People Before Profit blog

Why aren’t Nicaragua’s children fleeing to the U.S?

Mon, 30 Jun 2014 11:47:00 +0000

The following is reprinted from NicaNet, the Nicaragua Network, a project of the Alliance for Global Justice:

A supporter sent us a letter to the editor she had written to counter all the right-wing letters in her local paper commenting on the humanitarian crisis on the border caused by children fleeing Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Here's her answer to the question in the headline:

"We read that children are streaming across the Texas border from Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador...but....not Nicaragua? Why aren't Nicaragua's children fleeing the left wing Sandinista government that the U.S. has been trying to crush ever since their revolution in 1979? Could it be that Nicaragua, despite its poverty, provides more security for its population than other Central American countries? Yes! Check out the stats: lowest homicide rate, no death squads, little gang activity: "least violent country in Central America and safest in all the hemisphere"!! Wow! Maybe Obama could shift gears, and, instead of sending military equipment to 'fight' the 'war' on drugs, and the 'war' on youth, he might support education, health, and small farmers in Central America, and repeal the disastrous free trade policies that are making the rich richer and the poor ready to head for the border. That might help convince young people to stay home."

We encourage you to write letters to the editor in your own words to try to bring some rationality to the immigration "debate." Letters below 200 words have the most chance of being published. Below are talking points that we hope are helpful:

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) presented in Nicaragua on May 19, 2014 its Regional Report on Human Development for 2013-2014 on security matters and classified Nicaragua as "atypical" because of its low rates of homicide and robbery. Juan Pablo Gordillo, adviser on security at the Latin American Regional Services Center of the UNDP, said that, "The case of Nicaragua is an important achievement at the regional level," adding that because Nicaragua is one of the poorest countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, it breaks the myth that poverty causes violence. Nicaragua's homicide rate dropped to 8.7 per 100,000 inhabitants. Honduras, with 92 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, has the highest murder rate in the world. El Salvador has 69, Guatemala 39, Panama 14.9 and Costa Rica 10.3 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.

Speaking in San Salvador at a regional conference on community policing, Nicaraguan National Police spokesman Commissioner Fernando Borge said that the proactive, preventative, community policing model of Nicaragua's police has helped make Nicaragua one of the safest countries in Latin America. He described "a model of shared responsibility, that of person-family-community" which shapes all the areas of police work. In 2013, out of each 100 cases reported to the police, they have been able to resolve 79. This compares to the almost complete impunity for crime, especially politically motivated crime, in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador.

The problem of the children migrants is blowback from U.S policy in the 1980s when our government trained and funded Salvadoran and Guatemalan military and police to prevent popular revolutions and more recently when the US supported the coup against President Manuel Zelaya in Honduras. Those countries were left with brutal, corrupt armies and police forces whereas Nicaragua, with its successful 1979 revolution, got rid of Somoza's brutal National Guard and formed a new army and a new police made up of upstanding citizens.

Who consumes all those drugs that are causing all that violence and corruption in Latin America? Who has militarized the Drug War and is funding and training repressive militaries and police in the countries from which the children are fleeing? In both cases it is the United States.

Respected Latin American polling firm M&R Consultants polls show at the end of 2013, 72.5 percent of Nicaraguans approved of government economic management and President Daniel Ortega's personal popularity stands at 74.7 percent, the most popular in Central America. Why? According to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Nicaragua ranks second in Latin America and the Caribbean after Venezuela as the country that most reduced the gap between rich and poor in recent years.

According to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Nicaragua's predicted 2014 GDP growth rate will put it among the five fastest growing countries in Latin America. Why? Because Nicaragua invests in poverty reduction, education and health care.

Removing the reasons for migration

During the past seven years, agricultural workers income and wages grew, showing the effectiveness of programs for the rural sector, which is where there are higher rates of poverty and malnutrition, and taking away the economic reason for migration.

Nicaragua is the only country in Central America that managed to return to the pace of economic growth that it had before the international crisis of 2008-2009. This not only has been recognized by ECLAC, but also by the International Monetary Fund in its latest assessment. Why? Because the Sandinista government forced the IMF to support its poverty reduction programs, and to like it!

Nicaragua's successful poverty reduction programs have caused multilateral agencies and governments to become more interested in the effective implementation of programs that cater to the poor and allow more Nicaraguans to have free access to health and education.

The Vice-President of the World Bank for Latin America, Hasan Tuluy, called projects in Nicaragua one of the best run portfolios of projects in Latin America.

Pablo Mendeville, representative of the UN Development Program (UNDP), has said that Nicaragua is striving to achieve the Millennium Development Goals of social policies to halve global poverty and could achieve this by the end of 2015.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has recognized that Nicaragua is among countries that achieved ahead of time the goals set by the Zero Hunger Challenge and lowered the national poverty level. Official data from the Nicaraguan Institute of Development confirm this: in previous years, the level of "poverty was more than 40 percent, and that of extreme poverty was 17.2 percent; today we are calculating extreme poverty at 7.6 percent."

Nicaragua recorded indisputable achievements in terms of disease prevention and health promotion, with a program of immunization which is an example for Latin America, with coverage as high as one hundred percent in children under one year old, and more than 95 percent in general. It has an effective campaign to prevent 16 serious diseases that can affect the population, such as diarrhea and pneumonia.

The maternal mortality rate of 93 per 100,000 live births in 2006 was lowered to 50 per 100,000 live births in 2013.

Educational programs have resulted in a school retention rate of approximately 96 percent of the students enrolled. In addition, the government achieved 100 percent coverage of students receiving school meals, thus benefiting students of public preschools, community schools, and subsidized Catholic schools throughout the country.

Nicaragua is the country with the most gender equality in Latin America and the Caribbean and tenth worldwide, according to the World Economic Forum (WEF). This means that Nicaragua is one of the countries where women have greater access to health and education, while they have more political participation and economic inclusion, said the study.

In the report Climatescope 2012, Nicaragua won second place after Brazil due to its policy of clean energy, the structure of its energy sector, low-carbon business activity, clean energy value chains, as well as the availability of green credits.

According to the Executive, investments from 2013 to 2016 will raise the national rate of electrification from 76 percent of households to a little over 87 percent, as part of efforts toward economic development with social inclusion. In 2006 electricity supply barely reached 54 percent and there were rolling blackouts averaging 14 hours a day.

The director of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Jose Graziano da Silva, congratulated the government for the effectiveness of programs implemented against poverty and hunger at the end of a 2013 visit to the country and after visiting various locations to check the value of plans such as Zero Hunger, Family Gardens and the Production Packages, aimed at promoting the development of the agricultural sector and guaranteeing the security of national food consumption.

Photo: World Atlas

Education counter-revolution in England sounds awfully familiar

Tue, 24 Jun 2014 17:12:00 +0000

LONDON - The Conservative-led coalition government in the UK has embarked on a "shock therapy" deregulatory binge across the English education sector. This isn't a radical break with the prevailing policy orthodoxy. The rot set in years ago and wasn't really challenged during the 13 years of New Labour government. While New Labour invested in education, it also subscribed to the neoliberal orthodoxy that the market and private sector competition could make it more efficient.

