1 Apr 2015

Honduran death squads kill four student protesters, including a 13-year-old

Eric London

The remains of 13 year-old Soad Nicole Ham were found in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa last Wednesday after a death squad kidnapped and murdered her for participating in recent student demonstrations against the country’s crumbling education system. A medical examination of the girl’s remains, which were discovered in a plastic bag on the street, revealed signs of brutal torture.
Soad Nicole was the fourth demonstrator to be killed by death squads in Tegucigalpa last week. The bodies of Elvin Antonio López, Darwin Josué Martínez, and Diana Yareli Montoya—all between the ages of 19 and 21 and all actively involved in student protests—were also discovered in various neighborhoods of the city. Yareli Montoya, whose body was riddled with 21 bullets by masked attackers, took two painful days to die.
The victims and the timing of the killings underscore the likely complicity of the rightist government of President Juan Orlando Hernández Alvarado, with the help of his Education Minister, Marlon Escoto.
In the days prior to the disappearances, thousands of high school and university students were carrying out large demonstrations against the country’s education system. Many of the capital city’s middle schools, high schools and universities were on strike against poor education conditions and a lack of adequate school resources.
Students were further enraged by Education Minister Escoto’s callous proposal for changes to the school schedule, which is divided into morning and afternoon shifts. Under the March 16 proposal, students would be forced to travel to and from school either in the early morning or late evening hours, when darkness makes it easier for the armed gangs who roam the streets to attack them.
According to the non-profit Casa Alianza, 86 students are killed each month on the way to and from school in Honduras—a figure that has doubled since the 2009 US-backed coup that toppled the elected government of President Manuel Zelaya.
Soad Nicole herself was targeted because of a brief statement she made to a Globo-TV news crew at the scene of a demonstration in the days before her death.
As students chanted, “We need school desks and we receive gunshots,” Soad Nicole told reporters, “It’s not possible for us to be seated on the floor like dogs! We don’t even have chairs!”
Addressing the Education Minister, she added: “Man, buy chairs, you son of a bitch!”
It is a testament to the real state of social and political life in Central America that such a statement of justified indignation from a 13-year-old is sufficient to earn her the penalty of death by assassination squad.
The government has responded to the students’ demands by deploying heavily armed soldiers to fire tear gas, flash grenades and water cannon, as well as by placing schools under military lockdown. On March 17, Escoto announced that to suppress the demonstrations, the Honduran military police would begin occupying schools in the capital.
“Beginning this afternoon [March 17], the police will be at the gates to ensure that those students who want to come in to study can do so,” he said, noting further that the government had been “tolerant enough” with the peaceful student protesters.
As the crackdown on protestors continues, Escoto has taken to posting pictures of demonstrators on his Twitter account and publishing their names, sending the message that they too could end up like Soad Nicole Ham.
In the course of the demonstrations, several journalists have reported being harassed by the police, including two who said that a police official approached them, held up a pistol, and provocatively unlocked the gun’s safety mechanism. Many students have also been wounded in clashes with police.
As demonstrations began on the morning of March 16, Escoto’s office issued a statement requesting that teachers provide lists of those students who were participating in demonstrations. According to the Education Ministry, this was being undertaken so that the government could “apply corrective measures” to demonstrators.
Though the government has of course not admitted to carrying out the murders itself, there is every indication that it is precisely such “corrective measures” that were applied to the four young people whose bodies have since been found abandoned in the streets of Tegucigalpa.
Behind the brutal acts of the Lobo administration stands American imperialism, whose role in enforcing police-military terror on the countries of Central America dates back to the 19th century.
The Obama administration backed the military coup of 2009 and has supported all the regimes that followed, including those headed by coup leader Roberto Micheletti and Porfirio Lobo, winner of an election organized by the coup regime, with less than half the population voting.
Hernandez himself was named victor amid charges of vote fraud and violent intimidation by supporters of his opponent, Zelaya’s wife, Xiomara Castro. He ran in the election on a campaign promise of “a soldier on every corner,” and has since made good on his vow to militarize policing in Honduras, despite the prohibition against using troops for this purpose in the country’s constitution.
At the time of the coup, a US official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told the New York Times that the State Department spoke to “military officials and opposition leaders” about “how they might remove [former president Manuel Zelaya] from office, how he could be arrested, on whose authority they could do that.”
By 2011, the Pentagon had increased military spending to the Honduran police and military by 71 percent, to $53.8 million, while providing $1.3 billion for US military electronics to the Honduran regime. In 2012, Defense Department contracts increased to $67.4 million—tripling the total from 2002. It costs the Obama administration $89 million per year to house 600 US troops at the Soto Cano air force, which was recently expanded to the tune of an additional $25 million.
Recently, the US has announced the deployment at Soto Cano of a new Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force-South, or SPMAGTF-South, consisting of 250 Marine special operations troops who are charged with rapid intervention wherever in the region Washington sees fit.
The status of Honduras as the “murder capital of the world” and one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere is the product of over a century of oppression by US imperialism. Washington invaded the country seven times in the first two decades of the 20th century to defend the interests of United Fruit Company, making Honduras the first country to be branded a “banana republic.”
The CIA used the country as a staging ground both for its 1954 coup that overthrew Guatemala’s democratically elected president, Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, and for the Nicaraguan Contra forces who carried out a bloody campaign against the Sandinistas and the Nicaraguan peasantry in the 1980s. During this latter campaign, the Honduran military, with the aid of the CIA, utilized its own death squads to hunt down and murder trade unionists, leftists and students.
The recent events in Honduras underscore the fact that cold-blooded murder at the hands of the state is becoming an increasingly common element of everyday life for young people all over the world. The events in Honduras closely parallel last September’s government-backed killing of 43 student teachers in Ayotzinapa, Mexico. In both cases, the killings were carried out in response to widespread opposition to social inequality, poverty, and lack of quality social programs and education. In Honduras, as in Mexico, what follows will be a government cover-up with the full backing of the United States.

