People Before Profit blog

Government shuts down, but anti-Cuba program keeps going

Fri, 01 Nov 2013 12:08:00 +0000

The recent U.S. government shutdown sent shockwaves felt around the world. At a cost of $24 billion or $62.5 million per hour for 16 days, many people may not realize that there is another example of government misappropriation that is far more sinister. It involves a mechanism that has swindled U.S. taxpayers out of hundreds of millions.

While essential government services that help millions of ordinary people were shut down, Radio and TV Marti kept broadcasting.

Launched on May 20, 1985, through a top secret directive signed by President Ronald Reagan, Radio Marti (and later, starting in 1990 TV Marti) is a U.S. taxpayer funded operation that serves as the propaganda arm of the right-wing Miami Cuban exile community.

Early on, the United States Information Agency (USIA), in Washington, D.C. assumed responsibility for the news content of government funded media. In 1996, Radio Marti relocated to the Cuban American community in Miami. Under the control of Jorge Mas Canosa and the Cuban American National Foundation, the radio station became a "rogue operation" free from oversight by more established institutional government run channels such as Voice of America.

After the USIA offices closed in November 1999, the Office of Cuba Broadcasting became responsible for non-military government funded media under the authority of a Broadcast Board of Governors (BBG). During the period from 1996 - 2001, however, the Cuban exile movement was relatively unhindered by government restraint and legal control (recall the Elian Gonzalez case).

The First Amendment right to freedom of the press and right to assemble is an important tool in a democratic society. A mechanism was developed by the bureaucracy whereby telecommunication media could beam propaganda to foreign audiences through Radio/TV Marti and other stations if approved by the BBG. However, federal law (the Smith-Mundt Act) prohibits such media from propaganda activities aimed at domestic U.S. audiences.

The case of the "Cuban 5," Cuban agents who were arrested in 1998 and convicted in 2001 for monitoring the activities of violence prone anti-Castro militants in the Cuban exile community in Miami, eventually began to have implications for Radio and TV Marti.

During the trial of the Cuban 5, the local, Cuban exile controlled media, created a lynch mob atmosphere, which, as the defense attorneys pointed out, made a fair trial impossible. Yet the judge would not allow a change of venue.

Not until 2006, when the story broke in the Miami Herald that news articles and opinion concerning the Cuban Five defendants resulted from "paid agents" of the U.S. government, did the reason for a hostile trial atmosphere and intimidation of the community begin to make sense. Furthermore, anti-Cuban mob mentality was the outcome of the use of the same inflammatory rhetoric designed to influence foreign listeners, but, instead, unleashed on the airwaves of U.S, stations in Miami-Dade County where a controversial trial was taking place. Broadcasts that misrepresent fact served only to cover up the truth.

Several newspaper reporters in Miami were fired by their papers when their editors discovered that they had been secretly receiving subsidies from Radio/TV Marti while reporting on the trial and other Cuba related matters.

A federal judge has now ordered the United States government to reveal more details about which journalists were subsidized by the U.S. government to create negative propaganda against the defendants in the Cuban 5 trial, and other specifics of the operation, which may well have violated federal law, as well as impugning the integrity of the whole trial process.

At writing, the government has not yet responded to the court order.

The shame rests with the refusal by the U.S. Congress to recognize that the people of both the U.S. and Cuba are the victims of a failed policy linked to a by-gone era. Taxpayers were defrauded because of a massive conflict of interest linked to an ongoing cover up. The Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 prohibits the domestic dissemination of information about the U.S., its people and its policies for propaganda purposes.

The jury was evidently misled by the judge, prosecutors, attorneys, journalists and reporters who failed their duty to observe due process and the right to a fair and impartial trial. The revolving door created to protect so-called national security was in fact a conspiracy that can only be unraveled by Congress. If transparency in the State Department seems to be the problem, the Justice Department should step in and issue an order to release information requested by defense attorneys.

All the convictions should be thrown out and the Cuban 5 must be returned unconditionally to their homeland.

Photo: CC/Flickr

War zone extends to Colombian prisons

Thu, 31 Oct 2013 15:04:00 +0000

For Colombian governments fighting a civil war, prisons are a tool of repression. Solidarity events for Colombia's 9,000 political prisoners took place in October, 2013. Organizers maintain Colombia is rife with "social and political violence where social protest is repressed and criminalized." Critic Azalea Robles reports 90 percent of political prisoners "are civilians jailed through their political activity ... unionists, environmentalists, teachers, agrarian leaders, academic critics ... and defenders of human rights.

Negotiators at peace talks in Cuba between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) are discussing political prisoners as part of their current agenda item, which is political participation. The imprisonment of two high profile veterans in the fight for agrarian and human rights illustrates the connection between arbitrary incarcerations and conditions of internal war.

David Ravelo led the political fight In the Barrancabermeja area against violent paramilitaries hired by big landowners and other wealthy interests to remove small farmers from land they were seeking. Having entered prison on September 14, 2010, he is serving an 18- year sentence on false charges of participating in a 1991 murder. Huber Ballesteros is vice president of the Fensuagro labor federation, Colombia's largest farm workers' union. His arrest on August 25, 2013 came early during the course of a nationwide National Agrarian Strike for which he was a spokesperson.

Ravelo's conviction rested on an accusation made by a jailed paramilitary chieftain in return for a shortened sentence. Ravelo's appeal focuses on a crime committed by his prosecutor in 1991. William Pacheco Granados, a police lieutenant then, participated in the forced disappearance of an individual. The Colombian military jailed him for the crime. Ravelo's lawyers now cite laws barring criminals from serving as prosecutor. Yet Pacheco Granados is still on the job.

Ravelo has received awards for defending human rights. International unions, United Nations officials, U.K lawyers and parliamentarian, and human rights groups have protested judicial irregularities in his case and demanded his release. International delegations have visited him in prison.

At a large gathering in Bogota on the third anniversary of Ravelo's arrest, speakers praised Ravelo's dedication to "Colombia's poor and humble" and his leadership of the Credhos human rights group. Voz newspaper director Carlos Lozano honored Ravelo as "a distinguished leader of the Communist Party," who, along with those he defended, faced "dungeons, intimidations, displacements, and death threats."

Ravelo fought on behalf of Colombians displaced from land. On a recent solidarity visit to Catatumbo Department, U.S. lawyer Dan Kovalik heard testimony describing rural terror attacks at the hands of soldiers and paramilitaries who enforce corporate land takeovers. The Colombian military, police, prison construction projects and, indirectly, paramilitaries all benefit from U.S. funding.

Huber Ballesteros faces charges of rebellion and supporting terrorists. In addition to his participation with the Fensuagro union, Ballesteros is a leader of the Patriotic March coalition movement, also part of the agrarian reform movement. An international solidarity campaign is demanding Ballesteros' freedom.

Hyper concentration of land has fueled the FARC's insurgency since its beginning in 1964, and the first agenda item of the Havana peace talks was agrarian rights. Although negotiators reached agreement on land issues several months ago, the arrest of Huber Ballesteros during the agrarian strike strongly suggests struggles over land are not over. That's the impression gained also from sentences handed down recently to three other jailed Fensuagro leaders.

Ballesteros' political participation has moved now to inside prison. He wrote the article "Privatization of justice and merchandizing of prisons" that appeared in early October. "To palliate its grave situation," he observed, "the crisis--ridden capitalist system uses the economic model of neo-liberalism to penetrate every sphere of society." The Colombian government "enacted laws that privatized the justice [system] and converted prisons into commercial establishments."

Ballesteros condemns "creation of new crimes with the purpose of overfilling prisons and [thereby] generating new 'clients' for private investment." He objects to "implementation of North American methods of justice, prisons, and prison operations."

Ballesteros' concern is for all prisoners in Colombia. "In this dance of the millions," he states, "we on the inside are the ones hurting. We suffer from corruption at all levels." The fallout, one observer explains, includes prisoner deaths due to bad quality medical care, rotten or contaminated food, and beatings. The prison population is up 30 percent over three years. Some 40,000 people are in prison without benefit of a trial.

The cases of Ravelo and Ballesteros are equivalent to a laboratory demonstration on skewed political participation. The two prisoners intervened in a class-divided society to defend victims of land- hungry corporations and oligarchs. And Ballesteros spoke up for masses of prisoners in the grasp of latter-day slave masters and their drivers.

Cuba gains UN victory over U.S.

Wed, 30 Oct 2013 15:50:00 +0000

The United Nations General Assembly on October 29 approved a Cuban resolution calling upon the United States to end its economic, commercial and financial blockade. The General Assembly has backed such a resolution every year since the non-enforceable resolution was first introduced in 1992. In preparing for the vote, the Cuban Foreign Ministry creates an annual report demonstrating cruelty and illegality ongoing for half a century.

This year 188 nations said "yes" to the Cuban resolution. Israel and the United States opposed and Micronesia, Marshall Islands and Palau abstained. A pattern of overwhelming majority votes began with 167 affirmative votes in 2000 culminating with 188 majority votes in 2012. The United States and Israel have opposed the resolution consistently.

In the Assembly debate prior to the vote, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez assured delegates that, "The human damages caused by the ...blockade imposed by the United States are incalculable." On the day of the vote, delegates of ten nations defended the Cuban resolution. U.S. delegate Ronald Godard opined that Cuba "still has one of the most restrictive economic systems in the world."

Cuba's yearly submission of the resolution creates an opportunity to register worldwide loathing of U.S. policies directed at Cuba. Additionally, Cuba uses the report delivered to voting nations to demonstrate adverse blockade effects on people's lives, Cuban national sovereignty, and economic sustainability. The report conveys crucial information on the centerpiece of U.S. anti-Cuban hostility. An English language version circulates on the internet.

Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Abelardo Moreno presented the detailed, comprehensive report on October 7 at a press conference at the William Soler Pediatric Cardiology Center in Havana. Blockade related shortages of essential surgical and medical materials have long burdened patients, families and physicians at that flagship hospital.

Certain categories of abuses outlined in document are worthy of note. For example, monetary loss at U.S. hands totals $1,157,327,000,000 (taking into account dollar depreciation). Figured into the amount are violations of Cuban patents, confiscation of Cuban funds abroad, losses from missed sales of products subjected to the blockade, losses of humanitarian assistance funds waylaid en route to Cuba, high costs from having to re-route imports blocked under U.S. rules through third countries, losses from interference with the tourist industry, losses from business contracts unfulfilled when foreign partners withdraw under U.S. pressures, and losses associated with U.S. purchases of foreign companies.

