People Before Profit blog

Rocky road to Venezuela presidential elections

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 09:47:00 +0000

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, winner of elections in 2000 and 2006 by overwhelming majorities, is heavily favored in voting set for October 7. Opinion surveys on both sides put him 10 to 15 percentage points ahead of Henrique Capriles Radonski, candidate for the Democratic Unity Roundtable, a right-wing coalition. Chavez has campaigned vigorously, despite having been treated for cancer beginning in 2011. He heads the United Socialist Party of Venezuela.

Popular support for Chavez stems from his health, housing, and educational initiatives known as social missions. Unemployment is a relatively low seven percent, and poverty has fallen 50 percent since 1998 when Chavez took office.

A vigorous capitalist economy remains, however, and wealthy business impresarios, financiers, and landowners, who control the mass media, are in fighting fettle. And their foreign allies have been ready and waiting. Not only does Venezuela command immense oil reserves, but Chavez's "Bolivarian Revolution" is making good on dreams of Latin American and Caribbean unity.

U.S. continent-wide domination going back to the Monroe Doctrine is no longer taken for granted. That's reason enough for U.S. preoccupation with the elections, according to Germán Mundaraín Hernández, Venezuela's United Nations ambassador in Geneva. In a recent interview, he explained, "The election not only will decide Venezuela's future but also that of Latin America." He cited new regional alliances that would be "liquidated" should the opposition triumph and Venezuela's leadership be removed.

Once more, Chavez' enemies are looking for ways other than elections to rid themselves of a social and political movement they see as threatening to privileges and power. Thus a few military units joined media owners in April 2002 to stage a short-lived coup, backed by the U.S. government. Again in 2006, pre-election violent incidents cropped up prompting speculation at the time that chaos was on the way, and U.S. intervention.

The prevailing story this time is that Chavez' expected victory will be illegitimate because of election fraud. The subtext is that popular uprisings and turmoil will follow. Dominant media in Europe, and especially Spain, have sounded such themes, joined by corporate news outlets in South America. The extreme right=wing Argentinean PRO party headed by businessman Mauricio Macri has sent operatives to Venezuela.

U.S. officialdom may be taking the lead. A few weeks ago, ex-U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela Patrick Duddy offered the Council of Foreign Relations a possible action plan in case the elections are fraudulent or Chavez is defeated. He envisioned a violent transition period requiring U.S. assistance. Allegations that Duddy helped plan an anti-Chavez coup prompted his expulsion from Venezuela in 2008.

Pro-Chavez observers say the United States has taken steps prior to the vote, among them:

- Intelligence officer Richard Nazario returned to Caracas. The former military attaché in the U.S. Embassy is accused of involvement in the 2002 coup.

- The U.S. Embassy is replenishing stores of food, water, towels, toothpaste, pillows, and more, as supposedly happened prior to the 2002 coup.

- Embassy officials have secured armored vehicles presumably for safe movement amidst expected disorder.

- Embassy neighbors are said to have reported opposition leaders heading inside for meetings there. The State Department in July sent representatives to meet with anti-Chavez political leaders, and Embassy press personnel made the rounds with opposition media figures.

Yet election cheating is probably unlikely if Carter Center opinion means anything. Ex-President Jimmy Carter, the organization's founder, recently said: "Of the 92 elections we've monitored, I would say the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world." By contrast, he stated, the United States has "one of the worst election processes in the world, and it's almost entirely because of the excessive influx of money."

In addition, hundreds of other officially invited international observers will be in place nationwide to monitor voting on October 7.

Photo: Flickr

Under death threats, Mexican labor leader leaves country

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 12:50:00 +0000

Under death threats, a Mexican labor rights activist, Blanca Velasquez, left the country this month and suspended a two-year legal battle she has had with the government, according to the AFL-CIO's Solidarity Center. The legal battle is over harassment and threats against workers in Puebla, Mexico.

In May, one of her colleagues at Mexico's Center for the Support of Workers (CAT), Jose Enrique Morales Montano, was kidnapped by four masked gunmen and subjected to 16 hours of torture before being released.

Other workers at CAT have received death threats, and the organization's email has been hacked. The violence and threats began in December, 2010, when Velasquez found the message, "No saben con quien metes," ("You don't know who you're messing with"), painted on her office wall.

CAT, founded by Velasquez herself in 2001, is an official partner with the AFL-CIO's Solidarity Center. Velasquez, in her work at the center has focused on cases in Puebla involving sexual harassment of female workers and attempts to block workers from forming unions.

Velasquez, seeking to force the Mexican government to address the violence against workers who were standing up for their rights, worked with ProDESC, a non-profit group that focuses on economic, social and cultural rights.

The government scheduled a hearing on the case being made by both CAT and ProDESC, but scheduled the hearing in the evening.

The authorities turned down CAT's request that they guarantee safe passage to the evening hearing for Velasquez who, at the time, was under a barrage of death threats. Velasquez decided the risk was too great to make the trip and she suspended her legal fight.

The Mexican government ignored an order by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to provide those protective measures. The commission issued the order after having heard the complaints of the labor activists. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is the regional body established by the Organization of American States to promote and protect human rights in the Western Hemisphere.

Earlier this year, Velasquez received awards from the Fund for Global Human Rights (the Oscar Romero Award) and from Peace Brigades International, a group that provides protective accompaniment to human rights defenders at risk as a result of their work.

Velasquez insists that the focus of her work is labor rights, not doing battle with either the multi-national corporations operating in Puebla or with the Mexican government. "We're not against the economy opening up to these companies," said Velasquez. "We just want to have a dialogue about the incentives used to bring these companies here, especially when the result is an atmosphere of intimidation and fear."

The AFL-CIO Solidarity Center has pointed out that union organizers in Mexico face numerous difficulties, among which are having to deal with so called "yellow" or "protection" unions. In these situations the company pays the worker's dues into the union as a form of protection for its own, rather than the worker's interests. The union then advocates on the company's behalf. Where these "unions" operate, the workers are often unaware that they have any representation whatsoever.

The AFL-CIO notes that, in addition to having to face threats, violence and the lack of representation afforded by the "yellow" unions, Mexican workers are on the front lines of a fight against global corporations determined to lower wages and on the front lines of a fight against labor laws in their own country that take away their rights.

Velasquez has told supporters at the Solidarity Center in the U.S. that she intends to return to Mexico and resume the fight as soon as possible. She says she must because workers have asked her the question: "If they have silenced you, what will they do to us?"

Photo: Blanca Velasquez. Maquila Solidarity Network

Syria and the dogs of war

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 12:45:00 +0000

"Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war;
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial"

William Shakespeare
Julius Caesar, Act 3, scene 1

"Blood and destruction," "dreadful objects," and "pity choked" was the Bard's searing characterization of what war visits upon the living. It is a description that increasingly parallels the ongoing war in Syria, and one that is likely to worsen unless the protagonists step back and search for a diplomatic solution to the 17-month old civil war. From an initial clash over a monopoly of power by Syria's Baathist Party, the war has spread to Lebanon, Turkey, and Iraq, ignited regional sectarianism, drawn in nations around the globe, and damaged the reputation of regional and international organizations.

Once loosed, the dogs of war range where they will.

While the regime of Bashar al-Assad ignited the explosion by its brutal response to political protests, much of the blame for the current situation lies with those countries, seeing an opportunity to eliminate an enemy, that fanned the flames with weapons and aid: the US, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, plus a host of minor cast members ranging from Jordan to Libya.

The results are almost exactly what Russia and China predicted when they warned about trying to force a regime change without a negotiated settlement: an opening for radical Islamists, a flood of refugees, and growing instability in a region primed to erupt.

The war has claimed between 20,000 and 25,000 lives and wrecked havoc on a number of cities, including the country's largest, Aleppo. Just who those casualties are is in dispute. While it is undoubtedly true that the Damascus government's use of heavy weapons in urban areas has killed and wounded many civilians, the opposition has carried out extra judicial executions of Syrian soldiers and Assad supporters as well.

"This is an asymmetrical war, and there is a degree of expansion of violations of international law by both sides that seems to be escalating," says Kristalina Georgieva, UN commissioner for crisis response.

The Damascus government has developed its own spin on the casualties, claiming they are not Syrians, but "foreign fighters." There is no question that "foreign fighters" are involved, mostly Islamic jihadists from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Libya, Jordan and Turkey, but most of the insurgents are Syrians. Truth is always the first casualty in a war, particularly a civil one in whch the protagonists are not always easy to define.

The fighting has produced a refugee crisis, that while no where near the catastrophe generated by the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq-when four million fled their homes-it has still sent hundreds of thousands of people into neighboring Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq. At last count the UN had registered almost 250,000 refugees, some 80,000 in Turkey, 70,000 in Jordan, close to 57,000 in Lebanon, and over 16,000 in Iraq.

The uprising has also become increasingly sectarian. Syria has one of the most complex mélanges of ethnicities in the Middle East, although religion-wise it is mostly Sunni Muslim. There are, as well, Druze, a variety of Christian sects, and Alawite Muslims. The Alawites, who have dominated the Syrian military since French colonial days-the Assad family hails from the sect-is associated with Shiism, although it has a pre-Islamic history and is deeply rooted in the country's western mountains.

According to reporting by foreign media, jihadists are playing an increasingly powerful role in the fighting. "The Islamist groups, which are superbly financed and equipped by the Gulf states, are ruthlessly seizing decision-making power for themselves," Randa Kassis, a member of the opposition Syrian National Council told Der Spiegel. "Syrians who are taking up arms against the dictator but not putting themselves under the jihadists' command are being branded as unpatriotic and heretics."

While the Syrian National Council and the Free Syrian Army disavow the more extreme jihadists, the latter hold the whip hand because of their support from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the main source of weapons and funding. The rising number of car bombings is the signature of such al-Qaeda affiliated groups as the Al-Nusra Front. Speaking in Jordan Sept. 9, Al-Qaeda leader Abu Sayyaf called for a jihad against the secular Assad regime.

French surgeon Jacques Beres, a founder of the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders and recently returned from treating wounded in Syria, told Reuters that 60 percent of his patients were foreign fighters. "It's really something strange to see. They are directly saying that they aren't interested in Bashar al-Assad's fall, but are thinking how to take power afterward and set up an Islamic state with Shariah law to become part of the world emirate."

