Two detained on charges of aiding Copenhagen terror attack

Chris Marsden

Two men were detained on Sunday, charged with aiding Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein, the suspect in the Copenhagen terrorist shooting attacks.

El-Hussein, 22, killed two people in separate attacks Saturday and was shot dead by police Sunday. The two men were ordered to remain in custody for 10 days after being arraigned at a four-hour closed hearing Monday. Defence lawyer Michael Juul Eriksen said that both deny the allegations.

The two detained were among four arrests made in the aftermath of the attack during a raid on the PowerPlay Internet café in the Norrebrogade area.

El-Hussein allegedly murdered film director Finn Norgaard, 55, while firing at a meeting attended by Lars Vilks, his supposed target, the Swedish cartoonist who previously depicted the prophet Muhammad as a stray dog. While on the run, El-Hussein later shot volunteer security guard Dan Uzan at a nearby synagogue.

More details have emerged regarding Hussein’s biography, confirming how well-known the gunman was to police. The head of Denmark’s secret service, PET, Jens Madsen, said that El-Hussein may have been “inspired by Islamist propaganda issued by Islamic State and other terror organisations.” Madsen did not offer evidence substantiating this allegation, however.

What is known is that Hussein was only recently released from prison after serving a sentence for knife crime.

The Daily Mail reported that El-Hussein “descended into a life of crime in his teenage years, joining notorious gang The Brothas and roaming the streets with a knife or a gun.” His criminal record included assault and possession of dangerous weapons.

In November 2013, he was captured on CCTV pulling a knife out in a train in Copenhagen. He knifed a 19-year-old man in the thigh and buttock before departing. He was jailed for aggravated assault.

In an extended biographical report, the Guardian notes that El-Hussein “was a smart student but reportedly had a short fuse and was prone to violence. He was a talented kick-boxer and yet appeared to have suffered from anxiety and used cannabis.”

Of Palestinian origin, his parents left a refugee camp in Jordan to come to Denmark, and he “was always quick to debate the Palestinian issue.”

El-Hussein was in prison at the time of the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris, with the Guardian reporting that Michael Gjorup, head of the country’s prison and probation service, “told Danish media that authorities had noticed changes in his behaviour in prison and had alerted the intelligence services.”

Engaged in petty crime, El-Hussein lived an impoverished existence—failing to graduate and becoming homeless.

According to the same report, “Emilie Hansson, 26, who is half Swedish, said she knew El-Hussein and had seen him at the estate last week. She said: ‘For me he’s not a terrorist. He’s someone who felt finished with life and decided to go out with a big bang’.”

The Telegraph reported that friends of El-Hussein laid floral tributes to him on the corner of the street where he died, which were later removed. It cited someone named “Mohamed,” who said, “We’ve put flowers here because we must remember him…. He was a good guy. We don’t believe he did anything wrong. It wasn’t like the police say.”

Another friend, a local thug named “Benny”, insisted that El-Hussein could not have carried out the shootings: “I know he didn’t have the money to buy an automatic gun. Here it costs 50,000 kroner.”

No account has been made of the police statement that the flat to which El-Hussein was returning, adjacent to the Norrebro metro station, where he was gunned down, was already under surveillance as part of an unspecified “ongoing investigation.” The PET baldly declared that, though El-Hussein was well-known to them, it was not possible to keep a round-the-clock watch on all suspects.

Nor has any explanation been offered for the police raid on the Internet café.

In a reportedly unrelated incident, German police in the northern city of Braunschweig took the extraordinary decision to cancel an annual carnival procession Sunday, citing fears of a terrorist attack.

Police claimed that information from “reliable state security sources” pointed to “a concrete danger” of attack from persons with an “Islamist background.” Police chief Michael Pientka said there had been no arrests, and no explosives or weapons had been found.

The carnival in Germany was cancelled just hours before it was due to start, leaving an estimated 250,000 attendees disappointed and 4,500 participants stranded with their floats.

Haaretz reported that Pientka told German public radio NDR there was “no connection to the terror attacks in Copenhagen.” Carnivals elsewhere in Germany went ahead on Sunday and Monday.

The police added to the murky picture by stating afterwards that “we do not have any concrete indications of attack plans in Germany…. The situation is unchanged.”

No agreement reached between EU finance ministers and Greece

Robert Stevens & Barry Grey

A meeting of euro zone finance ministers in Brussels to discuss the debt crisis of the Syriza-led Greek government broke up in acrimony Monday.

With Germany taking the lead, the finance ministers, headed by Jeroen Dijsselbloem of the Netherlands, presented Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis with a statement to sign that unambiguously upheld the existing debt-repayment scheme, demanded further austerity measures, and reiterated the full subordination of the Greek government to the dictates of the European Union (EU), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the banks.

German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble appeared to go out of his way to humiliate Syriza (Coalition of the Radical Left) and its leader, the new prime minister, Alexis Tsipras. In a German radio interview Monday in advance of the Brussels meeting, Schäuble said he was “very sceptical” about the prospects for a deal being reached at the gathering and accused the recently elected Greek government of acting “pretty irresponsibly.”

Schäuble accused Tsipras of “insulting those who have helped Greece in the past few years.”

Varoufakis refused to sign the statement, complaining that the European Commission’s economic chief, Pierre Moscovici, had offered him an earlier plan that he was prepared to sign. The meeting quickly collapsed, and the different parties held separate press conferences.

Varoufakis objected in particular to language in the EU draft stipulating Syriza’s adherence to the “current programme” of debt repayment. His opposition, and that of Syriza as a whole, amounts to pleading for terminological window dressing to obscure the capitulation of the Syriza-led government in substance to the current “bailout” programme and the brutal austerity agenda that has already reduced millions of Greek workers and youth to poverty.

Syriza desperately needs such a fig leaf, having campaigned on a pledge to end the current debt-repayment regime, which is hated by the vast majority of Greeks. Syriza’s election was the result of growing opposition to more than five years of savage cuts. This sentiment has been expressed in numerous anti-austerity protests held in Greece since the new government took office on January 25. On February 11, at least 13 demonstrations took place in Greece, with tens of thousands protesting in Athens and Thessaloniki. On Sunday, further large demonstrations were held.

However, EU governments fear that even the appearance of a concession to Greece will fuel popular opposition to austerity throughout Europe. To this point, they have coalesced behind the hard-line position of Berlin.

Varoufakis and Tsipras have bent over backwards to reassure the EU, the IMF, the European Central Bank and the international financial markets that they fully intend to meet Greece’s debt obligations and are committed to the “structural reforms”—i.e., further attacks on pensions, jobs and working class living standards—demanded by global capital.

In an op-ed piece posted by the New York Times Monday, Varoufakis denied that he was pursuing “some radical-left agenda,” declaring: “Our government is not asking our partners for a way out of repaying our debts. We are asking for a few months of financial stability that will allow us to embark upon the task of reforms that the broad Greek population can own and support, so we can bring back growth and end our inability to pay our dues ” (emphasis added).

