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Hiroshima Day message: Abolish nuclear weapons, build lasting world peace

Joelle Fishman — Wed, 10 Aug 2016 10:10:00 +0000

NEW HAVEN - "...Slicing through the clear blue sky, a previously unknown absolute evil is unleashed on Hiroshima, instantly searing the entire city. Koreans, Chinese, Southeast Asians, American prisoners of war, children, the elderly and other innocent people are slaughtered. By the end of the year, 140,00 are dead." - from the Hiroshima Peace Declaration.

Around the world, peace vigils and actions on Aug. 6 and Aug. 9 commemorated the 71st year since the first atomic bombs were dropped, destroying Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. In the United States gatherings and petitions called for an end to nuclear weapons.

On the New Haven Green in Connecticut, the 8:15 am gathering listened as church bells tolled to mark the exact time it took the bombs to rain from the sky. The Peace Declaration issued by Matsui Kazumi, Mayor of Hiroshima was read. It paid recognition to the visit by President Obama to Hiroshima earlier this year and then asked, "Is it not time to honor the spirit of Hiroshima and clear the path toward a world free from that "absolute evil," that ultimate inhumanity? Is it not time to unify and manifest our passion in action?"

Before leaving for their daily appointments, those present signed letters to Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut asking that he vote and take leadership in the fight for abolition of nuclear weapons, and use those resources for human needs.

The full text of the Hiroshima Peace Declaration follows:

"1945, August 6, 8:15 a.m. Slicing through the clear blue sky, a previously unknown "absolute evil" is unleashed on Hiroshima, instantly searing the entire city. Koreans, Chinese, Southeast Asians, American prisoners of war, children, the elderly and other innocent people are slaughtered. By the end of the year, 140,000 are dead.

"Those who managed to survive suffered the after-effects of radiation, encountered discrimination in work and marriage, and still carry deep scars in their minds and bodies. From utter obliteration, Hiroshima was reborn a beautiful city of peace; but familiar scenes from our riversides, patterns of daily life, and cultural traditions nurtured through centuries of history vanished in that "absolute evil," never to return.

"He was a boy of 17. Today he recalls, "Charred corpses blocked the road. An eerie stench filled my nose. A sea of fire spread as far as I could see. Hiroshima was a living hell." She was a girl of 18. "I was covered in blood. Around me were people with skin flayed from their backs hanging all the way to their feet-crying, screaming, begging for water."

"Seventy-one years later, over 15,000 nuclear weapons remain, individually much more destructive than the one that inflicted Hiroshima's tragedy, collectively enough to destroy the Earth itself. We now know of numerous accidents and incidents that brought us to the brink of nuclear explosions or war; today we even fear their use by terrorists.

"Given this reality, we must heed the hibakusha. The man who described a living hell says, "For the future of humanity, we need to help each other live in peace and happiness with reverence for all life." The woman who was covered in blood appeals to coming generations, "To make the most of the life we've been given, please, everyone, shout loudly that we don't need nuclear weapons." If we accept these appeals, we must do far more than we have been doing. We must respect diverse values and strive persistently toward a world where all people are truly "living together."

"When President Obama visited Hiroshima in May, he became the first sitting president of the country that dropped the atomic bomb to do so. Declaring, "... among those nations like my own that hold nuclear stockpiles, we must have the courage to escape the logic of fear, and pursue a world without them," he expressed acceptance of the hibakusha's heartfelt plea that "no one else should ever suffer as we have." Demonstrating to the people of the U.S. and the world a passion to fight to eliminate all remaining nuclear weapons, the President's words showed that he was touched by the spirit of Hiroshima, which refuses to accept the "absolute evil."

"Is it not time to honor the spirit of Hiroshima and clear the path toward a world free from that "absolute evil," that ultimate inhumanity? Is it not time to unify and manifest our passion in action? This year, for the first time ever, the G7 foreign ministers gathered in Hiroshima. Transcending the differences between countries with and without nuclear weapons, their declaration called for political leaders to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for early entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, and fulfillment of the obligation to negotiate nuclear disarmament mandated by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This declaration was unquestionably a step toward unity.

"We need to fill our policymakers with the passion to solidify this unity and create a security system based on trust and dialogue. To that end, I once again urge the leaders of all nations to visit the A-bombed cities. As President Obama confirmed in Hiroshima, such visits will surely etch the reality of the atomic bombings in each heart. Along with conveying the pain and suffering of the hibakusha, I am convinced they will elicit manifestations of determination.

"The average age of the hibakusha has exceeded 80. Our time to hear their experiences face to face grows short. Looking toward the future, we will need our youth to help convey the words and feelings of the hibakusha. Mayors for Peace, now with over 7,000 city members worldwide, will work regionally, through more than 20 lead cities, and globally, led by Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to promote youth exchange. We will help young people cultivate a shared determination to stand together and initiate concrete action for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

"Here in Hiroshima, Prime Minister Abe expressed determination "to realize a world free of nuclear weapons." I expect him to join with President Obama and display leadership in this endeavor. A nuclear-weapon-free-world would manifest the noble pacifism of the Japanese Constitution, and to ensure progress, a legal framework banning nuclear weapons is indispensable. In addition, I demand that the Japanese government expand the "black rain areas" and improve assistance to the hibakusha, whose average age is over 80, and the many others who suffer the mental and physical effects of radiation.

"Today, we renew our determination, offer heartfelt consolation to the souls of the A-bomb victims, and pledge to do everything in our power, working with the A-bombed city of Nagasaki and millions around the world, to abolish nuclear weapons and build lasting world peace."

Photo: The 'ultimate evil' (right) is what the demonstrators in New Haven (left) said must never happen again. | Left image by Art Perlo; right image by Stanley Troutman/AP

Turkey: HDP’s Eyyup Doru – “What we need is democracy and freedom”

F. Régibier — Tue, 09 Aug 2016 11:42:00 +0000

(l'Humanite | English) Eyyup Doru is the European representative of the Kurdish HDP, the People's Democratic Party. For Doru, the solution to the crisis in Turkey is not in a state of emergency, but rather the return to democracy.

How do you interpret the coup attempt in Turkey and the large-scale crackdown that has followed?

Eyyup Doru: I think this is a power struggle within the Turkish state between regime of Erdogan and its former key ally, the Gülen group (the powerful movement of the Muslim preacher exiled in the United States, Fethullah Gulen, who is very active in the police and justice system). They were united against the Kurdish people. 10,000 people have been arrested because of this alliance between the Gülen group and the regime of Erdogan. Subsequently Erdogan and Gulen faced internal problems over the control of the state apparatus. There were political clashes between the two groups, but until recent years, Erdogan considered Gülen as his spiritual leader and all his ministers, looking at statements made in the last few years, named the Gülen regime as a democratic regime, as the savior of Turkey, the savior of democracy etc . Today they at odds, and Erdogan describes the Gülen movement as a terrorist group.

It's true that there was a military coup but it is also true that Erdogan has profited from the coup's failure in order to arrest any person or group that could one way or another represent a danger for his dream of an empire built in the Ottoman fashion, a total presidential system. There have been mass arrests. There are virtually no judges left; they have all been arrested. The technical staff of the army have also arrested, which will put the army in difficulty on the ground. But we also seen huge number of academics and teachers dismissed. The heads of universities have been deposed, replaced by people close to Erdogan and the AKP (the party of Recep Erdogan). All academic bodies are under the control of a regime that has also taken control of the press and justice system. The police were already controlled by the regime, but now the military police and army who were not, are now fully under his control. Now we can really say that it is a dictatorial regime, the regime of one person, who will decide the future of Turkey.

The HDP rejects this anti-democratic system which has resulted from the declaration of martial law, which will strengthen the dictatorship. We voted against this state of siege. The only way out of this crisis is democracy, is the participation of all political forces in the country's political life.

But can the Turkish Parliament still play a role in the current situation?

Eyyup Doru: Parliament cannot really play an important role because the government will make laws without parliament. Martial law was established by decree. The decrees will only be discussed between the president and the council of state; this means that the parliament is virtually ruled out of any decision.

Everyone still wonders whether the coup was genuine, when we see today how it has allowed Erdogan to better consolidate his dictatorial regime. Finally, the coup served his aims. How do you interpret thing on your side?

Eyyup Doru: Yes it is true that this military coup favors the dictatorial regime of Erdogan, I confirm that. But I think that there was indeed a military coup. And what is also important is that it had an impact on public opinion. Public opinion is totally against the military coup. Erdogan has already used this public opinion to prohibit pro-democracy demonstrations in the Kurdistan region, but also in Istanbul and elsewhere, including the activities of major labor unions. Unfortunately, after the coup and the declaration of the state of siege that is the consequence; Erdogan will be able to further strengthen his presidential power over Turkey.

How can the current situation change?

Eyyup Doru: I think the only solution is the restoration of democracy and freedoms. There has been no democratic elections, the AKP (Justice and Development Party, the party of Erdogan) is confident of electoral fraud, there is also a fascist party that will ally with the AKP to gain a majority in parliament. In the current state, there is not much that can be done at this level. We need a mobilization of civil society, its representatives and also of all MPs who believe that out of this crisis must come the restoration of democracy and peace. What we need is democracy and freedom. I believe we must create an alliance against this dictatorship, unite political forces for the creation of a large front for democracy and propose solutions in order to advance the democratic system in Turkey, and also to solve the Kurdish problem which is one reason for the malfunction of the current system. The leader of the Kurdish people. Abdullah Ocalan [the PKK leader who has in jail for 17 years in Turkey] already predicted that if the Turkish system is not democratized, there will be military coups and that is what has happened. For now, it should be recalled that Ocalan is in total isolation; even his lawyers cannot have any contact with him and our MP (HDP) that during the peace process had the opportunity to get close to him, cannot anymore. It is also one of the reasons for the tension in the Kurdistan region.

Erdogan appears to want to use this failed coup to distance Turkey from Europe. What do you think?

Eyyup Doru: I think that even if Erdogan wants to distance Turkey from Europe, it is very difficult for him. Turkey's relationship with Russia is in crisis, it has very poor relations with Iran, but also with Syria and with the Greeks. Will he seek other alliances? I think he has no alternative but to move closer to Europe and accept the march towards an process of integration of Turkey with the EU. Turkey is a NATO member, member of the Council of Europe. If it moves away from these institutions, I don't think it can survive in this region of the Near and Middle East, because Turkey still enjoys all the benefits of NATO and the Council of Europe. The application to be a member of the EU also benefits Turkey and I do not think Erdogan will forgo it.

ORIGINAL FRENCH ARTICLE: Turquie. Eyyup Doru « Ce dont nous avons besoin, c'est de démocratie et de liberté »

Translated by Tom Gill

Photo: Eyyup Doru by Gael Le Ny, l'Humanité,fr

This week in history: Sesquicentennial of African-American explorer Matthew Henson

Special to PeoplesWorld.org — Mon, 08 Aug 2016 12:34:00 +0000

One hundred and fifty years ago, on August 8, 1866, an African-American boy named Matthew Alexander Henson was born in Charles County, Md. He would grow up to become an explorer best known as the co-discoverer of the North Pole with Robert Edwin Peary in 1909.

Henson was the son of two freeborn black sharecroppers. He lost his mother at an early age. When Henson was four, his father moved the family to Washington, D.C., in search of work opportunities. The father died there a few years later, leaving Henson and his siblings in the care of other family members.

At the age of 11, Henson left home to find his own way. After walking all the way to Baltimore, he found work as a cabin boy on the ship Katie Hines. Its skipper, Capt. Childs, took Henson under his wing and saw to his education, which included instruction in the finer points of seamanship. During his time aboard the Katie Hines, Henson saw much of the world, traveling to Asia, Africa and Europe.

In 1884 Capt. Childs died, and Henson eventually made his way back to Washington, D.C., where he found work as a clerk in a hat shop. It was there that, in the late 1880s, he met Robert Edwin Peary, an explorer and officer in the U.S. Navy Corps of Civil Engineers. Impressed by Henson's seafaring credentials, Peary hired him as his valet for an upcoming expedition to Nicaragua.

After returning from Nicaragua, Peary found Henson work in Philadelphia, and in April 1891 Henson married Eva Flint. But shortly thereafter, Henson joined Peary again, for an expedition to Greenland. While there, Henson embraced the local Inuit culture, learning the language and the natives' Arctic survival skills over the course of the next year.

Their next trip to Greenland came in 1893, this time with a goal of charting the entire ice cap. The two-year journey almost ended in tragedy, with Peary's team on the brink of starvation; they managed to survive by eating all but one of their sled dogs. Despite this perilous trip, the explorers returned to Greenland in 1896 and 1897, to collect three large meteorites they had found during their earlier quests, ultimately selling them to the American Museum of Natural History and using the proceeds to help fund their future expeditions. However, by 1897 Henson's frequent absences had taken their toll on his marriage, and he and Eva divorced.

Over the next several years, Peary and Henson would make multiple attempts to reach the North Pole. Their 1902 attempt proved tragic, with six native team members perishing due to a lack of food and supplies. However, they made more progress during their 1905 trip: Backed by President Theodore Roosevelt and armed with a then state-of-the-art vessel that had the ability to cut through ice, the team was able to sail within 175 miles of the North Pole. Melted ice blocking the sea path thwarted the mission's completion, forcing them to turn back. Around this time, Henson fathered a son, Anauakaq, with an Inuit woman, but back at home in 1906 he married Lucy Ross.

