growing party which, now at 12 percent nationally, has moved up into third place, outstripping the Greens at 9-11 percent and the Left party (LINKE) at 8-10 percent.

No slips of tongue, finger, or mouse

Backing up Petry was her deputy Beatrix von Storch, who wrote in Internet: "That's the law. People coming out of Austria have no right of asylum. And those on duty at the border may use their firearms ... against people who resist repeated orders to halt by trying to flee." When a journalist asked if this applied to women and children she answered approvingly "Ja." Her response shocked so many that Frau von Storch backtracked, claiming that her finger had slipped on the mouse; she hadn't really meant it after all. But Storch and Petry had indeed quoted a West German law of 1961. Sarcasm went viral about the troubles of a Storch (German for stork) with a mouse, but also about the years of reproach against GDR border guards for invoking a very similar law.

Their words, though lamely retracted, were no slips of tongue, finger, or mouse but well calculated to appeal to widespread, growing fears and hatred toward "invading foreigners," especially "Islamists." For a while most of the media supported Angela Merkel's surprising statement last summer that all refugees were welcome. But the worst of the gutter press and, a bit more cautiously, many on TV, now dwell increasingly on unpleasant difficulties in integrating and housing over a million arrivals and stridently reporting any crimes or misdemeanors committed by men with foreign-sounding names.

Episodes like the groping and mugging on New Year's Eve, though probably not by recent immigrants, provided a field day for those with racist sentiments - and the AfD kept growing, ever bigger, ever more dangerous. Its Pegida soulmates in Dresden (if such people have any kind of souls) still march every Monday, though recently with diminishing numbers. Their attempts to go European, with rallies in Warsaw, Amsterdam, Prague, and Milan, almost unanimously fizzled, with only a few dozen, at most a few hundred adherents scowling angrily at their adversaries. This was good news. But over ten percent would vote for Pegida if it fields candidates. If it doesn't, most would vote for the very similar AfD.

Bowing to the pressure

There is a marked indirect result; in Bavaria, which sits on all entry portals from the South, its strong, separate sister party of Merkel's CDU always pushes from the further right. Worried about losing ground to the AfD, it is making constant demands that immigration rules be toughened. Merkel's party, beset by its tough Bavarian siblings and facing three important state elections in March, is anxiously watching its popularity slip downward and at signs of mutiny against Merkel's hitherto unchallenged rule. It has been bowing to the pressure and dragging its limp Social Democratic partners with it. There were many quarrels: How many refugees should be sent back to Algeria, Afghanistan, Sudan, or Syria? How quickly? Many are unmarried men, many others are young husbands hoping to fetch wives and children they left behind. How many may do so? How many years should they wait? How many of the several thousand unaccompanied children must wait two years before their parents can join them?

The LINKE, though also uncertain about such complex matters, stresses that the wars and poverty causing the immigration must be confronted. It opposes sending German AWAC planes over Syria, it demands an end to weapon sales to all governments involved, it opposes a one-sided policy blaming only Assad and Putin while shutting eyes and supporting, with kindest words and deadliest weapons, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey, which stoke the misery and keep bombing Kurds and Yemenis.

Progressives, though (quite uniquely) approving Merkel's earlier humanitarian words, were skeptical about her deeds when she said, "If Europe fails on the question of refugees, it won't be the Europe we wished for," they wondered what kind of Europe that might be. Thinking of her strangulation of Greece and general "austerity" policy for poorer counties, poorer mostly thanks to German wealth, they were hardly euphoric.

Pressure from the AfD and its allies push the whole political establishment rightward, rather like Trump, less crudely but also reflecting general dissatisfaction with "status quo parties." Could we see anything here like the "Bernie revolution" and its euphoria?

In Germany we already have a leftist party, the LINKE. Some of its leaders and members fought hard and won points on many issues despite media treatment nastier than any against Sanders (as yet!). There are many other fighting organizations. None have achieved anything like Bernie's charisma.