Last week, he begged for a compromise in a Guardian interview, pleading, “We are a party of the left, but what we are putting on the table is essentially the agenda of a reformist bankruptcy lawyer from the City of London.”

Syriza, in fact, speaks for privileged sections of the Greek upper-middle class that want a better deal within the framework of Greek and European capitalism and the EU. It advances policies favoured by sections of the Greek and international bourgeoisie to confront a deepening breakdown of the capitalist system—at the expense of the working class. It has formed a bourgeois government in coalition with the ultra-right, rabidly nationalist Independent Greeks.

The Financial Times reported Monday that after the short-lived EU finance ministers’ meeting, Varoufakis for the first time said publicly that he had been prepared to agree to an extension of the existing debt repayment programme on the basis of conditions agreed to by Moscovici, which, he claimed, differed from those incorporated into the draft statement presented by Dijsselbloem.Financial Times journalist Peter Spiegel reported he was told by euro zone officials that, in fact, there was no difference in substance between the Moscovici and Dijsselbloem texts. According to Der Spiegel, the euro group meeting broke up before the finance ministers even had a chance to discuss the draft statement prepared by the Greek side.

Nevertheless, Varoufakis declared after the meeting, “I have no doubt there is going to be an agreement in the end.”

The draft statement, leaked to the press and published by the Financial Times and other newspapers, stated, in part: “The Greek authorities gave their firm commitment to refrain from unilateral action and will work in close agreement with their European and international partners, especially in the field of tax policy, privatisation, labour market reforms, financial sector, and pensions.”

The EU part of the loan programme for Greece is set to expire February 28, raising the possibility of a collapse of Greece’s banking system, a default on the country’s €320 billion sovereign debt, and a forced exit of Greece from the euro currency bloc. Monday had been described as a deadline for an agreement between Greece and the euro group because several national parliaments needed time to vote on a deal before the end of the month.

A study by JP Morgan released as the euro group talks got under way concluded that Greece’s financial reserves could be exhausted in several months. Estimating that Greek banks were losing €2 billion of deposits a week, JP Morgan said if such outflows continued, the country’s banks would run out of collateral for new loans in just 14 weeks.

At a press conference after the meeting, Dijsselbloem said the euro group had told Greece that the “best way forward would be for the Greek government to seek an extension of the programme,” and that in any agreement going forward Greece could not “roll back any measures” except with the agreement of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF.

Greece, he said, had to present proposals for an extension of the debt repayment programme by Friday, and warned, “We can use this week, but that’s about it.”

Asked if an extension or, in the words of the Greek government, a “bridging” agreement, would be very different from the existing programme, Dijsselbloem said, “I don’t think so.”

He added that “the ESM [European Stability Mechanism] treaty and rules and regulations talk about strict conditionalities. It would still be about fiscal sustainability and therefore also debt sustainability. It would still be about economic competitiveness…and a stable financial sector and all of the above requires next steps, more measures and reforms, some popular and some obviously not so popular.”

Speaking alongside Dijsselbloem was Moscovici, until 2014 the French finance minister, and Christine Lagarde, head of the IMF.

Moscovici said no alternative to an extension of the current programme would be considered. Lagarde said the IMF’s programme with Greece would end in March 2016. She warned that only if Greece accepted an extension of the current austerity package could further IMF funds be disbursed.

US imperialism and the catastrophe in Libya

Joseph Kishore

This weekend, the Islamic State (ISIS) released a video of the horrific beheadings of 21 Coptic Christian workers seized in the town of Sirte in eastern Libya. This barbaric act was the latest in a series of such killings, including the beheading or immolation of hostages from the US, Britain, Japan and Jordan.

The latest ISIS atrocity has triggered predictable expressions of shock and anger by news anchors and editorialists in the United States, along with further massacres. Within hours of the release of the video, Egypt, led by US-backed dictator General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, launched a wave of air strikes killing 64 people, including seven civilians.

Washington and its political allies are politically and morally responsible for these atrocities. The Islamist beheadings in Libya are the product of a monumental crime: the 2011 NATO war in Libya to oust the regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

Prior to the intervention of NATO, there were no sectarian murders of Christians in Libya and Islamist militias tied to Al Qaeda were small groups with no broader influence. These forces were armed and promoted when, in 2011, the Obama administration and its allies in Europe, led by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, took the decision to topple Gaddafi.

The imperialist powers funneled massive amounts of money and weaponry to Islamist militias and Al Qaeda operatives, providing them with air support through a mass bombing campaign that killed tens of thousands of Libyans.

As the World Socialist Web Site wrote at the time: “Far from a ‘revolution’ or struggle for ‘liberation,’ what the world is witnessing is the rape of Libya by a syndicate of imperialist powers determined to lay hold of its oil wealth and turn its territory into a neo-colonial base of operations for further interventions throughout the Middle East and North Africa.”

The disastrous consequences of the rape of Libya are now all too clear to see.

The war culminated in the carpet bombing of Sirte and the torture and murder of Gaddafi, after which then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gloated, “We came, we saw, he died.” Since then, Libya has collapsed into an ever-bloodier civil war between various Islamist factions and rival militias vying for state power. The country has also served as a training ground for CIA-backed Islamist forces preparing to fight the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Less than four years after the war, the American media report on ISIS atrocities in Libya as if US imperialism had nothing to do with them. No one reading the editorial produced Sunday by the New York Times (“What Libya’s Unraveling Means”) would have any inkling of Washington’s role in producing this catastrophe, or the US media’s role in supporting the operation. One of the key figures in the war, the late US Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens, who was killed in an Islamist raid in Benghazi after the war, was himself a friend of many Times journalists.

The Times worries that “this oil-rich nation [is veering] towards complete chaos,” and that “the growth and radicalization of Islamist groups raise the possibility that large parts of Libya could become a satellite of the Islamic State.” It manages to describe the conflict that led to Gaddafi’s ouster simply as a “civil war,” without even mentioning NATO’s six-month bombing of Libya.

ISIS is now strongest precisely where Washington has intervened most aggressively. Another article published in the Times over the weekend warns, “The Islamic State is expanding beyond its base in Syria and Iraq to establish military affiliates in Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt and Libya.” The Times does not mention that the US has invaded or financed Islamist proxy wars in four of the six countries mentioned: Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.

The world is now witnessing the consequences of the recklessness, brutality, greed and limitless stupidity of Washington and its NATO allies.

Responsibility for the disaster in Libya lies squarely with former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the initial champion of a NATO war in Libya; President Obama, whose administration provided the bulk of the firepower that shattered Libya’s armed forces and its major cities; and the NATO allied powers that joined in this murderous adventure.

What is unfolding across the Middle East today is an indictment of imperialism, its ruling elites, its political servants and its lying media.

Rise in value of Swiss franc threatens workers in Eastern Europe with ruin

Markus Salzmann

The sharp rise in the value of the Swiss franc against the euro is driving thousands of people in Eastern Europe into ruin.