Schools outside of democratic control

It was New Labour that brought in the idea of "city academy" schools as a solution to "failing schools." Obsessed with the idea that education and the knowledge economy could effectively replace "redistributory" policies (which would have posed a threat to big business and finance capital), New Labour created a class of schools outside of democratic control, controlled by private sponsors and given the freedom to deviate from nationally agreed contractual terms and conditions of employment for their teachers. These schools were a gift to the incoming Conservative-led coalition.

Conservatives had long sought to undermine democratic oversight of a comprehensive system, and under the coalition, the new Tory education secretary, Michael Gove, has seized his opportunity with alacrity. In 2010, Gove announced that the English school system was in crisis, that a generation of children was being let down by comprehensive schools that stunted their ambition. The solution, he announced, was to convert schools into academies and remove them from democratic control.

Using a mixture of outright bribery through promises of extra funding and coercion, using the immense pressure on schools found to "require improvement" by a highly politicized inspectorate - Ofsted, Gove powered a process that ensured that English secondary schools felt they had little option but to convert to academy status. Fifty-six percent of all English secondary schools are now academies, but given the political pressures on their governors (in the UK, all state-run schools - what we call public schools - have volunteer governing bodies), the wonder is that so many have held out.

In an effort to force the pace, the Conservative-led coalition also passed new legislation enabling the establishment of new schools, called "free schools." In legal terms these are simply academies by another name but "free schools" were sold to the public as empowering local parents to set up their own schools without the need for tiresome red tape or even qualified teachers. The law establishing these schools has been written in such a way that they can be established on the basis of demand that only has to be evidenced by a scrap of paper with a few hundred names on it.

No coordination, no planning, no assessment of need, no consultation. These schools have not been established to create extra capacity or to address any objective need - in spite of the fact that there are genuine problems in many areas. Instead, the government seems to see them as lean, mean predators, making efficient use of their state stipends to out-compete their local comprehensives, driving "failing schools" out of business.

Inevitably, this neoliberal supply-side revolution has pump-primed the emergence of substantial academy "chains," companies like Ark, E-Act, Harris, AET, United Learning, Oasis and others. The 12 largest chains now control more than 400 academy schools, around a quarter of all English secondary academies. These companies are now increasingly also applying to set up "free schools." The number of private companies applying to run "free schools" tripled in two years with 25 percent of applications coming from a corporate sponsor in 2013, giving the lie to Gove's lofty words about parent power.

For the moment, these companies are established on a charitable basis and cannot make profits that can be distributed to shareholders. But they are already lobbying the government to be allowed to run schools for profit. Right-wing think tanks like the Institute of Economic Affairs and Policy Exchange, very closely connected with the City of London financial institutions and the Coalition government, have already prepared the public arguments for the efficiency of for-profit schools.

Behind the scenes, the academy chains are reported to be lobbying for the right to be allowed to borrow against their assets, levering in the private equity companies and hedge funds circling the sector with their promises of easy capital and fast expansion. The political environment is not quite right yet. The Conservatives' coalition partners the Liberal Democrats are distinctly queasy about schools run for profit. But if the Conservatives win a majority in the next general election, for-profit schools will be back on the agenda.

If all this sounds very familiar to U.S. audiences, it should. Michael Gove has been learning from the USA, spending time on a fact-finding mission recently with neoconservative education reformers and giving a keynote address at Jeb Bush's Foundation for Excellence National Summit late last year. Right-wing think tanks in the UK have drawn heavily on the "success" of the charter schools movement to legitimate the government's reforms.

This is no mere accident. The UK's coalition government is effectively the parliamentary wing of the vast, organized political and economic power of the City of London (equivalent to "Wall Street" in the U.S.). Its macroeconomic policy and its political attack on the public sector are both designed to restart the City's casino, partly by feeding it with new assets. And "the City" may sound quaintly English, but behind its antiquated name the reality is that it is dominated by U.S.-owned banks and financial interests. Finance capital in Britain is Anglo-American and its political representatives take a similarly transatlantic perspective.

It shouldn't surprise anyone that such a government is looking to roll out a public service reform agenda already developed in the U.S., whose ultimate objective is to financialize our beleaguered school and university system, creating new equity and new classes of financial assets for the speculators in the process.

Resistance is growing

But while the investment banks and private equity funds circle, resistance is growing. For-profit education has taken a hefty blow recently with the revelation that the government's seismic deregulation of higher education, geared in large part to allowing in U.S.-owned for-profit companies and financializing the existing university infrastructure, is generating a repeat of recent U.S. history. The government opened up a loophole that allowed for-profit companies access to the publicly backed loan program.

In 2010, they accounted for a mere £22 million (over $37 million) in subsidies through this route. By the end of this year that figure will be almost £1 billion ($1.7 billion). And some of these companies have now been caught scamming the government's student loan system in precisely the way that U.S. companies have done for years, and exactly as the University and College Union, which organizes higher education faculty, warned they would.

Similarly, the neoliberal assault on local authority public comprehensive schools is coming off the rails. The "free schools" project has produced a series of disastrous and high profile scandals, the entirely predictable consequence of setting up and funding completely unregulated schools run by inexperienced, inept, unsupported and sometimes corrupt governors.

The vast amounts of public money being sunk into these schools have become a major embarrassment, compounded by the recent revelation that Gove has had to raid the budget for primary schools to the tune of £400 million ($679 million) to fund their ballooning cost. The academies program too is running into problems as the rapid expansion of chain companies outruns their ability to manage schools. Fourteen academy chains were told to stop expanding. One, E-Act, was told to hand back 10 schools to the government, while the Prospects Academies Trust is shortly to close completely.

Grassroots pressure

As the policy problems have become more apparent the Labour Party has inched, painfully, toward a pragmatic rejection of its former enthusiasm for deregulating the schools sector. The key to turning this into a positive alternative education program will be raising the level of grassroots pressure. Fortunately, the coalition government is proving very helpful. In its determination to drive change ruthlessly in the face of any opposition, the government is fueling a democratic backlash.

Michael Gove has gone out of his way to goad British teaching unions into industrial action, believing he can smash their influence in the education sector. In addition to facing localized attacks on their terms and conditions as a consequence of academization, teachers have seen their pensions cut, the introduction of more performance-related pay, attempts to lengthen their working day and a steady stream of attacks in the big business press. But ironically, one consequence has been to create more pressure for professional unity among the notoriously divided teaching unions. It is apparent to ever more teachers that divided unions are actively impeding effective collective action.

Equally positive are the attempts by the National Union of Teachers to link industrial and political resistance to a growing community backlash. As the Department for Education has accelerated its efforts to drive schools into academy status and open more "free schools," it has become increasingly widely apparent that the interests of parents and their communities come a very poor second to the broader project.

Schools have been forced to become academies in the face of overwhelming community opposition. Free schools are being opened where there is no need, on the basis of no consultation. And as the chains and religious organizations running these schools are increasingly exposed to public scrutiny, there is the potential to turn a basic common-sense democratic opposition to these reforms into support for a positive democratic education agenda. The urgent priority now is to build organizational unity between educators and their communities across the country, based on the rising democratic revolt against the education counter-revolution.

