People Before Profit blog

Turkey: Uprising’s currents run deep

Wed, 31 Jul 2013 15:34:00 +0000

For the time being, Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan - with the liberal use of brutal police tactics and massive amounts of tear gas that killed four people and injured more than 8,000 - appears to have successfully crushed demonstrations aimed at blocking the demolition of Gezi Park in central Istanbul and has weathered a similar outbreak in the country's capital, Ankara.

But the upsurge was never just about preserving green space, and the picture conjured up by most the Western media - secular Istanbul liberals vs. a popular Prime Minister backed by a conservative religious majority based in Turkey's Anatolian hinterlands - was always an over simplification of the grievances behind the unrest.

Nor are those grievances the kind that are easily dispersed by clubs and gas, and the "popularity" of the Erdogan government may be shallower and more fragile than it appears. According to Turkey's MetroPOLL research center, Erdogan's popularity has dropped from 60.8 percent to 53.5 percent.

Certainly the demonstrations around Gezi Park reflect tensions between secular forces and Erdogan's Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP). In the months leading up to the outbreak, the AKP-dominated parliament passed laws restricting the use of alcohol and tobacco, public kissing, and abortion, and the Prime Minister called on mothers to have three children. The Turkish daily Zaman found that 54.4 percent of the population "thought the government was interfering in their lifestyle."

While the demonstrations may have begun with secular youth in Istanbul, according to Kemel Dervis, former Turkish economic affairs minister, it is now a "social movement" embracing the whole country and includes "observant Muslims, mid-career professionals, factory workers and many others."

The unrest gripping Turkey has less to do with headscarves and Islam than with politics and economics, fueled by a growing discomfort with the AKP's policies of privatization, its push to centralize authority in the hands of the country's executive branch, and its silencing of the media. The three are not unrelated.

A case in point was the AKP's recent move to turn the authority of the Chamber of Engineers and Architects-a group that opposed the commercial development of Gezi Park and challenged the government with a lawsuit-over to the Ministry of Environment and Development, effectively sidelining the Chamber. Private developers close to the AKP were then handed the contract for razing the park and building a mall modeled after an Ottoman barracks.

Suppression of the media doesn't just involve tossing journalists in jail, although the government has jailed more journalists than Iran and China combined. It is also about a culture of mutual back scratching between media owners and the AKP.

According to Turkish journalist Yavuz Baydar, "Turkey's mainstream media is owned by "moguls who operate in other sections of the economy, like telecommunications, banking and construction," and that support for the AKP translates into lucrative "public works contracts, including huge urban construction projects in Istanbul."

For instance, the owners of the news channel NTV discontinued a popular publication (also called NTV), because it ran a cover story on the history of Gezi Park. NTV is owned by the Dogus Group, which recently won a $700 million government contract to develop Istanbul's old port for tourism, real estate and commercial shops.

Turning public lands over to private developers has long been a central plank in the AKP's approach to governance. In May 2011, the Erdogan government was granted the right to bypass parliament and make laws by decree for a period of six months. In August, the AKP dissolved the independent commissions overseeing the environment and "decreed" all such decisions now rested with the Ministry of Environment and Urban Development. According to Asli Igsiz, a professor of Middle East Studies at New York University, this meant that the environment was now at "the mercy of urban developers."

The Erdogan government is currently trying to pass a "Preservation of Nature and Biodiversity" bill that would dissolve independent watchdog commissions and hand all authority over national parks over to the Ministry of Forestry and Waterworks. If passed, the bill would essentially open 12,000 national parks, heritage sites and forests to "development, even the construction of nuclear and conventional power plants and factories," according to Igsiz.

The AKP's push for privatization is consistent with conservative, business-orientated platforms of the Muslim Brotherhood-of which the Turkish party is a branch -throughout the Middle East. In the year that the Brotherhood dominated the Egyptian government, it sold off state-owned industries at bargain basement prices, resulting in the widespread layoff of workers. Erdogan has done much the same thing, earning the ire of Turkey's trade union movement.

On June 17, the Confederation of Public Workers (KESK) and the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions (DISK), representing 800,000 Turkish workers, struck to protest police brutality and demand the resignation of the government. "Freedom loving laborers who are striking a claim on their future" are taking to the streets throughout the country, a joint union statement read, to protest the "AKP, which has transformed [the] country into a hell by inserting its authoritarian practices."

The widespread participation of trade unionists in the Turkey demonstrations has largely been ignored by the Western press, which also failed to report similar support by Egyptian trade unions-particularly those in textile and cotton-for the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak and, more recently, Mohamad Morsi.

Erdogan is still popular in Turkey, but that popularity has thinned and largely rests on the AKP keeping the economy running smoothly and coming to some kind of agreement to end the long-running war with its Kurdish population.

But there is trouble on the horizon for the economy. The growth rate has dropped, and, while the AKP has overseen a dramatic rise in living standards over the past decade, the economy has cooled, income is stagnant, and the demonstrations have spooked the stock market and foreign investors. The stock market plunged 10.47 percent on June 3, and, as Tim Ash of Standard Bank told the Financial Times, "Simply put on a risk-rewards basis, Turkey does not appear to offer convincing values at present, and investors would be well advised to adopt a cautious approach."

Even a peace agreement with the Kurds appears to be in danger.

According to the Guardian (UK), Ankara has flooded the Kurdish region with security forces, military camps, and checkpoints, in an effort to shut down one of the area's major economic activities: smuggling.

But after 30 years of war and some 40,000 deaths, the region's economy is in ruins, and smuggling is sometimes the only economic activity left to the Kurds. "People here feel they are under siege," Nazif Ataman, a Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party member told the Guardian. "The military controls are reminiscent of war. We lack everything here: schools, hospitals, factories. Peace has come, but the government only invests in security."

And, under pressure from Turkish nationalists, Erdogan has refused to consider two core Kurdish demands: that the Kurds be allowed to use their own language for education, and that the 10 percent threshold for entering parliament be reduced. Kurds make up about 10 percent of Turkey's population and are concentrated mostly in the country's east

At the very time that Kurds in Iraq and Syria are increasingly autonomous from their central governments, the Turkish government is cracking down. On July 19, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) gave the Turkish government a "final warning" to "act quickly" and take "concrete and practical steps" to reach a peace agreement.

Lastly, the AKP's support for the insurgency against the Assad regime in Syria is increasingly unpopular among Turks. The AKP pushed its Egyptian counterpart to back the insurgency, which in part led to the recent coup in Cairo. It was Morsi's called for a jihad against Damascus that helped propel the Egyptian Army's move against the Brotherhood government. Egypt's new foreign minister has already distanced Egypt from Morsi's all out support for overthrowing Assad. Will the Muslim Brotherhood's fall in Egypt reverberate in Turkey? It might.

In the meantime, anti-AKP activists are continuing their campaign, one in which ridicule of Erdogan - he has a thin skin - has emerged as a tactic. Thus the "Alcoholic Unity League" (more than 80 percent of Turks do not drink) has joined with the "Looters Solidarity Front (Erdogan referred to demonstrators as "looters"). Despite water cannons, rubber bullets, and gas, the Turks have kept a sense of humor.

But issues that fueled the May and June protests are hardly a laughing matter, and they are not about to quietly disappear.

This article was originally posted at Dispatches from the Edge.

Photo: Taksim Square, Istanbul, during the protests, June 14, 2013. Meg Rutherford CC 2.0

Mapuche people see progress on political demands

Fri, 26 Jul 2013 13:17:00 +0000

Editor's note: The Mapuche people are the main Native American ethnic group in Chile. They are carrying out a multi-faceted struggle to regain and expand rights lost under the Pinochet dictatorship.

The Indigenous Front Opposition Party, marking the celebration of National Indigenous People's Day, presented a program before the Senate in Santiago called "The Program for Indigenous People for the Future of the Opposition Government," a document that encompasses the views of the indigenous peoples including the demand for inclusion in the presidential debates.

The group also expressed their frustration with the intentions of the government to bring certain legitimacy to the indigenous world, but without real representation for native people.

Domingo Marileo, member of the Indigenous Front and the Communist Party of Chile, emphasized that the union of different militant Mapuches from the opposition parties is nothing like ever seen before and responds to the need for native peoples to be part of a country that listens to them, not that tells them what they need.