Calling for a new start

Did a new candidate appear on the horizon or, more precisely, on the stage of Berlin's Volksbühne theater on Feb. 9? Yanis Varoufakis, the 54 year-old, noble-nosed, head-shaven, motorcycling ex-Finance Minister of Greece, who left the Syriza government to protest its knuckling down to the commands of the financiers, called for a new start, not just in Greece but in all of Europe. Naming it the Democracy in Europe Movement (DiEM25), it aimed at a new constitution for the European Union by 2025 (hence the name). He shared the stage with many leftists, from LINKE co-chair Katja Kipping and Podemos politician Miguel Crespo Urban, and with some per video screen, like Barcelona mayor Ada Colau, U.S. economist James Galbraith, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and Slovenian intellectual Slavoj Zizek. But not all were fully convinced.

Unlike some on the left, he wants neither to wreck nor leave the European Union, but wishes instead to save it, and with it all of Europe, from itself. Alarmed by a nearly total lack of solidarity for Greece last year, by the austerity crisis, the almost overwhelming immigrant onset and the growing danger of far-right forces like AfD, Golden Dawn, Le Pen and men like Geert Wilders, he wants no exit from the euro and no calls for social uprisings or split-offs of the EU but rather its united defense, regardless of party, even a disregard of parties.

He said: "I am proudly Left but DiEM25 is more than that. Neoliberalism has made social democracy impossible. I ask all democrats, social democrats, liberal democrats: can you live with this? We are radical in a way that liberal democrats must be if they are to survive." His main call is for transparency and video coverage of European Union activities, with large-scale democratization the only way to prevent collapse and rightist chaos.

Other groups, like Attac, Blockupy, and the LINKE are making plans of their own for a hopefully growing number of ever larger demonstrations, urging European-wide solidarity and big change while opposing gathering shadows from the right. They will also watch the new DiEM25 with interest.

Since it and many protests will locate in Berlin, where elections are due in September, a brief look at its political scene is warranted. It is already warming up (like the weather this winter) but while Social Democrats, Christian Democrats, Greens, and the LINKE are watching polls rise and fall (in just that popularity order at the moment, a nasty new addition is expected; again the AfD, truly bloodthirsty buccaneers, while other quite peaceful pirates will soon be missing.

In 2006 the audacious young Pirates party, with its logo flag boldly billowing, cast anchor in Berlin. Its defense of internet freedom and transparent democracy was so attractive that it soon won almost 9 percent of the vote and 15 seats in the legislature and spread to other parts of Germany. It seemed to lean in a portside direction.

But as with pirate crews of yore (and modern portside-leaners, too, alas), it was soon rent by quarrels; a few sailed upwards and more to starboard, others quit political sea-faring altogether. Some, in their often daring apparel and hairdos, stayed bravely on. Most conspicuously, the head Pirate in Berlin's legislature dug deeply and bravely into the dunghill of incompetence and buried-treasure corruption which have turned the new hub airport, planned to open in 2012 but due now, just maybe, in 2017, into a national joke. But he too, noting that the party has long stagnated at three percent and can hardly remain in office after September, decided to abandon ship with 34 fellow Pirates and, most interestingly, to support the LINKE (Left).

What this may mean is uncertain. Some in the Berlin LINKE hope for renewed strength from young people and want to join with the Greens in replacing the Christian Democrats (CDU) in a new coalition with the Social Democrats (SPD). Is that a Varoufakis direction? Others recall with worried melancholy that every time the LINKE has joined a coalition in Germany it ended up weaker than before. Yes, there are some good people here, too, but a Bernie Sanders or two would be a big help!

Photo: Syrian migrants leave a bus near the Austrian border in Hegyeshalom, Hungary, after Austria said it and Germany would let them in. | AP

Haiti: President Martelly steps down, interim government formed

Wed, 10 Feb 2016 13:57:00 +0000

Finally responding to angry protests, Haitian President Michel Martelly, the son of a Shell Oil executive, stepped down on Sunday. This opens the way to the creation of an interim government to organize a new presidential election.

Martelly came to power in May of 2011 in the wake of the disastrous January, 2010 earthquake that killed as many as 200,000 Haitians and destroyed a huge amount of infrastructure. Martelly was seen by many as a figure of the right, compromised by his past ties to the old dictatorship of the Duvaliers: Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier and Jean Claude "Baby Doc," his son.