Jonathan White is active in education struggles in the UK and organizes a local campaign against academies and "free schools" in London.

Photo: National Union of Teachers members march and rally in London, June 25, 2013. Nut Campaigns Facebook page.

Colombia peace talks to continue, for now, after Santos re-election

Tue, 24 Jun 2014 13:09:00 +0000

Second round presidential voting took place in Colombia on June 15.

It's evident a week after President Juan Manuel Santos won re-election with 51 percent of the vote that his government's peace negotiations with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), in progress for 18 months, will be continuing. Santos defeated Democratic Center Party candidate Óscar Iván Zuluaga who gained 47 percent of the vote. Both candidates are ultra-conservative with the future of the talks the only issue dividing them.

Zuluaga, widely regarded as a protégée of ex-President Alvaro Uribe, identified with the Uribe position of not giving up on military victory over the FARC. May 2014 marked the insurgency's 50^th year of fighting first for control of land and later on behalf also of democratic participation and social justice. The Uribe wing of Colombian conservatism, led for generations by big landowners and military chieftains, has long been at odds with urban-based counterparts championed by President Santos, financiers or businesspersons with global linkages.

Santos' victory hardly guarantees a mandate for long-term peace with social justice. As ex-President Uribe's defense minister, Santos had ultimate responsibility for army killings of civilians passed off as FARC casualties and for deadly, U.S. assisted bombings of FARC installations. And the constellation of electoral forces involved with his victory hints at precarious support for peace in the future.

Santos prevailed because much of the electorate backing a leftist electoral coalition in first-round voting opted for him on June 15. On May 25 they had voted for Clara Lopez, presidential candidate of the social democratic Alternative Democratic Pole and for Aida Abello, vice presidential candidate of the Patriotic Union. The Communist Party had taken the lead in reviving the latter party. Vowing to remain in the opposition, leaders of that coalition rejected Santos' offer to enter his new government.

The Uribe-Zuluaga campaign emerged from the election in a position of strength. Its bloc of 7 million voters responding to a disciplined party won in 612 0f 1,100 municipalities and now controls municipal governments and claims 21 senators. Earlier voting had placed Uribe himself in the Senate where as head of the Democratic Center opposition bench he'll be able to block agrarian reform measures and citizen security sought by FARC peace negotiators in Havana.

Election results gave rise to new uncertainty in the form of massive voter abstention. In May 60 percent of eligible voters stayed away and six percent of counted ballots were blank. Zuluaga won 29 percent of votes cast then and bested Santos by three percentage points. Voter abstention on June 15 was 52 percent. There is the good possibility that abstainers distrust both candidates for their history of U.S. assisted war making and the Uribe camp for its association with paramilitary violence. How abstainers will react to terms of a future peace settlement is unclear.

Left-leaning observer José Antonio Gutiérrez, writing on rebelion.org, finds little to celebrate. The Santos campaign was victorious in large part, he suggests, because of efficient vote gathering machinery. Votes were bought, he indicates, in districts along the Caribbean coast. He thinks the Colombian left emerged from the elections in a weakened state for having burnished Santos' image. Importantly, they may be unable to deliver effective support for any peace settlement that includes structural changes. Henceforth talks may be focusing mainly on the politically feasible.

Another observer opines that Santos gained a new legitimacy to realize peace on terms suiting his constituency. Prospects have waned for an early end to armed conflict and for diverting resources from armed conflict to pressing social needs. Any notion that entitled Colombians would make "great sacrifices" for the sake of peace has disappeared.

Not all news is bad for peacemakers. Leaders of the Army of National Liberation (ELN), Colombia's other insurgency, channeled an announcement through peace activist Piedad Cordoba indicating that the government and ELN had entered into an exploratory phase of talks leading to eventual peace negotiations. Cordoba publicized the news on June 10. Despite the many retired army officers who follow ex-President Uribe's lead, Army head General Jaime Alfonso Lasprilla, speaking to special forces trainees on June 21, characterized the Army's support for the peace process in Havana as unconditional.

And negotiations are advancing. Early in June FARC negotiators agreed to add the FARC's victims to the discussion point on victims. And government counterparts accepted the FARC's demand that a "commission of [historical] clarification" be created in advance of any truth commission that is part of a peace settlement. This meeting of minds makes it possible for the agenda item on victims to be taken up. For FARC negotiator Pablo Catatumbo, reparation of victims is a "first step toward reconciliation."

In his interview with El Espectador, Catatumbo asked that Santos "distance himself from everything Uribe represents and opt for social justice and change, [also that he] open his eyes to a diverse political spectrum."

Photo: Voters line up at a polling station during presidential elections in Bogota, Colombia, June 15. Javier Galeano/AP

Argentina, “vulture” funds, and the U.S. Supreme Court

Mon, 23 Jun 2014 13:15:00 +0000

The U.S. Supreme Court struck two blows against the Republic of Argentina on June 16. The high court refused to hear Argentina's appeal of an appeals court decision which forces the South American country to appease predatory "vulture" funds. The appeals court also allowed those funds to use U.S. law to try to grab Argentine state assets io satisfy their claims. Only Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented from the Supreme Court ruling, while Sonia Sotomayor recused herself.

Argentina's woes go back to the bloody military dictatorship which ruled from 1976-1983. That regime dealt with its critics by making them "disappear.". This made possible the unaccountable running up of international debts which the Argentine people were obliged to pay.

Civilian governments which followed found themselves in financial difficulties. This did not stop President Carlos Menem, who ruled Argentina from 1989 to 1999, from running a particularly corrupt administration which put Argentina even more in the red. Menem's and his successors' response to mounting economic problems was a neo-liberal privatization and austerity program, including mandatory pay cuts for public workers and retirees, which left many unemployed and destitute. In 2001 the economy hit bottom, with more than half the population under the poverty line, workplaces shutting down, rioting in the streets and no way to pay the bills or get more credit. In December 2001, the public uproar forced President Fernando de la Rua from office. Immediately afterward, Argentina defaulted on $132 billion of sovereign debt.

In 2003, a new president, leftist Nestor Kirchner, got to work painstakingly reconstructing what his predecessors had allowed to be destroyed. Rejecting neo-liberal policies, he held off creditors while he built up the spending power of ordinary Argentines by improved social welfare measures and replacing foreign imports with domestic production. While the health of the Argentine economy improved sharply, Kirchner's government worked to restore Argentina's credit standing by negotiating with creditors on the outstanding debt. After two debt restructuring agreements, in 2005 and 2010, the owners of 93 percent of the defaulted bonds had agreed to accept new bonds at about a third of the original face value. Kirchner also paid off all of Argentina's debt to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) with the help of $300 million from Venezuela. Argentina began to play a key role in the regional "Bolivarian" process, designed to make Argentina and its neighbors much less dependent on the United States by creating new regional agencies for developmental aid and credit.

However, some of the original Argentine bonds were bought up by "vulture capitalists" who specialize in purchasing such debt at super-cheap prices and then trying to sell the assets at the original value, making huge profits. Several such predatory firms went after the Argentinian bonds, most notably Elliot Management, and its subsidiary, NML Management.

