New Sri Lankan government brings down election budget

Saman Gunadasa

The Sri Lankan parliament on Saturday endorsed an “interim budget” tabled on January 29 by Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake. The budget is aimed at winning increased electoral support for the new minority government, which was formed by Maithripala Sirisena following his defeat of Mahinda Rajapakse in the January 8 presidential elections.

President Sirisena’s government is dominated by the pro-US United National Party (UNP) but Rajapakse’s former ruling coalition, headed by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), still has a majority in the parliament. Sirisena defected from the government to stand as the opposition candidate but remains a member of the SLFP.

The Sirisena government and its pseudo-left backers, such as Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP), presented the interim financial measures as a “Robin Hood budget” which snatches wealth from the rich and distributes it to the poor.

These claims are bogus. The budget is aimed at hoodwinking workers and the poor with a series of cosmetic concessions and the imposition of several taxes on the wealthy. Karunanayake, in fact, has begun talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) over Sri Lanka’s debt. This will mean that new social austerity measures will be imposed whichever government comes to power after the parliamentary election scheduled for May.

The budget cuts taxes on 13 essential food items, including wheat flour, sugar, milk powder, canned and dry fish and green gram (mung beans) by between 10 and 15 percent. The cost of rice, the main staple food, however, has not been reduced. Just before the budget, the government cut petrol, diesel, kerosene and gas prices by 22, 14, 20 and 16 percent respectively.

Public sector workers’ monthly salaries will be increased by 10,000 rupees ($US75)—50 percent of the rise paid this month and the remainder in June. The monthly pension was increased by just 1,000 rupees.

The vast majority of private sector workers, including low-paid estate workers and garment workers, will not get any increase. Finance Minister Karunanayake claimed that if the government forced private companies to increase workers’ salaries, “the companies will have to close.” In a crude attempt to deflect the anger of workers, he issued an empty appeal for big business to grant a 2,500-rupee increase. This rise is unlikely to be paid.

Other budget proposals include increases in the guaranteed price for paddy, potatoes, tea, rubber and milk from small farmers and a 50 percent write-off of less than 100,000-rupeee loans to farmers. The agricultural fertilizer subsidy will continue and Samurdhi payments, a limited welfare program for the poor, were doubled for those receiving between 250 and 1,000 rupees per month. Karunanayake also announced that expenditure for education and health would be increased to 6 and 3 percent of the GDP respectively, up from 1.7 and 1.3 percent.

In 2006, the Rajapakse government imposed a virtual salary freeze. Over the past decade the cost of living in Sri Lanka has skyrocketed dramatically so the promised salary increases and price reductions in basic food items will not significantly reverse the decline in the living standards of ordinary working people. According to a Census and Statistics Department survey for 2012–2013, a family of four needs over 41,000 rupees per month to cover basic living costs.

The Sirisena government’s cosmetic budget measures, which were presented during the January presidential election campaign as part of a so-called 100-day program, were an attempt to exploit the deep popular opposition among working people to Rajapakse’s austerity measures.

As former leading member in the Rajapakse administration, Sirisena backed all of its attacks on the working class and the poor. His decision to quit the Rajapakse government and run for president was orchestrated by pro-US former Sri Lankan president Chandrika Kumaratunga and UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe with Washington’s backing. The principal aim of the regime-change operation was to end Rajapakse’s orientation towards Beijing and bring Sri Lanka firmly into line with Washington’s “pivot to Asia” and its preparations for war against China.

Karunanayake’s budget tax measures against the rich are politically calculated and temporary. These include a onetime “Mansion Tax” on houses built after the year 2000 and valued at over 150 million rupees or larger than 10,000 square feet. Other measures include a special 25 percent “supergain tax” on any company whose profits exceed Rs. 2,000 million; a 200-million rupees per month tax on liquor manufacturers; and one-off impost of 1,000 million and 250 million rupees on satellite and mobile telephone operators respectively.

While there was disquiet in big business circles about these policies, Karunanayake insisted that the government would “not act unfairly in collecting these taxes” and indicated some taxes were aimed at cronies of the previous government. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said that he had told several CEOs, who claimed to have difficulty paying the taxes, to just wait for a year for a relief.

In line with IMF demands, major social attacks are now being prepared against the working class and the poor. A few days after being appointed finance minister, Karunanayake held discussions with IMF representatives about obtaining loans to reduce the current debt burden. In his budget speech Karunanayake claimed that the new government had inherited an 8.8 trillion rupee debt, more than 1 trillion rupees higher than expected.

“The state of the economy is much more precarious than what we previously thought. The debt is exorbitant,” Karunanayake said. The sudden discovery of a higher debt is entirely predictable and will be used to justify future retrogressive social measures. Karunanayake told the Daily Mirror that he wanted “to make the financial process more disciplined” with “‘conditionised’ loans.”

Karunanayake claimed that he could reduce the projected 2015 budget deficit from 4.6 to 4.4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by cutting “unnecessary costs” and pledged to carry out the previous government’s promise to reduce deficit to 3.8 percent of the GDP by 2016.

UNP chief and current prime minister, Wickremesinghe has a clear track record. As prime minister from 2001–04, he slashed state sector spending and jobs and bolstered the privatisation of state-owned industries. His widely discredited economic programme was called “Regaining Sri Lanka.”

Behind government and media claims of budget “concessions,” the new Sri Lankan government is preparing even more ruthless attacks on the working class and the poor that will set the stage for sharp class battles.

Munich Security Conference: Threats and provocations against Russia over Ukraine

Johannes Stern

The 51st Munich Security Conference, held in the Bavarian capital at the weekend, was dominated by the escalation of warmongering against Russia by the imperialist powers.

All the protagonists to the conflict—including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, US Vice President Joseph Biden and US Secretary of State John Kerry—came together at the Bayerischer Hof luxury hotel. With Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in attendance, they used the conference as a platform to ratchet up the conflict with Moscow.

In her opening speech on Friday, German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen praised Germany’s leading role in NATO’s arming of the Eastern European states and establishment of a rapid reaction force against Russia. “Germany is not only a framework nation and initial facilitator of the new NATO spearhead,” she declared, “We are helping to build the Multinational Corps Northeast and set up NATO bases in NATO’s eastern and southern member states.” She boasted of the “tireless commitment of the [German] government to strengthening the role of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and ensuring a united position of the EU in its relations with Russia.”

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg followed her. He praised the decision of the NATO defence ministers at their meeting last Thursday to upgrade their forces in eastern Europe as the “greatest strengthening of our collective defence since the end of the Cold War,” and left no doubt that the measures were directed against Russia.

Although the imperialist powers provoked the Ukraine crisis and have systematically escalated their military, economic and diplomatic offensive against Russia, Stoltenberg cast Russia as the aggressor. “Here in Europe,” he said, “we see a dangerous pattern of Russian behaviour: annexation, aggressive actions and intimidation. The conflict in Ukraine is deepening, with a horrific cost to civilians. The causes are clear and cannot be denied. Russia continues to provide training, equipment and forces in support of the separatists. And it continues to destabilise Ukraine in utter disregard for the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

On Saturday, German Chancellor Merkel spoke. Although she had only just returned, along with French President Hollande, from “peace” talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, she fiercely attacked Russia. She declared that Moscow’s actions, “first in Crimea, then in eastern Ukraine,” had “violated the foundations of our living together in Europe.” The “territorial integrity of Ukraine as well as its sovereignty have been flouted” and international law broken, she continued.

With regard to the discussions with Putin, Merkel tried to lower expectations. “It is uncertain whether [the talks] have been successful,” she said, “But it is my view and the view of the French president that it was in any case worth making the effort. I think we owe that at least to the people affected in Ukraine.”