Martelly was involved in disturbances and a coup in 2004 which swept into exile the legally elected president of Haiti, the radical priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide. That coup was abetted by the George W. Bush administration in the United States, with the support of the French and Canadian governments.

The U.S., French and Canadian governments, along with the Haitian elite, disapproved of Aristide's radical politics, in particular his call for reparations from France for the years during which the Haitian people were enslaved on French-owned sugar plantations, and the damage done to the Haitian economy by French government actions after the country won independence from France in 1803.

Since then, the main direction of the Haiti policy of the powerful capitalist industrialized countries has been, in the first place, to prevent Aristide, or anybody like him, from returning to power, and in the second place, to make sure that Haiti follows a development strategy based on attracting direct foreign investment by maintaining low wages and limited labor and environmental regulation.

Martelly had gained popularity as an entertainer, being known for earthy musical performances. He also appealed to former soldiers of the pre-Aristide period: Aristide had disbanded the Haitian army for the good reason that it had become an element of instability in the body politic, regularly committing human rights abuses and fomenting coups d'etat.

But he came to power not only because of his own limited popularity, but also through heavy-handed intervention by the United States and other major foreign powers. In the first round of the 2010-2011 presidential elections, he did not initially make the runoff. This was changed at the insistence of then U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration, who pressured Haitian election authorities to remove the original second place candidate, former official Jude Celestin, and replace him with Martelly.

During Martelly's regime there were more disasters. A cholera epidemic sickened nearly 800,000 and killed nearly 9,000 to date (and it is still raging); it was traced to unsanitary disposal of human waste by Nepalese troops who were part of a seemingly eternal U.N. "peacekeeping" mission, inserted after the 2004 coup, that has come to be widely resented by the Haitian poor.

Then a major conflict arose with the Dominican Republic, whose government decided to strip the citizenship of many thousands of people born there but of allegedly Haitian descent. They and more recent, Haitian-born migrants have been threatened with mass deportation to Haiti, a country which is much poorer than the Dominican Republic and is far from having recovered from the 2010 earthquake and the cholera epidemic.

Thousands of migrants and Dominican-Haitians, not wanting to wait to be deported, have migrated over the border into Haiti, and are piling up in refugee camps with minimal facilities.

The election picture has been chaotic. During Martelly's five years in power there were no regular legislative elections because of disputes between the Martelly administration and the legislative opposition as to how these should be run to assure fairness.

So Martelly, who cannot be re-elected, was essentially ruling by decree for several years. When legislative elections were eventually held, with a first round on Aug. 9 of last year, there were accusations of outrageous fraud, which were repeated during the legislative runoffs and the first round presidential elections on Oct. 25.

The worst of these was that with a little more than a million people voting (a turnout of only 17.8 percent of eligible voters), 900,000 candidates' poll watchers had been given special credentials which effectively allowed them to vote multiple times in different polling places. This became such a scandal that these credentials were being sold in the street to the highest bidder. The first round of the presidential elections, also on Oct. 25, featured no fewer than 54 candidates.

The two candidates who made it to the runoff included, once again, Jude Celestin who had been pushed out of the runoff the last time, and Martelly ally Jovenal Moise, known as "the banana man" because his only known accomplishment has been as a banana exporter who is accused of growing his crops land from which he had pushed peasant cultivators.

All Hell broke loose when the opposition candidates, including Celestin, denounced the presidential

election results as fraudulent, and several members of the Election Commission resigned for the same reason. Nevertheless Martelly insisted on going on with the runoff election scheduled for Dec. 27.

Large scale protests forced postponement until Jan. 17, but Martelly, backed by the

United States and the Organization of American States, still insisted on doing the runoff even though Celestin refused to participate and many sectors were calling for an interim government until a cleaner election could be organized at a later date. Opposition protesters began to clash with pro-Martelly ex soldiers who supported the incumbent because of his promises to restore the army.

At the last possible moment, on February 7, the last day of his term in office, Martelly finally backed down and signed an agreement with parliamentary leaders (Senator Jocelerme Privert and Lower House leader Cholzer Chancy).

According to this agreement, Prime Minister Evans Paul will run the country until, supposedly five days from Sunday, an interim president can be picked by the legislature. The interim president will serve for 120 days while new elections are organized to be held no later than April 24, with a new president inaugurated on May 14.