Marileo states: "We have a deep discussion about the state we want to build and our roll within it and we will not allow them to tell us 'this is what you need'. We deserve our rights and we are part of a process to establish a country where the Mapuche are heard. This front is an advance from the political parties to build a country with more social justice and that reflects reality in constitutional terms."

Meanwhile, the Mapuche representative from the Party for Democracy, Fermin Levio, clarified that this is only a draft and would require review by the rest of the indigenous population aside from the Mapuche: "This work cannot go forward without recognizing the situation that we have. Our goal and initiative is focused on four to eight years to have a better understanding of the demands of indigenous peoples.

Daniel Neculpán of the Indigenous Socialist Front explained the four central themes of the document which include a new constitution which recognizes a pluri-national state; institutional reforms that allow installation of a ministry of indigenous persons; the end of the anti-terrorism law; and recognition of native languages, political rights, participation of indigenous peoples in government, and the restoration of lands.

Translated from July 2013 El Siglo by Ken Nicholas.

Photo: A contingent of Mapuche women march for rights in Santiago, Chile, in 2007 (MentalNoise/CC)

Japanese Communists may emerge as main opposition to "Abenomics"

Fri, 26 Jul 2013 12:45:00 +0000

International headlines have trumpeted Prime Minister Abe Shinzo's decisive win in Japan's upper house election July 21. But the election results indicate the potential defeat of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's economic and constitutional agenda. Called "Abenomics" by the Japanese Communist Party, Abe's plan seeks to make Japan "the most business friendly country in the world" by repealing worker protections and corporate regulations, while reducing corporate taxes and increasing taxes for the general public. In addition, Abe plans to "prime the pump" with nuclear power and a renewed push to build up Japan's military forces. While the agenda still holds majority support, the ground is shifting and public opposition is gaining momentum.

The Japanese Communist Party, by gaining five more seats in the upper house in the July 21 vote, is positioned to become the head of the opposition to Abe. The number one opposition party, Democratic Party of Japan, lost 27 seats, continuing its downward slide in the polls.

Media outlets remarked on the JCP's "impressive gains." The party now holds 11 seats in the Upper House, nearly doubling its presence from the pre-election six. It won Upper House seats in three areas it hasn't held in more than a decade: Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto. In June, the JCP won 17 seats in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly, catapulting the party to the number three position. The JCP's newspaper Akahata editorialized, "More and more people have expressed their anxieties and complaints regarding the anti-people policies carried out at both national and local levels" by Abe and the LDP Tokyo governor. The editorial cited an opinion poll released just after the June election that showed a 7 point jump in opposition to the "Abenomics" policy since the May survey. While the survey showed 55 percent of respondents supporting Abe's economic policy, the editorial said, it would be difficult for the LDP to maintain its high approval rates.

Abe's prescription for Japan's economy comes out of the neoliberal, free trade handbook: undo corporate regulations to make it easier to fire workers, join the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade agreement and restart nuclear reactors idled after the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Abenomics stimulus includes exporting nuclear technology, along with increased military spending.

The package carries political risk. Japan's Communists argue it will be increasingly difficult for Abe and the LDP to hold onto their popularity as full-time workers lose their jobs to temporary workers hired at lower wages, and free trade decimates Japanese farmers and smaller businesses.

Abe's proposed constitutional changes are poised to reopen devastating wounds of World War II, especially the nuclear fallout from U.S. atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and Japan's permanent renunciation of war," enshrined in its post-war Constitution.

Abe is seeking to change a technical provision of the Constitution, Article 96, which would make it easier for him to amend Article 9. Article 9 says the "Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes." This provision has helped shape Japan's post-war identity.

In an interview with constitutional scholar Watanabe Osamu, Akahata writes, "The true aim" of Abe "continues to be the revision of the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution." Due to Article 9's popularity, "the first Abe Cabinet faced mounting public criticism and could not accomplish its aim to revise Article 9." That is why Abe now seeks to first weaken the requirements for rewriting the Supreme Law, the article states.

"Contrary to the prime minister's expectations of easy victory, however, the proposal to revise Article 96 has aroused severe public criticism. It is urgent to strengthen public opposition and create a national consensus in order to block the revision of both Article 9 and Article 96."

Part of the JCP's attraction to voters, especially younger voters, is its social media and online campaigning, but the other is presenting a pro-people agenda. JCP leader Kazuo Shii said the Communists aren't just saying "no" to anything proposed by the LDP. "In any issue that has come up, we've always presented alternatives," he said in a pre-election interview.

Photo: A girl places her father's vote into a ballot box at a polling station in Tokyo, July 21. (AP/Itsuo Inouye)

Iranian mothers appeal for clemency for sons

Fri, 26 Jul 2013 12:17:00 +0000

Before the ink is even dry on the confirmation of Hassan Rouhani as the new president of Iran, the Islamic Republic continues to carry out barbaric and meaningless executions.

In a joint letter to the people of the world, the mothers of four Arab minority youths, inmates in Shadegan prison on death row, have requested that the people of the world do all they can to force the Iranian government to stop the execution of their sons. The following are excerpts from their letter:

"After four years of crying, last week we received news of the death warrants confirmed for our young sons: Ghazi Abasi, born in 1982; Abdolreza Amir Khanav, born in 1987; Abdolamir Majdami, born in 1980; and Jasem Mogaddam Payam, born in 1985. They were charged as "combatant" and "corrupt on earth," and received the death sentence.

"From the time of their arrest until the day of their formal court hearing, without any knowledge of their location, our sons have suffered severe physical and psychological torture at the Ahwaz Security Office. They were forced to admit to fabricated charges, written in a language different from their own.

"With this letter, we request the urgent assistance of all men and women in the world, to prevent the execution of our sons. We are grateful for your assistance."

Jamshid Ahmadi, assistant general Secretary of the British-based solidarity organization CODIR, Committee for Defence of the Iranian People's Rights, condemned the regime's decision to go ahead with these executions, stating:

"By threatening to execute these four innocent young people the Iranian regime is sending the wrong signal both to the Iranian people and to world public opinion. This comes just 10 days before the inauguration of the new president, Rouhani. Iran holds the world record for the number of executions taking place in the country. The new president should add Iran to the list of countries where the death penalty is abolished."

Photo: Vigil in Trafalgar Square, London, against human rights violations and political executions in Iran. helen.2006 CC 2.0

Top general: Intervention in Syria would be costly, risky

Thu, 25 Jul 2013 13:45:00 +0000

The nation's top military official, Gen. Martin Dempsey, has told Congress that U.S. options for military intervention in Syria would cost "billions" and require massive commitments of troops as well as planes, ships, submarines, and other equipment. These would also be risky ventures, he said.

At the same time, it appears that CIA shipments of small arms to Syrian rebels will begin shortly. House and Senate committees have approved the plan. Also reportedly under discussion is supplying the rebels with heat-seeking missiles, which can shoot down aircraft.

This has drawn the disapproval of Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations special envoy to Syria. "Arms do not make peace," he told the New York Times. "We would like to see the delivery of arms stopped to all sides."

Dempsey, head of the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs of Staff, outlined several military options in a July 19 letter to the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin, D-Mich. The letter was made public this week. Dempsey testified before the committee last week.

Long-range strikes on Syrian government military targets would require "hundreds of aircraft, ships, submarines and other enablers," and cost "in the billions," Dempsey said in the letter.

Training, advising and assisting the opposition, Dempsey wrote, could require anywhere from several hundred to several thousand troops, and cost about $500 million a year "initially." Risks include "extremists gaining access to additional capabilities," or "inadvertent association with war crimes" due to the difficulty in knowing who is who among the rebel forces.

Imposing a no-fly zone would require shooting down Syrian government warplanes and destroying airfields and related infrastructure, Dempsey said. It would require hundreds of aircraft and support personnel. The cost could reach $1 billion a month, and it might not impact the war's outcome, he said.

Establishment of "buffer zones" in neighboring countries to provide safe havens for Syrian rebels and a base for delivering humanitarian assistance, he said, would, in addition to requiring a no-fly zone, also require "thousands" of U.S. ground troops.