The principal of Elliot Management is Paul Singer, who is closely tied in with some powerful U.S. politicians, mostly of the right wing of the Republican Party. Singer and his associates, working through their lobbying entity, the American Task Force Argentina, have been major campaign donors to a number of Republican politicians who have gratefully introduced legislation in Congress to try to force Argentina to give in to Elliot's demands, and who have made speeches slandering the South American country and its government, now headed by Nestor Kirchner's widow, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

In 2012, Elliot Management tried to seize an Argentine navy training ship, the ARA Libertad, which had docked in a Ghanaian port, but this was stopped because the Law of the Sea exempts sovereign states' navy vessels from such seizures.

Elliot Management/NML is claiming up to $1.6 billion from Argentina, and the June 16 Supreme Court decision not to hear Argentina's appeal means that Argentina must pay this amount in full. Payments to all the holdout creditors could amount to $15 billion, half of Argentina's reserves. But a much bigger problem now faces Argentina, because the language of the original bond sale indicates that Argentina cannot continue to pay those bondholders who had agreed to the restructuring agreement unless it also pays the holdouts in advance and in full. Even worse, the holdouts could go to court to attach Argentina's payments to the non-holdout bondholders. A complicating factor is that Carlos Menem's government had agreed, at the original issuance of the bonds in 1994, to waive Argentine sovereign immunity.

On June 30, Argentina is supposed to make a payment of $2.3 million to its foreign creditors, but it now appears highly probable that the Supreme Court's decision to let the lower court rulings stand will push it into a new default (at the end of a 30 day grace period). The Argentinian government says it will now negotiate with Elliot and the other holdouts, but the prospects that they will give an inch are slim.

The precedents that this situation might set are very bad for poorer countries, who might now find it much harder to restructure their sovereign debt after a default. For this reason, the Obama administration and the International Monetary Fund opposed Elliot Management's suit.

Photo: Linda Tanner CC

Vietnam appeals to public for help on China conflict

Fri, 20 Jun 2014 16:29:00 +0000

CHICAGO - At the June 13-15 Communist Party USA 30^th national convention here, Bui The Giang, representing the Communist Party of Vietnam, said China continues to violate international law despite his country's efforts to negotiate a dispute taking place in Vietnam's East Sea. On May 2, China sent a deep-water oil rig into Vietnamese marine territory, along with some 80 ships, including seven military vessels, infuriating Vietnam, which has been trying to resolve the crisis diplomatically.

Giang told peoplesworld.org in a June 15 interview that Vietnam has been forced to publicly protest as the Chinese "refute everything we have suggested." It has been with "deep regret," Giang said, that Vietnam has been forced to ask the international community to raise its voice to protest what he called China's unilateral and illegal actions.

"We have tried to bring them to the negotiation table. We have opened all possible channels to them. But so far the response from China has been very negative," Giang said.

Vietnam is demanding China end its "illegal act," withdraw the oil rig and ships and cancel all drillings in the area. Otherwise China could return and claim the wells "are parts of their territory," Giang said.

The area in dispute, experts say, is clearly on Vietnam's continental shelf, which according to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas, grants Vietnam exclusive rights to all mineral and hydrocarbon resources there. Yet China claims it has a right to drill for oil based on its occupation of the nearby Paracel Islands. Vietnam vigorously disputes this and also claims these islands.

Washington D.C.-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies published an analysis that said China could "make a legal case, however flimsy, for control over the continental shelf on which [the oilrig] HD-981 sits. But that area is clearly in dispute. To unilaterally drill on it is a violation of UNCLOS's admonition that states in a dispute, 'in a spirit of understanding and cooperation, shall make every effort to enter into provisional arrangements,' and shall not 'jeopardize or hamper the reaching of [a] final agreement.'"

The recent announcement by President Barack Obama of a "pivot" towards Asia, with a ramped up U.S. military role and support for Japan and the Philippines against China's claims in the South China Sea, has undoubtedly spurred China to assert its economic and military might in the region. However, this seems to be working to the detriment of peaceful relations with its southerly neighbor, Vietnam. It's an indication of how the U.S. "pivot" could spell disaster, leading to more and more conflicts.

To say the relationship between the two socialist states, Vietnam and China, and their Communist parties is complicated may be an understatement. Yet, Giang said, Vietnam has worked hard to maintain good neighborly and comradely relations with its powerful northerly neighbor, despite the fact that China invaded Vietnamese territory multiple times throughout history.

"We were caught by surprise," Giang said of this latest incursion.

"Since normalization [of relations] in November 1991 ... we have done whatever we can to maintain and improve relations with China despite every now and then intrusions across the border and conflicting claims over the seas and islands," Giang said.

"And last year, when the Chinese prime minister visited Vietnam, we thought that it was the best time in relationships between the two countries for the last 30 plus years. Therefore, out of the blue, when this took place we were caught by surprise," he said.

Giang said the Vietnamese people's reaction has been one of anger. Because the Vietnamese government and Communist Party have always said "China is our friend" there was a lot of trust in them, he said.

The anger spilled over into protests, in which a few turned violent, resulting in at least one death before the police could step in, Giang said. But the protests have created problems for Vietnam, which relies on foreign investment to help boost its economy.

Giang said that it is not only the illegal drilling for oil that has angered people, but also attacks on Vietnamese ships, including a fishing boat. "They have acted very aggressively against Vietnamese civilians vessels operating in theses waters. They even sank a Vietnamese fishing boat with 10 fishermen aboard. Without the rescue of other Vietnamese fishing boats around the area then the 10 people might have been killed," he said.

"This is inhuman. It's against the ideals of the Communist Party and contrary to the nature of any socialist country. We cannot accept this," he said.

Vietnam has turned to the international community for help in urging China to follow international law. "They said we are gathering support to be against them. Let me be very clear on this point: We are not against China and we are not against the Chinese people. We want, have wanted and will continue to want to live together peacefully. We have no reason whatsoever not to be on good terms with them," Giang said.

"We can only hope that with protest from Vietnam and the international community the Chinese leadership will see common sense and act accordingly," he said.

Photo: Bui The Giang, director-general of CP of Vietnam's Department for West Europe and North America, speaks to the delegates and guests attending the Communist Party USA's national convention, June 13-15, in Chicago. (PW/Teresa Albano)

Marching on Moscow

Fri, 13 Jun 2014 17:49:00 +0000

British Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery had three laws of war: One, never march on Moscow; two, never get in a land war in Asia; three, never march on Moscow. So why are the U.S., the European Union (EU), and NATO on the road to the Russian capital? And exactly what are they hoping to accomplish?

Like all battlefields on the Eastern front, this one is complicated.

For beginners, there are multiple armies marching eastward, and they are not exactly on the same page. In military parlance that is called divided command, and it generally ends in debacle. In addition, a lot of their weapons are of doubtful quality and might even end up backfiring. And lastly, like all great crisis, there is a sticker price on this one that is liable to give even fire breathers pause.

There are actual armies involved. NATO has deployed troops, aircraft and naval forces in the region, and the Russians have parked 40,000 troops on Ukraine's eastern border. But with the exception of the horrendous deaths of over 40 demonstrators in Odessa, the crisis has been a remarkably calm affair. The Russians took over the Crimea virtually without a shot, and while there is a worrisome increase of violent incidents in the south and east, they are hardly up to the French and German invasions in 1812 and 1941, respectively.

