People Before Profit blog

Germany: many strikes and a big scandal

Thu, 28 May 2015 14:03:00 +0000

BERLIN - Was the German working class suddenly turning super-militant? Some may have been fearful, some hopeful that on the rail lines and elsewhere the old IWW-Wobbly song from 1915-USA, "Solidarity Forever" was literally coming true: "... without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn."

The strike of locomotive engineers stopped freight cars May 19 and passenger traffic the next day. Unlike eight previous strikes by the same union, the strike was not for 30 hours, 42 hours or six days - but with no end date. Although the state-owned but largely independently-run railroad company tried to maintain a skeleton schedule, two-thirds of the wheels stopped turning; also city rail service was cut by 40 to 85 percent. In Berlin the crucial "S-Bahn" elevated system tried hard to achieve at least 20-minute intervals on main routes. Subway, bus and tram lines were unaffected - but overfilled.

The long-lasting dispute involved not just wages and hours - a 38-hour work week, no more than fifty hours overtime and proper weekends, all considered necessary for rail safety - but also a jurisdictional conflict. This small union, Germany's second oldest, going back to 1867 (though interrupted by the Nazi years), insists on its right to organize not only engineers but also other staff working on the trains like conductors and restaurant workers, and not be swallowed up by the general transportation union, seven times larger but usually tamer.

Many Germans are more or less pro-union, but of course this strike did hit people going to work or school each day and frightened those planning travels over the long May 23-25 weekend (not just Pentecost Sunday, Whit Monday is also a holiday). The issues were not easy to grasp for non-railway people and the media, aided by the national transportation minister, did what they could to work up feelings, especially against the union head, who is alternately ridiculed - easier due to his Saxon dialect - or attacked, in hard language.

Then on Thursday an agreement was reached: to end the strike and turn the matter over to two mediators. They are a curious pair; for the company Matthias Platzeck, 61, a Social Democrat, until 2013 minister-president of a coalition with the LINKE (Left) in Brandenburg state, and for the engineers Bodo Ramelow, 59, once a union official but since December the first LINKE minister-president in Germany, heading a coalition of LINKE, SPD and Greens in Thuringia. Ramelow pointed out right away that the new written agreement permitted the union a separate contract, a key issue. But neither man is a fire-eater, both have made past compromises, so it seemed fairly likely that they would work out an agreement. (Almost ironically, that other, larger rail union now threatens to strike for its own demands. But not before the holiday.)

New labor law

Then, a day later, the entire picture changed. The engineers had accused railroad managers of purposeful foot-dragging, partly so people would blame and hate the union for the inconvenience, but also because a new law, due for passage by the Bundestag, would hinder just such small independent unions from organizing and making contracts at companies with larger unions - not only the engineers and train staff but pilots, air safety controllers (now also considering a strike), even medical doctors working in clinics.

Good as industrial unions are in general (and historically important in the USA in the 1930s), this law was clearly intervention in free union activity and, it was admitted, it would prevent many strikes. Some saw it as a quid-pro-quo move by Social Democrats in the government coalition after Merkel's Christian Democrats agreed to the new minimum wage law. Others saw it as just one more move against militancy. And now it has been passed; the LINKE, the Greens and some mavericks were unable to stop a big government majority. It will immediately be challenged in the Supreme Court - with a very uncertain outcome.

This law and the train strike have divided an already edgy labor movement. The union federation (DGB), founded in 1949 with sixteen industrial unions, is now down to eight after many mergers. More worrisome, the number of organized employees dropped from about 25 percent in 2005 to a little over 16 percent now, with only a slight recent upturn. The demise of East Germany and its entire union movement did not nearly bring a big expected growth since East German industry was also largely disposed of after reunification. And the alarming increase in part-time, temp, make-work-at-low-pay and other "precarious" jobs, usually with no union membership and a cause for lower wages, has taken its toll. And yet, more than 6 million people are still organized - if not always united.

The new law is officially welcomed by four big unions: metal workers, mine and chemical workers, construction workers and transportation workers. These four, even when they demand wage increases, generally get along with employers. Their initial post-war opposition to the so-called "social market economy" grew more docile over the years, with broad acceptance and support for the status quo, just like their main Social Democratic ally. (Key actors in this process during their formative years were two from the U.S. AFL-CIO, Jay Lovestone and Irving Brown, who generously received and handed out State Department and CIA dollars.) For these four unions, the days of big, militant strikes are generally forgotten.

But three other unions, mostly with more women, are not so glued to the SPD and sometimes lean more leftward, though rarely daring, even on a local scale, to show too much sympathy for the LINKE (Left) party, labor's most consistent ally in state and federal parliaments but still largely taboo in West Germany thanks to old feelings against the GDR.

Ver.di

They are the teachers union, the union of food and restaurant workers (both headed by a woman), and a union with the unusual name ver.di, an abbreviation of Vereinte Dienstleistungsgewerkschaft - United Services Trade Union United Service Workers. It unites all kinds of people: retail clerks, public employees from hospital workers to garbage men, bank, insurance and other white collar workers, postal employees, workers in the paper and printing field, with special branches for photographers, writers, musicians and artists, and even one for so called sex workers. Its charismatic president, Frank Bsirske, 63, belongs to the Greens, but ver.di has taken part in annual left-wing Rosa Luxemburg conferences, worked with the anti-globalism Attac movement [the 'Association pour la Taxation des Transactions financière et l'Aide aux Citoyens' or Association for the Taxation of financial Transactions and Aid to Citizens], and joined in the Blockupy demonstration against the European Central Bank in Frankfurt in March. It is big, over two million strong, topped only by the metal workers union with 2,300,000, with which it has occasional jurisdictional disputes; there is often "bad blood" between their heads. Ver.di, certainly the fightingest of them all, leads more strikes than all the others combined, in part because its more numerous female membership faces more discrimination than most blue-collar men.

Right now ver.di's postal employees are conducting a series of short warning strikes on wage and hour issues, first in one state, then in another. In the state of Brandenburg bus and streetcar drivers are demanding more pay, and also switching stoppages from one county to another until authorities make an acceptable offer. Nurses and other personnel at Charité, Berlin's famous university hospital (the name is purely historical), after years of negotiations and a brief warning strike, are now voting on a possible unlimited strike (with full attention to patients in need of care). Their demands are for an urgently-needed improvement in the nurse-patient ratio. They demand no more than 1:2 in intensive care wards and 1:5 at normal wards, instead of the present ruthless ratio average of 1:12.

For two years employees of the Amazon mail order firm have been fighting hard for decent wages against bosses who have done everything to use strikebreakers and set shops against each other.

In the most dramatic of ver.di strikes, since early May the staffs of most nurseries and kindergartens and some senior care facilities have gone on strike to demand a 10 percent increase in wages, now far too low in view of their long training. This includes a wish for more respect for their demanding and important job! Thanks to the example of the GDR (though it is rarely mentioned), the offer of child care, private or public, is now at least officially required, with a wide variety of usually low prices, which means that the strikes cause problems for a large percentage of working parents. But the women (and a few men) saw no alternative and hope the growing pressure will help them win out.

NSA and BND scandal

Does this strike wave reflect a change in an otherwise more placid economic and political scene? Crystal balls are rare and untrustworthy. Golf balls, or giant structures resembling them, now take more headlines but are far, far less transparent than the crystal kind. Round and white, these radomes or radar domes, located in Bad Aibling in Bavaria, are tools in the all-encompassing spying activity which has joined the American NSA with the German BND [Bundesnachrichtendienst, Germany's intelligence agency, the German CIA equivalent] in a long-lasting series of scandals. The German side, the media cry, lets cloak and dagger men from Washington not only in on government doings all over Europe and beyond, but on a host of business matters, too, with a list of maybe 5,000 "selectors"; words, names, and places to be sorted out from the billions of messages. And this is in clear violation of basic German law.

The differing reactions of those caught up in the limelight are more than interesting. Washington kept largely mum. Merkel, now busy pressuring southern Europeans, especially in Greece, to keep up "austere" measures no matter how many go hungry, medically untreated or commit suicide, or pressuring eastern Europeans from Tallinn to Kiev to step up pressure against Russia, reacted only by asking "What scandal?" or by justifying it: "After all, they are our closest allies!"

Sigmar Gabriel, head of the Social Democrats and vice-chancellor in the coalition, sounded off loudly against the responsible officials. His party somehow can't break out of a 25 percent slough in the polls (against the 40 percent average of Merkel's side of the coalition), and he sniffed a chance to win points. But when a few journalists recalled that his party had been in charge when the NSA-BND agreements were made, Gabriel's voice lost its angry tones and almost got lost entirely - only briefly, of course.

And the head of the BND, the Federal Intelligence Service? Hailed in front of a Bundestag committee, he asserted that he had known nothing about the whole spy deal until just last month. It was all done by his underlings. Anyone believing that would be a good customer for the handsome bridge spanning the Rhine at Cologne - if someone will sell it.

And no one seemed to recall that the whole BND organization was founded in 1956 by Nazi ex-general Reinhard Gehlen, after building it up as an annex of the CIA right after the war. Some of its ties, not only to Washington but to Gehlen's earlier buddies, never completely lost their influence, as a growing pile of evidence would seem to indicate.

Angela Davis visits asylum seekers

I'll close on some very different notes. Human rights activist Angela Davis, visiting Berlin (and other places), went to the former school building where forty asylum-seekers are living, part of a larger group of African and West Asian refugees still fighting for the right to gain asylum since 2012, when they walked to Berlin in a long caravan. Davis was barred by police from entering the building, but met asylum seekers and their supporters at an outdoor meeting where she compared their fight with that of immigrants in the U.S. and the incarceration of great numbers of Americans. Older East Germans know her name well; during her imprisonment and trial in California in 1970-72 she received literally tons of supportive letters and cards from GDR young people, often adorned with a hand-drawn "Rose for Angela." The trucks with big sacks of mail even impressed the presiding judge.

In the same Kreuzberg district she visited, the weekend will see the annual Carnival of Cultures, one of Berlin's nicest events, with a parade on Sunday - some 60 costumed dancing groups from the many nationalities living in Berlin. Over a million spectators are expected along the parade route.

Of interest to art-lovers: Berlin's Old National Gallery is featuring a new exhibition contrasting Impressionist and Expressionist paintings. Long lines of art-lovers were already lining up.

And for nature lovers: a fine lilac aroma often filled the air, countless blossoming chestnut trees overwhelmed the eye, while happily tweeting, amazingly agile chimney swifts arrived back in town.

Photo: About 50,000 workers from the social and education services were now on strike. Ver.di Facebook

Fair trade community rallies around Nepal

Wed, 27 May 2015 12:55:00 +0000

Editor's note: The fair trade community has been mobilizing support for the people of Nepal after the devastating April 25 earthquake. One of the unique qualities of fair trade is businesses need to develop long-term partnerships with artisans and businesses in the producer countries. In other words, it is not a quick-buck relationship, but one that goes through good and bad times together as the following narrative illustrates. Taylor McCleneghan is production manager at Mata Traders, a Chicago-based fair trade fashion business and wrote the following in response to several questions sent to her by People's World on May 6.

I have been in regular contact with the CEO and production manager of Mahaguthi Craft with a Conscience, the fair trade group that we work with in Nepal. We have received word that all staff are safe, though due to power and cell network outages communication has been difficult and word is still coming in. Many have suffered losses in their extended families and there is extensive damage to their homes and communities. Mahaghuti Craft, aside from assessing the safety / effects of their own staff, are working with Fair Trade Group Nepal - since they have been long time members.

