Workers Struggles: The Americas

Latin America

Chilean doctors stop work to demand improved working conditions

Doctors in the Chilean coastal city of Viña del Mar announced an indefinite strike February 21 to push for improved working conditions. The doctors’ union stated that their employer, the Viña del Mar Municipal Corporation, has not agreed to maintain incentives to stay and work in the community’s public health centers.

A union communiqué claims that a large gap exists between fees paid for consultations in Viña del Mar and in other communities, causing a high turnover rate among the professionals, “more than 40 percent in some offices.” Three months ago, the union had signed an agreement with the mayor’s office, but the city has yet to fulfill its end of the agreement, according to the statement.

Emergency services remain in force, but other consultations have been postponed.

Strike by Argentine space station construction workers over labor conditions, union threats

Workers building a Chinese space station in western Argentina’s Neuquén province downed their tools February 19 to demand better conditions and denounce threats made by the Construction Workers Union (Uocra). The workers are employed by Esuco, a subcontractor for the China Harbour Engineering Company, Ltd. (CHEC), and 230 of the workers in the project are members of Uocra.

About 100 of the workers showed up for their shifts and took their posts, but did not work, a tactic known as huelga de brazos caídos (hanging arms or “shrug” strike). Demands included compliance with the contract agreement of three days of work for one day of rest, recategorization of personnel, a higher percentage of local workers, 100 percent holiday pay, a change of the food vendor and no docking of pay or reprisals for industrial actions.

Workers denounced not receiving changes of work clothes in over four months, having to share shoes, lapses in safety and the provision of “two bathrooms for 80 people” in which there is often no water.

Another complaint dealt with threats made against workers by Uocra. A relative of one of the workers told Cronista that when the workers announced that they were going to strike, a union delegate came to the site “with thugs with knives to put the squeeze on the personnel because they didn’t return to work and to warn them that in March they would bring in outsiders to work.” In another instance, a man brandished a gun while threatening workers.

Uocra reps met with management and held an assembly with the workers on February 20 over the talks. One delegate claimed that “over 90 percent of what we asked for is resolved” without elaborating. The company also agreed not to let the gun-toting thug onto the premises. The assembly voted to return to the job.

Brazilian auto workers strike over planned layoffs

Over 5,000 workers at a General Motors auto plant in Sao Jose dos Campos, 55 miles from Sao Paulo, Brazil, stopped work February 20 to protest planned layoffs of around 800 workers. The workers had been suspended in September, but had returned to work the week before. GM proposed to furlough the workers before laying them off in April.

In an assembly called by the metalworkers union, workers voted for an open-ended strike. GM, claiming that the strike is invalid because it was not announced beforehand, said that it “will take necessary legal measures.” With the Brazilian auto industry still in a slump, factories throughout the Sao Paulo industrial region have cut staff by the thousands in the last two years.

According to union general secretary Luiz Carlos Prastes, GM had threatened to slash jobs if the workers did not accept layoffs. This was in spite of an agreement signed in August to retain staff levels until the second half of the year.

The strike follows a 10-day walkout last month at a Volkswagen plant in the Sao Paulo metropolitan area over the same issue. The company and the union eventually signed an agreement that retains the laid-off workers, but that “includes mechanisms for staff adjustment by means of voluntary retirement with financial incentives and by curtailing temporary hiring of subcontractors to use employees in those positions.”

Colombian informal miners strike, protest for changes in mining code

On February 18, tens of thousands of workers in Colombia’s informal mining sector stopped work and marched to protest the government’s failure to address their demands. The protesters, who extract gold in the department of Antioquia, marched to six assembly points in the city of the same name.

The informal miners mostly extract gold and coal, and have protested several times over four key demands, as reported in colombiareports.co: “Submit to Congress a project to reform the Mining Code, the development of mining guides, environmental order to regulate the activity and the creation of special reserves for small miners.”

The vice president of the National Confederation of Miners (Conalminercol), which called the action, told Caracol Radio, “We have signed three agreements with signatures of government ministers, but these are apparently useless as we are not included in the law. They treat us like criminals.”

Informal mining in Colombia has a long history, and over two million people directly or indirectly depend on it. In recent years, successive Colombian governments have attempted to destroy informal and “artisanal” mining in favor of large enterprises.

According to a report in La Patria, the government has carried out a two-pronged strategy: “following the demands of the World Bank, a mining, taxation and environmental policy favorable to transnational mining enterprises was designed and perfected, finally consecrated in the 2001 Mining Code; on the other hand, norms against small miners directed at imposing enormous obligations, hindering their formalization and denying them the right to work have been expedited.”

In fact, buyers and sellers of gold in Zaragoza, El Bagre, Nechí and Medellín in Antioquia, and Marmato in Caldas, have closed their doors to informal miners due to pressure by the government. Less than one percent of 3,600 formalization applications have been granted. As a result, mining communities “are beginning to endure a grave social crisis,” according to the report.

Conalminercol lifted the strike on February 20 after a seven-hour meeting with government officials, in which the government promised to “keep constructing tools that permit differentiation in mining and inclusion.”

Mexican university workers strike to demand social security payments

More than 3,000 workers at the Autonomous University of Zacatecas (UAZ), Mexico walked off the job February 18 to demand that the rectory pay funds into the social security system. The workers, members of the university’s Academic Personnel Union (Spauaz), also demand that each department be subject to a diagnosis.

Spauaz secretary general José Crescenciano Sánchez told reporters that the problem was not the money, since the funds had been paid for January and February, but that “there is no signed and written agreement in which the rectory commits itself to pay the social security in a calendared and punctual manner.” He asked the rector “to move closer to dialogue to find a solution; the time delayed will probably be the time the strike lasts.”

UAZ refused to comment on the strike, telling reporters that the rector, Armando Silva Chairez, was in Mexico City negotiating resources to permit him to cover a debt of 67 million pesos (US$4,457,000) for social security payments for the teachers’ social security fund.

The United States

Northern New England telecom strike ends with concessions

The 1,800 telecommunications workers for FairPoint Communications in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont ratified a new three-year agreement bringing the longest strike of 2014 to a close. “We lost a lot,” said one worker at the conclusion of the 131-day strike that will see retiree health care benefits eliminated for current workers and work rules governing the contracting out of jobs “liberalized”, according to the company.

