People Before Profit blog

Mali: What does the future hold?

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 13:12:00 +0000

Troops from Mali, France and other African nations have captured the cities of Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu in Mali's arid Northeast. Islamist fighters have faded back, while the original rebels, Tuareg separatists, whose uprising a year ago began the national slide, say that they are ready for talks with the Malian government. The Malian legislature today unanimously supported a plan of action to get the country on its feet again, and elections will be scheduled.

Does that mean things are getting back to normal? If so, it is a "normal" intolerable to anyone with a moral sense. Mali still finds itself caught between two forces, which in no way offer solutions which serve the interests of the Malian people.

After they pushed the Tuareg separatists aside, the Islamists of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Ansar Dine and the Movement for Unity and Oneness in Jihad, imposed harsh sharia law on towns which they had captured. Declaring just about every distinctive characteristic of Mali's Afro-Sufi culture to be "haram" ("forbidden"), these Salafist jihadis destroyed the tombs of Sufi saints, forbade music and forced women to don the veil. They also cut off hands of accused thieves and stoned alleged adulterers.

On leaving, they ordered the burning of the tens of thousands of ancient manuscripts, going back more than a thousand years, in Timbuktu. In this they appear to have failed: The citizens of Timbuktu hid these treasures in their homes, so the burning of the main museum only destroyed a small part.

Unfortunately, there are reports of vengeance being exacted by Malian troops and civilians against Arabs and Tuaregs.

Given the French invasion, some might see the Islamists as an anti-imperialist freedom force. They are nothing of the kind, and they have nothing positive to offer the Malian people. Their opposition to education and to the rights of women represents a huge setback to this West African country, which sorely needs the talents of all of its citizens, male and female.

Many in Mali and neighboring countries seem to have welcomed the French intervention, because worry about the Islamist threat was paramount. But what does France have to offer Mali in the long run? For more than a century, Mali has been dominated, politically, economically, and militarily, by France. But on almost any indicator of social well being, Mali is at the bottom, together with its neighbors Niger, Chad and Burkina Faso, likewise been under French domination.

Mali's infant mortality rate is 109.08, the third worst in the world. Niger's is worse, at 109.98, second behind Afghanistan (which is 121.63). Chad is seventh from the bottom at 93.61, and Burkina Faso ninth, at 79.89.

The literacy rate shows the Sahel countries clustered at the bottom also. Only 31.1 percent of Malian adults can read. Burkina Faso has a literacy of rate of 28.1 percent, the world's worst. Niger's is 28.7 percent and Chad's is 34.5 percent, fifth from the bottom.

Per Capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP-PPP) is a rough measure of the economic well-being of a people. The lowest figure is for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, at about 400 U.S. dollars per year. For Mali it is $1,100 per year, Niger $800, Burkina Faso $1,500, Chad $1,900.

The only country worse off is Afghanistan, another land caught between medieval-minded Islamic extremists and "Western" military intervention. Some refer to the Sahel region of Africa, where Mali is, as "the next Afghanistan": The great battleground where the NATO powers fight it out with the Islamists, leaving the whole place a corpse-strewn wreck. Now the United States has agreed with the government of Niger to station surveillance drones in that country. Can drone strikes be far off?

There are already 700,000 Malian refugees.

European capitalist countries "underdeveloped" Mali, to use Walter Rodney's powerful expression, during colonialism, and have continued to do so under the current neoliberal phase of neocolonialism. Under colonialism, Mali and neighboring Senegal provided cannon fodder for France's wars - much praised "Senegalese tirailleurs" ready to die for a country not their own. Now Mali is a source of valuable raw materials that enrich foreign corporations, but its own industry is minimally developed.

So do France, the United States and the other developed capitalist countries offer anything worthwhile to Mali in the long run? No, just as Mali has to get away from the Islamist threat, it urgently needs to get out from under neocolonial domination and exploitation.

What are the possibilities? Grim and difficult, but not hopeless.

The nations of West Africa have recently been looking across the Atlantic Ocean to Latin America. There, for more than a century, economic and social development was stifled by U.S. and European hegemony. However, since Hugo Chavez became president of oil-rich Venezuela in 1999, this has changed dramatically. Through a series of trade blocs and coordinated resistance, the Latin American countries have made big advances in defending their national sovereignty, raising their economic levels of their peoples and promoting social justice. Brazil, Cuba and Venezuela have been talking to African governments about how this dynamic can be expanded across the Atlantic.

Meanwhile, the rapid growth of the economies of China and India have offered Africa new possibilities of reducing reliance on trade and aid from the old colonial powers and the United States.

The countries of the Sahel are not yet taking advantage of these possibilities. A prerequisite for the advances in Latin America was the growth of working class and mass popular consciousness, organization and mobilization against the imposed neoliberal policies. The same will happen in Africa, sooner or later.

Photo: A French soldier walks near armored vehicles at the Timbuktu airport, North Mali. Arnaud Roine/AP

Berlusconi heaps praise on Mussolini

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 14:23:00 +0000

ROME -- Former Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi praised Benito Mussolini for "having done good" despite the Fascist dictator's anti-Jewish laws, immediately sparking expressions of outrage as Europe on Sunday held Holocaust remembrances.

Specifically, Berlusconi also defended Mussolini for allying himself with Hitler, saying the Italian dictator likely reasoned that it would be better to be on the winning side.

Berlusconi, a billionaire media titan, whose conservatives are polling second in voter surveys ahead of next month's election, spoke to reporters while a ceremony commemorating the Holocaust was taking place in Milan.

In 1938, before the outbreak of World War II, Mussolini's regime passed the so-called "racial laws," barring Jews from Italy's universities and many professions, among other bans. When Nazi Germany occupied Italy during the war, thousands from the tiny Italian Jewish community were deported to death camps.

"It is difficult now to put oneself in the shoes of who was making decisions back then," Berlusconi said of Mussolini's support for Hitler. "Certainly the (Italian) government then, fearing that German power would turn into a general victory, preferred to be allied with Hitler's Germany rather than oppose it."

Berlusconi added "within this alliance came the imposition of the fight against, and extermination of, the Jews. Thus, the racial laws are the worst fault of Mussolini, who, in so many other aspects, did good."

More than 7,000 Jews were deported under Mussolini's regime, and nearly 6,000 of them were slaughtered in death camps.

Outrage, along with a demand that Berlusconi be prosecuted for promoting Fascism, quickly followed his words.

Among those voicing condemnation were prominent Jewish figures around the world.

Mussolini "modeled his anti-Jewish laws after the Nazi Nuremberg Laws barring Jews from civil service," Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said in a statement.

"It is the height of revisionism to try to reinstate an Italian dictator who helped legitimize and prop up Hitler as a 'reincarnated good guy,'" said the rabbi, whose organization monitors anti-Semitic incidents worldwide.

Berlusconi's praise of Mussolini constitutes "an insult to the democratic conscience of Italy," said Rosy Bindi, a center-left leader. "Only Berlusconi's political cynicism, combined with the worst historic revisionism, could separate the shame of the racist laws from the Fascist dictatorship."

Italy continues to have strong anti-fascist laws on the books. The laws, as was the case in the socialist countries of Eastern Europe after World War II, result from the disastrous experiences of Italians living under fascism. They make it illegal to mount any type of public defense of Fascism.

A candidate for local elections, Gianfranco Mascia, pledged that he and his supporters will present a formal complaint on Monday to Italian prosecutors, seeking to have Berlusconi prosecuted.

Hours later, Berlusconi issued a statement saying he "regretted" that he didn't make clear in his earlier comments that his historical analyses "are always based on condemnation of dictatorships," the Italian news agency LaPresse reported.

He also contended that the political left was trying to exploit his comment about Mussolini for election campaign fodder.

Advocating aggressive nationalism, Mussolini used brutish force evoking ancient Rome's glories to achieve and keep his dictatorial grip on power, starting in the early 1920s and lasting well into World War II. His Fascist "blackshirt" loyalists cracked down on progressives through beatings, jailings and murder.

He encouraged big families to propagate the Italian population and erected monumental buildings and statues to evoke ancient Rome.

With dreams of an empire, he sent Italian troops on missions to attack or occupy foreign lands, including Ethiopia and Albania. Eventually, Italian military failures in Africa and in Greece fostered rebellion among Fascist officials, and in 1943 he was placed under arrest by orders of the Italian king. His end came at the hands of partisan fighters, who shot him and his mistress, and left their bodies to hang in a Milan square in April 1945.

Berlusconi's former government allies have included political heirs to neo-fascist movements admiring Mussolini.

In 2010, he told world leaders at a Paris conference that he had been reading Mussolini's journals, and years earlier Berlusconi had claimed that Mussolini "never killed anyone."

Photo: Former Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, foreground, in Milan, Italy, Jan. 27. Berlusconi says Benito Mussolini did much good, except for dictator's regime's anti-Jewish laws. Berlusconi called the laws Mussolini's "worst fault" but insisted that in many other things, "he did good." (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

Video: Let banks fail, says Iceland’s president

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 15:20:00 +0000

Icelandic President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson said part of the country's prescription to growing its economy in the wake of its terrible financial crisis was refusing to bail out the banks and rejecting austerity measures that put the burden on poor and working people.

Grimsson said one of the consequences of letting the bankrupt banks fail was it released mathematicians and technologists - previously employed by the banks - to use their talents elsewhere, thereby invigorating the country's economy.

Al Jazeera interviewed the president at the Davos World Economic Forum, Jan. 25, 2013.

Photo: Iceland's president at the 2010 World Economic Forum. (CC)

Austerity rejected in Czech presidential election

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 14:43:00 +0000

On Saturday, voters in the Czech Republic participated in runoff presidential elections. Miloš Zeman, the former Prime Minister and an opponent of the austerity measures of the coalition government of current Prime Minister Petr Nečar, beat right wing aristocrat Karel Schwarzenberg by 55 - 45 percent. About 59 percent of the eligible voters turned out in the election.

This is the first time that the office of the president of the Czech Republic has been filled by popular election. Before, presidents, including outgoing incumbent Vačlav Klaus, were chosen by the legislature. Although the post is mostly symbolic and ceremonial, the president does have some influence in appointments and foreign policy.

In the first round of the elections, held Jan. 11-12, there were nine candidates, including two independents. It was a colorful array, not least because of the presence of independent candidate Vladimir Franz, whose entire body, including his face, is tattooed with green Maori designs. That, combined with his blond Mohawk hairdo, made him look like a lizard from outer space.

Though it would have been wonderful to see him in group shots of Europe's leaders, perhaps with German Chancellor Merkel on one side and French President Hollande on the other, Franz ended up getting only 6.8 percent of the vote. Independent Jan Fischer came third with 16.4 percent and Social Democratic Party candidate Jiri Dienstbier came in fourth with 16.1 percent.

The two candidates in the second round are also larger-than-life individuals. Karel Schwarzenberg, candidate of the TOP 09 Party, who is foreign minister and deputy premier in the government of Prime Minister Nečar, is also known as His Serene Highness Prince Karl zu Schwarzenberg, Duke of Krumlov. The Schwarzenbergs are an Austro-German noble family who, in the days of the Habsburg Empire and until the Second World War, were among the largest scale landowners in Bohemia and elsewhere in the Empire and in Germany.

After World War II Czecholsovak President Eduard Beneš promoted the "Lex Schwarzenberg," resulting in the confiscation of their lands and privileges, and under the socialist government (1948-1989) Karel Schwarzenberg and his family went into exile. He was a principal advisor and monetary supporter of the first anti-communist Czech Prime Minister, Vačlav Havel.

