The Minsk truce: A hiatus in an escalating war

Peter Schwarz

The truce in Ukraine agreed by the German chancellor and the presidents of Russia, France and Ukraine after 16 hours of negotiations in Minsk is merely a hiatus in an escalating war. Although few details of the agreement have emerged, Western media outlets declared almost unanimously the inevitable failure of the truce—blaming the Russian president, as usual.

In reality, the Minsk agreement only came about because the Kiev regime, which came to power in a Western-backed putsch a year ago, urgently needs a respite.

The Ukrainian army has been weakened by desertions and a succession of defeats. Fewer and fewer young men are willing to fire on their countrymen and die for a regime that offers nothing but poverty and unemployment. The only forces willing to do battle are ultra-right voluntary forces, over which the Kiev regime has tenuous control.

Financially, Ukraine is bankrupt. Its economic output has slumped by 8 percent, and its foreign currency reserves have shrunk to $6.6 billion—barely enough to fund one month of imports. Immediately after the Minsk agreement was struck, the International Monetary Fund promised a $40 billion aid package to Petro Poroshenko's regime, which could implode under pressure from an impoverished, war-weary population on the one hand, and far-right forces in the state apparatus on the other.

Washington did everything it could to strengthen Poroshenko's hand before the Minsk talks. US sources advocated delivering weapons and training Ukrainian soldiers. US President Barack Obama even placed a personal call to Putin, threatening "rising costs" for Russia if it continued "its aggressive advances in Ukraine".

In Minsk, the Russian delegation made far-reaching concessions—from “full respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine,” to transferring control of the Russian border to Kiev. According to statements by Merkel and Hollande, Putin also pressed the separatists to agree to the deal. For his part, Poroshenko repeatedly threatened to repudiate the agreement.

What is occurring is not primarily an internal Ukrainian matter, nor a confrontation between Kiev and Moscow, but a far broader geopolitical conflict.

Washington financed the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine and in 2014 supported the coup against Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in order to isolate and crush Russia. For Washington, it is not just a matter of controlling Ukraine, but also of enforcing its supremacy in the Middle East, where Moscow supports the Syrian government against Washington, and in the Far East, where a strategic Russian-Chinese alliance looms.

For the same reasons, Washington is now stoking war in Ukraine. This is the purpose of the proposed arms shipments. They would not enable Kiev to win the war, but to engage Russia in "a drawn-out, larger war [that] makes it more vulnerable on other flanks, such as the restive North Caucasus and Central Asia," as military experts told the Financial Times. "There are just not enough Russian soldiers to fight a war of attrition in Ukraine,” one of them said.

Germany backed the coup in Kiev and the Poroshenko regime as part of its objective to ditch its post-war policy of military restraint and play a greater role in world politics, as announced by the German president Joachim Gauck early last year. By actively intervening in Ukraine, which German armies occupied in both the First and Second World Wars, the German ruling class is following in the footsteps of its traditional policy of expansion to the east.

Washington and Berlin initially acted in concord. They worked closely together to build up the Ukrainian opposition, prepare the coup of February 2014, and strengthen Poroshenko's regime. Recent US demands for military escalation, however, have set off alarm bells in Berlin.

While German imperialism remains intent on integrating Ukraine into the European Union and weakening Russia via economic sanctions, it wants to avoid an escalation of the war. This would have a devastating impact on Germany and all of Europe, which have close economic ties with Russia and depend on Russian energy supplies. A drawn-out war would inevitably spill over into other European countries, cause waves of refugees, and destabilize the entire European Union. This is why Merkel and Hollande campaigned in Minsk for a ceasefire.

At the Munich Security Conference, Merkel was fiercely criticized by US officials. In an editorial Thursday, the weekly Die Zeit complained: "The US's impatience is not directed at Putin but at Chancellor Merkel. Anyone who does not allow enough time for the EU's policy of sanctions to take effect is playing into the hands of the Kremlin. If there is to be an escalation, then let it be with the sanctions!"

The article concludes, "Of course the West must not become divided. For that reason this time the US must cede to Europe's leaders."

Washington is hardly likely to concede.

It was no coincidence that the First World War erupted in 1914 in the Balkans. The region was a crossroads for the overlapping interests of the imperialist powers, which went on to fight a four-year war costing millions of lives. Similarly, the crisis in Ukraine reveals the tensions and contradictions that threaten to plunge the world for a third time into a bloody holocaust that could end civilization.

Russia is the victim and not the perpetrator of imperialist aggression in Ukraine, but the Putin regime is absolutely incapable of countering the threat of war. Emerging from the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it embodies the most reactionary layers of Russian society. By fueling nationalism and threatening military retaliation, Moscow is risking global nuclear war.

The recent developments confirm the warning expressed by the International Committee of the Fourth International in July last year: “The danger of a new world war arises out of the fundamental contradictions of the capitalist system—between the development of a global economy and its division into antagonistic nation states, in which the private ownership of the means of production is rooted.”

The only social force that can counteract the danger of war is the international working class. It must be united on the basis of a socialist program and mobilized for the overthrow of capitalism, the root cause of militarism and war. This is the program fought for by the International Committee of the Fourth International and its sections, the Socialist Equality Parties.

Port owners lock out West Coast dock workers

Jerry White

The Pacific Maritime Association, which represents cargo carriers, terminal operators and stevedoring companies, has imposed a four-day lockout on 20,000 workers at 29 ports along the West Coast of the United States. The docks were closed Thursday and will be shut again on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, following a similar lockout last weekend.

The PMA took the punitive action—which will cost workers hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars in lost regular and overtime wages—in retaliation for an alleged slowdown by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU).

“PMA members have concluded that they will not conduct vessel operations on those dates, paying full shifts of ILWU workers such high rates for severely diminished productivity while the backlog of cargo at West Coast ports grows,” the PMA said in a statement.

“This is an effort by the employers to put economic pressure on our members and gain leverage in contract talks,” said ILWU President Robert McEllrath. “The union is standing by ready to negotiate, as we have been for the past several days.”