Whether this arrangement will calm tensions has yet to be seen. But Haiti's troubles will not cease to intensify until the basic problem, namely the poverty perpetuated by powerful countries' treatment of Haiti as a source of profits for monopoly capital and not as a nation, is tackled.

Photo: Haitian president Martelly. | AP

Left government possible in Spain, but social democrats divided

Thu, 04 Feb 2016 11:31:00 +0000

After weeks of political wrangling in Spain after inconclusive parliamentary elections saw no party win a majority, an arrangement among the spectrum of left-wing parties to install a social democratic-led government now appears possible.

On December 20^th last year, voters went to the polls to elect the lower house of the Cortes, or Spanish parliament. With no single party capturing enough seats to rule on its own, the outcome has been a nightmare for anyone trying to put together a coherent majority government.

One after another, the major party leaders have come calling on the head of state, King Felipe VI, to discuss the formation of a new government. So far, none of them have met with much success.

Acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, whose right-wing People's Party (PP) has governed since 2011, told the King that he would be unable to form a new government. His party lost more than 50 seats this time, only managing to secure 123 spots in the 350-seat Cortes. He has not found other parties who are willing to prop up his government and reach the 176-seat majority needed.

A "Portuguese solution"

But last week, it appeared a deal might be possible that would put in power a new government headed by the Socialist Workers' Party (Partido Socialista de los Obreros de España, or PSOE) and supported by the left-wing PODEMOS Party, the Spanish Communist Party, and other allies.

This possible fix is being called a "Portuguese solution." Parliamentary elections held in Spain's western neighbor on October 4^th produced a similar outcome of no single party winning a majority. There, a government was put in place headed by the Socialist Party's António Acosta and supported by the Portuguese Communists, Greens, and the "Left Bloc".

These leftist groups did not ask for cabinet positions, so it was not a formal "coalition government," but rather an accord between the signing parties. Because their priority was to get rid of the previous right-wing government and its reactionary policies, the leftist parties agreed to have their parliamentarians vote with a Socialist Party government in order to keep it in power.

In Spain, somewhat equivalent political parties exist. The PSOE, which won 90 seats, resembles the Portuguese Socialist Party. PODEMOS, with 69 seats, has a program similar to the Portuguese Left Bloc. And the United Left, which is centered on the Spanish Communist Party and won two seats, resembles a similar alliance that the Portuguese Communist Party built with the Greens.

But the Spanish situation is complicated by the existence of political parties which advocate the independence of Catalonia in the Northeast and the Basque country in the Northwest. These parties also divide along a left-right axis. In Catalonia, the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (Catalan Republican Left), which holds 9 seats in the Cortes, is on the left, while the Democracy and Freedom Party, which has another 8 seats, is on the right.

In the Basque country, the left Euzkadi Herria Bildu (Basque Country Unite) has 2 seats, while the right-wing Euzko Alderdi Jeltzalea (Basque Nationalist Party) holds 6 seats.

A further complicating factor is the existence of a conservative protest party, Ciudadanos (Citizens), which strongly opposes the programs of the Catalan "separatist" parties especially, and has a brand-new presence of 40 seats.

Can a government of the left be formed either by cobbling together a coalition which reaches the magic number of 176 parliamentary seats or on the Portuguese plan of installing an all-PSOE government which the left agrees, on certain conditions, to allow to govern?

Historical divisions stand in the way

There are factors at play which make either outcome difficult to achieve. Historical anti-communist attitudes remain strong among important sectors of the PSOE. Additionally, differences between the PSOE on one hand, and the Communists, PODEMOS, and the Catalan and Basque left on the other, make coalition-building even harder.

Though neither PODEMOS nor the Communists are for the breakup of Spain on ethnic lines, they are not adamantly opposed, as is the PSOE (as well as Ciudadanos and the PP), to plans of the regional Catalan government to carry out a referendum on the subject.

Moreover, the Communists have ties with the Catalan Esquerra which go back to the days of the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39, when the two parties were allied in the fight against Francisco Franco and fascism and suffered severe repression after Franco's victory (as did the Basques). In Spain, new mass graves of people massacred by Franco's forces are found every year and the topic of how to deal with that horrible period in history is very much alive.