A mission to prevent the use or proliferation of chemical weapons, the general said, would require a no-fly zone and a major campaign of air and missile strikes. "Thousands of special operations forces and other ground forces would be needed to assault and secure critical sites," he wrote, with costs "well over $1 billion a month."

President Obama until recently resisted military intervention in Syria despite pressure from Republicans and some Democrats. However in June he announced that the U.S. would begin sending direct military aid to Syrian rebels seeking to oust Syria's President Bashar al-Assad. The rationale cited was the assertion that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons, a violation of international law. However that assertion has been challenged by many. The administration gave few specifics at that time about exactly what military aid would be provided and when, but officials indicated that the plan was to send light weaponry and provide training.

Since then, news reports have recounted increasing splits within the Syrian opposition, and heightened concerns about the role of foreign al-Qaeda-type extremists. Reports indicate that the Assad regime has regained the offensive in the civil war there. As a result, Western leaders such as the UK's Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron have backtracked on their earlier push to send major weaponry to the rebels.

With the Syrian government now apparently gaining the upper hand in the conflict, another fall-back idea is being floated - carving Syria up. White House press secretary Jay Carney said last week, "While there are shifts in momentum on the battlefield, Bashar al-Assad, in our view, will never rule all of Syria again." Those last four words, a New York Times report said, represented "an implicit acknowledgment that ... Assad now seems likely to cling to power for the foreseeable future, if only over a rump portion of a divided Syria."

Britain and France carved up the Middle East following the end of World War I, setting many of the national boundaries that exist today. But Syria's history dates back to antiquity, and before. Syria, as other countries in the region, has developed a strong sense of national identity. One wonders how U.S. policymakers could now have the arrogance to suggest that Syria should be chopped up.

Not only Republicans but some prominent Democrats as well are pushing for more aggressive U.S. military action in Syria. Dempsey's blunt letter indicated deep reservations among some in Washington, including top military leaders, about such action.

Photo: Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Kaveh Sardari/CSIS CC 2.0

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela on his 95th birthday

Wed, 24 Jul 2013 15:33:00 +0000

Former South African President Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela celebrated his 95th birthday on Thursday, July 18. In South Africa and worldwide, the rejoicing was all the greater for the fact that South Africa's revered elder statesman has been hospitalized with a very dangerous lung infection, and the news had just come that while he is not out of danger, his condition has improved considerably.

The anxious wait for news on Mandela's health and then the celebration of the birthday are good reasons for reflection on what Madiba, the clan name by which Mandela is universally known in his homeland, has given to his country and the world.

Mandela's struggle against racial oppression in South Africa preceded the vicious apartheid system. Since long before the 1948 election which brought Dr. Daniel Malan's reactionary National Party to power, non-white people in South Africa had been subjected to exploitation and oppression. The indigenous majority of the country had also been robbed of huge areas of its agricultural land base by 1894 Glen Grey Act, the 1913 Land Act and other measures, formal and informal, which began with first Dutch and later British colonization. They had been prevented from organizing labor unions and subjected to violent repression when they resisted.

Nelson Mandela as a young man worked through the African National Congress Youth League to organize political resistance to these policies. When apartheid was implemented by Malan and his successors, Mandela was one of a group of outstanding leaders with which South Africa was blessed who were able to organize resistance not only within the country but worldwide. Many of these leaders have passed away, including Walter and Albertina Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Joe Slovo, and Oliver Tambo. But Madiba is still with us.

After the African National Congress, the Communist Party of South Africa (as it was then called) and other liberation organizations were declared illegal and the government cracked down hard on protest activity, Mandela worked closely with the Communist Party to organize armed resistance through the organization called Umkhonto we Sizwe, Spear of the Nation, which hit military targets and tried to avoid civilian casualties. Mandela also traveled widely, soliciting support for South Africa's freedom struggle from other countries in Africa and worldwide.

In 1962, acting on information from the United States Central Intelligence Agency, South African police arrested. Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment on Robben Island off the coast of Cape Town. As a prisoner, Mandela continued his leadership role, giving support, education and guidance to his fellow political prisoners. Outside, a worldwide campaign to "free Mandela" steadily gained power and support worldwide.

By the end of the 1980s, due to huge protests of the South African people the regime saw that apartheid had no future, and looked for an exit from the situation in which it had put itself. It offered Mandela his freedom if he would renounce violence and repudiate his communist allies. Mandela's principled stand was that he would not recommend that the resistance renounce violence until the government did the same, and he would not abandon his allies, period. The racist government, finding the country ungovernable, capitulated, releasing Mandela and his fellow political prisoners in 1990 and legalizing the African National Congress, the South African Communist Party, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). In 1994, in South Africa's first free universal suffrage elections ever, Mandela was elected president.

Mandela took on the presidency at an exceptionally difficult moment. The USSR and the Eastern European socialist regimes had just collapsed. South Africa could not rely on assistance and favorable trade arrangements from the socialist bloc, although Mandela and his colleagues maintained a warm cooperative relationship with socialist Cuba especially, recognizing Cuba's role in backing up the resistance of the peoples of Southern Africa against the military attacks of the apartheid regime. So many of the goals in the Freedom Charter of 1955, in the drafting of which Mandela also had a hand, could not be realized immediately.

But the legal structures of apartheid were all swept away, while Mandela worked to build a unified, progressive, and multiracial nation.

Mandela left office in 1999, succeeded by Thabo Mbeki. As an ordinary citizen, Mandela continued to play an outsized progressive role in the struggle for social justice. When his son, Magkatho, died of complications of AIDS in 2005, he made constructive use of the sad occasion by speaking out for a national effort against the devastating epidemic, leading to major improvements in policy.

Here in the U.S., we also owe Madiba a great debt of gratitude, though perhaps many of us do not realize it. The struggle to free Mandela and end apartheid helped to organize and focus powerful coalitions of African Americans, organized labor, the religious community and many others. These alliances and their work continue to serve as a model of how grassroots mobilization can impact U.S. foreign policy and international affairs, as well as social justice struggles in our own country.

For this, we are thankful and we salute Nelson Mandela on his 95th birthday.

Photo: Nelson Mandela. AP

Corrected 12/12/13: Mandela's release from prison was in 1990. An earlier version had an incorrect year. We apologize for the error.

Egyptian Communists: Morsi ouster reflects popular will

Mon, 22 Jul 2013 17:29:00 +0000

On July 6, Nameh Mardom, the newspaper of the Tudeh (Iranian Communist Party), published an interview with Salah Adli, the General Secretary of the Egyptian Communist Party. The whole interview can be read on the Solidnet.org website.

Question: How were the classes and strata mobilized in the second wave of the June 30 revolution?

Adli: Since the outbreak of the revolution of 25^th June 2011, the protest movements have not subsided, and demonstrations of millions of people have not stopped.... The workers' protests and strikes also escalated. After.... Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood came to power, the masses discovered their authoritarian nature, fascist character, their bias to the interests of more reactionary and parasitic sections of capitalism, and their inability to run a state the size of Egypt. Furthermore, their betrayal of the interests of the homeland and their willingness to play the role of the biggest broker to maintain the interests of America and Israel in the region were exposed....

The "Tamarud" (Rebellion) movement succeeded in collecting more than 22 million signatures for the withdrawal of confidence in Morsi and in support for calling for early presidential elections.....

Question: What is the level of the participation of the toiling classes in these protests?

Salah Adli:

...the workers have been involved in most of the protests that have escalated since 2006, and are participating in all the popular demonstrations as part of the people and not as a class matter. This is due to the absence of strong trade unions and federations, because of the long legacy of tyranny and government repression.... the practices and attitudes of the Muslim Brotherhood do not differ from the orientations of the Mubarak regime; rather, they were worse. The Muslim Brotherhood implemented the same policies on the continuation of the privatization program and the liberalization of prices, and did not raise the minimum wage even though it was one of the first demands of the revolution.... the most dangerous position was their refusal to pass the law to ensure freedom to form unions...

Question: What are the nature, tasks and urgent demands of the revolution?

Salah Adli

...[The first task] is promulgating a new civil democratic constitution that stresses human rights, women's rights and economic and social rights for the toiling classes....