The team's final attempt to reach the North Pole began in 1908. Henson proved an invaluable team member, building sledges and training others on their handling. Of Henson, expedition member Donald Macmillan once noted, "With years of experience equal to that of Peary himself, he was indispensable."

The expedition continued into the following year, and while other team members turned back, Peary and the ever-loyal Henson trudged on. Peary knew that the mission's success depended on his trusty companion, stating at the time, "Henson must go all the way. I can't make it there without him." Peary, Henson, four Inuit and 40 dogs (the trip had begun with 24 men, 19 sledges and 133 dogs) finally reached the North Pole - or at least they claimed to have.

"Peary shook my hand," Henson recorded, "and beamed at our four Eskimo dog drivers at 10:30 a.m., Eastern Standard Time, on April 6, 1909."

Triumphant when they returned, Peary received many accolades for his accomplishment, but in a sign of the times, as an African American, Henson was largely overlooked. Though Peary was lauded by many for his achievement, he and his team faced widespread skepticism. Peary had to testify before Congress about reaching the North Pole due to a lack of verifiable proof. The truth about Peary's and Henson's 1909 expedition still remains clouded.

Henson spent the next three decades working as a clerk in a New York federal customs house, but he never forgot his life as an explorer. He recorded his Arctic memoirs in 1912, in the book A Negro Explorer at the North Pole. In 1937, the 70-year-old Henson finally received the acknowledgment he deserved: The highly regarded Explorers Club in New York accepted him as an honorary member. He also received the Gold Medal of the Geographical Society of Chicago. In 1944 he and the other members of the expedition were awarded a Congressional Medal. He worked with Bradley Robinson to write his biography, Dark Companion, which was published in 1947.

Matthew Henson died in New York City on March 9, 1955, and was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery. His wife Lucy was buried beside him in 1968. To honor Henson, in 1987 President Reagan approved the transportation of both their remains for reinterment at Arlington National Cemetery, which is also the burial site of Peary and his wife Josephine.

In 1986 the United States issued a 22-cent postage stamp featuring the images of Peary and Henson together.

Adapted from The biography.com and Chase's Calendar of Events.

Photo: Wikipedia (CC)

In a historic first, Rio 2016 fields Refugee Olympic Team

Teresa Albano — Fri, 05 Aug 2016 18:31:00 +0000

Sports and politics often intertwine, and this year's Summer Olympics in Brazil will be no exception. For the first time in modern Olympic history, a team without a country will compete in the games. Representing an estimated 65.3 million displaced people in the world, 10 elite athletes will compete on the Refugee Olympic Team. If the total number of refugees were a population of a single nation, it would rank 22nd edging out the United Kingdom from that spot.

"By welcoming the team of Refugee Olympic Athletes to the Olympic Games Rio 2016, we want to send a message of hope for all refugees in our world," said International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach.

"Having no national team to belong to, having no flag to march behind, having no national anthem to be played, these refugee athletes will be welcomed to the Olympic Games with the Olympic flag and with the Olympic Anthem. They will have a home together with all the other 11,000 athletes from 206 National Olympic Committees in the Olympic Village."

The ten athletes selected, out of a pool of 43, come from South Sudan, Syria, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo. They will be competing in Athletics (Track and Field), Swimming and Judo.

Each athlete has a story of "unimaginable tragedy" and incomparable perseverance, said the IOC president. One member of the team is 18-year-old swimmer Yusra Mardini from Syria who dove into the sea after the small boat she was on with others almost capsized. She and her sister Sarah, also a swimmer, towed the boat to land--the Greek isle of Lesbos, swimming in the cold water for three hours.

Sarah, who will be cheering for her sister when she competes in the 100m freestyle, said, "I was not afraid of dying, because if anything happened I could swim to arrive at the island. But the problem was that I had 20 persons with me."

She added, "In Syria I worked in a swimming pool to watch people not drowning, so if I let anyone drown or die I would not forgive myself."

Bach said the committee hopes that by fielding such a team it "will make the world better aware of the magnitude of this crisis. It is also a signal to the international community that refugees are our fellow human beings and are an enrichment to society."

The IOC said the Rio 2016 opening ceremony will be about promoting "peace and tolerance" and will call on the world to "save the planet from climate change."

Photo: IOC President Thomas Bach and Refugee Olympic Team Chef De Mission Tegla Loroupe attend the first day of the 129th IOC Session at the Windsor Oceanic Hotel in Rio De Janeiro ahead of the Rio 2106 Olympic Games. (Ian Jones/IOC)

Facing bullets and prison, Mexican teachers stand up to education reforms

David Bacon — Wed, 03 Aug 2016 11:25:00 +0000

On Sunday, 19 June, demonstrators blocked a highway - a common form of protest in Mexico's southern state of Oaxaca - after the federal government arrested leaders of the state's teachers union. Heavily armed police then fired on teachers, students, parents and supporters. Nine people were killed, and many more were wounded.

Nochixtlán, the town where the massacre took place, has since become a symbol of the resistance of Mexican teachers to corporate education reform. In the United States educators quickly responded to support their embattled Mexican colleagues, condemning the attacks and calling for the release of the imprisoned unionists.

These events were set into motion a week earlier, when Rubén Núñez - head of Oaxaca's Sección 22 of the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE) and a national leader of the National Coordination of Education Workers (CNTE or Coordinadora, a group within the SNTE organized in the late 1970s) - was arrested as he left a meeting in Mexico City. He was then flown a thousand miles north to Hermosillo, Sonora, to a high-security federal lockup.

Hours earlier the same thing happened to Francisco Villalobos, the union's second-highest officer. Both joined Aciel Sibaja, Sección 22's financial secretary, imprisoned in the same penitentiary since 14 April.

The union officers were accused of accepting dues given voluntarily by teachers across Oaxaca. Sección 22 has had to collect dues in cash for the last year, since federal authorities froze not only the union's bank accounts but also even the personal ones of its officers. The government called dues so collected "funds from illicit sources."

Five other union leaders have been imprisoned since last October. Luis Hernández Navarro, a former teacher and now opinion editor for the Mexico City daily La Jornada, calls them "hostages".

"Their detention is simultaneously a warning of what can happen to other teachers who continue to reject the [federal government's] 'education reform,' and a payback to force the movement to demobilise," he says.

On 19 May, Education Secretary Aurelio Nuño Mayer announced that he was firing 4,100 teachers from the CNTE stronghold states of Oaxaca, Guerrero, Chiapas and Michoacán for not having worked for the days when they were on strike.

One much-hated provision of the federal government's education reform requires teachers to take tests to evaluate their qualifications. Those who do not get good enough marks are fired. Thousands of teachers have refused to take the tests.

Earlier on 22 March, Nuño also announced a measure that would spell the end to Mexico's national system of teacher training schools, called normales. Since the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), the normales have been the vehicle for children from poor families in the countryside, and from the families of teachers themselves, to become trained educators.

Guerrero's normale school in Ayotzinapa was the target two years ago of an attack that led to the disappearance and possible murder of 43 students, which has since galvanized Mexico.

Oaxaca became a target of repression because Sección 22 proposed its own alternative education reform over six years ago. It concentrates on respecting indigenous culture and forging alliances between teachers, students, parents and their communities.

For several years the union used its political strength to implement its program, rather than that of the federal government. Observers like La Jornada's Navarro believe that the federal government sees defeating Sección 22 as the key to forcing acceptance of its corporate education reforms instead.

Solidarity protests

After the enormous public outcry following the shootings in Nochixtlán, however, demonstrations against the federal education reform spread across the country. A protest march in Mexico City, organised by the left-wing MORENA party (National Regeneration Movement) headed by former mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador, drew over 100,000 participants. Highways were blocked in several states.

Protests were also organised by teachers in the United States, including pickets of the Mexican consulates in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago. A statement read by Lita Blanc, president of United Educators of San Francisco, announced a campaign to convince the US Congress to suspend military aid to Mexico "until the Mexican government stops these massive abuses of labor and human rights."

In Chicago demonstrating members of the Chicago Teachers Union made a video in which they chanted, "We are all Oaxaca!"

Formal protests and calls for freeing the imprisoned teachers also came from Josh Pechthalt, president of the California Federation of Teachers, Eric Heins, president of the California Teachers Association, and Dr. Lorretta Johnson, secretary treasurer of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). Pechthalt asked all the union's local chapters in California to join the demonstrations and write to Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.

"We are all facing the same attacks," he told them. "The same corporate interests in both of our countries seek to privatize public education, undermine our ability to function as professional and socially-responsible educators, and end our right to unions and collective bargaining and action."

In Mexico, the Peña Nieto administration was forced into negotiations with the CNTE, but said that changes in its education reform program weren't up for discussion. Enrique Enríquez Ibarra, head of the Mexico City teachers union, responded that teachers would not back down and would keep developing an alternative democratic education plan. Demonstrations and strikes would continue, he said, until "all our fired colleagues are returned to their jobs, their lost salaries paid, and our bank accounts unfrozen."

Trains were blocked leading to Michoacán's main port of Lázaro Cárdenas, and the state's governor then met with the CNTE. Highways in and out of Chiapas' capital Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Guerrero's capital Chilpancingo, and Tabasco's capital Villahermosa were blocked as well.

Amanda, a parent in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, told La Jornada that: "One of the main jobs of parents now is to protect the public schools during the teachers' strike." Other parents called for abolishing school fees and ending the government's education reform.

As protests mounted, the Secretariat of Public Education announced on 10 July that it would not proceed further with the firing of thousands of teachers. During a national day of protest on 16 July, secciones 7 and 40 of the SNTE in Chiapas occupied radio and television stations to inform the public of their reasons for opposing the federal education reform, and to condemn the shootings in Nochixtlán. Marches on the same national day of protest took place in Puebla, Jalisco, Hidalgo and Mexico states.

Finally two of the imprisoned teachers were released in mid-July - Aciel Sibaja and Roberto Abel Jiménez.

And as they sat in prison, Rubén Núñez and Francisco Villalobos were reconfirmed as general secretary and organisational secretary respectively of Sección 22 in the union's monthly state conference. "While recent dialogues between CNTE and the Secretariat of the Interior are promising," the AFT's Johnson said in her letter to the Mexican ambassador to the US, "their legitimacy is lessened as long as these leaders remain in prison."

Photo: David Bacon

NATO’s stance toward Russia increases nuclear danger

Conn Hallinan — Tue, 02 Aug 2016 12:45:00 +0000

"Today, the danger of some sort of a nuclear catastrophe is greater than it was during the Cold War and most people are blissfully unaware of this danger."

-William J. Perry, U.S. Sec. Of Defense (1994-97)

Perry has been an inside player in the business of nuclear weapons for over 60 years and his book, My Journey at the Nuclear Brink, is a sober read. It is also a powerful counterpoint to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) current European strategy that envisions nuclear weapons as a deterrent to war: "Their [nuclear weapons] role is to prevent major war, not to wage wars," argues the Alliance's magazine, NATO Review.

But, as Perry points out, it is only by chance that the world has avoided a nuclear war-sometimes by nothing more than dumb luck-and, rather than enhancing our security, nukes "now endanger it."

The 1962 Cuban missile crisis is generally represented as a dangerous standoff resolved by sober diplomacy. In fact, it was a single man-Russian submarine commander Vasili Arkhipov-who countermanded orders to launch a nuclear torpedo at an American destroyer that could have set off a full-scale nuclear exchange between the USSR and the U.S.

There were numerous other incidents that brought the world to the brink. On a quiet morning in November 1979, a NORAD computer reported a full-scale Russian sneak attack with land and sea-based missiles, which led to scrambling U.S. bombers and alerting U.S. missile silos to prepare to launch. There was no attack, just an errant test tape.

Lest anyone think that November incident was an anomaly, a little more than six months later NORAD computers announced that Soviet submarines had launched 220 missiles at the U.S.-this time the cause was a defective chip that cost 49 cents-again resulting in scrambling interceptors and putting the silos on alert.

But don't these examples prove that accidental nuclear war is unlikely? That conclusion is a dangerous illusion, argues Perry, because the price of being mistaken is so high and because the world is a more dangerous place than it was in 1980.

The danger today

It is 71 years since atomic bombs destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and humanity's memory of those events has dimmed. But even were the entire world to read John Hersey's Hiroshima, it would have little idea of what we face today.

The bombs that obliterated those cities were tiny by today's standards, and comparing "Fat Man" and "Little Boy"-the incongruous names of the weapons that leveled both cities-to modern weapons stretches any analogy beyond the breaking point. If the Hiroshima bomb represented approximately 27 freight cars filled with TNT, a one-megaton warhead would require a train 300 miles long. Each Russian RS-20V Voevoda intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) packs 10 megatons.

What has made today's world more dangerous, however, is not just advances in the destructive power of nuclear weapons, but a series of actions by the last three U.S. administrations.

First was the decision by President Bill Clinton to abrogate a 1990 agreement with the Soviet Union not to push NATO further east after the reunification of Germany or to recruit former members of the defunct Warsaw Pact.