FairPoint CEO Paul Sunu was upbeat. “We are glad that the unions have ratified these agreements … to rationalize its employee costs to position the company to compete…” With the announcement of the settlement, FairPoints stock rose 5.5 percent before Friday’s close of the market.

Wage increases will be a mere one percent in August of 2016 and two percent in August of 2017. The new agreement removes old contract language that restricted the company in carrying out layoffs. In addition, future benefit accruals to pensions will be cut by 50 percent.

The union claimed the company withdrew its two-tier pay scale proposal, but according to news reports new-hires will see the pay scale advancement drawn out. What seems to have pleased the bureaucracy of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Communications Workers of America was an agreement for a union-administered health plan. Peter McLaughlin of the IBEW declared that under union management it would cost the company less money.

Canada

Ontario government workers demonstrate

Hundreds of Ontario public sector workers gathered last week in front of the provincial legislature in Toronto to protest against the Liberal government’s demand that they accept a new four-year contract that provides for no wage increases.

If the Liberal government of Premier Kathleen Wynne is successful in achieving a new austerity contract, the 35,000 workers organized in the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) will not have had a wage increase for six years. Already, in 2013, their union agreed to a two-year wage freeze that also included a 3 percent cut in entry wages for new-hires and benefits concessions.

The OPSEU membership authorized a strike mandate for the union last November with a 90 percent vote. Their contract expired the following month at the end of December. Last summer, during the provincial election campaign, the Liberal government was supported by most of the trade unions in Ontario (although not OPSEU) who characterized Wynne’s budget as “progressive”. The Liberals are pursuing a decade-long austerity agenda to reduce wages, jobs and public services. Ontario spends less per person on public services than any other province. The government has committed to slashing another $12.5 billion from the budget over the next three years.

As temperatures drop, overcrowded New York City shelters forced to turn away homeless

Isaac Finn

On Friday, temperatures in New York City dropped to two degrees Fahrenheit, the lowest on record, driving tens of thousands of the city’s homeless to seek refuge from the cold anywhere they could find it.

New York City in sub-freezing temperatures

The city’s Department of Homeless Services declared Code Blue emergencies every night last week. During such emergencies, homeless shelters are required to accept anyone who asks for help during the day, but most are unable to provide beds for those who show up.

Outside the daytime-only drop-in center on West 30th Street in Manhattan, Daniel, 47, explained that he was staying at a shelter at a nearby church at night. “The church is crowded now because, in addition to all the beds filled, they leave it open to let ‘strays’ come in.” Those who are not permanently staying in the shelter are forced to leave at a certain time. “I don’t know if they know where to go next.”

Daniel added, “They should have a program where shelter is supplied to the homeless, not where we are sitting on chairs crowded on top of each other.”

Last Thursday, New York City Rescue Mission housed 140 people—double its usual capacity—and was forced to lay out mats on the chapel floor and place chairs in the corridors.

“We never had this kind of cold weather before, and in my opinion it is only going to get worse,” said Jamie Boomer, who was visiting the shelter on 30th street.

“All of last January, I was on the street and I had to do all kinds of things to keep warm. I slept on trains and subway stations. I have even slept under a car. It is especially hard for me in this weather because I am anemic, so I have to wear multiple layers to stay warm.”

Asked if he had seen any changes for the homeless under the administration of New York City Bill de Blasio, Boomer responded, “I think politics is a scam, and I don’t think these people know what life is like for us.”

The de Blasio administration has also phased out warming centers—short-term emergency shelters operating during cold weather—which existed as part of Code Blue procedures under the previous administration. Last winter, the Office of Emergency Management chose not to open warming centers, and references to the emergency shelters have been removed from the DHS’s website.

While New York City law requires that apartments be heated to at least 68 degrees between 6AM and 10PM, many landlords do not maintain this standard. Residents at Claremont Houses in the Bronx, part of the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), lost heat after the boiler broke last Tuesday night.

NYCHA, the country’s largest affordable housing program, has long been criticized for leaving buildings in disrepair, with residents at Washington, Polo Grounds and Taft complexes claiming to have inconsistent heating and hot water.

According to the City of New York’s website, 3,595 people called to file a complaint about inadequate heat or hot water between February 20th and 21st. The previous Sunday, the Office of Emergency Management received more than 1,000 complaints related to heating, almost twice as many as they usually receive.

Pro-European forces threaten Moldova to toe the line

Andrei Tudora & Tina Zamfir

The Republic of Moldova is embroiled in a deep political crisis as a result of the imperialist drive eastward to encircle and destabilize Russia. The economy of the Eastern European country has been severely weakened by the economic sanctions imposed on the Russian Federation and by the free market reforms imposed by the outgoing administration of pro-EU Prime Minister Iurie Leanca.

Under the pressure of powerful international forces, old regional conflicts are once again coming to the fore. In the former Soviet Republic, the European Union is using the historical claim of Romania’s bourgeoisie upon its eastern neighbor to whip up anti-Russian chauvinism and further the imperialist agenda.

The three main pro-European parties have been unable to form a governing coalition, despite their claim to victory in the general elections held on November 30. The elections saw a decline in the pro-EU vote compared to the last elections, and the pro-Russian Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova (PSRM) gained first place in the new parliament, even as the principal anti-EU formation, the Fatherland Party, was barred from participating three days before the elections.

Following the elections, the EU intensified its pressure on the leaders of the three parties to quickly support a stable government that would firmly bring the country into the EU’s sphere of influence and accelerate the economic measures required by the IMF.

However, coalition talks soon stalled as a rift developed between the leaders of the Liberal Democratic Party of Moldova (PLDM) and the Democratic Party (PDM) on one side, and the radical pro unionist (i.e. union with Romania) Liberal Party of Moldova on the other. After previously backing the PLDM in the election, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis cancelled a state visit to Moldova on January 22, when the division in the pro-EU camp became more evident and talks were already underway between the PLDM, PDM and the Party of Communists’ of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM)—the party that was ousted from power by a pro-EU sweep in 2009.

An EU delegation led by Elmar Brok, Chairman of the European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs, held talks at the Chisinau airport on January 20 with the leaders of the pro-European parties, insisting on the formation of a coalition government to include all three parties. However, coalition talks failed, and on January 23, the PLDM and PDM announced the formation of “The Alliance for European Moldova.” They tasked outgoing Prime Minister Leanca, a favorite of the European chancelleries, with forming and passing the new cabinet.