The production unit for the clothing that we make there is in central Kathmandu and so luckily their facilities were not hard hit, but there are several staff members who commute from farther outside the city who have lost their homes. Immediately after the earthquake there was a chaos of people trying to flee from Kathmandu and return home to find their loved ones and assess the damage. It was very scary because there was severe cuts to the cell service in the area and so many could not communicate with loved ones - they simply had to start making the journey out to their villages and wait to see the damage.

Right after the earthquake, the biggest concern was the aftershocks and whether or not it was safe to go back into their homes. The whole city and surrounding areas were sleeping out on the streets for several days, for fear of returning shocks. In addition, all of the markets / shops were closed as business owners didn't know if their facilities were safe - and may also have been fleeing to the rural areas. As a result, there was an immediate shortage of any fresh foods - people were sharing what packaged dry goods they had. Access to water was also a major issue immediately after the earthquake - as the power supply to operate pumps at private residences was down, and the safety of city water supply had been compromised as well.

Mahaguthi staff in Kathmandu started to feel safe and return home by April 27, but they knew they had to start reaching the villages outside Kathmandu where some of their smaller artisan craft units are. Fair Trade Group Nepal immediately started pooling funds to buy food packs, tents and water to deliver to the worst hit areas. They spent entire days trying to reach villages just 20-40 miles away. When I spoke to Sunil, the CEO of Mahaguthi, he said that one village that they came to on Friday May 1, had not seen any outside people or aid - in nearly a week after the earthquake. Of course he had stories to tell about the resilience of the Nepali people - that even without receiving any aid for that long, and having everything destroyed, they were still smiling and found a way to offer their team lunch.

I heard reports that the government response seemed to be nonexistent for several days after the earthquake. They had no systems in place and any systems that they might have had were never shared with the public - so as to inform them what would happen in the event of a disaster. There was no evidence that the government was prepared to deploy any aid themselves - nor to help international aid groups navigate the country and assess the needs. I have heard that because the government lacks even contact details for people in these smaller villages, they aren't able to advise or lead international aid groups to those areas. It is hard to describe just how non - existent so many of the government / social systems that we have in the United States are in Nepal. The base organization of the government to support these kinds of systems just isn't there. I think this is a direct result of how new the government really is there. I encourage people to read a little history on the political battle from Monarchy to Republic.

The people of Nepal seem to be really fed up and disappointed in the government, almost like the government is holding them back from taking care of each other. Another story that describes this: Sunil also said that in a time when aid (government / international / local/ etc) is having so much difficulty reaching the areas outside of the city that were hardest hit, mostly due to damage to the roads and a lack of large machinery to clear it. Sunil recalls passing a government construction project on [Kathmandu's] Bagmati bridge in the middle of the day, where he sees the machinery they need, just sitting unused at the site. Furthermore, shortly after the Fair Trade Group Nepal started taking international donations, they received a notice from the government asking them to stop taking international donation, and only point aid to the government. Now I can understand the government encouraging people to donate to them, if they showed any evidence that they would actually be able to use it effectively, but unfortunately most people just can't trust them to do so.

(We also put Worldview on Chicago's local NPR station, WBEZ, in touch with Sunil. You can listen to his interview on the show here.)

I spoke today with Anita the production manager at Mahaguthi, and she reported that people are just now starting to go back to work in Kathmandu, but half of the women who work in the stitching unit are still out in their extended family villages and will be for another several days. Transportation back into the city is now very difficult and overcrowded, with so many people returning to the city. She said that the repair of people's homes would be a long process. Many plan to be living in the tents that they have received from various aid groups, which will prove to be quite difficult as the strength of the rainy season begins to build. Anita said that the government has said that they will be going around to assess home damage, but can only then start repairing once those results come in.

For donations, we like to recommend:

Fair Trade Group Nepal

SERRV (Donations to SERRV are also being contributed to Fair Trade Group Nepal.)

Oxfam,

Red Cross

Church World Service

Photo: The people of Nepal respond after the devastating earthquake. | wnpr.org/Sim Central and Southeast Asia Creative Commons

Ireland: gay marriage approved with a landslide yes

Wed, 27 May 2015 10:51:00 +0000

Same-sex couples could be married in Ireland by the end of the year after a referendum described as a "social revolution" solidly backed equal rights.

A referendum on the issue saw 1.2 million people vote in favour on Saturday, with almost two million votes cast. Turnout was 61 per cent.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny praised the courageous step by Irish voters, including the actions of tens of thousands of people who registered for the first time and many who travelled home specifically to cast their ballots.

"The decision makes every citizen equal and will strengthen the institution of marriage for all existing and future marriages. All people now have an equal future to look forward to," he said.

Tainaste (deputy prime minister) Joan Burton said: "The children in every town, village and schoolyard who will now grow up knowing their country accepts them - whoever it is they one day grow to be, and whoever it is they one day grow to love."

Ireland's parliament, the Dail, will pass new laws paving the way for same-sex marriage within weeks, ministers said.

Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said the "overwhelming vote" meant that Roman Catholic clergymen, who opposed the Yes vote, needed to reconnect with Ireland's youth.

"It's a social revolution. The church needs to do a reality check right across the board," said Rev Martin.

"Have we drifted completely away from young people?" he asked. "Most of those people who voted Yes are products of our Catholic schools for 12 years."

Anglican Church of Ireland bishops urged a spirit of public generosity from both winners and losers in the debate.

The huge majority for gay marriage also raised questions about whether same-sex marriage would be legalised in Northern Ireland - as it is in the rest of the UK.

Communist Party of Ireland chairwoman Lynda Walker said: "For once the Republic is ahead of the North on these issues. We hope this will be a wake-up call for people in the North."

Ms Walker cautioned that changes to legislation did not equate to a change in people's attitudes, but welcomed the result of the referendum as "very helpful."

This article was reposted from Morning Star

Vietnam alarmed by conflict in South China Sea

Tue, 26 May 2015 18:27:00 +0000

HANOI - U.S. - Chinese confrontation in the South China Sea is a matter of great concern to the leaders and people of Vietnam.

The concern was driven home May 18 when U.S. naval aircraft began flying over Fiery Cross and other reefs in the Spratly Islands, directly challenging territorial claims to the air space and seas surrounding artificial islands and possible military airstrips China is building there.

"Everyone feels insecure," Tran Dac Loi, Deputy Head of the Communist Party of Vietnam's Commission on Foreign Relations, told a group of anti-Vietnam War activists visiting on the occasion of the 40^th anniversary of the end of the war. "Vietnam wants a sea of peace, not a venue for a power struggle."

"We don't think this would be good for China either,"" Loi told the group including this writer, during a meeting at the Party's Central Committee office here April 20. "We don't want a new Cold War or the type of situation like the Middle East."

Blocked on the west by mountains, Vietnam runs the entire length of the western side of the South China Sea. Ports like Da Nang in the central Vietnam, are leading the country's phenomenal peacetime growth, averaging seven per cent annually. "The Sea is critical," Loi said. The problem is that China, using a vague doctrine called the "nine-dash line," first published in 1947 by the pre-revolutionary Kuomintang government, claims 90 percent of the Sea, a claim without standing in international law or recognized by any other country except Taiwan.

"One-third of the world's trade is affected," Loi added, including half of the world's oil tankers.

The defeat of the U.S. in Vietnam greatly weakened the U.S. military presence in the region, he said, and for several decades there was "relative peace and stability." During this time "China rose peacefully as did Vietnam and the other nine members of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). But now there is a new situation. In the past five years there has been a huge military buildup by China. The situation is unbalanced. Chinese economic and military capacity is unrivaled. China is no longer peacefully rising. It is becoming more and more aggressive and using its military power," he said. "This is creating new dangerous conditions including for a return of the United States."

"Objectively, there needs to be a balancing," he said concluding that ASEAN is critical to a peaceful resolution. "Right now there is a convergence of interests between ASEAN and the U.S. and to that extent the role of the U.S. is positive," he said. "But it all depends on how it is resolved. If it is to support ASEAN and the rule of law, that will be good, but if it is to reimpose U.S. control, that would be negative.

The U.S. has no position on the post-World War II claims by China or other countries in the region to islands, rocks, reefs, and coral atolls in the Spratlys, but insists man-made islands have no standing in international law regarding territorial rights and opposes any Chinese military build-up that could conflict with maritime trade and other U.S. aims and interests. Unfortunately the United States has never ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which provides the peaceful means to settle such disputes.

Loi said rising nationalism in China is directly connected with the large capitalist sector in its economy. Since 2012 when Xi JIngping was elected General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, he has led a massive campaign against "western influences" especially corruption reportedly resulting in disciplinary action against 200,000 party members, with many sentenced to prison.

The campaign is wildly popular in China according to a March 8 New York Times report and has completely befuddled U.S. China watchers, who predict it will bring the imminent demise of Communist Party rule in the country. But the China watchers rely for information on their capitalist contacts who make up only a small fraction of the 85-million-member CCP.

Xi says his efforts are based on an extensive study by the leadership of the mistakes of the Cultural Revolution and the overthrow of socialism in the USSR both of which involved a destructive weakening of the Communist Party. Xi claims the aim of this reform is just the opposite - to strengthen and preserve the Party.

Although he called the domestic developments in China "a Black Box," Tran Truong Thuy, Vice Director of Vietnam's Diplomatic Academy told our group, it is nonetheless clear this is "the most far-reaching reform of the party in China's history."

If that is true, we can only hope the campaign against "western influences" will develop an ideological dimension and, instead of bourgeois nationalism, will reaffirm the fundamental Marxist ideals of peace and working class internationalism.

If that turns out to be the case, then Vietnam may realize its dream so that the South China Sea can, in fact, become a sea of peace.

Photo: U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, left, shakes hands with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung in Hanoi, Vietnam, May 22. Ban, who was on a two-day visit to Vietnam, called for peaceful solutions to territorial disputes in the South China Sea, where China's assertiveness has alarmed its smaller neighbors. (AP Photo/Tran Van Minh)

Ireland votes in landslide to approve gay marriage

Tue, 26 May 2015 17:57:00 +0000

DUBLIN (AP) - Ireland's citizens have voted in a landslide to legalize gay marriage, electoral officials announced Saturday - a stunningly lopsided result that illustrates what Catholic leaders and rights activists alike called a "social revolution."

Friday's referendum saw 62.1 percent of Irish voters say "yes" to changing the nation's constitution to define marriage as a union between two people regardless of their sex. Outside Dublin Castle, watching the results announcement in its cobblestoned courtyard, thousands of gay rights activists cheered, hugged and cried at the news.

"With today's vote, we have disclosed who we are: a generous, compassionate, bold and joyful people," Prime Minister Enda Kenny proclaimed as he welcomed the outcome. Beside him, Deputy Prime Minister Joan Burton declared the victory "a magical moving moment, when the world's beating heart is in Ireland."

Ireland is the first country to approve gay marriage in a popular national vote. Nineteen other countries have legalized the practice through their legislatures and courts.

The unexpectedly strong percentage of approval surprised both sides. More than 1.2 million Irish voters backed the "yes" side to less than 750,000 voting "no." Only one of Ireland's 43 constituencies recorded a narrow "no" majority, Roscommon-South Leitrim in the boggy midlands.

In the world's first national vote on the issue, people turned out across the country to cast their ballot.