NATO has also reneged on a 1997 pledge not to install "permanent" and "significant" military forces in former Warsaw Pact countries. Just last month, NATO decided to deploy four battalions on, or near, the Russian border, arguing that since the units will be rotated they are not "permanent" and are not large enough to be "significant." It is a linguistic slight of hand that does not amuse Moscow.

Second was the 1999 U.S.-NATO intervention in the Yugoslav civil war and the forcible dismemberment of Serbia. It is somewhat ironic that Russia is currently accused of using force to "redraw borders in Europe" by annexing the Crimea, which is exactly what NATO did to create Kosovo. The U.S. subsequently built Camp Bond Steel, Washington's largest base in the Balkans.

Third was President George W, Bush's unilateral withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the decision by the Obama administration to deploy anti-missile systems in Romania and Poland, as well as Japan and South Korea.

Last is the decision by the White House to spend upwards of $1 trillion upgrading its nuclear weapons arsenal, which includes building bombs with smaller yields, a move that many critics argue blurs the line between conventional and nuclear weapons.

The Yugoslav War and NATO's move east convinced Moscow that the Alliance was surrounding Russia with potential adversaries, and the deployment of anti-ballistic missile systems (ABM)-supposedly aimed at Iran's non-existent nuclear weapons-was seen as a threat to the Russian's nuclear missile force.

One immediate effect of ABMs was to chill the possibility of further cuts in the number of nuclear weapons. When Obama proposed another round of warhead reductions, the Russians turned it down cold, citing the anti-missile systems as the reason. "How can we take seriously this idea about cuts in strategic nuclear potential while the United States is developing its capabilities to intercept Russian missiles?" asked Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin.

When the U.S. helped engineer the 2014 coup against the pro-Russian government in Ukraine, it ignited the current crisis that has led to several dangerous incidents between Russian and NATO forces-at last count, according to the European Leadership Network, more than 60. Several large war games were also held on Moscow's borders. Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev went so far as to accuse NATO of "preparations for switching from a cold war to a hot war."

In response, the Russians have also held war games involving up to 80,000 troops.

The threat of uncertainty

It is unlikely that NATO intends to attack Russia, but the power differential between the U.S. and Russia is so great-a "colossal asymmetry," Dmitri Trenin, head of the Carnegie Moscow Center, told the Financial Times-that the Russians have abandoned their "no first use" of nuclear weapons pledge.

It is the lack of clear lines that make the current situation so fraught with danger. While the Russians have said they would consider using small, tactical nukes if "the very existence of the state" was threatened by an attack, NATO is being deliberately opaque about its possible tripwires. According to NATO Review, nuclear "exercises should involve not only nuclear weapons states...but other non-nuclear allies," and "to put the burden of the doubt on potential adversaries, exercises should not point at any specific nuclear thresholds."

In short, keep the Russians guessing. The immediate problem with such a strategy is: what if Moscow guesses wrong?

That won't be hard to do. The U.S. is developing a long-range cruise missile-as are the Russians-that can be armed with conventional or nuclear warheads. But how will an adversary know which is which? And given the old rule in nuclear warfare-use 'em, or lose 'em-uncertainty is the last thing one wants to engender in a nuclear-armed foe.

Indeed, the idea of no "specific nuclear thresholds" is one of the most extraordinarily dangerous and destabilizing concepts to come along since the invention of nuclear weapons.

There is no evidence that Russia contemplates an attack on the Baltic states or countries like Poland, and, given the enormous power of the U.S., such an undertaking would court national suicide.

Moscow's "aggression" against Georgia and Ukraine was provoked. Georgia attacked Russia, not vice versa, and the Ukraine coup torpedoed a peace deal negotiated by the European Union, the U.S., and Russia. Imagine Washington's view of a Moscow-supported coup in Mexico, followed by an influx of Russian weapons and trainers.

In a memorandum to the recent NATO meetings in Warsaw, the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity argued, "There is not one scintilla of evidence of any Russian plan to annex Crimea before the coup in Kiev and coup leaders began talking about joining NATO. If senior NATO leaders continue to be unable or unwilling to distinguish between cause and effect, increasing tension is inevitable with potentially disastrous results."

The organization of former intelligence analysts also sharply condemned the NATO war games. "We shake our heads in disbelief when we see Western leaders seemingly oblivious to what it means to the Russians to witness exercises on a scale not seen since Hitler's army launched 'Unternehumen Barbarossa' 75 years ago, leaving 25 million Soviet citizens dead."

Disagreements within NATO

While the NATO meetings in Warsaw agreed to continue economic sanctions aimed at Russia for another six months and to station four battalions of troops in Poland and the Baltic states- separate U.S. forces will be deployed in Bulgaria and Poland -there was an undercurrent of dissent. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called for deescalating the tensions with Russia and for considering Russian President Vladimir Putin a partner not an enemy.

Greece was not alone. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeler called NATO maneuvers on the Russian border "warmongering" and "saber rattling." French President Francois Hollande said Putin should be considered a "partner," not a "threat," and France tried to reduce the number of troops being deployed in the Baltic and Poland. Italy has been increasingly critical of the sanctions.

Rather than recognizing the growing discomfort of a number of NATO allies worried that beefing up forces on Russia's borders might be destabilizing, U.S. Sec. of State John Kerry recently inked defense agreements with Georgia and Ukraine.

After disappearing from the radar for several decades, nukes are back, and the decision to modernize the U.S. arsenal will almost certainly kick off a nuclear arms race with Russia and China. Russia is already replacing its current ICBM force with the more powerful and long range "Sarmat" ICBM, and China is loading its ICBM with multiple warheads.

Add to this volatile mixture military maneuvers and a deliberately opaque policy in regards to the use of nuclear weapons, and it is no wonder that Perry thinks that the chances of some catastrophe is a growing possibility.

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

Photo: blogspot

July 26 on the mind, in Cuba and everywhere

W. T. Whitney Jr. — Wed, 27 Jul 2016 12:50:00 +0000

Once more in Cuba July 26 has come and gone. For Cubans the day is a "National Day of Rebellion;" it's their greatest holiday. As always, ceremonies and festivities took place this year throughout the island. Sancti Spiritus, the capital city of Sancti Spiritus province, hosted the main event. Cuban President Raul Castro presided over the gathering there, and Jose Ramon Machado Ventura addressed the crowd. He's a vice president of Cuba's Council of State and second secretary of the Communist Party.

National leaders, foreign visitors in solidarity with Cuba's revolution, and local political leaders and citizens - about 8000 people in all - filled the city's central plaza. The signature event of the July 26 celebrations each year takes place in a province selected because of accomplishments. The speakers in Sancti Spiritus cited the province's advances in agricultural production, tourist facilities, in the energy sector, and in health care, especially its very low infant mortality rate.

July 26 in Cuba commemorates the day in 1953 when youthful armed rebels attacked military installations in eastern Cuba, one in Bayamo and the other in Santiago - the now famous Moncada barracks. The assaults failed utterly. Dozens of captured rebels were tortured and/or killed. Nevertheless, revolutionaries, calling themselves the July 26 movement, went on to defeat the U. S. supported dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. In doing so, they launched the Cuban project of building a socialist society.

Fidel Castro, who led the attacks and later on the July 26 movement, went on trial. Defending himself, Castro, who was a lawyer, explained why Cuba needed a revolution. He explored philosophical, historical, sociological, and idealistic justifications for the uprising. Castro identified tasks for revolutionaries after they gained victory. The printed version of his defense, titled "History Will Absolve Me," circulated in Cuba beginning in 1954. Its English language version, 26,203 words long, surely warrants study now, 63 years after that court session.

Why "Day of Rebellion"?

Every year speakers at the July 26 celebrations recall the revolutionaries' martyrdom, imprisonment, or exile; their military struggle in Cuba's Sierra Maestra after December 1956; their mobilizations in the cities; and their ultimate victory.

Ostensibly the day marks the beginning of a political revolution. But one wonders about the imprecise and bland label of "National Day of Rebellion." Mere rebellion is not enough to propel a social revolution such as Cuba's. So why is not the term "revolution" used?

Here's a theory. Cubans, students and adults alike, might object to a name suggesting that the revolution began only on July 26, 1953. They recall political and social revolutionaries of the 19th century who carried out slave rebellions and fought in Cuba's first war for independence from Spain. They know about General Antonio Maceo whose Protest of Baraguá in 1878 kept alive fights for independence and slavery's abolition.

Above all, they honor José Martí. His anti-imperialism, his propagandizing and organizing for the second war for independence, and his battlefield death in 1895 inspired the revolutionaries of 1953. They were the "generation of the centennial" of José Martí's birth.

Fidel Castro told his accusers in 1953 that, "It looked like the Apostle (Martí) was going to die in the year of his centennial, that his memory would be blighted for always; that was such an affront!"
Revolutionaries laid siege to the Machado dictatorship (1925 - 1933). They agitated and suffered on behalf of revolutionary change amid the turmoil preceding Batista's ascendency in 1934. In short, the July 26 heroes inherited a revolutionary tradition. Cuba's revolution hardly began in 1953, but that year Cuban rebelliousness did strike again, and with momentous effects.

A day to celebrate

From the perspective of history, July 26 in Cuba testifies to a social and political revolution that accomplished much. It joins others like July 4 in the United States, July 14 in France, and October 25 (Julian calendar) in Russia. Only later did a revolution within a revolution convert Cuba's revolution into a socialist one. In fact, revolutions leading to changes on a seismic scale are few, and Cuba's is one of them. July 26 thus is a big day everywhere.

Concluding his remarks in Sancti Spiritus, Vice President Jose Ramon Machado Ventura called upon Cubans "each day to show, in every workplace and with concrete actions" that they could meet current challenges, "as did the Generation of the Centenary on that July 26, 1953 and as so many Cubans have done throughout their exemplary history of struggles and victories for the homeland."

Photo: José Ramón Machado Ventura, second secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba and a vice president of the Councils of State and Ministers, during the commemoration of the 63rd anniversary of the assaults on the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes Garrisons, held in Sancti Spíritus, July 26. Estudio Revolución

Brexit or Lexit – the Left has its work cut out

Mark Waller — Wed, 27 Jul 2016 11:01:00 +0000

The result of the vote by the British electorate of 53% to 46% in favour of leaving the European Union - Brexit - seemed a clear indication of where the country stood on the issue. But judging by the reaction that has played out in the country's media, the poll has resulted in spasms of shame-faced confusion.

The reason is that some of the loudest voices for Brexit were also the most reactionary, marinated in xenophobia and racism. They tended to drown out the campaign by more rational forces on the Left for a left wing exit from the EU - a Lexit.

The vote whipped up a storm in the UK's political establishment and among an array of political forces outside it, and as yet very little is clear on how the break with the EU will pan out.

A large chunk of opinion ranging from the left-of-centre opposition Labour Party to much of the ruling right-of-centre Conservative Party campaigned for Britain to stay in the EU. The right wing of the Conservatives through the far right United Kingdom Independence Party (Ukip) and beyond was resolutely in favour of Brexit.

The mainstream media largely reflected this spectrum of opinion, with the small-L liberal Guardian, the pro-government Times and faux-left Daily Mirror urging the country to "remain", while the populist right wing Sun and Daily Mail were pro-Brexit.

The view that voters favouring Brexit were largely from the right wing or in some way under its sway has prevailed in much of the analysis of the poll result. This bemoans the xenophobic and racist light in which the UK now lies exposed thanks to Brexit.

Right wingers campaigned on a ticket of narrow nationalism that drew heavily on anti-European and anti-foreigner sentiments. For many others Brexit supporters represent the lowest common denominators among the British. Philistine, devoid of the urbane sensibilities of European culture. Little Englanders clinging to a deluded sense of exceptionality amidst their own squalid, class-ridden, greedy dysfunction gearing up to rid the country of "foreigners".

Though much ignorance of what the EU is all about continues to pervade the op-ed columns of the Guardian and other news media, cutting ties with the EU is seen as a kick in the face for internationalism, multilateral cooperation and any sense of pan-European identity. It's as if the UK was about to engineer its own mini continental drift to the Bermuda Triangle.

Britain has always set itself apart from the rest of Europe, often quaintly referred to as "the Continent". Much of the post-referendum hand wringing about "cutting off from Europe" hinges on a dubious equation of the EU with Europe, as if they were somehow synonymous.

This is partly due to the partial success of the EU's self-mythologizing propaganda. It uses Beethoven's Ode to Joy, from the end of the composer's 9^th Symphony, as its anthem. Its flag, adopted in 1985 at the tipping point of the Cold War, is a circle of 12 yellow stars on a blue background, supposedly symbolizing completeness and unity. The blue is meant for some reason to represent the West, though the EU now incorporates the once-red countries from the former Soviet bloc.

Europe Day is celebrated on both 5 and 9 May - an awkward effort to accommodate the wishes of the Council of Europe, the human rights and rule of law organisation that is not part of the EU.

There was nearly an EU Constitution and Charter of Fundamental Rights. They were adopted in 2004 but hastily abandoned due to negative referendum results - not in the UK but in France and the Netherlands.

And there is the euro, the currency used in 19 of the EU's 28 member states, itself as powerful a symbol of a common European identity as the coinage of the Roman Empire was of the power of the Caesars.