A last-ditch effort to bring the Liberals into the Government was made on February 2 by Angela Merkel, who sent Christoph Heusgen, German Federal Chancellor’s Advisor on Foreign and Security Policy, to hold confidential talks with political leaders in Chisinau.

Although PLDM leader Vlad Filat told the press that there was full agreement after the talks, the liberals were not invited to participate in the government. After receiving verbal support from the PCRM’s Vladimir Voronin, Leanca was unable to form a government. In the Parliamentary session held on February 12, the Leanca cabinet received only 42 votes out of the 51 needed, with only the parties of the Alliance for the European Moldova voting for it.

Six days later, the Alliance’s new candidate, Chiril Gaburici, a businessman from outside the political parties, passed a nearly identical list of ministers through Parliament, with the support of the Stalinist Communist Party, which had ditched even formal opposition to the Association Agreement with the EU.

The insistence of the democrats and liberal democrats to form a minority Government by excluding the more radical Liberal Party, in the context of an increasingly tense social atmosphere, opens the door to possible retaliations by the EU and unionist forces. The cabinet, with its reliance on the votes of the PCRM, has been accused of not having the necessary strength to push through the European agenda. European think tank and media “experts” are lamenting that the new cabinet represents a dangerous step backwards in confronting Russia and are rediscovering the endemic corruption of Moldovan politicians.

In an article for Carnegie Europe, journalist Judy Dempsey describes the Moldovan Parliament as shooting itself in the foot, and that “with a frozen conflict supported by Russia in the breakaway region of Transnistria, Moldova does not have the luxury of time to stall reforms.” In the same breath, she says that “the frustration of the EU” is shared by “Moldova’s civil society movements,” an ominous reference to the state-sponsored pro unionist goons of the “Action 2012” and “Youths of Moldova.”

Quoted by Radio Free Europe, Vladimir Socor, analyst for the right wing think tank Jamestown Foundation, sees the forming of the minority coalition and the purported weakness in the pro-EU camp as posing what he considers to be “two massive dangers” that pro-Russian forces will sweep coming local and potential snap parliamentary elections.

Romanian-language media is not mincing words when it comes to the way that European democracy should be handled in Moldova. In a typical opinion piece, Dan Nicu, in the online edition of the Romanian Adevarul, writes about the deal with the Communist Party: “We have to insist that we are dealing with a case of treason against national interest and the European cause in Moldova,” and threatens that “it would be a shame” if “the only alternative” is “protest movements and even violence.”

Writing for the Moldavian Timpul, Silviu Tanase warns that “a possible failure of the European road of the Republic of Moldova could generate popular revolts on the model of the Kiev Maidan,” and recalls that “Ianukovici was visited at home by protesters upset by the corrupt president who tried to destroy the advancement towards Europe,” going on to compare the current leaders of Moldova to Ceausescu and Gaddafi.

The impatience of European commentators with the political instability of the regime in Chisinau comes amid intensified attempts to destabilize Russia via Transnistria, the separatist Russian-backed region on the Eastern borders of Moldova. Transnistria has been severely weakened in the aftermath of the EU economic sanctions on Russia, with many factories forced to shut down production and reports of unpaid public servants.

The imperialist powers are speculating on a rift that has occurred between Moscow and the leadership in Tiraspol, with reports in January that, for the first time, the Kremlin denied request for financial assistance by Transnistria.

The new pro-EU authorities in Chisinau confront an increasingly tense social atmosphere, as the economic situation of the country worsens, compounded by the dramatic fall of the national currency. The Black Sea University Foundation (FUMN), a right-wing think tank with links to the EU and the Romanian state, expresses the anxiety of the imperialist plotters to developing popular resistance: “There exists today a formidable cocktail of accumulated and continuously accentuated vulnerabilities that can make of the Republic of Moldova an imploding state, with unleashed social tensions and can easily generate an ‘anti-Maidan’ in Chisinau.”

The threats made against the newly-formed coalition in Moldova are, in fact, directed against the Moldovan working class who would undoubtedly oppose the EU-dictated program of austerity and war. In this struggle, Moldovan workers must place no trust in political forces such as the Fatherland Party or Igor Dodon’s PSRM, which offer no genuine opposition to imperialism. Like their backers in the Kremlin, they will only seek an opportune time to make a deal with the imperialists.

German constitutional court justifies state use of agent provocateurs

Justus Leicht

Last year, on December 18, the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe rejected the appeal of three men who were enticed by undercover police agents into drug trafficking and then sentenced to long prison terms. The court recently announced the reasons for its decision, a ruling that has far-reaching implications.

The official press release of the court bore the title: “There are no compulsory grounds against sentencing in the case of illegal provocation to commit a crime”. The words “no compulsory” attempt to euphemise this blatantly prejudiced ruling, because the “extremely exceptional case” dreamed up by the judges—involving the “illegal” use of police stoolpigeons and provocateurs and ending in prosecution—is unlikely to ever occur in practice.

The Berlin Regional Court sentenced all three defendants to prison terms of around four years, although it also concluded they had been victims of “unlawful provocation” and the police had violated the principle of “a fair trial” as defined by the European Convention on Human Rights.

In the event, the regional court was only willing to concede the defendants a reduced sentence. Had they acted on their own initiative, the sentence would have been seven to ten years.

The Constitutional Court has now given its backing to this ruling. Stating grounds for the verdict, it provides details about how the undercover agents worked on their victims for months, sparing neither effort nor expense to overcome their initial resistance to provocation and lure them into a trap.

The statement of grounds mentions that certain persons from the criminal milieu have testified that since September 2009 the “main culprit” had been “dealing in heroin on a large scale from a café”. This accusation remained unconfirmed, however.

From November 2009, a “state accomplice” (i.e., an undercover agent, used by the police and usually coming from the same milieu as the person under suspicion) was tasked with making investigations. The accomplice was well paid for his services. He “was said to have been paid for each of his days of work and received a bonus on a scale commensurate with the degree of success of his operation.

The accomplice spent some time looking for the café in question in order to make contact with the victim. According to the Constitutional Court, his plan was to “pretend he himself dealt in heroin that was imported in containers through Bremerhaven and smuggled through customs and out of the port area by a dockworker contact—who, in fact, was also an undercover agent”.

But the person who was later convicted was unwilling to get involved, and told the agent provocateur instead that he didn’t want to “have anything to do with any ‘filthy heroin’.” He let it be known, however, that “hashish and cocaine were in his view something else”.