Former military dictator wins Nigerian presidency

Thomas Gaist

Initial reports Tuesday indicated that the Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) party has emerged as the victor in Nigeria’s presidential elections, which took place over the weekend.
Buhari’s apparent victory has been met with allegations of vote rigging by supporters of current President Goodluck Jonathan’s People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which has controlled Nigeria's government since the end of open military rule in 1999.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a federation of West African regimes that has organized regional military missions in league with Washington and the European powers, has given its stamp of approval to the elections and insisted that both sides accept the final vote tally.
The lead up to Saturday’s elections was marked by sharp tensions between rival factions within the Nigerian elite and state, represented by Jonathan and Buhari respectively. At least 50 Nigerians were killed during the elections, according to the National Human Rights Commission. Balloting was also accompanied by fighting in the north between insurgents and government forces.
If confirmed, Buhari’s ascendancy would represent a further extension of US political domination over Africa’s wealthiest country and largest oil producer. Buhari received years of training from the US military, graduating from the US Army War College in 1980, before becoming military dictator of Nigeria in a 1983 military coup d’etat that overthrew the government of President Shehu Shegari.
Buhari’s military junta banned strikes and public protests in 1984, and empowered the security forces to carry out arbitrary arrests and detentions of civilians, including numerous intellectuals, politicized students and journalists. To enforce these measures, Buhari’s government issued the State Security Decree #2, which legalized indefinite detention of anyone considered a "security risk" by Nigeria's National Security Organization (NSO) secret police force.
While orchestrating mass repression against political opponents, Buhari implemented right-wing economic policies aimed at further impoverishing the population, including “austerity so severe it went beyond” the social cuts demanded as part of a loan offer extended by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to the new military regime, according to James Vreeland’s The International Monetary Fund: Politics of Conditional Lending. The 1984 National Budget advanced by Buhari and his clique of officers included measures to slash the Shegari government’s 1983 budget by 15 percent and roll back public sector employment.
There are clear indications that the Obama White House favors a transition from Jonathan to Buhari. During Buhari’s campaign, the APC has reportedly relied on support from a consulting firm run by US President Barack Obama’s former senior advisor and campaign manager David Axelrod.
In January 2015, Buhari was invited as the keynote speaker for a conference, “Countdown to Nigeria’s 2015 Elections,” held by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a ruling class think tank with close ties to the White House.
The increasingly friendly relations of the Jonathan government with China likely explain the recent growth of tensions between the Jonathan administration and the Obama administration, which is seeking to counter growing Chinese hegemony in Africa through military and political means. Chinese economic concessions in the country’s massive oil sector include a 2010 $23 billion contract signed by Jonathan with Chinese firms for construction of several new oil and petrochemical facilities.
Apparently fearful of expanding US influence within Nigeria’s military establishment, the Jonathan administration moved suddenly in late 2014 to cancel a US-sponsored program to train new Nigerian military units. US officials responded to the cancellation with public threats that Jonathan’s policies were bringing US-Nigerian relations to an historic low.
Nigerian workers have been increasingly restive, with Nigeria's two main oil unions initiating and subsequently reigning in small scale strikes in September and December 2014. The industrial actions were orchestrated to let off steam among the workers and secure concessions for the union leaderships, which are "simply trying to force the government to pay them off and get a hefty Christmas present," according to sources cited by the BBC. 
Nigerian oil has taken on increased significance in the context of the collapse of Libyan oil production, formerly the main rival to the Nigerian industry, which has fallen to some 10 percent of levels achieved prior to the 2011 US-NATO war against the Gaddafi regime.
Buhari’s election comes as the US is ramping up military deployments and political interventions throughout West Africa and the continent as a whole. US Africa Command’s (AFRICOM) commander General David Rodriguez recently called for a “huge” counterinsurgency campaign throughout West Africa, targeting a range of “extremist” groups.
US, French and other European military forces are engaged in joint operations with Chadian and other local militaries in the Sahel, Mali and Central Africa, including the invasion of portions of northeastern Nigeria by a US-backed Chadian force in mid-March 2015 and the French-led imperialist invasion of Mali in 2013. Along with a slate of other local forces, including some 8,000 troops from Niger, Cameroon and Benin affiliated with the newly formed African Union (AU) Multi-National Joint Task Force, Chad’s government and military are serving as a leading proxy force on behalf US and European imperialism in the region.
US backing for the Buhari campaign is part of US efforts to secure control over the massive oil resources flowing through Nigeria's export terminals along the Gulf of Guinea. As early as 2001, the Bush administration’s National Energy Policy Development Group, headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, concluded that control of Nigerian oil and drilling developments in the Gulf of Guinea were critical to US interests.
The US military and elite US think tanks have since developed plans for militarily occupying and controlling Lagos, home to some 20 million Nigerians. Papers published in 2014 specifically citing Lagos as a necessary focus for US contingency planning included “Megacities and the United States Army: Preparing for a complex and uncertain future,” published by the US Army’s Strategic Studies Group, and “Mega Cities, Ungoverned Areas, and the Challenge of Army Urban Combat Operations in 2030-2040,” published by the Small Wars Foundation.
Saturday’s elections were the culmination of a struggle between different factions of a national bourgeois elite, with both sides equally hostile to Nigeria’s workers, oppressed masses and peasantry. Jonathan and Buhari alike represent a Nigerian ruling class that is completely dependent upon foreign capital and incapable of implementing even limited measures to raise the living standards of the population.
Buhari’s rise comes as yet further proof that Africa’s “democratic” and “independent” governments, established through “decolonization” and plagued by a never-ending series of military coups, are to be further transformed into colonial-style garrison states in service of the US and European banks and corporations.