Which doesn't mean things couldn't turn dangerous, a reason why it is important to know the agendas of the players involved.

For the Russians this is about national interest and security, and the broken promises and missed opportunities when Germany was reunified in 1990. At the time, the Western powers promised they would not drive NATO eastward. Instead, they vacuumed up members of the old Soviet Warsaw Pact and recruited former Soviet republics into a military alliance that was specifically created to confront Russia.

All talk of Putin recreating the old Soviet Empire is just silliness, which there is a lot of out there these days. A perfect example was the New York Times'embarrassingly thin story about Putin's personal wealth that rested on the fact he wore expensive watches.

There is some silliness on the Russian side as well. Yes, the overthrow of Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych was a coup-what else do you call an armed uprising that causes an elected president to flee? -but it wasn't just ex-Nazis and fascists. There was genuine mass anger at the corruption of the Yanukovych government.

At the same time, two of the groups that spearheaded the coup-and who currently control seven ministries in the Western Ukraine government-celebrate those who fought with Waffen SS divisions during World War II. The Germans killed some 25 million Russians during that war, so if they are a bit cranky about people who hold celebrations honoring the vilest divisions of an evil army, one can hardly fault them.

The Americans and the Europeans have long had their eye on Ukraine, though their interests are not identical because their economic relations are different.

Russia supplies the EU with 30 percent of its energy needs; for countries like Finland and Slovakia, that reaches 100 percent. U.S. trade with Russia was a modest $26 billion in 2012, while for the EU that figure reached $370 billion. More than that, several large European energy giants, including BP, Austria's OMV, ENI, Royal Dutch Shell, and Norway's Statoil, are heavily invested in Russian gas and oil. If oil and gas are combined, Russia is the largest energy exporter in the world.

For Europe, Russia is also a growing consumer market of 144 million people, where retail spending has grown 20 percent a year between 2000 and 2012. . Any attempt to ratchet up sanctions will have to confront the fact that isolating Russia is not in the interests of some very powerful business interests in Europe-and even a few in the U.S., like Chevron, ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil.

Russia is the world's eighth largest economy, and one that is well integrated into the world's economy, particularly in Asia through the Shanghai Cooperation Council. The Council includes not only Russia and China, but also most of Central Asia's countries, with observer status from Iran, Pakistan and India.

The emerging BRICS countries-Brazil, India, China and South Africa (Russia makes up the "R")-did not support the recent UN resolution condemning Moscow's annexation of the Crimea and would certainly not join any sanctions regime. The Russians and Chinese inked a 30-year, $400 billion gas deal, and bilateral trade between the two countries is set to reach $100 billion by 2015 and $200 billion by 2020. Russia and Iran are reportedly negotiating a $10 billion energy deal as well.

So far, sanctions have targeted individuals, although Washington and the EU have threatened to up the ante and ban Russia from using the Swift system of international banking. That would make transferring money very difficult. It has certainly crippled Iran's finances. But Swift, as Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times points out, is a double-edged sword. "Cutting Russia out of Swift would cause chaos in Moscow in the short term," but in the long term "it might hasten the day when Russia, and more significantly, China, establish alternative systems for moving money between international banks." According to Rachman, China and Russia have already discussed such a system.

The EU's army is all for rhetorical condemnation of Russia, but when it comes to increasing sanctions, its command is divided. Those countries with significant investments in Russia-Italy, Germany, Spain, Austria and Greece- oppose cranking up the sanctions. German Chancellor Andrea Merkel must juggle her desire to support the U.S. with polls showing that the average German really doesn't want to march east: been there, done that. The Swedes and the Poles are fire-breathers, but their stance is as much about trying to offset German power in the EU as for any concern over Ukrainians.

In short the EU looks like one of those combined armies of Austrian-Hungarians, Russians, and Prussians that Napoleon made his reputation beating up on.

For the Americans this is about expanding NATO and opening up a market of 46 million people in the heart of Eastern Europe. The key to that is getting the 28 members of the alliance to finally pull their own. The U.S. currently foots 75 percent of NATO's bills, and is caught between a shrinking military budget at home and a strategy of expanding the U.S.'s military presence in Asia, the so-called "pivot."

NATO members are supposed to spend 2 percent of their GDP on the military, but very few countries-Britain, Estonia and Greece-actually clear that bar. Nor is there any groundswell to do so in European economies still plagued with low growth and high unemployment. Yes, yes, get the Russkies, but not at our expense.

"Sanctions will not help anybody, they would not just hurt Russia, but also Germany and Europe as a whole," says Rainer Seele, chair of Wintershell, and energy company owned by the German chemical giant BASF.

However, NATO is pushing hard. U.S. General and NATO commander Gen. Phillip Breedlove recently called for beefing up NATO forces on the Russian border. But for all the talk about a new Russian threat, NATO is not going to war over Ukraine, anymore than it did over Georgia in 2008. A few neo-conservatives and hawks, like U.S. Senator John McCain, might make noises about intervention, but it will be a very lonely venture if they try.

In the end the solution is diplomatic. It has to take into account Russia's legitimate security interests and recognize that Ukraine is neither Russian nor Western European, but a country divided, dependent on both. The simplest way to deal with that is through a system of federal states. It is the height of hypocrisy for the U.S. to oppose such a power arrangement when its own system is based on the same formula (as are many other countries in Europe, including Germany).

Polls show that Ukrainians in the East and South do not trust the Kiev government, but they also show that a solid majority wants a united country. That could shift if the Kiev government decides to use force. Once bodies start piling up, negotiations and compromise tend to vanish, and the possibility of civil war becomes real.

Moscow made a proposal last summer that the EU, Russia, and the U.S. should jointly develop a plan to save the Ukrainian economy. The EU and the U.S. dismissed that proposal, and the current crisis is a direct result of that rejection. The parties need to return to that plan,

In spite of the tensions, events in Ukraine are trending toward a political resolution. The Russians are re-deploying those 40,000 troops, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made it clear that "We want Ukraine to be whole within its current borders, but whole with full respect for the regions." Translation: no NATO.

The dangers are many here: that the Kiev government tries to settle the conflict by force of arms; that NATO does something seriously provocative; that the Russians lose their cool. As Carl von Clausewitz once noted: "Against stupidity, no amount of planning will prevail."

But the ducks are lining up. The sanctions will not force Russia to compromise its security and may end up harming the EU and the U.S. The commanders of the armies facing Moscow are divided on measures and means. Neither side in the Ukraine is capable of defeating the other. It is time to stop the bombast and cut a deal, particularly since Washington will need Moscow's help in Iran, Syria, and Afghanistan.

Oh, and marching on Moscow? Really? Monty wasn't the quickest calf in the pasture but he had that one figured out as a bad idea.

This article was originally posted at the author's blog, Dispatches From the Edge.