Schwarzenberg is unapologetic about his anti-communism and also about his support for other right-wing policy positions, including the use of painful austerity measures to deal with the current financial crisis, support for unpopular U.S. plans for a "missile shield" deployment in his country, and his harassment of socialist Cuba. Schwarzenberg has also not been shy about his efforts to recover lands, castles and palaces confiscated from his family after World War II.

Miloš Zeman, candidate of the Party of Civic Rights, is hard to categorize ideologically, but his eccentric bluntness has made headlines also, and not necessarily favorable ones. In this election, he ran as a left-of center candidate, staking out a position of opposition to the austerity policies of the government. On other occasions, he has shocked people by attacking the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as being Hitler-like and warning of sinister Muslim plans against Europe. Like outgoing president Klaus, he is a global warming sceptic.

During the campaign, Schwarzenberg did himself some damage by commenting that if it happened today, the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans from Czechoslovakia after World War II would be considered a crime against humanity. (The German nationalist politics of the Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia were a major factor in the lead up to Hitler's conquest of the country starting with Munich).

Zeman and others pounced on him for this. Zeman accused Schwarzenberg of being a Sudeten German himself, echoing President Klaus' position that he is not really a Czech but an Austro-German. Others brought up the fact that Schwarzenberg's wife, born a Countess von Hardegg, speaks only German and does not speak Czech at all.

Both candidates were considered "pro-Europe," but Zeman more critically so.

While Schwarzenberg's enemies were portraying him as a reactionary peasant-flogging, German-spouting feudal lord, his campaign tried to rebrand him as the punk candidate with an appeal to the youth culture. In campaign materials, he was shown not with his usual pipe, bow tie and aristocratic sneer, but rather as a Mohawk wearing punk idol.

Whether for this or some other reason, Schwarzenberg did better in Prague and other urban centers.

Given Zeman's opposition to austerity, which is the big issue throughout Europe right now, this election can be seen as a defeat for the European right.

But it makes one reflect on the original rationale for ditching socialism, which was, among other things, to give the Czech and Slovak peoples a choice of high quality candidates and policies to vote for.

The Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, one of the strongest communist parties in the former Socialist Bloc, urged a frankly "lesser evil" vote for Zeman as a way of castigating the right wing policies of the present government.

Photo: Vladimir Franz (center). Zgeek

“Hotel Evin” where checking out is not easy

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 10:44:00 +0000

Evin prison in Tehran has for nearly 30 years been a notorious center for the punishment, torture, and execution of opponents to the Iranian regime. Human rights organizations, both inside and outside of Iran, have cited examples of savage tortures and maltreatment of prisoners on many occasions over the years and urged the Iranian government to desist in its mistreatment of political prisoners in particular.

It is remarkable, then, that a member of the Iranian Parliament's (Majlis) National Security and Foreign Affairs Committee delegation could comment, after a six-hour visit to Evin prison, "This wasn't a prison. It is Hotel Evin."

It is not the first time that Evin has been given some innocuous label to disguise the atrocities behind its walls. In the 1980s, the notorious prison governor Lajavardi described it as the "Evin university" in which all inmates would learn new ways. But learning was through torture, not through books, and every graduate was broken.

Only recently, political prisoners' activities revealed that torture in Ward 350 of Evin prison was the cause of blogger Satar Beheshti's death.

This has led the Iranian government to increase its repressive measures in Iranian prisons. One such repressive action is to banish political prisoners to prisons where hard-core criminals are being kept or to prisons located in distant cities, making family access almost impossible.

Recently 39 political prisoners from Ward 350 of Evin Prison have written a letter to Amoli Larijani, head of the judiciary, to highlight the case of Abolfazel Gadiani. On January 14, 2013, Abolfazel Gadiani was moved from Ward 350 of Evin prison to the Gezel-Hesar prison. Prior to the Iranian revolution, in the era of the Shah, Gadiani was a political prisoner in the Gezel-Hesar prison. However, it now mainly houses drug-traffickers and dangerous prisoners, thus increasing the threat to Gadiani's safety.

Given the high number of intellectuals in Ward 350, prisoners had organized over 60 hours of educational lectures in approximately 35 different academic disciplines. During the last two months, in an attempt to disrupt the prisoners' educational activities, Javad Moemeni, Ward 350's interim head, ordered the removal of educational material that prisoners had prepared themselves.

The unified resistance of the prisoners, however, has had some success and, following the prison warden's intervention, the previous conditions in Ward 350 of Evin prison have been restored.

The Committee in Defense of the Iranian People's Right (CODIR) has recently highlighted the case of Reza Shahabi, the Tehran Bus Workers treasurer, who went on hunger strike for three weeks over his mistreatment in Evin and the lack of medical resources available to address major surgery which had been undertaken on his neck and spine. Shahabi was finally allowed five days bail to address health issues which had been exacerbated by beatings in prison.

In November last year CODIR also highlighted the case of female political prisoners who were subject to abusive and degrading treatment in Evin prison, with regular body searches and arbitrary removal of personal items amongst the issues raised. Nine of the women went on hunger strike.

The protest followed closely upon that initiated by human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, who went on hunger strike on October 17, 2012, following issues with visiting rights for her family. Sotoudeh's case was previously highlighted by CODIR as an example of the poor treatment of female prisoners by the Iranian authorities. Sotoudeh had recently been the recipient of the prestigious Sakharov Prize for her work in the field of human rights.

These are only some of the more recent examples of the realities of life in prison for political prisoners in Iran. Over the past 30 years many more examples could be held up to show that, far from boasting hotel conditions, Evin prison is only fit for closure and its notorious reputation confined to the history books.

Photo: Tehran's notorious Evin prison. Courtesy of CODIR.

Idle No More: Native movement sweeps Canada and U.S.

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 12:50:00 +0000

Idle No More is a Native protest movement that arose in Canada and is now engulfing that country and the U.S. Native communities from coast to coast in the U.S. have embraced this upheaval. Throughout our country, rallies of hundreds to thousands have performed traditional round dances flash mobs in support of INM, to the beat of drumming ,singing and chanting, in malls and other public venues. Some of these activities have taken place without incident and some have not. (Article continues below video)

Idle No More round dance at the Mall of America in Minnesota:

In certain parts of the country, most infamously Colorado and Minnesota, Native people have been barred from malls and even arrested for just "looking Native American." This is an unspeakable outrage. Police were quoted as telling mall security, "If they look Native American, tell them to leave." This is 1960s Mississippi-style racist police action directed against American Indian people for simply trying to assemble and exercise free speech in support of INM. Why isn't there a national uproar? Native people of the U.S. are realizing that the civil rights progress of the 1960s in many respects bypassed Indigenous citizens.

The INM movement, started by four Indigenous women in November last year and now sweeping the Western Hemisphere at warp speed, was in response to the Canadian government's Omnibus Bill C-45 that would further strip reservations of lands and also environmental protections. This infamous legislation was passed on December 14, after Assembly of First Nations (AFN) representatives were even barred from government meetings on the bill.

This led to a series of rallies and protests and a hunger strike by Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence demanding a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper and the Governor General on Aboriginal rights. Chief Spence is camping out in a tepee on an ice-covered island in the Ottawa River across from Parliament Hill, Canada's seat of government.

In the meantime, the movement has sparked countless demonstrations and direct actions, including blockades of railways, roads and border crossings in Canada and rallies and flash mobs from coast to coast in the U.S. Suffice it to say that INM has morphed into the most massive Native American Indian movement in history. The movement is not new, but is the latest manifestation of centuries-old Native resistance to the exploitation, marginalization and continuous daily discrimination experienced by Indian citizens. Indeed, Native people have never forgotten that all of Canada and the U.S., two of the wealthiest nations in the world, is treaty land and that these two nations achieved their economic heights by using the land and resources of Indigenous nations that was for the most part illegally acquired.

On January 16 this year, INM held a national Day of Action that brought Canadian roads, railways and border crossings to a standstill with blockades. The blockades, though predominantly Indigenous, were often supported by non-Native participation. The movement, which started with Indian sovereignty and environmental protection, is now addressing a panoply of Native issues including poverty, suicides rates, joblessness, health and the protection of women. Media from around the world are covering INM.

But where, we may ask, is U.S. mainstream media coverage of this gigantic political movement? The "Buckskin Curtain" has struck again in an attempt to hide this immense social upheaval. But social media technology has circumvented the U.S. news machine. Indeed, INM support groups have arisen across the globe - throughout the Western Hemisphere from Alaska to the southernmost part of South America, to Europe, the Middle East, Asia, New Zealand and Australia.

In the latter 20th century the American Indian Movement and other freedom-seeking organizations ushered in a tremendous upsurge of Native activism resulting in the 1970 Mayflower takeover, the 1973 Trail of Broken Treaties, the 1973 Wounded Knee occupation and other defiant actions. Similarly the Idle No More movement may well bring about an even greater upheaval in the struggle for global justice for all oppressed peoples.

This is not just an Indian issue. The movement is reaching out to all justice-minded citizens to participate in INM, because the issues that are being fought for affect all the people of this earth.

Mali and chickens

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 12:42:00 +0000

"It appears the French had one of their wars going on thereabouts"

Charlie Marlow from Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness'

The vision that Conrad's character Marlow describes is of a French frigate firing broadsides into a vast African jungle, in essence, bombarding a continent. That image came to mind this week when French Mirages and helicopter gunships went into action against a motley army of Islamic insurgents in Mali.

That there is a surge of instability in that land-locked and largely desert country should hardly come as a surprise to the French: they and their allies are largely the cause.

And they were warned.

A little history. On Mar. 17, 2011, the UN Security Council approved Resolution 1973 to "protect civilians" in the Libyan civil war. Two days later, French Mirages began bombing runs on Mummar Gaddafi's armored forces and airfields, thus igniting direct intervention by Britain, along with Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Resolution 1973 did not authorize NATO and its allies to choose sides in the Libyan civil war, just to protect civilians, and many of those who signed on-including Russia and China-assumed that Security Council action would follow standard practice and begin by first exploring a political solution. But the only kind of "solution" that anti-Gaddafi alliance was interested in was the kind delivered by 500 lb. laser-guided bombs.

The day after the French attack, the African Union (AU) held an emergency session in Mauritania in an effort to stop the fighting. The AU was deeply worried that, if Libya collapsed without a post-Gaddafi plan in place, it might destabilize other countries in the region. They were particularly concerned that Libya's vast arms storehouse might end up fueling local wars in other parts of Africa.

However, no one in Washington, Paris or London paid the AU any mind, and seven months after France launched its attacks, Libya imploded into its current status as a failed state. Within two months, Tuaregs-armed with Gaddafi's weapons' cache-rose up and drove the corrupt and ineffectual Malian Army out of Northern Mali.

The Tuaregs are desert people, related to the Berbers that populate North Africa's Atlas Mountain range. They have fought four wars with the Malian government since the country was freed from France in 1960, and many Tuaregs want to form their own country, "Azawed." But the simmering discontent in northern Mali is not limited to the Tuaregs. Other ethnic groups are angered over the south's studied neglect of all the people in the country's north.

The Tuaregs are also currently fighting the French over uranium mining in Niger.

The Gaddafi government had long supported the Tuareg's demands for greater self-rule, and many Tuareg's served in the Libyan Army. Is anyone surprised that those Tuareg's looted Libyan arms depots when the central government collapsed? And, once they had all that fancy fire power that they would put it to use in an effort to carve out a country of their own?

The Tuareg's are nomads and had little interest in holding on to towns like Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal in northern Mali, and after smashing up the Mali Army, they went back into the desert. Into the vacuum created by the rout of the Malian Army flowed Islamic groups like Ansar-al-Din, al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad, and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). It is these latter organizations that the French are bombing, although reports are that civilians are getting caught in the crossfire.