One of the tasks of the democratic revolution is also the freedom to form trade unions, political parties and associations without governmental interference, rejecting the formation of political parties on a religious and sectarian basis, full equality between men and women in terms of rights and duties, equality before the law and the criminalization of religious and other forms of discrimination.

...A top priority among [social demands] is specifying a minimum and maximum wage and linking it to prices, cancelling debts for small peasants, redistributing the budget items to increase spending on education and health, providing housing for low income people, raising taxes on the rich, regaining possession of the corporations that were looted from the public sector, and fighting against corruption.

The national tasks are: opposing dependency on the United States, refusing to succumb to Zionist hegemony, amending the Camp David agreement, restoring Egypt's national role in the Arab, African, regional and international levels, and deepening the relationship with the peoples of the Third World.

Question: What is your view about the arguments which say that Morsi's removal is undemocratic? Was he overthrown by the Egyptian army?

Salah Adli:

More than 22 million citizens of the Egyptian people ousted Morsi in an unprecedented referendum [that was followed by the coming out of 27 million people to participate in the June 30 demonstrations]. It was Morsi who overthrew legitimacy when he issued his dictatorial constitutional declaration of November 2011 [and who unleashed violence].

The defending of Morsi by the United States and western capitalist states and portraying of the issue as "just a military coup"... hides the fact that world imperialism is terrified by people's revolutions and their ability to transcend the narrow confines of the democratic bourgeoisie....

Question: What is your assessment of the USA's position toward the developments in Egypt?

Salah Adli: The U.S... intervened immediately when [Mubarak] was overthrown to form an alliance between the former Military Council and the Muslim Brotherhood to pave the way to handing over power to the Muslim Brotherhood after they pledged to ensure fulfilling the interests of the United States, ensuring the security of Israel and continuing the neoliberal economic policy which is against the interests of the popular masses...We expect that the United States, in the current critical period, will encourage plots to ignite sedition and strife....to turn Egypt into another Iraq. [this has been thwarted so far].

Question: What are the main challenges facing your party?

Salah Adli: The main challenge is to unite the forces of the left in the first place to confront the big tasks that we are facing at this stage.

1. To ensure the achievement of the objectives and tasks of the transitional phase.

2. To achieve consensus on a single candidate for the national and democratic forces to fight the battle of presidential elections.

3. To form a front of leftist forces, Nasserites, youth movements and trade union organizations; to prepare joint lists to fight the forthcoming parliamentary and local elections; and to exert pressure to make sure that there is no retreat from correcting the path of the revolution....

4. To seek to complete and develop the party structure, to renew the party with fresh blood, and to develop its program so that we can face the big challenges that we are confronting.

Edited by Emil Schepers.

Photo: Egyptians women bang metal cooking pots and chant anti-president Mohammed Morsi slogans while protesting in front of the provincial government headquarters during day six of the general strike in Port Said, Egypt, Feb. 22. Factory workers, activists and laborers have held street rallies that brought the coastal city on the northern tip of the Suez Canal to a halt. Nasser Nasser/AP

Panamanian right cedes to U.S. before elections

Mon, 22 Jul 2013 16:25:00 +0000

The president of Panama, Ricardo Martinelli, is putting on a big show right now. Is it for the benefit of the voters in the May 2014 presidential and legislative elections, or is it for the United States, the historical kingmaker of Panamanian politics?

On July 11, the Panamanian government announced that it had boarded a North Korean ship, the Chon Chong Gang, on suspicion that it was carrying drugs. In fact, it was not, but did have on board a massive amount of sugar from Cuba and some armaments. The government of Cuba, where the ship had stopped before heading on to Panama, quickly explained that the armaments were obsolete items, some of them originally made in the 1950s, that were part of Cuba's air defense system. The Cuban Ministry of the Exterior said that they were being sent to the Democratic People's Republic of (North) Korea to be upgraded and repaired.

None of the items were offensive weapons capable of causing damage to other countries or contributing to alleged efforts by North Korea to develop nuclear weapons, nor has Cuba ever attacked any of its neighbors. But 53 years of relentless U.S. hostility to the Cuban Revolution have made it necessary that Cuban anti-aircraft defenses be maintained at all times. Cuba does not have the capacity to manufacture such things, and to buy entirely new systems would be extremely expensive. However, Panama has referred the matter to the United Nations Security Council as a possible breach of sanctions imposed on North Korea.

Then on June 17 a former CIA official in Milan, Italy, Robert Seldon Lady, was arrested in Panama under an Interpol warrant. Lady and other CIA operatives had originally been prosecuted in Italy for their role in illegally kidnapping a Muslim man, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, and sending him, as part of the Bush administration's extraordinary rendition program, to Hosni Mubarak's Egypt where he was tortured.

At the time of the conviction in the Italian court, the 22 CIA agents were no longer in Italy. Lady's conviction and 9-year sentence, since reduced to 6, triggered Interpol's intervention. Under normal circumstances, Panama should have sent him back to Italy to serve his sentence but at the last minute, Martinelli's government sent him to the United States instead, where he will have freedom and impunity. Italian authorities expressed frustration that Panama did not even give them a reason for not extraditing Lady.

Few people in Panama or beyond believe that Martinelli's government acted purely on its own initiative in these matters. The Panamanian officials said they were tipped off about the Korean ship, and it is assumed that the tip came from the United States. Likewise it is fairly obvious that the freeing of Lady was done at the request of the United States also.

Martinelli is a businessman of right-populist views. His international allies include U.S. Senator John McCain, R-Ariz., and some dubious figures in the government of former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Berlusconi. Although Panama has been relatively prosperous in recent years, the Martinelli government has earned the enmity of labor unions and indigenous organizations, whose protests he has crushed harshly. .

In particular Martinelli's support for rapacious mining interests in their conflict with indigenous communities has been condemned. In presidential and legislative elections scheduled for July 1, 2014, Martinelli cannot run again because of term limits, so his political party, Cambio Democratico (Democratico) is running Housing Minister Jose Domingo Arias.

Issues for the elections include the question of corruption, which has grown greatly during Martinelli's tenure, and also labor rights and economic issues, including the high national debt. The centrist opposition Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) has chosen former Panama City Mayor Juan Carlos Navarro as its candidate, and the right-wing Panameñista Party, of former President Mireya Moscoso, is running the country's dissident vice president, Juan Carlos Varela. None of these candidates appear to be ready to join Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador, Bolivia and others in challenging the neo-liberal "Washington Consensus" which stresses development through untrammeled foreign investment, expansion of environmentally unfriendly mining activities, privatization and austerity.

The left has not made a strong showing in recent Panamanian elections, but there is a possibility that this might change. A new left wing political party, the Broad Front for Democracy (FAD) has arisen from the activities of unions, indigenous rights and social justice organization, and is now in the process of deciding whether to contest the presidency in 2014. FAD activists report that people are joining the new entity enthusiastically.

Since the overthrow of dictator Manuel Noriega in 1989, the United States has maintained a "hands on" policy toward Panamanian electoral politics, brokering deals for electoral alliances. This is likely to be the case this time around also. Mr. Martinelli is somewhat discredited because of the corruption allegations, and his extreme willingness to do the U.S. government's bidding in the matter of the Korean ship and the CIA agent may have something to do with wanting his party to be on the right side of the historical kingmaker of the North.

Photo: Panama's President Ricardo Martinelli delivers his annual State of the Nation speech at the National Assembly in Panama City, July 1. Arnulfo Franco/AP

Bill clears way for 2014 gay weddings in England

Mon, 22 Jul 2013 12:22:00 +0000

LONDON - Legislation to legalize gay marriage finally cleared [Great Britain's] Parliament on July 16, paving the way for the first gay weddings in England and Wales next summer.

MPs decided not to oppose a number of changes to the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill, made in the House of Lords.

Among the changes agreed by peers were protections for transgender couples which will allow people to change sex and remain married.

There will also be a review of whether belief organizations such as the Humanists will be allowed to carry out marriages, while ministers said they were prepared to look at eliminating any difference in the treatment of gay couples when it came to pension schemes.

During a two-hour Commons debate several Labour MPs wore pink carnations, including shadow women and equalities minister Yvette Cooper. [A "shadow minister" is a member of the main opposition party in Parliament who would hold ministerial office if their party were in power.]