In fact, the German government is largely responsible for the conflict in Ukraine, which has already cost more than 5,000 lives, forced hundreds of thousands to flee, and brought NATO and the US to the brink of war with Russia, a nuclear power. Berlin collaborated with Washington in backing last February’s putsch in Ukraine, utilizing fascist forces to bring a pro-Western regime to power to launch a brutal war against eastern Ukraine and stoke up the conflict with Russia.

The speech by Ukrainian President and oligarch Petro Poroshenko in Munich was virtually a declaration of war on Russia. He began by waving Russian passports in the air—supposedly proof of the presence of Russian soldiers in eastern Ukraine. Then he appealed to the West, particularly Germany, to supply weapons to the Ukrainian army.

The Ukrainian question would remain unresolved, he asserted, as long as Western officials refused to provide “solid, practical support.” Ukraine needed “defensive military support to ensure the ceasefire and containment of aggression,” he added.

In the course of the conference, a conflict developed over whether weapons should be supplied to the Ukrainian army, which now faces military defeat. While in the US the camp advocating the delivery of lethal weapons is growing, the representatives of the German government warned the security conference against such plans.

In response to a question from US Senator Bob Corker (Republican from Tennessee), Merkel said she understood the impulse to send arms. However, she said, the idea that weapons supplies alone would enable the Ukrainian army to proceed against a superior opponent was illusory. “It cannot be won militarily,” Merkel declared. “That is the bitter truth.”

Nevertheless, those opposing Russia were not weak or defenseless, Merkel said, because their strength was rooted in the economy. It was wrong to doubt the effectiveness of sanctions, she insisted. “I am 100 percent convinced that we will win with our principles,” Merkel declared, adding that “when some in the European Union say after just two months we can’t see any effect of the sanctions, then I can only say: ‘That’s not how you win the battle.’”

While the German government stresses that the conflict cannot be won militarily, and proposes to force Russia to submit through economic pressure, a section of the American elite is ever more aggressively advocating supplying weapons. Following Merkel’s speech, US Senator John McCain (Republican from Arizona) attacked the German government in an interview with broadcaster ZDF.

“If one looks at the position of the German government, one could believe they had no idea, or they couldn’t care less, that people in Ukraine were being slaughtered,” the former Republican presidential candidate and chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee said. He asked whether Merkel wanted merely to watch “as a country in Europe was destroyed for the first time since the Second World War.” He added that he was disappointed with the Europeans, but had “expected nothing else.”

Despite the growing tensions between the US and Germany about further actions against Russia, both sides were keen to appear as united as possible before Monday’s meeting between Merkel and Obama in Washington. Secretary of State John Kerry tried to play down the differences regarding weapons deliveries.

“I assure you that there is no split, only people who are trying to create one,” Kerry said in his speech on Sunday. “We are working closely together.” The US was also seeking a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine conflict. “We all agree that this problem cannot be resolved militarily,” Kerry said.

Prior to this, his German counterpart, Foreign Minister Steinmeier, sharply attacked Russia once again. Moscow must “be clear that there is a good future for Russia only with and not against Europe,” he declared. The speech of Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, who accused the US and EU of ratcheting up the conflict in Ukraine, had “not contributed anything,” Steinmeier added.

Behind the mantra of a “diplomatic solution,” the German ruling elite is preparing for war. The chairman of the Federal Armed Forces Association, André Wüstner, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur: “If you want peace, you must prepare for war.”

He called for a massive military build-up. “In order to achieve the optimum deployment capability of the German Armed Forces,” he said, the government must “gradually raise the defence budget over the coming years, from 2016, initially by one billion euros.”

The political significance of the US oil workers’ strike

Jerry White

More than 5,000 refinery workers in the United States are striking against the largest oil conglomerates in the world in a fight for improved living standards and working conditions. Although the United Steelworkers (USW) leadership has deliberately limited the struggle—calling out less than one-fifth of the 30,000 oil workers it organizes—the strike is a harbinger of a renewal of open class struggle in the United States with far-reaching implications in the US and internationally.

The strike and other signs of working-class opposition, including the brewing struggle of West Coast dockworkers, are manifestations of the pent-up anger of workers who have suffered through the longest period of wage stagnation since the Great Depression, even as corporate profits and the stock markets soar in the sixth year of a supposed economic recovery.

In recent months, major think tanks and corporate-controlled publications have warned about the danger of “wages push” by American workers in 2015. Late last year, President Obama held a meeting with the Business Roundtable—which includes top executives from Big Oil—where he complained there was a “disquiet in the general public” over the fact that “wages and incomes still haven’t gone up significantly.”

While Obama has since issued meaningless rhetoric about “inclusive prosperity” and “middle class economics,” his policy has been to transform American workers into a highly exploited cheap labor force. The relentless lowering of wages, begun with Obama’s restructuring of the auto industry, has led to the record corporate profits.

Even though the drop in oil prices has affected their earnings, the big five oil companies—BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Shell—made $89.7 billion in profits last year. While spending tens of billions on stock buybacks and dividends for their super-rich investors, they are drawing a line in the sand against any raises for workers.

The White House has urged the oil companies and the USW “to resolve their differences using the time-tested process of collective bargaining.” This only means that Obama is looking to the “time-tested” USW bureaucracy—whose president, Leo Gerard, sits on Obama’s corporate competitiveness board—to strangle the strike before it can become a catalyst for a wider movement over wages.

The fact that the oil strike has broken out at all is significant. For more than 30 years the class struggle in the US has been suppressed by trade unions, which have functioned as direct adjuncts of the corporations and the state in the systematic destruction of workers’ living standards. Every aspect of life—above all, the explosive growth of social inequality—has been affected by the virtual exclusion of any organized working-class resistance.

Nothing the working class ever gained—the right to organize, the eight-hour day, decent wages, pensions, public education and other social rights—was achieved through the beneficence of the ruling class and the government. It was only wrenched through mass struggles. So fierce were these battles—which characterized much of American history from the 1870s to the 1980s—that they were generally referred to as “labor wars.”

The breakthrough eighty years ago with the formation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was the result of a series of semi-insurrectional struggles, led by socialist and leftwing militants in Toledo, Minneapolis and San Francisco. This was followed by the sit-down strikes in Flint, Michigan, which implicitly challenged the private property of the capitalist owners. Then, in 1937, Chicago cops brutally attacked striking steelworkers, leaving 10 unarmed workers dead in the Memorial Day Massacre of 1937.

However, the newly formed CIO remained subordinate to the Democratic Party, and this political alliance had far-reaching implications for the labor movement. The alliance with the Democrats, a capitalist party, meant an abandonment of any fundamental change in social relations, and the new unions quickly made their peace with American capitalism. This was cemented in the purging of the socialist pioneers who built the industrial unions and the alliance of the CIO with American imperialism. The merger of the AFL and the CIO in 1955 marked the final repudiation of any radical social struggle.

The crisis of the labor movement was exacerbated by the decline in the global position of the United States in the 1960s and 1970s and the end of the period of the postwar boom, when American imperialism held unquestionable sway over the world economy. When the American ruling class abandoned its policy of class compromise and adopted an aggressive policy of class war—symbolized by Reagan’s 1981 firing of 13,000 striking PATCO air traffic controllers—the trade unions not only capitulated; they aided and abetted these attacks.