A ship waiting to be unloaded

The PMA canceled talks re-scheduled for Thursday and has not met with the ILWU since February 6. The old labor agreement expired last July 1, but the ILWU has ordered its members to continue working for nine months in hopes of reaching a federally-mediated agreement.

The pleas by the union for some accommodation on management’s terms have only been exploited by the highly profitable companies to go on the offensive. The PMA is reportedly offering a 2.8 percent raise in each year of a new five-year agreement. The association has also pointed to the 40 percent excise tax being imposed on so-called Cadillac health plans, under Obama’s Affordable Care Act, to press for an end to fully paid benefits, something won by dockworkers through generations of struggle.

Like other employers, the PMA is drawing a line in the sand against workers who are seeking to recoup income lost during the longest period of wage stagnation since the Great Depression. They are pressing for even more concessions even as corporate profits and stock markets soar in the sixth year of a so-called recovery.

The lockout occurs as the strike by oil workers nears the end of its second week. Lead bargainer Royal Dutch Shell walked out of talks this week, and negotiations have been suspended at least until February 18. Though the top five Big Oil companies (Shell, ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron and ConocoPhillips) made $90 billion in profits last year despite falling crude prices, they are resisting any demands for improved wages and working conditions.

The companies have responded to the partial strike by the United Steelworkers (USW)—involving only 5,200 of the 30,000 workers in the union—by cutting off the strikers’ health benefits and drawing in managers, contractors and other personnel to maintain production.

The employers are fully backed by the Obama administration and both big business parties. On Thursday, a bipartisan group of congressmen called for a “swift resolution” of the West Coast dispute.

“We believe this is the greatest threat our nation faces right now,” said US Representative Kurt Schrader (D-Oregon), using language normally associated with supposed terrorist threats. Schrader urged Obama—who was in the San Francisco Bay area for a cybersecurity summit Friday—to meet with the head of the PMA and the ILWU, the Los Angeles Timesreported.

In the event of a strike or lockout, the congressmen said, Obama should use the “threat to the national economy” to invoke the Taft-Hartley Act, as President George Bush did in 2002, to reopen the docks.

Port of Oakland

Echoing similar remarks made about the oil strike, White House spokesman Eric Schultz said Thursday that the president was closely monitoring the situation on the docks. He added, “We believe it should be resolved at the negotiating table.”

At this point Obama is relying on the ILWU and USW to contain and ultimately shut down these struggles before they become a catalyst for other sections of workers, including 139,000 GM, Ford and Chrysler workers whose contract expires this September.

If the unions proved incapable, however, Obama and both big business parties would use the repressive powers of the capitalist state—anti-terror laws, militarized police, national guard troops, the FBI, etc.—to try to suppress such a movement.

Since imposing deep pay and benefit cuts on auto workers during the 2009 restructuring of General Motors and Chrysler, the White House has made lowering wages and shifting health care and pension costs from corporations to workers the center of its economic policy.

In doing so, Obama has enjoyed the full collaboration of the United Auto Workers, USW, ILWU and other unions. Obama appointed USW International President Leo Gerard to his corporate competitiveness board in 2013 to cut labor costs in the manufacturing and energy sector.

The unions have done everything possible to suppress working class opposition. The slowdown by the ILWU and the limited walkout called by the USW, including small pickets with no attempt to mobilize broader sections of the working class, are largely ineffectual—and deliberately so.

The unions are allied to Obama and the Democratic Party, having spent decades collaborating with the employers to drive down the living standards of workers. The union executives are just as hostile to a movement by the working class as their corporate masters.

USW President Gerard and ILWU President Robert McEllrath are looking for some cosmetic concession, which they hope will be enough to appease workers and get them to accept yet another concessionary contract. The corporations have responded by calling the unions’ bluff and doubling down: locking out workers, cutting off health benefits and organizing strikebreaking operations, with the federal, state and local governments held in reserve.

At the same time there is a growing mood among workers that they must respond in kind and fight just as determinedly to recoup their years of losses. The re-emergence of such a sentiment is the result of the unprecedented levels of social inequality and the imperviousness of the government, which bails out banks, wages criminal wars and sanctions the looting of society by the corporate and financial elite.

For workers to find a way forward, they must break free from the grip of pro-company unions and build new organizations of struggle controlled by the rank-and-file, to mobilize oil and dockworkers in a powerful strike movement to reverse the erosion of living standards and working conditions. In the face of globally organized shipping and oil companies, workers must reject the nationalism of the unions and fight to unite with their international brothers in a common fight.

Above all, the fight to defend jobs and living standards, just like the fight against dictatorship and war, is a political struggle against Obama, both big business parties and the profit system they defend.

Education for Human Rights

 Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein

I am increasingly supportive of the proposition that education of any kind, if it is devoid of a strong universal human rights component, can be next to worthless when it should matter most: in crisis, when our world begins to unravel.

What good was it to humanity that Josef Mengele had advanced degrees in medicine and anthropology, given that he was capable of committing the most inhuman crimes? Eight of the 15 people who planned the Holocaust at Wannsee in 1942 held PhDs. They shone academically, and yet they were profoundly toxic to the world. Radovan Karadzić was a trained psychiatrist. Pol Pot studied radio electronics in Paris. Does this matter, when neither of them showed the smallest shred of ethics and understanding?

Of course we need schools to nurture curiosity and intelligence. Knowledge of complex geometry, or molecular cell biology, or Cartesian philosophy – or thousands of other facets of the great kaleidoscope of human brilliance – can be a precious thing. But when humanity topples on the cusp of real and vicious self-destruction, we don’t necessarily need people who are smart.

We need people who are kind.  People with PhD-level compassion. People who feel joy, and generosity, and love, and who have fully integrated the values that are essential to life in freedom and dignity. We need people with a strong moral compass.

Before every child on this planet turns 9, I believe he or she should acquire a foundational understanding of human rights. And I am far from being alone in this. Sixty six years ago, the authors of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – which is perhaps the most thoughtful and resonant international agreement of modern times – felt that human rights education would be so crucial that they wrote it into that great, foundational text. Article 26 reads “Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.”

