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U.S. intransigence on Cuban Five prisoners a high stakes game

W. T. Whitney Jr. — Tue, 22 May 2012 16:20:00 -0400

With appeals all but exhausted, the only hope for relief of unremitting judicial abuse of the Cuban Five lies with President Barack Obama. Supporters of the Cuban Five are demanding that he issue a presidential pardon and free them.

Stephen Kimber, Canadian journalist and author of a forthcoming book, "What Lies across the Water: the Real Story of the Cuban Five," says the prospect of improved U.S.-Cuban relations is also grim, and that nothing will be settled until the Cuban Five political prisoners are released.

Solidarity activists worldwide say the U.S. judicial system railroaded the Cuban Five defenders against terrorism to prison. Both the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and Amnesty International have slammed U.S. judicial proceedings. Yet after 13 years four of the men remain in jail and one of them, Gerardo Hernandez, is still the object of special abuse.

Ramon Labaniño and Antonio Guerrero are serving 30 and 22-year terms respectively. Fernando Gonzalez is nearing the end of his 19-year sentence on lesser charges. Rene Gonzalez, sentenced to 15 years, was released on parole. But why is Gerardo Hernandez serving two life sentences plus 15 years?

Life sentences against Labaniño and Guerrero for conspiracy to commit espionage were reduced on appeal. Hernandez has a life sentence on the same charge still intact. His other life sentence for conspiracy to commit murder also remains. It's clear that the U.S. government has taken special pains to inflict harm upon Gerardo Hernandez.

For example, U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard in Miami, the judge who presided at the trial of the Five in 2001, on May 15 freed Yuby Ramirez after 12 years in prison. Lenard ruled that Ramirez was the victim of incompetent counsel. Ramirez, like Hernandez, had been serving a life sentence for conspiracy to commit murder. Ramirez confessed she had participated in a plot consummated by drug trafficking bosses to kill a government witness. If Ramirez can go free, why not Hernandez?

Hernandez gets special treatment in other ways. The additional burden of a murder conspiracy charge was filed against him came late in the trial of the Five. In demanding the charge go forward, Judge Lenard overruled the prosecutors' reluctance to pursue it on grounds of lack of evidence. In fact, no evidence has ever been presented indicating Hernandez knew about Cuban plans to down two Brothers to the Rescue planes on February 24, 1996. Four pilots died in the Cuban attack, carried out by military aircraft.

Brothers to the Rescue is a Cuban exile organization that had been illegally entering Cuban air space to drop leaflets. The Cuban government complained repeatedly to the U.S. government about these incursions before the shoot-down incident occurred.

As analyst Saul Landau recently pointed out, the claim that Hernandez caused the deaths by alerting the Cuban government of the upcoming flights is meaningless. The U.S. Air Force notified the Cubans that the planes were on the way. Jose Basulto, the Brothers to the Rescue leader, had proclaimed his flight plans publically.

The U.S. government is refusing the request of Hernandez' attorney in a still-undecided habeas corpus plea that the National Space Agency release satellite maps expected to show that the planes had indeed entered Cuban airspace. If that was the case, then the murder conspiracy case against Hernandez collapses.

There is, of course, one major instance in which all the Cuban Five prisoners gained special treatment. In early 1998, Cuban security officials delivered to FBI personnel visiting in Havana reams of material gathered by the Cuban Five and other Cuban agents working in Southern Florida. The FBI thus gained considerable evidence as to terrorist plotting in Florida, past and present, against Cuba. They learned that a boat docked in the Miami River was laden with explosives.

What happened is that on their return to Florida, the FBI ignored evidence implicating private paramilitary groups in their bailiwick and instead arrested the Cuban agents. That was the work of Hector Pesquera, the newly appointed FBI head in Miami.

The new book by Stephen Kimber provides details on Pesquera's role. The local FBI head embarked upon a crusade to persuade a reluctant U.S. Justice Department to arrest and prosecute the Cuban Five, even interceding personally with FBI director Louis Freed to secure authorization. Pesquera, widely known as a friend of powerful, right wing Cuban-American families in Miami, even boasted on radio "It had been he who changed the focus, and instead of the spies spying, he presented accusations against them."

In mute testimony to his softness on terrorists, Pesquera ended his FBI office's investigation into crimes committed by Cuban exile plotter Luis Posada. Pesquera arranged for disposal of documents in the case of Posada, who had engineered the bombing of a fully loaded Cuban passenger plane and hotels in Havana.

Pesquera has recently been appointed police chief of Puerto Rico.

Photo: A billboard with images of five Cubans imprisoned in the U.S., popularly known as the "Cuban Five," in Havana, Cuba, April 11. Franklin Reyes/AP

Another Iraq? U.S. aids Saudis in Syria intervention

Susan Webb — Mon, 21 May 2012 14:27:00 -0400

Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other feudal Persian Gulf states are providing millions of dollars in funding to Syrian opposition forces every month, with U.S. backing and coordination.

Rather than directly supplying lethal weaponry such as anti-tank weapons, administration officials told the Washington Post the U.S. "has expanded contacts with opposition military forces to provide the Gulf nations with assessments of rebel credibility and command-and-control infrastructure." In other words, the U.S. is giving the Saudis and their fellow Gulf monarchies contacts and pipelines for funneling cash, and perhaps weaponry too, to Syria's rebel forces.

According to the Post, "opposition figures said they have been in direct contact with State Department officials to designate worthy rebel recipients of arms and pinpoint locations for stockpiles."

A senior State Department official said, "We are increasing our nonlethal assistance to the Syrian opposition, and we continue to coordinate our efforts with friends and allies in the region and beyond."

In addition, a leader of Syria's Muslim Brotherhood said "it has opened its own supply channel to the rebels, using resources from wealthy private individuals and money from Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar," the report says.

As a result, the flow of arms into Syria has greatly increased in recent weeks, according to the Post.

This is taking place even as the United Nations is struggling to preserve the peace plan initiated by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

"The cease-fire has been broken by both sides and, as usual, civilians have been the main casualties," reports on-the-scene China Daily journalist Li Lianxing. The United Nations estimates that at least 9,000 people have died in the 14 months of conflict in Syria. Opposition groups say the death toll is more than 11,000.

Meanwhile, according to "a Western diplomat on condition of anonymity," CNN reports that a "confidential draft U.N. report accuses Iran of exporting arms to the Syrian government." The draft report is said to cite two seizures of Iranian arms shipments to Syria in the past year.

The U.S. move to military support for the Syrian opposition represents a shift in the White House approach, says the Washington Post. The Pentagon has also "prepared options for Syria extending all the way to air assaults to destroy the nation's air defenses." U.S. officials, however, have said that such direct involvement remains "very unlikely."
Foreign intervention may already be helping turn Syria into a tinderbox.

China Daily's Li Lianxing cites two massive car bomb explosions May 10 on the Damascus airport road, killing at least 55 people. It was "the sort of attack that's become the hallmark of al-Qaeda."

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said he believed al-Qaeda was behind the attacks.

The agitated crowd that gathered at the Damascus car bombing site "repeatedly shouted slogans in support of the unification of the Syrian people and against Saudi Arabia and Qatar, two countries in the forefront of recent criticism of the Syrian authorities," Li Lianxing reports.

"People realized that the conflict is not simply being played out between the government and opposition, but is developing into a more complex situation, one featuring other, more dangerous players," says Li.

Bassam Haddad, director of Middle East studies at George Mason University, writes of the Syrian uprising against the Assad regime: "This is not simply another uprising against a dictator. It is also being transformed by other players into an effort to redraw the political map of the region and curtail further protests elsewhere."

It brings to mind the Iraq disaster. After the 2003 U.S. invasion, Iraq was ravaged by the emergence of sectarian warfare, armed militias and the so-called Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia. Knowledgeable Iraqis and others said it was (and continues to be) a "proxy war" between Saudi Arabia and Iran, with the U.S. siding with the Saudis.

Certainly the Saudi interest in Syria has nothing to do with democracy. In his new book "Arab Spring, Libyan Winter," author Vijay Prashad notes that the Obama administration conferred with the repressive Saudi regime about last year's democratic uprising in Egypt. "This is like asking a vegetarian how to cook prime rib," Prashad observes.

A Syrian man sits on the balcony of his destroyed house, damaged from Syrian army forces shelling, in the Hamidiyeh neighborhood in Homs province, central Syria, April 22. AP

Greek coalition says anti-austerity left alliance necessary

L’Humanité — Mon, 21 May 2012 11:49:00 -0400

Dimitris Papadimoulis was re-elected as a deputy for Syriza*, the left coalition in Greece, on May 6. He gives his analysis in this interview.

Huma: Syriza has just been charged with forming a government. How will you proceed?

Dimitris Papadimoulis: We're going to try to translate the voters' message in favor of a government with a progressive left-wing content. We shall turn to all the political forces except the Nazis of Golden Dawn. Our priority will be the other left forces, those sitting in Parliament and the ecologists and leftists who were unable to enter the Vouli.

Alexis Tsipras [member of the Hellenic Parliament and head of the Syriza parliamentary group] will meet with all the political leaders and will put forward a set of governmental proposals. If there's agreement, we shall discuss the composition of a government. There cannot be a government guided by austerity and the memorandum; consequently those who voted those measures cannot participate in the government - neither New Democracy [the main center-right party] nor PASOK [the party of Andreas Papandreou].

Huma: The Greek Communist Party (KKE), which is, after Syriza, the main opposition force on the left, has refused [to participate in a government]. What will you do?

