People Before Profit blog

Top UAW organizer: Union campaign at Nissan a civil rights fight

Wed, 30 Sep 2015 14:01:00 +0000

RALEIGH, N.C. - "Unions are multi-cultural organizations that unite people around class issues," Richard Bensinger, adviser to the United Auto Workers' (UAW) Nissan Campaign, told labor communicators here during a panel at the International Labor Communications Association (ILCA) 60^th Anniversary Convention.

Bensinger, the former AFL-CIO organizing director and founder of the Organizing Institute, said the campaign at Nissan in Canton, Mississippi is a "fundamental civil rights fight." Seventy percent of regular, full-time workers and 95 percent of temporary workers are African-American.

The UAW, like other unions, is beginning to redouble efforts to organize in the South. The multi-year campaign at Nissan in Canton, Miss. centers around union recognition, the "abuse" of low-pay temp workers, as UAW vice president Gary Casteel told reporters earlier this year, and higher pay.

The ILCA panel, titled We Can Organize the South, heard reports from Bensinger, Rachel Eitzen, from Teamsters Local 391, Matt Ruff, from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), and Ben Speight, from Teamsters Local 728.

Ruff, IBEW's organizing director for the Carolina's, emphasized the challenges of organizing in so-called "right-to-work" states, but added that his union is "strong, and getting stronger." Our folks are "union by choice. They join for the right reasons."

He said, "If we don't have one hundred percent density, we have to ask ourselves, 'What are we doing wrong?'"

Ruff said there was no quick fix, no silver bullet when it comes to rebuilding the labor movement and organizing in the South. He added, organizing the South will "not be quick. We have to think long-term, foundational organizing. We have to get out into the community."

Ruff also identified a problem many of the trades - like his - are encountering.

"We're running out of skilled labor," he added, as school budget cuts eliminate shop class, and as more and more people see college as their only career path."

Further, "We're facing the silver tsunami," as skilled electricians, laborers, plumbers, sheetmetal workers, among many other trades, near retirement. Unions are having an increasingly difficult time training new members - from pre-apprentice, apprenticeship and journeymen status - to meet contractor demand for workers, especially among women and people of color.

Speight, who talked about the Teamsters' campaign to organize truck drivers in the Atlanta ports, questioned the long-term logic of labor leaders focusing on the coasts. He said, labor needs to "break out of the bookends - the coasts."

"There is no shortage of demand for organizing in the south," he added. But we "need to match the resources with the demand. This is about rebuilding the labor movement by putting workers in motion."

Speight's union, Teamsters Local 728, has grown from 5,300 members in 2007 to 8,200 members today - in a so-called "right-to-work" state.

He said, the labor movement today needs to be "big risk takers, and make big resource commitments" if the South is to be organized.

"We are at a critical point," he added. "We are the solution to re-balancing our economy. We are the solution to rebuilding our movement."

Eitzen, from Teamsters Local 391, focused on local organizing as key to winning victories for workers. Her local, which represents 8,000 public employees - including workers at six different public school districts and police officers - has been "very active in school board elections, talking with the school administration and making their lives very difficult," as a community-based organizing tactic.

In spite of anti-union laws, an unfavorable political environment and years of economic stagnation, unions in the South are growing, organizing and fighting to improve the lives of their members, and the entire working class.

In fact, just last week the United Auto Workers' secured a victory in Piedmont, Alabama as about two hundred workers at the Commercial Vehicle Group (CVG) voted overwhelmingly to organize. CVG, an auto parts plant, isn't the only manufacturer the UAW is hoping to organize in Alabama, in which about 10.8 percent of workers belong to unions.

As Eitzen indicated in her remarks, "Workers can have a union and make positive changes in the workplace without a contract. Our job is to improve the lives of our members."

Photo: Morris Mock, who works on the Paint Line, and Michael Carter, who works in the Body Shop, with actor Danny Glover, hold up pictures of Mississippi workers who were threatened by Nissan. The protest at the Detroit Auto Show in January dramatized the hypocrisy of Nissan, which issued threats in the face of union organizing efforts. Do Better Together Facebook page.

U.S. blockade of Cuba puts children at risk

Wed, 30 Sep 2015 13:02:00 +0000

It's totally unnecessary, but somewhere in Cuba a small child is undergoing risky open-heart surgery. This is because the U.S. Congress refuses to lift the blockade that would allow Cuban pediatric hospitals to purchase a device that would make it possible to treat her heart conditionwith a safer and less painful procedure.This is just one example of the many cruel and senseless effects of the U.S. blockade of Cuba.

But human rights advocates are hopeful that although only Congress can end the blockade, it may be possible for President Obama to use his broad executive powers to bypass many of its most egregious provisions.

Although Cuba's socialist society guarantees all Cubansfree high-quality health care, some patients suffer as a result of U.S.international trade restrictions which deny them medical equipment and supplies, according to a report publishedthis summer by Cuba's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The report, issuedin support of a UN resolution for "ending of the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States of America against Cuba," documents the ongoing impact of the 56-year blockade. Miguel Fraga, First Secretary of the Cuban Embassy of the United States explained that the extensive report on the real life impact of the blockade was compiled from institutions across the island.

The blockade bars Cuban access to not only U.S.-made devices and medicines, but also to those manufactured in other countries. For example, Cubans suffering from rheumatoid arthritis can't get prostheses needed to surgically replace damaged wrist joints. The manufacturer of the artificial joints,multi-national SBI,has 22 European branchesbut not one of them will sell to Cuban hospitals. The blockadeforbids subsidiaries of U.S. companies, even when their manufacturing and sales take place thousands of miles from U.S. borders, from selling any products to Cuba - even food and medicine.

Treatment and research blocked

Cuban doctors say that care of patients with muscular sclerosis and Parkinson's disease is compromised because their supply of EMG equipment was cut off when its manufacturer, the Canadian firm Xltek, was bought by the U.S.companyNatus Medical in 2007.

Clinical studies of hereditary breast cancer, cystic fibrosis, mitochondrial disease and retinitis pigmentosa at Cuba's National Center for Genetic Medicine were blocked when the U.S. firm Applied Biosystems refused Cuba's request to purchaseits Genetic Analyzer. The same determined researchers faced still another roadblock whenamulti-national medical technology firm,Qiagen,bought out the Danish firm CLCBio. CLC Bio had provided free access to software to view gene sequencing. But Qiagen denied Cuban researchers access to program updates. Qiagen explained that the blockade of Cuba prohibited them from providing technical support,services and software licenses.

The Foreign Ministry's report points out that software is increasingly an issue for modern medicine. Most medical imaging equipment is run oncomputers based on the Windows XP operating system. Cuba's National Electro Medicine Center reports that Windows XP requires activation by Microsoft, but since none of the activation options are available in Cuba, technicians have to waste their resources coming up with extreme and creative work-arounds while patients wait and too often suffer.

The Cuban government estimates that it had to set aside $75 million annually from its health care budget to cover the additional health care costs imposed by the blockade over the last year alone. This total does not include the humanitarian repercussions when spare parts for medical equipment and supplies have to be attained through third parties across the globe resulting inpainful and potentially tragic delays in treatment.

U.S. officials refer to the policy as an embargo, but human rights advocates call it a blockade. The difference is not just semantic.

An embargo is a trade restriction from one country to another, but a blockade isan act of sealing off a nation to prevent goods from allother countries from entering or leaving. U.S. policy not only restricts the trade of companies and people under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress, but also levies sanctions and effectively prohibits trade of other countries and their citizens with Cuba. This policy is in fact a blockade.

A burden no other country bears

Cuba is a developing country that suffered for decades under the heel of U.S. corporations such as United Fruit. While these corporations sucked resources out of the island - sugar, rum, nickel - the only infrastructure they built was to support that one -way street - a single rail line and highway connected to ports, a one-industry economy. Whole cities and provinces lacked hospitals and schools.Besides gambling, no domestic industry was developed - even candy was imported to neo-colonial Cuba.

In the nearly 60 years since the Cuban people took control of their nation remarkable progress has been made in addressing this legacy of deliberate underdevelopment, but the Cuban economy also shoulders a burden not carried by any other economy in the world - a punitive blockade which has added enormous costs to every undertaking for decades.

The Foreign Ministry reportcites $120 billionas the cost of the blockade since its inception.

How does the blockade work?

The blockade sounds like it's just a matter between the United States and Cuba but it's not. In fact, its stranglehold severely limits Cuban society's access to the entire world market of food, medicine, industrial machinery, building materials and communications technology produced by thousands of companies and millions of workers in other countries around the world.

The blockade is a poisonous web of penalties against those who break its rules. A dozen or so laws, including the 1992 TorricellliAct and the 1996 Helms-Burton Act weave together its toxic strands.

Here's how it works: In today's global economy, credit is the standard means of payment and companies are bought and sold across borders. The blockade's web of regulations can impose huge fines on financial institutions that offer that credit or conduct business with Cuba, including financial institutions not only inside but also outside our country's borders.

The blockade's stranglehold preventstrade. Any ship that lands in Cuba is barred from U.S. ports for 180 days.

Even when manufactured by a non -U.S. company, any manufactured product which is judged to contain more than 25 percentparts originating in the U.S. may not be sold to a Cuban company.

How does the U.S. enforce the blockade? Not through gunships but through a U.S. government agency, theOffice of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the Department of the Treasury.With a multi-million dollar budget, OFAC agents use sophisticated computer programs to find and persecute its prey - those anywhere in the world having business dealings with Cuba.

OFAC, the poison spider who minds the web, is the enforcer. Itassesses multi-million dollar fines on both U.S. and foreign entities and individuals discovered exporting or importingproducts to Cuba.

Here are some examplesfrom the past year:

In March, Commerzbank of Germany was required to pay a fine of $1.71 billion. It processed 56 transactions related with Cuba for $2,284,456. Cuban funds are now frozen in that bank and other European banks have refused to do business with Cuba, resulting in Cuba being unable to make foreign payments during the last nine months;

Also in March, PayPal was fined $7,658,300 for processing 98 transactions with Cubans. The transactions themselves only totaled $19,344;

Sigma Aldrich, one of the world's largest chemical firms with operations in 40 countries refused to provide the Cuban chemical firm Quimimpex with essential chemical products. It explained that it could not provide products, servicesnor technical information from any of its facilities regardless of their locations.

Some of the harassment is unbelievably petty. U.S. tax dollars apparently funded the research that led to the OFAC requiring a Costco outlet in Japan to suspend the membership of a Cuban embassy employee there.

The recent restoral of diplomatic relations does not affect the blockade. Lifting the blockade would require an act of Congress. However, significant discretion in the blockade'simplementationis available to the President, who in this year's State of the Union address urged Congress to "begin the work of ending the embargo."

The President has significant power to dismantle the majority of the restrictions imposed by the laws that make up the blockade. To begin with, the president has the executive prerogative to instruct U.S.representatives in international financial institutions not to obstruct the granting of loans to Cuban financial facilities.

The President can also:authorize exports of U.S. products to Cuba;permit the use of the U.S. dollar in Cuba's international transactions; allow such transactions to be carried out through the U.S. banking system; allow Cuban entities to open accounts in U.S. banks; and authorize Cuban aircraft and ships to transport travelers, cargo and mail between the two countries.

The President could end the ban on Cuba importing products that contain more than 25 percent of U.S. components; allow import of tobacco, rum, andbiotechnological products from Cuba to the U.S.;authorize U.S. firms to make investments in Cuba; authorize U.S. citizens to receive medical treatment in Cuba; permit the granting of credits, loans and financing in general to acquireproducts on the U.S. market (except for agricultural products, which are explicitly prohibited by a 2000 law).

Ironically, most of these powers come through the odious Helms Burton Act which reserves to the president the power to grant licenses for most of the otherwise prohibited activities.

Support by the U.S. people for friendly relations with its island neighbor is overwhelming, so if President Obama takes advantage of the powers reserved to him to begin dismantling the blockade it is unlikely that there would be support for its reinstatement. Many jobs are already being created by midwest exports of chicken and grain to Cuban consumers. U.S. patients and health care providers would like access to medical innovations like the new vaccines to treat hepatitis and lung cancer thatCuban bioscience labs are producing. And when winter winds are whipping our northern cities come February, many would-be tourists will be longingly eyeing sunny Caribbean beaches.

Photo: One-year-old Eduardo is comforted by his mother in the recovery room after his heart operation at the William Soler Children's Hospital in Havana, Cuba, Oct. 7, 2013. It is a challenge everyday to cure sick children and adolescents, according to Dr. Eugenio Selman, who said that due to the U.S. blockade, they are unable to purchase some quality medicines, instruments and other supplies that are only produced in the U. S. | AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa

After a year, questions remain about Mexico’s missing

Thu, 24 Sep 2015 13:28:00 +0000

Many of us in the U.S. have wondered what is going on in Mexico. First we began to see the bodies of those whom the cartels were supposed to have killed. Then we heard rumors that there were suspicions of government involvement and connections with drug trafficking.

Several years later and now under a new presidency, on Sept. 26, 2014, students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teacher's College (near Iguala, in the Southern State of Guerrero) were violently attacked as they attempted to commandeer buses to take them home from a demonstration held in Mexico City. What had been an accepted practice of taking buses now was dangerous and deadly. Three students were killed and 43 disappeared.

One mother reported that she sat all day at a curbside in her village waiting for her son to return with others began coming home, but he never did.