Moreover, all UN Member States have affirmed on many occasions their belief in the centrality of human rights education as a long-term strategy for the prevention of human rights violations and conflicts; for the promotion of equality and sustainable development; and to enhance people’s participation in decision-making processes. The World Programme for Human Rights Education has been set up to encourage stronger and more consistent national action. 
  
Even in kindergarten, children should learn – and experience – the fundamental human rights values of respect, equality and justice. From the earliest age, human rights education should be infused throughout the program of every school – in curricula and textbooks, policies, the training of teaching personnel, pedagogical methods and the overall learning environment.

Children need to learn what bigotry and chauvinism are, and the evil they can produce. They need to learn that blind obedience can be exploited by authority figures for wicked ends. They should also learn that they are not exceptional because of where they were born, how they look, what passport they carry, or the social class, caste or creed of their parents; they should learn that no-one is intrinsically superior to her or his fellow human beings.

Children can learn to recognise their own biases, and correct them. They can learn to redirect their own aggressive impulses and use non-violent means to resolve disputes. They can learn to be inspired by the courage of the pacifiers and by those who assist, not those who destroy. They can be guided by human rights education to make informed choices in life, to approach situations with critical and independent thought, and to empathise with other points of view.

Sadly, they must learn that the Zeppelin Field, the shadow of Buchenwald, the glint of the machete and the horror of life today in Syria, Iraq, South Sudan, Central African Republic and elsewhere – wherever we live, they are never that far away. These lessons are surely as fundamental to life on Earth as advanced calculus.

Today, at schools such as the International School of Geneva – and it should be true of every school, everywhere – children can learn that no human being can properly be defined by a single point of reference: not nationality, not ideology or religion. As the Indian economist Amartya Sen points out in his thought-provoking book Identity and Violence, every human being has many identities,  related to gender, nationality, language, location, class, religion, occupation, political beliefs and personal inclinations. As he says, “The best hope for peace in the world lies in the simple but far-reaching recognition that we all have many different associations and affiliations; we are not rigidly divided by a single categorization of hardened groups which confront each other.”

Every child should be able to grasp that this recognition of blurred and cross-cutting identities – of the wonderful diversity of individuals and cultures within our shared membership of humanity – is a source of tremendous enrichment. It is my experience that every child, after some discussion, is enthused by the famous Martin Luther King quote looking forward “to a day when people will not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

Children are fully able to grasp the implications of human rights. And they are able, too, to understand the power that human rights principles bestow on them. Every child can help to shape her or his universe: this is the lesson of that physically tiny and yet symbolically immensely powerful young woman, Malala, who has enriched the moral heritage of humanity. We do not have to accept the world as it is; indeed, we must not. We do not have to give in to the dark allure of hatred and violence: indeed, it is vital that we find the energy to resist it.

As we progress into this century, all of us will face moments of doubt, and even despair. We may well encounter terrible suffering. But the clarity of human rights values provides the only possible basis for solutions. And only with them can we answer Witold Pilecki’s simple question posed as he marched down that road near Auschwitz: Yes, indeed, we are all people. And it matters very much what happens to every single one of us.

May every educator become a human rights defender and every educational institution, a zone of tolerance and dignity. 

German Karstadt department store plans more layoffs and pay cuts

Dietmar Hennings

The German department store chain Karstadt is planning to implement up to 1,500 job cuts—15 percent of its workforce—by 2016, together with pay cuts and speedups, according to internal plans recently made public.

Just over half a year ago, Austrian real estate entrepreneur René Benko took over billionaire Nicolas Berggruen’s Karstadt group for the price of one euro. Benko’s firm, Signa Holding, then appointed Stephan Fanderl to head the company. Fanderl began by announcing the elimination of about 2,000 jobs and closure of six stores in order to make Karstadt profitable again.

Now the company’s supervisory board—which includes leading works council members and Ver.di trade union officials—is discussing a proposal stipulating detailed plans for imminent cuts and reorganisation measures.

The merchandise service centres in Dortmund and Bremen are to be closed this year. The service centre in Saarbrücken will meet the same fate in the next few years, and the one in Stuttgart will be relocated to Leonberg.

By 2016, only 8,170 full-time employees will be working in the 83 Karstadt stores, or 1,271 fewer than today. Several hundred jobs may also be eliminated at the chain’s administrative branch in Essen. Staff cuts resulting from store closures that have already been announced are not included in these figures.

The greatest bloodletting will involve sales department managers, whose numbers are to be reduced by half. This will allow a whole management level to be eliminated from the stores in order to effect a “greater and broader integration of the branches,” as the document puts it.

While hundreds will lose their jobs to reduce business costs, the remaining employees will also have to accept cuts in their Christmas and holiday pay.

The most severe measure, however, will be the division of Karstadt staff into three groups of workers: sales personnel, cashiers and employees in the newly created “product service teams.” Up to 1,100 of these workers will have the job of unpacking goods and stocking shelves. This division of labour will soon make it possible for Karstadt to pay these employees at the significantly lower rates prevalent in the logistics industry. Such wage reductions would amount on average to about €300 a month.

Responding to these concerns, Karstadt claimed it did not intend to pay these employees at the same rate as logistics workers. But employees grouped in the new “product service teams” will certainly be getting less money. General works council chairman Hellmut Patzelt has confirmed that this proposal is being discussed among representatives from Karstadt management, Ver.di and the works council.

Management justifies the assault on wages by citing Karstadt’s significantly lower “productivity” compared to its main competitors—especially the Kaufhof department stores. Karstadt’s “productivity” is allegedly 25 to 30 percent less than that of its competitors. According to the proposal, staff costs are to be cut by €64 million to €308 million per year, amounting to a reduction of 20 percent. In the future, personnel costs for all branches—with the exception of the company’s original store in Wismar, opened by Rudolph Karstadt in 1881—will not be permitted to exceed 14.5 percent of sales revenue.

The remaining employees will have to take on additional work. Going forward, one salesperson per floor will thus be considered sufficient for “basic staffing” throughout a store’s opening times, and fewer cash registers will be operated. Goods will, in future, be delivered directly to the department stores in line with the “just-in-time” retail model, which in turn will help to reduce storage costs.