US Army to train Ukrainian fascist militias

Patrick Martin

The US Army will begin training Ukraine National Guard battalions on April 20 at a site in western Ukraine, near the Polish border, according to an announcement made Sunday by the country’s interior minister, Arsen Avakov.
“American commandos, numbering 290, will come to Yavoriv training ground, Lviv region, on April 20,” Avakov wrote on Facebook. “This is where a long-term military exercise of 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team of the US Army and combat units of the National Guard will be held.”
Pentagon spokeswoman Eileen Lainez confirmed the deployment earlier this month, without giving the exact date of its commencement. “This assistance is part of our ongoing efforts to help sustain Ukraine’s defense and internal security operations,” she said. “In particular, the training will help the Ukraine government develop its National Guard to conduct internal defense operations.”
This suggests that the paramilitary units, most of them created by billionaire oligarchs who financed and recruited fascist and neo-Nazi volunteers, may be used for suppression of popular protests within the government-controlled portion of Ukraine, in addition to joining the battle lines in eastern Ukraine if fighting breaks out again with pro-Russian separatists.
The US role in training and equipping paramilitary forces that openly venerate Ukrainian nationalists and fascists who collaborated with the Nazi occupation forces and facilitated the Holocaust during World War II, and who sport swastika-like insignias, exposes as filthy lies the US claims to be championing democracy and human rights in Ukraine.
The training program will include Washington’s first direct and open provision of lethal weaponry to Ukrainian military units. Pentagon officials said that uniforms, body armor, night vision devices and tactical radios would be supplied—all classified as “non-lethal”—but Avakov revealed that “our American partners” will present “special ammunition” to the Ukrainian National Guard troops at the conclusion of their training.
Before the end of 2015, Ukrainian forces could be killing pro-Russian separatist troops—or Russian soldiers—with American-supplied bullets, grenades and other “special ammunition.” This increases the danger of the conflict over eastern Ukraine and Crimea escalating into a direct military clash between nuclear-armed Russia and US-NATO forces.
A total of 1,500 US troops, 600 soldiers from other NATO-member countries, and 2,200 Ukrainian soldiers will take part in a series of exercises. The first, dubbed Fearless Guardian 2015, will extend over a seven-month period, from April through November. The second, Saber Guardian/Rapid Trident 2015, begins in July and extends through October.
The US troops will be drawn from the 173rd Combat Brigade, the spearhead of US forces in southern Europe, based in Vicenza, Italy. It specializes in offensive and air assault operations, making a mockery of the claim that the Pentagon is training Ukrainian troops for defense against supposed Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine.
Avakov said that agreement on the military exercises was reached in talks between Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and US Vice President Joseph Biden during Biden’s recent visit to Kiev. He paid special tribute to the role played by Victoria Nuland, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs, and officials at the US embassy in Kiev, saying, “Without their vigor, the important and complicated preparation of training would have been impossible.”
On March 17, the Ukrainian parliament approved a bill submitted by Poroshenko permitting foreign troops to participate in multinational exercises in Ukraine this year. The operations in Ukraine coincide with similar drills being carried out in nearby countries that are NATO members, including Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
A total of 1,200 Ukrainian regular army soldiers and as many as 1,000 from the National Guard will take part in the training. Many of the 50 battalions that comprise the National Guard will send troops. Avakov listed the Azov, Jaguar and Omega battalions, as well as battalions drawn from the cities of Kiev, Kharkiv, Zaporizhia, Odessa, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Vinnytsia.
The inclusion of the Azov battalion has the most ominous implications. This is a military force of more than 1,000 soldiers founded and led by the neo-Nazi Andriy Biletsky. It carries banners bearing a modified swastika insignia drawn directly from World War II German SS units.
This battalion has played the leading role in fighting in Mariupol, the second largest city in the Donetsk region and the largest still held by the Ukrainian government. It is a center of steel manufacture and the main port on the Sea of Azov, a branch of the Black Sea.
Biletsky has publicly denounced the February 15 ceasefire agreed upon by Ukraine, Russia, the European Union and the pro-Russian separatists, and has threatened to march on Kiev and install a pro-war government. His battalion is equipped with artillery and tanks, as well as other heavy weapons.
According to a report by Reuters last week, published in Time magazine, “The Azov battalion originated from Biletsky's paramilitary national socialist group called ‘Patriot of Ukraine,’ which propagated slogans of white supremacy, racial purity, the need for authoritarian power and a centralized national economy. ‘Patriot of Ukraine’ opposed giving up Ukraine's sovereignty by joining international blocs, called for rolling back of liberal economy and political democracy, including free media.”
A March 22 article in USA Today describes a visit by a reporter to the Azov Battalion in Mariupol. It carries the headline, “Nazis Among Kiev’s National Guard.” The article includes an interview with a drill sergeant who openly praises Nazi ideology, while quoting a spokesman for the battalion who says, “It’s his personal ideology. It has nothing to do with the official ideology of the Azov.”
The spokesman, Andrey Dyachenko, adds that “Only 10 percent to 20 percent of the group’s members are Nazis,” meaning that at least 100 to 200 Nazis may be about to receive intensive military training from US commandos.
The same article quotes a member of the Armed Forces of Ukraine general staff in Kiev, Col. Oleksy Nozdrachov, who “defended the Azov fighters as patriots.”
A report by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights covering a single month, November 2014, found that Ukraine’s Office of the Military Prosecutor had done nothing to investigate a “considerable” number of human rights allegations, “including looting, arbitrary detention and ill-treatment by members of certain voluntary battalions such as Aidar, Azov, Slobozhanshchina and Shakhtarsk.”
An earlier report by Amnesty International described members of the Aidar battalion engaging in “ISIS-style” war crimes, including beheading several pro-Russian separatists and sending the head of at least one victim by mail to his mother. Ukrainian nationalist militants “have been involved in widespread abuses, including abductions, unlawful detention, ill-treatment, theft, extortion, and possible executions,” the group said.
But during a recent visit to New York, the first deputy speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, Andriy Parubiy, said the National Guard battalions consisted of “disciplined Ukrainian warriors about whom films will be made and books will be written.”
These reports underscore the utterly reactionary character of the US-NATO intervention in Ukraine, which has unleashed ferociously anti-democratic and fascistic forces against the Ukrainian people, both in the eastern region and throughout the country.