Many have dedicated their time to search and demand that their sons be returned alive. "They were taken alive, we want them returned alive" is the call of families and their supporters.

The recent report by a team of five international experts, brought in by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to examine the case, has cleared up some speculation and disproved several versions that were being used to explain such an unexpected, violent turn of events.

The official government version was announced by the then-attorney general, Murillo Karam, who stated that the investigations had found the students were kidnapped by the police and had been turned over to a regional criminal gang, Guerreros Unidos (United Warriors), who killed them and burned their bodies, throwing the remains into the San Juan River in trash bags.

Another version circulated soon after the incident was that the Mayor of Iguala had ordered the police to stop the students because he did not want them to disrupt an event that his wife was holding. This was disproven by the many testimonies of surviving students.

The IACHR panel theorizes, based on an analysis of the written and oral evidence presented to them, that the students may have unknowingly commandeered buses carrying heroin or drug money. They cite that afifth bus was not analyzed and barely mentioned in reports. When the commission requested more information they found many discrepancies causing speculation that a cover-up had taken place. The IACHR panel, when it tried to investigate further, was given pictures of a bus that did not coincide with eyewitness descriptions nor video footage of the bus on the day it left the station.

One conclusion of this investigation is that the police are not professionally trained to do a proper investigation. In addition to discrepancies, a great deal of information was never analyzed and key witnesses where never interviewed. Some people said they had been tortured to collaborate with the government version and officials never looked at other evidence which clearly contradicted some of those claims.

The government claimed that there were no military police present. It is clear, however, that the military did know of the violent attack and the detaining of the students but did nothing about it.

According to an article that appeared in the Huffington Post "several members of the 27^th battalion told prosecutors in depositions that they were patrolling the streets of Iguala the night of the attacks and that they begun tracking the students hours before the first shots were fired. The reporters obtained the depositions using Mexican transparency laws after a months-long legal battle. The attorney general's office redacted nearly all of the names of the interviewed military members." A communication system called C4, used by the military on that night, made recordings to monitor the students throughout the nine violent events taking place on that 26^th day in September of 2014, also proving that the military was present.

Lastly, the investigation showed that the 43 students were not burned in the dumps at the city of Cocula (a municipality in the Mexican state of Jalisco). The fire and smoke that such a burning would cause could not have gone unnoticed.

These 43 students are not the only ones that have disappeared; there are over 25,000 others, according to Mexican government reports. Over 100 bodies have been found in clandestine graves in and around Iguala. One would think that it was the effort of the Mexican Justice Department that found these bodies but in fact most have been located by family members, who were inspired by the parents of the 43 missing students, to brave the daily task of looking for their children some who have been missing since 2006.

They call their group the Committee In Search of the Other Disappeared of Iguala. They point to the hills calling them "the hills of cemeteries."

The IACHR has asked to be allowed to continue their investigation for another six months, but with no word yet whether the Mexican government will agree.

There remain many unanswered questions; why were the students so brutally attacked when they were involved in an accepted practice of taking buses to transport them home from events/actions? What happened to them? Where are they? Who killed those that have been found in the clandestine graves since the attack? Why does Mexico have over 25,000 missing citizens?

There is speculation that the students were attacked as an attempt to stop them from speaking out against the government, because according to Vidulfo Rosales, a human rights activist and lawyer from the Tlachinollan Mountain Center for Human Rights, representing the Ayotzinapa students' families, the students had been seriously questioning structural reforms. They would have become teachers and would have had direct connection with the community, educating people about how to defend themselves against injustice.

Cities throughout the world will be holding one-year anniversary events to continue the pressure for answers. In Los Angeles where I live, one such action will take place Saturday with a march starting at 2 p.m. at Olvera St. and ending at the office of the Consulate General of Mexico.

Photo: Rossana Cambron/PW

Today in history: An era ends in Eastern Europe

Thu, 24 Sep 2015 11:23:00 +0000

On this date in 1990, 25 years ago, the Supreme Soviet gave approval to switch to a free market economy, the signal for the German Democratic Republic (GDR or East Germany) to leave the now moribund Warsaw Pact. On this same date West German President Richard von Weizsäcker signedthe reunification treaty which would lead to official reunification on October 3, 1990.

The "end days" of socialism in Eastern Europe took place over the span of a couple of years, but perhaps Sept. 24th can be said to be the final turning point, if not the crown on the movement to restore capitalism.

The Soviet bloc was often accused of trying to "export socialism." But in the wake of the dissolution of the bloc, what did the West do but "export capitalism?" Those first few years of "shock capitalism" in Eastern Europe spelled a precipitous drop in the standard of living, even a shortening of the life expectancy in the former USSR by as much as 20 years. By some measures, such as in industrial output, employment, healthcare and education, a full recovery to former socialist levels has still not been achieved.

East Germans generally did not feel that reunification after 45 years of different social systems between West and East was a melding and combination of the best features of each system. Rather, they saw it as an annexation, a hostile takeover by appropriation, the stronger absorbing and eliminating the weaker partner.

In a sense that was what had taken place for years in other forms. Well-meaning liberals and progressives instinctively made common cause with right-wing critics of the Berlin Wall, for example, but showed little understanding of its larger meaning, and even necessity. The Wall went up in 1961, a wall not between the two German states but rather around West Berlin, a city in the middle of the GDR. Westerners would casually cross over into East Berlin and scoop off the shelves manufactured products, supplies and staples that were cheaper in the East than in the West because the socialist government heavily subsidized those goods for their own people. Ordinary East Germans who may or may not have loved their government saw the social product created by their labor evaporate in the Western visitors' shopping bags and piled up in the back seats of Volkswagens.

In addition, the GDR spent a fortune in the lean post-World War II recovery years educating and training teachers, doctors, nurses, athletes and trainers, at no cost to these students, only to watch them and their advanced degrees simply march westward for better paying jobs in their chosen fields.

Perhaps the biggest immediate result of building the Wall was ending the very real threat of war breaking out over Berlin. On street corners throughout the city, before the Wall went up, U.S. and Soviet tanks pointed their guns at one another from just a few feet apart. The right wing in the U.S. was pushing for open warfare over Berlin. The impetus toward wardisappeared when the Wall went up,the soldiers disengaged, and the world felt reliefover the easing of the prospect of nuclear annihilation.

To civil libertarians in the West the Wall appeared to imprison people behind socialist bars. But for a state struggling to maintain its legitimacy and a respectable German role in the post-Nazi world, the Wall protected the new socialist country on German soil from a life-threatening hemorrhage of human capital. The Wall came down in November 1989, and had achieved its desired effect: The GDR had become one of the top industrialized nations of the world.

During its 40 years of existence, the GDR, along with other socialist countries, contributed generously to the liberation movements in the underdeveloped world, without expectation of recompense, at a time when the capitalist world waged endless, merciless war against Africans and Asians struggling for independence and freedom.

Those who question why, for example, South Africa, in 1990 not yet a multiracial democracy but heading toward its first free elections in 1994, did not move directly to socialism, and instead maintained much of the old class system, might pause to contemplate the new balance of forces in the world. If the USSR and the socialist bloc had still been around, they would have given substantial material and moral support for a socialist South Africa. Many critics have argued further that the demise of socialism in Europe also created a "unipolar" world, at least for a time, that allowed for a steep deterioration in workers' rights and living conditions even here in the U.S., which no longer had to compete with socialism in those areas of the economy where socialism was doing a better job than capitalism (elimination of poverty and racism, unemployment, education, healthcare, construction of affordable housing etc.).

Capitalism is still "exporting" into former Soviet lands: Witness the integration of many former Soviet republics into NATO and other Western-dominated regional blocs on Russia's western and southern flanks. Much of the present conflict in Ukraine can be traced to Western efforts to peel off that country from its historic cultural and trade relationships with Russia. Russia understandably sees itself as increasingly surrounded by powers that seek its even greater destruction as a major world nation.

Historians will never cease arguing over the reasons why the USSR and its socialist bloc imploded. Was it primarily decay, fatigue or betrayal from within? Or was it more the result of capitalism's never-ending anti-socialist crusade that dated back to the very foundation of the Soviet government in 1917?

These questions cannot be dealt with adequately in a brief column, but certainly some context and reference can be established for what happened "today in history."

John Wojcik contributed to this article.

Photo: Wikimedia (CC)

Cuba: Pope takes mass and visits Fidel

Wed, 23 Sep 2015 18:01:00 +0000

Reposted from MorningStar

POPE FRANCIS flew to the eastern Cuban city of Holguin yesterday to address a large outdoor Catholic mass in the city's Revolution Square.

The pontiff told his audience that Jesus "invites us slowly to overcome our preconceptions and our reluctance to think that others, much less ourselves, can change."

President Raul Castro was again in the audience, although First Vice-President Miguel Diaz-Canel headed the state delegation to receive the pope.
Francis travelled later to the eastern city of Santiago to visit the shrine to the Virgin of Charity of Cobre, seen as Cuba's patron saint by the Catholic church.
After speaking on Sunday at the huge mass in Havana, the pope visited revolutionary leader and former president Fidel Castro for a 40-minute session described by the Vatican as "informal and familial."

The two men exchanged books and discussed issues facing humanity, including the Pope's recent letter to senior clergymen on the environment and global capitalism.
The encounter was broadcast on Cuban state media showing them shaking hands and chatting.
The Pope then held an hour-long meeting with Raul Castro, thanking him for pardoning thousands of petty criminals prior to his arrival.

The president presented the pontiff with a huge sculpture of the crucified Christ made of oars by the artist Kcho and a painting of the Virgin of Charity of Cobre.

The US suggested at the weekend that it was considering abstaining on the forthcoming annual UN vote to condemn the US blockade against Cuba.

Image: Creative Commons 3.0

Land and political prisoners: unfinished business for Colombian peace talks

Wed, 23 Sep 2015 13:48:00 +0000

Peace negotiations between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Colombian government have continued for almost three years.

Partial agreements on agrarian reform, political participation, and illicit drugs have been reached, and an accord on "victims" is expected soon. Already "technical commissions" are dealing with final matters like relinquishing arms, verification, and removing land mines.

But will the talks yield real social justice? That's what the FARC wants now just as it did when armed struggle began in 1964.

Obstacles loom. Agreements so far are partial ones. The whole package of agreements will require popular approval, and whether by referendum or a constituent assembly is unclear. There are other loose ends. The land problem, already dealt with in a partial agreement, is one, and uncertainty over political prisoners is another.

Land and its use have long preoccupied Colombia. "Colombian conflict in our era started in the 1920s and had its origin in the land, in the agrarian problem," says land reform expert and journalist Alfredo Molano Bravo.

The Colombian government in August released the results of its first agricultural census in 45 years. According to official figures, as reported by TeleSur, 46 per cent of Colombia's 250 million acres of rural lands are in the hands of 0.4 percent of landowners; their parcels average 1100 acres.

Seventy percent of landowners are left with only five percent of all rural land. Their individual tracts average less than 11 acres. Yet they produce 70 percent of Colombia's food.

Some 48 million acres are potentially fit for growing crops, yet only 15.6 million acres (6.3 percent of the total rural land) are actually used for that purpose. The rest, 93.7 per cent, are given over to cattle-raising, mining, dams, oil extraction, and mono-crop agricultural production - or remain idle. Rural poverty is 44.7 percent.

Colombia imports 10 million tons of food annually. That only a tiny portion of land capable of growing crops is actually tilled demonstrates the prostration of small producers forced to compete with foreign agricultural interests advantaged through Colombia's free trade agreements with industrialized nations.

Eberto Díaz is the president of FENSUAGRO, Colombia's largest small farmer and agricultural workers union. He claims the census data is flawed and that the report serves to minimize problems of rural Colombia.

Citing a previous survey, he places rural poverty at 63 percent, 75 percent in some regions. Agricultural policy expert Jaime Muñoz regrets census data not being available to peace negotiators earlier, even though "a big part of those numbers ... had little to do with realities of the rural world."

Molano Bravo thinks that because the government was unable in the talks to certify the quantity of land available for redressing inequalities, it would have trouble "putting [land] at the disposition of small farmers once an agreement has been signed."

Most importantly, however, the combined power of transnational corporations, big landowners, Colombia's national bourgeoisie, and exploitative industrialized nations converts agitation or negotiation for equitable land use into a David and Goliath story. And worse: legions of paramilitaries, who enforce population displacements and battle dissidents, are on the side of that power.

Huber Ballesteros knows. In a recent background report, Ballesteros, a vice president of FENSUAGRO, indicates that, "Conflicts over land in the first three decades of the 20th century ... incubated a terrible period of violence for the next half century. The contempt this oligarchy has always felt for the poor, and its colonial-feudal legacy, have always put the stamp of such politics on rural development."

Violence over decades "in reality was a systematic plan for furthering agrarian counter-reform, [actually] for consolidating a model of rural development by means of state terrorism ... It privileges property of the great landowners and expulsion of the small farmer class."

Ballesteros also knows about force and intimidation. He writes from prison, having been jailed on August 25, 2013 at the culmination of a nationwide agrarian strike for which he was the spokesperson. Witnesses against him were paid by the government. There's been no trial yet.

He joins 9,500 other political prisoners - unionists, academicians, student leaders, rural community leaders, and opposition activists. Former political prisoner Liliany Obando sees few signs of a reconciliatory plan for the prisoners as part of a future peace agreement.