The U.S. is also involved. According to Democracy Now, the Obama administration is moving French troops and equipment into the area, and deploying surveillance drones. And with the war spreading into Algeria, where almost two-dozen westerners, including several Americans, were kidnapped in retaliation for the French attacks in Mali, the U.S may end up with boots on the ground.

Why are the French once again firing into a continent?

First, France has major investments in Niger and Mali. At bottom, this is about Francs (or Euros, as it may be). Some 75 percent of France's energy needs come from nuclear power, and a cheap source is its old colonial empire in the region (that besides Mali and Niger included Senegal, Mauritania, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Chad, Algeria, and the Central African Republic). Most of its nuclear fuel comes from Niger, but Al Jezeera reports that French uranium, oil and gold companies are lining up to develop northern Mali. Lest one think that this "development" is good for the locals, consider that, according to the UN's Human Development Index, Niger is the third poorest country in the world.

There are other issues as well.

Like a Napoleon complex.

"The French, like the Americans, judge presidents on their ability to make tough decisions, and there are few tougher ones than to send young men into battle," writes New York Times reporter Steve Erlanger in a story on French President Francois Hollande's decision to intervene in Mali. Titled. "Hollande, long seen as soft, shifts image with firm stance" (which makes it sound vaguely like a Viagra ad), the article quotes "defense expert" Francois Heisbourg praising Hollande for acting "decisively" and "demonstrating that he can decide on matters of war and peace."

Actually, back in 1812 that "war and peace" thing came out rather badly for the French, though today's new model Grande Armee won't face much in the way of snow and ice in Mali. But Mali is almost twice the size of France-478,839 vs. 211,209 square miles-which is a lot of ground for Mirages to cover. In fact, the French warplanes are not even based in Mali, but neighboring Chad, some 1,300 miles away from their targets. That is a very long way to go for fighter-bombers and gives them very little time over the battlefield. Apparently the U.S. is considering helping out with in-air refueling, but, by any measure, the French forces will face considerable logistical obstacles. And while Mali's geography may not match the Russian steppes in winter, its fierce desert is daunting terrain.

Lastly, Hollande would like to take some pressure off his domestic situation. There is nothing like a war to make people forget about a stagnant economy, high unemployment, restive workers, and yet another round of austerity cuts.

But this war could get very nasty, and if you want the definition of a quagmire, try northern Mali. Instead of being intimidated by the French attacks, the insurgents successfully counterattacked and took the town of Diabaly in Central Mali. If Paris thought this was going to be a simple matter of scattering the wogs with a few bombing runs, one might suggest that Hollande revisit his country's past counterinsurgency campaigns, starting with Vietnam.

The Islamic groups appear to have little local support. Mali is a largely Islamic country, but not of the brand followed by the likes of Ansar al-Din or AQIM. But if you hand out lots of first-class fire power-which is exactly what the war to overthrow Gaddafi did-than you don't need a lot of support to cause a great deal of trouble.

The rebels are certainly not running into any opposition from the Mali Army, whose U.S.-trained leader, Captain Amadou Sanogo, overthrew his country's democratic government two months after the Tuaregs came storming out of the Sahara to take Timbuktu. Apparently a number of those U.S.-trained troops switched sides, taking their weapons and transport over to the insurgents.

There is evidence that the Mali Army may have provoked the Tuaregs in the first place. It appears that, rather than using the millions of dollars handed out by the U.S. over the past four years to fight "terrorism" in the region, the Mali Army used it to beat up on the Tuaregs. That is until the latter got an infusion of superior firepower after the fall of Gaddafi.

The French plan to put about 2,500 troops in Mali, but are relying on the Economic Community of West Africa (ECOWAS) to raise an army of 3,300. But the ECOWAS army will have to be transported to Mali and trained, and someone will have to foot the bill. That means that for the next several months it will be the French who hold down the fort, and that is going to cost a lot of Euros, of which France hardly has a sur.

The people of northern Mali have long standing grievances, but the current crisis was set off by the military intervention in Libya. And if you think Libya created monsters, just think of what will happen if the Assad government in Syria falls without a political roadmap in place. Yes, the French are very involved in Syria right now, a civil war that is increasingly pitting Sunnis against Shites and has already spread into Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan and Iraq. Next to Syria's weapons hoards, Libya's firepower looks like a collection of muskets and bayonets.

Dominique de Villepin, the former prime minister of France and a sharp critic of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, recently wrote in the Journal du Dimanche "These wars [like Mali] have never built a solid and democratic state. On the contrary, they favor separatism, failed states and the iron law of armed militias."

So what do Mali and the French intervention have to do with chickens?

They always come home to roost.

This article originally appeared in Dispatches from the Edge, the author's blog. Photo: Malian women sift wheat in a field near Segou, central Mali Jan. 22. Most of Canada's aid to Mali focuses on maternal and child health, food security and education. Jerome Delay/AP

Mali, imperialism, and “Françafrique”

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 15:08:00 +0000

About 3,000 French troops have now entered the war in Mali, at the request of Malian President Dioncounda Traoré. Television shows Malian citizens cheering them as, alongside the Malian army, they head to battle against Islamist rebels who have taken over the entire Northeast of the country and had seemed ready to conquer the rest of it. Yet doubts are expressed by some, given France's recent historical role in West Africa.

After the Second World War, Europe's two major remaining colonial powers, France and the United Kingdom, found that they could no longer rule their African colonies as before. Yet for reasons mostly economic but also geopolitical and nationalistic, they were not willing to give them up entirely, and sought mechanisms to maintain control. This replacement for colonial rule came in the form of what Ghana's first president, Kwame Nkrumah, called "neocolonialism". By this Nkrumah meant maintaining effective control by means of outside-directed economic, political, diplomatic and, sometimes, military means.

For France, neocolonialism came in the form of what today is called "Françafrique".

France recognized the nominal independence of African colonies in exchange for which local ruling elites remained subordinate to French interests. French companies got favorable trade and development deals, and the currencies of the former colonies were to be the West African and Central African CFA Francs, with France playing a major role in monetary policy. The French military was allowed access to bases in the African countries, initially to ward off "communist" challenges.

Françafrique involves institutional structures in both France and Africa, and is tightly tied to the French president's office and to French undercover services. Various crimes, including corruption and murder, have been carried out under its aegis. It has often worked in tandem with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and also British and other European intelligence services.

Almost all the French colonies in Africa were at one time or another forced to accept arrangement. There were exceptions. The president of Guinea, Ahmed Sekou Touré, refused to enter into agreements limiting his country's national sovereignty. In reprisal, departing French colonial employees destroyed as much infrastructure and equipment as they could. In Togo, the first president, Sylvanus Olympio, decided to ally himself with the United States instead of France. His reward, in 1963, was a bullet. The shooter was a Togolese sergeant in the French army, Etienne Eyadéma, whose stated gripe was that Olympio was trying to keep the Togolese army small so as to save money, thus denying jobs to soldiers like himself. To nobody's surprise, Eyadéma became president, a faithful servant of French neocolonial interests for 38 years.

This was the pattern that followed for decades. African rulers who were faithful to Françafrique, such as President Felix Houphouet-Boigny of Cote-D'Ivoire, stayed in power while those who objected were overthrown. Eventually, this "Françafrique" system came to include other francophone countries in Africa, including Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, that had never been French colonies, and even the former Spanish colony of Equatorial Guinea.

"Françafrique" brought France some very unsavory friends, many of whom had been soldiers either in the French colonial army or in the French army proper, and who shot their way into power with French connivance. One example of many was Hissene Habré, the dictator of Chad, now awaiting trial for crimes against humanity that cost thousands of innocent lives.

Françafrique ended the life of one of the most outstanding left-wing leaders of post-colonial Africa. Thomas Sankara became president of Upper Volta in 1983 and changed its name to Burkina Faso. He set out on a socialist program that included land reform and other policies beneficial to the working class and poor farmers. In 1987 Sankara was killed in a French-backed military coup headed by Blaise Compoaré, another ex soldier of the colonial forces, who is today the president.

The result of all this French "help" for its former African colonies has been that many are among the poorest countries in the world, with abysmal standards of education and health. Yet Mali and its neighbors have fabulous subsoil wealth.

The end of Françafrique has been a major demand of the communist left in France, and also of the African left. In last year's French presidential elections, the victorious Socialist Party candidate and now president, Francois Hollande promised to accomplish this. But the rise of China in African economic affairs, competing with France for resources and markets, has given Françafrique another reason to exist. A pretext is "the war against terrorism".

The overthrow of Gadaffi of Libya last year can be seen as partly a Françafrique operation. Gadaffi's Libya, with its vast supplies of oil, natural gas and subterranean water, and especially with its ability to out-invest and out-purchase French interests in trade and financial matters, was a very big threat. The president of France at the time, Nicolas Sarkozy, was gung ho to use violence against Gadaffi. The other NATO powers joined in, including especially the United States whose pressure in the United Nations got the disastrous "humanitarian intervention" in Libya underway.

On Sunday, the French defense minister, Jean Yves le Drian, had a little slip of the tongue: He swore that France's goal is nothing less than the "reconquest" of the whole of Mali.

Perhaps he meant "liberation," n'est ce pas?

Photo: A French soldier secures a perimeter in Mali on Jan. 21. Jerome Delay/AP

Court documents on Alan Gross could help Cuban Five

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 13:12:00 +0000

Continuing with U.S. efforts to undermine Cuba's government from within, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2008 contracted with Development Alternatives Inc (DAI) of Maryland to send Alan Gross to Cuba. Now in prison there with a 15-year sentence for espionage-type actions, Gross is widely viewed as the ideal candidate for an exchange that would return four Cuban anti-terrorists jailed in the United States to their homes. They, the "Cuban Five," include the paroled Rene Gonzalez.

In court proceedings January 15, DAI introduced documents outlining USAID objectives and describing Alan Gross's activities during five trips to Cuba between late 2008 and December 3, 2009, when he was arrested. The company seeks dismissal of Alan and wife Judy Gross' lawsuit alleging that DAI and USAID failed in preparing Alan Gross for dangers a foreign agent would face in Cuba.

The U.S. government and most media say Gross's imprisonment violates his rights, that in supplying Havana's Jewish community with communications equipment, he was on a humanitarian mission. Gross thus becomes a victim and the onus is on Cuba to free him.

The January 15 court documents, released three days later by the National Security Archives (NSA), a Washington-based NGO, provide information about Gross that, while not new, is told this time by USAID contractor DAI and by Gross.

The authenticity of first hand reports may serve to build public awareness that Cuba, not Gross, was the victim. The U.S. government may have to shift gears and now accept that Cuba is due some enticement to release him. It's a short step from there to real consideration of exchanging prisoners. Cuba has already signaled its readiness to negotiate.

According to the NSA's Peter Kornbluh, who visited Gross in Havana on November 28, 2012, the prisoner "called on the Obama administration to meet Cuba at the negotiating table and resolve his case, among other bilateral issues between the two nations."

Cuban Five defenders distinguish between the role of the Five in the United States and Gross' activities in Cuba. The Five monitored private paramilitary groups while Gross was convicted of plotting against the Cuban government. The court documents confirm earlier reports that Gross delivered technically sophisticated communications gear to government opponents and trained them in their use. He equipped one opposition team in Havana and two others in smaller cities. Gross's DAI contract extended over three years and would have yielded him $590,608.

Kornbluh speculates that DAI introduced the documents to the court to warn Washington officials "that unless the Obama administration steps up efforts to get Gross released, the suit [would continue and consequently] would yield unwelcome details of ongoing U.S. intervention in Cuba."

This hint at low key blackmail is taken up by Washington-based Mexican journalist David Brooks: the case "could create significant risks to the national security, foreign policy, and human rights interests of the United States" generally."