Dimitris Papadimoulis: The KKE has always rejected an alliance with Syriza. It has just repeated this. In reality, there are three possibilities. The first one, a strange one, is that PASOK and New Democracy will accord their confidence to a government led by the left, with a leftist program. This would contradict their programs. The second possibility, which is complicated, is a joint government of PASOK, New Democracy and Democratic Left (DIMAR).

The third possibility is that no government can be formed and we shall have new elections in mid-June. We shall seize this historic opportunity to present a package which does not concern only social and economic questions, but also the electoral laws, the independence of the judicial branch... We shall persevere that a left alliance may come into existence. We have a new argument: the people's vote.

Huma: Many abroad say that the "anti-Europeans" have won. What do you say to that?

Dimitris Papadimoulis: The austerity measures and the new accords with the troika are a way of preparing a return to the drachma [the unit of Greek currency that was replaced by the euro in 2001]. We therefore not only demand changes in Greece, but also in Europe, the abandoning of this neo-con approach. The Party of the European Left is also putting forward similar proposals. We aren't anti-European, but we are against Europe as it presently exists.

Original French article: Syriza « Il faut une alliance de gauche, anti-austérité »

Translated May 29 by Gene Zbikowski.

*PW Editor's note: According to Wikipedia, Syriza is an acronym for the Greek words meaning "Coalition of the Radical Left." The coalition includes democratic socialists, greens, Maoist, Trotskyist and eurocommunist organizations.

Photo: At the 2012 May Day protest in Athens. Banner reads ''No''. In debt-crippled Greece, people marched through central Athens protesting the country's harsh austerity program. Thanassis Stavrakis/AP

G8 meets in attempt to stop meltdown

Ben Chacko — Fri, 18 May 2012 15:17:00 -0400

Leaders of the Group of 8 countries of the world's largest economies are meeting at Camp David, Maryland, to begin talks on the global financial crisis.

European leaders were expected to come under pressure from the United States and Japan to moderate their savage spending cuts and adopt policies for growth - but ahead of the summit there were few signs of fresh thinking from EU mandarins.

Debt levels as a percentage of the EU economy have actually risen over the past year as pressure from Germany to lay off workers, cut pay and reduce spending has shrunk economies.

But at a stormy meeting of the UN general assembly in New York on Thursday European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso claimed that the EU was "on the right track" and "making good progress" despite the contracting economies of Britain, Italy and Spain and the catastrophe engulfing Greece.

He dismissed the idea that new elections could change the Greek government's disastrous austerity course, saying: "We expect the Greek government, current and future, to fulfill the jointly agreed conditions for financial assistance."

Barroso hailed the EU's dictation of Greek economic policy as an example of "unprecedented solidarity to member states."

But U.S. economist Joseph Stiglitz hit back that "austerity has not worked and will not work," pointing out that no large economy has ever recovered from recession through an austerity program.

"This decade will be the lost decade for Europe and America," he warned.

And UN secretary-general Ban Ki Moon urged G8 leaders to "face the facts - the old model is broken. We need to create a new model for dynamic growth."

Mr Ban said since the world economic crisis took hold 200 million people have lost their jobs and that poverty and inequality were on the rise globally.

Even U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has urged European leaders "to invest in public works projects, like roads and schools" and called for "a better balance between growth and austerity, a more gradual, softer path to restoring fiscal sustainability."

But economist Jacob Kierkegaard said the G8 meeting was unlikely to make a "breakthrough," especially as the group does not include growing economies such as China, India or Brazil.

"There will be nothing here that tackles the fundamental key questions looming over the global economy," he predicted.

This article originally appeared in the Morning Star newspaper.

Striking Los Mineros leader describes horrifying conditions

David Bacon — Fri, 18 May 2012 13:25:00 -0400

Jacinto Martinez is the labor secretary of Section 65 of the Mineros, Mexico's union for miners and one of the oldest unions in the country. His union has been on strike for five years at the huge Cananea mine, one of the longest strikes in the history of North America. Critical support for this strike has come from U.S. unions including the United Steelworkers union, and Los Mineros and the USW have announced their desire to merge to form a single organization. Martinez describes the history of the strike and the horrifying conditions in Cananea today in an interview with David Bacon.

Our town is where the Mexican Revolution began in 1906, at a time when miners there were virtually enslaved. The mine was eventually taken over by the government, which ran it for many years. Nevertheless, over the last hundred years there were many strikes in this mine over wages and working conditions

Finally, in 1989, the government stopped all operations at the mine, and President Carlos Salinas de Gortari declared that the mine was bankrupt. In August of that year the government sent in Federal troops. The miners were expelled from the mine, and the mine was closed for three months. Then Salinas sold it to private owners, Grupo Mexico, the company run by the Larrea family. Really, it was basically given away. The government had just invested 400 million pesos in the ore concentrator alone. Grupo Mexico bought the whole mine for 650 million.

After the Larrea family took over, we've had nothing but battle after battle with them. They are one of the largest mining companies in the world, and one of the richest families in Mexico. The company was forced to make certain commitments in order to take over the mine, but they've never fulfilled any of them. One was to share with the workers five percent of the price they'd paid for the mine. Because of their failure, in 2004 we took action to force the company to pay what had become by that time a debt of 55 million pesos.

After that things became even more difficult. Before, the government was at least a little concerned for our welfare. Now all dialogue with the government has been cut off, and they give total support to Grupo Mexico.

We went on strike again on June 30, 2007, because of the deteriorating conditions in the mine. Once the strike started, the Federal government, through the labor board, declared it illegal several times. Each time we've gone to court, and the courts have overruled the board and restored the strike's legal status. According to the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights, we have a right to return to our jobs.

Once again, on April 14, 2010, the strike was declared legal by the courts. Nevertheless, at 10PM the same day the company withdrew recognition from our union and broke off its employer/union relationship with us. That was completely illegal. But the government then brought in police and troops, and allowed the company to reopen the mine.

At the time we went on strike, there were about 1200 members of our union. Now there are still 850 people on strike, five years later. The company has tried to buy people off by offering them severance pay if they'll give up any claim to their jobs. In my case, after 23 years working in the mine, they've offered me 1,007,000 pesos [about $85,000]. They've said that in addition, they'd give me 830,000 pesos to try to buy me out. But I won't take their offer, nor will any of the strikers.

We don't have Social Security medical insurance, so the medical care we get comes from the company as part of our employment. If we take their offer, we will lose all our medical care. The 850 strikers have been fighting for this too. To make matters worse, on Mother's Day in 2008, the company gave us an additional gift by closing the hospital where we received our care. Counting children and retirees, an additional 1200 people lost their medical care because of that.

The government stepped in to provide some services, but even though we can see a doctor again, we have no money to buy medicine. This has hurt our retirees especially, because now they have to pay for medicine, where in the past the company had to provide it. Some of us have severe problems because of working in the mine, like silicosis and high blood pressure, so doing without medical care is not an option.

To protest government support for the company, about 50 miners have gone to Hermosillo, the state capitol, where they are occupying a site near the government building. When they come back to Cananea, other workers go to take their place. We are not the only local union of miners on strike. Section 17 has been on strike in Taxco and Section 201 in Zacatecas. We are all facing Grupo Mexico.

We are also protesting over what happened at Pasta de Conchos in 2006. The union made many requests to the Labor Secretary, asking that the government conduct inspections of that mine. But there were none, and finally there was a terrible explosion in which 65 miners were trapped inside and died. The only thing they did was close the mine. The company even refused to go in and bring back the bodies, and the government backed them up. The company and government claimed it was an accident. But the president of our union, Napoleon Gomez Urrutia, held a press conference and called it industrial homicide. After that, the government tried to arrest him and he had to flee to Canada.

Since we've been fighting Grupo Mexico, we've had the financial support of the United Steelworkers in the U.S., who also gave sanctuary to our president. That's how we've been able to survive. Over 80,000 workers are contributing to our ability to go on fighting. And we are also receiving contributions from our own members in Mexico who are still working. So our situation in Cananea isn't good, but we've been able to continue for five years. Our members still support the strike totally.

The company has been able to restart production, using about 3,000 workers who are employed by contractors. There are about 2,000 Federal soldiers guarding them. They've turned Cananea into an armed camp. They have towers with machine guns watching over people, and you can't even pass through certain streets in the center of town. This is why we're supporting Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in his campaign for President in our national elections in July. He's promised that if he's elected, he'll defend us.

Grupo Mexico is really destroying Cananea. The mine pumps water from about 70 wells. Cananea, with a population of 30,000, only has two or three. The mine is buying up land throughout this area, and now has more land than the town itself. They use it to dump the mine tailings, which have already buried part of the old town.

Meanwhile, of the 300 members of our union who betrayed us and went back to work, only about 50 are left. The only way they've been able to make the mine run is by bringing in 3,000 people from outside, from Oaxaca, Puebla and other states in the south. The economic situation in these states is worse than here in the north. There's no work, no jobs there.

Grupo Mexico has built special housing for many of the strikebreakers on the mine property, called colectivos. They're like barracks. For others, the company rents big houses in town, where a lot of them are housed together. The company then picks them up in busses in the morning and brings them back at night. That way it controls them. And the whole economy of Cananea has collapsed because these workers aren't living in the area like normal residents. Many of them actually come here because we're close to the U.S. border, and they're thinking about jumping the fence. The reality is that the economy here is pretty dead.

Grupo Mexico mistreats these workers. It's gone back to the same conditions people rose up against in 1906, when miners went on strike for the 8-hour day. The strikebreakers are working 12 hours a day. They all have to belong to a protection union, part of the CTM [the Confederation of Mexican Workers, affiliated to Mexico's former ruling party, the PRI]. Then, after working four or five months, the company fires them. They only get 1,300 pesos a week [about $100], so when people want to go home, they don't have enough money to get back. Some of the fired workers wander through the streets, begging for help from other workers so they can get home.