Analysts credited the "yes" side with adeptly employing social media to mobilize young, first-time voters, tens of thousands of whom voted for the first time Friday. In addition, a series of searing personal stories from prominent Irish people - either coming out as gays or describing their hopes for gay children - convinced voters to back equal marriage rights.

Both Catholic Church leaders and gay rights advocates said the result signaled a social revolution in Ireland, where only a few decades ago the authority of Catholic teaching was reinforced by voters who massively backed bans on abortion and divorce in the 1980s.

Voters first legalized divorce only by a razor-thin margin in 1995 and now, by a firm majority, they have rejected the Catholic Church's repeated calls to reject gay marriage. Abortion, still outlawed, looms as the country's next great social policy fight.

Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said the "overwhelming vote" against church teaching on gay marriage meant that Catholic leaders in Ireland need to urgently find a new message and voice for reaching Ireland's young.

"It's a social revolution. ... The church needs to do a reality check right across the board," Martin said.

"Have we drifted completely away from young people?" he asked. "Most of those people who voted 'yes' are products of our Catholic schools for 12 years."

David Quinn, leader of the Catholic think tank Iona Institute, said he was troubled by the fact that no political party supported them must be a concern from a democratic point of view," he said.

Fianna Fail party leader Michael Martin, a Cork politician whose opposition party is traditionally closest to the Catholic Church, said he couldn't in good conscience back the anti-gay marriage side.

"It's simply wrong in the 21^st century to oppress people because of their sexuality," he said.

After the result was announced, thousands of celebrants flooded into the Irish capital's pubs and clubs - none more popular Saturday night than the city's few gay venues.

At the George, Ireland's oldest gay pub, drag queens danced and lip-synced to Queen and the founding father of Ireland's gay rights campaign, Sen. David Norris, basked in the greatest accomplishment of the movement's 40-year history.

"The people in this small island off the western coast of Europe have said to the rest of the world: This is what it is to be decent, to be civilized, and to be tolerant! And let the rest of the world catch up!" Norris, 70, shouted with jubilant zeal to the hundreds packing the pub.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Norris waged an often lonely two-decade legal fight to force Ireland to quash its Victorian-era laws outlawing homosexual acts. Ireland finally complied in 1993, becoming the last European Union country to do so. This time, the gay community in Ireland managed to build a decisive base of support.

"People from the LGBT community in Ireland are a minority. But with our parents, our families, or friends and co-workers and colleagues, we're a majority," said Leo Varadkar, a 36-year-old Irish Cabinet minister who in January announced on national radio that he was gay. "For me it wasn't just a referendum. It was more like a social revolution."

Many gay couples took the moment to declare their intentions or renew their vows. One lesbian couple in Limerick proposed on bended knee at the vote count there, while one of Ireland's most prominent advocates for gay marriage, American-born Sen. Katherine Zappone, asked her wife live on Irish TV: "Today in this new Ireland, Ann Louise Gilligan, will you marry me?"

The couple, who met at Boston College and already were married legally in Canada in 2003, sued Ireland unsuccessfully in 2006 to have their marriage recognized as valid. Once parliament passes enabling legislation by this summer, that Canadian wedding license will become legal in Ireland. But Zappone and Gilligan, a former nun, still plan an Irish ceremony.

"There's nothing like an Irish wedding," Zappone said.

Michael Barron and Jaime Nanci, a gay couple legally married in South Africa five years ago, celebrated with friends at the Dublin City counting center.

"Oh.My.God! We're actually Married now!" Nanci tweeted to the world, part of a cavalcade of tweets from Ireland tagged #LandslideOfLove.

Political analysts who have covered Irish referendums for decades agreed that Saturday's landslide marked a stunning generational shift.

"We're in a new country," said gray-haired political analyst Sean Donnelly. "When I was reared up, the church was all powerful and the word 'gay' wasn't even in use in those days. How things have moved from my childhood to now."

Photo: "Yes" supporters react at Dublin castle, Ireland, May 23. (AP Photo/Peter Morrison)

Corruption scandals roil Guatemala and Honduras

Tue, 26 May 2015 17:39:00 +0000

Massive corruption scandals in two key allies of the United States in Central America, Guatemala and Honduras, are producing large demonstrations calling for the resignations of the presidents of both countries.

In Honduras, a major scandal erupted when it was revealed that officials close to right-wing President Juan Orlando Hernandez had stolen money from the social welfare and health care budget and had surreptitiously given it to Hernandez's political party, the National Party, for the purposes of winning the 2013 presidential elections.

At that time supporters of the runner up, leftist Xiomara Castro de Zelaya of the LIBRE party, had denounced the elections as fraudulent, and this new information supports that claim. Adding to the indignation is a decision by the Supreme Court, packed with Hernandez supporters, that Hernandez can run for re-election, which invalidates the Honduran constitution's prohibition on second terms. When former President Manuel Zelaya, Xiomara Castro's husband, was overthrown in a military coup in June 2009, the pretext was that he was secretly planning to run for re-election. So large scale demonstrations are being carried out by LIBRE and its broad mass support base, demanding that Hernandez resign.

In Guatemala, the main scandal, called "La Linea," has to do with bribery of officials by wealthy people and companies wishing to evade taxes and customs duties, as well as crooked subcontracting and other things. High ranking members of the government of the right wing president, General Otto Perez Molina, of the Patriotic Party, are facing prosecution. The vice president, Roxanna Baldetti, was forced to resign on May 8, and people in the president's own office are also implicated. Perez Molina increased public alienation by appointing as the new Vice President a judge who had helped the former dictator, Efrain Rios Montt, evade punishment for genocide.

The networks that carried out the illegal acts go back decades and involve several former presidents (including Rios Montt), army officers, judges and many others. Many, including Baldetti's personal secretary, are being prosecuted, but only because of independent investigations by the U.N. sponsored International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG).

Honduras (population 8 million) and Guatemala (population 15 million) are two of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. Both governments have imposed on their peoples neo-liberal policies of austerity, privatization and free trade, and have steered clear of the Bolivarian movement which has swept the region. In both countries, poverty has been rising and personal security has become increasingly shaky. Both presidents managed to get elected by promising a "hard hand" (mano dura) against criminals and especially drug traffickers. A particularly galling dimension of the scandal in Guatemala is that President Perez Molina had announced more budget cuts and austerity because tax collections were not bringing in enough money, and now it is revealed that a huge percentage of taxes on the rich were evaded in exchange for bribes paid to people in his government.

Some of the bribery appears to have involved foreign mining companies wishing to open operations in Guatemala, an especially touchy issue for rural indigenous populations which have been battling against polluting and exploitative extractive industries.

The developments in Honduras are likely to help the left, though there won't be a general election there until 2017. One of the pretexts for Zelaya's overthrow was a false claim that he planned to try to run for an illegal second term. What really frightened the Honduran elites and the United States government was that Zelaya was bringing Honduras into alignment with the Bolivarian group of left and left-center ruled countries, and specifically Cuba and Venezuela. When Zelaya was overthrown the other Latin American countries pushed to restore constitutional order and return Zelaya to power, but the United States created pressure to go ahead with a dubious election, which brought in right-wing president Porfirio Lobo. Under Lobo and Hernandez, Honduras has become a hyper violent state in which women, gay-lesbian-transgendered activists, ethnic minorities, peasant and labor leaders and political oppositionists are especially targeted for murderous attacks.

The left-wing LIBRE Party has been playing a major role in the anti-Hernandez demonstrations, and seems likely to gain traction from the disgrace of the Hernandez administration.

In Guatemala, which has general elections on September 6, the prospects for the left are murkier. In the last elections, in 2011, the indigenous rights activist Rigoberta Menchu, running as the candidate of the leftist URNG-Maiz party, got only 3.27 percent of the vote. The outgoing centrist president, Alvaro Colom, tried to run his wife, Sandra Torres, for president, under the banner of the National Unity of Hope Party. However, the Guatemalan constitution forbids spouses of incumbent presidents from qualifying as candidates. Colom and Torres tried to get around this by getting a divorce widely seen as fake. The courts disqualified Torres, and the Unity of Hope party ended up with no presidential candidate.

Whether any of the parties on the left or left-center can get enough traction by the time of the elections remains to be seen. At least 41 percent of the Guatemalan population is indigenous. This has led to discussion of a possible presidential candidacy Congressman Amilcar Pop of the leftist Winaq Party. Pop is a Q'eqchi Maya lawyer and defender of indigenous rights. However, it is not clear that such a candidacy would be viable with three months to go and with the indigenous electorate marginalized, by poverty and repression, from the process.

Meanwhile, demonstrations continue in both countries, advancing the demands for constituent assemblies to completely restructure the thoroughly compromised existing political institution.

Photo: Protesters gather outside the National Palace to demand the resignation of Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina in Guatemala City, May 16. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

TPP threatens health of millions

Tue, 26 May 2015 16:10:00 +0000

The proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement would have massive repercussions on the health of the world's people, according to a blog post by Deane Marchbein, president of the U.S. Board of Doctors Without Borders. Dr. Marchbein warned that passage of the trade agreement would make many drug prices unaffordable and block availability of generic drugs, pricing millions of people out of much-needed medical care.

Dr. Marchbein predicted that implementation of the TPP would further standardize the monopoly-based system of medicine patents which already stands in the way of the development and production of new drugs. Her blog post cites the example of the recent Ebola epidemic in West Africa. She points out that this disease was identified 40 years ago, but the failure at innovation of the current profit-from-patent based system has resulted in no new treatments, vaccines or diagnostic products in that all that time.

Today in history: Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty is signed in 1972

Tue, 26 May 2015 13:03:00 +0000

On this date in 1972, the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty was signed by the U.S. and USSR. The two countries agreed not to build defensive missile systems and thus to limit escalation of the nuclear arms race. It was reasoned that if either side deployed defensive missiles, the other would be forced to respond by increasing the number, explosive yield or effectiveness of their offensive nuclear weapons and delivery systems to maintain the balance of nuclear deterrence.

U.S. Pres. Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev signed the treaty at a summit in Moscow. Later that year it was ratified by the U.S. Senate and the Supreme Soviet. Forming part of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT), the ABM Treaty entered into force on October 3, 1972.

The treaty barred Washington and Moscow from deploying nationwide defenses against strategic ballistic missiles. In the treaty preamble, the two sides asserted that effective limits on anti-missile systems would be a "substantial factor in curbing the race in strategic offensive arms."

The treaty originally permitted both countries to deploy two fixed, ground-based defense sites of 100 missile interceptors each. One site could protect the national capital, while the second could be used to guard an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) field. In a protocol signed July 3, 1974, the two sides halved the number of permitted defenses.

The two nations reasoned that limiting defensive systems would reduce the need to build more or new offensive weapons to overcome any defense that the other might deploy. Without effective national defenses, each superpower remained vulnerable to the other's nuclear weapons, deterring either side from launching an attack first because it faced a potential retaliatory strike. This was the theory of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), by which the threat of annihilation for both sides would prevent either side from "going nuclear" in the event of a conflict.

Pres. Jimmy Carter furthered nuclear reductions with the SALT II Treaty, signed with Brezhnev in Vienna on June 18, 1979. It was Carter's main goal, as stated in his Inaugural Address, that nuclear weapons completely disappear from the world. This treaty never passed Congress, however, owing to the international struggle over Afghanistan; the bellicosity between the two great nuclear superpowers ramped up again.