Either the new product service team employees will continue to act as sales staff—renamed only for the sake of having their wages cut—or the new system has been deliberately designed to drive the entire company into bankruptcy. This would then clear the way for a break-up of the whole concern. In that case, Benko, a convicted criminal, would be able to concentrate on what really interests him: highly profitable inner-city real estate.

In 2012, Benko had already grabbed for himself the best of Karstadt, including the 28 Karstadt sports stores and three KaDeWe luxury department stores in Berlin, as well as the Alster building in Hamburg and the Oberpolling in Munich, which are also part of Karstadt property. In the meantime, Benko has profitably sold half of these two business divisions to Israeli diamond dealer Beny Steinmetz.

Benko can depend on assistance from Ver.di and the works council leadership, led by Hellmut Patzel, to implement his plans to cannibalise the company and squeeze concessions from the workforce. For more than 10 years, these functionaries have agreed to all the cuts and job dismantling plans put before them. Untold millions have been extorted from the workforce and a vast number of jobs destroyed. Investor Nicolas Berggruen, who picked clean the Karstadt group, was lauded by Ver.di as a social benefactor. His successor, Benko, was also welcomed by Ver.di with open arms.

The regional Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (WAZ) newspaper reports that the planned attacks are already underway. The paper claims to have learned “from people participating in the negotiations” that “talks involving management and employee representatives (have) already progressed quite far” behind the backs of the workforce. According to WAZ, “Among other things planned are semi-retirement deals, severance packages, a transfer company to retrain Karstadt employees, and programmes for compulsory retirement at age 63.”

The gradual dismantling of the long-standing company may be entering its final stage. Ver.di has unequivocally stated that it will continue to stand by Benko and future investors. Karstadt workers, in fighting to defend their jobs and wages, are thus confronted not only by management, but also the Ver.di service industry union.

Australia: Homeless people speak on worsening social crisis

Susan Allan

Record numbers of homeless people are living on the streets of Australia’s cities as charities and government services strain to meet growing demands from families, young people, pensioners and the unemployed seeking shelter and accessing meal programs.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, a federal homeless agency, reported in its 2013–2014 annual review that nationally those seeking assistance had increased by 4 percent from the previous year, with more than three-quarters of this increase registered in Victoria. Long the centre of the Australian manufacturing industry, working people in the state have been hard hit by years of corporate restructuring, backed by successive Labor and Liberal governments and enforced by the trade unions.

In Melbourne, the number of people sleeping rough on the streets has increased by nearly 25 percent in the last twelve months. Rising housing costs is fuelling the homelessness crisis, with just 8 percent of available homes now affordable for low income families in the city.

World Socialist Web Site reporters recently spoke with people attending the Salvation Army’s inner city café in Melbourne. Free breakfasts and lunches are regularly provided to more than 150 people daily, with the Salvation Army reporting increasing demand of between 60 and 100 percent over the last year. A wide range of people access the meal service, not just the homeless, including pensioners, single parents with young children, the unemployed and university students.

Risto originally came to Australia in 1996 from Finland. “I’ve been homeless since 2005,” he explained. “I was self-employed as a builder in carpentry but developed a health problem and was unable to continue working … I think it’s shocking that in Australia people are being forced into homelessness—government policies are terrible. We all have the right to housing, yet we are treated like this. People need to know what is happening.

Risto

“The place the Salvos gave me [in a boarding house] costs $180 a week, just to live in one room. The person I share with has come from jail. He’s been given no support since leaving prison and doesn’t know how to cope. It’s not his fault. I’ve been assaulted in some of these places, some people have mental health problems or drug problems.”

He continued: “We had a Christmas party here with 100 homeless people invited—it was just a media stunt for politicians. I think all governments have a lot to answer for, I can’t understand how this country with all these resources, and high taxes, can treat people with such little dignity.”

Kennedy a young Aboriginal man who is currently unemployed, said: “I’m here because I am on Newstart [the poverty-level unemployment benefit]. After I pay my rent of $130, I only have $270 to live on for the rest of the fortnight. It’s a one bedroom place, with a toilet and shower, that’s it. I share a kitchen. And then we have to pay for our own food and stuff, so it is pretty hard.

Kennedy

“If I have no food I come here to the café, sometimes three times a week … Before this, where I was staying all you got was a bed, a meal, a shower. That cost $350 a fortnight. It is hard to access those sorts of places and you can only stay for a short time. I had to wait four months to get in there. Last time I got sick from the food they were giving us. Most of it is donated, cooked somewhere else and then brought to the place. It’s not hygienic.

“I have a forklift and car licence. I have been looking for a job for over five years. I go for interviews but they always knock me back. I get depressed and have to take medication, and that probably stops me from getting jobs too. I am just trying to live a good life but it is so hard to even get a start.”

David has been on the disability support pension for 10 years. “The thing I have noticed since the change of government, with Abbott coming in, is that all government departments seem to be far more intrusive as to your requirements to be on a pension. I have just received a letter that I have to go and see a government doctor. I already have pre-existing conditions and I am really perplexed as to why the government is doing this. I’m concerned the changes to the DSP might mean I am taken off the pension.”

David

Several students from Colombia told theWorld Socialist Web Site that after paying their fees and rent they had nothing left to buy food. “When university re-opens after the summer break you will see many more students coming here in the exact same situation as us,” one explained.

An ex-health worker, who did not want to be identified, explained her situation. “I worked in the health industry for 20 years, but was a victim of domestic violence and had to leave my husband and I became homeless. I was unable to keep my job due to my home situation. I asked for proper safe housing but they never provided it. The place I currently stay is a long way from the city and doesn’t have facilities for people like me, so I need money for transport to come here.

“There is an organisation called Home Ground, where people who need housing line up. The lines are getting longer and longer. I have noticed increased numbers of single mothers with children. People just don’t realise how severe the situation is.”

Angelina has been unemployed for more than six months. “I’ve also been homeless for six months,” she said. “I lost my job in retail and I couldn’t get any family support, so I ended up homeless. I have no eligibility for benefits in Australia. Before I came here I worked as a social worker in New Zealand. I had problems with addiction, and it stops me from working.