A decisive turning point in the crisis of American imperialism

Nick Beams

Yesterday was the deadline for countries to sign up as founding members of the China-backed Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). It will go down in history as marking a significant defeat for the global foreign policy and strategic objectives of United States imperialism.
Against strenuous opposition from Washington, more than 40 countries have now indicated they want to be part of the AIIB. Major European powers including Britain, France and Germany, as well as Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands, are on board. Almost all countries in the South East Asian region, which count China as their major trading partner, have also signed up. India is also a signatory, together with Taiwan.
The most significant blow against the US was struck by Britain, its chief European ally, which announced its decision to join on March 12. It opened the floodgates for others to follow, including two key US allies in the Asia-Pacific—Australia and South Korea. Japan is also reported to be considering joining, possibly as early as June.
The full significance of the US defeat and its far-reaching implications emerge most clearly when viewed from a historical perspective.
One of the chief objections of the Obama administration to the new bank was that it would undermine the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Together with the Bretton Woods Agreement of 1944, they constituted central pillars of the global economic order established after World War II by the United States, which played the central role in rebuilding world capitalism following the devastation of the 1920s and 1930s and the wars and revolutionary struggles it produced.
Of course, both of these institutions, together with the Marshall Plan for the restabilisation of war-torn Europe, operated to the economic and strategic benefit of American imperialism.
But while America drew enormous gains from the post-war order, it was not narrowly conceived. There was a recognition in ruling political and economic circles that if American capitalism was to survive, it would have to use the enormous resources at its disposal to ensure the growth and expansion of other capitalist powers, above all, those against which it had fought a bitter and bloody conflict.
Post-war reconstruction enabled the expansion of Germany and turned it once again into the industrial powerhouse of Europe. At the same time, concessions to Japan on the value of its currency—it was pegged at 360 yen to the dollar—opened up export markets for its industry. The decision to build trucks and other military equipment in Japan during the Korean War laid the foundations for the development of Japan’s auto industry, as it incorporated, and then developed, the advanced production techniques that had been established in the US.
The industrial and economic capacity of the United States, even when it took reactionary forms as in the case of the Korean War, was utilised to facilitate a new phase of global capitalist expansion—the post-war boom.
What a contrast to the present situation! American capitalism is no longer the industrial powerhouse of the world, ensuring the expansion of the capitalist economy as a whole. Rather, it functions as the global parasite-in-chief, as its rapacious banks, investment houses and hedge funds scour the world for profitable opportunities, engaged not in the production of new wealth, but in the appropriation of wealth produced elsewhere, often via criminal or semi-criminal operations.
In the immediate post-war period, the US was the champion of free trade, recognising that the restrictions and beggar-thy-neighbour policies of the 1930s had produced a disaster. Today, through measures such as the Trans Pacific Partnership and similar arrangements being prepared with regard to Europe, Washington seeks to forge exclusivist agreements aimed at protecting the monopoly position of US corporations. America, Obama has stated, must write the global rules for trade and investment in the 21st century.
American influence in the post-war period was not confined to the immediate economic sphere. Notwithstanding all its contradictory features, American society appeared to have something to offer the world as a whole, which had suffered decades of war, fascism and military forms of rule, along with economic devastation.
Again, the contrast with the present situation could not be starker. American democracy, once held up as a beacon for the rest of the world, is a withered caricature of its former self, no longer capable of concealing the dictatorship of the financial and corporate elites.
Social conditions are characterised by deprivation and state violence, reflected not least in the daily police killings. America has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, and in Detroit, once the centre of the American industrial economy, paying the highest wages, water shutoffs are being imposed. The US government carries out torture, abductions, assassinations and mass spying on its own people and others around the world. The country is ruled by criminals who cannot be held accountable for their crimes.
In the wake of the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the removal from the scene of its global rival, the American ruling class was gripped by the idea that while its economic position had been severely weakened—the stock market crash of 1987 was a harbinger of things to come—American hegemony could nevertheless be maintained by military means.
But as Frederick Engels had earlier explained in refuting another exponent of “force theory,” the notion that economic developments—the advance of industry, credit and trade—and the contradictions to which they gave rise could be “blown out of existence” with “Krupp guns and Mauser rifles” was a delusion.
The past 25 years of American foreign policy, based on the use of cruise missiles and drones, combined with invasions and regime-change operations grounded on lies, have produced one debacle after another.
Now the chickens are coming home to roost, as other capitalist powers, great and small, begin to conclude that hitching themselves to the American juggernaut is the surest road to disaster. That is the historic significance of their decision to join the AIIB.
How will American imperialism respond? By increasing its military provocations, threatening to plunge the world once again into war.
Charting the rise of American imperialism in the late 1920s, Leon Trotsky noted that in the period of crisis, its hegemony would operate “more openly and more ruthlessly than in the period of boom,” and that it would attempt to extricate itself from its difficulties and maladies at the expense of its rivals, if necessary by means of war.
However there is another, and, in the final analysis, decisive, aspect to the economic decline of American imperialism, marked so powerfully by the events of yesterday.
For decades, the American working class was disoriented by the idea of a continually rising power—that America’s “best days” were always ahead. Reality is now coming home with ever-increasing force.
Events are shattering the delusions of the past and will propel the American working class on to the road of revolutionary struggle, creating the conditions for the unification of the international working class in the fight for world socialist revolution.

Opposition celebrates anti-immigrant New Zealand First’s by-election victory

Tom Peters

Winston Peters, leader of the right-wing populist New Zealand First Party, won a landslide victory in Saturday’s by-election in the northern seat of Northland, which was held by the ruling National Party for more than half a century.
The by-election was prompted by the resignation of National MP Mike Sabin, who is being investigated by police for undisclosed reasons. Sabin was elected in last September’s general election with a majority of 9,000. In a major turnaround, Peters won the by-election with 15,359 votes, compared to National candidate Mark Osborne’s 11,347.
The result means the National government now holds only 59 out of 121 seats in parliament, and will have to rely more heavily on its three support parties: the Maori Party, the far-right ACT Party and United Future, which between them hold four seats. NZ First will have an extra MP, increasing its numbers from 11 to 12.
The result points to a significant shift against Prime Minister John Key’s government, which was initially elected six years ago and has presided over increasing social inequality, attacks on democratic rights and militarism. TheNew Zealand Herald stated that Peters’ “stunning” victory could be “the turning of the tide” against the government. A Dominion Post editorial yesterday said it was a “humiliating blow.”
Northland epitomises the social catastrophe in New Zealand. It has the lowest median income in the country ($23,400 according to the 2013 census) and some of the most run-down infrastructure. There is also widespread opposition to the Key government’s plans to send troops to join the US-led war in Iraq—which was not announced before last year’s election. In addition, the lead-up to the by-election saw further revelations of the Government Communications Security Bureau’s mass surveillance throughout the Asia Pacific region.
Peters’ victory is being celebrated by the opposition Labour Party, its allies the Greens and the Maori nationalist Mana Party, and by “liberal” commentators in the media. These parties boosted Peters’ prospects by promoting him as a “lesser evil” to National. Labour leader Andrew Little basically instructed Labour supporters to vote for Peters, while the Greens did not stand a candidate.
The opposition’s embrace of NZ First reveals the profound shift to the right by the so-called “left” parties. They have united to channel mounting anti-government sentiment in the most reactionary direction.
NZ First is a viciously anti-Asian party. Its members regularly rant against Chinese and Indian immigrants, scapegoating them for every aspect of the country’s social crisis, including low wages, unemployment and the lack of affordable housing. The party has also demonised Muslims as potential terrorists, and pushes for increased military spending and more hard-line “law and order” policies.
Labour, the Greens and Mana have all adapted themselves to NZ First and joined in its anti-Chinese campaigns over the past three years. Last year, Labour and the Greens promised, if elected, to form a coalition government with NZ First. This alignment also feeds into Washington’s push to integrate New Zealand into its strategic “pivot to Asia,” aimed at militarily encircling China.
Much of the corporate media swung behind NZ First, with a Dominion Posteditorial stating that “Peters will make a much better local MP than an unknown National hack.” TV3 and RadioLIVE broadcaster Duncan Garner backed Peters, labelling his opponent Osborne “a numpty.”
Pro-Labour columnist Chris Trotter hailed Peters’ supposed “gravitas and honesty” in the campaign. The Daily Blog, which is funded by five trade unions, campaigned vigorously for Peters, featuring regular columns by NZ First Youth leader Curwen Rolinson.
Revealing his utter contempt for the working class, Daily Blog editor Martyn Bradbury justified his support for NZ First by claiming that the party’s “garden variety racism” would appeal to Northland voters, whom he slandered as “rednecks.”
Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei congratulated Peters on his “historic” victory. She stated that “his election is a clear message” that the government is “out of touch” with Northland residents.
The Mana Party’s candidate in Northland, Rueben Taipari Porter, wrote inMana News that he was “proud to have been a part of [the] historical change.” He absurdly declared that the installation of Peters would mark “perhaps the beginnings of a new political strategy to bring the power back to the people.”
Porter received 55 votes in the by-election—fewer than the ultra-right ACT (66 votes) and the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party (85 votes) candidates. This result was the outcome of Mana’s “political strategy” to assist the NZ First leader.
The pseudo-left groups Fightback, Socialist Aotearoa and the International Socialist Organisation (ISO) are complicit in the promotion of NZ First. All these middle class outfits campaigned for Mana and its ally, the openly pro-business Internet Party, in last September’s election. They fraudulently portray Mana as “anti-capitalist,” “pro-poor” and anti-racist.
In reality, Mana is a bourgeois party. Like NZ First, it has campaigned against Chinese investment and called for restrictions on foreigners buying houses and discrimination against migrant workers.
The pseudo-lefts have not criticised Mana for embracing NZ First. These groups also work within the Unite trade union, which invited Peters to speak at its November conference, where he blamed poor working conditions on immigration.
In a post by-election attempt to cover its political tracks, an article by the ISO pointed to Peters’ “anti-Asian racism” and said his victory was “no win for workers.” It noted that “some on the left and in the unions have been excited by the prospect of his win” and said this was because of Peters’ nationalist opposition to the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership trade talks. The article was silent, however, on the promotion of NZ First by Mana and Unite.
The main thrust of the ISO article was to offer friendly advice to the Labour Party, describing its endorsement of Peters as “a mistake.” It stated that Labour “should have fought for Northland with radical policies.” Following Labour’s landslide defeat in last year’s election, the ISO is seeking to revive illusions that the party can be pressured to endorse “radical” changes.
In reality, as masses of working people recognise, Labour is a party of big business and militarism just like National. It abandoned any reformist policies three decades ago and began a wave of privatisations and other attacks on social services and living standards, which continues today under the National government.
The pseudo-lefts, through their support for Labour and Mana—and, indirectly, NZ First—aim to improve their own positions within the political establishment and to prevent the emergence of an independent movement of the working class against the capitalist system.