Highlights of one DAI document entitled "Memoranda of Conversation between USAID AND DAI officials" (on August 26, 2008) are significant.

"The project was entitled 'Cuba Democracy and Contingency Planning Program,' or CDCPP. CDCPP is not an analytical project; it's an operational activity. USAID approval is needed for everything. We cannot freelance.
"This Administration expects immediate results from this program.
"Explanation to The Hill regarding CDCPP: to empower pro-democracy, pro-human rights and those looking for alternative visions for the island. The program seeks to (...) build and fortify networks.
"Building this network is risky because of the security threats. USAID/CUBA expects the grantees will protect their privacy on their own.
"USAID is not telling Cubans how or why they need democratic transition but rather the Agency wants to provide the technology and means for communicating the spark which could benefit the population."

Alan Gross himself authored another DAI document in which he described what he did, what he took to Cuba, what he would do, and how much money was needed. He expressed confidence that the 16 items contained within each backpack he gave Cuban contacts would enable them to establish broadband Internet connections, make phone calls, and send email messages throughout the world - and set up Wi-Fi networks. Each bag contained a Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) system enabling users to set up Internet networks, also a "SIM card," used to disable GPS monitoring and thereby protect BGAN operations.

One Cuban reporter likened the equipment "to the help North American state agencies provide in the Middle East for United Nations troops." Another pointed out, "The type of SIM card Gross carried is not sold on the market and is available only to governments."

U.S. lawyer Jose Pertierra, well versed in dealing with anti-Cuban terrorism of U. S. origin, asserted in an interview that Gross' actions are "illegal in Cuba and in all the countries of the world. No sovereign government accepts that a foreign power can involve itself in internal activities whose purpose is too promote regime change. [And] Yes, free Gross for humanitarian reasons. Also for humanitarian reasons, the United States must free the Five."

Photo: Alan Gross

Terror in Iran: Photo tells a story

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 12:56:00 +0000

Early Sunday morning these two young men were executed in Tehran.

The two were part of a group that had robbed someone of the equivalent of a couple hundred dollars. We should blame the Iranian regime for the crime for which these men were sentenced. Young men like these are driven to petty crime because of unemployment, lack of opportunities and the socio-economic crisis. They did not have a hope. Their marginalization and brutalization pushes many over the edge.

These men should not have paid with their lives. Why execution??? A handful of the regime's leaders are stealing the wealth of the nation and have amassed billions of dollars in their bank accounts while presiding over a legacy of murder, torture, rape and kidnap, to name but a few of their crimes ... and these victims of the theocratic regime are executed?! Look at the fear in their eyes! You can be sure that they were not given due process or a fair trial in any real sense of those terms.

The terror in these young men's eyes is one that most could not even begin to contemplate. When they committed their crimes, they surely would not for one moment have thought their folly would have led to this. Look at the man on the left - petrified to the point that he has rested his head on the shoulder of one of the regime's executioners, whose job it will be to hang him minutes later. Petty criminals maybe they are, though what goes through the mind of these young souls, who should have a life ahead of them, in these moments?

Executions like these and the many others that take place regularly in Iran do not alleviate the symptoms of this broken and suffering country, let alone the real underlying causes. Iran has the highest rate of execution per population in the world. Yet as the situation in Tehran and many other cities and towns across the country testifies, the incidences of petty crime amongst a host of other social ills is extremely high. This is evident with many examples across jurisdictions that still use capital punishment. The Tudeh Party of Iran (Party of the Masses, Iran's Communist Party) is explicitly opposed to capital punishment and its use under the Iranian Penal Code.

End executions ...
End the terror in Iran!

Navid Shomali is international representative of Iran's Tudeh Party.

Photo: Two young men about to be executed in Tehran, Jan. 20. Navid Shomali/Facebook

Honduran Coup in 2009 was invitation to plunder

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 14:22:00 +0000

Some fallout from the 2009 military coup removing Honduran President Manuel "Mel" Zelaya becomes evident only over time. Land takeovers for industrial farming are on a fast track with harmful effects accumulating. And plans are unfolding for manufacturing and trade enclaves under privatized governance.

A 2010 Supreme Judicial Court decision invalidated a 2009 decree issued by the Zelaya government that authorized small farmers to use 150,000 acres of land subject to land reform instituted decades before. They quickly occupied half the land. Now landowners in the fertile Lower Aguan region are using soldiers and paramilitaries to evict them. Land there is coveted for growing African Palm trees, the oil of which is used for biofuel.

The recently formed Regional Agrarian Platform of Farmers in Aguan (PARCA) organized a protest in Colón Department on January 14. That coalition of 15 organizations was responding to assassinations of dozens of peasant activists and to prosecutions directed at 3,081 land occupiers. Farm workers Luis Antonio Ramos Reyes and Manuel Antonio Pérez were murdered on January 11.

PARCA marched also for food sovereignty. Presently 70 percent of Hondurans, mostly in rural areas, faces food insecurity. Some 300,000 farm families nationwide are demanding land.

The coalition is demanding repeal of Honduras' Law of Modernization and Development of the Agricultural Sector, passed in 1992 for the purpose of "increasing production, internal commercialization, exports, and agro-industrial development." The law "converted land into merchandise that can be bought and sold" and thereby accelerated the process by which cooperatives and small farmers lacking credit and supplies have to sell off land gained under agrarian reform.

Plans developed by the Porfirio Lobo government to develop areas referred to as "model cities" or "charter cities" also serve Honduras' wealthy minority. The parent "Free City Movement" is the brain-child of U. S. economics professor Paul Romer, who is a government consultant. The enclaves will be centers of free rein capitalism as espoused by University of Chicago economist Milton Freidman.

Proponents at first envisioned offshore islands as venues for privately operated political entities able to legislate, administer courts and the police, and control immigration, foreign investments, taxation, trade, and manufacturing. Subsequent planning placed them on land.

Ending a tortuous process, the Honduran Congress on January 13, 2013 passed authorizing legislation for model cities. In late 2010 the government had fashioned a constitutional amendment permitting "Special Development Regions" (RED) to be created. Within weeks, the Congress passed enabling legislation. In September, 2012 the government signed an agreement with investors to develop three RED's. Canadian, South Korean, and U.S. Investor groups are involved including one headed by Milton Friedman's grandson.

Progress halted a month later when the Constitutional Court's five judge bench invalidated the enabling legislation. The Congress quickly fired the four justices rejecting the project and replaced them with other, more compliant ones. The maneuver is aimed at protecting the recently refashioned enabling law.

The first model city is projected for Puerto Castilla on Honduras' eastern coast. While official publicity alludes to a sparsely populated region, the government claims the right to expropriate land nearby inhabited by poverty stricken African-descended Garifuna people.

A spokesperson for the Fraternal Organization of Honduran Black People, OFRANEH, protested a "dog eat dog" situation, and predicted that, "if our environment goes, our culture dies." Announcing a national mobilization for January 24, the National Front of Popular Resistance (FNRP), foremost opponent of post-coup governments, denounced the "oligarchy's new assault" and "violation of the principles of Honduran sovereignty."

Porfirio Lobo's government, in power courtesy of post coup elections widely regarded as corrupt, is returning to one of President Zelaya's popular programs. After the coup, Venezuela quickly stopped sending oil to Honduras under its Petrocaribe program. According to Foreign Minister Arturo Corrales, however, Honduras will rejoin the 18-country solidarity project directed at regional integration. A Petrocaribe meeting in Caracas on February 14 will give approval, and oil will be arriving shortly thereafter, with 40 percent of the cost payable over 25 years at one percent interest.

Corrales promised Honduras would not be rejoining the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA). Coup plotters invoked Honduran membership in that solidarity alliance to justify their action. Reportedly, the government is seeking to achieve lowered cost fuels to gain support in Presidential elections set for November, 2013. Anticipating that contest, the FNRP's Liberty and Refoundation Party and "presidential candidate Xiomara Castro de Zelaya have proposed democratic socialism as an alternative to this failed system."

Photo: An injured man is held by a police officer after clashes between police and a group of farmers who were demanding a meeting with Supreme Court of Justice President Jorge Rivera Aviles, to discuss a land dispute in Valle del Aguan, in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Fernando Antonio/AP

France bombs Mali, complicates mess long in making

Thu, 17 Jan 2013 12:48:00 +0000

French military units, including aviation and infantry, have attacked Islamist rebels in Mali since last week. The United States, the United Kingdom, Italy and Germany pledged support, while military contingents from nearby African countries also prepared to intervene. Although many Malians appear to be welcoming the intervention so far, it is the culmination of a series of actions by France and the United States that have created a situation of no-good options for this impoverished West African country.

The French justify their intervention by warning that not only Mali but also the whole region could become the base for terrorist actions, which would affect not only Africa but Europe as well. Mali is located in the Sahel region of West Africa. However, in the wake of French intervention, Islamist fighters seized a gas production facility in Eastern Algeria, taking as hostages several score Norwegian, American, British and other employees, but freeing all Algerian employees.

First some background

A year ago, Tuaregs in Northeastern Mali had begun an armed uprising (not their first) aimed at creating a new Tuareg state, to be called Azawad, out of parts of Mali and neighboring countries, which also have large Tuareg minorities. Claiming that the Malian government was not providing the army with sufficient resources to defeat the Tuareg rebellion, junior officers led by Captain Amadou Sanogo overthrew the government in March.

The coup disorganized and divided the Malian forces, allowing the rebels to make rapid advances, whereby they captured the whole of Northeastern Mali, including the famous city of Timbuktu. The Tuaregs separatist organization, the National Liberation Movement of Azawad (MNLA), had taken on as allies several militant Islamist forces, including Ansar Dine (Defenders of the Faith), Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and MUJAO (Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa). Malian and foreign fighters from these groups rapidly moved to the front of the rebellion, taking over the cities in the Northeast, pushing the Tuareg separatist fighters aside and imposing an extremely harsh form of Sharia law on the local inhabitants.

Most people in Mali are Muslims, but practice a more liberal, Sufi-influenced form of Islam, which also incorporates local African traditions. The rebels have now imposed prohibitions on music, restrictions on women's dress and movements and other bans, while also introducing execution of adulterers, maiming of thieves and the destruction of historic tombs of Sufi saints.

NATO intervention in Libya: a catalyst

Tuareg disaffection is not new, but the rebellion got a big boost from the French and NATO attack on Libya, which resulted in the overthrow and killing of Muammar Gadaffi last year. Among other things, this allowed a vast amount of armaments and supplies from the Libyan Army to fall into the hands of the Tuareg-Islamist alliance. Many trained and experienced Tuareg officers and soldiers from Libya were now launched into Mali along with all the hardware.

U.S. involvement worsens situation

A very troubling article in Sunday's New York Times suggests a deep U.S. involvement in creating the current bloody developments. Evidently, the U.S. has provided extensive training for Malian military officers. However, many of the officers who have received this training have gone over to the rebels, taking their skills with them. Captain Sanogo, leader of the March 2011 coup, which even further destabilized the situation and opened the door for the Islamist takeover of all of Northeastern Mali, was also trained by the United States. This is a situation which could repeat itself elsewhere in Africa. Most Americans probably do not know that the United States has now got a military presence in numerous African countries, with some "boots on the ground," but many more involved in training and support missions like the one that has gone so spectacularly wrong in Mali.

Political-economic view

When Mali got its independence from France in 1960, it was the recipient of much aid from the Soviet Union and Eastern European socialist countries. Especially after socialism collapsed in Europe, Mali was pressured into accepting many policies that tie it to the French economy. One of these policies is that its currency, the West African CFA Franc (also shared by other West African states most of which are former French colonies) is partly controlled by France.