With people brought in from outside to work the mine, the only solution for the people of Cananea itself is to leave, to migrate. There's no other work here. Some go to other states, or to other cities in northern Mexico. They leave by themselves to look for work. Then right after they get paid on Friday, they send the money home to their families. Most go to the U.S. That's logical, because the border is only a half hour away, and Tucson's only three hours from here. And that's where the work is. Sometimes people just go to work for two or three weeks, and then come back, trying to find a way to keep on living here. They try to use the work in the U.S. to build up their reserves. This also happened after the three-month strike in 1998.

The people who are on strike are all people who live here, and most of us have been living here for generations. The head of our strike committee, Jesus Verdugo, is the third generation in his family to work in the mine. Now his children are old enough to work. But if we don't win the strike, they'll never work here. We're losing our traditions; we're losing the whole history of Cananea. And this is because of what Grupo Mexico and the Federal government are doing to us.

You could say we're fighting for our right and ability to keep on living in Cananea.

This article originally appeared in Working in These Times. Photo by David Bacon.

Florida fire, journalist harassment reflect special U.S. rules for Cuba

W. T. Whitney Jr. — Thu, 17 May 2012 11:15:00 -0400

Early on April 27, fire destroyed the Coral Gables, Fla., offices of Airline Brokers, a charter flight provider servicing Cuba and other countries. The Fire Department blamed arson.

A U.S. embassy official in Spain a week later was at the Madrid airport to enforce U.S.- imposed "no-fly" rules. The two incidents point to difficulties in applying the U.S. war on terror to Cuba.

Operating for 30 years, Airline Brokers arranges for seven charter flights a week from Miami and Ft. Lauderdale to Cuba. The company limits Cuba travel to "persons who are generally or specifically licensed to travel to Cuba." Cuban Americans last year made 400,000 trips to the island, reports Andres Gomez of Miami's Alianza Martiana. "The criminal action that destroyed the offices of Airline Brokers is a terrorist act," he adds, "not only against this company but even more important, it's an act of terrorism against the right of all U.S. citizens to travel to Cuba."

Company owner Vivian Mannerud pointed out that as of May 2 public officials in Florida hadn't condemned the arson attack. Local observers see Airline Brokers as singled out because of its role in Cuba travel and because of arrangements it made for 340 Florida residents to be in Cuba on the occasion of Pope Benedict XV's recent visit there.

Terror applied to Cuba and people elsewhere working for decent U.S.-Cuban relations is not new. Earlier, bombings and shoot-ups were endemic on the island. Blame fell on violent counter-revolutionaries there allied to the CIA and on Cuban-American private military groups. Perpetrator and ex-CIA operative Luis Posada found refuge in Florida. Florida bias and flawed court proceedings led to long prison terms for the Cuban Five, Cuban defenders against terror. The recent incendiary attack recalls earlier attacks on Floridians and Puerto Ricans trying to re-connect with Cuba. An atmosphere stemming from hatred and violent ideology has contributed to impunity.

A signature U.S. policy is thus marked by contradiction: war is waged on terrorism, while violence against Cuba or U.S. friends of Cuba gets a blind eye.

Journalist Hernando Calvo Ospina is familiar with this skewed approach to anti-terrorism. The Colombian native living in French exile flew from Paris to the Madrid-Barajas airport on May 5. There he learned from a U.S. embassy official that his name was "on a list of persons dangerous to the security of his country" and that his Air Europa flight to Havana would leave without him. He learned that "for a few minutes" the flight enters U.S. airspace.

In 2009, Calvo Ospina flew on Air France from Paris to Mexico City. Over the Atlantic, the plane detoured to Martinique unexpectedly to refuel. On arrival five hours late in Mexico City, he learned his presence on the plane had caused the detour. The flight was to have passed over U.S. soil, and he was "unwelcome for reasons of (U. S.) national security."

As a Colombian journalism student in 1985, Calvo Ospina was captured and nearly killed during a joint Ecuadorian-Colombian military operation. First accused and then cleared of links to leftist Colombian insurgents, he remained imprisoned in a Ecuador prison until worldwide pressure forced his release. Reports of guerrilla associations may still resonate with the U.S. government.

His books may also be worrisome to some. In "Cuban Exile Movement, Dissidents or Mercenaries," released in 2000, Calvo Ospina and colleague Katlijn Declercq interviewed Cuban-American leaders. They demonstrated that foreign intelligence agencies paid for anti-Cuban terror actions. The book highlights U.S.-European cooperative attempts to destabilize the Cuban government.

Two years later, in "Bacardi, The Hidden War," Calvo Ospina accused rum company owners of funding U.S. government and Cuban-American efforts to overthrow Cuba's government. He highlighted Barcardi payoffs to secure passage of the 1996 U.S. Helms Burton Law and fund assassination attempts against Cuban government leaders.

In 2010 Calvo Ospina wrote "The CIA Shock Team." According to analyst Pascual Serrano, the author surveys "crimes, coups, conspiracies, invasions, and occupations organized by the CIA [since 1954]. Its great merit is naming the criminals."

Since 1982 the U.S. government has identified Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism. Yet Cuban support for Colombian leftist guerrillas, as claimed, is unproven, Basque insurgents were in Cuba at the request of the Spanish government, and sanctuary for a couple of U. S. Black liberation activists from the 1970s is surely small potatoes.

This policy, as with other regrettable consequences of the U.S. anti-terror war - civilian deaths, funds diverted from social programs, and assaults on constitutional rights - unfolds almost automatically. However the U.S. approach to Cuba is grounded upon stark contradiction, plus a pervasive spirit of vindictiveness.

Photo: flippinyank // CC 2.0

Iran rights group warns U.S. Congress: Don’t step up war drive

Special to PeoplesWorld.org — Thu, 17 May 2012 09:58:00 -0400

Peace and human rights organizations across the world are urging the U.S. Congress not to pass a resolution which they say will increase the chances of war with Iran.

The resolution before the House of Representatives (H Res 568) ostensibly deals with the views of the House on "preventing the Government of Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability." Campaigners however say that the framing of the resolution will significantly lower the threshold for going to war, undermine diplomacy, and take peaceful options off the negotiating table.

British-based CODIR (Committee for the Defence of the Iranian People's Rights) says it is concerned that the vote on the resolution is taking place just a week before the U.S. and Iran resume negotiations that many in the pro-war camp want to sabotage.

CODIR says the resolution effectively calls for a military attack on Iran when it obtains a "nuclear weapons capability" - an undefined term that, by some interpretations, could already apply to Iran, not to mention Brazil, Japan, the Netherlands, and any country with a civilian nuclear program.

"We should not stake questions of war and peace on such shaky foundations," said CODIR Assistant General Secretary Jamshid Ahmadi. "Given the resolution's unambiguous statement ruling out containing a nuclear-capable Iran, this resolution could be construed by this president, or a future resident, as an authorization for launching military action against Iran that would have devastating consequences."

Alex Gordon, of Britain's largest specialist transport union RMT, who is also CODIR honorary president, said:

"Once again, in the run-up to a U.S. presidential election, we hear the beat of war drums from Capitol Hill. Bellicose posturing for a U.S. domestic electorate is a luxury the peoples of the world and the Middle East cannot afford. The last decade witnessed dire results of U.S.-led wars of intervention in Iran's neighbors, Afghanistan and Iraq. Now is the time to support workers, trade unionists and others in Iran struggling for equality, rights and political freedom, not ramp up military tension with coded calls for Western military attacks on Iran. Trade unionists in Britain and all those who support peace will continue to speak out against the warmongers and enemies of workers' and human rights worldwide."

Campaigners are arguing that at the absolute minimum, the resolution should clarify that it is not an authorization of force and does not provide a legal authority for the president to initiate war against Iran.

Ahmadi expressed further concern that there appear to be many in the U.S. who are keen to see war as a first option to contain Iran, even though there is little likelihood of the Islamic Republic developing weapons capability without U.S. knowledge.

"The presence of international nuclear inspectors in Iran and U.S. intelligence-gathering operations make it nearly impossible for Iran to build a nuclear weapon undetected," he said. "U.S. and Israeli intelligence has been clear: Iran has yet to decide whether to actually build a bomb. Our aim must be to use diplomacy to implement the verification measures to guarantee Iran cannot take this step."

CODIR has drawn attention to the negotiations scheduled for May 23 with Iran's Supreme Leader for the first time publicly endorsing negotiations and signaling that Iran is prepared to make key concessions to cap its enrichment in accordance with U.S. national security interests. Campaigners fear that the bill could undermine those talks by signaling to Iran that the U.S. is committed to war.

Ahmadi concluded: "Serious diplomacy is the only way to prevent war, prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon and destruction of such weapons in other countries of the region including Israel, and put mechanisms in place to effectively address human rights abuses in Iran. Congress should support diplomacy, not undermine it."

Photo: Tolka Rover // CC 2.0

Chile launches reforestation campaign for exotic Patagonia

Oliver Radcliffe — Tue, 15 May 2012 14:43:00 -0400

In Patagonia, an exotic natural region of southern Chile, efforts to begin reforestation are commencing.

In 2011, a fire destroyed 19 square miles of lush forestation in Torres del Paine National Park in the Patagonian region. The area was declared a UNESCO biosphere reserve in 1978. However, in the past 100 years, fires coupled with human influence have destroyed more than 900 square miles of forest.

The Image Foundation of Chile (FiCh), Chile's secretary of tourism, Conaf - the government agency that manages Chile's forests, SNP Patagonia Sur, and others intend to plant more than one million trees within this year. The nonprofit project, named "Reforestamos Patagonia," is being largely funded by companies such as Coca Cola, LAN, Rockford, Falabella and Cuprum.