Los Angeles rail accident exposes decaying state of public transit in the US

Dan Conway

More than twenty people were injured Saturday in a collision between an automobile and a light-rail train operated by the Los Angeles Metro public transit authority.
The automobile driver, Jacob Fadley, a 31-year-old student majoring in film production at the University of Southern California, remains in grave condition, while the train’s driver, identified as Kenneth Gross, a 29-year Metro veteran, is in stable condition and expected to recover.
Fadley had made an improper left turn into the path of the oncoming train. The collision pushed Fadley’s silver Hyundai Sonata into a nearby utility pole, which in turn derailed the first two cars of the train. Fadley’s car was so badly damaged that rescuers had to use hydraulic Jaws of Life to extricate him from the vehicle.
The Metro Expo Line servicing that area resumed operation the following day.
The crash is at least the 18th in the last 12 months between Metro trains and cars. Four of these have taken place on the Expo line, the same line in which the crash occurred, while even more have occurred on Metro’s blue line, which is considered one of the most dangerous light rail lines in the country. One hundred and twenty people have died in pedestrian or driver-related deaths since the blue line began service in 1990.
Accident prevention measures on Metro rail lines are minimal. While safety experts have advocated for crossing gates, overpasses and adequate distances between rail lines and roads, such measures are rarely put in place due to woefully inadequate funding at the federal and state level.
After concluding an agreement with electricians last May, the Metropolitan Transit Authority announced that it was projecting a $36 million operating deficit in 2016. It also announced that without additional revenue streams, either through state assistance or the raising of fares, the agency will be $225 million in debt within the ten years.
Responding to press criticism over the weekend, Metro spokesman Marc Littman claimed that measures separating tracks from vehicular and pedestrian traffic are simply cost prohibitive for the agency. Nonetheless, Littman claimed, “All over the world, there are trains operating safely in dense, urban areas. You can’t build a bubble around the rail system.”
Metro officials have touted their public safety awareness campaign involving Metro Trains emblazoned with safety messages such as “Heads up, watch for trains” as an effective accident deterrent.
Investigators are attempting to determine the cause of the crash and suspect that turn signals at the intersection may not have been functioning properly at the time. In addition to street-level turn signals, “train stop” signals are also shown to train operators in cases when a vehicle attempts a dangerous crossing.
Regardless of the investigation’s findings, however, the Expo line itself has been the subject of serious safety concerns since the Metro’s Expo Line had begun utilizing it in April 2012. At the time, transportation experts including USC Viterbi School of Engineering Professor Najmedin Meshkati warned of the dangers of Expo line crossings resulting from insufficient safety precautions.
“I beg USC students to be extra cautious, and take their earphones out when crossing these intersections. They are a major source of hazard,” he said. Meshkati, along with USC colleague Greg Placencia warned that inadequate safety reviews due to staffing cuts at the California Public Utilities Commission made the intersections some of “the most confusing and dangerous intersections in LA county that could pose serious risks of accidents for future motorists, bicyclists, and pedestrians.”
Saturday’s collision involved approximately 100 Metro passengers, with more than 20 injured and 10 taken to a local hospital for treatment of injuries.
Public rail systems across the United States have been plagued in recent years by a string of accidents and outright catastrophes.
Last March, the driver of a Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) elevated train rammed through a barrier at O’Hare International Airport after having worked 69 hours in the seven days prior to the accident. The crash followed a CTA collision a few months prior in which 33 people were injured in a rush hour collision.
Less than seven years ago, a Metro train collided with a Union Pacific freight train in the Los Angeles suburb of Chatsworth, leading to 25 deaths and 135 injuries.
Only last month, the New York City transit authority experienced the deadliest crash in its history, with six people dead and ten seriously injured after a train carrying 650 people crashed into a sport utility vehicle in the Westchester county suburb of Valhalla.