Photo: Wikimedia (CC)

Europe: The sky's not falling

Tue, 10 Jun 2014 12:37:00 +0000

Now that the dust has settled from the recent elections for the European Parliament it is time to take a deep breath and see what really happened. No, Britain is not about to toss its immigrant population into the sea. No, France's Marine Le Pen is not about to march on the Elysee Palace. And, as repulsive as the thugs of Hungary's Jobbik Party and Greece's New Dawn are, it was the continent's left to whom the laurels went in last month's poll.

"The European left is back in the game."

Parties that targeted unemployment, austerity and the growing wealth gap in Europe did well, and the dramatic breakthrough of right wing racist and xenophobic parties in France, Britain, and Denmark had less to do with a neo-Nazi surge than with the inability or unwillingness of the opposition in those countries to offer a viable alternative to a half decade of economic misery. Indeed, if there was a message in the May 25 EU elections, it was that those who trumpeted austerity as the panacea for economic crisis were punished.

Hence Britain's Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition took a drubbing, France's ruling Socialists were blitzed, and German Chancellor Andrea Merkel's lost eight seats, while her Social Democratic opponents picked up four.

Among the 28 European Union (EU) member countries, 751 seats in the parliament were up for election.

In contrast, where there was a clear choice between economic democracy, on one hand, and "let's blame it on the immigrants and Roma," on the other-as in Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, and most of Central and Eastern Europe-voters went left. As Srecko Horvat, Croatian philosopher and author of "What Does Europe Want?" commented in the wake of the election, "The European left is back in the game."

"Earthquake" was the metaphor most used in describing the triumphs of Marine Le Pen's National Front (NF) in France, the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) in Britain, and Denmark's Danish People's Party. But, if there was a result that shifted the foundations of Europe, it was the victory of Greece's Syriza Party and the "out of nowhere" appearance of Podemos-"we can"-in Spain.

Greece

Syriza emerged from the wreckage inflicted on the Greek economy by the so-called "Troika"-the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank, and the European Commission. For the price of a bailout-most of it siphoned off by big European banks-the Greek government instituted massive layoffs, huge cuts in pensions, health care, and education, and privatized government-owned property. The jobless rate rocketed to 28 percent-over 50 percent for young people-and millions of Greeks were impoverished. While Greece's creditors did well, the austerity did nothing to turn the depressed economy around.

Syriza took 26.5 percent of the vote May 25 to become the biggest party in Greece. That figure translated into a general election would net the party 130 seats in the 300 seat Greek parliament. In contrast, the two governing parties that oversaw the austerity program lost over 10 percentage points between them.

Much of the media focused on the neo-Nazi New Dawn Party, which won 9.4 percent of the vote-a 2.4 percent jump over their 2012 showing. New Dawn will send three representatives to the European Parliament, where the Greek left will swamp their representatives.

Another rightwing Greek party, the Popular Orthodox Rally lost voters.

While Syriza focused on the Greek domestic crisis, it also consciously attached itself to other left anti-austerity movements throughout the continent. "What happened in Greece is not a success story but a social tragedy that shouldn't be repeated anywhere in Europe," Syriza's leader Alexis Tsipras said during a debate among candidates for the post of European Commission president.

That "anywhere in Europe" resonated in other countries entrapped in the Troika austerity formula or struggling to emerge from stagnant economies and long-tern unemployment.

Spain

Beside Greece, the most conspicuous example was Podemos in Spain.

Podemos came out of the massive anti-austerity rallies that paralyzed Madrid and other Spanish cities in 2011, and which impelled similar demonstrations in Europe and the U.S., including the Occupy Wall Street movement. Podemos, says its leader Pablo Iglesias, is "citizens doing politics. If the citizens don't get involved in politics others will. And that opens the door to their robbing you of democracy, your rights, and your wallet."

The Spanish party consciously modeled itself on Syriza, not only in program, but also in its grassroots, bottoms-up organizing tactics. While Podemos has only been in existence four months, it took 8 percent of the vote nationwide and 11 percent in Madrid. Added to the success of left parties in Catalonia, Valencia, and the Basque Region, plus the votes for the Spanish Green Party and the Socialist Party, Spain's ruling rightwing Popular Party is suddenly a decidedly minority organization.

That pattern was repeated in several other countries.

Other countries

In Ireland the two parties that oversaw the austerity program-Fine Gael and Labour-dropped 16.5 percent and 12.5 percent respectively from the 2011 general election, while left and independent parties, like Sinn Fein, the Socialist Party and People Before Profits cornered 45 percent of the vote. The anti-austerity Portuguese Socialist Party defeated the center-right coalition that has overseen the Troika's recipe for Lisbon, and the Portuguese Communist Party took 12.7 percent of the vote.

Italy saw the leftist Democratic Party emerge as the number one political force in the country with 40 percent of the vote, while Beppo Grillo's angry and iconoclastic, but program-light, Five Star Movement took a beating, coming in at 21.2 percent. Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's rightwing Forza Italia took third at 16.8 percent. A Syriza look alike, "L'Aitra Europa" (the "Other Europe"), garnered a respectable 4 percent and three seats in the European Parliament after only a few months campaigning. In contrast, the much older and established racist Northern League lost four seats and took an anemic 6.2 percent of the vote.

In Slovenia the United Left won 5.9 percent of the vote, which in a general election would have given the party six seats in parliament.

The extreme right Party for Freedom in the Netherlands lost two seats, and the rightwing Finns Party dropped from the 19 percent it scored in 2011 to 13 percent.

Not that it was all sweetness and light.

Hungary's neo-Nazi Jobbik took 14.7 percent of the vote, but that was an almost 6 percent drop from what the Party received in last month's general elections. Poland's reactionary Congress of the New Right jumped from 1 percent in the 2011 general elections to 7 percent, and Lithuania's conservative Order and Justice Party scored 14.3 percent. The anti-immigrant New Flemish Alliance won in Belgium, and Austria's Freedom Party came in third, with 19.7 percent of the vote. However, right wing parties like Ataka in Bulgaria, the Greater Romanian Party, and the Slovak National Party all lost voters.

The right won parliamentary seats in 10 out of the 28 EU countries, and increased their representation in six of those countries, but also lost seats in seven other countries.

The triumphs of the NF in France and the UKID are certainly worrisome. Both ran virulent, anti-immigrant campaigns, and the NF has long been associated with anti-Semitism and anti-Roma ideology. It would be a mistake, however, to assume everyone who voted for both parties share their penchant for ethnic hatred. Some of that support was indeed racist, but the parties also tapped into voter anger over the economic policies of the EU that have kept both countries locked into near recession conditions.

The "traditional" left-the Socialist Party in France and the Labour Party in the UK-have gone along with some of the troika's austerity measures, and have also been sotto voce about immigrant bashing. The absence of a serious left critique of EU policies in both countries let many people surrender to their dark side and buy the fable that immigrants have swamped the job market and plundered social services. Especially since many of the rightist parties opportunistically adopted anti-austerity planks.

In Denmark, for instance, the center-right Venstre Party campaigned on denying welfare benefits to immigrants, hardly a platform to contrast itself with the far-right Danish People's Party.

Politically the continent has rejected the troika's strategy, much as Latin America did in 2000. "We are opposed to everlasting austerity as a means for fiscal rebalancing on both pragmatic and ideological grounds," says Syriza's Tsipras. "The subjugation of democratic process to the markets was the reason why we have the crisis today...we predicted from the onset...that austerity-based policies would backfire."