During the 1980s, Pres. Ronald Reagan promoted his Strategic Defense Initiative (also known as Star Wars), launching a new phase of the arms race. Then Soviet leader Yuri Andropov said that "It is time [Washington] stopped... search[ing] for the best ways of unleashing nuclear war.... Engaging in this is not just irresponsible. It is insane." According to some historians, the American push toward intensified arms spending forced the USSR to respond in kind, which diverted resources from domestic priorities and essentially bankrupted the country.

On December 13, 2001, Pres. George W. Bush, arguing that post-Cold War Washington and Moscow no longer needed to base their relationship on their ability to destroy each other, announced that the U.S. would withdraw from the ABM Treaty. Bush was now more concerned with developing defenses against possible terrorist or "rogue-state" ballistic missile attacks. The U.S. withdrawal took effect June 13, 2002 and the treaty is no longer in force.

Arms spending proceeds apace. According to some estimates, the U.S. devotes as much on its military budget as the whole rest of the world combined. Who is going bankrupt now?

Adapted from peacehistory.org, Arms Control Assn., Wikipedia and other sources.

Photo: President Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev affix their signatures to the Strategic Arms Limitations agreement in Vladimir Hall of the Kremlin, Moscow, May 26, 1972. (AP Photo)

Tomorrow in history: Beatification day for El Salvador’s Archbishop Oscar Romero

Fri, 22 May 2015 11:21:00 +0000

Saturday, May 23 is the planned beatification day for El Salvador's Archbishop Oscar Romero, outspoken advocate for the poor and repressed who was martyred in 1980 while celebrating Mass.

For many years, Oscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez has been proclaimed a saint by the people of El Salvador, and recognized as such throughout the world. If anything, the Vatican arrived late in its decision to beatify him, which is no surprise. It comes at a time of change in the Catholic Church in need of repair to its battered image after a flood of revelations about bad priests.

In February of 1977 a new archbishop assumed leadership over the archdiocese of San Salvador, the most important in this diminutive country. Some felt pleased that a conservative had taken the position, but at the grassroots level of the archdiocese, priests on the ground were unhappy, considering Romero not the ideal person to lead the congregation during a time of convulsive social activism. An epic, historic period of societal confrontation lasted throughout the whole Salvadoran civil war, from 1980 to 1992.

Romero's well known penchant for prayer, study and reflection did not sit comfortably with many other priests who were influenced by texts from the Medellín Conference and liberation theology that were popular then. They, by contrast, embraced an evangelism more committed to social justice and the poor.

Among those priests who dedicated themselves to living their faith as Jesus preached was Rutilio Grande, who was organizing farm workers in the town of El Paisnal in the parish of Aguilares. Rutilio was assassinated on March 12, 1977 - not even a month after Romero was appointed archbishop - on the road between Aguilares and El Paisnal, not far from San Salvador. He was riding in a car with a child and an old man when their vehicle was machine gunned. Father Grande was a close friend of Romero from their seminary days, who especially moved Romero with his socially conscious preaching. His killing, clearly at the hands of the landowners, changed Romero's life.

Romero ran into bureaucratic brick walls when he started to investigate Rutilio's murder. Three years later, on March 24, 1980, Romero himself was martyred as he was officiating Mass at a small chapel located in a cancer hospital called "La Divina Providencia" (Divine Providence). It was one day after a sermon in which he had called on Salvadoran soldiers, as Christians, to obey God's higher order and to stop carrying out the government's repression and violations of basic human rights. As he was concluding the Mass, Romero proceeded to the middle of the altar and at that moment was shot by a sniper who fired into his chest just as he was raising his hands carrying the host, signifying the body of Christ.

The deaths of these two priests, Oscar Romero as much as Rutilio Grande, were tragic events of transcendent significance, barbarous acts that revealed the ferocity of the reactionary right wing.

With Oscar Romero's beatification on May 23rd, justice comes slowly but surely. Untold millions of people all over the world know about Romero from the numberless statues and paintings, documentary films, poems and songs dedicated to this humble pastor who followed the call of Jesus. He has become the prophetic voice of the voiceless, a saint for the world made in El Salvador. Some like to call him "San Romero de América."

To speak of Oscar Romero is implicitly to recall Rutilio Grande, who by his example worked the miracle of Monsignor Romero's "conversion." It is also clearly a time to remember the Jesuit priests and the Maryknoll nuns, and all the other religious believers murdered in the struggle for a free El Salvador. Some predict that after Romero, Rutilio Grande will be the next Salvadoran saint.

We can only celebrate Pope Francis's decision, which calls us - whether we are Christians or adherents of other faith traditions or none - to follow the example of Romero in acting on behalf of the poor, following the word of Jesus Christ. Jesus said it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for the rich to enter heaven. And that is the gospel truth!

Que viva Romero! Que viva Rutilio! Long live all those who commit themselves to social justice!

Eric A. Gordon translated and contributed to this article.

Photo: Wikipedia (CC)

The Vietnam War: a visit after 40 years

Wed, 20 May 2015 12:25:00 +0000

Today, 40 years after the American war in Vietnam ended in ignominious defeat, the traces of that terrible conflict are disappearing.

Traveling through Vietnam during the latter half of April 2015 with a group of erstwhile antiwar activists, I was struck by the transformation of what was once an impoverished, war-devastated peasant society into a modern nation. Its cities and towns are bustling with life and energy. Vast numbers of motorbikes surge through their streets, including 4.2 million in Hanoi and 7 million in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). A thriving commercial culture has emerged, based not only on many small shops, but on an influx of giant Western, Japanese, and other corporations. Although Vietnam is officially a Communist nation, about 40 percent of the economy is capitalist, and the government is making great efforts to encourage private foreign investment. Indeed, over the past decade, Vietnam has enjoyed one of the highest economic growth rates in the world. Not only have manufacturing and tourism expanded dramatically, but Vietnam has become an agricultural powerhouse. Today it is the world's second largest exporter of rice, and one of the world's leading exporters of coffee, pepper, rubber, and other agricultural commodities. Another factor distancing the country from what the Vietnamese call "the American war" is the rapid increase in Vietnam's population. Only 41 million in 1975, it now tops 90 million, with most of it under the age of 30 - too young to have any direct experience with the conflict.

Vietnam has also made a remarkable recovery in world affairs. It now has diplomatic relations with 189 countries, and enjoys good relations with all the major nations.

Nevertheless, the people of Vietnam paid a very heavy price for their independence from foreign domination. Some 3 million of them died in the American war, and another 300,000 are still classified as MIAs. In addition, many, many Vietnamese were wounded or crippled in the conflict. Perhaps the most striking long-term damage resulted from the U.S. military's use of Agent Orange (dioxin) as a defoliant. Vietnamese officials estimate that, today, some 4 million of their people suffer the terrible effects of this chemical, which not only destroys the bodies of those exposed to it, but has led to horrible birth defects and developmental disabilities into the second and third generations. Much of Vietnam's land remains contaminated by Agent Orange, as well as by unexploded ordnance. Indeed, since the end of the American war in 1975, the landmines, shells, and bombs that continue to litter the nation's soil have wounded or killed over 105,000 Vietnamese - many of them children.

During the immediate postwar years, Vietnam's ruin was exacerbated by additional factors. These included a U.S. government embargo on trade with Vietnam, U.S. government efforts to isolate Vietnam diplomatically, and a 1979 Chinese military invasion of Vietnam employing 600,000 troops. Although the Vietnamese managed to expel the Chinese - just as they had previously routed the French and the Americans - China continued border skirmishes with Vietnam until 1988. In addition, during the first postwar decade, the ruling Vietnamese Communist Party pursued a hardline, repressive policy that undermined what was left of the economy and alienated much of the population. Misery and starvation were widespread.

Nevertheless, starting in the mid-1980s, the country made a remarkable comeback. This recovery was facilitated by Communist Party reformers who loosened the reins of power, encouraged foreign investment, and worked at developing a friendlier relationship with other nations, especially the United States. In 1995, the U.S. and Vietnamese governments resumed diplomatic relations. Although these changes did not provide a panacea for the nation's ills - for example, the U.S. State Department informed the new U.S. ambassador that he must never mention Agent Orange - Vietnam's circumstances, and particularly its relationship with the United States, gradually improved. U.S.-Vietnamese trade expanded substantially, reaching $35 billion in 2014. Thousands of Vietnamese students participated in educational exchanges. In recent years, the U.S. government even began funding programs to help clean up Agent Orange contamination and unexploded ordnance.

Although, in part, this U.S.-Vietnamese détente resulted from the growing flexibility of officials in both nations, recently it has also reflected the apprehension of both governments about the increasingly assertive posture of China in Asian affairs. Worried about China's unilateral occupation of uninhabited islands in the South China Sea during 2014, both governments began to resist it - the United States through its "Pacific pivot" and Vietnam through an ever-closer relationship with the United States to "balance" China. Although both nations officially support the settlement of the conflict over the disputed islands through diplomacy centered on the ten countries that comprise the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), officials in Vietnam, increasingly nervous about China's ambitions, appear to welcome the growth of a more powerful U.S. military presence in the region. In the context of this emerging agreement on regional security, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, and President Obama will be visiting Vietnam later this year.

This shift from warring enemies to cooperative partners over the past 40 years should lead to solemn reflection. In the Vietnam War, the U.S. government laid waste to a poor peasant nation in an effort to prevent the triumph of a Communist revolution that U.S. policymakers insisted would result in the conquest of the United States. And yet, when this counter-revolutionary effort collapsed, the predicted Red tide did not weep over the shores of California. Instead, an independent nation emerged that could - and did -- work amicably with the U.S. government. This development highlights the unnecessary nature - indeed, the tragedy - of America's vastly destructive war in Vietnam. It also underscores the deeper folly of relying on war to cope with international issues.

Postscript:

Like the other ASEAN nations, the Vietnamese are hopeful that the controversial Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement will be adopted. The Vietnamese recognize the TPP is a contradictory mix that would primarily benefit transnational corporations, but believe that on balance it would benefit their country and give them greatly expanded access to the world markets, technology and expertise they need for continued development and integration in the world economy.

Dr. Lawrence Wittner is professor of history emeritus at SUNY/Albany. His latest book is a satirical novel about university corporatization and rebellion, "What's Going On at UAardvark?" This article is based on Wittner's 12-day visit to Vietnam in April as part of a delegation of former anti-Vietnam-War activists organized by the Fund for Reconciliation and Development in coordination with the Vietnam Union of Friendship Organizations on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the end of the war.

This article originally appeared at History News Network and is reposted here with permission of the author, with postscript by Rick Nagin, who also took part in the trip to Vietnam.

Photo: Street scene in Can Tho, Vietnam's fourth largest city. TgCb Creative Commons

Today in history: Forward-looking Uruguayan President José Mujica turns 80

Wed, 20 May 2015 11:38:00 +0000

On this date in 1935, José Alberto Mujica Cordano was born in Montevideo, Uruguay. President of Uruguay from March 1, 2010 to March 1, 2015, Mujica is world renowned as a champion of the poor. Among his achievements in office, Uruguay legalized state-controlled sales of marijuana, allowed abortion, and brought about same-gender marriage.