She said: "The truth is while we have debated in this House we have been lobbied, but we have also been serenaded and most fabulously by the London Gay Men's Chorus who sang rousing versions of Get Me To The Church On Time which we all joined in as the Bill passed its second reading in the House of Lords.

In a statement gay rights charity Stonewall said: "This is an historic moment for lesbian, gay and bisexual people, their families and their friends. This Bill will mean that, for the first time, children growing up to be gay in England and Wales will have full equality in law."

But former Tory former defense minister Sir Gerald Howarth accused the government of bulldozing the "wretched" legislation through Parliament despite it offending large swathes of the Conservative Party.

Reposted from Morning Star, London.

Editor's note: There are three judicial systems in the UK; a combined system for England and Wales, one for Scotland and one for Northern Ireland.

A similar bill to the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act has been tabled in the Scottish Parliament. It will debate this bill soon.

There is currently no bill proposed for the Northern Ireland Assembly and previous attempts to introduce legislation similar to the law that passed in England and Wales have failed.

More information is available on Pink News.

Photo: At a Pride parade in Nottinham, England. Matt Buck, CC BY-SA 2.0

General strike brings Athens to a standstill

Wed, 17 Jul 2013 11:17:00 +0000

Tens of thousands of Greek workers walked off the job today and rallied in front of parliament in a huge protest against government plans to sack public-sector staff.

Over 30,000 demonstrators - including police and teachers facing the axe - beat drums and blew whistles in one of the biggest Greek anti-austerity protests this year.

Protesters chanted: "No more sacrifices" and waved banners that read, "Fire the troika."

Civil aviation unions staged a four-hour work stoppage and Athens' transport system was hit, with bus and trolleybus drivers walking out.

Trains stopped running and tax offices and municipal services remained shut.

Rubbish collectors, bus drivers, bank employees and journalists were among other groups that joined the walkout.

Public and private-sector unions ADEDY and GSEE called the strike and have brought workers to the streets many times since late 2009.

Greece's troika creditors, which have bailed it out twice with €240 billion (£209bn) of aid, are insisting on progress in hacking back the 600,000-strong public sector.

Athens has a list of 12,500 workers slated for a "mobility pool" in which they are given eight months to find work in another department or get sacked.

About 25,000 workers will be placed in the scheme by the end of the year, which is deeply unpopular at a time when unemployment stands at an all-time high of 27 per cent.

"The policy of mass layoffs, the dismantling of public institutions responsible and the demolition of any notion of labour rights inaugurate a new undemocratic governance of the country," the ADEDY public-sector union warned.

MPs voted today to indict former finance minister George Papaconstantinou over his handling of data on Greeks with Swiss bank accounts.

A panel of senior judges will determine whether Mr. Papaconstantinou should face trial over the fate of a list of about 2,000 alleged tax evaders provided by French authorities in 2010.

Greek authorities failed to investigate the data for potential tax evasion, and the names of three of Mr Papaconstantinou's relatives were allegedly removed from the list.

This article was reposted from Morning Star.

Photo: Workers protest in Athens. AP

British postal unions slam privatization plan

Tue, 16 Jul 2013 16:43:00 +0000

LONDON - There's a big bus trundling around London this week, manned by British postal workers - and they're not doing it for fun or to show sights to tourists.

Instead, the bus is the latest way the 203,500-member Communications Workers Union declares its opposition to Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron's scheme to privatize the United Kingdom's postal service, the Royal Mail.

Cameron unveiled his privatization plan in Parliament on July 10, where his combined coalition of Tories and Liberal Democrats rules Britain in an uneasy coalition government. The CWU promptly blasted it. But Cameron had been telegraphing his intentions for weeks and the union was already campaigning against privatization.

Privatizing the Royal Mail is just the latest such plan in Britain. The bus system was privatized and the Tories occasionally float ideas about privatizing health care.

Privatizing public services is a common worldwide theme of big business, the right wing and conservative parties and politicians, including Britain's Tories and the U.S. GOP. Privatization is often directed at unionized services, to try to break unions, and to lower workers' living standards.

One difference is that, unlike the U.S. Postal Service, the Royal Mail is profitable. Cameron seized on that to argue the agency would do even better if it's privatized.

The CWU replies privatization would let corporate executives cut jobs and kill universal service - echoes of arguments U.S. postal unions use against the job-cutting service eliminations U.S. Postal Service executives propose. Those execs also hail from the corporate sector. U.S. unions have yet to comment on the British privatization.

The bus tour repeatedly circumnavigating London is the union's latest attempt to take the cause public, after 96 percent of 110,000 voting union members, in a ballot that CWU sponsored, rejected the Tories' Royal Mail privatization plan.

"No-one has yet asked postal workers what they think about privatization," said CWU General Secretary Billy Hayes, the union's top officer. "The workforce does not support the government or Royal Mail on selling the company. This company is flourishing in public ownership as the recent doubling of profits proves. It's becoming less clear what this policy is about. Why privatize this profitable company?

"This is a strong message to take forward action in each area to improve the working lives of postal workers and protect the services and jobs which customers and communities value," Hayes said. "Royal Mail is not a financial basket case and they know privatization is only benefitting vested interests," said his deputy, Dave Ward.

Photo: CWU's Save Our Royal Mail Facebook page.

Leading Communists among those arrested in Turkey

Fri, 12 Jul 2013 13:51:00 +0000

On the heels of a campaign by the Turkish government to blame it for the recent upheavals here, leading members of the Turkish Communist Party (TKP) are being rounded up and arrested.

In Istanbul, Turkey prosecutors yesterday called for the arrest of twelve activists in the ongoing struggle against construction of a shopping mall complex in Taksim Gezi Park, including leaders of the Taksim Solidarity Platform, Turkish Communist Party (TKP) central executive board member Erkan Bas and TKP Istanbul Provincial Chairman Kamil Tekerek.

Several other party members were taken into custody, as well as Taksim Solidarity Platform member Mücella Yapıcı, Istanbul Medical Chamber General Secretary Ali Çerkezoglu, members of the Confederation of Public Sector Trade Unions, and members of the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions. Bas and Tekerek were already in detention for participating in a demonstration in Taksim Gezi Park, but the latest charges represent a serious escalation of Turkish government repression.

The demonstrations against the Taksim Gezi Park development, which began on May 28, have spread throughout Turkey and escalated to calls for the resignation of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Islamicist Justice and Development Party government on grounds of authoritarianism and brutality in suppressing the demonstrations.

Citing a police report on documents seized from searches of the homes of the accused, the prosecutor claimed that "calls for thousands of people to gather in Taksim Square prepared the ground for the marginal groups' provocations... They caused the injuries of hundreds of police officers and citizens and the calls continued despite these injuries."

The government red-baiting campaign accuses the Turkish Communist Party of having masterminded the demonstrations. Their were television commentators who claimed that "Communist protesters" had turned peaceful protests into "violent attacks that ruin social order."

This red-baiting included an article in the Egyptian newspaper, Al-Ahram Weekly, by Turkish broadcaster Aylin Kocaman, caliming that young demonstrators were susceptible to the taksim Gezi protests "because they have not been educated against the threat of communism."

The mainstream Turkish media has a history of subservience to the Erdogan government and of abetting a government disinformation campaign against the demonstrators .

In related developments approximately 50 demonstrators being detained by police continued their hunger strike, begun on July 10, to protest extension of their detention by prosecutors in Istanbul.

Photo: AP

Black trade unionists call for new Cuba policies

Wed, 10 Jul 2013 15:03:00 +0000

Four Cubans being held in U.S. prisons should be released, according to a resolution passed by the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists at their 42nd Annual Convention, held in Orlando, Fla., in May. Labor should take a stand on this question because labor has been an advocate for freedom and justice in this country and around the world, said Lew Moye, second vice president of CBTU's Executive Council.

The four Cubans mentioned in the resolution have been incarcerated in U.S. high security prisons as a result of their activities in monitoring anti-Cuba terrorist groups based in Florida. They have been known as the Cuban Five. One, Rene Gonzalez, was released on parole last year, and after pressure, the U.S. allowed him to serve his parole in Cuba.