SNP Patagonia Sur, a for-profit company that invests in, protects, and enhances scenically remarkable and ecologically valuable properties in Chilean Patagonia. has been credited in the past for its strong ties with the reforestation movement in Chile. Planting more than half a million trees in the Austral zone of Chile, it has influenced the area to become an icon of environmental and ecological success across South America.

Reforestamos Patagonia urges the support of citizens and people across the world. According to Matías Rivera, head of the project, "Reforestamos Patagonia is a sincere nonprofit and positive campaign. Its success will be determined by our capacity to urge social networks and mass media to sensitize society to the cause and encourage individuals to buy a native tree replacing those that have been lost."

As mentioned by Rivera, to assist in the effort to reforest the Patagonia region, trees are for sale. The public can purchase a tree (for the price of $4.00 USD) and contribute to the cause here.

Photo: Northward View of Cuernos del Paine (The Horns of Paine), Torres del Paine National Park, Chile. Evelyn Proimos CC BY 2.0.

German elections: The good, the bad, and the ugly

Victor Grossman — Mon, 14 May 2012 15:08:00 -0400

BERLIN - In a way, it's a "good news" and "bad news" angle.

The good news: the Christian Democratic Union of Angela Merkel took a real whipping in the election in North Rhine-Westphalia (usually abbreviated to NRW), the largest German state in terms of population. Her smiling, almost benign mien, with little bluster or braggadocio, disguises less and less her tough advocacy of austerity - a code word for overcoming deficits not by hitting big banks and big biz, who caused the calamity, but rather the people who have always been hit worst and who are truly suffering.

Americans may recall Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan's cruel recipes; they are closely related. But the election of the socialist Hollande in France, the current tumult in Greece and demonstrations all over Spain, in Italy, even in London, have shown what many ordinary people think of such austerity!

Now, sixteen months ahead of next year's national elections, Merkel's party took the worst beating in its history in this key state, NRW, which has more people than all of East Germany. Her major opponents, the Social Democrats, were greatly strengthened, their partners, the Greens, held their own and, for better or for worse, the two will now have full sway there.

As for the "bad news," not all of it is world-shaking. The first item involves plans to open the giant new Willy Brandt airport in Berlin June 3 as a match for rival facilities at Frankfurt and Munich. The ballyhoo was immense for a project fought over for decades. Recent TV coverage centered on the amazing overnight switch from the pleasant little Tegel airport in the northwest of this city to the huge new site in the southeast, 20 miles away, without missing a flight.

It was overwhelming - until it was canceled, just four weeks ahead of the opening date. The fire alarm and evacuation systems were not quite ready, it was claimed and, after all, safety must come first! But it soon became almost certain that the big construction consortium had known for months that deadlines could not be met.

Looked very pale

Mayor Wowereit, the person officially in charge, looked very pale, and the postponement will cost the airlines, the retail shops, and transportation companies many millions of euros.

At first, August was offered as a new opening date, then there was talk of October - or maybe December?

A second blow for Berliners was in the offing; the almost certain loss of major league status for its main soccer team. For some - bitter tragedy! Every year the two worst teams out of sixteen drop to second league status while others move up. Only a miracle can save it. Without such a miracle in the remaining final game Berlin, Germany's biggest city, will be the only major city with no team in the major league. At least until next year. And how shameful!

But alas, there was a far more earnest bad news item, though all too few realized its significance. The same election in North Rhine-Westphalia - NRW - which scratched Merkel seriously wounded the other main loser, the Left Party. It was no surprise in view of recent polls, but a shock all the same! It not only failed to reach the five per cent needed to keep any of its seats in the state legislature (it won 11 in the last election) but lost severely, getting only about 2.5 percent!

This was the second West German state in a week where it lost its representation by missing the hurdle, and this state, due to its size, is especially important. It is hard hit by an economic crisis worsened by constant shutdowns of coal mines and steelworks in its Ruhr Valley, a real German Rust Belt. Why did these troubles, with severe cutbacks in the budgets of nearly all towns and cities, not work to the advantage of the Left? And why is this important, even to people in other countries?

Of course the media played a big part in this defeat: except for the very limited left wing press, largely unavailable in much of the country. TV and printed media have a uniform strategy towards the Left. Except for occasionally playing up internal squabbles or problems, real or contrived, they maintain silence about the party's actions and activities. In NRW the Left played an important part in preventing college tuition charges, improving free child care possibilities, fighting for more financial help for local communities, and on many levels town and county councilors of the Left Party have been truly valiant.

But all this was ignored while the catchy new Pirate Party was treated to almost daily pageantry, although it still has virtually no program. It reaped the rewards at the polls, polling over 8 percent.

Cause of the weakening

Most commonly cited as the cause of the alarming weakening of the Left after its hopeful successes a few years ago was the inner quarreling which consumed so much energy and fed the media's appetite for scandals.

The strong Left Party program agreed to almost unanimously in Erfurt last October would, it was thought, heal wounds and break barriers. But it did not.

Now, after defeats in two West German states, there are fears that the coming Congress in early June in Gottingen, when a new slate of officers is to be elected, may not improve the situation.

The conflict involves personalities but, more than that, aims and strategies. The only person thus far to offer himself as candidate for co-president in June is Dr. Dietmar Bartsch, the unusually tall deputy chair of the Left caucus in the Bundestag. Bartsch represents the large Left-voting, mostly East German sector of the party, which still averages between 15 to 30 percent in the five East German states, the former GDR, and shares in the government of one of them, Brandenburg.

This broad base is important as a financial and voting percentage base for the party as a whole. Its leaders, like Bartsch, often called reformers, are in essence pragmatists. "We want progressive reforms in the social system; we must fight for the social benefits now being cut away by the Christian Democrats and their coalition partners, the Free Democrats. To achieve success in this direction we must be ready to ally with two other parties now in opposition, the Social Democrats and the Greens. Sometimes we can join with them in a state government; and it may be possible, it is implied, that after next year's national elections those two parties will need our votes to get over 50 percent of the deputies and gain power. With such hopes at all levels, we must be reasonable in our demands and do as little as possible to antagonize possible future allies. Frequent rejections of any cooperation with us can be seen as election propaganda.

Those opposed to the reformers claim that by being so reasonable, and by down-playing or abandoning main principles, the party moves so close to the Social Democrats that voters will see no real reason for choosing it instead of them.

One basic principle involved is a strict refusal to send German troops anywhere outside Germany and withdraw them from their present deployment in Afghanistan and near the coasts of Lebanon and Somalia (with a new approved prospect of hitting those pirates over land as well as over sea!).

The Social Democrats and Greens have approved foreign deployment and insist on such approval; the "fundis" - or fundamentalist Left - demand an adamant principle of refusal on this; the pragmatist reformers would agree to a position of "maybe, sometimes, with possible exceptions."

Related but deeper

Related, but even deeper in its implications, the more radical fundis insist that repairs and restrictions on the banks and big biz are only half-way measures; we must keep alive the goal of rejecting the capitalist system and replacing it with some form of democratic socialism. The reformers agree that the system is indeed dated, socialism must remain a goal, but a cloudy distant one, and for now the need is to make the banking system work more justly and save social welfare achievements by working together with the other left-of-center parties.

The retort to this is that once Social Democrats and Greens gain power, they always forget most social promises; in recent years they were responsible for painful cuts in many areas. Their leadership (though not always their membership) leans towards accommodating big business, where many of their leaders land when they retire from politics..

A final issue: the reformers agree with all the other parties in decrying the East German GDR as a second dictatorship in Germany, after Hitler, to be condemned almost in its entirety.

The more radical wing, on the other hand, says that the GDR did many bad things, it ultimately failed, but its history must not be simplified in black-white terms, it represented an attempt to break with capitalism and fascism and was able to achieve many good things, from jobs for everyone to free childcare, free medical care and free education for everyone. Its undoubted lack of rights and even its tragedies cannot be equated with the crimes of the Nazis.

One co-president in the past two and a half years was Gesine Loetzsch, a popular leader with roots in an East Berlin borough. Her co-president, Klaus Ernst, was a union leader from Western Bavaria, not so popular in general. A general rule was more or less accepted: a double leadership - a man and a woman , an easterner and a westerner. Loetzsch recently resigned her job because of the illness of her quite aged husband, and will remain only as Bundestag deputy. Ernst has not stated any plans, making Bartsch the only announced contestant as yet.

Looming over the scene

But looming over the scene in a way is the charismatic West German politician Oskar Lafontaine, one-time head of the Social Democrats and very popular in his home region of Saarland. It was to a large degree his work in the new Left Party which helped it gain the crucial support of five to ten percent of West German voters and thus put the party on the all-German map. He withdrew from leadership in 2009 to fight cancer - successfully, it seems. Will he stand for election in June as president or co-president? And if so, with whom? The gains he helped achieve are visibly disappearing. Is that because of his absence or because of the more "leftist" stance of many West German party leaders?

Many reformer leaders in the East dislike Lafontaine, who has taken more Fundi approaches on many questions.

While the Left Party suffered losses in West Germany, interesting local victories were won in eastern Thuringia, including the job of mayor of one well-known middle size city, Eisenach, and county leader in Nordhausen in the Hartz Mountain area.

Interestingly, most Left Party victories in Thuringia were won by women, who are strongly represented at many levels. Perhaps the best known nationally is the East German leader and theoretician Sara Wagenknecht, once head of the Communist Platform group within the Left but in the past two years one of the deputy vice-presidents, she is a convincing speaker and writer.