In a recent article, she inveighs against a "politics that distorts the idea of political crime and converts the universal right of rebellion into a crime used as a weapon for persecuting those in the opposition; they face charges that are beyond the realm of political crime." She worries about an agreement "reached while thousands of political prisoners are still behind bars, and especially those who were convicted unjustly."

To question prospects for peace is to recall a familiar tension. From any rational point of view, tools used to fashion a just society ought to include political debate, peaceful agitation, legislative aplomb, democratic leadership, watchdog journalism, and an independent judiciary. But in Colombia division by social class intervenes and methods are different. Violent enforcers - paramilitaries, jailers, and others - are at work solidifying class antagonism. It's easy to believe cards are stacked in regard to the negotiations.

Photo: Colombian army fighting FARC forces. | Wikipedia (CC)

Burkina Faso military coup a setback for West Africa

Tue, 22 Sep 2015 16:16:00 +0000

On Wednesday Sept. 16, troops of a special presidential guard unit, The Presidential Security Regiment (RSP), burst into a cabinet meeting and arrested the interim president of the West African country of Burkina Faso, Michel Kafando, the Prime Minister, Isaac Zida, and two other cabinet ministers. General Gilbert Diendéré, a close associate of the deposed dictator Blaise Compaoré who was overthrown in October of 2014, announced that he was taking power and postponing elections scheduled for October 11. Most observers see the coup as a return to power, if not of Compaoré, who has been living in exile in neighboring Ivory Coast (where he has the support of the president, Allasane Oattara) at least of his circle.

Protesters quickly gathered in the streets of the capital, Ouagadougou, but were fired on by the RSP, with a toll of at least 10 deaths.

Burkina Faso, population 17,333,000, is one of the poorest countries in the world with a per-capita gross domestic product of $1,666 (Purchasing Power Parity Method). It is landlocked and largely agricultural, with cotton being its major export crop, but a large proportion of the population involved in subsistence farming on land that is subject to the desertification process of the whole Sahel region. Like other countries that depend on export of commodities, it is often at the mercy of price fluctuations which make economic planning difficult.

Under its old name of Upper Volta (Haute Volta), it was a French colonial possession from 1897 until its independence in 1960. After independence came a series of coups d'état with military governments replacing civilian governments or each other. In 1983, an unusual military figure, Captain Thomas Sankara, took power in a coup and, instead of looting the country, set it on a course of progressive social reforms that greatly benefited the poor majority and especially women, while reducing the power of foreign capitalists and the country's small elites. Sankara changed the name of the country from Upper Volta to Burkina Faso, "Land of Upright Men". But in 1987 another military man, Blaise Compaoré, overthrew Sankara. Sankara and a number of his associates were murdered, and the new government quickly reversed his reforms, especially those that had antagonized the former colonial power, France. Presently Compaoré made himself president, and ruled the country until October of 2014, when he was driven from office by popular protests provoked by his attempt to alter the constitution to allow himself another term in office. The president and prime minister overthrown last week were appointed on an interim basis after Compaoré's flight.

Thomas Sankara's family fled the country after the 1987 coup, but have not given up demanding justice for the murdered former president, an act which they blame on Compaoré and people around him, including especially General Diendéré. Sankara's widow, Mariam Sankara, who returned from exile earlier this year, has been demanding a full investigation of her husband's death. After Compaoré was driven from power, the transitional government had begun to accede to those demands, starting with the exhumation of Sankara's body. In fact a report on the investigation of the murder of Sankara and 12 of his associates was supposed to be announced on Thursday September 17, the day after the coup. The transitional government had also dismissed General Diendéré from his command of the RSP, and was threatening to dissolve the unit. Compaoré loyalists were not being allowed to run for election in October. All of these things represented a serious threat to Compaoré's associates.

The country's location, bordered as it is by Mali and Niger to the North and Cote D'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Ghana, Togo and Benin to the South, automatically makes it the focus of Western military efforts aimed at blocking the advance of armed Islamist uprisings in the Sahel region such as the ones that have destabilized Mali, Niger and Northern Nigeria in the last few years. The United States in particular, as part of its growing military presence in Africa, has been providing support and training for the Burkinabe military. General Diendéré, the coup leader and new strongman, is closely linked to the U.S. military mission in the area, as well as to the French military.

The U.S. State Department, the French Government, the African Union and the European Union quickly condemned the coup. There is plenty of leverage; France has substantial control over Burkina Faso's currency and both the U.S. and France could cut off military aid. The United States and its allies see the Burkinabe military as key in the struggle against the militant insurgents in the Sahel.

Meanwhile Compaoré opponents, including labor unions, have announced the formation of a united front to drive the military from power.

On Monday September 21 ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West African States, announced that it had reached an agreement with Diendéré whereby he would step down in exchange for amnesty and authorization for candidates backed by ex-president Compaoré being allowed to run in the elections, which would be delayed until November. West African leaders are set to meet in Nigeria on Tuesday to discuss endorsement of this plan. Meanwhile President Kafando and Prime Minister Zida have been released, according to some sources.

But the anti-Compaoré demonstrators denounced this agreement as tantamount to a surrender to the coup forces, since it basically gives in to all Diendérés demands.

Diendéré is now threatened from another quarter. On Monday troops not affiliated with his special presidential guard unit were moving to attack him and his men if he did not step down and restore the interim government.

Map: Wikipedia. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

René González in Mexico gives thanks, welcomes advice

Tue, 22 Sep 2015 15:03:00 +0000

MEXICO CITY -- Olga Salvanueva and husband René González were the guests of the Mexico Cuba solidarity organization on Monday evening, Sept. 7. The room at the historic National Press Club of Mexico City was filled to capacity, and people were standing in the aisles and outside the three sets of wood and glass double doors that provide entry along one side of the elongated room. Over 300 people waved hand-held pairs of Mexican and Cuban flags as the two guests entered and were introduced.

René González is one of the Cuban 5 (along with Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, and Fernando González) who were recently freed from U.S. prisons after years of pressure from millions of citizens of different countries around the world as well as governments, dignitaries and prominent individuals.

In opening, González and his wife were officially thanked by one of the women of the solidarity group for being here and continuing to struggle for the dignity of common people everywhere in the world. They were here in Mexico after the Cuban Five endured years in U.S. prisons. They were here after the U.S. wanted them never to go free. They were here after years of struggle by Olga Salvanueva, along with many millions, to free the five Cuban heroes. At last she and her husband are reunited as a family with their daughter.

In René's words, this accomplishment to seek justice through their freedom was as important a victory as was Playa Girón (Bay of Pigs) where in April of 1961 the Cuban people defeated a CIA-orchestrated military attack to overthrow the recently established revolutionary government of Cuba. The invading force was comprised of Cuban mercenaries from the U.S. with U.S. government air and tactical support.

René stated that he and the other four of the Cuban 5 are traveling to many countries of the world to personally thank the millions who in many small ways took part in defeating the attempt to keep them in prison for defending Cuban citizens from terrorist attacks that were planned and launched in and from Florida. He said it would be impossible to pay the debt to so many but that he and the Cuban 5 would work to keep Cuba as the example it represents to people around the world.

He told the crowd that the U.S. would try to fool and corrupt Cuba in the new atmosphere of easing tensions with the opening of U.S.-Cuba relations. He said they welcome all the advice that everyone has offered in telling the Cubans what they think might happen "because," he said, "you have lived in relations with the U.S. and you all know better than we what experiences you have had in these relations. We must learn about those from you."

René gave examples of people like Lucius Walker of the Pastors for Peace organization that gave help not only to the struggle to Free the Cuban 5, but so much solidarity to the Cuban people. He said that in the special period which followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, when so many things were scarce in Cuba, people all over the world, like Lucius Walker, showed their solidarity and helped the Cuban people morally and materially to pursue their sovereign right to build their own idea of a just and socialist society. He said not only that justice is key but that it must enjoy wide civic participation. People together, in different countries, must develop their own definition of socialism for their reality. He said that as a Cuban he aspired to justice as part of the new conditions that normalization of relations with the U.S. would bring.

A moment was also taken to recognize and show support for the Puerto Rican Oscar López Rivera, who is the longest still-held political prisoner in U.S. prisons. A pronouncement of solidarity was also made in support of the Venezuelan people and their government headed by President Nicolás Maduro.

Photo: Cuban hero Rene Gonzalez in Mexico. Prensa Latina.

Today in history: It's World Car Free Day!

Tue, 22 Sep 2015 14:26:00 +0000

Way back in 1956, the first car free Sundays in the Netherlands and Belgium took place. Every Sunday from November 25, 1956 to January 20, 1957 was car free. Gradually and sporadically World Car Free Day started being celebrated around the world until the date of September 22^nd was permanently chosen.

Car Free Day encourages motorists to give up their cars for a day. Organized events are held in some cities and countries. The event promotes improvement of mass transit, cycling and walking, and the development of communities where jobs are closer to home and shopping is within walking distance. The events, which vary by location, give motorists and commuters an idea of their locality with fewer cars.

The problem is that most people don't take notice at all or take part for one day then revert back to their old ways.

Here is a challenge for your city, neighborhood or group: Spend one carefully prepared day without cars, study and observe closely what exactly goes on during that day, and reflect publicly and collectively on the lessons of this experience and on what might be prudently and creatively done next to build on these.

Or think about this as an exercise: Consider car users to be "addicts" who need to be "treated" in some way. Consider this to mean that motorists should have no choice but to be without cars, at least for a time. In this paradigm the proposed "treatment" is to find an answer to the following question in three main parts: Is it possible to get drivers out of their cars in one or more cities - in ways that will be tolerable in a pluralistic democracy - and for at least long enough to demonstrate what needs to happen to make a car-less (or more accurately, less-car) urban transport model actually work?

One of the ringleaders of the 1958 demonstration in New York City, urban critic Jane Jacobs, opened up the discussions of car restraint in cities in her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities. In 1981 the German Democratic Republic [East Germany] had its first Car Free Day.

We all know about the dangers of too much pollution to our environment, yet every day we get in our cars and make the situation worse. Car Free Days alone cannot change public policy concerning the need for mass transit, but the movement can make the public's feelings known.

It is not just the pollution that can make traveling by car a misery. Hasn't it sometimes struck you as absurd to be sitting in a grid-locked city traffic jam when you could be walking past the very traffic you're stuck in? It might be nice to travel at your own pace and not have that set by other commuters.

Public transport also shortens your journey time by avoiding congested roads and taking more direct routes offered by infrastructure such as bus, railway and metro lines.

Car use is seen as the norm in modern society, but why should it be? Imagine a day when there is no traffic noise, everyone is car free and you can hear the birds sing and the trees rustle! Beyond the day-to-day journeying and pollution, cars blight our environment with discarded parts such as batteries and tires, oil leaks, and then eventually the carcass of the car when it is no longer fit for use.

So on this one day in September, could you take part in World Car Free Day and help make our world a little bit nicer to live in? You might even enjoy a change of scenery!

Adapted from www.cute-calendar.com, Wikipedia and other sources.

Photo: "Jakarta Car Free Day" by Gunawan Kartapranata - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons.

Today in history: It’s World Peace Day!

Mon, 21 Sep 2015 15:44:00 +0000

In 1982, the United Nations General Assembly declared, in a resolution sponsored by the United Kingdom and Costa Rica, the International Day of Peace, sometimes unofficially known as World Peace Day, to be devoted to commemorating and strengthening the ideals of peace.The date initially chosen was the regular opening day of the annual sessions of the General Assembly, the third Tuesday of September. This was changed in 2001 to the current annual celebration on September 21 each year.

Today is also a day of global ceasefire and non-violence.

To inaugurate the day, the United Nations Peace Bell is rung at UN Headquarters in New York City. The bell was cast from coins donated by children around the world, and was a gift from the United Nations Association of Japan, as "a reminder of the human cost of war"; the inscription on its side reads, "Long live absolute world peace."

In 2015 the theme is "Partnerships for Peace - Dignity for All."

Past years have focused on other themes such as"International Year of Reconciliation"in 2009; "Peace and Democracy: Make Your Voice Heard" (2011); "Sustainable Peace for a Sustainable Future" (2012); "Focus on Peace Education" (2013); and "The Right of Peoples to Peace" (2014).

In 2003, after George W. Bush launched the war on Iraq, editor Sam Hamill assembled a volume of "Poets Against the War" (Thunder's Mouth Press/Nation Books, New York). Here is the contribution from Santa Monica, Calif. poet Sherman Pearl:

The Poem in Time of War

should wake the city shouting EXTRA! EXTRA!
then whisper the story behind the story
like a conspirator. It should be short, stirring
as the president's call to arms;
soft enough for a flag at half-mast;
strong enough to stiffen the bereaved;
spacious enough to serve as a body bag.

The poem should carry the news that men
die miserably for lack of. It is
a brief on behalf of the living, a paper megaphone
for the voices of the dead. It must be
the world's last will and testament, a listing
of what will be left. It steals from forebears:
Sassoon's doomed diary and Auden's call to love.

The poem would be a prescription for healing
but who could read such a scrawl? ... or a bandage
over the wounds, except that blood
tends to obliterate words.
Maybe all the war poems could be sewn together
into a vast thick quilt we'd pull around
our shoulders; might warm us on nights like this.

Article adapted from Wikipedia.