The surge of extremism is not restricted to Syria. Iraq has been convulsed by bombings aimed at the Shiite community, killing over 300 people between July 21 and Aug. 18. On Sept. 9, almost 400 people were killed or wounded in 13 Iraqi cities. Alawites have been targeted in Turkey and Shiites in Lebanon, the latter a re-play of sectarian attacks five years ago in Tripoli by the Saudi-funded Fatah al-Islam.

While Turkey's Islamist prime minister, Recep Erdogan, is playing a key role in the war by supplying the rebels, Ankara is discovering that the dogs of war are ranging uncomfortably close to home. Iraqi-based Kurds, who have long fought for an independent state made up from parts of Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran, have stepped up operations against the Turkish military, and the Turks are apprehensive that Syria's Kurds might join in. Turkey's concern with its "Kurdish problem" might explain why Erdogan has toned down his rhetoric against Syria, though the explanation might be simple politics-Ankara's involvement in the Syrian civil war is not popular with the average Turk.

The conflict has also damaged the UN, though that is mainly the fallout from the organization's role in the overthrow of the Gaddafi government in Libya. Moscow and Beijing backed UN Security Council intervention in Libya because they were assured that there would be an attempt to negotiate a political solution. The African Union (AU) had already begun such talks when the French started bombing and the war went full-tilt.

The AU is still unhappy at the US, France and Britain over Libya, and the African organization's warning that the collapse of Libya might fuel instability in other areas of the continent appears to be coming true. The current war in Mali is a direct result of the massive number of weapons that poured into the rest of Africa following the Libyan war, as well as the empowering of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, an extremist groups that played a role in overthrowing Gaddafi.

As intractable as the Syrian war looks, there is room for a political resolution, but only if the protagonists and their supporters stand down. The Damascus government will have to recognize that one family rule went out with feudalism, and that its opponents have real grievances. On the other side, the opposition will have to drop its insistence that there will be no talks until the Damascus government resigns. A zero-sum approach by either side will simply translate into a continuing war.

But this will also mean countries fueling the opposition with guns and supplies will have to back off as well. And those nations that constantly talk about the threat of "terrorism" need to confront the extremists' financers.

"The US and Israeli obsession with Iran has led Washington to turn a blind eye to the dangers posed by Saudi policy," writes Anatol Lievan, a War Studies professor at King's College, London, which "has helped lay the basis for Islamist extremism in Pakistan and elsewhere."

Other countries affected by the war, including Lebanon and Iran, need to be brought into the process as well.

And, lastly, the role of regional and international organizations needs to be reconfigured. The Libya war damaged the AU, the Arab League and the UN because the political process was hi-jacked by NATO and Gaddafi's enemies. The UN can play a key role in bringing peace, but not if it serves the interests of one side over the other.

"The Western powers would be well advised to unite with Russia and China in putting maximum pressure on both sides to put up their arms and come to the table. Diplomacy, rather than war, is the only way to preserve what is left of Syria for its hard-pressed citizens," says Patrick Seale, a leading British expert on the Middle East.

The alternative is death and destruction, floods of refugees, religious extremism, restive minorities, and a divided international community. Such ground makes rich hunting for the dogs of war. It is time to bring them to heel.

This article originally appeared in Dispatches from the Edge, the author's blog. Photo: Men and boys outside the Great Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, Syria. James Gordon CC 2.0

Civilian deaths mount as U.S. drones strike Pakistan

Thu, 27 Sep 2012 13:35:00 +0000

"Three killed in U.S. drone strike in NW Pakistan." "Pakistan: 7 killed in car bombing in northwest." "Pakistan: Drone strike kills 5 suspected militants."

A small sampling of media headlines from the last month points to a problem raised repeatedly by international, peace and human rights organizations, which also became an issue this week at the UN: U.S. use of unmanned drone aircraft against "suspected militants" in Pakistan.

"No country and no people have suffered more in the epic struggle against terrorism than Pakistan," President Asif Ali Zardari told the United Nations General Assembly Sept. 25. "Drone strikes and civilian casualties on our territory add to the complexity of our battle for hearts and minds through this epic struggle."

Zardari's remarks came as a newly-released report, Living Under Drones: Death, Injury, and Trauma to Civilians from U.S. Drone Practices in Pakistan, contended that far more civilians, including children, have been killed in drone strikes than Washington has acknowledged.

The report, by Stanford Law School and New York University School of Law, says as many as a quarter of those killed in strikes in the last eight years were civilians, while only an estimated two2 percent of fatalities involved "high-level" militants.

"Drones hover 24 hours a day over communities in northwest Pakistan, striking homes, vehicles, and public spaces without warning," the report says. "Those living under drones have to face the constant worry that a deadly strike may be fired at any moment, and the knowledge that they are powerless to protect themselves. These fears have affected behavior."

In the last eight years, the report says, between 2,562 and 3,325 people have been killed in drone strikes in Pakistan, among them between 474 and 881 civilians including some 176 children.

"Real threats to U.S. security and to Pakistani civilians exist in the Pakistani border areas" and must be addressed, the authors say, but in view of the drones' harm to Pakistani civilians and to U.S. interests, the strikes "must be carefully re-evaluated."

The region in question, Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, lies along Afghanistan's southeast border. That border, the so-called Durand Line, created in the late 19^th century by the British colonial administration in India and the then-emir of Afghanistan, has never been recognized by the Pashtun peoples it divided, and is continually crossed by both civilians and armed insurgents. The area has one of the world's highest poverty rates.

Living Under Drones analyzes the nature of unmanned drones and their use in targeted killings following Sept. 11, 2001, and discusses legal implications and strategic considerations. It also offers gripping and dramatic accounts of the devastation wrought by the strikes on civilian communities, and their effects on the way Pakistani people view the United States.

The report calls on the Obama administration to "fundamentally" re-evaluate its drone strike policies, make public the legal basis and criteria for the attacks, ensure independent investigations of drone strike deaths, compensate civilians harmed by the strikes, and refrain from using lethal force against civilians.

It also calls on the media to stop "the common practice" of calling all people killed in drone strikes, "militants."

The drone strikes head the agenda of a 40-member delegation organized by Code Pink and including members of Veterans for Peace, that will visit Pakistan from Sept. 28 to Oct. 10. There they will meet with drone victims' families, elected officials, tribal elders and residents of South Waziristan, part of the Tribal Areas.

Meanwhile, a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union under the Freedom of Information Act is calling on the U.S. government to make public the legal basis for the CIA's use of predator drones in targeted killings in other countries. The suit was heard by a three-judge appeals court panel last week.

Photo: A Pakistani man reacts after learning of the death of his brother in a bus explosion on the outskirts of Peshawar, Pakistan, June 8. Mohammad Sajjad/AP

India’s shopkeepers go on strike over “Walmart decision”

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 11:42:00 +0000

In a rare spirit of unity, an estimated 50 million storeowners across India shut down their shops Sept. 20 to protest the government's decision to allow foreign companies like Walmart access to the nation's retail market. The financial loss of the one-day strike was estimated at $ 2.25 billion.

"Kolkata, Bangalore, and Chennai were among cities most affected by the 24-hour strike, with the majority of shops, factories, schools and offices shut down for the day," reports The Hindu.

Tens of millions of storeowners, in every town in India, are in danger of losing their family-owned businesses to the U.S.-based retail giant and its counterparts like United Kingdom-based Tesco. India has a deep tradition of neighborhood shopping centers that has helped sustain the growth of its middle class.

Shop owners fear Walmart will flood the market with cheap goods from China, hastening a trend that has already put pressure on India's manufacturing centers and increasing India's negative trade balance with China.

In addition, shopkeepers know of the trends in the United States when Walmart goes into a community and puts small stores out of business with a net result of job losses.

The Indian Chamber of Commerce along with the Congress-led coalition government argue that Walmart and other superstore giants will create millions of jobs.

There is political fallout from the government's decision. The left parties, which broke with the government a few years ago over the India-U.S. nuclear deal, have been leading the opposition to the decision and called for the one-day strike. Other political parties joined the protests, with government allies walking out to join the left opposition. Leaders of eight political parties, including the two leading Communist parties, CPI and CPM, were arrested during the protests.

Feeling pressure from constituents, anti-Communist Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress party formally withdrew from the ruling coalition government, pulling out its six ministers, and demanding the government reverse its decision.

Two other unpopular decisions, one that raises the price of diesel fuel and the other that limits the number of gas cylinders supplied to families in need, are also being protested. The left parties say the government is following anti-people neoliberal economic policies of privatization and allowing capital to have a free rein.

But the United Progressive Alliance government says it's going ahead with implementing its decisions and is "willing to go down fighting," although the prime minister says his majority is not in danger, despite Trinamool Congress' withdrawal. Such confidence indicates that at least one opposition party has agreed to vote for the ruling party if a no-confidence vote comes to pass. Some of these opposition leaders are under investigation for corruption, suggesting they won't defy the will of the ruling coalition.

Photo: Left activists stop a train in Bhubaneswar, Orissa, during the Sept. 20 one-day strike. (Ganashakti)

Three killers and a blurry background

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 17:57:00 +0000

BERLIN - What connection is there between a sheepishly smiling politician making flimsy excuses to an investigation committee in Berlin and the mad rage of a bloodthirsty mob bent on murder in a Baltic coast town 150 miles away - and twenty years in the past? And why worry about distant events, long past and best forgotten?

There were some who could just not forget them. About six thousand such resolute people, with a wide banner, flags and posters, walked together to a big, conspicuous building with three giant sunflower mosaics on one side, visible to every summer visitor driving to the beach. The banner said: "Solidarity, with no borders: 20 Years after the Pogrom." They were recalling a terrible week in August, 1992, when hundreds of young men, cheered on by 3,000 on-lookers, threw stones, hunks of cement and Molotov cocktails into parts of this building in Lichtenhagen, a suburb of the East German city of Rostock. The resulting fire threatened to kill over a hundred Vietnamese men, women and children - two pregnant women among them - as well as a German TV crew. Just in time they found a crowbar, broke open locked doors and escaped to relative safety over the rooftop of the eleven-story building.

At fault, the media reported, was East German racism, after less than two years of all-German freedom. Racism, pure and simple, they said. But had it been so simple?