In the name of boosting the “competitiveness” and profitability of US corporations, the AFL-CIO deliberately isolated and betrayed strike after strike—PATCO, Phelps Dodge, AT Massey, Hormel, Eastern Airlines, Pittston and countless others. The cumulative impact was the transformation of the unions into organizations that in no way represented the working class. The betrayals provided a lucrative path for union bureaucrats, who had no association with any form of class struggle, directly into the structure of corporate management and the capitalist state. As a result, strikes, which were a common feature of American life for a century, have virtually disappeared.

The United Steelworkers is a case in point. Far from opposing the dismantling of the steel industry, the USW colluded with Wall Street and corporate asset strippers to wipe out the jobs and pensions of hundreds of thousands of workers, while preserving the interests of the union executives.

The dissolution of the American labor movement was part of an international process. The global integration of capitalist production undermined the nationally based unions in every country. In order to attract investment, the unions have all been transformed into a labor police force to suppress the class struggle and lower workers’ living standards.

Along with the degeneration of the unions there has been a parallel development in the ranks of the middle-class “left” organizations, which have written off the working class and obsessively focused their attention on race, gender and everything but class. Many of these pseudo-left forces have found lucrative careers trying to keep workers tied to the discredited trade unions.

Now this “sleeping giant”—the American working class—is stirring once again. This will bring to the fore the basic yet unmentionable contradictions of American political and social life: the class struggle.

The reawakening of the working class, strategically located in the center of world imperialism, is a powerful threat to the American ruling elite, which will no longer be the unchallenged master in its own house.

The movement of the American working class is being driven by a profound economic logic. The myth of the land of unlimited opportunity has long been dissipated. Several generations of workers have known nothing but the relentless decay of their living standards. The long suppression of the class struggle by the trade unions has not done away with social tensions, but only ensured that, once released, they will take on an ever more revolutionary character.

The reemergence of social struggle raises complex and difficult political questions. It is necessary to reconnect with the immense traditions of class conflict in the United States, while absorbing and learning from the lessons of history.

The development of a Marxist orientation in the working class will require a relentless exposure of the role of the trade unions and a determined campaign to break their stranglehold over the working class. It requires the fight to develop an understanding among workers of the fundamental politicalquestions at stake, that to secure their interests workers must embark on a path aimed at taking political power and reorganizing society internationally on the basis of socialist principles. It is to this basic task that the Socialist Equality Party is dedicated.

East Timorese prime minister resigns, “national unity” government formed

Patrick Kelly

Xanana Gusmão has formally resigned as prime minister of East Timor, as part of a wider political realignment within the country’s ruling elite. Gusmão nominated as his successor Rui Araujo, of the formerly opposition party Fretilin, with other Fretilin members to join a new “national unity” government.

Gusmão announced last year that he planned to resign. He served as East Timor’s first president from 2002, following the granting of formal independence to the previously Indonesian-occupied half-island. In 2007 he was installed as prime minister, after collaborating the previous year with an Australian-instigated military intervention that led to the ousting of the Fretilin government of Mari Alkatiri. Gusmão’s resignation, more than two years before the end of his second term in office, comes amid escalating economic and social crisis in East Timor

More than 15 years after the Australian military led a bogus “humanitarian intervention” into the statelet in 1999, the claim that the social interests and democratic rights of the Timorese working class and rural poor could be advanced through the formation of a separate capitalist nation state stands exposed as a cruel illusion.

Despite the government reaping billions of dollars in oil and gas revenues—Timor’s energy reserves are the country’s only significant natural resource and source of economic activity—the vast majority of ordinary people remain in desperate poverty. Mass unemployment, especially for young people, wracks the capital Dili, while in rural areas much of the population remains confined to a subsistence existence. A report released late last year by the International Food Policy Research Institute found that Timor trailed only Burundi and Eritrea in having the most widespread hunger of any country. The report also noted that Timor has high levels of underweight children under 5, more than one in three, similar to Niger and Yemen.

At the same time, a narrow Timorese elite has emerged that has amassed enormous personal wealth through lucrative government contracts and related dealings with transnational oil and gas companies.

Now, however, this elite confronts the threat of state bankruptcy and collapse. Only one significant oil and gas project has been developed since so-called independence—the Bayu-Undan field in the Timor Sea, which delivers more than 90 percent of government revenue. This field is due to run dry within the next decade. The far larger Greater Sunrise field remains undeveloped, amid an ongoing standoff between the Timorese government and Woodside Petroleum, which is backed by the Australian government, over where any tapped oil and gas should be processed. Dili is demanding a processing plant be constructed in Timor, while Woodside is holding out for either a pipeline to Australia or a floating facility in the Timor Sea.

The dispute has coincided with far reaching shifts in the international energy market, driven by the rise of natural gas fracking operations in the US and other countries. The recent plunge in the world oil price has fuelled concerns in Timor that the Greater Sunrise project will be rejected as insufficiently profitable by Woodside and the minor consortium partners, America’s ConocoPhillips and Anglo-Dutch Shell.

In its desperation to get Greater Sunrise started, Gusmão last year quietly suspended a crucial legal case in The Hague’s International Court of Justice. The case was an attempt to overturn a 2004 treaty that divided the Greater Sunrise resources between Timor and Australia, despite the vast majority of the reserves lying outside Australia’s lawful territory. Behind closed doors, negotiations are underway between the Australian and Timorese governments.

The escalating economic crisis has driven the rapprochement between Fretilin and Gusmão. Previously bitter enemies within the ruling elite have now closed ranks, attempting to shore up their common class interests.

In 2006, Fretilin leader Mari Alkatiri denounced then President Gusmão for his role in triggering a split in the Timorese armed forces and instigating anti-government riots that provided the pretext for Australian military intervention. After the 2007 elections, in which Fretilin won the most seats in parliament but were denied the opportunity of forming a coalition administration, Mari Alkatiri accused Gusmão of heading an “illegal government.” In 2008, Alkatiriaccused Gusmão of staging a so-called assassination attempt against himself, and also suggested that “rebel” soldier Alfredo Reinado had been set up as part of Gusmão’s efforts to bolster his grip on power.

Now all this has been put aside. In February 2013, Gusmão and Alkatiri announced a “new political arrangement,” in which Fretilin would collaborate with the ruling parties in the country’s parliament and in return would be consulted in different areas of government decision making. For the last two years, Fretilin has effectively functioned as a government party, approving Gusmão’s budgets and voting for other legislation—including numerous anti-democratic laws promoted by Gusmão. A media bill unanimously endorsed by the parliament last year ordered journalists to “promote public interest and democratic order” and “encourage and support high quality economic policies.”

Gusmão appointed Alkatiri chief of the Oecuse region, which is to be developed as a cheap labour “Special Social Market Economy Zone,” attracting investment from transnational textile and other manufacturers. Alkatiri’s evolution, from resistance leader to sweatshop-foreman-in-chief, underscores the utter bankruptcy of bourgeois nationalism.

Alkatiri is now set to play a more prominent role, although he reportedly promised Gusmão that he would not seek to again become prime minister. With Gusmão’s resignation, the “restructuring” of the government is likely to incorporate several Fretilin ministers.

There is no doubt that the imperialist powers are manoeuvring to shore up their interests amid the political realignment in Dili. Canberra ousted Alkatiri in 2006 because he was regarded as too closely aligned with Portugal and China. Gusmão was installed as the Australian government’s man—though he has since sought to manoeuvre with rival powers, using a turn to China and other countries as leverage in the Greater Sunrise dispute. In April last year, both Gusmão and Alkatiri spent a week in China, seeking closer economic and diplomatic relations.