Mali, like most of its neighbors, is dependent on credit from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which require, in exchange for extending credit, programs of "structural adjustment" which emphasize "free" trade, privatization and austerity.

Like other countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Mali is rich in natural resources, which it provides at low cost to French and other outside corporations. In Mali's case, the major products are gold (Mali is third in Africa after South Africa and Ghana), agricultural and fisheries products. There may be major oil deposits under the Saharan sands of the North, currently controlled by the Islamist insurgents.

Mali's neighbor, Niger, has major uranium deposits on which France relies for a large proportion of its energy needs. This was the famous "yellowcake" uranium ore, which manipulated by George W. Bush and Tony Blair, played a major role in providing a pretext for the Iraq war.

Yet Mali (population 15 million) is one of the poorest countries in the world. Its per capita Gross Domestic Product is about $1,200 per year and its infant mortality rate is over 100 infant deaths annually per thousand live births. The literacy level is a little more than 30 percent, with all these things being worse in the barren northeast.

On top of all this comes a major problem of climate change: The Sahara Desert is relentlessly pushing southward, forcing cattle, sheep and camel herding people to leave their traditional zones of settlement. Actually, this desertification process has been affecting the whole Sahel belt since before the days of the Ancient Egyptian Pharaohs; but global warming and other factors are intensifying it and increasing social conflicts, while creating a huge multinational refugee problem. The war in Mali comes on top of these preexisting disasters, with the displacement of several hundred thousand people.

Bombs drop, more danger ahead

The original idea was not to call on the French to prop up the Malian government. The African Union and ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) were supposed to do that job in coordination with the Malian army, and with the sanction of the United Nations Security Council. However, most observers say that such an all-African force could not be ready until September and the Islamists stole a march on them by last week's thrust toward Bamako.

The French have been bombing rebel positions in the Northeast, but the rebels have gone to ground, in some cases moving their fighters into the homes of the civilian population. Meanwhile, the rebels have moved past the narrow waist of the country which separates the rebel held Northeast from the populous Southwest, capturing and holding the important centers of Konna and Diabali and threatening Mopti, a key regional capital.

The French say that their stay in Mali may be extended. The people of Mali now find themselves trapped between two unappetizing alternatives: Submit to harsh Sharia law imposed by the rebels, or hand over effective sovereignty to a foreign occupying force in which their former colonial masters play the most prominent role, and have their own economic and political agenda.

According to reports on the scene, many people in Bamako and other regions of Mali are currently glad that the French troops have arrived; they see the Islamists as a bigger threat. But time will tell how that will hold up over the long haul.

The main organization of the Marxist left in Mali, the SADI (African Solidarity for Democracy and Independence) issued a statement in support of the Malian army troops going to combat the Islamic insurgency, but warned about things developing into a war, which would end up justifying foreign occupation of the country.

The seizing of the gas facility in Algeria adds a new dimension to the crisis. Among the Islamist fighters' demands are an end to Algerian collaboration with French intervention and the freeing of Islamist prisoners in Algeria. In the 1990s, a war took place between the government and Islamists, which cost 200,000 lives by some estimates.

Photo: This Tuareg woman is the head of her household, and lives outside Menaka, Mali. (Emilia Tjernström/CC)

A hero, protests and a dog matter in Germany

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 13:28:00 +0000

BERLIN-First a glance at long-past history: Featured at many German-American parades and festivals is the "hero" who helped fight the American Revolutionary war, Friedrich Wilhelm Augustin von Steuben, sometimes known as Baron von Steuben. The "Steuben Day" parade in New York and similar parades around the country in the Fall are attended by thousands. Von Steuben's contributions to American independence are celebrated by German Americans and others at countless annual Oktoberfest celebrations.

Unfortunately and unbeknownst to many, however, von Steuben had to either change or conceal important facts about himself.

His noble title and rank as "Prussian Lieutenant General" was an invention; he had really been dropped from Friedrich the Great's army as a lowly captain.

That he, like Frederick the Great himself, was probably gay also would not have gone over well in certain circles back then as it would not go over well in certain circles today.

So with the help and advice of Benjamin Franklin in Paris and a stunning general's uniform from Franklin's tailor, he was able to impress George Washington and other top officers-and when he got to America, Steuben proved his mettle; amidst the freezing huts and tents at Valley Forge he played a major part in forging a disciplined, fighting and victorious revolutionary army. You can see a statue of him in Magdeburg, where he was born.

In any case, von Steuben's hometown is in the news again these days. As in Valley Forge, the weather this time of year can be icy. But it wasn't hostile Hessians who were on the march in Magdeburg recently. Far worse than that - it was Nazis.

For years now Nazis have been marching annually in Dresden to mark the anniversary of the almost total destruction of the city by British planes in the historic 1945 air raid. The marches and rallies have been met increasingly with resistance and opposition from anti-fascist groups so, hoping to march where they would have less difficulty, the right wingers set their sights further down the Elbe River on von Steuben's home town, Magdeburg. The city of Magdeburg was a state capital in the former East German Democratic Republic.

Once again they chose a date near the day when Magdeburg suffered its most devastating air raid, January 16, 1945. Again they hoped to win sympathy for their constant claim that in World War II it was Germany that suffered worst of all.

Just like in Dresden, the city fathers felt compelled to protest the arrival of several thousand Nazis from all over Germany and neighboring countries but wanted no troubles and no confrontations; a downtown street of protest with booths and stands offering everything from books to hot wurst was OK - while the Nazis were permitted to march, but well away from the downtown area.

That was the policy of the Christian Democrats, the Social Democrats, and some unions and church groups. More militant organizations, including the Left and the Greens, wanted rather to block the Nazi marches altogether, as they had done in Dresden, and convince them never to return with their typical bull-like napes, their black flags, and their menacing anti-foreigner slogans.

As in Dresden, the official policy was against any anti-Nazi blockades, and here those who wanted to facilitate a march by the Nazis succeeded. They altered the Nazi route at the last moment, using the Elbe itself to protect the right-wingers. So while the anti-Nazis waited and froze on the east side of the river, the police protected the Nazis marching on the west side - including a provocative rally in front of the left wing, anti-fascist center.

When anti-fascists then tried to get there to protect their center they were encircled by the police; some were arrested. As always, estimates varied: there were probably about 900 Nazis and 2,000 anti-Nazis.

A hundred miles eastward, in Berlin, the picture was very different. Sunday was the day when those of left-wing persuasion mark the memory of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, brutally murdered by the Nazis' predecessors in January, 1919. Thousands go every year to the memorial site where they were once buried, often placing red carnations around the large, simple stone saying: "The dead warn us!" Around them, in a semicircular wall, are urns of leading socialists and communists from the early 1900's until 1990.

Every year a group of several thousand mostly younger people, with flags, banners and music, walk two and a half miles from Karl Marx Allee. On arriving they join the far bigger main crowd who go by subway or other transportation and walk the last seven or eight blocks to the memorial site at the edge of a larger cemetery holding the graves of many progressives.

This annual event, renewed after the Nazi years by the GDR government, was retained after the end of the GDR and became an emotionally moving gathering not just for all the faithful old leftists but also for a growing group of young people.

But this spirit and solidarity with both the past and the international present always angered some important people, and every method was used to break the tradition. In the 1990's they tried intimidation, with constant frisking, hundreds of police vans, helicopters, mounted cops and frequent attacks into the marching group, often when they spotted some young Kurd carrying a small flag of the forbidden Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK).

One year a dubious written threat to blast the demonstration and resultant Verbot [ban] (and withdrawal by the Left) almost ended the march, but many defied the ban, using side streets to get as close as they could.

Another threat came a few years ago from within the Left party, whose leaders are usually the first to place their carnations at the site. A stone marked "To the Victims of Stalinism" was embedded near the entrance, causing immediate controversy; many considered this the wrong place for such a stone or were dismayed at what they saw as support for constant attempts to denounce the GDR as just another dictatorship, hardly better (and perhaps even worse) than the Nazis.

There were scuffles, a few radical hotheads tore up flowers placed there, and the media lapped it up. But aside from some quarrels, the people keep coming, if not in the huge numbers of the first post-GDR years - many are too old, many are gone - but with a new infusion of enthusiasm from the young people.

This year another dent was made. Among those taking the longer route are always groups of ultra-leftists from all Germany (and other countries as well). There are Maoist groups, Trotskyist and Spartakist groups in a wide variety, plus some Turkish, Kurdish and smaller immigrant groups, with their varied banners and a chance at the loudspeaker truck.

In general the factions simply agreed to disagree. But last year it was noticed that one radical Turkish and one radical German group carried banners with portraits not only of "Karl and Rosa" and occasionally Lenin but also of Stalin and Mao.

The leaders of the march managed to push such banners well to the rear, but a clearly unspontaneous group of young men in a building along the route tried with slogans to provoke a melee over the issue. A resultant shouting match and perhaps a few blows went unnoticed by all but a few among the marchers. But somehow the media were right there, and they made the most of it.

This year, using that little controversy as justification, an autonomous youth organization (connected to the Left party) called "Solid," decided to join the West Berlin Young Social Democrats, the Young Greens and others in boycotting the four-kilometer march. They held a separate memorial ceremony in West Berlin, ending at the place on the canal where Rosa Luxemburg's body was thrown into the water.

This split was viewed with great dismay by a majority who earnestly regretted glorifying Stalin or Mao but saw the split as a new danger - possibly resulting in the whole memorial tradition breaking up and dying out.

In the end, only an estimated 400-800 showed up for the new grouping in West Berlin; about 4,000 militants walked the traditional four-kilometer route but, lacking some who went off to the other march, had a proportionately larger share of ultra-left so called "revolutionaries."

But at the memorial site the crowd was friendly and thoughtful. Many were pensioners, many others are active for the causes of peace, the environment and democratic socialism as well.

Not all was peaceful though. A small crowd had gathered, as usual, around the controversial stone. Although they too were peaceful, two grim cordons of menacing, helmeted cops stood nearby, the outside ring with police dogs.

Then a young woman passed by, quite innocently. But her dog, half the size of the police dogs, was soon in an angry moment, first snarling, then loudly barking and lunging at one of the bigger police dogs, who answered in kind. In a minute all the dogs were wildly barking. Even after the little marcher had been pulled away by his owner, the police dogs began to bark and snarl at each other. The crowds laughed as the canine cops pulled away all of their charges. Some congratulated the woman and her little "left wing" dog for its victory over the mean canines.

But now, for the five larger German political parties, attention is focused tensely on the state elections in Lower Saxony next Sunday. The Left, the right-wing Free Democrats and the young Pirates' party must all fear missing the needed five per cent and getting left out of the legislative game in Hanover, the capital.

While the Christians fear losing to a coalition of Social Democrats and Greens, the Social Democrats, facing a continuing decline in support, must also fear ending up out in the cold. All are watching the last minute maneuvers of the opponents and staring at the latest poll figures like rabbits hypnotized by snakes.

The results will certainly influence the big vote in September. The weather in Germany remains icy. And while many of the leaders frequently change or conceal the truth about themselves, not many, unfortunately, are as valiant as "Baron Steuben."

Photo: Carnations lay on the grave of Rosa Luxemburg at a cemetery in Berlin, Jan. 13. This is the 94th anniversary of the deaths of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, killed Jan. 15, 1919, by right-wing militiamen. dpa/ Paul Zinken/AP

Campaign to free Colombia's David Ravelo draws global support

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 11:00:00 +0000

Responding to the imprisonment of Colombian human rights activist David Ravelo (and also the grim situation of political prisoners there), members of the North American Committee for the Defense of David Ravelo were in Colombia on Ravelo's behalf in late November 2012. Details as to grave flaws marring the conduct of Ravelo's prosecution and trial are delineated in a letter appearing below that they sent to Colombian Attorney General Eduardo Montealegre.