Foreign banks and other financial institutions face U.S. fines following accusations of handling dollars as part of transactions involving Cuban businesses, agencies, and citizens. U.S. identification of Cuba as a "terrorist" state serves as pretext. Fearful of losing U.S. business, targeted institutions often respond by permanently giving up relations with Cuba. As a result, difficulties mount for the island nations in securing international loans and foreign investment, receiving foreign donations, and pursuing normal overseas commerce.

Special targeting of Cuba's health care sector, in place for many years, continues. Multi-national drug manufacturers and medical equipment merchandisers pay big fines on U.S. discovery that medical devices or drugs sold by their subsidiaries to Cuba contain 10 percent or more of components originating from the United States. They usually drop Cuba as a customer. Clinical care centers, notably intensive care units, either go without crucial supplies or secure them expensively through third parties. Equipment available only in the United States is off limits for many critically ill patients. Medical imaging equipment is immobilized because essential computerized control systems require prompt authorization from the Microsoft Corporation. The blockade usually makes that impossible.

The Cuban report instructs U.S. citizens on the nature of their government. They learn that despite United Nations founding principles, the idea of national sovereignty may be trashed. They learn their government endangers innocent people, despite international law.

"Because of its declared purpose," the Cuban report says, "the political, legal and administrative framework on which the blockade rests qualifies as an act of genocide by virtue of the Geneva Convention of 1948." The United States has imposed "the most unjust, severe and extended system of unilateral sanctions ever enforced against any country."

That "declared purpose" has been evident ever since the release of an internal State Department memorandum in 1960. Author Lester Mallory observed that "The majority of Cubans support Castro. The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship." He proposed action which "makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government."

Awareness of such cruelty and illegality has long fueled resistance by a U.S. solidarity movement. Cuba's annual reports provide documentation essential for the purpose of sustaining that political campaign.

The contemporary relevance of the report this year is evident from the statement that "Damages done by the blockade to Cuban foreign trade amount to $3,921,725,790, a figure 10 percent above that of last year." Significantly, "The last five years have witnessed a persistent tightening of the economic, commercial and financial blockade of the United States government against Cuba, particularly of its extraterritorial dimension."

Photo: TMLDaily

Torpedoing the Iran nuclear talks

Tue, 29 Oct 2013 15:15:00 +0000

Friends and foes

As the U.S. and its allies prepare for another round of negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, powerful and wealthy opponents-from the halls of Congress to Middle East capitals-are maneuvering to torpedo them. At stake is the real possibility of a war with consequences infinitely greater than the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

When the U.S., Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany-the so-called "P5+1-sit down with Iran's negotiators in Geneva on Nov. 7, those talks will be shadowed by an alliance of hawkish U.S. Congress members, an influential Israeli lobby, and a new regional alliance that upends traditional foes and friends in the Middle East.

The fact that the first round of talks on Oct.15 was hailed by Iran and the P5+1 as "positive" has energized opponents of the negotiations, who are moving to block any attempts at softening international sanctions against Teheran, while at the same time pressing for a military solution to the conflict.

Current international sanctions have halved the amount of oil Iran sells on the international market, blocked Teheran from international banking, and deeply damaged the Iranian economy. The worsening economic conditions are the backdrop for the recent election of pragmatist Hassan Rowhani as president of Iran. Hassan's subsequent efforts to move away from the confrontational politics of former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appears a signal that Iran wants to peacefully resolve a crisis that has heightened tensions in the region and led to everything from the assassination of Iranian scientists to the world's first cyber war.

Nuclear weapons?

The central issue is whether Iran is constructing a nuclear weapon in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a charge Teheran denies. Iran is a NPT signatory and UN inspectors regularly monitor the country's civilian power plants and nuclear facilities. Enhanced fuel is required for civilian power plants and medical research, but it is also an essential ingredient in a nuclear weapon. Iran enhances some of its fuel to 20 percent. Bomb fuel must be 90 percent pure.

While no one claims Iran has a nuclear weapon, Teheran's has been less than candid about all its activities and critics charge that Iran is preparing to build one. But the Iranians say that secrecy is necessary-four of their nuclear scientists were assassinated by Israeli agents, and their nuclear industry was severely damaged by a joint Israeli-US cyber attack.

The upcoming negotiations will try to find common ground, but there are actors in this drama whose agenda have less to do with nuclear weapons than the shifting balance of power in the Middle East. The coalition opposed to a peaceful resolution of the current crisis is a combination of traditional hawks and strange bedfellows.

On the U.S. side are the usual suspects.

Neo-conservatives and hawks

There are the neo-conservatives who pressed so hard to invade Iraq, including former UN ambassador John Bolton, who recently called for Israel to attack Iran, former Pentagon analyst Matthew Kroenig, Gary Schmitt of the American Enterprise Institute, and historian Niall Ferguson.

They are joined by congressional hawks ranging from the traditional "we never saw a war we didn't like" types-Republican Senator Lindsay Graham who plans to introduce a resolution authorizing the use of military force against Iran-to Democrats, like liberal Ron Wyden, co-sponsor of a bill that would urge the U.S. to aid Israel militarily if Tel Aviv attacked Teheran.

A similar cast of characters helped sink a 2010 Brazilian-Turkish peace initiative that would have sent Teheran's enhanced fuel to a third country.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is lobbying Congress in an effort to constrain the Obama administration's negotiating options, and encouraging the Senate to pass a bill that would essentially prevent Iran from selling any of its oil. Many in the Congress have adopted the Israeli government's demand that Iran dismantle much of its nuclear industry and agree to end all enhancement activities, two things Teheran will almost certainly refuse to do.

While enhancement is not specifically mentioned in the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Article IV of the document guarantees the right "to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy," which treaty signers have long interpreted as the right to produce fuel for civilian nuclear power

The Israeli government and its American supporters demand an end to enhancement, a demand that would throw a monkey wrench into the negotiations. So far the Obama administration has remained silent on the issue, although back in 2009 then Senator, and now Secretary of State, John Kerry told the Financial Times that demanding Iran end enhancement was "ridiculous."

Gulf monarchies, Egypt, and Israel

U.S. opponents of any deal that is not an abject surrender by Teheran are the same old, same old, but not so in the Middle East, where a newly formed alliance is mobilizing to derail the nuclear talks: the Gulf monarchies, Egypt, and Israel.

The linchpin of this new alliance is Saudi Arabia and Israel, and their target is any rapprochement between Washington and Teheran. According to UPI, "secret meetings between Israeli and Arab intelligence chiefs" and other "senior officials" have been held in Jordan for several years. Their aim, according to Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren, is to destabilize the so-called "Shiite crescent," the "strategic arc that extends from Teheran, to Damascus to Beirut." The Shiite-dominated government of Iraq, currently under siege by Sunni extremists, is also in the cross hairs.

The new alliance cut its diplomatic teeth on the recent military coup in Egypt. According to investigative reporter Robert Perry, "While Saudi Arabia assured the coup regime a steady flow of money and oil, the Israelis went to work through their lobby in Washington to insure that President Barack Obama and Congress would not declare the coup a coup and thus trigger a cutoff of U.S. military aid."

The Saudis are also stepping up their support for anti-government insurgents in Syria and fomenting sectarian trouble in Lebanon. If the alliance is successful it will cement a military-backed authoritarian regime in Egypt, set Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq aflame with sectarian warfare, and sabotage any agreement between the U.S. and Iran.

While the alliance between Saudi Arabia and Israel initially seems an odd one, in fact both countries have similar strategic goals. Both support the overthrow of the Assad regime, both want to weaken Shiite-based Hezbollah in Lebanon, both want to see the minority Iraqi Sunnis back in charge, and both view Iran as a threat.

The Saudis and their allies in the Gulf Cooperation Council-the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, and new members Jordan and Morocco-fear domestic unrest, and see the Arab Spring as a direct threat to their monarchal governments. While all these countries have militaries, they are mainly for quelling internal dissent. The last time the Saudis took the field, they got beat up by the rag-tag Houthi in northern Yemen.

The Gulf Cooperation Council may field inept armies, but they have lots of cash. And if it comes to muscle, who better to provide it than the Israelis, the most powerful and competent army in the region? While the U.S. seems to backing away from using force against Iran, the Netanyahu government has sharply escalated its anti-Iran rhetoric. Israel recently began a series of war games built around long distance bombing raids, the kind that would be required to attack Iran.

Peaceful settlement?

The Iranians appear to want a settlement, but not one that looks like capitulation. The Obama administration's positive comments following the last round of talks suggest that Washington would like a way out as well. Key to this is ratcheting down some of the sanctions, but Congressional hawks are trying to poison the well by increasing sanctions and resisting any efforts to ease them.

A study late last year found that unless Washington and its allies ease sanctions, Iran is not likely to curb any of its nuclear programs. And this spring a bi-partisan panel of former U.S. officials and experts argued that sanctions are increasingly counterproductive.

Countering the anti-Iran alliance will not be easy, but Washington's reluctance to start another war in the Middle East reflects anti-war sentiment at home. The hawks may want a war, but they will find little support for it among Americans. A CBS/New York Times poll found that Americans overwhelmingly support negotiations, are not eager for war, and are evenly split about coming to Tel Aviv's aid in the advent of an Israeli attack.

AIPAC is influential, but it hardly represents all American Jews, who tend to support Israel, but not if it means a war with Iran. While AIPAC was trumpeting Netanyahu's characterization of Rowhani as a "sheep in wolf's clothing," the liberal Jewish lobby J Street hailed him as a "potentially hopeful sign," and opposes a military attack on Iran.

The new Middle East alliance has alienated Turkey, which still plays a pivotal, if somewhat diminished, role in the region. If the U.S. were to reach out to Russia, and try to pull Turkey into the process, that tripartite grouping would constitute a counterbalance to the monarchies and Israel, and move the region away from the growing power of the sectarian groups and the looming danger of yet another war.

Originally posted at Conn Hallinan's blog, Dispatches from the Edge.

Photo: A poster depicting an American negotiator wearing a suit jacket and a tie but with a vicious dog at his side was put up in Tehran on Oct. 27 by opponents of talks with the U.S. but removed a day later by the government. AP

Canadians sue spy agency over secret surveillance

Mon, 28 Oct 2013 15:14:00 +0000

VANCOUVER, Canada - As with the National Security Agency in the United States, Canada's spy agency, has come under fire after it was revealed that the agency is illegally spying on Canadians.

While there has been no Canadian version of whistleblower Edward Snowden, retired Judge Robert Decary, who has served as an independent watch dog for the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) since 2010, said he discovered evidence that agency illegally spied on Canadians over the past year.