Gusmão’s nominated successor, however, Rui Araujo, has close ties with Canberra and Washington. Previously completing a medical degree in New Zealand, Araujo was installed as deputy prime minister for a period in 2006 after Alkatiri resigned as prime minister. A US diplomatic cable, sent from the Dili embassy on July 10 that year and later published by WikiLeaks, lauded Araujo for his “intelligence and sincerity [and] technical and managerial skills,” adding that he “has a good relationship with the Embassy and USAID.”

Canada’s opposition parties acquiesce to government’s draconian “anti-terror” bill

Roger Jordan

Canada’s opposition parties have signaled that they will mount no serious opposition to the Conservative government’s latest “anti-terror” bill—legislation that would dramatically expand the powers of the national security apparatus and attack core democratic rights.

The Liberals, who polls indicate are the best positioned to unseat the Conservatives in the coming federal election, have announced they will vote in favour of Bill C-51 even if the government rejects the various amendments they intend to propose. The trade-union based NDP, the current official opposition, has thus far refused to say whether it supports or opposes the legislation. Like the Liberals, what criticisms it has made have been confined to the lack of “oversight mechanisms.”

Under Bill C-51, the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS), the country’s premier spy agency, is to be empowered to use illegal means to “disrupt” purported threats to Canada’s national security, a major shift from its current role as an intelligence-gathering agency. “Disruption” techniques could include breaking into homes, interfering with bank accounts and other personal data, and intercepting mail and other packages.

While the government is promoting Bill C-51 as an “anti-terror” law, the legislation stipulates that CSIS can use illegal means against a wide range of threats to Canada’s national security, including threats to its economic stability or territorial integrity, foreign espionage and subversion. CSIS, it should be added, has long subjected a wide array of dissident groups to surveillance, including leftist, environmental and aboriginal groups.

The legislation’s only restrictions on CSIS’s right to “disrupt” are that a judge must approve the target through the issuing of a “disruption” warrant and the secret police’s dirty tricks must not cause bodily harm.

Bill C-51 would also grant the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) additional powers of preventive arrest. Persons whom the authorities contend “may” commit a terrorist act could be detained for up to seven days without charge. Police will also be able to arrest individuals for a new offence of “promoting or advocating” terrorism, a vague formulation that could apply to political opponents of the government’s aggressive war in the Middle East, or potentially even those who use strong language in denouncing the ruling elite’s austerity measures.

The evidence thresholds for detention-without-charge and arrests are to be reduced for terrorist offences.

Neither of the opposition parties has questioned the implications of any of these measures for democratic rights.

Even prior to the bill’s tabling on January 30th, the Liberals announced that they were ready to back it. Last Wednesday, party leader Justin Trudeau confirmed that the Liberals will vote in favour of the bill in parliament, even if their minor amendments to strengthen parliamentary controls over the spy agencies are not adopted. “This bill can be improved, but as a whole, it does include measures that will keep Canadians safe,” declared Trudeau.

The NDP is reportedly now leaning in favor of opposing Bill C-51. But its long silence and refusal to challenge the bill’s sweeping attack on democratic rights indicate that while it may ultimately vote against Bill C-51, its opposition will be muted and pro forma.

In a statement released the same day Prime Minster Stephen Harper outlined the legislation, NDP Foreign Affairs spokesman Paul Dewar attacked the government from the right. After citing the NDP’s call for more third-party oversight of the national security apparatus, Dewar called for more funding for the security services, commenting, “We are also concerned about the cuts Conservatives have made to the police, intelligence and broader security agencies in recent years.”

Fully accepting the reactionary framework of the government’s anti-terrorism rhetoric, and siding with the Conservatives against anyone seeking to question their motives, he went on, “Everyone in Canada is united in our determination to keep this land strong and free. From time to time we will disagree on how to achieve this goal but no matter what differences we may have, we believe all parliamentarians must approach this complex issue with the respect and dignity it deserves and we know that every Member of Parliament is committed to the safety and security of all Canadians.”

NDP leader Thomas Mulcair continued the party’s avoidance of any reference to the bill’s substantive measures during his parliamentary appearance last week. Referring to a Conservative comment that parliamentary oversight of the security agencies would amount to “red tape,” Mulcair rhetorically asked if the government thought “the safety of Canadians” was just “red tape.”

Harper’s government has responded to the opposition by stating that CSIS’s activities are already scrutinized by the Security and Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC). This government-appointed “watchdog” was formed with the explicit aim of removing scrutiny of the intelligence agency’s’ activities from the purview of parliament. It has a long history of apologizing for, or covering up, CSIS misdeeds, including CSIS’s complicity in the torture of Canadians whom it fingered to foreign intelligence agencies. In recent years, the SIRC has issued highly praiseworthy reviews of CSIS, even as one revelation after another has come to light exposing their involvement in mass spying against the Canadian population and lying to the courts.

While the Conservative government now lauds the work of the SIRC, it has in fact shown little regard for it, using it to make patronage appointments and leaving two of its five seats vacant for almost a year. Previous Conservative appointees include Arthur Porter, who is currently imprisoned in Panama fighting extradition to Canada to face charges of accepting millions in bribes, and Chuck Strahl, who was compelled to resign last year due to a lobbying scandal.

While the Conservatives reject any additional oversight of the national-security apparatus, thereby underscoring their contempt for democratic rights, the opposition parties are suggesting that Canadians’ rights would be secure if only the government followed the example of the US, Britain and Australia, where a handful of legislators, vetted and sworn to secrecy, review the activities of their countries’ respective spy agencies.

The fact that the assault on democratic rights has been just as severe in countries where parliamentarians enjoy a formal supervisory role—as underscored by the blanket spying operations of the US National Security Agency (NSA)—is passed over by the Liberals and NDP in silence.

Much of the coverage in the mainstream media has portrayed the unwillingness of the opposition to openly criticize Bill C-51 as a product of their unease at being labelled “soft on terror” by Harper and his Conservatives in the upcoming federal election campaign. There is no denying that Harper is preparing to conduct far and away the most right-wing election campaign in modern Canadian history, whipping up a climate of fear over the purported threat posed by Islamist terrorism and championing Canada’s participation in the new Mideast war.

However, the more fundamental reason for the opposition’s lack of criticism is that the ruling elite as a whole is in broad agreement with the destruction of democratic rights and the construction of a police state. They see it as essential in dealing with the growing opposition among the working class to their strategy of aggressive war abroad and attacks on social rights at home.

Both the Liberals and NDP have proven themselves to be loyal defenders of the Canadian bourgeoisie and its state.

In the immediate aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, it was a Liberal government under Prime Minister Jean Chretien that brought forward Canada’s first major piece of anti-terror legislation, creating a new category of criminal offenses with special rules and harsher penalties. The 2001 Anti-Terrorism Law undermines basic legal and democratic principles, such as the right to remain silent. It also includes an all-embracing definition of terrorism which in the future could be invoked against striking workers or militant anti-government protest over issues such as the environment.

Neither the Liberals nor NDP have condemned the mass surveillance being conducted by Canada’s signals intelligence agency, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE), even after the government admitted that it is systematically spying on the metadata of Canadians’ electronic communications.

The NDP has lined up time and again on the side of the state in opposition to the population. In the wake of the police brutality at the G20 protests in Toronto in 2010, they defended the police operation as appropriate. Then, when the Quebec provincial government brought in its draconian Bill 78, banning demonstrations throughout the province and effectively illegalizing the 2012 Quebec student strike, the NDP refused to criticize the law on the spurious grounds that it was a “provincial” matter.

Shia insurgents disband US-backed Yemeni government

Thomas Gaist

Tribal-based militant groups associated with the Houthi insurgency moved last week to dissolve Yemen’s parliament and other official government institutions, completing a slow-motion process that began last September when the insurgents seized effective control of the capital Sanaa.