In mid-January, the Swiss National Bank announced without warning that it would no longer continue to maintain the exchange rate of the franc below 1.20 francs to the euro. As a result, the franc increased in value rapidly. For a time, it was worth more than the euro. Currently, a euro is worth just 1.06 francs.

The sharp rise in the franc has been accompanied by a corresponding rise in the debt burden of hundreds of thousands of people throughout Eastern Europe. Prior to the 2008 financial crisis, loans denominated in Swiss francs were common in these countries. In Poland, around 550,000 mortgages are denominated in Swiss francs. The repayments rose by 15 percent overnight due to the exchange rate rise. Some 150,000 loans are affected in Romania, 60,000 in Croatia and and 22,000 in Serbia. The Swiss National Bank estimates that loans totalling 220 billion francs are currently outstanding in Eastern Europe.

The banks made loans in francs at interest rates far lower than was available in each of the local currencies, while deliberately concealing the exchange rate risk. This is shown by figures from Austria, where loans in francs comprised roughly a third of all private loans prior to 2008. After a warning and a ban from the country’s financial supervisor, the number of loans in francs was cut in half.

Many are exposed even if they obtained insurance against currency rises. In order to be protected against severe losses, debtors established so-called stop-loss limits—i.e., if the exchange rate fell below 1.20 to the euro, the loan would automatically be transferred into euros. But the exchange rate change occurred so quickly that the banks could not react fast enough, or did not want to. Many loans were only switched when the exchange rate was 1 franc to the euro. This dubious practice has been covered up by the state.

Many of those affected face disaster. Deutsche Welle related the situation of Marko Vasic, who bought a small apartment in the Serbian capital, Belgrade, in 2008 with the help of a loan denominated in Swiss francs. He was able to manage the monthly repayment rate of €350. But now Vasic has to pay €560 per month. “We customers are not gamblers, and despite that we are being buried alive. I don’t know any more if I should be angry at the banks or the state. That’s why I’m mad at them both,” said the electronics technician from Belgrade.

Euronews reported on the situation of a married couple who purchased a three-room apartment in the Romanian capital Bucharest with a loan denominated in francs. Now, with a monthly income of 1,000 lei, they have to pay a monthly rate of 3,700 lei (roughly €830).

The website swissinfo.ch related the story of Agnieszka Gagala, who took on a loan in Swiss francs in Poland in 2009. At that time, her debt amounted to 260,000 zloty (64,000 Swiss francs). After the Swiss National Bank’s decision, she now has to repay 500,000 zloty. The monthly repayment rate for the 32-year-old now stands at 2,000 zloty, leaving her with 600 zloty to live. “I cannot explain how disturbed and angry I am,” she complained. “Many people who decided to take on loans in Swiss francs were not aware of the risks, and it wasn’t explained to them. No one can expect customers to have the same knowledge as economists.”

Robery Grausam-Onyszkiewicz from Krakow told TVN24 that for a loan worth 150,000 zloty that he had taken out in 2008, he must now repay 500,000 zloty. His health had been severely affected due to the pressure he is under.

Municipalities have also been hit hard by an explosion in debt. The debt of the Austrian capital Vienna rose overnight by €300 million. Last month, the city’s total debt surpassed €5 billion. Other Austrian cities, among them Salzburg and Linz, are similarly affected.

Municipalities in Germany are also affected by the “new plague,” as theSüddeutsche Zeitung termed the rapid exchange rate shift. Due to low interest rates, many German municipalities have kept their debts in Swiss francs. In North Rhein-Westphalia alone, according to figures from the interior ministry, 26 municipalities took on loans in foreign currency with a total value of €1.9 billion.

It goes without saying that the additional debt will be used to insist on deeper cuts to public budgets. Social infrastructure, which in many areas is already in an extremely bad state, will deteriorate further. Swimming pools, libraries, youth centres and other social institutions will have to deal with cuts or be forced to close down.

Problems first emerged with foreign currency loans following the 2008 crisis. Such loans had been granted by the banks on a massive scale in the 1990s and early 2000s, bringing in huge profits. In Hungary in 2009, 97 percent of the awarded property loans were in Swiss francs.

While the governments at the time cooperated closely with the banks and fostered the conditions for these loans, they are now leaving individuals holding the loans to fend for themselves.

In Croatia, where parliamentary elections are set to follow the presidential election this year, the government has fixed the exchange rate of the kuna to the franc. The exchange rate difference will have to be borne by the banks. A similar approach is being discussed in Poland, where elections are also due, and in Romania. In Hungary, the Fidesz government limited individuals’ losses to some extent three years ago by adopting a similar measure. In the process they drew sharp criticism from the finance markets and the European Union’s institutions.

In Croatia, approximately 75,000 households took on loans in Swiss francs. According to analysts, the currency peg could cost the government 30 percent of its foreign currency reserves. There is a high risk that exports to Germany, France and Italy will become too expensive and fall sharply. But in the face of economic and social instability, the deeply discredited government in Zagreb feared unrest.

Swissinfo stated, “While the shock of the increased value of the franc probably won’t ‘threaten’ the bankruptcy of the countries or banks… the actual risk for instability for some of the countries is social unrest. Poland and Romania witnessed demonstrations at which the governments were called upon to help the people.”

France sells 24 Rafale fighter jets to Sisi dictatorship in Egypt

Antoine Lerougetel

On February 12, returning from talks in Minsk over the civil war in east Ukraine, French President François Hollande announced the sale of 24 Rafale fighter jets to the bloody regime of Egyptian dictator General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Along with other prospective sales, it will make the Egyptian dictatorship France’s biggest arms client in 2015.

The purchase agreement is to be signed in Cairo on Monday, financed by loans coming from a pool of French banks and guaranteed by the French state. The deal, first broached during French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian’s visit to Cairo in September, includes the sale of a navy frigate and missiles.

Hollande said, “Egypt wanted a quality aircraft, taking into account the threats existing around the country.” According to an expert quoted by Le Monde, one of the selling points for French as opposed to American weapons is that France does not impose restrictions on whom they are used against. Egypt has recently launched military operations both against Islamist forces in Libya and insurgents in Egypt’s own Sinai peninsula.

The announcement of the deal, the first time the French government has succeeded in selling the Rafale overseas, was greeted with euphoria by the French media and political establishment. Le Monde enthused, “Let’s not deny our delight.”

The arms deal constitutes a public endorsement by Hollande of the Sisi regime’s military operations and its bloody suppression of political opposition after the revolutionary working class uprising that toppled Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

Since Sisi’s coup in July 2013, his regime has massacred at least 3,000 people, including at least 1,000 members of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) of deposed President Mohamed Mursi, who was toppled by the coup. It has imposed sweeping bans against public demonstrations and arrested tens of thousands of people who are now detained in secret prisons and torture centers. Sisi is also slashing subsidies on basic goods such as fuel and bread, further impoverishing the working class.