Mujica was a former urban guerrilla fighter with the Tupamaros and was imprisoned for 13 years during the military dictatorship in the 1970s and 1980s. After his release in 1985 he and many Tupamaros joined other left-wing organizations to create the Movement of Popular Participation,a political party within the Broad Front coalition. Mujica served as a deputy, a senator, and as Minister of Livestock, Agriculture, and Fisheries from 2005 to 2008. As the candidate of the Broad Front, he won the 2009 presidential election. He was preceded by Tabaré Vázquez, who also has succeeded him as president.

He was certainly among the world's poorest and most humble presidents, as he donated almost 90 percent of his monthly salary to charities. He and his wife, Sen. Lucía Toplansky, whom he met in the Tupamaros, continued to live on a simple farm in the outskirts of Montevideo where they grow chrysanthemums for sale. They declined residency in the opulent presidential palace and the use of its staff. Their lifestyle is a powerful, visible protest against excessive consumption. Mujica is a professed atheist and vegetarian - itself a strong statement in such a meat-centered economy.

In 2013, the Economist magazine named Uruguay, with Mujica as head of state, as the "country of the year." Mujica is one among a new generation of Latin American leaders who have emerged from the grassroots to guide the area away from U.S. political and economic domination. President Mujica visited the White House and counseled President Obama on the necessity of restoring relations with Cuba and freeing the Cuban Five.

Frank, fearless, bold, and outspoken, Mujica thinks about the future philosophically. "We can recycle almost everything now," he has said. "If we lived within our means, by being prudent, the 7 billion people in the world could have everything they needed. Global politics should be moving in that direction. But we think as people and countries, not as a species."

Mujica addressed the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, telling them, "Businesses just want to increase their profits; it's up to the government to make sure they distribute enough of those profits so workers have the money to buy the goods they produce.... It's no mystery - the less poverty, the more commerce. The most important investment we can make is in human resources."

He leaves a testament to his nation: "My goal is to achieve a little less injustice in Uruguay, to help the most vulnerable and to leave behind a political way of thinking, a way of looking at the future that will be passed on and used to move forward. There's nothing short-term, no victory around the corner. I will not achieve paradise or anything like that. What I want is to fight for the common good to progress. Life slips by. The way to prolong it is for others to continue your work."

Happy 80th birthday, José Mujica! Que viva!

From combined sources.

Photo: AP

Bolivarian Latin America promises help in worldwide refugee crisis

Wed, 20 May 2015 11:23:00 +0000

Organizations of the Bolivarian alliance have proposed mechanisms for helping with the refugee crises in Southeast Asia and the Mediterranean. UNASUR (the Union of South American Nations) and CELAC (The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States), which together include every single country in the Western Hemisphere except the United States and Canada, are proposing a worldwide emergency response.

The refugee crisis in Southeast Asia mostly involves the Rohingya Muslims from Rakhine State in Northern Burma (Myanmar) who have been persecuted in their home country where they are regarded as "illegal aliens" even if their families have lived there for generations. Rohingyas are Muslims in this mostly Buddhist country, which is just emerging from a long period of military dictatorship and isolation. Recently up to 120,000 Rohingyas have left Burma as refugees.

As the Rohingyas have fled Burma in often unseaworthy boats, they have found themselves barred from landing in other countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia. There is an extreme danger of tragedy with thousands of people drowning or perishing from thirst and starvation, while regional governments concentrate entirely on how to keep the desperately poor refugees out of their countries, without regard for humanitarian considerations, let alone dealing with the root causes of the refugee exodus.

The crisis in the Mediterranean involves many thousands of African and Middle Eastern refugees fleeing from poverty and violence in their home countries, trying to escape to Europe through ports on the coast of Libya. Besides the wars in Syria and Iraq, and the extreme and intractable poverty in Subsaharan Africa, there is huge violence in Northern Nigeria originated with the Boko Haram group, seemingly endless violence in Somalia, and other foci of instability.

The worst problem, however, has arisen in Libya, where destabilization and overthrow of former strongman Muammar Gaddafi, by the NATO powers has created a situation of violent chaos, with no effective government and with Islamist militias and criminal refugee smugglers filling the power vacuum.

For several years, these refugees have been landing on the Italian islands of Lampedusa and Sicily, in the Spanish North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, and in other spots, with many thousands drowning in the Mediterranean. There has been a big uptick in both the migration and in the deaths in recent weeks, which caused the Italian government to appeal to the European Union for help.

But again, the focus has not been on helping the refugees, let alone seeking solutions for the dire situations that set them off on their journeys, but in keeping them out of Europe. The solution the European countries have come up with consists of stopping migrants by using military force to destroy the smugglers' boats.

This is strongly objected to by what is left of the Libyan government, as well as by the militias which control vast areas of the country. We can hope that the European warships will destroy the boats when there are no people on board, but the refugees themselves will be "collateral damage" anyway, as there is little or no regard being paid to the reasons that they flee, or the urgency of their need for refuge.

In our own country, the situation of children and others fleeing poverty and violence in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, and who were the focus of such an uproar last year, is also dire. Again, absolutely nothing has been done about the situation which is causing people to flee, and the only solution for dealing with the refugees themselves - never called refugees-has been repressive: Detention in substandard conditions, and mechanisms to help the Mexican government crack down on desperately poor Central Americans passing through its territory to get to jobs and families in the United States.

The left wing "Bolivarian" governments of Latin America and the Caribbean have been working to create innovative and humane responses to their own regional migration patterns. These involve such things as making work permits more readily available to migrants.

Now they are speaking up about the refugee crises in the Mediterranean and Southeast Asia. On Saturday the president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, announced that CELAC is planning to provide substantial humanitarian aid to the Rohingyas who are stranded on the Thai coast.

On Monday, UNASUR called for a "chain of solidarity" to be set up, which would provide relief.

A statement on UNASUR's website says: "The condition of the Rohingya migrants from Burma and Bangladesh, abandoned to their fate in the middle of the sea without being able to disembark in any country's port....added to the refugees from Syria and Somalia, constitutes an authentic passive genocide by a world that every day is more insensitive to the suffering of humankind.....

"UNASUR proposes a WORLD SOLIDARITY CHAIN sponsored by the International Red Cross, through which all the countries in the world could make contributions so that the countries of origin, if conditions of stability exist, or of destination of all the forced migrants can assume their humanitarian responsibilities.

"Through this international cooperation economic and social spaces will be opened up so that these millions of [displaced] citizens can find a secure place in which they can settle down or to which they can move with their families."

Photo: Left governments in Latin America are leading the way in care for Rohingya refugees (pictured, seeking refuge in Thailand). | AP

Election renews hope for Cyprus reunification

Mon, 18 May 2015 15:40:00 +0000

Although the island nation of Cyprus has been an independent republic since 1960, its northern region has been occupied by Turkey since 1974. But many see last month's elections in the north of Cyprus as a sign of a desire for reconciliation by the people of the divided nation.

The April 26 election, held under the auspices of the occupying power, Turkey, was for the presidency of the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus," an entity held to be illegal by the United Nations and which is recognized only by Turkey itself. The election was conducted under rules imposed by the occupation forces which, for example, allow some of the settlers brought in from Turkey to vote. Nevertheless, the result was the decisive defeat of the right-wing nationalist incumbent, Dervis Eroglu, by a progressive independent, Mustafa Akinci. Akinci captured a little over 60 percent of the vote.

The winner of this contest is seen as the leader of the Turkish Cypriot community and has traditionally taken the lead in reunification talks with the representatives of the Cypriot Republic. The two communities, those of Greek background and those of Turkish, have been divided since a short lived right-wing coup and subsequent Turkish invasion in 1974. The population of the northern entity is around 280,000 at least half of whom have settled from Turkey since the invasion. The total population of the Republic of Cyprus is about 1 million.

Turkey had been given a role in Cyprus in 1960 by the departing British colonialists who had agreed to make Turkey one of the powers (along with Britain itself and Greece) which "guaranteed" Cyprus's independence. In 1974 the Turkish government was able to use a

right-wing coup against the elected president, national hero Archbishop Makarios, as a pretext to invade, ostensibly to restore democratic order. Turkish troops have been in Cyprus ever since, occupying about one-third of the country's territory, helping to keep the two communities divided and helping to foster right-wing nationalist sentiment in the occupied area.

But following the official announcement of Akinci's victory last month, Turkish Cypriots, rejecting the right-wing nationalist ideology, marched through the streets of the occupied region, joined by Greek Cypriot compatriots who had crossed from the south. Notably absent in these crowds were flags of the illegal "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus" or of Turkey.

Akinci ran as an independent but had the support of the United Cyprus Party, BKP, a Turkish Cypriot political organization fraternal with the major Cypriot political party, AKEL, the

Communist Party of Cyprus, which has long made reunification of the country a priority. In an official statement in Turkish, Greek and English, AKEL noted that its leader Andros Kyprianou phoned Akinci to congratulate him on his victory and pledged that AKEL would support all efforts to reunify Cyprus, based on the framework established through past negotiations.

In one of his first official statements Akinci suggested that the relationship of Turkish Cypriots to Turkey should be more like brother and sister than the mother-child relationship favored by the nationalist right. However, this suggestion was rebuffed by rightist Turkish President Recep Erdogan. Turkey maintains a large military force on Cyprus.

Although most world leaders were quick to congratulate Akinci on his victory it remains to be seen what their long term commitment to Cypriot reunification will be. Cyprus's location in the eastern Mediterranean, between Greece and Turkey and near the Middle East, gives it international strategic significance, in particular for Greece, Turkey, the U.S. and Great Britain. But its divided status is a source of tensions, making it yet another festering sore spot in an already volatile region. With a renewed possibility now of at long last democratically reunifying the country, many believe the entire region would benefit.

Photo: Cyprus' president Nicos Anastasiades, right, and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci, left, shake hands as the United Nations envoy Espen Barth Eide, center, smiles before a dinner at the Ledra Palace Hotel inside the UN controlled buffer zone that divides the Cypriot capital Nicosia, May 11, 2015. The dinner was the first meeting between Anastasiades and Akinci since the progressive Turkish Cypriot leader soundly defeated the hard-line incumbent in the April 26 election. Petros Karadjias/AP

Congress members call on Obama to rescind Venezuela sanctions

Mon, 18 May 2015 13:21:00 +0000

Sixteen Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives have signed a letter calling on President Obama to withdraw sanctions on seven Venezuelan government officials, and also to withdraw the language of an executive order justifying the sanctions.

The sanctions to which the letter refers were based on legislation voted by Congress in December and signed by the president on Dec. 18. On Mar. 9, after the arrest of several Venezuelan political figures whom Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro accused of plotting a coup, President Obama issued an executive order declaring an "emergency" on the basis of a supposed "unusual and extraordinary threat" to the United States and its interests by Venezuela, and imposed the sanctions, mostly on mid-level security personnel.

The sanctions prevent them from traveling to the United States and freeze any assets they might have in this country.

Some politicians, such as Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, called for even tougher sanctions, but many policy experts worried that the whole thing could backfire on the government. And indeed it did: At the Organization of American States' Seventh Summit of the Americas in Panama on April 10 and 11, President Obama ran into a hailstorm of criticism from the great majority of Latin American and Caribbean states.

Major international organizations in the area and beyond, such as the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) and the Latin American and Caribbean Community of Nations, all condemned the sanctions, which they see as a reminder of the number of times in the past when the United States has moved to destabilize and overthrow governments it didn't like, especially in Latin America.

In Venezuela itself, 10 million people (out of a national population of 30 million) signed a petition denouncing the sanctions and the statement that Venezuela is a "threat."