The police then changed their tactics and tried to lure the victim into their trap with these particular drugs. “After almost nine months without any evidence of cocaine or—as originally suspected—heroin trafficking on the part of the claimant, the stoolpigeon continued to press the claimant to engage in the Bremen drug import scheme, devised by the police.”

In August, an undercover police agent intervened in the guise of a drug trafficker, who also emboldened the “main culprit” to participate in the affair. After about a year and a half of continual coaxing and persuasion, he was finally induced to commit the actual crime, a deal involving almost 100 kg of cocaine.

The Constitutional Court did criticize the police and the public prosecutor. It cautions that investigators should “solve crimes, not cause them themselves”. In the court’s view, if the prosecution fails sufficiently to comply with its statutory supervisory role or the police deliberately ignore such restraints, the rule of law and due process are no longer assured. This is demonstrated by the present case, according to the court. It claims the prosecution “failed” in its supervision of the police.

Nevertheless, the Constitutional Court rejected the appeal of the man who had been lured into a trap in precisely this way. It argued that the case did not involve an innocent citizen, he was not considered above suspicion prior to entrapment, the police undercover agents did not threaten him, and he “gave indications” of a “criminal inclination” towards trafficking in cocaine and hashish.

According to the Constitutional Court, it is lawful for the state to imprison a person following that person’s subjection to “unlawful provocation (to commit a felony)”. This ruling is upheld, moreover, despite the person’s misfortune of becoming a police suspect due to false accusations from a criminal milieu and then, after “a very long period of time”, succumbing to “considerable pressure and coaxing” from undercover agents of the police.

This is justified—in a way typical of German jurisprudence—by citing the obligations of the “rule of law”, whose precedence rank higher than the democratic rights of the individual. The Constitutional Court’s verdict literally states:

“The rule of law can only be effected if adequate precautions have been taken to ensure that offenders are prosecuted under existing laws, convicted and awarded a just punishment. Procedural modifications, serving the needs of effective criminal justice, do not therefore violate the fundamental right to a fair trial, if the accused’s or defendant’s procedural positions [i.e., rights], as assessed under preceding conditions, are thereby disregarded for the sake of a more effective criminal justice system.”

In less pompous and pretentious language, this means: If the law wants to put someone in jail, it must be allowed to do so, and the principles of a fair trial have to take a back seat.

The verdict of the Constitutional Court opens the floodgates to each and every form of state provocation. If undercover agents, recruited among narcotics racketeers, are permitted “contrary to the rule of law” to provoke and entrap as long as it takes to corrupt a person and have him convicted of a “criminal offense”, why can’t the same legal fraud justify the use of political provocateurs? An agent provocateur, who enticed a member of a political organisation to commit a criminal offense, or committed such an offense himself as a member of that organisation, would be all that was needed to have it decreed a “terrorist organisation” and banned.

Burmese army clashes with separatist militia near Chinese border

John Roberts & Peter Symonds

Heavy fighting between the Burmese (Myanmar) army and the separatist ethnic-Chinese Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) has claimed at least 130 lives during the past fortnight in the Kokang region of the northern Shan State. An estimated 100,000 people have fled their homes and some 30,000 have crossed the border into China’s southern Yunnan province.

After the MNDAA launched an offensive around the border town of Laukkai on February 9, the military-dominated Burmese government imposed a curfew. On February 17, it put the Kokang region under martial law for three months. The new military administration has sweeping powers, including dispensing summary justice. The death penalty can be imposed for a broad range of offences, such as treason, libel, murder, robbery and corruption.

The military announced on Saturday that 61 soldiers and police officers had been killed in the fighting, along with 72 MNDAA fighters. An unknown number of civilians have been killed or injured. A local parliamentarian, Haw Shau Chen, told the media that about 50 civilians had died.

The clashes will fuel tensions between Burma and China. Burmese President Thein Sein, a former army general, visited wounded soldiers on February 17 and vowed not to “lose an inch of Myanmar’s territory.” According to the government-backed Global New Light of Myanmar, he said the military would continue “protecting sovereignty and ensuring territorial integrity.”

While not directly accusing China of backing the separatist militia, the comments clearly implied that the country faced an external threat. A BBC report noted last week that Burmese army chiefs referred to “foreign powers” supporting the insurgency.

In a Facebook post last week, presidential official Hmuu Zaw was more explicit. He called on Beijing to order its officials in Yunnan to prevent “terrorist attacks” from Chinese territory and to arrest and hand over MNDAA leaders inside China.

The immediate cause of the fighting seems to have been the MNDAA leadership’s return to Burma with the aim of regaining control of territory lost in clashes with the Burmese military in 2009. The MNDAA was one of the militias to emerge from the collapse of Stalinist Community Party of Burma in 1989.

The MNDAA postures as a defender the rights of the Chinese ethnic minority in Kokang, but its offensive is bound up with sordid material interests. It is seeking to regain control of the region’s lucrative opium and amphetamines trade, as well as the smuggling of timber, wildlife and other commodities into China.

Pro-government media outlets in Burma claim that three other ethnic militias have joined in the attacks on the military—the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, the Kachin Independence Army and a faction of the Shan State Army.

In an interview in the Chinese state-owned Global Times in December, MNDAA leader Pheung Kya-shin declared his determination to recover control of Kokang and appealed for Chinese support. The interview sparked commentary in the Western media and among Chinese Internet users comparing Kokang with Crimea, suggesting China could annex the region.

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said last week that China “will not allow any organisation or individual to carry out activities undermining China-Myanmar relations… [from] within Chinese territory.” Chinese security forces have stepped up border patrols.

A Global Times editorial on February 16 dismissed comparisons of Kokang with Crimea, stating that China had no territorial issues with Burma and that the intimacy and sympathy felt for the Kokang Chinese “are not decisive elements determining Beijing’s policy.” Referring to Thein Sein’s plans to sign peace deals with all ethnic insurgent groups, the editorial hoped that the 2015 Burmese elections would pave the way for “national reconciliation.”

Beijing clearly wants to avoid any further deterioration of relations with Burma. Since 2011, the Burmese regime has reoriented its foreign policy away from Beijing and toward the United States and its allies. Washington has ceased denouncing Burma as a “rogue state,” eased its economic sanctions and hailed the country’s token democratic reforms.