The Sisi regime’s support for imperialist interventions in the Middle East and its violent hostility to the working class have won it broad support in the French ruling class. At Hollande’s invitation, Sisi’s representatives joined the officially-sponsored “I am Charlie ” demonstrations in Paris after the shooting of journalists of the Charlie Hebdo weekly by Islamist gunmen.

The deal with Al-Sisi is part of developing alliances with African governments including Algeria by French and Western imperialism against the Islamic State (IS) group to maintain and enlarge their control of the geo-strategic mineral ressources of North Africa and the Sahel. Last August, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) participated in air strikes against Islamist militias in oil-rich Libya which threaten the Western-backed government and the entire region.

The US government supplies half the warplanes used by the UAE air force, with France providing the balance.

Al-Sisi also participates in Israel’s strangling of Gaza, destroying and blocking tunnels from Egypt into the Palestinian enclave that enables it to access vital supplies.

The deal is predicated on the understanding that the Sisi regime will continue to suppress the working class and align itself on the foreign policy of Hollande’s Socialist Party (PS) government. A Reuters news dispatch noted, “Diplomats say the deal suits both Cairo and Paris geopolitically, with both particularly invested in the fight against jihadist groups in North Africa. Sisi has been looking to upgrade Egypt’s military hardware over fears Islamist militias in neighboring Libya could take control and directly threaten Egypt.”

“Egypt needs planes quickly,” said Patricia Adam, president of the French parliament’s defense committee. “You just need to take a look at what’s happening at its border. They are especially worried by what’s happening in Libya.” Islamist militias based in Libya provide forces for the destabilization of Mali, where thousands of French troops are deployed to ensure France’s control of its former colonial sphere in the uranium-rich Sahel.

As it markets the Rafale, France’s defense industry is also trying to profit from the fighter’s increasing long combat record, as France fights wars across Africa and the Middle East. The Rafale, which first went into service in the French air force in 2004, has been deployed in Afghanistan (2007-2012), Libya (2011), in Mali (since 2013) and in Iraq against IS (since last September).

Negotiations on potential Rafale sales are underway with several governments, including India, Qatar and Malaysia. Before the Egyptian deal, however, the French army had been the Rafale’s only customer, having been beaten to contracts by the US, the UK and Sweden.

After failing to clinch sales deals with several potential foreign buyers and facing military budget cuts in France, Paris faced a possible collapse of production of the Rafale, currently the French armed forces’ main fighter-bomber.

The French armed forces’ planned purchase of 320 Rafales shrank to 225 in 2013 and the minimum of 11 planes a year required to maintain the production line was threatened. The Egyptian sale was no doubt pushed aggressively by aerospace firm Dassault, but also defense electronics firm Thales and aircraft motor manufacturer Safran. The Rafale’s 40-year development program has cost the state €49.5 billion.

US historians criticize Tokyo’s efforts to whitewash war crimes

Ben McGrath

A group of 19 American historians have condemned efforts by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to whitewash the historical record following his recent attempts to pressure a McGraw-Hill, a US publishing company, to change textbook passages concerning the Japanese military’s terrible abuse of “comfort women” during the 1930s and 1940s.

In a February 5 statement entitled “Standing with Historians of Japan,” the American academics not only criticized the Japanese government’s attempts to whitewash history but opposed any attempt by other governments to censor the past. As the title also makes clear, the historians lent support to their Japanese colleagues who have worked to investigate the truth regarding “comfort women,” or women who were coerced into “comfort stations” as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers.

Among those who signed the statement were Patrick Manning, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh who is being considered for the chair of the American Historical Association, and Hebert Ziegler, of Hawaii University and one of the authors of McGraw-Hill’s textbook that Abe criticized.

At the end of last year, the Japanese Consulate General in New York met with representatives of McGraw-Hill, to call for its textbook to be amended. The company refused. At the end of January, Abe declared that he was “shocked” by what he had read in the books and called for greater efforts to “correct” such accounts.

The statement by the American academics reads, “As historians, we express our dismay at recent attempts by the Japanese government to suppress statements in history textbooks both in Japan and elsewhere about the euphemistically named ‘comfort women,’ who suffered under a brutal system of sexual exploitation in the service of the Japanese imperial army during World War II. We therefore oppose the efforts of states or special interests to pressure publishers or historians to alter the results of their research for political purposes.”

The historians’ statement also expressed support for Japanese historians like Yoshimi Yoshiaki, a professor at Chuo University in Japan. It continued, “The careful research of historian Yoshimi Yoshiaki in Japanese government archives and the testimonial of survivors throughout Asia have rendered beyond dispute the essential features of a system that amounted to state-sponsored sexual slavery.”

Yoshiaki is a professor of modern history and author of the book, “Comfort Women,” first published in Japanese in 1995 and then in English in 2002. Yoshiaki began researching the sexual enslavement of comfort women in 1992 when victims were first beginning to come forward. He made extensive use of documents from the 1930s, found in the Ministry of Defense’s library (then known as the Defense Agency). This type of information is invaluable as many papers were destroyed in Japan during the closing days of World War II, including many that were evidence of war crimes.

While Yoshiaki made use of these documents to show the military’s role in setting up the brothels, he also stated in 2007 in the New York Times, “There are things that are never written in official documents. That they [comfort women] were forcibly recruited—that’s the kind of thing that would have never been written in the first place.”

The number of women forced into military-run “comfort stations” is estimated to have been approximately 200,000, with many of them coming from Korea, China, the Philippines, and other Asian countries occupied by Japan. Girls, often in their teens, endured horrendous conditions in the Japanese military brothels. Many committed suicide.

While some women were directly forced into sexual slavery, others were duped and then held against their will. In Korea, for example, the Japanese military relied on Korean middlemen to round up girls, often with phony promises of good jobs in factories or other work. These girls often came from poor families.

Right-wing Japanese nationalists often claim that the “comfort women” were already prostitutes and willingly worked at the comfort stations. While there is some evidence that this might be true in the early stages, as Japan’s imperialist war drive expanded, the practices of coercing and intimidating young women into becoming “comfort women” increased.

“The Japanese military itself newly built this system, took the initiative to create this system, maintained it and expanded it, and violated human rights as a result,” Yoshiaki said in 2007 comments to the New York Times. “That’s a critical difference [from prostitution].”

Abe’s attempt to revise the historical record on “comfort women” is just one aspect of a broader agenda. The government has also set aside more than a half billion dollars for a diplomatic and propaganda offensive to “restore Japan’s honor.” It recently announced the establishment of “Japan Houses” around the world to promote the country’s image and to whitewash past war crimes.