The United States was forced to backtrack on the "threat" language, pointing out that it was only used because it has to be invoked when the president is going to impose sanctions on a country - the United States doesn't really think Venezuela is a "threat."

The congresspersons who signed the letter are all Democrats: Hank Johnson of Georgia, John Conyers of Michigan, Barbara Lee of California, Raul Grijalva of Arizona, Keith Ellison of Minnesota, Jose Serrano of New York, Sam Farr of California, Karen Bass of California, Janice Schakowsky of Illinois, Jim McDermott of Washington, Bobby Rush of Illinois, Sheila Jackson-Lee of Texas, Michael Capuano of Massachusetts, Charles Rangel of New York, Chellie Pingree of Maine, and Earl Blumenauer of Oregon.

The letter points out that by issuing the statement and imposing the sanctions, the Obama administration undermined the goodwill that derives from Obama's radical change of U.S. policy on Cuba.

Readers who wish to ask their own congresspersons to adhere to the congressional letter can contact them at the official U.S. Congress website: https://www.congress.gov/members

Further, readers are urged to help by signing and circulating a School of the Americas Watch petition demanding that the U.S. government withdraw the sanctions and the "threat" statement, which can be found here: http://org.salsalabs.com/o/727/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=17590

Photo: Rep. Rangel is one of 16 lawmakers calling on Obama to lift sanctions against Venezuela. | Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

Cuban ebola team nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

Mon, 18 May 2015 12:56:00 +0000

A petition to spread the word and support the nomination is here.

The Annual Conference of Norwegian Trade Unions, meeting in Trondheim, Norway, voted unanimously in February to nominate Cuba's Henry Reeve Brigade of internationalist health care workers for the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Henry Reeve Brigade, named for a U.S. born medical doctor who participated in Cuba's war of independence from Spain in the 19th century, and which was formed in 2005, consists of doctors, nurses and other health care workers who volunteer to provide care in dangerous and unusual emergency situations around the world.

When the Ebola outbreak began in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone in West Africa last year, 461 members of the brigade, trained by the Pedro Kouri Institute of Tropical Medicine in Havana, were quickly sent out to do the extremely dangerous direct face to face work with patients in a region where health care facilities and even basic infrastructure such as roads and communications systems are minimal. Cuba's role, far out of proportion to the countries small size and modest material resources, has been widely praised worldwide, including by the World Health Organization.

The Henry Reeve Brigade is only a small part of Cuba's vast system of medical solidarity help to scores of poorer countries.

The Ebola epidemic has infected at least 22,000 people in the three countries, of whom 9,000 have died. At least one of the Cuban Reeve Brigade participants, Dr. Felix Baez, came down with the disease, but has survived. One Cuban administrator died, but of malaria, not Ebola. Currently the epidemic has been beaten down, but could flare up again, either in that area or somewhere else.

Surely there are few entities that are more deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize nomination!

Photo: Cuban health worker wearing protective gear. | telesurv

New alignment for U.S., Latin America after Panama

Fri, 15 May 2015 16:19:00 +0000

The Western Hemisphere emerged from the Summit of the Americas in Panama, Apr. 10-11 with a new alignment of forces.

As President Obama had, on Dec. 17, announced a radical change in U.S. policy toward Cuba, for which he was widely praised worldwide, the impression was that he would have smooth sailing at the summit. But on Mar. 9, the Obama administration put sanctions on seven Venezuelan officials, accompanied by a declaration of an emergency which justified sanctions as being necessary because the situation in Venezuela represented an "unusual and extraordinary threat" to the United States.

The sanctions had been voted by Congress in December, at the initiative of some of the most extreme right wing Republicans, and Obama had signed the law on Dec. 19. The sanctions were imposed supposedly in response to the prosecution by Venezuela of a small number of political figures whom President Nicolas Maduro accused of plotting a coup or who had fomented violent protests last year which left 43 dead.

The sanctions and the "threat" language instantly changed the atmosphere of the Panama Summit. The justification of the measures in the name of defending human rights also produced cries of "hypocrisy", given worldwide publicity of police abuses in the United States itself. There were indignant denunciations from the leaders of almost all governments in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Latin American and Caribbean Community of Nations (CELAC), which includes every country in the Western Hemisphere except the United States and Canada, denounced the U.S. move. In the draft final document of the Panama Summit, eventually vetoed by the United States and Canada, there was to have been a resolution condemning "unilateral sanctions."

Before arriving in Panama, President Obama met in Jamaica with the CARICOM (Caribbean Community) states. These states lack their own energy generating capacity and most are tied into the PETROCARIBE arrangement whereby they can buy discounted Venezuelan oil on easy terms. The recent worldwide slump in oil prices is forcing Venezuela to cut back a bit, though the impact of this on the poor nations must be balanced against the benefits to them of the international oil price drop. Obama offered to help facilitate private investment in creating green energy alternatives for the island nations. Some in the region interpreted this as an effort to drive a wedge between the Caribbean states on the one hand, and Venezuela and its allies on the other. But the Caribbean states seemed rather willing to accept development and energy help from whatever source.

In Panama, the United States walked into a hornet's nest of protests against the Venezuela sanctions and statement. The United States had to admit that Venezuela is not a "threat" and that the language had been merely used as a legal justification for the sanctions. Obama also met briefly with Maduro on the side. Supporters of the Bolivarian government were able to organize massive support campaigns for Venezuela worldwide, and China and other countries have come up with offers of more tangible economic aid. In Venezuela, a petition denouncing the sanctions and statement has gathered over 10 million signatures. Activists have notes that as long as the "threat" statement is not formally retracted, it could be used in the future to legally justify more sanctions, perhaps against Venezuela as a country instead of just specific officials.

Some had speculated that Cuba would take a low key position on the U.S.-Venezuela dispute, given the current negotiations on ending the U.S. blockade. But Cuba did not budge an inch from supporting its Venezuelan ally. In the rapturous celebrations of May Day in Havana, President Maduro was the very visible guest of honor, and the Cuban 5 (five Cubans who spent up to 15 years in prison in the United States after being arrested for monitoring terrorist groups in Miami), toured all over Venezuela. President Raul Castro again expressed his appreciation for President Obama's agreement to end the blockade, but made clear that there would be no concessions on Cuba's stance toward world affairs.

So Venezuela and the Bolivarian movement came out of the summit stronger, as did China and Cuba, and the United States was chastised and had to back off.

Lesson learned? We shall see. The efforts emanating from the United States to block the Bolivarian movement come from many sources within and without the government, not just the Oval Office and the top of the State Department. There are many reactionary officials at State, in the military, the C.I.A., the Agency for International Development and the National Endowment for Democracy who are bent on restoring unchallenged U.S. hegemony in the Americas, and of course there is a the eternal Congressional anti-Cuba clique, which has now added Venezuela and the other Bolivarian countries to its hate list. There is much destabilization activity coming directly out of the head offices monopoly corporations. Venezuela is not the only target, also, for ultimately it is monopoly capital itself which sees Bolivarianism as an existential threat.

Readers are urged to help by signing and circulating a School of the Americas Watch petition demanding that the U.S. government withdraw the sanctions and the "threat" statement, which can be found here: http://org.salsalabs.com/o/727/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=17590

Photo: AP

The Volkswagen chronicle: Porsche and Piëch

Thu, 14 May 2015 15:05:00 +0000

BERLIN -- The North German city with the very tourist-attractive name "Wolfsburg" boasts of two things, though both are second best. Its soccer team, though top-notch, could not overtake the best, wealthiest Bayern Munich team. And the world-famous auto brand of this company town, Volkswagen, or VW, is still behind Toyota (or is it now GM?) in selling cars. But not far behind!

The Volkswagen name recently filled business pages and spilled onto all the front pages. The leadership drama at the world's biggest employer (outside China and Walmart), with 20 percent voting control by Lower Saxony and 17 percent by the oil-and-dollar-choked little emirate, Qatar, is rooted in the almost legendary story of two intertwined families, Porsche and Piëch ("Umlaut" dots over the e, unlike those in ä, ö and ü, signify only a new syllable). Although they still command 50.73 percent of VW, the family patriarch Ferdinand Piëch, 78, has suffered a major setback. His haughty words about the managing director he had himself appointed - "I have distanced myself from Herr Winterkorn" - backfired, the supervisory board members from Lower Saxony and the employees' representatives rejected his planned management switch. He quit sulkily as both chairman and member, and his wife quit with him. The two seats went, against his will, to younger nieces. But he is still around and still strong; what is the story of this company and this man, who looks increasingly like a vulture?

The story of the vulture of VW

Around 1900 his grandfather, Ferdinand Porsche, born in Bohemia, became a successful racing driver and, gaining experience in the new auto industry with Daimler, helped construct weapons for World War I. In 1931 he opened his own firm and became a German, a Nazi, and Hitler's favorite engineer.

In order to win over a hesitant working class, the victorious Nazis promised a small family car for only 990 marks, paid in advance in weekly 5 mark installments, each marked with a red coupon pasted on a yellow sheet. Hitler invested the money stolen from the outlawed union movement, sent Porsche to River Rouge in Detroit to copy Henry Ford's assembly-lines, and hired him to do the engineering. The glorious result was the new "VW" brand name and, you guessed it, the Beetle!

Even 5 marks proved too high for most workers but many middle-class people bought coupons. Costs were higher than expected, the low price was endangered, but in the end it didn't matter; before coupon-holders put a foot on a gas pedal Germany began its war; the beetles stayed larvae so army vehicles could roll. VW dragged in 20,000 forced laborers from all of Europe, more than any other. They, plus war prisoners and concentration camp inmates made up 85 percent of its labor force. Conditions were miserable; many died. Some women, kidnapped in conquered eastern areas, had to march barefoot the long wintry way to work. Over 300 babies or tiny children also met terrible deaths.

But surviving war bombings was 93 percent of the modern machinery, mostly in tunnels dug by slave laborers. The British occupation authorities gave a go-ahead and VW was soon able to produce the little rear-end-propelled Beetles, though only long legal battles forced it, in 1961, to offer pre-war coupon-holders up to 100 marks in compensation or a rebate of up to 600 marks if they bought a new car (then priced at about 4000 marks). It was not until the end of the century that some of the surviving forced laborers finally won a very small "humanitarian" sum for their toil.

The first managing director in 1946, a man who had been in contact with the anti-Nazi Czech underground, was replaced by the British in 1947 with Heinrich Nordhoff, who had managed a main Opel truck factory for Hitler. As for Porsche, he was caught and jailed in France for stealing Citroen plant machinery and getting its managers deported, but, bought free by the family after 22 months, he went back into business until his death in 1951. The families of the Piëchs and the Porsches, though oft at odds, were just as intertwined as VW and the Porsche company (now united); VW-Manager Nordhoff demonstrated this by marrying his daughter to Piëch's nephew from Porsche. While one founder grandson, Ferdinand Alexander Porsche, became chairman of the board at Porsche, another, the vulture-like Ferdinand Piëch, became managing director at VW from 1993 until 2002, then chairman of the supervisory board which he quit a few weeks ago. Very complicated indeed!

Piëch's first victory as director in 1993 was to lure eight managers from General Motors, including the tough Spaniard José Ignacio López who took 20 cartons of GM secrets with him (because of which, after years of court battles, VW had to fire him and pay a fine). Piëch, though dyslexic, is like his grandfather a good engineer. Evidently a good father, too, at least in quantity; he fathered twelve children (with four mothers, two of them his wives). More important, and largely thanks to Piëch, VW became father of twelve brands from seven countries: cars - Volkswagen, Audi, SEAT, Škoda, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche, Ducati; and trucks - Volkswagen, Scania und MAN. Judgments on his private fathering are inappropriate; as for the twelve companies, critics say this wide range was overdone, unhealthy - and was maybe one reason for his current dethroning.