Despite its many institutions and programmes that reach into areas such as culture, education, overseas development aid, and satellite technology, the main focus of the EU has been on creating and running an internal market in the combined area of its member states for goods and capital. This covers agriculture and fisheries. It provides for the free movement of labor to enable centres of production to draw on mobile labor forces, depending on what is being produced. The EU has nascent military-defence ambitions but is largely embedded within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Nato.

Much of the work of the EU since it morphed from the European Community to its more integrated present form in 1992 has been on standardising the laws of member states so that they fit the requirements of the internal market. This has meant that the EU has expanded its work into all areas in any way touching on working life and the labor within the internal market.

It regulates occupational health and safety and other areas of health care, some workplace rights, some judicial and home affairs matters, immigration, and a mass of regulations concerning everything related in any way to the many areas of industrial production and manufacturing. From foods to diesel engines. It maintains lopsided trading regimes with developing countries, seen by many as compounding not tackling underdevelopment. And it runs a viciously restrictive border policy to shore up Fortress Europe that has been in part responsible for the deaths of thousands of refugees.

Most areas of EU influence appear to replicate the way states rule themselves, but EU legislation is wholly focused on nurturing the single market and its profit-generating clout, realised through the operations of private enterprises and corporations. National legislation in the member states is left untouched as long as it does not impede EU legislation. If it does, it must be subject to "harmonisation", brought into line with the legislation created by the EU.

In some fields EU legislation has been an improvement on national regulations. The incorporation of, say, the latest developments in occupational health and safety into EU law means that it is easy to see the EU as an innovator in this area. Many of those who regret Brexit feel that the UK will lose out in this respect, and that the door will be open for government and businesses to lower their standards to the detriment of workers.

And yet the majority of big business wants the UK to remain in the EU. EU legislation on the free movement of labor allows bosses to pay workers lower wages. Trade union rights are highly localised, easy to marginalise and do not cover workers coming from other parts of the EU.

Businesses import cheap labour from poorer parts of the EU when manufacturing or sales take place in wealthier countries where local workers are used to better wages and conditions. Conversely, they shift production or processing to poorer parts of the EU, especially the South and East, where local wages are bad and conditions poorly regulated.

The EU's occupational health and safety regulations have scant leverage in such areas, all the more so as the EU favours tough "austerity" policies that depress pay and conditions even further. For big business, the EU means big profits and zero labor union interference. One effect has been to generate conflict and xenophobia between workers from different countries and regions, something that the right wing Brexit supporters capitalised on in their anti-EU campaign.

It is also extremely difficult for social movements, labor organisations or EU citizens (the citizens of EU member states are automatically EU citizens) to have any influence on decision-making in the EU.

The EU resembles an oligarchy. All its top executive positions are filled by appointment. The EU Commission is the main executive body, with commissioners appointed by member states. Its president is appointed on approval of the European Parliament on the basis of a nomination made by ministers from the member states.

The EU parliament, the only direct link to voters in each country, has no legislative decision-making powers or right of veto, nor can it influence the work of the Commission. The Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) represent large wholly unreachable constituencies in their own countries. There are 73 MEPs for Britain's 65 million people.

A key EU institution is the European Central Bank, run by appointees for eight-year tenures. The ECB has been the main player in imposing public spending cuts on Greece, and imposing further austerity policies on the country in return for cash 'bailouts'.

These are some of the reasons why communists and others on the Left in the UK ran the campaign for a left exit - Lexit - from the EU. This campaign sought to inject progressive politics into the arguments for leaving the EU. It's a stance that meshes with that of communist and workers parties in other EU member countries.

The Lexit campaign argued that a vote to withdraw from the EU would lead to the collapse of the Conservative government in London, and that the replacement administration will probably be short lived. The impetus would be for calling an early general election, which in turn would create the conditions for a Labour government to be elected "on a programme of progressive taxation, public investment, public ownership, industrial regeneration and ecological security."

Communists in other parts of Europe have welcomed the Brexit/Lexit poll result as a great opportunity for the Left. The Communist Party of Finland, for instance, stated that most of those in the UK who voted to leave the EU were from working class communities hit hardest by EU policies that had destroyed their livelihoods.

The Communist Party of Spain echoed these views, sensing a chance for "the complete abandonment of the neoliberal strategy that for more than three decades has ruled over Europe, and the adoption an anti-oligarchic vision that has as its center the interests and aspirations of the social majorities."

The Communist Party of Ireland stated "Throughout the EU, millions of workers will welcome this vote to leave, which may well mark the beginning of the end of the EU itself. Project Fear, masterminded by the EU, has been used to bully the Greek, Spanish, Italian, Cypriot and Irish people into accepting debt slavery, that there was no alternative but to bail out the banks and speculators over the rights of the people. But not only them: this strategy has been used against all working people right throughout the EU, using fear to impose the feeling that there is no alternative, using it to mask savage attacks on workers' rights and conditions, and the further erosion of democracy and national sovereignty."

For these and other communist parties, the Left has a chance to reshape Europe into an entirely different entity, unified by socialist values and policies. Or rather the chance to do this is closer now than it has ever been before. Some see the beginning of the end for the EU as its popularity plummets and it loses it grip with the deepening capitalist crisis. Others on the non-communist Left in Europe, including some of the socialist parties that belong to the European Left formation, see Brexit as simply a knee-jerk protest vote that points to the need to reform the EU.

In the UK, the Labour Party is in the throes of an intense class struggle between right wing Labour MPs and the party's burgeoning grassroots left wing membership.

The issue is ostensibly about who will lead the party, whether the Left incumbent, Jeremy Corbyn, or the right's candidate Owen Smith. The core issues, though, are to do with what direction the Labour Party should take, whether to work on a Left platform of social and economic transformation or to return the party to the sort of neoliberal profile it had under Tony Blair and his likeminded successors.

If Corbyn and the wishes of the party's ordinary members prevail, there may be a chance for the Left to seize the initiative in the wake of the post-Brexit vote, which has thrown the ruling Conservatives into disarray. The appointment of the new Prime Minister, Teresa May, and her efforts renew the government will succeed or fail depending on the ability of the Left to get its act together. If it doesn't, Brexit could turn into everything that its right wing supporters have dreamed of.

Mark Waller

First published in People's World

Photo: Flickr (CC)

British Iraq War report is damning for former PM Tony Blair

Emile Schepers — Tue, 26 Jul 2016 12:25:00 +0000

It took a long time, but the report on Britain's involvement in the planning and execution of the Iraq War was finally published on July 6th. It paints a damning picture of the role of former Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Labour Party cabinet.

The Chilcot Report, as it is being called in the media, is the product of years of investigation, testimony and deliberations by a special commission, the Iraq Inquiry, composed of privy counsellors. In Britain's quaint and archaic way of doing certain things, privy counsellors are supposed to be trusted advisors of the monarch.

The five members of the inquiry could hardly have been more "establishment." There is not a labor union leader or radical intellectual among them, and at least one had been a supporter of the U.S.-British invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The head of the inquiry is Sir John Chilcot, a career civil servant. The inquiry was also advised by a retired top army general (Sir Roger Wheeler) and a former president of the International Court of Justice (Dame Rossalyn Higgins).

The witnesses called to testify were also an establishment lot, mostly military officers and civil servants.

The inquiry was set up in 2009 and the hearing of testimony finished three years later, but the publication of its results has been delayed until now for more or less obviously political reasons.

Under these circumstances, one might think that the result would be a whitewash. But even though the huge report does not specifically affix blame for the Iraq disaster or call for punishment of Tony Blair, former Foreign Minister Jack Straw and the other British officials who connived with U.S. President George Bush in going into Iraq, it is a damning report. It is embarrassing for Blair and the right wing of his Labour Party and for the British ruling class, as it should be also for former Pres. Bush and all the U.S. politicians and civil and military leaders who brought about the Iraq War and the massive destabilization and bloody conflict that ensued.

It is clear from what has been published so far (the report is 2.6 million words long) that Blair's characterization by British cartoonists at the time as George Bush's "pet poodle" was well justified. The plotting between Bush and Blair started by the summer of 2002, with Blair getting on board the war train in July of that year at the latest.

The only concern that Blair showed about Bush's push toward war had to do with appearances. Blair showed contempt for leaders in Europe who opposed the war policy, saying that such people were acting "stupidly." Blair clearly saw a policy of intervention and regime change as completely justified, not because of Saddam Hussein's beastly behavior toward his own people, but because the Anglo-Saxon countries know best and have the right to do these things. But Blair did suggest mollifying world public opinion by action on the Middle East peace process and other issues. Bush paid no more attention to this than he would have to the yapping of a poodle.

Weapons of mass destruction were the pretext and not the reason for attacking Iraq, as Bush and Blair both knew perfectly well. The Chilcot Report shows that the British cabinet knew that diplomatic measures had not been exhausted, that resorting to arms had a big downside and that at any rate, the existence of weapons of mass destruction had not been demonstrated: At most Iraq had the capacity to create such weapons, which could be said of any country with a modern scientific and industrial setup. Under those circumstances, Blair's claim that Saddam could attack the West with such weapons on short notice was an outright lie. And of course, once the U.S. and Britain invaded and took over Iraq, no such weapons were ever found.

Bush and Blair cynically used and undermined the United Nations by claiming to act on the basis of U.N. resolutions concerning the elimination of weapons of mass destruction, when in fact there was no evidence of such weapons, and, moreover, the U.N. had not voted to authorize the invasion.

But none of this stuff is exactly new. Years ago, British documents had been leaked which clearly indicated that Blair's government was complicit with the Bush administration in faking a pretext for invading Iraq.

The "Downing Street Memo" of July 23, 2002, dated right when Blair was committing his country to the Iraq War, contained the memorable phrase by a British official: "But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." In other words, the British government knew perfectly well that the Bush administration was determined to invade Iraq and the "reasons" to be given - terrorism and weapons of mass destruction - were really only pretexts. Other memos showed that the Bush-Blair team were cynically dismissive of any U.N. role in the decision to intervene in Iraq.

In light of these findings, it is quite strange that Blair was, after leaving Number 10 Downing Street, appointed as "Special Middle East Envoy" for the United Nations, the European Union, the United States and Russia. Less pleasing to Blair, no doubt, were demands by South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and others that he stand trial for war crimes in Iraq.

Upon the release of the Chilcot Report, Blair was "apologetic" but said he still thought it was good that Saddam had been removed from power.

This will not be the end of the matter, however. The Chilcot Report shows that the Bush-Blair team tried to pooh-pooh the issue of civilian and military casualties of the war, but this topic is not going to go away. Among British, U.S. and allied casualties, and casualties of Iraqi civilians and military, some estimates go as high as one million deaths, to which one must add the deaths caused by the sanctions imposed on Iraq before the war even started. And the destabilization of Iraq caused by the intervention has created a level of instability that involves continued massive violence, plus the rise of terrorist groups whose actions have now spread far beyond Iraq's borders.

For Britain's Labour Party, now in opposition, the Chilcot Report comes at a moment when the right wing of the party, i.e., Tony Blair's faction, and Blair himself, have been pushing to oust leftist party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who had opposed the Iraq War from the start and has said that Blair should be investigated for war crimes. Whether the efforts to oust Corbyn will now fail because of the Chilcot revelations is yet to be seen.

Photo: Commondreams.org

Another tragic anniversary this week: July 20, 1944 in Germany

Emile Schepers — Thu, 21 Jul 2016 14:23:00 +0000

In a previous article, I wrote about July 18, 1936, the beginning of the Falangist-military uprising in Spain and the Spanish Civil War. There was another tragic anniversary this week: That of the July 20, 1944 attempt to kill Adolf Hitler and overthrow the Third Reich. This too should be remembered.

Briefly, the facts: On July 20, 1944, an officer of the German Army General Staff, Colonel Count Klaus Schenk von Stauffenberg, managed to place a briefcase containing bomb under a table in Adolf Hitler's headquarters in the "Wolf's Lair" at Rastenberg, in East Prussia. Hitler was supposed to participate in a military briefing at that place and time, and the colonel managed to place the bomb in such a way that when it exploded, the Fuehrer would certainly have been killed.

The bomb was placed and von Stauffenberg, who had managed to slip out of the building, was able to confirm the explosion. He hastened back to Berlin to take charge of a group of men who were prepared to neutralize other leaders, take over the government and begin to end the nightmare of the Third Reich. Unfortunately another officer had moved the briefcase, and when the bomb exploded, it killed several officers but left Hitler shaken but not seriously injured.

Meanwhile, people who were in on the conspiracy had moved to arrest top Nazi leaders such as Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels, and take over key components of the German state. But when the news got out that Hitler was alive, the plot fell apart. The officer who had been sent to arrest Goebbels, Major Otto Remer, found himself talking on the phone in the Propaganda Minister's office with a very much alive and enraged Adolf Hitler; he and others then turned against the July 20 conspiracy leadership. Some of them committed suicide, and others were arrested. Stauffenberg and a small group of fellow officers were put up against a wall and shot by firing squad; the colonel's last words being "Long live our sacred Germany".

In the reprisals that followed, several thousand persons were killed by the vengeful Nazis, or committed suicide to avoid such a fate. The dead included three field marshals (Rommel, von Kluge and von Witzleben, with the first two committing suicide), a number of top generals and other officers, as well as civilian political leaders. German high society was not spared: The executed included a number of counts and barons as well as other members of the social elite of the old pre-Nazi era (this in spite of the fact that so many aristocrats had supported the Nazis). Sadistic methods were used in some of the executions, which were filmed for Hitler's personal entertainment. Children of the dead were separated from the families and taught to hate their parents as traitors. After the war, it took a long while for Germans to see Stauffenberg and his colleagues as heroes.