Though they are little known to the American public, an international campaign for their release has won support from around the world, including a long list of Noble Prize winners. "Cuba is no threat to U.S. security whatsoever," said Moye. "Labor needs to be standing on the right side of justice."

The conference, which gathered 1,000 trade unionists, included among its business a comprehensive resolution on U.S. policy toward Cuba. That resolution called for repeal of the economic and political embargo against Cuba and opening of free travel to that country by Americans. The U.S. government currently prohibits its citizens from travelling to Cuba without government-issued licenses.

Moye, who is also president of the St. Louis Chapter of the CBTU, said that around the world "Cuba is viewed as a country that strives to take care of its people, environmentally and healthwise, and also strives to help people in other countries." He added, "We feel that it's time for the attacks on Cuba to end and for it to be treated as an equal partner."

"Cuba should be totally removed from the terrorist list," Harold Rogers, the resolution's author, told peoplesworld. Rogers recalled that the African National Congress and its leader Nelson Mandela were also on the same list until well after Mandela's election as president of South Africa in 1994.

Rogers, national director of international affairs for the CBTU , said the American public must become more educated on Cuba and lobby Congress to repeal all laws embargoing trade and restricting travel. "We see only negative information on Cuba," Rogers stated, " But in reality this small island presents absolutely no military or economic threat."

The political difficulty, according to Rogers, is that the anti-Cuba lobby, based in Miami, is strong in D.C. That lobby leverages the fact that Florida, with 29 electoral votes, is key to any presidential candidate's success, and has had a large anti-communist Cuban exile community, to block changes in current policy.

Rogers says that the CBTU's resolution will be forwarded to the upcoming AFL-CIO convention through those who are leaders in both bodies. The AFL-CIO will hold its national convention in September in Los Angeles.

"We will also use this resolution as a basis for educational work and mobilization in our local chapters," added Rogers.

Photo: Participants at the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists convention in Orlando, Fla., May 22-27, 2013. CBTU Facebook page.

Syria, poison gas, and Arabian tales

Wed, 10 Jul 2013 13:52:00 +0000

"It is not unlike Sherlock Holmes and the dog that didn't bark. It's not just that we can't prove a sarin attack, it is that we are not seeing what we would expect to see from a sarin attack," said Jean-Pascal Zanders, former senior research fellow at the European Union's Institute for Security Studies.

Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional detective, cracked the case of the "Silver Blaze" by concluding that a murder and theft had to be an inside job because the watchdog never barked. It would be a good idea to keep this in mind when it comes to determining whether the Syrian government used poison gas against its opponents. And since the Obama administration is citing "proof" that the chemical warfare agent sarin was used by the Syrian government as the basis for escalating its intervention in the two-year old civil war, this is hardly an academic exercise.

Like Holmes, start with the facts.

According to French, British, Israeli and U.S. intelligence services, the regime of President Bashar al-Assad used sarin on at least 10 different occasions, resulting in the deaths of some 100 to 150 people. The "proof" for this is based on tissue and blood samples-British intelligence claims contaminated soil as well-from victims of the attacks. The samples were gathered in Syria, taken to Turkey, and turned over to the intelligence services and the United Nations.

The French newspaper Le Monde also reports that one of its reporters suffered blurred vision and nausea during one of these attacks, and the paper has published photos of purported victims being treated. There is, as well, a video of insurgent fighters donning gas masks. Besides the photos and video images, no evidence has been released to the press.

What about the beast itself?

The chemical was invented in Germany in 1938 as a pesticide. It is a nerve agent-as opposed to a "blistering agent" like mustard gas-and kills by blocking the body's ability to control the chemical that allows muscles to turn themselves off. As the Office of Emergency Management puts it, "Without an 'off switch,' the glands and muscles are constantly being stimulated. They may tire and no longer be able to sustain breathing function."

You suffocate.

Sarin is a colorless and odorless liquid, and it is "volatile"-that is, it quickly turns into a gas. Even in small concentrations, it is very deadly and can kill within minutes. It is absorbed through the skin or lungs and can contaminate clothing for up to 30 minutes. The British created a far deadlier and less volatile variant of sarin called V. It was an errant VX cloud from the U.S. Army's Dugway Proving Ground that killed some 6,000 sheep in Utah's Skull Valley in 1968.

Many countries have chemical weapons, but some, including the U.S. and Russia, are in the process of destroying them under the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention. Sarin is considered a "weapon of mass destruction" under UN Resolution 687, although that label is a bit of a misnomer. It is certainly bad stuff. In 1988 Saddam Hussein used sarin to kill several thousand Kurds in the city of Halabja, and sarin and mustard gas were used during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88). It is estimated that gas inflicted about 5 percent of Iran's casualties in that war.

But poison gas is generally considered more of a nuisance than a weapon capable of creating large numbers of dead and wounded. It only accounted for 1 percent of the casualties in World War I, and doesn't compare with a real weapon of mass destruction. The two nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed some 250,000 people and injured hundreds of thousands more. And by today's standard of nuclear weapons, those bombs were tiny.

While chemical weapons are scary, they are no more indiscriminate in what they kill than 1,000 lb bombs and cluster weapons, indeed much of the arsenals of modern armies. Small arms, for instance, inflict 90 percent of civilian casualties.

In any case, President Obama made the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war his "red line," a barrier he claims has now been breached.

Has it?

Philip Coyle, a senior scientist at Washington's Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation has his doubts, telling the McClatchy newspapers that from what he has observed of the evidence, it doesn't look as if sarin was used.

Jean-Pascal Zanders, former head of the Chemical and Biological Warfare Project at the Stockholm international Peace Research Institute questions some of the reports in Le Monde. For instance, the newspaper reports that victims traveled a long distance for medical care, which he suggests is unlikely if sarin was used. He also points out there are no reports of medical workers dying from exposure to victims, even though sarin clings to clothing for up to a half hour. He also questions a Le Monde report that one victim was given 15 shots of the antidote atropine, a dose that would surely have been fatal.

"In a world where even the secret execution of Saddam Hussein was taped by someone, it doesn't make sense that we don't see videos, that we don't see photos showing bodies of the dead, the reddened faces and the bluish extremities of the afflicted," he says.

While the French claim they have an "unbroken chain of custody" from the attack to the lab, even experts who believe the intelligence reports disagree. Greg Thielmann of the Arms Control Association says that while his "guess" is that the poison gas was used, there is a lack of "continuous chain of custody for the physiological samples from those exposed to sarin."

One "Western diplomat" told the Washington Post, "The chain-of-custody issue is a real issue," in part because the "red line" speech was an incentive to "prove" chemical weapons had been used. As Rolf Ekeus, a Swedish scientist who headed the UN's weapons inspections in Iraq, said, "If you are the opposition...you have an interest in giving the impression that some chemical weapons have been used."

According to a report in the New York Times, samples gathered in Aleppo were carried by a civilian courier from that city to the Turkish border town of Reyhanli, "a journey that took longer than expected. At one point," reports the Times, "the courier forgot the blood vials, which were not refrigerated, in his car. Ten days after the attack, the vials arrived at the Turkish field office for the Syrian American Medical Society."

In short, the samples were hardly secured during the week and a half it took them to get to Turkey, and they were delivered into the hands of insurgency supporters.

Carla del Ponte, former war crimes prosecutor and currently a member of the UN Commission of Inquiry on the use of chemical weapons in Syria, says it was the rebels, not Syria, who are the guilty party.

Damascus refuses to allow the UN to test for chemical weapons inside of Syria, which certainly raises suspicions. On the other hand the UN has not exactly been a neutral bystander in the civil war. UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon has demanded "unfettered access"-an unlikely event in the middle of a war-and while sharply condemning Iran and Russia for supplying arms to Assad, has muted such criticism of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the main arms suppliers for the rebels.

There is a certain common sense factor in all this as well. Would the Assad government really "cross the red line" in order to kill 150 people?

When U.S. Special Forces invaded Syria in 2008 to attack what they claimed was a "terrorist gathering"-it turned out to be carpenters and farmers-the Syrians protested, but did nothing. At the time, Syria's Foreign Minister told Der Speigel that Damascus had no wish to "escalate the situation" with the U.S. "We are not Georgia" he added, an illusion to Georgia's disastrous decision to pick a fight with Russia in the 2008 Russian-Georgian war.