Angelina

“I come here to get food and some coffee. I don’t often use their services, as I think they treat the homeless as if it’s their fault. Some of the charities are just for profit, and they’re not really interested in solving people’s problems. They just give band-aid measures. The boarding houses they run take your entire dole payment, it’s really dehumanising.

“A group of us get together and ask cafés for extra food. We take the food down to the park for people. You see more and more elderly people coming to get the food. I just find it so sad—it could be your grandmother. There are plenty of families that are homeless too, but they are not as visible because some of them are living in cars.”

Angelina denounced the major parties. “I think all the austerity measures are terrible—the rich and poor divide is growing. It’s causing massive social problems. If you really want to resolve the problems, the government needs to give people jobs, and mental health and other support.”

Australian police carry out another anti-terror raid

Peter Symonds

A raid by Australian police in Sydney on Tuesday, resulting in the arrest of two young men as terrorist suspects, has been immediately seized upon by the state and federal governments, as well as the establishment media, to fuel a climate of fear and uncertainty. The police have provided scant details of the operation, and those that have been provided should be treated with suspicion.

The two men—Mohammad Kiad, 25, from Kuwait and Omar al-Kutobi, 24, who moved to Australia from Iraq in 2009—were living in the western Sydney suburb of Fairfield in a modified garage. Police claim that they began monitoring the pair on Tuesday morning acting on an undisclosed tip-off. The two men bought a hunting knife from a military supplies shop at 3 p.m. and heavily-armed police swooped on the Fairfield property an hour later.

New South Wales Deputy Police Commissioner Catherine Burn alleged yesterday that “the men were potentially going to harm someone, maybe even kill someone.” She said that police had seized a machete, a hunting knife, a home-made flag representing the proscribed terrorist organisation IS [Islamic State of Iraq and Syria] and a video depicting a man talking about carrying out an attack.”

Burn claimed on the basis of the video that an attack was imminent. “We will allege that both of these men were preparing to do this act today [Tuesday].” She released no details from the video, which was reportedly in Arabic, but insisted that the “intent is clear.” Both men have been refused bail.

It is worth recalling the outcome of the massive police raids that took place in Sydney last September. More than 800 state and federal police and Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) officers stormed 15 premises and detained 17 people, leading to lurid claims that a public beheading, on the orders of ISIS, was about to be carried out in Sydney. The allegations were based on an intercepted phone conversation and the seizure of a sword.

The police later admitted that the word “behead” had not been used in the phone discussion. The sword turned out to be plastic. Of those detained, only one was actually charged with “conspiring to act in preparation for, or plan, a terrorist act or acts”—an extraordinarily sweeping and vague charge.

The raids, however, had served their political purpose—to justify the escalating US-led military intervention in Iraq and Syria, and Australian involvement in it, as well as a raft of draconian new anti-terror legislation that was rapidly pushed through the Australian parliament.

In December, the Abbott government, along with the entire media and political establishment, elevated a hostage standoff at a Sydney café involving a disturbed and unstable individual into a major national crisis. Thousands of heavily armed police flooded central Sydney in what was a dress rehearsal for the lockdown of a city. The siege was used to justify the massive build-up of the police and security apparatus and expansion of police state powers over the past decade under the banner of the “war on terror.”

Tuesday’s arrests served similar political ends. Prime Minister Tony Abbott declared that the threat of terrorism was “a serious issue” and warned that it could “get worse before it gets better.” For Abbott, the raid was a useful diversion from the continuing crisis surrounding his government after Monday’s leadership challenge, as well as a justification for further anti-terror laws.

Abbott played the war on terror card in his National Press Club speech on February 2 aimed at shoring up his leadership. He called for sweeping new legislation to make it an offense to “justify terrorism,” going beyond existing laws that illegalise organisations that “advocate terrorism.” While Abbott targeted the Islamist group Hizb-ut-Tahrir, such laws could be applied very widely to anyone who, for instance, explains that the roots of organisations such as ISIS are in the criminal wars of US imperialism in the Middle East.

During a visit last Thursday to the Australian Federal Police (AFP) headquarters, Abbott pressed for the passage of legislation which will require that Internet service providers retain the metadata for all Internet activity for two years. The law would provide the means for police and intelligence agencies to spy on the email, social media and Internet surfing of the entire Australian population.

The metadata legislation, which has provoked widespread opposition, is currently being examined by a parliamentary committee which is due to report at the end of February. “As soon as that report comes down,” Abbott said, “the government wants the parliament to deal with it, because we know … there are a whole range of people … who want to do us harm.”

The police raid on Tuesday will undoubtedly be used as a further pretext for pushing through the legislation, with the support of the opposition Labor Party and the Greens, which have voted for previous anti-democratic laws on terrorism.

The spectre of so-called “lone wolf” attacks is already widely raised in the media following police claims that the arrested men, Kiad and al-Kutobi, had no known associations with Australian citizens who have gone to the Middle East to fight for Islamist organisations. This will be exploited to justify even greater surveillance powers.

AFP Deputy Commissioner Michael Phelan declared yesterday that there was now “a new paradigm” of terrorism—low level, simple attacks that unfold quickly. “Police forces, whether they be state or federal, or our intelligence agencies need to be nimble to adjust to the threat and work out what our tactics are at a particular time.”

Federal Attorney-General George Brandis used this week’s incident to justify anti-democratic measures that were rammed through after the September police raids. He claimed that the arrests on Tuesday “may not have been possible under the old law but it was made possible by the reforms which this Senate passed when it passed the Foreign Fighters Act.”

Among its many other draconian measures, the Foreign Fighters Act increases the AFP’s already arbitrary arrest powers by allowing a police officer to detain anyone he or she “reasonably suspects” of having committed a crime. This is a far looser legal standard than the previous “reasonably believes.” The change enables police to act on all manner of rumour, suspicion and prejudice and raises the question of what was known about Kiad and al-Kutobi before they were arrested.