The delegation demanded freedom for Ravelo and protection for his family and colleagues in his native Barrancabermeja. Readers wanting to join the worldwide campaign for Ravelo are invited to endorse an action alert accessible at www.afgj.org .

Former student activist Ravelo was a leader in the USO oil-workers union and the librarians' union of his local university. As a municipal official holder for the Patriotic Union he survived murderous attacks against that leftist electoral coalition. Ravelo is a 38-year member of the Colombian Communist Party, and since 1991, a member of its Central Committee.

In Barrancabermeja, Ravelo organized and led multiple human rights groups, among them the CREDHOS human rights organization and the regional section of MOVICE, an organization advocating for victims of state crimes. The Barrancabermeja Catholic Diocese honored him in 2008 for 35 years of human rights work.

Ravelo's conviction on a trumped up charge of aggravated homicide was announced on Dec. 11, 2012. He was sentenced to 18 years and three months in prison. Since then dozens of European and U.S. human rights groups have condemned the judicial processes to which David Ravelo was subjected. In the United States, they included the Center for Constitutional Rights, Washington Office on Latin America, and United Steelworkers.

Colombia's prison population, now including 10,000 political prisoners, has increased by 30 percent during the current presidency of Juan Manuel Santos. Recent reports highlight abysmal prison conditions: foul sanitary facilities, limited availability of potable water, inadequate medical services, and overcrowding. Many political prisoners serve two to three years without charges and are then released. The U.S. government has contributed funding for prison construction in Colombia

Letter to Colombian Attorney General

Here is the letter to Colombian Attorney General Eduardo Montealegre from the North American Committee for the Defense of David Ravelo:

January 10, 2013

Dear Dr. Montealegre,

We are members of a delegation of U.S, Canadian, and German citizens who visited Colombia for a week beginning November 25, 2012. Although our fundamental concern in regard to your country is the war and terrible suffering there, our visit was aimed at solidarity with David Ravelo, (cédula de ciudadanía 13.887.558), currently held in La Picota prison in Bogota. Mr. Ravelo was convicted December 11, 2012 of aggravated homicide in the case of Barrancabermeja mayoral candidate David Nuñez Cala, killed in 1991. He was sentenced to 18 years, three months in prison.

Prompting this letter is our realization, indeed our certainty, that the prosecution and judicial processes that led to Mr. Ravelo's conviction do not meet internationally recognized standards of fairness and justice. We base our view on information gained before, during, and following our visit to Colombia. Our reasoning is as follows:

Mr. Ravelo was denied due judicial process. Prior to his conviction he had already spent over two years in prison. At his trial there was no opportunity for evidence on his behalf to be presented; 30 defense witnesses were prevented from testifying.

Testimony provided by two prosecution witnesses was self-serving. They were two former paramilitary leaders convicted of massacres. The testimony they offered against David Ravelo facilitated reductions of their sentences under terms of Law 975, Law of Justice and Peace. The sentence of one of them, Mario Jaimes Mejía, alias "El Panadero," was reduced from 40 to no more than eight years. Another witness at Mr. Ravelo's trial testified that the two principal prosecution witnesses had tried to bribe him.

We suspect that the principal motivation for prosecuting and convicting David Ravelo was political retribution. Mr. Ravelo, a leader of the National Movement of Victims of State Crimes (MOVICE, by its initials in Spanish), the Regional Corporation for Defense of Human Rights (CREDHOS), and other human rights organizations, is acknowledged and respected for his commitment to defending human rights in the Barrancabermeja region. In fact, his efforts brought public attention to paramilitaries, police, and members of the national army suspected of human rights abuses and thereby contributed to justice being applied. Mario Jaimes Mejía had been convicted in part because of David Ravelo's efforts. Ravelo took the lead in publicizing ties between ex - President Alvaro Uribe and paramilitary groups.

The prosecutor in Mr. Ravelo's case was William Pacheco Granados who had served as police lieutenant in Armenia in 1992. He was dismissed from that post because the year before he helped arrange for Guillermo Hurtado Parra's forced disappearance. Under Colombian law (Article 76 of Decree 261/2000), that crime permanently disqualifies him from holding any public office, including, of course, that of public prosecutor. We hold that David Ravelo's conviction is invalid because of this and other judicial and prosecutorial irregularities.

Members of David Ravelo's family have received multiple death threats and been intimidated in other ways. His associates in the CREDHOS organization have also been threatened.

David Ravelo's case is worrying on other accounts. The attorney general in Barrancabermeja in April 2009 determined not to prosecute David Ravelo. In response, jurisdiction in his case was re-assigned to the national Attorney General in Bogota where prosecution was resumed. Initial charges against Ravelo of "rebellion" were dropped on discovery that in 1995 he had been absolved of that charge (after two years in prison) and that reinstatement was impossible. Conveniently enough, the charge against David Ravelo switched to "aggravated homicide." Six months elapsed between the end of David Ravelo's trial proceedings in May 2012 and public notice of his conviction. Almost four weeks elapsed between November 16, 2012, the date officially assigned to his conviction, and December 11, 2012, the date when Mr. Ravelo and his legal defenders officially learned of his conviction.

We would remind your office that Colombia's Constitutional Court under its decision T-590/98 has ruled that because defenders of human rights are vulnerable to attacks and abuse within the national context, the state must assume responsibility for protecting them.

We are encouraged by international calls for justice in David Ravelo's case.

Since 2000, the Inter-American Human Rights Commission has extended "precautionary measures" for the protection of members of CREDHOS and its directors, including David Ravelo.

In November 2010, British parliamentarians called for his release from prison.

In March 2011, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, Gabriela Knaul, and the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders, Margaret Sekaggya, issued a joint communication to the Colombian Government expressing their concern that "criminalization of David Ravelo occurs in the context of increasing prosecutions against human rights defenders in Colombia".

Irish solidarity activists visited Ravelo in prison in November 2012. One of them, Northern Ireland Assembly member John McCallister, commented that, "David Ravelo is an admirable man, dedicated to the defense of human rights. I am horrified that a human rights defender can be convicted in a case led by a prosecutor implicated in crimes against humanity." McAllister joined 30 British and Irish parliamentarians, lawyers, and labor leaders in issuing a statement condemning David Ravelo's conviction.

On 5 December 2012, the Inter- American Commission of Human Rights condemned repression against human rights defenders in Colombia including Mr. Ravelo.

On December 10, 2012, 13 European human rights groups sent a communication to your office denouncing David Ravelo's conviction. http://www.fidh.org/Colombia-International-12579 Later that month 21 other human rights, labor, and lawyers' groups based mainly in the United States and the United Kingdom sent a similar letter to your office. http://www.colectivodeabogados.org/IMG/pdf/Carta_al_Fiscal_caso_David_Rabelo.pdf

On December 10, 2012, your office received a letter from 80 members of the British Parliament who judged his conviction to be a "serious injustice and violation of his human rights." http://prensarural.org/spip/spip.php?article9850

Mr. Montealegre, in view of these considerations we urge upon your office a turn toward fairness and justice in the case of David Ravelo Crespo. We will be content with nothing less than Mr. Ravelo's immediate liberation. Additionally, our group demands that effective protection be provided for members of Mr. Ravelo's family and members of the CREDHOS human rights organization. Lastly, we urge that, in accordance with Colombian law, William Pacheco Granados be removed from his position as prosecutor within Colombia's judicial system.

With respect and in hopes that David Ravelo will receive justice, we are,

Sincerely yours,

(Names of delegation members)

Photo: David Ravelo (PBI Colombia)

Cuban foreign travel eases, U.S. is stymied

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 10:59:00 +0000

New Cuban regulations taking effect on January 14 allow for hassle-free foreign departures and easy return for travelers. Florida's Cuban-American old guard and Washington policy makers are concerned: the Cuban Adjustment Act (CAA) of 1966 no longer serves their purposes.

"Beginning on January 1, 1959," recalls a Cuban observer, "the U.S. government converted its migratory policy into an instrument of its political hostility used for internal destabilization and discrediting the Cuban revolutionary process. [It allowed] unrestrained emigration of those tied to the Batista regime. [Later] Cubans arriving on U.S. territory illegally would be expeditiously admitted." The writer was referring to the CAA, by which Cubans arriving without legal papers receive social services and, after a year, permanent U.S. residence.

In addition to encouraging Cubans to risk illegal, dangerous, and expensive sea crossings to Florida and Mexico, the U.S. government has relied upon entry visas to help keep out floods of Cuban migrants. Officials recall the exodus of 1965 (Camarioca), of 1980 (Mariel), and of 1994 (the "rafters' crisis").

In limiting entry from Cuba, U.S. efforts jibed with onerous Cuban regulations restricting citizens' foreign travel. To travel abroad, Cubans formerly had to secure an exit visa and show an invitation from foreign hosts. Processing fees were exacted. The government's rationale was to ensure that skills gained at state expense by scientists, health workers, and teachers be exercised in Cuba, not overseas.

One prime U.S. object in discouraging legal exit from Cuba by holding back on entry visas was to embellish the picture of a fenced in, seething, and suffering Cuban people. The U.S. economic blockade causing food, medicine, and money shortages contributed.

Yet the U.S. government has sought to let Cuban migrants enter who looked like they are escaping communist oppression - hence the CAA, its enticement of guaranteed permanent residence, and its promise of U.S. citizenship. For U.S. managers of the scheme, Cuba would become a "pressure cooker."

A tale of risk taking and escape is plausible only if Cuban arrivals act as if they are committed to new lives in freedom. Ideas of reconnecting with family and friends in Cuba are discouraged. Yet most of the 400,000 Cubans living abroad who visited the island in 2011 entered from the United States.

Former Miami congressperson David Rivera and current Senator Marco Rubio jointly introduced legislation in 2011 calling for loss of permanent residence for those Cubans who, having used the CAA to enter, end up returning to Cuba within five years of arriving.

Formerly, Cubans were allowed to live abroad for only 11 months, at which point they had obtain a re-entry permit and return. They could reapply to leave again. Non-return meant loss of citizenship, property, and social services. Monitoring of return reflected old concerns about keeping counter-revolutionaries from returning.

Now after two years of living abroad, Cubans - U.S. Cubans included - are allowed to renew permission by visiting a Cuban diplomatic office, anywhere. They retain Cuban citizenship. Non-citizen foreign residents may now visit the island for up to 180 days.

Needing only an entry visa from the country they'll visit, if required, Cubans find the door opening for foreign travel, including to the United States. They can get there by way of Europe, Canada, and other countries. The United States does not require entry visas for visitors leaving from those points. A minor rush from Cuba for U.S. jobs and services becomes a possibility.

Quoting an unnamed "expert on migration," Cuban journalist Jean Guy Allard envisions "a new type of Cuban American, with double residence, which assures that the Cuban Adjustment Act will become totally obsolete, and also counter-productive." One single-minded U.S. critic of the Cuban revolution, Republican congressperson Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, is clearly perplexed. The immigrant daughter of a former Batista official favors "a change to the CAA so that those who use this singular and unique benefit that is only available to Cuban nationals, cannot return to visit Cuba ...One cannot say that one is subjected to political persecution in Cuba, and then go back to visit."

In October 2012, when Cuba's migratory reforms were first announced, State Department official William Ostick charitably advised Cubans "not to risk their lives by undertaking dangerous sea journeys." For decades, of course, the CAA has encouraged Cubans to take the risk.