After laying siege over the four intervening months, the militants took over the presidential palace and personal residence of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi in January, conducting negotiations with Hadi at gunpoint in his home.

Hadi initially agreed to Houthi demands for control of large sections of the Yemeni state, but he resigned within days, together with the country’s prime minister and leading cabinet members. The Houthis have taken advantage of the ensuing power vacuum to establish a new “Revolutionary Committee,” and they are currently engaged in discussions aimed at formation of some sort of coalition government.

Yemen has been a critical base of operations of American imperialism, and the Obama administration is currently considering means to maintain its control. This includes the option of working with the Houthis, despite Obama’s recent enthusiastic celebrations of the toppled Hadi regime as a “model” for US policy throughout the region.

The US developed close relations with long-time Yemeni ruler Ali Abdullah Saleh and his successor. Saleh left office in 2012, and his successor Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi worked closely with a US special envoy to coordinate Yemen’s participation in the “war on terror.” Both Saleh and Hadi also relied on financial support from Saudi Arabia, a chief US ally in the region, which has cut off aid in response to the Houthi takeover.

Indicating that the Obama administration is willing to work with the Houthis to insure the continuity of the US drone war and US special forces operations targeting Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), an administration official told the Los Angeles Times, “We’re talking with everybody, everybody who will talk with us.” Thus far, however, the Houthis have reportedly refused to meet with US emissaries.

“The central question for US officials is whether that next government can be persuaded to join in counterterrorism against Al Qaeda at all—let alone as enthusiastically as the last government,” the Times noted.

While framed in terms of a struggle against Al Qaeda, the main concern of US imperialism is to ensure that it controls Yemen, which occupies a key geostrategic position, particularly for oil transport.

At the same time, other factions of the US state have called for military action against the Houthis. Senator John McCain has called for more “boots on the ground” and has demanded a region-wide military escalation against Iran and its allies, including the Houthis.

The Houthi takeover demonstrates that “Iran is on the march” throughout the Middle East, McCain has warned.

In a paper released in late January, Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), pointed to the strategic interests at stake for the American ruling class. “The United States has been involved in a low-level war in Yemen for years and seems to be losing it decisively. Yemen may seem far away, but it is on the border of Saudi Arabia and a critical center of the oil exports that feed the global economy, as well as that of the United States. Yemen is also the center of al Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula—arguably the most direct terrorist threat to the United States.”

Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia—the main regional allies of the US—have also expressed opposition to the Houthis.

In a reflection of rising tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the Saudi-dominated Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has issued a formal condemnation of the new government. The coup represents a grave threat to “the security and stability of the region and the interests of its people,” the GCC said.

The Houthi victory represents a significant blow against the Saudi monarchy, which waged a brief and disastrous military campaign against the militants in 2009.

The Houthi takeover also threatens to spark a civil war within Yemen itself. The new Houthi-led government is already preparing air strikes against targets in the country’s western provinces including Maarib, where much of Yemen’s oil resources are located, according to sources cited by Asharq Al-Awsat. “The situation is very, very seriously deteriorating with the Houthis taking power and making this government vacuum in power. There must be a restoration of legitimacy of President Hadi,” declared UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

These developments are part of a broader breakdown of the nation-state framework throughout wide areas of Africa and Asia, which is accelerating under the impact of endless neocolonial wars and occupations by the US and European powers.

Yemen’s commanding position overlooking one of the world’s most critical strategic arteries—the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, which controls access to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal—means that whoever controls Yemen’s government can potentially halt the flow of North African oil shipments, as well as US and European grain exports to Asia, into the Indian Ocean.

“Yemen is one of the worst places on earth to cede to terrorists due to its key strategic location, including a long border with Saudi Arabia. It also dominates one of the region’s key waterways, the Bab al-Mandeb Strait which controls access to the southern Red Sea,” noted a US Army War College paper, “The Struggle for Yemen and the Challenge of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.”

The Egyptian military regime of Abdel Fattah El Sisi also has massive interests at stake, having allocated more than 60 billion Egyptian pounds for the New Suez Canal project.

Stock markets fall on fears of Greek exit from euro zone

Robert Stevens

Financial markets fell in Greece and internationally Monday, in response to Greek prime minister and Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras’s speech to parliament the previous evening.

Presenting a series of limited reforms, including a gradual increase in the minimum wage and restoration of pension rights, Tsipras said his government would not seek an extension of the “troika” (European Commission, European Central Bank, International Monetary Fund) austerity programme, due to expire on February 28.

Athens’ stance that it will not extend the troika’s cuts, but will instead reverse some of the austerity policies imposed by previous governments, sent stock markets in Greece plunging. Within minutes, the Athens market was down 4.15 percent, while Greece’s main banks fell by 8 percent overall. By noon, the banks had fallen by 25 percent in three days.

The yield (interest rate) on two-year Greek bonds rose to 20 percent, forcing up the cost of government borrowing. The Wall Street Journal noted this was a sign that investors are worried that Greece could default on its debt. New data from the Greek Court of Auditors revealed the nation’s foreign debt amounts to €324 billion, exceeding 180 percent of GDP.

The fall in Greek stocks had a knock-on effect on markets throughout Europe, with Germany’s DAX down 1.7 percent, Spain’s IBEX 35 down 2.2 percent and Italy’s FTSE MIB down 2.0 percent. Wall Street fell by 70 points on opening.

On Monday evening, rating agency Moody’s, which on Friday put Greece’s sovereign debt rating on review for a possible downgrade, cut the credit rating of five major Greek banks.

The British government convened its emergency COBRA committee. The meeting was attended by Prime Minister David Cameron and representatives from the Treasury, the Bank of England, the Foreign Office and the Business Department. Cameron’s spokesman said, “We need to be prepared to deal with uncertainties in financial markets. It is something we want to be vigilant about...clearly there are global economic inter-dependencies and London is a major financial centre.”

On Wednesday, a “euro group” meeting of euro zone finance ministers will discuss the Greek crisis. The Syriza-Independent Greeks coalition government is to present its debt restructuring proposals to the meeting. Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis signaled that he is seeking a deal with EU governments, stating, “At Eurogroup, I will not be a yes man, but I will say ‘yes’ to proposals that make sense.”

A finance ministry official said Athens will request a bridge loan from the euro group, including the return of €1.9 billion in profit made by the European Central Bank and other central banks on Greek bonds.

Syriza is not opposed in principle to the troika’s demand that Greece implement “structural reforms” slashing workers’ living standards.Kathemerini stated: “Behind the public rhetoric, the Greek government has shifted to a more cooperative tone in recent conversations with the troika, according to an official representing the creditors.”

Varoufakis told parliament that the government would implement around 70 percent of the current troika-agreed programme. Reports emerged Monday afternoon that Varoufakis would propose an “intermediate” bridging agreement until September 1 and, according to the Guardian, may table “10 new reforms to cover the parts of the bailout programme which it is now rejecting.”

Syriza’s central preoccupation is the defence of Greek and European capitalism. Varoufakis told the Guardian, “[A]llowing it [the euro] to fragment would be catastrophic…it is the moral duty of the critics of the euro zone to fix it, to make sure it doesn’t collapse, because if it does, the cost will be immense not just for the Greeks but the Brits, everyone.”

After a week in which European Union (EU) leaders from London to Romeinsisted the Syriza government repay Greece’s debts, European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said Monday: “Greece shouldn’t assume that the overall mood in Europe has changed to the point that the euro zone would endorse Mr. Tsipras’s entire government agenda without limitations.”