Indonesian government pushes ahead with planned executions

John Roberts

The Indonesian government is determined to press ahead with a second round of executions of 11 convicts despite appeals for mercy from families, foreign governments and lawyers. In the case of two prisoners, Australian citizens Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, it has brushed aside a new legal appeal launched in the State Administrative Court in Jakarta.

The latest court case follows the rejection of an appeal for a judicial review in the Denpasar District Court on February 4, following the intervention of Indonesia’s Attorney-General H. M. Prasetyo. Chan and Sukumaran were convicted along with seven others in 2006 of attempting to bring 8.3 kilograms of heroin from Bali into Australia.

Prasetyo told the media that the embassies of foreign nationals had been informed of the executions and that these would be carried out at “the right time … maybe within two weeks, maybe less than two weeks.” The authorities normally inform relatives of the exact dates, but are not legally obliged to do so.

Six prisoners were executed by firing squad on January 18, and, as in the current cases, most had been convicted of drug offences. These were the first judicial killings in Indonesia since March 2013 when three were shot. This was the only use of the country’s reactionary death penalty laws in the last five years under the previous President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

The decision by current President Joko Widodo to reactivate and accelerate executions is based on cynical political calculations. In an interview with CNN on January 27, Widodo was adamant that there would be no mercy and “no compromise” for the scores of drug offenders among the more than the 130 prisoners currently on death row.

Widodo is engaged in a law-and-order campaign to cement his ties to the politically powerful police and military apparatus established under the decades-long Suharto dictatorship. He is also seeking support from right-wing Islamist groups as his government implements deeply unpopular austerity measures and pro-market restructuring demanded by big business and foreign investors.

In the case of Chan and Sukumaran, the political considerations in Canberra are no less venal. The overriding concern of the government of Prime Minister Tony Abbott is to do nothing to upset Australia’s strategically important relationship with Indonesia. Particularly over the past decade, close ties have been forged between the police, military and security apparatuses of the two countries under the banner of the “war on terror.”

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) provided the intelligence to their Indonesian counterparts that enabled the arrest of the so-called “Bali Nine” in 2005 even though Indonesia imposes the death sentence for drug trafficking. The federal government and its agencies are legally barred from assisting a foreign country in prosecuting anyone charged with an offence punishable by death, but the AFP effectively put Chan and Sukumaran on death row.

Beside the two Australians due to be executed, probably on Nusakambangan Island off Central Java, the attorney general’s office has named Brazilian Rodrigo Gularte, Filipino Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso, French national Serge Areski Atlaoui, Ghanaian Martin Anderson, Nigerian Raheem Agbaje Salami and four Indonesians—Syofial, Zainal Abidin, Sargawi and Haran bin Ajis.

The case being brought by Chan and Sukumaran in the Administrative Court case is based on challenging Widodo’s blanket denial of clemency for drug offenders sentenced to death. Their lawyers are arguing that each case should be dealt with on its merits.

Former Constitutional Court and Supreme Court judge Laica Marzuki told the media that Widodo’s decrees denying clemency were administrative acts and therefore the Administrative Court had jurisdiction. However, the judge would not comment of the outcome of the case. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported that such an appeal had only been tried once before in 2008 and failed.

The lawyers for Chan and Sukumaran were also acting on information from Mohamad Rifan, a lawyer in the 2006 case. He said that the judges had come to him after the case and said that they had not wanted to impose the death penalty and implied there had been a political “intervention” into the penalty phase of the case.

In addition, one of the trial judges, Roro Suryowati, currently a High Court judge, said this week in an interview with the News Corporation that she had voted against the death sentence and that neither Chan nor Sukumaran deserved to be executed.

Justice and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly, speaking on February 9 on the sidelines of a meeting of the Indonesian parliament, indicated that the Widodo might “review” the executions. His remarks were flatly contradicted by the attorney general’s office, which stated that the Administrative Court case would not alter the government’s plans to execute Chan, Sukumaran and the other nine prisoners.

The families of Chan and Sukumaran are in Indonesia and have made emotional appeals to Widodo to spare the two men.

No senior Australian minister has flown to Jakarta to call on Widodo to call off the executions. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told the media “representations” were being made at the highest level from Canberra, but provided no details. “The course we are adopting is in the best interests of Mr Chan and Mr Sukumaran,” she claimed.

In fact, the Abbott government’s main concern is to maintain close relations with Indonesia. Successive Australian governments, Liberal and Labor, regard Indonesia as vital to Canberra’s interests in South East Asia and the broader Asia Pacific region. Indonesia has only assumed greater strategic importance as Canberra has integrated more closely in the US “pivot to Asia” and Washington’s military build-up throughout the region against China.

US closes diplomatic facilities in Yemen

Thomas Gaist

The US moved to close its diplomatic mission in Yemen on Tuesday, in the wake of the dissolution of Yemen’s official government by the Shia Houthi insurgency that seized control of the capital last September.

Following the US lead, Britain, France and Germany also closed their embassies in Yemen Wednesday, as Houthi leaders engaged in UN-supervised talks with competing political factions. The US State Department has issued a warning advising all US citizens to leave Yemen immediately.

Previous statements by Pentagon and Obama administration officials indicated that the White House was considering an arrangement with the Houthis that will enable continuation of the US drone war. Nonetheless, the State Department issued muted condemnations of the Houthis this week, signaling the start of a pressure campaign to insure that Yemen’s new rulers toe the US line.

“Recent unilateral actions disrupted the political transition process in Yemen, creating the risk that renewed violence would threaten Yemenis and the diplomatic community,” US State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said.

“We will not hesitate to act in Yemen,” Psaki declared.

The “transition” process referred to by Psaki was orchestrated through the US and Saudi-dominated Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), replacing the hated regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh with a similarly pliant puppet regime headed by Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who emerged as the victor of a one-man election held in February 2012.

Despite the recent collapse of the Hadi government, US Special Forces will continue to carry out operations in the country on a “unilateral” basis, US Admiral John Kirby stressed in public statements. While Kirby noted “concerns about the tentacles that Iran has throughout the region,” referring to the Houthis ties to Iran, he made clear that the main priority of the US is to continue its covert military operations in the country.