Tsipras' Syriza Party wins Greek election again

Mon, 21 Sep 2015 11:14:00 +0000

Greek voters handed a stunning victory to the left-wing Syriza party and its leader Alexis Tsipras on Sunday, as they went to the polls for the third time in a year.

Syriza got 145 seats in the new Parliament, only four fewer than in its first electoral victory in January. The second highest vote getter Nea Demokratia, the main right-wing party, was far behind with 75 seats, a loss of one. The extreme right-wing neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party picked up one extra seat, for a total of 18. Golden Dawn thus became the third largest party in Parliament, edging past the older social democratic PASOK (Pan-Hellenic Socialist Party) which gained four seats for a total of 17. The Greek Communist Party (KKE) made no gains, retaining its 15 seats in the new Parliament. "The River," Potami, a centrist party which supports accepting austerity, was badly mauled by the voters, lost six seats and ended up with only 11. The conservative but anti-austerity Independent Greeks Party, ANEL, Syriza's coalition party since January's election, lost three seats but retained 10. The right-leaning Union of Centrists, entering Parliament for the first time, got nine seats. The Popular Unity party, a left split-off from Syriza, got 2.85 percent of the vote and did not win any seats.The 145 seats that Syriza won are six votes short of the 151 needed to give it a parliamentary majority, thus the coalition with ANEL will continue.

This was a "snap" election called by Prime Minister Tsipras on August 20. Tsipras had lost parliamentary majority when a number of members of Parliament from his own party defected to form their own group, Popular Unity, protesting Tsipras' acceptance, under duress, of a vicious package of austerity measures forced on the country by the "Troika" of the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank, as well as by the governments of Germany and some other wealthy European Union states.

The left-wing Syriza and Tsipras came to power after an election in January that was fought on the subject of previous austerity programs imposed on previous governments by the Troika and Greece's creditors. These austerity programs have had a devastating effect on the Greek economy and on the living standards of ordinary Greek working people. But it became evident that the ruling class in Europe and the political right, especially in Germany, were determined to punish the Greek people for defying their orders and electing a left-wing government. This anger increased when Tsipras called a referendum on the austerity programs and the voters overwhelmingly voted "oxi" ("no!"), rejecting the harsh austerity. However, the German government and the European Central Bank and European Commission (governing executive of the European Union) lashed back, and used the fact that the Greek banks were about to run out of cash to force Tsipras to accept even worse austerity conditions in exchange for a further bailout.

The rightist Nea Demokratia party argued that the Syriza government should be punished for its defeat at the hands of the Troika and the Germans, but evidently Greek voters remembered that it was a series of incompetent and corrupt Nea Demokratia and PASOK governments that had got Greece into this trouble in the first place. So voters did not buy that line. Syriza argued that even though the new austerity measures will have to be imposed, Syriza would strive to protect the workers and powerless as it continued to struggle against European big capital, whereas anti-worker parties to the right of Syriza would implement the measures with ruthlessness.

Elections with similar scenarios are coming up in Portugal on October 4, in Spain on December 20 and in Ireland next year. Voters in those countries will undoubtedly be influenced by the Greek results, as well as by the choice of leftist Jeremy Cronyn as the new head of the Labour Party in the United Kingdom. At stake is the possibility of a Europe-wide rebellion against austerity programs which are impoverishing the working class in many countries.

Photo: An anti-austerity rally in front of the parliament in Athens. | AP

Cuban health care draws worldwide praise

Fri, 18 Sep 2015 14:21:00 +0000

(Editor's note: Cuba has been nominated to receive the Nobel Peace Price for its health care efforts around the world and for fighting Ebola in West Africa. Click here for a petition to publicize the nomination.)

Health care for Cubans and the care Cuba extends to the world have gained high praise. For 50 years, Cuba's health care reforms have been the basis for health care planners and providers to be able to extend medical care, medical education, and disease prevention throughout the world.

1. Health Care in Cuba

Numbers and narrative alike tell the story of a health care project comprehensive, effective and accessible to all Cuban people. Actual health care in Cuba and public health are identical -- for U.S. health care planners, separate entities. Both the community and individual are at once objects of care in Cuba. Payment for care is not an individual responsibility. Cuba has emphasized provision of health facilities, services, and practitioners to rural areas in response to deprivations there prior to the Revolution.

Health authorities have emphasized data collection, prevention strategies, health education for all, biomedical research, and medical-education capabilities. Cuba has devised full-spectrum health care, from specialty hospitals for complicated and unusual illnesses, to mid-level centers providing consultations, emergency care, and laboratory services, to thousands of family doctor-nurse teams providing first-contact care in rural areas and crowded cities alike. In developing their system of care, health care leaders frequently have resorted to improvisation, taking advantage of innovative examples elsewhere.

Article 50 of Cuba's revised 1976 Constitution proclaims that, "Everyone has the right to health protection and care." Political commitment is what drives planning. In 1965, Fidel Castro led 475 new doctors, the first to be educated under the Revolution, to the summit of Pico Turquino, Cuba's highest mountain. There the students vowed "to expand rural medical services, to promote preventive health care among the population and to providing selfless aid to needy peoples." Describing "Revolutionary Medicine" to a group of soldiers in 1960, Che Guevara established the duty of the state, "to provide public health services for the greatest possible number of persons, institute a program of preventive medicine ... and to orient the creative abilities of all medical professionals toward the tasks of social medicine."

The role of political leadership was clear in 1983 when Fidel Castro urged specialists at Cuba's principle infectious disease institute to make certain that the oncoming HIV/AIDS epidemic "does not constitute a health problem for Cuba." Thus preventative measures were already in place when Cuba's first case of the disease was diagnosed two years later. Infection rates are still the lowest in the region.

Data from the World Health Organization and Pan American Health Organization confirm Cuba's own figures on health outcome. Estimates of infant mortality rates (IMR) during the 1950's, prior to the Cuban Revolution, vary widely, from 65 babies dying in their first year of life (out of 1000 births) to 39 infant deaths (in 1960). Life expectancy at birth was 64 or less, according to varying tallies. Cuba had one medical school, eight small nursing schools, and 6286 practicing and teaching physicians, two thirds of whom were based in Havana. Within two years 3000 physicians would leave for foreign exile.

Data from the World Health Organization and Pan American Health Organization confirm Cuba's own figures on health outcome. (3) Estimates of infant mortality rates (IMR) during the 1950's, prior to the Cuban Revolution, vary widely, from 65 babies dying in their first year of life (out of 1000 births) to 39 infant deaths (in 1960). Life expectancy at birth was 64 or less, according to varying tallies. Cuba had one medical school, eight small nursing schools, and 6286 practicing and teaching physicians, two thirds of whom were based in Havana. Within two years 3000 physicians would leave for foreign exile.

In 2013 Cuban life expectancy was 78.5 years (79 in the United States). Cuba's 2014 IMR was 4.2. The U. S. rate in 2011 was 6.1 and is unchanged since, with black infants dying at twice that rate. (The IMR for Canada was 4.8 recently - 15.7 for all of Latin America.) Cuba's rate of child deaths under age five, per thousand births, was 5.7 in 2014; the most recent U. S. rate was 7.1. Cuba has recently spent 10 percent of its GDP on health care; the United States 17.6 percent; Canada 11.4; and the UK 9.6 percent. Cuba has one physician for 149 persons, 85,563 in all; the U. S. rate is one per 413 persons. Cuba, with 24 medical schools, graduated more than 10,000 physicians in 2013; the United States graduated 18,154 that year.

Cuban health care extends to biomedical research and production, also export of multiple vaccines, diagnostic test kits, and generic drugs - including anti-HIV agents. That sector has prioritized immunotherapy products and anti-cancer vaccines. "In one section of Havana," an observer notes," there are 24 research and 58 manufacturing facilities, employing some 7000 scientists and engineers, and [that] accounted for $711 million (USD) in export earnings in 2011." (4) Cuban scientists have developed innovative products, among them: interferons, a vaccine against Type B meningococcal meningitis, a drug directed at foot ulcers caused by diabetes, recombinant streptokinase used for myocardial infarctions, and epidermal growth factor helpful in the treatment of burns.

2. Cuban International Medical Solidarity

It started in 1960. Cuba sent a relief team of health workers to Chile after an earthquake there. They went to Algeria in 1963 to establish a public health system. Since then, according to Professor John M. Kirk of Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, over 325,000 Cuban medical personnel have provided assistance in 158 countries. (5) Indeed, the Cuban Constitution refers to "proletarian internationalism, brotherly friendship, help, cooperation, and solidarity with the peoples of the world."

Kirk believes that, "Cuba has provided an example for the planet, showing how its successful medical collaboration programs have been far more successful, and more far-reaching, than anything provided by all of the G-8 countries' efforts combined. For over fifty years Cuban medical personnel have served the poorest and most neglected areas of the world, going where other doctors refused to go. At present they are looking after the well-being of some 70 million people."
He adds that, "As of January 2015 there are 51,847 Cuban medical personnel (of whom 50.1percent are physicians) working in 67 countries-mainly in the developing world ... [I]n Africa over 4,000 medical personnel are working in 32 countries" The situation, he says, is comparable to "having 223,000 US doctors serving in developing countries."

Some notable examples:

Cuban medical teams went to Sub-Saharan Africa in the 1970's in conjunction with anti-apartheid military actions there.
Beginning in 1990 Cuba developed comprehensive medical-care programs centered in Tarará, Cuba, for the 21,874 children and 4,240 adults who were victims of the 1986 nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, Ukraine. Cuba provided medical care and provisions at no cost.
During the 1990's, disaster relief efforts culminated in help given to Haiti and Central American countries following Hurricanes George and Mitch in 1998. The latter took tens of thousands of lives.
Hundreds of Cuban doctors remained in Haiti and were there when the disastrous 2010 earthquake occurred. New physician arrivals took the lead in providing care and rehabilitation for injuries and responding to the cholera epidemic that followed. They stayed; currently 700 Cuban doctors are working in Haiti. In all 11,000 Cuban health workers have served there since 1998.
Cuban doctors have cared for patients in East Timor since 2003; 350 were there in 2008, and four years later hundreds of that country's young people were training as physicians in Cuba, also in an East Timorese medical school established and staffed by Cubans.
From 2004 on, as part of "Operation Miracle," Cuban eye surgeons with logistical support from Venezuela have performed sight-restoring surgery, mainly for cataracts and glaucoma, for 3.4 million patients in 31 countries.
In 2005 in Pakistan within two weeks of an earthquake that killed 250,000 people, over 3000 Cuban medical personnel were caring for the injured in 32 field hospitals, in the snow and mountains. They stayed for six months.
Earlier that year Cuban disaster-relief teams working abroad became the "Henry Reeve Brigade," named in honor of a young U. S. soldier who joined rebel forces in Cuba's first War for Independence. Some 1500 Cuban doctors preparing to go to New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina - The U. S. government turned them down. - were the first contingent to be so designated. By that time 36 disaster relief teams had already worked in 24 countries.
In late 2014, 251 Brigade members traveled to East Africa to combat the Ebola epidemic. Recruited from 15,000 volunteers, they stayed for six months. For its anti-Ebola contribution, Norway's Conference of Trade Unions in February 2015, nominated the Henry Reeve Brigade for the Nobel Peace Prize.
"Brigade 41" of the Brigade, with 49 health workers, arrived in Katmandu, Nepal, in May 2015 to deal with suffering caused by a major earthquake. This was the 41^st mobilization of the Brigade since its formation in 2005.
In August 2015, 16 Cubans - physicians, nurses, and epidemiologists - were on the Caribbean island of Dominica helping victims of flooding caused by Hurricane Erika. They brought 1.2 tons of medical supplies and provisions.
Since 2005, Cuban physicians, usually from 12,000 to 15,000 at a time, have served in Venezuela as practitioners and medical teachers. In return, Cuba gains an assured, reasonably priced supply of Venezuelan oil.
Some 11,000 Cuban physicians, the majority of them women, have been working since 2013 in underserved areas of Brazil, whose government reimburses its Cuban counterpart.

Medical education is a big part of Cuban medical internationalism. Kirk reports that in Africa, for example, 5,500 Cuban professionals were working there in 2012, and also that "40,000 Africans have graduated from Cuban universities and there are currently 3,000 studying in Cuba."

Cuba has established medical faculties in 15 countries and provided teachers for 13 of them. According to journalist Salim Lamrani, Cuba annually provides training in medicine, nursing, or medical technology for some 29,000 students from over 100 foreign countries. (6) Every year half of Cuba's medical graduates are foreign students. Cuba-Venezuela cooperation has resulted in some 25,000 Venezuelans now studying medicine under Cubans' tutelage as part of an innovative program that has students studying in their own communities. Kirk reports that Cuban teachers have helped train "more than 80,000 midwives, 65 health promoters and 3,000 nurses" in developing countries.

The jewel in the crown of Cuba's overseas medical work is the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM). Formed in 1999, the Havana-based institution, which utilizes teaching hospitals across the island, provides medical education at no personal cost to students who arrive from Africa, Latin America, Asia, and from the United States - almost 100 counties in all. Up to 1500 students graduate from the School every year and, as of August 2015, some 23,000 physicians have returned to their own countries, where, as promised, they will be serving where they are most needed. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, visiting the School, told students, "ELAM does more than train doctors. You produce miracle workers."

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Cuban health care relates to the community orientation of practitioners and teachers alike, in Cuba and abroad.