"A small number of records suggested the possibility that some activities may have been directed at Canadians, contrary to the law," he wrote in his report to parliament recently.

The CSEC is a secretive, $400 million-a-year spy agency with 2,000 employees that has the power to place anyone under surveillance, without a court warrant. The organization is entrusted to provide intelligence information to the federal government. The right-wing Conservative Party government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, which campaigned for smaller government and less intrusive regulation and government intervention, is set to expand the spy agency. It plans to spend $4.2 billion to build a new high tech, 72,000-square-meter building for the agency in Ottawa.

Organizations concerned with civil liberties are demanding that the Conservative government reveal the full extent of illegal spying in Canada and bring in safeguards to ensure that privacy rights are respected.

The British Columbian Civil Liberties Association is suing the Harper government over "its secret and unchecked surveillance of Canadians," which it says is "unconstitutional."

"The BCCLA's lawsuit calls on the government to come clean and state clearly who they are watching, what is being collected and how they are handing Canadians' private communications and information. The BCCLA filed the case because we believe that secret and unrestrained government surveillance presents a grave threat to democratic freedom," according to a press release.

"By law, CSEC is permitted to read Canadians' emails and text messages, and listen to Canadians' phone calls, whenever a Canadian is communicating with a person outside Canada. CSEC also operates under a secret ministerial directive that allows it to collect and analyze the metadata information that is automatically produced each and every time a Canadian uses a mobile phone or accesses the Internet."

No court or committee oversees and monitors the CSEC's interception of these private communications and metadata information, and there is no judicial oversight of its sweeping powers, complains the civil liberty's group. "CSEC's operations are shrouded in secrecy."

The civil liberties group said it filed the lawsuit "to force the government to enact specific safeguards to protect the rights of all Canadians."

OpenMedia.ca, a coalition of groups, which include the Council of Canadians and Amnesty International Canada that are working to ensure the Internet is open, affordable and surveillance-free. OpenMedia has launched a national campaign to support the BCCLA lawsuit and wants to see more public oversight over the Canadian spy agency.

"The CSEC is definitely collecting metadata, which can pinpoint where some is, who people are meeting with, that sort of thing. If you are talking with someone outside Canada, you could be spied on through your email or telephone. We don't know what information is being shared between CSEC and NSA," according to OpenMedia Executive Director Steve Anderson in an interview.

"Canadians want to know what information is being collected, stored in these giant databases. The commissioner overseeing the spy agency does not know what information is being collected, stored."

The revelations of illegal spying comes on the heels of another scandal where the CSEC was caught spying on Brazil's Ministry of Energy and Mines. It also collected private Internet, phone and email messages of employees working for the ministry and spied on Paulo Cordeiro de Andrade Pinto, Brazil's ambassador to Canada from 2008-11. The CSEC then shared the information it collected with the NSA. The information was leaked by Brazil's Fantastico TV program on Oct. 7, based on information provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, now residing in Russia.

Claude Carignan, leader of the Conservative Party in the Canadian Senate, responded to critics by saying that the CSEC's watchdog has not found any evidence of illegal activity since the review body was set up 16 years ago.

Photo: Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper concludes trade negotiations with the European Union in Brussels on Oct. 18. The NSA spying scandal has embroiled Canada, Brazil and EU countries, most recently the revelations that German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been a target of the spy agency's surveillance.

Czech elections: Communists advance but protest candidates steal the show

Mon, 28 Oct 2013 12:18:00 +0000

On October 25 and 26, the Czech Republic held elections for the 200 seats in the lower house of parliament. Turnout was 59 percent. Contrary to what polls had predicted, the Social Democratic Party lost ground, though the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia scored a substantial gain. But a brand new protest party scored the largest gains, at the expense of the parties of the former ruling coalition and the Social Democrats.

The snap election was made necessary when the existing three-party conservative ruling coalition became unglued in stages. First, a humdrum corruption scandal hit the Public Affairs (VV) party last year. Then the Prime Minister, Petr Nečas, found himself personally enmeshed in a messier scandal. This forced Nečas to resign, and the leftish president, Miloš Zeman, appointed Jiři Rusnok as a caretaker prime minister. On August 7 of this year, Mr. Rusnok's government lost a vote of confidence, leading to the snap election.

Initially, it looked as if both the Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD) and the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM) would make gains at the expense of the right-wing coalition parties, the Civil Democratic Party (ODS) of disgraced former prime minister Nečas, TOP 09, the Party of the "Punk Prince" Karl Schwarzenberg, and the Liberal Democrats (LIDEM) who are a break off from the old VV.

There was even a thought that the left overall would make such an advance that the Social Democrats would drop their policy of not working with the Communists, and would form at least a minority government with Communist support.

The Communist Party indeed advanced: Its total of the vote jumped from 11.27 percent of the vote and 26 seats in parliament in the 2010 elections, to 14.91 percent of the vote and 33 seats after last week's election. Also, the conservative coalition parties suffered severe losses: TOP 09 dropped from 16.7 percent of the vote last time to 11.99 percent, and from 41 seats to 26. ODS dropped from 20.22 percent and 53 seats to 7.72 percent and 16 seats. The VV did not contest the election.

The big surprise was the poor showing of the Social Democrats, who dropped from 22.08 percent of the vote in the last election to 20.45 percent this time, going from 56 to 50 seats. Some had thought that the Social Democrats might get as many as 33 percent of the vote, and that the Communists might get up to 18 percent. It would appear that the Social Democrats' leader, Bohuslav Subotka, will now be replaced.

The seats lost by the coalition parties and the Social Democrats mostly went to a new party, ANO 2011, which is the personal vehicle of a wealthy entrepreneur, Andrej Babiš. It recieved 18.7 percent of the vote. A former member of the old Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, Babiš has made a fortune in agriculture and other fields. He positions himself and his party as a populist "throw the bums out" outfit dedicated to bringing "honest government" to a country sick of corruption scandals.

His post-election remarks suggest that he is really on the right. The Social Democrats and Communists had called for a more steeply progressive tax regime and the protection of social welfare programs against the wave of "austerity" that has been imposed on European countries by their own ruling classes as well as the International Monetary Fund, the Central Bank of Europe, and the European Union leadership.

Babiš opposes this on the ground that it will kill off entrepreneurial initiative. He has also said he will not agree to a coalition government with the Social Democrats.

Two smaller parties on the right, the Christian Democrats and the Dawn of Direct Democracy, each got 14 seats-14 more than either had held before.

The party that got the largest number of seats in parliament has the right to make the first attempt to put together a coalition government. So the Social Democrats get the first crack at it. Babiš is now being seen as a "kingmaker," because of the big bloc of parliamentary seats he now controls. But what Babiš and his party actually stand for, other than the fact that they don't like Social Democrats, Communists, and taxes, is by no means clear.

The phenomenon of anti-government, "throw the bums out" populist parties coming from behind to capture big votes has now become common in Europe. So far, the historical social democratic parties have not been able to stop this, and in some cases, as now in the Czech Republic, have lost ground. The communist parties have, with exceptions, held and sometimes expanded their support bases against the fool's gold of right-wing populism, but so far have not been able to expand sufficiently to channel the massive dissatisfaction in the whole continent against the current crisis.

For the left to become able to surmount this difficulty is vitally important; there is a real danger of fascists winning elections otherwise.

Photo: Andrej Babiš. AP

Slavery existing amidst Olympic preps in Qatar

Fri, 25 Oct 2013 13:57:00 +0000

The tiny Arab monarchy of Qatar is rolling in wealth from oil and natural gas. It has used this wealth to bankroll the rebellion against President Assad of Syria and to create the well know Al Jazeera TV network.

The native population of Qatar is only 250,000, and has a high standard of living. But the idea of paying decent wages and providing acceptable working conditions to millions of foreign migrant laborers working on the preparations for the 2022 FIFA football World Cup match has not yet caught on among Quatari movers and shakers.

An investigation by the Guardian has shown that the thousands of workers who are already constructing the infrastructure for the 2022 event, and the 1.5 million more who have yet to arrive, have to put up with slave like working conditions. Among the abuses documented are:

*Forty four workers have died in Qatar, mostly of heart attacks, which is not surprising as many are laboring in temperatures of 122 degrees Fahrenheit (44 Celsius) and are denied access to water.

*Labor brokers take their passports from the workers and refuse to give them the required Qatari identification cards; this is to keep them from running away.

*Wages are also deliberately withheld to keep workers from decamping.

*Finding themselves in abusive situations, workers are unable to switch to other jobs without permission of the labor contractor and Qatari authorities.

*Filthy, unsanitary and overcrowded living conditions for workers.

*Sometimes, physical attacks on workers who try to stand up for their rights.

*Wages owed are sometimes not paid at all.

Most of these workers come from Nepal, Bangladesh and other extremely poor South Asian countries. This is a pattern found in all the wealthy Arabian oil states, with some workers coming from the Philippines, India, Pakistan, Indonesia and sub-Saharan Africa also. Some of these migrant workers labor as personal servants of wealthy local families, which does not protect them from rough treatment.

Countries in the region whose private sector work forces consist overwhelmingly of migrant or "guest" workers from poorer nations include Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia.

The exploitation begins with rapacious labor recruiters in the workers' countries of origin, who charge high fees for connecting workers with jobs. Labor brokers in the wealthy receiving countries take another cut. Often workers end up deeply in debt to the recruiters, and they end up not having enough money left to send home to their impoverished families.

A major factor in making this exploitation possible is the lack of strong labor unions, or any unions at all, in the host countries, most of which have repressive anti-labor regimes. Qatar prohibits unions and strikes.

The contractors who are organizing the work on the ground are often "Western", i.e. U.S., British or other European companies. They have direct responsibility for assuring that workers are treated decently. But evidently, with more than $100 billion to be spent on the FIFA World Cup preparations, neither the contractors nor the Qatari government has been too strict about monitoring.

Organized labor is mobilizing internationally to oppose the Qatar horrors, which, according to the International Trade Union Confederation, will end up costing the lives of at least 4,000 workers - all for a football game.

Photo: Construction (pictured) in preparation for the 2022 World Cup has forced workers in Qatar to endure terrible working conditions. AP

Dominican court strips Haitian migrants of citizenship

Fri, 25 Oct 2013 11:06:00 +0000

On September 25, the Constitutional Court of the Dominican Republic decreed that between 200,000 and 300,000 persons born in the Dominican Republic of Haitian parentage must be stripped of their Dominican citizenship and the rights that go with it. Such people are to be considered "persons in transit" even if they were born in the country and have lived there all their lives. The court ordered the Dominican government to review the birth and citizenship records of all persons going back to 1929, and cancelling the citizenship of those whose parents had been undocumented immigrants from Haiti. President Danilo Medina promised to abide by the court ruling.