Poland integrates paramilitary groups into the army

Markus Salzmann

The Polish government has integrated paramilitary groups into the army, strengthening right-wing forces within the police and army while intensifying the confrontation with Russia in the process.
On March 21, volunteer militias, citizens’ defence groups, paramilitary associations and schools with so-called defence training classes in the Warsaw region came together to form an association at a conference with over 800 participants.
Poland’s National Security Adviser Stanislaw Koziej explained that the paramilitary militia would work closely with the army. This isn’t about creating an army outside of the army, he stated. The integration of civil defence organisations was an important step in increasing the country’s security.
It remains unclear which tasks these paramilitary groups will take on and where they will be deployed. Military exercises with the reserves and the utilisation of military training grounds were discussed at the Warsaw conference.
According to estimates, there are approximately 120 groups in Poland composed of some 45,000 members carrying out military exercises, shooting practice or tactical training. Almost all are closely aligned with right-wing political parties and groups. Their actions are not only directed against the alleged external threat of Russia, but also domestically against minorities, left-wing forces and homosexuals.
The extreme right-wing Ruch Narodovy, which has close ties to Hungary’s Jobbik party and other right-wing parties in Europe, controls its own paramilitary group. Many groups maintain links to the fascist militias in Ukraine, which are fighting alongside the Ukrainian army against separatists in the east of the country, having played a major role in the Maidan movement.
The association is to be led by General Boguslaw Pacek, who was responsible for improving military training in Ukraine as part of the NATO programme. Pacek spoke of the collaboration between the groups and the defence ministry reaching a “new quality.”
Pacek was also adviser to defence minister Tomasz Siemoniak, who personally attended the conference. In the lead-up to the conference, Siemoniak declared that these organisations would potentially need to be utilized more. He referred to the positive experiences in providing rescue services or disaster protection, in which volunteers had successfully partnered with professionals. The government was considering paying a wage to 2,500 volunteers. These would then serve as the backbone of the volunteer organisations at the local level and be mobilised in the event of war.
In tandem with the creation of the paramilitary association, Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz changed the law on involvement in military exercises. While previously only active soldiers and reserves could be called up for duty, now any Pole can be called up in principle. In addition, the government is pushing to reintroduce military service, which was abolished in 2010.
The New York Times wrote on the collaboration between the government and the volunteer groups: “The defence ministry has been trying to entice the groups to join an alliance with the government, offering equipment, uniforms, training and even money in exchange for a clearer idea of who they are—and a chance to assemble a new generation of energized recruits.”
According to Pacek, beyond the roughly 120 paramilitary groups in Poland, there are approximately 1,500 so-called uniform classes in Polish schools in which pupils are taught military techniques. There could be possible joint exercises between these civilian volunteers and the reserves. Already in 2014, the Polish government decided to increase the size of the reserves.
The provoked conflict with Russia is not only being used in Poland to push forward with a military build-up and give right-wing militias a semi-official status. This is also a prominent development in the Baltic states, which together with Poland, have taken the lead in the conflict with Russia.
In Latvia, on March 16, veterans of the German SS held their annual parade under the protection of a massive police escort. Around 1,500 people marched through Riga, according to police estimates, including several parliamentarians. They celebrated the 140,000 Latvians who fought in the Second World War in the uniforms of the SS against the Red Army, and committed unspeakable atrocities, as independence fighters.
In Lithuania, President Dalia Grybauskaite ordered the distribution of a government pamphlet to every household providing advice on what to do in the event of a Russian attack. In this way, a climate of fear is being created, enabling the government to implement planned cuts and increase the military budget.
A component of the growing militarism directed against Russia is the almost 1,800-kilometre-long trip of a US military convoy through Eastern Europe. Two weeks ago, a group of American tanks set off from Estonia to drive through Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and the Czech Republic. Two further groups started in Lithuania and Poland. On April 1, all three groups will meet at the Rose barracks in Vilseck, Germany. The convoy is part of a massive rearmament of the US and NATO in Eastern Europe and the Baltic states.
Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski recently called for a reorientation of NATO’s strategic concept. The Western allies confronted a movement by Russia “away from straightforward cooperation towards one-sided confrontation with the Western world”, he said. The conclusion to be drawn by Poland was that its defence capabilities had to be increased.
Last week, American Patriot missiles were sent to Warsaw from Germany. As part of the “Atlantic Resolve” operation, which is supposed to strengthen NATO’s eastern flank, around 100 US soldiers and 30 vehicles have been stationed there.
A further point of conflict could be the attempt of the Polish government, five years after the event, to reopen the investigation into the crash of the presidential plane in Smolensk, Russia. Two officers from Russia’s air surveillance service should be held accountable in the courts due to the disaster, state prosecutor Ireneus Szelag said.
On April 10, 2010, then Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife, and almost 100 high-ranking Polish officials were killed in the plane crash. Russian investigators have rejected Polish claims that Russia was in some way responsible for the crash. Air traffic controllers had followed their procedures and observed international protocol, said Russian spokesman Vladimir Markin in Moscow.