Greece could be forced to default on its debt in a matter of weeks, if agreement cannot be found at a February 16 euro group meeting. EU finance ministers have declared this the deadline for Greece to agree on an extension of the EU’s austerity programme. Kathemerini reported Monday, “Without concessions, the government may run out of money before the end of March, forcing Tsipras either to cave in to European demands or abandon the single currency.”

Financial Times columnist Wolfgang Münchau, a staunch advocate of Syriza’s debt restructuring programme, warned, “It was an utterly disastrous week of economic diplomacy. All that separates us from Grexit are a few more weeks like that one.”

While pointing to the dangers of Greece leaving the euro, he noted that that pressure from hostile European leaders, led by Germany and the markets, could force Syriza to climb down even further on its anti-austerity rhetoric: “Watch out for euphemisms in which programmes become contracts, the troika turns into a consultant, and austerity becomes growth-friendly consolidation.”

Germany, with Chancellor Angela Merkel and Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble leading the calls, is ever more vocal in insisting that Greece continue to strictly impose previously agreed austerity. On Monday, Schäuble said , “ Without a programme, things will be tough for Greece.”

Other European powers consider looser credit and rescheduling of Greek debt repayments as the best tactic to force austerity on Greece and ensure the money they have loaned to Greece is paid back. At Monday’s G20 meeting, French finance minister Michel Sapin said, “We need financing, otherwise Greece would be subjected to market panic.”

Whereas the EU “cannot just say ‘we’ll fund, we’ll fund,’ ” he cautioned, “It’s not possible for the Greek government to hear ‘we’re going to continue as if nothing has happened,’ even if it’s not for long.”

Washington is also concerned about the consequences of Greece being forced from the euro zone, particularly under conditions where it is seeking to ensure it remains part of the NATO alliance, as both Russia and China try to cement closer political and economic ties to Athens.

The Financial Times reported Monday, “The Obama administration is pushing euro zone leaders to compromise more with Athens as fears grow that a protracted stand-off could damage the global economy.”

Citing “mounting concern in Brussels and Washington about the hard-line stand taken by some euro zone governments, particularly Germany,” the article cites an unnamed senior US official who said, “I don’t think our attitude has changed but what’s changed is that suddenly the situation in Greece is looking more problematic.... We believe that any fragmentation would have a severe spillover effect.”

The Obama administration is despatching the Treasury department’s top Europe official, Daleep Singh, to Athens. The Financial Times noted that US “officials said they were pushing euro zone officials to put aside any consideration of Greek exit from the euro and help find ways for Athens to spur growth.”

In a veiled call for further austerity, he added, “They [Greece] need to hold on to the gains from the reforms they’ve already made and they need to press forward with the kind of structural changes that a lot of people believe are needed to make Greece more competitive.”

Obama refuses to rule out arming Kiev following talks with Merkel

Patrick Martin & Barry Grey

At a joint White House press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday, President Barack Obama made clear he was considering authorizing the dispatch of advanced weapons to the US- and NATO-backed regime in Kiev, to be used against pro-Russian separatist forces in eastern Ukraine.

Obama indicated that he would wait to see the results of talks set for Wednesday in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, between Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, French President François Hollande and Merkel before making a decision on sending US arms to Kiev. The talks are aimed at brokering a new cease-fire agreement between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatists following the collapse of an agreement reached last September.

At the press conference following talks with Merkel, Obama said: “If, in fact, diplomacy fails, what I’ve asked my team to do is to look at all options. What other means can we put in place to change Mr. Putin’s calculus? And the possibility of lethal defensive weapons is one of those options being examined.”

Obama then added, “I want to emphasize that a decision has not yet been made.”

The US president left open the sending of weapons such as antitank missiles and armored vehicles to the Kiev regime, which has lost territory in the east of the country to rebel forces in recent weeks, despite warnings from prominent officials and some newspapers internationally that doing so could dramatically escalate the conflict and trigger a military conflict between NATO and Russia, with the possibility of a nuclear Third World War.

Merkel and the leaders of Britain and France have made clear in recent days that they oppose a US move to directly arm Kiev. Instead, they call for tougher economic sanctions combined with increased NATO military forces in the Baltic states and Eastern Europe to compel Moscow to accept the transformation of Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, into a staging ground for US and European imperialist moves to reduce Russia to a semicolonial status.

In her remarks, Merkel indicated her opposition to the dispatch of American weapons to Ukraine, saying, “I don’t see a military solution to this conflict.” But she stressed that Europe and the US were united in backing the Ukrainian regime, which came to power last February in a US- and German-backed coup led by fascist militias, and forcing Russia to end its support for pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk, Luhansk and other Russian-speaking regions.

“On certain issues we may not always agree,” she said, suggesting that Germany would continue to back the US-led offensive against Russia even if Washington decided to arm the Kiev government.

Obama, for his part, seemed to echo Merkel, saying there “may be some areas where there are tactical differences” while the US and Europe remained united in basic strategy and goals.

US military and civilian officials, including some within the Obama administration, are pushing for a decision to begin sending heavy arms to Kiev. At the Munich Security Conference last Saturday, US Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, NATO’s military commander, said sending weapons to help Ukrainian forces crush the separatists should not be ruled out.

At a Senate confirmation hearing last week, Obama’s choice to become the next defense secretary, Ashton Carter, said he would be inclined to back Ukraine with American arms.

Ukrainian President Poroshenko triggered the latest crisis in eastern Ukraine by ordering an offensive by Ukrainian military forces, including some battalions of neofascist “volunteers.” It is inconceivable that he would have done so without Washington’s approval.

The Russian-backed forces routed the invaders around the Donetsk airport and have pressed a counterattack, taking control of an additional 500 square kilometers of territory and threatening the town of Debaltseve, which sits on the main road between Luhansk and Donetsk. As many as 3,000 Ukrainian troops are trapped in the town and could be forced to surrender.

Washington, NATO, the European Union and the media have portrayed the fighting in eastern Ukraine as a Russian invasion, although the vast majority of combatants are drawn from the Donbass region, where most people are Russian speakers and the government in Kiev is widely hated.

Obama repeated the claims of “Russian aggression” at the onset of his joint press conference with Merkel, saying that “Russian forces continue to operate” in Ukraine, “training separatists and helping to coordinate attacks.”

Last week’s sudden trip by Hollande and Merkel to Kiev and Moscow, setting the stage for Wednesday’s summit in Minsk, appeared to be driven by concern that a US decision to provide billions in weapons to Ukraine was imminent and could escalate the crisis enormously.

A top official of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe told journalists at the Munich conference that he feared weapons deliveries would turn the crisis into an “existential conflict for Russia against NATO.”

Similar concerns were expressed in the American media, albeit by a small minority in the US national security establishment. The New York Timespublished an op-ed Monday by Professor John Mearsheimer under the headline “Don’t Arm Ukraine,” which asked rhetorically whether the United States would accept Canada or Mexico joining a hostile military alliance.

Even the rabid anti-Russian publicist Anne Applebaum, a Washington Postcolumnist, expressed concern about “a new World War” emerging from the Ukraine crisis, although she offered the lesser evil of “a new Cold War” in which NATO would “build a Berlin Wall around Donetsk in the form of a demilitarized zone and treat the rest of Ukraine like West Germany.”