Haiti and the Dominican Republic share the island of Hispaniola, but have a history of friction going back to the early 19^th century. Most Dominicans speak Spanish while most Haitians speak Kreyol, which has French roots. As Haiti is poorer than the Dominican Republic, many Dominican landowners and businesspeople have brought in Haitian workers to do sweated labor at rock bottom wages, especially in the sugar cane fields, and as a result, a population of Haitian descent has built up over the years. Racist attitudes have played a part in negative attitudes toward Haitian immigrants, even though most Dominicans have African ancestry also.

In 1937, the Dominican dictator of the day, Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, ordered the massacre of at least 20,000 Haitian migrants and Dominicans of Haitian descent.

Trujillo was overthrown and killed in 1961, and in 1962 Dominicans elected a left-wing president, Juan Bosch, who called for a positive attitude toward Haiti and the Haitian people.

But Bosch was quickly overthrown by the military, who ruled the country briefly. In 1965, a popular revolt tried to restore Bosch and democracy, but U.S. President Lyndon Johnson sent in troops to suppress the rebellion and keep the right wing in power.

A Trujillo associate (he had been a puppet president under Trujillo) and fellow anti-Haitian bigot, Joaquin Balaguer, became president in 1966. Balaguer fully justified the 1937 massacre to as necessary to prevent the "Haitianization" of his country.

Meanwhile, Haiti was suffering under a series of corrupt U.S. supported dictators. This created more pressure for migration across the border to the Dominican Republic. In 1991, a radical Roman Catholic priest, Jean Bertrand Aristide, was elected president of Haiti with support from the poorest sections of the population. He was quickly overthrown. The Clinton administration aided Aristide's return, but in exchange major trade concessions. Aristide was elected again in 2001, but was soon overthrown in another armed revolt abetted by the Bush administration as well as Canada and France.

In January of 2010, a huge earthquake hit Haiti, flattening much infrastructure and killing tens of thousands of people. The world made many promises of aid, but only some of it ever arrived, and Haiti is still in very bad shape. In subsequent elections, Aristide's Lavalas party was not allowed to participate at the insistence of the United States, even though it is the biggest party in the country. The upshot was the election of rightist Mickey Martelly, the current president. Keeping a campaign promise, Martelly has promised to restore the Haitian Army, which was abolished by Aristide because all it had ever done in the recent past was carry out coups d'etat.

The circumstances following the earthquake naturally led to more undocumented immigration to the Dominican Republic.

Now, because of the Constitutional Court decision, thousands of people who were born in the Dominican Republic, and whose parents were also, are "allowed to work" but cannot benefit from government programs and services. Returning to Haiti is not an option; there are no jobs there and many of the people affected, having spent their entire lives in the Dominican Republic, don't speak Kreyol, only Spanish. The court ruling is very dubious because it affects people born in the Dominican Republic from 1929 onward but retroactively, on the basis of a law passed in 2010. But there is no appeal. President Medina and other politicians have made vague statements about "regularizing" the situation.

The Haitian government sharply denounced the court ruling as did CARICOM, the Caribbean Community, an organization to which Haiti belongs but the Dominican Republic is trying to join. The Haitians withdrew their ambassador from Santo Domingo, and pointed out that Haitian workers in the Dominican Republic had been contributing to the Dominican economy for many decades.

Other regional leaders spoke up sharply. Ralph Goncalves, the leftist Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, denounced the Dominican move: "Surely, this ruling by the court is unacceptable in any civilized community. It is an affront to all established international norms and elemental humanity, and threatens to make the Dominican Republic a pariah regionally and globally."

Photo: Haitian workers pile into a truck to get to their jobs. (Richie Diesterheft/Flickr/CC)

Train carrying oil derails, sets Alberta town ablaze

Tue, 22 Oct 2013 16:42:00 +0000

In what is shaping up to be a year of oil disaster after oil disaster, a train carrying crude and petroleum derailed and caused explosions near the Canadian village of Gainford, Alberta. While no one was injured, it forced the entire community to evacuate, and firefighters have decided they must let the resulting blaze burn itself out.

On October 19, the train, which belongs to Canadian National Railway, was en route from Edmonton to Vancouver when 13 of its cars derailed. The reason for the derailment has not yet been ascertained. The cars that carried petroleum were responsible for the explosion, while those that carried oil reportedly did not burst, meaning there is no known oil leakage. That is but the faintest silver lining in the otherwise black ash cloud that now writhes around the crash site.

"This fire needs to be extinguished by consuming the product," said county fire chief Jim Phelan. "We're going to let it burn itself out." And at least 100 Gainford residents, he added, will not be able to come back until that happens.

This is the second disaster of its kind in Canada this year, following the June 6 train derailment in Quebec, which caused massive explosions, killed 47 people, and spewed oil all over the town of Lac-Mégantic. And during that same month, another spill occurred outside of Zama City, Alberta when a toxic combination of oil, water, and other chemicals leaked from a pipeline. It has turned out to be a terrible year, in terms of oil disasters, for North America on the whole. But environmentalists note an uptick in train derailments in particular.

Keith Stewart, climate and energy campaign coordinator for Greenpeace, said that the derailment of trains carrying oil and other chemicals "will become the new normal," unless the Canadian government is willing to implement "serious new safety measures for oil by rail. Three years ago, there was almost no oil being moved by rail. It's been growing incredibly rapidly and it's projected to keep growing that way, and the safety standards in Canada simply have not kept up to the new ways to move new kinds of oil.

"I think what's happening is we're putting more and more oil into an infrastructure that is aging and wasn't really designed for it in the first place, and that's increasing the risk."

Ben West, a campaigner with environmental group Forest Ethics, suggested that the decision of government and Big Oil to move away from pipelines and start transporting crude via train has been marketed as a safer practice, but is, in actuality, just as dangerous. "To try and get around the pipeline process by pushing more rail through, especially with the implications of it, seems highly irresponsible to me."

Kate Collarulli of the Sierra Club agreed, saying that pipeline vs. rail arguments were pointless. "To say that we have to choose between rail or pipelines is cynical and defeatist," she said. "Oil is a dangerous fuel no matter how it is transported."

West went on to criticize the continued usage of outdated rail cars on such trains, noting, "We really should be looking at what kinds of train cars are being used. Some of these old ones seem really problematic."

Brett VandenHeuval of environmental group Columbia Riverkeeper said, "We've seen over and over that these train derailments are not a matter of if but when. And when a train derails while it is carrying hazardous cargo, it's a threat to our public safety, our economy, and our environment."

Photo: Transportation and Safety Board of Canada

U.S. influence figures in Honduran presidential race

Tue, 22 Oct 2013 16:18:00 +0000

Honduras chooses a president on November 24. Xiomara Castro, candidate of the new Liberty and Refoundation Party (Libre) is running against the National Party's Juan Orlando Hernández and Mauricio Villeda of the Liberal Party. Hondurans will also elect 128 members of parliament and 298 mayors. Three U.S. congresspersons have some election advice for Secretary of State John Kerry.

Representatives Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Arizona), Hank Johnson, D-Georgia) and Mike Honda (D-California) wrote him recently urging that the U.S. government "ensure free and fair elections" and "be entirely neutral in its public and private messages to this country." They seek State Department condemnation of "attacks targeting human rights defenders and the opposition."

Noting past U.S. support for "specific candidates in Latin American elections," they point out that, "In November 2009, while the military coup in Honduras was still in force and basic civil liberties violently repressed, the State Department announced it would recognize the outcome of the presidential election even before the ballots had been counted."

The election that year giving the presidency to National Party candidate Porfirio Lobo was marked by abstentions, arbitrary arrests, repression of independent media, violence, and early withdrawal of candidates. It followed the military coup that removed President Mel Zelaya (Xiomara Castro's husband) from office on June 29, 2009. The military plane carrying Zelaya to exile in Costa Rica stopped en route at the U.S. Palmerola Air Base. Wikileaks revelations attest to State Department consultation with coup perpetrators beforehand.

The representatives claim the State Department "has largely countenanced the concentration of institutional power in the Honduran government in the past year ...through illegal means." They worry that "the freedom and fairness of this election is very much at risk, because "the ruling party now dominates all the key institutions of the government."

Critiquing "militarization of the police," they state that "at least sixteen activists and candidates from LIBRE have been assassinated since June of 2012." "The candidate of the incumbent National Party," they observe, has "based much of his campaign on a new hybrid military police, 5,000-strong."

The outcome is unclear. Polling carried out between September 28 and October 5 by Technimerck shows Libre Party candidate Xiomara Castro preferred by 31.2 percent of voters (unchanged since August); Juan Orlando Hernández of the National Party, by 21 percent (a six point jump); and the Liberal Party candidate, by 14.8 percent. Party preference is divided between the National Party at 28.5 percent and the Libre Party at 28.2 percent. Gallup polling between September 6 and 12 found Xiomara Castro favored by 29 percent of voters and Juan Orlando Hernández by 27 percent, up nine percent since May. Several small parties are fielding candidates.

The Libre Party is an outgrowth of the National Front for Popular Resistance, formed immediately after the coup. Libre's presidential campaign breaks an electioneering monopoly the two traditional parties enjoyed for a century. Its goal, according to founding documents, is to establish a "participatory and pro-socialist" form of government. Xiomara Castro has promised to revive President Zelaya's Solidarity Network that "benefited more than 200 thousand families in extreme poverty ... with undivided attention to [their] health care and education." Such programs will serve "all families that need them, without political distinction." Castro supports "infrastructure and projects serving [agricultural] production," "We want a constituent national assembly, she announced, "to give power to the people." Zelaya's advocacy for a constituent assembly was one cue for the right-wing coup that removed him.

Failure of governance is a theme Castro returns to. Honduras' murder rate is the world's highest. Skyrocketing debt has led to economic crisis. The police are widely seen as corrupt and infiltrated by organized crime elements. The Libre Party calls for "community police" made up of "citizen professionals." Xiomara Castro is optimistic: "We beat them in the streets," she said, referring to uprisings after the coup, and "now we will do it at the ballot box."

Priorities in Washington are otherwise. U.S. administrations tend to favor Latin American outcomes that maximize U.S. corporate access to natural resources. The Porfirio Lobo government is a willing partner in this. U.S. military spending in Honduras increased in 2011 by 71 percent over the previous year. There are new U.S. military bases ostensibly directed at drug trafficking. Honduras has become a communications hub for U.S. military, police, and drug enforcement activities in Central America.