German army expands its submarine fleet

Denis Krasnin

The German navy put its new submarine model U35 into service last week. At a cost of €500 million, it is one of the most modern, non-nuclear submarines owned by the German navy. It is the fifth of six submarines of the class 212 A series ordered by the German army.
The submarine, produced by ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems, was launched in Kiel in November 2011. At the time, the navy’s web site stated that this signified “a further step in modernisation and operation planning.” Four years later, the German army is even blunter about its purpose.
In his speech at the celebrations surrounding the U35’s entry into service in Kiel on Monday, rear admiral Hans-Christian Luther, operational leader of the navy commando unit, described the new “protégé” of operation flotilla 1 as a “capacity builder,” which further increases the capabilities of the German navy. He then hailed the smallest of the three components of the German army, placing the navy’s rearmament directly in the context of Germany’s remilitarisation.
As a modern component of a combat force with future capabilities, the navy was prepared to respond to the challenges of the 21st century, said Luther. “Precisely the developments over the past year have shown us all once again that a variety of versatile operational methods for the armed forces are required. Submarines are perfect for fulfilling this need.”
Germany was in the lead in constructing conventional submarines, stated Luther. The submarines of class 212 A had “the most advanced capabilities in the world among conventional submarines. In joint exercises and operations, our partners and allies are always compelled to show their recognition and respect for the capabilities of these units.”
In recent years, the German navy has repeatedly boasted that their new class 212 A submarines had set new diving records and broken through the defence systems of US warships undetected on several occasions during joint exercises. In an article in Die Welt headlined “The German submarine fleet’s records” it is stated, “In the First World War they produced a disaster. In the Second World War they had the highest losses, today they are teaching US carriers to be fearful: Germany’s submarines are ambivalent weapons.”
The German ruling elite intends to use these weapons to defend their economic and strategic interests around the globe. Parliamentary state secretary Markus Grübel, who delivered greetings from defence minister Ursula Von der Leyen (Christian Democratic Union, CDU), commented, according to an official navy report: “how important it was in these times that modern weaponry and systems are introduced to the troops.”
According to an NDR report, the U35 is more capable than its four predecessors and is planned for worldwide operations. It was “equipped for the tropics,” had greater fuel storage for long journeys and can provide military divers and special forces with more equipment. A new type of radio system makes it possible for the submarine to communicate under water anywhere in the world.
In the future, it could also be equipped with a missile system that would make it possible to destroy targets in the air and on nearby coasts. In addition, torpedoes that are difficult to locate are intended as weapons. U35’s sister ship, U36, is set to be declared ready for service by inspectors in the coming months. This would complete the submarine fleet, a secretive and strategically important weapon for the German army.
However, it is to be expected that the navy will be further expanded in connection with the general plan to build up the German army. In recent weeks, the German cabinet agreed to increase the defence budget by at least €8 billion over the coming four years. According to an official strategy paper, more spending is required for “expanded NATO engagement” and “additional spending around the world.” The navy plays a role in both areas, and their leading military figures are already dreaming of their new significance and past grandeur.
In Kiel, the historic centre of the German navy, a conference took place in the city hall titled “Kiel and the navy 1865-2015: 150 years of united history.” In his main speech, Vice Admiral Rainer Brinkmann, the deputy inspector of the navy, spoke about “the growing demands on the navy around the world and, bound up with this, Germany’s dependence on the navy,” according to the German army’s web site. “The once great but now small navy remains at the centre of political events and is also used as a tool in these events,” the admiral declared.
A look at the navy’s official web site reveals that, as in the previous century, the navy is very conscious of its role as the defender of the economic and strategic interests of German imperialism. The web site states bluntly: “The sea is one of Germany’s most important economic fundamentals. For all of the world’s trading nations, the sea is the most important transport route for the exchange of goods. Over 90 percent of total world trade, close to 95 percent of European Union exports and almost 70 percent of Germany’s imports and exports use sea routes. Germany is a highly industrialised export nation, but it lacks raw materials. To be able to act economically and politically, the Federal Republic is especially dependent upon securing the supply of necessary imports.”
The navy’s current strategy paper titled “Imagining the Navy’s goals 2025+,” authored by former navy inspector Wolfgang Nolting, states that the navy is preparing to militarily defend “free and unhindered world trade as the basis for the welfare of Germany and Europe.”
Because Germany “could [have to] confront threats and risks where they emerge,” the navy had to be “capable of long-term and far-off operations, within multinational frameworks and threatened by enemy coastlines.” They had to “therefore focus more on joint combat forces operations and expand their capabilities to support land-based forces from the sea. The further development of the navy into an expeditionary navy is at the forefront of this.”
“Expeditionary navy” is a synonym for a war navy capable of acting globally. The rearming of the submarine fleet, like the deployment of the navy to the Horn of Africa and off the Lebanese coast, and the participation of the navy in NATO exercises aimed at Russia in the Black Sea, is aimed precisely at establishing such a force.

Labour offers itself to business backers to kick off UK election campaign

Julie Hyland

Labour leader Ed Miliband began his party’s official campaign for the General Election with a pitch to prove itself the most business friendly party.
Miliband launched Labour’s “Business Manifesto” as parliament was dissolved to clear the way for the election on May 7. Polls indicate that the outcome is still far too close to call, with Labour and the Conservatives averaging in the low 30s.
According to reports, Labour is taking legal advice as to how to avoid Prime Minister David Cameron “squatting” in Downing Street after May 7.
Cameron would be expected to continue as prime minister until a majority government is formed. However, the Independent reported that Miliband may demand Cameron “proves” he has the right to stay on by surviving a parliamentary vote.
Given the uncertainty as to the election outcome and its implications, it is significant that Miliband’s first major address was before corporate heads at Bloomberg’s HQ in London. Miliband’s main gambit was to insist that Labour could be trusted again with acting on their interests. At the centre of this claim was a declaration that only a Labour government could avert the “clear and present danger” facing the UK economy in the event of a referendum on British membership of the Europe Union.
Prime Minister David Cameron has pledged that the Conservatives will hold an in/out referendum on the issue if he wins power. He has said this would take place by 2017 but with a substantial section of his party opposing EU membership, it could be held even earlier.
On Monday, Labour took out a full-page advert in the Financial Timesfeaturing quotes from the heads of six of the largest corporations in Britain over the dangers of leaving the EU. They included a statement by Siemens UK chief executive Juergen Maier that the prospect of a referendum was “profoundly worrying” and Jonathan Myers, head of Kellogg’s EU operations, that, “The biggest short term risk to Manchester’s competitiveness in the EU is a simple one. It is the risk the UK could leave it.”
Under the headline, “The biggest risk to British business is the threat of an EU exit,” the advert pledged, “Labour will put the national interest first. We will deliver reform not exit.”
The advert sparked criticisms by some of the companies represented that the quotes should not have been included in a party political statement, with a spokeswoman for Siemens UK saying that Labour had “overstepped the line.” But Miliband is desperate to prove he has support in the City of London. Responding to the complaints, he said Britain’s place in the EU was “absolutely at stake in this general election. Are we going to be reforming the EU from the inside or threatening exit? That is something that the vast majority of business people would share Labour’s position on.”
At the manifesto launch, Miliband accused Cameron of “playing political games with our membership of the EU.”
“If you care about prosperity, then Britain must be a committed member of a reformed European Union,” he said, promising that there would no in/out referendum under a Labour government.
Miliband has not specified what he means by a “reformed” EU. He made no mention of the situation in Greece, which the EU is threatening with bankruptcy unless it imposes even greater economic and social devastation. Instead he pledged greater immigration controls over workers from the EU.
Labour would argue for “stronger transitional controls” to “control the flows of workers for longer when new countries join” the EU, he said. It would also “restrict access to benefits for two years for those coming from the EU.”
A crackdown on immigration is one of Labour’s five election pledges, as the party seeks to compete with the Tories and the UK Independence Party to prove which is tougher on migrants. The party has even designed a mug for the election, outlining its promise for “controls on immigration” as a reason for voting Labour.
Miliband presented his demands as part of Labour’s plan to improve British competitiveness. “For every hour worked, we produce nearly 20 percent less than our main competitors in the G7,” he complained. “Our productivity gap is at its highest level for nearly a quarter of a century.”
But he had little that was concrete to propose outside of calls for business to work with government in creating apprenticeships. Labour would create a British Investment Bank, Miliband said, supporting a network of regional banks. This would help create a “competitive” banking system in which all businesses could succeed, from the multinational and FTSE100 to the “family firm.”
Labour had pledged “to keep corporation tax at the lowest rate in the G7,” he reiterated.
Miliband was also at pains to stress that any government he led would be committed to spending cuts and so-called “deficit reduction.” The “Business Manifesto” sets out repeatedly that Labour will “balance the books” and “cut the deficit every year.”
“Outside of a few protected areas departmental spending will need to fall until we balance the books,” it states, boasting that the Institute for Fiscal Studies “has identified Labour as ‘the most cautious’ of the three main Parties, and the only one that has not announced an overall net giveaway.”
At the launch of the “Business Manifesto,” Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls rejected suggestions that a Miliband-led government would borrow money for investment programmes.
At the weekend, Labour’s vice election chair Lucy Powell had told the “Sunday Politics” show that there could be “some investment borrowing” under its fiscal rules, which would not contradict its plan to balance the books. Balls repudiated Powell’s claim, reiterating that there could be no extra borrowing to fund anything.
“We have said very clearly we are going to get the current budget not only into balance but surplus in the next parliament,” he said. There were “no proposals in our manifesto which will involve any additional spending,” he stressed.
Last week the BBC leaked documents revealing Conservative plans to further slash welfare spending, as part of its intention to eliminate a further £12 billion from the welfare budget. This is on top of the £20 billion it has already cut from welfare so far.
The Conservatives have refused to spell out exactly where the axe will fall, although the documents, prepared by the Department for Work and Pensions, includes proposals to slash payments to carers, the disabled and families with children.
Labour has previously floated plans to cap social security spending. The Business Manifesto states that a Miliband-led government will take “tough decisions” on welfare, including restricting child benefit rises for two years and means testing winter fuel payments to pensioners. It will make “difficult choices about priorities” as to public spending on services, to ensure “maximum value for every pound of taxpayer money it spends.”
As for Miliband’s claims that “growing” British business will lead to higher wages, the manifesto speaks vaguely about a five-year plan to raise the minimum wage to £8 an hour and for an end to “exploitative” zero hour contracts.
Labour’s “tough choices” for workers are in contrast to its approach to the top 1 percent of earners, on incomes of over £150,000, who it proposes only to “ask to pay a little more to help get the deficit down by reversing the cut to the top rate of tax.”