White House urges USW to strangle oil workers’ strike

Jerry White & E.P Bannon

Workers at two of the largest oil refineries in the Midwest United States are scheduled to join the weeklong oil workers strike on Saturday at midnight. More than 1,000 workers at BP Whiting Refinery, near Hammond, Indiana, and another 600 at a Toledo, Ohio refinery owned jointly by BP and Husky, will join the walkout by 3,800 workers at nine of the 65 refineries across the US organized by the United Steelworkers (USW).
Among rank-and-file workers there is support for an all out national strike by the 30,000 workers covered by the national labor agreement. The USW has sought to contain this opposition but the oil companies have not given union officials anything they could sell to their members as a concession. On Thursday, union officials rejected the sixth proposal from Royal Dutch Shell, which is the lead bargainer for BP, ExxonMobil, Chevron and other oil giants, and talks on a new three-year agreement have been suspended until next week.
Like workers throughout the rest of the economy, oil workers are seeking to recoup lost wages, lower out-of-pocket health care costs, shorten their hours of labor and improve working conditions. The oil conglomerates, which have spent billions on dividends and stock buybacks to enrich their investors and corporate executives, have pointed to the fall in crude oil prices to oppose any improvement in workers’ living standards and expand the use of lower-paid, part-time and temporary workers. Earlier this month, BP froze pay for all non-union employees company-wide.
BP management responded provocatively to the strike notice, saying, “We are committed to ensuring a safe and orderly transition as USW employees choose to strike and trained replacement workers take their place,” Scott Dean, a spokesman for BP, said by e-mail Friday. “BP has trained replacement workers comprised primarily of current and former BP employees to safely and compliantly operate the refinery for the duration of this strike.”
The Whiting refinery, BP’s largest, produces gasoline for much of the Midwest, as well as aviation fuel, kerosene, propane and more than eight percent of the country’s asphalt. The Toledo facility processes 160,000 barrels of oil daily, including from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada.

BP’s Whiting, Indiana refinery

On Thursday the Obama White House weighed in calling for a quick end to the strike. In a statement, the president’s deputy press secretary Frank Benenati wrote, “We are monitoring the situation and urge labor and management to resolve their differences using the time-tested process of collective bargaining.”
To this point, the partial strike has had limited economic impact, with about 13 percent of the nation’s refining capacity affected with the two BP refineries added. The Obama administration, however, is concerned that the USW could lose control and the struggle could inspire other sections of workers into action against decades of falling living standards.
In recent months, various think tanks have warned of the danger of a “wages push” by American workers who have suffered the longest period of wage stagnation since the Great Depression even as corporate profits and the stock market have soared. (See: “The Coming Fight Over Wages in the US”).
Despite Obama’s rhetoric about “inclusive prosperity” and “middle class economics,” the administration’s economic policy has been based on an unrelenting campaign to drive down wages and shift health care costs from corporations to the backs of workers.
And like his Republican predecessor, Obama is no less a stooge of Big Oil. This was shown in his kid gloves treatment of BP after the Gulf oil spill and the decision by the US Justice Department last year to drop charges against Tesoro whose criminal disregard for the safety led to the explosion which killed seven Tesoro workers in Anacortes, Washington, in 2010.
What does the White House mean about using the “time-tested process of collective bargaining” to resolve the issues in the strike?
The president is well aware that the trade unions are committed, just as much as the oil companies, to boost the profits and competitiveness of American capitalism at the expense of the working class. He is concerned that the intransigence of the oil giants and any effort to impose their demands without the assistance of the unions could provoke an explosive response by workers.
Since taking office, the Obama administration has relied on the unions to suppress the opposition of the working class to the greatest transfer of wealth from the bottom to top in American history. This includes the help of the United Auto Workers in cutting labor costs in the auto industry by nearly 35 percent. This is why Obama appointed USW President Leo Gerard to his Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP) Steering Committee where he works with corporate executives from Dow Chemical, Alcoa, Caterpillar and other Fortune 500 companies to slash labor costs in the name of boosting their “international competitiveness.”
Meanwhile Gerard & Co. spread the poison of economic nationalism, claiming that the loss of jobs and declining living standards in America are caused by “currency manipulation” by Japan and China, not the capitalist profit system. This only serves to divide and weaken workers in the face of the attack by global corporations like BP, Shell and Exxon Mobil, while lining up American workers for another war.
The USW presents Obama as “pro-worker” and invited Democratic congressmen Gene Green and Al Green to lead the singing of “We Shall Overcome” at Friday’s rally at Shell’s Houston headquarters. But if oil workers were to break the restraints of the USW and shut down the oil industry, Obama and the Democrats would prove to be their enemies no less than the Republicans. In the event of such a struggle, these erstwhile “friends of labor” would use anti-strike laws, mobilize the police and National Guard to escort scabs through the picket lines and arrest strikers in the name of defending “national security.”
In the face of this anti-working class gang-up, the USW is trying to silence strikers and “control the message” by claiming that the strike is over safety not wages. For workers it is not an “either/or” issue. Workers have the right to improved living standards and a safe job! The claim that multi-billion corporations cannot afford both is a fraud.
Oil workers must break out of the straitjacket being imposed by the USW, spread the strike throughout the entire industry and fight for the mobilization of the widest sections of the working class in a common struggle to defend jobs and living standards. To do this, rank-and-file strike committees, made up of the most class-conscious and militant workers, should be organized, independently of the USW and both big business parties.