The people who carried out or supported the effort to get rid of Hitler were a very mixed bag. Most could be called conservative German nationalists. Some acted from religious convictions, either Catholic or Protestant. Unlike the dynamic and charismatic Colonel von Stauffenberg, many of the top army officers, although they had been grumbling about Hitler for years, only acted when it was clear that Germany would lose the war, with bad consequences for them personally. Meanwhile millions died, and these officers sealed their own fates by their dithering and hesitation.

A big fear was that the real winner would be the Soviet Union, and many of the plotters entertained the illusion that once they took over the government, they could negotiate a peace with the Western Allies but not with Moscow. But things had gone too far for that. Some of the plotters had been ardent Nazis before the scales fell from their eyes, either because they had an attack of conscience, or because they realized that Hitler was destroying their country and endangering their own future survival. A very few of the plotters had connections to the suppressed labor unions. Although German communists played a role in other resistance efforts, they were not a part of the July 20 plot, though they certainly were active in other resistance activities. Some members of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) were involved with July 20, and lost their lives too.

Yet we should remember that when these deeply flawed people acted, they did so knowing that they were very likely sealing their own death warrants, and indeed most of them gave their lives. At least some, especially young army officers, appear to have been genuinely horrified by the atrocities that they saw the Reich army and the Nazi SS and Einsatzgruppen committing on the Eastern Front. Several young officers volunteered to try to kill Hitler by methods that they themselves knew they could not survive-by suicide bombing or by shooting him in front of his armed-to-the-teeth bodyguards.

The success of the July 20 plot would have saved countless lives; among other things the conspirators would almost surely have tried to end the Holocaust, which was well underway. The failure of the attempt condemned millions more to die.

So, although there were elements of farce in the July 20 action, July 20 should be remembered as a tragic anniversary also.

One lesson: Flawed people finally acting, albeit on the basis of decidedly mixed motives, sometimes achieve more than perfect people doing nothing.

A second lesson: The July 20 plotters would never have got as far as they did were it not for the fact that a number of them held key positions in the armed forces. Colonel von Stauffenberg, for example, was in charge of units of reserve troops which he planned to use to overthrow the regime once Hitler was dead.

Another lesson: Never again.

Video: Trailer for the film "Valkyrie." The German army plot to assassinate Hitler was the subject of this popular movie.

Photo: Image from the film "Valkyrie."

Attempted Coup: We want neither the coup nor the one-man dictatorship!

EMEP, Labour Party of Turkey — Thu, 21 Jul 2016 09:48:00 +0000

On the night on 15 July, Turkey witnessed a take-over of some critical points in two major cities by soldiers. The plotters took over the headquarters of the Turkish Armed Forces General Staff and the Gendarmerie General Command, an air base and Istanbul Atatürk Airport. The Chief Commanders of the armed forces were detained. Fighter Jets were flying low over cities and later, joined by helicopters, bombed certain targets including TBMM (Turkish Parliament Building), the vicinity of the headquarters of the General Staff and Special Forces Command.

Without enough preparation and power, the plotters, perhaps forced to act by the circumstances and possibly abandoned by sections of the armed forces that pledged support, arrived at a dead end within a matter of hours.

Firstly, they could not win over the people and its organized section. The coup was supported by no organized body such as a political party or a trade union. The four political parties in the Parliament issued a joint statement against the attempted coup.

On the other hand, the plotters could not get the main troops within the Armed Forces on their side. They were confronted by the police and the Special Forces, controlled directly by the government and numbered in their hundreds of thousands. Political Islamist militants, with jihadists among them, showed their level of organization in confronting them hand in hand with the police. They responded to the calls to "take to the streets" by the President, whom the plotters failed to capture. Increasing numbers of AKP supporters and people from those sections of the population that insisted on democracy also filled the streets in defiance of the coup.

In a country that has seen almost ten coups, the only successful ones of which were those backed by the US; the plotters could not secure the support of the US, despite the latter's ambiguous initial stance.

And they were unsuccessful.

However, it cannot be disputed that the line of domestic and foreign policy pursued by the incumbent AKP government and President Erdoğan - who is creating a de facto "one-manship" - dragged Turkey to this circumstance of a coup.

In fact, during the 2010 Constitutional Referendum, the primary claim of the AKP and Erdoğan was that they were "settling the score with the Constitution of the coup" of 1980 and that "there will be no more coups in Turkey"! This has not happened; not only did "settling the score with the constitution of the coup" never took place, on the contrary, all measures taken since have been taken in order to destroy the already weak institutions and freedoms of the country.

Soon after his election as the president, Erdoğan claimed "a de facto regime change" and stated that the parliamentarian system is "put on hold" and took steps in this direction.

Executive power was strengthened by the "Internal Security Act", giving exceptional powers to the police and district and provincial governors. In the war waged in Kurdish cities, armed forces are protected by granting of immunity; soldiers cannot be tried without consent from the Prime Minister.

Legislation has been subordinated to executive power. With the aggrandizement of "National Will"; despite the focus only on the "ballot" rather than democratic rights and freedoms; and finally the removal of the immunity of MPs; this has been advanced to a point of getting rid of unwanted parliamentarians. To prove that "National Will" means the "decision of one-man", people's "will" demonstrated in the elections held on 7 June 2015 saying "No" to "one-man dictatorship" have been rejected. Through instigation of the Kurdish war - fueling chauvinist nationalism - the country was dragged into war and chaos and forced into elections on the 1^st of November.

Legislation has been subordinated to executive power: through "special courts"; alleged "coup plotters" with differing identities; through the High Council of Judges and Prosecutors, made up mostly of appointed members. A third of the judges and prosecutors have been relocated. Before the attempted coup it was stated that except for the President of the Supreme Court and the Chief of Justice of the Council of State, all coup - despite the fact that no prosecutor or court having any jurisdiction - was followed by the decisions members of the two institutions will be appointed by the executive power. They attempted to dismiss and take into custody two members of the Supreme Court, 140 members of the Supreme Court and 48 members of the Council of State, and 2745 judges.

Freedom of the press has been almost entirely removed. Freedom of speech, and especially freedom of thought, the right to hold meetings and organize demonstrations have been made impossible. Especially Mayday demonstrations and even the right of the main opposition party members to hold meetings have been denied. In circumstances of war, the defense of peace carries a risk to one's existence; sacking and imprisonment of academics that signed a petition calling for peace is an example of this. It was announced that elected local governments will be discharged and replaced by arbitrary appointments.

The claim to "break free of the laws of coup" was a veil for building arbitrary laws of a "one-man, one-party dictatorship"; removing any meaning from "the rule of law".

This course is domestically carried out by renewed alliance with the Ergenekon soldiers; in the name of "fighting terror" instead of the "peace process"; with the banning of street protests; through a conflict and war that is levelling to the ground those Kurdish cities besieged by tanks and cannons. Furthermore, policies of war, killing thousands of people by removing democratic rights and freedoms is forcing and has forced the country to a situation where it cannot be governed under ordinary circumstances. Primarily, the increase in the use of arms and armed forces led to increased influence of soldiers in the governance of the country; the role this played in making the country more prone to coup attempts cannot be denied.

The same course, has been advanced in foreign policy using politics of war in serving New-Ottoman expansionism. Displeasure with this course and the pursuit of alternatives among the dominant forces, caused by the disharmony with US foreign policy and rendered impossible after the Russian intervention in Syria is understandable. Linked to the domestic Kurdish issue, the "red lines" drawn on Syria lost all meaning and forced the AKP to change its policies; a political line of normalizing relations with Israel and Russia is adopted. However, the collapse of foreign policy targets - indexed to politics of war - led to military influence on foreign policy and provoked military pursuits, and to a conflict between the ruling cliques.

Furthermore, steps taken to unite the ruling classes in the name of transition to a one-man, one-party dictatorship led to discontent and bitterness among reactionary forces. Tax penalties and exclusion from government tenders and sharing of government resources, introduced in an attempt to "convince" even traditional monopolistic capital groups, are some of these steps.

Most serious sanctions targeted the Gülen Movement, an ally of the AKP since its foundation but fallen out with after the 17-25 November corruption investigations. This Movement is not only Islamist but also a big monetary fund. With its bank and investment companies, the largest mining company in the country, widespread investment in media and education sectors, and through its alliance with AKP, this group penetrated most of the state apparatus; primarily within the police, judiciary and the Armed Forces.

Following 25 November, this group was declared a "terrorist organization", its bank and mining company were seized, media and education institutions were closed down; companies and members prosecuted and imprisoned. Following the clean-up in the judiciary and the police, as the appointments and promotions in the Armed Forces at the end of August approached, inquiries, arrests and court proceedings targeting members of this group had already started. This was the "last straw"; the organized forces of this group and other discontented groups in the army attempted a coup; aware of the clean-up lists, instead of being discharged and jailed, they were, in a way, forced into this attempt.

This attempted coup has been shown to be a showdown within the ruling reactionaries and thwarted.

It was undeniable that the coup - with its first stated measures of martial law and inhibition - was going to advance the rise of reactionism in both domestic and foreign policy and hence repelling it was important. However, it is clear that the attempted coup has strengthened the hand of the one-man, one-party reactionism of the AKP. President Erdoğan called this attempt a "gift from god" and stated that it gives him a "chance to cleanse the military". This attempt exposed the Islamist ideological make-up of the police and the existence of a militant organization that played a significant role, after the call to take to the streets by Erdoğan, in suppressing the coup. It also strengthened this organized basis of AKP within the population. Now, under the pretext of a rushed "clean-up of the plotters", an extreme "clean-up" among the judges and prosecutors along with the police and the army, has started. It is clear that this has and will serve the aims to create a state mechanism that follows only the orders of "one-man". The AKP government has already started to legitimize this under the pretext of persecution of the exposed "Gulenist terrorism" - the narrowing of whose objectives they foresee - and cracking down on the plotters of the coup; using it as a catalyst to unite the population - starting with the bourgeois opposition - around its own objectives.

Our party, EMEP, clearly opposed the coup. Our party warns everyone that the defeat of the coup alone does not necessarily mean "democracy" and that democracy - and the rights and freedoms it provides - will be won by a difficult struggle. We call on everyone to the struggle to prevent the one-man, one-party dictatorship.

Photo: Turkish soldiers, arrested by civilians, are handed to police officers in Taksim Square in Istanbul, Turkey, early Saturday, after the coup. | AP

Tragic anniversaries with lessons for today

Emile Schepers — Wed, 20 Jul 2016 11:39:00 +0000

This week the world commemorates two tragic anniversaries.

July 18, 1936, marked the beginning of the fascist-military uprising that led to the Spanish Civil War and 38 years of brutal reactionary rule in Spain.

The event has transcendent relevance for our country and our times.

In 1931, the King of Spain, Alfonso XIII, went into exile and the Spanish Republic was declared. There followed five wild years of jockeying for power between left and right, until in February 1936, national parliamentary elections were won by the Popular Front, a coalition of 15 left-wing and centrist parties which included socialists, communists, Catalan, Valencian and Galician nationalists, and non-socialist democrats.

The Popular Front government, headed briefly by Prime Minister Manuel Azaña of the moderate Republican Left Party, who was quickly succeeded by Santiago Cáceres Quiroga, another moderate, began to undertake some cautious reforms of landholding, labor law, the education system and the military. But this was too much for the Spanish ruling class and the political right. The landowning aristocracy, the Roman Catholic Church, big business and the military officers' corps all felt threatened by these moderate steps toward a Spain of greater social justice. Right-wing nationalists were horrified by the government's granting of autonomy to the Catalans and Basques.

The most powerful political party of the right, the Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Right-Wing Groups (CEDA) and its allies did not have the votes to defeat the Popular Front's measures in the Cortes, the Spanish parliament, so began a campaign of destabilization while also reaching out to the small fascist organization, the Falange Española y de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalistas (the Spanish Falange of National Syndicalist Offensive Committees), which acted in an extraparliamentary, hell-raising capacity to promote chaos. Meanwhile, poor peasants and sections of the working class, unsatisfied with the slow speed of the government's reforms, also opted for sometimes violent direct action, often under anarchist leadership.

The CEDA leader, José María Gil-Robles y Quiñones, hid his relationships to the out-and-out fascists while working with feverish energy to pull all the threads of the right together and to undermine the elected Popular Front government in every way. The fuse was laid. What was needed was a spark.

That came on July 13, 1936, when José Calvo Sotelo, the leader of the strongest right-wing monarchist movement in the Spanish parliament, the Renovación Española, which worked for the return of King Alfonso, was killed by a pro-government police officer who was angry because the fascists had killed a colleague of his.

All the forces of the right now united to support a military uprising, led at the outset by the four generals José Sanjurjo, Gonzalo Queipo de Llano, Francisco Franco and Emilio Mola. Units of the Spanish colonial army in North Africa were induced to mutiny, killed all military and civilian officials who tried to stop them, and quickly managed to cross over into Spain and join up with rebellious officers there, as well as militias organized by the Falangists and other right-wing groups. Sanjurjo and Mola died in airplane accidents, and Francisco Franco became the military leader of the revolt - a role which Sanjurjo had originally envisioned for himself.