Kirk quotes El Salvador's Public Health Minister María Isabel Rodríguez: "The Cubans treat them [their patients] as individuals, recognizing their human quality, and spending time with them. Their medical treatment is different - the Cuban doctors respect their patients and listen to them."

Kirk suggests that patients "are not seen as suffering from a singular ailment ... instead they are viewed in the wider bio-psycho-social context." And, "the system is based upon medical training in which ethical considerations and the responsibilities of professionals are emphasized far more than in medical schools of the industrialized world. ... The result is that the Cuban system has developed a cost-effective, pragmatic, highly ethical and sustainable system of public healthcare."

In January 2015 Professor Kirk wrote to the Norwegian Nobel Committee indicating he was "delighted to nominate the Cuban medical internationalism program for the Nobel Peace Prize." Ban Ki-moon would concur: Cuban "doctors are with communities through thick and thin - before disasters strike ... throughout crises ... and long after storms have passed. They are often the first to arrive and the last to leave."

Photo: Cuban health worker wearing protective gear. | telesurv

Wars and armament sales behind world's refugee crisis

Fri, 18 Sep 2015 11:06:00 +0000

BERLIN - "A million refugees in Germany this year," predicted Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel. But Angela Merkel had announced that all were welcome - winning her a reputation as the most humane leader in all Europe. Did her internationalist upbringing in East Germany, with a progressive Christian pastor as father, play some role at first?

But suddenly the line was changed; German crossing points from Austria were shut down. Then Austria closed its entry points from Hungary, while Hungary, by far the most brutal, plugged up its entry points from Serbia with razor wire and, when it felt necessary, with batons, tear gas and multiple arrests.

Now Serbia has followed suit, Croatia felt forced to do the same, and those Syrians, Iraqis, Afghans and other refuge-seekers who survived dangerous crossing through ever stormier seas are caught in a series of mouse-traps. Their loud chants of "Germany, Germany" and joyful waving of Merkel portraits have largely vanished.

Is it fair to charge her with hypocrisy? It may have been impossible for her to foresee how many would move northward, singling out Germany, far less often Sweden, as desired goals.

Who could predict the jammed railroad stations, disastrous, improvised shelters or videos of crying children - or drowned ones? She must also have been aware that the truly amazing, heart-warming welcome by over half the German population might, under the weight of numbers, go into reverse, providing new strength to the ever-menacing xenophobes, Islamophobes, and other far-right racists.

Some cynics whisper that Merkel's mercy was really motivated by hopes that a large increase in population, especially by young people of working age, would not only counteract the demographic threat of a Germany with ever fewer babies but also build up a "reserve army" of eager workers, useful in counteracting fights for wage increases by a work force already hit hard by a growing number of temp, part-time, low-paid jobs, always harder to organize and easier to exploit.

But her policy reversal was also based on the refusal of the European Union to take in more than 120,000 of the 1,000,000 expected in Germany alone. Few member countries have accepted even modest quotas; Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and the Baltic countries - many now celebrating "velvet revolutions for human rights" a quarter of a century ago - refuse to take in even a handful.

The quarrel is threatening the very basis of the highly-heralded European Union, especially one of its key achievements - visa-free borders, unhindered travel and migration from Estonia to Malta, from the North Cape to the Rock of Gibraltar.

Of course it must be admitted that the shaky economies of many EU members are hardly able to cope with great influxes, nor has there been any clamor on the part of the refugees to settle in Poland or Portugal.

Yes, the huge numbers were perhaps unexpected and pressure from Merkel's sister party in Bavaria has grown increasingly anti-immigrant. (Its name, Christian Social Union, and hers, the Christian Democratic Union, considering their programs, make the names almost oxymorons.) But she, too, like most of the media, used humane clichés but carefully avoided the causes of this unsettling chaos.

One long-lasting cause is the colony-like treatment of poorer countries. Most African immigrants (aside from Eritrea, a different story) are from Nigeria, about which Afrika Focus comments: "With over 50 years of oil exploitation, vast stretches have poor water quality; there is pollution, disruption and degradation of farmlands and fishing ports, destruction of wildlife and biodiversity, loss of fertile soil. Moreover, there has been no provision of adequate compensation or a planned mitigation policy for the areas affected. ...The response ... in the form of protest and campaigns against the activities of the multinational oil companies, has led and continues to lead to violations of their civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights in the form of extra-judicial executions, arbitrary detentions, and unlawful restrictions on their rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly. These restrictions are imposed by security agents mostly with the complicit support of oil MNCs."

Is it surprising that, when naught else helps, many are ready to risk their lives in the Mediterranean rather than endure a life-long struggle for bare survival in filthy slums?

But behind all the recent human surges are wars started or supported by the "western democracies." Large numbers have fled from Iraq and Afghanistan, both thrown into deathly turmoil by illegal foreign invasions. We can soon expect similar large numbers from Yemen.

In Syria, Germany and other major powers have provided all sides with weapons for years, even poison gas, while repeatedly rejecting peace negotiations unless Assad is eliminated, an impossible condition for any realistic efforts. The worst killer in the region, ISIS, has constantly exported oil (and valuable antique objects) via that friendly Western ally Turkey, now carrying out a merciless bombing campaign against left-wing Kurdish groups, far and away the most effective force in fighting ISIS.

Main sources of ISIS weapons, it is clear, have been Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, close U.S. allies, who also use them to fight Saudi's chosen new foes, the Houthis, destroying much of Yemen in the process. They, in turn, were supplied for years by just those western countries which complain most loudly about ISIS cruelty.

While the USA is the main supplier, Germany has also sold them arms worth billions. In February and March it sold huge amounts of ammo and spare parts for tanks and ground-air missile equipment.

In April came the OK for 100 drones, radio equipment and tank replacement parts. Rifles dropped by Saudi planes over Aden to fight the Houthis were products of the famous firm Heckler & Koch, which is ably represented in the Bundestag by Volker Kauder, a recipient of its constant election contributions, and who, aside from being an ardent Christian evangelist and Islam-hater, is a main supporter of arms sales, especially from Heckler & Koch, as well as head of Merkel's party caucus in the Bundestag since 2005. Is a suspicion of hypocrisy fully misplaced?

A sudden decision by Merkel to stop weapons sales to the Saudis, just reported, would be a surprising, welcome reversal of the blood-stained trade deals, till now blushingly approved by Social Democratic Vice-Chancellor Gabriel.

It could be a result of growing world alarm at the terrifying destruction in Yemen - and fear of huge, new waves of refugees when Yemeni ports are re-opened. But we must be generous and congratulate Merkel on the decision - if it is genuine and if it holds against opponents, transatlantic and within her own party.

It is clear; humane treatment is a must in accepting the refugees, while the only way to stop more such waves is to end the wars and the armament sales.

This has been the consistent message of the LINKE party in Germany.

It is also the position of the new head of Britain's Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn. We may hope that his clear, sharp, evidently popular demands will have some long-range effect on Germany's Social Democrats, who have thus far failed to rejoice at his success - indeed, in the case of one leader, have denounced him. But voices and actions like Corbyn's are bitterly needed in an increasingly tense continent.

Photo: A Turkish soldier gives a bottle of water to a handicapped Syrian refugee at the border in Suruc, Turkey. | Burhan Ozbilici/AP

Corbyn and Sanders: Socialists surge on both sides of the Atlantic

Wed, 16 Sep 2015 14:38:00 +0000

Left-wing MP Jeremy Corbyn's victory in the British Labour Party leadership race this past weekend came just as polls showed that Bernie Sanders may be pulling ahead of Hillary Clinton in Iowa, adding to his already established lead in New Hampshire. Look back only a few years ago and few would have predicted that one self-declared socialist would be heading up British Labour and that another would be a real contender for the Democratic presidential nomination. Their gains are a reason for left optimism, but they also serve as reminders of the need for unity and tactical flexibility.

Corbyn handily captured the top spot in the Labour Party and beat out three challengers at a special conference on Saturday, securing almost 60 percent of votes on the first ballot. Following his win, Corbyn made his first major public speech as leader only a few hours later at a rally in London in support of Syrian refugees.

He called on the governments of Europe to live up to their responsibility under the Geneva Convention to take in more asylum-seekers. "They're victims of war; they're victims of environmental degredation; they're victims of poverty; they're victims of human rights abuses all over the world," he declared to a large crowd gathered in Parliament Square.

On the same day, Sanders was making a sweep through the old Confederacy, appearing on stage alongside African-American activist and academic Cornel West in South Carolina. In a series of events in recent weeks, the Sanders campaign has been working hard to grow its base beyond white progressives and to demonstrate its commitment to the causes of broad constituencies.

In a speech in Florence, S.C., Sanders spoke on the problems of mass incarceration and denounced what he called the "political cowardice" of Republicans who "scheme to make it harder for people who disagree with them to vote." He also criticized the recent Supreme Court ruling that weakened the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Sanders also took time Saturday to congratulate Corbyn on his win, telling the Huffington Post: "We need leadership in every country in the world which tells the billionaire class that they cannot have it all. We need economies that work for working families, not just the people on top."

Both Corbyn and Sanders have been gathering support with platforms that strongly oppose austerity and challenge not only their right-wing opponents, but also the Labor and Democratic establishments. Each of them represents a bold challenge to the neoliberalism embraced by the Conservative and Republican Parties. Just as important, though, they symbolize a growing shift away from the 'third way' model of social democracy embraced by many center-left parties in recent decades.

For Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, the holy political trinity of the 1990s was opportunity, responsibility, and community. The two leaders pushed this third way formula in opposition to the message of redistribution, welfare entitlement, and class and identity politics that they associated with what was called the 'old left'. Today, with Corbyn and Sanders surging, it appears that this 'old left', long thought vanquished, may have a second life left in it. Along with the electoral gains of socialists across much of Europe, particularly in Greece and Spain, the struggle to define what it means to be on the political left has been reignited.

The third way advocates who dominated this discussion over the past twenty years are not taking the left-wing resurgence sitting down, however. Corbyn, despite his popularity with the grassroots, only won the backing of 14 of his 211 fellow Labour MPs. Many members of former leader Ed Miliband's outgoing shadow cabinet have announced they will not serve under Corbyn, and at the first meeting of the Labour caucus on Monday, the environment was tense. Differences were aired over NATO, Trident nuclear missiles, and membership in the EU. Such division casts a shadow over election efforts heading toward 2020.

In the U.S., the competition between Sanders and Hillary Clinton has so far been more cordial, with each of the candidates focusing their criticisms on Republican adversaries and sticking to a discussion of major policy proposals. That may be beginning to change, though, as a pro-Clinton super PAC called Correct the Record issued a sharp attack on Sanders this week. In a classic red scare tactic, the group is trying to smear Sanders by drawing connections between him and Corbyn as well as the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.

These divisions among progressives show that the left's growing prominence brings with it the need to find ways to compete for control of the agenda while still safeguarding unity. Many commentators have called on Clintonites and Blairites to acknowledge the increased popularity of those to their left and work on cooperating. It is good advice. But the third way folks are not the only ones who need to hear it.

The Labor left in Britain, much like progressives in America, are still learning how to operate in a rapidly changing political atmosphere. After so many decades spent on the defensive even within their own camp, many left-wingers have yet to gain their footing in the new environment.

In the UK, for instance, there is the temptation to wallow in the victory achieved over the Blair loyalists. Such a celebratory tone prevailed in a number of left journals and blogs over the weekend.

While we are still early on in the primary season in the United States, similar sentiments are easy to find here. Many on the progressive left automatically associate Hillary Clinton with the politics of her husband without focusing on the real differences that separate the former Secretary of State from the stars of the far-right such as Trump, Bush, Carson, and the rest.

Corbyn and Sanders (as well as Clinton) must strive to be unifying figures. For Corbyn and the Labor left, this task is already throwing up many hurdles. The British Labour Party may very well face a lot more division before it can successfully coalesce around a single message.

And in America, if progressives truly want to push back the reactionary resurgence that is taking place within the Republican Party while charting a way forward to a stronger and fairer economy, they can ill afford see each other as enemies. Support Hillary. Support Bernie. Campaign for either or both of them. Just don't forget the bigger picture and be ready to stand together once the primaries have ended.

Photo: Bernie Sanders supporters rally in Burlington, Vermont. | Andy Duback/AP

Today in Latin American history: Mexican independence from Spain is declared

Wed, 16 Sep 2015 14:11:00 +0000

Mexico celebrates its independence from Spain on this date in 1810. For decades, especially since the United States won its independence from England, Mexicans resented Spanish rule. Spain limited Mexican trade, and Spanish subjects born in Mexico (criollos, or Creoles) were denied access to higher positions in the colony.

Napoleon invaded Spain in 1808 and imprisoned King Ferdinand VII. In various parts of Latin America, rebels established their own governments while remaining loyal to the king.

The Grito de Dolores ("Cry of Dolores") was uttered at the small town of Dolores, near Guanajuato, on September 16, 1810. It is the event that marks the beginning of the 11-year Mexican War of Independence. The "grito" was spoken by Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a Roman Catholic priest. Since1825, the anniversary of the event is celebrated as Mexican Independence Day.

Already some organized revolts had taken place, but the plotters were arrested, and later freed from jail by rebel troops. Around 6:00 am on September 16, 1810, Hidalgo ordered the church bells to be rung and gathered his congregation. He addressed the people and encouraged them to revolt.