The trick now will be to pull the various left forces together to hammer out an alternative. Podemos' Iglesias has declared that the Spanish party intended to work "with other parties from Southern Europe to say that we don't want to be a colony of Germany and the troika."

Syriza has already proposed a European summit modeled on the 1953 London Debt Agreement that canceled 50 percent of Germany's World War II debt and spread out payments on the rest over 30 years.

As for the so-called "earthquake" on the right: the neo-Nazis and immigrant bashers will make a lot of noise, but they offer nothing but hate as an economic solution. The left has a better one, and they are back.

This article was originally posted at the author's blog, Dispatches From the Edge.

Targeted Ukrainian Communist cites right-wing terror, democratic collapse

Mon, 09 Jun 2014 14:42:00 +0000

An interview with Petro Symonenko

This article originally appeared in French in l'Humanité: Petro Symonenko: « Il y a une hystérie anti-communiste en Ukraine depuis le coup d'état » . Translated by Richard Pond

The leader of the Ukrainian Communist Party (KPU), Petro Symonenko, was the target of a murder attempt by far-right militiamen on 16th May in Kiev. He bears witness in this interview to the democratic collapse his country has undergone.

Do you recognize the result of the presidential election, which saw Petro Poroshenko elected in the first round?

PS. First of all, the KPU condemns the bloodbath in the region of Donbass. We demand an immediate end to the war, the withdrawal of troops as well as of police units and security forces (SBU). Finally, we request that round-table discussions be held on the situation in that region.

As far as this election is concerned, we only partially recognize it, because not every region was able to participate in this poll. There was also pressure put on the electoral commission and the candidates.

As for Poroshenko, he's an oligarch, so he'll pursue this war in order to defend the current regime's interests. He is also the Americans' man. The U.S. has backed this process and it considers Ukraine to be a site of geostrategic interest. After Ukraine's independence in 1991, Washington invested five billion dollars here. So a lot of high officials currently in office were trained in the United States, just as the armed militias that operated at Maidan were. This subject has been documented.

Contrary to the situation in Crimea, where the question of national identity was foremost, isn't it more of an economic and social question in the case of the Donbass region?

PS. Yes, you're quite right, and besides, we can already see the negative consequences of the policy pursued by the interim government. A large number of companies now no longer have production contracts and have had to suspend their activities. Donbass is the most industrialized region of Ukraine: energy, chemicals, the arms industry, etc. This is why the economic policy choice that Ukraine faces regarding the West or Russia is crucial for the region, and the referendum on 11th May isn't a representation of Donbass citizens' desire for separatism but rather an act of protest against the Kiev regime.

Do you recognize these popular referenda and their results both in Crimea and in the East of Ukraine?

PS. The KPU has as one of its principles the defense of Ukraine's territorial integrity. But it defends, too, the principle that citizens can decide their own fate by means of referenda.

In Crimea, citizens denounced the increasingly fascist nature of the regime and its policies on NATO and the IMF. They used their constitutional rights to defend their own interests. The KPU had, however, proposed that politicians should travel from Kiev to Crimea to organize a round table there to hear Crimeans' grievances. Unfortunately, the fascist national government refused. In any case, Kiev's decision to arm 10,000 Tatar irregulars set the powder keg alight. The loss of Crimea, then, is very much the result of the sterile and criminal policies of this government, which has been content to lay the blame on Russia.

What is the KPU's policy on the question of economic integration with Europe versus integration with Russia?

PS. Speaking personally, I am convinced that without mutually beneficial relations with Russia, Ukraine has no future. This is a sentiment that is reinforced when we examine the situation in Bulgaria, Romania, the Balkans, and also in Greece, Portugal or Spain, which chose the European Union. Before the crisis, the KPU had asked for an analysis to be carried out on the consequences of these two choices both on an economic level and socially. No government did so. The KPU also proposed the holding of a referendum. I personally met a number of European commissioners in order to explain to them that if no such consultation were organized, a bloodbath would result. But the pro-EU opposition went to court to prevent a referendum from coming about.

Your party has 114,000 members and received 13 per cent of the vote in the 2012 parliamentary elections. So why, in this situation, did it decide to withdraw from the presidential race?

PS. After the coup d'état, we witnessed the formation of illegal armed militias that imposed their rule through violence and political terror. Opposition candidates were banned from campaigning and the media were severely censored. In Odessa, the arson that killed more than forty people rocked the whole world. In Mariupol, the regime opened fire on those celebrating the 9th May (marking the victory over Nazism).

There has also been anti-Communist hysteria since the coup d'état. Comrades have been assaulted. Some have been taken into the woods and beaten. Party buildings have been damaged or requisitioned by the regime's fascist militias. A few days after the presidential poll, there is even a procedure for banning the Communist Party; this was initiated by Ukraine's attorney general, Oleh Makhnitsky, a member of the far-right Svoboda party. For all these reasons and in the name of the Ukrainian Communist Party, I call on France to take stock of what is really going on in my country.

Received by the Left Front
Petro Symonenko was received by the Left Front last Wednesday at the National Assembly so that he could share his account of the situation in Ukraine. Additionally, the French Communist Party leader Pierre Laurent has invited the KPU to participate at the European Left meeting in Brussels so as to keep member-parties informed and to develop coordination between the KPU and the Party of the European Left. The French Communist Party also responded favorably to the KPU's requests for legal aid in the face of the threatened ban that it is confronting.

Photo: Petro Symonenko. l'Humanité

Police snatch body of Korean Samsung worker

Fri, 06 Jun 2014 13:48:00 +0000

(LabourStart) - This sounds more like a horror movie than one of our usual campaigns on LabourStart. But it's all true.

A few days ago, a leader of a new union at Samsung in South Korea named Yeom Ho-seok took his own life to protest the vicious anti-union policies of the company. At his funeral, 300 police stormed in, arrested 25 mourners and absconded with his body.

That's right: the police took away Yeom's body.

The police apparently cremated the body against Yeom's dying wishes, and have meanwhile jailed two other leaders of the Samsung workers union who dared to protest the raid on the funeral.

All this takes place against the background of the attempts by workers at electronics giant Samsung to organize a union. The workers have been on indefinite strike.

Samsung workers have the right to a trade union. Their union, the Korean Metal Workers Union, has launched a big campaign online demanding that the Korean president intervene to release the prisoners, end anti-union repression at Samsung, and launch an independent investigation of the police raid and body-snatching.

Korea President Park Geun-hye, Samsung Group management and company Chairman Lee Kun-hee want to take the country back to the dark days of its authoritarian past. The workers have asked Samsung to stop labor repression and recognize the union, for employment security at the three centers with concentrated union membership, to pay a living wage and to bargain a first collective agreement.

In partnership with IndustriALL, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the Korean Metal Workers Union and the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, LabourStart is conducting an international solidarity campaign. Please click here to send your message of support to the Korean Samsung strikers and to tell President Park to release the prisoners, stop anti-union repression at Samsung and investigate the police raid and body-snatching.