After 1990, as a follow-up of all kinds of "velvet revolutions" in Eastern Europe plus bitter conflicts in once-united Yugoslavia, many refugees streamed into Germany. Once, after the Berlin Wall kept skilled East Germans out, West Germany had given a temporary welcome to workers from Spain, Italy and Turkey.

But these new eastern and Balkan immigrants were not at all welcome. Poor, often neither young nor muscular, and not "fleeing to freedom from Communism," they were not even good for propaganda purposes. Helmut Kohl's conservative government decided to limit the lenient rules for refugees.

The slogan, assiduously spread by much of the media, was "The boat is full!" But to alter constitutional rules the votes of the Social Democrats were needed, and they were reluctant to reverse their century-old traditions.

Processing refugees was a slow process; some got permission to remain, others did not, either way it could take months, often years to decide. (It still does, in fact.)

A processing center in Rostock, whose 300 beds in the "sunflower building" were soon filled, began to send the growing number of waiting families to camp outside, among lawns and shrubbery. After all, many were "only Gypsies" from Rumania and Yugoslavia. With minimum financial help, no canteens and no toilets, but with hungry children and nearby supermarkets, friction and anger was inevitable after a few weeks. Every attempt to move the families into a big, empty military housing unit was postponed or simply (but secretly) ignored.

The local press, with new West German owners, published without comment racist letters with menacing ultimatums and a threat of a "hot weekend." The responsible authorities did nothing. Most of them had come to rule here from West Germany; for the weekend they went home to western Hamburg or Bremen.

Crowds gathered, so did journalists and TV crews. And so did carloads of West German neo-Nazis, who often directed the mob during three days of attacks, not against the refugees, who had fled the area in time, but against the peaceful Vietnamese families who had worked in the GDR and, the first to become jobless after 1990, were awaiting decisions on their fate.

By August, 1992 over 40,000 people in Rostock were out of work, half of them more than a year; out of a population of 240,000. After so many GDR years when everyone had jobs, the disappointment and frustration of East Germans was bitter.

But with growing political disorientation, especially among young men, and with almost no experience with people of other countries (the number from Vietnam was quite small), it sadly proved all too easy to direct hatred not against those who had made glorious promises and then shut down the big shipyards and fish industry in the area, but against foreigners. The police, most of them East Germans re-hired on a probation basis (whether they were truly "for democracy"), tried at first to control the growing mob, despite violent and bloody attacks. But then, strangely enough, whenever the situation became more critical during those three or four days, even the limited number of police sent in was withdrawn from action.

So were the water cannons; this meant that when the sector where the Vietnamese lived started to burn, they were unable to leave the buildings; the police were nowhere to be seen.

This meant that the fire engines could not move in. In at least two cases, the top officials, back at last from their West German homes, avoided the scene and went home to "change their shirts." The chief of police, after changing his shirt, decided on an afternoon nap and was inaccessible for hours.

Ironically, he was later promoted to a higher state job (which he only lost due to his overly intimate relations with a brothel owner and pimp). Some members of the mob were briefly arrested; none received sentences worth the name. Ironically, left-wingers who hurried in from West Germany in a rented bus to help the Vietnamese were stopped, frisked and refused entry to the area.

But the resulting excitement about the perils of foreigners pouring in provided the required atmosphere for altering the constitution to discourage and discriminate against future refugees. The Social Democrats voted "Ja" with the government. The mob violence had achieved the desirable - and undoubtedly intended - results.

This brings us to the present. Last November a scandal occurred, with a shock effect too big to sweep under the German rug. Over a span of twelve years, there were bombings, one with 22 people injured, a series of bank robberies, and the murder of nine immigrant men, eight of Turkish, one of Greek background, plus a 22-year-old policewoman, in many different regions of Germany. The deaths of the immigrants, mostly small shop-owners, were blamed on alleged "turf" wars in immigrant communities. Since two of the victims were killed in shops selling Turkish "döner kebab" rolls, the term "döner murders" was coined.

But then, after a bank robbery in Thuringian Eisenach, two men were found dead and a 37-year-old woman was arrested after setting fire to the apartment of the three. It still contained the Czech-made weapon used in all the murders plus the weapons of the murdered policewoman and her seriously injured colleague as well as a boastful video detailing all the murders and with long lists of future victims. With the murders and attacks the trio wanted to sow chaos and hatred against foreigners in hopes of re-establishing "genuine German" rule, as in Hitler's day. That was on Nov. 4, 2011.

A committee of the Bundestag was formed to investigate the matter, with all parties included and with subpoena powers. A strange, complex murder mystery began to unfold (and is still unfolding)! The trio had not been lone wolves, but part of a network. They had been forced into hiding years earlier, but information about their location had either been ignored or, in one case, led to a raid on their hideout which was suddenly called off at the last minute, no one seemed to know why. One week after the crimes came to light, on Nov.11, 2011, the federal attorney general ordered all security and secret service authorities to turn over every bit of relevant information. The central office of the Constitutional Protection Bureau and its Thuringian subsidiary had piles of information on a rightwing extremist group with 140 members to which the three had belonged; it had largely been organized by one of their main spies! But on that same day, when all material was requested, they had put everything on crimes and connections between 1997 and 2003 through a shredder! Their explanation? The date of the statute of limitations had arrived!

More and more ties were discovered between the murder trio and the legal neo-Nazi party and - and with spies sent by the government into both the legal and secret groups. One employee of the Constitutional Protection Bureau was recognized at the scene of one of the murders, holding a package possibly containing a weapon. Why had nothing ever been reported, why had nothing ever been done to prevent further murders and punish the murderers?

Somehow, this "bungling" was attributed to inefficiency, inability and lack of coordination between various protective agencies of the government. Most media offered less and less on the growing evidence of collusion, and the blurring of all distinctions between activities of the informers and of the hate-mongers and murderers they were supposed to check on.

Some officials, like the head of the Constitutional Protection Bureau, decided on early retirement, and there was some organizational rearrangement; a new directory of violence-prone rightists was created with lots of "earnest" ballyhoo.

But the slime kept oozing out from under the closing doors. Now the Berlin big-wig has been caught in his own contradictions. The Christian Democratic Frank Hempel, second in command in the city of Berlin since his party formed a coalition with the Social Democrats last year, is a hearty, popular figure, steadily eclipsing Mayor Wowereit, whose poll ratings plummeted since the multi-billion euro fiasco with the huge new airport, whose opening has been delayed by well over a year.

But now someone noted that another shady spy sent into the Nazi groupings, himself a criminal, had once reported on his knowledge of the probable whereabouts of the murderous trio. He had known the woman very well. But his information, which might have exposed some of the many manipulations by the authorities, had illegally been kept secret from the Bundestag committee - by Hempel. He maintained lamely that the attorney general's office had asked him to keep it all "temporarily" secret - to protect the life of the informer. But this alibi was quickly denied by that office and, all of a sudden, the future career of jolly Frank Hempel no longer looks jolly; he could join the other early retirees. Or perhaps the mayor can save him, and with him the governing coalition.

Almost every day adds a new installment in this dramatic whodunit, but only a very few seem to recall that the Constitutional Protection office was dedicated from the start to hitting not the right but the left. That explains the large number of former Nazi SS men it employed. They died out over the years, but snooping and spying aimed most in one main direction. With troops in Afghanistan and atomic submarines sold to Israel, checking on „Muslim terrorists" is now also part of their job, but although it would be unjust to accuse many in the current government of loving fascists, some find it useful to have them around.

As long as there are Nazi marches, rallies, bloodthirsty concerts and attacks on foreigners, and as long as people on the left protest against them, often peaceably, like the 6,000 people who marched in Rostock on the anniversary of the violence 20 years ago, but occasionally with a hothead (or sometimes a police provocateur) throwing a bottle or rock in the direction of the tough, disciplined neo-Nazis, it is always possible to orate against "terrorists of the right and the left," equating the two evils (just as Nazi Germany and the GDR are almost daily equated).

The Ministry of the Interior has just announced: "It is fully clear that the Left Party will remain under observation." It is just like twenty years ago; while many are forced to tighten their belts, hatred against foreigners continues to mislead and distract them. While those on the left continue to get hit, true criminals on the fascist right still get their wrists slapped. And the vaults, marinas, fancy garages and hangars of a very few get fuller and fuller all the time.

Should mining in Greenland follow the U.S.’s example?

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 16:35:00 +0000

Climate change is causing ice to rapidly melt, and that means different things for different parts of the world. The Arctic Chukchi Sea could still fall victim to oil drilling, and in Greenland, there are serious talks about turning the country into a mining frontier, in order to access its many precious metals. With the government there seriously considering a mining industry, environmentalists' reactions are mixed.

New research conducted by analysis company GlobalData indicated that vanishing ice in Greenland has uncovered considerable reserves of gold, diamond, zinc, platinum, nickel, iron, and other rare earth elements. The government there sees the establishment of a mining industry as beneficial to the country's economy, as Greenland currently relies heavily on the fishing industry and grants from the Danish government. Countries currently interested in pursuing exploration projects there include Canada, Australia, and possibly China.

Many are concerned, however, about the potential pollutants that would be spread through mining. Activists also question how well mining projects could actually be managed and run.

"If you look at mining in other places, the problems are kind of similar," said John Burgwald of Greenpeace. "But in Greenland, the thing that makes it different is the lack of ability to control the [mining] companies. There are not enough people - there are about 57,000 in the whole country." He also added that, ridiculously, the Bureau of Minerals and Petroleum that would oversee the project is made up of just 30 people.

Operations with such little management could perhaps endanger fish and mammals that are already being exposed to the effects of global warming. It would also be difficult for that small a number of people to monitor wastewater spills - Greenland has no facilities that even process wastewater.

GlobalData's analysis also concluded that a skilled workforce would be required to make these projects successful.

One might hope, however, that they would not be treated the way that coal miners are in the U.S. The most recent example of the abuse American coal miners face comes this week in the form of a campaign ad spot by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

The Republicans put together the ad to show their "support for the coal industry." It just so happens, however, that the workers who stood behind Romney in the ad were forced to do so - without pay.

Ohio coal miners working for Murray Energy, a non-union company, were told that it was mandatory they attend a late August Romney rally in the town of Beallsville. For the "privilege" of standing behind the GOP candidate as he spoke, the miners had to forgo their salary for that day.