But she also became Lafontaine's partner in more than just a political sense. Some think that the liaison has moved her ever so slightly towards a less militant position while moving him somewhat leftward. Their relationship would seem to make a joint presidency look more than awkward. It has however supplied grist for many of the media, almost their only reporting on the party for a while.

To sum it up: the coming congress in a few weeks can decide not only whether the Left party moves closer to the Social Democrats and Greens or to a more fundamental opposition, which would be more in tune with many active younger people like those in the OCCUPY groups: it may even determine whether the party moves closer to a split and thus the downfall of an imposin attempts to shake up German politics.

Or can it find new paths to an active, aggressive fight for the rights of the majority of Germans and a move away from Merkel's austerity and military mobilization policies? With Germany the strongest power in Europe (possibly excepting Russia) and one of the strongest economic forces in the world, and with the Left very important to many leftwing parties in Europe, the outcome can have a significant effect on future developments everywhere.

Photo: Cologne, largest city in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Rolf H./Wikipedia

Anti-discrimination law protecting gays passes in Chile

Oliver Radcliffe — Mon, 14 May 2012 11:34:00 -0400

In Chile last week, after a seven-year legislative battle, the country's first all-inclusive anti-discrimination bill became law.

On Mar. 3, Daniel Zamudio was tortured and murdered in San Borja Park, in Santiago, the nation's capital and largest city. At only 24 years of age, Zamudio was killed in an act of homophobia-induced violence.

Zamudio had reportedly been harassed due to his sexuality after leaving gay-themed discotheques in the past, and according to his family, neo-nazis had verbally threatened him the night before his murder.

After observing the scene of the crime, authorities concluded it was homophobic in nature. According to Central Hospital in Santiago, Zamudio was left with a fractured skull, brain injuries, cigarette burns, a broken leg, and with cuts upon his stomach, legs, and arms in the shape of swastikas.

The four young men who committed the crime denied all charges despite their histories of having been arrested in the past for xenophobic-related charges. They are each facing life imprisonment, while the prosecution seeks murder charges. Due to heinousness of the crime it has sparked debate concerning the rights and safety of the LGBT community in Chile.

The murder facilitated increased awareness and pressure on Chilean lawmakers to examine a bill preventing discrimination towards anuyone based on race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender, appearance or handicap.

Originally proposed seven years ago, the anti-discrimination bill has been the topic of heated discussion. The conservative right, the Catholic Church, and other anti-gay marriage groups have strongly voiced their opposition to the bill. However, the Gay Integration and Liberation Movement (Movilh) have been supportive since the beginning.

Movihl, headed by its president, Rolando Jiménez, is a LGBT rights and advocacy group that, in 1999, spearheaded a movement for repeal of legislation banning sodomy as a punishable act.

In response to the passing of the new anti-discrimination Law, Jiménez said in a statement to La Tercera, "Today marks the end of a seven-year process that has given Chileans a way of protecting themselves from and fighting against arbitrary discrimination."

The anti-discrimination law is colloquially known as the Zamudio law, in honor of Daniel Zamudio's death. However, it cannot go without mentioning that countless atrocities towards the LGBT community have occurred in Chile's past.

The Zamudio law itself identifies discrimination as "distinction, exclusion or restriction that lacks reasonable justification" and protects those whom are targeted on the basis of "race, ethnicity, nationality, socioeconomic status, ideology, political opinion, religious beliefs, participation in organizations or lack thereof, sex, gender, sexual orientation, appearance, health and disabilities." The law not only defines these groups but also offers them protection if a crime occurs. The law empowers courts to fine offenders a minimum of $4,000USD (two million CLP).

The Zamudio law is the first piece of legislation in Chilean history to comprehensively protect the LGBT community. The nation's LGBT rights groups continue the struggle but now are slightly more hopeful. This legislation sets a precedent in the continued fight for equality and will perhaps lead to same-sex marriage and other LGBT rights in the country of Chile.

Photo: A Chilean lesbian couple kiss during a Gay Pride parade in downtown Santiago. Roberto Candia/AP

French Left candidate goes one-on-one with ultra-rightist

Emile Schepers — Mon, 14 May 2012 09:54:00 -0400

Jean-Luc Melenchon, the Left Front's candidate in the recent presidential elections in France, has announced that in the legislative elections on June 10 (with a runoff on June 7), he will run as a candidate in the 11^th constituency district in the Pas de Calais region, on the French North Atlantic coast. What makes this even more interesting is that he will be going head to head with Marine LePen, who was the candidate of the far right National Front.

The specific district, called Henin-Beaumont, which Mr. Melenchon has chosen to run in, has an interesting history. It is inward from the Atlantic coast and was heavily damaged by German incursions during the First World War. During the Second World War the Pas de Calais was occupied by the Germans, but had the good luck that it was chosen by the Allied command as the decoy to fool the Germans as to where the D-Day attacks would come.

Field Marshals Erwin Rommel and Gerd von Rundstedt became convinced that the main allied landings would be in the Pas de Calais, so concentrated on defending that area. But of course the attacks came in on the Normandy beaches further west, reducing the damage to places like Henin-Beaumont.

Economically, the Henin-Beaumont area had depended on coal mining, but this has been in decline for a while, and there is now diversified light industry. Historically the left has had a healthy presence in the area, which Hervé Poly, the head of the Communist Party in the district calls "land of the left, which has seen communist deputies, socialist deputies, and tomorrow will see a deputy from the Left Front, that is our wish!"

In the 2009 local elections, the ultra-right wing, anti-immigrant National Front candidate won the mayoral election, with the left candidate second. In the runoff, an independent leftist was elected mayor with the support of all parties except the National Front.

In the first round of this year's presidential elections, the eventual winner, the National Front's Marine LePen got 35.48 percent of the vote, followed by the Socialist Party's Francois Hollande with 26.82 percent, President Sarkozy with 15.76 percent and Melenchon with 11.98 percent. In the presidential runoff, Hollande got 57.86 percent and Sarkozy 42.15 percent, Marine LePen's father, Jean-Marie LePen, got 18.6 percent of the vote in Henin-Beaumont. So the National Front's vote has doubled in the interim, showing a dangerous growth of the ultra-right.

Before Melenchon announced his candidacy, LePen had already announced hers for the same seat. Her program is viciously ultra-right wing, specializing as she does in blaming the country's troubles on immigrants and Muslims.

During the presidential elections LePen, a dynamic campaigner and articulate if nasty public speaker, managed to get Sarkozy to issue his own threats against immigrants, and the victorious Socialist candidate, Hollande, even followed suit to a smaller degree. However, Melenchon, just as effective a campaigner as LePen if not more so, has remained rock-firm against this kind of demagogy. It is a safe bet that the Henin-Beaumont campaign will be full of fireworks, and that France's immigrant communities will find a defender in Melenchon.

At writing, it appears that the Socialist Party will also have a candidate in Henin-Beaumont.

The overall national results of the June 10 and 17 elections are vitally important. If the Socialists, Communists and allies increase their representation, Hollande will be able to push forward his program of change, and of resistance to the austerity policies being pushed by the European right. If, on the other hand, the right and ultra-right pick up seats, he will have a hard time governing, let alone achieving changes in direction.

Currently, the breakdown in the National Assembly has Sarkozy's right wing UMP and allies holding 344 of 577 seats. The left alliance of Socialists, Communists and allies holds 227. The National Front did not win any seats in 2007, but is almost sure to this time around given LePen's result in the presidential election. So a defeat for LePen by the left in Henin-Beaumont would be of great symbolic importance.

Photo: Jean Luc Melenchon speaks with media. Claude Paris/AP

Spain's prime minister is banking on a failed past

Tom Gill — Mon, 14 May 2012 09:13:00 -0400

Six months ago Mariano Rajoy pledged not to give "a single euro of public money" to the banks. Last week this promise went the same way as his pledges on not raising tax - in the shredder.

Spain's right-wing prime minister has announced yet another (fourth) bailout of the country's banks since the onset of the financial crisis in 2008.

Just weeks after he unveiled $10 billion cuts to education and health in what was supposedly an unavoidable requirement to restore health to the country's finances, Rajoy has miraculously found $15 billion to help out his friends in banking. That includes a huge chunk of public money that the government has put into Spain's fourth-largest lender Bankia, which has more of the country's now "toxic" properties on its books than any other bank.

State aid to Spain's private banks provided over the past four years in various forms now totals $150 billion - and that excludes over $200 billion in one percent interest rate loans from the European Central Bank.

Yet within minutes of the Spanish government's announcement on Friday pundits were saying that this latest corporate welfare cheque was not enough and another $40 billion was needed. The ostensible reason for Spanish bankers' insatiable demands for cash is their exposure to "problematic" property loans of as much as $170 billion, equivalent to 17 percent of the country's GDP. This exposure was down to bankers' gambling on the property casino that led to a bubble that burst in 2007, sending the economy into meltdown.

This obsession with bricks and mortar has not only done lasting damage to the environment in large parts of Spain's coastal regions but it has created a massively lopsided economy, starving other sectors of investment.

And it has left millions up to their necks in debt or out on the streets after their homes have been repossessed.

The Bankia operation has been labelled a "nationalization" as the rescue includes the state taking a 45 per cent stake in the company. However, as with bank nationalisations elsewhere, the government will be a passive shareholder, leaving the bank to continue its drive for short-term profits, and the government will seek to sell its stake back to privateers as soon as possible - that is, after its "toxic" property assets have been dumped in a "bad" bank. A royal rip-off for the public.

For Socialist Party opposition leader Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba the priority seems to be that this is a time-limited operation that leads to "no losses for the government" and full recovery of the investment.