The first “Japan Houses” will be set up in London, Los Angeles, and Sao Paulo by the end of 2016, but the plan does not end there. “We are half-satisfied. By mobilizing all means, we must strengthen Japan’s information strategy…so that in a real sense, we can have (others) properly understand what is good about Japan,” said Yoshiaki Harada, a lawmaker with Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

Japan also recently provided $5 million to Columbia University for a Japan studies position. It was the first time Tokyo has made such a grant in more than four decades. “There is a fear that Japan is losing out in an information war with South Korea and China and that we must catch up,” said Kan Kimura of Kobe University.

This concerted ideological campaign is part of the Abe government’s remilitarization of Japan and preparation for war. It is aimed at whipping up patriotic sentiment at home to dragoon a new generation of youth to go off to war, while blunting criticism abroad not only of past crimes, but the Japanese government’s current military build-up.

All of this has been encouraged by the United States as part of its “pivot to Asia,” designed to undermine China economically and militarily encircle it. While it is fully supportive of the “pivot,” the Abe government is also seeking to remilitarize to prosecute the economic and strategic interests of Japanese imperialism, even if they conflict with those of the US.

US military looks to expand use of Australian bases and ports

James Cogan

During a visit to Australia earlier this month, the American Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan Greenert flagged the prospect of the US military rotating a naval Amphibious Ready Group to the port of Darwin, in the country’s far north. Following agreements struck between the US and Australia in 2011, US marines are already based in Darwin for six months of the year. By 2016–2017, the deployment will consist of an entire 2,500-strong Marine Air Ground Task Force.

An Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) generally consists of a 44,000 tonne amphibious assault ship—which can carry some 1,700 troops, vehicles, landing craft and an assortment of helicopters and vertical take-off jet fighters—as well as two 20,000 tonne dock landing ships. The smaller vessels also carry landing craft and some 500 troops. The presence of an ARG in Darwin would enable the entire marine rotation in northern Australia to be rapidly embarked and deployed to operations in South East Asia or the South China Sea.

An aspect of Greenert’s visit was to receive briefings on the upgrades required to Darwin’s port to accommodate such large warships. He indicated that the US Navy would want a basing arrangement in place by 2020 at the latest.

“Right now,” Greenert told a forum at the Australian National University in Canberra on February 10, “it’s at the stage of ‘what’s the art of the possible’? What kind of infrastructure exists… what kind of support measures, and how would that fit into the two nations’ common strategic desires into the future… It’s the early stages, but we are considering it, the two of us.”

Other developments point to the further integration of the US and Australian militaries and preparations for the expanded American use of Australian bases.

The US Defense Department and the Australian Defence Force are conducting a joint study into a range of options involving the basing of other US warships in Australia. In particular, the feasibility of “rotating” an entire US aircraft carrier battlegroup to the port of Stirling near Perth in Western Australia, which was recommended in 2012 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is one of the possibilities under examination. However, more than $1 billion would need to be spent to upgrade the port to ensure it could cater for the long-term presence of nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed vessels.

The Australian Navy commissioned the Canberra, its first 27,500 tonne amphibious assault ship last November. Like similar American vessels, it carries landing craft, six to eight helicopters, a 400-strong marine assault force and up to 110 vehicles and their crews, including tanks. The Australian Army has been training its own marines over the past three years, with the assistance of the US. A second ship to transport them will come into service next year. Combined, the US and Australian militaries could dispatch a force of 3,500 heavily armed troops from Darwin, complete with air support, anywhere in the region.

In December, the Australian military opened a new $125 million logistics complex in Darwin, consisting of an array of heavily-fortified and cyclone-proof buildings to store tanks, armoured vehicles, explosives and ammunition, and general supplies. It includes repair workshops and weapons’ testing facilities.

Retired Australian Major General Peter Haddon told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: “My understanding is those who are in charge today see this as a potential site for doing some of that support for the marines.”

Since the Greens-backed Labor government of Prime Minister Julia Gillard signed the agreement for the US Marines to be based in Darwin, American long-range B-52 bombers now spend up to six months a year at airbases in Darwin and nearby Tindal, making use of the large training ranges in Australia’s north. The political establishment and the mass media have been all but silent on the presence of aircraft, which can carry an undisclosed payload of nuclear weapons.

A major expansion of the key US satellite base at Pine Gap in central Australia, which provides targeting information for everything from drone missile attacks to potential nuclear strikes, was completed at the end of 2014. At the end of 2013, the US military announced that it would base its new state-of-the-art Space Surveillance Telescope at the North West Cape base in Western Australia, making the site a crucial facility in monitoring satellites orbiting the earth, particularly Chinese and Russian military satellites, and providing targeting information for their destruction.

As of 2018, Australian facilities in Newcastle and Melbourne will serve as the South Pacific maintenance hubs for all US military Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighters operating in the region, as well as the South Korea’s F-35s and Australia’s own complement of the aircraft.

The ever-closer US-Australia military relations are bound up with the so-called US “pivot” or “rebalance” to the Asia-Pacific to militarily and politically confront and isolate China. Under successive Labor and Liberal governments, Australia has provided indispensable support to the US agenda, which amounts to the threat of war if China does not make the sweeping economic and strategic concessions being demanded by Washington.

More evidence of US involvement in Sri Lankan regime-change

K. Ratnayake

Sri Lanka’s presidential election on January 8 resulted in the ousting of Mahinda Rajapakse and the installation of Maithripala Sirisena as president. While the new government’s leaders and their pseudo-left backers claim this outcome was the result of an “uprising of the people” against Rajapakse’s autocratic rule, it was in reality a regime-change operation as the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) alone has explained.

Right from the outset, it was clear that Sirisena’s sudden emergence as the “common opposition candidate” was the result of carefully-orchestrated, behind-the-scenes intrigues. On November 20, one day after Rajapakse announced the election date, Health Minister Sirisena quit the government and declared that he would be standing in the election backed by the opposition United National Party (UNP) and other parties.

The WSWS has already detailed the involvement of Washington, acting through former President Chandrika Kumaratunga and UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe. The Obama administration was deeply hostile to Rajapakse’s ties with Beijing and determined to ensure that Sri Lanka is fully integrated into the US “pivot to Asia” and military build-up against China.

More evidence has now come to light on Washington’s hand in Rajapakse’s removal.

On February 6, the Sri Lankan government’s information department web site published a report on the visit of Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera to Washington. It highlighted “the revival of the cordial relationship between the two countries” and explained that this was the “result of the fruitful discussions the Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, as the opposition leader, had with the US State Department officials, including [US Assistant Secretary of State] Biswal and former Ambassador to Colombo Michelle Sison.”

The report provided further details of Wickremesinghe’s top-level meetings in Washington. “During his one-month stay in the US last April, Wickremesinghe had met and held discussions on Sri Lanka’s political future with the senior officials at the State Department, and White House, and the members of the Senate and the House of Representatives.”

On his return to Sri Lanka, Wickremesinghe met with US ambassador Sison on May 22 at the UNP headquarters. A media report at the time noted that the focus of the discussion “was regarding the current political situation of Sri Lanka.”