Unfortunately for Murray Energy workers, short pay checks are far from the worst things they have had to face. It was the same Murray Energy company that was behind one of the worst mine disasters in recent U.S. history, the Crandall Canyon Mine explosion in Emery County, Utah that trapped six miners and killed three rescue workers. Investigations by the government, labor, and independent groups all concluded that it was the flouting of EPA regulations by the company that caused those deaths.

Media outlets like FOX News later twisted the story, falsely remarking that the Ohio miners had "turned their backs on Obama." Additionally, Republicans continue to speak of a fictitious "war on coal" that President Obama is supposedly waging.

Sources in the labor movement note that it is natural gas industry practices like fracking (which many Republicans heavily support) that are actually flooding the market with cheap gas, driving down the price of coal and thus weakening the coal industry. This began happening big time, they note, early in the Bush administration and has merely continued in the Obama administration.

In other words, coal is being challenged by the natural gas giants much more than it is being challenged by the Obama administration's EPA regulations, which simply seek to protect miners and the public from disasters like the one that happened in Upper Big Branch. The regulations are also expected to curb coal plant mercury emissions by 90 percent.

Though the mining in Greenland will be of materials other than coal, one of the concerns is that left unchecked companies will abuse the workforce, just as they do here in the U.S.

Meanwhile, planned funding for projects there will be predictably corporate; some will come from a South Korean investor group made up of four giant conglomerates, including auto manufacturer Hyundai, an unnamed private investor, and a large energy company.

Uranium may become yet another material to be mined in Greenland if the government gives in to a recent ultimatum by Australian energy company Greenland Minerals and Energy: "Lift the [existing] ban on uranium mining, or lose our investment in your project."

And uranium mining, environmentalists stress, would only add to the hazards of potential ecological devastation that could arise from a mining industry's tampering. Left unregulated, the dangers to both workers and the public, they note, would also be enormous.

In conclusion, environmentalists hope that when it comes to regulations regarding pollution and worker safety, a Greenland mining industry would follows the examples currently set by the EPA under the Obama administration as opposed to the approaches pushed by pro-Romney companies like Murray Energy.

Photo: The coal mining workers present at Romney's rally were not there of their own accord, nor were they paid for the "privilege" of standing behind the GOP presidential candidate, who accuses President Obama of "waging a war on coal." Grist.org

Hondurans challenge gov’t land seizures, anti-worker law

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 19:55:00 +0000

Police with clubs and tear gas attempting to disperse protesting small farmers in Lower Aguan, Honduras detained 25 of them on Aug. 21, releasing them after 24 hours with warnings against further agitation. Reports of such repression and human rights abuses became routine following the 2009 military coup that removed President Mel Zelaya, caused Honduras to leave the ALBA solidarity alliance, and muffled pre-coup discussion of a new constitution.

It was clear too that corporate interests were prioritized and that ties with the U.S. military were re-established.

Yet plans for solidifying long-term elite advantages have received less attention than any of this. That may change if a plea placed before the Supreme Judicial Court by a citizens group on Sept. 12 means anything.

The court was asked to rule that legislation promoting "Special Development Regions" (RED, in Spanish) is unconstitutional and to declare that proponents had committed treason. The government was accused of ceding national sovereignty to foreign investors. Government secrecy was condemned, as was lack of consultation with affected populations.

The RED plan, commonly referred to as the "model cities" program, is aimed at securing control of people and land. Under the plan proposed by President Porfirio Lobo and approved by the Congress in early 2011, RFD territories will have "their own judicial make-up, their own jurisdictional privilege, their own administrative system,...their own budget and right to collect taxes...and right to make any kind of contract."

The Commission for Promotion of Public-Private Alliances recently signed an agreement with the U.S. MKG consortium to build the "first model city in the fertile Sula Valley." U.S. economist Paul Romer, said by one observer "to aspire to replace [Milton] Friedman on the road to reproduction of capitalism," is widely viewed as the intellectual author of the RED concept of autonomous territories.

Then there is the government's "National Program of Hourly Employment" that became law in November 2011. Rationalized as creating jobs but seen ultimately as bolstering Honduras' long-term hospitality to corporate investment, especially from abroad, the legislation prescribes a 20 percent minimum wage elevation and opens the door for individual companies to use temporary laborers under contract to make up 40 percent of their work forces. Critics see the law as a major blow against job security and union organizing.

A comprehensive mining bill proposed years before the coup, one that foreign mining corporations have sought and that has not yet become law ought to warrant government leaders' full attention, given their ties to international capitalism. Yet the effort has proceeded in low gear. The government has sought approval from already employed mineworkers by offering to increase their benefits, and mining companies have wooed rural residents by offering them land and money.

Urgency may be lacking because, in fact, mining operations are well established; in 2009, 315 mining concessions were being explored and another 57 were being mined. And multi-national companies may object to further meddling in view of low taxes they pay. In the five years prior to 2009, mining companies contributed only six percent of their earnings as taxes. They paid 20 percent in taxes to the Spanish colonial government, says analyst Ollanty Itzama.

An expanding bio-fuel industry in Lower Aguan based on African Palm plantations became emblematic of corporate free rein characterizing post-coup Honduras. Miguel Facussé and other entrepreneurial landowners helped plan the anti-Zelaya coup. They use private security forces, notorious for violence, to remove land - hungry small farmers from acreage they claim under President Zelaya's modest land reform program.

Small farmers so mobilized are not alone in protesting the new order in Honduras. Resistance is also cropping up against these government projects aimed at solidifying elite power. Xiomara Castro, presidential candidate for the new LIBRE Party, recently issued a call for the model cities legislation to be submitted to a nationwide popular referendum. Created by the National Front for Popular Resistance (FNRP), which became the leading force opposing the coup, the LIBRE Party mobilizes under the slogan "Socialism is Independence."

On Sept. 15, Honduras' three labor federations issued a joint statement condemning the "Plan for Hourly Employment." The unionists claim workers will lose guarantees provided under the country's labor code. In a message of support, the FNRP denounced the legislation as depriving workers "of the essential stability that union affiliation provides."

And whatever the fate of the contested and still pending mining law, indigenous and small farmer groups, joined by environmental organizations, are out in force to defend land, the environment, and people's rights against both mining companies and the government.

Japan abandoning nuclear power by 2040

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 15:23:00 +0000

The global nuclear industry faces tough times - and activists feel optimistic - in light of historic news that Japan has decided to completely abandon nuclear power by 2040. But environmentalists like Greenpeace caution that, as Japan supposedly phases out its nukes over the next three decades, it must also take steps toward making renewable energy feasible.

In May, Japan shut down its last reactor in operation, briefly making the entire country nuclear-free for the first time in more than 40 years, though two reactors were later restarted. Overall, however, the government plans to slowly wean itself off atomic power in order to reach a permanent nuclear-free future.

The announcement that it would do so came last week, and follows a July 16 protest by over 100,000 Japanese citizens in Tokyo. The protesters clearly demonstrated they opposed the potential threat of nuclear energy, and wanted no more "Fukushimas." That gathering, which also criticized atomic power from economic and environmental standpoints, was a rare and inspiring example of solidarity among average residents, and was apparently enough to shake even the country's nuclear industry.

The demonstration's influence is all the more impressive, in light of the level of control that pro-nuclear corporations have in Japan.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), is one of the biggest players in the Japanese nuclear industry, and as the largest electric utility in Japan (and fourth largest in the world), has a tremendous level of influence on economics and environmental policy. In 2010, TEPCO's overall profits were $1.66 billion, but following the Fukushima disaster, the company is expected to face $23.6 billion in special losses this year to compensate communities near the crippled Fukushima plant.

Many now feel that the company is going to go to great lengths to protect its profits and influence, and that that is going to get in the way of the shift from nuclear power to clean energy. Proof of that fear came today, when the government announced it would dial back conversations about its plan to ditch atomic energy by 2040, after intense uproar on the part of TEPCO. The sudden unwillingness to discuss the matter has citizens wondering if the government will cancel its plans.

"It's just a matter of decision-making," explained National Strategy Minister Motohisa Furukawa. "There is no real change" to the plan yet.

TEPCO, meanwhile, plans to "save" itself $659 million this year by cutting the pay of all of its workers by 20 percent, and reducing the portion of the health insurance program it covers by 10 percent.

Senior investment strategist Norihiro Fujito suggested that the people of Japan would need to continue their demonstrations and protest of corporate influence, noting, "Sweeping reform of the power industry requires tremendous political energy. Bureaucrats - particularly the trade and industry ministry officials - would only focus on avoiding the collapse of TEPCO."

Other countries are already taking their own steps to leave nuclear power behind. Germany currently stands as a paradigm for abandoning harmful fossil fuels, as the last remaining nuclear reactors there will go offline by 2022 as the country makes the switch to clean energy, a decision that is supported "by three fourths of Germans and opposed by no political party," according to nonprofit think-tank Rocky Mountain Institute.

Spain, meanwhile, also plans to abandon atomic power, with one of its seven remaining reactors set to be shut down in mid-2013.

Back in Japan, organizations like Greenpeace have encouraged the government to follow in the footsteps of those countries.

Kazue Suzuki, Greenpeace Japan's nuclear campaigner, remarked, "The government's strategy involves a nuclear phase-out nearly two decades later than needed," but added, "It also provides clarity for the business community that renewable power, not nuclear, is needed.

"The government must use its new energy strategy as a starting point for a far more ambitious renewable policy, greater energy efficiency measures, and increasingly bold strides toward the sustainable green economy that will secure Japan's future prosperity."

The green energy focus is a must for a country that until very recently was 30 percent nuclear-dependent. Without investing in renewables, the approx. $66 billion cost of natural gas imports could spark worries of an energy crisis and a faltering economy.

But things are not entirely unfortunate: Despite the predictions of Big Business, Japan made it through the summer without much nuclear power (with just two reactors being in operation), and had no power shortages or blackouts.

"For too long," said Suzuki, "Japan's leaders have ignored the people and gambled the health, safety, and economic stability of every citizen on nuclear power, and as the people of Fukushima continue to suffer, so does the rest of our country. This announcement [about leaving nuclear power behind] must become law - otherwise, it will be seen as nothing but lip service to buy votes before the coming election.

"A nuclear-free future is not a choice; it's an inevitability. This energy strategy provides Japan's first real step in eliminating nuclear risks forever, and it will send a message to other countries that it is time to end the use of this dangerous technology once and for all."