The recent letter follows one from 87 House Democrats in May, 2011 to Secretary of State Clinton, another in March, 2013 from 94 representatives to Kerry; and one more from 21 senators on June 17, all three asking that security assistance be suspended.

For the executive branch to disregard congressional advice on the elections, as apparently happened with communications on a different subject earlier, is to ask for trouble. The appearance would be that of the U.S. government interfering with an election capable of delivering political power to a party aspiring to take on social disaster. U.S. leaders would look like they accept the suffering going along with Honduras' 67 percent poverty rate in 2012. They would apparently be tolerating the murders of at least 60 agrarian rights activists in Aguan and, since the coup, of two dozen journalists and 70 members of the LGBT community.

Whether appearances in such matters concern them is questionable, however.

Photo: Xiomara Castro De Zelaya's Facebook page.

Mi'kmaw nation fights fracking on sovereign land

Tue, 22 Oct 2013 12:18:00 +0000

When one thinks about Canada, ideas of socialized health care, marriage equality and maple syrup usually come to mind. However, on October 17, Canada showed its true colors by filing an injunction against the Mi'kmaw Nation blockade in New Brunswick and ordering 200 Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) to march against the protestors.

The front line of this particular blockade was comprised of the tribe's elder women. Close behind were the women and children, as well as the male warriors of the Mi'kmaw nation.

While the elders were armed only with drums, feathers, and honor songs, the 200 RCMP that marched against met them heavily armed. They arrived with rubber bullet-filled guns, tear gas, as well as armed snipers to go up against a group of peaceful protesters.

Against these weapons, the Mi'kmaw people began to fight back using only what they had available such as water bottles, rocks and cups of coffee. In videos circulating on the Internet, you can see the Mounties pushing back the crowds as women scream while clutching their faces and men are dragged to ground and kicked. It has also been reported that Mounties showed no discrimination of age when it came to shooting rubber bullets and spraying tear gas at children as well as adults. By the end, Mi'kmaw tribal leadership along with 40 protesters were arrested.

As the Mountie attacks escalated, people of the blockade started setting fire to RCMP vehicles and the tank they brought with them in case a group of peaceful protesters became too much for them to handle. This is the angle that mainstream media is choosing to show, rather than the real issue here: the Canadian government has waged war on the Mi'kmaw people and their land.

Why is Canadian government concerned with the Mi'kmaw land? According to the Department of Energy and Mines of the Province of New Brunswick's website: In 2010, Canada accepted Houston-based Southwestern Energy Company's (SWN) bid to begin an exploration program that would cover over 2.5 million acres in order to test new hydrocarbon basins.

But this plan encroaches on the sovereign land of the indigenous peoples, in this particular instance, Mi'kmaw land. This goes against Canada's own constitution, which states that indigenous people have inherent rights to traditional lands and all of the resources that reside there. LastRealIndians interviewed former Chief of the Elsipogtog Nation, Susan Levi Peter, who said: "According to our understanding we signed an agreement with the New Brunswick provincial government that guaranteed consultation. According to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples we have a right to free, prior and informed consent with our community before anyone is to drill or pursue something like shale gas, especially by fracking. Additionally, according to the Supreme Court, the provincial government has a duty to consult according to the Marshall case (R. v. Marshall) and the Gray cases (R. v. Gray)."

This has become an extension of the ongoing problem of Canada's racial profiling of First Nations people. The Canadian government, under the regime of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, seems to think First Nations people incapable of controlling their affairs concerning land, water and other natural resources. The government no longer relies on confusing political jargon in new legislation, now they feel it necessary to use excessive force.

With the introduction of Bill C-45, Harper managed to ignite the Idle No More movement. Bill C-45 is comprised of 400 pages, covering 64 regulations, more than a few of which concern the First Nation people greatly: The bill amends the Fisheries Act, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, the Navigable Waters Protection Act and the Canada Labour Code. The Mi'kmaw people are one of the few First Nation tribes to assert their sovereignty over their tribal lands.

Since mainstream media seems to have a wrong focus on this issue, many protesters are looking to social media to spread the news and organize actions in solidarity. Outlets such as Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook have been vital in the release of information regarding the Elsipogtog blockade: images of solidarity, videos and reports from the front line. Social media has been key in bringing awareness on this issue.

By donating to the blockades, showing your solidarity, and by simply keeping yourself informed, you can help this movement greatly. The First Nations people and their allies urge you to rise and be IDLE NO MORE!

For sending donations go to http://www.gofundme.com/4uridc This page is to raise money to help support the issues of First Nation people as they continue the fight to keep dangerous fracking off tribal lands.

In a late breaking development reported by CBC News, a request by SWN Resources Canada to extend a court injunction that prevents anyone from impeding its exploration activities in New Brunswick has been denied by a judge. The anti-fracking fight continues.

Germany: the latest ups and downs

Mon, 21 Oct 2013 13:20:00 +0000

First the decent news, then the indecent items.

Remember

An American woman has been honored for her heroic work against the Nazis in World War II.

Mildred Fish was born in Milwaukee in 1902. She met a German fellow student, Arvin Harnack, at the Univ. of Wisconsin in Madison, married him and moved to Germany, where she taught English literature. When Hitler seized power the two helped organize a group of anti-Nazis and became part of a large network of resistance groups, labeled the Red Orchestra (Rote Kapelle) by the Gestapo. Aside from sticker and leaflet actions, they also established radio contact with the allies, including the Soviets.

But the Nazis were able to decode a message, and hundreds were arrested, including the Harnacks. Arvid was hanged within five days of the trial. Mildred, sentenced at first to six years, was retried at the express orders of Hitler and sentenced to death. She was guillotined on February 16, 1943, the first American citizen to suffer that fate. Because of their Communist leanings they were rarely honored in West Germany, but both portrayed on postage stamps in the GDR (socialist East Germany). So it was good to see a government official, the US ambassador and surviving relatives at the ceremony when the stumble stones were placed at their last home in Berlin.

Honor?

The next story did not begin at a university but ended at one, far less heroically, but for many, they hoped, only temporarily. A new professorial chair was installed at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelm-University in Bonn, financed by the Foreign Ministry and even more generously by the Defense Ministry, and ceremoniously named the "Henry Kissinger Chair for Foreign Relations and International Law." It had been announced on his 90^th birthday in May. Protests have been mounting, by the Green student organization and many others. Honoring a man whose name is connected with the slaughter of tens of thousands and more in Chile, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, East Timor and Bangladesh made this decision by Bonn academics and Berlin politicians seem, in the word of the Bundestag representative of the Linke (Left) party, simply "grotesque".

Scandal

Also grotesque, though with less of an international dimension, was a scandal plaguing the Roman Catholic Church in Germany in recent months. In the small West German city of Limburg, pop. 33,619, the local bishop, Franz-Peter Tebartz-van-Elst, 54, had delusions of grandeur. Soon after his appointment he decided to indulge his love of architecture by rebuilding the bishop's residence. The cost was set originally at about 3.5 million Euros but the princely design and decoration led to a truly regal -- but secret -- pile of bills. Turning newly-created rooms under the building into luxurious quarters, palatial art works and a beautiful chapel for the very pious bishop, who required it for his undisturbed prayers, helped raise the costs to at least 31 million, not counting repairs for damage on adjoining buildings.

Using an incredible amount of criminal manipulations he and a few buddies, robed and unrobed, kept it very secret until recently, when it came out in line with an inquiry about a long-denied but finally admitted air flight to India -- first class -- to view poverty-stricken areas, and because of angry stirrings in the congregation at this far-right homophobic, islamophobic bishop known for ruthless treatment of all who opposed him. Church collections have decreased alarmingly and the German bishop's council -- and perhaps a pope devoted to modesty -- will soon decide this art-lover's fate in an affair fully deserving the name of the area's most famous product -- Limburger cheese!

New government

But the main news from Germany concerns the formation of a new government after the recent elections. Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) together with Bavarian sister party Christian Socialist Union (CSU), ruled by hubris, had expected to win a majority of Bundestag seats and rule the country by themselves. Largely due to Angela they did indeed do amazingly well in East and West but missed their expected goal by a measly five seats and therefore required a new partner. They had thrown their previous, conservative partners, the Free Democrats, to the winds; since it had no seats at all and was thus out of the running, Merkel was forced to choose a new partner - either the Greens or the Social Democrats (SPD).

At one time even the thought of Greens and CDU-CSU "Christians" ruling together would have been laughed out of the room; they seemed total opposites. But the Greens, far milder, now represent less rebellious youth than satisfied professionals, while some of their "right wing", like the minister president of Baden-Wurttemberg, also a wild radical in his youth, now want to look more to "business people". But the polite meetings of the two parties led nowhere, the Greens could not abandon their major issues, ecology and safe energy, so this coalition idea was abandoned.

At their weekend congress, reflecting their meager 8.4 percent election returns, they dropped some older leaders and proclaimed that they would no longer remain inseparable allies of the Social Democrats. How could they decide otherwise, with the SPD in the government and they in opposition? A few brave Green souls even broached the possibility of someday working with the Linke -- till now a virtually total taboo. They will almost be forced to cooperate in some ways; even together these two opposition parties will have only about 20 percent of the seats, while a Grand Coalition of Christian and Social Democrats will have about 80 percent.

Of course, anyone with half a political brain could predict that the SPD and the CDU-CSU would again form another Grand Coalition, as between 2005-2009, even though that solution proved disastrous for the SPD. But those warm, soft cabinet chairs are far more tempting than the cold seats on the opposition side, and the SPD, after trying to sound a bit tough, reached the expected agreement in the end. Indeed, the head of Merkel's Bavarian sister party CSU, even further to the right than her CDU, noted after the last meeting with the SPD that "the atmosphere was good, there was even some laughter".

Evidently the SPD won out with its long overdue 8.5 Euro minimum wage demand, always opposed by right-wingers in Merkel's band but otherwise largely accepted. But it will sacrifice its second main campaign demand: raising taxes on super-wealthy companies and individuals. "You just can't win them all!" they indicated, though the money is sorely needed for education, infrastructure, and anti-poverty efforts. Yet the special congress of the SPD this evening will almost give its approval, if grudgingly for some. As for the planned mail-in vote of all their members, possibly less willing to join their traditional CDU foes, this seems at the moment to have been quietly "forgotten".