When the UNP announced Wickremesinghe’s extended trip to the US last year, it was billed as a study tour at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University. Clearly that was just a cover for lengthy discussions with top State Department and White House officials over “Sri Lanka’s political future”—that is, how to advance their common objective of removing Rajapakse from office. US ambassador Sison coordinated the meetings.

The US has been putting pressure on Rajapakse to break ties with Beijing since 2009 when the Sri Lankan military defeated the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the island’s long-running communal war. Having fully backed the war, Washington has cynically exploited the military’s war crimes and the threat of charges to try to force Rajapakse to distance his government from China.

Rajapakse sought to balance between Washington and Beijing but the US made clear that was untenable. In March last year, Washington flagged its impatience by pushing a resolution through the UN Human Rights Council calling for an international inquiry into human rights abuses in Sri Lanka. Wickremesinghe’s visit and discussions in the US followed in April.

The other key figure in the intrigues was former President Kumaratunga, who as a former leader and a senior figure within Rajapakse’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party, was able to broker the deal for Sirisena to defect and run as opposition candidate with the UNP’s support. She also has close connections in Washington and to the White House via her association with the Clinton Foundation. As Obama’s previous Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton was the architect of the “pivot to Asia” and was deeply involved in all of its intrigues, including in Sri Lanka.

In a lengthy interview with Sirasa TV on February 3, Kumaratunga acknowledged her role, saying she had been the main architect in bringing Sirisena forward as the common opposition candidate. Kumaratunga said that many people had urged her to intervene against Rajapakse, adding: “Foreign countries strongly brought proposals [to me] on this.” She refused to name the countries or to elaborate, but the US was clearly one of the countries.

The opposition plans for the election were shown to top US and UK diplomats by UNP leaders, Karu Jayasuriya, Mangala Samaraweera and Ravi Karunanayake.

The Sunday Times editorial on February 8 noted: “It is an open secret that the former US Ambassador in Colombo reached out to the Opposition, especially the then Leader of the Opposition [Wickremesinghe]” and moved away from engagement with former President Rajapakse.

In carrying out this regime-change operation, the opposition parties exploited the deep hostility among workers, young people and the poor towards the Rajapakse government over its anti-democratic methods and austerity policies. Sirisena declared that he was fighting against the “dictatorship and family nepotism of Rajapakse” and promised economic relief for the people.

This pro-US campaign was immensely helped by pseudo-left organisations such as the Nava Sama Samaja Party who falsely painted Sirisena and Wickremesinghe as democrats. As a senior minister in the Rajapakse government, Sirisena bears responsibility for all of its anti-working class policies. Likewise, Wickremesinghe’s UNP has a long history of attacks on the democratic and social rights of workers and youth.

Having helped install Sirisena, the US is now seeking to rapidly transform its relations with Sri Lanka. During his recent visit to India, Obama said: “In this region, India can play a positive role in helping countries forge a better future, from Burma to Sri Lanka, where today there’s new hope for democracy.”

Similarly, in a speech to Brooklyn Institute on National Security Strategy, Obama’s National Security Advisor Susana Rice declared: “We’ll help countries in transition—like Burma, Tunisia, and Sri Lanka—become more open, more democratic, and more inclusive societies. We’ll support established democracies that are in danger of backsliding.”

Washington’s machinations have nothing to do with fostering democracy in Sri Lanka or anywhere else in the world. Rather, the US is seeking to ensure its dominance throughout the globe, particularly in Asia over China. Sri Lanka, which is strategically located across Indian Ocean sea lanes, is a critical element of the Pentagon’s war plans against China. The new Sri Lanka government has wasted no time in showing its readiness to align with US interests. Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Samaraweera is visiting Washington this week to meet with US Secretary of State John Kerry to discuss closer relations.

US imperialism has brought Europe to the brink of war with its reckless confrontation with Russia over Ukraine. Washington’s aggressive policies in Asia against China carry the same dangers. Workers in Sri Lanka, Asia and around the world must draw the necessary conclusions lessons and build an anti-war movement of the international working class to put an end to capitalism and its outmoded nation-state system which is the root cause of war.

Obama’s budget proposal cuts $50 million from immunization funding

Kevin Martinez

As part of the 2016 budget proposal, the Obama White House announced that it will cut $50 million, or 8 percent, from $611 million for the Department of Health and Human Services’ “317 program.” The 317 Program provides free vaccinations to children with and without insurance, as well as insured adults in response to outbreaks and disaster relief. It also funds the infrastructure needed for high immunization coverage. The announcement comes at a time when the measles has now spread to 14 states with over 120 confirmed cases.

The budget proposal also calls for $128 million to be added to the Vaccines for Children program, an entitlement program that covers insured, uninsured, and Medicaid-eligible children for vaccines. The Obama Administration has argued that through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) access to immunizations will be expanded, decreasing the need for the 317 program.

L.J. Tan, chief strategy officer for the Immunization Action Coalition, told CNN that despite the ACA now covering many children who were previously covered by the 317 program, the budget cuts will be a setback. “The program funds a lot of the states’ infrastructure for vaccine delivery,” he said. The program is also critical in monitoring the spread of the disease and interviewing those who have come in contact with it.

The announcement that the federal immunization program will be cut is in direct contrast to President Obama’s statement to NBC: “There is every reason to get vaccinated, but there aren’t reasons to not,” adding, “You should get your get kids vaccinated.”

While the Affordable Care Act requires insurance providers to pay for vaccines without cost-sharing, it does not cancel out the function of the 317 program, which acts as a safety net for Americans with and without insurance. It also provides for insured children and adults during a major outbreak such as when 317 program vaccines were used to immunize privately-insured children during 2012-13 when pediatricians did not buy enough pediatric influenza vaccines, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Most of the 317 program provides for state and local health officials to purchase vaccines, educate immunization providers, prepare and respond to outbreaks, and have infrastructure in place. The program was cut $51.5 million last year, eliminating $37.5 million for vaccine purchases. Program operations, which include public awareness and immunization provider education, were cut by $14 million.

Despite the proposed $128 million increase for the Vaccines for Children Program, millions of Americans still rely on the 317 program’s vaccines. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, more than 41 million non-elderly Americans did not have health insurance in 2013. This did not include the underinsured, whose health plans do not cover all vaccines.

Another strain on the country’s immunization system is that fewer physicians are providing the full host of vaccines to insured patients, while vaccines costs more and more and insurance reimbursement rates decline. This means that local public health providers have to pick up those who fall through the cracks.

The National Vaccine Advisory Committee, in its report to Health and Human Services wrote, “As we have learned over the years, insurance coverage alone is not enough to ensure disease control or high vaccination coverage rates. … Current vaccine financing strategies, including those offered now by the ACA, do not address the fundamental resource needs to support the immunization infrastructure.”