But for many years Piëch had amazing success, thanks to quality, good global connections, good salesmanship and good relations with the union. Were the latter perhaps too good?

Good relations with the union?

Soon after he took over in 1993, a dramatic experiment with a four-day, 28.8-hour work-week made headlines. The new plan seemed almost revolutionary; after VW's alternative threat - to lay off 30,000 and move to a country with lower wages - it was OK'd by the union. The result: cuts in Christmas and vacation pay, nasty shift work, far more stress in the work halls and, measured yearly, a cut in wages and salaries. After several years VW moved back toward the 35-hour work-week won in a long struggle by German metal workers after a seven-week strike in 1984. Today the work-hours situation is very flexible and can even be temporarily extended to ten hours a day and six days a week, while an over-time pay rate of 25 percent is no longer compulsory.

Nationally-owned until 1960, with 20 percent still owned and controlled by the state of Lower Saxony, VW is by far the largest company in that largely rural region and thus has political importance for the state and for local boys who make good, like ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and current Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, both Social Democrats. If possible, class conflict is minimized, but the union at VW is a heavyweight within IG Metall (IG = Industrial Union), which is the largest union in Germany and, it is alleged, in the world.

VW work council

Like most companies, VW also has a work council. This system, originating after World War I in Germany and now covering much of the European Union, lets a work force elect representatives for a four year term, who then make up 50 percent of the company supervisory board (though a company man as chairman can usually tip the scales). The council is parallel to the union; it may involve the same people, but it represents all workers, union members or not and leaves it to the union to negotiate contracts with terms on wages, hours or vacations.

The councils should look after employees' interests and often do. But in big companies their members are often honored, pampered and perked, often with the use of a fancy company car. The employees' chief council representative at VW, who used to earn 55,000 Euros [$62,500] annually at the work bench, now gets 250,000 Euros [$284,000] plus perks. Most companies like to keep both council members and union leaders in a good mood. In 2005 in VW this turned out to be far too good - and too publicly known!

Peter Hartz gained fame, or notoriety, as the adviser to Chancellor Gerhard Schröder who wrote his "Hartz Reform", a Spartan welfare system now feared by everyone threatened or hit by a lay-off. As "human resources executive" at VW, however, he was far too generous, very illegally, with members of the workers council. To the delight of the tabloids, this meant wildly sumptuous meals, trips, and "the use of prostitutes for oral intercourse at the company's expense, sometimes in company-owned apartments and under the influence of Viagra prescribed by the company's medical service."

The workers' main representative was sentenced to 33 months in prison. Hartz (unsurprisingly) got away with parole and a fine far less than the nearly 2 million he had been getting in bonus money. Both resigned; the uncovered slough of bribery and corruption forced one Bundestag delegate and two state legislature delegates to do the same, both "democratically elected" - largely by VW.

But that was five years ago and is best forgotten. Today, temporarily, the head of the VW supervisory board is union leader Berthold Huber. Like other now moderate leaders, he once belonged to an ultra-left "communist" group (until he was thrown out). But the higher he then ascended in the IG Metall hierarchy, the more conservative he became; when he reached the top as president (2017-2013) and earned 260,000 Euros [$295,700] he was known as a right-wing reformer. Getting elected president of the International Metalworkers' Federation in 2009 and holding council seats at Siemens and Audi failed to turn him leftward again. In VW he will hardly be a troublemaker.

And yet VW does have some troubles. It still leads in sales in China and Europe but is having a bumpy time in the USA, despite (or because of) its troubled plant at Chattanooga. In some areas its high-cost luxury brands, like Porsche and Audi, do better than its basic VWs. And in poor Dresden, where VW defied angry protests to build a modernistic "Transparent Factory" in the middle of reconstructed baroque Dresden, with then-Chancellor Schroder and Piëch present for the grand opening in 2002, visitors can happily watch the final assembly of high-price Phaetons but the car has unhappily done poorly in the market, while the parched East German job market gained hardly more than 500 jobs.

Such problems may have led to Piëch's loss of his almost royal throne. But the giant corporation still helps guarantee Germany's superiority in export, permitting it to pressure poorer European members to keep in austere line, economically and politically. This helps explain its neurotic reactions to recent ground swells in Greece, Spain - and who knows where next?

In the state of Baden-Wurttemberg 850,000 metal workers recently conducted short warning strikes and won a 3.4 percent pay raise and other gains. Many strikes now rock the country, hitting all rail traffic, post office workers, tram and bus drivers, even kindergarten teachers. But though VW management questions are up in the air, its workers are not in a lupine mood; Wolfsburg seems peaceful.

Photo: Dr. Ing. Ferdinand Porsche. Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-2005-1017-525 / CC-BY-SA. German Federal Archive

Vatican recognizes state of Palestine in new treaty

Thu, 14 May 2015 12:53:00 +0000

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican officially recognized the state of Palestine in a new treaty finalized Wednesday. The treaty, which deals with the activities of the Catholic Church in Palestinian territory, makes clear that the Holy See has advanced its diplomatic recognition from the Palestine Liberation Organization to the state of Palestine itself.

While the Vatican's action is basically symbolic, a New York Times report calls it "significant," saying it "lends a powerful signal of moral authority and legitimacy to the efforts by the Palestinian Authority's president, Mahmoud Abbas, to achieve statehood despite the long paralyzed Israeli-Palestinian peace process."

The Vatican previously welcomed the decision by the United Nations General Assembly in 2012 to recognize a Palestinian state. But the new treaty is the first legal document negotiated between the Holy See and the Palestinian state and constitutes official diplomatic recognition.

"Yes, it's a recognition that the state exists," said the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi.

The treaty was finalized days before President Abbas visits Pope Francis at the Vatican. Abbas is heading to Rome to attend Francis' canonization Sunday of two new saints from the Holy Land.

"This is a very important recognition as the Vatican has a very important political status that stems from its spiritual status," said Abbas' senior aide, Nabil Shaath. "We expect more EU countries to follow."

Hanna Amireh, head of the Palestinian Presidential Committee on Church Affairs, told the Times that the treaty broadly covered the Vatican's interests in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, including the status of churches and church courts and taxes on church charities, institutions and lands, and other cultural and diplomatic matters. He said the treaty had been under negotiation for about a year.

"The Vatican is the spiritual capital of the Catholics, and they are recognizing Palestine, that's the chief importance," said Amireh, who is also a leader of the Palestinian People's Party and a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization's executive committee. He added that the move counters an image of Palestinians as militants or terrorists, calling it a "recognition of the Palestinian character that has a clear message for coexistence and peace."

The Vatican has been referring unofficially to the state of Palestine for at least a year.

During Pope Francis' 2014 visit to the Holy Land, the Vatican's official program referred to Abbas as the president of the "state of Palestine."

The Vatican's foreign minister, Monsignor Antoine Camilleri, acknowledged the change in status, but said the shift was simply in line with the Holy See's position.

The Holy See clearly tried to underplay the development, suggesting that its 2012 press statement welcoming the UN vote constituted official recognition. But nowhere in that statement does the Vatican specifically say it recognizes the state of Palestine, and the Holy See couldn't vote for the UN resolution because it doesn't have voting rights at the General Assembly.

The 2012 UN vote recognized Palestine as a non-member observer state, made up of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, lands Israel captured in the 1967 "Six-Day War."

The Palestinians celebrated the vote as a milestone in their quest for international recognition. Most countries in Africa, Asia and South America have individually recognized Palestine. In Western Europe, Sweden took the step last year, while several parliaments have approved non-binding motions urging recognition.

The new Vatican announcement immediately sparked Israeli government ire. The Israeli foreign ministry claimed in a text message, "This move does not promote the peace process and distances the Palestinian leadership from returning to direct and bilateral negotiation." The United States and Israel have opposed recognition, arguing that it would undermine efforts to negotiate an Israeli-Palestinian deal on the terms of Palestinian statehood. But, while most countries in Western Europe have held off on recognition, some have hinted that their position could change if peace efforts remain deadlocked.

This isn't the first time that the Vatican under Francis has taken diplomatic moves knowing that it would please some quarters and ruffle feathers elsewhere: Just last month, he referred to the slaughter of Armenians by Turkish Ottomans a century ago as a "genocide," prompting Turkey to recall its ambassador.

The Pope this week also warned "the powerful of the Earth" that "God will call them to judgment" if they fail to protect the environment so that everyone has enough to eat.

"The planet has enough food for all, but it seems that there is a lack of willingness to share it with everyone," Francis said Tuesday at a mass in Rome to mark the opening of the general assembly of Caritas Internationalis, a federation of Catholic charitable groups.

"We must do what we can so that everyone has something to eat, but we must also remind the powerful of the Earth that God will call them to judgment one day and there it will be revealed if they really tried to provide food for Him in every person and if they did what they could to preserve the environment so that it could produce this food."

Francis is expected to issue an encyclical letter on the environment this year.

His top adviser, Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga, blasted climate-change skeptic "movements in the United States," blaming capitalist ideology for their opposition to environmental protection.

"The ideology surrounding environmental issues is too tied to a capitalism that doesn't want to stop ruining the environment because they don't want to give up their profits," Rodríguez told a news conference in Rome at the start of the Caritas meeting.

Associated Press writers Nicole Winfield in Vatican City, Ian Deitch in Jerusalem and Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this story.

Photo: In this June 8, 2014, photo Pope Francis and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas embrace each other as Israel's President Shimon Peres, left, watches during an evening of peace prayers in the Vatican gardens. Gregorio Borgia/AP

Yemen war redraws Middle East fault lines

Wed, 13 May 2015 14:56:00 +0000

Yemen is the poorest country in the Arab world, bereft of resources, fractured by tribal divisions and religious sectarianism, and plagued by civil war. And yet this small country tucked into the bottom of the Arabian Peninsula is shattering old alliances and spurring new and surprising ones. As Saudi Arabia continues its air assault on Houthi insurgents, supporters and opponents of the Riyadh monarchy are reconfiguring the political landscape in a way that is unlikely to vanish once the fighting is over.

The Saudi version of the war is that Shiite Iran is trying to take over Sunni Yemen using proxies - the Houthis - to threaten the Kingdom's southern border and assert control over the strategic Bab al-Mandeb Strait into the Red Sea. The Iranians claim they have no control over the Houthis, no designs on the Strait, and that the war is an internal matter for the Yeminis to resolve.

The Saudis have constructed what at first glance seems a formidable coalition consisting of the Arab League, the monarchies of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Turkey and the U.S. Except that the "coalition" is not as solid as it looks and is more interesting in whom it doesn't include than whom it does.

A not-so-solid "coalition"

Egypt and Turkey are the powerhouses in the alliance, but there is more sound and fury than substance in their support.

Initially, Egypt made noises about sending ground troops - the Saudi army can't handle the Houthis and their allies - but pressed by Al-Monitor, Cairo's ambassador to Yemen, Youssef al-Sharqawy, turned opaque: "I am not the one who will decide about a ground intervention in Yemen. This goes back to the estimate of the supreme authority in the country and Egyptian national security."