Nor has Syria responded to three bombing raids by Israel, knowing that challenging the powerful Israeli air force would be suicidal.

Western intelligence services want us to believe that Damascus deliberately courted direct U.S. intervention for something totally marginal to the war. Maybe the Assad regime has lost its senses. Maybe some local commanders took the initiative to do something criminal and dumb. Maybe the whole thing is a set-up.

Shouldn't we wait until the dog barks?

This article was reposted from Dispatches from the Edge.

Photo: Flickr (CC)

Anger grows over interference with Bolivian jet

Mon, 08 Jul 2013 15:16:00 +0000

On July 4 while the U.S. was celebrating, heads of state from South America's UNASUR (Union of South American Nations) met in Cochabamba, Bolivia, to angrily denounce what they see as a lack of respect by the U.S. and Europe for their own national sovereignity.

The special UNASUR meeting, attended by Presidents Evo Morales of Bolivia, Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina, Rafael Correa of Ecuador, Desi Bouterse of Surinam and Jose Mujica of Uruguay, was called in response to a complaint by Morales.

On Monday, Presidents Morales of Bolivia and Maduro of Venezuela attended an international conference of natural gas exporters in Moscow. Since whistleblower Edward Snowden is still stuck in the international transit area of Shermetyevo Airport in the Russian capital while he tries to find a county that will give him political asylum, the international press asked both Morales and Maduro if their respective countries might be willing to do so. Both gave answers that defended Snowden but neither made a commitment to extend asylum to him. Maduro then continued on to a meeting in Belarus. Morales boarded Bolivia's presidential jet to return to Bolivia.

According to Bolivian authorities, the plane was scheduled to overfly several European countries, make a refueling stop in the Canary Islands, and then head off across the Atlantic Ocean. However, the aircraft was denied permission to enter national airspace and/or landing permission in Portugal, France, Spain, and Italy. It was finally able to land and refuel in Vienna, Austria, where President Morales spent all night.

The Bolivians say that Spain had demanded the right to search the plane as a condition of letting it land in the Canary Islands. The Bolivians point out that under the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which all the countries involved plus the United States have signed and ratified, an airplane carrying a head of state is considered sovereign territory of that state and should neither be impeded in its flight nor searched.

Evidently somebody got the idea that Morales and his party had smuggled Snowden on board the official Bolivian presidential jet so as to bring him to Bolivia and political asylum. President Morales invited Austrian authorities to come aboard the jet as it stood on the tarmac in Vienna, and they confirmed that there was no sign of Snowden (this was not officially a "search" and the Bolivians thanked the Austrian government).

The Bolivian government and its allies concluded that the interference with the jet was probably done at the instigation of the U.S.

The U.S. neither confirms nor denies this.

Relations between Bolivia and the U.S. are frosty. The Obama administration is angry with Bolivia for not subordinating its drug enforcement efforts to the U.S. Bolivia accuses the U.S. of intriguing with right wing Bolivian dissidents, and has expelled both the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Agency for International Development.

Bolivia is a member of the Bolivarian Alliance for Our America (ALBA) which includes also Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador and Nicaragua, as well as some smaller Caribbean states. This is one of several groupings of nations in Latin America and the Caribbean who are working to reduce their dependence on the U.S. and the subordination of the whole area to U.S. policies. The continued pressure by the U.S. on socialist Cuba is another reason for friction with the whole Latin American area.

At the UNASUR meeting, all countries present denounced what had been done to Morales' airplane as an attack on the sovereignty of the entire region and demanded explanations. Moreover, they pointed out that the physical safety of Morales and his party was endangered because of the issue of sufficient fuel. Meanwhile, French President Francois Hollande had apologized to Bolivia, saying that as soon as he had realized that Morales was on board the airplane he had countermanded the order to forbid its passage over France. However, Bolivia and its allies are want thorough explanations and apologies from the U.S. for its probable part in the incident. Morales says he may close the U.S. embassy in La Paz.

Several other regional leaders, including Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, Organization of American States Secretary General José Miguel Insulza, Presidents Dilma Rousseff of Brazil and Ollanta Humala of Peru, as well as the Mexican Congress expressed solidarity with Bolivia, as did Russia and Cubaji. The Communist Parties of Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and the U.S. deplored the incident. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has asked that the matter be investigated.

Bolivia says it will raise the matter in the U.N.

Photo: In the front row, left to right, Ecuador's President Rafael Correa, Uruguay's President Jose Mujica, Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez, Bolivia's President Evo Morales, Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro and Suriname's President Desi Bouterse pose for photos in Cochabamba, Bolivia, July 4. Juan Karita/AP

Extradite terrorists not Snowden, says Venezuela’s Maduro

Mon, 08 Jul 2013 11:24:00 +0000

The U.S. has no moral authority to seek the extradition of Edward Snowden while it ignores the long-standing demand of Venezuela for the extradition of convicted terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, said Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro Thursday in a telecast carried by Telesur TV.

Maduro repeated Venezuela's demand for Posada Carriles' extradition to Venezuela. Posada Carriles escaped from prison in Venezuela while awaiting trial for masterminding the 1976 bombing of a Cuba-bound flight from Caracas. That terrorist act left 73 dead.

Maduro said that Snowden's actions were intended only to report on certain ills afflicting the world today, and called on the international community to protect Snowden's life and liberty.

Maduro stated that Washington has no moral standing whatsoever to seek the extradition of Snowden while it harbors and gives cover to confessed terrorists like Posada Carriles who did so much harm to the people of Venezuela and Latin America. The U.S. government should set an example and stop protecting terrorists operating on its behalf rather than threatening and attacking other states, other peoples and leaders from around the world, he added.

Venezuela and Nicaragua have both offered asylum to Snowden, who has been charged by the U.S. government with espionage and theft of government secrets.

Maduro spoke on his arrival in Venezuela in the early morning hours of Thursday after a visit to Russia and Belarus which included the signing of new bilateral agreements with those two countries.

Photo: Creative Commons 3.0

Massive protests in Egypt call for Morsi’s ouster

Wed, 03 Jul 2013 14:35:00 +0000

On June 30, July 1 and July 2, the most massive protests in recent Egyptian history, larger than those which toppled dictator Hosni Mubarak in 2011, rocked Tahrir Square in Cairo and also Alexandria, Fayoum and other Egyptian cities. More than a dozen people have been killed, mostly in attacks by counter-demonstrators. This time, the aim of the protesters is to force President Mohammed Morsi to step down and make way for new elections.

The Egyptian army has announced that if a solution to the conflict is not found by end of day Wednesday, it may step in and impose one on this nation of 80 million people.

Frustration with Morsi has been building since he was elected by the narrowest of margins in June of 2012 (he got about 25 percent of the vote in the first round, and 51.7 percent in the runoff). His affiliation with the right-wing Freedom and Justice Party, an offshoot of the conservative Muslim Brotherhood has led to worries that he might intend to pressure Egyptians, most of whom are theologically moderate Muslims and some of whom are Coptic Christians, into a stricter form of religious practice. He is accused of authoritarian tendencies, having worked to undermine the judiciary, giving himself the authority to rule without having to respond to judicial oversight until a new constitution is in force at some future time.

The sharp decline of Egypt's economy, with rising unemployment and inflation and dwindling currency reserves also underlies the conflict. Tourism and foreign investments are down, and with them, government revenues. Morsi's government has gone to the International Monetary Fund to ask for a $4.8 billion loan to pay ongoing expenses, and has been told that this is conditioned on its cutting food and fuel subsidies which keep the Egyptian masses afloat, as well as raising taxes.

Some last straws were Morsi's naming of a member of an extremist Islamist group accused of attacks on foreign tourists as governor of the Luxor region which, with its spectacular ancient temples and tombs, is a major tourist destination (this nomination was withdrawn), his announcement of support for the rebels in Syria, and the possibility of war with neighboring Ethiopia over control of the waters of the Blue Nile.

Although Morsi supporters claim that the protestors are affiliated with the forces that had supported ex-dictator Mubarak, in fact they include a broad spectrum of Egyptian society, including labor unions and the socialist and communist left, whom Mubarak had suppressed. They call their loose coalition simply "Tamarod" which means rebel. They have chosen Nobel prize winner and former head of the International Atomic Energy Commission Mohammed El Baradei to be their spokesperson in negotiating a transition to a new regime, which would entail new elections for parliament and president.