Photo: Protesters in Tokyo protest atomic energy, chanting, "Sayonara, nuclear power!" kumuaka/Flickr

Berlin: A conference of anti-fascists and the story of a ring

Tue, 18 Sep 2012 16:01:00 +0000

BERLIN -- A small but moving episode marked the regular annual meeting of the German organization Fighters and Friends of the Spanish Republic 1936-1939 (Kämpfer und Freunde der Spanischen Republik 1936-1939).

It was the first such meeting without a single veteran; the last volunteer in Germany, Fritz Teppich, died last winter, and none of the tiny, decreasing number of survivors from other countries was able to attend.

But there were friends, often children of the veterans, from other countries: Italy, Sweden, Russia, France, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland. And of course Spain was represented.

Aside from lectures and discussion on strengthening international ties so as to keep the spirit of Republican Spain alive, even without the vets, the participants paid a visit to the site of the Nazi concentration camp in Sachsenhausen, an hour's drive from Berlin, with special attention to the Spanish and International Brigade fighters who were imprisoned there (including the Republican premier Largo Caballero).

The episode mentioned above featured two children of International Brigade fighters. Otto Kühne, a German Communist, was arrested by the Nazis on the night of the Reichstag Fire Feb. 28, 1933. But he was soon able to escape Germany and led the exile German anti-Nazi movement in Norway until the war began in Spain, where he fought from May 1937, becoming commissar in the 11^th Brigade with its famous Thälmann Battalion.

In December 1938 he escaped to France but was soon caught and, like most of the fighters in Spain from fascist homelands, interned in French concentration camps. But in 1940 he was again able to escape and formed, with other German anti-fascists, a unit of the French Résistance.

Before long he commanded a unit with 2,700 French, German, Spanish and other fighters, battling the Nazi occupiers in the Cevennes Mountain region. In 1943 he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel.

During the years of battle, which finally resulted in the liberation of this entire area, he was faced at least once by a difficult decision. A small group had to go on a dangerous scouting mission.

Otto Kühne, as commander, asked for volunteers. One of them, a young Frenchman, spoke to him before leaving and gave him a personal ring. Return it to me if I return safely, he requested. If I don't, you may keep it for yourself.

The young man did not return. And Kühne always wore the ring. He survived the war, returned to East Germany and held leadership jobs in the German Democratic Republic; he was mayor of the city of Brandenburg for a number of years.

Before his death he requested that the ring be passed on to other veterans of his unit. It was, to Karl Gaile, and after his death to Heinz Priess. But when he died - over ten years ago - the ring could not be found and was gradually given up as lost.

But then this year Priess' son found it and gave it to the daughter of Otto Kühne, Eveline Lüders. Despite a life marked by very difficult years - with her mother and baby in distant Kazakhstan, barely surviving hunger and deprivation - Eveline, though past 90, is still an active, indeed a lively, member of the Spanish organization in Berlin. And she decided to maintain the tradition.

At the Saturday evening session of the conference, during a wonderful music program, "Evi" ceremoniously gave the ring to Herbert Mosch, the son of one of the men who fought - and died - in her father's unit of the Maquis.

Mosch, past 80 himself, from a town in southeastern Germany, often tells how he and his family - after 1990 when such trips became possible - drove to the mountain village where his father and other German comrades are buried - with a commemorative stone to mark the site.

He knew no French, and found, at first, a degree of reservation towards what seemed only somewhat unusual German tourists. But as soon as they found an interpreter, and the people of the town learned whose son Mosch was, they were given an overwhelming welcome and became lasting friends with people there, whom they now visit as often as possible.

Herbert Mosch, also an active member of the organization, will always wear the ring, and will then pass it on to someone who also wants to keep good traditions alive; the internationalist struggle against fascism in Spain and then, as in the French Résistance, again joining to fight the Nazis, still a lurking menace, in both France and Germany.

The French participants in the congress promised to pass on a request; since the ring has two carved initials, it may still be possible to discover the name of the young fighter who once owned it - and find out if any of his relatives are still alive.

Photo: Spanish Civil War Medal awarded to the International Brigades. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0

On the 202nd anniversary of Mexican independence

Tue, 18 Sep 2012 14:30:00 +0000

On Sept.16, Mexico celebrated its two hundred and second independence day. Is independence slipping through the Mexican people's fingers?

Mexican independence from Spain is traditionally dated from the evening in which Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, the parish priest of Dolores in the state of Guanajuato, issued the "grito" (shout), "Viva la Virgen de Guadalupe y muera el mal gobierno" ("Long live the Virgin of Guadalupe and death to the bad government"). Hidalgo had been part of a discussion group that had been talking about independence; his "grito" was issued as an emergency call to arms when news came to him that the repressive Spanish colonial government was on to his group and that arrests might follow.

The uprising sparked by Hidalgo and his friends was huge and bloody. Soon, Spanish troops got the upper hand, defeated the rebels and executed their leaders, including Hidalgo. It was not until 1821 that Mexico actually achieved independence.

There followed many years of coups d'état, dictators, foreign invasions and civil wars. In 1836, U.S. adventurers grabbed Texas. In 1846, U.S. troops seized California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico. Yet the reenactment of the "grito" happens in the evening every September 15, albeit with altered words. This year, outgoing president Felipe Calderon Hinojosa donned the presidential sash once more, and issued the "grito" from the balcony of the National Palace in Mexico City.

But two hundred and two years on, how is independence doing?

Mexico has not joined the "Bolivarian" movement for horizontal integration of Latin America and opposition to U.S. hegemony spearheaded by the left wing governments of Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela. It has not integrated itself into the major economic and trade blocs - UNASUR, MERCOSUR and others - that include practically all the major countries of Latin America.

Rather, Mexico has joined the Pacific Alliance, initiated on June 6 of this year, consisting of countries with conservative governments dependent on the United States, namely Colombia, Chile and Peru (Costa Rica and Panama are associate members).

The Pacific Alliance touts itself as a bastion of "free trade," and is geographically situated so as to play a major role in trans-Pacific commerce in the future, in the transpacific trade agreement which worries U.S. labor.

All the other full members of the Pacific Alliance are also members of MERCOSUR and UNASUR. Mexico stands alone and is by far the largest economy in the Pacific Alliance. Mexico's gross domestic product for 2011 was 1 trillion, 155 billion dollars, Colombia's was 332 billion, Chile's 249 billion and Peru's 177 billion. So without Mexico, the Pacific Alliance would be dwarfed by UNASUR and MERCOSUR.

See it as a weapon

The right and international monopoly capital also see the Pacific Alliance as a weapon to wield against the left-leaning Latin American governments, a scenario which can only work with Mexico included.

Still, for Mexico, economic integration with the United States is a far bigger fact than integration with Latin America. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) came into force on January 1 1994. Today 80 percent of Mexico's exports go to the United States, while 50 percent of its imports come from the United States.

NAFTA was supposed to use the destructive force of "free trade" to wipe out inefficient industries in Mexico, such as the cultivation of grain crops for subsistence and local markets, and replace them with taxpayer-subsidized cheap imports from the United States and Canada. This was supposed to force rural people into the cities to provide a cheap labor force for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) which would help Mexico to become more industrialized. In agriculture, a new emphasis in growing specialty fruits and vegetables for export was supposed to help absorb the millions of displaced grain farmers.

In reality, the grain farmers were duly decimated, but neither the new FDI nor the cultivation of specialty fruits and vegetables for export could make up for the loss of work. Rather, NAFTA fed a massive increase in undocumented migration to the United States, as well as providing an unending supply of desperate recruits for the international narcotics trade.

NAFTA has made some people rich, but impoverished many more. Transnational corporations and billionaires in all three countries have done well, while workers plus small farmers in Mexico have done poorly. Feeding its people is now a problem for Mexico.

As the drug trade has boomed, Mr. Calderon's right-wing government initiated a military strategy to combat it. The United States, which provides the vast market for the drugs as well as the weapons the drug cartels use to fight it out among themselves and against the Mexican government, has backed up Calderon's strategy with massive military aid. The result has been no lessening of the drug trade, but up to 80,000 deaths, with Mexico more dependent on the United States than ever.

The priorities of the new president, Enrique Peña Nieto, who takes office on December 1, are a stealth privatization of the Mexican oil industry (more money for international monopoly capital, less control by Mexico of a key resource) and a labor "reform" that will entail even more suppression of workers.

The good news is that millions of Mexican workers, farmers, intellectuals and students are not taking this lying down.

Hidalgo's "grito" was launched against "the bad government" of Spanish colonialism; the "gritos" of millions of Mexicans today are launched against imperialism and its tools.

Photo: Members of the Mexican army wearing historical uniforms sit in subway car on the way to downtown Mexico City for the military parade at Independence Day celebrations, Sept. 16. Alexandre Meneghini/AP

Despite austerity, right-center coalition prevails in Dutch elections

Fri, 14 Sep 2012 14:01:00 +0000

After a campaign in which polls suggested that the left-wing Socialist Party might pull off an upset, the legislative elections in the Netherlands on Wednesday left a probable right-center coalition in control. However, one piece of good news is that the anti-immigrant ultra right took a beating.

Results for the election to the 150-member lower house of Parliament, the Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal (Second Chamber of the States-General), which was based on proportional representation, showed that Prime Minister Mark Rutte's conservative VVD (Party for Freedom and Democracy, "Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie") will have 41 seats as opposed to 31 in the last election, while Diederick Samsom's social democratic centrist Labor Party (Party of Labor, "Partij van die Arbeid") will have 39 as opposed to their previous 20.

As the two largest parties in a chamber in which no single party will have a majority, it seems likely that the VVD and Labor will form a coalition government. Both of them are supportive of maintaining the European Union and the Euro currency, but Labor has been more interested than VVD in preserving the social safety net and also in giving some slack to the poorer European countries, such as Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Italy that are currently forced to implement harsh austerity programs in exchange for financial support from the rest of Europe.

How such a coalition can work is yet to be seen.

Beyond the two major vote getters, the big news was, first, that the ultra-right wing, stridently nationalist and anti-immigrant Freedom Party ("Partij voor Vrijheid") of populist-nationalist demagogue Geert Wilders took a big hit. In the outgoing parliament, they had 24 seats; now they will have only 15. .