Since Saudi Arabia supported the Egyptian military coup against the Muslim Brotherhood government and is propping up the regime with torrents of cash, Riyadh may eventually squeeze Cairo to put troops into the Yemen war. But the last time Egypt fought the Houthis it suffered thousands of casualties, and Egypt has its hands full with an Islamic insurrection in Sinai.

While Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also pledged Ankara's support for "Saudi Arabia's intervention," and demanded that "Iran and the terrorist groups" withdraw, Erdogan was careful to say that it "may consider" offering "logistical support based on the evolution of the situation."

Erdogan wants to punish Iran for its support of the Assad regime in Syria and its military presence in Iraq, where Tehran is aiding the Baghdad government against the Islamic Front. He is also looking to tap into Saudi money. The Turkish economy is in trouble, its public debt is the highest it has been in a decade and borrowing costs are rising worldwide. With an important election coming in June, Erdogan is hoping the Saudis will step in to help out.

But actually getting involved is another matter. The Turks think the Saudis are in a pickle - Yemen is a dreadfully difficult place to win a war and an air assault without ground troops has zero chance of success.

When the Iranians reacted sharply to Erdogan's comments, the president backpedaled. Iran is a major trading partner for the Turks, and, with the possibility that international sanctions against Tehran will soon end, Turkey wants in on the gold rush that is certain to follow. During Erdogan's recent trip to Tehran, the Turkish president and Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif issued a joint statement calling for an end to the war in Yemen, and a "political solution." It was a far cry from Erdogan's initial belligerence.

The Arab League supports the war, but only to varying degrees. Iraq opposes the Saudi attacks, and Algeria is keeping its distance by calling for an end to "all foreign intervention." Even the normally compliant GCC, representing the oil monarchs of the Gulf, has a defector. Oman abuts Yemen, and its ruler, Sultan Qaboos, is worried the chaos will spread across its border. And while the United Arab Emirates have flown missions over Yemen, the UAE is also preparing to cash in if sanctions are removed from Tehran. "Iran is on our doorstep, we have to be there," Marwan Shehadeh, a developer in Dubai, told the Financial Times. "It could be a great game changer."

Pakistan's conspicuous absence

The most conspicuous absence in the Saudi coalition, however, is Pakistan, a country that has received billions in aid from Saudi Arabia and whose current prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, was sheltered by Riyadh from the wrath of Pakistan's military in 1999.

When the Saudis initially announced their intention to attack Yemen, they included Pakistan in the reported coalition, an act of hubris that backfired badly. Pakistan's Parliament demanded a debate on the issue and then voted unanimously to remain neutral. While Islamabad declared its intention to "defend Saudi Arabia's sovereignty," no one thinks the Houthis are about to march on Jiddah.

The Yemen war is deeply unpopular in Pakistan, and the Parliament's actions were widely supported, one editorial writer calling for rejecting "GCC diktat." Only the extremist Lashkar-e-Taiba organization, which planned the 2008 Mumbai massacre in India, supported the Saudis.

Pakistan has indeed relied on Saudi largesse and, in turn, provided security for Riyadh, but the relationship is wearing thin.

First, there is widespread outrage for the Saudi support of extremist Islamic groups, some of which are at war with Pakistan's government. Last year one such organization, the Tehrik-i-Taliban, massacred 145 people, including 132 students, in Peshawar. Fighting these groups in North Waziristan has taxed the Pakistani army, which must also pay attention to its southern neighbor, India.

The Saudis, with their support for the rigid Wahhabi interpretation of Islam, are also blamed for growing Sunni-Shiite tensions in Pakistan.

China's role

Second, Islamabad is deepening its relationship with China. In mid-April, Chinese President Xi Jinping promised to invest $46 billion to finance Beijing's new "Silk Road" from Western China to the Persian Gulf. Part of this will include a huge expansion of the port at Gwadar in Pakistan's restive Baluchistan province, a port that Bruce Riedel says will "rival Dubai or Doha as a regional economic hub."

Riedel is a South Asia security expert, a senior fellow at the conservative Brookings Institute, and a professor at Johns Hopkins. Dubai is in the United Arab Emirates and Doha in Qatar. Both are members of the GCC.

China is concerned about security in Baluchistan, with its long-running insurgency against the central government, as well as the ongoing resistance by the Turkic-speaking, largely Muslim, Uighur people in western China's Xinjiang Province. Uighurs, who number a little over 10 million, are being marginalized by an influx of Han Chinese, China's dominant ethnic group.

Wealthy Saudis have helped finance some of these groups and neither Beijing or Islamabad is happy about it. Pakistan has pledged to create a 10,000-man "Special Security Division" to protect China's investments. According to Riedel, the Chinese told the Pakistanis that Beijing would "stand by Pakistan if its ties with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates unravel."

The U.S. role

The U.S. has played an important, if somewhat uncomfortable, role in the Yemen war. It is feeding Saudi Arabia intelligence and targeting information and re-fueling Saudi warplanes in mid-air. It also intercepted an Iranian flotilla headed for Yemen that Washington claimed was carrying arms for the Houthis. Iran denies it and there is little hard evidence that Tehran is providing arms to the insurgents.

But while Washington supports the Saudis, it has also urged Riyadh to dial back the air attacks and look for a political solution. The U.S. is worried that the war-induced anarchy is allowing al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula to flourish. The embattled Houthis were the terrorist group's principal opponents.

The humanitarian crisis in Yemen is growing critical. More than 1,000 people, many of them civilians, have been killed, and the bombing and fighting has generated 300,000 refugees. The Saudi-U.S. naval blockade and the recent destruction of Yemen's international airport has shut down the delivery of food, water and medical supplies in a country that is largely dependent on imported food.

However, the Obama administration is unlikely to alienate the Saudis, who are already angry with Washington for negotiating a nuclear agreement with Iran. Besides aiding the Saudi attacks, the U.S. has opened the arms spigot to Riyadh.

Saudi-Israeli alliance

The Iran nuclear agreement has led to what has to be one of the oddest alliances in the region: Israel and Saudi Arabia. Riyadh is on the same wavelength as the Netanyahu government when it comes to Iran, and the two are cooperating in trying to torpedo the agreement. According to investigative journalist Robert Parry, the alliance between Tel Aviv and Riyadh was sealed by a secret $16 billion gift from Riyadh to an Israeli "development" account in Europe, some of which has been used to build illegal settlements in the Occupied Territories.

The Saudis and the Israelis are on the same side in the Syrian civil war as well, and, for all Riyadh's talk about supporting the Palestinians, the only members of the GCC that have given money to help rebuild Gaza after last summer's Israeli attack on Gaza are Qatar and Kuwait.

How this all falls out in the end is hard to predict, except that it is clear that, for all their financial firepower, the Saudis can't get the major regional players - Israel excepted - on board. And an alliance with Israel - a country that is more isolated today because of its occupation policies than it has been in its history - is not likely to be very stable.

Long-time Middle East correspondent for the Independent Robert Fisk says the Saudis live in "fear" of the Iranians, the Shiia, the Islamic State, al-Qaida, U.S. betrayal, Israeli plots, even "themselves, for where else will the revolution start in Sunni Muslim Saudi but among its own royal family?"

That "fear" is driving the war in Yemen. It argues for why the U.S. should stop feeding the flames and instead join with the European Union and demand an immediate cease-fire, humanitarian aid, and a political solution among the Yemenis themselves.

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

Photo: Sana'a, Yemen's capital, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, with a population of nearly two million. At least 69 people were killed and 250 others wounded - mostly civilians - on May 12 by explosions after Saudi-led fighter jets hit an arms depot on the city's outskirts, according to medical officials. Franco Pecchio/Creative Commons

Today in history: 40 years since the seizing of the Mayagüez

Tue, 12 May 2015 15:43:00 +0000

On this date in 1975, the American freighter Mayagüez, with its 39-man crew, was captured by Khmer Rouge forces in the Kingdom of Cambodia. Not two weeks before, the U.S. had been routed by the Vietnamese; and less than a month before, the Khmer Rouge had taken control of the capital Phnom Penh, ousting the U.S.-backed Khmer Republic.

The Mayagüez incident, taking place over four days, May 12-15, revealed how sensitive the U.S. felt about its world standing and credibility after its crushing defeat in Vietnam. It was not prepared to allow a purported act of sea piracy -- though this claim had no foundation in maritime law -- to pass without a robust response.

The crisis began on May 12, as the container ship, owned by Sea-Land Service, passed Poulo Wai island en route to Thailand, within 12 nautical miles of Cambodian territorial waters. The U.S. did not recognize 12 nautical miles territorial waters claims at that time, recognizing only 3 nautical miles, and characterized the location as international sea lanes on the high seas. U.S. military reports state that the seizure took place 6 nautical miles off the island,but the crew brought evidence in a later legal action that the ship had in fact sailed about two nautical miles off Poulo Wai and was not flying a flag.

Thus, the question of which side set off an international incident is highly debatable.

The Mayagüez was carrying 107 containers of routine cargo, 77 containers of government and military cargo, and 90 empty containers.The exact contents have never been disclosed, but the ship had loaded containers from the U.S. Embassy in Saigon nine days before the fall of Saigon.

The Cambodians imprisoned the American crew, pending an investigation of the ship and why it had sailed into Cambodian waters. Diplomatic approaches to China involving Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and George H. W. Bush, then head of the U.S. Liaison Office in Beijing, produced no results. Pres. Gerald Ford moved swiftly to the rescue, on May 14 ordering the bombing of the Cambodian port where the Khmer Rouge gunboats had come from and sending Marines to attack the island of Koh Tang, where the prisoners were presumed being held. Unknown to the Americans, none of the crew were on the island and it was heavily defended by over 100 Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge defenses on the island were intended to counter the Vietnamese who, following the recapture of Saigon, moved quickly to take control of a number of islands contested between Vietnam and Cambodia.

But military action was probably unnecessary. The Cambodian government was already in the process of releasing the crew and the ship. Forty-one Americans died -- most of them in an accidental explosion during the attack -- and 50 were wounded. They are remembered as the last killed in what is considered "the last official battle of the Vietnam War." Their names, as well as those of three U.S. Marines who were left behind on the island of Koh Tang after the battle and were subsequently executed by the Khmer Rouge, are the last names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

A Khmer Rouge radio broadcast announced that the Mayagüez and its crew would be released. "We have no intention of detaining it permanently," the communiqué read, "and we have no desire to stage provocations. We only wanted to know the reason for its coming and to warn it against violating our waters again. This is why our coast guard seized this ship."

The crew were released in good health, after agreeing to a statement that they had not been mistreated, unknown to the U.S. Marines or the U.S. command of the operation before they attacked. When the Marines boarded and recaptured the ship -- one of the few hostile ship-to-ship boardings by the U.S. Navy since the American Civil War -- they found it empty.

Estimates of Khmer Rouge casualties were 13-25 killed on Koh Tang, with an unknown number killed on Swift Boats and on the Cambodian mainland.

Pres. Ford went on U.S. national television announcing the recovery of the Mayagüez and the rescue of its crew, but obscuring the fact that the crew had in fact been released by the Khmer Rouge.
Crew members brought admiralty law suits against Sea-Land Service, claiming that the Master was derelict in his duty by "recklessly venturing into known dangerous and hostile waters of foreign sovereignty (Cambodia)," inviting capture. In February 1979 a final settlement was reached, with a total of $388,000 to the crew members taking legal action.

Photo: Wikipedia Commons