South Korea joins Chinese-led investment bank

Ben McGrath

South Korea announced on Thursday that it would join China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), making it the latest United States ally to do so in recent weeks. The debate over joining the AIIB is an indication of the divisions within the South Korean ruling class over whether to move closer to China or strengthen its traditional ties to the United States.
Major economic considerations were at the center of Seoul’s decision to become a founding member of the AIIB, along with more than 40 other countries. On Saturday, Australia, Russia and the Netherlands also announced they would join the Chinese-led bank, with today the deadline to sign up as a founding member. The other major US ally in northeast Asia, Japan, has still not decided to join. China’s Finance Ministry released a short statement saying: “The Chinese side welcomed South Korea’s decision.”
Demand in the Asian infrastructure market, according to the Asian Development Bank, will be $730 billion annually over the next several years. Seoul’s deputy minister of international affairs at the Finance Ministry, Choi Hui-nam said on Friday: “Once the AIIB starts its operations, Asia’s largest infrastructure market will be opened up to us. Korean companies with ample experience in the construction, transportation and information communications sectors are expected to win business opportunities.”
South Korea is now seeking to secure a stake, and voting rights, in the AIIB equivalent to its economic size. The bank’s basic guidelines allocate these stakes based on a country’s gross domestic product (GDP). Excluding China, South Korea currently ranks third in GDP among the Asian nations that have indicated their intentions to join, behind India and Australia.
Stakes are also to be divided differently between regional and non-regional countries. Seoul hopes that factors such as gross national income, foreign reserves size and trade volume, may play favorably for South Korea.
A Finance Ministry official, speaking to Yonhap News Agency last week, stated: “Joining the organization is just the start, with the real challenge coming when the country has to secure voting rights that directly impact its role in the bank.”
South Korea’s decision to join the AIIB was opposed by the United States, fearing that Seoul would be drawn closer to China. In fact, Seoul only signed up after the UK announced its move to join the bank on March 12, followed by other European powers. Before that, Washington exerted a great deal of pressure on South Korea, Japan and Australia not to become AIIB members.
Washington was clearly perturbed by South Korea’s move. US State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said on Thursday: “I am not going to react or comment on their (South Korea’s) decision. I would say in general we’ve seen a number of countries make decisions to join the bank. That is their decision.”
He continued: “We certainly hope that as we stress the importance of international standards and transparency, that there will also be voices for those same values.” In other words, US allies like South Korea will now be expected to act in Washington’s interests within the AIIB.
For Washington to speak of transparency and the “high standards” of international financial institutions, and of protecting workers’ rights and the environment—its given reasons for opposing the AIIB—is a transparent fraud. The US has long ruthlessly exploited its grip over institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, the Obama administration has spearheaded the slashing of American workers’ wages and conditions. In reality, the US is concerned that the AIIB may cut across its interests in Asia, while expanding China’s influence.
To offset Washington’s concerns, the South Korean political establishment is debating whether to allow the United States to station a Thermal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) ballistic missile system in South Korea. Until now, Seoul has struck a position on the THAAD known as “strategic ambiguity”—neither supporting the system nor rejecting it.
Beijing is rightly concerned that the missile system would be used to target China in the event of a war between it and the US. Were Washington to stage a first strike on China, the THAAD would be used to knock out any possible counter attack. With 28,500 US troops stationed in South Korea, the country would quickly be drawn into such a conflict.
The THAAD system is falsely billed as a defense measure against a potential attack by North Korea. Ruling Saenuri Party chairman Kim Mu-seong caused a stir last week when he called North Korea a nuclear power while speaking to university students in Busan, South Korea’s second largest city. This went against both the policy of the US and the South not to recognize the North as such.
Kim made the comments in support of bringing a THAAD battery to South Korea, changing his past position of not issuing a statement on the matter. Since this month’s attack by a lone assailant on the US ambassador to Seoul, Mark Lippert, the Saenuri Party has thrown its weight behind the missile system and whipped up an anti-North Korean atmosphere.
President Park Geun-hye’s government is attempting to treat joining the AIIB and the THAAD system as two separate and distinct issues, but it is quite clear that there is a tradeoff between the two. Saenuri Party floor leader Yu Seung-min stated bluntly on March 9 that bringing the THAAD system to the South was an issue of choosing between the US and China.
On the other hand, the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD) has spoken out against the THAAD, concerned that it could damage the economic relationship between China and the South Korean companies that the NPAD represents.
Until South Korea makes a decision on the missile system, the US will continue to exert pressure on the issue. US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey was in Seoul last week on a three-day trip, meeting with his South Korean counterpart Admiral Choi Yun-hui and Defense Minister Han Min-gu.
No talks on the THAAD were publically announced, but the Pentagon stated in February that the two sides were holding “constant discussions” on the matter. US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter is also planning a trip to Seoul in early April. In response to its diplomatic, strategic and economic setback on the AIIB, Washington is stepping up its drive to encircle China militarily.