There ensued an extremely bloody war which lasted until April of 1939. As the fascists moved through towns and villages they rounded up anyone suspected of being a communist, socialist, anarchist, freemason, Jew, labor union activist or official of the Popular Front government, and a lot of other people besides, and murdered them, sometimes in the most sadistic fashion they could think of. Paul Preston documents all this in horrifying detail in his 2012 book "The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in 20^th Century Spain." The mass executions continued after the end of the war. Several hundred thousand were eventually killed. In this endeavor Franco and the Falangist-fascists received massive aid from Hitler and Mussolini. The Spanish Republic received aid only from the Soviet Union and to a lesser extent from Mexico. Many leaders in the so-called "democracies" gave de facto support to the Franco regime.

Franco stayed in power until his death in November 1976. During his reign labor unions, intellectuals, the press and the supporters of the rights of minorities, particularly Catalans and Basques, were suppressed. This did not stop the leaders of the NATO powers from allying with Fascist Spain, for Franco was, after all, an "anti-communist."

When Franco died, there was a partial democratization process, but the old fascist spirit survived, and survives, in sectors of Spanish society. The People's Party (Partido Popular) of the current right-wing prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, has links to the Franco days, and has actively worked to stop any kind of accounting for the murders the dictatorship committed, even by opposing the disinterment of mass graves of the victims of fascism. Founders of the People's Party's predecessor, the People's Alliance (Alianza Popular), included ministers and other leading figures from the later period of Franco's rule. Ironically, the Catholic Church eventually apologized for its role during the Civil War and the dictatorship. But the political right, doing the work of transnational corporations and the Spanish ruling class, still seeks to impose draconian austerity on the working class.

Spain has not yet recovered from the Spanish Civil War and the 38 years of the Franco dictatorship. No punishment has ever been meted out to surviving figures of the Franco regime, and it has been a struggle even to get the bodies of Franco's victims disinterred from the mass graves all over the country in which they lie.

We in the United States should learn from the Spanish Civil War and the Franco dictatorship. Once the extreme right builds itself up to a sufficient level of strength to gain power and impose a repressive and anti-democratic regime, it may take many decades to oust it from power, and nobody knows how long to reverse the damage it has done to the social fabric. Hitler was only defeated when the Soviet army captured Berlin in 1945, and he committed suicide. Mussolini was ousted only when it became clear that Italy would suffer a disastrous rout in World War II.

The lesson is: "Never again."

Photo: Troops at Guadalajara, 1937, Spanish Civil War. | Wikipedia (CC)

This week in history: Peoples’ Olympiad protests Berlin Olympics of 1936

Special to PeoplesWorld.org — Mon, 18 Jul 2016 13:11:00 +0000

The Peoples' Olympiad (Olimpíada Popular in Spanish) was a planned international multi-sport event that was intended to take place in Barcelona, the capital of the autonomous region of Catalonia within the Spanish Republic. It was conceived as a protest against the 1936 Summer Olympics being held in Berlin during Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime. The Estadi Olímpic de Montjuïc in Barcelona was intended to be the main stadium for the games.

In 1931, the International Olympic Committee had selected Berlin, then the capital of Germany in the time of the Weimar Republic, to host the 1936 Summer Olympics. Berlin had defeated Barcelona, which was also vying to host the games, by 43 votes to 16. During that same year, Spain had adopted a republican constitution. King Alfonso XIII went into exile, and Catalonia was declared an autonomous region.

Following the 1936 general election in Spain, the newly elected left-wing Popular Front government decided that Spain would boycott the Berlin Olympics in now-fascist Germany and host its own games. Invitations were extended to many different countries, and it was planned to use the hotels built for the 1929 Barcelona International Exposition as an Olympic-style village. The games were scheduled from July 19 to 26 and would have ended six days prior to the start of the Berlin games. In addition to the usual sporting events, the Barcelona games would also have featured chess, folkdancing, music and theatre.

A total of 6,000 athletes from 22 nations registered for the games. The largest contingents of athletes came from the U.S., the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and French colonial Algeria. There were also teams from Germany and Italy made up of political exiles from those countries. Teams also registered representing Jewish exiles from fascism, the French département of Alsace, and the Spanish regions of Galicia, Catalonia and the Basque Country.

Many of the athletes were sent by trade unions, workers' clubs and associations, socialist and communist parties and left-wing groups rather than by state-sponsored committees.

When the Spanish Civil War broke out just as the games were to begin, the alternate games had to be canceled. Some athletes never made it to Barcelona as the borders had been closed, while many who already were in the city made a hasty exit. However, at least 200 of the athletes, such as the anarchist Clara Thalmann, remained in Spain and joined workers' militias that were organized to defend the Second Spanish Republic against Generalísimo Francisco Franco's nationalists.

Barcelona would later host the 1992 Summer Olympics, after the Spanish transition to democracy that followed the end of the Franco dictatorship.

Adapted from Wikipedia and other sources.

Solidarity Center documents wage theft in Zimbabwe

Tula Connell — Mon, 18 Jul 2016 12:47:00 +0000

An astounding 80,000 Zimbabwe workers in formal employment-out of some 350,000 workers-did not receive wages and benefits on time in 2014, according to a new Solidarity Center report, "Working Without Pay: Wage Theft in Zimbabwe," released today in Harare.

As a result of this widespread wage theft, many workers say they are forced to eat only one or two meals a day; move repeatedly to access affordable housing; and rent two rooms or fewer for their entire family to make ends meet.

Through first-person interviews and other research by affiliates of the country's main trade union confederation, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), the report provides hard data behind last week's successful one-day shut-down of businesses, government and services by workers across Zimbabwe outraged over wage theft and a new law targeting market vendors who make up the vast proportion of the workforce.

Paid only enough to get to work

One woman interviewed in the report, whose experience is not uncommon, says she has received $26 a month in wages for the past eight months, although her monthly salary is $342. Yet basic living costs, which on average include $60 for renting a single room, $30 for electricity, $15 for water and $22 for transportation to work, mean she only has sufficient funds to get to and from her job.

"This failure to pay what workers are legally entitled to is wage theft in that it involves employers taking money that belongs to their employees and keeping it for themselves," the report states. "This is a clear violation of international labor standards, as well as national legislation on the employment of workers."

The report traces the ongoing wage theft to 2012, as employers in the public- and private-sector increasingly began delaying wage payments.

Up to 95 percent of Zimbabweans work in informal economy

Simultaneously, the number of jobs in the informal economy has skyrocketed, the report points out. Some 6.3 million people made up Zimbabwe's workforce in 2014, of which 5.9 million workers (94.5 percent) were informally employed, compared with 84.2 percent in 2011, according to "Working without Pay." An additional 800,000 women and men were in the workforce, but unemployed.

Last month, the government introduced a statutory law that bans imports of basic commodities-a law that directly affects hundreds of thousands of informal economy workers who survive on cross-border trading. Up to 95 percent of jobs in Zimbabwe are in the informal economy, and workers say the new law takes away their livelihoods.

Based on surveys at 442 companies, and the result of extensive research by the Labor and Economic Development Research Institute of Zimbabwe, the report also documents extravagant salaries and benefits to middle and top management even as workers go unpaid and presents recommendations for action to address the problem.

Companies involved in wage theft must be held accountable

Some of the recommendations include:

The Ministry of Labor, together with representatives of employers and unions, should review the status of companies that are not paying their workers and assist in developing plans to rectify the injustice.
Unions representing workers in companies not paying salaries-in full and on time-should demand that the government bring criminal proceedings under the relevant provisions of the Labor Act against employers.
Trade unions should advocate for payment of interest on late payment.
The government should set an example by reviewing the wage structure in government agencies and quasi-government agencies to limit benefits to top managers, institute a more just pay scale and prioritize payments to workers through collective bargaining or social dialogue.

This article was reposted from Solidarity Center.

Venezuela in crisis, U.S. intervenes

W. T. Whitney Jr. — Thu, 14 Jul 2016 12:38:00 +0000

Lisa Sullivan, a U.S. citizen resident in Venezuela for many decades, was worrying about a neighbor "up and waiting in line since 2 am, searching, unsuccessfully, to buy food for her large family." She's concerned too about Venezuela's worsening economic and political crisis.

Venezuela's majority population has experienced major social gains through the Bolivarian Revolution, which its leader Hugo Chávez, president from 1999 until 2013, characterized as socialist. Oil exports fueled them, and now low oil prices are disrupting Venezuela's economy and shaking the foundations of its social democracy.

U.S. intervention, now as before, aggravates internal political conflict. The U.S. Senate in April 2016 passed a bill renewing economic sanctions against Venezuelan leaders originally imposed in 2014. The House of Representatives did likewise on July 6, and President Obama is expected to sign the bill. He had issued an executive order in March 2015 declaring Venezuela to be a threat to U.S. national security.

The State Department on July 7 warned U.S. citizens about travel to Venezuela, citing "violent crime" and noting that "political rallies and demonstrations can occur with little notice." Venezuela's government denounced the "illegitimate sanctions" as "imperial pretensions."

The U.S. government backed an unsuccessful coup against the Chávez government in 2002 and since has distributed tens of millions of dollars to opposition groups. The U.S. government has never extended recognition to Nicolás Maduro as Venezuela's president.

A divided rightwing opposition did score a decisive electoral victory in December 2015 in gaining a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly. Maduro's vulnerability has been evident since his election by a narrow margin in 2013. He very likely will be facing a recall vote in the coming months.

Venezuela's economy is in the hands of a business class solidly opposed to the Bolivarian government. Over the past three years, mounting and now astronomical inflation, shortages of essential items, and hoarding of merchandise by importers and wholesalers have together devastated the economy.

The dependency of businesses and merchants on imported goods and materials is the economy's Achilles' heel. After 15 years of the Bolivarian revolution, Venezuela still has to import 70 percent of its food.

The government facilitates imports by selling dollars to importers at low exchange rates. Many of them in turn have responded by selling imported products at inflated prices through the black market, and profiteering. Meanwhile goods people need for survival don't arrive, especially at government markets selling subsidized food and household supplies.

Lisa Sullivan has "witnessed a whole generation of my neighbors and friends gain access to dignified housing, free education, stable jobs with honorable wages, and free health care." She supposes that the "majority of Venezuelans" back neither the opposition nor the Maduro government, but "this doesn't mean that [they] are not fans of Chavismo," she says.

They are angry at governmental corruption, divisions within President Maduro's socialist party, and general disregard of problems at the grassroots. Analysts attribute the government's defeat in the 2015 parliamentary elections to Bolivarian voters withholding their votes, not to their switching to the opposition.

Journalist Tamara Pearson suggests that despite "food shortages, inflation, and queues...millions of people" have "defied right-wing and general expectations, and even perhaps the expectations of the Maduro government, and have become stronger and better organized."

Under Chávez Venezuela's government cooperated closely with, and was supported by, Venezuela's armed forces. Now the military's allegiance is not as certain.

Analyst Milton D'León recalls that Chávez instituted "a dizzying increase in arms spending, the creation of military schools and universities, greater presence in political decisions, higher salaries for officials, and privileges of all kinds." Maduro's 30-member cabinet includes 10 active or retired military leaders. His government has created a "socialist military economic zone" that hosts businesses whose activities contribute to the military's economic development.

D'León warns of danger for "working people [from] the growing role of the military...whether it is supporting Maduro, or spilling over to support a 'transition' by striking a deal with the right wing [and] imperialism."

Marxist analyst Edgar Meléndez sees a constricted future for the Bolivarian government mainly because it never continued the development of its socialist project. He points out that the state sector accounts for 96.6 U.S. dollars out of every $100 gained through exports. Yet these resources eventually "drain" to the private sector. Thus "private accumulation is prioritized over resources the state produces. This is opposite to the interests of working people."

He condemns "mono-production of petroleum accounting for 94 percent of Venezuela's 2014 exports." That and "a parasitic bourgeoisie" are "two of the most noxious characteristics of the Venezuelan economic model.... This situation, within the framework of capitalism itself, is a brake on the development of productive forces in our country."

Lisa Sullivan is a witness to one striking failure of Venezuela's version of socialism. Her neighbors are now growing food, she reports. That would be in response to the nation's over-reliance on imported foods, never remedied by Bolivarian leaders. In terms of socialist development, food sovereignty typifies wealth produced for all through work. Vision or capacity apparently was lacking to move beyond the short-term, capitalist way of doing things. Venezuela has remained stuck in generating wealth almost exclusively through the extraction of oil.

Photo: CC

Bolivarian Venezuela besieged

Emile Schepers — Tue, 12 Jul 2016 14:55:00 +0000

For over a year, the left-wing Venezuelan government of President Nicolas Maduro has been battling for its life. But it and its "Bolivarian" support base are not giving up.

The sudden and dramatic worldwide drop in oil prices has hit Venezuela hard. Maduro, and his predecessor, the late President Hugo Chavez, had used the country's ample revenues from petroleum sales to greatly improve the living standards of the mass of Venezuela's 30 million people. But now, oil is selling at only $3 a barrel more than it costs to produce it, the price having dropped from $100 a barrel in to $30 a barrel today. It is small comfort for Venezuela that the same sort of thing is happening in all the poor countries that had been surviving until the commodities glut on the sale of oil and similar items.