No scholarly consensus exists as to what exactly Hidalgo said on September 16, 1810. The Course of Mexican History states that in essence Hidalgo said something like this:

"My children: A new dispensation comes to us today. Will you receive it? Will you free yourselves? Will you recover the lands stolen 300 years ago from your forefathers by the hated Spaniards? We must act at once.... Will you defend your religion and your rights as true patriots? Long live Our Lady of Guadalupe! Death to bad government! Death to the gachupines(native Spaniards)!"

Thousands of Indians and mestizos flocked to Hidalgo's banner of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and soon the peasant army was on the march to Mexico City.Defeated at Calderón in January 1811, Hidalgo fled north but was captured and executed. He was followed by other peasant leaders, however, such as José María Morelos y Pavón, Mariano Matamoros, and Vicente Guerrero, who all led armies of revolutionaries against the Spanish and the Royalists.

Ironically, it was the Royalists, made up of Mexicans of Spanish descent and other conservatives, who ultimately brought about independence. In 1820, liberals took power in Spain, and the new government promised reforms to appease the Mexican revolutionaries. In response, Mexican conservatives called for independence as a means of maintaining their privileged position.

In early 1821, Agustín de Iturbide, leader of the Royalist forces, negotiated the Plan of Iguala with Vicente Guerrero. Under its terms, Mexico would become an independent constitutional monarchy, the privileged role of the Catholic Church would be maintained, and Mexicans of Spanish descent would be regarded as equal to pure Spaniards. Mexicans of mixed or pure Indian blood would have lesser rights.

Iturbide defeated the Royalist forces still opposed to independence, and the new Spanish viceroy, lacking money, provisions and troops, was forced to accept Mexican independence. On August 24, 1821, Spanish Viceroy Juan de O'Donojú signed the Treaty of Córdoba, making Mexico an independent constitutional monarchy. In 1822, as no Bourbon monarch to rule Mexico had been found, Iturbide was proclaimed the emperor of Mexico. However, his empire was short-lived, and in 1823 republican leaders Santa Anna and Guadalupe Victoria deposed Iturbide and set up a republic, with Guadalupe Victoria as its first president.

Each year on the night of September 15, at around eleven in the evening, the President of Mexico rings the bell of the National Palace in Mexico City. He then repeats a shout of patriotism (a grito mexicano) based upon the Grito de Dolores, with the names of the important heroes of the Mexican War of Independence, and three shouts of ¡Viva México! to the assembled crowd from the balcony over the Zócalo, one of the largest public plazas in the world. Flags are waved and the national anthem is played, in an event that draws up to half a million spectators.

On the morning of September 16, or Independence Day, the national military parade takes place. A similar celebration occurs in cities and towns all over Mexico, and in Mexican embassies and consulates worldwide on the 15th or the 16th.

Adapted from latinamericanhistory.about.com, Wikipedia, and This Day in History.

Photo: Fireworks explode in Mexico City in celebration of Mexican Independence Day. | Gregory Bull/AP

Europe’s elections: a coming storm?

Wed, 16 Sep 2015 13:40:00 +0000

Between now and next April, four members of the European Union (EU) will hold national elections that will go a long ways toward determining whether the 28-member organization will continue to follow an economic model that has generated vast wealth for a few, widespread misery for many, and growing income inequality. The choice is between an almost religious focus on the "sin" of debt and the "redemption" of austerity, as opposed to a re-calibration toward economic stimulus and social welfare.

The backdrop for elections in Greece, Portugal, Spain and Ireland is one of deep economic crisis originally ignited by the American financial collapse of 2007-08. That meltdown burst real estate bubbles all over Europe - particularly in Spain and Ireland - and economies from the Baltic to the Mediterranean went off the rails. Countries like Ireland, Greece, Spain and Portugal saw their GDP (Gross Domestic Product) numbers plummet, their banks implode and their unemployment rates reach levels not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Debt levels went through the ceiling.

From Latin America to Europe

The response of the EU to the crisis was a carbon copy of the so-called "Washington consensus" that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) applied to indebted Latin American countries during the 1990s: massive cutbacks in government spending, widespread layoffs and double-digit tax raises on consumers.

Instead of lower debt levels and jumpstarting economies, however, the IMF strictures for Latin America did exactly the opposite. Cutbacks, layoffs, and high taxes impoverished the majority, which in turn tanked economies and raised debt levels. The formula was a catastrophe that Latin America is still digging itself out from.

But the strategy was very good for a narrow stratum, led by banks, speculators, and multinational corporations. U.S, British, German, Dutch and French banks helped inflate real estate bubbles by pouring low-interest money into building binges. The banks certainly knew they were feeding a bubble - land prices in Spain and Ireland jumped 500 percent.

However, as economist Joseph Stiglitz points out, the banks had a trick: their private debts would be paid for by the public. Taxpayers did pick up the tab, but only by borrowing money from the Troika - the IMF, the European Central Bank, and the European Commission - and accepting the same conditions that tanked Latin American in the 1990s. Needless to say, history was replicated on another continent.

The upcoming elections will pit the policies of the Troika against anti-austerity movements in Portugal, Greece, Spain and Ireland. If these movements are to succeed, they will first have to confront the mythology that the current economic crisis springs from avaricious pensioners, entitled trade unionists, and free spending bureaucracies, rather than irresponsible speculation by banks and financiers. And they will have to do so in a political arena in which their opponents control virtually all of the mass media.

Never have so few controlled so much that informs so many.

Political geography: Size matters

The election terrain is enormously complex, and, while resistance to austerity gives these movements a common goal, the political geography is different in each country. Plus the left essentially has to fight on two fronts: one, against the policies of the Troika, and two, against a rising tide of racist, xenophobic and increasingly violent right-wing movements that have opportunistically adopted anti-austerity rhetoric. The openly Nazi Golden Dawn in Greece and the fascist National Front in France may attack the policies of the EU, but their programs have nothing in common with organizations like Greece's Syriza, Ireland's Sinn Fein, Spain's Podemos, or Portugal's Left Bloc.

Size counts in this coming battle. Because Greece makes up only 1.3 percent of the EU's GDP, the Troika could force Greece to make a choice between, in the words of former Syriza economic minister Yanis Varoufakis, "suicide or execution" - suicide if Syriza accepted another round of austerity, execution of the country's banks and financial structure if it did not. Because it is small, Greece's death would scarcely cause a ripple in the EU. A similar situation exists for Ireland and Portugal.

But not for Spain. Spain is the 14th largest economy in the world and the fifth largest economy in the EU. Bankrupting it or driving it out of the Eurozone - the 19 countries that use the euro instead of a national currency - would cause more than a ripple, it could sink the entire enterprise. That is why the austerity measures the Troika impressed on Spain were severe, but not as onerous as those inflicted on Ireland, Portugal and Greece.

Question for the left: Quit the Eurozone?

Besides trying to ameliorate the worst aspects of the Troika program, the anti-austerity left faces an existential question: Should their indebted countries remain in the Eurozone, or should they call for withdrawal and a return to national currencies?

The Eurozone has been a disaster for most its members, except Germany, and, to a certain extent, Austria and the Netherlands. While the currency is common, there is no shared responsibility for the results of economic unevenness. In the U.S., big economies like California help pay the way for Mississippi, under the assumption that a common interstate market is a good thing and why shouldn't the wealthier states help the less fortunate? In the Eurozone, it is every man for himself, and if you're in trouble, talk to the Troika loan sharks.

Since the euro is controlled by the European Central Bank - read Germany - countries can't manipulate their currencies to help get themselves out of trouble the way the U.S., China, Russia, India, Brazil, Great Britain, and others do. A currency union doesn't work without a political union, and such a union is a bad idea when it puts countries like Germany and Greece on the same playing field. In the end, the big dogs dominate.

Election issues country by country

While the issues throughout the Eurozone may be similar, each country is different. A short scorecard:

Greece-Sept. 20

Syriza, the left-wing party that won the last election, has split with 25 former Syriza deputies who formed the Popular Union Party and called for full resistance to the Troika's demands. Despite retreating from his previous opposition to any new austerity, polls show Syriza's former prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, is popular. The parties that formerly dominated Greece - the right-wing New Democracy and center-left PASOK - have been badly discredited, and the centrist Potami Party doesn't have a clear program, except none of the above. The left should do well, but it will be divided. Division in the face of the Troika is perilous, but this battle is a long way from over, and there are creative ways to resist the Troika without taking it head on. A civil war within the left, however, could be disastrous.

Portugal-Oct. 4

The country is currently dominated by the conservative Popular Party/Social Democratic Party coalition that holds 132 seats in the 230-seat Assembly. But polls show the opposition is running neck and neck with the Socialists (74 seats). The Socialists put in the austerity program, but have since turned against it. The left-wing United Democratic Coalition (16 seats), an alliance of the Communist Party and the Greens, and the Left Bloc (8 seats), look like they will pick up deputies. There is a strong possibility that the conservatives will fall, and that the center-left and left opposition will form a coalition government. The left already controls 98 seats. It will need 116 to form a government.

Spain-December 2015

The political situation in Spain is fluid. The right-wing ruling Popular Party is in trouble because of several major corruption scandals and its enthusiastic support for austerity. The Socialist Party has recently increased its popularity but it was the Socialists that instituted the austerity policies. Support for the left-wing anti-austerity Podemos Party appears to have stalled, but it has elected, or helped to elect, the mayors of Madrid, Barcelona, Cadiz and Zaragoza. Unlike Syriza, which is a coalition of left parties, Podemos is a grassroots organization that knows how to get the voters out.

There is also the center-right Ciudadanos Party that did well in spring elections, but is anti-immigrant and anti-abortion, and whose economic program is at best opaque. Those things are not likely to translate into major electoral gains. Whatever happens, Spain is no longer a two-party country, and the left will play a key role in any coalition-building to form a government.

There is a wildcard in this election: the newly minted Citizens Security Law, which the Popular Party rammed through Parliament and is aimed at suppressing demonstrations, criticism of the government, and free speech. It is clearly aimed at shutting down Podemos.

Ireland-April 2016

"Volatile" is the only way one can describe the Irish Republic, where the polls shift from month to month. The economy is growing, but the Troika's austerity regime is still raw. Over 100,000 mortgages are under water and since 2008, some 400,00 - mostly young professionals - have fled to Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the U.S., inflicting a crippling brain drain on the island.

The centrist coalition of Fine Gael and Labor currently rules, but that is likely to change after the election. Polls show Fine Gael at 28 percent, and Labor at 7 percent. At 21 percent, the left-wing, anti-austerity Sinn Fein Party is in the number two post, although its support has fallen off slightly since last year. However, the popularity of its leader, Gerry Adams, has been climbing. Lastly, there is a mix of independent parties, ranging from Greens to socialists, supported by 24 percent of the voters. Most are anti-austerity and potential coalition partners if the ruling parties fall. The conservative Fianna Fail Party is polling about 20 percent.

Tasks of the anti-austerity left

In these upcoming elections, the left will have to confront the enormous power of the Troika on the one hand, and on the other, deliver services and jobs. It will also have to clearly differentiate itself from the racism of the right on the immigration crisis and challenge the unwillingness of its own governments to find a humane solution to the problem. Since of the bulk of the refugees are generated by the irresponsible policies of countries like France, Britain, Italy and Germany in Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria, the left must clearly link the foreign adventurism of their elites to the flood of people now seeking safety from the storms those elites help generate.

None of this will be easy and disunity will make it harder. The left elsewhere in the world cannot expect small countries like Greece, Portugal and Ireland to take on the power of international capital by themselves. Not since the rise of Nazism has there been such a pressing need for international solidarity. In a very real way, we are all Greek, Spanish, Portuguese and Irish. These elections are as much about the U.S. as they are about the parties and movements that have decided to resist a species of capitalism that is particularly red of tooth and claw.

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

Photo: Des Byrne/Flickr Creative Commons

European left leaders call for “Plan B” for their economies

Mon, 14 Sep 2015 13:58:00 +0000

The following statement on the economic crisis facing European countries was issued this week by four leading spokespeople for progressive and left political organizations in their respective countries. They are Jean-Luc Melenchon, member of the European Parliament, co-founder of the Parti de Gauche (France), Steffano Fassina, member of the Italian Parliament, former Italian deputy minister of economy and finance (Italy), Zoe Konstantopoulou, president of the Hellenic Parliament (Greece), Oscar Lafontaine, former German minister of finance, founder of Die Linke (Germany) and Yanis Varoufakis, member of the Greek Parlkiament, former Greek minister of finance (Greece).

On July 13, the democratic elected Greek government of Alexis Tsipras was brought to its knees by the European Union. The "agreement" of July 13 is in fact a coup d'état. It was obtained by having the European Central Bank close down the Greek banks and threaten never to allow them to open up again, until the Greek government accepted a new version of a failed program. Why? Because official Europe could not stand the idea that a people suffering from its self-defeating austerity program dared elect a government determined to say "No!".

Now, with more austerity, more fire sales of public assets, greater irrationality than ever in the sphere of economic policy, and massive fresh misanthropy in the realm of social policy, the new Memorandum of Understanding only serves to worsen Greece's Great Depression and to loot Greece's wealth by vested interests, non-Greek and Greek alike.

We must learn from this financial coup. The euro has become the tool of economic and governmental dominance in Europe by a European oligarchy hiding behind the German government, delighted to see Mrs. Merkel doing all the "dirty work" other governments are incapable of undertaking. This Europe only generates violence within nations and between them: mass unemployment, fierce social dumping and insults against the European Periphery that are attributed to Germany's leadership while parroted by all the "elites," the Periphery's not excluded. The European Union has thus become an agent of an extreme right wing ethos and a vehicle for annulling democratic control over production and distribution throughout Europe.