Haiti: Martelly to rule by decree

John Marion

Haiti’s parliament stopped sitting on January 12, when the terms of all 99 deputies in the lower house and 10 of the country’s senators expired. The remaining 10 senators are scheduled to serve another two years but cannot meet without a quorum consisting of half the members of each house. The Senate is supposed to have 30 members, the terms of which 10 expired two years ago without elections to replace them.
Under Haiti’s 1987 Constitution, deputies serve four-year terms, the duration of a parliament, and senators serve six-year terms on a staggered schedule.
There have been no parliamentary elections in the country since 2010. The current crisis was brought about by the refusal of President Michel Martelly and the Senate to agree on a law for administering elections. While blaming the crisis on a group of six opposition senators, Martelly is the clear beneficiary and the US government has come down on his side.
With backing from the US and UN, Martelly is now able to rule by decree until at least the fall, when the next presidential election is due. Having been forced—by a commission chaired by the head of Haiti’s National Chamber of Commerce and Industry—to fire Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe in December, Martelly waited until after parliament’s dissolution to install a new government.
Martelly’s new Prime Minister Evans Paul is a career politician who has moved dramatically to the right since he managed Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s presidential campaign in 1990. In January 2014, Paul appeared alongside Martelly, Jean-Claude Duvalier, and former coup leader General Prosper Avril at a ceremony commemorating the 210th anniversary of Haiti’s revolution against French colonialism.
After being sworn in as prime minister, Paul met dutifully with US Ambassador Pamela White and the US State Department’s Special Coordinator Thomas Adams. White had visited parliament on January 11 with the Canadian Ambassador and a UN official in an attempt to convince the deputies and senators to extend the end dates of their own terms. The diplomats were concerned about maintaining a pretense of democracy in the face of growing street protests. Several senators are reported to have skipped the last session out of spite.
Meanwhile, the social conditions for the masses in Haiti continue to deteriorate. A strike by public transportation workers over the price of gas and diesel fuel received widespread public support on Monday, shutting down commerce and schools in Port-au-Prince. The government, which buys petroleum from Venezuela at a steep discount through the PetroCaribe treaty, nonetheless sets the price of gasoline at more than $4 per gallon. The strike was sold out by the unions after only one day.
The US openly backs Martelly, a former musical performer linked to the old Duvalierist dictatorship. In a January 16 phone call to Martelly, US Vice President Joe Biden also took the position that parliament is to blame for the electoral impasse and praised the president’s attempts at “compromise.” He went on to implicitly approve a Martelly dictatorship, stating “the United States remains Haiti’s committed friend and partner … as President Martelly’s administration works to build a more prosperous and secure future for the Haitian people.”
On Tuesday, Le Nouvelliste published an interview with an unnamed businessman involved in forcing Lamothe out of office. After telling the paper that the government should not print more money to cover its debts, this power behind the throne noted that US $250 million will be needed just to keep the government afloat until the next scheduled elections. Such money is likely to come from foreign governments, and he who pays the piper calls the tune.
For his part, Evans Paul warned the CEP (Provisional Electoral Council) not to spend too much on democracy. Martelly appointed the latest version of the CEP—there have been five during his presidency—after parliament’s dissolution, in violation of Haiti’s 1987 constitution. Promising “good elections at a better cost,” Paul stated: “we cannot always make elections and see that it is others who pay for us.”
Such thrift will not apply in protecting the interests of imperialist nations and Haiti’s bourgeoisie. MINUSTAH, the UN occupation force that has been in place since 2004 and which introduced cholera to the country, has a budget of US $500.1 million for the year ending June 30, 2015.
Representatives of the 15 member states of the United Nations Security Council visited Port-au-Prince and Cap Haitien this weekend. While making noises about the need for elections, they also concerned themselves with reviewing Martelly’s national police force (PNH). The UN has been insisting that Haiti create a national police as a condition for withdrawing any of the more than 7,000 uniformed MINUSTAH personnel still in the country. The army, which historically had carried out this policing function, was disbanded by Aristide in 1995.
Reacting to the possibility of a MINUSTAH draw-down, the new Minister of Justice Pierre Richard Casimir said, “I reiterate to the UN Security Council our request to not reduce the Minustah forces during the electoral process. On the contrary, it is necessary to reinforce the UN contingent in Haiti; indeed, electoral periods are sometimes marked by tensions and troubles.”
Martelly’s own ascension to the presidency in 2010-2011 was anything but democratic. Voter turnout in the first round of elections was less than 23 percent, in part because of the devastation wrought by the earthquake but also because Aristide’s Fanmi Lavalas was excluded on a technicality.
In November 2010, Jude Célestin, the candidate of the Inite party of then-president René Préval, placed second ahead of Martelly in the first round. This result qualified Célestin for the runoff election against frontrunner Mirlande Manigat, but there were immediate accusations of fraud. After the intervention of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Organization of American States, Célestin withdrew.
A post-election statistical analysis carried out by the Center for Economic and Policy Research found that if all disputed ballots were excluded, the participation rate was only 20.1 percent of eligible voters. Martelly received support from only 4.5 percent of eligible voters in the first round.
An “Expert Verification Mission” from the Organization of American States, of which nearly all members were from the US, Canada, and France, advocated giving Martelly second place in the first vote. In a January 2011 debate at the UN Security Council, then-US Ambassador Susan Rice “threatened Haiti with a possible cut-off of aid if the government did not accept the Mission’s recommendations,” according to CEPR. Préval was also threatened with exile if he didn’t comply.
The CEPR’s statistical analysis found that the OAS completely excluded 1,053 disputed tally sheets. These were from areas “that were more pro-Célestin than the general electorate.” The OAS admitted to CEPR that these should have been included, and also that it had not done any statistical inference from the sheets it did count.
Voter participation was only 23 percent in the second round, which occurred four months later. Martelly beat Manigat in that election by at least 20 percent, in part because of support from a public relations firm with ties to John McCain. The firm, Ostos and Sola, also had a hand in the election of Mexico’s Felipe Calderon in 2006. In the second round, Martelly’s campaign spent about US $6 million on electronic messaging in a country where more than half of the population lives on less than $2 per day.

Official enthusiasm over January jobs report belied by economic reality

Nick Barrickman

The US Labor Department released its monthly jobs report Friday, showing that US businesses added 257,000 positions for the month of January. The unemployment rate increased slightly, from 5.6 to 5.7 percent, while the labor force participation rate rose to 62.9 percent. The Labor Department said the increase in the unemployment rate was due to unemployed workers returning to the job market.
The Obama Administration hailed the figures, proclaiming in a statement that, “with today’s strong employment report, we have now seen eleven straight months of job gains above 200,000—the first time that has happened in nearly two decades.”
Media commentators cited the figures as proof that US workers were experiencing the effects of an economic recovery. “The January jobs report isn't just a single piece of good news. It marks a sea change in the labor market in which the middle class and working class are finally starting to get ahead,” wrote Bloomberg economic editor Peter Coy.
The ecstatic response to the jobs report came despite the announcement this week of some of the worst mass layoffs and store closings in recent memory. On Wednesday, Office supply retailer Staples announced plans to buy its rival Office Depot, which would result in the closure of up to a thousand stores and tens of thousands of layoffs.
On Thursday, electronics retailer RadioShack filed for bankruptcy, saying it plans to close up to 3,500 stores, meaning tens of thousands of additional layoffs.
Also this week, the e-commerce giant eBay announced plans to let go of 2,400 workers this quarter due to “weak holiday sales.” Mass layoffs have been announced within the last month by American Express, Schlumberger, Baker Hughes, DreamWorks Animation, and clothing retailers J.C. Penney and Macy’s.
In January, all major groups of workers saw either increasing or stagnant unemployment rates. Teenagers saw the highest amount of joblessness, increasing to 18.8 percent.
Job growth in January was dominated by the mostly low-paying retail sector, accounting for 46,000 positions – the largest amount from any industry. Construction firms and manufacturers added 39,000 and 22,000 jobs, respectively, and hotels, restaurants and other service sector areas added 37,100 positions.
The number of officially jobless US workers remained at roughly 9 million. The long term jobless, those out of work for 27 months or more, made up 2.8 million of the total amount, or over 31 percent. The report notes that over the past year, this group has seen only a slight decrease in its ranks.
Underemployed workers, or those working part-time for economic reasons, were counted at nearly 6.8 million. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the US economy still has more than 5.8 million “missing workers” who have given up on looking for work. If these workers were to be included in official counts, the unemployment rate would stand at roughly 9 percent today.
Wage growth in the US has remained virtually stagnant. January’s 12 cent wage increase, bringing average US wages to $24.75 an hour, represents an increase of less than 0.5 percent. A report released last September by the US Federal Reserve noted that average US household income dropped by 12 percent from 2007 to 2013, a decline of nearly $6,400 a year for the typical American household. According to the Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure, 47 percent of Americans have incomes below 200 percent of the official poverty level, characterizing half of the country as either poor or near-poor.
The economic “recovery” long touted by the US political establishment has seen an expansion of low-paying jobs as higher-paying ones have been eliminated. A 2014 report by the National Employment Law Project notes that while US businesses have added 1.85 million low-wage jobs over the past six years, they have eliminated 1.83 million medium-wage and high-wage jobs.
This week, Jim Clifton, head of the Gallup polling agency, penned a scathing denunciation of the claims that the US unemployment rate is back to “normal” levels.
“There’s no other way to say this,” he wrote. “The official unemployment rate, which cruelly overlooks the suffering of the long-term and often permanently unemployed as well as the depressingly underemployed, amounts to a Big Lie.”
“Gallup defines a good job as 30+ hours per week for an organization that provides a regular paycheck. Right now, the U.S. is delivering at a staggeringly low rate of 44%, which is the number of full-time jobs as a percent of the adult population, 18 years and older. We need that to be 50% and a bare minimum of 10 million new, good jobs to replenish America’s middle class.”
He added, “I hear all the time that “unemployment is greatly reduced, but the people aren’t feeling it. When the media, talking heads, the White House and Wall Street start reporting the truth—the percent of Americans in good jobs; jobs that are full time and real—then we will quit wondering why Americans aren’t ‘feeling’ something that doesn’t remotely reflect the reality in their lives.”