The drop in oil prices has led to shortages of items which Venezuela does not produce or manufacture itself, because it has become much harder to import them. For example, Venezuela imports 24 percent of its food, and it is no easy matter to make up for the lost imports by increasing the country's own agricultural production. Venezuela is a highly urbanized country.

Also, this situation, combined with a dysfunctional exchange rate regime that actually encourages smuggling Venezuelan products out of the country, has led to rampaging inflation. The government sees speculators and smugglers, along with businesses aligned with the opposition, as sabotaging the economy, and this is also very possible, since wealthy private businessmen control most of retail trade.

Many of the problems have been exaggerated in the corporate owned press in the United States and internationally. For example, the inflation rate is NOT "700 percent" but more like 181 percent, and eggs are NOT selling for "$150 a dozen" in Caracas. Nor is the health care situation nearly as bad as we read about in our newspapers in the United States. There are shortages of such medicines and supplies as have to be imported, but there is not some sort of massive die off of babies in Venezuelan hospitals. These things are just propaganda lies, but the problems are real enough, and the government's situation is very, very tough.

This combination of factors led to a major defeat for the ruling Great Patriotic Pole, the united front that includes Maduro's Venezuelan United Socialist Party, in the legislative elections of December 6, 2015. The right-wing opposition managed to get a supermajority of seats in the National Assembly, and since then have not paused in their attempts to push Maduro from power and dismantle the progress the country has made since the first election of Hugo Chavez in 1998. The Venezuelan right also is determined to work with other right-wing governments, and with the United States, to dismantle the Bolivarian "pink tide" of left-wing governments that has swept Latin America for the past 17 years.

Currently, the effort of the right within Venezuela is focused on promoting a recall referendum to remove President Maduro from office. I will write more on the details of that effort in another article.

At the international level, the Venezuelan right has been trying to marginalize Venezuela within the Latin America-Caribbean context. The lead in doing this has been taken by the right-wing government of Paraguayan President Horacio Cartes. More recently, he has been joined by Luis Almagro, the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS) and by the new foreign minister of Brazil, José Serra. Serra has been trying to marginalize Venezuela in MERCOSUR, the South American Common Market, where Venezuela was supposed to take up the revolving chair function this month.

At the same time, at the urging of UNASUR, Maduro has offered to sit down and negotiate with the opposition, with former Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, former Dominican President Lionel Fernandez, and former Panamanian President Martin Torrijos as mediators. Maduro is willing to do this with no preconditions. The three leaders who have volunteered as mediators are none of them close to either the Bolivarian movement or the right-wing.

So in the OAS, Secretary General Amagro dramatically announced that he was going to invoke articles 20 and 21 of that nation's charter to call for a suspension of Venezuela's voting rights. This "democracy clause" in the OAS charter is intended to be invoked when there is a coup d'état, military or other, or when people in power illegally suppress opposition activity.

Almagro's basis for promoting this use of the democracy clause is based on rather specious arguments. One complaint he has advanced is that the jailing of a number of people after rioting in 2014, instigated by the right-wing opposition itself, led to 143 deaths, mostly of supporters of the government, security personnel or bystanders, constitutes a breach of the democratic order. The people jailed include one high profile opposition politician, Leopoldo Lopez, and one man captured in Colombia and extradited to Venezuela on terrorism charges, Lorent Saleh. Opposition parties and press have not been suppressed, and the jailed individuals were convicted by normal process of law for activities that would get you sent to the slammer in almost any country. Leopoldo Lopez had openly instigated violence that turned deadly, and Saleh was credibly accused of terrorism not just by the Venezuelan government but also by the conservative government of Colombia.

Another beef of Mr. Almagro was that the Venezuelan Supreme Court had ruled that a number of measured passed by the National Assembly since the right-wing took it over were unconstitutional, among them an amnesty which would have freed Leopoldo Lopez and Lorent Saleh. Another law the Court rejected as unconstitutional would have retroactively reduced the length of Mr. Maduro's term. But how the Supreme Court rules on legislation is not the basis for claiming that a breach of the democratic constitutional order has taken place, in Venezuela, the United States or anywhere.

Another complaint was that Venezuelan authorities are taking too long to process signatures on petitions for the recall of Maduro. But the clock has not run out on the process, and besides, the Venezuelan government complains that the opposition handed in a lot of signatures of people who are deceased or do not exist, so doing a careful check is necessary and appropriate.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez firmly rejected Almagro's accusations and his attempts to use the OAS as a means of attacking her country and interfering in its government. She rounded on the Paraguayan foreign minister, Oscar Cabello Sarrubi, whose government has been a major instigator of attacks on Venezuela, for his hypocrisy: "How can a government that came to power through a coup speak about democracy? How can authorities tied to Alfredo Stroessner's dictatorship speak about democracy? With what moral compass are you speaking about Venezuela? Enough with the double standards!"

Alfredo Stroessner was the bloodthirsty military dictator of Paraguay from 1954 to 1989. The current Paraguayan government includes many figures connected to the old Stroessner dictatorship; it came to power in a "soft coup" against left-wing President Fernando Lugo in 2012. After a brief interim government, President Horacio Cartes was elected in 2013; since then he has been suppressing disaffected peasants whose land his allies have been transferring to big landowners connected to Stroessner's and Cartes' Colorado political party. There are widespread accusations of human rights violations and corruption.

The matter in the OAS has not yet been decided, although Almagro was allowed to present his accusations to a special session. The opposition in Venezuela has now grown balky on the subject of participating in a dialogue with the government, adding new demands before it will sit down at the table with Maduro. One of the demands is that more Latin American "ex presidents" be brought into the group of mediators. It may be that the opposition won't negotiate seriously as long as it has a chance of getting its way at the OAS But so far, other OAS member states seem cool to the idea of going further with the Venezuela matter.

Meanwhile, the new right-wing government in Brazil, itself of shaky legality and no legitimacy after its "soft coup" against the legally elected president, Dilma Rousseff, is going after Venezuela in MERCOSUR. Brazilian "interim" foreign minister José Serra is trying to block Venezuela's assumption as revolving chair of MERCOSUR. Once more Delcy Rodriguez blasted Serra for his government's hypocritical antics: "The Bolivarian government of Venezuela rejects the insolent and immoral declarations of the de facto foreign minister of Brazil", she tweeted, making a biting reference to the widely denounced illegitimacy of the current Brazilian regime.

This is heroic and hemispheric hypocrisy. Just about every right-wing government in the Americas can be accused of far worse violations than Venezuela. Massacres of teachers in Mexico, murders of environmentalists in Honduras-the list goes on, but people like Almagro and Serra say nothing. This does not exclude the United States, as Delcy Rodriguez pointed out, with our vote suppression, the Citizen's United Supreme Court ruling that allows corporations to buy elections, and our police suppression of minority communities.

However, there are two pieces of positive news. In spite of the hostile attitude that the United States has been displaying toward Venezuela, Rodriguez and Secretary of State John Kerry did have a meeting during the OAS special session, and Kerry stated afterward that the United States supports the dialogue process that Maduro is promoting.

Also, the rains came, filling Venezuela's reservoirs and ending a period of strict rationing of electrical power that had Venezuelan government workers doing two-day work weeks.

Photo: Venezuelan Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez. PSUV

European Union goes after Portugal, Spain on austerity

Emile Schepers — Mon, 11 Jul 2016 14:34:00 +0000

The European Commission, which is the governing body of the European Union, appears to be ready to take punitive action against both Portugal and Spain for not meeting imposed limits on budgetary red ink. Both countries could face substantial fines. Portugal, at least, is fighting back hard.

The European Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance imposed on member states by the European Union leadership in 2012, requires that on pain of financial penalties, no country is supposed to run a budget deficit of more than 3 percent of Gross Domestic Product in any given year. This is easy for wealthier countries like Germany and the Netherlands, who have been promoting strict adherence to this guideline.

It is extremely hard on the poorer countries which are rather insultingly called the PIIGS: Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain. They are forced to impose measures of austerity that create great suffering for their people as well as shrinking rather than growing their countries' economies.

The penalties, of course, hurt the poor countries much more than the rich ones. Yet people like German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäube and Chancellor Angela Merkel have been very tough on anyone who tries to make this system more flexible.

The government of Greece found this out the hard way. The left wing SYRIZA Party government elected has found itself forced by the Troika, which is the combination of the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, to impose harsh austerity and privatization measures, the denouncing of which had brought it to power in the first place.

Massive demonstrations in Greece are now directed against the government because of the suffering that these measures have caused.

In October, Portuguese voters gave a big electoral victory to the Socialist Party, sweeping the previous right wing government of Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho out of power. Through deft maneuvering, the alliance of the Communist and Green Parties, plus the Left Bloc Party, managed to create an arrangement whereby the Socialist Party was able to form a new government, supported by the left "from the outside" (meaning they did not ask for cabinet positions), with former Lisbon Mayor Antonio Costa as prime minister.

Costa promised to roll back austerity and privatization measures, implemented by Passos Coelho, as a condition for the Communist-Green-Left Bloc support. So far, Costa has been as good as his word, and is doing all right in public opinion surveys.

However, rumblings from Brussels, where the European Union is headquartered, were anticipated, and began at the beginning of the year. The European ruling class is particularly annoyed that Costa's government has raised the minimum wage and restored a 35 hour work week.

The rumbling is getting stronger. On July 7, Valdis Dombrovskis, the Vice President of the European Commission, while recognizing that Portugal, and also Spain, have made some progress in cutting their deficits, have "veered off track in the correction of their excessive deficits, and have not met their budgetary targets." Spain had a budget deficit of 5.1 percent of gross domestic product last fiscal year, more than the interim goal agreed to of 4.2 percent. Portugal's deficit was 4.4 percent. This is deemed unsatisfactory by Mr. Dombrovskis and other leaders of the European Commission.

Ironically, the two countries' governments could hardly be more different. The Spanish government is a mess, as two successive elections this year failed to give any political party a majority nor even create a credible route to a coalition government.

The right wing People's Party Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, is staying on as caretaker prime minister in the meanwhile. Rajoy is a right wing figure, mired in corruption scandals and associated with harsh austerity policies, while Prime Minister Costa of Portugal is rolling back the same sort of policies.

The decision has not been made whether to impose financial sanctions, which could be up to .2 percent of gross domestic product on Spain and Portugal, and could also involve blocking access to further credits. This situation comes as European markets are in turmoil due to the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom; the European Union is now shakier than it has been in many years and its leaders may not want to risk more "exits". So in the end there may be no penalty imposed. At any rate in Portugal, the government and its allies are not taking the situation quietly.

Prime Minister Costa staunchly defended his government's fiscal management in a letter to European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Council of Europe President Robert Fico, pointing out the efforts his government has made to control the deficit but also the unfairness to the Portuguese people of imposing more sanctions after they have gone through so much.

The Portuguese left went beyond the prime minister's firm but politely phrased letter. João Oliveira, a Communist Party member of parliament, said of the threatened sanctions: "This is a continuation of the process of extortion, of pressure against our country, with three objectives: cause the reversion of the positive measures which have been taken in recent months; try to restore the program of the previous government [of Passos Coelho] of the aggravation of exploitation and impoverishment; and also the mutilation of [our] national sovereignty and the ability of our sovereign institutions to make decisions about our country."

Catarina Martins, leader of the Left Bloc (Bloco Esquerda) in the Portuguese parliament, was equally fierce. The threatened sanctions, she said "are an attack on Portugal. They "reveal the humiliation which they want to inflict on our country."

At the initiative of the Portuguese Communist Party, the GUE/NGL (The United European Left/Nordic Green Left), which is the bloc of left and Green parties in the European Parliament, slammed the threatened sanctions against Portugal and Spain, in a statement which reads in part: "The GUE/NGL vehemently denounces and firmly rejects the economic and political interference being carried out by the institutions of the European Union, in particular the European Commission, against Portugal and Spain and their peoples. The so called "sanctions" are, independently of the form which they acquire (fines, suspension of European Union funds or whatever other "symbolic" form) as illegitimate and unacceptable.

"The intention of punishing the people of Spain and Portugal, who are victims of an economic crisis which results from the policies of the European Union itself, implemented by previous governments, constitute an aberration, a terrible injustice and an unacceptable act of aggression."

Photo: Anti-austerity demonstration in Porto, Portugal. | Wikipedia (CC)

Australia elections: Right-wing Coalition holds onto power

Emile Schepers — Mon, 11 Jul 2016 11:59:00 +0000

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced on Sunday July 10 that the right-wing coalition he heads has won enough seats in the country's parliament to continue in power. Australian Labor Party leader Bill Shorten conceded defeat. The election took place on Saturday July 2, but results were so close that it took eight days for a final count to determine the winner. When Turnbull made his announcement, his Liberal-National Coalition of four parties had nailed 74 of the 76 seats needed for a majority in the House of Representatives (lower house). He expressed confidence that he could pick up two more from electoral districts still undecided.

Labor, for its part, had only 67 confirmed seats. So the Coalition will be able to govern either with an absolute, though minimal, majority, or as a minority government relying on some independents and minor party legislators to pass its bills.