Last week, it appeared, however, that an agreement might be reached among the PSOE, PODEMOS, and the United Left to form a government along lines similar to those of Mr. Acosta's government in Portugal. On Tuesday, the King asked PSOE Secretary General Pedro Sánchez to make the attempt.

A possible deal

Under the proposal, the PSOE would form a government supported in power by PODEMOS and the United Left, as well as the Catalan Esquerra. Their backing would be based on a minimum program of ousting Rajoy's PP and undoing some of its right-wing policies, including anti-worker labor "reforms", austerity measures, restrictions on women's reproductive rights, and the repressive "gag law" limiting freedom of speech and assembly.

PODEMOS' leader Pablo Iglesias, as well as Communist Party Secretary General José Luis Centella and the United Left's Alberto Garzón, have all called for such an arrangement. Sánchez, standing at the head of the PSOE, appears to be very open to it too.

However, the prospect of a Socialist government supported by the leftist parties led to an uproar within some sectors of Spain's oldest social democratic party. Forces to Sánchez's right within the PSOE would rather see a right-center alliance with Rajoy's PP than be reliant on the leftist parties. The loudest protests are coming from the faction of former Prime Minister Felipe González, who headed the Spanish government from 1977 to 1982 and again from 1996 to 1997.

González is considered to be well to the right within the ideologically heterogeneous PSOE. Since leaving power, he has spoken out forcefully against the socialist governments of Venezuela and Cuba, allying himself with shady right-wing forces in Latin American politics in the process.

PODEMOS's Iglesias and others on the left, who admire Latin American moves to the left such as Hugo Chávez's "Bolivarian Revolution," have condemned him for doing this. This has led González's allies in the PSOE to denounce PODEMOS and the Communists and call for the PSOE to form a right-center government with the PP. This same faction also stands opposed to the idea of cooperation with Catalan and Basque separatists.

In Portugal, Acosta was ultimately able to overcome resistance from the right within his own Socialist Party and assemble a government with Communist, Green, and Left Bloc support. It now remains to be seen if Sánchez can pull off a similar achievement in Spain. If not, voters will be forced back to the polls within a few months' time.

If the Spanish parties do manage to imitate the Portuguese example, their accomplishment could have broader importance for the whole of Europe, as it would open the door to new advances for the left and the working class.

Photo: Tens of thousands march through Madrid in a show of strength for the leftwing party Podemos. | Andres Kudacki/AP

Marking 30 years of economic reform, Vietnam moves ahead

Mon, 01 Feb 2016 10:59:00 +0000

Three decades have passed since Vietnam first embarked on the process of economic opening and reform known as Doi Moi, or "Renovation." At the 12th National Congress of the Vietnamese Communist Party which concluded last week, more than 1,500 delegates representing 4.5 million members from across the country took stock of these last 30 years and set an agenda for the next period of growth and development.

Meeting under the theme of "Solidarity - Democracy - Discipline - Renovation," the party renewed its commitment to advancing Vietnamese living standards and continuing the construction of a socialist-oriented market economy.

This model differs from the Soviet-inspired archetype of the centrally-planned economy that Vietnam followed up until the late 1980s which was characterized by almost total state ownership and government-determined pricing and production quotas. The Vietnamese economy today combines private, social, cooperative, and state ownership forms and has the declared aim of developing the country's productive forces to a high level while preparing the way for a future transition to a socialist economy.

Economic allocation and production decisions are largely determined by market conditions, but major public investment priorities are set by the government and the strategic sectors of the economy remain under state guidance. This mixed approach shares characteristics with the socialist market economy model followed by China since 1978 and has produced similarly remarkable achievements for Vietnam.

Since 1986, the extreme poverty rate in the country has dropped from more than 50 percent to only three percent today. In human terms, this means more than twenty million people have been lifted out of poverty. Per capita incomes, meanwhile, have soared from only $100 USD to over $2,000 USD in 2015. This has pushed the country from being one of the world's poorest to the lower middle income ranks internationally.