In the end, U.S. disposition of its CAA rests with Public Law 104-208, immigration legislation passed in 1996. Section 606 conditions any CAA repeal on requiring "that a democratically elected government in Cuba is in power." There is the additional challenge of redefining immigration from Cuba while trying to fix immigration policies for those on the move from elsewhere in the world.

What about U.S. citizens going to Cuba? Many Cuban solidarity activists among them, and undoubtedly others, are asking why they have to defy the law to go to Cuba while Cubans are free to go anywhere.

Photo: The entrance of Havana's José Martí International airport in Cuba. Franklin Reyes/AP

Evo Morales remains popular despite corruption charges

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 10:59:00 +0000

Bolivia's government entered 2013 on an optimistic note. Socialist-oriented projects, aimed at shoring up national independence and protecting indigenous rights, seemingly were on track. Yet the specter of governmental corruption had materialized.

Opinion surveys show that President Evo Morales, overwhelming victor in two presidential elections and one recall vote, enjoys a 64 percent approval rating. As of early 2012, poverty had fallen from 61 percent of Bolivians in 2007 to 49 percent early in 2012. Extreme poverty fell 20 percent during 2012. Bolivia's five percent economic growth rate for 2012 will repeat in 2013, say observers. Exports are up, and Bolivia's international monetary reserves reached a new $14 billion high.

Recognition of such achievements vies with acclaim Morales receives as an indigenous president heading an indigenous majority nation and from his advocacy for environmental integrity and for action against climate change. Morales' presentation December 21, 2012, of a "Manifesto of the Island of the Sun" is a case in point.

Tens of thousands of indigenous people were waiting on an island in Bolivia's Lake Titicaca as a facsimile of a traditional Indian sailing vessel approached carrying Morales in indigenous regalia. He began: "This Island is where time began and history began with the sons of the Sun. But then darkness fell with the arrival of foreign invaders. [...] we proclaim the end of that age of darkness and 'non-time' and the beginning of the age of light [...] Once again it is time for the peoples of the world, social movements, and all those who have been marginalized, discriminated against or humiliated to unite, organize, mobilize, become aware and rise up."

Morales offered "ten ways to confront capitalism and start building a culture of life." They were: rebuild democracy, transferring power to the poor; build human and social rights; "decolonize our peoples and cultures" to build a "communitarian socialism of living well;" and protect the environment. He called for sovereignty over natural resources, food sovereignty, alliances against interventionism, and development of knowledge for all. He seeks a "global institutional union of peoples" and "holistic economic development."

The backdrop to the event timed with the winter solstice, however, was less enticing. It turns out that prosecutors, judges, and the police have engaged in corruption throughout Morales' presidency. High officials are in jail and now some of Morales' own ministers are implicated.

The government announced last month that two "ministers of the presidency" and a former "minister of government" are being investigated. As of late November, a dozen judicial officials and prosecutors had been jailed, among them Fernando Rivera who was responsible for the 18 month jailing of U. S. citizen Jacob Ostreicher. The Brooklyn native apparently relied upon drug traffickers to fund large land holdings and rice-farming operations. His recent release came about though the intervention of actor Sean Penn and U.S. congresspersons.

Confiscation and selling off of Ostreicher's properties epitomize one category of corruption. Wielding new powers, officials have confiscated contraband, properties financed through drug dealings, assets of foreign corporations, and land delivered to the state under agrarian reform. Truckers, managers, and other employees of those targeted were seen as complicit.

Confiscated assets are ripe for profitable sell-offs once bosses and underlings are unable within 15 days to prove their activities are legal. Transnational corporations and even property-rich right-wingers, eager to accommodate a potentially confiscatory left-wing government, hand over assets in a spirit of cooperation.

According to Jorge Lora Cam, source of much of this information, official corruption is widespread. The "Minister of Transparency in August 2012 reported 8,000 ongoing judicial processes for corruption, but [so far] only 100 prisoners." The same ministry revealed in December 2010 that, "between 2006 and 2010, 71 accusations of corruption were received involving 568 functionaries." Cam suggests officials of former regimes serving local and international oligarchs were well versed in corruption and their influence persists.

Meanwhile, the government continues with its socialist agenda. On December 29, Morales announced nationalization of four companies controlled by Spain's Iberdrola Corporation: two electricity distribution centers, one electrical services enterprise, and an investment company. Bolivia's National Electricity Corporation will operate these companies plus another nationalized in May, 2012. Morales cited high fees charged rural customers as justifying the take-over.

Nevertheless, international bankers in October spent $4.5 billion on Bolivian bonds sold at low interest rates to finance infrastructure projects. Foreign markets and foreign investment are envisioned too as Bolivia's lithium industry takes shape. Morales was present January 4 at the Uyuni salt flats at opening ceremonies for the country's first lithium production plant, state-owned. Bolivia possesses large deposits of lithium, essential in the manufacture of batteries used in electric cars, cell phones and laptop computers.

On the Island of the Sun, Morales denounced "this age of violence against human beings and nature." He called for "a new age -an age where human beings and Mother Earth are one." Going into specifics, Jorge Lora Cam wants "the exercise from below of practices marked by solidarity, participation, transparency, and social control. That's the only way society can eradicate Mafioso groups and networks. [Otherwise] the fundamental rights of the indigenous and people in general will be ignored."

Photo: Bolivian President Evo Morales (CC)

Debate heats up over U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 14:11:00 +0000

As President Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai prepare for a Jan. 11 meeting on Afghanistan's future, debate is intensifying about the numbers of U.S. troops to remain in Afghanistan after the projected withdrawal of most U.S. troops by the end of 2014.

Though U.S. troop levels exceeded 100,000 after the 2009 surge, post-surge withdrawals have lowered the level to about 68,000. Over 2,000 U.S. soldiers have died as a result of more than 11 years of the war, and more than 18,000 have been injured. Many thousands of Afghan civilians have also died or been injured.

While some military leaders are urging that as many as 15,000 to 20,000 troops should remain, the administration is reportedly considering a level of 3,000 to 9,000, and this week, White House spokespersons have mentioned the possibility of a "zero option."

Recent public opinion polls continue to show a strong majority of Americans favoring an end to the war, and that call has been echoed in Congress. A March 2012 letter calling for troop withdrawal was signed by 24 senators. In September, U.S. Representatives Barbara Lee, D-Calif., and Walter Jones, R-N.C., initiated a letter that garnered nearly 100 signatures of House members.

Speaking on Pacifica radio station KPFA's morning Up Front program earlier this week, Rep. Lee called for an expedited withdrawal. "First, I want to see the deadline pushed up," she told listeners. "2014 is way too far out. So many of our young men and women are exposed, once again, to be killed and hurt. There's no reason to be there. We need to begin to expedite this process of withdrawal."

Lee said she will soon reintroduce the amendment she has repeatedly proposed during the appropriations process, to end funds for combat operations in Afghanistan and limit funding to what's needed for an "orderly and safe" withdrawal of all U.S. troops and contractors.

She called for intensified diplomatic and development efforts, and expressed the hope that a political solution can result in a more stable region where all parties living there, including women, can have a viable role in developing the country in a peaceful and secure way.

In a Jan. 9 op-ed in Roll Call, the California congresswoman linked ending the Afghanistan war and making major cuts in military spending with resolving the country's fiscal crisis: "Most Americans realize that instead of spending billions of dollars extending our military presence in Afghanistan, we need to commit to a political settlement, bring all of our troops safely home and invest in jobs as well as nation-building here at home."

She urged investing instead in fixing "our crumbling roads, our aging water systems and our struggling schools," and called the last decade's combination of soaring Pentagon spending and tax cuts for the wealthy "an unprecedented and disastrous policy course that led directly to the debt problem we have today."

In other congressional actions in recent years, Rep. Jim McGovern's bill to require the Defense Secretary to present a strategy for exiting Afghanistan, first presented in 2009, drew increasing support in the House until it nearly passed, 204-215, in May 2011. In March of that year, a measure by Reps. Dennis Kuchinich, D-Ohio and Walter Jones, R-N.C., gained 93 co-sponsors.

Things in Berlin up in the air…or grounded!

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 15:43:00 +0000

BERLIN - Things in Berlin are all really up in the air! No, cancel that! Just the opposite; they are grounded - indefinitely!

That giant new hub airport for Berlin, named after Willy Brandt, was due to be opened last June after weeks and months of ballyhoo. But it wasn't. Something was not quite OK with the fire emergency system, it was announced.

The postponement cost a host of retailers and bus companies all kinds of trouble and expense. Before long, rumors of other building botch-ups made the rounds - instead of planes! One postponement followed the other. All work was halted but a fifth opening date was promised for October, 2013.

Then - big news at last!! What was up? No, only that Berlin's Mayor Klaus Wowereit, who had chaired the Supervisory Committee, finally resigned. It was found that the committee had known of the coming calamity for months but stayed mum and kept vainly dreaming. Wowereit, his popularity figures in a crash, passed on the chair to the head of the neighboring state of Brandenburg, Matthias Platzeck, also a top Social Democrat. And the great opening day was again postponed, with no date this time - except perhaps what Germans call "Sankt Nimmerleinstag" - translated „Never-Never Day" or "When hell freezes over."

The Pirates and the Greens, parties in opposition in Berlin, are now calling for Wowereit to resign as mayor, which would cause no end of turmoil. There's plenty of that already at pleasant little Tegel airport, which was to have been replaced but is instead hopelessly overloaded. For nearby residents this means a big increase in the roar of ascending or descending planes, while those due to be hit by the ear-deafening progress of a new airport (and battered in home value) are the only ones rejoicing at every delay. As for taxpayers -the original cost was set at two billion euros. It's now over four billion - and ascending skywards.

There was also turmoil at Germany's other end in southwestern Stuttgart where every January the Free Democratic Party holds its Drei-Königs-Treffen or "Three Kings' Meeting". Though named for the wise magi - or maybe kings - in the Bible, there was little wisdom and even less Christmas spirit as the select audience in the ornate opera house reacted to current party boss Philipp Rösler with reluctant applause and a taste of highly unusual heckling.

Rösler, born not quite forty years ago (in Saigon, where he was adopted as a baby by a German couple) and dapperly-clothed as ever, looked toothlessly pathetic. Despite ties to big business, his party just can't seem to regain its one-time (if limited) voter base.

Poor Rösler has done almost everything but stand on his head to regain prestige and a corner of power, but opposing a minimum wage, any job protection or a rise in taxes on the very wealthy has not even won back much of big biz or the prosperous professionals who used to like his party. Too many now prefer to put their eggs in the twin baskets of Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Party or its Bavarian sister party.

Countdown underway

For Rösler, a countdown has begun; if his Free Democrats fail to win the needed five percent in state elections in Lower Saxony on January 20th, Rösler's day is done with his party - or what is left of it. Not many would regret the loss, aside from Ms. Rösler and their daughters of course. But maybe he could return to his old job as army doctor. And his party might finally be shoved to the gloomy wings of the political stage.

But halt. What if Rösler and his Free Democrats drop through the stage trapdoor like Don Giovanni in the opera (but without any hell fire, for he is at least a good Catholic)? That would deprive Angela Merkel's "Christians" (and she at least, as a pastor's daughter, should be a good Lutheran) of their junior partner. And therein lies the rub!

Her side still leads the polls with about 40 percent, in part because Merkel is a clever, knowledgeable politician, clear-headed, seemingly kind and friendly, without the boasting, blustering and braggadocio of many predecessors. Too few notice, in the not so fashionable but soft-looking glove, a hand, tough as nails, pushing for "austerity" and hunger for millions in southern Europe while still sounding surprisingly socially-conscious for Germany's working people - up until she can win the September elections. But forty percent is not a majority! She needs more! And so do her opponents, the Greens and Social Democrats who, even together, also lack fifty percent.