Christian Democratic Appeal ("Christen Democratisch Appel"), a once powerful conservative party based in the Catholic and Protestant Churches, which had been a junior member in Rutte's outgoing government, ended up with only 13 seats, as opposed to 21 in the previous elections. This probably leaves them out of any coalition.

Democrats-66, another centrist party, picked up 2 seats, going from 10 in the last chamber to 12.

On the left, the Socialist Party had been originally expected to advance but in fact did little more than hold its own, maintaining its 15 seats. The Socialist Party is a former Maoist group that has moved away from extreme positions and in Dutch politics toward left social democratic positions. The original Communist Party of the Netherlands has undergone a series of mergers with Greens and others, which have produced the "Groenlinks" (GreenLeft) Party, will have 3 seats in the new chamber as opposed to 10 before, a big loss. The New Communist Party of the Netherlands, which is a party with a more traditional communist position, did not run candidates.

A number of other small-scale parties split the rest of the vote.

The election was called early because of restiveness by the Dutch public in response to an economic slump and the neo-liberal, austerity policies of Rutte's government. The final straw was the withdrawal of support for the government on the part of Wilders' Freedom Party, which had not been formally in coalition with Rutte but had supported his measures "from the outside" up to then, on the austerity issue. Rutte presented his government's resignation to the head of state, Queen Beatrix, in April, but stayed on as caretaker prime minister; he will now continue in the post.

For a number of weeks, it appeared from polling data that the Socialist Party, which is critical of the European Union and Euro currency "from the left," i.e. objecting principally to the austerity programs, would upset the applecart, but the Socialist surge in the polls did not pan out on election day. The Freedom Party opposed European integration "from the right," complaining about the wealthy Netherlands having to bail out the poorer nations.

The Netherlands is just one of a number of European countries in which disquiet with the way the structures of European integration have been working has been high but has not been fully reflected in election results.

In spite of the widespread criticisms of the European Union, the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and their policies, voters are perhaps staying with "the devil they know" rather than risking the breakdown of existing relationships and being forced to set out in completely new directions not yet clearly understood.

Photo: Socialist Party leader Emile Roemer, via website of the Socialist Party of the Netherlands..

Behind the inflammatory video, a vast right-wing network

Fri, 14 Sep 2012 12:40:00 +0000

The anti-Islam video linked to this week's violence in Libya, Egypt and Yemen and the Sept. 11 killing of the U.S. ambassador to Libya, originated in a web of U.S. right-wing extremists.

It also appears that anger over the video was used by far-right elements in Libya to cloak an organized attack on the U.S. consulate in order to advance their political agenda.

Wanis el-Sharef, eastern Libya's deputy interior minister, told the Associated Press that Tuesday's attack there was suspected to have been timed to mark the 9/11 anniversary and that heavily armed militiamen used civilians protesting the film as cover for their action.

Libyan novelist Hisham Matar writes in the New Yorker that the attack "is thought to be the work of the same Salafi, ultra-religious groups who have perpetrated similar assaults in Benghazi."

"This is Libya's extreme right," says Matar. "And, while much is still uncertain, Tuesday's attack appears to have been their attempt to escalate a strategy they have employed ever since the Libyan revolution overthrew Colonel Qaddafi's dictatorship. They see in these days, in which the new Libya and its young institutions are still fragile, an opportunity to grab power. They want to exploit the impatient resentments of young people in particular in order to disrupt progress and the development of democratic institutions."

The YouTube video, titled "Innocence of Muslims," is a crude 14-minute film portraying the Prophet Muhammad as a lecherous, violent schemer. First reports attributed it to an Israeli American individual in California who claimed it was funded by Jewish donors. It turns out that the "Israeli American" and Jewish donors do not exist, and the real architects of the film include a right-wing Egyptian American Christian convicted of bank fraud in 2010, and a longtime U.S. religious right activist with ties to Christian militias and Obama-hating clergy.

Justice Department investigators say Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55, who lives in southern California, was a key player on the film. He is still under a five-year probation from the 2010 fraud case, which includes barring him from Internet use.

Nakoula is a Coptic Christian, a mainstream Egyptian branch of Christianity whose believers are about 10 percent of Egypt's population. Nakoula is said to be virulently anti-Muslim. Another right-wing Coptic Egyptian American, Morris Sadek, spread the video to the Middle East via his anti-Islam Arabic-language blog. The film is also linked to Joseph Nasralla Abdelmasih, another far-right Egyptian American Coptic Christian who has been promoted by many of the country's most vocal anti-Muslim agitators. The Coptic Orthodox Archdiocese of North America has issued a statement condemning the film and affirming that "such efforts to insult and offend a neighbor with which the Copts have coexisted for nearly fourteen centuries violate the fundamental teachings of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and contradict the virtues of love and tolerance by which Christians are governed."

Sadek apparently has close ties to extremist anti-Obama Flortida minister Terry Jones, who has promoted the film. Sadek's blog displays a photo of him with Jones at a June anti-Islam protest in Washington.

A writer for People for the American Way's Right Wing Watch looked at Sadek's Facebook page before Sadek took it down on Wednesday. It showed Sadek as a fan of the Republican Party, the right-wing Hudson Institute, right-wing ideologue Daniel Pipes, Terry Jones' extremist Stand for America, and similar groups.

Steve Klein, an ex-Marine described as a "consultant" to the film, "has been active in extremist movements for decades" and "is allied with Christian activist groups across California," according to a report this spring by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extremist groups.

The report says in 2011 Klein worked with the Vista, Calif.-based Christian Anti-Defamation Commission "on a campaign to 'arm' students with the 'truth about Islam and Muhammad' - mainly by leafleting high schools with literature depicting the Prophet Mohammed as a sex-crazed pedophile."

The group's advisory board includes figures from a long list of far-right groups, including the Operation Rescue anti-abortion bombers, the Minuteman border vigilantes, and far-right minister Rick Scarborough, whose group VisionAmerica features a Sept. 5 "40 Days to Save America Letter" on its own website. The letter says its goal is "to elect and install Godly leaders at every level this November - from the smallest school and village to the President of the United States." It lists as future speakers for this supposed nonpartisan effort Gov. Rick Perry, "Sen." Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum - all right-wing Republicans.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center report, Klein has recently formed close ties to the Church at Kaweah, "a secretive cohort of militant Christian fundamentalists" 70 miles from Fresno, Calif., that maintains a militia. Its website offers for sale a DVD titled, "To Teach Them War," in which "Christian audiences will be exhorted and equipped to begin to train martially."

Klein conducts drills with the Christian Guardians, a San Francisco-based group headed by an American-born Pakistani Christian who calls Islam "a giant crime syndicate" and hopes his group will become "the most feared militia in the world." The Church at Kaweah has sponsored joint trainings with the Christian Guardians.

Klein also has ties to extremist anti-abortion and anti-immigrant groups such as the Minutemen.

He has a weekly online satellite TV show called "Wake up America" carried on The Way, which says it is "made up of Christians from around the world who believe God can use Christian satellite television to transform the Middle East , North Africa, Europe, America and Canada." Nasralla is listed as producer.

Cairo-based journalist Ashraf Khalil writes in Time magazine about the video, "This was essentially a case of an American group of fringe Christian fundamentalists successfully provoking and enraging a similar group of fringe Muslim fundamentalists."

Max Blumenthal, from The Nation Institute, comments on the Egyptian violence in the UK Guardian, "A group of rightwing extremists aimed to destabilize post-Mubarak Egypt and roil US politicians. They got their wish."

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Wednesday appeared to identify the film as representing "America's values." Continuing his criticism of the Obama administration for condemning the film, Romney declared, "Apology for America's values is never the right course."

He was backed by Republican Sen. Jim DeMint, who said, "It was disheartening to hear the administration condemn Americans engaging in free speech that hurt the feelings of Muslims." Republican Party chairman Reince Priebus echoed the far-right mantra, saying: "Obama sympathizes with attackers in Egypt." Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also tweeted support.

Bernard Haykel, professor of Near Eastern studies at Princeton University, told the New York Times, "This is really about political or symbolic opportunists, who use religious symbols to advance their own power or prestige against other groups." He was referring to the Libyan events, but the same clearly applies to the U.S.

Photo: Steve Klein, "consultant" for the inflammatory anti-Islam video, broadcasts a weekly far-right satellite TV show.

West Nile virus worsening with climate change

Thu, 13 Sep 2012 15:30:00 +0000

Outbreaks of the sometimes-fatal West Nile virus across the United States have intensified, making this one of the worst years ever for the mosquito-borne disease. According to experts, the virus is just one more disaster with an all too familiar culprit - global warming.

Warming weather patterns and increased rainfall in parts of the U.S. are partially responsible for the recent uptick in West Nile virus cases, and both of those conditions are expected to accelerate with climate change, scientists predicted in a 2009 report published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

The disease has impacted more than 2,630 people this year, according to infectious disease expert Angela L. Rasmussen - and cases of the illness are up 35 percent this week. "The West Nile virus," she said, "has had an overwhelming impact this year alone, particularly due to the excessive heat and humidity that has struck the United States."

The weather has created exceptional breeding conditions for mosquitoes, allowing them to increase their numbers dramatically.

Scientists wrote, meanwhile, in Environmental Health Perspectives, "if temperature and precipitation are influential in determining West Nile virus infection risk, such dangers would likely increase the burden of this disease in coming years."

A. Marm Kilpatrick, assistant professor in ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, added, "The West Nile pathogen...the warmer the temperature, the faster it moves from the blood to being transmitted. The [mosquito's] biting rate also gets faster. So these things are going to give you more transmission."

But because the heat also shortens the mosquito's lifespan (which is a plus), Kilpatrick said, "it's a little bit tricky to make a solid prediction" about how the disease will progress with climate change.

But the problem is not just limited to the West Nile virus; other diseases are getting an upgrade as well with the scorching summer conditions, including dengue and malaria. This also clearly shows that the issue is bigger than mosquitoes in the U.S. alone. Rising temperatures and rain shower increases in Asia are allowing dengue fever to spread, said regional World Health Organization director Shigeru Omi. And some cooler climates, like South Korea and Papua, New Guinea are seeing malaria-carrying mosquitoes for the first time.