Photo: Police storm Yeom Ho-seok's wake and abscond with the union leader's body while arresting dozens of Samsung union members (via Korean Metal Workers' Union).

European Parliament elections reflect loss of confidence in European Union

Thu, 05 Jun 2014 14:01:00 +0000

During the week ending on May 25, voters in the 28 countries of the European Union voted for members of the 766-member European Parliament. The election results, with very low turnout, reflected a loss in confidence in the European Union and widespread dissatisfaction with economic conditions in a Europe that has not been able to pull out of the doldrums into which their economies fell during the worldwide financial and economic crisis.

There was special anger at austerity policies imposed by the "troika" of the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank.

In Britain and France, the "establishment parties" in power, the right wing Conservatives in Britain and the ruling (social democratic) Socialist Party in France, lost heavily, with most of the gains in those two countries going to the far right. The United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) got 27.5 percent of the British vote and entered the European Parliament for the first time, winning 12 seats. This vote came at the expense of the Conservative and Liberal Democratic Parties, who lost seven and 11 European Parliament seats respectively, while the Labour Party picked up seven seats. The British Greens gained a seat for a total of three, and the Scottish National and Plaid Cymru (Welsh Nationalist) party held steady at two and one seats respectively. The UKIP is against Britain's participation in the European Union and is anti-immigrant. In France, the Frente Nacional (National Front) surged with more than 24.85 percent of the vote, dealing a severe blow to both the ruling Socialist Party (which lost 1 seat) and the conservative UMP (Union for a Popular Movement) of ex President Nicolas Sarkozy, which lost nine.

The neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party in Greece got 9.4 percent of the vote and won three seats in the European Parliament. The fascist-minded Jobbik Party in Hungary lost a small amount of its 2009 vote with 14.67 percent, retaining three seats.

But there were advances for the left.

In Greece, the leftist SYRIZA Party surged, getting 26.58 of the vote, a plurality, and winning five of Greece's 21 European Parliament seats. The Greek Communist Party, KKE, lost some votes at 6.11 percent, as opposed to 8.4 percent in 2009, but kept its two seats. The losers were the parties of the current ruling coalition, the conservative National Democrats who lost three seats and the Social Democratic PASOK and allies who lost 6.

In Italy, it was expected that the populist Five Star movement would surge, but the centrist Democratic Party headed by Prime Minister Matteo Renzi more than held its own, with 40.8 percent of the vote and a total of 31 seats, 10 new. The far right Northern Leagues, part of former Prime Minister Berlusconi's ruling coalition, lost all its representation in the European Parliament. Other right-wing parties were severely mauled, losing 18 of their 31 seats. On the left, the new Other Europe Coalition, which includes the Communist Refoundation Party, won 4.03 percent of the vote and three new seats.

In Portugal, the Democratic Unitarian coalition of which the Portuguese Communist Party is the main component won total of 12.68 percent of the vote and one new seat to total three. The current right wing ruling coalition dropped by three seats. Communist Party General Secretary Jeronimo de Sousa hailed these results as a "severe condemnation" of the austerity policies, and called for a parliamentary motion of censure of both the government and the "troika."

In Spain, two left-wing groups advanced: The United Left (Izquierda Unida) of which the Communist Party of Spain is the biggest component, nearly tripled its 2009 vote (from 3.7 percent to 10 percent) and the new PODEMOS ("We Can") party, which has grown out of huge popular protests against corruption and the austerity policies of conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, picked up eight percent and five brand new seats of the 54 assigned to Spain. Basque and Catalan parties also picked up votes. On the other hand, the ruling right wing People's Party lost eight seats and dropped from 42.1 percent of the Spanish vote in 2009 to 26.1, the formerly ruling Socialist Workers Party (social democratic) lost nine of its 23 seats and its vote total went from 38.8 percent of the vote in 2009 to 23.01 percent in 2014. In neither Spain nor Portugal was there a surge of any new extreme right party.

While both left and right wing surges showed dissatisfaction with austerity, the right wing protest votes are also xenophobic, anti-immigrant, and in some cases anti-Semitic. As such they represent a real danger of a resurgence of the fascism that was thought to be defeated at the end of the Second World War. Yet only 5.6 percent of voters chose such extreme parties.

The "respectable" right and the social democrats between them still retained more than 60 percent of the votes among them.

The left vote, though still relatively small (about six percent overall) shows anger at austerity, privatization and other pro-business, right wing policies by means of which the continent's ruling class attempts to shift the burden of the crisis onto the backs of workers, small farmers and the poor. It will not be deflected into chasing scapegoats. Explicitly or implicitly, it is reaching toward socialist solutions.

Photo: Nigel Farage, leader of UK Independence Party. Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP

Chilean deputy Camila Vallejo urges Obama to free Cuban prisoners

Wed, 04 Jun 2014 12:41:00 +0000

Editors' note: From June 4-11, people around the world will take action on behalf of three Cuban patriots wrongfully imprisoned in the United States. Called "5 Days for the Cuban 5," the campaign to free the remaining three prisoners is tied to the overall movement to normalize U.S. relations with Cuba. To read more about the case and campaign for the Cuban 5, click here.

As part of the campaign to free the prisoners, Camila Vallejo Dowling, a recently-elected deputy of Chile on the Communist Party ticket, sent a letter to President Barack Obama. Vallejo rose to international prominence as president of the Federation of Students of the University of Chile and spokeswoman of the Chile Confederation of Students. She led the student protest in 2011, which put the right-wing Piñera government on the ropes. The following is the translated letter.

To get involved in the campaign go to 5daysforthecuban5.com.

Santiago, May 5, 2014

Mr. Barack Obama

President of the United States of America

Mr. President:

Through this letter, I would like to join the clamor expressed by a large number of people throughout the world; artists, intellectuals, parliamentarians, jurists and people of good will, who expect from you a decision of elemental justice, especially taking into account your status as Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.

This concerns pardoning 3 Cuban citizens, unjustly held in prisons in your country, for trying to protect Cuba from terrorist acts planned from U.S. territory.

Antonio Guerrero Rodríguez, Gerardo Hernández Nordelo and Ramón Labañino Salazar have been convicted by U.S. authorities, falsely accused of conspiring against the United States, while in reality they actually infiltrated admittedly terrorist organizations, who have repeatedly attacked Cuba and Cuban citizens both inside and outside Cuban territory.

The world and especially Latin America expect you to pursue the normalization of relations with Cuba, inspired by the principle of peoples right of self-determination.

The release of these three Cuban patriots would be a great gesture in that direction.

I'm sure that you know about these cases and I believe that from your high office you will not endorse the continuity of the terrorist attacks suffered by Cuba, performed by sinister characters as Luis Posada Carriles, and that you understand that each country has the legitimate right to protect itself from such barbarous crimes.

Not only Cuba, but all people of good will in the world hope that Gerardo, Ramón and Antonio will be able to return to their homeland, as their comrades René and Fernando already have done. This is up to you.

Hoping sincerely that you will make the right decision,

CAMILA VALLEJO DOWLING

Member of the House of Representatives

Republic of Chile

Photo: Cuban children sing freedom songs for Cuban 5 (via 5daysforthecuban5.com).