Impressive on their own, the scale of these achievements becomes even more pronounced when set within the challenging context of Vietnam's post-independence history. For much of the twentieth century, Vietnam was forced to spend too much of its limited resources and too many of its people's lives fighting off foreign occupiers and invaders. Japanese imperial forces were forced from the country in 1945 only to be almost immediately replaced by returning French colonial armies.

The country then remained divided for the next thirty years between an independent north and a southern government propped up by outside forces. In 1954, the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu, but American forces quickly took their place. U.S. involvement in Vietnam then dragged on until 1975, costing the lives of over three million Vietnamese and more than 58,000 Americans.

The effects of war still plague Vietnam to this day. For instance, the chemical weapon Agent Orange was sprayed by U.S. military forces over much of the Vietnamese countryside during the war with the aim of causing defoliation and cutting off food supplies. The cancers, birth defects, and other long-term health problems it caused continue to eat up valuable financial resources.

All of these extra challenges and setbacks come on top of the typical problems that face every developing country. Despite all of these headwinds, however, Vietnam has pushed ahead and has rapidly taken a position among the leading economies in Southeast Asia. Last week's party congress set its aim on building upon the strides the country has already made.

The congress, which meets every five years, is the central event in Vietnam's political calendar. In addition to setting broad outlines for the country's socioeconomic agenda, it also elects the leadership that will be responsible for overseeing the execution of the goals set at the meeting.

The leadership slate elected by the party delegates represented a mix of continuity and renewal. General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong was re-elected to a second term as head of the central committee, despite the fact that, at age 71, he is past the party's mandatory retirement age. This rule was temporarily lifted and Trong was urged to stay on in order to see the party and the country through the next few years, which are expected to be challenging for Vietnam.

Trong humbly told reporters at the congress, "My age is high, my health is limited, and my knowledge is limited. I asked to step down, but because of the responsibility assigned by the party I have to perform my duty."

The current Minister of Security, Tran Dai Quang, was nominated as the party's choice to take over for President Truong Tan Sang when the National Assembly meets in June. Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, meanwhile, was put forward to succeed outgoing Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.

In addition to experienced hands like these, the new party central committee also includes many leaders from the next generation. The congress selected a leadership that includes a mix of senior, mid-level, and younger officials. More than a quarter of the 200 central committee members are under the age of 50, while the youngest member of the incoming political bureau is only 45 years old.

Additionally, the elections broke new ground on the gender equality front. Three women members were elected to the political bureau, the highest female representation in the top leadership body to date.

The final resolution adopted by the congress predicts the coming period to remain a challenging one, as the country continues to recover from the global recession and faces uncertain conditions in the economies of several of its biggest trading partners, such as China and the United States.

Though the recent recession hit Vietnam's export-oriented economy hard and drove growth rates down to 5.5 percent from their 2000s levels of around seven percent, the outlook for the next five-year plan sees a return to 6.5 - seven percent in the period 2016-2020. A GDP per capita goal of $3,200 - 3,500 USD was also set for 2020.

The congress pledged to give renewed emphasis to reducing the remaining poverty in the country, especially among ethnic minorities. It also declared its intention to continue perfecting the model of the socialist-oriented market economy, including efficiency improvements in state-owned enterprises, reform of the banking sector which has long been plagued by non-performing loans, and control over inflation.

On the political front, the Communist Party leadership signaled its commitment to extending democratization and fighting corruption and bureaucratic hurdles within the state and party. In his keynote address, President Sang declared the 12th congress to be "the congress of solidarity, democracy, and reform."

After 30 years of transformational change and opening to the outside world, Vietnam has looked back on its achievements at this congress and is now poised to continue moving ahead with the development of its socialist-oriented model. It does so, however, in a world still very much dominated by global capital and where the instabilities of the neoliberal, finance-led model of capitalism constrain every attempt at building alternatives.

As another socialist experimenter in the early 20th century once said, when a revolution is surrounded by capitalist countries, it will be "forced to seek highly complex forms of relationships." Vietnam remains in just such a transitional stage. How its people and leadership navigate the challenges facing their country in the years ahead will be a story all progressives should follow closely.