It is a dangerous lie to assert that the euro and the EU serve Europeans and shield them from crisis. It is an illusion to believe that Europe's interests can be protected within the iron cage of the Eurozone's governance "rules" and within the current treaties. President Hollande's and Prime Minister Renzi's method of behaving like a "model student", or in fact a "model prisoner", is a form of surrender that will not even result in clemency. The President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, said it clearly: "There can be no democratic choice against the European treaties."

This is the neoliberal adaptation of the "limited sovereignty" doctrine invented by the Soviet leader Brezhnev in 1968. Then, the Soviets crushed the Prague Spring with their tanks. This summer, the EU crushed the Athens Spring with its banks.

We are determined to break with this "Europe." It is the basic condition needed to rebuild cooperation between our peoples and our countries on a new basis. How can we enact policies of redistribution of wealth and of creation of decent jobs, especially for the young, ecological transition and the rebuilding of democracy within the constraints of this EU? We have to escape the inanity and inhumanity of the current European Treaties and remould them in order to shed the straightjacket of neoliberalism, to repeal the Fiscal Compact, and to oppose the TTIP.

We live in extraordinary times. We are facing an emergency. Member-states need to have policy space that allows their democracies to breathe and to put forward sensible policies at the member-state's level, free of fear of a clamp down from an authoritarian Eurogroup dominated by the interests of the strongest among them and of big business, or from an ECB that is used as a steamroller that threatens to flatten an "uncooperative country," as it happened with Cyprus or Greece.

This is our plan A: We shall work in each of our countries, and all together throughout Europe, towards a complete renegotiation of the European Treaties. We commit to engage with the struggle of Europeans everywhere in a campaign of Civil European disobedience toward arbitrary European practices and irrational "rules" until that renegotiation is achieved.

Our first task is to end the unaccountability of the Eurogroup. The second task is to end the pretense that the ECB is "apolitical" and "independent," when it is highly political (in the most toxic form), fully dependent upon bankrupt bankers and their political agents, and ready to end democracy at the touch of a button.

The majority of governments representing Europe's oligarchy, and hiding behind Berlin and Frankfurt, also have a plan A: Not to yield to the European people's demand for democracy and to use brutality to end their resistance. We've seen this in Greece last July. Why did they manage to strangle Greece's democratically elected government? Because they also had a plan B: To eject Greece from the Eurozone in the worst conditions possible by destroying its banking system and putting to death its economy.

Facing this blackmail, we also need a plan B of our own to deter the plan B of Europe's most reactionary and anti-democratic forces. We must reinforce our position in the face of their brutal commitment to policies that sacrifice the majority to the interests of a tiny minority. And we must re-assert the simple principle that Europe is about Europeans, and that currencies are tools for promoting shared prosperity, not instruments of torture or weapons by which to murder democracy. If the euro cannot be democratised, if they insist on using it to strangle the people, we will rise up, look at them in the eye, and tell them: Do your worst! Your threats don't scare us. We shall find a way of ensuring that Europeans have a monetary system that works with them, not at their expense.

Our Plan A for a democratic Europe, backed with a Plan B which shows the powers-that-be that they cannot terrorise us into submission, is inclusive and aims at appealing to the majority of Europeans. This demands a high level of preparation. Debate will strengthen its technical elements. Many ideas are already on the table: the introduction of parallel payment systems, parallel currencies, digitization of euro transactions, community based exchange systems, the euro exit and transformation of the euro into a common currency.

No European nation can work towards its liberation in isolation. Our vision is internationalist. In anticipation of what may happen in Spain, Ireland - and potentially again in Greece, depending on how the political situation evolves - and in France in 2017, we need to work together concretely towards a plan B, taking into account the different characteristics of each country.

We therefore propose the convening of an international summit on a plan B for Europe, open to willing citizens, organisations and intellectuals. This conference could take place as early as November 2015. We shall begin the process on Saturday the 12th of September during the Fête de l'Humanité in Paris. Do join us!

Photo: Anti-austerity sign at the Greek parliament in Athens. | AP

Bolivarian left in Latin America poses major challenge to capitalism

Fri, 11 Sep 2015 15:25:00 +0000

Since the election of Hugo Chávez as president of Venezuela in 1998, left or left-center governments have come to power or remained in power in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Uruguay, Venezuela and some of the smaller Caribbean states. Left-wing governments have been ousted by coups in Haiti, Honduras and Paraguay, and by this year's elections in Guyana.

This "Bolivarian pink tide" represents one of the greatest challenges to international monopoly capital and U.S. hegemony over the region since the fall of the USSR around 1990. Moreover, the process of regional integration which the Latin American and Caribbean left-wing governments have undertaken has contributed to a rise in living standards for majorities in each country. New structures of regional cooperation and economic integration have included ALBA (the Bolivarian Alliance for Our America), UNASUR (Union of South American Nations), the revitalized MERCOSUR (South American Common Market), PETROCARIBE, CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States), and BancoSur (Bank of the South, a new South American development bank). These bodies have challenged the hegemony of the U.S. in the Western Hemisphere and have built new trade and political relationships with the BRICS group of emerging powers (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa).

However, right now these governments have hit a rough patch. Several key countries are experiencing economic slowdowns, there is new instability, and the historic advances, though not reversed, are threatened. The right wing is making a coordinated regional push to restore its power, counting on support from the U.S. in doing so. Left and left-center governments emphasize right-wing sabotage as being at the root of the current difficulties, and there is certainly an element of that. The right and the ruling class, including corporate-controlled media, rather, blame everything on the mistakes of the left and left-center governments. But there are some general characteristics of the whole panorama that constitute systemic challenges to the "Bolivarian" project that need to be overcome.

What are the major challenges?

First of all, their options are severely limited by the fact that they have to work within the overall framework of the neoliberal imperialist world order.

I prefer the definition of imperialism used by V.I. Lenin in his 1917 book "Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism." For Lenin, imperialism is not a mere policy option of this or that government in wealthy capitalist countries, or just a conspiracy hatched in the basement of the White House or the Quay D'Orsay. To Lenin, imperialism is nothing less than the way that international monopoly capitalism is organized in both its economic and political dimensions. Though some aspects of imperialism have changed since Lenin's day (which I will refer to below), its major features remain, namely extreme inequality of wealth and of power between the wealthy "developed" countries such as the U.S., Canada, Western Europe, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea, and the poor countries of Africa, most of Asia, and Latin America. In addition financialization, pointed to as an essential feature of imperialism by Lenin, has mushroomed to an immense degree since 1917.

The phrase "corporate globalization" is not an adequate gloss for the concept of imperialism, because it implies that the multinational corporations act alone in promoting their worldwide interests; in fact, the actions of the state, and of groups of states, in the wealthy capitalist countries are essential for the corporate agenda to be advanced worldwide. The big multi-state entities which push the agenda of the transnational corporations, such as NATO, NAFTA, CAFTA DR, other "free trade" pacts, the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the proposed Transpacific Partnership (TPP), Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and Trade in Services Agreement are primarily negotiated and established by national governments individually and collectively, with the wealthy capitalist countries calling the shots, and the poorer countries falling into line, either willingly or under duress, depending on the political nature of their own governments. So "corporate globalization" is a term which tends to let the state off the hook.

Secondly, with the exception of Cuba, none of the Western Hemisphere countries with left or left-center governments are actually socialist. The leaders they have elected are themselves sincere socialists, and they and millions of their followers aspire to creating new forms of socialism, but they have not achieved this yet. (Even Cuba's leaders modestly say they are trying to build socialism, not that they have perfected it.) The old ruling classes, while ousted from some key positions in the state apparatus, still dominate others and most of the "commanding heights" of the economy in each country. The private press and media are just as much under the control of the wealthy in the Bolivarian countries as they are in the U.S., and work assiduously against progressive policies.

For example old ruling-class interests control wholesale and retail trade in staples and other items in Venezuela, giving them leverage against the Bolivarian state in that they can influence prices and the supply of goods. In Bolivia, old ruling groups in Santa Cruz province in the east of the country have caused major headaches for leftist president Evo Morales. Moreover the old ruling classes are allied with the multinational corporations and the governments of the wealthy developed countries, and coordinate with them in their never ending efforts to return to full power in the presidential mansions, the legislatures, the military, the bureaucracy and all other state institutions.

The fact that Bolivarian "pink tide" leftism has to work within the confines of these two "straightjackets" - imperialism and the retention of massive power by "their own" ruling classes - is a severely limiting factor in what they can achieve in the short run.

Also, the mixed nature of the main left and left-center parties in power has to be borne in mind. Although almost without exception the communist parties are in strong support of the Bolivarian dynamic, these are not the largest parties anywhere except Cuba. The big parties in power such as the Workers' Party (PT) in Brazil, the Venezuelan United Socialist Party, the Alianza País coalition in Ecuador, etc., are a mixture of Marxist, Christian left, social democratic, nationalist, left-Peronist and populist tendencies, which creates its own problems, internal conflicts and limitations.

Other impediments to advances

A major one is the fact that many of the left-wing governments have inherited an economic model based on export of commodities, which, although it may bring a lot of capital into the country, does not conduce to balanced development. And it leaves governments and nations at the mercy of commodity prices which they don't have many ways to control, even when, as in the case of Venezuela's oil, the industries in question have been nationalized. In Latin America, advances have been achieved by harnessing profits from the international sale of oil, natural gas and mining products for the purpose of raising the abysmally low living standards of the working class and poor agricultural population. But over the last year, the price of oil in the international marketplace has dropped by half.

Venezuela's economy is severely stressed by the oil price drop; efforts by the Venezuelan government to get OPEC to cut back on production and thus support oil prices failed due to opposition from Saudi Arabia. This is not a new phenomenon or one confined to the Western Hemisphere; in South Africa, for example, the issue of the fluctuating price of mining products (gold, platinum, etc.) has been a cause of instability since pre-apartheid days, and the current slump in gold prices is having a deleterious effect.

Every progressive government in Latin America has had the ambition of employing profits from commodity sales to diversify the economy by developing new industries, modernizing agriculture, etc. But this takes time and is far from completion. Meanwhile a country like Venezuela has to import a large proportion of the goods its people need for everyday life, and the lower the price it can get for its oil, the more difficult it becomes either to keep on importing all these things, or to capitalize its own projects in the diversification of production, while at the same time continuing to improve the living standards of its poor and working class majority.

Then there is the debt trap. For poor countries in the past, the only way to get money for development projects has been to borrow it (often via the International Monetary Fund and World Bank), and the only way to pay it back has been to keep living standards low. Nevertheless the debt of many countries turns out to be unsustainable, and efforts to get out from under it are extremely difficult and traumatic. Argentina, for example, had to live under a military dictatorship during the 1970s that was as corrupt as it was bloodthirsty, and which got the country deeply into debt that had very bad long term consequences, some of which are still being felt today.

Another problem is that of balancing economic development vis-à-vis environmental protection and sustainability. There are legitimate demands by environmentalists and, in some cases, indigenous populations to limit certain kinds of growth. But to stop all development in the interest of protecting the rural environment is not a viable option because urban poor and working-class populations demand improvements in their living standards, including jobs, housing, transportation, electricity and other things, all of which have their impact. Left-wing governments like those of Bolivia, Ecuador and others which rely to some extent on extractive industries have had a difficult time managing this balance.

Most of the countries in the region are ethnically diverse, and specific ethnic populations have their own longstanding demands, including retention or regaining of traditional lands, ending of racist discrimination, and protection of language and cultural rights. In each country, part of the promise of the left in power has been to attend to these demands; yet unity is also essential for the Bolivarian project to move forward. Various local elites and also agencies of the empire, including corporate-funded non-government organizations, as well as those receiving money from U.S. government agencies such as USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy, have been quick to move in and try to play on these ethnic differences. Recent mass disturbances in Ecuador are a case in point. There have been similar dynamics elsewhere.

How to really build socialism

Finally, there is an issue which must be of concern to all socialists everywhere, which is how to really build socialism rather than letting a sort of paternalistic clientelism (or patronage politics), perhaps using socialist phraseology, take over the Bolivarian project and destroy its socialist potential. The left-wing governments in Latin America have been correctly concerned with quickly raising the horrible living standards of millions of their people as an immediate, urgent priority. They have been successful in pulling millions out of poverty, and of vastly improving health care, schools, housing and other basic public services. In doing this, they have also created the mass base for governing, and, not least important, for continuing to win elections and staying in power.

But this still works within a framework of "the people demand and the government provides." The socialist project, from the very beginning, must go far beyond this or it will not thrive; it has to be based on the concept that "the people (workers, small farmers, etc.) organize and run the economy and the state." Otherwise, in hard times, when the left-wing government finds itself not able to provide the same level of services as before, important sectors of the population are likely to abandon their support for it, and listen to demagogic promises of the right. Moreover, the stopgap of raising living standards by redistributing wealth to the marginalized poor does not address the need to engage these sectors of the population in productive activities that will build up the economy and lead to the desired levels of diversification, including the creation of a larger industrialized sector, more productive and environmentally friendly agriculture, and other things that all agree have to be achieved to make a final break with "underdevelopment."