As the Global Times editorial indicated, Beijing has more at stake in Burma than the fate of the ethnic Chinese minority. China has invested heavily in plans for a port facility on the Burmese coast, linked by oil and gas pipelines to southern China. Such an energy and transport corridor through Burma would ease China’s reliance on US-controlled shipping routes through South East Asia for its vital energy imports from the Middle East and Africa.

The Obama administration’s efforts to undermine Chinese influence in Burma are part of its broader “pivot to Asia” that includes a military build-up in the Asia Pacific region in preparation for war against China. A key component of the Pentagon war plans is the ability to mount an economic blockade against China and cut off its supplies of energy and raw materials.

Washington’s response to the Kokang fighting has been markedly low-key. A US State Department spokesman appealed “to all sides to exercise restraint and return to dialogue,” saying the conflict would “undermine the ongoing national reconciliation process.” In the past, the US might have denounced the army’s heavy-handed tactics and imposition of martial law. Now the fighting and rising tensions with China suit its strategic aims.

Significantly, Burma’s pro-Western opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, head of the National League for Democracy, has fully backed the military. “The Tadmadaw [army] has to defend [the country]. I think [the martial law order] is necessary to fulfill the military objectives,” she said.

Suu Kyi has previously sided with the military-dominated government in the suppression of protests by local land owners over the Letpadaung copper mine, the crackdown on ethnic minorities in Kachin State and its communal discrimination against the Rohingya Muslim population in Arakan.

Following the 1949 Chinese Revolution, elements of the defeated Kuomintang (KMT) retreated to northern Burma, established bases and, in the 1950s, staged attacks into southern China in the hope of re-establishing KMT rule. The CIA funded and supplied these operations, which were also financed by the KMT’s involvement in the flourishing opium trade.

While the US might not be directly involved in the current intrigues and fighting, the border region’s instability is bound up with the broader tensions being generated by Washington’s aggressive bid to counter Chinese influence in every corner of the Indo-Pacific.

One fifth of world suicides linked to unemployment

Barry Mason

Previous studies have shown that there is a correlation between unemployment and suicide. However, data on the direct effect of unemployment on suicide was not so readily available. A new study by Dr. Carlos Nordt of Zurich University’s Psychiatric Hospital and published on theLancet Psychiatry web site in February sets out to address this situation.

The study aims to “enhance knowledge of the specific effect of unemployment on suicide by analysing global public data classified according to world regions.”

It concludes that around 45,000 people commit suicide each year because they have become unemployed. It shows that for the year 2008, the beginning of the economic crisis, suicides associated with unemployment were nine times greater than previously thought.

The study covers 63 countries in four regions of the world over the years 2000 to 2011. Researchers used this time period to be able to contrast the period of relative economic stability (2000-2007) with that of economic crisis (2008-2011). The regions were the Americas, including the US and Mexico; northern and Western Europe, including France, Germany and the UK; Southern and Eastern Europe, including Greece, Italy and Romania; and non-American and non-European regions, including Australia, Japan and South Africa.

The study uses data on suicide deaths from the World Health Organisation (WHO) mortality database and economic data from the International Monetary Fund’s world economic outlook database.

It notes that, as with previous economic crises, “current data from Europe, the USA and Asia suggest an association between the 2008 economic crisis, rising unemployment rates and increased rates of death by suicide.”

The study uses different statistical tools in an attempt to isolate the specific effects of unemployment on suicide rates. Among its findings are that the figures of an increasing unemployment rate lag behind figures of an increase in suicide by six months. Such a time lag points to an increase in stress, insecurity and a deterioration of mental health as workers are earmarked for possible redundancy. The threat of unemployment needs to be included in the suicide figures, explain the authors. The study concludes that “suicide due to unemployment might be severely underestimated if studies focus only (on) the time period of the economic crisis.”

Another finding is that the suicide risk associated with unemployment was greater in those countries with a lower unemployment rate. The finding points to the isolating impact of unemployment and its associated feelings of worthlessness in counties where unemployment is not generally widespread.

It is not just the person being made unemployed that is affected by increasing levels of unemployment. Loss of a job also affects the risk of suicide of other members of the family. Men and women are equally at risk of suicide after losing their jobs.

Over the period 2000 to 2011, the relative risk of suicide after becoming unemployed increased by about a quarter. A fifth of nearly a quarter of a million suicides each year in the 63 countries, across the four regions, resulted from people being made unemployed.

Roger Webb and Navneet Kapur of the Centre for Suicide Prevention at the University of Manchester added in a commentary in the Lancet that suicide cases linked to the economic downturn were “only the tip of the iceberg of a wider range of social and psychological problems. Many affected individuals who remain in work … encounter serious psychological stressors due to pernicious economic strains other than unemployment, including falling income, zero-hour contracting, job insecurity, bankruptcy, debt and home repossession… [We] require a better understanding of other psychological manifestations of economic adversity, including non-fatal self-harm, stress and anxiety, low mood, hopelessness, alcohol problems, anger, familial conflict and relationship breakdown.”

The paper concludes with a call for the need to focus on suicide prevention work. It notes that “the interaction of fiscal austerity with economic shocks and weak social protection seems to escalate health and social crises, at least in Europe.”

The austerity measures imposed on Greece by the European Union have had a devastating impact on health, including mental health. The BMJ Open, an online journal, published a report in May 2014 on suicide levels in Greece. It noted: “In 30 years the highest months of suicide in Greece occurred in 2012. The passage of new austerity measures in June 2011 marked the beginning of significant, abrupt and sustained increases in total suicides. Suicides by men in Greece also underwent a significant, abrupt and sustained increase in October 2008 when the Greek recession began…”

A report published in 2013 showed unemployment has a disproportionately harder impact on those who already have mental health problems. The report, published on the online science journal P los One, was based on research done by Kings College London’s Institute of Psychiatry. It collected data from 27 countries across Europe on 20,000 people before and after the 2008 economic crisis.

An examination of the research published on the Institute of Psychiatry'’ web site explained, “In 2006, unemployment was at 7.1 percent for people without mental health problems, compared to 12.7 percent for people with mental health problems. In 2010, this rose to 9.8 percent and 18.2 percent respectively, corresponding to an increase of 5.5 percent for people with mental health problems vs. 2.7 percent increase for people without mental health problems.”