Even if the additional funds are going toward vaccine purchases, the ability of local health departments to prepare and respond to outbreaks has been diminished by the cuts. Chris Aldridge, senior director for infectious disease at the National Association of County and City Health Officials told theWashington Post, “When we’re looking at an outbreak, such as with measles, sometimes the concern is less about, ‘Is that person insured,’ than it is really about getting the vaccine out there and distributing it. There is still a need for vaccine purchasing and making sure we can get out there.”

Meanwhile, the measles outbreak, which began last December in Disneyland, has spread to 17 states and has affected at least 125 people. This year’s outbreak is on track to surpass last year’s total of 644 cases, the highest number since the disease was thought to be eradicated in 2000.

A private Christian school in Port Angeles, Washington, was quarantined after a 5-year-old kindergartner was diagnosed with measles. Students at Olympic Christian school who cannot show proof of immunity were told to stay home, avoid public places, and have no contact with anyone susceptible to measles until February 27, according to the county health department. According to the state health records, of the 115 students at the school, nearly 16 percent were exempted from the required vaccinations, meaning that some 18 students could be affected by the quarantine.

Three new cases of measles were also reported in Toronto, Canada, bringing the total in that country to 22. Health officials there confirmed an unvaccinated 14-year-old girl from the Niagara region was infected. Two more cases were also confirmed in Cook County, Illinois, bring the total there to 13 cases statewide. At least 12 of those cases have been tied to a suburban daycare center in Palatine, mostly occurring in children too young to be vaccinated.

In California, where the disease was thought to have first appeared, two new cases were reported in Ventura County, bringing the county total to 14, and the statewide total to 110. At least one of the cases involved a person who visited Disneyland last December. The amusement park has asked California health officials to reassure the public that the park is safe to attend.

Harper government to criminalize Canadian Pacific railway strike

Carl Bronski

Thirty-three hundred locomotive engineers, conductors and yardmen went on strike early Sunday morning after negotiators for Canadian Pacific (CP) Railways and the Teamsters Canada Railway Conference (TCRC) failed to reach agreement on a new contract. The main issue in the strike is CP’s unwillingness to address the issues of a brutal scheduling regimen and inadequate rest time for the rail workers.

Currently, employees must work a six-day-on/two-day-off schedule. Only minimal government recommended rest rules are recognized by the company, but even these are routinely ignored. Workers have reported being required to labour for up to 18 hours in a day. During their rest days, workers are “on-call” should additional overtime be demanded by the company. Furthermore, workers have no guarantee they will be anywhere near their home when their rotation ends.

Disciplinary action is regularly applied against workers resisting these grueling schedules. Grievances filed by overworked employees are systematically referred to arbitration—a process that can take months and even years to resolve.

Shortly after the breakdown of negotiations, Conservative Labour Minister Kellie Leitch issued a statement blaming the union for the impasse. “I am incredibly disappointed that the TCRC failed to reach an agreement with CP Rail,” she told reporters. “Due to this reckless disregard for Canadians and the Canadian economy, our government will review all available options to end any work-stoppage expediently, up to and including the introduction of legislation in Parliament.”

The threat from the Labour Minister is only the latest volley in a concerted government drive to effectively outlaw all forms of industrial and social dissent and trample on basic democratic rights. Since June 2011, the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper has repeatedly outlawed worker job action, including illegalizing a strike by Canadian Pacific railway workers in 2012, two different walkouts at Air Canada, and a Canada Post strike. The government has also used the threat of such legislation to force “settlements” in several other disputes including against workers at Canadian National Railways.

Under these conditions, employers have taken the offensive against significant sections of the working class, demanding ever-greater concessions, including the gutting of work rules, confident that they can rely on the government to illegalize any worker resistance and to task an arbitrator to dictate the workers’ terms of employment.

In the current dispute, Leitch initiated moves to illegalize the strike a full 36 hours before the breakdown of talks. On Friday, she placed on the parliamentary order paper for Monday morning, “an act to provide for the resumption of rail service operations.” The government plans to invoke procedures so as to dramatically curtail debate and speed through the bill’s passage. All three readings of the bill are scheduled to take place on the same day with only one hour earmarked for the required “mandatory referral to parliamentary committee.”

Leitch’s moves come in the wake of appeals made by corporate associations representing the forest, agriculture and auto industries for quick government action to end the strike. Corporate interests are particularly concerned because an ongoing work-to-rule (and subsequent lockout) of West Coast longshoremen in the United States has already caused shipping bottlenecks in Vancouver, British Columbia as importers and exporters shifted their loads north of the American border.

The rail workers’ strike and other signs of working-class opposition in North America, including the current national strike by thousands of oil refinery workers in the United States, are manifestations of the pent-up anger of workers who have suffered through decades of giveaways in wages, benefits and working conditions, even as corporate profits and stock markets soar in the sixth year of a supposed economic recovery.

Workers at CP Rail should place absolutely no confidence in the Teamsters union to redress their grievances. The same issues that animated their nine-day strike in 2012 remain unresolved. Then too, the Harper government passed back-to-work legislation with Teamsters officials immediately bowing to the order and instructing the workers to comply. Several months later, CP management announced the layoff of 4,500 union and nonunion employees—23 percent of the company’s workforce—resulting in the ultimate shrinking of the Teamster local by 1,700 members. At the same time, management further increased the length of individual trains and their running speeds. CP profits soared.

The trade unions, which have colluded with big business for decades in forcing on their memberships massive concessionary contracts, united over the weekend in their determination to prevent disputes at the bargaining table from in anyway providing fuel for an industry wide workers’ offensive against big business.

Whilst the clock was running out on negotiations with CP on Saturday night, Teamsters officials, who also organize 1,800 locomotive engineers at Canadian National Railways (CN), came to an eleventh hour agreement with that company. Although contract negotiations for both CN, the nation’s largest carrier and CP, the nation’s second largest carrier, were occurring at the same time, union officials did not even conduct a strike vote amongst their CN membership. So as to further divide the two groups of workers, the release of the full terms of the Teamsters’ deal with CN and the contract ratification vote are being delayed until mid-April.

Union officials with Unifor, representing another 1,800 rail safety workers at CP, also showed no interest in mounting a united struggle against the rail companies. Although they were in a legal position to strike alongside the engineers and yardmen, Unifor ordered the rail safety workers to remain on the job after negotiating a separate contract deal with CP late Saturday night. No details of the proposed contract have been released. Unifor has for years been notorious for pushing through concessions-laden contracts in the industries it organizes, including in the Canadian auto sector.

Over the weekend, New Democratic Party (NDP) leader Thomas Mulcair issued no statement on the strike and Harper’s pending legislation. The trade union-backed NDP views support for strike action as an electrified third rail in national politics. In the face of historic attacks on the right to strike, the social democrats occasionally mouth empty phrases about “unfairness” but like the union leaders are utterly opposed to any defiance of the strikebreaking laws.

The issue of rail safety has been paramount in public consciousness for several years, particularly since the tragic rail disaster in July 2012 at Lac Megantic, Quebec when an unmanned runaway train operated by a regional carrier, overseen by only a single employee and transporting a highly volatile oil cargo careened into the town and incinerated 48 people. Subsequent investigations showed that the disaster was in large part due to reductions in government inspections and ever-more lax regulations.