There has been especially strong participation of women in this round of protests, in the hundreds of thousands among the reported millions who have hit the streets. Women particularly fear that a movement in a conservative Islamist direction threatens their progress toward social equality. A feature of protests in Egypt has been assaults against women protesters and press workers, and this has been happening in the current protests also.

One of numerous groups involved in the protests is the Egyptian Communist Party, which was suppressed under Mubarak and his predecessors, but has being growing in visibility since Mubarak's fall. In a statement released on Monday, the Communist Party praised the army's apparent siding with the people in the streets, and called for protesters to persist until Morsi is ousted: "The people decided that Mohammed Morsi Isa El-Ayyat has betrayed the oath that he made when he became president. He and his group of Muslim Brotherhood and their allies dared to attack the sanctity of the judiciary and ruined the country's economy.....we call upon the masses of the people not to leave the squares and not to abandon the revolution until they achieve their demands."

When the army announced its threat to step in and impose a solution, a cheer went up from the immense throng of protesters in Tahrir Square in Cairo. However, protest leaders say they do not want a military coup d'etat.

At writing, Morsi's government appears to be in danger of disintegrating, with the resignation of the foreign minister, several other ministers and top officials. However, Morsi is refusing to step down, accusing the protesters of being against constitutional legitimacy, while elements of the Muslim Brotherhood say they are willing to accept martyrdom to prevent Morsi's fall.

So far the Obama administration has confined itself to calling for a peaceful resolution of the situation, with a recommendation to President Morsi that he respond to the grievances of the people.

Photo: Amir Nabil/AP

New NSA scandal: U.S. spies on EU

Wed, 03 Jul 2013 12:41:00 +0000

The Influential German magazine Der Spiegel revealed during the weekend that the United States National Security Agency bugged the communications of the European Union and some of the United States' closest allies, as well as international bodies. The reaction is shaping up to be furious. The new revelations also undermine the U.S. government's argument that the surveillance program revealed by Edward Snowden, who had been working for NSA contractor Booze Allen Hamilton, is essential to fighting terrorism.

Der Spiegel, basing itself on Snowden's material, says that the surveillance of online and telephone communications targeted European Union offices in Washington D.C., at the European Union embassy to the United Nations in New York, and at the organization's main headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.

The new revelations suggest that the NSA had put some of the United States' closest allies in Europe under surveillance. There have, according to the story, over 500 intercepts of German communications per month.

Some of the activity may have been directed from NATO facilities. The activities are being compared to Cold War methods.

In addition, when the surveillance story was first broken by Snowden last month, the U.S. administration and leaders of both parties in Congress claimed that the surveillance was being done to protect the United States from terrorist attacks. These new revelations undermine that story.

The original revelations already set off a spat between the United States on the one hand, and China and Russia on the other. When Snowden, helped by the Wikileaks organization, first showed up in Hong Kong and then appeared in the international transit area at the Shermetyevo airport in Moscow, with stories circulating that he might be given asylum in Ecuador (which has given Wikileaks founder Julian Assange asylum at its embassy in London), Venezuela, or Cuba, the White House and State Department waxed indignant and made veiled threats against those countries if they did not hand him over for prosecution. The Der Spiegel revelations will assure that few European countries with the exception of the United Kingdom, whose GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) is also accused of illegitimate surveillance activities, will support the United States in diplomatic conflicts that result from this.

Public figures throughout Europe are now lining up to denounce the U.S. activities, and some suggest that the quarrel may sink the new free trade agreement that the United States is negotiating with the European Union. Several pointed out that the spying may have targeted European Union offices involved in trade matters.

Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn of Luxembourg, one of the 27 states that belong to the European Union, was quoted by Der Spiegel's online English language edition as saying, "if these reports are true, then it is abhorrent.

German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Scharrenberger said that the spying report "defies belief that our friends in the U.S. see the Europeans as their enemies."

She and others also compared the U.S. surveillance activities as being comparable to Cold War tactics.

In an initial response, Secretary of State John Kerry tried to downplay the uproar, saying that it is well known that countries take measures to protect their national security. He added that the United States will respond to questions about the surveillance through diplomatic channels.

Photo: NSA Director Gen. Keith B. Alexander testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 18, before the House Intelligence Committee. J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Overseas Filipino workers deserve better protection

Tue, 02 Jul 2013 12:47:00 +0000

Philippines embassy personnel and labor officials from the Philippines Overseas Labor Office are currently under investigation for the alleged sexual exploitation of overseas Filipino workers. The Philippines Department of Foreign Affairs and Department of Labor and Employment are conducting the investigation after three women, working overseas in the Middle East, claimed they were sexually exploited and abused by their labor officers. There have also been allegations of sex-for-flight operations by Overseas Labor Office officials, in which labor officers pay for workers' flight expenses in exchange for sexual acts.

In its investigation, the Department of Labor and Employment revealed that some embassy personnel and labor officials are, in fact, exploiting, and even prostituting, Filipino workers. The investigation also revealed a number of other alleged criminal behaviors, including labor officials attempting to gain commissions from the paychecks of overseas Filipino workers, as well as overcharging plane tickets to host countries. Some worry that the government agencies should not be conducting these investigations, given that their own personnel are involved in the allegations. Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario promised reform and declared that the primary objective of the investigation is to ensure the protection and safety of overseas workers.

The Philippines Overseas Labor Office, which acts as an operating arm of the Labor and Employment Department, is responsible for the administration and enforcement of all policies that apply to overseas Filipino workers. Most importantly, it is responsible for the protection of these workers.

The exploitation and abuse of overseas Filipino workers is not a new phenomenon. In fact, the poor treatment of these workers has been documented since the beginning of Filipino labor exportation in the 1970s, when exportation was first institutionalized by the government. Ten percent of the total population of the Philippines (over 90 million) is exported labor. Filipinos, distributed in over 100 host countries, take jobs in the service industry as cooks, waiters and cleaners. Women make up 75% of exported Filipino labor, taking on domestic work as maids or caregivers. Overseas workers work very long hours (up to 12 hours a day and often deprived of days off), are underpaid and are provided with small living spaces and inadequate food rations. Additionally, they are regularly exposed to racism and discrimination, often physically abused, raped and even killed. It is modern day slavery.

Overseas Filipino workers are praised as heroes by many in the Philippines for their sacrifices, as well as for their contributions to the Philippine economy. A large number of Filipinos leave their families behind daily in search of work abroad. Billions of dollars of their earnings are sent back to the Philippines and used to help pay off excessive foreign debt, as well as to sustain and enrich the country's economic growth. Despite their significant contributions, overseas workers are provided with little to no labor protection.

Filipino workers are unable to seek salvation even from the very agencies and organizations created to protect them - abused by both employer and protector. It is not uncommon for overseas Filipino workers to run away from their employers when treatment and working conditions become intolerable, but where can they run? Labor officials are required to assist and provide safety to Filipino workers, but the current media attention to the sex exploitation scandal by Overseas Labor Office officials generates an unfortunate climate of distrust and fear.

The decision to seek employment abroad is not easy - it is a decision made out of workers' desperation to seek an improvement in the quality of the lives of their families as well as their own. It is a decision to endure abusive working conditions so their families do not starve to death at home. Although the Philippine economy is currently enjoying an increase in growth rate, only a small percentage of the Filipino elite is benefiting from the success. The rest of the population remains in poverty.

The adversity that overseas Filipino workers are forced to endure is heartbreaking. The fact that they are being abused and exploited by the very people responsible for their protection is shameful. Overseas Filipino workers deserve better for the sacrifices they make, the abuse and pain they endure and for the enormous contributions they make to their country.

Investigations of the Philippines Overseas Labor Office scandal are ongoing. So far, the Philippine government has confirmed at least one allegation of sexual abuse, and says it hopes more victims will come forward.

Photo: Scene from a monologue about a female domestic worker in Tokyo named Juana. While waiting to be connected online with her friends/family, she discusses the joys and hardships of being an overseas Filipino worker in Japan. scion_cho CC 2.0