“We still have Special Operations forces in Yemen, we continue to conduct counterterrorism training with Yemeni security forces, and we are still capable inside Yemen of conducting counterterrorism operations,” Kirby said.

“We want to be able to continue to have an effective partner there in Yemen,” Kirby added.

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officers will continue working inside Yemen, despite losing their main outpost in the embassy, according to Fox News. The closed embassy had long served “as a base for the CIA and other US spy agencies,” the Washington Post noted.

The decades-long Saleh dictatorship consolidated power on the basis of the 1990 unification of North and nominally Stalinist-led South Yemen, receiving covert support from major US and European transnational corporations in the process, according to a CIA report produced at the time.

After 2001, Saleh positioned himself as a loyal ally of Washington and the “war on terror,” coordinating US military operations in Yemen— including those directed at Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)—through regular meetings with leading US government officials.

Top US politicians are calling for military escalation in Yemen in response to the Houthi coup. “Yemen has been of strategic importance to the United States, and I fear these latest developments will create a vacuum that will ultimately benefit” AQAP, US Senator Lindsey Graham said in a statement Wednesday.

AQAP “continues to harbor a burning desire to attack the United States,” Graham said.

Though framed in terms of the struggle against AQAP, the underlying aim of the US in Yemen is to secure control of the strategically critical Bab al Mandab straight. Connecting the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, the straight facilitates daily passage of massive commercial flows, including major sections of world trade in oil and grain, giving Yemen a strategic significance well beyond its small size and relative poverty of resources.

Directly across the straight lies Djibouti, where the US Africa Command (AFRICOM) maintains its largest military facility in Africa, Camp Lemonnier. The base serves as a central hub for US drone strikes and covert operations across the Horn of Africa and Arabian Peninsula.

Reports indicate that the Houthis themselves are seeking arrangements with US imperialism. “We didn’t want them to go, and we were ready to work with the American Embassy on measures that would ensure their protection and facilitate their work,” an anonymous Houthi leader told the Times.

At the same time, Yemen appears on the verge of civil war and social breakdown, as increasing areas of the country fall to various armed factions and its oil industry and economy reel from the withdrawal of some $4 billion in annual Saudi aid. The central state administration, now under the de facto control of the Houthi Revolutionary Committee, may be incapable of paying employees for work in February, the Times reported.

Houthi fighters engaged in shows of force against mass demonstrations in the capital on Wednesday, according to Reuters, while continuing offensive operations aimed at seizing control of broader sections of southern Yemen. The insurgents captured the capital of Yemen’s central Al-Bayda province Tuesday, according to Asharq al-Awsat, leaving more than half of the country’s provinces under Houthi control.

Judge in Stockton bankruptcy upholds retiree benefit cuts

Adam Mclean

On February 4th, Judge Christopher Klein of the United States Bankruptcy Court signed a confirmation order allowing the city of Stockton, California to move forward with its bankruptcy plan of adjustment.

The order will most likely enable the city of Stockton to exit bankruptcy after an automatic two-week stay. According to officials, the city is expected to exit from bankruptcy later this month.

Judge Klein’s 54-page opinion in the ruling claims that pension obligations under state law can be unilaterally overwritten during the course of bankruptcy proceedings.

Using language that does not even attempt to conceal his enthusiasm for slashing the retirement benefits of elderly workers, Klein declares, “CalPERS [the state’s public employee pension system] has bullied its way about this case with an iron fist.” The fund, Klein wrote, “turns out to have a glass jaw.”

The move to slash the pension benefits of Stockton public employees is part of a nationwide assault on public employee pensions and benefits. The precedent for these moves was set by the Detroit bankruptcy, in which workers’ pensions were cut by 4.5 percent, and cost of living adjustments were eliminated.

CalPERS had made a claim of $1.6 billion against the city for unmet pension obligations. The fund had hoped to recoup the $1.6 billion through a lien against city assets.

Klein instead ruled that while employee pensions are nominally honored under state law, the lien itself could be set aside under federal bankruptcy law, effectively negating the very mechanism which would ensure the disbursement to retirees of their constitutionally guaranteed pension payments. Furthermore, according to the judge, state municipalities should be allowed to exit the pension system entirely.

As part of the city’s bankruptcy plan, all retiree medical benefits–part of a program costing $544 million–have been eliminated. To make up for this devastating blow to retirees, a paltry, one-time payout of $5.1 million has been made to those affected. Most of these retirees are not eligible for social security benefits and live on near poverty level incomes from CalPERS.

Under the plan of adjustment, remaining pension benefits for new city employees will be lowered while individual employee contributions will rise. In addition to cutting pension benefits for all new hires to the bone, the plan will inevitably be used to pit “greedy” older workers against younger new hires.

The ruling should be taken as a grave warning to the working class. The initiation of municipal bankruptcy is now a tool that the financial elite can utilize to eliminate pensions and healthcare for retirees entirely.

Klein also wrote in his opinion, “As a matter of law, the City’s pension administration contract with CalPERS, as well as the City-sponsored pensions themselves, may be adjusted as part of a chapter 9 plan.” He continued, “It is doubtful that CalPERS even has standing to defend the City pensions from modification. This decision determines that the obstacles interposed by CalPERS are not effective in bankruptcy.”

Furthermore, the legal reasoning behind Klein’s ruling is that in bankruptcy proceedings states effectively act as “gatekeepers.” That is, states initiate bankruptcy proceedings by determining whether or not bankruptcy is necessary, but once they have, federal Bankruptcy Code directs proceedings. Since pensions often derive their hardiness from their enshrinement in state constitutions, by making bankruptcy a federal issue, state constitutions are effectively bypassed. This opinion may well be used as a starting point for future attacks on pensions across the country.

Bankruptcy courts are increasingly becoming the method of choice by the ruling class to circumvent democracy and impose new and greater attacks on the working class. In Detroit this took the form of an unelected emergency manager, deep cuts in pensions, the sell-off and privatization of public services and invaluable art, and even the cutting off of access by a large section of the population to water.