This new willingness by SPD leaders was easier since "Mutti" Merkel still maintains - most of the time -- that pleasant look and tone (in Mutti - for mommy - the "u" is not pronounced like a canine "mutt" in German, but much like the "oo" in "crook"). But, ach! - When you peek just a little behind the scenes, you wonder about the smiles, the "good atmosphere" - and the laughter.

Emissions

Last week German representatives succeeded in forcing environmental ministers of the other European Union countries to put off enforcement on lower CO-2 emissions by heavy European-made cars. As the magazine Der Spiegel put it, "There were threats, lobbying and even a call from Chancellor Merkel to the Irish prime minister (the present chairperson). In the end, Germany got its way and managed to delay an EU decision." The atmosphere, also politically, will surely suffer.

At almost the same time the interested German public learned that the Quandt family, major shareholders in the company making BMW cars, had just given the CDU a friendly present of 690,000 Euros. This was just pocket money for the family, but was a great help to the CDU which, like the Quandts, quickly denied any connection between the two items - although BMW (and Mercedes) are the worst offenders with their heavy cars. And they don't want to change.

The family is fascinating. Johanna, its head, one of the wealthiest women in the world, was married to one of the two Quandt brothers, who with their father Günther were among Hitler's major industrialists, producing batteries for submarines and V-2 rocket launchers, Mauser guns and other friendly products, using more than 50,000 Polish female forced laborers, POWs and concentration camp slaves to build their fortune, which they carried over into their post-1945 business -- including BMW.

The other Quandt son, a half-brother, after the divorce and remarriage of his mother, became the loving stepson of none other than Hitler's propaganda minister Goebbels. In the last days of the war, Goebbels, before poisoning himself, wife and daughters, sent his stepson a farewell note: "It's likely that you'll be the only one to remain who can continue the tradition of the family." He did his best. When he received the letter, he was a POW of British troops in -- of all places -- Benghazi! There's something for Sen. Rand Paul to really dig into!

Maneuvers

And here is another sector of Merkel's program, which the SPD will almost certainly be supporting, as it has with similar scenarios in the past. The event ran parallel to its jolly coalition conferences:

"As German military sources report, between September 30 and October 10 there were major maneuvers in the Lüneburger Heath area near Bergen and Munster (not far from the former Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, VG). The so-called Informational Training Operation, involving 3500 soldiers and 700 land and air vehicles, was viewed by future general staff and admiral staff officers at the Bundeswehr Leadership Academy and other officers in training. As one of the participants stated, "You need to smell the powder and hear the noise". The basic scenario for the maneuvers was based on the landing of German troops in a fictive country of "Obsidia" with the aim of putting down active rebellions there." (German Foreign Policy, October 17, 2013)

Linke

Perhaps such plans help explain why the Linke party -- despite occasional disagreement -- has insisted in its program on "no use of German troops abroad for any purpose". Even if labeled humanitarian aid, any such use helps to strengthen such eager elements and train their armed assailant units. This issue has been a major stumbling block for any possible coalitions on a national basis between the SPD and Greens with the Linke. We must wait to see who sticks to his guns -- or who rejects them!

Photo: Mildred Fish Harnack, circa 1943. Wikimedia CC 3.0.

French students rebel against deportations of classmates

Fri, 18 Oct 2013 12:54:00 +0000

The arrest of a Roma girl on a school bus in front of her classmates, and her subsequent deportation to Kosovo along with her family, has caused an uproar in France and split the ruling Socialist Party of President Francois Hollande.

Hollande's predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy, had initiated a policy of demolishing Roma camps and deporting their residents, mostly to Romania. Sarkozy's rhetoric on the subject of Roma, Muslims and foreigners in general was dangerously provocative. Roma or Romani are the names of the people historically called gypsies, which is now considered pejorative.

To the surprise of some, the nominally socialist government, which replaced Sarkozy in the 2012 elections, has not backed away from this general policy. Interior Minister Manuel Valls has made recent statements that coincide with those of the previous government, and over the last couple of weeks, has moved again to deport migrant Roma (i.e. those not born or naturalized in France) and dismantle their encampments.

This has brought Valls, Prime Minister Ayrault and President Hollande into conflict with the left, including the Communist Party and some in their own party, human rights defenders and the European Commission.

The situation sharply escalated on Oct. 9, when immigration police took a 15 year old high school student, Leonarda Dibrani, off a school bus to be deported along with her parents who had lost an appeal for asylum in France.

Her father had already been expelled and police had not found Leonarda at home when they went to expel her mother along with six other siblings. So they called the teacher who was accompanying the field trip and forced her to order the bus to be stopped. Students on the bus did not know why the police were after Leonarda, and some began to speculate that perhaps she had "stolen something." Leonarda's teacher remonstrated angrily with the police about the cruelty of arresting a child in this way, but was rebuffed.

There is prejudice in France, as in many other European countries, against the Roma people, who are often poor and live in precarious and marginalized situations. They are often stigmatized with racist stereotypes. In Leonarda's case, she has lived in France most of her life and speaks fluent French. She was doing well in school where she is popular with non-Roma fellow students.

In Kosovo, Leonarda and her family face a life of much greater instability, poverty and danger. Since the Kosovo War of 1998-1999 and under independent Kosovo, many Roma have been expelled and remaining families face bad treatment.

Previously, Interior Minister Valls had been sharply criticized by the European Commission for stating that most of the 20,000 or so immigrant Roma in France should be deported because they have a very different lifestyle from the French people and cannot be assimilated, language shockingly similar to that adopted by fascists of various countries. The commission pointed out that European Union rules allow free movement among the member states.

Many commentators speculate that the current government has adopted a highly visible anti-Roma stance because one of its rival political parties, the far right, neo-fascist National Front headed by former presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, has been doing well in some areas of the country, in part because of its demagogic scapegoating of immigrants for France's economic troubles.

However, the other France soon raised its voice. On Thursday, thousands of high school students in Paris and elsewhere hit the streets demanding justice for Leonarda and for another deported student, Katchiki Kachatryan, who is of Armenian origin.

The French left also spoke out forcefully. The French Communist Party daily, L'Humanité, published numerous articles on the case, all of them critical of the government's policy and action and demanding change, and top leaders of the Party, including Secretary General Pierre Laurent, and the French Young Communist League joined the student demonstrations.

Green Party members of Hollande's cabinet also denounced the government and hinted that this might endanger their cooperation with it. Some Socialist Party leaders also denounced Valls' action, but it appears that Hollande will not criticize it, let alone oust Valls.

At writing, the government seems to be backing off a bit, suggesting that the case of Leonarda and her family might be reviewed.

Photo: Students filled the streets of Paris, in some cases barricading schools, in protest of the deportations of classmates and their families. (AP)

Experts put Iraq death toll at nearly 500,000

Wed, 16 Oct 2013 14:45:00 +0000

The first major study into the human cost of the Iraq war in eight years has found that nearly half a million people died because of the U.S.-led invasion.

Research published in the PLOS Medicine journal on Tuesday said there were at least 461,000 "excess" deaths between 2003 and 2011 as a direct result of violence or the associated collapse of civil infrastructure.

It was the first analysis since 2006, the bloodiest period of the war.

Various studies have estimated the number of people killed because of the illegal invasion of Iraq.

The figure dwarfs the estimate from the Iraq Body Count project, which has counted 112,000 violent deaths since the invasion.

That largely bases its figure on media reports and hospital records.

The U.S.-based researchers surveyed 2,000 households in Iraq, ensuring a representative geographical spread, and asked people about the number of deaths from January 2001 to March 2003, when the U.S. and its allies invaded.

They compared this with the number who had died since the invasion, saying the rate was 50 per cent higher after 2003.

Based on the interviews, they estimated that the "total excess deaths attributable to the war" were 405,000 - adding 56,000 to that total to account for families who fled the country.

The researchers said at least 60 percent of the excess deaths were down to violence, attributing 35 per cent of those to coalition forces and 32 per cent to sectarian militias.

And despite bomb attacks hogging the headlines, the survey found that only 12 percent were due to car bombs and 9 percent to other explosions.

Gunfire was the biggest killer, accounting for 63 percent of violent deaths.

The researchers said the number of nonviolent deaths - chiefly because of cardiovascular failure - also increased after the invasion.

Lead author Amy Hagopian said people are unable to leave their homes for medical help during war, while hospitals are overwhelmed by violent injuries.

"The water is compromised. Stress is elevated. The power is out. The distribution networks for medical supplies are compromised," she told NBC news.

This article is reposted from Morning Star.

Photo: California National Guard/Flickr (CC)

"Hasta Siempre, Comandante": On the anniversary of the murder of Che

Fri, 11 Oct 2013 12:12:00 +0000

On October 9, 1967, hirelings in the employ of Bolivian dictator Rene Barrientos, supported and instigated by the United States government via C.I.A. operative Felix Rodriguez, carried out the cold blooded murder of comandante Ernesto "Che" Guevara. A drunken army sergeant fired the shots, while Rodriguez made off with Che's watch.

Che was a young Argentine physician who had visited most of the countries of South and Central America in his youth. What he saw of sickness, exploitation and poverty helped to turn him into a revolutionary. He was in Guatemala in 1954 when the Central Intelligence Agency overthrew the progressive and democratic government of President Jacobo Arbenz, setting off a civil war that took 200,000 civilian lives, and whose violent reverberations still shake that Central American nation. This experience helped solidify the young revolutionary's determination to work to end U.S. domination not only in the Western Hemisphere but worldwide.

Che joined Fidel and Raul Castro in their return to Cuba in the 60-foot cabin cruiser "Granma", and was one of the few who survived the traumatic first weeks of the insurgency. Though trained as a doctor, he opted to fight along his Cuban comrades, which was made very difficult by his chronic and severe asthma. As a revolutionary comandante, he struck many blows against the U.S. supported dictator of Cuba, Fulgencio Batista, especially in the key battle of Santa Clara in December of 1958.

When the revolution triumphed, Che headed the revolutionary tribunals which tried, and sometimes executed, imprisoned or, in other cases, exonerated people accused of crimes of oppression under the Batista Regime. He also played an important role in organizing the new revolutionary government's economic and social policies. More than that, Che was a major Marxist theoretician and philosopher, who reminded people that revolutionary transformations are not matters of bread alone.

But Che belonged to all of struggling humanity, not just to his native Argentina or his adopted country, Cuba. So his thoughts were never far from other countries where imperialism and colonialism held brutal sway. He toured Africa and worked to create a revolutionary force in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in that case without success.