Omi noted that there needs to be an increase on the part of governments in providing clean water systems, immunizations, disease surveillance programs, and a renewed focus on mosquito control and disaster preparedness. Given that Republican politicians in the U.S. are pursuing an unhealthy campaign of climate change denial, it's anyone's guess when those fortifications will take place in the states.

But for experts, the cause of about 118 deaths in the U.S. just this year (via the West Nile virus) is plain to see. Hot weather extends the length of the mosquito season, helps the insects reach biting age sooner, and speeds up multiplication of the virus within them, explained Vicki Kramer, chief of the California Department of Public Health's vector-borne disease section.

Perhaps worst of all, disease is just one item on a proverbial grocery list of disastrous events linked to climate change. Wildfires, flooding, droughts, and crop and animal die-offs are just some of the events that occurred in the U.S. this year.

Climate change is "going to make controlling existing diseases harder," said Dr. Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum, head of the climate change team at the World Health Organization's headquarters. "We've been describing the links between climate change and health for quite a long time."

Photo: JJ Harrison/Wikipedia

Colombian prisoners demand justice

Thu, 13 Sep 2012 11:34:00 +0000

Popular momentum is building to ensure that any settlement coming out of upcoming Colombian government peace negotiations with insurgents promotes social justice.

New prisoner resistance and recent documentation of abuses in Colombian prisons serve as reminders that, ideally, a peaceful and just Colombian society should promote prisoner rights. Indeed, said the Beyond the Walls group, "Our people and a bit of our country are in prison. No other place reflects as well their misery, tragedy, and powerlessness." The Colombian group said this in launching its 2005 campaign to build solidarity among prisoners and inform Colombians about prison conditions.

The Colombian prison system, however, has gained considerable international scrutiny, especially as detention rates have skyrocketed recently and political prisoners have come to make up almost 8 percent of Colombia's total prison population. Numbering 10,000, they are labor, indigenous, and human rights activists targeted for their political involvement and often victimized through blatantly false accusations. Political prisoners also include captured guerrilla insurgents.

With prisons serving as a tool of repression directed at political dissenters, observers see Colombia's prison situation as a fit topic for peace negotiators, especially if social justice is on the agenda. Prisoner rebellions in 21 prisons beginning on August 2 strengthen that case. Prisoners are engaged in hunger strikes, defying prison routines, and hanging themselves outside prison windows. A nationwide mobilization of prisoners, their families, and supporters set for September 28 in Bogota will bring attention to the prison issue.

Striking prisoners are demanding establishment of a "National Board of Consultation" that includes prisoner representatives, declaration of a social and humanitarian emergency in jails, relocation of prisoners to prisons near their homes, reduction of sentences, use of alternative sentencing, an end to overcrowding, improved health care and sanitation, and an end to extraditions to foreign countries.

Prison hunger strikes occurred in April and May of 2012. Prisoner mobilizations are an old story in Colombian jails, and ongoing abuse and violation of prisoner rights have long been documented by Colombian and international prisoner solidarity groups. Such reports have recently gained new currency with stories cropping up of prisoner deaths due to lack of medical care, prisoners discovered to be harboring tuberculosis, and prisoner suicides.

The record is of generalized lack of sanitary facilities, serious shortages of water for drinking and personal hygiene, fecal contamination of food, and filthy kitchens and living quarters. Above all else, prisoners resent isolation from families and friends due to long distances between prisons and homes and families' inability to pay for transportation.

One-third of prisoners have never been tried. Lawyers are often unable to confer with their clients. Prisoners report physical and mental torture. Political prisoners are often housed with jailed former paramilitaries, their former enemies.

Doubling of the prison population after 2002 has led to severe overcrowding. Beginning in 2000, 16 new prisons were built with U.S. funding, and soon Colombian prisons could accommodate 78,000 prisoners. Yet the current prison population is estimated at 130,000.

For English-language readers, the Alliance for Global Justice website www.afgj.org includes a compendium of information on prisoners' misery. It documents U.S. support for what apologists call Colombia's "new penitentiary culture." In addition to new prisons, the U.S. government supplied experts to redesign maximum security prisons and provide advice and oversight. Build-up of prison capabilities came as part of U.S. Plan Colombia, the multi-billion-dollar aid package aimed at support for military and police operations in Colombia.

There is, however, the sobering realization that whatever concern prisoner suffering evokes today, it's an old story. "You don't have to look for a hell anywhere else, because hell is here," UN human rights official Anders Kompass told a press conference after surveying Colombian prisons in 2001. His report condemning overcrowding, filth, and incarcerations without benefit of sentencing rings true now.

Colombia's prison problem thus shares longevity with other Colombian social disasters like inequalities in wealth and land ownership and terror imposed through murders, disappearances, displacement from land, judicial montages, and militarization. Persistence of them all, prison troubles included, seem to validate their status as fixtures within the institutional framework of Colombian society. That consideration alone is a big factor pushing those negotiating peace with justice to take up the prison issue.

New report says Taliban would renounce al Qaeda

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 16:31:00 +0000

A new report by a leading British defense and security think-tank finds that Taliban leaders and members "deeply regret" their past association with Al Qaeda, and top-ranking Taliban officials say a cease-fire could be negotiated in Afghanistan as part of a broader agreement.

The report, Taliban Perspectives on Reconciliation, issued by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) Sept. 10 concludes that a general agreement could include a cease-fire and a political agreement, followed by a renunciation of Al Qaeda.

Among the findings:

Once a comprehensive general cease-fire and/or political agreement were decided, Taliban activists would obey a call to completely renounce Al Qaeda if it came from top Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar. The Taliban would then act to assure that Al Qaeda could no longer function in Afghanistan.
The Taliban could be open to formation of a joint monitoring commission also including the Afghan government and the U.S. and international forces, to investigate reports of Al Qaeda activity.
Continued drone attacks in Afghanistan and across the Pakistani border would "severely complicate" this process.

The report is based on lengthy interviews with four unnamed senior Taliban leaders and allies, conducted in July by four leading academics - Anatol Lieven, Theo Farrell and Rudra Chaudhuri from the Department of War Studies at King's College, London, and Michael Semple from the Carr Center on Human Rights at Harvard University.

Taliban officials were quick to issue a public denial that the interviews had taken place. But U.S. and Taliban representatives are known to have held behind-the-scenes discussions in Qatar until the Taliban called them off in March over claims the U.S. failed to fulfill a promise to release Afghan prisoners from the U.S. security prison at Guantanamo Bay. Secret contacts have reportedly continued.

The interviews focused on the Taliban's main leadership structure, the Quetta Shura headed by Mullah Mohammad Omar, and the interviewees were said to represent more moderate forces within the organization.

Among those interviewed were a former Taliban minister and close associate of the Quetta Shura's Political Committee, a former deputy minister who was a founder of the Taliban in the 1980s, a former insurgent commander who has been a lead negotiator for the Taliban, and an Afghan mediator never part of the Taliban who has long experience negotiating with and for them.

RUSI said identities of those interviewed were carefully checked. Interviews were conducted in Pashtun, Dari and Urdu.

Besides drone attacks, other sticking points included rejection of talks with President Hamid Karzai's government, which the Taliban view as both weak and corrupt. The interviewees also felt outright acceptance of the current constitution would be a non-starter.

However, a long-term U.S. military presence could be acceptable if it didn't constrain Afghan independence and observance of Islamic law.

The Taliban are seeking to end attacks on teachers and health care workers, and support efforts to improve health care. Mullah Omar issued a letter supporting a recent campaign against polio.

A Taliban policy document on education that came out earlier this year acknowledges the need to teach mathematics, science, history and geography in both religious and general schools. It includes references to education for girls and young women, though it totally rules out co-education.

The interviewers also said the Taliban want to see a clerical presence in the government, but without executive authority, and are strongly opposed to splitting up the country into a federal structure.

Photo: These young people live in Maslakh Camp for Internally Displaced Persons, which is situated near the western Afghan city of Herat. It is home to more than 350,000 displaced Afghans according to the official count from the time of Taliban rule. (fotopedia/CC)

Right-wing extremism at heart of Libya envoy slaying

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 14:51:00 +0000

The killing of the U.S. ambassador to Libya on Tuesday shows the linkage between right-wing extremism in the U.S and elsewhere.

U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, a career diplomat and former Peace Corps volunteer, and three embassy staffers were killed in the eastern Libya city of Benghazi. Reports say the four were killed when people armed with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades attacked the U.S. consulate there. Stevens is said to have died of smoke inhalation after the building was set on fire.

Earlier the same day, protesters stormed the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Egypt, scaling the walls and pulling down and burning the American flag, reportedly replacing it with an Islamic banner.

The violence was spurred by Egyptian media reports about a 14-minute video posted on YouTube by an American right-wing extremist.

The American-made video was a trailer for a highly offensive anti-Islam film titled "Innocence of Muslims." The trailer includes scenes of Muslims pillaging and burning the homes of Egyptian Christians, and insulting depictions of the Prophet Muhammad as a violent, degraded thug.

The trailer was posted online by Sam Bacile, the film's creator, who has been identified as a 52- or 56-year old Israeli-American real estate developer in California. He has told reporters that "Islam is a cancer" and that he "intended his film to be a provocative political statement." The Israeli government says it has no information about Bacile and no record of his citizenship.

The video has been promoted by far-right Gainesville, Florida, pastor Terry Jones. Jones inspired deadly riots in Afghanistan in 2010 and 2011 by organizing an "International Burn a Koran Day" scheduled for Sept. 11, 2010, which was eventually canceled, and then burning a Quran at his church in 2011.

Jones defiantly posted a statement after Tuesday's violence in Libya and Egypt, saying, "Tonight after International Judge Mohammad Day we will be showing the Mohammad Movie Trailer, a video promoting the movie, Innocence of Muslims. It is an American production, not designed to attack Muslims but to show the destructive ideology of Islam. The movie further reveals in a satirical fashion the life of Muhammad." Jones called Islam "totally incompatible with Western free society" and "a total deception."

A prestigious mosque in Egypt on Tuesday condemned a symbolic "trial" of the Prophet Muhammad scheduled for that day by Jones' group, Stand Up America. The group's website features an extremely offensive statement and video of Jones announcing a "trial and execution" of the Prophet Mohammed on the 2012 anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, which the group has labeled "International Judge Muhammad Day." It displays a photo of a hideous hanging Muhammad effigy. The video includes an offensive reference to the president as "Hussein Obama."