Netanyahu exploits Islamist attacks on European Jews

Jean Shaoul

Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has once again urged European Jews to leave Europe and emigrate to Israel, following the killing of a Jewish man outside the main synagogue in Copenhagen. He did so previously following the attack on a Jewish supermarket in Paris where four Jews were killed in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attacks. The four bodies were later flown to Israel, where they were buried.

The bid to increase the number of Jewish immigrants to Israel from Europe is part of a broader push to capitalise on the terrorist attacks in the two European capitals by Netanyahu’s Likud party and the Zionist political establishment.

Netanyahu issued a statement after the Copenhagen attack saying, “Israel is your home. We are preparing and calling for the absorption of mass immigration from Europe.” The statement said, “Jews have been murdered again on European soil only because they were Jews.”

He made a similar call after last month’s attacks in Paris when he tweeted, “To all the Jews of France, all the Jews of Europe, Israel is not just the place in whose direction you pray, the state of Israel is your home.”

Netanyahu said his government had initiated a $45 million project “to encourage the absorption of immigrants from France, Belgium and Ukraine.” Israel already offers substantial inducements to Jewish immigrants, including cash grants, tax breaks, subsidies, and loans. He added, “To the Jews of Europe and to the Jews of the world, I say that Israel is waiting for you with open arms.”

According to Ha ’ aretz, the government is setting up a “special ministerial committee” that “will convene … to discuss steps to encourage immigration from France and from Europe in general.”

France’s Jewish community that numbers half a million, the largest in Europe, is a major target. According to the Jewish Agency, 7,000 immigrants arrived from France in 2014, three times the number in 2012. Sofa Landver, Israel’s minister for immigrant absorption, expects more than 10,000 to immigrate this year. She said that the government would continue “to promote the ingathering of the exiles, a vision that has accompanied the people of Israel since the state’s establishment.”

Netanyahu’s actions are in part motivated by narrow electioneering considerations, aimed at outdoing his political opponents in their efforts to be seen to be protecting Jews. “I went to Paris not just as the prime minister of Israel but as a representative of the entire Jewish people,” he said, referring to his visit to Paris following the terrorist attacks on the staff of the Charlie Hebdo magazine and a kosher supermarket in the city.

In a reference to US House Speaker John Boehner’s controversial invitation to address a joint session of Congress over Iran on March 3, Netanyahu said he would be speaking on behalf of all Jews, “Just as I went to Paris, so I will go anyplace I’m invited to convey the Israeli position against those who want to kill us.”

Netanyahu’s calls for Jews to move to Israel—like those made by his political opponents in the Israeli ruling elite—are also motivated by concerns about the demographic situation in Israel and Palestine.

Of Israel’s 8 million population, about 1.6 million or 20 percent are Palestinian, while a further 4.5 million Palestinians live in the West Bank and Gaza. Without a Palestinian mini-state, the Palestinian population, whose fertility rate is higher than that of Israeli Jews, will soon exceed that of the Jewish population. Jewish immigration to Israel is seen as vital if Jews are not to become a minority within Greater Israel.

Crucially, it is also part of a broader push to capitalise on the attacks by equating Palestinian opposition to Israel’s brutal occupation and crushing oppression with Islamic terrorism and the US-led “global war on terror” focused on the oil-rich Middle East. Netanyahu hopes to reverse Israel’s increasing political isolation by demonstrating the universality of the struggle against Islamic militants.

Following the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre in 2001, Netanyahu said that it was “very good” for Israel, because it would “generate immediate sympathy” for its war against the Palestinians.

This is why Netanyahu and his ilk have mounted a hysterical campaign in the Israeli media, claiming that Jews can never be safe in a Europe awash with Jihadis intent on destroying and conquering the Christian West. His reactionary and divisive campaign is the flipside of another equally reactionary agenda aimed at dividing the international working class.

Several surveys have pointed to the rising number of incidents against Jewish property and institutions in Western Europe. But this renewal of anti-Semitism is being fuelled in large measure by the actions of the Israeli government—its murderous wars against Gaza in 2006, 2008-2009, 2012 and most recently last year, as well as its daily humiliation of the Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the settlement expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the torpedoing of peace talks with the Palestinians and defiance of countless UN resolutions—that have outraged international public opinion, including many Jews.

Popular anger against Israel is being channelled by the Islamists and other reactionary right-wing forces—not against the perpetrators, but against the Jewish people.

More than one Israeli commentator has pointed out that Jews are safer in Europe than in Israel, where they face the constant threat of war against the Palestinians, the possibility of being caught up in the vicious sectarian war in Syria where Israel has actively supported the Islamists, not to mention the continuous threats of war against Iran.

While they do not admit it, it points to the essentially dead end of the Zionist project that was supposed to provide a safe haven for the Jews in a capitalist nation-state at the expense of the Palestinians already living there.

Europe’s Jewish leaders have criticised Netanyahu’s pleas for Jews to leave Europe. Rabbi Jair Melchior, Denmark’s chief rabbi, said he was “disappointed” by Netanyahu’s call for European Jews to immigrate to Israel, and that “Terror is not a reason to move to Israel.”

But others have gone further, playing to Netanyahu’s right-wing agenda by calling instead for additional security and surveillance measures. Rabbi Menachem Margolin, the director of the European Jewish Association, said he regretted that “after every anti-Semitic attack in Europe, the Israeli government issues the same statements about the importance of aliyah[immigration to Israel], rather than employ every diplomatic and informational means at its disposal to strengthen the safety of Jewish life in Europe.”

Margolin accused European Union leaders of not doing enough to combat anti-Semitic attacks and prejudices, saying there was a need to “secure all Jewish institutions 24/7,” and demanded that European governments and EU institutions establish a European task force to protect Jewish institutions and reinforce educational efforts against what he called “rampant anti-Semitism.” He added, “European leaders need to support us in fighting the battle on terror in our homeland.”

The answer to the increasing attacks on Jews lies not in additional policing and the strengthening of the state apparatus, which will be used not for the defence of workers of any denomination or ethnicity under attack, but for their further suppression. These events pose the urgent necessity of uniting the working class, Muslim and Jewish, across national and religious barriers in the fight against imperialism, their local proxies the Zionist and Arab ruling elites, and the drive to war, and for the socialist federation of the Middle East.

Australian PM outlines sweeping new “anti-terror” measures

Mike Head

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott yesterday delivered a televised “national security” statement at the Australian Federal Police (AFP) headquarters in Canberra, flanked by three ministers, scores of police, military and intelligence officials and six Australian flags.