Che Guevara went to Bolivia in November, 1966, with the idea that if a rural insurgency, guided by Marxist and Anti-imperialist theory, could develop in that country, it could help to spur similar movements in neighboring lands, including Argentina, land of his birth. But his revolutionary mission in Bolivia went tragically wrong. On October 7, 1967 Bolivian security forces, accompanied by the C.I.A.s Felix Rodriguez, captured Che after a brief fire fight, and took him to the village of la Higuera, in Santa Cruz province.

Later, Rodriguez wrote a self-serving memoir of what words passed between the two of them; nobody knows what was really said. But any rate, the dictator, Barrientos, gave orders for Ernesto Che Guevara to be shot dead. His hands were cut off as proof that he had really died, and his body was buried in a secret grave. In 1995, Che's remains were discovered, exhumed and sent to Cuba for a moving state funeral. The diary he had kept during his Bolivia campaign has become a revolutionary classic.

Barrientos was killed in a helicopter accident in April of 1969. Fidel and Raul Castro still live and work toward the goals that they shared with Che. The C.I.A. agent, Felix Rodriguez, who went on to play an ignoble role in the U.S. government's bloody interventions in Central America, is also still alive.

Many of the countries through which Che Guevara had traveled, including Bolivia, are very different places now, with progressive governments that have been working mightily to empower and improve the living standards of the sectors of their populations which were living in grinding povery in Che's day. Che's image is everywhere.

Imperialism still lives also, given a new lease on life by the collapse of the Soviet Union and its socialist allies in Europe. But even though as of this past Wednesday, October 9, Che's has been dead for 43 years, he is still with the Cuban people and the oppressed peoples of the world in all their struggles.

As Carlos Puebla put it in his beautiful 1965 song, "Hasta Siempre Comandante":

"We will keep going forward, as we did with you before, and with Fidel we say to you: 'until forever, comandante". ("Seguiremos adelante, como junto a tí seguimos, y con Fidel te decimos 'hasta siempre, comandante.'")

Photo: Ernest Che Guevara delivers a speech on behalf of Cuba at the United Nations, Dec. 11, 1964. (United Nations on YouTube screenshot)

Cuba: U.S. cows firms on embargo, harms economy

Fri, 11 Oct 2013 10:16:00 +0000

For the 22nd consecutive year, Cuba has introduced a resolution at the United Nations General Assembly calling for the United States to end its 53-year economic war against the island nation. The ambassadors of more than 36 other countries have taken the floor to support the Cuban motion, which will be voted on shortly.

Information provided by Cuba shows that the United States government has not given up its main strategy, which is to do so much damage to the Cuban economy that the people will rise up to restore capitalist rule. That this plan has not worked in five decades does not daunt U.S. leaders.

The Cuban document states that as of now, the U.S. economic boycott has cost the Cuban people $1,157,327,000, with at least $39 million last year alone. In spite of early hopes that the Obama administration would at least soften the policy, the blockade is becoming more intense and oppressive as the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has become more active in blocking Cuba related financial and banking transactions. The United States claims the right to go after third country (neither Cuban nor U.S.) persons, institutions and businesses that trade with Cuba if they are linked to U.S. businesses.

Given the increasing integration of the world's financial institutions in which United States financial entities play such a huge role, this means that OFAC can target and fine more and more U.S. affiliates for the business their parent companies do with Cuba. The Trading with the Enemy Act - extended by President Obama last year - the Torricelli Act and the Helms-Burton (Cuba Democracy) Act, plus the absurd listing of Cuba as a "state sponsor of terrorism" constitute the backbone of U.S. Cuba policy toward this nation of 11 million.

Just a few of the many examples listed (which in turn are only a sample of a much greater whole) include the following:

* A British not-for-profit organization, the Cuba Solidarity Campaign, tried to buy 100 copies of Salim Lamrami's 2013 book The Economic War Against Cuba: A Historical and Legal Perspective on the U.S. Blockade, which was published by Monthly Review Press in New York, to distribute in their solidarity work in the United Kingdom. However, the financial transaction for the purchase of the books, which entailed both Chase Bank in New York and the Cooperative Bank in Britain, was stopped by OFAC, which demanded that the British organization explain to the United States government what its relation to Cuba is. The plan was not even to send the books to Cuba, but to distribute them in the United Kingdom. Lamrami, a French citizen, has frequently criticized U.S. Cuba policy.

* Several third country banks and insurance companies have told Cuba that they have to cancel their accounts and policies with Cuban entities, because U.S. businesses to which they are linked fear that if they don't, they will be fined by OFAC. One Japanese bank, Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, was fined $8,571,634 for processing fund transfers with Cuba.

* The Cuban embassies in Botswana and Namibia found that the automobile insurance of their personnel had been cancelled, because the insurance company had been bought by a U.S. company.

Third country banks go along with this nonsense because under OFAC rules, if they do not cooperate with the blockade their assets in the United States could be confiscated.

Cuba is famous for its state of the art health care and health research work, and for the help it provides to other poor countries in health care, including the training of thousands of doctors. However, there are things that Cuba cannot do in the health care field, because of the ever-vigilant OFAC snoops.

Cuba cannot acquire certain types of advanced health care, diagnostic and surgical equipment, or has had to pay extra for equipment that lacks the 10 percent of U.S. origin materials or parts which makes the blockade kick in. Cuban health care professionals are forbidden from attending some international health meetings and seminars, because part of the expenses of these activities are being paid by U.S. institutions or non-governmental organizations, who could be fined.

Cuba is supposed to be able to buy some food from the United States, but cannot do so on normal credit terms other countries are afforded, which drives up the costs. Naturally, Cuba is not allowed to sell its products in the United States, even medical innovations that would be helpful to U.S. people.

In addition, the embargo hinders U.S. business. Recently, a group representing 11 Midwestern state governments voted in favor of lifting the Cuba trade restrictions, which hurt the economy of this agricultural-rich region. According to the resolution, if the restrictions were ended each of these states could average between $60 million to $150 million annually in additional trade.

Cuba considers that these actions, aimed at the entire Cuban people, fit the U.N.'s official definition of genocide. Last year and previously, the U.S. ambassadors to the United Nations have always contemptuously denied that the blockade is harming the Cuban people at all. This year, the U.S. ambassador is Samantha Power, of "humanitarian intervention" fame.

Photo: People attend the 30th Havana International Fair last year in Havana, Cuba. Many of America's best-known brands were on display, though Cuban purchases of U.S. goods have plunged as the island increasingly turns to countries like China, Brazil, Vietnam and Venezuela, which offer cheaper deals, long-term credits and less hassle over payment and shipping. (AP)

Cuba airline bombing anniversary shows U.S. double standard on terrorism

Tue, 08 Oct 2013 16:42:00 +0000

Last Saturday, U.S. military operatives carried out raids in Libya and Somalia. The raids were aimed at capturing militant Islamist leaders. Both raids were justified by Secretary of State John Kerry as being part of the right and responsibility of the United States to make terrorists accountab

Coincidentally, the raids took place one day before the 37^th anniversary of a major terrorist act for which the United States has never held anybody accountable, in spite of knowing exactly where to find the perpetrators.

On Oct. 6, 1976, two terrorist bombs exploded aboard a Cuban civilian airliner, Cubana de Aviacion Flight 455, which had just taken off from Barbados. All 78 on board were killed, including the crew, the entire Cuban junior fencing team, and various citizens of Cuba, North Korea and Guyana.

The bombing was carried out by operatives of CORU (Coordinator of United Revolutionary Organizations), a coalition of violent Cuban exile organizations, whose leaders had strong ties to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Two of them, Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles, had received CIA training; Posada had been on the CIA payroll until shortly before the bombing of the airliner. Another, Michael Townley, was a U.S. citizen working for the security services of the fascist Pinochet dictatorship in Chile, and was instrumental in the assassination of former Chilean foreign minister Orlando Letelier and an employee of the Institute for Policy Studies, Ronni Moffitt, in Washington on Sept. 21, 1976.

Their subsequent fates are instructive. Several were arrested in Venezuela, but managed to get out of jail. Orlando Bosch came to the United States where he was protected by then Vice President George H.W. Bush, who had been CIA chief at the time of the airliner bombing. Bosch kept up his terrorist plotting while living in Miami. He died in 2011. Posada proceeded to Central America, where he continued to plot violent acts and worked with the CIA during the Contra Wars in Nicaragua and the civil wars in Guatemala and El Salvador. In 1997, Posada was involved in a series of bombings of tourist sites in Havana, in which an Italian traveler, Fabio de Celmo, was killed. In 2000, Posada and three other Cubans were arrested in Panama with 200 pounds of explosives on their persons. Prosecutors said this was part of a scheme to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro while he was addressing students at the University of Panama. They were convicted and imprisoned, but Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso pardoned them, possibly at the behest of the Bush administration.

Posada eventually had himself smuggled into the United States, where he requested asylum. The federal government put him on trial, but only for immigration-related violations, not for terrorism. The prosecution was bungled and he walked free and began pushing to be made a citizen. There are indications that the failure to fully prosecute Posada is motivated by a threat that he might reveal what he knows about CIA involvement in terrorism.

Posada is living comfortably in South Florida, where he is lionized by the Cuban exile right. Venezuela and Cuba demand his extradition based on international law prohibiting countries from giving refuge to terrorists, but the U.S. refuses.

Michael Townley is living under an assumed name in a witness protection program somewhere in the United States.

Numerous terrorists were trained and deployed by the United States, in actions that led to the death of thousands of innocent people. Deeply implicated are living persons including Henry Kissinger and the two former presidents Bush. None of the officials of the CIA and other U.S. agencies who recruited and trained these terrorists and launched them into action have ever been punished for it. U.S. and international law was outrageously violated, and, in spite of Secretary of State Kerry's claim that the U.S. won't tolerate terrorism anywhere, terrorists are given refuge right here in the United States.

The U.S., however, prosecuted five Cubans who had gone to Miami to do what our own government refused to do, namely to "hold accountable" all who commit terrorist acts. The information on extremist exiles gathered by the Cuban 5 was passed to the FBI but instead of acting on it, our government prosecuted the Five, who were given draconian sentences. Four of them are still in prison, and an international movement is demanding their release.

Photo: Relatives hold signs and pictures of victims at the Colon Cemetery in Havana, at a ceremony in memory of the Cubana Airlines bombing of 1976. Cubans marking the anniversary expressed frustration and sadness at the fact that Luis Posada Carriles has yet to be punished for his involvement in masterminding the crime. Jorge Rey/AP

Lampedusa horror part of worldwide migration tragedy

Mon, 07 Oct 2013 10:33:00 +0000

The Italian island of Lampedusa was once again a scene of horror as a boat overloaded with around 500 migrants from the African countries of Eretria, Ghana, and Somalia went down, with a loss of several hundred lives. Meanwhile, complaints have arisen that Nepalese migrant workers in oil-rich Qatar, involved in building the infrastructure for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, are subjected to slave-labor conditions. In Greece, the government has pounced on the anti-immigrant, neo-Nazi Golden Dawn political party, but the Greek government's own policies are anti-immigrant.