But Tomas Gomez, leader of the socialists in Madrid, argues instead that the party should reject the government's banking-sector rescue, which he deems "against the interests of the Spanish people," and instead of relinquishing its stake in Bankia the government should use it to convert the financial institution into a "strong public bank" to help tackle the crisis.

Gomez argues that using money that isn't available for health and education to save a bank which will then be sold off at a "knockdown price to private banks" is "immoral."

The Spanish people, as the owners, should get the long-term benefit of their investment.

Gomez's position appears close to that of the Communist-led United Left, which is calling for full-blown public ownership and control of Bankia and all the other Spanish banks in receipt of public money.

United Left's economic spokesman Alberto Garzon argues that this would allow for the maintenance of the original "social" function of the savings banks, seven of which were merged to form Bankia two years ago.

Priority could then be given to extending loans to families and small and medium-sized businesses. And the empty properties on the banks' books would constitute a stock of "affordable rental accommodation" for those who need it.

On Friday the Spanish stock market had its biggest surge of the year as the government unveiled this latest move to socialise the losses of the banking crisis in order to later privatise the gains.

The state largesse for this most protected of sectors means many a top banker, unlike the millions of ordinary Spaniards thrown onto the scrapheap in the name of austerity, will now keep his job.

And even Rodrigo Rato, who has been fired as Bankia chief, has little to complain about.

A historic senior figure in Rajoy's Popular Party, former finance minister and IMF managing director, Rato was in line for a tidy $2.34 million last year, or 260 times the minimum wage. This is now reduced to a mere $600,000 under new rules on executives of banks receiving state subsidies. But Rato is still in line for a $1.2 million leaving present.

A paltry $600,000 is presumably what his replacement Jose Ignacio Goirigolzarri will be earning. Just as well Goirigolzarri already has a pension of $68.7 million from his former employer, BBVA bank. Otherwise, just how would he get by?

This article was originally written for Morning Star.

Photo: Spain demonstrators protest private banks. Manu Fernandez/AP

Key steps for a just and lasting Middle East peace

Lee Dlugin — Wed, 09 May 2012 11:39:00 -0400

The most volatile tinderbox area of the world where the danger of war exists is the Middle East. The key to peace and stability in the region is the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. In 1947 when the United Nations General Assembly voted to establish the state of Israel, they also voted to establish an independent Palestine along side Israel. That decision has never been carried out. Until the Palestinian state is established the region will remain unstable.

The basis for peace and peaceful relations among all nations is mutual respect and coexistence even though social, economic and political systems may differ. However a precondition for this system of relations in the Middle East is the establishment of a free, independent and equal Palestinian state, a state which will be an equal partner in this system of relations.

In the 21st century, war is not the solution to solving differences. Sharp differences exist between the imperialist countries and Iran around nuclear questions. It is imperative that these differences be solved through diplomacy. This is the lesson of the rush to war in Iraq. The U.S. invasion was based on the lie that Iraq had or would imminently have weapons of mass destruction

The same type of unfounded claim is being made in relation to Iran by Israel and U.S. imperialism - that Iran is preparing to make nuclear weapons. Iran says they are using enriched uranium for peaceful nuclear power. No international inspectors have ever found evidence to the contrary. The fact is that Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and Israel, which possesses several hundred nuclear weapons, has refused to sign this treaty. Israel is threatening preemptive strikes against Iran. Additionally, crippling sanctions which are doing severe harm to the people have been placed on Iran, led by the U.S, and U.S. naval warships threateningly patrol the area.

A "preemptive" strike against Iran would probably bring about a widespread conflagration in the region with devastating human and economic results for people throughout the region. There are no military solutions.

What is urgently needed is a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East with the elimination of all weapons of mass destruction under the supervision of the United Nations. Sanctions against Iran should be lifted immediately and diplomatic solutions should be negotiated. All naval vessels should be withdrawn from the area. International commerce should be allowed to proceed without the threatening presence of warships. The right to peaceful existence of every state in the region must be guaranteed, including, Israel, Iran and an independent Palestinian state.

Photo: Protest in Iran. Jeremy Hunsinger // CC 2.0

Austerity goes down to defeat in Europe

John Wojcik — Mon, 07 May 2012 12:07:00 -0400

In France, Germany, and Greece this weekend, voters rejected political parties that have pushed for austerity, and voted in lawmakers who campaigned for policies of economic stimulus and growth.

"Europe is watching us, austerity can no longer be the only option," declared the victorious Socialist and President-Elect Francois Hollande to cheering crowds at the Bastille in Paris. Hollande ousted the center-right incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy with a 52 to 48 percent margin in an election that saw 80 percent of the voters turn out.

The new Socialist president has promised to raise taxes on big corporations and persons earning more than 1 million euros a year. He has called for an increase in the minimum wage, hiring 60,000 more teachers, and lowering the retirement age from 62 to 60 for some categories of workers.

He has promised to rework a deal on government debt in eurozone countries to focus on promoting growth.

The conservative Sarkozy is the first French president since 1981 not to win a second term.

Jubilant Hollande supporters gathered at the Place de la Bastille in Paris - a traditional rallying place for the left - to celebrate. Hollande is the first Socialist to win the presidency since Francois Mitterand in the 1980s.

"I am the president of the youth of France," he told the hundreds of thousands gathered at the Bastille. "You are a movement that is rising throughout Europe."

In Germany, meanwhile, the parties in Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right government lost control of the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein. Merkel's Christian Democrats had 30.9 percent, the party's worst results in the region in five decades. The CD's coalition partner, the pro-business Free Democrats, were also routed by the voters who gave them just 8.2 percent of the vote, down from 14.9 percent in the last elections.

The biggest gains were made by the opposition Social Democrats, who secured 30.4 percent and the Greens, who secured 13 percent. With support from the Danish-speaking minority party, which secured 4.6 percent of the vote the three may be able to put together a center-left coalition with 35 seats in the 69 seat state legislature. The new Pirate Party won 8 percent so it will have seats in the parliament. No one knows for sure however, beyond unlimited access to the Internet, what the Pirates actually stand for and where they would fit in the process of forming a government.

The ballot in Schleswig-Holstein, however, was a key test for Merkel. Elections are coming May 13 in North-Rhine Westphalia, Germanys' most populous state where polling shows the Christian Democrats could go down to defeat again.

In Greece, voters angry over more than two years of austerity measures and the misery resulting from them punished the two ruling parties associated with those measures, New Democracy and PASOK.

New Democracy won 108 seats in the 300-member parliament, far short of the 151 needed to form a government and the anti-bank bailout left-wing Syriza (Radical Coalition of the Left) won 51 seats. The former ruling party, PASOK, fell to third place, winning only 41 seats.

Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras said the pounding taken by New Democracy and PASOK, which had signed Greece's loan agreements, meant "their signatures have lost legitimacy by the popular vote."

"The people," he said, "have rewarded a proposal made by us to form a government of the left that will cancel the loan agreements and overturn the course of our people toward misery."

But the way forward to a government is not clear. Reportedly, big banks were alarmed by both Syriza's statement and the elections that preceded it.

Photo: Hundreds of thousands celebrated the Socialist victory at the Bastille, the traditional gathering place of the Left - in Paris. Thibault Camus/AP

Radical Islamists push agenda in Mali

Emile Schepers — Mon, 07 May 2012 09:17:00 -0400

The West African country of Mali continues to be a source of worry, as radical Islamist rebels try to consolidate their hold on the North, including the ancient city of Timbuktu, while instability continues in the capital, Bamako, and the rest of the country.

On Mar. 22, a group of junior army officers took power in a military coup, giving their reason as dissatisfaction with the government of Amadou Toumani Toure, whom they accused of failing to stop a rebellion in the North by members of the Tuareg ethnic group allied with radical Islamic fighters with Al Qaeda connections.

Unfortunately for the military junta and its leader, Captain Amadou Sanogo, the coup worsened the situation by disrupting the weak armed forces even more, and in a short time, the Northern rebels had advanced swiftly, capturing key garrison towns and Timbuktu.

Now the Tuareg rebels and their religious allies seem to be at the point of falling out among themselves. The main Tuareg rebel organization, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad, wants to create a separate Tuareg state, while the main Islamist rebel organization, Ansar Dine, allied with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, does not want to break up Mali, but rather, wants to go all the way to Bamako and turn Mali into an Islamic emirate under Sharia law.

Not only are these two goals incompatible, but they clash with the aspirations of major sections of the population in the conquered territory.

First, not all the people in the area are Tuaregs, and not all Tuaregs are in agreement with the separatist agenda. The majority of people in Timbuktu, for example, are not Tuaregs, who are light-skinned and speak a Berber language, but rather are dark-skinned and speak a language of the Songhai group. Further, there are reports of bandit-like actions against people of the conquered area by MNLA fighters, including rapes and robberies, according to Human Rights Watch. Yet in many places, the Tuareg separatists seem to have left things under the control of the Islamists.

The Islamist faction is also dedicated to forms of Muslim practice that are sharply different from those that have developed in Mali. Muslim practice there is strongly influenced by Sufism, a mystical form of Islam that differs from the stark and puritanical Salafism of Al Qaeda. Sufi worship may include music, and the position of women is often better under Sufism; certainly this seems to be the case in Mali. Sufi Islam also makes room for the concept of Islamic "saints," at whose tombs some people pray. These concepts are considered to be blasphemous by the people who are now taking control of the conquered areas.

The contrast is very much like the conflict during the Christian Reformation and Counter-Reformation in Europe, when the ornate and elaborate practices of the traditional Roman Catholic Church scandalized reformers like John Knox in Scotland and John Calvin in Switzerland, who accused Catholics of idolatry and organized the destruction of saints' statues and icons.