In order to further ratchet up profits, more and more trains—longer in length and staffed by only a conductor and an engineer who are often fatigued—are carrying dangerous goods at high speeds across the country. CP has led the way in this drive for increased productivity and profits. A 2013 report showed that the railway had posted a 39 percent increase in personal injuries on the job and a 25 percent spike in train accidents since the ending of the last strike.

Rail workers must draw some hard lessons from their recent experiences. 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 a powerful strike movement to reverse the erosion of jobs, living standards and working conditions. In the face of globally organized transport companies, workers must reject the nationalism of the unions and fight to unite with their international brothers in a common struggle.

Above all, the development of such an orientation in the working class requires the fight to develop an understanding among workers of the fundamental political questions 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.

Obama administration intervenes against West Coast dock workers

Jerry White

President Barack Obama intervened over the weekend in the increasingly tense confrontation between West Coast dockworkers and the cargo shipping companies and terminal owners organized in the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA). The White House dispatched Secretary of Labor Tom Perez to oversee talks for a new five-year labor agreement.

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), which has kept its 20,000 members on the job for nine months without a contract, faces an increasingly restive rank and file, which is opposed to another concessionary contract undermining jobs, wages and working conditions.

Accusing the ILWU of organizing a slowdown, which it said “amounts to a strike with pay,” the PMA locked out workers at 29 ports in California, Oregon and Washington State over the Presidents Day holiday weekend.

The White House move follows demands for an end to the labor dispute from major retailers, who depend on imported goods passing through the ports. A bipartisan group of US congressmen has called for the president to use the strikebreaking Taft-Hartley law, as his Republican predecessor George Bush did in 2002, to force open the ports and impose management’s dictates on the workers.

“Out of concern for the economic consequences of further delay, the president has directed his Secretary of Labor Tom Perez to travel to California to meet with the parties to urge them to resolve their dispute quickly at the bargaining table,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz said on Saturday. “Secretary Perez is already in contact with the parties and will keep the president fully updated.”

Jonathan Gold, the vice president of the National Retail Federation, hailed the announcement, saying, “The slowdowns, congestion and suspensions at the West Coast ports need to end now.” This was echoed by US Representative Janice Hahn, a California Democrat, who said she hoped Perez “will work to keep both sides at the table and help them find a resolution that keeps our ports open and our workers on the job.”

The White House is intervening entirely on behalf of the shipping and terminal owners and, more generally, the corporate and financial elite in the US, which is determined to resist growing demands by workers for wage increases and other improvements. Perez is being sent to give the ILWU its marching orders: break the resistance of the rank and file to another sellout contract and prevent the outbreak of a serious struggle, which could link up with striking oil workers in the US and rail workers in Canada and become a catalyst for a movement of broader sections of the working class.

The move by the White House reflects concerns within sections of the political establishment that unilateral actions by the employers, marginalizing the union apparatus rather than utilizing its services, could provoke a movement of the working class that the unions would be unable to control. For months, think tanks and journals have been warning about the danger of a “wages push” by US workers angry over the continued erosion of their living standards even as corporate profits and the stock market soar in the sixth year of a supposed economic recovery.

The strike by over 5,000 oil refinery workers in California, Texas, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana and Washington enters its third week today, with the oil giants refusing to budge on workers’ demands for improved wages and safety conditions. The selective strike policy of the United Steelworkers (USW) union, which has limited the walkout to less than one-fifth of the 30,000 USW-organized oil industry employees, has led the workers into a dead end, and there is increasing sentiment among rank-and-file workers for a national strike.

Meanwhile, 3,000 railroad workers at Canadian Pacific walked out Sunday morning over grueling work schedules and safety issues in a strike that threatens to impact industries throughout North America, including oil, lumber and auto as well as retail goods that arrive at ports in British Columbia. The Canadian government is expected to introduce strikebreaking legislation today.

While holding the Taft-Hartley law in reserve, the White House is relying on the ILWU to smother rank-and-file opposition. Long allied to the Democratic Party, the ILWU has colluded with the employers and the government for decades to erode jobs and living standards in the name of improving “labor flexibility” and “competitiveness” with ports in Asia and Europe.

It has sought to whip up nationalism in order to divide US dockworkers from their counterparts internationally and line them up behind their “own” American employers.

As part of the Maritime Labor Alliance, the ILWU endorsed Obama’s reelection in 2012. The union praised “the President’s initiatives to increase American exports, to enforce existing buy and ship American policies, to fund and implement the Maritime Security Program, and to ensure that our nation has a fleet of US-flag vessels necessary to meet the economic, homeland and military security requirements of our Nation.”

The president’s policy of increasing exports largely depends on reducing the wages of American workers so that US firms can compete with China, Mexico and other low-wage countries. Obama’s “security” polices have meant unending war and the destruction of democratic rights in the name of the “war on terror.”

In justifying the use of the Taft-Hartley against dockworkers in 2002, President Bush, with the full backing of Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, cited not only potential damage to the national economy, but also the harmful impact of a work stoppage on the US military in the run-up to the Iraq War. The suggestion was that any industrial action constituted a threat to national security and was therefore illegitimate and illegal.

The PMA has repeatedly cited the tax on “Cadillac” health care plans under Obama’s Affordable Care Act as justification for slashing the medical benefits won by dockworkers over generations of struggle.

Under agreements first worked out in the late 1960s to introduce new technology, the ILWU accepted the destruction of jobs and a vast increase in productivity in exchange for the PMA’s acceptance of the principle that the ILWU would retain bargaining rights for all of the workers who remained and that the distribution of work would continue to be controlled through the union hiring hall.

Over the last two contracts, however, the ILWU has acceded to the demands of the PMA for a vast expansion in the use of contract workers, leading to a gradual return to the days of the hated “shape up” system, when management hired and fire workers at will and workers who loaded and unloaded ships had no guaranteed wages, hours or safety protection.

In the current talks, the PMA is offering a meager wage increase of 2.8 percent in each of the next five years and seeking concessions on pensions and contract work. For its part, the ILWU is chiefly concerned with the institutional interests of the union, seeking some type of commitment for minimum staffing levels.

On Friday, ILWU President Bob McEllrath agreed to a federal mediator’s request for a 48-hour news blackout so the union could negotiate a sellout agreement behind the backs of 20,000 dockworkers.

The intervention of the Obama administration underscores the fact that workers fighting for decent wages and working conditions confront a political struggle not only against the oil giants and ship owners, but against both parties of big business and the capitalist system they defend.

Such a struggle can be developed only in opposition to the unions, which function as tools of the corporations and government. The isolation of different struggles must be broken through the building of new organizations of struggle, controlled by rank-and-file workers, to unite the entire working class in an industrial and political counteroffensive in defense of jobs, living standards and democratic and social rights.