Despite the ultimate victory of the conservative Coalition, its vote totals and number of parliamentary seats won represents a substantial drop from the last election, which was held in 2013. The Coalition lost 16 seats, and 3.36 percent of the popular vote. Most of this loss went to Labor: Eleven seats and exactly 3.36 percent of the popular vote.

The Australian Greens party on the left, the centrist Nick Xenophon Team (NXT), and the right-wing populist-nationalist Katter's Australian Party won one seat each, and two independents were elected.

The results of the election to the upper house, the Senate, were very similar. The Coalition parties won 26 of the 76 seats, while Labor won 23, the Greens three, NXT two, and the anti-immigrant One Nation Party got one seat. A number of seats are expected to go to independents or regional parties, and a few were still undecided at writing. Turnbull admitted that he will have a harder time getting his bills through the Senate than through the lower house.

This election was contested on the issue of the neoliberal austerity, anti-labor, and free trade policies implemented by Turnbull and his predecessor as premier, hardliner Tony Abbot, also of the Liberal Party. However, some Australian unionists were far from satisfied with Shorten and the Labor Party's positions on these issues. In particular, a projected free trade agreement with China was seen by some union members, especially in the construction and electrical industries, as being against the interests of Australian workers.

Also, issues of overtime pay (called "penalty rates" in Australia), regulation of the construction industry, and protection of government-provided health care benefits were raised by unions against the Coalition government, but Labor was not seen as being strong enough in defense of workers' interests on some of these matters either. Allen Hicks, national secretary of the Electrical Trades Union, was quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald as saying, "When we work overtime, weekends, unsocial hours, and public holidays, we should be justly compensated with penalty rates."

The issue is whether to legislate fixed rules for these penalty rates, as they are currently set by an independent commission.

On health care, the main issue was cuts the Coalition government made in 2014 to Medicare, Australia's government-run universal health care system. Unlike Medicare in the United States, Australian Medicare covers everybody with complete care, irrespective of age, income or health. The 2014 cuts resulted in a reduction of payments to doctors and an increase in the price of prescription drugs. Turnbull admitted that this may have cost the Coalition votes, and promised to review the policy.

The Communist Party of Australia pointed out that the Coalition only secured 42 percent of the popular vote and Labor only 35 percent. This means that an unprecedented 23 percent of voters rejected both of the two major parties. The Communist Party views the Medicare issue as a key one for the Coalition's losses, but does not think that Labor's Shorten took a firm enough position against possible privatization of some health care functions.

The Communists praised the program of the Australian Greens party, which got nearly 10 percent of the popular vote, for its "comprehensive program of progressive reforms including the humane treatment of asylum seekers, strong action on climate change, protection of the environment, support for workers' rights, marriage equality, free public education, affordable housing, and expansion of Medicare to include dental services."

Photo: Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull addresses party supporters during a rally in Sydney, Sunday, July 3, 2016, following a general election. | Rick Rycroft/AP

After Berta Cáceres, another Honduran Indigenous environmental activist murdered

Emile Schepers — Mon, 11 Jul 2016 10:51:00 +0000

The bloody campaign against opponents of Honduras' right-wing president, Juan Orlando Hernández, continues, as worldwide resistance to the slaughter of indigenous and environmental activists reaches the halls of the U.S. Congress.

On Wednesday afternoon, July 7, the body of Lenca indigenous environmental activist Lesbia Yaneth Urquía was found near the municipal dump of the town of Marcala, about 190 kilometers west of the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa. She had either been shot or hacked to death, according to different reports.

Ms. Urquía was a member of COPINH, the Civic Council of People's and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras-the same organization formerly headed by Berta Cáceres, also an indigenous Lenca, who was shot to death on March 3. Urquía, like Cáceres, had been actively involved in organizing protests against mining companies that have been building dams in Honduras to provide water for their environmentally-destructive activities.

Tomás Gómez, the coordinator of COPINH, dismissed the idea that this was a simple crime without political ramifications. Rather, he says, it was an attempt to silence opposition to the activities of extractive industries and their political allies. Since the coup d'état which ousted leftist President Manuel Zelaya in June 2009, more than 100 environmental activists have been murdered in Honduras, many in the same La Paz district where Ms. Urquía lost her life.

This new horror comes at a moment of increased controversy over the Cáceres murder. On June 21, the British Guardian newspaper posted a story based on an interview with a Honduran army officer, who was not named and is now in hiding. The officer, a non-commissioned man who was part of a militarized police unit, the Inter-Institutional Security Force, or FUSINA, reported that in 2015, he had seen lists of opposition activists distributed to the troops and marked as people to be assassinated. Berta Cáceres was one of the people whose name appeared on a list.

This would have been scandalous enough, but the military units which received these lists had been receiving training from the United States Marines and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Presumably, this training was paid for by the money that the United States has been sending to Honduras - $200 million supposedly assigned to "improve security" and thus prevent the arrival of children and families trying to flee violence at U.S. borders. The tendency in Honduras to subordinate policing to the military has been seen by Hondurans and others as a very alarming development, but the money has kept flowing nevertheless.

On the day after the Guardian article appeared, the Honduran government hotly denied the accusations about the hit list, and threatened to sue the newspaper for slandering the country. However, Annie Bird, an expert in the repression of environmental activists in Honduras, quickly demolished Defense Minister Samuel Reyes' claims, presenting detailed evidence of the existence of the units among which the death lists were said to have been circulated and much more.

Last month, the Honduran government reported the arrest of five men for the murder of Berta Cáceres, evidently giving up their original attempt to claim the attack was carried out by rival members of COPINH. The men include one active service military officer, Major Mariano Díaz, who had been trained by the U.S.-supported TESON training program, and Sergio Rodriguez, the former head of community relations for DESA, the main company involved in building the Agua Zarca dam. This is the project Cáceres had been protesting against at the time of her death. The overall impunity rate for such murders in Honduras, however, remains high.

International calls for an end to U.S. support for the Honduran military and security forces continue to mount, including a new statement from the AFL-CIO. The U.S. State Department has at long last announced that it will look into the Guardian's accusations about hit lists, though details of what such an investigation will encompass are yet to be revealed.

Meanwhile, in Washington D.C., the organization 300 with Dignity (300 con Dignidad) urged the U.S. Congress to pass the "Berta Cáceres Human Rights in Honduras Act, HR 5474. This law, sponsored by Rep. Henry "Hank" Johnson (D-Georgia), now has 20 co-sponsors in the House and calls for a complete suspension of military and security aid to Honduras.

Members of the public are urged to contact their congressional representatives and insist that they support HR 5474.

Photo: Honduras' largest tribe, the Lenca, protest a proposed hydroelectric dam in October 2006. Lesbia Yaneth Urquia, who also fought the dam, was assassinated. | AP

Europe on the edge after Brexit vote and Spanish elections

Conn Hallinan — Fri, 08 Jul 2016 13:35:00 +0000

On the surface, the June 23 Brexit and the June 26 Spanish elections don't look comparable. After a nasty campaign filled with racism and Islamophobia, the British-or rather, the English and the Welsh-took a leap into darkness and voted to leave the European Union (EU). Spanish voters, on the other hand, rejected change and backed a right-wing party that embodies the policies of the Brussels-based trade organization.

But deep down the fault lines in both countries converge.

For the first time since Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan rolled out a variety of free market capitalism and globalization that captured much of the world in the 1980s, that model is under siege. The economic strategy of regressive taxes, widespread privatization, and deregulation has generated enormous wealth for the few, but growing impoverishment for the many. The top 1 percent now owns more than 50 percent of the world's wealth.

The British election may have focused on immigration and the fear of "the other"-Turks, Syrians, Greeks, Poles, etc.-but this xenophobia stems from the anger and despair of people who have been marginalized or left behind by the globalization of the labor force that has systematically hollowed out small communities and destroyed decent paying jobs and benefits.

"Great Britain's citizens haven't been losing control of their fate to the EU," wrote Richard Eskow of the Campaign for America's Future, "They've have been losing it because their own country's leaders-as well as those of most Western democracies-are increasingly in thrall to corporate and financial interests."

While most of the mainstream media reported the Spanish election as a "victory" for acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's Popular Party (PP) and a defeat for the left, it was more a reshuffle than a major turn to the right, and, if Rajoy manages to cobble together a government, it is likely to be fragile and short-lived.

It was a dark night for pollsters in both countries. British polls predicted a narrow defeat for the Brexit campaign, and Spanish polls projected a major breakthrough for Spain's left, in particular Unidos Podemos (UP), a new alliance between Podemos and the Communist/Green coalition, Izquierda Unida.

Instead, Brexit passed easily and the UP lost 1 million votes from the last election, ending up with the same number of seats they had in the old parliament. In contrast, the Popular Party added 14 seats, although still falling well short of a majority.

Spain's voters deterred from change

A major reason for the Spanish outcome was Brexit, which roiled markets all over the world, but had a particularly dramatic effect on Spain. The Ibex share index plunged more than 12 percent and blue-chip stocks took a pounding, losing about $70 billion dollars. It was, according to Spain's largest business newspaper, "The worst session ever." Rajoy-as well as the center-left Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE)-flooded the media with scare talk about stability, and it partly worked. The Popular Party poached eight of its 14 new seats from the center-right Ciudadanos Party and probably convinced some UP voters to shift to the mainstream SP.

But Rajoy's claim that "We won the election. We demand the right to govern," is a reach. The PP has 137 seats, but it needs 176 seats to reach a majority in the 350-seat parliament. The Prime Minister says he plans to join with Ciudadanos, but because the latter lost seats in the election, such an alliance would put the PP seven votes short. An offer for a "grand alliance" with the Socialists doesn't seem to be going anywhere. "We are not going to support Rajoy's investiture or abstain," said PSOE spokesman Antonio Hernando. An abstention would allow the PP to form a government.

Which doesn't mean Rajoy can't form a government. There are some independent deputies from the Basque country and the Canary Islands who might put Rajoy over the top, but it would be the first coalition government in Spain-and a fragile one at that.

Part of that fragility is a scandal over an email between Rajoy and Jean-Claude Juncker, head of the European Commission, that was leaked to the media. The Commission is part of the "troika," along with the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank, that largely decides economic policy in the EU.

During the election, Rajoy promised to cut taxes and moderate the troika-imposed austerity measures that have driven Spain's national unemployment rate to 22 percent, and a catastrophic 45 percent among young people. But in a confidential email to Juncker, the Prime Minister pledged that, "In the second half of 2016, once there is a new government, we will be ready to take further measures to meet deficit goals."

In short, Rajoy lied to the voters. If the PP had won an absolute majority that might not be a problem, but a coalition government is another matter. Would Ciudadanos and the independents be willing to associate themselves with such deceit and take the risk that the electorate would not punish them, given that such a government is not likely to last four years?

Unidos Podemos supporters were deeply disappointed in the outcome, although the UP took the bulk of the youth vote and triumphed in Catalonia, Spain's wealthiest province, and the Basque country. What impact UP's poor showing will have on divisions within the alliance is not clear, but predictions of the organization's demise are premature. "We represent the future," party leader Pablo Iglesia said after the vote.

There is a possible path to power for the left, although it leads through the Socialists. The PSOE dropped from 90 seats to 85 for its worst showing in history, but if it joins with the UP it would control 156 seats. If such a coalition includes the Catalans, that would bring it to 173 seats, and the alliance could probably pick up some independents to make a majority. This is exactly what the left, agreeing to shelve their differences for the time being, did in Portugal after the last election.

The problem is that the PSOE refuses to break bread with the Catalans because separatists dominate the province's delegation and the Socialists oppose letting Catalonia hold a referendum on independence. Podemos also opposes Catalan separatism, but it supports the right of the Catalans to vote on the issue.

Rajoy may construct a government, but it will be one that supports the dead-end austerity policies that have encumbered most of the EU's members with low or flat growth rates, high unemployment, and widening economic inequality. Support for the EU is at an all-time low, even in the organization's core members, France and Germany.

Danger ahead

The crisis generated by the free market model is hardly restricted to Europe. Much of Donald Trump's support comes from the same disaffected cohort that drove the Brexit, and, while "The Donald" is down in the polls, so were the Brexit campaign and the Spanish Popular Party.

The next few years will be filled with opportunity, as well as danger. Anti-austerity forces in Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal, and Ireland are organizing and beginning to coordinate resistance to the "troika." But so, too, are parties on the right: France's National Front, Hungary's Jobbik, Greece's Golden Dawn, Britain's United Kingdom Independence Party, Austria's Freedom Party, Denmark's People's Party, and Sweden's Democratic Party.

Instead of reconsidering the policies that have spread so much misery through the continent, European elites were quick to blame "stupid" and "racist" voters for Brexit. "We are witnessing the implosion of the postwar cultural and economic order that has dominated the Euro-American zone for more than six decades," writes Andrew O'Hehir of Salon. "Closing our eyes and hoping that it will go away is not likely to be successful."

A majority of Britain said "enough," and while the Spanish right scared voters into backing away from a major course change, those voters will soon discover that what is in store for them is yet more austerity.

"We need to end austerity to end this disaffection and this existential crisis of the European project," said a UP statement following the election. "We need to democratize decision making, guarantee social rights, and respect human rights."

The European Union is now officially a house divided. It is not clear how long it can endure.

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

Photo: An "anti-EU" flag. | EU Exposed via Flickr