This last point is the focus of major discussions on the socialist left worldwide, not just in Latin America. The task is in reality one of reconceptualizing what socialism actually is. That, in turn, entails careful study of the reasons that the socialist project in the USSR and Eastern Europe collapsed so spectacularly by 1991. A lot of the discussions on this topic that I have heard and read range from frustrating to useless, rehashing old sectarian battles that have little to teach people in places like Latin America. If Marxists can't come to grips with all this, we can't contribute much to the practical tasks of those who are trying to build socialism in extremely difficult circumstances.

Before I move on to the topic of internationalist solidarity, let me just point out that whatever the problems of the left and left-center governments, the situation of the other governments in the region is much worse. The president of Guatemala has just resigned and been arrested for corruption. Things are trending the same way in Honduras. Both of these countries are mired in intractable poverty and violence. Mexico is in crisis, with a slumping economy, a shockingly corrupt political class, and major threats to public security. Colombia, Paraguay, Peru, Haiti, the Dominican Republic are in notably bad shape. Even Puerto Rico, controlled and heavily subsidized by the U.S., is swamped by unsustainable debt and facing economic collapse. Badly as things are going in the Bolivarian pink tide countries, they are going much worse in Latin American countries that have simply gone with the flow of neoliberal imperialism.

How can the left in the U.S. help?

First of all, at the start of this piece, I noted that there were some differences between the imperialism of Lenin's day and that of our own time. One difference that is extremely important for our practical work is that while in Lenin's day the imperial plunder of the "colonies and semi-colonies" allowed the bourgeoisie to partly satisfy short-term demands of the working class in the imperial centers, this is no longer happening. On the contrary, the shift to outsourcing of industrial production and jobs to areas of the world where the cheapest labor can be found has the opposite effect, of dragging wages down everywhere, a dynamic that began in the 1950s and has reached a fever pitch today.

Under so-called "free trade" regimes, which are not mainly about "reducing trade barriers" but rather about enforcing corporate-designed rules and limiting the power of the governments and people to have any control over what corporations can and can't do, austerity, deregulation, privatization and repression are applied everywhere in similar ways, both in rich countries and poor. More than one person has described this as the "third worldization" of the working class and masses even in the wealthiest and most "advanced" countries. The environmental degradation and global warming as well as instability and conflict that characterize the current phase of neoliberal imperialism also affect everybody, in rich countries as well as poor. Countries like Greece that try to break away from this pattern are in for a severe mauling by the wealthier and more powerful states like Germany.

This creates a more immediate communality of interests between workers in the rich countries and workers in the poor countries. But it is not always perceived that way by the former; there is still a tendency in the U.S. especially to frame the issue as one of the workers in the poorer countries "taking our jobs," a divisive formulation.

The left in the U.S. and the other wealthy countries should therefore undertake, with greater initiative and energy, the task of building international working-class and all people's solidarity against neoliberal capitalism and imperialism, and in support of those countries which are working, even if only partially, to break away from monopoly control.

Changes in U.S. labor in recent decades are opening up new possibilities for this type of solidarity work. Old Cold War attitudes under whose influences much (but not all) of U.S. organized labor collaborated with our government's efforts to undermine left-wing labor organizing in Latin American countries have been fading, and there have been genuine breakthroughs in positions taken by the AFL-CIO and individual unions opposing aid to repressive regimes in Central America, and in support of independent unions in Mexico. U.S. unions are also taking on major solidarity roles in Colombia and elsewhere. Of signal importance has been labor's opposition to the Transpacific Partnership.

The major problem with the U.S. left's international solidarity efforts since World War II has been the difficulty of making international solidarity demands into mass demands that engage and mobilize millions instead of handfuls of people who end up being "the left talking to the left."

Opposition to the Vietnam War, organizing against the apartheid regime in South Africa and against the U.S. sponsored "Contra Wars" in Central America, and then against the Iraq War, began to help break us out of this pattern. The changes in organized labor have promise for greatly expanding the mass dimension of anti-imperialist solidarity work. Ways have to be found to point out to U.S. workers of every kind that what U.S. corporations and our government do to the mass of the population in a poor country hurts the interests of workers here. And conversely, advances in countries like the Bolivarian group are very much in the interests of U.S. workers.

This means showing the U.S. workers and masses, also, that U.S military interventions, direct (American boots on the ground) or indirect (subsidizing or "training" - School of the Americas style - other countries' military and security forces to do the dirty work) almost always lead to greater poverty and suffering in other countries, and by doing so harm U.S. workers also. This is why such adventures need the fig leaf of "humanitarian intervention," a fraud which must be exposed.

U.S. working-class people are also harmed by the terrific waste of money on the bloated military budget, which does not contribute to the security of our people but rather undermines it by stealing resources that could go for schools, health care, infrastructure, jobs and environmental protection.

There are still many obstacles, but the possibility of creating unprecedented levels of international working-class and all-people's unity against the common corporate, imperialist enemy are getting greater every day.

We can do it, we must do it, and we will do it!

Note: Thanks to Art Perlo for his comments on an earlier draft.

Photo: An equestrian statue of Simón Bolívar, "The Liberator," Plaza Bolivar, Caracas, Venezuela. Kinori, public domain.

Today in Latino history: 25 years since the murder of Myrna Mack

Fri, 11 Sep 2015 11:26:00 +0000

The date of Sept. 11 will "live in infamy," as President Franklin D. Roosevelt said of the December 7, 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor. Sept. 11 was the date in 1973 when Pres. Salvador Allende of Chile was overthrown in a bloody coup by the U.S.-supported military, inaugurating two decades of the fascist Augusto Pinochet régime. It is of course also the date in 2001 when terrorists hijacked planes flying out of Boston and plane-bombed the World Trade Center and other American sites - despite advance warnings that came in to the George W. Bush administration which chose to ignore them.

Today is the 25th anniversary of another incident:

Myrna Mack Chang, born in 1949, was a Guatemalan anthropologist. On September 11, 1990, she was murdered by a military death squad - trained and funded by the United States - because of her criticism of the Guatemalan government's treatment of the indigenous Maya, and its human rights abuses against the people.

Myrna Mack Chang was born in Barrio San Nicolás, Retalhuleu Department, in southwest Guatemala. Her mother was Chinese and her father was Mayan. Myrna had a younger sister Helen. After attending local schools, Mack went abroad for college. She studied anthropology in the United Kingdom, at the University of Manchester and Durham University.

Upon returning to Guatemala, Mack conducted fieldwork among several of the many Maya campesino communities that were uprooted during the civil war. She became sympathetic to their cause and became more of a human rights activist. Working closely with the indigenous peoples, she learned about the attacks made against them by government forces, funded under the Ronald Reagan, and then George H. W. Bush anti-communist and anti-indigenous policies.

On September 11, 1990, she was assassinated outside her office in Guatemala City. She was stabbed 27 times by an armed forces death squad - trained at the School of the Americas - because she had criticized the government for its human rights abuses of the Mayan people. One may only speculate if the September 11th date had been chosen because of its enormous resonance throughout Latin America because of the coup in Chile.

Her sister, mother and associates took up her case, determined to win justice for her death. Following the peace accords and end of the overt civil war, Guatemala began taking actions to document abuses during the civil war, with testimony collected by the National Commission. Her sister Helen Mack filed a case with the Inter-American Human Rights Commission in Washington, D.C., and later with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Costa Rica.In 1993 she set up the Fundación Myrna Mack to honor her memory, support the prosecution of the case of her sister's murder, and to do other work defending human rights.

On November 25, 2003, the court ruled that Mack had been killed by government forces. In April 2004, following the judgment issued by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the Guatemalan government publicly acknowledged that its agents had committed the killing of Myrna Mack. It provided her next-of-kin with a financial compensation package as part of the court settlement.

Helen Mack was honored with a Right Livelihood Award in 1992 "for her personal courage and persistence in seeking justice and an end to the impunity of political murderers." She continues to work for human rights and has received other recognition for it.

Adapted from Wikipedia.

Corbyn poised to shift UK’s Labor Party to the left

Wed, 09 Sep 2015 15:02:00 +0000

In a surprising shift of the political sands, one of the parties that led international social democracy's turn toward the centrist 'third way' in the 1990s is now poised to elect a new leader from the left. On September 12, a special conference of the British Labour Party will choose a new chief to head up the opposition in parliament against the Conservative government. In a four-candidate race, all signs point to a victory for left-wing MP Jeremy Corbyn.

The current leadership contest was set in motion following the resignation of Ed Miliband after Labour's loss to Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservatives in the general election last May. With an electoral platform combining populist rhetoric with pledges of loyalty to the Conservatives' budget targets, Miliband failed to impress voters. Now it seems like grassroots Labour members are going for the real thing when it comes to left politics.

For the first time since Tony Benn's socialist insurgency campaign in the early 1980s, the forces of centrism and moderation are on the defense inside the Labour Party. Beginning with party leader Neal Kinnock and continuing under Tony Blair's 'New Labour' in the 1990s, British Labour has been at the forefront of social democracy's move to the political center. Along with President Bill Clinton, Blair pioneered the elaboration of 'third way' ideology, which claimed to have found a middle path between the neoliberalism of the right and the 'big state socialism' and liberalism of the old left.

Corbyn's success in the leadership race has caught people by surprise across the British political spectrum. Former Prime Minister Blair warns that a radical Corbyn-led party will be unelectable at the national level. He recently suggested people who were committed to social justice and felt their heart was with Corbyn should "get a heart transplant." Ironically, it was Blair's acolytes in parliament who helped put Corbyn on the ballot. Worried that a leadership race without a left-wing candidate would look bad for the party, many New Labour MPs signed off on Corbyn's nomination papers - never anticipating he had even the slightest chance of overtaking them. They are now regretting it. Among the Tories, meanwhile, many are pleased at the prospect of a divided and weak Labour Party. Others fear that with Corbyn as opposition leader, however, the entire national debate could move to the left.

Corbyn proudly calls himself a socialist and his politics represent an about-face from the third way. With over thirty years as a campaigner and leader in social movements, he has a solid reputation among the trade unions and the broader left. He has long pushed for strengthening collective bargaining laws and the National Health Service (NHS), was a prominent figure in the anti-apartheid movement and the campaign to put Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet on trial, criticizes NATO's role in eastern Europe, and was an early advocate of LGBT equality.

During the leadership campaign, he has criticized the corporate tax rates of the current government, advocated the re-nationalization of the railways, promised the institution of a National Education Service modeled on the NHS that would provide free child care and increased education funding, and has opposed the renewal of the country's Trident nuclear missile program.

One of Corbyn's biggest and most-talked-about proposals, though, is a policy he calls a "People's quantitative easing," or People's QE. It would see the Bank of England investing in bonds to support a National Investment Bank that would build infrastructure, foster high-tech growth, and increase the supply of public housing. Critics point out such a policy would violate European Union rules that forbid printing money to finance government spending, thus setting the UK on a collision course with EU orthodoxy.

His rapid rise in the Labour Party is not a phenomenon unique to Britain though. It is part of a story of left resurgence that is unfolding across many countries of Europe. The victory of Syriza in Greece earlier this year and the growing popularity of Podemos in Spain have been the most notable indicators of this shift in the balance of forces toward the left and against austerity. The move to the left has targeted not only the right, however, but also the leaders of social democracy itself.

Neal Lawson, the chairman of a group called Compass that represents the New Labour faction, says that European social democrats today are "surfers without waves." They have continued their same old motions but there is nothing beneath the board sustaining them - no new ideas, vision, or alternatives. In the assumption that they are the only credible party on the left capable of governing, they are not as proactive in acknowledging the need for new policies and new paradigms. The third way social democratic parties became entrenched in their 1990s/2000s formulas and ideas, thus losing their revisionist instincts. They are still living in the days of TINA - 'there is no alternative'.

In their inability to think outside the box of third way political economy, the leaders of many social democratic parties employed progressive rhetoric after the financial crisis, but continued to push austerity politics when in office. They eagerly embraced the soft-Keynesianism of the immediate crisis period and proclaimed the intellectual bankruptcy of their center-right competitors. However, in many cases, these same leaders then stuck to the precepts of neoliberalism - tight finances, strict welfare and unemployment eligibility criteria, debt reduction, and privatization. The capitulation of PASOK in Greece was the paradigmatic example. The German SPD's support for Angela Merkel's squeezing of Syriza and Alexis Tsipras is another.

This void of fresh thinking has left an opening for the critics of austerity. Whereas in Greece and Spain, the left revival has taken place outside the established social democratic parties, the Corbyn phenomenon is unfolding within the broad church of British Labourism. He enjoys the support of many trade unions, anti-austerity coalitions, the peace movement, pensioners groups, and other social justice organizations. If he captures the Labour leadership this week - as all polls indicate will happen - Corbyn will have to translate the movement that has formed around him during this campaign into a national majority for change.

He will not only face a formidable opponent in David Cameron, but also a divided Labour Party, with third way social democrats determined to see him fail. Additionally, his party will continue to face competition for anti-austerity working class votes from the Scottish National Party (SNP) and the populist right-wing UK Independence Party (Ukip).

Talking to an audience beyond union leaders and political activists will require a different set of skills and tactical acumen than those needed for an intraparty factional struggle. The outcome of the 2020 elections will depend on both the sustained mobilization of the movements that have helped propel Corbyn to the top, as well as on his own leadership abilities.

Photo: Jeremy Corbyn. | Wikipedia (CC)