Photo: The Ho Chi Minh Museum in Hanoi. | C.J. Atkins/PW

Iran elections: The illusion of democracy

Mon, 01 Feb 2016 10:21:00 +0000

Iran's return to the international fold has been negotiated over a long period, and is not without caveats, but it certainly marks a significant change in relations with the United States and the European Union in particular.

While the focus of attention has been on negotiations relating to Iran's domestic nuclear energy program, there is no indication that human rights have been on the agenda as part of any discussions.

The international business community is keen to cut the kind of deals which will boost profits, but the position for Iranian trade union and opposition activists is unlikely to look very different than it did before the deal. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's visit to Italy and France will no doubt have sealed the Airbus deal, but that will not free a single unjustly imprisoned trade unionist in Iran.

By the same token, the coming elections in Iran are little more than the veneer of democracy, as the ability to stand is tightly controlled by the Guardian Council and the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.Elections to the Majlis (parliament) are held every four years and prominent figures hoping to appear on the ballot need to determine beforehand whether Khamenei and his inner circle of advisers will oppose their candidacy.

It is said that the Supreme Leader does not explicitly advise anyone against running, but his office or other high-ranking officials will often reveal his views on specific cases.Also, when candidates register their names, the Guardian Council has to qualify them based on several criteria, notably their full "practical" loyalty to the Supreme Leader and their recognition of his authority over all matters of the state.

Finally, once elections are complete, the Guardian Council is solely responsible for endorsing the final result, despite sharing supervision over the vote counting process with the Interior Ministry.

Through these methods, the Islamic Republic can claim that the elections are free and fair simply because everyone is eligible to vote.

While attempting to control the outcome of the elections, the regime's leaders are keen for a massive turnout for the contest in four weeks' time and have mobilized their entire publicity machine.

The turnout percentage in this election has assumed special significance because it will be seen as a measure of the popularity of the regime and a test of its political stability. However, this disguises the high degree of manipulation which precedes the selection of those who appear on the ballot at all.

Given the conservative nature of the regime in Iran and the fears of many hardliners that Rouhani is "too reformist," conservatives will likely take the opportunity to further squeeze out the limited voices for change which there may be in the Majlis.

Of the 3,000 candidates put forward by the reformists, only 30 have been allowed to stand by the Guardian Council - a mere one in 100 wishing to run.It is worth remembering that these are candidates who are deemed "reformist" within the very narrow confines of that term in Iranian politics.

There are no candidates opposed to the regime, standing for the rights of women, or actively promoting the right of Iranian workers to engage in free and open trade union activity.

Persistent reports in Iranian opposition media indicate that the powerful Revolutionary Guards are confident that at least 180 out of the 290 seats of the new Majlis will be filled with their candidates, carefully selected from within the ranks of their commanders and ideologists.

In total, 40 percent of the 12,000 hopefuls for parliamentary election - including a significant number of MPs in the outgoing Majlis - have failed to qualify.

Among those disqualified are Ali Motahari, a persistent critic of the hardline Islamists in the regime, and Rasoul Montajabnia, the vice-president of the pro-reform National Trust Party (known in Persian asEtemad-e Melli). The party was founded by Mehdi Karoubi, one of the two reformist candidates who contestedthe 2009 presidential elections.Others excluded are Majid Farahani, the head of the pro-reform Nedaye Iranian Party, and Akbar Alami, a former reformist member of parliament.

Sadegh Zibakalam, professor of political science at Tehran University, stated that the reformists now expected the president to step forward in response to the massive number of refused candidates.

"According to the constitution, as the president and the country's second power [after the leader] Mr. Rouhani should supervise the implementation of the constitution. So now everyone's expecting him to protest against the wide disqualifications."

Jamshid Ahmadi, assistant general secretary of the solidarity group Committee for the Defense of the Iranian People's Rights (CODIR), has called into question the legitimacy of the elections."It is clear that many potential candidates have been excluded due to their political opinions," he said.

"That hardly makes for an electoral process that can, in any normal sense, be described as free and fair," Ahmadi continued."Until real opposition candidates are allowed to stand and the Iranian regime cleans up its act on human rights, the elections will be little more than the illusion of democracy."

This article originally appeared in the Morning Star.

Photo: Mousavi campaign rally in Tehran. | Wikimedia (CC)