Rebels have been going around in Timbuktu and elsewhere, suppressing things like beauty parlors and the drinking of alcohol. On May 5, it was reported that rebel fighters had been stopping Malians from visiting the tombs of Sufi saints, telling them that to do so was un-Islamic. There were reports that the tomb of one of the saints was damaged or destroyed.

Timbuktu is a UNESCO World Heritage Site because of some of the tombs, but also because of its spectacular mud-walled mosques, and more than anything, the thousands of ancient books from the city's heyday as a center of learning during the Middle Ages. The rebels have called all the imams of all the mosques to lay down the law to them, and there are fears that there will be iconoclastic destruction of some of the city's treasures.

Meanwhile, in Bamako, things don't seem to be going well. Mali's neighbors, grouped in ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States), had thought they had worked out a compromise whereby President Toure and Captain Sanogo's junta would both step down, to be replaced by an interim government under President Dioncounda Traoré and Prime Minister Modibo Diarra. This government would prepare for elections at an unspecified date.

ECOWAS also wanted to send troops into Mali to battle the rebels, who are seen as a major threat to neighboring countries. There are Tuaregs in Niger, Libya, Algeria, and Burkina Faso, and if the rebels in Mali succeed in setting up their Tuareg state of "Azawad," all of these countries will be threatened. A government run by Al Qaeda allies would be a major threat also. There is also the problem that the turmoil in Mali could lead to major NATO intervention.

But Sanogo has been balking on the foreign troops idea, in the process raising doubts about whether he really is going to cede power to the interim government, and on Apr. 30, special presidential guard troops loyal to the deposed president, Toure, rebelled and fought sharp firefights with Sanogo's men. At the end of the week, it appeared that this counter-coup has been put down.

Though the Mar. 22 coup was almost bloodless, this time, some two dozen people were killed in the fighting.

Photo: Mali, as seen on map. Wikipedia

Bahrain struggle continues amid regional tensions

Emile Schepers — Fri, 04 May 2012 10:23:00 -0400

Dissidents continue to organize protests against the government of Bahrain, a Persian Gulf kingdom known for its pearl fisheries but also for its large scale oil production and its hosting of the U.S. Fifth Fleet.

Bahrain is an island of 1.2 million inhabitants off the north coast of Saudi Arabia, to which it is connected by a causeway.

The tiny kingdom has been the focus of a power struggle between its two important neighbors, Iran and Saudi Arabia, with the latter being backed by the United States.

To understand what's going on, a little history is important.

Bahrain has been overwhelmingly Muslim since its leaders were converted by emissaries of the Prophet Mohammed more than 1,300 years ago. Since Iran (then called Persia) to the north opted for Shia Islam as its official religion in the early 16th century, Bahrain has been majority Shia. But in 1793, a Sunni clan from the Arabian mainland, the Al Khalifa, conquered the Island and have ruled it ever since.

During the 19th century, the United Kingdom became the main military power in the Persian Gulf, and the rulers of Bahrain found themselves increasingly subordinate to the British. Persia/Iran made periodic efforts to assert control over Bahrain, continuing into the 20th century.

After the warships of the world's navies were converted from coal to oil during World War I, the Gulf states, formerly sleepy backwaters, were destined to gain importance beyond their small size. After that war, the Al Saud family conquered most of the Arabian Peninsula, naming it after themselves: Saudi Arabia. This country, too, has acquired importance vastly out of proportion to its small population, because of its massive oil production and reserves.

In Bahrain, the Al Khalifa family found itself in the difficult situation of being absolute Sunni monarchs ruling over a majority Shia population. Unrest was inevitable. It has come from the socialist, communist and liberal secular left, from workers, the Shia leaders and masses, and from some Sunnis who either disagree with the regime on principle, or who feel they have been left out of the prosperity generated by Bahrain's oil.

In the 1990s, there were strong protests against the monarchy, which were savagely repressed with at least 40 fatalities and many complaints of torture and other atrocities. At the end of that decade, the new ruler, Hamid bin Isa al Khalifa, made some liberal concessions to the opposition. In 2002, he changed his title from Emir to King.

But when the Arab Spring of 2011 toppled the governments of Tunisia and Egypt, and put major pressure on all Arab states, Bahrain became a focus of large-scale protests demanding more democracy and social and political justice. Huge demonstrations took place at the Pearl Roundabout (traffic circle) in the capital, Manama.

The government, which likes to present itself as an enlightened constitutional monarchy, was divided as to how to respond, but finally cracked down, with tear gas, torture and prosecution of 21 opposition leaders plus 20 doctors and nurses who had treated injured protesters. Between the outbreak of the protests and the beginning of this year, some two dozen people have died from tear gas inhalation alone, and there are widespread reports of vicious torture at the hands of the authorities. Troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were brought across the Kin Fahd Causeway to help crush the protests.

The government has proposed reforms, which were passed in the parliament and endorsed by the king this week, but these are considered cosmetic by the opposition. This year once more, despite government promises, demonstrations have been going on not only in the capital but in villages too.

Meanwhile, the government tore down the Pearl Roundabout and is replacing it with an intersection named for Umar, Second Caliph of Islam under whose rule Bahrain became Muslim but who is viewed negatively by Shiites and who was assassinated by an Iranian in 644 A.D. The government, perhaps not coincidentally, accuses the protesters and oppositionists of being supported by Shiite Iran. In fact, the opposition includes Shia Islamists in Al Wefaq, communists in the Democratic Progressive Tribune (political parties are not allowed), ex-Maoists in National Democratic Action, and others.

The Bahraini opposition continues to call for the democratization of the upper house of the Parliament (the members are currently appointed by the king), for the release of prisoners including human rights campaigner Abdulhadi Al Khawaja, who is on a prolonged hunger strike, and for release of the medical personnel arrested for treating injured protesters last year. The courts ordered a new trial for some of the prisoners, but they are still behind bars.

On April 22, Bahrain hosted its annual Formula One Grand Prix auto race. In the week leading up to the race, the opposition managed to put on a show of its own, with widespread protests designed to capture the attention of foreign reporters.

The continued turmoil in Bahrain is a worry for the U.S. government, because of ongoing tensions with Iran and especially because of the large U.S. military presence in the area. As home base for the U.S. Fifth Fleet, it is a potential staging area for any military action directed at Iran.

Image: Bahrain Youth for Freedom // CC 2.0

Cypriots honor martyrs, continue unification fight

Gary Bono — Thu, 03 May 2012 15:56:00 -0400

On April 8,Cypriots marked the anniversary of the assassination of two Cypriot patriots - one of Turkish background and the other of Greek background - with a march to the gravesite of Dervis Ali Kavazoglou in Dali, a town in Cyprus's Nicosia district.

Kavazoglou, a Turkish Cypriot, and Costas Mishaoulis, a Greek Cypriot, both leaders of AKEL (Progressive Party of the Working People), were assassinated by a Turkish-oriented terrorist organization, TMT, on April 11, 1965.

During the late colonial period, and during the early years of Cyprus's independence from the United Kingdom, TMT sought the partition of Cyprus between Greece and Turkey. They conducted a terror campaign against progressive Cypriots of Turkish background who were struggling for a Cyprus that was free from both imperialist domination and ethnic division. In this period many progressive Cypriots were murdered or injured by these fascists; others were forced to flee the country for their lives. Kavazoglou refused to knuckle under and continued to fight for a united and independent Cyprus, which is why he was targeted since 1958.

In remarks at the gravesite, AKEL General Secretary Andros Kyprianou spoke to the motivations of all the fascist organizations at that time, explaining that while extreme nationalists of Turkish origin rallied to TMT, those of Greek origin organized their own paramilitary group, EOKA B, which sought unification of Cyprus with Greece and elimination of all Cypriots of Turkish background.

Both TMT and EOKA B had a goal in common with imperialism - to divide Cypriots along ethnic and political lines. Imperialism wanted Cypriots to fight each other rather then to unite to fight a common enemy. Besides fostering disunity and inter-communal hatred these right wing organizations also were willing to do imperialism's dirty work by trying to physically destroy the left.

Through all this, AKEL refused to be tricked into a civil war and held steadfast to its calls for unity of all Cypriots against colonial occupation and aggression. From the time of their deaths, Kavazoglou and Mishaoulis have been considered heroes and symbols of unity between Cypriots of Greek and Turkish backgrounds. It's that unity between the two communities that AKEL advocates for today.

Cyprus President Demetris Christofias is former general secretary of AKEL. His administration has been working to unify the island nation, which has been partitioned since an attempted right-wing coup and subsequent Turkish invasion in 1974.

In line with United Nations resolutions and agreements reached by former Cyprus presidents, Christofias is seeking to unify Cyprus as a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation with single sovereignty and citizenship. In this he has faced opposition, not only from Turkish nationalist forces, but also from some forces in the Greek Cypriot community, who are trying to undermine the peace process with demagogic appeals to Greek nationalism.

In his speech, Kyprianou succinctly outlined the president's efforts:

"President Christofias is working consistently and with sincerity to achieve a just, under the circumstances, functional and viable solution to the Cyprus problem ... a solution that will reunite the territory, people, institutions and the economy; a solution that will safeguard the human rights and fundamental freedoms of the Cypriot people as a whole, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots."

Kyprianou concluded his remarks by reiterating that AKEL's undying commitment for a unified, independent Cyprus would continue in the future, saying:

"This party has never yielded, nor will it do so today. This country can and must be saved. This people will manage to do so. In the name of the sacrifice of our heroes we will continue the struggle! We will continue the struggle until vindication!"