Having barely survived a challenge to his leadership of the Liberal Party two weeks ago, Abbott was clearly intent on establishing his credentials as a security strongman, while seeking to stoke fears of terrorism to justify harsh new anti-terror laws and Australian participation in the expanding US-led war in the Middle East.

His speech sought to further politically exploit the December 15–16 Martin Place café siege in central Sydney, which his government elevated into a major terrorist emergency. Abbott timed the address to follow Sunday’s release of the official review of the siege, which sought to justify the government’s response to the incident and whitewash the extensive relations between the deranged hostage-taker, Man Haron Monis, and various police and intelligence agencies.

Once again, as he did in releasing the review, Abbott declared that the siege demonstrated the need for even greater “counter-terrorism” powers and that Monis’s ability to gain citizenship and to get bail on several criminal charges required a further crackdown on asylum seekers, welfare recipients and the rights of people accused of offences.

Abbott’s rhetoric was alarmist, replete with phrases such as “rising dangers,” “ominous signs” and a “new dark age” in the Middle East. Of course, there was no reference to Australia’s participation in the US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and 2003, which created the conditions for the emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and other Islamist militias.

As “evidence” of a worsening threat of domestic terrorism, Abbott cited “the frenzied attack on two police officers in Melbourne and the horror of the Martin Place siege,” as well as the arrest of 20 people in six “counter terrorism operations” since September.

As the World Socialist Web Site has documented, last year’s incidents in Melbourne and Sydney involved unstable individuals who were well known to the police and spy agencies. Abbott’s comments on the 20 arrests furtherprejudiced the prospect of a fair trial for these defendants, who face an array of unsubstantiated charges.

In fact, his speech pointed to the modus operandi involved in the police raids: conduct mass arrests, regardless of whether any evidence exists to support a prosecution, in order to conduct escalating terrorist scare campaigns. “Police do not have the luxury to wait and watch,” Abbott declared. ”Some of these raids may not result in prosecution.”

The prime minister outlined sweeping proposals to overturn the supposed “benefit of the doubt” given to people applying for visas, citizenship, welfare, legal aid and bail. In the first place, this is designed to promote anti-immigrant, particularly anti-Muslim, sentiment and give greater powers to government officials and the spy agencies to bar access to residency and other basic rights. Beyond that, it has wider implications for the treatment of all those facing accusations by the police and security authorities, including the presumption of innocence for those on trial.

Abbott also declared that the government would strip Australian citizenship from dual nationals accused of fighting in the Middle East and revoke “privileges” of citizenship for any Australians “involved in terrorism,” including the right to leave or return to Australia, and access to welfare.

Further, the prime minister declared: “Organisations and individuals blatantly spreading discord and division … should not do so with impunity.” He vowed to enforce the “terrorism advocacy laws” passed last year—which are so broad that they can outlaw expressions of opposition to the US-led interventions in the Middle East. He foreshadowed unspecified “stronger prohibitions on vilifying, intimidating or inciting hatred.”

Abbott declared his intention to ban Hizb ut-Tahir, an Islamic fundamentalist group that opposes terrorism, but criticises US and Australian military operations in the Middle East. However, the words “discord and division” are wide enough to cover anyone opposing these operations, or the government’s deepening austerity drive and the plans for enhanced mass surveillance.

Abbott reiterated his demand for the rapid passage through the Senate of the metadata retention bill, which will force Internet and phone companies to keep all their data for two years so that the security agencies can trawl through the records to compile detailed dossiers on the movements and political activities of millions of people.

The prime minister signaled a further boosting of the security apparatus, including the appointment of a National Counter Terrorism Coordinator, on top of the $630 million funding increase announced last year.

In comments calculated to incite anti-Islamic sentiment, and divide the working class, Abbott accused Muslim leaders of not speaking out enough against terrorism. He also encouraged anti-immigrant xenophobia, declaring: “No one should live in our country while denying our values.”

At the same time, Abbott insisted that “everybody, not just Muslim community leaders” needed to “speak up clearly”—an implicit threat to anyone refusing to line up behind the fraudulent “war on terror.”

Labor Party leader Bill Shorten, flanked by Australian flags as well, pledged bipartisan backing in advance for the government’s yet-to-be-detailed measures. National security should be “above politics,” he said. “We believe that when it comes to fighting terrorism, we are in this together.”

Aware of public opposition to the government’s moves, especially the data retention bill, Shorten said there should be a “strong presumption” in favour of individual liberty. However, this presumption could be “reduced, rebutted or offset” if the current laws “are proved to be inadequate.” In other words, Labor will support the measures with minor modifications, as it did on the Abbott government’s first three tranches of “counter-terrorism” legislation last year.

Greens leader Christine Milne, also wary of the popular reaction, said there was “no justification” for the proposed measures. Last year, the Greens used similar language to criticise aspects of the government’s previous legislation, while stating their underlying support for the security agencies.

Milne urged the government to instead focus on “social cohesion.” The Greens last year tabled a Social Cohesion Bill to develop programs to “stop young Australians from becoming radicalised.” In fact, the police and spy agencies already conduct an array of such programs, which include operations to place informers inside targeted groups, where they can be used to stage or provoke alleged terrorist plots.

Such entrapment activities, which have been involved in most of the terrorist arrests over the past 15 years, are being stepped-up. The Sydney siege review mentioned a new AFP-led multi-agency National Disruption Group, which was described as “managing referrals to the Countering Violent Extremism intervention program.” This involves identifying “at risk” individuals for “case management,” sometimes as a bail condition.

Editorials today in the Australian and the Australian Financial Reviewendorsed Abbott’s speech, underlining the support throughout ruling circles for the deepening assault on fundamental legal and democratic rights. Under conditions of a worsening economic situation and escalating demands by the corporate and financial elite for the cutting of social spending, wages and working conditions, these measures will be used, not just against Muslims and immigrants, but rising social unrest in the working class.

US seizes on video to escalate repression at home and war in Somalia

Thomas Gaist

US officials vowed Sunday to ramp up domestic surveillance and covert operations targeting “extremism” in immigrant communities, in response to a video, apparently produced by the Somalia-based militant group al Shabaab, threatening attacks against malls in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

The video specifically cited the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, located near the largest concentration of Somali immigrants in the US, as a possible target.