The Greens are currently riding rather high, as third biggest. In fact, while their old rivals, the Free Democrats, gnashed their vote-hungry teeth in the Opera House in Stuttgart and feared downfall, the Greens, a few streets away, were setting tables for a victory dinner. The very next day their man took his oath of office as the first Green mayor of a major German city.

What about the Social Democrats (SPD)? Instead of the planned flying start into the year's emerging election campaign, their take-off recalled the Berlin airport fiasco.

Their candidate to replace Angela Merkel as chancellor next autumn was tight-lipped Peer Steinbrück, the Bundestag delegate with the most side earnings, mostly lectures at big companies for 15,000 to 25,000 euros each, totaling 327 lectures in three years and a million and a half euros. Plus 56,000 for attending two board meetings of the Thyssen-Krupp company, to whom he evidently promised his influence in getting them lower energy costs. The 8000 euros a month he gets as mostly-absent member of the Bundestag amounted to peanuts.

This did not jive with loud attempts by the SPD to sound socially-conscious and hope voters forget how it and the Greens, when in office, slashed benefits for middle and poorer classes while cutting taxes for the wealthy. Now they plagiarize all the social demands of the Left party - which rarely, if ever, gets mentioned in the media.

Then Steinbrück hit the headlines again, this time by asserting that the salary of the German chancellor is too low, less than the director of a provincial bank, as he put it. The first reaction was laughter: the only person who could gain from a raise would be the winner of the September election, Merkel or Steinbrück, and Merkel said she's satisfied with the 17,000 euros she gets monthly. The laughter was not so hearty among the SPD's traditional working class voters, with some getting wages or pensions less than 1000 a month, sometimes far less.

Good cause to worry

These are the ones, a majority, who have good cause to worry about the years after the voting, no matter whether it is Merkel's crew or the SPD and Greens who settle into comfy Cabinet chairs and perk Mercedes or BMWs. Rumors are flying (quicker than anything at the new airport) about plans the former have tucked away for Germans under an "AUSTERITY" label. And the SPD and Greens are noted for their agility in forgetting pre-election promises.

What should be at least as worrisome - but unfortunately isn't for most people - is the century and a half old policy of German expansion, political, economic and, increasingly, military as well. The military urge was sublimated until 1990 when its key barrier, the East German Democratic Republic was finally "disappeared"; since then the old military urge has been flourished with warplanes against Serbia, warships swaying in waters off the coasts of Lebanon and Somalia, troops and planes in Afghanistan, tanks exported to Saudi Arabia and potentially atomic-armed submarines sold to Israel.

Now a new chapter has begun: with the USA and the Netherlands it is shipping "Patriot" rocket launchers to Turkey, aimed at Syria under the guise of a mock protection. No-one has yet explained what is "patriotic" about them! A couple of courageous Greens opposed this latest expansion; a few more Social Democrats voted No or abstained. But their parties approved.

The one party all of whose deputies opposed such "Patriots" is still opposed to any such future expansion. It also leads in fighting against a resurgence of Nazis in everyday life and consistently supports the welfare of working people. Yet for the Lower Saxony vote in a few days the polls show it with hardly a chance of getting the needed 5 percent; on the national level it wobbles between 6 and 8 percent.

But its adherents are wondering impatiently: Where is it? Its inner quarrels are more or less out of the limelight, its two new leaders, Bernd Riexinger and Katja Kipping, have taken good positions on many issues, so have the two most-mentioned in terms of leading the election campaign, caucus chairman Gregor Gysi and/or Vice-President Sara Wagenknecht.

But while statements, courageous votes and parliamentary elocution are good and necessary, the party has thus far failed to breech an almost universal barrier of distortion or silence and reach the grass roots people worried about rent increases, steeper utility costs, stress and anxiety on the job and job losses. What might be called Mayor Wowereit's Airport Folly should be a warning to get the right thing done at the right time.

Here's a Berlin postscript: When the East German GDR disappeared, so did many offending street names like Lenin Platz, Dimitroff Street (after the man who defied Goering and won acquittal in 1933 in the famous Reichstag Fire trial) and those named for the women's rights leader Clara Zetkin, GDR leaders like Wilhelm Pieck, and Hans Beimler, a Communist deputy in the Reichstag who escaped the Dachau concentration camp, then fought (and died) in the Spanish Civil War.

The changes were determined by city or borough councils. In West Berlin some name-changes might also have been considered - of a host of war-minded kings, kaisers and their queens or of fifteen German World War I aces (one of whom lived to be a top Nazi officer).

Recently one street name did indeed become a candidate for change. Treitschke-Strasse in a prosperous West Berlin borough was named after the Prussian historian who from about 1871 to 1896 advocated German expansion with a "pitiless racial struggle" against Eastern Europeans. He was even more infamous for coining and propagating the slogan, "The Jews are our misfortune!" - which spread and led to the deportations and mass murder under Hitler.

The borough council, instead of the usual practice of voting on street names, agreed instead to let residents of the street vote on the matter. Generous offers were made to alter documents, visiting cards and other papers free of charge. In the mail vote nearly three quarters of the residents sent in ballots; 64 voted to alter the name, 226 to keep it as it was.

But my next article - I hope - will have some good news!

And here, for the few who still like to watch polls (like me), is the most recent picture. The first number is for January 6th, the second (another company), for January 9th:

CDU-CSU: 40/42 %, SPD: 27/25, Greens 14/15, Left 8/9, Free Dems 4/2, Pirates 4/3.

Photo: Berlin's Tempelhof airport. jaywaykay // CC 2.0

Venezuelan right wing creates false crisis on Chavez inauguration

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 15:32:00 +0000

The right-wing opposition in Venezuela is claiming the country faces a constitutional crisis should it not be possible for President Hugo Chavez, re-elected by a margin of 55 to 44 percent in October, not be able to come back to Venezuela from Cuba by Jan. 10.

However, Chavez supporters and constitutional experts say this is not so.

Chavez flew to Havana, Cuba, on Dec. 11, 2012, to undergo a third operation for a cancerous growth in the hip region. After surgery, he came down with a respiratory infection, which has seriously delayed his recuperation. He is listed as being in stable condition, but to fly him back to Caracas for the swearing in ceremony Thursday is considered by his doctors as too risky.

Elements of the right-wing opposition immediately tried to use the situation to push Chavez out of power. They claimed that if the president can't be sworn in on Jan. 10, he is to be automatically considered incapacitated, in which case the head of the Venezuelan National Assembly would take temporary power until a new presidential election can be held within 30 days. Diosdado Cabello, a Chavez ally and a member of the president's United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), currently chairs the National Assembly, but the opposition is hoping that in a new election they can reverse the decision of Venezuelan voters in October.

It does not appear, however, that their reading of the Venezuelan Constitution is accurate. What it actually says that a power vacuum must be declared by a panel specified in the constitution; the vacuum does not occur simply because the January date is missed. Thus, the Jan. 10 date can be postponed if necessary.

In fact, according to constitutional expert Herman Escarrá, who is not a Chavez supporter, the current situation can be handled by declaring a "temporary absence" of the president, who can be sworn in later.

Just before he left for Cuba, Chavez asked his PSUV supporters that, should he die or not be able to resume the presidency and an election takes place, they support the candidacy of Vice President Nicolas Maduro. Maduro, a former bus driver and labor union activist, is close to Chavez's own worldview and is generally respected by all but the right wing, who disparage his working-class origin.

Chavez's PSUV and allies enjoy a large majority in the legislature. There seems to be no sign of destructive infighting in the PSUV leadership because of Chavez's situation.

Opposition figures nevertheless are calling for intervention to push Chavez out of the presidency if he is not back for the ceremony. They have unleashed a spate of rumors about Chavez's condition as well as misinformation of what the Venezuelan Constitution actually says.

Vice President Maduro accuses opposition figures of trying to whip up foreign support for the deposing of Chavez by writing misleading letters to foreign ambassadors, and by bidding for U.S. support.

(U.S. State Department spokesperson Victoria Nulland has so far commented by hinting that the Venezuelan government is keeping the truth about Chavez's condition from the Venezuelan people, which also echoes the opposition's line. In fact there have been almost daily bulletins in which the seriousness of the president's condition has not been minimized, though the exact location and type of cancer have not been specified).

The opposition has also asked the Organization of American States (OAS) to intervene.

The stakes in this situation are high not only for Venezuela but for the entire Latin American and Caribbean area. Venezuela under Chavez is the keystone of the "Bolivarian" project, which seeks to free the region of U.S. (ie military, right wing and corporate) domination by greatly increasing cooperation and solidarity among the individual countries.

Venezuela has taken the lead in creating the Bolivarian Alliance for Our America (ALBA) and the CELAC, a body that is bidding to replace the OAS.

Venezuela's immense oil wealth is an important part of this. Venezuela provides sharply discounted oil to poorer countries in the region including especially socialist Cuba. The Venezuelan opposition says that if it comes to power, it would cut off this aid.

Photo: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez arrives in Guatemala in this 2008 photo. (Valter Campanato/AgenciaBrasil/CC)

Malala recovering: young Pakistani woman to continue her struggle

Fri, 04 Jan 2013 13:52:00 +0000

LONDON - Fifteen-year-old Malala Yousafzai, who was shot in the head in October by the Taliban for advocating girls' education in Pakistan, has been discharged from a British hospital after doctors said she was well enough to spend time recovering with her family.

Yousafzai was being treated at Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEHB) after being transferred from Pakistan following the attack. She was treated by doctors specializing in neurosurgery, trauma and other disciplines in a department of the hospital that has treated hundreds of soldiers wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq.

She will have to undergo cranial reconstructive surgery in late January or early February as part of her long-term recovery, according to Dr Dave Rosser, medical director, University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust,

NewsPakistan quotes Dr Rosser: "A number of QEHB's multi-specialist doctors have been working alongside colleagues from Birmingham Children's Hospital to treat her. The medical team has included clinicians from neurosurgery, imaging, trauma and therapies."

Reuters quotes Dr. Rosser as saying: "Malala is a strong young woman and has worked hard with the people caring for her to make excellent progress in her recovery. Following discussions with Malala and her medical team, we decided that she would benefit from being at home."

Malala Yousafzai has come to symbolize a broadening struggle in Pakistan, against the extremist views the Taliban seeks to enforce there and in neighboring Afghanistan.

Despite her youth, Yousafzai has long been an outspoken advocate of education for girls and young women, in a region where this has often been a sharply contested issue. Her hometown, Mingora, lies in the Swat Valley, in northern Pakistan, an area controlled by the Taliban from 2007 until 2009.

A Taliban spokesperson immediately credited his organization with the attack, saying Yousafzai had become "a symbol of western culture in the area," and vowing the Taliban would try again to kill her if she survived.

Public responses followed quickly.

Just days later, 50 Islamic clerics in the Sunni Ittehad Council issued a religious ruling against the Taliban attack, declaring it "un-Islamic." The Council declared, "Islam doesn't prohibit women from getting education," and accused the attackers of violating Islamic principles.

Ziauddin Yousafzai, Malala's father, headed a public school in Pakistan. Times of India reports that he has been given a job in the Pakistan consulate in Birmingham, England. He has been appointed education attaché at the Consulate, and will be the head of the education section under the Head of Mission. The appointment is for three years, with the option of an extension for a further two years afterwards. Both he and his daughter have had threats made against their lives by the Taliban, since the shooting.

Barbara Russum and Marilyn Bechtel contributed to this story.

Photo: In this undated file handout photo issued by Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Malala Yousafzai is shown in her hospital bed, with her father Ziauddin, accompanied by her two younger brothers Atal, right and Khushal, in Birmingham, England. Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham/AP