Jones' website also lists an announcement of a forthcoming "International Judge Barack Hussein Obama (Barry Soetoro?) Day." It includes a June 2012 photo of an Obama effigy hanging from a post, evoking imagery of lynchings from days thankfully past. Jones boasts that he was questioned by the Secret Service over this incident. The site also lists videos titled "Dr. Terry Jones says Obama Dead in 2012" and "Terry Jones on Obama: Hang 'Em High." The website is filled with attacks on immigrants, gay and lesbian rights, abortion, the Rio environmental summit and Obama's health care reform and economic policies.

Earlier Tuesday, before the attacks on the U.S. consulate and embassy, the U.S. Embassy in Cairo released a statement that, the Times said, "appeared to refer to Mr. Jones." The embassy said it "condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims - as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions." After the attacks, President Obama assailed the killings and ordered strengthened security at U.S. diplomatic posts around the world. "Since our founding, the United States has been a nation that respects all faiths," Obama said. "We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. But there is absolutely no justification to this type of senseless violence. None. The world must stand together to unequivocally reject these brutal acts."

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, sounding somewhat like Terry Jones, said on Tuesday, "It's disgraceful that the Obama administration's first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks."

In fact, since the election of Obama in 2008, the Republican Party and its dominant tea party element has increasingly relied on a toxic mix of xenophobia, racism, homophobia and Christian fundamentalism to energize its extremist base. Terry Jones was briefly a write-in Republican presidential candidate, and his website contains many of the Romney-Ryan hot button issues.

This ideology meshes well with the right-wing fanaticism of Islamic, Jewish and other extreme religious fundamentalists, as well as neo-Nazism. One plays off of and fuels the other. In all these cases, right-wing corporate and political interests hide behind and exploit them to advance a reactionary political-economic agenda. Whether it's sectors of the U.S. oil industry, the Koch brothers,Halliburton, or the Saudi feudal oil monarchy, the result is ugly and dangerous.

Photo: Far-right extremist minister Terry Jones is a factor in the violence that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya. M.V. Jantzen CC 2.0

Mexico’s Lopez Obrador vows continued campaign vs. election fraud

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 13:10:00 +0000

Mexico's center-left presidential candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, said he will not recognize a ruling by the top electoral court that the July 1 Mexican presidential elections were fair and clean.

The Judicial Electoral Tribunal on August 30 rejected a request by Lopez Obrador's left-wing coalition, consisting of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), Labor Party (PT) and Citizens' Movement, that the July 1 elections be annulled. The request was made after evidence emerged of massive fraud and illegal vote buying by right-wing presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

The court ruled that the left-wing coalition did not provide adequate proof to annul the elections and said there was no evidence that the PRI bought 5 million votes or used polls to manipulate elections results. The court also ruled that the PRI did not use pre-paid Soriana or Monex cards to buy votes.

The court ruled that the final adjusted total for all candidates was 50,143,616. Peña Nieto of the PRI got 19,158,592 votes and Lopez Obrador got 15,848,827, a percentage point spread of 6.62. This represents a slight reduction of the total vote of both of the leading candidates from the totals originally given out by the Federal Electoral Institute.

The two other presidential candidates fell far behind: Josefina Vazquez Mota of President Calderon's National Action Party (PAN) got 12,732,660, and Gabriel Quadri of the New Alliance got only 1,236,000.

"I will not recognize an illegitimate power [Peña Nieto] that emerged from vote buying and other grave violations to the constitution and the laws," Lopez Obrador told a press conference at his Mexico City headquarters on August 31. "To act in another manner would implicate betrayal of millions of Mexicans that fight against 'simulation,' farce and for real change."

Alluding to the Federal Electoral Institute, which is in charge of organizing national elections and counting votes, and also to the Judicial Electoral Tribunal, Lopez Obrador said, "It is true that we should respect the institutions, but in good measure, the problem in Mexico is that institutions are kidnapped by white collar criminality. And a state that does not procure justice or democracy is no more than an instrument of power at the service of a group of vested interests. I hope they understand that as they defend, through all methods, the regime of corruption. !e are sincerely undertaking to abolish it."

Following the elections, massive evidence emerged of vote buying and manipulation of ballots. Lopez Obrador charged that the PRI bought 5 million votes in impoverished areas. The most blatant evidence to corroborate his allegations were the emergence of pre-paid gifts cards that PRI campaign workers handed out to people in exchange for voting for the PRI. Sixteen PRI state governors played a role in distributing pre-paid gift cards for the Soriana department store, Monex bank gift cards, cash, farm supplies, tax write-offs and other items in exchange for casting a ballot for the PRI. Pasted on the walls of Lopez Obrador's campaign headquarters are hundred of Soriana vouchers given to bribed voters.

Lopez Obrador and Ricardo Monreal Avila, the left coalition's campaign coordinator, charged that the PRI governors funneled public, private and illicit money, including U.S. funds amounting to billions of pesos, to PRI operatives at the local level, and those operatives used the funds to buy the votes. Peña Nieto met with the 16 PRI governors on June 12 to plan the massive vote buying operation, claimed the two leaders. For political parties to buy votes is illegal in Mexico.

National Action Party (PAN) President Gustavo Madero admitted that the PRI always wins elections through "money and deception." He questioned the legitimacy of Peña Nieto's victory given the PRI's illegal massive vote buying effort during the elections.

PAN worked with Lopez Obrador's coalition to expose the PRI's financing and massive vote buying during the elections, asking both the Federal Electoral Institute and Mexico's attorney general to investigate.

Peña Nieto denies the allegations and accuses Lopez Obrador of being a sore loser.

Lopez Obrador said his movement will undertake peaceful civil disobedience to overturn the electoral court ruling and is asking his followers to gather in the Zocalo, the great plaza in downtown Mexico City, on Sept. 9.

This is the second time the electoral court has ruled against Lopez Obrador. Lopez Obrador, a former schoolteacher and popular governor of the Federal District (a large state that includes Mexico City), ran as the PRD-PT's presidential candidate in 2006. Election officials announced that PAN candidate Felipe Calderon had narrowly won the elections. Evidence of widespread fraud and irregularities surfaced, however, as many of the final vote counts sent from polling stations did not match the numbers of people who reportedly voted.

On that occasion, the PRD and PT staged mass rallies and protests to demand a vote recount. The Judicial Tribunal agreed to recount only 9.7 percent of polling places and fraud was uncovered. The final recount narrowed Calderon's lead over Lopez Obrador but the PAN presidential candidate was still declared the winner.

Meanwhile, #Iam132, the student protest movement that emerged to prevent Piena Nieto from winning the presidency, vowed to continue its campaign of peaceful disobedience to oppose the "imposition" of Peña Nieto.

Peña Nieto, 46, a former governor of Mexico State, will take power on December 1 and his term will last until 2018.

Photo: Stock image of Lopze Obrador. Arturo Alfaro Galán // CC 2.0

Cuba propels Latin American integration

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 17:18:00 +0000

The U.S.-allied Colombian government and leftist guerrillas will begin negotiations soon to end 50 years of civil war. Preparatory talks took place in Havana. Negotiations will return there after starting up in Oslo, Norway. The fact that Cuba facilitated the process is consistent with the island's important new role in Latin American affairs, notably in furthering regional integration.

In April 1948, Cuba and other then-docile Latin American nations were represented at a conference in Bogota, Colombia presided over by U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall. The United States, preparing Latin America to join the Cold War on its side, was converting the Pan American Union into the Organization of American States (OAS). After the Cuban revolution in 1959, the OAS expelled revolutionary Cuba in 1962.

The OAS readmitted Cuba in 2009, but the United States insisted on conditions, and Cuba stayed away. The April 2012 OAS Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, served to validate Latin American respect for Cuba. Because Cuba was not there, two presidents stayed away and several others said: No more OAS summits without Cuba.

The turnaround follows 50 years of Cuban resistance to multi-faceted U.S. assault, and the country's success in pursuing revolutionary goals of social justice and international solidarity. Latin America, a region that, according to author Eduardo Galeano, "has specialized in losing ever since those remote times when Renaissance Europeans ventured across the ocean" now had a model to emulate.

Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution led by President Hugo Chavez helped build new confidence in the region, palpable at a 2005 continent-wide summit meeting in Argentina that rejected the U.S.-engineered, corporation-friendly Free Trade Area of the Americas. Confidence is evident too in new multinational alliances.

Joined now by 12 nations, the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR ) was formed in 2008 to undertake joint defense, economic development, and infrastructure projects.

MERCOSUR is a six-nation, now expanding South American customs union and common market.

The Community of Latin American and Caribbean Nations (CELAC ) evolved from earlier integrationist formations to encompass every American nation except Canada and the United States. At the inaugural meeting in December 2011, Cuban President Raul Castro proclaimed, "For the first time in history we'll have an organization of Our America ... It [may] be the greatest happening in 200 years of Latin American and Caribbean semi-independence."

CELAC is undertaking financial and banking innovations, telecommunications projects, and new approaches to environmental sustainability, migration, hunger, poverty and illiteracy.

In 2004, Cuba and Venezuela initiated the now nine-nation Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of Our America , known as ALBA. That alliance organizes cooperative ventures ranging from health care, education, communications and banking to regional commercial and economic initiatives, all based on solidarity exchanges.

Integrationist stirrings began almost two centuries ago when Venezuelan Simon Bolivar used his army to try to unify newly independent Latin American nations - and failed. He identified a shared adversary: "The United States appear to be destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty."

Cuba's identification with the integration movement stems from the revolutionary organizing, and especially the ideas, of independence hero Jose Marti.

"Trenches of ideas are worth more than trenches of stone," Marti wrote in "Our America," his famous essay published in 1892. European prescriptions and attitudes, he taught, don't apply to the indigenous, African-descended, and country-dwelling masses of Our America, he said. In fact, "In America the natural man has triumphed over the imported book ... over an artificial intelligentsia." So, "Make wine from plantains; it may be sour, but it is our wine!"

Marti warned of "Our America's greatest danger:" She "will be approached by an enterprising and forceful nation that will demand intimate relations with her, though it does not know her and disdains her."

Photo: Statue of Marti in Cienfuegos, Cuba. Wikimedia Commons.