Despite admitting that there is no direct evidence of preparations for an attack and encouraging mall-goers to continue shopping, US security officials are proclaiming that the threat justifies a huge expansion of domestic covert operations aimed at identifying “extremists.”

In a special joint statement Sunday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) revealed that they have already been working in tandem with police departments at the state and local level for “months” to coordinate the expansion of such operations.

“In recent months, the FBI and DHS have worked closely with our state and local public safety counterparts and members of the private sector, to include mall owners and operators, to prevent and mitigate these types of threats,” the statement said.

The DHS has launched “engagements” along these lines in Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Columbus, Chicago and Boston, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson revealed during last week’s Summit on Countering Violent Extremism at the White House.

Interviewed on “Meet the Press,” Johnson claimed that the al Shabaab video represents a qualitative escalation of the threat posed by extremist groups, proving the need for aggressive DHS intelligence programs

“We’re in a new phase in global terrorist threat right now. The public needs to be particularly vigilant. ‘If you see something, say something’ has to be more than a slogan,” Johnson said.

Johnson warned that social media is enabling terrorist groups to “inspire independent actors” in “communities” and “homelands.”

“We need a military approach. But also, a whole of government approach, a Homeland Security law enforcement approach, which includes countering violent extremism engagements and initiatives here on the homeland,” Johnson said.

“We need to be involved in the relevant communities in this country,” Johnson said, in a barely concealed appeal for the expansion of counter-intelligence targeting Muslim immigrant communities.

The FBI has a “huge job in front of them,” former top FBI official Jim Kallstrom told Fox News, calling for heightened security at US malls and border crossings.

The New York Police Department has seized on the incident to ratchet up its own preparations for counter-insurgency operations against the US population, implementing “precautionary measures” and placing personnel on high alert.

Under the guise of combating extremism, the US ruling elite is kick-starting a campaign of persecution and intimidation against Somali and immigrant communities as one component of generalized preparations for mass repression against the working class as a whole.

Aside from providing the rationale for a fresh round of police-state measures inside the US, the hyping of the al Shabaab video by the media is bound up with efforts to condition public opinion, in advance, for new military operations in the Horn of Africa and other hotspots across the African continent. Some 120 US Special Forces personnel are already deployed in Somalia as part of an undeclared war that has been waged since at least 2007, the US government finally revealed last year.

The video comes just days after the US issued a formal condemnation of al Shabaab in connection with a bombing attack on a hotel in Mogadishu that killed a top minister in the Somali government. Hellfire missiles launched by a US drone on January 31, killed at least five Somalis, four of them civilians, according to witnesses cited by Agence France-Press (AFP). Two other drone strikes in January against Somali targets killed at least 45 in a single day, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ).

Virginia bill shields companies producing lethal injection chemicals

Joe Williams & Nick Barrickman

Earlier this month, the Virginia state Senate passed legislation in a 23-14 vote that would make secret “all information relating to the execution process.” This information would include the names of companies involved in producing, compounding, transporting and administering chemicals used in the state’s lethal injection protocol. The proposed state law is currently being reviewed by the state House and prepared for a vote.

The legislation would mandate that anyone “engaged to compound … manufacture or supply the materials … for use in [an] execution,” as well as “the name of the materials or components used to compound drug products for use in the execution,” would be exempt from all requirements that the state reveal their identities under the Freedom of Information Act. In addition, the bill would hide all “names, residential or office addresses, residential or office telephone numbers, and social security numbers” of individuals involved in the administering of the lethal drugs.

The bill is similar to a number of legislative motions that have passed across the country, including in Ohio, where early last year death row inmate Dennis McGuire writhed in agony for nearly a half hour before succumbing to the effects of an experimental drug concoction.

Although a self-proclaimed opponent of the death penalty, Virginia’s Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe has been named as a “chief booster” of the bill, according to the Washington Post. Other supposed opponents of capital punishment have flocked to his side, demonstrating the complete lack of principled opposition to the death penalty within the political establishment.

Supporters of the legislation have attempted to present the action as a measure to ensure security for companies doing business with the state. Department of Corrections spokesperson Lisa Kinney implied that such measures were being taken due to the possibility that manufacturers of the lethal chemicals were in jeopardy from the public, citing fears of “harassment, threats, or danger.”

“The death penalty exists in the commonwealth, and we’re merely trying to ensure that those sentenced to death are able to have the choice of lethal injection,” said Secretary of Public Safety Brian Moran. “I continue to believe the majority of Virginians support the death penalty,” he absurdly asserted, after having endorsed legislation that was enacted to protect executioners from public scrutiny.

Senate Minority leader Richard Saslaw, a Democrat, attempted to smear death penalty opponents by accusing them of engaging in a sadistic plot to make executions as painful as possible in order to bring more support to their movement. Claiming that it was in fact the opponents of capital punishment sought a return to the electric chair, he said their argument was that “if you make the death penalty too humane … then people will think there’s nothing wrong with the death penalty.” He offered no evidence for this accusation.

The legislation comes as many states have had difficulty obtaining the drugs used to kill prisoners due in large part to a European Union ban on exporting drugs to be used in executions. Rather than ending the barbaric practice, states have sought out alternative methods, including untested drug combinations that often come from unregulated private sources, particularlycompounding pharmacies that are only loosely regulated by state and federal authorities.

This has resulted in a number of grotesque execution scenes across the country, as inmates have been subjected to execution methods that violate the US Eighth Amendment clause barring cruel and unusual punishment. Virginia is also considering a bill that would authorize the use of the electric chair in cases where the necessary drugs are unobtainable, in addition to the law shielding companies from public accountability.

In January of 2014, Ohio executed Dennis McGuire with an untested two-drug cocktail after failing to procure the standard three-drug combination. The result was a horrifying, 25-minute process in which McGuire went into convulsions and writhed in pain, shocking the witnesses and provoking international outrage.

Virginia was the site of the very first execution in the Colonial United States, and executed more people than any other state between 1608 and 1976, with a total of 1,277, according to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC). Since the reinstatement of capital punishment by the US Supreme Court in 1976, Virginia has executed 110 people, second only to Texas.

According to Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, the victims of Virginia’s execution regime include more women, and the youngest prisoners, of any state. In one notorious 1998 case, a prosecutor successfully argued that DNA evidence that may have posthumously exonerated Joseph O’Dell should be destroyed, as he had already been executed and “it would be shouted from the rooftops that ... Virginia executed an innocent man.”