Franklin Templeton, an investment firm that is calling for even sharper cuts to workers’ pensions, is being represented by Jones Day, the same firm that oversaw the dubious and semi-legal proceedings in the Detroit bankruptcy.

Talks on Greek bailout terms break down

Robert Stevens

Talks between the Greek Finance Minister Yanis Vourafakis and the 18 other finance ministers of the euro zone held in Brussels yesterday broke down without any agreement on proposals by the Syriza-led government for dealing with the country’s debt.

There were mixed messages from the discussions which lasted well into the night with some initial reports suggesting an agreement in principle had been reached. But after six hours the meeting broke up without even a statement on how to take discussions forward at the regular meeting of the Eurogroup, comprising the region’s finance ministers, to be held next Monday.

According to a report in the Financial Times, a joint statement had been agreed but after Vourafakis consulted Athens new objections were raised to the wording and the statement was scrapped.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister, who chaired the meeting in his capacity as head of the Eurogroup, said there was no agreement on how negotiations should proceed. It was his “ambition” to have an agreement before Monday’s meeting on the steps to be taken but “unfortunately we haven’t been able to do that.”

After receiving a slap in the face over his proposals for restructuring the Greek debt and his call for a bridging loan to finance the government from the end of the month when the present agreement runs out, Vourafakis, engaged in the fawning rhetoric which has characterised so many of his public statements.

He said the talks were “constructive” and “fascinating” and that he was pleased to have “had the opportunity to table our views.”

While it was never expected that an agreement would emerge from yesterday’s talks there was a belief that at least a procedure for negotiations would be set up. But even this foundered in the face of opposition to any restructuring led by Germany.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaüble insisted on Tuesday that discussion on debt restructuring could only take place if Greece accepted an extension of the previous troika program, which is to expire on February 28. “We are not negotiating a new program. We already have a program,” he said. If Greece would not accept being in the existing program, “then that’s it.”

Schaüble’s hardline was supported by Dijsselbloem in the lead-up to the talks. Rejecting Syriza government assertions that it would no longer hold discussions with the troika—the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund—he said: “An agreement is an agreement. That means that only within the program, measures could be exchanged for other measures.”

Any changes would first need approval from the troika. “Then you can change the program, you can fill the program in differently. But support without a program, support without further progress on reforms is unthinkable. The alternative measures will always have to be vetted, tested by the troika, whether you call it the troika or not,” Dijsselbloem said.

The Obama administration, while endorsing reforms of the Greek economy to enable the further exploitation of its strategically vital assets and infrastructure, made urgent appeals for an agreement to be reached with Greece to prevent it being forced out of the euro zone.

On Tuesday, US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew called for a “practical and pragmatic” solution saying, “I don’t think that there should be casual talk about the kind of resolution that would end up leaving Greece in a place that is unstable or the EU in a place that is unstable.”

A critical factor in US calculations is to keep Greece within the orbit of NATO, under conditions where it is ramping up preparations for war against Russia and making hostile moves against China. Russia and China are seeking to cement closer ties with Greece.

Yesterday Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias was in talks with his counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, in Moscow. Russia, as Lavrov again confirmed, has offered to assist the Greek government with funds.

This followed a warning to EU leaders from Panos Kammenos, the leader of Syriza’s right-wing coalition partner the Independent Greeks. “What we want is a deal,” he said on Tuesday. “But if there is no deal—hopefully (there will be)—and if we see that Germany remains rigid and wants to blow apart Europe, then we have the obligation to go to Plan B. Plan B is to get funding from another source. It could be the United States at best, it could be Russia, it could be China or other countries.”

Thousands protested in Athens and Thessalonika to urge an end to austerity. But those hoping that Syriza will follow through on its pledge to abandon austerity measures and who voted for the party on this basis will be disabused.

Syriza’s leading representatives, including Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Varoufakis, spent the hours leading up to the meeting seeking to assure the representatives of the EU and international financial elite that they would impose a host of structural reforms to pay off the debt and remain in the euro zone.

Varoufakis met with the IMF’s chief Christine Lagarde just prior to Wednesday’s meeting. Immediately following Syriza’s election victory, she warned that Greece would have to assent to previous agreements. “There are internal euro zone rules to be respected,” she said. “We cannot make special categories for such or such country. It’s not a question of austerity measures, these are in-depth reforms that remain to be done.”

Syriza’s differences with the troika’s austerity agenda are of a tactical nature, with Varoufakis already on record that the government will impose 70 percent of the measures. They are requesting an interim “bridging” agreement at least until the end of June, after which Greece would formally be able legally participate in the European Central Bank’s quantitative easing program.

Proposals on an agreement until the end of August have also been prepared. If Greece has no access to funds it could default on its debt because Greek bonds currently held by the ECB (worth about €7 billion) must be repaid by that date.

To persuade EU leaders of its commitments to imposing “structural” changes, the Tsipras government has been working closely with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Varoufakis has presented to the Eurogroup a list of 10 “reforms” already prepared jointly between the government and the OECD.

Tsipras cloaked this manoeuvre in anti-austerity garb saying any program would be based “not on what was previously decided but on a popular mandate.” This rhetoric is belied by the record of the OECD, which was instrumental in drawing up hundreds of measures in order to “liberalise” and open up the Greek economy to competition.

By January 2014, the previous New Democracy (ND) government hadagreed to around 80 percent of the OECD recommendations. Two months later the OECD authored a “Competition Assessment Review” on Greece, noting that its study “identifies hundreds of competition-distorting rules and provisions.”

The report flagged up “555 problematic regulations” and called for “more than 320 recommendations on legal provisions that should be amended or repealed.”

The OECD demanded the overhaul of the Greek economy, sharply in favour of big business and international capital, even prior to the 2008 global financial crash. In 2006, the OECD called on the then ND government to accelerate the opening up of the Greek economy. Speaking as students protested outside a conference, OECD Secretary General Angel Gurria said reform of the education system in Greece was critical. Another priority was an overhaul of the pensions system, he added.

Tsipras met with Gurria on Wednesday, with Syriza’s leader saying he told him, “We have common targets and that we can cooperate.”