All this is happing while at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, nations debated the issue of migration at the "2013 High Level Dialogue on Migration and Development."

The Lampedusa tragedy is just the worst of many incidents in which poor Africans fleeing from impossible economic conditions in the Sahel and Horn areas of Africa have run into trouble at sea.

In this latest case, the boat's motor gave out within sight of Lampedusa. Someone set a towel on fire in the hope that the glow would be noticed and rescue would come. Instead, the boat caught fire and the panicked movement of the passengers away from the blaze caused it to capsize. It is feared that most of the 500 passengers are dead. The government of Italy, where African immigrants are not treated well, declared official mourning.

This has happened often in the movement of migrants from Africa to Europe. Sometimes the migrants move by boat to Lampedusa; in other instances, they manage to storm the barrier fences of Melilla, a small Spanish enclave on the North African Coast. They are people who can't make a living in Africa, because corporate globalization has eliminated their sources of work, because political instability and war have created refugee crises, and because the Sahara Desert has been expanding, affecting the economies of some of the poorest countries on earth.

The migrants hope to get asylum in the European Union so as to get decent jobs. But in many cases, they end up as very low paid undocumented workers, standing out in European countries because of their dark skins, preyed on by the police and the underworld, and the scapegoat for demagogic right wing politicians who blame them for the terrible state of many European economies since the 2008 beginning of the world financial and economic crisis.

Migration to the United States is also spurred by the impact of corporate globalization on workers, small farmers and the poor in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. Drug gangs and corrupt police, as well as the estate guards of the wealthy, have created so much violence that many people, rather than staying home, risk trying to get over the border to the United States, an endeavor now more physically perilous since the massive crackdown by U.S. immigration authorities has pushed migrants into the most dangerous crossing areas.

The words of the dialogue at the United Nations, by Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and others, were very nice. But unless the citizens of the wealthier countries begin to question and oppose the policies of their own governments, they will be filed away and forgotten.

There is already an important United Nations instrument on the issue of the abuse of migrant workers: The International Convention for the Rights of All Migrant Workers and their Families is a powerful document, but of the 193 U.N. member states, only 47 have ratified it. None of the major wealthy states to which immigrants come has done so. The United Kingdom, France, Italy, and the U.S. have not. This makes it harder for poorer nations to raise the issue in international forums.

Starting on Saturday, Oct. 5, immigrants' rights organizations and their allies from organized labor and other sectors will be carrying out important demonstrations in 80 U.S. towns and cities demanding reform of U.S. immigration laws, with an emphasis on the legalization of the 11 million undocumented. The demonstrations will also demand that the Obama administration use executive action to sharply reduce the record level of about 400,000 deportations per year. Organizers promise to keep demonstrating until victory.

More and more people in the United States realize that U.S. trade and economic policies are directly linked to the conditions that impel people to migrate in such numbers. Forcing poor countries to accept trade and aid only on the condition that they open up their markets to dumping, privatize their public services, permit wealthy corporations to transform vast areas of cropland into agribusiness enterprises (displacing thousands of small farmers), and impose the same austerity on their own people that is causing such suffering in Europe and the United States, has to stop.

If not, there will be many Lampedusas.

Photo: Deceased victims of the shipwreck. AP

Jesse Jackson visits Cuba

Fri, 04 Oct 2013 14:55:00 +0000

Civil rights advocate Jesse Jackson, attending a religious ceremony organized by the Cuban Council of Churches at the Havana-based Ebenezer Baptist Church in Cuba, called for actions against the economic blockade maintained against Cuba by the U.S. government, which has been in effect for more than 50 years now. He said the blockade affects the lives of the Cuban people and hinders relations between the two nations, stressing the need to strengthen relations between the U.S. and Cuban people.

The blockade effects the use of the Internet on the island, telephone calls and transportation. It also restricts individual American's freedom to travel to Cuba as well as hindering communication with the island.

Participants recalled previous visits by the civil rights activist to Cuba in 1984 and 1988. The Reverend Jackson recalled his meetings with Cuban revolutionary leader and former President Fidel Castro.

The Rev. Raul Suarez, director of Cuba's Martin Luther King Jr Memorial Center, stressed the contribution by the Rev. Jackson to relations between the U.S. and Cuban people. He said that the Jackson has favored a new stage for relations between the churches and the state, which he described as a "blessing for our country, our people and the Cuban Revolution."

On Friday night, Jackson spoke in Havana and met with Colombian rebel commanders of the Armed Forces of the Colombian Revolution (FARC) who are in Cuba, a neutral ground, for peace talks with the Colombian government. On Saturday Jackson accepted a request by the FARC delegation to oversee the release of a former U.S. Marine being held by the FARC and which Jackson had called for 10 days earlier while on a visit to Colombia. "We accept this obligation and opportunity to render service to Kevin Scott, his family and our nation," Jackson said. "We have made contact with the State Department urging them to contact as quickly as possible the nearest of kin of Kevin Scott because his release is imminent." Jackson said he hoped to arrive in Colombia within a week to facilitate the release.

However, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos subsequently said only the Red Cross would be allowed to secure Sutay's release and warned that there would be no "media spectacle."

"The American is free, but he cannot be retrieved, so he indeed is not free," Jackson said. "He's no longer being held by FARC. He's being held by a lack of access."

On Monday, Jackson ended his four day visit to Cuba without seeing jailed U.S. government development Alan Gross who is serving a 15-year sentence in the Caribbean nation. Island authorities told Reverend Jackson the visit could not be arranged in time.

Alan Gross was arrested in 2009 while importing restricted communications equipment as part of a U.S. government-funded "democracy building program" which the Cubans say is part of US attempts to destabilize their country. Gross was accused of spying and convicted under a statute governing crimes against the Cuban state.

Photo: The Rev. Jesse Jackson speaks with journalists as he arrives at Hotel Nacional in Havana, Cuba, Sept. 27. (AP/Ramon Espinosa)

Book review: "Cuba and its Neighbors - Democracy in Motion"

Fri, 04 Oct 2013 11:40:00 +0000

Many justice-seeking North Americans are standoffish about Cuba. Residual red scare and Cuban ties to the former Soviet Union plus perceptions of a top-down governing style often serve to distract them from democratic realities there. Veteran Cuba watcher Arnold August, based in Montreal, has authored a book, reviewed here, that establishes the fact of Cuban democracy. "Cuba and its Neighbors - Democracy in Motion" enables the reader to broaden his or her understanding of Cuban political life. Biases may slacken, and silence on U.S. assaults on Cuba may become less tolerable.

The author took on an immense task. Relying on interviews with Cuban activists and analysts, he surveys particulars of Cuba's recent political evolution. He draws upon Cuban history and reviews democratic and socialist innovations unique to Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia - and touches upon the seemingly fixed limitations of U.S.-style democracy. His narrative, at times slow moving, is factual, coherent, and non-polemical in tone.

August characterizes democracy as an ongoing, unfinished process. He prioritizes political participation by all but would exclude those bent on accumulation. He applies these parameters to features of revolutionary struggle in Cuba from slaveholding and colonial times to the present. Political participation and strivings for unity and consensus are constant themes.

Social justice was on the agenda of Cuba's independence wars in the 19^th century. The author shows how constitutions written then influenced Cuba's 1976 Constitution. August pays homage to the mentoring and ideological legacies of liberation hero José Martí. Revolutionary stirrings of the 1930's receive attention. Cuba's Communist Party is portrayed as unique: its model was Martí's Cuban Revolutionary Party. Two non-communist revolutionary organizations and the former Communist Party joined in its formation in 1965, and the party claims no role in electoral politics.

August indicates the new revolutionary government took reassurance from majority opinion that old-style elections could be dispensed with. Democratic openings flourished, among them: the Federation of Cuban Women, the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, the 1961 literacy campaign, and a people's militia.

The 1976 constitution, however, set forth ground rules for elections to municipal assemblies, provincial assemblies, and the National Assembly. Planners had considered and rejected Soviet Bloc parliamentary and electioneering precedents. Constitutional reforms in 1992 provided for popular election of half the delegates of the National Assembly and barred the Communist Party from naming members of nomination commissions. As one of his signal contributions, the author describes parliamentary structures in revolutionary Cuba in some detail, and explains how elections work.

He contributes also by highlighting community meetings where big problems are discussed and solutions debated. Attended by almost every adult Cuban, these sessions taking place episodically across the island have yielded recommendations showing up later as decrees and legislation. They materialized prior to a referendum approving the 1976 constitution, again in 1991 in anticipation of constitutional changes the following year, in 1994 amidst economic crisis following the demise of the Soviet Bloc, in 2007-08 as troubles with social security, food production, and low wages loomed, and in 2010 as the Communist Party prepared "Guidelines" for dealing with economic challenges and strengthening Cuban socialism. August cites consensus emanating from these instances of participatory democracy as justification for the National Assembly's frequent unanimous decisions.

Municipal assemblies are prime venues for participatory democracy, August suggests. They are a potential tool for realizing the decentralization part of current reform efforts. Yet day-to-day functioning of the assemblies is inadequate to the task, he reports. They have difficulties in attending to local needs and taking on administrative tasks performed by the central government. "People's councils" that assume governmental responsibilities have emerged in districts within municipalities.

For Arnold August, movement toward democracy in Cuba proceeds on a rocky road. Bureaucracy and corruption are major obstacles. Tension prevails between hierarchy and popular sovereignty, discontent and consensus, and representative and participatory modes of democracy. We would note that stress, hardship, and shortages caused by U.S. economic blockade lasting half a century also are no help.

August says he wanted "to provide readers with some tools for following the future situation [in Cuba] independently, without the blinders of preconceived notions." He achieved this while also documenting that democratization has proceeded in Cuba over many years. The message is taken that Cuban democracy is unique, especially because pains have been taken to promote political participation, unity, and consensus on behalf of a socialist future. That's perhaps one explanation for Cuba's lonely survival as a socialist nation following disappearance of the Soviet Union, and for its capacity to withstand U.S. siege.

Cuba and its Neighbors - Democracy in Motion

By Arnold August

Fernwood Publishing, Halifax, Winnipeg, 2013

ISBN 978-1-55266-404-9

www.fernwoodpublishing.ca