Photo via AKEL

Marcha Patriotica takes shape in Colombia

W. T. Whitney Jr. — Wed, 02 May 2012 16:22:00 -0400

Marchers, 100,000 of them, filled the Plaza Bolivar in the Colombian capital, Bogotá. In 2,500 buses, they traveled from all 28 Colombian departments. They were the "forgotten Colombia, the Colombia of young people, children, old people...men and women whose views were shaped on the land and in adversity." On April 23, they celebrated the founding of Marcha Patriotica, which aims at integrating social movements and political parties.

Over the two previous days, 4,000 delegates representing 1,700 social and political organizations with two delegates each gathered at a convention center to discuss Colombia's political situation, outline organizational structures, define tasks, approve a political declaration, establish commissions, and appoint a National Patriotic Council. International guests numbered 130. Plenary session speakers included Carlos Lozano of Voz, the newspaper of the Colombian Communist Party; former Senator Piedad Cordoba, leader of Colombians for Peace; Senator Gloria Inés Ramírez of the Alternative Democratic Pole (POLO); Jaime Caycedo, Communist Party secretary general and former Bogota city councilor; and Marcha organizers. They called for a "second and definitive independence," structural transformation, and peace with justice. Immediate demands included agrarian reform and access to health care and education.

The movement's political platform noted "new dynamics of collective action in our country," and "growing desire [for] exercise of politics linked to the many social and class conflicts." The document proclaiming a "vocation for power" calls for "political change to overcome imperial domination and hegemony imposed by dominant classes." Marcha Patriotica is "not simply a tactic of alliances but is a process for building subjective consensus toward unifying the oppressed and exploited classes, our historic task."

The platform calls for political solution of armed conflict; democratization of society, state, and economic model; alternative ways of life and production; human rights guarantees; "humanization of work"; reparations for victims of strife; land reform and protection of rural people; education for all; a "culture of solidarity and transformation of the social order"; and lastly, Latin American integration, internationalism, and national independence.

Instrumental in launching the new movement were the Liberal Party's left wing, headed by Piedad Cordoba, the Colombian Communist Party, student organizations, the Fensuagro (United National Agricultural Union Federation) agricultural workers union, indigenous groups like the National Minga, and small farmer groups. Planning started in 2010, the bicentennial year of liberation from Spanish rule.

Other organizations, namely the Patriotic Union (UP) and the Democratic Alliance, each sought left unity in the 1980s, and the relatively recent POLO electoral coalition does so now. POLO suffers presently from internal divisions and weak ties to social movements. Leaders issued a statement supporting the Marcha Patriotica, but POLO stayed away from the inaugural events.

The Communist Party presently supports both the POLO and Marcha Patriotica.

In 1985, the communists joined with the Revolutionary Army Forces of Colombia (FARC) to form the UP, the latter having abandoned armed struggle to enter electoral politics. Now President Juan Manuel Santos, government officials, and the media contend the UP and Marcha Patriotica are alike, each backed by the FARC, also that the FARC has infiltrated Marcha Patriotica. Marcha spokespersons argue the situations are quite different: a peace agreement prevailing then allowed for political collaboration, impossible now under war conditions.

The government bases its claims of FARC associations on evidence allegedly taken from seized FARC computers. Earlier, the Supreme Court discredited similar evidence used against journalists and other left-wing political figures. Soldiers and police throughout Colombia intensively monitored and severely harassed Marcha activists over several months, arresting and tailing many of them, threatening family members, and barging into homes. Security officials impeded travel to Bogota. Intelligence operatives watched over proceedings there, trailed visiting foreign supporters, and photographed participants. Scapegoating the organizers as tied to FARC may testify to governmental fears over the movement's potential impact.

Relying on paramilitary thugs, the Colombian government intimidates through killings - as evidenced by massacre of 5,000 UP activists. Now, three Marcha organizers are dead, or feared dead. Martha Cecilia Guevara Oyola, community leader in Caquetá, disappeared on April 20. Hernan Henrry Diaz, Fensuagro organizer who arranged travel to Bogotá for 200 Putumayo people, disappeared on April 18. Mauricio Enrique Rodriguez, a communist and bodyguard for the president of the National Association of Displaced persons and formerly for Carlos Lozano, was killed on April 27.

Nevertheless, expectations are high. The Marcha Patriotica political declaration "affirms[s] the existence of collective dreams to lay out routes of dignity, to open doors of hope [for a] new historical chapter, forged necessarily in the broadest possible popular unity." For Carlos Lozano, Marcha Patriotica "proclaims peace, which we understand as a political solution with peace moving into the foreground of Colombian politics." Eventually, he adds, "Marcha Patriotica could be converted into a space suitable for guerrillas who welcome a peace process."

Photo: Marcha Patriótica // CC 2.0

Venezuela’s new labor law “first in transition to socialism”

Pedro Conceicao — Wed, 02 May 2012 13:37:00 -0400

In what Venezuela's government described as the "first law in the transition to socialism," President Hugo Chavez has signed into law new comprehensive labor legislation. Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans marched through the streets of Caracas on May 1, International Workers' Day, to commemorate the signing of the historic document.

"The triumph of the people, of the workers, has never come about without a long process of resistance, of struggle, suffering even. This law, which I will have the honor of signing ... is the product of a long process of struggle," said President Chavez.

The legislation reduces the work week to 40 hours and seeks to abolish private sub-contracted labor in the country, which the state views as an exploitative practice and relic of neoliberal policies of the 1990s.

Women's rights groups hailed the law as a big step forward for gender equity in the workplace by increasing post-natal maternity leave from 12 to 25 weeks and protecting new parents from dismissal for up to two years after the child's birth.

One of the greatest victories cited by workers' collectives is the reinstatement of specific workers' rights dismantled by the Rafael Caldera administration under pressure from the International Monetary Fund and corporate interests in 1997.

Along with the reestablishment of the retirement bonus - a worker's last monthly wage multiplied by their years of service - the new law requires that employers compensate workers who are unfairly dismissed, by an amount double their retirement bonus.

A government agency will be established to monitor employers' compliance with the new law, which will be implemented in 12 months. Workers will now have the option of having their retirement processed in a private bank, a public bank, or the new state-owned national retirement fund.

Earlier this year, Chavez announced a 32.5 percent increase in the monthly minimum wage, to be carried out in two phases. The first phase took effect on May 1 with an increase from 1,548 bolivares ($360) to 1,780 bolivares ($413.90). On September, it will increase another 15 percent to 2,047 bolivares ($476).

Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro called the labor law "an instrument for constructing the highest stage of socialism," and contrasted it with the anti-worker laws that are being enacted in Spain where a quarter of the labor market is unemployed.

Venezuelan lawmakers began discussing labor reform nearly nine years ago, but it only gained momentum when Chavez promised to address the issue last November after receiving calls from workers' groups to "revolutionize" current labor laws.

"We are re-affirming our willingness to ... move on from capitalist relations of production, which condemn workers to exploitation, to socialist relations of production, which allow us to construct a new order of labor in freedom, solidarity and participation, with absolutely no exploitation," said Pedro Eusse, general secretary of the Venezuelan Communist Party.

The government used grassroots institutions established by the Chavez administration over the past decade to collect input from a large cross-section of society. During the five-month consultation process with communal councils, trade unions, and political parties, the government received 19,000 proposals, 90 percent of them from workers themselves.

According to International Consulting Services, an international polling agency, over 80 percent of Venezuelans hold a positive view of the law, compared to 13 percent who do not. The new law replaces the original labor law that was enacted in 1936 amid rising tension between workers and foreign companies, an event which sparked the nation's labor movement.

Some organizations have emphasized that the struggle continues and called on people to remain combative. Questions remain about the role of the informal sector, the strengthening of socialist workers' councils, and the transfer of decision-making over management and production to workers.

Baghdad’s May Day march draws thousands

Salam Ali — Wed, 02 May 2012 13:13:00 -0400

BAGHDAD - I participated in the May Day march in central Baghdad organized by the Iraqi Communist Party. Thousands marched, waving red flags and raising banners with workers' and trade unionist demands. The mood was defiant but also jubilant.

(See additional photos of the march here.)

The government initially refused to give a permit for the march to start from Firdos Square and end up in Liberation (Tahrir) Square. The refusal came only four days before May Day, despite the fact that the request was made by the party eight days earlier. The pretext for the refusal was flimsy, claiming that demonstrations in Liberation Square are not licensed and that there is maintenance work in Firdos Square. This was exposed as a lie when a demonstration in Liberation Square was licensed on the same day that the refusal was given to the Communist Party!

The party issued a statement, widely covered by Iraqi media, that considered the government refusal to license the May Day march as a premeditated act. It has followed several other recent measures to harass the Communist Party and curtail its activities, including a blatant attack by security forces on the headquarters of its daily newspaper Tareeq Al-Shaab (People's Path) in late March. The party statement also considered this latest move by the government to be another effort to suppress freedoms and the right of expression that are guaranteed by the constitution.

The party has also stressed that it has the right, in accordance with the constitution, to organize activities.

Following broad support for the party position and its right to organize the May Day march, the authorities were forced to give permission, but with a different route. The march did take place, on May 1, starting from a main square at the National Theatre and ending with a mass rally at the headquarters of the party in Andalus Square in central Baghdad.

The event attracted exceptional coverage by Iraqi media. Party leaders were interviewed by several TV stations Monday night following a controversial statement by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, timed with May Day, in which he criticized resorting to demonstrations and raising banners! It was widely seen as a reaction to the events organized by the Communist Party in Baghdad and other provinces to celebrate May Day. There were demonstrations in Basra, Hilla, Diwaniya, and Nasiriyah. The Kurdistan Communist Party also organized a rally in front of the Kurdistan regional parliament in Arbil, and a demonstration in Sulaimaniyah.

Photo: May Day in Baghdad. Iraqi Communist Party